Expecting Emily

by Clare Dowling

  It did not. All through Neasa’s superb prawns with feta and olives, Gary went through every possible permutation. He wrote various combinations down on a paper napkin while his wild fruit crumble went cold. It was like an elaborate pick & mix at the sweet section of the cinema, only minus the fun. Neasa knocked back red wine and watched silently.

  Eventually he looked up. “I have a solution.”

  Thank Christ. “What?”

  “I’ll have to change my name.”

  He was joking, surely. But he was not.

  “Gary, it’s your name. Your identity. How can you change it?”

  “Deed poll,” he said. “Now, what would I call myself?”

  Neasa watched as he took a fresh napkin and came up with all kinds of unlikely surnames for himself: Gray, Greer, Gilmartin, Gunne, Garland. Garland?

  “I’d quite like it to start with a G. Alliteration and all that,” he told Neasa. “But not something like Glitter, obviously. That would be silly.”

  “Very,” Neasa said thinly, reaching for a fresh bottle of wine and taking it into the living-room. She would get very drunk tonight.

  Gary was on her heels. “Gary Gilmartin has a good ring to it, doesn’t it?”

  Yes, if he were a porn star. The scented candles dotted around the room gave off such a strong whiff that Neasa began to feel sick.

  Gary finally realised that he might be banging on a bit. And Neasa was all dressed up too, he noted rather sadly. Suspenders and all, he could see the telltale signs under her clingy dress. Sex would be on the agenda later on so. ‘Experimental’ to boot, if some of the items he’d seen in the fridge were anything to go by. Once, just once, he would like to flake out in front of Friends. But she had already opened the bottle of wine.

  He bit back a yawn. “What would you like to talk about, darling? Childhood memories? Deepest insecurities? Hopes and expectations?”

  “What would you like to talk about?” Neasa asked.

  Gary wanted to talk about his new name some more, but this wasn’t appropriate he knew. He was also rather worried about the way the radio on his BMW kept switching channels without warning. But this was too lightweight for the third bottle of wine. Then there was the way Annabel’s breasts always seemed to spill out over the top of her bra. Phil reckoned that her bras were deliberately a size too small. But this was yet something else that could not be shared with Neasa. He tried to think of a Deep and Meaningful topic of conversation but couldn’t. Fuck it, he just wasn’t a Deep and Meaningful type of guy!

  Gary wondered when he could become himself with Neasa. Because nobody was themselves at the beginning of a relationship. They were always somebody else; mysterious, witty, sexy, and never suffered from flatulence or bad hair days. But with his other girlfriends, Gary had gradually relaxed into himself, and had been able to break wind again. There was no relaxing with Neasa. It was all a terrible strain and he sometimes wondered whether she was worth it. But of course she was; she was the kind of woman who usually dumped Gary when she found out what he was really like.

  She was a catch all right. The other lads in the office looked up to him because they all unofficially knew he was sleeping with her. She never slept with them, and wasn’t likely to do so at any time in the future. She always looked terrific, and hadn’t put on a single pound in all the time they’d known each other. Some of Gary’s past girlfriends had let themselves go disgracefully once the first flush had passed. About the time he started to fart again, now that he thought about it.

  Sex, he thought with a sigh, dragging himself to a sitting position on the couch. Sex would keep her happy.

  My God, Neasa was thinking. Was it possible that they hadn’t a single word to say to each other? How could this have happened? Even with the cross-dresser, the sexist, the chat-room junkie – all of them – she’d always had something to talk to them about right up until the horrible moment of revelation.

  With Gary, there was no horrible moment of revelation. Just a slow, merciless disclosure of mildly offensive parts of himself. But nothing that Neasa could really put her finger on. Nothing that couldn’t be overlooked in the name of love. She was being too perfectionist, she told herself fiercely, that had always been her problem. This time, she must not jump ship. She must rescue the situation. She threw back the last of her wine and turned to him rather desperately.

  “Will we have sex? Mad, wild, brilliant sex?”

  “I was about to suggest the same myself,” Gary said, opening her bra with one hand. Neasa had always found this extremely sexy. Now she wondered just how many bras he had practised on to become so good.

  “I’ll just move over . . .”

  “No, no, I’m not that heavy, am I?”

  “Not at all . . . there we go. Oops! Sorry, did that hurt a lot?”

  “I’m fine, honestly. But if you’d take your hair out of my mouth . . .”

  “Sure, sorry . . .”

  The couch seemed far too small. But they pressed valiantly on anyway, ignoring the fact that there was a perfectly good king-size bed over their heads.

  “Come get it, Tiger,” Neasa said huskily. This usually drove Gary wild.

  “Miaow,” Gary said, sounding more like a puny kitten than a jungle animal.

  Neasa decided to take the initiative, and jumped on him. She sashayed and squirmed and shimmied for all she was worth. It was quite some time before she realised that there was a problem.

