We are about to leave when I hear a low mellifluous rumble of a voice behind me. Could it possibly be? … Is it really? … I turn around. It is. Alan Rickman is standing fewer than ten feet away.
‘Oh well, I suppose we’re here now,’ I say. ‘Let’s just see how it goes.’
Originally, the RSC had earnestly planned to perform a play in its entirety, but Tina Brown, conversant with New Yorkers’ bantam attention span, has cleverly persuaded them to offer us a medley of the Bard’s Greatest Hits instead.
The audience is huge, there are at least 1,000 of us, with many having paid $20,000 a table. As usual, however, we have slipped in on a press freebie. To my right sits a cheerful man called Christopher Buckley, who tells me he is the author of a book called Thank You for Smoking. He is in a state of some excitement because the place card next to him reads ‘Susannah York’.
To my left sits Garth Drabinsky, the legendary Broadway producer of Showboat and Ragtime, which has just picked up four Tony awards. The Drabinsky legend stems from his almost magical ability to stay financially afloat, confounding his many naysayers. He is a huge, darkly brooding presence, and seems depressed.
I feel depressed too. What did Dr Beth mean, ‘You’re certainly something but it’s not pregnant’? I look around for Peter, who has been placed at a different table. Curiously, when I finally spot him, he is sitting next to Susannah York.
‘Have you seen The Horse Whisperer yet?’ asks Drabinsky morosely.
‘Yes, very disappointing,’ I start. ‘What’s Robert Redford’s problem? How could he have cast himself as the romantic lead? He’s far too old! His mouth’s all lined, he looked ridiculous opposite Kristin Scott Thomas. And as for all those schmaltzy, sentimental shots of Montana …’
‘Really?’ he interrupts. ‘I loved the movie.’ He raises a heavy eyebrow. ‘And I consider Robert one of my greatest friends.’
Monday, 18 May Peter
I am not at my best at these society events. I seem to revert to my African childhood, dumbstruck and gauche, radiating rudeness to mask social incompetence. I tend to lean on Joanna, using her as a social battering ram, as she possesses complete candour and an effrontery to make me blush. Tonight, however, we are split up, but this is fine since Susannah York is at my table. In the course of the evening I do not manage to exchange a single word with her, however, so intense and exclusive is her conversation with the man on her left, apparently an old friend. Once I think she smiles at me, but I cannot be sure.
When we leave we are besieged by a squadron of publicity girls, who hover around the foyer to present us with our goody bags. I am still at a stage where I am enticed by goody bags. To me they are like unseasonal Christmas stockings. The prospect is exciting, though the contents seldom fail to disappoint. Tonight’s freebies, which we examine in the cab on the way home, are the usual random medley of sponsors’ offerings: a copy of the New Yorker, a volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets, a tube of Callard and Bowser’s liquorice toffees. On the drive home we declaim sonnets while chewing liquorice until our teeth have blackened.
The best gift is a small radio from Bloomberg, the financial rival to Reuters. But to our chagrin we discover that the radio has a strictly limited repertoire – it is permanently pre-tuned to Bloomberg’s own station, and can receive no other.
Tuesday, 19 May Joanna
After fruitless attempts to get through the voicemail, I make up my mind to go down and collect the second lot of results in person, when Dr Beth calls me.
‘Joanna, it’s Beth from Murray Hill, can you come in this afternoon? We need to talk. I’ve got your results back and quite frankly, Joanna, I don’t mind tellin’ you, I’m baffled.’
As I arrive, I see Donna the technician sitting on a low wall outside the surgery, smoking, a habit long since forbidden in New York offices. She gives me a thumbs up.
‘Your numbers have doubled,’ she says, drawing heavily on her cigarette. ‘That’s very good. That’s what we look for.’
Buoyed up by this news, I sit patiently underneath the peaks of Yosemite waiting for Beth, who finally calls me in to tell me she is still baffled, but has booked me a sonogram. She leads me into a small white room, tells me to swap my suit for a paper robe and I lie back on a grey leather reclining chair.
The monitor flickers into life, she squeezes a transparent gel over my belly and I see a series of dark undulating lines, which she tells me is my uterus. The electronic wand hovers and she zooms in on a tiny dark spot.
‘Mmn, a cyst,’ she murmurs. ‘Definitely an ovarian cyst.’
‘Is that serious?’ I ask, struggling to sit up.
She gestures me down and this time zooms in on an indecipherable white speck. She pulls one of her faces.
‘A cyst is a symptom of pregnancy,’ she says. ‘Doctor to patient, it’s too early to say. But woman to woman, I’d say you are pregnant, Joanna. Very, very early. But I don’t think it’s anything more serious.’ She sounds disappointed. ‘Congratulations,’ she says flatly. ‘You’re going to have a baby after all.’
I manage a weak grin and, flooding with relief, make two instant vows. I will never come back to this surgery again. And I will never wear a turquoise pregnancy smock with white seagull-wing collar.
Tuesday, 19 May Peter
My results are finally in. My time, it appears, is not up after all. There is nothing wrong with me. Nothing to explain the lump on my elbow. Dr Epstein sits across the desk flipping through the charts. He is bewildered.
‘How’s the writing going?’ he asks, knowing that I am a writer.
I feel this is no time for small talk.
‘Fine,’ I reply, wanting to get back to my polyp.
‘Still blocked?’ he asks.
What is he, my agent?
‘Well I had a bit of spurt a couple of weeks ago,’ I admit, ‘but it wasn’t very good stuff.’
He asks to feel my polyp again and then his face lights up.
‘I think you may have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome,’ he says.
‘What’s that?’ I ask fearfully.
‘I think you guys call it Repetitive Stress Injury. It’s caused by too much typing.’
I return to the apartment to break the news to Joanna.
‘Turns out I’m fine,’ I tell her. ‘I’m not going to die after all. My test results are all negative. He thinks it’s RSI. I must be the only blocked writer who has managed to contract RSI.’
Joanna doesn’t seem particularly engaged by my relieved chatter.
‘I got my test results too,’ she says and hands me a package.
I unwrap it to find that it is a book entitled The Expectant Father.
Wednesday, 20 May Joanna
Like most of my friends, I have put career ahead of children. In our twenties it seemed almost embarrassing to admit they were even a possibility. Now I’m suddenly aware of the explosive change that lies ahead. But instead of being scared, I find myself fizzing with elation – as though a secret trapdoor has sprung open to reveal a future quite different to the one I had been expecting.
I wonder, though, how my bosses in London will take the news of my pregnancy. I am currently the sole female