Into the Night Sky

by Caroline Finnerty

  Chapter 15

  The Nespresso machine hisses while Shirley busies herself making two mugs of coffee.

  “I need this after last night.”

  “Bad night with Tiernan?” Rachel asks.

  “I saw every hour on the clock. I think he’s teething.”

  “Ach, the poor wee man!”

  Rachel is over at her friend Shirley’s house. They have been best friends since just after Rachel moved to Dublin from the North and they had shared a house together in Sandymount.

  “So how’re things with Marcus?” Shirley asks, setting the mugs down on top of coasters on the table.

  “I just don’t know what I’m going to do, Shirl.” Rachel clasps her two hands around her mug. “What we have together is perfect – it’s so great – I’ve never met anyone like him before . . . when we’re together, it feels amazing – I’ve never felt so happy!”

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming?”

  “But he can’t give me what I want so I don’t think I have any choice other than to break up with him . . . but it’s a really, really hard decision to make . . . ”

  “You just need to go cold turkey – cut him out of your life today and stop making excuses. Delete his number right now. Throw out the belongings that he still has lying around in your place. It’s like ripping off a plaster – you need to do it fast and in one go. It’ll be a sharp pain for a moment but it’ll hurt less in the long run. You’re peeling it back bit by bit and we all know it’s more painful that way – but the end result is all the same.”

  “I wish it was that easy, Shirley. We’ve been together for three years – that’s a long time. It’s a big chunk of someone’s life.”

  “Life expectancy is increasing. I heard this thing on the radio the other day, saying that it’s quite likely that we’re all going to live to the age of one hundred. So, if you think about it, three years is only three percent of your life – not really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, Rachel, sorry!”

  “You are such an accountant!”

  “No, I’m a realist.”

  “Sometimes I wonder would it really be that bad, a life without children? For all I know even if he was willing to have a child with me, we mightn't be able to and I could have thrown away a great relationship for nothing.”

  “Yes, but on the flipside of that, if you are able to have children, you want to have them and he doesn’t.”

  “I know, I know, you’re right,” she sighs. “Shirley, for once could you not be just a comforting shoulder to moan on?” she laughs.

  “Nope! Look, sorry if I’m being flippant. I know this is hard on you but the way I see it is that neither of you is going to change your mind so I think you need to stop prolonging the inevitable.”

  The door opens and Hugh comes into the kitchen. “Hi, Rachel, how are you today?”

  “I’m great, thanks, Hugh. You wife here is being her usual searingly honest self.”

  He bends over and gives Shirley a kiss on the cheek. He always does this whenever he enters a room that she is in, even if he last saw her only fifteen minutes ago. “What are you saying now, love?”

  “I’m just saying it as it is.”

  He looks at Rachel, his eyes widened in pretend fear. “Tiernan is still sound asleep anyway. I just checked on him there.”

  “Thanks, darling.”

  “I updated the feeding chart too – it was twenty-five minutes at three fifteen, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, that was it.”

  He laughs. “My brain is gone to pot since Tiernan arrived!” He smiles indulgently at both of them but Rachel knows that the smile is for Shirley really.

  Shirley and Hugh are the kind of couple that play board games together and don’t cheat. They hold hands when they go for a walk. They are always so complimentary to each other, exchanging little knowing smiles. It seems impossible to Rachel to imagine them having sex though. She wonders if Hugh keeps stopping every few minutes to make sure Shirley is all right – she imagines him saying ‘Are you sure now, darling? I don’t want to hurt you’. When they had announced they were having a baby, Rachel had to accept that they probably had had sex (just the one time) although she hadn’t ruled out artificial insemination. Of course Hugh had held Shirley’s hand during the antenatal classes and educated himself in labour techniques to minimise pain. They had both practised hypnobirthing mantras. He had made her a playlist for labour full of powerful songs or slow, inspiring ones in case she had got disheartened at any point and then another playlist with calming womb sounds to be played for when the baby was just about to be born to ease the transition into the world. They had chosen a home birth and had researched it extensively but when little Tiernan had decided to do his first poo (meconium – Hugh had explained to her) inside his mother, it had ended up with an emergency Caesarean in the maternity hospital anyway.

  When Baby Tiernan arrived, instead of feeling the strain like most new parents, they grew even closer together. Even though Shirley was breastfeeding they did the night feeds ‘together’ so Hugh didn’t miss valuable bonding time – “Feeding time is when they bond, you know!” he had said seriously to Rachel. Even their families got on and this year, Shirley and Hugh and both sets of parents were all going to the Dordogne region in France on holiday with Tiernan.