  “Um, I think I’m more tired than I thought,” Gary muttered.

  “Of course, and all that wine doesn’t help,” Neasa soothed. “Do you know what’s wrong?”

  “What?” Gary asked, slightly alarmed.

  “Over-use,” Neasa said, and they both laughed: a funny, forced laugh.

  Gary was absolutely mortified. Him! Failing to perform! What the blazes was going on?

  Cheeks hot, he struggled out from under Neasa and put the offending article firmly away. He could not look at her.

  “You know, maybe I’ll go home to my own place. Get a good night’s sleep.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Neasa said too readily.

  Jesus Christ, she was thinking, did he not fancy her any more? Was she not being exciting and innovative enough? But how much more innovative could she get without it becoming illegal?

  “Goodnight, sugar.”

  “Goodnight, sweet pea.”

  They must be using the last of Martha’s budget on the heating, because Brenda’s Ward was boiling that morning.

  “Open a window, Maggie, would you?”

  Maggie looked balefully over. “Do it yourself, you bitch.”

  She was sulking.

  Emily sighed and threw back the covers. Her belly looked absolutely massive this morning; it was blocking out half the light. And the baby was thrashing about fiercely, making the entire thing lop from side to side violently. It was a struggle to keep her balance as she sat up. Now, how to get down from the bed. The floor looked very far away.

  “Get Vera, would you?” she asked Maggie.

  “Will not,” Maggie sang.

  God, she was in a right old snit this morning. She was knitting with grey wool. A barbed wire fence, now that Emily looked closely. Maggie was such an amateur when it came to sit-ins. They’d cut through that in no time.

  Emily tentatively reached down with one toe for the floor, but no joy. She would have to slide down farther. But still there was no floor. She peeked down, saw that the floor was a good hundred metres away, and screamed just before she tumbled off the bed and into the abyss.

  “Rise and shine, girls.”

  Emily woke sweating, her heart pounding crazily, to see Vera at the end of her bed with the pressure cuff.

  “You’d better give me a minute,” she advised Vera. No sense in alerting the emergency caesarean team for nothing.

  “Bad dream?” Vera asked sympathetically, making for Maggie instead.

  “Nothing I haven’t had before.”

  But she’d never
fallen off a bed until now. A crane, yes. Cliffs and mountains regularly. And she’d once fallen off the roof of the Department of Justice. That had been the night before her final law exams. All her classmates had fallen off the top of the same building, she had later learned; the pavement beneath had been littered with the corpses of nervous law students. It had been a routine fear of failure dream before a big event. The next one they could expect was before their first day at work, they’d reassured themselves. After that, the night before they signed for their first mortgage, and then when they got married, or divorced. Really, it was quite a convenient way of anticipating big events, somebody had argued. He’d wanted to be a barrister.

  Emily’s fear of failure dreams never quite worked that way. She would get one in the middle of a tedious, boring week, with nothing more stressful than Christmas on the horizon. Or sometimes after Liz or her mother had called around, or when Conor was more withdrawn than usual. But usually when nothing at all was happening and her life was on a steady plateau. When she was plodding along as usual, keeping her head down, and not offending anybody.

  The would-be barrister would tell her that she was about to have a baby and her marriage was floundering, and it was a wonder she hadn’t fallen off the bed twice.

  Well, the baby was going to get out of her one way or the other, and it was bit late to be worrying about her marriage failing, and what would he have to say to that?

  But he had been a very intelligent young lad and Emily didn’t discount his opinions entirely. What if those mid-week dreams had been a premonition? A kind of elbow in the ribs to wake up and look around her?

  Or just to stop being afraid.

  She was, she decided, going quite mad. Next she would be looking for black cats in the hospital corridors.

  Maggie’s blood pressure was up.

  “Now, what’s all this?” Vera said sternly. “Have we been getting ourselves all riled up?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said meekly.

  “And you due any day,” Vera scolded her.

  “Sorry.” And she looked over at Emily as though it were all her fault.

  “I haven’t done anything,” Emily clarified. This was quite true. She had absented herself from the ward last night, and any more talk of sit-ins. Nobody had bothered her in the visitors’ room, not even her mother, who apparently had been in after hearing some nonsense on a local radio show.

  Vera descended on Emily with the pressure cuff.

  “That’s the best I’ve seen it in weeks,” she said. “Any more bleeding?”

  “Not a single drop.”

  “Mr Chapman will be delighted.” This was said rather tongue-in-cheek. Apparently when Mr Chapman had been told that Emily Collins hadn’t arrived as scheduled, he had said some colourful things.

  Vera finished making her notes. Maggie was looking avidly on. Vera reached out and smartly pulled the curtain around Emily’s bed, shutting Maggie out.

  “I believe there’s some misunderstanding about Cork,” she said with admirable diplomacy. “Some of the girls think that there’s a sit-in.”

