by Tara Heavey
She couldn’t work out when it had happened. It might have been after any number of boozy nights out. She was on the pill but sometimes forgot to take it. The guilt pressed down on her. All that drink. Those fags. What a start in life. The baby was probably irreparably damaged. Still, she had to tell Mitch.
The big reveal happened on the way out one night when she was looking her best, if a little pale. She had to do it. He’d want to know why she wasn’t drinking: a course of antibiotics only lasts so long.
‘Sit down a minute. I have something to tell you.’
‘The others will be waiting.’
‘Never mind the others. This is important. Come on.’ She patted the seat beside her. ‘It’ll only take a minute.’
He sat down impatiently.
She took an enormous breath and the words rushed out on the exhalation. ‘I’m having a baby.’
‘You’re what?’
She took this to be a rhetorical question, and instead tried to decipher the emotions fighting for precedence on his face. Shock. Fear. Good stuff too?
‘Bloody hell.’ He sank back in the chair, as if in need of the extra support.
Sarah, unable to control her agitation, got up and walked to the kitchen, pretending she needed a glass of water. She stood with her back to the door, resting heavily against the sink. He came up behind her and turned her around to face him. He was smiling. Thank God.
‘It’s great news.’ He cradled her face and kissed her lightly on the nose. Then he knelt on the kitchen floor, put his arms around her waist and kissed the fabric covering her taut belly. They both laughed and Sarah felt a lightness she hadn’t experienced in days. She thought she might cry with the relief. Mitch was back on his feet and holding both of her hands in his own. ‘Now let’s go to the pub,’ he said.
After that she stopped going. The smoky air nauseated her. Merely opening the door to their local made her feel sick. So Mitch went alone. It didn’t make sense for both of them to miss out on the fun. ‘Pity you can’t come,’ he’d say to her, on his way out of the door.
Pity you can’t stay, she thought, on her way to the remote control.
But the thought never seemed to occur to him.
Then he’d come home, long after she’d gone to bed, stinking far worse than the pub. On those nights, her boyfriend’s very breath made her want to heave.
Neither of them spoke about marriage. They were both too Bohemian for that kind of malarkey.
Then, all of a sudden, she didn’t mind Mitch going out: on one of those nights, alone on the couch, she felt a faint ripple inside her belly. She was no longer alone, and Mitch’s antics ceased to matter. She had this secret life inside her and her worries became nothing but a background hum: her figure, her weight, how she was going to continue to work and yet care for the baby. She’d already had to turn down two parts. She amazed herself by not caring. She was far too involved with her own divine collaboration.
Maia came into the world screeching, all six pounds of her. A tiny wisp of a girl. China doll perfect. Eyes massive. Toes and fingers tiny. Mitch was there for the birth. He remained at the top end – they’d agreed: the other end was far too real. He arrived back the next day, festooned with flowers and pink balloons. They cuddled the baby and each other and everything was great.
Three days later Sarah and Maia were let back home. Mitch brought Sarah breakfast in bed. Then he went out to rehearsals. She didn’t hear him come in, but she knew that he had because when she fed Maia at two in the morning he was sleeping beside her, on top of the covers, oblivious to the baby’s cries. It won’t always be like this, he promised, when confronted by her tearful remonstrations. Once this play was over …
But Robert Mitchell’s star was on the rise and play followed play followed play. And each rehearsal, each performance, was followed by drink. It wasn’t obligatory, but to Mitch it might as well have been. Sarah confronted him many times, but her protests fell on deaf ears. He accused her of being jealous and, of course, he was right. She admitted it freely, to herself and him. How could she not be? Stuck at home with no one to talk to, no one to appreciate her. Sarah Dillon, the actor, a figment of her past. Her star had tumbled from the sky more rapidly than she had ever imagined possible. On a really bad day, she would leaf through old press cuttings to remind herself of who she truly was. But it was as if it had happened to another person. The glowing girl smiling back at her bore no relation to the drudge she had become. She knew logically that she was suffering from a chronic lack of sleep and that it couldn’t last for ever. But she couldn’t feel that. And she knew she’d never be the same again.
