“Talk to her, Conor,” he said in his most serious voice. This was what everybody recommended. Communication. Openness.
“How can I talk to her if she won’t let me in to see her?”
Gary was at a loss. He’d only come around to find out if Mary Murphy had any kinky little tricks involving foodstuffs.
He pictured himself at his desk in the office and he immediately felt better. “That seems to me to be very unfair, Conor. Especially as she’s carrying your baby.”
“Well, it’s hers too,” Conor felt he had to point out.
“Yes, but even if she doesn’t want to see you, does that give her the right to deny you access to your unborn child?”
Conor blinked rapidly a few times. He wasn’t at all sure what Gary was on about. But Gary sounded very confident and certain about things, which was more than Conor was right now.
“I love her, you know. Desperately,” he announced without any embarrassment. “I’ve always loved her. I could never love anybody else.”
Gary wasn’t embarrassed either. He was half-shot. Neither of them had eaten.
“Yes, yes,” he said soothingly. “But let’s get back to the visitation rights. I’m not sure where the law stands on this when it comes to unborn children, but I could find out.”
“I just want to see her,” Conor said. “I want to talk to her. I can talk too, you know. Look at me, I’m talking now!”
“Of course you are!” Gary said staunchly. He was damned sure that there was no law existing regarding visitation rights over unborn children. Was it possible that he could set a precedent here? Get his name in the history books?
“That’s what went wrong, you see,” Conor admitted, peering over at Gary. “I let her down after the miscarriage.”
Gary blinked. “The miscarriage?”
“Didn’t Neasa tell you?”
“Of course she did,” Gary lied, surprised at how hurt he felt. Why hadn’t Neasa told him? “Anyway, go on.”
Conor looked at Gary’s fleshy, avid face and sobered instantly. This wasn’t the kind of thing you talked about with total strangers, tanked up on beer. It had been the most vulnerable, hurtful time of their marriage and it was intensely private.
Conor had never encountered death before at close hand and it had terrified him. He was hurled into a pit of black thoughts about mortality and had ceased to see the point in any of it. He saw the dangers of becoming too dependent on someone who might so easily die. Look at the newspapers! It happened every day! Women and men were killed in car crashes, in fires, in domestic accidents. They were drowned, murdered, or they died of illness. Women even died in that most natural of human activities, childbirth. Not many, it was true. But women still died. It was in the pregnancy book in the chapter on complications.
Conor felt so overwhelmed by morbidity that on some days he could hardly speak to Emily at all, much less connect with her.
Her feelings seemed a much simpler affair to him. She grieved openly and copiously and wanted to talk endlessly. Insisted upon it, in fact, as though her way was the only way of dealing with things. But she’d already had experience of the process with her father’s death, and seemed to know instinctively what to do, which was to seek support. And so her need for him was suddenly huge and desperate, a need that she had never really had before. He was unprepared and unpractised and, anyhow, was in denial. He felt like he was choking. He reacted in a knee-jerk way by rationalising, by offering her logic.
She believed that he was not as affected as her and there were accusations that he had not wanted the baby in the first place. At the same time the understanding was very clearly there that this event had happened primarily to Emily. Which it had, of course, in a physical sense.
Conor was very confused. He needed to talk but couldn’t, and anyway, it seemed that Emily’s feelings were more valid and that he was merely there to support her, as always.
He couldn’t. He did not know how to deal with her pain. He had not seen this side to bubbly, optimistic Emily before and it was disconcerting. Certainly, his old ways of bucking her up didn’t work now. He felt that he was abandoning her at her most vulnerable time. They were on wholly new territory and both of them were treading on minefields. Conor felt that every time he opened his mouth, or kept it closed, he let her down.
He knew he had. He saw it every time he looked in her eyes, and he couldn’t bear it. But she did not end it, as he feared she might.
Instead she moved on. She started to enjoy her work again, and to smile, and to make friends with total strangers. Conor took his cue from her and pretended that he had moved on too.
It was around that time that Ffion Rivera made her little joke. And two months later, Emily got pregnant again.
“Will we go to Milo’s?” Gary asked, without any heart. He really was very upset with Neasa. Oh, he was all right for sex, but could not be trusted with confidences. Hell, she’d only told him about Emily and Conor after she’d made that phone call to Germany. It was like his opinion didn’t really count for much. Sometimes, he felt a bit like . . . well, like a toy!
“No, I’m a bit tired,” Conor said.
“Me too. Knackered.”
Both of them stood awkwardly and quickly. Gary was glad to leave and Conor was glad to see him go.
Emily was not in her bed.
“She never is,” Nurse V Mooney said with a disapproving sniff.
Neasa had come up against bigger and better than Nurse V Mooney. “Where is she so?”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“You do try and keep tabs on the patients?”
