Read The Would-Begetter Online
Authors: Maggie Makepeace
The Would-Begetter
Maggie Makepeace
Book Three After Another Seven Years…
1983
Chapter 1
‘But what if your wife’s here?’ Jess asked anxiously as she and her colleague turned in at the gate and drove up towards the house. It was an imposing drive which led to a preposterous mansion with turrets.
‘My soon to be ex-wife,’ Hector corrected, ‘and she won’t be. She’s a workaholic, always has been. I always assumed it was a form of displacement activity. You know what I mean? I thought she was unable to do what she really wanted, i.e. have babies, so she was busying herself with her job with a kind of manic energy as a distraction from her inner conflict. I saw a nice example of that kind of thing last night, as a matter of fact, on one of those
Survival
programmes. These two big fat herring-gulls were facing each other and yanking up great beakfuls of grass, when what they were bursting to do (but daren’t) was peck each other senseless.’
‘I’ve never found Megan particularly aggressive?’
‘You should try living with her!’ Hector raised both eyebrows expressively. ‘No, what I’m trying to say is that it just never occurred to me that she might not have normal maternal instincts.’
‘But you both married quite late on?’
‘Well she was thirty, but that’s common enough these days.’
‘So you thought she was just waiting for the right moment to marry and start a family?’
‘The right moment and the right man.’ Hector frowned. ‘I suppose I just took it for granted that we’d have kids. Doesn’t everyone?’
‘Not really,’ Jess said, letting out a small sigh.
Hector didn’t appear to notice it. ‘I mean, I thought we’d been trying for a baby and Megan was just failing to conceive. I was really supportive to the bloody female. I even went to
the length of getting myself
tested
for God’s sake! And all the time… I’ll never understand the woman. How could she do it to me? She was taking the pill all along, you know,
secretly
. She never even discussed it with me; a major issue like that! Then on my birthday, my fortieth birthday no less, when a chap needs something
positive
to counteract the horrors of middle-age-made-manifest, what does she do, but calmly tell me that not only has she never wanted children, but now she’s worried about the long-term effects of the pill, so she’s decided to go the whole hog and get herself
sterilized!’
‘It must have been awful for you,’ Jess said. She glanced at him as he drove and was surprised to see the tension in him. His handsome face was flushed and he was gripping the steering wheel with two clenched fists.
It had been a standing joke for some time amongst the other employees of the
Westcountry Chronicle
, that Hector Mudgeley, after seven unproductive years of marriage, must surely be several sperm short of a dynasty. It was no secret that he wanted an heir to keep the Mudgeley name alive, so they had been keeping a book, and the odds got longer as each year passed.
Jess had often wondered why someone like Hector would want to stay in an undistinguished small town like Woodspring-on-Sea, but concluded that he must enjoy being a big noise in a confined space. He seemed to be involved in every important decision that was ever taken locally. He was a Councillor, a School Governor, and a member of several committees concerned with planning and the conservation of wildlife and landscape, yet he still found time to work on the
Chronicle
. Jess was unfailingly impressed by his vigour and enthusiasm. She wondered if he had ambitions to be Editor. There was no obvious line of succession, the present one being about his age, and Hector’s immediate boss, the News Editor, several years younger than him. Perhaps he would be content to go on being Senior Reporter until he retired? Jess hoped that she too would continue in her post as Photographer for many more years. She got on well with most of her fellows, and she had no hankerings for the uncertainty of the freelance life.
Poor Hector, she thought, glancing round and seeing his
expression, I shouldn’t have encouraged him to talk about children. I must try to take his mind off the subject.
‘Well then of course I had no option,’ Hector continued, braking hard and stalling the car outside the front door, ‘I just had to start divorce proceedings.’
‘Better than chopping her head off,’ Jess said, thinking of Henry VIII.
Hector got out of the car and, bending his long back, looked at her through the open door. ‘Sometimes, Jess Hazelrigg, I really worry about you.’
Why do men always say things like that to me? Jess thought crossly. I don’t want to be worried about. I want
passion
. Inside the porch she looked about her with some trepidation. What if Megan were to be lurking somewhere? She felt uncomfortable but vaguely excited at the thought.
‘What are we doing here?’ she asked. ‘I thought we were going straight to do the interview with Caroline Moffat. I’ve got to be at the garage to collect the Jeep by lunchtime (if they’ve managed to fix it) and then I’m supposed to be up on the Mendips at one thirty, with a chap who says he’s seen a puma.’
‘I want you to take some pics of the house,’ Hector said. ‘Relax. It won’t take a moment. I’ve brought a colour film with me. Here…’
‘For the paper?’ Jess asked, taking it.
