by Tara Heavey
Emily was accustomed to keeping things in too. But even she couldn’t do it any longer. She appeared one morning looking as if she’d been in a fight. Hay fever? But as the morning wore on, it became evident that there was more to it than that. Emily cried silently as she worked the same piece of earth over and over again, her tears dampening the soil. She had wiped her face so many times that it was mud-streaked. Uri and Aoife exchanged a concerned glance.
‘Should we do something?’
‘Ask her what’s wrong. She talks to you,’ said Uri.
So, Aoife approached Emily. Hesitantly, not wanting to frighten or upset her even more. She came up behind her and laid a hand gently on her arm. ‘Emily?’
Emily turned and buried her face in Aoife’s shoulder, sobbing openly. Aoife put her arms around her and they sank to the ground. Everyone else pretended not to notice, while Aoife absorbed Emily’s pain, feeling oddly privileged to be chosen. The sobs became less frequent and eventually Emily lifted her head, rooted around in her pocket for a tissue and blew her nose. Aoife thought she’d never seen anyone look so forlorn. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind Emily’s ear. ‘What is it, Emily? What happened to you?’
There was a long silence – so long that Aoife didn’t think she was going to get an answer.
‘I had a baby.’
Aoife was taken aback. She hadn’t expected this – she’d guessed Emily had been dumped. She collected herself. ‘When was this?’
‘Eight months ago.’ Emily sniffed. ‘She’s eight months old.’
‘A little girl.’
Emily nodded.
‘Where is she?’ For one terrible second, Aoife feared that Emily was going to tell her she’d left the newborn baby in a skip.
‘I put her up for adoption. She’s been with a foster-family. But –’ fresh tears were starting to flow ‘– they’ve found a family for her. They want me to go in and sign the consent papers.’
Emily began to sob again. Oh, God. Aoife searched her pockets frantically for something resembling a tissue. Emily’s had disintegrated into a sodden ribbon. Not that she seemed to care: she was oblivious to everyone and everything. ‘Hush now. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.’ Aoife rubbed Emily’s arm, uncomfortable with this very public show of emotion, but mostly just desperately sorry for the girl. She waited until Emily had calmed down a little before she said, ‘And the baby’s still with foster-parents? She hasn’t gone to a family yet?’
‘No.’
‘Are you going to sign the papers?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t decide.’
‘Surely the adoption people provide some sort of counselling?’
‘They do. I still can’t decide. I mean, how could I look after a baby? I’ve got no boyfriend, no money, no job. I’m not even close to finishing my degree.’
‘What about your family?’
‘They’re really religious. They wouldn’t understand.’
‘You mean they don’t even know?’
Emily shook her head.
‘You never told them?’
‘No.’
‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘You’re the first. Apart from the woman in the adoption agency and the father.’
‘And I take it –’
‘He didn’t want to know.’
‘Oh, Emily.’ Aoife drew her close, trying but failing to imagine what it must have been like for her.
They stayed like that for a while. Emily, her wet face buried in Aoife’s neck, didn’t notice Mrs Prendergast tiptoe over and place a mug of tea on the ground in front of her. Aoife and the older woman looked at each other. Then Aoife nodded and Mrs Prendergast tiptoed away.
‘Here,’ Aoife said, after a while. ‘Your tea’s getting cold.’
‘Where did it come from?’
‘The fairies left it.’
Emily picked up the mug with frail-looking hands, and sipped.
‘Better?’
‘A little.’
‘You might not be giving your family enough credit.’
Emily shrugged.
‘How do you get on with your mother?’
‘Okay. Well, I suppose.’
‘There you go. She might surprise you. But she can’t help if she doesn’t even know.’
Emily showed no reaction.
‘And how do you feel about the baby?’ Aoife looked searchingly into Emily’s pink, swollen face.
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ She gnawed at her fingernails.
Aoife took a deep breath. ‘I have something to tell you,’ she said. ‘It might help you decide.’