  “Apparently so,” Emily agreed. “Maggie too.”

  “Yes, well, Maggie.” Vera left it at that. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry. It’s a silly rumour as far as most people are concerned.” She didn’t feel it was necessary to name names. “I’m only asking, Emily, because they’ve found you a bed in Cork.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Indeed. Apparently one just turned up.”

  “In an antenatal ward, I take it?”

  “Oh, better than that. You’ve got your own private room.”

  “Well, well,” Emily said slowly.

  “They’ve also generously offered to waive whatever extra cost is incurred if your medical health insurance doesn’t fully cover a private room.” Vera was looking studiously at her shoes. “The thing is, they can’t hold on to this room for you forever, for obvious reasons.”

  “I’d need to go today then.”

  “This morning. In fact, Liam and Joe can take you right now.”

  “In a luxury ambulance with a free minibar,” Emily said.

  “Not quite,” Vera said. “It’s up to you.”

  Vera transferred her attention from her shoes to the hem of her uniform.

  There was no shame in going to Cork, Emily knew. And Vera, bless her, would put paid to any more conjecture about sit-ins. And Cork was obviously going to treat her very well.

  And really, Emily thought, she probably would have gone if they hadn’t tried to buy her off. Or bully her, to be more exact. She felt like they had flicked on her Code Red switch. Up to recently she hadn’t even had a Code Red switch, just a little button that made her nod and smile.

  “About the baby,” she said. “Would it be safe here? Would I be safe? Medically speaking?”

  Vera didn’t look insulted, which was even more to her credit. “You’re certainly safe until the hospital officially closes on Monday week. I honestly don’t know what will happen then. It’d be your responsibility to decide after that.”

  Emily nodded. “I wouldn’t anticipate all this taking much longer than Monday week anyway.”

  Vera showed a careful interest. “Oh?”

  “I don’t have a time frame yet, but I’ll let you know.”

  “And, ah, what would I tell the board? And Cork?” Vera enquired.

  “Just that I’m occupying my bed until further notice.”

  “Certainly,” Vera said briskly, and left.

  Maggie poked her head around the curtain immediately.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Well are we sitting in or not?”

  “Maggie, I’m just staying for a few days in case anything can be done about this place.”

  “Great! I’d better go and tell Dee down in Elizabeth’s Ward.”

  “Dee?”

  “She’d said she would sit in too. And Laura. And possibly Mary.”

  Mother of God. Maggie had been busy last night.

  “Obviously, I’ll hang in there for as long as I can,” Maggie promised. “But I’ve had more pains, Emily. I think today could be the day!”

  She scurried off.

  Emily contemplated ringing Conor to let him know that she wouldn’t be going to Cork just yet, but it was only ten to eight. He wouldn’t even be up yet. She’d ring him later on today.

  She knew she was making excuses. She just didn’t want to tell him about the sit-in. He would think she was being silly and emotional, and letting herself yet again be dragged into things that really had nothing to do with her.

  She didn’t think he would believe her if she said that, this time, she wasn’t.

  Conor had got up very early. He’d showered and shaved and put on good clothes. He’d even polished his shoes. He felt like he was going to an interview.

  Now he gathered a few things for himself, clothes and toiletries to do him for a couple of days. Billy Middlemiss had a flat in Cork near the hospital. He was going to be away for a few days and had told Conor he could stay there. He would drive back up for his weekend work in Baccaro’s and straight back down again to be by Emily’s bedside.

  He had to put his things in the huge suitcase, where they rattled around rather morosely, because Emily had his Manchester United bag.

  Then he collected the baby bag. They had packed it together, discussing endlessly the number of nappies, Babygros and vests they should take to the hospital, and carefully marking things off in a highlighter pen against a list they’d been given in antenatal classes. This list conflicted in many key areas with the list their baby-book featured. One would sternly warn you to take only the bare necessities, while the other would remind you not to forget a baby blanket. This immediately raised the question of whether the hospital did not provide baby blankets, and if they didn’t, did they also not provide baby mattresses, sheets, a cot even? Ridiculous, really, but how were Conor and Emily to know these things? They had argued back
and forth, packed and re-packed five times, ooahed and aahed over the tiny Babygros and it had been lovely.

  Emily’s bag had taken even longer to pack. It wasn’t as though they had spare breast pads hanging round the house, or disposable underwear for that matter. Conor had actually thought the disposable underwear was a joke, until Emily had come home triumphantly from Mothercare with two packets of the things. Conor had spent an hour one evening making nametags for the bags: ‘Emily Collins’ and ‘Baby Collins’.

  Emily had joked that it was a shame that he didn’t have his own bag.

  They hadn’t quite finished the packing before Emily had been carted off to Martha’s. Conor had looked up the list and had got the last few bits in the chemist, including maternity pads.