Like One of the Family

by Nesta Tuomey

  Claire’s father moved out on a Sunday. Before he went away they all sat about the dining-table and ate their last meal together.

  Annette sat, red-eyed and withdrawn, at one end of the table, ladling soup into bowls. For the occasion she had cooked their favourite dinner of roast beef, parsley stuffing and roast potatoes. Claire toyed with her portion, too full of tears to eat. Her father looked at his loaded plate as though he didn’t know where to begin.

  ‘Will you say grace or shall I?’ Annette asked.

  He shrugged, ‘Whatever you like,’ and left it to her.

  Grace? When did they ever say grace, Claire thought. But Annette was determined to bless this last supper. ‘For what we are about to receive Oh Lord...’ she began, the words fluid and familiar on her tongue. Suddenly her voice died in her throat. She bowed her head and a tear fell on her hand. Claire looked away uncomfortably. Please God don’t let her cry, she silently begged. Her father cleared his throat.

  ‘Now don’t start that,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ Annette found her voice.

  ‘This emotional blackmail.’

  ‘If you can think that there’s no point in saying anything more.’ She spoke with painful dignity.

  ‘Annette, just what are you trying to say?’ He was frowning, but he strove to be patient. What he would really like to do, Claire thought, is slap her about.

  ‘You must allow me some emotions after fifteen years of wedded bliss,’ Annette said ironically. ‘I’m not apologising for my feelings, nor am I using them as a means of getting back at you.’

  ‘Very well,’ he conceded. ‘I’m sorry. I spoke quickly, without thinking. I was afraid you were going to cling on to me. Make it all so much harder.’

  ‘I suppose I might if I thought it would make any difference,’ Annette said very quietly.

  Christopher had been eating all this time but now he threw down his knife and fork with a clatter. He swallowed a sob and fisted his eyes. Like he used to do, Claire suddenly remembered with a pang, when he was a little boy. Centuries ago.

  Claire laid down her fork, unable to swallow any more food. Christopher’s sobs continued jerkily. The tears flowed in dirty rivulets down his cheeks. He had been playing ball in the garden before lunch and neglected to wash his hands. Jim moved his chair over beside him.

  ‘We’ll go to a football match very soon, Chris old man,’ he said, putting an arm about him. ‘I’ll get tickets and call over for you one day. We’ll have a great time.’

  Christopher tried to speak but only succeeded in making an unhappy sputtering sound.

  ‘Stop now... for pity’s sake, stop!’ Jim shaded his eyes with his hand.

  But Christopher could not stop shaking. He began to hiccup. Claire too found she was trembling and sick. When it was time for her father to go she threw her arms around his neck, and began to cry.

  ‘There now,’ Jim soothed her, and tried to joke. ‘Isn’t it a pity I have to be leaving home for my family to show any affection.’ Christopher moaned faintly.

  Jim left the room. They heard his footsteps heavily climbing the stairs. Annette went to the window and fidgeted with the curtain. Claire and Christopher sat slumped at the table, not looking at each other.

  Jim came downstairs again, carrying his case, and passed the dining-room. Annette turned impulsively from the window and took a few hurried steps forward as though to call him back. Then as the front door closed she sighed and stood still.

  Christopher put his head down on the table and sobbed inconsolably. ‘He’s gone... he’s gone... and I really liked him.’ Claire sucked on her knuckles till they bled. Annette stared at her children, then gave a despairing cry and rushed out of the room.

  Later that evening as Claire passed along the landing she saw her mother in her room, just sitting on the bed, so she went in.

  ‘I’ve just been sitting here and thinking,’ Annette said.

  ‘What about?’ Claire asked cautiously. She didn’t really want to know her mother’s thoughts, but felt she must ask.

  ‘About the last fifteen years.’ Annette smiled wanly at her, not really seeing her, still in the past. Claire noticed the small pile of snapshots on the bed.

