Two For Joy

by Patricia Scanlan

  Rajiv jumped out of bed. ‘I know an offie not far from here. I’ll go. I won’t be long. It’s only eight thirty. Kay won’t be home for a little while yet,’ he offered.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure, Noreen. I’d do anything for you. You made me feel alive again.’ He smiled, his teeth very white against his smooth olive skin. She watched him dress. It had helped that he was so different to Oliver. Shorter, stockier, his chest smooth and satiny compared to Oliver’s hairy chest. His silky black hair, sprinkled with grey, not at all like Oliver’s tight-cut brown hair. Rajiv was a soft, kind man, with none of Oliver’s hard strength. They couldn’t be more unlike.

  ‘I’d better get dressed and make the bed,’ she said drowsily. She would have liked to stay in bed for the rest of the night, but Kay would worry that there was something wrong with her. By the time Rajiv got back with the brandy she’d showered and was dressed in a tracksuit.

  ‘I won’t stay, dear friend.’ He kissed her hand. ‘Thank you for everything.’

  ‘No, Rajiv, thank you.’ Noreen kissed him tenderly. ‘You’ll never know what comfort you gave my spirit.’

  ‘And a beautiful spirit it is, too. Try to be happy,’ he said kindly, before closing the door behind him.

  Noreen replaced the bottle of brandy in Kay’s drink’s cabinet and wrapped the well-depleted bottle they’d been drinking from in a towel in her case. Her behaviour this afternoon had been totally out of character, she acknowledged with a bashful grin as she caught sight of herself in the mirror, her eyes betraying the amount she’d had to drink. After she’d remade her bed, she made herself a strong cup of coffee to help counteract the effects of the brandy.

  ‘I’m bushed,’ Kay announced when she got home. ‘We never stopped all day. Would you mind if we rang for a takeaway tonight, Noreen? I don’t think my feet are up to going out.’

  ‘I don’t mind at all, Kay, as long as it’s not an Indian,’ she laughed.

  ‘We’ll have Chinese, the one that delivers to me does chow mein to die for,’ Kay informed her as she kicked off her shoes and sank on to the sofa. ‘Well, what was the rest of your day like? What did you do with yourself?’

  ‘I had a perfectly lovely time,’ Noreen said truthfully, and began to give an edited version of her doings.

  That night as she lay in bed, woozy again after another bottle of wine with Kay, she hugged her precious memories to her, replaying them in her mind. Oliver had not phoned once while she was away and she hadn’t phoned him, angry with him that he couldn’t be bothered to contact her. Her infidelity was his fault, she rationalized sleepily. If he had looked after her properly, emotionally, she would never have ended up in bed with Rajiv. And she wasn’t sorry she had either, she thought crossly. Rajiv had made her feel like a wanted woman. Not someone to be endured. She fell asleep and slept like a log.

  Forty-eight hours later she sat on the plane winging its way to Dublin and wished she could have stayed in London longer. She’d enjoyed herself. She hadn’t felt under pressure, or tense and agitated like she was feeling now. What had she to look forward to? Only hostility from her husband. She wondered if he would kiss her at the airport. That was if he was at the airport, she thought wryly, as the plane began a slow bank to the right and the coast of Wexford appeared far below them.

  * * *

  Oliver looked up at the monitor and saw that Noreen’s plane had landed. He put his empty coffee cup in a bin, folded his paper and made his way to the arrivals area. She hadn’t even phoned him once, just left a message on his mobile to say that she’d got there ten days ago. He felt very hard done by, especially as he’d had the exterior of the house painted in her absence, washed and vacuumed her car, had the gardens tended to by a gardener so that they were in tip-top shape, and even done the shopping. She probably wouldn’t even say thanks, he thought crossly, as he stood glowering with his hands shoved into his hip pockets waiting for her to emerge into the arrivals hall.

  He saw her before she saw him. She looked relaxed, rested. He was glad of that. He walked forward to take her trolley.

  ‘Oh … Oh! Hello,’ she said coolly. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be here.’

  ‘Here, let me take that.’ He took the trolley from her. ‘Why wouldn’t I be here?’ he demanded.

  ‘Well, you could be busy,’ she said huffily. ‘You never rang to say you’d be here. You never rang me at all.’

