Feels Like Maybe Page 9

  “It’s been a shock,” Anna whispered.

  Joe snorted behind me and suddenly and inexplicably I found the whole thing hilariously funny. I mean, you couldn’t write it, could you? I started to laugh – silent shockwaves of laughter tearing through my body and I was bent double with the power of it.

  “Aoife, are you okay?” Joe sat the car seat down and ran to me.

  I think he thought I was having some sort of fit. Tears, this time of laughter, coursed down my face and my sides started to ache. The look on Anna’s face changed from concern to confusion and then I saw the beginnings of a smile creep on her face too.

  “It’s not funny,” Joe said.

  “It’s really not, is it?” I answered but I was powerless to stop. It was like when you start giggling in church or at a funeral – your body convulsing with nervous energy. The more you try to stop, the harder you laugh until it is so sore you actually don’t want to laugh any more.

  “I mean it, this really isn’t funny.” Joe’s eyebrows were furrowed together, his face tense with disapproval.

  I was pretty sure that if I didn’t stop laughing soon I would risk my weakened pelvic floor.

  Unfortunately the thought of peeing all over Mum’s Welcome Home rug made me laugh even harder and I leant against the door frame for support. As I stood there I could get a glimpse into the living-room and I saw my mother for the first time in two years. I imagine most good-living daughters would run to their mammy’s arms and cry on their shoulders.

  I didn’t. I was still laughing anyway.

  Mum hadn’t changed. Perhaps there were a few more grey hairs but her hair was still styled the same way it always was – a sleek bob – cut just below the chin. She was wearing a burgundy twin-set and a tweed skirt. Her pink house-slippers showed the wrinkles in her tights at her ankles. The sight of her, sitting there dressed like an old woman, made me angry. She was fifty-five. She shouldn’t be wearing house slippers at four in the afternoon and clutching Rosary beads at the thought of being a granny.

  My laughter stopped.

  “Oh fuck,” I said. “I’ve really gone and done it now.” My words had a sobering impact on Anna, who stopped grinning and moved her arm around my shoulder.

  “C’mon, toots. Might as well get this over and done with.”

  I wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes and stood up straight, brushing myself off. Glancing back at Joe for support, and finding only a look of utter sympathy, I walked into the living- room.

  “Mum, Dad,” I said and waited for the onslaught. It didn’t come. Nothing did. Dad shook his head. He took his glasses off, rubbed them clean on his shirt and put them back on. Then turning on his heel he walked out of the room to the kitchen. I felt my heart shatter.

  “Where is this baby then?” Mum said to the floor. She couldn’t bring herself to look at me.

  “Joe has her,” I offered, stepping out of the way just slightly to allow Joe into the room.

  Mum looked at him. “So it’s Maggie, is it? That’s a very English-sounding name, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Maggie,” Joe replied awkwardly.

  Mum looked at the car seat – at her grandchild.

  “I suppose it’s not her fault,” she said, putting a bony finger to Maggie’s delicate cheek.

  I had to fight the urge to bat it away – to tell her to fuck off. “I don’t know that it’s anyone’s ‘fault’,” Anna offered, taking a hold of my hand.

  “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you, Anna?” Mum barked.

  I felt a big fat tear well up and fall. I guess it’s true when they say that a big cry always follows a big laugh.

  I wondered what my father was doing. I wanted him to come and tell me this was okay.

  “You should hold her,” Joe said, bending down and taking Maggie from her chair. Her small body looked even smaller in his arms. He looked like he could and would protect her but instead he handed her to my mother who bore the expression of someone just handed a worm-infested puppy.

  “She’s a good baby,” I said. It was as if I wanted to prove I could do something, anything, right in my life.

  Mum nodded. “They’re all good when they’re wee, Aoife. It’s when they get older they break your heart.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. “For the love of God, Sheila! Stop being so bloody dramatic.”

  “When your child comes home with a baby born out of wedlock you can tell me to stop being so bloody dramatic!” Mum barked. “But for now you can stay the hell out of this!”

