Expecting Emily

by Clare Dowling

  “Now, girls, have the bath ready before you take all the baby’s clothes off, you don’t want it to freeze.” She picked up the doll. “And remember, girls –”

  “Support the head,” they chorused.

  “That’s it!” Angela was delighted. “Now. Does anyone want to give the doll a bath?”

  Everyone squirmed shyly in their chairs like they were back in Senior Infants. Then they all turned to look at Emily. Bloody hell, did they expect her to take the lead in every situation just because she had instigated the sit-in? She didn’t even have a baby yet! She sat firmly on her hands, red-faced.

  “Nobody ever looks at me like that,” Maggie said a bit sadly.

  “Me neither,” Emily said. Up to now. It was very embarrassing, but it was also rather gratifying. Like she was someone to be reckoned with or something.

  “Okay, girls,” Angela said, “Watch carefully then. First you stick your elbow in the water to test the temperature. Lukewarm, girls, that’s all the water should be. You don’t want to burn the child alive.”

  “Oooooh,” the women said, cringing. Several of them clutched their babies closer to their chests protectively.

  “And don’t be smothering it in any of those fancy bubble-baths either,” Angela said sternly.

  Emily and Maggie looked at each other guiltily. Both of them had filled their bathroom cabinets with bottles of the stuff in bubbly anticipation.

  “And a bath once a week or a fortnight is sufficient. There’s no need to put yourselves and the baby through the torture every single night.”

  That’s what Liz maintained. Emily felt a new respect for her. She must ask her more about babies. Ask her properly, that was, not the grudging way she had done so far because she felt it was expected of her, and not really listening to what Liz had to say.

  “Don’t you wish you could take her home with you?” Maggie said, looking at Angela. “She knows exactly what to do and I won’t have a clue.”

  “You will.”

  “I won’t!” Being around all the newborn babies was getting to Maggie, who was now officially a day overdue. This had not figured in her birth plan at all.

  “We’ll learn as we go along, Maggie,” Emily said sternly.

  Emily herself didn’t believe this for a second. How was she to remember all these things when the time came? Already she’d forgotten what Angela had said about the different types of milk formula. And there was that whole complicated business of sterilising bottles to come yet!

  She found herself wishing very strongly that Conor were here. He would effortlessly memorise all these details, and calmly regurgitate them back at that crucial moment. Just as Emily was about to pop the baby into a boiling bath, probably. The problem was that you couldn’t wing it with babies, and hope that you get it right; one badly sterilised bottle and you’ve given them a dose of gastroenteritis. How could she live with that?

  She wanted him here to share the responsibility. It was too terrifying to contemplate being totally accountable for another person’s life – a person who couldn’t tell you whether they were sick or hungry or whether their nappy was just on back to front. And there were so many things that could go horribly wrong! Really, Emily thought, it was an act of criminal negligence to let women like herself and Maggie and Marie, total amateurs, waltz out of hospitals with defenceless babies. In any civilised society that cared for its young, babies would be brought up by professional midwives until they were about three while their parents did a compulsory MA in child-rearing. Then the child might at least have a fighting chance of reaching adulthood without being killed by gastroenteritis, or being drowned, or starved, or strangled by its own nappy.

  When the call came through from Terry Mitton, Senior Counsel, Mandy at reception was totally ill-equipped to deal with it. No barrister had ever rung Crawley Dunne & O’Reilly in living memory. Nobody in the office even knew a barrister, although apparently Phil had met one once while visiting the offices of a proper solicitor. He had talked about nothing else for weeks.

  “Hold the line, please!” she sang, before clamping her hand fiercely over the mouthpiece. What was she supposed to do now? “Here, Gary? Do you know a Terry Mitton, SC?”

  Gary stopped in his tracks. “A senior counsel?”

  “Yes,” Mandy whispered.

  “He’s lying.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  Gary grabbed a copy of the Law Society Directory from Mandy’s desk and thumbed through it. And sure enough, Terry Mitton was listed.

  “What does he want?” Gary was nervous. Was it possible somebody was taking a negligence case against them?

  “He didn’t say,” Mandy said. “Will I put him through to you?”

  “Jesus, no!” He went on hurriedly, “I mean, this is one for the partners.”

  “You are a partner.”

  Fuck. Gary didn’t want to get into conversations with barristers. With his inexperience, he would be bound to make a balls of it. And he was already in the bad books with Crawley over the way the filing system had disintegrated into complete chaos. Crawley had actually said to him that it wouldn’t have happened if Emily had been here! No, Gary had to avoid any more trouble.

  “Phil, will you take a call from a barrister?”

  “I will in my shite.”

  “But you met one once.”

  “I didn’t speak to him.”

