by Maria Duffy
‘I’ve sent enquiries to most of them already. Some have come back to say they’re fully staffed and some said they’d keep me on their books. I know the ideal job is with animals but I think I’ll have to take what I can get. I’m going to go to Blanchardstown Centre over the next few days and see if there are any jobs going in the shops there. Beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘I really admire you, Holly. Another woman would be happy to live off her fiancé if he was offering. But not you. You’re a very strong person, you know.’
‘I don’t feel strong at the moment, but thanks.’
‘No, really. I think if Greg was earning plenty of money and suggested I stayed at home, I’d be delighted.’
‘No, you wouldn’t.’
Milly thought for a minute. ‘Actually, you’re probably right!’
They laughed and continued gossiping for the next half hour until Holly suggested they should probably head home. They’d got the bus in but had agreed to share a taxi home, since they had so many bags.
‘You really love Greg, don’t you?’ said Holly, as they headed towards the taxi rank in O’Connell Street.
‘Of course I do. That’s a funny thing to say.’
‘How do you know?’
Milly turned to look at her. ‘How do I know what?’
‘I mean,’ said Holly, ‘how do you know if the person you’re with is the right one? How can you be sure?’
Milly smiled. ‘When your heart leaps every time he walks into the room. When you can just be together, without words, and feel content. When your first thought in the morning is about him and he’s your last thought before you go to sleep at night. When you feel electricity pulse through you when he brushes against you. And when you feel like nothing else in the world matters when you make love to each other.’
Holly nodded wordlessly. Everything Milly had said was exactly how she felt about Josh. How she’d always felt. David was a wonderful man but he wasn’t Josh. Josh made her feel all those things so what was she going to do now? Did she continue her relationship with David and hope that, in time, her love would deepen and she’d feel all those things? Or did she let David go in the knowledge that Josh was happy with someone else and he could never, ever be hers again?
‘Did you have a nice evening?’ said David, as Holly arrived home laden down with bags. ‘I see you’ve bought plenty anyway.’
‘Don’t worry, David. I have a good bit saved up and I went for all the bargains.’
‘Holly, Holly. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not concerned about money. We’re doing okay. And you don’t have to use your savings to do a bit of Christmas shopping. As I said, I can help out.’
She dropped the bags in the hall and followed him into the kitchen. She knew he meant well but she was tired of him talking about money. It was like he was secretly glad she’d lost her job so that he could go all caveman on her and be the sole earner. Next he’d be banging on his chest and demanding dinner!
‘I’m just in from work myself,’ he said, looking in the oven. ‘Did you make dinner before you went out?’
She should have been cross but she couldn’t help smiling to herself. ‘No, David. I didn’t make dinner. We can order in or there’s plenty of stuff there for sandwiches.’
‘I’ve been out working all day so a sandwich is hardly enough.’ He opened the fridge and tutted as he scanned its contents. She pictured him in a loincloth, dragging her by the hair across the floor, and a snigger escaped her lips.
‘What’s so funny?’ he said, turning to look at her. ‘I’m starving.’
She was suddenly filled with affection for him. He was a good man. He may not have been the most exciting man in the world but he was loyal and reliable and, most importantly, he loved her very much. She’d been letting her old feelings for Josh mess with her head and make her think David wasn’t enough. But God only knows where she’d be now if she hadn’t met David. She owed it to him to stay loyal and stop pining after the past. But it wasn’t that easy.
‘You go on into the sitting room,’ she said, putting her arms around him and kissing him on the lips. ‘I’ll order us some food and I’ll bring us in a glass of wine while we’re waiting.’
‘Thanks, love. That would be great.’
She grabbed the menu for the local Chinese restaurant out of the drawer and ordered straight away. They always had the same things – beef in black bean sauce and chicken with cashew nuts. She’d once suggested to David that they try something new but he balked at the idea. What was the point, he’d said. What if they hated it and ended up with nothing at all to eat? No, it was better they stick to their usual. It was the safest thing to do. Holly worried that maybe she was becoming safe too. Safe in her choices and safe in her decisions. She poured two glasses of wine and brought one in to David.
‘Are you not coming in, love?’ he said, when she handed him the wine and turned to leave.
She paused at the door. ‘I’ll be in shortly. I just want to give Carina a ring. The food is ordered and should be here in twenty minutes.’
Carina always gave good advice and Holly felt she needed some of her sister’s level-headedness to get her head straight. She dialled the number and prayed that she’d be free to talk.
‘Hi, Holly. Great timing. I’ve just made myself a cup of tea and was going to sit down and watch the news.’
‘Carina, I need your advice.’
‘Well, hello to you too. And I’m fine. How are you?’
Holly felt bad. ‘I’m sorry, Carina. I just don’t have much time to talk because we’ve ordered food and it will be here soon. I need your help with something.’
‘Right. Go on.’
She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘It’s Josh. I … I don’t know what to do about him.’
‘What do you mean you don’t know what to do?’ Carina sounded alarmed.
‘We’ve been dancing around each other since he moved in. We’ve chatted a bit but not once have we mentioned what happened. Why we split up. It’s like the elephant in the room and I think I’ll go mad if I don’t speak to him about it.’
