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  “Or did he?” I muttered aloud. “Now he’s back telling me he’s missing me and wanting to be with us – as a family. Everything I’ve cried for, prayed for, hoped for over the last nine months, no matter how much I cursed him!” And so it should have been simple, but all I felt was utterly, utterly confused.

  “It’s the first sign of madness, you know,” a voice from behind a tree called out.

  I glanced up, realising I’d been talking to myself as I walked at full speed around the park. I saw a familiar head look out from behind the tree trunk and my face turned even redder.

  I looked at Tom Austin with a mixture of embarrassment and indignation at being caught ranting to a pram and said: “I was talking to the baby.”

  “Good at relationship advice, is she?” he said, dropping the secateurs from his hands and dusting off his gardening gloves on his trousers.

  “What are you doing here anyway?” I said, pulling a strand of stray auburn hair back from my face.

  He looked down at his hands, at his gardening tools and looked back at me, a sly smile on his face.

  “Well, maybe you should just get on with it then?” I said. “We wouldn’t want to disrupt you.”

  I started to walk off, hopeful that I could pick up my pace again quickly, when he called after me.

  “Aoife! Wait!”

  I turned to see him walking towards me. I didn’t need this now. I just wanted to walk and clear my head and figure out what the hell I was doing with my life.

  “Look, I’m sorry. It seems I always make a complete tosspot of myself whenever you are around.”

  “S’okay,” I sniffed.

  “Is everything all right with you?”

  “Trust me, you don’t have time to hear this story, Tom. It will be dark in a couple of hours and it looks like you have work to do. Best leave it for a Bank Holiday or a month when you have nothing better to do.” I managed a small smile.

  “I have time if you need to talk,” he said. “Look, I know you don’t know me from Adam, but if you need to sound off to someone I’m pretty willing to bet I give better advice than a baby.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and I genuinely meant it. “Look, I’ll let you get on with your work, but I’ll keep your offer in mind.”

  He smiled, and went to walk back to his spot behind the tree while I turned to start my walk again. But then, a strange thought popped into my head. Tom really could be a sounding board for this. He had no vested interest in me. Sure he thought I looked amazing, and yes admittedly he had already seen my jugs but unlike everyone else he had no reason to judge me or Jake. Yes, this could definitely work.

  “Tom?” I called and he turned around, looking a little surprised. “Would you like to come round for dinner tonight? Perhaps I could do with someone to talk to.”

  A broad smile spread across his face. “I would like that very much, Aoife. I’ll see you around eight.”

  I walked on and suddenly I realised I was more confused than ever. What the hell was I doing? Inviting a stranger – a male stranger – into our home? What would Jake think about it? Should I even care what Jake thought about it? And it wasn’t as if Tom was a love interest, was it? He was a friend who had offered to listen and, with Beth up to her eyes in her own problems and Anna making her voodoo dolls, friends who were prepared to listen were in pretty short supply.

  It dawned on me at that moment that it was entirely possible I was losing the plot altogether. “Oh Maggie, I feel sorry for you. You deserve a better mammy than the likes of me.”

  She gurgled and burped, smiling contentedly at me and I wondered for just a second if she was laughing at me.

  ****

  When I got home I fed my daughter and then began to scan the cupboards for something suitable to cook for Tom and our strictly platonic, sounding-board dinner date. The problem was, having been away in Derry for the lion’s share of the previous month and having spent the rest of the time surviving off chocolate biscuits and cups of milky decaffeinated coffee, the cupboards were bare. I was looking at some lonely jars of pasta sauce – which I was pretty sure had been there since before I moved in – and a few tins of soup. The fridge was a veritable wasteland with some wilted ham and a brown lettuce. I made a mental note to do one of the online shopping thingies when I got the chance, but that was not going to help me tonight. I doubt Tom would be satisfied with some chocolate biscuits or a cup of formula, so I started to dig through the phone book for the number of a takeaway. Yes, it was cheating but this was yet another one of those occasions when having a baby meant you couldn’t just jump in the car and head to M&S for some ready-to-cook delight. I hadn’t found the nerve to try the car seat in my Beetle yet and I wasn’t about to try now – not without Beth to help me anyway.

