Expecting Emily

by Clare Dowling

  “Very sensible,” Conor said. “And don’t forget to wash your hands!”

  “Oh now!” Maggie said, giggling as she disappeared up the stairs with Chloe.

  Conor let his big, friendly smile slip. Maggie was the most irritating person he had ever met – bar Pauline, obviously, who was over there in the corner with the priest, talking some kind of shite about the Legion of Mary. Conor had not known the Legion of Mary still existed even. And Laura had just put Den 2 on the TV at full blast; Den 2, for two-month-old babies! How did Emily manage to surround herself with these kinds of people?

  Not that Emily was even here. She was in the cosy comfort of Milo’s pub while Conor was standing in the midst of curling sandwiches and damp crisps, wailing babies and the smell of vomit. Tommy, Robbie, Mikey and Bobby were playing a very boisterous game of tag, and had knocked over Conor’s mother twice. At least all his side had already left. The noise and smell and press of bodies had quickly become too much for them and they had strapped themselves into their big boxy air-conditioned cars with ill-concealed relief.

  Conor’s impatience wasn’t just rudeness. In fact, he had been exceptionally pleasant and chatty all afternoon he felt. Beyond the call of duty, really. Beyond his own capacity for sociability, if you wanted to get down to brass tacks. He was making the effort. If Emily wanted him to walk on hot coals, he would do it. Even if she wanted him to be nice to Maggie . . .

  But he just did not want this circus today; not when he should be spending time alone with his wife and child; not when he had a ten o’clock flight in the morning that would take him hundreds and hundreds of miles away.

  “Conor! Is it okay if we turn the radio on?” Dee shouted over the TV. “It’s nearly four o’clock, they might have the results on LKR.”

  You’d think she was talking about a football match. Conor wondered whether Emily knew the outcome already. He was surprised she had not phoned, especially as Laura, Maggie and Dee were waiting here for the news.

  He found that he had a nervous feeling in his belly. He knew it was more than the outcome of the court case.

  “Robbie!” Liz screeched out in the hallway, but it was too late. Conor heard the sound of something breaking. He did not particularly want to know what. Instead he picked up Robert, went into the kitchen and closed the door.

  Peace, blessed peace.

  “Will we make a cup of tea?” he asked Robert.

  Conor and Robert often made tea together. It was a little ritual. They would play games around the kitchen as tea bags were sourced, cups put out and the red light on the kettle switched on, to Robert’s never-ending fascination.

  There were no games today. Conor was not in the mood. Neither was Robert. In fact, the child was looking up at Conor rather despondently, and Conor felt very defensive.

  “I don’t want to go to Belgium either, okay?” he told Robert strongly. “It’s all your mother’s fault!”

  Well, it was Emily who was churning out the logic this time, not him. She was the one holding up the pros and cons, refusing to let sentimentality or emotions cloud the decision. Conor found that he could not argue with her reason. Especially as she had just asked him to move back into the house upon his return. Just like that! No conditions, no begrudgery! In reality, Conor was getting everything he wanted, and more – a new career and a second chance at everything he had made a balls of the first time around.

  So why wasn’t he jumping around the garden?

  It was probably the timing thing, he thought. Off to Belgium, when he had already missed out on so much by living in a separate house! Oh, he could kid himself all right – he would arrive here first thing in the morning and don his mantle of doting father, before becoming the concerned partner to Emily, making her meals and putting on washes, and engaging in a little marriage counselling when they were both up to it. Then he would go back to his house late in the evening, secure in the knowledge that he had not failed in his paternal and marital duties, while still managing to hang on to his bloody pride.

  “I’m very sorry,” he told Robert now.

  He felt he had let him down very badly. By his actions, by his affair, he had created a situation where he absented himself from some of the responsibility of bringing up his child.

  He carried this responsibility around like a great weight on his shoulders. But he was not daunted by it, not crushed in the way he was when faced with the responsibility of marriage. From the day in the labour ward when Robert had been born, and Conor had eventually persuaded Emily to hand him over, he had not been afraid of him. They had regarded each other with a cool interest, or Conor liked to think anyway, and he had rather hoarsely promised Robert that he would look out for him, son. Well, it seemed the right thing to say at the time, and Robert had looked up at him with a grave acceptance.

  Conor only learned afterwards that newborn babies couldn’t see a thing farther than twenty-five centimetres from their own noses. But it didn’t matter because by then, the pair of them were in cahoots. Conor had half wanted to keep the relationship on some kind of professional footing, with him taking care of the nappy changing and laundry loads while Emily did the cooing and kissing. But he had not reckoned on his own spontaneity, a character trait he had always regarded a bit of a liability and which had always firmly been Emily’s department. He had fought it at first and then, three days into his relationship with Robert, had held up the white flag and given in to it gracefully.

