Putting Out the Stars

by Roisin Meaney

  Sometimes she wondered if Donal would understand. Wasn’t she buying them for their baby, who would eventually arrive? Where was the harm in that? If she made up a few stories to amuse herself when she bought them, so what? That was only a bit of fun.

  Only of course she knew that it wasn’t; fun was the last thing it was. And of course she couldn’t tell Donal; there was no way he’d understand that this was the only way she could deal with the heartbreak and frustration and rage. That every time she bought a tiny pair of woolly tights, or a vinyl read-in-the-bath book, it eased the terrible nagging hunger for a while.

  She decided to forget the attic for the moment, get another cardboard box instead – it would fit under the studio table beside the first one. And she should be ovulating again in a week or so – maybe this time they’d be lucky. She clutched the bucket in its paper package and made her way back to the studio. She’d already missed the deadline for the first lot of schoolbook illustrations: better get a move on.

  Cecily held the glass out as Frank poured. ‘Not too much; the bubbles go straight to my head.’ She’d already had her usual gin and tonic before dinner, and a small glass of wine with the food; she wondered if the champagne was overdoing it. But as Frank pointed out, you couldn’t celebrate the New Year without a drop of champagne. It wouldn’t hurt, just this once.

  ‘Ten minutes to go; I hope you have your resolutions ready.’ Frank raised his own glass. ‘To friendship.’

  ‘Friendship.’ Cecily took a tiny sip. It was deliciously cold, and beautifully dry. Frank had produced it unexpectedly after the meal he had cooked for her earlier. She’d been touched by clear signs that he’d given a lot of thought to the evening; a newly opened bottle of her favourite Gordon’s gin, heavy linen napkins that she was sure he’d bought specially, Vivaldi on the stereo – she remembered him asking her about music at the last book-club evening. So thoughtful of him . . . what a surprise he was turning out to be.

  And how astonishing to discover that she scarcely missed Andrew in the house, after all. If she were to be completely honest, she would have to admit that she quite relished the peace, the freedom of having the house to herself for the first time ever. Being able to buy the foods she wanted without having to worry about whether others would like them. Coming and going as she pleased, with no explanations to be given to anyone. No need to justify the evenings she was spending with Frank – two meals already in the little hotel outside the city, the third tonight, in his house.

  She’d been slightly apprehensive at the thought of coming here – what if she bumped into Dorothy or Liam, just next door? Not that she and Frank had anything to hide, of course, but Cecily preferred to keep her business to herself. No need for anyone to know that they were spending time together, much less how much she was coming to enjoy it. To her relief, she’d met nobody on her way from the taxi to the door. And it had been dark when she’d arrived, so even if Dorothy or Liam had chanced to look out the window, they’d hardly have been able to recognise her.

  Earlier, Frank had shown her his collection of books – rather haphazardly arranged on shelves in his sitting room, but interesting nonetheless. She commented on a few titles that sounded interesting, and he insisted on lending them to her. As he was packing them into a brown paper bag, Cecily’s attention was caught by a framed photo on the mantelpiece beside the bookshelves.

  ‘Was this your wife?’ She was dark, and almost the same height as a younger Frank, arm linked into his, leaning slightly into him. Her other hand was raised to hold windblown hair away from her eyes.

  Frank looked up from the bag and nodded briefly. ‘That was about ten years ago.’

  Cecily’s gaze wandered to another framed photo, slightly smaller, yellowing with age. A boy of about ten or eleven held a little girl – eight? nine? – by the hand and beamed into the camera. She wondered if they were Frank’s children: the daughter who had died and the son he had lost contact with. Better not to mention them – it might upset the evening. She looked more closely at the boy. Yes, definitely Frank’s son; a strong resemblance there, the same chin, and eyes . . .

  ‘Right; just time for a drink before dinner. Gin and tonic, I presume?’

  She turned, smiled. ‘Lovely.’