  Gary was desperate now. Then Neasa came in from the loo. She’d talk the hind legs off any barrister. He was forced to look her in the eye, which he had been unable to do all morning. “Neasa,” he muttered, “would you take a call for me? There’s this barrister guy on the phone –”

  “Who?”

  “Terry Mitton or something.”

  “Of course I’ll take it.”

  “Great.”

  “It’s for me anyway.”

  “What?”

  Neasa looked at Mandy in despair. “Did you not ask him who he wanted to talk to?”

  “Um, no. I got such a fright . . .”

  “Put him through,” Neasa barked, striding over to her own desk. Mandy, Phil and Gary looked after her in astonishment. What the hell was Neasa doing associating with barristers? More to the point, did the partners know?

  Neasa turned her back on them and picked up the phone with admirable coolness.

  “Terry. Sorry about that, I got delayed by a cosmetics company.” Well, she’d applied fresh lipstick in the loo. “Now, what’s the situation?”

  Terry Mitton went on about making an application to have the initial arguments for a judicial review of the closure heard. That was the first hurdle. If and only if the judge thought they had grounds, then they would get their day in court.

  “But first of all, we need to seek an immediate order to stop the hospital closing.”

  “Go on,” Neasa murmured. God, he had a lovely voice. Like a big bar of Galaxy chocolate melted in the microwave.

  Due to the urgency of the situation, Terry Mitton hoped to be heard in tomorrow’s court proceedings. He would be faxing her a draft of his arguments later that day.

  “Terrific,” Neasa said, forgetting all about his voice. She had a lovely, buzzy feeling in her tummy with the excitement of it all. Imagine, her involved in court cases and judicial reviews! It was even better than kicking German receptionists’ asses. “You might also mention the petition.”

  Terry thought this was a great idea. The voice of the people, nothing like it! Hell, I’m good, Neasa thought. Of course, she had known this all along in a theoretical way. She just hadn’t bothered putting it into practice until now. This really had been a great idea of hers, she thought.

  “Will I be needed in court tomorrow?” she asked.

  She would. Yippee. She must plan tonight what she would wear.

  “I need to know for certain whether your client intends to go through with this. If I’m to issue proceedings to the other side,” Terry said.

  He meant the Health Board, Martha’s
Board of Management and all other interested parties.

  “Oh, she hasn’t changed her mind,” Neasa assured him, hoping this was true. “I was speaking to her only a second ago.” She’d ring her as soon as she got off the phone.

  “Now, about costs,” Terry Mitton said.

  “Ah.”

  She had been prepared for a rather large sum, and admirably betrayed no shock when informed that it would be twice that.

  “Sure, sure,” she said, acting as though he were selling himself cheap. Bloody hell, for that amount he should send a private plane for her in the morning. But it appeared that she would have to make her own way to Dublin.

  When she replaced the phone, Gary was standing over her. She’d been acting hurt and confused around him all morning, but she didn’t have time for that kind of thing now. There was work to be done.

  “Well, Gary?”

  “What was that all about?”

  “Oh, I can’t tell you right now,” Neasa said, very friendly. She would wait until the proceedings were issued before informing the partners that Crawley Dunne & O’Reilly were entered as the official solicitors. They’d lose a lot of face if they tried to weasel out of it. Of course, they might just show Neasa the door. Either outcome was a good one.

  This really is the last straw, Gary thought. Now she wouldn’t even share legitimate office business with him! And he was her boss, so to speak! He would force it out of her if he weren’t so embarrassed about last night. At lunchtime, Dr Purcell had assured him that there was nothing physically wrong with him. The examination had been almost as mortifying, with Dr Purcell poking around down below while Gary looked desperately at the ceiling. Dr Purcell said that these things were most often stress-related and kept on and on about the health of Gary’s relationship. Couldn’t the man just give him a course of Viagra?

  No. He could not. He advised Gary to go and talk to his partner instead. Talk to her? When she wouldn’t even discuss work with him?

  The more Gary thought about it, the more this non-performance problem was Neasa’s fault. She expected everything to be so perfect all the time! Any man would wilt under the weight of her expectations!

  Gary badly wanted to finish with Neasa before his self-confidence died altogether. But he couldn’t now, not after last night. No, he would have to perform one last time, otherwise she might tell the whole office that it was over between them because of his impotence. Then he’d never get a crack at Annabel, whom he fully intended to hit on next.

  “Will you come over tonight?” he asked, wheedling. He’d watch a dirty movie before she came, tank up on a few beers, shag her senseless, and then break it off. The relief, he realised, would be intense.

