A Crowded Marriage

by Catherine Alliott

  She smiled, agreeing that he was.

  “Perhaps it’s as well Dawn didn’t come,” said Hannah as Dad went from bed to bed, encouraging complete strangers, who’d come to visit their own grandchildren, to drool over his and admire his tiny toes. “Don’t want her getting broody.”

  “God, that really would finish me off,” Mum said darkly, rolling her eyes.

  Would it? I thought in surprise. One never quite knew with Mum: never knew what would be hysterically funny because Martin was making a fool of himself, and what wouldn’t be so droll. His girlfriend of twenty-six giving birth clearly wouldn’t.

  “You’re feeding, my love,” she observed to Hannah. “That’s nice.”

  “Well, I wasn’t, but my sister bullied me into it.”

  “Oh, Hannah, I hope I—”

  “I’m joking,” she laughed. “Thank God you did. I just needed a push, lacked confidence, you see. Didn’t think I could do it.”

  God, it was all coming out today, wasn’t it? Something I’d found as natural as falling off a log, my sister had been scared to attempt. This baby business was certainly revealing. I got to my feet.

  “Well, I must go. I’ve got to go and get Rufus, but I’ll pop in tomorrow, Hannah, if you think you’ll still be here.”

  “Oh, no, I won’t. I’m going home in a minute, just waiting for the doctor to sign me off. But come and see me at home. I’d like that. There’s so much I don’t know, Imo. So much I want to ask you.”

  I tried to keep my astonishment to myself but it was hard, and Mum and I exchanged incredulous glances. Jeepers.

  “I need the loo before I go.” I glanced around.

  “That way.” Hannah pointed through the swing doors. “But you have to come back through the ward.”

  “I’ll leave my bag then.”

  I kissed them all good-bye and nipped to the Ladies. As I found a cubicle and whipped up my skirt, I wondered if I still had any of Rufus’s baby clothes. I was pretty sure I had. All those Babygros and nightgowns, they’d be in a suitcase somewhere, I’d dig them out when I got back. Ooh, and my Penelope Leach book, that had been my bible for the first couple of years, and Hannah was a great one for doing things by the book. I’d bring it in tomorrow, she’d love that. I came out, racking my brains as to what else I could do for her, thrilled to be in such an important, advisory capacity for a change and marvelling at the sudden shift in filial hierarchy. But as I went to go back through the double doors to the ward to get my bag, the door was opened for me. I glanced up in surprise, for there, standing back to let me pass under his arm as he propped the door, looking disreputably handsome in a faded pink shirt, his dark hair tousled, and bearing a big easy smile and a bunch of primroses, was Pat Flaherty.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “What the hell are you doing here?” my mouth said before my brain could stop it.

  He looked taken aback. “Well, it’s not every day you deliver a baby, so I thought…” he trailed off, embarrassed.

  “Oh God, yes, sorry,” I flustered, flushing. “I—wasn’t thinking. Of course you’d want to come and see how—”

  “Well, helloa, look ye ’ere!” A voice, similar to that of a town crier, boomed out, and my stammering apologies were cut short by my father, who couldn’t cross the room quickly enough; couldn’t deposit the baby en route in Hannah’s arms in sufficient haste, in order to embrace Pat, taking him firmly by the shoulders, his eyes shining.

  “This is the man!” he roared at full volume, giving Pat’s shoulders a vigorous shake. “This is the man who delivered my grandson, saved my daughter’s life—and the baby’s too, I’ll warrant—marvellous marvellous man!” he announced to the astonished ward, clasping Pat to his bosom and slapping him heartily—spine-shatteringly—on the back, only briefly releasing him so that Eddie, pink with delight, could come up and shake his hand too, stuttering his thanks.

  “I’m so very grateful,” said Eddie earnestly, blinking behind his spectacles. “Really grateful. I don’t know where we’d have been without you.”

  “In the shit, laddie!” roared Dad. “Reelly reelly deeply in the shit, that’s where, the mon’s a genius!”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” began Pat nervously.

  “Ooh, I doo, I doo,” bellowed my father, deep in the Valleys now. “Good God, mon, just imagine if you hadn’t been there! Noa, noa, don’t think about it, it’s too ’orrible to contemplate. Thank you—thank you soa much!” he beamed, pumping Pat’s hand furiously.