  He served chicken fillets with a delicious buttery sauce, and stuffed tomatoes. When she complimented him, he admitted that his repertoire was extremely limited. ‘Chicken or chops in the oven, wrapped in tinfoil, or a bit of grilled fish – that’s about the extent of my culinary expertise. The sauce was the only one I ever mastered, so I serve it with just about everything.’ Over cheese and grapes – another thoughtful touch; he knew she never bothered with dessert – they talked about gardens. She described her patio and shrubbery to him.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not very imaginative; maybe I could get you to have a look at it sometime?’ She was cross with herself for how shy she suddenly felt; for goodness’ sake, you’d think she was inviting him into her bedroom, instead of looking for a few names of shrubs.

  He smiled, nodded. ‘I’d be delighted.’

  He told her about the orchard they’d had beside their house just outside Sligo. ‘My father planted it when he built the house, apple and pear trees. It was great for the kids when they were growing up.’

  Except that his daughter had never grown up. The first time he’d mentioned his children since that day in the café, when she’d felt trapped with him as he told her his story. She cut a piece of brie and wondered whether to pursue the topic – she would have liked to ask about his son – but then she decided that it was none of her business. If Frank wanted to tell her, he would.

  Later, they counted down to midnight, and wished each other a Happy New Year, and Frank leant across and gave Cecily a chaste kiss on the cheek.

  And just for a second, she felt disappointed. How ridiculous.

  ‘Happy New Year, Andrew.’ Laura hugged her brother tightly. ‘Let’s hope it’s a good one.’

  ‘Without any fear.’ Andrew hugged her back. ‘Are you all right?’ he said into her ear. ‘You’ve been very quiet all night.’

  ‘Fine.’ She hadn’t time to say any more before she felt someone’s hands around her waist, pulling her gently from Andrew’s embrace.

  ‘Give me back my wife.’ Donal turned her towards him and held her close. Andrew went to the stereo.

  ‘You OK?’ Donal spoke softly into her hair.

  Why was everyone asking if she was OK? She pulled gently out of his embrace and gave him a bright smile. ‘Fine – just a bit dry.’ She held out her empty champagne glass. ‘Fill her up please, chef.’

  ‘Bottle’s in the fridge.’ Donal gave her a funny look before leaving the room. Laura shrugged; he was probably wondering if she’d make a fool of herself after too much bubbly. Burst out crying and tell Ruth and Andrew how much she wanted a baby. As if.

  She turned back to her brother. ‘Andrew, how did you escape from Mother tonight? I thought she’d have nabbed you and Ruth for a polite glass of champagne.’

  Andrew shrugged, riffling through Laura and Donal’s CD collection. ‘I thought so too, but the last time I was talking to her, she mentioned she had plans.’

  ‘Mother had plans on New Year’s Eve?’ Laura looked incredulous. ‘What kind of plans could she have?’

  Andrew shrugged again. ‘Haven’t a clue; she didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.’ He considered. ‘Maybe some of her book-club buddies were going lap dancing.’

  From her armchair, Ruth giggled: she’d definitely had too much champagne; her cheeks were flushed and the line of blue she’d drawn under her eyes – not a colour Laura would have chosen for her – was smudged slightly on one side. ‘Or maybe she has a secret lover.’ As soon as the words were out, Ruth put a hand to her mouth and giggled again.

  Laura burst out laughing. ‘Doubt it; can you see my mother in a hotel room in the middle of the afternoon with a balding elderly gentleman?’

  Donal came in and filled Laura�
�s glass, then looked at the two giggling women. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Nothing; just some female rubbish.’ Andrew held out his glass. ‘Am I allowed some more?’

  ‘Coming up.’ Donal poured champagne into Andrew’s glass.

  Ruth turned to Laura. ‘My husband is not amused.’ She stood and walked unsteadily over to Andrew. ‘Darling, are you not amused?’ Her words had begun to slur very slightly. She chucked him under his chin. Laura watched her brother for his reaction. Ruth was definitely a bit more fun after a few glasses of not very expensive champagne, but Andrew had never enjoyed being teased.

  He brushed Ruth’s hand away. ‘You’re pissed, woman; go and sit down.’ He said it mildly, with just the barest trace of annoyance, but Ruth’s smile faded; she suddenly looked like she might cry.

