Scarlet Feather

by Maeve Binchy

  'We didn't mean never,' she pleaded. 'It just happened, that's it.'

  'We have time, plenty of time to decide now, with total safety.'

  'I don't believe you.' She was aghast.

  'I'm not a monster, we were in this together, years ago, that would have been it, an accident, and of course I don't blame you for it… It was down to both of us… But there is a chance to alter that, rectify things, and then if we do want a child at a later stage, then it should be something we would plan for together and agree.'

  'Aren't you at all glad? Aren't you in any way pleased that…' She didn't trust her voice to say any more.

  She stroked her stomach and he leaped up and went to the window. 'It's not fair, Cathy, it's not fair, it's not our child yet. Don't talk of it like that. This is only something that could become a child, you know that.'

  She couldn't say anything. The tiny mouthful of sandwich she had eaten ages ago seemed lodged at the base of her throat, as if it might choke her. She felt almost dizzy at what was unfolding before her. He didn't even want to discuss how they would manage with the baby. Neil didn't want the baby at all. There was going to be no discussion. He seemed to be saying that because she wasn't agreeing instantly to a termination, she had somehow broken a promise.

  'Say something, please, don't just sit there, say something,' he asked with his back to her as he looked out on Holly's hotel where people were walking in the late afternoon sunshine. But there was too much to say, so she couldn't speak.

  'You know that the job they're offering me was dependent on us not having children?' he said.

  'I don't believe you, that's not a moral or legal basis on which to offer a job or to accept one. You would be the first to say that,' she said with spirit.

  'Let's put it this way, I had already told them that children were not in the frame, and so that was a deciding factor in my favour.'

  The silence was longer this time.

  'I need some fresh air, I'm going out to the gardens for a while.'

  'Don't go, please,' she cried.

  'I tell you, my head is bursting. I need to be on my own and walk a bit, get something into my lungs. I feel like I'm choking.'

  'Don't leave me, not now, not just now.'

  I'm not leaving you.' He was irritated. 'I need to breathe, that's all.'

  He came towards her and stroked her cheek. 'I wouldn't leave you, it's just I've had a shock. I need time to think about it. I'm not running away. I'll be back.'

  He was gone. She saw him walking along the paths, past the monkey-puzzle trees, his head thrown back, biting his lips, so striking and handsome, even though he always laughed that away and said he was too small to be good-looking. He went as far as the kitchen gardens, and she saw him in the distance bending over something to read a label. She sat in the bedroom, which had seemed so beautiful when they had come into it less than an hour ago. The ice chinked as it melted in the bucket under the bottle of wine, and the tears fell down her face. She had not believed that this would ever be possible, but she knew that no matter how many hours of discussion they might have tonight when he came back calmer and more reasonable, she would not choose to give up this child that she carried. It could not have appeared at a worse time for everyone, but that wasn't the point. It just wasn't a theory any more, not a case or a constitutional amendment. It was her baby.

  It seemed a lot darker outside when she heard the door of the room open. But she had no idea how long he had been gone. He seemed different somehow. Not bewildered, not shocked any more. As if this were one of the many crises and dramas that formed part of his everyday work and the kind of practice he had chosen at the Bar. He sat opposite her at the little table, and though he smiled in an attempt at reassurance, she felt a little as if they were lawyer and client.

  'Cathy, if you have the baby, who will look after it?' he asked. Gentle, but very deliberate.

  'Well I will, of course.'

  'But the business?'

  'Well, of course I'll make arrangemenIs.' She knew her voice sounded flustered.

  'You can't take a baby into the premises to lie there all day in the middle of your cooking.'

  'No, but there will be ways… We'll find them.'

  'What ways? A nanny?'

  'Well, yes, if we can afford one.'

  'And where would she sleep?'

  'I don't know, you can get people by the day.'

  'But as I see it, most of your functions will be in the evening, so what happens then?'

  'Well, the odd time I suppose you could...'

  'How can I commit myself to doing that? I have to work at night, too.'

  'We'll work it out when it happens.'

  'We can't do that. We have to plan now. I'll be away from home a lot, more anyway. Apart altogether from the big job, I will have to go abroad quite a lot.'

  'We'll manage.'

  'Like you've managed up to now?'

  'I don't know what you mean.' She was alarmed.

  'Like the business is in great debt and danger, like you are already worked off your feet paddling to keep up, like there's a new crisis every day. What do we do if there's a child to consider?'

  'So you're asking that there should be no child to consider?' She spoke carefully.

  He answered just as carefully. 'That is most definitely not what I'm asking, Cathy. I have no right, no right whatsoever to deny you a child, and I will not dream of doing so.'

  He was very calm, cold almost. This is what his walk among the roses, hollyhocks and lupins of Holly's hotel had achieved for him. The kind of honest clarity that always stood him in such good stead in every cause he had ever fought.

  'So there will be no discussion about whether we have the child or not?'

  'You obviously want to have the child, and I am not going to stand in your way. It wouldn't be a moral or right thing to do.'

  Too measured, too calm. She felt frightened. 'Will it always be like this, do you think, where you will be putting up with the situation, and having our baby there will be something on sufferance?'

