Free Sacrifice by Sharon Bolton Page A

She wanted her feet up in stirrups and a good dose of artificial hormone coursing round her veins.
    ‘We were hoping you’d put us on the IVF programme,’ she said. ‘We know there’s a waiting list for NHS treatment but we have some money saved up. We want to start right away.’
    I nodded. ‘Of course. I understand.’ Oh, how well did I understand: Get me pregnant. I don’t care how you do it. I don’t even want to think about everything that comes after – the nausea, exhaustion, backache, stretch marks, total lack of privacy, and then pain beyond anything I could ever have imagined. Just wave your magical, medical wand and make it OK for me too .
    What I was about to suggest they would find incredibly hard to accept; patience and the biological urge to reproduce don’t make comfortable bedfellows. ‘There is another way forward that I’d like you to think about.’
    ‘We’ve been trying for three years.’ With something between a hiccup and a sob she started to cry. Robert glared at me as though their failure to conceive was entirely my doing and gave his wife the handkerchief he’d had ready in his hand.
    I decided to give them a moment. I stood and walked to the window.
    It had been raining as I’d driven into Lerwick that morning and the clouds above were low and heavy, the town dark and damp.
    Lerwick is a grey stone town on the eastern coast of the main island, a short channel hop from the island of Bressay. Like the rest of the islands’ townships, it isn’t noted for its architecture: the buildings aresimple and functional but rarely beautiful. The traditional choice of building material is local granite with a slate roof. For the most part, two storeys are thought ample by the practical islanders – maybe they worry about high winds blowing roofs away – but in the older parts of town and around the harbour a few three-storey, even four-storey houses can be seen. They seem to represent a rare flash of ambition, or defiance, on the part of the islanders.
    Gazing at a rain-washed Lerwick did nothing to improve my mood.
    I found myself stifling a yawn. I hadn’t slept well. Even when I hadn’t been fully awake and out of bed, I’d been restless, my head full of the woman I’d found. I’d seen her, touched her, knew something of what had happened to her. It was appalling . . . I should be appalled, and I was . . . but I was angry too. Because I’d wanted to plant snowdrops on Jamie’s grave to remind me of the time he tried to eat some. I’d gone out one evening to call him in and found a tiny white flower sticking out of his mouth. He’d looked like an equine flamenco dancer. But now I’d never be able to do that because some sick bastard had chosen our land to bury his dirty work on. And Jamie had been carted off to the knackers’ yard.
    There was a movement behind me; a fidget. Sarah had stopped crying. I sat down again and turned to her.
    ‘You’re only thirty-one. You have a long way to go before you need worry about time running out.’ I, on the other hand, was thirty-three. ‘There’s noguarantee of a baby using IVF. The clinic I’d refer you to has an average success rate of 27 per cent per treatment and, frankly, you’re likely to have a below-average expectation of success.’
    ‘Why?’ said Robert.
    I glanced down at the file again, although I already knew what it said.
    ‘Between you, you’re dealing with sub-quality sperm and highly irregular periods. The tests you had on your last visit and the lifestyle questionnaire you filled in suggest some reasons why that might be.’
    Both looked defensive, as though I was about to tell them it was their fault. Well, in a way it was.
    ‘Go on,’ said Robert.
    ‘Both of you show deficiencies in certain minerals that are very useful to conception. Sarah, your levels of zinc, selenium and magnesium are very low. You also have a lot of aluminium in your body. Robert, you have low zinc levels too, but what worries me more