Josie Metcalfe - Miracles in the Village

He gave a wry laugh. ‘Oh, yes. Do I ever. My favourite bit.’ He pushed the ominous little pot around, picked it up and tossed it in the air, then said, with a tension in his voice that probably only Fran would have noticed, ‘Will they be able to check for damaged sperm? Because if there’s any likelihood that it was my sperm quality that caused Fran to miscarry, I want to do something about it before we try again.’

Kate’s smile was reassuring. ‘Of course. If there’s a significant number of non-swimmers or sluggish ones, they’ll have a closer look. It might be that you have to persevere with the diet for longer, or there might be something more significant wrong, although I doubt it. That would have been spotted before, I’m sure, and if you remember they never did find anything significantly wrong with either of you last time. But let’s get the first tests out of the way and see what they come up with before we worry about what’s next.’

‘And then if everything comes back all right?’ Fran asked, feeling the tension ratchet up a notch.

‘Then we refer you to the clinic in Exeter, and they take over from us.’ She finished labelling all the bottles of blood, slipped them into the plastic sleeves, filled in the various request forms and looked up. ‘The semen sample needs to be as fresh as possible, so I would do it at the hospital, Mike, preferably near the beginning of the working day,’ she said. ‘Would you have time to do it this morning?’

He nodded, and Fran’s heart hitched.

‘Then I’ll give you all this stuff to take to the lab as well,’ she said, handing over all the blood samples and request envelopes, together with the urine sample bottles. ‘The sooner they get them, the better the results. And I’ll see you next week when they’re all back—I’ll give you a call when they’re in.’

She smiled and pushed back her chair, stood up and shook their hands and opened the door. ‘Good luck. I’ll see you next week.’

‘I can’t believe I’ve got to go into that ghastly room again,’ Mike muttered as they walked down the corridor towards the path lab. ‘It’s just awful, Fran—even thinking about it’s enough to put me off. The girly magazines and the smutty videos—it’s just horrible.’ He suppressed a shudder, and then without warning she got hold of his arm and yanked him through a doorway.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked as she shut the door and turned on the light. ‘Fran? Why are we in the loo?’

She pushed him against the wall, took the pot out of her handbag and put in on the basin, then reached for his zip. He grabbed it and held her away from him, unable to stop the splutter of laughter that rose in his chest.

‘Fran, stop it! We can’t do this here!’ he hissed.

‘Why not? Why ever not?’

‘Because it’s a public toilet!’

‘Don’t be silly, it’s a single cubicle off the corridor and it’s a lot more private than that dreadful room. Now, stop fighting.’

She pinned his hands out of the way, grabbed his zip and slid it down, reaching inside and curling her fingers round him.

Dear God. He was already hard, the thought of her touching him enough to bring him to the edge even though they were both still laughing. But then she moved her hand, the firm, rhythmic strokes enough to bring him to his knees, and he dropped his head forwards on his chest and stared down at her, her hand curled round him, her lip caught between her teeth, her pupils darkening as she looked up and met his eyes.

‘God, you are so sexy, Trevellyan,’ she muttered, flicking her nail across the tip of his penis, and he fisted his hands in her T-shirt and closed his eyes.

‘I’m going to come any second if you do that,’ he said through gritted teeth, and she gave a sexy little chuckle.

‘I thought that was the general idea,’ she said, and reached for the pot …

‘Kate? It’s Jan, at the fertility clinic. We’ve got a lot of results here from some patients of yours, Francesca and Michael Trevellyan. I think they were probably for you and I’ll send them through to you straight away, but I thought you’d want to know the results anyway.’

‘Of course,’ Kate said, surprised to feel a little kick of apprehension. ‘I was going to chase them up, it’s been over a week now. OK, fire away. I’ve got a pen.’ She listened, frowned, raised her eyebrows and jotted down all the information. ‘Really? Thanks, Jan. I’ll pass all that on,’ she said. Cutting the connection, she dialled the Trevellyans’ number.

‘Fran? It’s Kate. Are you both in? I’ve got your results, and I was just about to leave the surgery. I thought I might drop by on my way to collect Jem from my mother and have a chat about what happens next.’

‘Oh. Um …yes, sure,’ Fran said, sounding instantly worried. ‘We’ll be here. Mike’s in the office. I’ll get him.’

‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes,’ Kate said, and replaced the phone in its cradle.

‘Mike?’

He glanced up at Fran and got straight to his feet, one look enough to know something was going on. ‘What is it?’ he asked, his chest tight with dread.

‘I don’t know. Kate’s coming to see us. She’s got our results.’

He felt his heart lurch and went over to her, gathering her in his arms and hugging her tight.

‘We can handle this, Frankie,’ he said softly. ‘Whatever it is. Come on, let’s go into the house and wait for her. I take it she’s coming here now?’

‘Yes. She said she’d be ten minutes. Mike, I feel sick.’

‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

She would have fallen down without his support. They left the door open, standing there in the kitchen facing it, him behind her, his hands on her shoulders, steadying her, and so when Kate came in they couldn’t see her face because the light was behind her.

‘Well, I’ll get straight to the point,’ Kate said. ‘It wasn’t the news I was expecting to give you, but we aren’t going to be referring you for the IVF programme.’

‘No!’ Fran wailed, her knees threatening to buckle, and she felt Mike’s arms tighten round her.

‘Fran, no,’ Kate said hurriedly, and Fran couldn’t work out why on earth she was smiling. ‘It’s not bad news! You can’t have the IVF because you don’t need it. You’re pregnant, Fran,’ she said, and her smile widened. ‘Congratulations, both of you. You’re going to have a baby.’

Fran stared at her for an age, numb with shock, and then with a fractured little sob she turned and fell into Mike’s waiting arms …

They talked for hours.

Once Fran had stopped crying, of course, and they realised that Kate had left.

She was sitting on Mike’s lap, one arm round his neck and his hand resting lightly over their baby, and she said softly, ‘It’s going to be OK this time, Mike. I feel so different. Much sicker. I thought it was just fright, but of course it isn’t. My period is two days overdue, and I feel really different. And tired, but I thought that was just you keeping me awake half the night.’

He chuckled and tilted his head back, smiling up at her tenderly. ‘You’re to take care of yourself,’ he said. ‘Nothing silly. No unpasteurised milk or soft cheese or any of the other things—and no cheesemaking either. I can do that with a bin bag on my foot. And I’m sure Kate will give you a huge list of dos and don’ts.’

‘I’m sure she will.’ His hair had flopped forwards, and she lifted it back with her fingers and smoothed it out of the way so she could see his eyes. ‘I don’t want to tell Sophie yet, though,’ she said, not wanting to acknowledge the possibility of failure but all too aware that it might lurk round the corner for them. After all it had before, twice.