Crowded Marriage

by Catherine Alliott

  “Well, they don’t come any bigger than this,” Kate snorted. “Still, it’s a dream come true for both of them, surely?”

  “Of course, and I think she’s thrilled. She’s just very tired at the moment.”

  “God, I bet. Well, you can tell her from me that that bit doesn’t get any better. I reckon I’m still suffering post-natal exhaustion and Orlando’s nearly nine. I’m still on my knees.”

  I laughed. “Come and see me, Kate. Get away from it all. You haven’t been down here yet. Take a break from the London treadmill.”

  “I know, I must, and I will. But you know what it’s like.” She sighed.

  I did. It was bad enough with one child, but with three and a large house to run and a frantic social life, Kate was chasing her tail on a permanent basis. I, on the other hand, I thought, walking slowly out to my easel in the meadow, carrying the new picture I was working on, was going to have plenty of time on my hands now. Yes, my life was about to get considerably easier, I thought as I screwed the painting in. I stood back and narrowed my eyes speculatively at it. With a weekly boarder for a husband, I could really let things slide. No pork chops to grill, just a few eggs from the chicken house for me and Rufus; no bed to make properly, just crawl in under the duvet. Heaven, I thought guiltily. Odd, wasn’t it? I picked up my paintbrush. I wanted him so badly, but if I knew he was away from her, from my nemesis, I was also quite happy for him not to be here. Happy without him. The thought brought me up short. But—it was only that I had more time to paint now, I thought quickly. Something which, for once, wasn’t making me feel guilty. I smiled as I mixed my colours on my palette. No, for once, something had happened to ensure I didn’t even feel a twinge.

  After I’d dropped Rufus at school that morning, feeling the need to drive around—anywhere really, just not straight home to that stain on the wall, that glaring reminder of my metamorphosis yesterday into a spaghetti-throwing loony—I’d cruised back through the town, and seeing the wine bar already open, drawn up outside. Molly was washing the front door step like a true Parisian café owner, on her hands and knees, in a long white apron, with a bucket. She looked up when she saw me; sat back on her haunches.

  “Sold one!” she announced with a grin.

  I stared at her through my open car window. My mouth fell open. “You haven’t?”

  “Yep, this weekend.” She got to her feet. Laughed at my disbelieving face.

  “Which one?”

  “The one of the cows in the water meadow that hung over the archway. You’d better get painting. I need another one for there now.”

  “No!” I was still staggered. “How much for?”

  “Well, the asking price, obviously.” She picked up her bucket and went inside.

  “But…” I got out of the car and hastened after her, “we put four hundred pounds on that, I thought it would be a laugh!”

  “So who’s laughing now? You get about three hundred and I get the rest—marvellous.”

  “Blimey…” My mind was still spinning. “Who bought it?”

  She shrugged. “No idea. I wasn’t here yesterday, and Pierre, my new Sunday chap, didn’t know. He paid cash, whoever he was.”

  “Oh!” I sat down heavily on a handy bar stool. It rocked a bit.

  She grinned. “What’s the matter, didn’t you expect them to sell?”

  I looked up at her. “In all honesty, no. Not in a million years.”

  She laughed. “That’s how I felt when someone first came in here and ordered a drink. ‘You want to drink it here? In my bar?’ When someone ordered a meal, I nearly passed out. We’ve got to start believing in ourselves, Imogen. If other people do, and put their money where their mouths are, why the hell shouldn’t we?”

  “You’re right,” I said, looking at her with new eyes.

  “We can do anything,” she said. “Anything. We’ve just got to believe it.”

  Nine thirty in the morning seemed a little early to toast my success with anything alcoholic, so we settled for a cappuccino and a croissant each on her sunny pavement. I’d come away in high spirits.

  Yes, I thought now, raising my brush and narrowing my eyes into the vista beyond the shimmering beech trees; yes, I would believe it. This was my career now, my occupation: not a time-consuming hobby to feel shifty and apologetic about, but a money-making venture. All ironing and bed-making could legitimately be ignored. I had work to do.

  Rufus, though, I thought with a jolt some time later, couldn’t be ignored, and if I wanted to visit Hannah before I picked him up—I glanced at my watch, one o’clock. One o’clock Christ!—I had to fly. I hastily threw my brush in some turps and hurried inside with my wet painting. I had been known to leave it in the easel for the birds to wonder at, but a sudden downpour the other day had made me think twice.