  “If and when that day does come I’ll be happy to welcome the baby into my family,” Anna answered. “Jesus, Sheila. She’s your bloody grandchild. Get over yourself.”

  Anna spoke to my mother the way I’d love to speak to my mother. I don’t know where she got the courage, but I liked it. It gave me an inner strength.

  “Give her to me,” I said, my voice strong, unwavering and just that little touch too loud. “I wouldn’t want you to catch anything from my bastard baby, now would I?”

  Mum at least had the decency to look shocked.

  “I didn’t say she was that word.” She whispered “that word” for effect – just to remind me my language was unacceptable.

  “You didn’t have to. You’ve made it patently obvious what you think of her, of me. I don’t even know why I bothered to come here and tell you.” I held my child to me. “I’m going to talk to Daddy.”

  And I stalked out, leaving my mother sitting there, her mouth gaping open, stunned into silence.

  ****

  When I was growing up, if I was ever asked who my childhood hero was, my answer was fairly predictable. Depending on the time of year and how many times I had sat through Star Wars, I would answer either Princess Leia or my daddy. Yes, my father had the ability to supersede Leia and her buns of steel in my estimation. That was no mean feat.

  We did a lot together when I was wee. Although he had Joe – his perfect son and heir – Daddy always took time out to be with me. He treated me like his princess and I put him so high up on a pedestal that there was no chance he could realistically get off it without injuring him or me as I stood gazing up at him.

  We would walk together, sing together, read stories together. I was his shadow and he was this big, cuddly bear of a man who made me feel completely and utterly loved.

  He didn’t look like so much of a cuddly bear that day in the kitchen. Although I had only grown to a fairly unimpressive 5’6”, Daddy looked small to me. And thinner.

  He was standing, staring out the window at his garden, watching the branches of the crab-apple tree sway in the wind. I remembered when he planted that tree and how I had cried myself to sleep when I wasn’t allowed to eat the fruit that fell from it.

  “Daddy,” I said. Funny how I still called him Daddy. Mum had long since lost her Mammy or Mummy titles, but Daddy could never be called by anything else.

  He moved, just a little, on hearing his name.

  “Daddy, don’t you want to meet Maggie?”

  He sighed and slowly started to turn towards me. “Your mother’s heart is broken,” he said.

  “I know. I didn’t mean to.”

  “I know, Aoife, but how could you do this to us?”

  “I thought you would be angry. I thought I could make it better. That it would sort itself out.”

  He looked straight at me, his eyes misty with tears. “We could have been there for you, Aoife. We could have helped.”

  I nodded, ashamed to the core of my being. Daddy wasn’t angry. He was hurt and confused – but he wasn’t angry with me.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered, head cast downwards.

  “She’s a wee gem, Aoife. Reminds me of you when you were a newborn.” He reached out and I instinctively handed her over. She would be safe with him. He would never hurt her. He would never think badly of her. She would be his princess too.

  “I don’t want to know whatever you don’t want to tell me,” Daddy said. “Who the father
is, all that nonsense. It’s your business. Tell me if and when you want, but don’t ever keep this little one from us again.”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry, Daddy.” It was all I could say and it didn’t seem enough.

  He moved towards me, kissing my forehead gently. “I know you are, darling.”

  *****

  Maggie had enjoyed her first taste of Cow & Gate Formula, which was just as well because the wine I had enjoyed with Anna had gone straight to my head. God, before I got pregnant I could have had buckets of the stuff (and frequently did). Now one glass and I found myself lying in bed, the room swimming ever so slightly around me.

  “It’ll be all the excitement of the day,” Anna said, pouring a second glass of Pinot Grigio for herself.

  “Excitement?” I rolled my eyes, then winked.

  “Ach, you know what I mean. The nerves, the travelling, the build-up. You fecking lightweight!” She laughed, throwing her hair back. She looked so much younger, so much more alive than Mum. How was that possible? There were only five years between them. It might as well have been twenty-five.