  I straightened the throws on the sofa and switched on the lamps. It was only then I noticed the light flashing on my answerphone. I pressed the button, waiting for Anna to admonish me further or Beth to tell me how things were going down at home with her folks.

  Instead it was Jake, in a very uncharacteristic middle-of-the-afternoon call. I never expected to hear from him, ever, during the day – not even when we were officially a couple.

  “Hey, babe,” he drawled. “Hope you and Mags are doing okay. Look, babe, I know I said I would call over tomorrow night but it’s not going to happen. I have a gig lined up. I’ll call you when I’m free. Was great to see you last night.”

  I sat down, lifted a chocolate biscuit from the packet on the side table and took a large bite. Perhaps Jake hadn’t changed at all. And her name wasn’t Mags. It was Maggie. That irked me. It really fecking irked me. Jesus, was the word Maggie too hard for him to manage?

  I finished the biscuit with the second bite before looking at my watch. Tom would be here in just over two hours, which was a good thing really as now I really, really needed to talk.

  How had I come to this? How was it that it was a Sunday afternoon and the only people I had to talk to were a six-week-old baby girl and a man I had met only a handful of times and who, to all intents and purposes, was a complete stranger to me.

  I lifted Maggie from her Moses basket and laid her down on her play-mat. Her little legs kicked with such determination and her eyes tried to focus on whatever they could. She seemed a little lost, and I knew how she felt so I knelt over her, singing to her softly, and she caught my eye before her wee mouth broke into a huge gummy grin. Her first gummy grin. I moved closer and kissed her cheeks, breathing her in through my tears of happiness. Someone loved me – unconditionally and in spite of my dreadful singing.

  *****

  By the time Tom arrived I had worked my way through every emotion known to man and a few new ones I was pretty sure I had just invented right there and then in my Richmond flat on a Sunday afternoon. My eyes were rimmed red with tears – confused tears of both happiness and sadness and my CDs were scattered around the floor. I had taken them all out and treated a smiling Maggie to a musical history of my life, randomly playing a minute or two of each song before switching to the next song and the next memory. I had at least managed to feed Maggie and now she was lying in her vest ready for her bath which I had planned to do before Tom arrived. Then again, I had also planned to have the flat in decent order and dinner ordered.

  Instead he was met with Meltdown Aoife – a tired mess of a thing reminiscent of that first time he had seen me in Morelli’s.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, and I snorted, that mixture of a laugh and a cry that pretty much summed up my mental state.

  “I have to bath the baby,” I added and he nodded, following me up the stairs and into the living-room.

  “Can I do anything to help?” he asked.

  “Just sit down,” I said, a little gruffly, lifting Maggie up and heading for the bathroom. Softening, I added: “Make yourself at home.”

  Fair play to him, he had the decency not to look either horrified, terrified or disgusted. From the little he knew of me, I guess he knew suc
h behaviour was pretty much par for the course in my world.

  I ran the tepid water into the baby bath and added some Baby Organics bath milk. I kind of wished I could climb into the sweet lavender-smelling water myself. I gently washed my daughter and then, as her eyes grew heavy, I gave her one last feed, kissed her gently and put in her Moses basket. For the first time since she was born, I prayed over her.

  I sat watching her, for maybe twenty minutes. I watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest, the fluttering of her eyelids which was either the by-product of her sweet milky dreams or wind, and I stroked her cheek as if she were a china doll. Then I gathered myself together and walked into the living-room, fully expecting Tom to start lecturing me about my bad manners. It seemed people were lecturing me a lot this weather.