  Hannah was sitting up in bed in a pretty nightdress, suckling the baby when I pushed through the ward door, and my heart soared with relief. Eddie was washing the floor beside her with a mop and a bucket, which didn’t surprise me in the slightest. There were five other new mothers in the ward and it was warm and cosy, smelling of cotton wool, milk, newborn babies and, thanks to Eddie, disinfectant. He paused in his mopping to look on proudly as I sat down beside my sister and pecked her cheek. She looked up briefly to flash me a smile, then gazed down adoringly at her bundle again. I caught Eddie’s eye. He winked.

  “I saw that wink,” murmured Hannah, keeping her eyes on her suckling child, “and I know exactly what it means.” She looked up at Eddie and his eyes widened innocently. “It means you two have been in cahoots, and you,” she cut me a look, “persuaded him to have a go at me.”

  “Nonsense,” I said firmly.

  “Told him to tell me to stop wallowing in self-pity and squirming with embarrassment, wondering what the world would say, and start focusing instead on the most precious thing there is.” She gazed at her baby’s downy head. Her eyes softened. “And you were right. Of course you were right. Who cares? Who cares what anyone thinks when I’ve got him?” She looked up at me, her eyes damp and slightly appalled. “How could I ever have thought public opinion mattered, compared to this?”

  “Hormones,” I smiled. “They do funny things to us women. They should be banned.”

  “Do funny things to blokes too,” chipped in Eddie.

  “Rubbish, you wouldn’t know a hormone if it hit you in the face,” chided his wife. “You men have no idea.”

  “Got a few other things in perfect working order, though, eh?” Eddie’s eyes glinted behind his spectacles as he swaggered across to his bucket. “Got at least one strong swimmer who made it up the old elementary canal, eh?” He waggled his eyebrows at us as he squeezed his mop out.

  Hannah gazed at him in disbelief. She turned to me. “Unbelievable. Un…believable. He stirs the paint then thinks he’s done the decorating. Thinks he’s had the blinking baby!”

  I smiled, pleased to see them joshing and sparring again, the balance of power firmly restored to the distaff side, Eddie, happy in his more familiar role as sidekick, aka the Rock of Gibraltar.

  “What are you going to call him, have you decided?”

  “Well, Eddie likes Seymour, but we’re not having that.”

  “Why not? I like it.”

  She raised her eyebrows at me. “With our surname? Sidebottom? See more side bottom?”

  I gave a snort of laughter. “At least it’s not front bottom!”

  She gave me a withering look. “I think you can safely assume that had there been any prospect of me being called Mrs. Frontbottom, I’d have changed my name by deed poll. Either that or not married him.” She shifted position in the bed. “And he also likes Cyril, but we’re not having that, either.”

  I groaned. “Oh, no, Eddie. Not Cyril!”

  “Why not?” objected Eddie. “It’s a good old-fashioned name.” He stood to attention with his mop. “Sir Cyril Sidebottom. Major General Sir Cyril Sidebottom. Brigadier Sir Cyril Sidebottom…” And off
he went, marching down the ward, mop clamped firmly to his shoulder, pulling more and more rank.

  “Isn’t it funny?” murmured Hannah in my ear. “Eddie’s the woolliest liberal on the planet, but put a son in his arms and suddenly he’s conquering the Balkans. Oh, hello, talking of the cavalry…”

  I followed her eyes as, behind me, the door swung open and my parents bustled in, laden with flowers. Dad was beaming from ear to ear, his pink face clashing violently with his orange shirt.

  “Where is he then?” he boomed in his strongest Welsh accent, causing several babies in the ward to throw out their arms in reflex and unlatch from their lactating mothers. “Where is my little grandson, eh?”

  All six babies wailed mightily.

  “Shh, Dad,” I hissed.

  “Sorry, ladies,” he whispered contritely, nodding his apologies as he tiptoed theatrically in. “Sorry. Ooh, look, there he is!” His eyes lit up. “There’s my little lad. Let’s be ’aving him, then—divine!” He stooped to scoop the baby from his daughter’s arms, pausing only to plant a kiss on her cheek. “Well done, pet.”