22
The first time I gave my little girl chocolate, she laughed out loud. I’d made her mouth happy. It was a chocolate button on her first birthday. Her dad caught it all on the camcorder – he the Hollywood dad, we the Hollywood family. I’ve watched it so many times I know it by heart. But I’ve never managed to catch the deceit in my eyes. Michael never caught it either. Even though I was in the thick of it.
We were as entranced as she was, as the chocolate melted on her tongue, then stuck to the roof of her mouth. As her mouth filled with goo, her huge blue eyes filled with surprise, then delight.
‘She’s just like her mother,’ said Michael, still filming.
I wasn’t sure if he was referring to her looks or her new-found love of chocolate because she resembled me closely in both respects. It was gratifying at last to have a child like me. Liam was so unlike me he might have fallen from the clouds. Which didn’t diminish my love for him. He was my firstborn, my finest achievement thus far in life. He’d stopped growing in the womb and had had to be cut out of me early so I was overprotective of him right from the start. It meant he was always small for his age. Some would say puny, I would say delicate. I had worried he’d be jealous of the new baby, having had the dubious benefit of my fierce attention all his young life but he seemed thrilled with her, and laughed with us at her reaction to the chocolate button before demanding one for himself.
‘Come on, Liam, give us a smile.’ Michael trained the camera on him.
‘Cheese,’ said Liam, the chocolate making brown lines between his teeth.
‘How old is Katie today?’
‘One.’ Liam held up a finger.
‘And what do we have to say to her?’
‘Happy birthday, Katie.’ He started to clap and Katie copied him.
Michael and I looked fondly at one another. Our clever, beautiful children. Then he laid down the camera and walked over to me. He put his arms around me and spoke into my neck. ‘I love you, Aoife.’
I closed my eyes. ‘I love you too.’ It wasn’t a lie. I remember that moment exactly, even though it wasn’t recorded. The feel of his arms supporting me, his breath against my skin. The mixture of happiness and guilt. I had everything in that moment. Absolutely everything. Except I was such a stupid fool I didn’t even know it. Always wanting more. Forever yearning for something I didn’t have. Later I blamed myself for my ingratitude: if you’re not sufficiently grateful, we’ll take it all away.
How can I describe Michael? He was always Michael to me, although his friends called him Mick. Only his mother and I used his full name. We knew it suited him best. He worked as a quantity surveyor. In all our years together, I never fully understood what he did.
The first thing people noticed about him was his hair: red. He hated it – declared himself a lifelong victim of ‘gingerism’. I loved it. Its silkiness, its floppiness. I think I nearly convinced him to love it too.
We met at this really naff party in Camden Town. I – unbeknown to myself – was meant for the host. I can’t even remember his name now. Michael had been earmarked for the flatmate’s sister, an unfortunate girl who got so inebriated that it took two men to carry her to bed. She’s probably a respectable married lady now, who would cringe at the memory.
Michael was sitting opposite me. His sobriety marked him out. He sat back in his
chair and sipped his wine slowly, casually surveying the chaos surrounding him. I was doing much the same at the other side of the kitchen table. Although part of me wanted to get roaring drunk, my desire to impress Michael stopped me.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked. It wasn’t the type of party at which formal introductions had been made.
‘Aoife,’ I said, waiting for the puzzled look, the furrowed brow, the request to repeat myself. To spell it out.
‘That’s beautiful,’ was all he said.
I was sold.
He must have felt the same because, less than an hour later, the room having descended into drink-sodden chaos, he looked at his watch and then pointedly at me. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
They never even saw us leave.
We escaped together, the night blessedly cool and high after the claustrophobia of the flat, our laughter soaring into the starry sky, where it remained suspended on the air currents. Sometimes I imagine it’s up there still.
We went to an all-night café and talked all night. His name was Michael O’Brien and he was London Irish too. His parents were from Mayo and he’d spent many a rainy summer there. We compared tales of Irish grandmothers and laughed uproariously.
