Ben Elton - Inconceivable

After we had all admired my digestive system, Mr James got back to the subject at hand.

“ So, as I say, most encouraging, most encouraging indeed. We didn’t find a thing wrong.”

So that’s all right, then. Lovely. Couldn’t be better. Except for one tiny little thing, of course. I am still not fucking preg! To this I’m afraid Mr James had no answer. Sam and I remain cursed with what is described medically as “non-specific infertility”, or, to give it its full scientific description, “We do not have a fucking clue.”

“Very common condition,” said Mr James. “Very common indeed… amongst people who can’t have babies, that is.”

So what now?

Well, what else? IVF, of course. Mr James said we could easily wait, we’re relatively young, we might just have been unlucky. It might work out conventionally. Mr James says that actually quite a few previously infertile women do conceive after having a laparoscopy. Something to do with it flushing out the tubes, but nonetheless he felt it was probably time to begin some form of treatment.

Bugger. I never thought it would come to this. It would actually have been easier if he’d said, Look, the photos are the worst I’ve ever seen. No eggs. No tubes. No chance. Forget it for ever. Except that would have been unbearable. I just don’t know what I would have done if he’d said that, I really don’t.

Dear Sam

Today we went to see our consultant and got Lucy’s lapa results. Good news and bad news. They found nothing wrong, which is good; on the other hand, they found nothing that they could “cure”, so to speak, so that’s bad. Poor Lucy now faces the prospect of IVF treatment and she is pretty down about it. Well, I can’t say I like the idea much myself. Of course it does mean that I’ll get first-hand knowledge of the whole horrible process for my film, which will be extremely useful, but that is absolutely and completely beside the point. In fact I want to make this quite clear, right now, lest in future years, when I’m a big Hollywood player, I ever look back and doubt the motives and feelings I had at this juncture. I’m aware that I’m secretly exploiting Lucy’s misery (and my own) for our future gain, but I’d happily give it away right now. Film or no film, if there was anything on earth I could do to make Lucy pregnant, I’d do it. Anything. I mean that. But it just doesn’t seem that there is anything I can do, beyond shagging her when required and playing my part in the IVF business if it comes to that.

Honestly. It’s important that I set this down on record. The film means nothing. If tomorrow Lucy fell pregnant naturally I’d be the happiest man in the world.

I can research IVF stuff without her anyway.

Dear Penny

Despite the fact that we are now definitely on the road to IVF, I’ve decided to make love to Sam every day this month in the hope that the laparoscopy “tube clearing” theory will bear fruit. We started last night and I have a dreadful confession to make. About halfway through I found myself thinking about Carl Phipps. I forced him from my mind, of course, but I’m afraid to say that my subconscious was being more honest than my conscience because I often find myself thinking about him.

I love Sam, of course, absolutely. But it’s different.

Dear Sam

Lucy has decided to begin a cycle of IVF after her next period (presuming we don’t score in the meantime with her newly flushed-out tubes). Dr Cooper, our GP, is writing to the people at Spannerfield Hospital, which is one of the top places for fertility treatment, to get us an appointment to see them.

I had a big meeting at Broadcasting House today. Infuriating, really, because I’m getting along splendidly with the script and the last thing I want to be bothered with is my actual job. The Beeb have now officially commissioned my film, by the way, which is absolutely wonderful. For the first time since I used to write sketches for radio when I was young and wild, I am a professional writer. It’s not a bad deal at all for a first film. Forty thousand, but in stages. Final payment to be made on completion of principal photography, so I’m only actually guaranteed ten thousand at the moment for the first draft. I’ve asked Aiden Fumet to look after my business. I must say, now he’s on my side I like him much better. I didn’t go in with him myself when the deal was made. George and Trevor didn’t feel that Nigel was quite ready yet for the news that the brilliant new writer they’d found is, in fact, the despised and sacked Sam Bell. Nigel probably imagines me as some spiky-haired punk, since Aiden Fumet normally only represents fashionable people.

Anyway, as I say, I’m now a professional writer with a script fully in development at the BBC, which is an absolutely thrilling thing to be. The only fly in my professional ointment is that I still have my job at Radio which I must keep up in order to avoid making Lucy suspicious, and of course for the cash. We can’t survive for the next six months on ten grand plus the minute sum Lucy makes at the agency.

So, bright and early this morning, after Lucy and I had had a three-minute quickie (“Don’t worry about me, just get on with it,” were her bleary, sleepy words), I left her lying in bed trying to eat toast with three pillows under her bum and her legs propped up against the wall and rushed off for my meeting. They like to start early in Radio because it’s very much a daytime medium, unlike TV, of course.

The meeting was fascinating in its banality. It was a seminar pertaining to the Director General’s Regional Diversity Directive (the DGRDD), which is called “The Glory of the Quilt”. I don’t know why it’s called “The Glory of the Quilt”. Somebody in the lift said they thought it related to Britain being a patchwork, but for all I know QUILT may be an acronym for Quasi Utilitarianism Initiative Long Term. Or something else altogether. Nobody ever knows these things. I don’t think we’re supposed to.

The seminar was being chaired by the Head of Youth, BBC Radio, whose name is Tom. Tom and I had already met. He called me in to impress upon me that he did not mind jokes about drugs or even anal sex. In fact he positively encouraged “cutting edge” material, as long as it was on after nine in the evening and was in no way exploitative or offensive to minority groups.

Anyway, Tom kicked off in pretty general terms.

“Hi, yo. Welcome to this session of the ongoing series of seminars under the Director General’s Regional Diversity Directive. The Glory of the Quilt. As you all know, today’s ongoing subtopic is Regional Diversity and Youth.”

I hadn’t known, actually, but I let it go. Up until now all the seminars of the Director General’s Regional Diversity Directive had been bogged down in debating why all the regional diversity debates were taking place in London, but they had obviously bitten the bullet on this one and moved on.

“So, BBC youth radio and the regions,” said Tom. “As you all know, the Director General is one hundred per cent committed to the BBC diversifying into the regions and I fully support him in his view… Bill, I asked you to formulate a comprehensive decentralization strategy.”

I have not yet discovered what Bill’s post is. Nobody I asked knew either (including Tom). My theory is that Bill wandered into BH one day, possibly to be interviewed on Radio 4 about bird-watching or to deliver an envelope of money to the playlist compilers at Radio 1 and he never found his way out again. Broadcasting House really is something of a warren.

“The key to regional diversification,” said Bill, “is accents. We need more accents about the place. Northern accents, Scottish accents, at least one Welsh accent.”