Three Little Truths

by Eithne Shortall

  THIRTEEN

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Daniel took a long side step so he was standing between Edie and the television. He had changed out of his work clothes and was wearing the jeans she’d gotten him for Christmas. He shifted slightly as he held out a small bouquet of daffodils. The heads of the flowers drooped. He was gripping them too tightly. He always clenched his fists when he was nervous.

  Without looking directly at him, Edie picked up the remote control, reached around his denim-clad legs and pressed pause on The Ted Bundy Tapes.

  Daniel cleared his throat awkwardly. He was not one for big gestures.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I hate fighting with you. I hate going to work without saying goodbye and not phoning at my eleven o’clock break. I hate making you mad.’

  He proffered the flowers further, their sunny little heads bowed. They looked sorry too. But they were her favourites, and Daniel hated buying flowers. Florists depressed him. They made him think of men who cheated on their wives. She could tell he’d tied the bow himself.

  Edie didn’t like fighting with him either. She was really bad at it. Twice yesterday she’d come downstairs to tell him her thoughts on some cold case she was reading about, and potentially cracking, and then had to pretend she’d desperately wanted a glass of water when she remembered she wasn’t talking to him. And he’d clearly noticed because when he came to bed last night, he left a bottle of water, ice cold from the fridge, on her side table without saying a word.

  She resented those ungrateful daffodils. His arms were supposed to be wrapped too tightly around her, not them.

  But she had felt abandoned and betrayed. On Friday morning he had started up again about how uncertain things were at the garage this year. They were supposed to start trying that night! He’d suggested they wait another while. She’d been so upset she’d had to come home early from work, citing period pains. The other women had all been very sympathetic because as far as they and the rest of the world were concerned, she and Daniel were already trying to put an end to her periods. And as much as she cared what everyone else thought – which was quite a bit – she cared infinitely more about having a baby. At some point, Daniel had stopped caring about the same thing.

  She got up from the couch and took the flowers from him. ‘Thank you.’ He had taken extra care scrubbing his nails, but faint rings of oil stained his knuckles. She loved those useful hands.

  No tears, she warned herself. She couldn’t turn into a big baby every time something didn’t go her way.

  There was a vase in the kitchen between the window and a framed photo from their wedding day. Daniel’s footsteps followed her and carefully, slowly, she began to arrange the flowers.

  Her fertility window had closed yesterday and they hadn’t had any sex, never mind a conversation.

  In the photo from their wedding, they were standing at the foot of the lake at the hotel where they’d had the reception. Just before it was taken, Daniel had leaned in and said: ‘I’m going to make you happy.’ He hadn’t said it as if it was a line or something he’d seen in a film once. He’d said it because it was the exact thing on his mind. As simple as that.

  When had her straightforward husband become so confusing?

  ‘I didn’t like how you turned on me,’ she said, adjusting the stems one final time before accepting they would never stand straight. ‘I thought we had agreed.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. I panicked.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I’m not panicked.’

  A weight lifted from her chest.

  Men got panicked. It happened. Everyone said it. Women got to the ready-for-kids stage before men. Her cousin Kim had given up waiting and just pretended to get pregnant by accident. Her fella believed it really was an accident because he watched her take the pill every night. Only it wasn’t the pill she’d been taking at all; it was folic acid. All the other girls thought that was very smart, but it made Edie sad. She wanted to make a family with Daniel, not in spite of him.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘Okay?’ he repeated cautiously. ‘Okay you forgive me?’

  She nodded, relieved not to have to be annoyed any more, and slowly she wrapped her arms around him. She could feel the relief flowing through his body as their arms swapped positions and he enveloped her.

  ‘I’m sorry, bae,’ he said again.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she murmured, nuzzling her head into his neck. He smelled like he always did after work: aftershave and hot, stifled air. ‘There’s always next month.’ She pulled back slightly. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  But she had felt him tense up.

