Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [196]
“I’m an egg donor,” she said. “Usually, I’m harvested.”
Deborah shuddered at the term, so impersonal, so clinical, so… so agricultural. But usually suggested that Lucy Keverne was open to other possibilities as well. She said to her, “And when it comes to surrogacy?”
“I’ve never been a surrogate before.”
“Before? So with this woman you accompanied to the university…?”
Lucy didn’t reply at once. She looked at Deborah as if trying to read her. She said, “I’m not prepared to talk about her. This is a confidential matter. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course. I see.” Deborah thought a bit of hand wringing would do at this point, plus an expression of desperation, which wasn’t at all difficult for her to manufacture. She said, “I’ve spoken to clinics, of course. What they’ve told me is that I’m on my own when it comes to surrogacy. I mean when it comes to finding a surrogate.”
“Yes,” Lucy said. “That’s how it is.”
“They’ve said a friend, a sister, a cousin, even one’s own mother. But how does someone like me approach all this? What do I do? Begin every conversation from now on with ‘Hullo, would you consider carrying my baby for me?’” And then quite surprisingly, Deborah did feel the desperation of her position, exactly what she wished to project to Lucy Keverne. She blinked hard, feeling tears rise to her eyes. She said, “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
And this, apparently, moved Lucy Keverne, for she put her hand on Deborah’s arm and drew her in the direction of a bench near a pond on which a skin of autumn leaves was floating. She said, “It’s a stupid law. It’s supposed to prevent women from carrying babies for profit. It’s supposed to protect women altogether. Of course, it’s a law made by men. I always find that rather ironic, to tell you the truth: men making laws for women. As if they know the first thing about protecting us from anything when most of the time they’re the source of our problems in the first place.”
“May I ask…” Deborah fished in her bag for a tissue. “You said that you’re an egg donor… But if you knew someone… Someone close to you… Someone in need… If someone asked you… Would you…” Hesitant woman in pursuit of help, she thought. No one else would be likely to ask this question directly of a total stranger.
Lucy Keverne didn’t look wary, but she hesitated. Clearly, Deborah thought, they were getting close to whatever relationship she had with Alatea Fairclough. It seemed to Deborah that Lucy herself had already named the possibilities: Alatea either needed her for her eggs or she needed her to be a surrogate. If there was another possibility, Deborah couldn’t see it. Surely they hadn’t been together to pay a social call upon someone in the George Childress Centre at Lancaster University.
Lucy said, “As I said, I’m an egg donor. Anything else is more than I’d take on.”
“You’d never be a surrogate then?” Hopeful, hopeful, presenting an earnest expression, Deborah thought.
“I’m sorry. No. It’s just… Too close to the heart, if you understand what I mean. I don’t think I could do it.”
“Would you know anyone? Anyone I could speak to? Anyone who might consider…?”
Lucy looked at the ground, at her boots. They were attractive boots, Deborah thought, Italian by the look of them. Not inexpensive. Lucy finally said, “You might want to look in Conception magazine.”
“You mean surrogates advertise in it?”
“God no. That’s illegal. But sometimes someone… You might possibly track down a donor that way. If a woman is willing to donate eggs, she might be willing to do more. Or she could well know someone who’d help you.”
“By carrying a baby.”
“Yes.”
“It must be… well, extraordinarily expensive.”
“No more than having your own child aside from the in vitro part of it. The surrogate herself can only ask you for reasonable expenses. Anything more than that is, of course, against the law.”
“So one has to find a woman of extraordinary compassion, I daresay,” Deborah said, “for her to be willing to put herself through that