  Happily his grandson was replete and didn’t object to the change of venue. Mum and I smiled at each other as Dad cradled him in his arms. Dad had a bit of a thing about babies. Apparently, when we were tiny, he’d been the one to get up in the night, warming bottles and jiggling us on his knee as he watched reruns of Kojak at five a.m. Even now he peered into prams in the supermarket, making goo-goo faces.

  “Where’s Dawn?” I asked as he rocked and crooned away, his face wreathed in smiles.

  “Outside in the car,” he whispered hoarsely over his grandson’s head. “Hospitals make her feel a bit woozy. Yes! Yes they do, don’t they?” he crooned as the baby frowned up at him, trying to focus. “Ooh, he’s got his grandpa’s eyes! Look at that—blue, like mine!”

  “All babies have blue eyes, Martin,” said my mother.

  “Not as blue as this. Bit yellow, though, isn’t he?” Dad frowned at the baby, then at Eddie. “Got a bit of Chinkie in you, have you, Eddie, lad? Not that I mind, like, but you might have mentioned it.”

  “It’s jaundice,” said Mum. “Remember Imogen had it? And don’t jiggle him so much. She’s just fed him; he’ll be sick. Here, let me.”

  She went to take him, but Dad swept him swiftly out of her reach. “Ooh no you don’t. If she’s fed him, he needs to get his wind up, don’t you, laddie?” He put him gently over his shoulder, holding his tiny head as he rubbed his back, walking him round the room.

  “‘Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Mumma’s gonna buy you—’ Seen my grandson?” He broke off, beaming delightedly to ask the mother in the next bed. “Handsome lad, isn’t he?”

  She smiled, agreeing that he was.

  “Perhaps it’s as well Dawn didn’t come,” said Hannah as Dad went from bed to bed, encouraging complete strangers, who’d come to visit their own grandchildren, to drool over his and admire his tiny toes. “Don’t want her getting broody.”

  “God, that really would finish me off,” Mum said darkly, rolling her eyes.

  Would it? I thought in surprise. One never quite knew with Mum: never knew what would be hysterically funny because Martin was making a fool of himself, and what wouldn’t be so droll. His girlfriend of twenty-six giving birth clearly wouldn’t.

  “You’re feeding, my love,” she observed to Hannah. “That’s nice.”

  “Well, I wasn’t, but my sister bullied me into it.”

  “Oh, Hannah, I hope I—”

  “I’m joking,” she laughed. “Thank God you did. I just needed a push, lacked confidence, you see. Didn’t think I could do it.”

  God, it was all coming out today, wasn’t it? Something I’d found as natural as falling off a log, my sister had been scared to attempt. This baby business was certainly revealing. I got to my feet.

  “Well, I must go. I’ve got to go and get Rufus, but I’ll pop in tomorrow, Hannah, if you think you’ll still be here.”

  “Oh, no, I won’t. I’m going home in a minute, just waiting for the doctor to sign me off. But come and see me at home. I’d like that. There’s so much I don’t know, Imo. So much I want to ask you.”

  I tried to keep my astonishment to myself but it was hard, and Mum and I exchanged incredulous glances. Jeepers.

  “I need the loo before I go.” I glanced around.

  “That way.” Hannah pointed through the swing doors. “But you have to come back through the ward.”

  “I’ll leave my bag then.”

  I kissed them all good-bye and nipped to the Ladies. As I found a cubicle and whipped up my skirt, I wondered if I still had any of Rufus’s baby clothes. I was pretty sure I had. All those Babygros and nightgowns, they’d be in a suitcase somewhere, I’d dig them out when I got back. Ooh, and my Penelope Leach book, that had been my bible for the first couple of years, and Hannah was a great one for doing things by the book. I’d bring it in tomorrow, she’d love that. I came out, racking my brains as to what else I could do for her, thrilled to be in such an important, advisory capacity for a change and marvelling at the sudden shift in filial hierarchy. But as I went to go back through the double doors to the ward to get my bag, the door was opened for me. I glanced up in surprise, for there, standing back to let me pass under his arm as he propped the door, looking disreputably handsome in a faded pink shirt, his dark hair tousled, and bearing a big easy smile and a bunch of primroses, was Pat Flaherty.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “What the hell are you doing here?” my mouth said before my brain could stop it.

  He looked taken aback. “Well, it’s not every day you deliver a baby, so I thought…” he trailed off, embarrassed.

