Feels Like Maybe

by Claire Allan

  I knew my face had lit up. I was in my conversational comfort zone. I had successfully steered the conversation away from Jake and my family and I could talk about something I felt utterly comfortable and confident about.

  I could ignore what I had just done. I could push it to the back of my mind for a little while because the front of my mind was busy enough just now. I didn’t need the voice telling me over and over again that I was a bad mother – who didn’t deserve the gorgeous creature in the Moses basket across the room. I could ignore the voice telling me that what I had done – how I had walked out – had been utterly, utterly selfish and wrong. I would beat myself up over that tomorrow, I decided drunkenly. And probably for a long time to come. That night, though, I wanted to pretend that everything was fine and that there was every excuse for how I had behaved, even if the nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach told me otherwise.

  I went to bed shortly after that – still pushing those thoughts to the back of my mind. Positive thinking was the way forward, I tried to convince myself. So I decided, in fine drunken fettle, to phone Beth and tell her just how proud I was of us both. I wouldn’t mention how I was distinctly unproud of my actions that evening. I didn’t notice that it had gone midnight. The phone rang three times and Dan answered, his voice strangely breathless.

  “Everything okay, Dan?” I asked.

  “Fine, just fine,” he answered, sounding a little annoyed and definitely very flustered.

  “Can I speak to Beth, please?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Then I heard my best friend on the phone. Equally breathless and flustered. And that’s when the penny dropped.

  “Oh Jesus, I’ve not caught you mid-shag, have I?” I laughed down the phone.

  “Something like that,” Beth answered.

  “Christ, look, I’ll go. I just wanted to tell you, you’re a rock.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Long story, Beth, and I don’t want to kill your vibe. Away you go and get laid. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Are you coming home?”

  “I don’t know, I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Night, honey.”

  The truth was I wasn’t exactly sure where home was any more.

  

  Chapter 17

  Beth

  Seduction. I used to be fabulous at it. I had a drawer of saucy little numbers from La Senza or, for special occasions, from Agent Provocateur. Dan’s favourite had been a pair of knickers which tied at the side. They were cream lace, almost paper-thin. He said they made for easy access. I would wear them with a matching cream lace plunge bra and hold-ups.

  I would go the whole hog. Candles, wine, rose petals on the bed, a blindfold if I was feeling particularly adventurous. I promised myself on our wedding day that I would always make the effort – so I’m not sure when it changed exactly.

  All I know is that I found myself on Day 14 of my cycle walking into the living-room and announcing to Dan that it was “time”.

  He was sprawled out on the cream leather sofa, his tie loosened, his shoes off. His eyes were glued to the TV, a bottle of Stella Artois in his hand. Keeping his gaze on the TV, he asked: “Time for what?”

  “You know. Time for you to perform.” I tried to keep my voice light, but with every second that passed my optimum fertility was dropping. I eyed the bottle of beer and tried to keep my patience. This wouldn’t help matters at all.

  He glanced up. I wiggled my hips, but even I knew my look of dressing-gown and thermometer waving in my hand wasn’t exactly erotic.

  He sighed (again) and stood up, walking towards the bedroom with the look of a condemned man about him.

  I moved to kiss him, to try and inject some romance.

  “Look, babes, I’m really tired. Can we just get this over with?”

  The words hurt. I wanted a baby, but I wanted the experience of making that baby to be memorable for the right reasons. I didn’t want to look back at the moment of conception and think that it was just a chore for Daddy Dearest.

  I tried to smile. “C’mon, baby. That’s not the attitude.” I loosened his tie further, slowly unbuttoning his shirt, while I kissed his neck.

  I felt his body respond, his breathing change just that little bit and I felt myself relax. It was okay, he wanted this after all.

  Things were just getting hot and heavy when the phone rang. I begged Dan not to answer it, wriggling my hips beneath him in a bid to distract him, but he reached over my head and answered it anyway – putting me on the phone to talk to Aoife.

  Did he not realise how important this was?

  Finishing the call as quickly as I could, I turned to where he sat on the side of the bed. I wrapped my arms around his neck, rubbing my hands across his strong chest. “Where were we?” I purred.

  “Is Aoife okay?”

  “Sure she is.” I said, trying to drop the subject of my best friend and her train-wreck of a life. “Let’s not worry about Aoife just now. Let’s worry about us.”

  “You didn’t tell her Jake had called to the shop.”

  God, why couldn’t he just drop it and move back to the more important matters?

  “No. She sensed we were, erm, busy, and said she would speak to me tomorrow.”

  “Do you think you should have told her?”

  It was clear this was going nowhere fast. “Dan, look, can we talk about this tomorrow? If we miss this window of opportunity, we will have to wait another month.”

  “And that would be so bad?”

  At that point I stood up and stormed to the bathroom, but before I could slam the door I heard the door of the bedroom slam as Dan walked out, stealing my thunder.

  I sat down on the warm floor and wondered how on earth I was going to pull back from this. I didn’t want to let another month pass. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t exactly force myself on him either.