  “It’s been a mad week,” I conceded as I yawned over the Pringles.

  “Look, get yourself on to bed. I’ll look after madam tonight. If she is on the bottle anyway you can get a great sleep. Your boobs will be like footballs in the morning, but the sleep will be worth it.”

  The thought of ten hours uninterrupted sleep seemed like heaven. After months of waking every hour on the hour to pee followed by the feeding demands of my daughter I figured it had been at least four months since I’d slept soundly. For ten hours I could pretend my life hadn’t been turned upside down entirely. Someone was finally taking some of the responsibility off my shoulders and it felt good.

  “Okay. You’ve twisted my arm,” I said, rising to my feet and kissing Anna on the cheek. I then leant over the Moses basket. “Be a good girl, Princess. I love you,” I whispered before climbing the stairs and curling up in bed.

  I was just starting to fade out of this reality into another and more favourable domain where I had no stretch marks, an intact perineum and a mother who loved me when my mobile phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “How did it go honey?” Beth asked.

  Damn, I knew I should have phoned her. She would have been worried sick.

  “Well, they stopped just short of treating me to a chorus of ‘Love Child’,” I said.

  “So it went well?”

  “Yes and no. Joe was okay – well, okay for Joe which is a start. Mum is disgusted. Daddy is upset, but he loves me and he adores Maggie.”

  “A good start then?”

  I stifled a yawn. “Not the worst.”

  “You sound tired, will I let you go?” Beth asked.

  “Sorry. I’m a bloody lightweight. I’m telling you, B, make the most of your wine and song now because once children come along you’ll lose all street cred. Would you believe I’m already in bed? How sad is that?”

  “Not sad at all. You’ve only given birth.”

  “Still, I’m thirty-one not fifty-one. Beth, you are so right waiting to start your family. Don’t get me wrong, I love Maggie. You know I love her, but I don’t see me ever getting a life back.”

  “Maybe not your old life,” Beth replied. “But a different kind of life. It doesn’t have to be worse.”

  “S’ppose,” I answered. “Night night, honey. Tell Dan I said hi.”

  “Will do. And give Maggie a kiss from us.”

  “Will do.”

  She seemed to hesitate before hanging up. The silence was there but I couldn’t resist breaking it. “Beth, hang on. I hate to ask but has Dan heard anything from Jake?”

  She paused. “Sorry, honey.”

  We both sighed and then we hung up. I rolled over and closed my eyes, trying to block out everything that had happened that day. I imagine Beth went out to a swish wine bar and drank her bodyweight in Chardonnay. The lucky cow wouldn’t even have had a hangover the next day.

  

  Chapter 15

  Aoife

  I swear I could hear my mother saying the Rosary as I opened the garden gate and started to walk towards the door. Joe carried Maggie in her car seat and I shuffled awkwardly up the garden path like a woman on her way to the gallows, or the guillotine. That said, at that precise moment I quite liked the idea of the guillotine. A quick drop of a blade and I wouldn’t have to face my mother. Somehow it didn’t seem so scary put that way.

  Anna must have seen us coming because she opened the door, her face pale as if she had just come face to face with the Devil himself. I felt sick. I actually thought I would throw up in the rose bushes – but that would only make my mother more annoyed. She didn’t like vomit in her garden. I’d learned that lesson when I was eighteen after a night on the tiles.

  “It’s been a shock,” Anna whispered.

  Joe snorted behind me and suddenly and inexplicably I found the whole thing hilariously funny. I mean, you couldn’t write it, could you? I started to laugh – silent shockwaves of laughter tearing through my body and I was bent double with the power of it.

  “Aoife, are you okay?” Joe sat the car seat down and ran to me.

  I think he thought I was having some sort of fit. Tears, this time of laughter, coursed down my face and my sides started to ache. The look on Anna’s face changed from concern to confusion and then I saw the beginnings of a smile creep on her face too.

  “It’s not funny,” Joe said.

