Read Donor, The for Free Online Page A

countries to see, love to fall in. I bet the woman on the brochure didn’t even have the disease. I bet when they wrapped the photo shoot she said, ‘Thanks, Maxie!’ whisked the plug from her unpunctured arm and went out shopping while eating a banana. Wish they’d have asked me to pose for it. I’d have done the Vicky and then the middle finger and then the loser sign and then scowled, ‘They are all liars! This is fuckin’ dreadful, I hate it and so will you!’
    Some say boredom enhances creativity. Sickly children go on to direct Oscar-winning films and pen Booker-winning books. I didn’t give a fuck about writing books or directing films. I wanted to go down the offie and then to Club Boho. I wanted to shag someone again. Would Alfred really be the love of my life? That’s it, that’s it, right there, Alfred, yes.
    There is something very unsexy about depending on someone. If I pulled him out, I’d regret it. So I wouldn’t. I’d semi-decline there, four times a week, four hours a go, and be thankful for Alfred while hating the very sight of him. For most people, I supposed, this is what marriage is like.
    I’d try hard not to look at Alfred, scouring the people-filled room instead. There’s:
    EVIE. She is fifty-two. Too old for her name. She has short bright red hair, probably a hangover from her art-teaching days. Her granddaughter bought her a portable DVD player and she watches BBC adaptations of Catherine Cookson novels on it. I can hear the dreary dark rain through her earphones.
    JIMMY. He’s forty. He’s heard a rumour he’s next to go. He rubs his phone as an expectant mother rubs her bursting nine-month belly.
    PEGGY. She’s very old. I don’t know how old. Being here doesn’t seem to worry her. Even though she knows she’s never getting a new one. I expect she sits still at home in the same way. Here, at least, she has SAMUEL to talk to.
    He’s around thirty-eight. He gets angry when people get the call inexplicably before him. He shouts at nurses, things like: ‘What is the system? How can this be? Did he use his connections? Did he pay? ’
    Samuel was talking about RON, forty-nine. He was very rich. Knew people. How come it only took three months for him to be whisked away and inserted with a red lump of life?
    And, of course, there’s Kay, sitting beside me, reading her books, taking notes carefully and optimistically, as if one day she will actually finish school, graduate, be a physiotherapist. As if.
    *
     
    ‘Georgie, how you feeling?’ Like clockwork, my father had arrived. Looking at his eyes evoked the same feelings as looking at Alfred. So I didn’t.
    ‘Bored,’ I said, staring blankly over his shoulder.
    ‘I brought your iPod. Put some new tunes on.’ He paused, sat down, fidgeted. ‘Georgie, I’m going away for a few days.’
    ‘Oh?’ I didn’t believe him. He sometimes made grand gestures at a change of routine ( We’ll go to Ireland for the weekend … We never did … never got further than Arran … I need to get out of this job … Didn’t. I’m going to write a horror film, starting next week … Never did … Let’s play badminton Thursdays, as a family … Yeah, yeah).
    He paused. ‘I’m going to find your mother.’
    I may have flinched a little, but within seconds my default ‘whatever’ had taken control again. Like he would get off his arse and do something meaningful. Like I didn’t know him too well. He’d go home after the visit, put on the telly, drink too much wine and forget all about it.
    I had a coping strategy. I wasn’t going to think about any of it any more. I wasn’t going to worry about my blood and how dirty it was and where it came from, and who it came from, any more. After Dad left, I decided to go out and find a boy. His name would not be Alfred.
    *
     
    ‘What colour would you say I am?’ I asked a boy who went by the name of Eddie. As usual, I felt tired and nauseous, but I was on a mission.
    ‘I dunno.