Nurse V Mooney’s eyes narrowed a little. “We stopped chaining them to their beds a while ago now.”
Neasa gave a frosty, I’m-going-to-sue look. “I hope for your sake she hasn’t done anything stupid.”
After combing all the wards on the floor, Neasa was getting worried. But Emily wouldn’t do anything rash. She was pregnant, right? Neasa suddenly remembered the picket line outside the hospital. Surely to God she hadn’t got dragged into that?
“Oh, hi, Neasa!”
Neasa whirled around to find Emily cradling a tiny baby, cooing and smiling beatifically.
“Isn’t she just the most beautiful little thing you’ve ever seen?”
Neasa peered at the baby suspiciously. “It’s not yours, is it?”
“God, no. It’s Cathy’s. She let me hold her for a while. Isn’t she just lovely?”
“Lovely.” It wasn’t true that all newborn babies looked exactly alike. This one was particularly ugly, with a big thatch of coarse hair and a face that was all bent sideways.
“Forceps delivery,” Emily murmured, and Neasa swallowed hard.
“Let’s go and talk,” she said firmly.
“But I’ve only just got her,” Emily said.
“Now.”
Neasa watched as Emily reluctantly turned and handed the baby back to a big, rough-looking woman, the kind who wouldn’t mind giving birth in a cowshed. The woman tucked the baby under one oxter and pressed a crinkled sheet of paper into Emily’s hand.
“Good on you, girl.”
Neasa wondered if Emily had got involved in running some kind of underground tuck-shop or something.
She waited until they were in the murky visitors’ room before asking.
“Oh, it’s just a petition,” Emily said, offhanded. “To stop the hospital closing. I’ve been getting a few signatures.”
Neasa sighed. Only Emily could get dragged into revolutionary activity during a personal crisis.
“Look, Emily, I rang that place like you wanted me to.”
Emily looked at her with those big, trusting eyes and Neasa’s heart broke. But she told Emily about the hotel, the receptionist, the fax, Room 134 and Mary Murphy.
“I just hate being the one to tell you this, Emily,” she finished, illustrating this by letting two big fat tears slide down her face.
“Oh, Neasa.”
“
No, really, I wasn’t going to tell you at all. I didn’t know what to do,” Neasa cried.
“It’s all right, I already knew,” Emily said.
“Did you?” Neasa said hopefully.
“Yes.”
Neasa was greatly relieved not to be the bearer of horrible news. Belatedly, she remembered that she was supposed to be consoling Emily.
“Anyway,” she said quickly, rooting in her bag and taking out a draft separation agreement. “I’ll act for you, of course. For free. By the time we’re finished with that bastard he won’t have money for condoms, never mind hotel rooms.”
Emily looked at the separation agreement for a moment. “Neasa, I’m not filing for separation.”
Neasa understood. “Sure, you probably want to wait until you get out of hospital. But I’ll have him out of the house by then. Don’t you worry about that. I’ve already made arrangements to have the locks changed first thing in the morning. And maybe we should go for a barring order too?”
“He’s not going to be leaving the house, Neasa.”
“Okay,” Neasa said more slowly. “A mistake, in my opinion. You know the rule – never, ever give up the marital home. I mean, where are you going to live?”
“I’m not going to be leaving the house either.”
“Right . . .” Neasa said eventually. “This could bugger up visitation rights – you know, for the baby. If you’re both living in the same house.” Her face cleared. “Unless, of course, you took one floor each. Now, that might work.”
“It’s a bungalow,” Emily reminded her.
Neasa lost patience. “What the hell are we going to do then? As your solicitor, you’ve left me with very few options here!”
Emily knew that Neasa would think her terribly weak. “I know. But the fact is, I’m not going to do anything.”
“You have to do something!”
“Why?”
“Why? Why? Because that big shitty bastardy cheat of a two-timing fucker did the dirt on you! Betrayed you! Humiliated you! Let you down!”
“There’s no need to rub it in.”
“And you’re just going to let him get away with it?”
“Neasa, I know you’re on my side here –”
“Too bloody right I am!” Neasa was very upset. “Are we just going to let these kind of men make fools of us time and again?”
“No, of course not –”
“Should they not be punished in any way?”
“I suppose –”
“So what’s all this ‘he’s not moving out’ shit? Emily, have you no dignity?”
Emily had known that this would be difficult. “It’s not about dignity. Look, I have things to think about. A lot of things. And I’m not going to do anything rash.”
Neasa looked at her. “You’re going to stay because you feel you ought to. Aren’t you? You’re going to stay because of the baby.”
“The baby is a consideration. Of course it is – I wouldn’t be much of a person if I didn’t think about the baby!” But Emily did her best not to get angry, because she knew this whole thing was more about Neasa than herself. “But the baby isn’t everything, Neasa.”