  Rachel had always thought that someday she and Marcus would be like that together, that they would be the couple being consumed with birth plans and having their life dictated by feeding schedules, but she now knows that they probably never will be. She is starting to obsess about it. She was visiting an infant as part of a case in work earlier in the week and when the baby had started cooing up at her from her wicker basket, she had felt her eyes fill with tears. She had brushed it off with the baby’s mother as a pollen allergy, but she knows that she can’t keep on going like this, it is affecting her so badly. She can’t look at a mother with a baby without feeling her stomach churning until the point where she almost feels nauseated and then the ever-present ache sets in in her heart as she thinks about her and Marcus.

  “Will I make you a fresh cup of tea?” Hugh asks. “You two look like you’ve lots to talk about.”

  “That would be lovely, honey.” Shirley smiles up at him and Rachel feels her heart break a little bit more.

  Chapter 16

  The rain is spilling down the windowpanes of the shop. He watches as rivulets run down the glass. It is miserable outside and the streets are empty. He hasn’t had a customer in all morning. No one in his or her right mind would venture out in weather like this. The bell sounds and when he looks up again, he sees the boy from yesterday standing there looking at him. He isn’t wearing a coat. He is soaked through and rain drips off him down onto the floor.

  “Eh . . . can I help you there?” Conor asks.

  “Are you okay? You look very sad, mister.”

  “I’m fine. Now what are you doing here again? I thought I told you yesterday to get lost?”

  “But I just want to look at your books.”

  “Well, now you’ve looked. Go on – get out of here.”

  The boy ignores him and walks over to the shelves where the children’s books are. He lifts down a farmyard picture book that has animals hiding underneath flaps. He starts to flick through it, lifting the flaps as he turns the pages.

  Conor follows over and stands beside him. “Do you mind? You’re going to destroy those books with your wet fingers!”

  “I’m only having a look,” he says, putting it back up on the shelf.

  “I told you already – I’ve enough of you lot causing trouble.”

  “What’s this one?” the boy asks, ignoring him and taking down another one.

  “Horrid Henry.”

  “Can I read that?”

  “No, you can’t!” he says, taking the book from his hand and putting it back up in the same place on the shelf. “This is a bookshop not a library – I’m in the business of selling books.”

&nbs
p; “But you can sell it when I’m finished with it,” the boy suggests, like it is a perfectly reasonable solution.

  Conor sees that he isn’t being cheeky. “Where’s your mother? You’re too young to be out on the streets on your own, especially in this weather.”

  “I’m nearly eight!” He seems insulted.

  He doesn’t look it – there are six-year-olds taller than him. Conor notices that one of his shoelaces, dirty and sodden from trailing the ground, is open.

  “You’d better tie that in case you trip up,” he says, pointing down at the lace.

  The boy looks down at it and shrugs his shoulders. “What’s your name?” he asks.

  “Conor.”

  “I’m Jack.”

  “Hi, Jack.”

  “You’ve lots of books, Conor.”

  “Well, that’s because it’s a bookshop, Jack.”

  “Have you ever counted them all up?”

  “What, to find out how many I have? No, I can’t say I’ve ever done that.”

  “Want to do it now?” His eyes are wide and eager.

  “Eh, no, I’ll pass on that offer, thanks.”

  “Okay, well, maybe another time. I know, why don’t we play hide the book? I’ll take a book and hide it in between all the other books and you have to find it?”

  “Sounds great but I’m kinda busy right now.”

  “Oh right.” He pauses for a minute. “You don’t look busy. You have no one in your shop.”

  “I’m doing paperwork.”

  “What’s your favourite book of all the ones in here?”

  “Oh God, I don’t know . . . I couldn’t choose just one.” He is exasperated. “Now come on, you have to go – I’ve work to do.”

  “Is that why you’re sad all the time?”

  “I’m not sad.”

  “Well, you look sad – you always seem sad whenever I look at you through the window.”

  “I didn’t know I had an audience!”

  “We could read together if you want? Teacher says I’m a great reader.”

  “I’m sure you are but that’s enough now – come on, off you go. I’ve got a business to run.” He turns him around and marches him over towards the door.

  They stand on the step; the rain is still teeming down, making ripples in the puddles on the road outside. He doesn’t have the heart to let him out in it.

  “Hang on, wait a sec –” He turns, goes behind the counter and grabs an umbrella that a customer had left behind one day. “Here, you’d better take this with you.” He hands it to the boy and helps him to put it up.

  “I’ll give it back to you.”

  “Don’t worry about it, hold onto it.”

  “Bye, mister.” Jack is waving at him from under the umbrella. The rain is rolling off it and falling into the puddles around his feet.

  “Bye, Jack.”

  Ella pulls back the heavy wooden door and sees her sister Andrea standing there with her two daughters, sheltering underneath an umbrella.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you?”

  “Well, I had to pick up something in the village so I said we’d come up for a cuppa to see how you’re doing?”

