Dr Rhys-Jones looked at her kindly. ‘It often isn’t. Some practitioners, usually men, I might add, tend not to consider premature menopause as a potential cause of infertility, but about two per cent of women do have the menopause before the age of forty, so it must be considered. Some even have it pre-puberty,’ she added, as if to suggest, ‘Look, it could be worse.’
Venetia felt her hands tremble as a flood of emotion built up inside her. ‘And if it is … what about children?’
‘A high-resolution ultrasound scan can show if you have eggs left. But you have to prepare yourself: you could have only a few months left in which to try and conceive. If you don’t have any eggs left, then a natural conception is, of course, impossible. The standard IVF process, as I’m sure you know, requires your egg and your husband’s sperm, so we can also rule that out. There is the option of egg donation,’ she continued slowly.
Jonathon let out a cynical snort. ‘Someone else’s eggs? Surely not, Venetia?’
Both women turned to look at him. ‘It depends on how much you want children, Mr von Bismarck.’
Outside the surgery, Jonathon and Venetia stood on the street, a sharp wind pinching their cheeks. Jonathon motioned to Gavin to let him into the car.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Venetia, looking to her husband for answers.
He looked at her contemptuously. ‘You know people are expecting us to have children. What am I supposed to tell them? My wife is incompetent?’
Venetia glared at him – for once her upset was overtaken by her fury. ‘Incompetent?’ she snarled. ‘I’m not one of your staff.’
‘I assume you knew this before we got married,’ replied Jonathon coldly, one foot already in the car. ‘You’ve been forcing me to come to these ridiculous sessions, making me feel that this problem has been something to do with me.’
Venetia felt punch-drunk – so stunned, she could barely get her words out. ‘Are you still going to the office?’ she whispered.
He got in the car. ‘I should have been there two hours ago. Do you want Gavin to drop you at the house?’
She bit hard on the inside of her lip. She was not going to cry in front of him. ‘So you’re really going …?’ she repeated.
‘Let’s not start this again.’
‘But we have things to talk about.’
Jonathon turned to face her, his face impassive and cruel.
‘Talk about what? Egg donation? I’m not having some tart’s eggs transplanted into my wife in the name of children. We have the family to think about,’ he said, struggling to control his voice.
‘This is our family, Jonathon.’
‘The family line.’
Venetia shook her head angrily. ‘Jesus, Jonathon you sound like a bloody Nazi.’
‘It’s just how I feel. Now, are you getting in the car?’
She pulled her coat collar further up around her neck and shook her head.
‘Please, Venetia. Get a grip.’ Jonathon slammed the car door and the smoked electric window purred down. ‘And don’t forget we’ve got William and Beatrice coming round for drinks tonight. Can you please make sure you’re in a better mood?’
As the car pulled away, Venetia stood very still, quietly letting the tears roll down her face.
Cornwall Chambers was housed in an austere, imposing Georgian building on Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a prim London square that reeked of establishment values and dour respectability. However, inside, in the office of Charles McDonald, QC, there was a party atmosphere. Grey-haired men in Savile Row suits were smiling broadly and chinking glasses, a rare break in the usual sobriety of one of the best commercial practices in London.
Charles McDonald tapped his crystal tumbler of tonic water with the back of a silver teaspoon and cleared his throat.
‘I don’t need to tell you what a productive month these chambers have had,’ he said to his colleagues in his rich Edinburgh drawl. ‘So productive that I felt it would be rude not to finish it off with drinks, even though I’ll only be joining you with a mixer.’
Light laughter rang politely around the room. Barristers, particularly heads of chambers, were not known for their sense of humour, so any levity always raised a disproportionate amount of laughter.
‘Gerry and David,’ he nodded over to a round man with a florid face and to a smaller, thinner man in moon-shaped glasses by his side, ‘a fantastic win in the Petersham libel case. Look out for a page three interview with Gerry in next week’s Lawyer.’
More laughs as Charles once again raised his glass. ‘Can I also take this opportunity to congratulate Cornwall Chambers’ resident celebrity, Miss Camilla Balcon. A wonderful victory in the Kendall versus Simon case. I frankly thought it was unwinnable. Congratulations, Camilla.’
All the men in the room turned towards the attractive blonde woman in the corner, always grateful for an opportunity to look at her. Camilla Balcon nodded politely, smoothing down the skirt of her bespoke Gieves & Hawkes suit to look even more presentable for her audience.
As she sipped at her flute of champagne, she wondered whether this acknowledgement might finally trigger a more heavyweight and prestigious caseload. She was getting impatient to reach the top of the legal tree. For any other twenty-nine-year-old woman at the bar, Camilla Balcon’s career trajectory would have been termed stratospheric. Balliol College, Oxford, top five in her year at Bar school and a tenancy in one of London’s most elite chambers. In the last twelve months alone she had been junior counsel for the chambers’ top silks in three major fraud cases. She had a growing reputation as an astute and brutal cross-examiner in her own right, and consequently was topping six figures in yearly fees. Not bad for someone regularly dismissed as posh totty.
But still, it was not quite good enough for Camilla, whose entire life had been spent plotting her next conquest, her next brilliant achievement. It was her legacy as the third child in a high-achieving family. You either gave up before you’d even started, or you worked your damnedest to outshine them all. And Camilla wanted to shine.
She turned to look at her colleagues and reflected that they might just be the reason her career was going more slowly than she would like. While her commercial chambers had a fantastic reputation, with so much ego and talent in one building it was hard enough to get noticed, let alone scramble up the ladder. So while Charles McDonald might throw her the odd compliment during a Friday night’s drinks, she felt sure it was simply to pacify the chambers’ only female tenant.
A tall, gangly, but good-looking man bounded over with a bottle of Moët. ‘I see somebody’s glass needs a refill,’ said Matt Hornby, one of chambers’ senior clerks with a blush. ‘Charles has splashed out on the good stuff so we might as well quaff it.’
‘Just because it’s free, doesn’t mean we have to drink it all,’ said Camilla, holding out her glass with a coquettish smile. Aware that Matt, a twenty-five-year-old East Ender, had been hopelessly in love with her since she started at Cornwall Chambers, she didn’t want to encourage him, but he had a kind, handsome face, peppered with freckles, and she found it rather cute that he considered champagne such a treat.
‘Saw you in those Evening Standard party pages last night,’ continued Matt, drinking the Moët in nervous gulps. ‘So what are you up to this weekend that could possibly be more glamorous than tonight’s soirée?’
She laughed and sipped her champagne.