  He wasn’t there, but from the sounds and smells coming from the kitchen I knew he hadn’t left.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” he said without looking up as I walked into the kitchen. “I nipped out while you were bathing Maggie and bought in a few pieces for dinner. I’m not much of a cook but I’m guessing from your cupboards you aren’t a gourmet cuisine type of gal. I wasn’t sure what you liked, but I figured you can’t go wrong with chicken, so I’ve put a few breasts on to roast and the potatoes and veg should be ready in about half an hour.” He glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall and then at me.

  There was only one question I could ask him: “Why?”

  “Well, you don’t want your potatoes lumpy. I hear you Irish are fussy about your spuds.”

  “No, Tom, why? Why are you doing this? Why are you here?”

  “I suppose you’re looking for an answer more in depth than ‘because a strange woman asked me while I was working in the park’?” he asked, and I blushed.

  “Well, yes. I know I asked you. But why the dinner? Most men would run. Why do you care?”

  “Sit down, Aoife,” Tom said, ushering me out of my own kitchen and handing me a glass of fizzy water. “I wasn’t sure if breast-feeding mums could drink wine, so I thought this would do,” he explained.

  I sat down, feeling as if I was in some weird and wonderful twilight zone.

  “I’ve not really been honest with you,” he started.

  I wondered momentarily if this was when he admitted he had been worming his way into my life so that he could kill me and chop me up to make some human brand of fertiliser for his gorgeous gardens. Could Tom Austin be a modern-day Sweeney Todd?

  “So be honest with me, Tom, because it really feels as if no one has been honest with me for a long time.”

  “We have a mutual friend,” he said. “Elena Kennedy. She told me about you when I said I was opening the shop near Instant Karma. You know yourself how Elena likes to talk, so I’m sorry but I know a lot of your story. I know about your ex and how he ran out on you and, to be honest, I thought your life sounded like a bit of a train-wreck.”

  I smiled, a watery mascara-streaked smile.

  “Elena asked me to keep an eye on you. She thinks you are something pretty special, you know. Anyway, that first day I saw you in Morelli’s it didn’t take me long to figure out who you were. I guessed there couldn’t be too many auburn-haired, Irish girls with new babies on the High Street and, if you don’t mind me saying so, it seemed obvious to me that your life was a train-wreck. But I’ve seen you get stronger and I’ve seen how you care for your little girl and how you seem to care for your friends. But I can see you are floundering a bit and as I had promised Elena to keep an eye out for you, well – here I am. I’ve no agenda, Aoife. I’m just doing a favour for a friend and now that I know you a little bit more I think you could do with a friend.”

  “No one has ever cooked me dinner in this flat before,” I muttered, because I couldn’t bring myself to thank him for watching out for me. I was supposed to be a strong, independent woman and not need anyone watching out for me. But I did need it and even if it had only started as a favour to someone else (who I would most likely kill the next time I saw her, and then offer her body parts to Tom as fertiliser), it was still nice.

  *****

  As it turned out, Tom Austin was a pretty good cook and an even better listener. It made me suspicious of him because surely there had to be something wrong with any man who seems to be quite wonderful at everything he turns his hand to? He served our dinner and once I pulled myself together enough to stop snivelling into it, I told him all about Jake and our near-miss the previous night.

  “Do you think he really has changed?” Tom asked, sipping fizzy water from his wine-glass.

  “I’d love to think so – for Maggie’s sake. She deserves a daddy.”

  “It takes more than a roll in the hay to make someone a daddy,” he said.

  “I know, but you can’t change the biology and he’s not all bad. We had some good times. Damn it, we had some great times!”

  “But was it really a relationship? From what you and Elena have told me it was just that – good times.”

  I blushed. Did Tom Austin and his perfect cooking and perfect listening think I was the perfect slut? Did he think I was some kind of nympho gagging for Jake?

