Grace After Henry

by Eithne Shortall

  ‘Don’t make me laugh!’

  ‘Can I switch hands? My arse really is going numb.’

  ‘Okay, just don’t let go for long.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘And don’t touch that shower curtain.’

  ‘Count to five and I’ll have a hand back in yours.’

  ‘One – two – the curtain, Henry! – three—’

  ‘There.’

  ‘Four, five.’

  Betty got the lucky line, which was worth two euro more than usual so she said there was a chance that sitting in the same room as me wasn’t exactly like having a family of black cats cross your path. She gave me her winning ticket and told me to put it towards the baby fund. I wasn’t sure how many disposable nappies I’d be buying with seven euro, but it was a nice gesture.

  I had no idea how much nappies cost, or baby food, or what you were supposed to buy before a baby was born. Because the baby would be born, I accepted that with no great feeling of celebration as I walked to the supermarket on Sunday afternoon to do a shop for Betty. Not because the thing growing inside was half me, but because the other half was Henry.

  I made omelettes for myself and Betty and only went into my own house to get pepper. I kept my phone in my back pocket but it didn’t ring. Andy would be having dinner with the Walshes now. Maybe he’d moved out of the B&B and gone to live with them. I pictured the three of them playing happy families in the bright and airy modern home with its high energy rating and underfloor heating.

  ‘You should be getting plenty of rest,’ said Betty, dipping a slice of toast into the eggy concoction.

  ‘I am,’ I said, slightly taken aback by the spark of compassion. ‘Thanks.’

  It turned out the soaps, like football and world news, never stopped. They differed slightly each night but there was always at least three on. I was starting to get a grasp on some storylines, and Betty gave me character backgrounds during the ad breaks. The implausibility of some of the plots made me feel a bit better about my own situation.

  ‘Was that . . .?’ Betty leapt from her armchair. ‘I think that was one of the Hegartys . . .’ She scuttled over to the window and picked up a pair of binoculars I’d never noticed before. ‘I knew I’d catch them. If these feckin’ things would just work . . . Jesus!’ There was a bang on the window and Betty jumped back. ‘Jesus, Mary and all the feckin’ saints!’

  I got up from the sofa and looked out. I could just about see him. ‘It’s Andy,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The toolbox man.’

  FIFTY

  ‘Idid call here first,’ said Andy, when we were safely locked away in my own kitchen. ‘Then I remembered you were in Betty’s the other day and the curtain was open so . . .’

  ‘She’s keeping an eye out for the Hegartys.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Illegal dumpers. Allegedly. That’s why the curtain is open.’ I shook my head. ‘Why aren’t you at dinner?’

  ‘I was, but I left.’

  ‘Wasn’t there dessert?’

  ‘There was,’ he agreed. ‘But to tell you the truth, I’m not so big on that rice pudding. It’s not really pudding at all.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘It’s mainly rice. So I guess you don’t want anything to eat?’

  ‘Nah. But I’ll take a cup of tea if it’s going.’

  ‘Really?’

  He grinned and my heart slowed slightly. I remembered how the evening sun lit that face. ‘What can I say?’ he replied. ‘Isabel’s been getting to me.’

  ‘Have you seen a lot of her since we visited?’ I switched on the kettle and did my best not to sound accusatory.

  ‘I’ve been over every day.’

  I nodded to the kettle and pretended to untangle the cord.

  ‘But that’s only six days. I reckon it does Isabel good having me around. Although Conor doesn’t seem so happy about it.’ Andy shrugged. ‘I like hanging out with her. She’s nice, and it takes her mind off things. She’s pretty obsessed with that lorry driver, ay? She showed me his home address and everything. It’s only a two-hour drive from Dublin. She’s talking about paying him money to apologise.’

  ‘Why isn’t Conor so happy about it?’

  ‘Who knows? He doesn’t say. Isabel was asking about you this evening,’ he said, stepping forward to take a cup. ‘Good on ya. She said you should come for dinner. She’s really a great cook.’