  ‘What is it, Daniel? Do you want to have kids? Yes or no?’ Asking blunt questions usually made Edie awkward – she was uncomfortable making other people uncomfortable – but with this, she didn’t care.

  ‘Yes,’ he said emphatically.

  She relaxed again. It would be okay. ‘All right then.’

  ‘I just don’t know if I’m ready yet.’

  ‘Daniel,’ she groaned. He was breaking her heart.

  ‘I just . . .’ He exhaled. ‘I just want it to be perfect.’

  She wanted to kiss him and hit him, to call him a goose and tell him how his more annoying qualities were also his best. But she also needed to clear this up. She needed to know where she stood. ‘It is perfect,’ she said, gesturing between the two of them.

  What if they couldn’t get pregnant naturally? What if they tried for a year and nothing happened and then they had to go down the IVF route and that didn’t work either? She thought of her ovaries as two fat little old-fashioned alarm clocks, constantly ticking.

  Daniel tutted, flinching slightly. ‘I should be earning more. We should have enough money to get the bathroom done, to pave the garden. I should be building up savings not eating into them. I should never have let things get so bad at the garage. I took my eye off the ball. I fucked up.’

  ‘You did not fuck up. You had a tough few months. It’s all right. These things happen.’ She reached for his face. ‘Jobs fall through.’

  He scratched the tuft of dark hair on his forehead with too much vigour. ‘I should have handled it better.’

  ‘Stop being so hard on yourself.’ On us, she thought. Stop being so hard on us. She had checked the bank statements. Things weren’t that bad now. But there was no talking to him. He was determined to punish himself. ‘Who cares if there’s not enough money to get rooms done up or to put in a driveway? The baby will sleep in the spare bedroom. And we don’t need a driveway.’

  ‘We do as long as that fucker is living at the bottom of this road,’ Daniel muttered. He had gotten into several arguments with the man at number one Pine Road in the past year, all over the empty lot beside Shay Morrissey’s house. It was because Daniel worked with cars that he took it as such a personal affront when he sometimes had to park his beloved BMW on the next road over.

  ‘We have enough money, Daniel. We own our own house.’

  ‘You own our own house, you mean.’

  Another fleck cracked from her heart. ‘Daniel.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He closed his eyes, sticking his thumb in one socket and the rest of his fingers into the other. ‘See? What a horrible thing to say. I’m not a good enough person to be a dad.’

  Edie laughed, a big brash honk. Daniel looked up, startled. She felt instant relief. Of all the arguments he could have given, that was the weakest. ‘You’re the best person,’ she said, still smiling. Even the fact he was worried about it proved her point.

  She stepped back towards the kitchen island. ‘I want to have a child, Daniel.’ She rolled up her sleeves. Daniel always laughed when she did this; as if she’d learned how to be taken seriously from watching cartoons. He didn’t laugh this time. ‘Like, I really want to have one.’

  He looked at her the way he used to when they first met, like she was some long-held dream that had finally materialised.


  ‘You would be the best mother.’

  ‘And you would be the best father,’ she insisted.

  ‘Stop.’

  ‘You’re kind and thoughtful and a great provider.’ Daniel winced and looked away but Edie moved so she was in his line of vision. ‘I’m not going to beg you, Daniel. I’m not going to make you have a child. But if you don’t want to have one with me, I need to know.’ Saying it out loud made her stomach constrict all over again. She leaned back on to the island. Would contractions feel a little like this?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Of course I want to have one with you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just get panicked. It seems too real, too big. I work it up in my head. I’m sorry.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’ she said, allowing herself to relax. ‘You’re the best man, Daniel Carmody. Honest to God, you are. And you’re a bit of a ride, too.’

  He guffawed.

  ‘You are. Avril Coughlan said that to me in third year before I’d even seen you and I thought she was exaggerating. But then I saw you coming down the stairs at Saint Ornatín’s and I said to myself, That’s Daniel Carmody; that’s the lad from pass Irish that Avril said she’d happily give her flower too.’