  They climb the spiral stairs up to the kitchen. Andrea sits down at the kitchen table and straightaway Dot climbs up on to her knee, while Celeste goes over to play with her curly hair. She likes pushing her fingers up through the curls and pushing them up together into a tight coil and then letting them spring back out again. The girls love Andrea. Andrea’s two girls are sitting up beside them at the table, feeding beads onto thread to make friendship bracelets with a kit that Andrea brought over with her.

  “Where’s little Maisie?”

  “She’s in the nursery having a nap.”

  “Every time I call over she’s asleep – she’s a dream baby, isn’t she?”

  “Well, you should have heard her screaming the house down earlier on,” Celeste says.

  “She’s a baby, Celeste!” Andrea says, laughing.

  “Well, Celeste has a point. She cries a lot – just not much when you’re here.”

  She gets up to make the coffee but then they can hear Maisie start to cry on the monitor. Make the coffee or attend to Maisie, make the coffee or go to Maisie? This is the problem: she can’t seem to make the simplest of decisions. Everything is fazing her when she knows logically it shouldn’t be a big deal.

  “You make the coffee and I’ll get her,” Andrea offers, getting up off the chair and going downstairs.

  “Thanks,” Ella says, relieved.

  The girls follow after her. They always follow her around.

  Ella takes her time making the coffee, savouring the unusual moment of quiet in the kitchen until Andrea comes back up the stairs with a sleepy Maisie cuddling in towards her neck. She watches her sister with her baby and not for the first time thinks Andrea has a natural ability that she just doesn’t possess.

  “She’s such a cutie, Ella.” Andrea sits back down at the table and cuddles Maisie closely.

  “You were always like that with babies,” Ella says.

  “Like what?”

  “The way you just know how to hold her and calm her.” Ella looks down at the floor and she sighs. “I think when the maternal genes were being given out, you got them all and I got whatever dregs were left over! Sometimes I can’t believe that we’re sisters!”

  “Well, I’m hardly The Baby Whisperer! Sure all they are is tiny little people!”

  “But they’re so delicate and fragile – I’m so afraid that I’ll do something wrong and harm her.”

  “Ella – she’s your third child – the way you go on you’d think she was your first! You’re not going to kill her – it’s normal to be a bit anxious. I’ve probably forgotten what it’s like to have a tiny baby. It seems like ages ago since mine were this small.” She smiles lovingly at the child who is beaming back at her.

  “I know – you’d think I’d have got my act together by now.” She sighs heavily. “I’m useless at the whole thing.”

  “No, you’re not. Do you know what I think it is?”

  “What?”

  “That job was your life – being at home all day, it’s a huge change for you.”

  “Tell me about it,” she says wryly.

  “Stop being so hard on yourself – you’ll be fine. Some mothers want to, or need to work, and then there are some like me that want to be with their babies. It doesn’t mean my style of motherhood is any better than yours.”

  They can hear the girls’ shrieks of laughter bounce off the stone walls and travel up through the tower from where they are playing downstairs.

  “But it is – I hardly know my own children! I just seem to be so bad at this motherhood thing. I don’t have a natural instinct like you have. And Celeste is being very distant.”

  “Really? She’s probably just missing Mrs Frawley – she’ll be okay, I promise.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Of course she will! You’ve had a difficult couple of weeks but you’ll get there – look, everything happens for a reason. I know losing your job has hit you hard – you gave your life to that show. Sure you were back to work after six weeks for all of them! But maybe you should try seeing it as an opportunity to spend more time with your children. Every cloud and all that?”

  “I know, you’re right. I’m trying to see it like that, I really am. You know, I didn’t have a choice. If I’d taken any longer out I would have been replaced. That’s the way it is in TV: if you have a job you need to hold onto it with both hands because there are a hundred other younger, prettier girls just waiting for the chance.”

  “You’ve had a difficult few months – it’s going to take a bit of getting used to – but I guarantee you will look back on this time and won’t regret it. You’ll find your feet – I promise. And if it’s really not your thing being at home with the kids then you can always look for another job.”

  “Are you mad? My name is like
a dirty word on Irish TV right now.”

  “It’ll all blow over – in a few more weeks no-one will remember any of this.”

  “Hmmh . . . maybe in the year 2047 after the whole fiasco has died down.”

  “But it was a mistake for God’s sake! You are being treated so unfairly!”

  Andrea keeps referring to it as a mistake, even though they both know that the reason the store is bringing it to court is because she had taken another item the day before, but Andrea can’t bear to accept the truth about her younger sister.

  They fall silent for a minute before Andrea speaks again. “Oh, while I think of it, I’m going to ask Dad over for dinner on Sunday – that’s if you’re around.”

  “He might be off doing something with his lady friend.” Ella laughs.

  “Yeah, he seems to really like her, doesn’t he?”