  He would catch Emily looking at him sometimes when he was unashamedly romping with Robert, like today for instance, and he would remember their conversation in Martha’s and he would feel embarrassed all over again.

  She knew now. She knew what a small and fearful man he really was; a person with no real courage; a man who had only wanted to half-marry her in case he might have to expose himself. The result was that they had had the good times and the bad times, but none of it had been very good or very bad. It had been a grey way of living, really, antiseptic and passionless.

  It could be put down to fear of intimacy, of course, and he was sure now that he suffered from this. But he had made no attempt to overcome it until she had forced him to that night, and that was where his courage had failed him.

  But the miracle was that she still seemed to want him. She must love him on some level if she was prepared to work this out. This knowledge made him very conscious of what he had to do, the effort he had to make. He could not take her faith and let her down all over again. And this time there was Robert to think of too.

  He had started to offer small bits of himself; some of his family background, for example, certain episodes in his early career. He used events to reveal himself. He was not able to talk like he had talked in the hospital. Not yet. But he felt they had put their feet on the first rung of the ladder.

  And now bloody Belgium in the morning. Still, maybe it would only be a problem if they let it become one. And they would still see each other every weekend, wouldn’t they? He even wondered whether it might be a good thing at this point to have a little space between them. Would it be so bad to stop for some reflection?

  The kitchen door flew open, startling him. It was Maggie, Chloe under one arm and an unidentified baby under the other.

  “The news has just started! Quick!”

  “Coming now,” Conor assured her.

  But he stood there for a moment, slowly rocking Robert, and he could not hide from the fact that he was doing it again.

  Belgium was a safety net for him. An escape route now that things between him and Emily were gradually proceeding to a point where he would have to divulge more of himself, make some emotional commitment once and for all, instead of just talking about it. And he was running for his life.

  Lack of courage could perhaps be forgiven once in anybody’s life, he decided. But not twice.

  He turned and purposefully left.

  The smell of garlic and herbs hit Emily the minute she walked in the door. She stood for a moment, bemuse
d. The only time there had been a smell of garlic in the house in the last two months was when Conor got chips and garlic mayonnaise down in Mario’s.

  There were candles in the living-room. Lighted candles, that is. Emily couldn’t even remember the last time they’d put a match to a candle.

  The next thing she registered was that the stereo was playing: soft, jazzy stuff, romantic stuff.

  The old ghosts came back to ambush Emily and she stood stock still in the middle of the living-room. Mary Murphy rushed into her head, as she did at odd times, no matter how Emily tried to banish her. Sometimes she wondered if she would ever truly go away. Would she be there between them always, like a decomposing body that wouldn’t stay buried?

  In the kitchen, Conor was turning down the heat on the stove, the baby monitor on the worktop beside him. The lights on it were rising and falling evenly with Robert’s breath.

  “You’re late,” he said to Emily.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Drunk?”

  “No! Well, maybe a bit. Everybody kept buying drinks because Neasa was leaving. And she only on water herself.” Emily looked around the tidy kitchen. There was no evidence that a party had taken place here earlier. “I hope you didn’t push people out the door, Conor.”

  “I did not! Well, except for your mother, but she never leaves unless she’s forced to.”

  “I thought Maggie or Dee might have stayed on.” You’d have thought they’d have wanted to hear all the gory details.

  “It’s been a long day, Emily. And with all the babies . . .”

  “I suppose,” she said, secretly glad that he had managed to get rid of everyone. “How was Robert? Did he miss me?”

  “He did.”

  “How much? A lot?”

  “Desperately,” Conor assured her. “He’s upstairs having a nap.”

  Emily was relieved, and felt a bit guilty. But she had a few things to tell Conor. She didn’t want to be distracted by Robert or anyone else.

  “I’m very sorry, Emily.” Conor got in there first.

  “I know.”

  “We really thought you’d win.”

  “So did I, kind of.”

  “Is Neasa upset?”

  “Well, we all were, for a while.”

  “I know.”

  There was an awkward moment where they both made a kind of sympathetic move towards the other, but neither of them went through with it and they both looked at their shoes.

  Emily cleared her throat. “So, um, what did they say on the radio? We couldn’t get any sense out of Gary on the phone except that we’d lost. I think he was crying.”

  “Just that Martha’s would close immediately and that a request for an appeal had been denied.”

  “Great,” Emily sighed. “I couldn’t admit it in the pub, but I couldn’t bear an appeal.”

  “They said that there would be a ruling on costs next week,” Conor added.