  ‘You mean you never rang me,’ growled Oliver. ‘You were gone ten days and not a peep.’

  ‘Excuse me, I left a message to say I got there,’ Noreen retorted.

  Oliver manoeuvred the trolley through the crowds. ‘You might have phoned back. It was quite obvious you weren’t the slightest bit interested—’

  ‘Oh Oliver, please let’s not bicker,’ she burst out agitatedly. ‘Don’t ruin my holiday with a row.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

  They walked in silence to the pay booth. And when he’d paid the parking fee he turned and took the trolley again. ‘We’re in C,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t get any closer.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Noreen murmured and he felt a bit of a heel.

  ‘Did you have a nice time?’ He made an effort.

  ‘Yeah, I did. Kay was really kind to me.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad,’ he said gruffly and touched her arm briefly. To his dismay, she burst into tears. ‘What’s wrong?’ He gave her a look of dismay.

  ‘Oliver, please let’s not fight,’ Noreen wept. ‘I don’t want to go home to fighting and not talking.’

  Oliver swallowed hard. He took a step forward and put his arms around her. ‘We won’t fight, Noreen,’ he said firmly. ‘Stop crying and let’s go home.’

  * * *

  Noreen tried to eat the fillet steak Oliver had cooked for them but her throat felt closed and tight. The minute she’d seen Oliver lope towards her in arrivals she’d been swamped by guilt. He looked tired and careworn. It wasn’t easy for him either, she acknowledged. He was a good man and she’d slept with someone else behind his back. If he ever found out he’d feel a bigger failure than he felt now, and she’d hate that. He was hurting enough with all that was going on, she didn’t want to plunge the knife in even deeper.

  I’m sorry, Oliver, she apologized silently to him as he poured her a glass of water. She wasn’t drinking for at least a week, she vowed. She hadn’t drunk as much in years as she had when she’d been on holiday and look where drink had got her, she thought guiltily.

  ‘The house looks great, Oliver. The paint really freshens it up, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I thought it would be good to get it done when you were away so you wouldn’t have to smell the fumes,’ he said, sprinkling more salt than was good for him on his potatoes.

  ‘Go easy on the salt,’ she said out of habit, feeling worse than she’d ever felt in her life as his thoughtfulness heaped even more guilt on to the load she was already carrying.

  ‘Is your dinner OK? The steak’s a bit tough. I battered it around a bit to tenderize it.’

  ‘It’s lovely, Oliver. Thanks very much.’ She thought she was going to cry again as she saw him smile at her, his clear blue eyes even bluer against his tanned skin.

  ‘We need to put a few pounds on you, woman, so eat up. There’s more gravy and veg if you want them. Would you like some more?’

  ‘No I’m fine, honest. They served a snack on the plane; it took the edge off my appetite.’ Making a superhuman effort, Noreen ate some fried onions and wished with all her being that she had never invited Rajiv back to Kay’s flat. As long as she lived she would never drink brandy again, she vowed miserably, as Oliver updated her on the goings on in Kilronan while she’d been away.

  Later, she unpacked. The sight of the half-empty bottle of brandy wrapped in her bathtowel jolted her and guilt came flooding back. Hurriedly she stuffed the bottle to the back of her wardrobe. She’d put it in the drinks cabinet when Oliver was at work. She sighed deeply. She fel
t awkward and unbalanced. All the relaxation she’d felt in London had ebbed away. Although Oliver was being kind and making an effort, the tension was there between them and she dreaded going to bed that night.

  She pretended to be asleep when he came to bed an hour after her. She’d pleaded tiredness but as she lay with her back to her husband with her eyes closed she was wide awake and utterly on edge. She couldn’t bear it if he tried to make love to her. Guilt boiled and bubbled inside her, burning her soul, and she wanted to tell him about Rajiv and get it over with. If he ranted and roared and called her names it would have to be better than what she was enduring now.

  The bedsprings creaked as Oliver got into bed. Noreen tensed. She heard him sigh and roll on to his side away from her. She prayed that he would fall asleep soon so that she could open her eyes and stop pretending to breathe deeply, and just endure her misery.