  ‘Pictures of you and Christopher when you were little... and Bella.’ It was the first time she had mentioned the baby in a long time. Bella was their pet name for her. Arabella Angela Shannon. After Annette’s mother and an aunt of their father’s.

  ‘Can I see?’ Claire felt a sudden desire to look at her sister once more. Annette fumbled amongst the photographs and extended one to her. Claire gazed at it for a long time.

  ‘She was a dote, wasn’t she?’ Annette peered over Claire’s shoulder. ‘When I was a couple of months pregnant I nearly lost her. I got a show and had to stay in bed. Do you remember?’

  ‘No,’ Claire lied. She did not want to hear any gory details.

  ‘She was such a little angel when she was born. I suppose I always knew she was too perfect to live,’ Annette began to weep, slow painful tears. ‘Maybe it would have been better if I had lost her earlier. Better for all of us. I wouldn’t have known what I was losing.’

  Claire didn’t answer. She wished her mother would stop. She turned away.

  ‘Oh my baby, my baby.’ Annette sobbed, putting out her arms blindly to hold Claire. She sat quietly in her mother’s embrace. Why can’t I feel more than I do? she thought. She was not entirely unmoved by Annette’s tears but felt disassociated from them, as though witnessing a stranger’s grief. After a time Annette stopped crying.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said. ‘I just felt so low. It seems I’ve made a complete mess of things.’

  ‘No, you haven’t,’ Claire said staunchly. ‘You’re not to blame.’

  Annette hugged her tearfully. ‘What a funny girl you are,’ she said, ‘and there I was thinking you had no feeling in you at all. But you do care, don’t you?’

  There was nothing to say. Claire stood up, suddenly longing to be in her own room, on her own. Her mother went sniffling to the dressing-table and scooped up tissues to mop her eyes. Claire hesitated.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  Annette turned around. ‘Do I look all right?’ She attempted a laugh.

  Claire regarded her gravely. ‘Yes, you look fine.’ Her mother did look better as though the tears had released some of the awful strain of parting. She hung awkwardly in the doorway, waiting to be dismissed.

  ‘Off you go,’ Annette said, patting her averted cheek. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right now.’

  Claire nodded and turned away. She shut the door of her bedroom with an overwhelming sense of relief.

  THREE

  When Claire went across to Sheena’s house after school the next afternoon, Jane looked at her and said, ‘Claire! Is something the matter?’ Claire began to cry. Embarrassed, she put her hands up to her face and scrubbed her eyes.

  ‘Claire, come into the kitchen.’ Jane pulled her gently across the threshold and put her sitting down. All control gone, Claire sobbed brokenly.

  ‘I’m such a nuisance,’ she moaned through her tears.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Jane said, ‘You’re anything but.’

  That made her cry more.

  ‘Don’t bottle it up,’ Jane said. ‘Let it all out and then you can tell me what’s wrong.’ She turned away to heat milk in the microwave for the milky coffee Claire loved. Claire dried her eyes. She felt very tired, as though she had been walking a long time.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ she said, taking a sip

  Jane smiled. ‘Good. You looked so cold and pinched when you came in. It’s what you need.’

  Claire nodded.

  ‘Okay,’ Jane said, after a moment. ‘Now tell me. Is it your father?’

  At the mention of him the tears blinded Claire’s eyes again. ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice hurting her throat. ‘He left yesterday... we were having lunch and he just got up and...’ She couldn’t go on.

/>   Jane sighed. ‘It’s hard, Claire. I know! But maybe it’s for the best.’

  How could it be? She had lost her father as surely as if he were dead.

  ‘What I mean to say,’ Jane went on, correctly divining her expression, ‘your parents will now have a chance to assess and correct what’s gone wrong between them. When you are too close to someone it’s often hard to find the right solution. A bit of space can work wonders, you know.’

  Claire stared at her uncomprehendingly. What had all of that got to do with anything? Her father had walked out on them. He had left them, not for the best, but to go and live with some other woman. There! What she’d tried to keep from admitting was out. ‘I hate him and I’m glad he’s gone,’ she said passionately.

