by Tara Heavey
‘Up like puddings.’
‘You poor thing. I was the same with the twins.’
Annie had given birth to twin girls three months previously, thereby making Chen the proudest father in Ireland. Before that, she had worked part-time as a secretary in Tyrone’s Dublin office; upon returning to Ireland, she had discovered that she didn’t have the heart to return to secondary-school teaching. Tabitha and Thomasina, she had called the twins. I had pleaded with her to give them plainer names – had she forgotten what it was like to be teased in school? all those years of being called Tatty or Titty-Anna? But she now claimed that this had been a character-building experience. Maybe she was right, but I wasn’t taking any chances myself. If I had a little girl, I was going to call her Ellen.
We were joined by Paul, who handed me my seventh sparkling mineral water of the evening. He had added a strawberry and a chunk of lime, in an effort to make this one more exciting. He sat down behind me and tried to put his arms around my waist; finding none, he instead placed his arms as far as they could go around my distended belly.
I often wondered what he thought of me now – this big mound of leaks and rumbles that had once been his girlfriend. Sometimes I felt that he was waiting for me to go into labour like a scientist waited for a volcano to erupt – wanting to be there, but afraid of getting caught in the lava flow. I felt afraid sometimes, too. But there was no escaping my own body.
‘You look lovely,’ he whispered into my ear, and kissed my jawline.
I appreciated his efforts, I really did. But they didn’t stop me from feeling like Demis Roussos in my party dress.
‘How do you feel?’ It was a question I was being asked a lot of late.
‘Great.’
It was true. I did feel great most of the time – like a big, fat, happy Buddha, or a placid, well-tended sacred cow.
The pregnancy had been an accident – a happy accident. It’s amazing how the simple process of weeing on a stick can change the course of your whole life. It was almost time to test out my allegedly child-bearing hips. Not to mention Paul’s paternal skills.
Paul was a transformed man since he’d moved from the city. It wasn’t just his hair, which was now wavy and curled about his shirt collar (he looked like the gardener off the telly), and it wasn’t just his new casual style of dressing. He’d given up accountancy and was working as an organic farmer. He spent most of his days happily up to his armpits in muck. When he wasn’t working, he was growing lilies in the back garden of our new home, a few miles away, or making organic crab-apple jelly from a recipe Bridie Power had given him. It had been passed down from Granny Power.
Healing the rift between his father and himself had been a real turning point for Paul. His own impending fatherhood had spurred him into making contact. Relations had been awkward at first, and it had been hard for Paul to forgive and forget. But his father’s explanation that he had been repeatedly warned off by Paul’s mother rang true, somehow. Of course, they were unlikely ever to have the ideal father-son relationship – it was too late for that; but perhaps Mr O’Toole could repair some of the damage by treating his grandchild the way he should have treated his own little boy. He had already visited us for a week that spring, and he was due to fly over again the second his first grandchild was born.
As for Mrs O’Toole, she had so far refused to visit us in our ‘house of sin’ or to acknowledge our baby, conceived as he or she had been outside holy matrimony. As far as I was concerned, this made life even more perfect. Paul still held out hope that she’d have a change of heart once the child was born. But, even if she didn’t, he had his own family now.
Brendan Ryan – local solicitor extraordinaire – emerged from the mouth of the marquee.
‘Can we have everyone in for the tango demonstration?’ he roared.
He was wearing a new fireman-red cardigan that his wife had knitted for the occasion, together with a white shirt, a scarlet tie, black trousers and shoes, and shocking-pink socks. The effect was striking, to say the least. He gave me a freckly grin before disappearing back inside.
Relations between our firms continued to be good. If a mad client came to Brendan’s office looking for advice, he sent him directly over the road to us. We would often return the favour. It balanced out and everyone was happy with this arrangement. We still had good-natured spats in Ballyknock district court, which had become even more enjoyable since the previous judge had been forced to retire on the grounds of ill temper.
Paul hauled me to my feet, and we followed the scatterings of people making their way into the tent. I couldn’t wait to see this: my parents, the award-winning dancers Mr and Mrs Joe and Teresa Malone, giving a tango demonstration. Once, years ago, I’d asked my father if he regretted not having a son. He’d told me not to be daft – that, if my mother had given birth to a son, she would probably have christened him Rudolf and packed him off to ballet lessons. Dad had said he wouldn’t wish such a fate on any young lad. And look at him now – Twinkle-Toes himself.
We scanned the room for prime seats.
‘Over here!’ It was Hazel, looking radiant. She was wearing a sky-blue trouser suit, an all-over St Tropez tan and perfectly sculpted eyebrows.
Of course, I knew one of the reasons for this radiance. Rumour had it that she was getting a good seeing-to from Mattie Power on a regular basis. (True, she wasn’t blonde, but he didn’t seem to mind.) But he couldn’t claim all the credit. Hazel was a new woman since she’d taken a year out to travel the world. She’d returned six months ago and set up her own accountancy practice – in Ballyknock village. Her poky (so far) office was upstairs from the new premises of Power, Malone & Co. Solicitors. The entire population of Dublin would be living down here soon.
Unfortunately, she and Chris had never regained that closeness they’d had before Hazel’s meltdown. For some reason not even fully understood by Hazel herself, she had taken out the worst of her frustrations on Chris. The wounds she’d inflicted had never fully healed, and both of them accepted that perhaps they never would. Sometimes you can’t go back. Other friends had flowed into their lives, filling the void that each of them had left in the other.