  33

  ‘He never gets up to him at night, he carries on as if there’s no baby in the house. He’s off playing golf whenever he wants and I’m not getting a wink of sleep,’ Maura moaned.

  ‘Well, if you like I’ll take the baby for a walk around the lake for an hour and you could nip up to bed for forty winks,’ Noreen offered, feeling more than a little sorry for her sister. Gone was the smartly dressed, immaculately coiffed Lady-Who-Lunched. Maura had bags under her eyes, her roots needed touching up and her jumper had creamy puke stains on it.

  ‘Would you, Noreen? Are you sure? I’ll take the phone off the hook and just have a quick snooze. He’s had a bottle so he might even sleep for you.’ Maura’s eyes lit up at the prospect of sleep.

  ‘Get me his coat. It’s a bit cool, so stick an extra blanket on the buggy,’ Noreen instructed. ‘I’ll go and put his seat into my car. Where’s your car keys?’

  ‘On the table in the hall.’ Maura couldn’t believe her luck. Noreen laughed and went out to struggle with the intricacies of baby seats. Twenty minutes later she was pushing her nephew through the gates that led to the pathway that circled the lake. It was a grey, gloomy day. The sky and lake seemed to merge and even the vibrant yellow gorse seemed dull today.

  Noreen sighed. She was restless. Since she’d come back from London she was finding it hard to settle down. Even her job in the surgery was losing its lustre. Was this what it was going to be like for the rest of her life? she wondered moodily as she negotiated a hole in the footpath. Oliver was doing his best. He’d offered to go to the Rotunda Fertility Clinic with her, but she knew his heart wasn’t in it. Their easy companionship was gone. A jagged edge of tension underlined their relationship now. She knew he felt he was walking on eggshells. She could feel the tension in him at night when he put his arms around her, and she would pretend to sleep until he fell asleep himself and then lie awake thinking of her time in London, wishing she could turn the clock back.

  Oliver had tried to make love to her shortly after she’d come back from London. It had been a disaster. She’d tensed up, he’d got tense too, nothing happened and he’d just turned away from her and not said a word.

  It had to be because he didn’t fancy her any more, she tormented herself, even though the rational, medically trained part of her knew that Oliver’s problem was psychological, induced by the discovery of his sterility. But if he really wanted me, he’d be able to get it up, was the thought that rampaged around her head in spite of herself. The notion plagued her so much she wanted to shake him and shout, ‘Look, just say you don’t want me any more. Tell me to my face that I don’t turn you on. Stop punishing me for asking you to marry me.’

  She pulled the buggy in beside a seat and lifted her nephew out on to her knee. He smiled happily at her and she kissed his rosy little cheek and held him tenderly against her, loving the feel of his tiny little legs kicking away.

  ‘You are a beautiful little fellow, and when you grow up, I hope you meet a woman you love enough to propose to. I hope you meet a woman you can talk to, and I hope you’ll never have an unhappy day in your life, my little precious,’ she crooned. John gooed away animatedly, head bobbing from side to side as if he understood everything she’d said, so that she had to laugh. She sat and held him for about ten minutes, and felt calmer and soothed when she put him back in his buggy to resume their walk. She felt quite sure that Maura would welcome any involvement she cared to have in the baby’s life. Maybe John would be her lifeline, she mused as she tucked the blankets around him tenderly. She could do up a room for him so that he could come and stay the odd night when he was older, although no doubt Rita would get in a snit that her pair had never been invited.

  You couldn’t win in this place, she frowned, her humour dipping again.

  The baby was asleep when she got him home and she lifted him gently from his car seat and rang the doorbell. ‘One sleeping child,’ she said smugly when Maura answered the door.

  ‘Great, I’ll put him in his cot and we’ll have a cuppa. If you’ve time, that is?’ her sister invited.

  Noreen glanced at her watch. ‘I have another three-quarters of an hour before surgery. I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea, thanks. I’ll just put the car seat back in your car.’ When she got in Maura had the kettle on. Her eyes were puffy from sleep and she yawned widely.

  ‘Sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I think if I was to sleep around the clock it still wouldn’t be enough. Nothing’s prepared me for motherhood, Noreen. I never thought it would be so all-consuming.’