‘Mine says feck.’
‘Mine too!’
‘Does she get up at six every morning to bake sodabread?’
‘I think she buys it in Londis.’
‘Oh.’ Slight disappointment. ‘Mine told me she cuts the cross on the top to let the fairies out. For years I believed her.’
‘Mine’s called Kathleen.’
‘Mine too!’
‘They can’t all be called Kathleen.’
‘No, some are called Mary.’
It made it easy to agree on our daughter’s name when the time came.
The London child of Irish immigrants, I had never considered myself English. My Irish cousins had never considered me Irish. In their eyes, I was the plastic Paddy. I preferred to think of myself as a rare hybrid.
I had spent all of my summer holidays at the home of my Dublin grandparents, marvelling anew each year at their strange vernacular. The delicious shock the first time my devout granny – holy water font in the front porch – said ‘feck’. The pure joy of it! Had I misheard? Trying the word in London on my schoolmates. Being made to stand in the corner.
The memories were visceral, as if they’d seeped into my cells. Even now, on certain mornings in late June, I was back in my parents’ Ford Cortina, being driven on empty back roads from the ferry to my grandparents’ house. Birdsong and hedgerows. Then the joy of arrival. Grandparents spilling out of the house to meet us, down the front steps, through the roses, the snapdragons, the Michaelmas daisies. My grandfather and his pipe. Mellow Virginia. For years after his departure, the scent lingered in the drawer beside his chair. My granny. Hair newly coloured and permed. Tattooing our cheeks with her red, heart-shaped kisses. We would run up the path, lured by the smell of Irish rashers and sausages split up the middle. Sodabread and black and white puddings. The white spread thick and smooth on the bread. The black, made of pig’s blood, spurned for reasons of morality and disgust. Then, later, the potato cakes sizzling, salty butter melting. The tea brack at tea-time. The aunties dropping in. Benny Hill on the telly. Photos of grandchildren on every surface. Love.
My grandparents were gone now. My grandfather had died when I was nineteen, my grandmother a few years previously. The house had been sold and the memories divvied up. I had received a battered gold locket that I lost intermittently, only to find with great joy every time.
When I first moved to Ireland, I used to drive by their house, tripping myself up on my own nostalgia. I’d had to stop. Too much pathos can drag at the soul.
Michael and I compared notes for what seemed like hours: the lurid colour photo of John Paul II in the hall, the Sacred Heart in the kitchen, its fake red candle perpetually aglow – all the babies named and blessed, including the ones who’d died at birth. Jesus offering his heart to share. Our grandmothers offering their limitless love – we didn’t say that but it was tacitly acknowledged. It made Michael seem dear to me already. Familiar and safe. Like family.
He proved himself later that night when he escorted me to the front door of my block of flats. ‘Which is yours?’
‘See that window up there?’ I pointed to a pane on the third floor.
‘When you’re in, turn on the light, look down and wave at me. I’ll be waiting.’
‘For what?’
‘To make sure you got in safe.’
I gave him a quick, shy kiss on the cheek and ran inside, not waiting for the lift, taking the stairs two steps at a time, wings on my heels. I got in and turned on the light. Breathless, I went to the window. There he was. A lone figure in a dark coat. He waved and I thought I saw him smile. He walked away and I watched his glorious red hair glint as he passed beneath a streetlight.
That was it, really. We hardly spent a night apart until the one before our wedding two years later, the two Kathleens crying copiously in the church. I had no doubts. If Michael had them, he hid them well. I loved my gingerbread man and he loved me. And we lived in our gingerbread house. Because that was what it felt like – as if we were playing at being grown-ups. I thought I’d feel the same when our first baby was born – that we’d be playing at being mummies and daddies. But the advent of Liam catapulted us into adulthood and, suddenly, life wasn’t a game any more. It was very real, very serious. What if something happened to him? Suddenly we were gambling on a planet that didn’t always seem such a good bet. We started to row, nothing serious – only bickering – but the halcyon days were over. Reality had bitten us and life would never be the same again.