“Don’t tell me you still love him?” Neasa asked in disgust.
“I don’t know what I feel about him right now.”
Neasa stood, looking on the verge of more tears. “I really think you’re letting yourself down, Emily. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t put up with it. I’d have too much self-respect.”
And she jerkily left the visitors’ room, taking the separation agreement with her. Emily took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She had expected much of what Neasa said, but not all of it. Something must have happened with Gary. From the smell of Neasa’s breath, she’d had more than one gin & tonic.
But Emily had once had the same ideals as Neasa, hadn’t she? They all had, Jackie and Deirdre too, on those drink-fuelled nights down in Milo’s. They were very young back then, of course, and single, and had had very high expectations of men in general, and potential husbands in particular. There had been an unofficial list of Necessary Qualities which had included intelligence, a sense of humour, earning power, sexual prowess, middling-to-good looks, a hairless back, some cooking ability (though Neasa pointed out that this wasn’t absolutely vital if he had the earning power to take them out for meals instead) and a car. Most important, he had to be desperately, desperately in love with them. Crazily. Suicidally, even!
Because what could possibly go wrong if he was mad about them? And as for infidelity? Ooooh! Out the door! This very instant, without even a coat on his back! Whatever else happened, they wouldn’t stand for that kind of thing, they would hiss venomously. If he even looked too hard at another woman, he was in grave danger.
At this point, Neasa would go to the bar to refuel with four pints of Heineken.
But as they got older, and the men they went out with were invariably and heart-breakingly lacking in most of the above-mentioned qualities, the girls had come to expect less. Not that they ever admitted this in their nights in Milo’s. No, they made excuses for their men instead. “But he’s very good with the garden,” they would sincerely explain to each other. “And he’s mad about me.” At this, the girls would shrug, nod grimly, and agree, “Well, I suppose if he’s mad about you . . .”, whilst pulling faces behind their hands.
In the end, only Neasa had shouted ‘No compromise!’ and would view the others’ relationships as though they were odd, unnameable matter in a Petri dish. Emily hadn’t been offended. It was all subjective. At the end of the day, love was a peculiar thing and there was no accounting for taste.
They had all held firm on the infidelity issue though, and Emily acutely felt the pressure now To Do The Right Thing and kick him out, if only to show the girls and everybody else that she was no pushover this time. She hated herself for always caring so much what other people thought of her.
Not that she had ruled out a separation agreement by any means. In fact she was giving it a lot of thought. But there were long-term implications of any action and Emily knew that she must continue to resist the temptation to do something in the heat of the moment.
Everything had been thrown to the four winds. How she would piece things back together she did not know. And Conor was only a part of this.
She stood and tidied up the visitors’ room. As an afterthought, she ripped down the defaced vaccination poster of the baby and put it in the bin. Then she opened a window and let some fresh air in.
Her little ministrations didn’t make a whit of difference. It was still a nasty, grim room. What this room needed, she thought, was to be blown sky-high and rebuilt again.
The vindaloo appeared to work. Trish went into labour that evening, very fast, and was carted off to Delivery immediately, smiling between the pains.
“I’m delighted,” she kept saying. “Delighted.”
“Good girl, Trish,” Nurse V Mooney said in satisfaction. Not that there was anything wrong with being induced; it was just always nicer to get off the starting blocks by yourself. “I’ll ring Aidan,” she promised.
“Oh, no need,” Trish panted. “I’ll have had it by the time he gets his mother over to look after the rest of them.”
After she was gone, Maggie came over and huddled on Emily’s bed.
“Do you think she’ll get to the epidural in time?”
“I don’t know,” Emily admitted.
“I tried to book one, you know,” Maggie said. “But they told me that you can’t book epidurals in advance.”
Maggie was very fearful about the whole thing. She was a severe asthmatic and had been hospitalised after a particularly frightening episode. She would not be going home until she had her baby, due nearly three weeks before Emily’s.
“Put it down on your birth plan that you want one,” Emily advised.
“I have, in big red letters,” Maggie said, chewing her lower lip nervously. “I’ve put it down on Tiernan’s as well.”
“Tiernan has his own birth plan?” Emily enquired, after a bit.
“Oh no, just a copy of mine. In case it gets lost,” Maggie explained. “We want to be absolutely sure that everything goes the way we want.”
It seemed a bit rigid to Emily but she said nothing.
“How long will Trish be in, do you think?” Maggie asked now.
“I don’t know,” Emily said. She wished that Maggie didn’t think that she was the font of all wisdom. If she only knew.
“I got all my relatives to sign the petition for you, by the way,” Maggie said.
“It’s not my petition,” Emily explained again.
Expecting Emily Page 17