Chris had been fired by the film company when her first short film turned out to be a spectacular flop. Undeterred, she’d moved over to Essex for six months to do a diploma in interior design (and to give the Essex girls a run for their money). Shortly after her return, she and Jack Power had set up their own interior design consultancy firm in Dublin.
Of course, Chris claimed to have known all along that Jack was gay. Nice of her to fill me in, as usual. Jack, in turn, claimed that Chris was the ultimate gay icon. I’d always known she’d find her niche sooner or later.
I sat down beside Hazel, who was sharing a table with Jack, his partner Chuck – whom he’d wasted no time in importing from San Francisco – Bridie and, last but not least, Johnny. Jack pulled his seat up beside mine.
‘How’s it going?’ I whispered into his pierced ear. The earring was the only discernible sign of his gayness – other than Chuck, of course. These days, Jack mostly dressed like a boring, straight, old fart.
‘Could be worse. No blood spilled yet.’
I glanced over at Chuck, who was chatting to Bridie. Johnny sat on the other side of his wife, sipping a pint and looking distinctly uncomfortable.
Jack had discovered that Ballyknock wasn’t quite ready for him. One of the brothers had taken over the running of the farm, and Jack now lived in a stylish apartment off Dublin’s South Great George’s Street, with Chuck. Both his career and his personal life were going swimmingly. He sang in a gay nightclub every second Saturday night. I sometimes went up to see him – usually on the nights he was in drag, because they were the best. He had confessed to me recently that it was his greatest regret that he was too old to audition for boy bands.
I decided this would be a good time to ask him.
‘Jack, I have a favour to ask you.’
�
��How could I refuse anything to a woman in your delicate condition?’
‘That’s why I’m asking you now.’
‘Sounds scary. What is it?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Will you be the baby’s godfather?’
His face broke slowly into a grin. ‘Don’t you mean godmother?’
‘I’m afraid Annie’s already got that gig.’
‘You could have two. I could be its fairy godmother.’
I pretended to consider this for a moment. ‘All right, then. Will you do it?’
‘I’d be delighted.’
Sorted.
The remainder of the Power clan, including Matt – current holder of the title of Ballyknock Bachelor of the Year – and the various little snot-nosed baby Powers, were distributed around the nearby tables. Amongst them sat Shem and Tom Delaney of the Rusty Teeth. Shem had been widowed about a year before. He’d recently started doing a line with Cissy Walsh from the post office. Patricia and the other matrons of Ballyknock were scandalised by his behaviour – the poor woman barely cold.... I suppose nobody likes to feel that they’re dispensable.
As the applause following my parents’ tango petered out, the bride and the groom took the floor. Tyrone took his blushing, blooming, blissful, blossoming bride in his arms for their first waltz as a married couple. Barbed Wire – who, we’d learnt today, had been christened Barbara Ann after the song – looked up lovingly into her new husband’s face and smiled a smile that made her look ten years his junior rather than his senior. She had moved down to Ballyknock with him to continue as his secretary, and the rest, as they say, was history.
As for me, it had been a while since anyone had accused me of being proper. I’d long since found the thing that had been missing from my relationship with Paul the first time around.
It had been me all along.
I noticed that the champagne reserves were running low. I went into the kitchen of Power’s Cottage, where I knew the extra bottles were being kept. I felt another twinge as I got up. I’d been having contractions for almost an hour now. Lucky they hadn’t come any earlier; I had only ticked the last item off my ‘Baby – to do’ list that very morning. The contractions were still weak enough and far enough apart not to be a worry. But I’d have to tell Paul soon. He was having such a good time that I was reluctant to spoil his fun. And, besides, why would I want to sit around in a hospital when I could be here, amongst family and friends?
Feeling surprisingly calm, I uncorked a bottle of champagne and poured myself a glass. It was the first time alcohol had touched my lips in eight months – it could hardly do the baby any harm at this stage. I glanced up at Mary Power, who smiled regally at me from her place of honour above the fireplace.
‘Well, Mary,’ I said, raising my glass to her, ‘things haven’t turned out too badly after all. Cheers.’
I clinked my glass against her glassy frame.
Then I stepped back out into the sunshine.
Gill & Macmillan
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© Tara Heavey 2004, 2013
First published by Gill & Macmillan 2004 under the Tivoli imprint
This ebook edition published by Gill & Macmillan 2013
978 07171 3605 1 (print)
978 07171 5901 7 (epub)
978 07171 5902 4 (mobi)
Cover design by Spokes Design
Cover photo © Getty Images
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission of the publishers.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The website addresses referred to in this book were correct at the time of first publication.
About the Author
Tara Heavey was born and raised in London, and moved to Dublin at the age of twelve. A qualified solicitor, she practised law in Co. Kilkenny and Co. Waterford for five years before turning to writing fulltime. She is a successful author of bestselling novels, including Making It Up As I Go Along, Winter Bloom, A Brush With Love, Where the Love Gets In and Sowing the Seeds of Love. She lives in Co. Kilkenny with her partner and son.
About Gill & Macmillan
Gill & Macmillan’s story begins in 1856 when Michael Henry Gill, then printer for Dublin University, purchased the publishing and bookselling business of James McGlashan, forming McGlashan & Gill. Some years later, in 1875, the company name was changed to M.H. Gill & Son. Gill & Macmillan as we know it today was established in 1968 as a result of an association with Macmillan of London. There was also a bookshop, popularly known as Gills, located on Dublin’s O’Connell Street for 123 years until it eventually closed in 1979. Today our bookshop can be found online at www.gillmacmillanbooks.ie.
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