It wasn’t all bad. On the occasions when Maia settled Sarah would spin them into the silk cocoon of her love. But Maia rarely settled. She seemed to object so strongly to everything – her nappy being changed, her hair being washed. She cried constantly, and often nothing soothed her. And the more Maia cried and the more Sarah needed help, the more Mitch felt the need to escape and the more Sarah felt like a single parent. Both of them were hanging on by their fingernails – to sanity and each other.
One evening, when Maia was almost eighteen months old, Mitch brought a group of friends home. Sarah had been complaining – as usual, he said – that he was always out at parties so he had brought the party home to her. At first she was pleased by this welcome distraction. But soon it became clear that most of them were off their faces, Mitch included. He dragged his daughter out of her cot and brought her into the sitting room to show her off. Because, difficult though she was, Maia was undeniably beautiful. Then someone turned the stereo up full blast.
‘The baby!’ Sarah’s scream was buried under sound.
But then she fell silent.
Because Maia hadn’t flinched.
The tests began. Was Maia deaf? No, that wasn’t it. What was it, then? Mitch was dragged along for the diagnosis, reluctant and shifty-looking, hung-over.
‘I’m afraid your daughter is autistic.’
The words hung in the air. Sarah was overtaken by an overwhelming urge to grab Maia and run full tilt out of the hospital. She looked at Mitch. For guidance? For reassurance? For what? He was dumbstruck. They held hands loosely.
‘There must be some mistake,’ said the father of her child.
But Sarah knew there was no mistake. It all made a perfect, horrible sense.
They drove home in silence, Mitch behind the wheel and a wall of his own troubled thoughts. Sarah’s own thoughts were garbled. Some made her cry while others, bizarrely, gave her hope: she was thinking of facing the future with Mitch now that they had this diagnosis, something concrete to build on. It might change their relationship for the better.
The silence continued when they got home. Mitch sat on the couch, his head lowered. Sarah knelt down beside him and gently but firmly took his hands in her own. ‘It’s going to be okay. We’ll get through this.’ She attempted a watery smile.
Mitch stared back at her, his expression bleak. She didn’t like what she saw. She liked even less what she heard.
‘I’ve been offered a pilot in the States.’
Sarah withdrew her hands and sat back on her heels.
‘I’ll be flying to LA next week.’
She continued to stare at him.
‘I was waiting for a good time to tell you.’
‘And you think this is it?’
He got up and stood a few feet away from her. ‘You know how long I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this. If it comes off it could be huge.’
‘How long will you be gone?’
‘A few months.’
Sarah got up and went over to the couch where Maia was sleeping. She looked down at her daughter’s angelic, oblivious face. Then she gathered her up and walked towards the stairs. When she was halfway up, she called to Mitch over her shoulder, ‘Don’t bother coming back.’
He didn’t.
Chapter 10
Fiona had noticed that Aidan’s absence had beco
me total. He was still in their bed, beside her at night, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He would lie on his back, hands clasped behind his head and stare into the blackness. She could tell by his breath that he wasn’t asleep, and he must have known that she wasn’t either. But they didn’t speak.
One night she had snuggled up to his rigid form. ‘What is it, Aidan? What’s wrong?’
He hesitated for a few seconds. ‘Nothing. Go to sleep.’
Then he turned his back and she fell away from him. Who needed words when you had body language like that – speaking volumes that you didn’t want to hear? She marvelled at how alone you could feel sharing a bed with another person, a person you thought you knew inside and out. But the Aidan of late had impenetrable depths that she hadn’t even known existed. It occurred to her that thinking you knew another person was nothing but an illusion.
Fiona lay motionless on her side of the bed. It felt lonely and desolate. And this was so unlike Aidan, her tactile, affectionate husband. She was the one who was meant to be cold, the dodger of embraces, sexual or otherwise. And yet here she was, rebuffed. Now she knew how he must have felt. She vowed she would never do it to him again.
The first time Fiona slept with Aidan, she felt as if he’d brought the sea – the whole outdoors – into the bed with them. She imagined she could taste the saltiness on his skin.