  ‘Andrew, lighten up – we were only joking.’ Laura swallowed a mouthful of champagne, thinking: He’s probably annoyed at having his precious mother made the butt of our joke; pity about him. She turned to Ruth; time to come to the rescue, as usual. ‘I was hoping Breffni and Cian would make it in tonight, but Polly’s running a temperature; Breffni didn’t want to leave her.’

  ‘Poor Polly.’ Ruth went back to her armchair and sat down abruptly, still looking subdued. A little champagne sloshed over the rim of her glass and landed on her skirt. ‘Oops.’ She brushed at it absently.

  Andrew took a CD from its case and bent to insert it. ‘They don’t last long though, do they? Temperatures in kids, I mean.’ He slotted in the CD and pressed the ‘play’ button.

  Laura looked over at him in mild surprise. ‘Since when are you an expert in children’s medicine?’ Her tongue got tangled slightly in the last phrase – she probably shouldn’t have any more to drink. Then again, it wasn’t as if she was pregnant. And it was New Year’s Eve.

  Andrew shrugged. ‘I’m not claiming to be an expert – I’m just saying, aren’t kids always getting fevers?’ He looked from Ruth, who wasn’t looking back at him, to Laura. ‘What’s so strange about me showing an interest?’ Lyle Lovett started to sing about a long tall Texan.

  Laura tipped back her glass and drained it. ‘You’re right actually – Polly often gets a temperature, and it usually disappears very quickly. Pity it had to be today, though.’

  She walked to the table and picked up the champagne bottle. ‘Ruth?’

  Ruth immediately held out her glass. ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Happy New Year, darling.’ Breffni dropped a kiss on Polly’s head. ‘Now, are you ever going to go to sleep for us tonight?’

  Polly blinked, droopy-eyed, from her nest of sheets and duvet. ‘Night night, Mama,’ she said, yawning, thumb wandering towards her mouth. Her cheeks were still lightly flushed, but her temperature had dropped a couple of degrees since dinner. Breffni held her breath as Polly’s eyes closed gently. Her rapid little breaths came softly and evenly; Breffni could smell the strawberry-flavoured toothpaste Polly insisted on using.

  She tiptoed from the room, leaving the door ajar, and went downstairs to the sitting room.

  Cian was just putting a tray with a bottle and three glasses on the table in front of the fire. ‘Great – you managed to escape; I was going to relieve you if you weren’t down when I brought this in. I take it she’s gone off?’

  Breffni nodded. ‘Just about, thank God.’ She slumped into the couch beside Mary. ‘I could murder a glass of anything right now. How long to go?’

  ‘Three minutes, just about.’ Cian pulled the foil from the sparkling wine and began to ease the cork off. Breffni picked up the remote control and raised the volume a little.

  They watched the countdown on RTÉ and exchanged hugs, and toasted absent friends, and shortly afterwards Mary disappeared off to bed. Cian put an arm around Breffni ‘You’re exhausted.’

  She nodded. ‘Wrecked. I’ll sleep like a log.’ As she tipped back her head and drank the last of her wine, Cian watched the muscles in her throat move, saw her hair fall back in a dark sheet behind her. If he lived to a hundred, he would never get tired of looking at her, of marvelling at the fact that this perfect creature had chosen to be with him, out of all the men she could have had.

  Could still have.

  She lowered her empty glass and he filled it again. ‘Thanks. Oh, by the way, I might take a quick run into Limerick tomorrow afternoon.’

  He looked at her. ‘New Year’s Day? Isn’t everyplace shut?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not to shop – I thought I’d run in and see Mam and Dad for a couple of hours, and maybe meet Laura for a quick chat; they invited us in tonight, you know.’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, you mentioned it.’

  ‘I’ve a casserole in the freezer that’ll just need to be heated up when I get back, so you can forget about it. And you’ll have Mary to help you look after Poll – I invited her to stay for the day and have dinner with us tomorrow night.’

  She put her glass on the table and leant back against the couch and closed her eyes.

