letting her down.’ To his horror, he saw that she was blinking away tears.
‘I’ll do my best,’ he promised and immediately felt foolish.
He closed the door. The job took a little longer in this frame of mind.
‘Good luck,’ he said as he handed her the jar. And felt even more foolish.
‘Tenth time lucky, maybe,’ he said two and a half months later when Linsey rang to tell him that they were still unsuccessful.
The next time he was summoned, Linsey greeted him as usual, though he was conscious of Amy hovering in the background. He went to head up the stairs but Linsey motioned him into the sitting room, where he sat down on one of the gilt chairs. The two women sat on the edge of the sofa, facing him.
‘As you’re aware, this is the last time for you to . . . assist us,’ Linsey began. ‘You’ve been as good as your word and we appreciate that, don’t we, Amy?’ Amy nodded, started to speak and then fell silent.
‘We had researched the matter extensively before we enlisted you,’ Linsey told him, ‘but we’re starting to think there may be something wrong with our—what would you call it?— our technique. Consequently . . .’ Her skin was taut over sharp cheekbones, and dark smudges shadowed her eyes. ‘Consequently, we were wondering if more . . . conventional methods might not be required.’
Michael felt a surge of elation. Of course he wasn’t averse to having sex with a beautiful woman—but it was more than that. While he had accepted the terms of the job and done his duty, as it were, he nonetheless harboured a nagging resentment that this beautiful woman didn’t want to have sex with him. In this role there was an affront to his manhood that he had chosen to ignore in his eagerness for the remuneration. He had taken their money, and done what they asked, but now an ugly thought came unbidden: Let’s see how she feels after having sex with a real man. Immediately ashamed, he pushed the thought aside.
‘Fine,’ he said gravely. ‘I understand. Do you mean now?’
‘Now is the right time,’ Amy aspirated the words. He could hardly hear her.
She looked down as Linsey put an arm around her. ‘I know it’s asking a lot, darling,’ Linsey murmured into her hair, ‘but we know it may be the only way. We’ve nearly run out of money.’
Michael took Amy’s hand and felt the tension that ran down her arm to her fingertips. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’m not a monster.’
But in the end, he couldn’t do it. At the bedroom door he saw hopeless jealousy transform Linsey’s carefully disciplined features. Amy was even worse. She was actually trembling. Michael was a generous, considerate lover: it was one reason why so many women were attracted to him. Looking at Amy, intuiting her distress, he felt like a brute.
‘Tell you what,’ he said as Linsey turned away. ‘Tell you what. Let’s keep the thing going as it has been for another couple of months before we, you know, take drastic action. I won’t expect payment after today.’
He felt their relief wash over him like a flood.
‘Thank you, Michael. You’re a good man,’ said Linsey with simple grace. Amy just smiled. Her dimple had returned.
So the arrangement continued as before until, several months later, he received a phone call.
‘We’re pregnant,’ they sang into the phone. ‘Michael, we’re pregnant.’
Two days later there was a cheque for five thousand dollars in the mail. A note was attached saying that they were grateful and wished him well, and as the contract stated, he would neither see nor hear from them again.
But even as he breathed a sigh of relief, Michael couldn’t help feeling just a little cheated.
3
Amy, Linsey and Moss
FOR AMY AND LINSEY, THE disappointment that had followed Michael’s visit each month only compounded their delight when a pregnancy was finally confirmed. The two women looked at each other in awe at what they had achieved.
‘We’ve done it,’ Linsey breathed.
‘With a little help from Michael,’ Amy giggled.
The two women had first met when Amy went to work as a temp at the Melbourne University Faculty of Commerce, where Linsey was a lecturer in economics. On Amy’s first day, Linsey burst into the secretary’s office, her brusque instructions 24 arrested mid-speech by the sight of the unfamiliar young woman behind the desk.
‘When I saw you,’ an enchanted Linsey later told Amy, ‘I thought of summer—of peaches and honey and lazy blue