Too Good to Be True

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  “What about it?” He looked at her. “I’ve said nothing because that’s what you wanted. I understood that, given the circumstances. Anyway, at our age it doesn’t much matter, does it? We can do the deed whenever you want.”

  “I know. It’s not that.”

  “What then?”

  “Afterwards. When we get married.”

  “Yes?”

  She lifted her blue eyes to meet his puzzled stare. “You said you hoped to have a child.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you thought about it much?”

  “Not a lot.” Brian looked at her uncomfortably.

  “And is it important to you?”

  “If it’s important to you.”

  Freya picked at the sequins on one of her brightly colored cushions. “So you don’t feel the need to have a child?” she asked.

  “I — I don’t know.” Brian looked even more uncomfortable. “I’m not in a rush, I suppose.”

  “But you should be,” said Freya. “You’re not getting any younger. And neither am I.”

  Brian raised his eyebrows. “But I’m sure I’m as potent as ever!”

  “You may be,” Freya told him almost inaudibly. “But I’m not.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  She pulled at a thread and purple beads slid onto the sofa.

  “Freya?”

  She had to tell him. It was only fair. “I can’t have children,” she said blankly.

  He stared at her in silence.

  “Sorry,” she added.

  “If you can’t have children, then why the hell have I been investing in condoms for the past three years?” he demanded.

  “I thought I could. I could have, a few years ago. But I can’t now.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m — I’m going through the menopause,” she said.

  “What?!”

  “You heard me.”

  “Freya, you’re only thirty-nine years old. You can’t be.”

  “I am,” she said. “I saw Dr. O’Donnell and he sent me for a blood test. I might be only thirty-nine outside, but inside I’m a dried-out crone.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.”

  “You see?” She shrugged. “The kid thing won’t happen with me. So I kind of think that we might be wasting our time.”

  “But what about all those women who have kids in their fifties?” asked Brian.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe they’re not menopausal yet. Though I’m sure, like me, they’re not exactly rolling in eggs.”

  “Freya!”

  “Sorry.” She made a face at him. “The whole thing is sort of awful.”

  “Is this absolutely certain?”

  “Dr. O’Donnell seems to think so.”

  “Surely there are ways, though?” Brian looked at her questioningly. “I mean, I realize that it might be difficult, but what about test-tube babies?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” she said.

  “Because it wouldn’t bother me if we had to lend nature a helping hand,” said Brian.

  “I’ll check it out,” said Freya.

  Brian put his arm round her. “Don’t worry,” he said, but she could hear the edginess in his voice. “I bet you anything that we’ll have a kid. We probably just need to work fast. Don’t they recommend that women still take contraceptives even when they’re going through the menopause?”

  She nodded.

  “There you go.” This time his tone was calming. “This is probably just a warning, telling us that we can’t be complacent — but we knew that anyway.”

  “I suppose so,” she said.

  “I know so.”

  She gathered the purple beads from the cushion where they’d fallen. “But what if it isn’t?”

  “Huh?”

  “If it isn’t just a warning. Brian, I think it’s more than that. What if I simply can’t have kids, full stop?”

  “Don’t start thinking like that,” said Brian. “You’re a positive person, Freya. Think positively. Anyway, surely there’s a flower that you can distil or something that will pep up the egg production?”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” said Freya. “I never thought about it because it never mattered to me before. I’ll find out. But I thought you should know.”

  “I’m glad you told me,” said Brian. He rubbed his face with his hands. “It’s difficult…”

  “I know it’s difficult.” Freya interrupted him. “And that’s why we needed to talk. But you’re right, Brian. Maybe I’m over-reacting. I’ll go back to the doctor. Talk to him again.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as I can.”

  “Fine.” Brian looked at her for a moment, opened his mouth then closed it again. “Whatever you think,” he added after a moment’s silence. “Whatever you want to do.”

  “How’s your ankle?” asked Leah as she and Ben waited at the side of the road for a cab to appear.

  “Not bad.” Spurred on by adrenaline at the time, Ben hadn’t realized that he’d twisted his ankle quite badly in his gazelle-like leap over the counter. But during the following hours it had swollen so that now walking on it hurt. “I’ll rub some arnica on it later.”

  “Why don’t you come back to my place?” suggested Leah. “I’ve lots of oils that I could rub in for you.”

  Ben shook his head. “I’m tired,” he said. “But thanks anyway.”

  “No problem.” Leah gritted her teeth. She wished Ben wasn’t being quite so distant with her, but she was putting it down to delayed reaction. She’d hoped, though, that he’d let her look after him after what was clearly a major ordeal. She had been truly shocked when she’d heard the first news bulletin about the accident and quite convinced that it was Ben who had been seriously injured, which was why she’d canceled the rest of her appointments and rushed over to Rathmines. She arrived at the same time as the TV crew and she’d enjoyed the attention of the cameras and the reporters. But she’d also enjoyed being there for Ben, supporting him when he suddenly realized that he couldn’t walk, fetching more coffee from the place across the road, and generally being part of the family again.

  No sign of the wife, she’d thought with grim satisfaction. No chance of Carey turning up like a ministering angel. The girl was a complete cow who really couldn’t have cared less. Ben was well rid of her.