  I sipped from my cup. I knew what kind of a cook Isabel was. I had eaten dozens of her dinners. I knew the entire repertoire. She declared everything she made to be ‘good for a growing boy’. Never mind her ‘boy’ hadn’t gotten an inch taller in fifteen years.

  ‘And my travel visa’s up in two weeks. Isabel reckons I should go down and assert my citizenship, then I can stay as long as I like. She’s looked into it. She says it’s relatively straightforward.’

  The cosiness between them creeped me out. That was the most honest way to put it. I took solace in Conor’s objection, though I wasn’t proud of it. I didn’t want to be on the opposite team to Andy. But at Henry’s funeral Isabel kept talking about him in the present tense, as if he were still alive. I imagined Conor didn’t think this new-found bond was particularly healthy.

  Andy poured part of his tea down the sink. ‘I still need a lot of milk,’ he said and reached for the carton. ‘Isabel wants to show me more of Ireland. There’s a spot she is sure I will love, further down the coast, by the sea.’

  ‘Wexford.’

  ‘That was it.’

  ‘They have a holiday home there. Henry loved it.’

  ‘She was talking about us going next week,’ said Andy. ‘They’re members of some wine club and they get all the bottles delivered there. Isabel’s planning to cook veal. She says it’s the speciality of the local butcher.’

  ‘Kill the fatted calf, the prodigal son has returned.’

  I could feel his eyes on me but I didn’t look up from my cup.

  ‘I’m sure you could come,’ he said carefully. ‘I know she’d be happy to have you.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I retorted immediately, dismissively, throwing my own tea down the sink. ‘I can’t drink wine and I can’t eat undercooked meat.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not—’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  I placed the upside-down mug on the draining board and exhaled. Finally I looked up. Andy was staring at me, his face unreadable. I had a flash of what it would have been like to tell Henry, and it made me desperately sad. Standing in this kitchen informing him he was about to be a father; the unexpected elation; him suddenly laughing loudly, me laughing too; the two of us collapsing onto the couch, a different couch, a couch Henry had a say in, high on the excitement and possibility of it all. We’d have so much more than baby names to discuss then. I took another deep breath and pushed the image away. Back in the real world, Andy blinked.

  ‘You’re pregnant.’

  ‘Fact.’

  ‘Right now.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I knew it.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well no,’ he corrected, ‘I didn’t know it but,’ his gaze diverted, ‘I knew there was something. This makes sense.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad one of us thinks so.’ I wrinkled my forehead as I watched him go through some sort of epiphany. ‘It’s Henry’s, if you’re wondering. I haven’t been shagging my grief away.’

  He smiled. It wasn’t a laugh but it was good enough and, despite myself, I smiled back.

  ‘I only found out a couple of weeks ago, which is fairly embarrassing given that I’m now fifteen weeks’ pregnant. They reckon. My first scan is Monday week but, you can kind of see it.’ I lifted my top and turned sideways. ‘Can you? There?’

  Andy didn’t say anything and when I glanced up I expected to see a look of deep scepticism, the current bump was probably only decipherable to me, but no. Andy was gazing at the tiny swell that had appeared in the past couple of days like it was ma
gic. Nobody else had looked at my stomach like that. Even I hadn’t looked at it like that. It felt good.

  His eyes were on me and all of a sudden I felt important, unknowable, mythical, like I was Earth Mother and the world would hear me roar. I was proud to be seen so completely, as I really was.

  ‘You can touch it if you like,’ I found myself saying, the Beyoncé moment clearly gone to my head. ‘You’d be the first. Not that you would necessarily want to touch it, of course. It’s kind of like rubbing a bald man’s head, isn’t it? Bit weird.’

  Andy moved slowly towards me, brushing his right hand on the leg of his trousers before extending it towards my stomach. His palm was cool. It sent a shiver through me.

  ‘Wow.’

  I grinned. ‘It’s not that impressive currently. I’m bigger than this when I need to pee. But I’m reliably informed it will grow.’

  Andy took a step back and looked at me, all of me. That expression hadn’t just been for my belly. I felt my whole face blush and I started to talk quicker.

