Three Women (11 page)

‘You okay?’ he asked, worried.

‘No,’ she admitted, the word coming out like a gulping sound as she tried not to break down.

He left his laptop and came and sat beside her.

‘It’s a guy, isn’t it? A right shit!’

‘No, it’s not.’ Erin took a deep breath. She didn’t know him at all, but she couldn’t keep it up any longer. ‘I was meant to meet someone very important in my life today – my mother.’

‘Your mother?’

‘Yes – my biological mother. We’ve never met. She gave me up for adoption when I was a baby. There’s never been any sort of contact, but today was meant to be the big day. My social worker helped to set it up so that we would meet on neutral ground and in a public place like they advise … But what a fecking disaster. I guess she just chickened out – didn’t want to meet me at all.’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself and on her.’

‘What?’

‘It must be a very difficult situation – for both of you.’

Erin couldn’t believe it. This stranger was actually taking her mother’s part.

‘You could say that!’ she laughed. ‘Talk about understatement.’

‘I think they are closing up now,’ he nodded in the direction of the restaurant manager, who was coming towards them. ‘We’d better go.’

‘I suppose.’

Erin grabbed her bill from the table and paid.

It was four thirty p.m. and she just couldn’t face going home to the apartment or to her parents and the barrage of questions she would get. God knows how many missed calls and texts she’d logged; everyone would be dying to find out how things went with Kate. But she wasn’t up to facing them yet.

‘Will you go home?’ he asked, standing beside her at the door.

‘I couldn’t face it yet,’ she admitted candidly, trying not to cry.

‘My place is still in use,’ he explained, ‘but if you fancy a drink, there’s a nice bar around the corner … Not too loud or noisy, a good place to chill.’

Erin found herself nodding and falling into step with him as they made for O’Reilly’s.

The place was dead – just two old codgers nursing pints of Guinness up at the bar and a few Italians sitting at a table near the door. They’d obviously been shopping and were having a reviving drink.

‘What will you have?’ he asked.

She was dying for a drink and he got her a glass of wine.

‘Thanks.’ Erin realized that she didn’t even know his name.

‘I’m Matt,’ he said, introducing himself as he took a sip from his pint.

‘I’m Erin – Erin Harris,’ she said formally, shaking his hand. ‘I’m sorry that I’ve interrupted whatever you were working on.’

‘Just doing a few script changes for a documentary I’m making,’ he said, looking at her. He had the darkest eyes she had ever seen – liquid, almost like a deer or a dog.

‘You work in film?’

‘Yes, for my sins. I go from project to project, on commissions we get from RTE or TV3, or Channel 4 or BBC. It’s always a hassle trying to get projects off the ground and up and running. Budgets are being slashed all over the place, so it’s tough out there!’

‘Tell me about it!’ she laughed. ‘I work in graphic design.’

‘Which company?’

‘De Berg O’Leary.’

‘They’re good. I’ve met that guy Declan a few times. He did the design for us on a big documentary we made for BBC about Cromwell a few years back.’

‘I remember that,’ she said, impressed. ‘He has a poster of it in his office. Maybe you want to work?’ she added, gesturing towards his laptop case.

‘Nah, I’ve done enough for today. I’ve a bit of editing on a piece we filmed a few weeks ago, but it can wait.’

Erin felt relieved. Half an hour later she was buying him another pint and trying to drown her sorrows in a lovely glass of Merlot.

‘You okay?’

‘Not really,’ she admitted, ‘but I’d prefer to be sitting here than facing a hundred questions from everyone.’

‘They’re just curious,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s probably worried about you.’

Erin soon found herself confiding in this stranger, telling him all about herself, her family, and about Kate, the woman she was meant to meet.

‘That’s probably the end of it,’ she trailed off. ‘It’s better to forget her, not try to see her again.’

‘Do you usually give up so easy?’

‘No, I don’t,’ she protested, ‘but—’

‘Then don’t this time. You might regret it.’

‘But Kate’s made her intentions clear – she doesn’t want to meet me.’

‘Don’t take
no
for an answer unless it suits you too,’ he persisted, serious.

‘I don’t know what I should do … I can’t even think straight …’

‘Think logically. Go on, Erin – even I know something about the woman from what you’ve told me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You have her single name, Kate Flanagan, and you have her age; and the social worker as good as told you that she got married within two years of your birth … so it’s quite a narrow window you have to search.’

‘Search?’

‘Yes, for her married name, the name on her marriage cert, presuming she married in Ireland. It should be fairly easy to find – then you will have an address at least and can start tracking more information.’

‘Have you done this before?’

‘I told you – I make documentaries. It’s what I do,’ smiled Matt. ‘You get to be good at searching for and finding out things.’

