Chapter 2

Siblings

Inside the gates of Larchmont Hall, the Bristol moves slowly along the crushed shell driveway that is more suited for horses than automobiles. As the house comes into view, Edith exclaims: "Good Lord, what has David done to this place?"

"Didn't he tell you? It's being reburbished. The scaffolding will be down next week, and then we finish inside. A bit of musical chairs after that as they move from room to room. The bathrooms and kitchen are finished, but we still have the upper storey remaining. Quite an undertaking really. All should be ready by Christmas. Your brother, George, and Fiona are even coming from Sydney to have a look."

"This must be costing a bloody fortune. Who's paying for it? David better not look to me for a contribution. He and Charmaine will end up with the house because no one else wants it."

"I imagine so. But you'll like what's been done. Your mother is pleased as punch about it. She's always wanted to freshen the house, but it was overwhelming."

"Perhaps. But I liked the way it looked. Scruffy and comfortable. Mum would bring the horses into the kitchen and scullery on cold nights. They helped heat the house. The smell was ghastly but it was worth it for the warmth. At least I have those memories."

"The heating is up to snuff now, and the horses are stabled next to the garage. Tell you what – go round to the back. That way I can garage the car before a trolley smashes into it."

Circling the house, Edith is amazed at the scaffolding covering the stone walls to the gables, the obviously new windows and the crisp look to the slate roof tiles. A bloody fortune. But then David has it.

Her first memory of her twin brother, David, was of Dad scolding him for pulling apart his cigarette lighter. David only looked at him and quickly put the tiny pieces right. Anything mechanical caught his fancy, and he spent silent hours tinkering alone. At Tonbridge, his boarding school, he won the prizes in physics and maths and took top honours from Keble College at Oxford. After that he was off to the States and MIT where he earned a doctorate in physics.

Given his natural predilections, the family expected he would have a very dull career in research. He wasn't verbose enough for an academic life, preferring to neither talk nor write. Growing up, Edith could not remember having a conversation of more than a few words with her brother, and that would be a long talk. The boisterous Montgomery family accepted his quietude and seeming disinterest in them. David did as he pleased and bothered no one.

Her parents were shocked when David phoned Dad saying he had taken a post on Wall Street in New York. The salary he mentioned was exorbitant. Mum had Dad make the conversion from dollars to pounds several times. She simply could not believe anyone would pay her quiet, shy David that sum. What could a physicist possibly do in a financial firm?

By then her brother, Arthur – who was six years older – had taken a first from Oxford's Nuffield College in economics and was a stock analyst on Bond Street. He somewhat darkly told Dad that physicists were being hired to develop mathematical behaviour models to help determine which stocks to buy and sell. Three Jewish physicists who fled Russia now worked at Arthur's firm, but none of the traders understood what it was the three did. However, they liked the result: it made money for them.

When David followed Charmaine back to England, he and Arthur joined forces to start a financial consultancy, and both brothers became quite wealthy. Arthur chose retirement at an early age and a life of leisure as a country gentleman. His large contemporary home and extensive gardens are built on a plot of Larchmont land he bought from Mum.

A few years ago ennui set in, and Arthur turned his business acumen to organic farming. He has been buying nearby fallow farmland to grow what Simon derisively describes as "designer vegetables."

The siblings joke that they are not certain if Arthur has more ex-wives or David has more children. One could never keep track of either. Arthur has no progeny of his own, but several of his former wives do, and he has raised and educated various stepchildren. Three of them have joined him in his veg venture.

Simon, the second oldest son who now holds Dad's seat in the House of Commons, often commented that David and Arthur were the best luck for the tax collector in Hertfordshire. Mum would laugh and say "well what little sum is left, Peter tries to extract from them."

The saint of the family, Peter, converted to Roman Catholicism and became a priest. He manages a large charity in Lewisham and is an activist for liberal causes both in Britain and the greater world. Most recently, he has been vociferous about the regeneration of the Royal Docks to entice the Olympic Games to London. The poor are bearing the brunt of the displacement and will gain nothing. He is the bane of his Conservative family's existence, with the exception of Charmaine. She is an avid fundraiser for his causes, as she had been when she first met David in the States.

After several major rows at Christmastime, Dad decreed what is known in the Montgomery family as "Pax Larchmont." When Peter comes home, no one may talk about politics, religion or social issues. One of Arthur's former wives, Lilly, pointed out this left only sex to discuss. She was the wife Edith always liked best.