His body was well muscled and taut, roughly a third bigger than her own. A thing of wonder. He inhabited it completely, probably because he worked with it. David had only ever inhabited his mind.
She felt small and pale and feminine the first time she woke up in bed with him. She found him watching her with an expression of unaccustomed seriousness.
‘What’s wrong? Did I snore?’
He shook his head. ‘Breakfast?’
‘I’ll get it.’
‘Let me. You stay right there. And, whatever you do, don’t get dressed.’
He sprang out of bed, his casual nakedness mildly shocking. He cast his eyes about the place and grabbed her pink towelling robe from the back of the door. She suppressed the urge to laugh as he secured it around his waist. ‘You don’t know where anything is,’ she said. They were in her flat.
‘I’m sure even I can figure out tea and toast.’
He closed the door behind him, leaving her to regard the bedroom ceiling. She found she didn’t want to be on her own in the bed. She craved his warm presence beside her. Yes, that was the word: craved.
He had astonished her with his gentleness. His reverence, even. She wanted more. Maybe a little less gentle this time. She stretched out sensuously, her toes and fingertips reaching out to their utmost limits. Then withdrew them abruptly. What if he didn’t want more? He seemed very quiet this morning. Not his usual friendly self. Maybe he was preparing to dump her. Oh, God, she knew she shouldn’t have ended it with David. What had she been thinking? But then again, he was making her breakfast, wasn’t he? But maybe he was just being a gentleman and trying to lessen the blow. At least she was in her flat. She wouldn’t have to slink off home in last night’s smoky apparel with a bad case of panda eyes, bed head and a massive dose of rejection. If he did discard her, she could curl up on her couch, wrapped up in her own duvet, eating chocolate biscuits and slowly dying inside.
He came back in, a plate and a cup in either hand. She was yet to own such a thing as a tray. He placed them on her bedside table and sat on the edge of the bed.
‘I can’t take you seriously in that robe.’ She tried jokey.
He smiled, a little wanly. ‘Not my colour?’
‘Not your size either.’
He fell silent again, watching her intently as she sipped her tea self-consciously. He had given her the mug she used for storing thumb tacks and paperclips and the like. She decided not to mention it. Irrelevant, as he was about to dump her anyway. She began inventing reasons to hate him. A fucking fisherman. What did she think she was doing? And she a doctor. A muck savage, for God’s sake. How dare he pursue her and woo her just to dispose of her like so much fish gut once he’d got what he wanted? Then there was the beard. She’d never liked men with beards.
‘You really should shave off that beard.’ She could feel the spite building within her, as she searched for a really biting insult.
‘I will if you marry me.’
A pause.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, if you marry me, I’ll shave off my beard.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘I’m deadly serious. Look at my face.’
His face was indeed deadly serious.
‘But we barely know one another.’
‘You can’t tell me you don’t feel it too, Fiona. I know you do.’
Yes, she did feel something. But what exactly? Lust? Infatuation? Yes and yes. But was there anything of substance underneath all of that? Fiona might have been young, but she wasn’t stupid.
‘My feelings for you are … very strong, Aidan. But I need more time.’
‘How much time? Another week?’
‘No …’
‘Two weeks?’
He was smiling at her now. She smiled back in relief, the tension broken.
‘I don’t care how long it takes, Fi. I’ve got the rest of my life and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll do anything it takes to show you my feelings are real.’
‘You can start right now.’ She sat up in bed, exposing her breasts. His face darkened as he took off her robe. This time he was less gentle.
Her parents were horrified. Their darling girl with this uncouth creature. Her mother might have found him charming in other circumstances, but not in these. Not when he was engaged to her daughter.
Bitter words were exchanged between Fiona and her father.
‘I didn’t spend all that money on your education for you to run off with some – buffoon.’
‘Aidan is no buffoon. He’s the most intelligent man I’ve ever met. He went to university, you know.’
‘What did he study?’
‘Philosophy.’
‘So he has a degree, then.’