  He nodded again. ‘OK.’ He’d been quietly relieved when they couldn’t go to Laura and Donal’s tonight. Chances were the other two were going to be there too, and he really didn’t relish another night in the company of Laura’s brother – for whatever reason, he hadn’t taken to Andrew when they met. Just one of those things, he supposed, although he’d rarely experienced it in the past; found most people no bother to get on with. But Laura’s brother wasn’t someone who left you feeling good after meeting them. And Ruth seemed very pleasant; funny that she should have gone for him . . . amazing how some couples ended up together, ones you’d never have said were suited. Like himself and Breffni.

  He thought back, as he often did, to the first time he laid eyes on Breffni, almost eight years ago now. He’d been where he always was on Friday nights: sitting on a stool on the small stage of the slightly seedy Irish bar at the corner of Sixteenth and Valencia. His repertoire didn’t vary much – mostly Christy Moore and Paul Brady, with a bit of the Beatles thrown in for fun – but he always went down well with the regulars, a mix of Irish and Scottish immigrants mainly. Cian enjoyed the few hours at Flaherty’s on a Friday night: a nice change from the formality of his junior accountant’s job in a downtown firm, where everyone wore suits, even in the hottest weather, and no one took longer than twenty minutes for lunch.

  This particular Friday night was just like any other, until he lifted his head at the end of ‘The Island’ and saw what he thought was probably the most exquisite woman he would ever lay eyes on. And swiftly following on from that thought was another: she would never look twice at someone like him. Slightly overweight from sitting around in an office all day and going home to his mother’s dinners; nothing to look at, with his round face and brown hair that, no matter how short he kept it, still stuck up just over his left eye – a cow’s lick, someone told him it was called. All Cian McDaid had to recommend him was the fact that he was a half-decent guitar player; but so far that hadn’t worked any miracles as far as the opposite sex was concerned.

  And Breffni hadn’t looked twice at him – not that night, or any of the four Friday nights that followed, until he screwed up his courage, in great form the night of his birthday, and stood beside her at the counter and offered to buy her a drink. And it had taken seven more Friday nights of him hovering at the edge of her group when he went on a break, and grabbing the chance, whenever it presented itself, to talk to her, before she’d asked him when he was going to take her out to dinner. And six months after that before they didn’t end the night in separate beds.

  And after hundreds of nights together, when she’d come home from her waitressing job one day to their small apartment and told him that she was pregnant, he’d felt such tenderness and love, and gratitude, that it was all he could do not to burst into loud, messy tears. He blessed the mischance that had created Polly, the precious miracle that he still couldn’t believe was his, the answers to his secret prayers. What had he ever done to deserve her – this golden b
aby-child who eclipsed even his love for Breffni? Who caused his heart to stop with joy – he could feel the missed beat – when she smiled up at him, when he held her in his arms, felt her soft baby breath on his cheek, heard her gleeful chuckle.

  Breffni had been adamant about contraception, insisted on a condom every time. Kept saying, whenever he brought up the subject, that they didn’t want to complicate things with a baby.

  ‘Am I not enough for you?’ And every time she asked that, he thought but it’s the other way around. When she trailed her fingers across his chest, looked up at him with the deep blue eyes he adored, he almost told her why he ached so much for a child with her: because he was terrified, since the day they’d moved in together, that she’d come home one day and say that she was leaving, that this had been a big silly mistake – look at her, for God’s sake, and look at him. Cian clung to the hope that a child, their child, would somehow weld them together, keep Breffni from wanting more than good old reliable Cian McDaid – because how on earth could he possibly be enough for her?

  And now that they had Polly, he realised that of course there was nothing – not an army of babies – that could guarantee that Breffni would stay. But now he also knew that he’d survive if she left him – because Polly would be his child forever.

  He picked up the bottle, lifted it to the light to check the level. Breffni stirred beside him, opened her eyes, yawned.

  ‘Hardly worth putting the cork back.’ He divided what was left between their two glasses before lifting his. ‘To Polly.’

  She smiled, touched his glass briefly with hers. ‘To Polly.’

  Laura slid over and ran her fingers lightly down Donal’s back. He could feel her nails as they tapped softly along his spine and he shivered pleasantly, half-awake. She lifted her head and put her mouth to the top of his neck, just below his hair, then kissed her way across to a shoulder blade. He could feel the heat of her breath on his skin. His body began to respond, and he turned to face her.