Three Wise Men, page 36
She smiles ingratiatingly at a scrap of a girl with glasses and a scowl.
‘So you’re being economical with the truth for dramatic impact?’
Her spectacles had acquired a threatening glint.
‘Perhaps my vision of society is slightly different to yours, Karen. Outlooks tend to change with age. And experience. Any more questions?’
Later in the staff-room, Sister Anne raises a similar point – Eimear is starting to think it’s a conspiracy.
‘You’ve encountered some extremely dubious men in your time, Eimear,’ she remarks, clattering her cup into her saucer. (Eimear didn’t merit the sherry, she noticed.)
‘You’ve been playing with your crystal ball, sister,’ she replies.
‘Well well, there’s no need for mystic mumbo-jumbo. There isn’t even any need to read more than a few pages of your book, I can see you’ve been exposed to a nasty lot.’
‘I’ve had my share of feckless fellows.’ Eimear studies the peacock pattern on the Royal Tara china and feels a stirring of self-pity.
‘It seems such a waste, an attractive girl like you.’
Eimear’s self-pity is threatening to engulf her, she has to take a gulp of coffee.
Meanwhile Sister Anne (she’ll always be Sister Xavier to Eimear) cocks her head.
‘And did you never think of giving them up?’
‘Men?’ Eimear is astonished.
‘Yes, did you never think of the celibate life? It has its compensations – it offers serenity and space and time for contemplation.’
‘I never felt I had a vocation, sister.’
‘Some people are born with vocations and others develop theirs. I think perhaps you may fall into the latter category, it could be that your pretty face has been a distraction from your true calling. I’m not suggesting that a woman should join a religious order from cynicism about the opposite sex, that would be a negative reason for making a choice intended as an affirmation. But my intuition is generally sound, Eimear, and it’s telling me that God may have singled you out to dedicate your life to him. Well well, think about it, at least, pray for guidance and I’ll remember you in my prayers.’
Eimear doesn’t even go to Mass on Sundays any more; she’s appalled at the turn their conversation has taken. The comfort that church attendance offered during Jack’s affair with Kate didn’t last the distance when it came to Gloria. Besides, she’s in a relationship with someone. She can just see herself landing back to Dublin in the car Christy lent her and saying, ‘Great trip north, I’ve decided to join a convent.’ He wouldn’t be reaching her the keys to his Astra again in a hurry at that rate.
‘So much for me being feted as the conquering hero returning to her alma mater.’ Eimear purses her lips, as she walks back to her mother’s house.
She’s been branded a man-hater by a skit of a schoolgirl who probably doesn’t know any men let alone have an aversion to them and Sister Xavier/Anne has a hunch she’s nursing a vocation.
‘I’m surprised she didn’t suggest I ring up Gloria and Kate and organise a mass entry to the order, three for the price of one,’ thinks Eimear.
However laughter froths up inside her as she stalks through the convent grounds, past the grotto where they used to sing ‘May is the Month of Mary’ and crown the statue of the Virgin with flowers. Sister Anne doesn’t realise she’s separated – she’s inviting a married woman to take the veil. So much for her legendary intuition, perhaps she should invest in a crystal ball after all.
The sheer nonsense of their conversation puts Eimear in such high good humour that she peels off towards the town for some window shopping instead of heading straight home to her mother’s Spanish Inquisition. She can stop off at the bookshop in the main street and check they have Mna positioned somewhere appropriate. At the front of the shelf.
It’s an unfortunate decision. For rounding the corner, she comes face-to-face with Mick McDermott. He looks about as thrilled to see her as she is to encounter him.
‘Eimear,’ he nods.
‘Mick.’
She attempts to keep walking but he blocks her path.
‘Thought you’d be in hospital doing some hand-holding around now.’
‘Gloria has Kate to play patty-cake with, she doesn’t need me as well.’
‘Whatever happened to that all-for-one solidarity, don’t tell me you’ve finally decided share and share alike isn’t the best policy when it comes to men.’