  Pat smiled. “You’re very welcome. But I honestly didn’t come here to lap up the gratitude. I just popped in to see how the little chap was doing.”

  “He’s fine,” smiled Hannah from the bed, holding him up so Pat could see. “Look, so lovely, and all thanks to you.”

  “Well, he certainly looks in good shape. Oh, I, um, picked these for you, stopped on the way.”

  Mum took the primroses from him, smiling broadly. “You’re a dear, sweet man and we don’t know how we can thank you enough.”

  “I knowa how I can,” thundered Dad. “I can take him oot for a pint or ten, that’s what. Come on, laddie, let’s goa and find a watering hole, leave these women to their mothers’ meetin’, like. Come on, Eddie lad, you come too.”

  Pat laughed. “I’d love to, but I’ve got to stay sober, I’m afraid. I’m operating in an hour.”

  “Nonsense! You’ll have a pint!”

  “No, really.”

  “Well, you’ll take a pull on this then.” Dad produced a hip flask from his pocket, knocked back a slug, and handed it to Pat, who politely took a sip and handed it back.

  “Imogen?” Dad passed it to me.

  “I won’t, thanks, Dad.” It was the first time I’d spoken since I’d rudely enquired what the hell he was doing here—Pat Flaherty, that is—and for some inexplicable reason I found I couldn’t look at him. “I’ve got to drive,” I mumbled. “Got to get Rufus.” Head down, I made for the door.

  “And I won’t linger,” Pat said quickly. “I just popped in to—”

  “Noa, noa, linger away!” roared Dad, pulling up a chair for him. “Sit down, boyo, sit. We want to hear more, don’t we? Imogen said you’d done it once before, like, delivered another babe. Is that right?”

  “Yes I…well. It was my wife, actually. She gave birth in the back of a taxi in Dublin as we were on our way to hospital.” I’d got as far as the ward door. Stopped. His wife. Right. That was the ex, then. The one he’d left. And the child.

  “No!” Mum was exclaiming. “How dreadful! But you managed?”

  “Had to, really. With the taxi driver’s help.”

  “God, worse than me,” Hannah said. “At least I had a bed. But you got her to the hospital all right?”

  I pretended I’d paused at the door to search for my car keys in my bag.

  “Yes, we got there.”

  “And what did she have? I mean, what have you got?”

  “A girl,” said Pat shortly.

  “Lovely! How old?”

  “She’s twenty-two months.”

  “Oh, such a sweet age.”

  “Yes, look, I must go,” he said awkwardly. “I just wanted to make sure you were OK.”

  “Fine,” beamed Hannah.

  “All thanks to you!” said Dad, taking Pat’s hand in both of his and shaking it vigorously.

  A moment later I realised Pat was coming up behind me. I snatched up my keys and moved on through the door.

  “Bye!” my family shouted cheerily to his departing back, and it was at this point that I was about to turn to him, really I was. About to smile, thank him, make polite conversation as we headed off down the corridor together, but when I turned, a bright smile at the ready, I realised—he’d gone. In the opposite direction, heading off, presumably to another exit, down the other end of the corridor. Too
late, I was going the other way.

  I got to the car park, glancing about for him to no avail. I drove off to the school, feeling cross and confused. Why had I found it so hard to look at him? To talk to him? I hadn’t even thanked him like the rest of my family, but he had rather shot off, hadn’t he? I’d meant to walk out with him, though, thank him then, not with all my family all standing around, which, for some reason, I’d found embarrassing; all eyes on me, as it were—although…why should they be on me? And why should I feel like that? But he’d obviously felt uncomfortable too, to disappear so quickly. I’d made him uncomfortable by being so unfriendly.

  I shifted in my seat, irritated, as I raced down the narrow country lanes towards the village, my wing mirrors whipping the cow parsley heads. Oh, well, what did I care? I pushed a hand through my hair. I didn’t even like the man. I frowned into the rearview mirror as I pulled into a bank to let another car go past. But, then again, he had brought my new nephew into the world, hadn’t he? Had possibly saved his life by delivering him safely. I licked my lips. I wished I’d at least said thank you. Wished I’d managed that.