  “Oh God, yes, sorry,” I flustered, flushing. “I—wasn’t thinking. Of course you’d want to come and see how—”

  “Well, helloa, look ye ’ere!” A voice, similar to that of a town crier, boomed out, and my stammering apologies were cut short by my father, who couldn’t cross the room quickly enough; couldn’t deposit the baby en route in Hannah’s arms in sufficient haste, in order to embrace Pat, taking him firmly by the shoulders, his eyes shining.

  “This is the man!” he roared at full volume, giving Pat’s shoulders a vigorous shake. “This is the man who delivered my grandson, saved my daughter’s life—and the baby’s too, I’ll warrant—marvellous marvellous man!” he announced to the astonished ward, clasping Pat to his bosom and slapping him heartily—spine-shatteringly—on the back, only briefly releasing him so that Eddie, pink with delight, could come up and shake his hand too, stuttering his thanks.

  “I’m so very grateful,” said Eddie earnestly, blinking behind his spectacles. “Really grateful. I don’t know where we’d have been without you.”

  “In the shit, laddie!” roared Dad. “Reelly reelly deeply in the shit, that’s where, the mon’s a genius!”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” began Pat nervously.

  “Ooh, I doo, I doo,” bellowed my father, deep in the Valleys now. “Good God, mon, just imagine if you hadn’t been there! Noa, noa, don’t think about it, it’s too ’orrible to contemplate. Thank you—thank you soa much!” he beamed, pumping Pat’s hand furiously.

  Pat smiled. “You’re very welcome. But I honestly didn’t come here to lap up the gratitude. I just popped in to see how the little chap was doing.”

  “He’s fine,” smiled Hannah from the bed, holding him up so Pat could see. “Look, so lovely, and all thanks to you.”

  “Well, he certainly looks in good shape. Oh, I, um, picked these for you, stopped on the way.”

  Mum took the primroses from him, smiling broadly. “You’re a dear, sweet man and we don’t know how we can thank you enough.”

  “I knowa how I can,” thundered Dad. “I can take him oot for a pint or ten, that’s what. Come on, laddie, let’s goa and find a watering hole, leave these women to their mothers’ meetin’, like. Come on, Eddie lad, you come too.”

  Pat
laughed. “I’d love to, but I’ve got to stay sober, I’m afraid. I’m operating in an hour.”

  “Nonsense! You’ll have a pint!”

  “No, really.”

  “Well, you’ll take a pull on this then.” Dad produced a hip flask from his pocket, knocked back a slug, and handed it to Pat, who politely took a sip and handed it back.

  “Imogen?” Dad passed it to me.

  “I won’t, thanks, Dad.” It was the first time I’d spoken since I’d rudely enquired what the hell he was doing here—Pat Flaherty, that is—and for some inexplicable reason I found I couldn’t look at him. “I’ve got to drive,” I mumbled. “Got to get Rufus.” Head down, I made for the door.

  “And I won’t linger,” Pat said quickly. “I just popped in to—”

  “Noa, noa, linger away!” roared Dad, pulling up a chair for him. “Sit down, boyo, sit. We want to hear more, don’t we? Imogen said you’d done it once before, like, delivered another babe. Is that right?”

  “Yes I…well. It was my wife, actually. She gave birth in the back of a taxi in Dublin as we were on our way to hospital.” I’d got as far as the ward door. Stopped. His wife. Right. That was the ex, then. The one he’d left. And the child.

  “No!” Mum was exclaiming. “How dreadful! But you managed?”

  “Had to, really. With the taxi driver’s help.”

  “God, worse than me,” Hannah said. “At least I had a bed. But you got her to the hospital all right?”

  I pretended I’d paused at the door to search for my car keys in my bag.

  “Yes, we got there.”

  “And what did she have? I mean, what have you got?”

  “A girl,” said Pat shortly.

  “Lovely! How old?”

  “She’s twenty-two months.”

  “Oh, such a sweet age.”

  “Yes, look, I must go,” he said awkwardly. “I just wanted to make sure you were OK.”

  “Fine,” beamed Hannah.

  “All thanks to you!” said Dad, taking Pat’s hand in both of his and shaking it vigorously.

  A moment later I realised Pat was coming up behind me. I snatched up my keys and moved on through the door.