‘Well … no …’
‘You mean he’s a drop-out. He couldn’t even finish a bullshit degree like philosophy. What does he do? Quote Plato to the fish?’
Fiona felt a surge of righteous indignation. ‘He had to leave college when his father died.’
Her father looked fleetingly ashamed.
Fiona continued to fume. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Aidan is the man for me and I’m going to marry him.’
‘Jesus Christ. What about your career?’
‘I can still have a career. I’m going to set up a practice in Clare.’
‘A GP. But you always wanted to be a surgeon.’
‘No, Daddy. You always wanted me to be a surgeon, so you could boast to your friends in the golf club.’
‘I didn’t raise my daughter to speak to me like that.’
‘No. You raised me to have a mind of my own, and now that I have one, you don’t want me to use it.’
‘You manage to twist everything, don’t you? You should have been a lawyer, not a doctor.’
But he’d stopped shouting at her. And she knew he loved her too much to deny her anything. Furthermore, Fiona’s father believed that if he withdrew his resistance his daughter would tire of her rebellion. That did not happen. As a consequence, both parents attended the wedding and the reception afterwards in the Shelbourne. It was a high point in the Dublin social calendar, her parents pushing the boat out, trying to ignore the suspicion that they were the laughing stock of their friends.
Aidan was all set to honour his promise – shave off his beard for his wedding day. But Fiona stopped him. ‘I don’t want you to,’ she said.
‘But I thought …’
‘I want to be able to recognize you when I walk down the aisle.’
‘I’ll be the one in the monkey suit.’
‘All the men will be wearing monkey suits. I don’t want
to marry the wrong one by mistake.’
He gathered her up to him and held her close. ‘I wouldn’t let that happen, Fiona McDaid. You were carved out for me and me alone.’
And that had been nineteen years ago. And now she was forty-three. And none of her patients worried that she was too young any more. God be with the days.
The children had come along immediately, much to her parents’ initial horror, then delight. Alannah was a honeymoon baby and Tommy arrived less than two years later. She had the perfect set, girl and boy, salt and pepper. It had been their intention to have children young – to be young themselves when their children were reared. To have a wealth of life left to them, to enjoy each other exclusively again.
She had loved every second of motherhood, throwing all her youthful energy and enthusiasm into it. None of her contemporaries had given birth so young. She sensed they pitied her, considered her early fecundity somehow working class, befitting a woman who had chosen to marry beneath her. Without exception, they had married professionals – doctors mainly, with the odd barrister or bank manager thrown into the mix. David had married a pharmacist – a mousy girl – and they lived in Blackrock, where he was a consultant in the clinic.
If Fiona had ever felt the odd pang, she had refused to entertain it. She presumed everybody felt this pull in life – the tension between reality and what might have been. But for her the road less travelled had not been a particularly bumpy one. And so what if many of her doctor friends had more money than her? How many of them woke in the morning to the roar of the Atlantic, to see the sun rise like molten gold over the eastern horizon? How many could step barefoot out of their front doors and be on a beach in a matter of seconds, walking a demented black Labrador along the line where the foaming sea met the sand? When she had moments of doubt, she comforted herself with these thoughts.
It was seven or eight years – in some cases more than a decade – after she’d had Alannah and Tommy, before her friends from medical school began to reproduce. It had been a solitary time as a young mother. She had tried to make connections with the women of the village, on those rare occasions when she made it to the school gates, but her attempts were unconvincing, to either side. She couldn’t delude herself that she had much in common with most of those women and they, in turn, clearly saw her as an authority figure: the local GP, someone with whom they were obliged to discuss embarrassing physical ailments, not a person with whom they could share coffee and laugh freely. She was the snooty one from Dublin – would always be the snooty one from Dublin. She’d been assigned this label before she’d even arrived. She also had the suspicion that the local women didn’t understand how a man as charming as Aidan could have fallen for as cool a customer as her. Perhaps a few had even set their caps at him before she’d come on the scene. Damn Dublin girls coming to our town and stealing our men. For whatever reason, the women had subtly closed ranks. And she had closed her heart to them, pretending it didn’t matter.