  'I don't think it should be like that at all. But if we are going to have another person in the house we must prepare, we must make contingency plans.'

  'You sound very distant. Very remote.'

  'Believe me, that's not what I mean to be, it's just that we must go into this with our eyes open… Yes, of course I wish it had happened at a time when we were ready in every sense to give a child a better welcome… a better lifestyle, but it hasn't, so we must decide what to do. Like how much maternity leave will you take?'

  'Three months, like anyone.'

  'And will Tom agree to this?'

  'It's the law, but he would anyway, I'm certain.'

  'We'll have to move house. Waterview is so unsuitable for a child,' he said.

  'Not yet, not for a baby… it doesn't matter where a baby lives… Later we might think… ?'

  'But I have committed myself to work in my area, I'm not taking big insurance cases or conveyancing just to make money.'

  'We don't need all that much money. We don't need a big house like Oaklands, we don't want one of those gigantic prams like you were reared in, we don't have to go to a big expensive fee-paying school. Children don't need all kinds of luxury or royal treatment, they need to be loved.'

  'We have had a good start. If we have a child, we must give that child a good start too.'

  'My mam and dad raised six of us in St Jarlath's Crescent, and did so with no money and no problems.'

  'Well, hardly with no problems,' he contradicted.

  'What do you mean?'

  'You are always railing that your mother had to go down on her hands and knees to scrub my mother's floors and put up with dogs' abuse while she did it.'

  'But I won't have to do that, and neither will you.'

  'I suppose I'm just not ready,' he said.

  'Neither am I. But loads of people haven't been ready, and look at the great fist they made of it.'

&
nbsp; 'I'm not a monster, why am I being made to feel like one?'

  'I'm not making you into a monster.' She was gentle.

  'It's just… it's just…' He couldn't find the words.

  She said nothing.

  'Listen, I haven't even asked you anything about all this… How do you feel? Have you been sick… ?'

  'It comes and goes…'

  'And what do you want to happen?'

  'What's happening now, for us to talk about it calmly and sanely withoutgetting upset.'

  'What's there to talk about… ? I mean it.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Let's be logical, we didn't want children, now you're pregnant.' It was very chilly, very clinical, the way he said it.

  'We have been missing each other a lot recently…' he went on. 'I misunderstood the depth of your feeling about the company, and I thought that you'd eventually see sense about it, come abroad with me because it was such a great posting… and you misunderstood. Once you were pregnant, you thought that I'd automatically come round to being delighted to be a father. We both got it very wrong.'

  Suddenly she couldn't help it any more, the remorseless logic, the working out where praise and blame were due. She felt the sobs coming on and couldn't stop them. He watched her aghast as her shoulders heaved with the misery that went right through her. It was impossible to hear what she was saying; the words were drowned with all the sobbing.

  'Please, Cathy…' He reached out to touch her. He hadn't expected this, he had been trying to sum it up as accurately as he could. He had been struggling not to blame her and say that he felt a sense of betrayal. He thought it was unjust that he had been somehow bypassed on their bargain, but the rights of a birth mother were obviously more important, so he had tried to concentrate on the practicalities, and now judging by her weeping that had not been right either. He wished he could understand what she was saying. And Cathy wept and wept, saying the same thing over and over. He didn't want the child. There was no instinctive, loving response to the thought of being a father. There was no way she could end this pregnancy, because even if she did, and suppose she got over it, she still would remember this day and how he had proved not to be a loving, caring, good person after all, only a selfish one determined to get all that he could achieve in his career. She wept more because she could not and would not believe this of Neil, the man she loved so much. He watched her, his eyes misting with confusion, he was doing his best for her, being as fair and just as anyone could be under the circumstances. His future was going to change because she had not kept faith and honoured straight dealing. He had agreed to go ahead with it, and then just sorting out a few details had reduced her to this state.

  'I've never seen you cry like this before. Please, please stop,' he begged.

  She made a great effort, and he passed her a box of tissues. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

  'I'm not saying anything out of any badness, I just couldn't hear what you were saying,' he said. She blew her nose again. Tentatively he offered her some wine and she drank it. He moved her hair out of her eyes and put his arm round her shoulder.

  'Cathy, hon?'

  'Okay. I'm okay now.'

  A determination as strong as she had felt all those years ago in Greece came over Cathy. They had been through too much, conquered so many problems, they would not fail now. Not now that the best part, a child, was on the way.

  'When I told you I had something to tell you… what did you think I was going to say?' she asked, sniffing a bit.

  'I don't know,' he was evasive.

  'Please tell me.'

  'Well, I think I believed you were going to say to me…' he hesitated.

  'Tell me.'

  ' I thought you were going to say you'd decided to leave Scarlet Feather and come with me wherever I went,' he said.

  And outside it was dark in the garden and the smells of cooking came from downstairs.

  The man who was watching the premises thought that he had got lucky. The big guy who owned it was letting himself in. At this time of night, at a weekend. They had been totally right, it was, of course, all his own doing; he was going to do further destruction now. He crept up to the window to see it begin before he called for back-up. These insurance cases were all the same; they had to have heavy proof. He kept in the shadows; he wanted to watch it begin, but he didn't want to be seen himself and there might be more than one of them.