  “It’s really not, is it?” I answered but I was powerless to stop. It was like when you start giggling in church or at a funeral – your body convulsing with nervous energy. The more you try to stop, the harder you laugh until it is so sore you actually don’t want to laugh any more.

  “I mean it, this really isn’t funny.” Joe’s eyebrows were furrowed together, his face tense with disapproval.

  I was pretty sure that if I didn’t stop laughing soon I would risk my weakened pelvic floor.

  Unfortunately the thought of peeing all over Mum’s Welcome Home rug made me laugh even harder and I leant against the door frame for support. As I stood there I could get a glimpse into the living-room and I saw my mother for the first time in two years. I imagine most good-living daughters would run to their mammy’s arms and cry on their shoulders.

  I didn’t. I was still laughing anyway.

  Mum hadn’t changed. Perhaps there were a few more grey hairs but her hair was still styled the same way it always was – a sleek bob – cut just below the chin. She was wearing a burgundy twin-set and a tweed skirt. Her pink house-slippers showed the wrinkles in her tights at her ankles. The sight of her, sitting there dressed like an old woman, made me angry. She was fifty-five. She shouldn’t be wearing house slippers at four in the afternoon and clutching Rosary beads at the thought of being a granny.

  My laughter stopped.

  “Oh fuck,” I said. “I’ve really gone and done it now.” My words had a sobering impact on Anna, who stopped grinning and moved her arm around my shoulder.

  “C’mon, toots. Might as well get this over and done with.”

  I wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes and stood up straight, brushing myself off. Glancing back at Joe for support, and finding only a look of utter sympathy, I walked into the living- room.

  “Mum, Dad,” I said and waited for the onslaught. It didn’t come. Nothing did. Dad shook his head. He took his glasses off, rubbed them clean on his shirt and put them back on. Then turning on his heel he walked out of the room to the kitchen. I felt my heart shatter.

  “Where is this baby then?” Mum said to the floor. She couldn’t bring herself to look at me.

  “Joe has her,” I offered, stepping out of the way just slightly to allow Joe into the room.

  Mum looked at him. “So it’s Maggie, is it? That’s a very English-sounding name, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Maggie,” Joe replied awkwardly.

  Mum looked at the car seat – at h
er grandchild.

  “I suppose it’s not her fault,” she said, putting a bony finger to Maggie’s delicate cheek.

  I had to fight the urge to bat it away – to tell her to fuck off. “I don’t know that it’s anyone’s ‘fault’,” Anna offered, taking a hold of my hand.

  “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you, Anna?” Mum barked.

  I felt a big fat tear well up and fall. I guess it’s true when they say that a big cry always follows a big laugh.

  I wondered what my father was doing. I wanted him to come and tell me this was okay.

  “You should hold her,” Joe said, bending down and taking Maggie from her chair. Her small body looked even smaller in his arms. He looked like he could and would protect her but instead he handed her to my mother who bore the expression of someone just handed a worm-infested puppy.

  “She’s a good baby,” I said. It was as if I wanted to prove I could do something, anything, right in my life.

  Mum nodded. “They’re all good when they’re wee, Aoife. It’s when they get older they break your heart.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. “For the love of God, Sheila! Stop being so bloody dramatic.”

  “When your child comes home with a baby born out of wedlock you can tell me to stop being so bloody dramatic!” Mum barked. “But for now you can stay the hell out of this!”

  “If and when that day does come I’ll be happy to welcome the baby into my family,” Anna answered. “Jesus, Sheila. She’s your bloody grandchild. Get over yourself.”

  Anna spoke to my mother the way I’d love to speak to my mother. I don’t know where she got the courage, but I liked it. It gave me an inner strength.

  “Give her to me,” I said, my voice strong, unwavering and just that little touch too loud. “I wouldn’t want you to catch anything from my bastard baby, now would I?”

  Mum at least had the decency to look shocked.

  “I didn’t say she was that word.” She whispered “that word” for effect – just to remind me my language was unacceptable.