‘Mick, you’re being offensive. I’d like to get past please.’
‘Offensive? Is that what you call offensive? I have a different interpretation. I call lending out your husband as a stud offensive – standing in front of someone on the pavement doesn’t come close. But you always had different standards to the rest of us.’
‘Mick, I can see you’re angry and you’ve every reason to be, but you’ve no right to take it out on me. You’re not the only one with a collapsed marriage around here, mine’s in flitters too, when all I did was love my husband and try to be the best wife I could.’
‘I do believe I hear violins,’ he sneers. ‘Unless it’s the sweet sound of self-righteousness blowing in the wind. No, it’s just hot air. Your marriage didn’t fail because of Jack or Kate or even because of Gloria, trollop that she is. It fell apart because of you,’
Eimear doesn’t know where it springs from, but she’s infuriated by Mick calling Gloria a trollop.
‘Mick, you are a pathetic excuse for a man and I’m not going to waste my time bandying words with you in public. Whatever Gloria did or didn’t do, she made the best decision of her life the day she kicked you out. And I’m sure she thanks God you haven’t fathered her baby because what woman in her right mind would want to carry a child with your DNA.
‘Now step out of my way before I start yelling.’
His lip curls. ‘Shout away.’
A rush of adrenaline floods Eimear. She opens her mouth and feels a scream ripping against the walls of her throat. It soars up and is released, flapping into the air. She sees Mick’s aggrieved face and the astonished glances of passers-by.
‘Stop it, what will people think,’ he pleads.
Eimear continues to scream but now she points a finger up the street. He scurries off and, vastly satisfied with herself, she danders into the bookshop and rearranges the display to give Mna its due prominence.
CHAPTER 43
Has to be the nesting instinct, rationalises Gloria, knee-deep in’ cake recipes. Her urge to bake, slice, freeze, share or if all else fails eat a ginger cake can only be explained by some primeval impulse. The only drawback is that the spirit is willing but the flesh is fat. She’s already puffedout just waddling about the kitchen gathering together ingredients.
However, she needs to distract herself from the countdown to motherhood so she presses ahead and is up to her elbows in flour when the doorbell rings. It’s Jack, who announces he’s taken a half-day from college with the insouciance of someone assured of a welcome. He’s brought more roses, she’ll have to explain how she feels about roses: over-blown, over-romanticised, over-valued. Especially red ones. Of course these are pink, she reminds herself. The colour you’d bring your mother or a sick friend in hospital, not flowers for a lover.
He settles himself at the kitchen table, sniffing his own roses appreciatively in their square glass vase, and watches her send flour clouds billowing into the atmosphere.
‘I’ve stumbled upon a scene of domesticity, I didn’t know you modem women still baked cakes. How’s my pal and her passenger?’
‘Grand,’ she responds, rubbing margarine into crumbs with her fingertips.
(Why do people react as though you’re demonstrating how to split the atom when you bake a cake?)
‘Tickety boo.’
(Tickety boo! He’ll be asking for ginger pop next.)
She slides a glance at him from under her fringe. Confidence like that has to be assumed, or learned as a defence mechanism – it can’t be innate.
‘Here for anything in particular, Jack?’
‘Bonding process, Glory. We’re building bridges, laying foundations, cementing the friendship.’
‘Sounds like back-breaking work. I take it you supply hard hats on these sessions.’
He laughs. ‘Give us a break, Glory. I was humble Jack O’Brien yesterday, I can’t keep that going two days in succession. I’m my usual insufferably charming, or charmingly insufferable, Jack O’Brien today.’
‘And a fine fist you make of it. I’ll put the kettle on as soon as I shoot this cake into the oven.’
‘Did I ever tell you my confirmation name?’ he asks; he has a way of looking at her, from under his heavy black brows, that makes her feel self-conscious. Even with the insulation of being almost nine months pregnant.
Gloria shakes her head and stirs treacle through the mixture.
‘Jude. As in St Jude, patron saint of hopeless cases.’