‘I told you before, Holly. No good will come of dredging up the past. I think you should leave it where it belongs.’
‘I was out with Milly today and she thinks I should talk to him about it.’
‘Of course she does. She loves a drama.’
‘Yes, but I’m beginning to think she’s right. Maybe if we sit down and talk about that time – about how I felt, how he made me feel – then I can really move on with David and stop thinking about what could have been. I need to put the ghosts of the past to rest.’
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
‘Carina, are you there? What do you think?’
She sighed loudly. ‘You know what I think, Holly. I think you’re playing a dangerous game by bringing all that up again. What is it going to achieve?’
‘My peace of mind, perhaps?’
‘Holly, you know I love you. And you know I only ever want the best for you. I’m telling you now that speaking to him about something that happened over thirteen years ago will not end well.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ sighed Holly. ‘And of course there’s the added complication that I …’
‘That you what?’
Holly wasn’t sure she should say anything but, then again, she may as well tell her the whole story. ‘I love David, Carina. And I want a future with him. But I think that maybe I’m also still a little bit in love with Josh.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Carina, in an untypically angry voice. ‘Of course you’re not in love with him. Maybe you’re in love with what you had in the past. Or maybe you’re craving that ideal of young love. But you’re not in love with Josh. You’re in love with David and you’d better not go spoiling that.’
Is that what it was? Was she just in love with some ideal? With the memories and the plans they’d made when they were younger? Carina was right
. They were older now and had their own lives so she needed to be careful not to do anything to jeopardise the good life she had with David.
‘And besides,’ Carina’s voice was softer now, ‘don’t forget Josh has a girlfriend who, might I remind you, is going to have his baby. He won’t thank you if you wade in and damage that for him in any way. Just tread carefully, Holly.’
‘I hear you,’ Holly said, biting back the tears. ‘But I have to go now. The food has just arrived so I want to get it while it’s hot. I’ll give you a buzz at the weekend.’
It was a lie but she couldn’t stay on the phone for one minute longer. Carina and Milly were like her two consciences – one on each shoulder. One was tempting her to do the risky thing. To take a plunge into the unknown, jeopardise her relationship for the chance of reclaiming the past. The other was telling her to play it safe. Stick with the safe bet and not risk losing everything. It was like a game of roulette. Did she go home with her safe amount of money or put it all on red or black for the chance of winning a fortune? Her head was melted.
The sound of the doorbell startled her and she realised she was still standing with the phone in her hand. The food had arrived so she was going to have to put her decision-making aside for another time. But, she wondered to herself, did she really want to have beef in black bean sauce and cashew chicken forever? Or was she going to go for something more exotic the next time and risk going hungry altogether? Only time would tell.
Chapter 28
Josh’s day had gone from bad to worse. He’d slept in earlier, after a night tossing and turning and getting little sleep, and then he’d had trouble starting his car. When he’d eventually arrived at the school, he’d rushed inside only to realise his wallet was gone from his pocket. He’d retraced his steps and, luckily, found it just beside where he’d parked, but looking for it had made him even later. The day hadn’t improved when his class seemed to have the Friday bug and had been giddy for the whole day. He’d had to send two of them to the principal’s office and had given another six extra homework. He was exhausted now and just couldn’t wait to get home.
But he had one thing to do first. He was going to stop off at the shopping centre to pick up a frame for the baby scan. The idea had come to him earlier while he’d been thinking about Stephanie and wondering why they were arguing so much lately. He thought that if he put the picture up on the mantelpiece where they could both see it every day it would remind them of what was important.
He pulled into a spot close to the door and headed inside. At the home section of Dunnes Stores, he found what he was looking for and rooted in his wallet for the scan so he could check the size. But to his dismay, there was no sign of it. He couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t there because he’d looked at it often enough and each time would place it carefully back in the notes part of the wallet. And then it dawned on him. When he’d dropped his wallet earlier, the scan must have fallen out too. It really wasn’t his day. He decided to buy the frame anyway. Perhaps the scan would turn up, but if not, he could maybe get a copy of Stephanie’s. He was home ten minutes later and happy to smell something cooking in the kitchen.
‘You’re home,’ said Stephanie, coming out to the hall to kiss him. ‘I’m making pasta. It’ll be ready in about half an hour.’
He kicked off his shoes and threw his jacket on the bannister. ‘Great. I’ll just head up to the shower. I won’t be long.’
He was dying to step under the warm jets and let the water wash away the stresses of the day. But as he began to strip, he noticed Stephanie’s handbag in the corner. He knew she kept her scan in there so thought maybe he could borrow it and surprise her with it in a frame. It always fascinated him how a woman could want so much stuff in her handbag. The bag wasn’t that big and yet there was a hairbrush, a make-up bag, packets of chewing gum, pens, a notebook, a pair of tights, a packet of crackers and an over-sized wallet all squashed into the little space. Apparently, there were more germs in a woman’s handbag than on a toilet seat. He was about to give up when he noticed a zip pocket at the front of the bag and did a silent whoop when he found the scan in there. It was folded neatly so he opened it and smiled at the picture he’d looked at so often in the last two weeks. He quickly closed her bag and replaced it in the corner then breathed a sigh of relief as he heard her footsteps on the stairs. He grabbed his work bag, threw the scan in and took out some documents before she pushed the door open.