  “Taxi!” Ben flapped his arm in front of the approaching cab and slid thankfully into the back seat. “Portobello, then Ballsbridge,” he told the driver.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to come back with me?” The journey from Rathgar to Portobello was very short, and they were approaching Portobello Bridge when Leah spoke.

  “No, really. You’ve been great, Leah. Thanks.”

  “It’s OK,” she said. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

  “Sure.”

  The cab pulled up outside Ben’s house. He got out and waved briefly at Leah before opening his front door. The message indicator on his phone was blinking. He hit Play immediately.

  “Ben, you old dog!” Phil’s voice filled the room. “Hero, life-saver, all round Wonderman. We’re ready to buy you a drink on Saturday after the match — if you come down to earth on time. Listen, pal, glad you’re OK, it looked a bit of a nightmare on the telly. See you soon.”

  Ben erased the message, then hobbled into the kitchen. There was no chance of him playing in any football match next Saturday with a crocked ankle. He took a bottle of beer from the fridge and flopped onto the sofa. He was getting tired of people telling him how great he was, when all he’d done was jump higher than he’d ever managed in his life before. Admittedly, and from the reports that they’d got back from the hospital, he possibly had saved the passenger’s life — but it was all instinct as far as he was concerned. He hadn’t thought about it, he’d just done it. He felt a bit of a fraud accepting people’s praise for something he’d done without thinking.

  He wondered whether Carey had seen the news. Whether she
thought he was a hero. Or whether, as far as she was concerned, he was still the shit who’d kissed his ex-girlfriend at their wedding party. Not that it mattered, of course. But he’d like to think that she’d looked at the TV and realized he wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. Wasn’t as bad as her, in fact. And now there was Leah again. He’d been surprised when she’d shown up, but also touched by her concern. Leah put him first, Carey had never really done that. From the moment they’d left New York she’d been thinking of her job, she’d made suggestions about moving to the northside of the city, she hadn’t looked up to him in the way that Leah did. All she cared about was her work, her friends, and her ridiculous collection of shoes. And she’d managed to cut him out of her life completely.

  Whereas Leah had come back, just as she always did. Perhaps she was right, perhaps they were meant to be together. How did you know, though? How did all the people who got married to the right person realize that they were marrying the right person? How come they didn’t mess it all up?

  He rubbed his forehead. He really wasn’t much good at the self-analysis stuff. All he knew was that he had a pain in his ankle and a pain in his head, and he didn’t want to think about anything else right now. He drained the beer, left the bottle on the floor beside the armchair, and went up to bed.

  Chapter Twenty

  GRAPEFRUIT

  A highly revitalizing and uplifting oil with a sharp, zesty fragrance

  For the first time in weeks Carey woke up without a nagging headache and an over-riding sense of gloom. The fact that the sun was shining and the screaming winds of the past month had faded into warm breezes certainly helped, she thought as she opened the door of her Audi, but the most likely reason was that today she was completing the purchase of her apartment, and by twelve o’clock she would be a real live homeowner and in charge of her life at last.

  As she turned the key in the ignition, she told herself that this was the start of a new chapter in being Carey Browne. The grown-up and sensible chapter. The one where her friends and family stopped thinking of her as slightly mad and irresponsible Carey and began to treat her as a true adult capable of making mature and informed decisions. Well, maybe not her family, she sighed as she turned onto the main road and headed towards the solicitor’s office. Whatever about Tony, safely distant in Perth, Arthur, Maude, and Sylvia would never think of her as being capable of making mature and informed decisions. She’d always be the scatty baby of the Browne family as far as they were concerned. But other people might be impressed.

  The traffic into the city center wasn’t as bad as usual and she was lucky, too, in finding a parking meter just a short walk away from the solicitor’s office. She locked the car and walked along Pembroke Row until she arrived at the door of Savage & Savage. Not the most comforting name for a solicitor’s, she thought as she pressed the buzzer on the intercom.

  The door opened and she walked into the small tiled reception area in the hallway of the old Georgian building. A studious-looking receptionist looked at her inquiringly.

  “Carey Browne,” she told her. “Here to close a sale.”

  The receptionist looked at the list in front of her. “Your solicitor isn’t here yet,” she said dismissively. “You’ll be meeting Mrs. Harris.”

  “Fine.” Carey was intimidated by the chilliness of the receptionist and the clinical atmosphere of the reception area. She perched on the edge of one of the navy tub chairs either side of a smoked-glass coffee-table and flicked through the day’s edition of the Irish Times. Then she put it down and took up a two-week-old copy of HELLO! instead. She’d wanted to look at HELLO! from the start, but had felt that might make her look like an air-head in front of the snooty receptionist. But then she’d decided that if they left HELLO! lying around they expected people to read it, so what the heck. Besides, she was too excited to concentrate on anything more demanding than the details of the dress that Nicole Kidman had worn to the latest Hollywood awards ceremony. Nicole looked great, Carey thought as she peered at the dress, and everyone agreed that her career had really taken off as soon as she’d been granted her divorce from Tom Cruise. Which just went to prove that sometimes a girl was better off doing things on her own. And that so-called matches made in heaven were usually anything but. She turned the page and sighed wistfully at the sight of ex–Spice Girl Mel B walking along a beach somewhere in the Caribbean. She wondered how it was that Mel, whose hair was even more corkscrewed and surely more difficult to manage than her own, appeared so groomed and elegant while she perpetually looked as though someone had given her an electric shock.