  Rufus ran across the village green to meet me as I drew up, an alligator made out of egg boxes in one hand, Tanya in the other. I smiled, despite my irritation. This was what I liked about this school: the fact that the kids didn’t consider egg box alligators too immature, or holding hands too uncool.

  “Mum, can Tanya come back for tea with us? We want to see if we’ve got any rabbits.”

  Disappointed, but not undaunted by the conspicuous lack of foxes in their Heath Robinson trap, Rufus and Tanya had turned their attention, less ambitiously perhaps, to rabbits, and created a contraption that was essentially a salad bar with a trap door. My lettuces and carrots were disappearing apace, but thus far, the rabbits were still skipping merrily around the fields.

  “Is that OK with Mummy, Tanya?”

  “Yeah, she says it’s fine.”

  I glanced over her blond head and saw Sheila at the school gates collecting her zillions. She saw me and smiled, nodding that she knew.

  “I’ll whiz her back later, Sheila,” I called.

  “Do not. She can walk,” she yelled.

  I grinned and, as we drove off, listened to the children’s chatter in the back. Any homework they had could be polished off in minutes before racing out to play in the fields, unlike in London where sometimes it took up an entire evening, and for what? Just to bolster the league tables? Just to shin another inch up the greasy juvenile pole? My mind wasn’t really on homework or league tables, though, or even the children; my mind was still, ridiculously, on Pat Flaherty. I’d offended him by ignoring him, and now I was ashamed.

  “Come on!”

  As I parked in the yard, Tanya and Rufus were even now leaping out of the car and legging it through the gate, running in the direction of the meadow and their trap.

  I wandered inside to get their tea, pausing en route to scatter some grain for the chickens. Damn, I thought miserably. Now I’d be back to giving him tight little smiles as we passed in the lanes in our cars, muttering good morning with my head down if I spotted him in the high street. Well, so what, I thought with a jolt as I threw some more corn. Why on earth should that matter? How on earth does offending the local vet impinge on your life, Imogen, hmm? I banged the lid down on the grain bin with a clatter. Not one iota, actually. Not one little jot.

  “Mummy!”

  I turned to see Rufus running back towards me.

  “Mum, come quick,” he panted, his face pink with excitement. “We’ve got one! We’ve got a rabbit!”

  “Oh, Rufus, you haven’t.”

  “We have!”

  “Well, you’ll have to let it go, you know.”

  “I know, we will, but come and see first!”

  I hurried after him across the yard; down the cinder path, through the gate to the large paddock next to the cows’ field, the one full of clover. Tanya was in the middle of it, squatting down on her haunches over a large wooden box.

  “He’s huge!” she squeaked. “Look!”

  I bent down beside her to see. Through the mesh trap door, an enormous grey rabbit with round, scared eyes, his ears flattened to his back, stared back at me.

  “He certainly is. And he’s lovely, guys, but he’s a bit frightened. I should set him free.”

  “I know, we will, but we just want to keep him for a little bit. For observation,” pleaded Rufus.

  “It’s research,” Tanya informed me grandly. “For a school project. Very ejucational. We’ve got to keep him for at least an hour. And anyway, we may have to look after him longer, ’cos I think he’s limping.”

  “Is he?” Rufus bent to see, unused to such ploys to get his own way.

  “Tanya,” I made a face, “he is not limping.”

  “He is a bit,” she insisted. “Maybe we should take him to see the vet?”

  I laughed, straightening up. “We are not taking this rabbit to see the—” I broke off. Stared at her a moment. Settled back down on my haunches beside her.

  “Limping, you say?” I enquired softly.

  “Yeah, look!” she said, thrilled to bits that her little ruse had been so easily bought. “I think it’s his back leg!”

  “Where?” demanded Rufus, peering in.

  “Oh dear. Yes. Poor thing,” I murmured. “Well, maybe we should.”

  Rufus’s eyes nearly popped out of his head in astonishment, unused to his mother being such a pushover. “Really, Mum? Can we?”

  “Why not?” I straightened up. “Just to—you know—check him over. See that he’s OK before we set him free. Wouldn’t want him hoping round on a dodgy leg, would we?”

