But it was her week and Blossom had crapped in his shoe, so it was with a mostly clear conscience that Margot held out her arms and shouted, ‘Blossom! I have chicken!’
Those were the magic words to get Blossom trotting obediently after her.
As soon as they got home and Margot kicked off her Birkenstocks, which surely hadn’t been such instruments of podiatric torture last year, and said, ‘Cuddles!’, Blossom headed straight into the sitting room to jump on the sofa and wait expectantly.
Margot sat down and immediately Blossom draped herself over her lap, so that her belly was exposed, and her elbow was digging into Margot’s thigh. ‘I kind of thought that you’d offer me comfort, not cause me pain.’
She managed to get Blossom to shift her position, so that she was sitting between Margot and the back of the sofa and Margot could curl herself around her stocky form. Will had once sent her a newspaper report about scientific research into dog behaviour, which stated that dogs didn’t like being cuddled because it made them feel claustrophobic and heightened their anxiety.
But as Blossom settled in Margot’s arms with a contented sigh, it was clear that the scientists obviously hadn’t polled any Staffordshire Bull Terriers. For every kiss Margot gave Blossom, she got an enthusiastic lick in return; it was so lovely, so uncomplicated, to show love and get love back.
Margot felt the first throb of tears. Love was the simplest thing in the world. Dogs had the emotional intelligence of an average two year old, but they still loved and loved very well. Whereas some people could have university degrees and yet were incapable of love.
‘No! Blossom, don’t do that. Let me love you,’ Margot protested as Blossom struggled to free herself from Margot who now had her face buried in Blossom’s neck, all the better to wipe her tears on Blossom’s fur and inhale great whiffs of her biscuit smell.
But Blossom had had enough. She wriggled free, her front paws on Margot’s chest to hold her off, and what looked like a stern expression on her usually soft, happy face. It was the same stern expression Blossom deployed when she saw other dogs behaving indecorously and felt the need to intervene.
‘Et tu, Blossom?’ Margot muttered, and she got another look from Blossom, like she wasn’t angry with Margot, just disappointed, before she jumped off the sofa. Ten seconds later, Margot could hear the scrape of her empty bowl on the kitchen floor, as Blossom obviously felt that her need for food was far greater than Margot’s need to be loved.
Margot couldn’t mope for ever. Past experience had taught her that when she was in pain and unhappy, she always felt better for seizing control of the situation, exploring her options.
So, on Thursday morning, Margot had made an appointment at a Harley Street clinic that specialised in fertility services.
Their offices were in an elegant Georgian townhouse. The consultation room she was shown into was furnished in soft, sumptuous shades of grey and off-white so it resembled a boutique hotel rather than anything medical.
Margot’s hands were sweating and she wiped them off on the skirt of her dress. She was meant to be having a fertility MOT. A chat with a specialist, then a blood test and a pelvic ultrasound scan, which was never going to be fun. Still, Margot might have to get used to unfun things happening to her pelvic region.
The door opened and a sleek blonde woman in a white lab coat entered the room. She looked more like she was about to perform tweakments on Margot’s jawline than wielding an ultrasound wand in a few minutes.
‘I’m Dr Draper,’ she said, sitting down in the grey velvet bucket chair opposite Margot. Attached to her clipboard was the questionnaire that Margot had filled in earlier. ‘But, please, call me Claire.’
It wasn’t just her hands that were sweating. Margot could feel the sweat break out on her forehead and her upper lip. She took a couple of deep breaths and Claire smiled.
‘I promise you, I’m not that frightening.’ She finished with a tiny, almost bashful smile, which made Margot unclench slightly. ‘Let’s just have a chat about why you’re here and how we can help you.’
‘Well, I’m thirty-six, thirty-seven almost, and single. Very single. I desperately want a family, but I can feel my fertility dwindling with every day that passes, so freezing my eggs might take some of the pressure off.’ Saying the words out loud was terrifying. ‘I mean, I’m hopeful that I might find someone, but I need to be realistic.’
‘I hear you,’ Claire said, like she too despaired of ever finding The One, or a passable version. ‘Now, let me just get a better picture of your reproductive health. Have you been pregnant before?’
Claire’s voice remained soft and modulated as she grilled Margot on her sexual history, her contraceptive history and her periods, which of course Margot had been tracking on an app since she first got an iPhone.
Margot had enough friends with fertility problems to know that IVF wasn’t a case of simply having your eggs taken out then popped back in once they’d been fertilised. It was physically and emotionally gruelling and not at all infallible. But she hadn’t realised that she too would be injected with hormones, her fertility tweaked and monitored and enhanced, until the time was just right for her eggs to be harvested then frozen for up to ten years.
Margot couldn’t even imagine being nearly forty-seven with her eggs still on hold while she waited for a man to want to start a family with her. Not in the usual way, but in a petri dish or test tube, though given how eye-wateringly expensive all these procedures were, Margot hoped that it would be a bit more sophisticated than test tubes.
And of course, if the man didn’t turn up, then she’d have to use a sperm donor, and this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. No matter how chic the soft furnishings might be, it was all so clinical, so cold. And there were no fucking guarantees that it would work.
Margot had always wanted children, to have a family with a man she cared for and who cared for her too, and now she had to acknowledge that it might not happen. It was increasingly likely that she’d be doing this alone, like she did everything else.
But even that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was when Claire asked Margot about her mother. Her fertility problems, which Margot only knew the vaguest details about because she’d been eighteen when her mother died, and there just hadn’t been enough time to talk about everything they needed to. And of course, Claire wanted to know how Judy Millwood had died. Cancer. What kind of cancer? And Judy’s mother, did she die from cancer too?
‘Probably be a good idea to run some other bloodwork when we do your anti-müllerian hormone blood test, just so we have all the information we need,’ Claire said. She tilted her head to one side sympathetically. ‘Is that something you want to do today or would you like some time to think about it?’
Margot was here because she was exhausted from thinking about it. She’d been ready to have her blood taken, her reproductive organs ultrasounded and her signature scribbled on the dotted line.
‘I just . . . I can’t even . . .’ Margot managed to get out. She thought that she might cry but she also felt as if she’d been encased in ice and wasn’t capable of any movement.
Margot stood up, said she’d be in touch once she’d processed all the information, then fled along an airless corridor and down the stairs until she was out on the street, clinging to the wrought-iron railings and shuddering to breathe.