  ‘Did she really say that?’

  She shoved him gently. ‘You wouldn’t be asking that if you’d seen her lately.’ She puffed out her cheeks to emulate the fillers that had taken over Avril’s face. She immediately felt guilty. Even though her ex-friend had never been a very nice person, it wasn’t her fault she had low self-esteem. Poor Avril. ‘Forget that. I’m talking about you. You’ll be a great dad. All right, Daniel? Okay?’ She poked him. ‘Daniel?’

  He nodded. ‘I believe it a bit when you say it.’

  ‘Good. You should. So are we agreed? We’re trying for a baby. Actually trying, not fighting?’

  He was looking at her but he wasn’t listening.

  ‘Daniel,’ she said again, ‘this is like talking to you when Liverpool are playing. Three times I’ve to say anything before it gets through.’

  His eyes flickered then. He saw her properly. He nodded. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay,’ she echoed. Everything would be all right. She knew everything would be all right. ‘Good.’

  She pushed herself in a little closer, so her chest was tight against his. Then she tilted her head up and covered his mouth with hers. She took a breath and kissed him again, slowly, waiting until its effect had spread down through his body.

  ‘You’re just making me want you now.’

  ‘True,’ she murmured.

  ‘But it’s too late. You’re no longer . . .’

  ‘I was thinking we’d go back to the old days, when sex was just for fun.’

  He growled into her neck and she laughed, giving a little jump as he reached down for her ass. She liked when he was like this: primal and uncomplicated. She liked when things were simple.

  *** Pine Road Poker ***

  Ellen:

  Just home and Cillian told me about this list that was in the boys’ bathroom in Saint Ornatín’s! Have you all heard?

  Bernie, have you heard about this??? I sent you a text as soon as I heard. I assume the Parents’ Association is all over it?

  What I want to know is how long the school has known. Trish????

  Carmel:

  What sort of list?

  Ellen:

  Photos of it are going around the school. I don’t know if I can bring myself to share it.

  Rita Ann:

  What is it?

  Ruby:

  Release the photos!

  Carmel:

  Share it with the class!

  Ellen:

  [Photo sent]

  Fiona:

  That was in the school bathroom??? At Saint Ornatín’s??? My two are going there next year!!!

  Trish????? What is going on????

  Rita Ann:

  I can’t read that writing. I’ve lost my glasses somewhere. What does it say?

  Ruby:

  It says: ‘The Rape List. The girl with the most ticks beside her name will be raped’. And then there’s a list of names.

  I feel sick just typing that.

  Ellen:

  Cillian is good friends with three of the girls listed. Their poor parents.

  Trish – I can see you’ve read my first message. What’s going on? How did this happen?

  Fiona:

  I should say my two are *possibly* going there. Although presumably admissions won’t be so competitive after this!!!

  Rita Ann:

  You didn’t get that kind of thing in my day, I can tell you.

  Trish:

  Hi all. I cannot discuss this as it is a school matter. Please do not circulate that photo. Regards, Trish

  FOURTEEN

  ‘. . . held accountable. How can we send our children to a school where they are sharing classrooms with sexual predators? My Sylvie could be sitting beside a rapist every day. Or maybe she’s being taught by a rapist? We don’t know that it wasn’t a teacher who wrote this. And this isn’t just about my daughter, by the way. This could be anyone’s daughter. This could be your daughter, Trish. For several highly distraught parents, this is their daughter. It’s reprehensible. It’s an absolute disgrace. Aside from blaming the school, which I and the entire Parents’ Association absolutely do, we have to—’

  ‘Have you spoken to the entire Parents’ Association, Bernie? I thought you just found out about this and that the shock of that was why you have ignored standard protocol and come pounding on the door of my private residence outside of work hours.’