  Marcella lay on the bed in Stoneyfield. He would have to come home sometime. So he hadn't wanted to go out to lunch; maybe she should not have suggested it to him. But he wasn't going to stay out all night, every night. This much she knew. Where would he go? He was too proud to go round to Ricky's studio apartment. He would never go to his parents in Fatima. He wouldn't want to go within a million miles of Joe at this time. He would come home. When she woke later and he still wasn't there, she began to worry. He was so headstrong, but he'd never have done anything foolish. Marcella couldn't sleep any more. She went out on the street and walked until she saw a cruising taxi. She asked it to leave her in a street near the premises, then she walked quietly down the lane and opened the gate into the cobblestoned yard. There was a man in a parked car outside, but he didn't seem to take any notice of her. She looked in at the window and, peering in the very early dawn, she saw a figure lying on the divan. Thank God. And how foolish of him. They would have to talk sometime; why keep putting it off? She rang the bell and he didn't stir. She could see that his eyes were open but he made no move. He must have known she was there. 'Tom,' she called. 'Please, Tom, don't leave me here. Tom, let me in.' He never moved. 'There was nothing else I could do,' she cried. And then finally,'I never betrayed you. I told you everything, I was so honest with you. I can't understand why you won't talk.' After half an hour, cold and frightened, she left and got another taxi back to Stoneyfield.

  The man who had been watching the premises was mystified. That big guy had not gone in to break the place up, he had gone in to sleep on a sofa, for God's sake. And what was more peculiar still was that one of the most beautiful women ever seen in Dublin had been hammering on the door trying to get in. Any normal man would have let her in straight away. This guy was weird.

  Tom got up an hour later, went to Haywards and made the bread. Was it only two days since he had been in this building? Making the Saturday morning batch; clearing up after the fashion show while still half drunk and shell-shocked. It seemed like for ever, and yet he realised that he was only talking about a mere forty-eight hours. He was afraid that Marcella might try to confront him in the kitchen, but she wouldn't risk it. She couldn't afford a public scene so shortly after her triumph. It was strange, that whole business last night.

  Back at the premises he was surprised to find Cathy already there.

  'Was Neil delighted?' he asked.

  'Yes I think he was,' Cathy said.

  'Of course he was, anyone would be delighted to be having a baby with you,' Tom said.

  'Yes, well, he was startled, that's for sure.' Cathy didn't catch Tom's eye.

  It obviously hadn't gone well, this announcement. It was so much less than he had expected, Tom felt he should say something. 'I suppose it was a bit of a shock as well,' Tom was soothing.

  She looked at him thoughtfully. 'Yes, it was a bigger shock than I realised.'

  'But he'll be delighted when the shock bit dies down,' Tom reassured her.

  'Of course he will,' Cathy said with a smile.

  Tom might be right. Neil could well become excited about the baby. Eventually. He had been so kind last night in Holly's after her weeping fit, so gentle, and he had put away the interrogating manner. They had talked long and calmly last night, and got up very early to drive back through the sunshine of County Wicklow,getting to Dublin well before the traffic had started. Neil had driven leaning over to pat her arm occasionally. Yes, when the shock died down, as Tom said, it would be fine.

  'We decided that we wouldn't tell anyone about it yet.' she e
xplained to Tom. 'So you see…'

  He understood immediately. 'So the two clairvoyants you work with will keep quiet, is that what you're saying?'

  For a bit. I would be grateful. And Tom, thank you so much for sorting Simon and Maud out on Saturday. Dad left a message on our machine about it; you really are a hero.'

  'He's such a shit, that man Mitchell.'

  'Oh, don't get me started on him, I've never wanted to hit anyone quite so much.'

  'It's monstrous that they should have those children, but don't get me started on that either.' He paused, and she knew he was going to say something important. 'And since you don't ask, which is very good of you, I haven't seen Marcella since Friday and I might sleep here a couple of nighIs, if that's all right with the company.' He spoke lightly, but she could see his pain. Quietly, she put her arms around him.

  Eventually, she said, 'That's fine with the company. Let's open up the e-mails and see what we've got.'

  He moved away as she started up the computer, more grateful than he could ever say at her understanding and lack of questions at this raw time. Then he heard her scream.

  'God Almighty, I don't believe this!'

  'What is it?'

  He came running. Together they read that Marian was throwing the whole wedding party on their mercy for a rehearsal and a recovery party because Harry and his stupid relations had not thought that you needed to book anything in Dublin. Sleepy little backwater Dublin, where nobody needed to make reservations. And they had to be booked into somewhere classy for a dinner and a lunch at the height of the tourist season, and they had to find the places in just under three weeks.

  'It's impossible,' Cathy said. 'That's all there is to it. Great stupid eejits.'

  'We'll have to cater them all ourselves,' said Tom. 'It's just as simple as that.'

  'Now you're the one that's mad! We can't do that.'

  'Why not? It'll make us some badly needed money, and it will take our minds off other things,' he said.