  ‘Try not to blame him too much,’ Jane said gently. ‘I’m sure he’s as sad as any of you. Men find it much harder than women to analyse their feelings.’ She leaned across and squeezed Claire’s hand. ‘You are such a lovely girl, Claire. It would be a tragedy if you became bitter and allowed this to ruin your life.’

  Claire allowed her hand to lie in Jane’s trying not to weep again. Jane seemed to sense this.

  ‘Don’t be afraid of emotion, Claire,’ she said. ‘It can sweep us away but isn’t that better than being cold and unfeeling.’ After a moment she went on, ‘I would like to think if you ever had any little problem you felt you couldn’t tell your mother that you would bring it to me.’

  Claire was startled. Had she found out, was that it? It was like someone you had stolen from hinting they knew what you’d done and expecting you to give yourself up of your own accord. Only Jane couldn’t know, or could she?

  So successfully had Claire compartmentalised her feelings about Eddie that up to this she had experienced little or no guilt. It was all so fantastic, so out of the ordinary, so beyond her control. True, in fantasies she sometimes saw herself confessing and begging Jane’s pardon. Then Jane was the one to take her in her arms and stroke and pleasure her. Claire sometimes saw herself like a small rubber ball bobbing about between the pair of them, veering rather more slightly towards the one than the other, depending on which way the current was pulling.

  ‘Think over what I’ve said,’ Jane stood up. ‘Remember, love, I have your best interests at heart.’

  Jane was her friend, she told herself. She really was.

  ‘I have to take the children to the dentist at five so I’d better round them up.’ Jane smiled at Claire, ‘Why don’t you stay on a bit. Teresa went home early. You can pull the front door after you.’

  It was warm in the kitchen, a nice contrast to her own house. Claire felt drowsy and relaxed, like she felt in a warm bath, reluctant to move but knowing she should climb out and dry herself. She sat on, promising herself every minute to get up and go home. She always had a lot of homework on Monday nights.

  She awoke to see him standing in the doorway.

  ‘What! All on your own. Where is everybody?’ Eddie advanced into the room, removing his topcoat and flinging it in a chair. He stripped off his gloves and laid them on the table. He gave her a little sidelong smiling glance, in high good humour.

  ‘So we are alone at last, Claire-bear.’ He’d heard Ruthie calling her that. She didn’t know whether she liked it or not. She felt muzzy from sleep. Her hair was dishevelled, her mouth dry. Her gymslip was crumpled, riding high on her bare thighs. She saw him glancing down at them.

  He turned away. She thought he was going out again but it was merely to switch off the light. In the gloom she saw him coming towards her.

  In late spring, just after Hugh made his Confirmation, the Irish government announced their proposal to insert an amendment clause in the Constitution. By voting Yes in the referendum Irish people would ensure that abortion would never be legalised in their country.

  In their different medical camps Eddie and Jane McArdle were taken up with campaigning against the amendment on the grounds that it was unnecessary. Eddie maintained that the law, as it stood, provided for the physical and mental well-being of pregnant women who found themselves in a dangerous life-threatening situation. Doctors were making their own compassionate decisions and could be trusted not to allow a developing foetus to endanger the life of the mother. He claimed too that the wording of the amendment was faulty and, if passed, would leave the way open to all kinds of misinterpretation. He was ultimately proved to be right but none of all this was clear at the time of the referendum.

  Jane was concerned that the amendment might even prevent pregnant women from leaving the country to seek abortions abroad. For some years she had been involved in counselling the victims of rape as well as giving her professional services to a birth control clinic two days a week. In no way involved in assisting in or procuring abortions, or even offering referral advice to patients, she supported women’s right to freedom of choice and movement.

  As polling day drew near everyone was becoming more and more confused, and debates waxed ever fiercer between the less restrained of the pro-lifers and the right-to-choose activists. There were some nasty scenes in the city following demonstrations and pregnant single women went in fear of insult and attack.