  “Good morning, Carey.” Eddie Kelly, her solicitor, walked into the office and she dropped HELLO! back onto the table.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Ready to rock and roll?” Eddie looked like a solicitor, Carey thought, with his snappy suit and the gold cuff-links in his Thomas Pink shirt, but he didn’t talk like one. She’d found the firm of Kelly, Smith & Clarkson in the Golden Pages and had chosen them precisely because the telephonist had been cheerful, friendly, and very unlegal, and, when she was put through to Eddie, he’d sounded cheerful and friendly too.

  “I can’t wait,” she confessed.

  “It won’t take long,” he promised, just as Savage & Savage’s Mrs. Harris walked into reception. She was tall and beaky, and Carey wondered whether or not she’d been a Savage before turning into a Harris.

  Eddie was right about the timing, and despite Mrs. Harris’s somewhat pedantic approach to dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, it was a mere twenty minutes later when Carey stood outside the office with the key to the apartment in her hand. It had all been a bit of a blur, but now she was a person with her own place, and no matter what happened, it would always be hers. She thanked Eddie for his help, shook his hand, then waved goodbye as he went in the opposite direction to his car. She tuned into 98FM as she drove back to Swords, singing along to Robbie Williams and feeling a frisson of excitement every time she thought about her new home ready and waiting for her. She’d discovered that a few other employees at the airport had bought apartments in the development too; the last day she’d gone to look at it she’d seen a girl whom she knew worked for Aer Rianta, and they’d had a brief chat about how convenient it was. It was nice to know that there would be a few familiar faces around the place, and it made her feel that her choice of home was all the more fortunate.

  In the end, Peter Furness hadn’t bought one of the apartments. He’d put a deposit on a place nearer Blanchardstown. He was a real home-bird at heart, he’d told Carey; he liked the area where he lived and he didn’t want to move. “Which is maybe why me and Sandra never really worked,” he’d added ruefully. “She was always looking for something more than I was able to give her.”

  Carey was relieved that she’d finally be moving out of his house. It had been very convenient to be able to stay there, but it had never been comfortable. And she felt guilty every time she opened one of the kitchen cupboards which had undoubtedly been chosen by Sandra when she and Peter were in the first flush of happiness together.

  Does it always wear off? she wondered as she turned onto the M1. Are there any married couples out there who truly love each other as much as they did on the first day they met? Her parents, maybe, but she remembered fierce arguments (which they’d tried and failed to hide from their children) between Arthur and Maude in the past. They seemed perfectly content now, but how could anyone be certain? And she still hadn’t quite recovered from Sylvia’s revelation about John’s affair. If Sylvia and John’s marriage had almost foundered, then anyone’s could.

  So maybe I’m not a total failure after all, she thought. I gave it a go and it went wrong. It’s not my fault. And better to have found it out now than in a few years’ time. At least this way I’ve motivated myself to do something I’ve talked about for ages. At least this way I’ve managed to prioritize my life.

  She turned into the development and parked in the space marked Apt. 2A. “
My apartment,” she murmured as she stood outside and looked up at the first floor. “My apartment. My life.”

  She unlocked the main door and walked up the stairs. It was quiet inside the block and she wondered if many of the other apartments were occupied yet. She slid the key into her door and pushed it open.

  She supposed, as she stood in the middle of her living room, that she should have asked Sylvia or Maude or anyone at all really to come with her to share the moment. But it hadn’t occurred to her to ask, and now she regretted not having someone here to wish her luck and to hug her and tell her that she’d made the right decision.

  “You’re being silly,” she said out loud. “You don’t need anyone.” She strode across the room and opened the balcony doors to let fresh air into the room. “You’ve done it all by yourself.” She walked into her kitchen and opened and closed her own cupboards. Then she went into the bedroom and did the same with the wardrobes. She sat on the sofa and draped her legs over the arms. She got up again, pushed it against a different wall, and looked at it with a critical eye. And then she remembered that it didn’t make much difference where she put the sofa because her new leather couch would be ready soon. She winced at the thought of how much that had set her back, and then shrugged because it was only money and what was the point in worrying? She earned a good salary and she had a great credit-card limit, so she might as well use it.

  She looked at her watch. It was lunch-time, she was starving, and she had lots to do today. She wanted to pick up all her stuff from Peter’s as well as call into the shopping center and buy essentials like bed linen, kitchen equipment, and, of course, some instant meals for the freezer. Her mobile chirped and she took it out of her bag.

  “So?” asked Peter.

  “So what?”

  “So, is it done?”

  “Yes.” Her voice bubbled with the excitement she’d wanted to share. “And it’s great. I love it.”

  “I’m glad,” said Peter.

  “I’ve loads to do,” she said. “I’ve to buy mountains of stuff.”