  ‘I don’t know how I’m going to afford it or what exactly I’m going to do. Well, be a single mother, I suppose. Not exactly the plan but sure there you are. And if I have to sell this place then so be it, I shouldn’t lose any money on it, hopefully. I got pregnant the day he died. Can you believe that? Well, the doctor explained I didn’t actually get pregnant that day because interestingly the way insemination works . . . Too much information. Sorry. I haven’t really talked to anyone about this yet. It’s exciting. Well, I did tell Aoife, and Betty, but Betty doesn’t believe in sex before marriage and I wasn’t going to get into the nitty-gritty. So anyway, it’s all a big mess but there you are. You’re going to be an uncle,’ I said, leaning back against the counter. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Or a father.’

  I faltered. ‘Excuse me?’

  Whatever calculations Andy was doing seemed to be adding up rapidly. He was a man on the verge of an answer. ‘I could be an uncle,’ he said slowly, his eyes dancing across my face, ‘or I could be a father.’

  ‘You could . . .? Sorry, now. What?’

  ‘I had a single mother,’ he said. ‘It’s not easy to do on your own.’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  ‘Then don’t.’

  ‘Don’t what?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t do it on your own. Let me help.’

  ‘Help.’

  ‘Let me be the father.’

  I stared at him. ‘What?’ He didn’t blink. ‘No, no way,’ I continued. ‘That’s insane.’

  ‘No it’s not. It makes sense,’ he said, far too calmly for my liking. ‘It makes total sense, Grace. This is why I’m here. I wanted to do something to help, to make up for Henry and this is . . . I don’t even feel that surprised. It’s like déjà-vu. You say Henry believed in fate; well, me too, and here I am. The answer is so obvious.’

  ‘Andy, you’re not the father. I mean, I know I’m a powerful kisser, but those two seconds at Trinity’s arch weren’t quite enough to impregnate me. Andy,’ I said again, catching his eye, not used to saying his name, ‘Henry is the father.’

  He held my gaze. His brow furrowed and for the first time since the day we met, I could have sworn he was Henry.

  ‘Henry was the father, for a few hours. And then he died. But I’m here. I can take his place. He’s my brother and I’d like to do what he can’t. Let me do what he can’t, Grace. Everyone deserves a second chance,’ he said and I did not know if he meant him or me or Henry or the child.

  I thought of Betty and the uncle who had come home from England to stand in and raise his brother’s family.

  Andy laughed, an elated sound that came from the belly but also the heart, and suddenly I was the one wading in déjà-vu. The laugh. It was exactly as it had been in my mind’s eye.

  ‘Let me do what he can’t,’ he repeated. ‘Let me be the child’s father.’

  FIFTY-ONE

  Imade two further rounds of tea and Andy drank almost half of each cup. He even ate a couple of biscuits. Intentionally or not, he was making a good stab at transforming into Henry.

  We talked rationally and calmly. He tried to convince me why his idea was not the most insane twist in my own personal soap opera. I sat and listened and remained unconvinced. Occasionally I wavered. How many women had men of whom they had no carnal knowledge begging to be allowed to raise their fatherless children? Granted this was a particularly 1950s’ way of thinking but even with the aid of dishwashers, not doing it on my own had its appeal. What swayed me more was the notion that this child might know some version of its father, and that I might continue to know some version of him too. Because although I kept repeating that the child was Henry’s, it was – just like everything connected to Henry now was – somehow part of Andy too.

  Andy was sincere and funny and calm. And there was more than those quantifiable attributes. He had something that did not have a name, the thing that made me want to stand beside him and breathe deeply. He only saw the things his brother had been given that were denied to him, but he had qualities Henry had never possessed. He had a heavy load and he carried it lightly, responsibly. He did his best for people. I could see, now that there was something to compare it to, that Henry had been a little spoilt and it had done him no favours.