  ‘The first couple of months are the hardest, all the feeding, changing, washing … it will get easier,’ Noreen consoled.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Maura said doubtfully, placing a generous chunk of coffee cake and a mug of tea in front of Noreen.

  ‘I know so,’ Noreen fibbed. She had taken her third sip of tea and a mouthful of cake when a heat suffused her and a wave of nausea swamped her. She swallowed hard. Don’t say she was starting a tummy bug. She usually had a cast-iron stomach. ‘Need to use your loo,’ she murmured.

  ‘Use the one in the hall,’ Maura said, too busy shovelling coffee cake into her to notice anything untoward. Noreen made her way to the loo and threw up as discreetly as possible. She felt most peculiar, she thought as she splashed her face with cold water and took deep breaths, casting her mind back to what she’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours that had sickened her. Nothing came to mind and she took several deep breaths before rejoining Maura.

  ‘Finish your cake,’ her sister ordered. Fortunately John began to whimper and Noreen said hastily, ‘I’ll head off, Maura, I need to get to the surgery a little early today, I’ll see you later in the week.’

  ‘Thanks very much for taking him, Noreen, I’d a lovely sleep.’ Maura hastened to the baby’s cot, and Noreen left her to it.

  She sat in the car, beads of sweat on her upper lip and forehead. She felt grotty, but she couldn’t very well let Douglas down at such short notice by not turning in for work. But if it was a bug she could spread it, she argued silently as she drove towards town. She found a packet of chewing-gum in the window pocket and chewed on one. It helped her nausea subside and she decided she’d go to work.

  The surgery was half full already and she had a busy afternoon. The queasiness ebbed and flowed, but nothing as dramatic as she’d endured in Maura’s. Still, she was glad to say goodbye to her colleagues and drive home.

  The thought of cooking dinner was less than enticing so she phoned Oliver on his mobile and told him to get a takeaway for himself on his way home. ‘I don’t feel the best, I’m going to lie down,’ she informed him.

  ‘Will I get anything for you?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I’ll have something later, a few crackers or something,’ she told him, as she drove into the driveway.

  She went into the kitchen, drank a glass of water and went to lie down on the sofa. It was so unusual for her to be sick, she thought, perplexed. She had the constitution of an ox and was immune to most bugs after all her years of nursing. It was hardly her period, she thought vaguely as she lay down. She
often felt sick at the onset but she’d never barfed before. She shot bolt upright as the blood drained from her face.

  ‘Mother of God! It couldn’t be,’ she muttered as she raced upstairs, galvanized. It just couldn’t be after all that had happened. She scrabbled in her bedside locker until she found what she was looking for. Thank God she had one. Five minutes later she was looking at two blue lines on her pregnancy test kit.

  ‘Pregnant! I’m pregnant!’ she said in disbelief, unable to absorb the enormity of what had happened. For one brief moment a wave of joy flooded her being. She was going to have a baby. God had not deserted her. She was exhilarated. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’ She fell to her knees, burying her head in her hands, and cried at the knowledge that she had not been forsaken.

  ‘I’m having a baby.’ Noreen spoke aloud the words she had longed for an eternity to say. Then the stark realization of her situation hit her.

  She was pregnant and Rajiv was the father. Now, not only Oliver but the whole world would know that she had betrayed her husband. No child of Rajiv’s would ever be mistaken for a child of Oliver’s. Well, God had granted her her dearest wish, she thought bitterly. Now she was pregnant, but look at the circumstances. Oliver would be gutted. It would be such a kick in the teeth for him. What the hell was she going to do? she thought in panic.

  She couldn’t tell Oliver. It was as simple as that. She’d have to leave Kilronan. She lay down on the bed, her heart racing, her thoughts a blizzard inside her head. She had money of her own from her mother’s estate. She’d need a roof over her head.

  London. She’d go back to London. What other choice had she got? Kay would help her sort herself out. And Rajiv deserved to know he’d fathered a child. If he wanted to be involved, fine. If not she’d cope, she thought distractedly. The thing to do was move fast. There was no point in dragging things out. She needed to be sorted before the baby was born. And besides, she couldn’t live with Oliver knowing that she was pregnant by another man and knowing that she was going to leave him. The fairest thing on both of them was to get it over and done with quickly.