‘Josh, are you almost ready? I didn’t hear the shower go on so I was wondering what you were doing.’
‘Sorry. I was just looking at a few things from work. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be down.’
She looked at him for a moment and he thought he noticed her glance at the handbag in the corner. ‘Right. I’ll dish up in ten minutes. Do you want some wine with it?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I’ll just have whatever you’re having.’
‘You don’t have to abstain because of me,’ she said, raising an eyebrow. ‘I’m a big girl and I can stay dry all on my own.’
‘I know, Steph. But it doesn’t bother me, honestly. You head on down. I won’t be long.’
When he was sure he heard her back in the kitchen, he took the scan back out along with the little frame he’d just bought. He looked from one thing to the other and realised he’d hugely miscalculated the size. The frame was way too small. He’d been sure the picture wasn’t much bigger than the size of his credit card but Stephanie’s picture was way larger. He looked at it again, puzzled, and realised hers had writing on the side and across the top. His was just a picture and nothing else. He squinted to try to read the tiny writing, which seemed to be a lot of numbers and letters, most of which he didn’t understand. The only thing he could make out was the date and the time of the scan – 27 November at 3.38 p.m. And then he noticed something. Twenty weeks and six days, it said. Almost twenty-one weeks. That couldn’t be right. She wasn’t even that far gone now. She’d only been eighteen weeks pregnant on the day of the scan so something was wrong there. He stared at it for a moment but he hadn’t time to try and work it out because Stephanie’s voice came booming up the stairs.
‘Josh! Have you not got into the shower yet? Just leave it until later, will you? The dinner is on the table and it’s going to get cold.’
He shoved the scan back into his bag and rubbed his face. He’d ask her about it after dinner. There had to be a simple explanation for it because, with him being away for most of July with the charity team, they were pretty sure of their dates. When he’d come home from South Africa with that awful stomach bug, he hadn’t been able to make love to Stephanie until after the first week in August. Having abstained for more than six weeks, he’d been fit to burst and it had been the greatest love-making session they’d ever had. Two weeks later she’d found out she was pregnant and he’d joked that it was the build-up of sperm that was responsible for her condition.
‘Josh O’Toole!’
He stood up and hurried down the stairs, the smell of cooking filling his nostrils and reminding him how hungry he actually was. ‘This looks lovely, thanks,’ he said, sitting down and tucking into the plate of pasta. ‘You’re becoming a pretty good cook.’
She laughed. ‘Don’t get used to it. I don’t mind doing it now and again but I’m hardly Gordon Ramsay. And when the baby comes along, you’ll be lucky to get a sandwich.’
‘Speaking of the baby,’ he said, watching her carefully, ‘how are you feeling?’
‘I’m fine. The nausea seems to have settled down and I’m finally getting some more energy. Hopefully the last part of the pregnancy will be easier than the first part.’
‘And you’re twenty weeks gone, right?’
She looked at him quizzically. ‘You know I am.’
‘And you’re sure about the dates. You’re due on 29 April, right?’
‘Josh, what’s this all about?’
He wasn’t sure whether or not to say something. Part of him wanted time to thi
nk about why she might have lied about the dates but the other part knew the danger in letting something fester when there could be a perfectly good explanation for it. He was sick of secrets. He’d been lecturing her about talking to him rather than going behind his back so he needed to take some of his own advice.
‘Josh?’
‘I took the baby scan from your handbag.’
‘You what?’ Her face turned pale as she glared at him. ‘You went snooping in my bag? Why?’
‘I was trying to do something nice. I bought a frame and I was going to frame the scan. I thought it might remind you, remind us, about what’s important.’
‘But what about your own scan? Why did you have to go and take mine?’
‘I lost mine. But never mind that. I saw the date, Steph. It would mean that you’re almost twenty-three weeks pregnant now and not twenty.’
She stood up suddenly and went to the sink to pour herself a glass of water. He watched as she downed a full glass, gripping on to the edge of the counter as she did so. A chill ran down his spine and he wondered what she was going to tell him. Something didn’t feel right and he had the sudden feeling that his world was going to be turned upside down. She turned around then but instead of being angry or teary, as he’d expected her to be, she had a smile on her face.
‘Sorry, I was parched. And what are you like, questioning the dates like that?’ She sat back down. ‘They asked me about my dates at the scan and I got myself mixed up. They already had them typed in when I realised I’d said the wrong dates.’
It sounded reasonable enough but Josh was still unsure. ‘But wouldn’t they check? Wouldn’t they have told you that the dates didn’t tally with what they were seeing?’
‘They did say that but they’d already input the data and had printed the scan. It’s no big deal. We know our dates so that’s all that matters. It’s only a few numbers on a picture. The hospital will have all the proper information on my chart.’
‘But what about mine?’ Josh said, holding her gaze.
‘Your what?’