‘Are you calling me a hopeless case?’
‘No, myself.’
She’s giggling as she bends to the oven but, straightening up, a drumbeat of pain throbs in the pit of her stomach. Her expression alerts Jack; he’s on his feet in an instant and leading her to a seat.
‘Is it the baby?’
‘Too soon,’ she shakes her head. ‘Probably just a false alarm. Could I have a glass of water, please?’
She drinks slowly, monitoring her breathing. All those screaming sessions with Mick are paying off, they taught her more about diaphragm control than her pre-natal classes.
‘Panic stations can stand down now.’ She manages a shaky smile. ‘It was just James Spencer Mallon showing me who’s big white chief.’
‘If you’re sure,’ he steps back dubiously. ‘You still look pale – I’ll make you some tea.’
‘That would be heavenly,’ she says gratefully. ‘There should be some Mikados in the biscuit tin.’
‘I can do better than that, I stopped off at Gammell’s for a rhubarb tart. We need to keep your strength up.’
Gloria is unaccountably touched – rhubarb tart was her father’s favourite.
‘You’re fattening me up,’ she protests half-heartedly. ‘I’m already beef to the heels like Mullingar heifer.’
‘You look divine,’ he assures her, and goes straight to the press where the tea caddy lives. He must have a photographic memory.
Gloria lifts her bloated ankles and balances them on another chair, as he carries the tea-pot to the table. He’s even produced some pastry forks she didn’t know she possessed.
She attempts to massage the swelling but her stomach mound blocks her.
He takes an ankle in his hand and rubs it rhythmically.
‘Maud with her exquisite face/And wild voice pealing up the sunny sky/And feet like sunny gems on an English green …’ he quotes.
‘Is that one of yours?’
‘Lord Tennyson. He had it bad for the rose-lipped Maud. I don’t admire much of his poetry but that girl certainly had something going for her.’
Gloria is firing up like a match as he massages the second ankle, she bends her head so the hair obscures her face. ‘You have a perfect voice for reciting,’ she whispers, ‘perhaps you’d let me hear some of your own work.’
‘Afraid I can’t do that, Glory.’
She’s surprised – and slightly bruised – by such a direct refusal; couldn’t he have fobbed her off?
He looks her in the eye, still holding an ankle. ‘Reciting poetry to women is part of my technique. It doesn’t even have to be my own verses, a few cantos of The Rape of the Lock usually does the trick. And that’s exactly what it is, a trick. I derive a perverted pleasure from seducing women with poetry by a man called Pope.’ A smile chases across his face. ‘But I don’t want to play those games with you, Glory. Friends, remember?’
She nods, at once offended that he isn’t attracted to her and flattered by his honesty.
‘Rhubarb tart time.’ Jack brandishes a knife. ‘Did I hear you correctly when you referred to the sprog as James Spencer Mallon?’
‘You did,’ she confirms. ‘James for my father and Spencer for Spencer Tracy.’
‘You’re a fan of his?’
‘My father was. It’s a family tradition, we’re all called for film stars.’
‘I think James Depp Mallon has a ring to it, myself.’
‘Stop your nonsense,’ she splutters. ‘And cut me a bigger slice of tart.’
As she holds out her plate the pain hits a second time, sharper than the first. An involuntary groan escapes; Gloria feels beads of sweat spring up on her forehead and she doubles over, arms wrapped around her stomach. Jack is by her side in a flash, her head is pressed to his shoulder.
‘Glory, listen to me, I’m calling an ambulance, I’ll be straight back.’
‘Don’t leave me,’ she sobs, rasping her face against the tweed of his jacket.
‘We have to get you to a hospital, the baby may be on its way.’
Another stab of pain rips through her stomach, she bites her lip but can’t forestall the moan.
‘I’m driving you there myself, we won’t wait for an ambulance. Can you put your arms around my neck? Good girl. I’m going to carry you outside, don’t protest, if I put my back out you can console yourself that you’re wreaking revenge on behalf of the female sex. The legendary lover with a slip disc. Ready? Let’s go. You’re being very brave, Glory.’