Unfortunately, she was also the wife Edith's ex-husband Edwin liked best. During a summer visit to Larchmont, Edith discovered Edwin and Lilly in flagrante delicto in one of the old cottages. Lilly was divorced from Arthur and only there to visit her two sons who lived with him. As soon as practical Edith had divorced Edwin. Not that it mattered, but she was actually a bit weary of him. He had peaked in his academic career at McGill, and the trajectory of her career was on the ascent. Edith vowed there would be no more older men in her life.

And she kept that vow after the divorce and her departure from Montreal. Cornell Medical School in New York had offered her a faculty post teaching reproductive endocrinology and working in its fertility clinic. She was at the top of her game and not yet 40. Natural IVF, in which no drugs are used, was gaining popularity with better technologies now available. It was the method used to conceive the first so-called test tube baby in England, and the fact that Edith was British enhanced her cachet. She was very sought after, and her success rate grew exponentially compared to IUI and stimulated IVF pregnancies.

Truth be told, her success was owed to Patrick Soeters, the South African embryologist who bragged he spent his days making women pregnant and his nights trying not to. Patrick painstakingly selected the eggs for fertilisation, and he had an uncanny knack for extracting those most likely to result in a healthy baby. Nine years her junior, Patrick played rugby, rode a bicycle about Manhattan and eventually fell under the spell of Edith. It happened the night a Middle-Eastern princess, whose infertility was threatening the political stability of her country, delivered a healthy baby boy.

The poor girl had traveled from country to country for two years suffering every pain and indignity the world of fertility medicine could visit upon her. She came to Cornell as a last effort before her husband would be forced to divorce her. After one natural cycle IVF administered by Edith, she was pregnant and remained at Cornell under close observation until the birth.

Edith and Patrick looked in on the delivery and then returned to the clinic with a bottle of Champagne provided by the happy father. Not used to drinking, the abstemious Edith had with Patrick what he called a "bang-up." Another successful pregnancy for him. Blast, now Edith would have to bother with an abortion.

When she told Patrick there would be no procedures on a Friday, he asked why. She stiffly said that she had succumbed to his considerable skill at making women pregnant. Rather than being relieved about the abortion, Patrick was horrified. He reminded her of the distraught women who would and did do anything to have a baby. If she did not want the child, let it be adopted by a woman who not even Edith could help conceive a baby.

Edith angrily reminded him that it would be she, not he, who would be affected by the pregnancy. The nuisance of gestation, the health effects, the pain and inconvenience of delivery. No thank you. She was having an abortion. Patrick persisted and, in response to her comment: "I'm not bringing a bastard into this world," he said, "I'll marry you. I'm one of the few people here who actually likes you and one of the few you respect. We can make it work."

Putting it down to her soaring progesterone levels, Edith experienced one of the few sentimental moments of her life and agreed to marry Patrick. She had delivered countless babies during her residency in Montreal and now helped infertile couples create babies. Shouldn't she learn what the fuss was about?

Following a Caesarean delivery, she planned to hand the child over to Patrick and a nanny for care. But she learned what all the fuss was about the minute the obstetrician placed the baby on her chest and Patrick cut the umbilical cord. At first she thought Patrick's tears were dripping onto her face, but then realized she was also crying. Crying over this red, scowling, squalling boy they had mistakenly created, but who brought them such great joy. This then was Nicholas Henry, named for their fathers, and loved by Edith more than she ever could have thought.

She was in such a turmoil that Edith did not tell the family about her marriage to Patrick or the birth of Nicholas until he was three months old. Her parents complained that she had not visited them the summer of her pregnancy, but she easily attributed it to work. Taking the bull by the horns, Edith arrived for Christmas at Larchmont Hall with Patrick and Nicholas in tow. Not as shocked as she anticipated, her father only said: "We'd expect nothing less from you Edith. You always were a surprise!"

Continued . . .

Terminology. I have greatly simplified the terms, but I believe the gist can be understood.

Reproductive Endocrinology - a specialty in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology which treats reproductive disorders and infertility

IVF - In Vitro Fertilisation - a fertility treatment in which an egg is placed with a sperm cell in a laboratory culture dish, cultured for several days, and subsequently placed into the uterus

Stimulated IVF - fertility drugs are used to stimulate the growth of multiple ovarian follicles bearing eggs to increase the chance of pregnancy

Natural IVF - fertility drugs are not used and this considerably lowers the medical risks and costs of treatment. Only one egg is produced and retrieved, but it is believed the single egg may be more viable than the multiple eggs produced in stimulated IVF.

IUI - intrauterine insemination - a fertility treatment in which the sperm are washed and then placed within the uterus to fertilise an egg. Washing the sperm removes a substance causing uterine contractions that could expel the egg and also eliminates substances that adversely affect the quality of the sperm.