  “I did love him,” I said, staring into his eyes because yes, while Jake Gibson was a fantastic lover who made me feel alive with his every touch, for me anyway it was all about true love. I loved how he made me felt physically but, more than that, I loved the excitement of life with him. I got off on the buzz of his gigs. I loved how he could make me feel like the centre of attention when he was in the mood and I had believed, genuinely believed, that even though he didn’t tell me he loved me I didn’t need those three little words to prove that what we had was worth it.

  Tom didn’t reply. It was as if he was waiting for me to explain further – to justify how I, a seemingly intelligent woman, could fall for such a ne’er-do-well as Jake.

  “It was a different lifetime. I wasn’t looking for forever with him, definitely not at first, but then as things carried on, I fell for him. And I loved the lifestyle – our lifestyle.”

  “So he treated you well then?” Tom asked, with a raised eyebrow. He knew the answer – he didn’t need me to explain.

  “He cared for me in his own way . . . but, Tom, if you had seen how he looked at Maggie and if you had heard all the promises he made, then trust me you would be tempted to give him a chance yourself.”

  “So why are you dithering then, Aoife? Why, if you believe what he told you last night, are you not with him now?”

  “He’s busy tonight.”

  Tom rolled his eyes. “And if he wasn’t? Would you have run off into the sunset with him?”

  “Well, that would certainly make my mother happy,” I sniffed.

  “But would it make you happy? Do you believe he could make you happy?”

  “Yes … no … I don’t know.”

  Tom had the good grace to smile. “You really are mixed up, aren’t you?”

  “I never pretended to be anything other than mixed up, Tom.”

  He topped up my glass, more of the fizzy water. “So why would your mother be so happy to see you with Jake?”

  I looked at the clock. It had gone ten. There was no way I was getting into that conversation tonight. I needed at least five minutes’ sleep before morning.

  Tom left about an hour later, after we’d spent some time surveying and making plans for our yard.

  “I’ll check in with you tomorrow,” he offered and I shrugged.

  “You don’t have to, Tom. I appreciate you listening but I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to me and my problems.”

  He laughed, and I realised what a beautiful smile he had. “Look, Aoife, you know how it is uncool for us men to watch soaps? Well, your life is better than that – and I can’t wait for my next instalment.”

  He reached over and kissed me on the cheek, staring into my eyes as he stepped back, and a new kind of confusion flooded through me.

  

  Chapter 37


  Beth

  Mum had looked stricken when I told her that for the last two years we had been trying and failing to conceive her much-longed-for grandchild. She sat back on the kitchen stool and rubbed her eyes with her hands.

  “Oh Beth, I’m so sorry. No wonder you’ve stayed away. I’ve been an awful, awful mother. God, when I think of all the things I’ve said to you, all those comments. Oh darling, you must really hate me!” She started to cry and I went to her and hugged her.

  “Of course I don’t hate you, Mum. You weren’t to know.”

  “But to not tell me, darling! You must have been so angry with me not to tell me.”

  It never crossed my mind she would react in this way. “No, Mum. No, you don’t understand. I wasn’t annoyed at your comments. Yes, they hurt but that wasn’t your fault. I didn’t tell you – we didn’t tell you – because we were coming to terms with everything. But you know what, Mum, I think I’ve accepted it now. I’ve accepted that there is a problem and it’s not going to just happen for us, and that’s okay.”

  “My poor darling! You must have been through hell.”

  She moved to hug me again and I put my hand up to stop her. I’d had my cry now. If I cried any more I was afraid I wouldn’t stop.

  “I’m okay, Mum,” I tried to reassure her. “We’ll see our consultant on Thursday and see what he has to say.”

  She sighed, sitting back down. “And do you know what he will do?”

  “I don’t know. More tests, I guess. But we know I’m ovulating and we know that Dan’s okay, you know, down there.” I blushed again. I could barely believe I was talking to my mother about sperm. Specifically my husband’s sperm. I would prefer my mother didn’t know he had any.