  Bernie Watters-Reilly’s jaw squared as she regarded Trish coolly. ‘You can rest assured that the entire Parents’ Association will echo my sentiment. The school is supposed to be teaching our children and guarding them. Instead, it delegates more and more of its teaching responsibilities to the internet. I have raised this at several board of management meetings but it constantly falls on deaf – dare I say, uninterested – ears. What do children find on the internet? Porn. And far, far worse. You can rest assured, Patricia, I am no babe in the woods.’

  ‘I never thought you were, Bernie.’

  ‘If teachers just did the teaching themselves, we wouldn’t have a system that is actively breeding wannabe rapists. It points to the violence of . . .’

  It wasn’t that Trish disliked Bernie. Well, she did – but she also felt sorry for her. Everyone knew Bernie was a gold star member of the Sunday Times wine club – she brought it up at every poker game – but however much Bernie drank, her husband drank more. If you asked Bernie, she’d tell you he was self-employed, a consultant, but Trish could see their recycling crate from the back windows of her house and she suspected Dermot Reilly didn’t do much of anything but drink.

  Her daughter was a precocious brat and Bernie did nothing to discourage Sylvie’s behaviour, indulging her every grievance. Declan was the only tolerable member of the family. Not that Bernie had much time for her son; Sylvie did a better job of smiling for the camera when VIP magazine wanted an ‘at home with’ photoshoot with the country’s top parenting expert. But Trish liked Declan. He was a gentle soul. She did him the favour of ignoring him in school – having the chair of the Parents’ Association for a mother, especially one as overbearing and publicity hungry as Bernie, was enough of a social burden without the whole school knowing the principal was your next-door neighbour – and she gave him forty quid every second weekend to mow her lawn and trim the bushes. He always did a decent job.

  ‘Saint Ornatín’s does not breed rapists, Bernie,’ said Trish, when her neighbour had finally finished. ‘No sexual assault has happened. The list would appear to be an entirely inexcusable and pathetically immature joke amongst the male students.’

  ‘A joke?’ Bernie recoiled, bringing her hand to her chest. Trish had seen her do this exact same manoeuvre on television. ‘You think this is a joke? I’ll tell you a joke, Trish. Why
did the donkey cross the road? Because it was the chicken’s day off. That is a joke. But female students being put at risk of sexual assault? That is not a joke. The male students should be lined up and questioned until someone cracks.’

  Word had started to spread that afternoon. Someone had blown up a photograph of the list and stuck copies of it on different classroom doors. Trish had no idea where the photograph had come from, who’d done it or why they’d waited so long. The entire staffroom was up in arms, never mind the students. The list had been gone a week now, and Trish had foolishly started to relax.

  ‘I am as horrified as you,’ she said, keeping her tone empathetic. ‘Trust me. It is entirely unacceptable behaviour and the perpetrator will be punished. We have launched an investigation internally. I was somewhat heartened to see that none of the names had any ticks beside them – and so I think this was an isolated incident as opposed to reflective of the male student population at large. In fact, it was a concerned male student who brought it to the attention of the faculty.’

  ‘Internal investigation, my eye. It sounds to me, Patricia, like you were trying to keep the whole thing secret. You were hoping nobody, including the parents, would ever know about . . . this!’ Bernie pulled one of the photocopied images from her ‘Children Aren’t A Distraction from More Important Work, They Are the More Important Work’ tote bag.

  ‘You really shouldn’t circulate those,’ said Trish, already envisaging the photo reproduced beside her neighbour’s weekly rant in this Thursday’s Irish Independent. ‘We need to protect the privacy of the students listed here. They are all minors.’

  Bernie continued to hold the blown-up photograph of the list aloft and Trish struggled to maintain composure. She had two daughters of her own. Of course, she did not think this was okay. ‘Bernie,’ she said, calmly, conclusively, ‘we took our own record of the list as soon as I was alerted to it.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘Very reassuring.’

  ‘We then removed the list from the bathroom door and sent a report on its contents to the board of management. It would have been raised at this month’s PTA meeting.’