  God, why wasn’t this easy? We had spent all the years we dated trying not to get pregnant and now that we wanted it more than anything else, why did it have to be so damned hard? I just wanted to be pregnant. We were doing everything right. It wasn’t bloody fair.

  I stomped to the kitchen, still naked, and opened a bottle of wine, knocking back half a glass in one go which caused me to splutter. Tears sprang to my eyes, mostly due to the choking, and I slammed the glass down on the worktop while I tried to catch my breath.

  “Are you okay?” Dan asked, walking into the room.

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “Glad someone does,” I managed with a half smile.

  Dan walked towards me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close to him. He kissed my forehead and I allowed myself to fall into his body. He kissed me again, on the cheek this time, and then softly on the mouth. I responded – this time because I wanted to, really wanted to.

  We made love there and then, right in front of the fridge, and then we went to bed and slept spooned together and I tried, desperately, not to think about the fact that I hadn’t had the chance to prop a pillow under my hips after the deed to ensure our best chance at conception.

  

  Chapter 18

  Aoife

  Two summers ago, when I wasn’t pregnant and when Jake and I were still in the relatively first flushes of our “relationship”, we went shopping with Beth and Dan.

  It was an amazing, glorious summer day. The sun was splitting the roofs, as Anna would say. There was a general quietness to London, everyone seemed to be lost in a glorious chilled-out summer vibe. We had closed Instant Karma for a week – something we did every year to get holidays over and done with – and spent too much time in beer gardens and on roof terraces soaking in the sun and the smog.

  On that particular day we decided to take the train to the coast for a picnic on the beach. We would buy wine and beer and get tipsy as the sun set before bedding down in a local B&B for the night.

  We were giddy with
excitement as we traipsed around Waitrose filling our basket with delicious treats for our seaside repast. Beth and Dan walked ahead of Jake and me. Beth’s hair was tied back, a green summer dress and white flip-flops making her look as though she had just stepped out of a French catalogue. Dan was sun-kissed, a smattering of freckles across the bridge of the nose making him look almost boy-like. And yet, he was all man. His T-shirt clung to his toned chest, his three-quarter-length trousers showing off his tanned legs and feet. If he hadn’t been like a brother to me I would have fancied him.

  That said, I only had eyes for Jake with his rugged jeans, his tatty T-shirt, his sunglasses on top of his head. He oozed sex appeal. I looked at him and could almost feel every part of his body on my own and it sent shivers down my spine despite the heat.

  Beth and Dan looked almost virginal in comparison. But as we walked, I saw it. It was a split second, a casual touch, a nothing gesture but it chilled me. As Dan walked beside Beth, he placed his hand gently and tenderly between her shoulder blades while staring at the nape her neck. His hand moved slowly down to the base of her spine, where it rested for a few seconds, before he kissed her cheek. To most casual observers I’m sure they looked like a loved-up couple sharing your average tender moment. To me, that touch symbolised everything that was missing from my own relationship. My heart sank and I fought to get rid of the lump in my throat.

  Dan loved Beth. He worshipped her. He wanted her body and soul. Jake wanted me in body only.

  I tried for the rest of the day to shake the thought from my head. I clasped my hands in Jake’s a few times, waiting for a tenderness in his reaction. As the day turned to evening, the embers of our beach fire burning out, he walked toward me, wrapping his arms around my waist as I stood staring out at the water. This could be my tender moment, I thought. He started singing softly. I closed my eyes and leant back toward him, letting the words of “Tupelo Honey” wash over me. I could feel his body against mine, the warmth of his skin and his breath as he sang just for me and in the moment I thought I had my victory.

  “Let’s get back to the B&B,” he whispered. “I’m horny as fuck.”

  *****

  I woke to the sound of Maggie’s cries. She seemed to be increasing in volume on an almost daily basis. The noise cut through the furriness of my brain and I buried my head under the pillow to ease the pain. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth and from my under-pillow cave I could smell my morning breath. I wasn’t sure if it was that precise aroma or the eight vodkas in quick succession that were making me feel queasy.

  I had flashbacks. Moments of clarity from the night before. Had Jake really phoned? Had I really leaked breast milk in the bar? My face burned at the memories.

  I could hear Anna carry Maggie down the stairs and I felt a confusing mixture of relief at the fading of the noise and guilt that I had now let my aunt watch my baby for two nights in a row. I pushed the feelings quickly to the back of my head. I had bigger fish to fry, as the old cliché goes. Today was the day of reckoning – again. I had to decide whether to stay in Derry and sort this out for once and for all, or go back to London and sort out the situation with Jake.

  Neither seemed a particularly appealing option, especially with the hangover I had, but I longed to be in Jake’s arms again. I wanted to give him a chance to do right by us. Sure, I knew there was a possibility he wouldn’t, but maybe he had changed. After all, he had phoned me. I hadn’t phoned him. He wanted to call round. It was my own damn fault for coming to Derry. I knew something like this would happen.

  And yet, I knew if I walked away now from Anna and everyone I would cause irreparable damage to my family. I knew it could be salvaged if I stayed. Anna’s kindness the previous night had shown me all was not lost, and my father, God love him, he was prepared to try.