  “I can’t,” Neasa said regretfully. She had to do her nails, her bikini-line and polish her shoes for tomorrow. But really, she was afraid that if she went over, he would irritate her so much that she would end up breaking it off. It was inevitable, but she was just putting it off because she didn’t want to look at where she was going wrong. “I’m driving to Dublin early.”

  “For what?”

  “I can’t say,” Neasa said again. “But the partners’ dinner is tomorrow night – we’ll be going to that together, won’t we?”

  “I suppose,” Gary said unenthusiastically. He would have to wait until then. And it would be such a stressful event too, trying to impress Creepy and Ewan and Daphne with his choices from the wine list. It would be a miracle if he were able to get it up afterwards.

  Neasa decided that she would give him the boot tomorrow night. She owed it to him to turn up for the dinner – he was counting on it. But that was it.

  She felt the familiar crush of disappointment at having failed yet again. What was it about her that seemed to attract nothing but eejits and degenerates? Maybe it was something as simple as her perfume – she’d read a very interesting magazine article once on how human beings are sexually motivated almost entirely by smell. Was it possible that one little spray every morning could account for the shambles that was her romantic life?

  She liked this idea – it was so deliciously simple – and thought about it some more. She might even change her entire image, and see what that brought her. Or maybe she was looking in the wrong place for The One. Could it be that he wasn’t in Paulstown at all, but alive and well and living in Cork? She must extend her search immediately.

  She felt much better now. Really, when you thought about it, she had simply been misguided in a number of key areas such as perfume and location, which were easily rectified. The One would turn up eventually, she had no doubt about it really. And she couldn’t wait to be in love again.

  The news of the application to put a stay on the closure of Martha’s pending court proceedings had two direct impacts: it sent the Health Board into a spin and it got Pauline Ryan into her car during the hours of darkness. It took her half an hour to drive the five miles to Martha’s, as she met ten oncoming vehicles and had to pull into the ditch as many times.

  Emily sighed and put away her mobile phone as she saw Pauline coming down the corridor. Conor was not home, or at least he was not answering the phone. Neasa had pricked her conscience and she had wanted to tell him about the court case before it hit the local media. But he had been gone for hours and hours now. Despite herself, she was worried. You could set your watch by Conor. Where could he be?

  “I hope you’re happy with yourself,” Pauline said by way of introduction. She was wearing an extra crucifix today. She must be very upset.

  “It’s something that had to be done, Mam,” Emily said rather proudly. Her mother must have listened to the six o’clock LKR fm bulletin.

  “I don’t know how you can lie there and say something like that.” Pauline was aghast. “And your own marriage in tatters, if what I hear is true!”

  “Oh, all true, every word,” Emily said, although she wasn’t quite sure what her marriage had to do with any legal action.

  “And so you have to drag everybody else down with you?” Pauline demanded.

  This was fairly vicious. So much for thinking that Pauline might be a little bit proud of the stand Emily was taking on behalf of the community.

  “You can’t go through your whole life taking things lying down, Mam.”

  “Well!” Pauline looked at her like she had two heads. “Try telling that to those children!”

  “What children?”

  “Tommy, Robbie, Mikey, Bobby and Willy! Who did you think I was talking about?”

  “You’ve lost me now, Mam.”

  “And they without a father now!”

  Dear God. Had Eamon fallen into a cement mixer or something equally fatal?

  “What’s happened, Mam?” she asked in a weak voice.

  “What’s happened, says she! She who put Liz up to this whole madness in the first place!”

  Had Liz finally lost the rag and murdered Eamon?

  “Tell me what’s happened!” Emily almost shouted.

  “She’s thrown him out! Oh yes. Just like that. Packed a bag for him and showed him the door!”

  Emily was so surprised that her mouth fell open. “Where’s he gone?”

  “A brother of his,” Pauline said sourly.

  Emily tried to sort through the confusion. “But . . . why?”

  “Money, of course.”

  “But she said they were sorting things out. That he was going to see the bank manager.”

  “He went to see an auctioneer. He tried to sell the house to refinance the business, told Liz they could live somewhere smaller until things got better.”

  Emily realised now that Pauline knew a lot more than she ever chose to let on. She had probably known about Eamon’s money problems for ages but hadn’t wanted to get involved. Had she also seen the cracks appearing between Emily and Conor, maybe even before they’d seen them themselves? Say nothing, that was another of Pauline’s favourite phrases. Say nothing, keep the head down and be grateful for what you have.

  “And
now she’s given him his marching orders. After you filling her head with nonsense!” Pauline said accusingly.

  “I did not fill her head with nonsense.”

  “Oh? Do you know what she said when I went over? That you told her to pat herself on the back. That she was marvellous!”

  “Well, I suppose I did say that . . .”

  “That she didn’t take enough credit for what she did!”