  “Ye-esss!” The children leaped up and punched the air in delight, thrilled to be taken seriously for once, although I could see Tanya looking at me with something approaching derision. Never in a million years would she have got that past her mother, but then, never in a million years would Sheila need, so very urgently, to see a man about a rabbit.

  Without giving myself a moment to question my motives and with the car keys still in my hand, we retraced our steps across the meadow and piled as one into the car, the rabbit cowering in submission in a corner of his box in the boot. As we drove up the chalky zigzag track, though, my mind was whirring.

  “Um, listen, guys,” I called over my shoulder to the back seat, “I’m not convinced the vet treats wild animals, so we might have to say that the rabbit’s—you know—ours.”

  “OK,” said Tanya quickly.

  “Really?” Rufus’s eyes were huge in my rearview mirror. This was a whole new side to his mother, one he’d never seen before. Not only a pushover, but a fibber too. A very exciting side. He beamed and bounced delightedly in his seat.

  “Yes, we can say we bought him last week,” he said warming quickly to the duplicity. “For my birthday or something.”

  “It wasn’t your birthday last week, Rufus.”

  “I know, but he won’t know that, will he?” he said, justifiably miffed that I’d found holes in his fabrications when he’d accepted mine wholesale. Marvellous moral code you’re expounding here, Imogen, I thought, licking my lips nervously as we belted along the lanes. Marvellous. The boy will grow up with a terrific sense of integrity.

  We were on the outskirts of town now, pulling up in a tree-lined road outside the rather smart Victorian house with the brass plaque, which bore the legend “Marshbank Veterinary Practice.” I’d always rather cringed as I’d driven past, head well down behind the wheel, but now, as the children jumped out with alacrity and ran round to the boot to get the box, I got out confidently. Yes, I thought as I followed them up the path to the green front door; and when he saw that the rabbit was OK—Pat, I mean—I could just—you know—have a dizzy blonde moment. Say—oh gosh, is it? How silly of me, I could have sworn he was limpin
g, the children were convinced—or something like that. And he’d laugh delightedly at my charming fluffiness and say—don’t worry, it happens all the time, and then the children would wander off to look at all the other poor, sick animals, and he’d say—why didn’t I have a coffee while I was here? And we’d settle down for a cosy chat, and that would be that. What would be what, Imogen? I wondered fleetingly, as we pushed through the green front door. But only fleetingly. I mean, dammit, we were here now.

  I took a deep breath and approached the desk in the waiting room. I deliberately hadn’t rung for an appointment, knowing there was little chance of getting one at the last minute. No, we’d come as an emergency, and when he heard who was here, I was sure he’d see me.

  The pretty blonde receptionist looked up and smiled: a mummy with two small children and a bunny in a box.

  “Can I help?”

  “Yes, I’m awfully sorry, we don’t have an appointment, but we’ve got a rather sick rabbit here and we wondered if the vet could see him.”

  “Oh dear, poor thing.” She leaned over her desk to peer into the box, then down at her diary. “Let me see what I can do for you. I might be able to squeeze you in. Name, please?”

  “Mrs. Cameron.”

  Her eyes shot up from her book. Her face changed dramatically. It was no longer so friendly and smiley. Quite wintery, in fact.

  “We are rather busy, actually,” she said shortly, closing the diary.

  “Oh, but you did say you might be able to squeeze us in,” I said, shamelessly, particularly since I recognised her icy tones. “The children would be so grateful.”

  The china-blue eyes were cool. She regarded me a long moment. “Just a minute.” She got up with a flick of her blonde hair over her shoulder and slipped her pert little bottom out from behind her desk. Then she exited stage left and went down the corridor.

  “Is he going to look at him?” hissed Rufus.

  “I don’t know, darling. We’ll see.”

  There was only one other man sitting in the waiting room: a huge chap with a bulbous red nose and a bull terrier on a heavy chain. I turned and gave him an apologetic smile, but he glared at me, none too pleased at being shunted down the queue, no doubt. The bull terrier gave a low growl as it lay with its head between its paws at its master’s feet. I dropped the smile and quickly turned back.