I didn’t regret motherhood, not for one second. But I did regret failing to appreciate my freedom when I’d had it. I realized with a jolt that my ambitious travel plans had been curtailed. That I no longer had just myself and Michael to think about. Simple things, like taking my time in the shower, spending precious minutes slathering myself with body butter afterwards, were now distant memories. My grey hairs multiplied through stress and lack of care, and the tiny lines on my face multiplied through lack of sleep. I no longer cleansed, toned and moisturized. I was lucky if I managed to pass a baby wipe across my face at night before I fell into bed like a stone. Although these were only little things, they made me feel less human, less of a person and a woman. I was now ‘mother’ and all other aspects of my identity were secondary. As for Michael, I believe he felt as though he was stuck in a job he wasn’t too crazy about. As far as our relationship was concerned, we couldn’t – wouldn’t – take the pressures out on Liam so we took them out on each other. It sometimes felt as though we were rivals rather than batting for the same team.
‘You go up to him. I’m knackered.’
‘And I’m not? I’ve been working all day.’
‘Oh, and I haven’t, I suppose.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You implied it.’
‘Don’t be so bloody sensitive.’
‘I’m not being sensitive. You’re being inconsiderate.’
‘I went up last time.’
‘And I went up twice before that.’
And so on.
It was a competition: who was the tiredest.
Nevertheless, we took another gamble on the planet and on ourselves, and shortly before Liam’s second birthday Katie was born. Again my love for her was overwhelming, but different. With Liam, the funny little person with body parts I didn’t possess, I had been excited but fearful, setting out on the strange odyssey of motherhood. With Katie, I was already home. She was a perfect fit inside my heart. I understood her tiny woman’s brain. She loved the things I loved: her brother and her daddy.
Michael and I grew to inhabit our roles and, for a time, we grew in the same direction. Looking back, he kept on shooting upwards. It was me who veered off course.
I’d known Peter for years – since I
’d started work at the college. He lectured in physics. I’d always liked the way his mind worked, so different from mine. But that had been it. He was friends with Michael too. We went to each other’s houses for dinner and stuck together at boring work functions. They had a son who was slightly older than Liam and the two boys would play together. Peter’s wife, Lara – a home-economics teacher – crocheted Katie the most beautiful blanket when she was born. I used it on her cot at first. Later, I would shove it at the back of the airing cupboard so I didn’t have to look at it.
I went back to work when Katie turned six months, weepy at her easy withdrawal from my breast. I settled into my coffee-break routine, a group of us huddled around our habitual table with the wonky legs in the canteen. Peter was always there.
‘Would you like more milk, Aoife?’
He was always solicitous. At first I thought it was because I’d had a baby, but it continued. One day, seemingly out of nowhere, it dawned on me that his eyes always sought mine when we were in a group. It was my opinion he looked for. My approval. As if I was special to him. It made me think.
It had been years since I’d fancied another man. Michael had been enough for me since the night we’d met. Of course, I still noticed a good-looking male on the street or the screen, but in a dispassionate way, as if I was admiring a work of art. And I suppose I’d always thought of Peter as handsome in that same, dispassionate way. It had never occurred to me to imagine what it would be like to be with him.
Looking back, I don’t know if I can put it down to anything more exalted than boredom. My life, my identity, had become so subsumed into motherhood, so taken up with the humdrum details of my family’s existence, that something in me yearned for escape. To become the heroine of my own romantic novel – the more Mills & Boon the better. Instead of trying to fix what I already had – which wasn’t even that badly broken, just a few hairline cracks – I looked for something new and whole. In a way, I was being lazy. Another unthinking participant in our disposable, throwaway society. My marriage just needed a little recycling. And my children were far too precious for me even to contemplate throwing away their happiness and security.