‘No, strictly unofficial. I just want some photos, especially of the interiors. It’s morally just as much mine as Megan’s, you know. I put a lot of time and money into this house.’
‘So why is she living here now, and not you?’
Hector sighed. ‘It’s been in her family for a long time,’ he said. ‘It’s her home. Then seven years ago her parents gave it to us as a wedding present and moved to Wales. So I can hardly throw her out now, can I?’
Lost ancestral homes were another touchy subject for Hector, Jess remembered just in time, so she said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Why do you need the photos then?’
‘Inquisitive little madam, aren’t you? Simply because if I’m never to be allowed to live here again, I want a record of what a lovely house I once had.’ He stood aside politely to let her
go through the door first, and then added, ‘But also, if I’m honest, because I like to make hay whilst the cat’s away!’
Jess snorted at this. ‘But you can see the house any time, presumably, since you’ve got a key?’
‘Not a lot escapes those fine brown eyes, does it?’ Hector said. ‘Those specs of yours must be bionic.’ He patted her arm. ‘Just call it forethought,’ he said. ‘Sooner or later the stupid woman is bound to wake up to reality and get the locks changed. But when that happens, I’ll still have my pics. Why don’t you come up here? It’s a great vantage point.’ He led her upstairs into one of the round turret rooms, which was papered with blue elephants and an alphabet frieze.
They stood side by side at the arc of windows and looked down the long view to a distant river. ‘This was to have been Morgan’s room,’ Hector said. ‘Megan let me go ahead and get it decorated specially; never said a word!’
‘Morgan who?’
‘My future son. Morgan Caradoc, named after my grandfather. Goes well doesn’t it, Morgan Caradoc Mudgeley?’
‘But you can’t name someone before they’re even born, can you?’ Jess asked. ‘I mean, what if you called a daughter Melanie and her hair turned out to be blonde, instead of black? Don’t you have to wait and see? A baby might not look like a Morgan, after all.’
‘Mine will,’ Hector said, staring at the horizon.
‘But…?’
‘Oh this won’t be his room now,’ Hector said, turning to face her. ‘I’m quite aware of that, but there’ll be other rooms.’ He nodded as if to convince himself further. ‘I’ve no choice, you see. Ifor, my elder brother, has a gaggle of sweet girls, but he and his wife have just announced that they reckon they’ve bred enough, and to hell with posterity. So if he’s not going to beget a son to carry on the name, it falls to me. I’m duty bound to produce the heir myself.’
‘With a little help from a friend?’
‘That’s the only inconvenient bit,’ Hector said, breaking into an unexpectedly warm grin. ‘But there’s still time. I’m sure it can be arranged.’
Jess thought, he’s so good-looking, and his face really softens when he smiles.
‘I don’t know how it is that you’ve managed to snare me into this full and frank discussion,’ Hector said, now looking rather embarrassed, ‘but you will keep it to yourself, won’t you?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Jess said happily. ‘I’m the very soul of discretion.’
Hector hadn’t meant to discuss his personal problems with Jess. He had temporarily overlooked the fact that she was a woman, and therefore predisposed to gossip. He had got so used to working with her that to him she had become virtually sexless; just a good mate. In any event, he consoled himself, he hadn’t confided in her too recklessly. He hadn’t told her his latest plan of campaign. It would probably be politic not to divulge that to anyone, yet. He regarded her with an avuncular smile. How old was she, mid-twenties? She was far too young and much too feminist; she wouldn’t understand.
He wondered how many people would. It wasn’t fashionable, in these days of equal opportunity, to be so determined to produce a son to keep the bloodline going, but then most people were carelessly unaware of their own distant ancestry. Hector could trace his family back seven generations to Sir John Mudgeley, the third Baronet, who had built himself an elegant country house in 1765 and named it Zoyland Park… Hector sighed, and stared out of the window trying to think of something else.
He supposed it must be a recent piece he’d done for the paper that had been responsible for getting him into this imperative frame of mind… It had been about a man of his own age, about to marry, but dying from a sudden heart attack on his stag night… The story had affected Hector more than usual; given him intimations of mortality? Yes, he thought, that must be it. After all, my father and his father and
his
father all died in their sixties. It could happen to me. Maybe I’ve got less than twenty years left? If only bloody Megan hadn’t put me on hold for seven years, I might have had three or four sons by now. And then of course I could be killed in a road accident tomorrow. Who knows? There’s no time to waste. But I might only get one shot at it, so it’s got to be right
first time
. I can’t afford another empty marriage…