  It was great too to have someone who was excited. Not a best-foot-forward attitude, but a let’s-kick-all-our-feetin-the-air-with-delight. I hadn’t thought I was going to get that, from anyone. I hadn’t thought like that myself. The last time I’d been excited about the prospect of a child was when Henry and I sat around our flat having conjectural conversations about names and whose genes were stronger. That had been great, but this was real.

  ‘And what would we tell the child, hypothetically? Who would we say was his or her father?’

  ‘Me,’ said Andy, sitting on the other side of the table I’d had built in memory of Henry. ‘Initially. He or she is going to look as much like me as him. Even if something went terribly wrong and it needed an organ or something, I’d probably be as likely a match as he would. And then when he’s older, or she, we can tell it the truth. When it can understand . . . I hate calling it “it”.’

  ‘What if you started to regret your decision? What if you resented us and wanted your own children?’

  ‘It’s not necessarily one or the other, Grace. Everything is possible. The future is unwritten.’

  I thought of Betty, and of Frances Clinch, and of Andy and Henry too. I imagined all of Ireland’s lineage written out in perfect sets of family trees – only when a magic marker was rubbed over the chart, all these secrets were exposed and unseen lines started to fly across the board making connections between relatives entirely unknown to each other. I imagined a world full of near-doubles, doppelgängers in different towns, cities, countries and all the blood relations who did not look alike. It was a wonder more of us didn’t end up accidentally marrying our cousins.

  ‘But how would it work?’ I said. ‘Where would we live? How . . . would we be?’

  ‘We’d live here. I’d sort out my visa and get a proper job. We’d raise the kid here, in a happy home.’

  ‘And my parents? Henry’s parents?’

  ‘They’d understand. They would,’ he insisted. ‘They’d know that the kid was loved.’

  ‘And what about us?’ I asked, looking at him without an ounce of embarrassment. ‘How would we be?’

  ‘We’d be. . . however we wanted to be,’ he said simply. He had no hesitation. He was confident on all of this. ‘There are no rules for happiness, Grace. No road map for this life. There are a million ways to live. I said it already, but it’s true. I didn’t fully appreciate it before but now I do: we get one life, but there’s more than one path.’

  We went round and round, and though what Andy was proposing was undoable, I didn’t want the conversation to end. I didn’t know what I wanted. There were too many hormones in my body for this. I had read a post on a New Mothers Blog w
here HoneymoonMammy87 was finding it impossible to make a level-headed decision about what colour to paint the walls of her marital kitchen; she couldn’t tell what she liked and what was just hormones spending her money. Different circumstances, admittedly, but I knew where she was coming from.

  ‘When I came to Ireland I didn’t know what I was looking for,’ he said. ‘Even when I met you, when I found out about Henry, I was getting closer but I never quite reached it. I thought maybe it was you and his parents and all the other parts of this life that could have been mine. And it is, in a way. I was getting closer. And then . . .’ He smiled like every part of him was alight with hope. ‘I can do this,’ he said simply. ‘I want to do this.’

  I smiled, waiting for him to come to, to say the jig was up. But he didn’t.

  ‘Everyone needs a family, Grace.’

  He was talking about the baby but he meant himself too. Suddenly I could see both sides and I understood better. I was more comfortable with it, knowing it wasn’t an entirely selfless offer. Andy needed a family too.

  ‘We get on,’ he added, and I laughed at the understatement.

  ‘You’re the only person I want to be around,’ I said.

  ‘I know I’m not the same,’ he said carefully, tapping out the words on the table with his fingers. ‘But I’m the closest thing.’

  It was easier to be part of something than out in the cold on your own. It was nicer too. So when he reached for my hand, I let him take it, and when he said we’d talk more in the morning, I nodded. It was after midnight. He kissed me on the head as he made his way to the door and I knew not everything in the world was rational because I almost whispered, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You can stay if you want,’ I said instead, as he removed his lips from my crown. I felt him hesitate. ‘In the spare room, I mean. Because it’s late. And we’re going to talk in the morning. I’m not working until the afternoon. Unless you have a job on tomorrow. Do you, have a job?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, lingering a moment longer. Then he straightened up. ‘Do you want me to carry you?’