‘Wait,’ she commands. ‘My house keys.’
She points to her handbag, he somehow manages to lift it while still holding her and carries it in his teeth to the car.
‘If your students could see you now,’ she grins weakly, as sweat trickles between her breasts. ‘The debonair Professor O’Brien with a ton of lard in his arms and a handbag dangling from his mouth.’
‘If you make me laugh I’ll drop you,’ he warns, resting her against the bonnet of the car while he unlocks it.
‘Jack, stop!’ she shrieks as he pulls away. He slams on the brakes and looks at her, aghast. ‘My cake, it’s still in the oven.’
‘Feck your cake,’ he spits out, sliding into first gear.
‘Feck yourself.’ She holds her stomach protectively. ‘I’m not leaving the place to burn down while I’m in hospital giving birth to my baby, we need a house to come home to. And …’ she breaks off while another thrust sweeps through her body, jack-knifing it, ‘I may need a slice of ginger cake if it’s a long labour. Hospital cake is like sawdust.’
Jack jumps lights and weaves between lanes like a maniac; nobody pays him the least bit of attention, it’s normal Dublin driving. The pain is intense now, Gloria can’t concentrate on anything but the way her insides feel like they’re being filleted by a giant carving knife. She’s being ritually disembowelled.
‘Talk to me, Jack, distract me,’ she begs.
‘About the weather? About work? Summer’s almost here but it’s cool still, cast ne’er a clout till May is out. Hang on in there, Glory, you’re beautiful, we’re nearly at the Rotunda.’
‘We’re not, we’re only at Dawson Street. Recite some verses to me, give me some of The Rape of the Lock.’
Jack gulps. ‘“This nymph, to the destruction of mankind/Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind/In equal curls, and well conspired to deck/With shining ringlets the smooth iv’ry neck.”’
He pauses to cut up a bus, which flashes disgruntled lights, and continues: ‘“There lived a sage in days of yore/And he a handsome pigtail wore/But worried much and pondered more/Because it hung behind him.”’
‘That doesn’t sound like the same poem at all,’ she objects, between groans.
‘Sorry, Glory, I can’t concentrate, just let me overtake this car. Why don’t I have a mobile phone, then I could ring the hospital to let them know we’re coming. For God’s sake why is there so much traffic on the road, does nobody walk any more?’
She can scent his fear and it aggravates her own.
He’s still talking as they swing into Dame Street but she only hears odd words now from across a vast distance. She’s neither conscious nor unconscious, but swimming somewhere between the two states. Her head rolls around on her neck and feels insecurely attached – one more jolt and it might plop off. That would give Jack a fright.
‘Brave … there … lights … park,’ he says.
Gloria doesn’t remember any more.
Something’s not right. She concentrates. Something’s missing, she can’t work out what. She tries to open her eyes but they’re glued down. Gloria struggles with her lids, there’s a burning sensation at the back of her eyeballs. One eye pops open, leaving a gritty residue in the corner, then the other copies it.
At first she can’t distinguish anything, she’s groping in the midst of a fog. Gradually it dissipates and she sees a pale green ceiling. Not a soothing green, it’s a bone-chilling colour. She doesn’t recognise this ceiling. A white paper lampshade covers the bulb. That proves it, she can’t be at home, she doesn’t have any paper lampshades. She tries to move her head to the side to look for clues but the adhesive they squirted on her eyelids has been applied to the back of her neck. She’s rigid. Instead she swivels her eyes and sees a drip and tubes. Someone’s arm is attached to them.
A wave of misery slops over Gloria, leaving her trembling with grief and something else, a nameless fear. She’s suffused with dread but can’t work out what it is that terrifies her. There’s something dark and suffocating just over the horizon of her memory. She doesn’t want to think about it, it’s waiting to swarm down and smother her.
The door opens and a nurse appears.
‘Imelda?’ a voice croaks. It’s her own voice.