  No, Anna was right. I was a mother. I had to be sensible. I had to decide which I thought had the strongest chance of working. I had to stay in Derry. All I had to do first was sleep until the marching band left my head and my stomach stopped churning. It was eleven when I woke again. The house was quiet bar the almost inaudible babble of the TV from the living-room. I got up, showered and dressed and made my way downstairs.

  “It lives,” Anna smiled. “How are you this morning?”

  “Better now than I was at eight. I’m sorry, Anna. I was a real feckwit yesterday, but I’ve decided to stay and sort this out. If you don’t mind?”

  “Of course I don’t mind,” She smiled, standing up to kiss me. “Now sit down with this gorgeous little woman of yours and I’ll make some tea and toast and then we will go about making this all better.”

  I nodded.

  My phone rang shortly afterwards. Beth’s name flashed up on the screen. I had a sudden embarrassing memory of hearing her sex noises over the phone the previous night.

  “Beth, I’m so sorry,” I mumbled as I picked up.

  “You weren’t to know,” she answered. “Sorry for not being more with it. Are you okay? Are you coming home?”

  “I’m going to stay on for a bit.”

  “Good, glad to hear it.”

  “Jake phoned,” I said, slipping it casually into our conversation. “He wants to see us.”

  She paused before answering, “You don’t really want to see him, do you? Not after everything?”

  “Beth, you know I do. He has a daughter now. He has a right to see her.”

  She sighed – the deep sigh of someone who had sat with me for countless nights over the last nine months while I wailed like a hormonal banshee over the unfairness of it all.

  “Anyway,” I said, deciding that changing the subject was the best approach for all concerned, “how’s work? Do you miss me?”

  “You’ve only been gone two days,” Beth laughed, “but of course we miss you. Matilda is beside herself with loneliness.”

  “She’ll take the right hump with me over deserting her.”

  “Do you know then when you might be back? I could tell her and put her mind at rest”

  “It might be a while,” I answered. “I have to do this properly.”

  “Okay, honey, I understand. But don’t be too long, Elena Kennedy is busting her designer knickers to get a look at young Maggie. And I miss her desperately too.”

  “She misses her Auntie Beth as well,” I added and we said our goodbyes.

  That was that then. I was in Derry and I was staying until I was no longer the black sheep of my highly dysfunctional family.

  *****

  Anna was the list-making queen. If there was anything at all in this world you needed to plan, then Anna was your gal. I suppose she had to be. She needed to be super-organised after Uncle Billy died. Maeve had been only eight and Anna had to juggle working full-time with raising Maeve and trying to keep Billy’s business afloat.

  She managed nicely on the business front for five years – largely due to the efficiency of her lists – before selling and making enough to buy her council house outright.

  Once Maggie had fallen back to sleep, Anna called me to the kitchen where she sat at the table, two cups of tea in front of her, and a notebook and pen at the ready.

  “Right, my dear. Let’s sort this out,” she said, sipping from her cup. “What are your priorities while you are here? Let’s list them and formulate a plan.”

  She looked so serious that I had to bite back the giggle that was threatening to burst from my mouth.

  “Okay then,” I said, adopting my serious business face – the one I use when a client describes a colour scheme in vivid yellows and purples or something equally horrendous. “Well, I suppose the first priority is for me to phone Joe and apologise for last night.”

  “Good start,” Anna nodded.

  “Then after that, well, it’s Mum, isn’t it? I want her to want to get to know Maggie. I know she’s pissed off with me, but I don’t want her to take it out on my baby.”

  The words “my baby” felt strangely alien to me.

  I meant w
hat I said about my mum. Sure it would be nice to have her welcome me back into the fold with open arms, but as she hadn’t done it in thirty-one years I doubted she was about to change the habit of a lifetime.

  “Well, I think we need to get you over there again. Or maybe the three of you could meet in a neutral venue – somewhere you can talk without getting all hot-headed.”

  I thought about looking offended but decided not to bother. If there was one thing that I and my mother did well, it was get hot-headed. It made for a fun time for all during my teenage years. Joe and Daddy would head out together on the pretence of getting some fresh air. The truth was they just wanted away from the two screaming banshees we became. It was strange really – my mother, the epitome of deportment and etiquette, screaming at me like a drunken fishwife.

  “What next?” Anna asked, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Erm, spend some time with Dad. I want him to feel proud of me again.”

  “I don’t think you will have too much trouble there, love. Your daddy never was one to hold a grudge. Sometimes I don’t understand how he and your mother ever got together.”

  “Opposites attract,” I muttered.

  “Right. Anything else?”

  “Would it be unchristian to say ‘Wipe the smug and superior look off Jacqueline’s face’?”

  “Well, yes,” Anna said, a look of mischief in her eyes, “but let’s do it anyway.”

  She scribbled away for a few moments and then handed me the sheet of paper.

  “Right, my dear, this is your mission, should you choose to accept it.”

  Every task was underlined and marked beside a day and time. Between tasks, she had set aside time for me to rest, to spend with Maggie and to get some fresh air.