  “Right.” Crawley Dunne & O’Reilly would be picking up the bill in any case. Upon news of the defeat, Creepy had immediately cancelled the tab at the bar and had left, green-faced, with Daphne and Ewan stumbling in his wake.

  “Vera rang,” Conor told her. “She said she’d call you tomorrow.”

  Vera had no doubt been glued to the radio all afternoon as well. At least they’d all hung onto their jobs in Martha’s for two months longer than anticipated, even if the hospital had been empty of patients at the end. Open, but empty.

  “Do you think I might have a glass of wine or would Robert be pissed when I feed him later?” Emily wondered.

  “I think you can chance it,” Conor said, pouring two glasses.

  She held hers up in a jokey toast.

  “To the campaign.”

  “To a great fight,” Conor said quietly.

  “Yes. It was worth it.” She took a big gulp of wine. She felt like a chapter in her life had just closed, leaving her with an unusual feeling of satisfaction, despite losing in the end.

  She watched as Conor took the lid off a saucepan, threw in a handful of fresh herbs and stirred. It smelled gorgeous.

  “Is this a sympathy meal?” she said lightly.

  “No. It’s just a nice meal. That’s all,” he said evenly.

  Hmm, Emily thought. Conor seemed a bit off tonight. At least, he wasn’t participating in their usual jokey banter. He was stirring that pot very seriously indeed, his brow furrowed.

  The thought of Belgium was probably putting him off. Not that there was anything wrong with Belgium per se – didn’t they have the most divine chocolate there, wasn’t that attraction enough in itself? But the reality of the flight in the morning was probably sinking in with him. She knew he desperately did not want to leave Robert. She hoped that he did not want to leave her as much.

  It was time for her to put her cards on the table. She put down her wine and turned to him, already anticipating his relief and happiness.

  “Conor,” she said rather dramatically, “I’ve decided I’m going to Belgium with you. Robert and I.”

  She wasn’t prepared for the look of horror on his face.

  “What?”

  He must not have understood. She repeated herself more slowly. “I’m coming with you to Belgium. I’ve booked a flight ticket and everything.”

  “Jesus Christ, Emily!”

  “What?”

  “I’m not going to Belgium! I rang them this evening and turned the job down!”

  Now it was her turn to look appalled. “Bloody hell, Conor! What did you go and do a stupid thing like that for?”

  He looked all huffy now. “Oh, stupid! Just because I decided that I should get my priorities right?”

  “I don’t believe this . . . why didn’t you talk to me first?”

  “Why didn’t you talk to me?”

  Emily threw up her hands. “You see? This is just typical of the lack of communication between us!”

  “I couldn’t agree more!” Conor butted in. “And now I’m stuck at home with no job and you’re flying with Robert to Belgium in the morning!”

  “Obviously I won’t be using my ticket,” she said stiffly.

  “Obviously. Sure haven’t we got money to burn?”

  Emily began to feel very stupid now, her great act of noble self-sacrifice thrown back in her face. In her head, she had fantasised that he would be overcome by emotion, possibly break down in tears, certainly sweep her into his arms and very probably try to make wild love to her on the kitchen floor (she would tell him that it was too soon, naturally).

  But instead he just looked hot and cross and he was muttering something under his breath.

  “Pardon?” she asked.

  “I said, do you want penne or linguini with this sauce?” he repeated, louder this time.

  “You know something, Conor? I really don’t care,” she snapped, grabbing her wine and marching into the living-room. Only Conor could talk about pasta shapes at a time like this. How had she ever thought that things between them had changed? Fooling herself! She might as well give up now.

  “Emily?” He had followed her in. Probably to ask how long he should boil the fucking penne for.

  “Yes, Conor!”

  “I’m sorry if I upset you. I wanted it to be a surprise. A nice one, I thought. I’m sorry.”

  Emily immediately deflated at his honesty. “I wanted mine to be a nice surprise too.”

  “Yes.”

  They looked at each other, awkward now.

  “That was a pretty big thing,” she said. “To give up your job.”

  “Not really,” he said.

  “Stop being modest.”

  He looked at the tea towel in his hands and back up again. “I just felt I hadn’t done enough. I wanted you to know how much I . . . well, you know.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I suppose I wanted you to know the same.”

  There was a little silence; a silence coloured by hope and expectation and optimism. And Emily felt lighter as she turned
to him.

  “What about the job?” she asked.

  “What about it?”

  “Can’t you ring them and say you want it back?”

  “I don’t think they’ll give it back to me.”

  “They would if you begged.”

  “I will not lower myself to beg,” Conor said primly.

  Emily picked up the phone and thrust it into his hand. “Beg,” she ordered. “I’ll cook the pasta.”

  The End

  Also published by poolbeg.com