  Because of the nature of her counselling work Jane was asked to go on television. She sat opposite the interviewer, smiling with an assurance she did not feel, and sincerely stated her views, saying she was against abortion and honestly believed all truly dedicated doctors were of the same opinion but, at the same time, she believed in the constitutional rights of women and felt the amendment could jeopardize those rights.

  ‘So in effect,’ the interviewer said, ‘you are saying that you support the right of women to seek abortion.’

  Jane shook her head. ‘I support their right to information regarding it and the freedom to make up their own minds.’

  ‘To have an abortion?’

  ‘Or not to have one.’

  The interviewer folded his arms and tried another tack. ‘So if a very young girl came to your surgery and it transpired that she was pregnant as the result of incestual rape, you would have no qualms about turning her away?’

  Jane had never been in such a position in all her years as a doctor but she had often wondered what she would do in such a situation. She tried tried to give an honest answer. ‘I cannot say for certain what I would do but my personal view on the matter is that in a very extreme case, for instance, where there might be a substantive risk not only to the life but the mental state of a women who was pregnant, say, as the result of rape or incestual abuse there might... just might... be an argument for abortion.’

  ‘Can you clarify this?’

  ‘If, say, the trauma suffered by the victim at the prospect of carrying the child full term was so great that she became suicidal or showed indications of trying to harm herself.’

  Nine years later such a case would come before the Supreme Court and the judges would decide that a fourteen year old girl, pregnant reportedly due to rape and thought likely to commit suicide if she was prevented from having an abortion, could be considered to come within these terms. But at the time Jane was speaking no such case had ever come to the public’s notice, although it was highly probable such cases existed.

  The interviewer, delighted at having provoked her into what he regarded as a contradiction of her earlier statement, began to harass her and twist her words, querying whether it was possible for a doctor to hold a personal opinion as distinct from a medical one on such a serious matter as abortion.

  Jane held her own as well as she could. She spoke movingly on the rights of the unfortunate women, victims of rape and sexual violence that she counselled in the clinic, but her compassion was the very weapon the interviewer used against her. By the time the interview was over the majority of viewers were confused as to Jane’s ethics and had gained the impression that she was actually in favour of abortion, irrespective of circumstance.

  During and after the show there were the usual amount of abusive calls from cranks and mi
sogynists. In the Sunday papers there was a follow-up and Jane was denounced by a bishop who said it was a sad look-out for Irish motherhood when the likes of Jane McArdle were given peak viewing time in order to corrupt and seduce the youth of the country.

  Jane tried not to be too cast down by the more vituperative of the letters that came pouring. She felt she had been grossly misrepresented and contemplated writing a letter to the papers clarifying her views, but Eddie strongly advised her against it, believing that the less said the sooner the whole thing would be forgotten. Sheena enjoyed all the notoriety. She told Claire she was hoping her mother would go on the Late, Late Show to vindicate herself. That would be really great.

  Hugh fared rather worse as a result of all the publicity. He came home one day, his forehead badly gashed. Jane thought he must have been in a fight, although as a rule Hugh was peaceable enough. Terry was the one who regularly fell in the door with a cut and swollen lip. She was not unduly worried until one evening she noticed bruising on Hugh’s back when he was undressing for bed. When questioned he mumbled something about slipping off the high bar at gym. He tried to make light of it but when she pressed him, reluctantly admitted there had been one or two bullying incidents on his way home from school.

  ‘Don’t fuss, Mum,’ Hugh said anxiously. ‘I can handle it.’

  But could he? Jane wasn’t so sure.

  It seemed that his spectacles had triggered off the first ill-natured remarks and after that, she suspected, the situation had escalated. Jane was incensed and rang St Gabriel’s to make an appointment to see the headmaster.

  He received her in his study with barely concealed dislike and, still seated, waved her to a chair. Jane, taken up with her grievance, hardly noticed his lack of courtesy. She told him why she had come.