Goodnight Steve McQueen Read Online Free PDF Page B

IVF treatment to women over thirty-three. It’s awful, isn’t it? Most women don’t decide to have children until they’re in their thirties these days, so they won’t even know they’re infertile until it’s too late.”
    “Yeah,” I say, looking at my watch, ‘but they have to draw the line somewhere, don’t they? I mean, it’s harder to get pregnant when you’re in your thirties, isn’t it, so they probably think it’s a waste of money or something.”
    Bad answer.
    “But what if it was us? What if it was us, Danny, and we found out we couldn’t have any kids? How would we pay for it?”
    “It’s not going to happen to us. Look at you, you’re the picture of health.”
    “It doesn’t work like that. You can’t just look at a person and know whether they’re going to be able to have children or not. Look at Ruth. You wouldn’t think Ruth would be the one to end up with blocked fallopian tubes, would you? God, she spends more time in the gym than she does at work.”
    “Well, no, but I don’t know what you’re worried about, you’re only just thirty, you’ve got years yet, you’ve got buckets of time.”
    She walks over to the kitchen and starts doing the washing up.
    “See you later then,” I say to the back of her head. “I won’t be too late.”
    “Right.”
    “No later than ten.”
    “OK.”
    “We won’t bother going to the pub then.”
    “Fine.”
    Till come straight home.”
    “Whatever. Oh, and don’t forget to tell Vince and Matty about Saturday.”
    “What’s happening on Saturday?”
    “I told you, I’ve organised a leaving do with some people from work. Ruth and Shelley are coming. We’re going to The Medicine Bar. I told you.”
    Great, exactly what I need right now, a night out in a poncy bar with Alison’s friends.
    Things left to do before Alison leaves on Monday:
    Buy present (something personal that will make her think about me while she’s away).
    Get haircut and buy new shirt from Ted Baker (so Alison will spend journey to Bruges thinking how good I looked at leaving party).
    Try to lose some of beer gut. Tricky since just consumed two and a half helpings of turkey mince chilli and a whole raspberry trifle.
    Buy champagne for last night.
    Cancel that. Champagne might look like I’m celebrating her going.
    Buy bottle of that expensive Sancerre that she likes instead.
    Buy ingredients for romantic dinner for two. Maybe try making that duck pancake thing again.
    Cancel that. Last time tried to make duck pancake thing it was a disaster on account of leaving the giblets in. Buy MS duck a 1’orange instead.
    Go to rehearsal.
    Play set.
    Find way of telling Vince and Matty that we’ve only got six months left to become household names.
    Vince and Matty are waiting for me outside the rehearsal room when I finally turn up.
    “What are you doing outside?”
    “Never mind that. Where have you been? We’ve been trying to get hold of you at the shop.”
    “I popped home first. Alison cooked. What could I do? I had to stay and eat it.” Vince nods sympathetically and Matty asks me if I want a bite of his doner kebab. They both have limited experience of Alison’s cooking including her famous pilchard and sweet corn curry so they immediately assume I’m still hungry.
    “So anyway, the rehearsal’s off,” says Vince. “There’s been a power cut. Some plank went and overloaded the circuits.”
    “Shit. So what shall we do?” I say through a small mouthful of Matty’s kebab.
    “Not much we can do, I suppose. Reckon we should just go next door for a couple of jars and see if they have any luck fixing it in the next hour or so.”
    Fat chance. Vince knows full well it’ll be one excuse after another until at least the beginning of next week:
    “Sorry, mate, the PA’s blown up now.”
    “Sorry, mate, the rats have gnawed through the wires again.”
    “Sorry, mate, I know I said I’d have it done by Monday but our in-house engineer is laid up with a nasty