‘Thanks, Matt.’

‘No problem.’

They had two more drinks and then Erin realized she really had to go home. She had about five missed calls from her mum and two from her dad, and even three messages from Luke.

‘Look!’ She passed her phone to Matt. ‘What do I tell them?’

‘The truth.’

‘They’ll be so upset for me.’

‘Fair enough, but if you do try to meet Kate, maybe next time don’t tell them …’

She watched as he started to use her phone.

‘I’m putting in my number, just in case …’

He really was a nice guy – a bit nerdy, but in a nice, old-fashioned way.

‘Hey, I’d better get going too,’ he said, getting up and grabbing his things. ‘I’m meeting someone later and I want to get rid of this stuff and check in with Ritchie and his Dutch lady.’

‘Matt, thanks for everything.’

‘I didn’t do much.’

‘You listened.’ Erin hugged him.

O’Reilly’s had started to fill up and some musicians were beginning to set up at the back of the bar. It was raining outside. They were going different directions, so Erin headed up towards the nearby line of waiting taxis as Matt pulled up his hood and disappeared into the wet night.

She checked her phone, reading her numerous messages. It was so embarrassing. Her mum, her dad, her friends, even Uncle Bill had texted her. What the hell was she going to say to everyone?

KATE STOOD IN
the living room, frozen like a statue, the keys of her car in her hands. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t move, leave here and drive in to meet her daughter. She wasn’t in a fit state to get behind the wheel of a car, she was so anxious. Maybe she should order a taxi to collect her and bring her into the city centre? But she just couldn’t do it. She stayed rooted to the spot, conscious of time ticking by and a girl sitting in a Dublin restaurant waiting for her to arrive …

Time passing … the moments slipping … away …

She went upstairs and searched in the bottom of her section of the wardrobe. She found what she was looking for, then sat down on the bed and opened the old cardboard memory box that she kept hidden. It was all that she had of her baby: a tiny clipping of hair, two photos, her plastic name-bracelet, and a copy of the birth certificate and the letter of permission that she had signed with the adoption agency. A pink and a white Mothercare baby-grow and a pink knitted hat. She felt the softness of the wool. Sometimes it seemed like she only dreamed about giving birth to a child, imagined it. But
touching
each of these items reminded her of the truth, and of her actions.

It was so long ago, but sometimes it seemed like only yesterday that she and Johnny had been together. Madly in love, obsessed with each other, two young fools who had no idea what the future would bring. Jonathan Devlin was everything she ever wanted in a boyfriend: tall and good looking, self-confident and sure of what he wanted – what they both wanted. Being with him was exciting and crazy, and made Kate feel happier than she had ever felt before. They were mad about each other, spending every spare minute they had together.

She was only eighteen when they first met, a Galway girl sharing a crowded student digs in Dublin with three other country girls. Johnny was from Wicklow, and, like Kate, was studying at the College of Commerce in Rathmines. Somehow they had found each other. She’d got a flat tyre on her bicycle and Johnny had fixed it and asked her out for a drink in McGraths Bar that night. So they began to go out. They became inseparable, always together, both full of plans for the future, travel, music, jobs, money, and having lots of fun and laughs together. She presumed that Johnny loved her just as much as she loved him.

When she found out she was pregnant she’d been scared at first, but she knew that Johnny would stand by her. They loved each other and that was all that mattered. A baby might not have been part of the plan so soon, but she knew Johnny would accept it, be happy.

Well that’s what she had stupidly thought, but she had been wrong. Getting pregnant had been utterly disastrous. Johnny was young, scared just like her, and soon made it very clear
that
having a baby together was most definitely not part of his plan. If she wanted to keep this baby, she was doing it on her own.

Devastated, she’d hidden her pregnancy. She stopped going to lectures and stopped visits home to Glenalley as her pregnancy began to be very obvious. She was too scared to tell anyone about the baby, especially her dad, knowing his reaction. Dermot Flanagan was an old-fashioned type of man, strict but fair, often dictating what his kids could and could not do. He’d done his very best to raise them since her mum’s death and Kate knew that he would be absolutely devastated to discover that his youngest daughter was pregnant. So she’d kept it a secret from him and everyone else who might have helped or supported her.

She went to stay with her sister Sally and Sally’s husband Mike in Rathfarnham. They were wonderful to her – Sally even came to the hospital with her when she went into labour and baby Anna was born.

She had phoned and left messages for Johnny, but he hadn’t even bothered to come and see their baby until the night before she was due to leave the hospital, and then he had barely bothered to speak to her, though he admitted how beautiful their daughter was. There was no offer of him helping or being in any way involved in their child’s life.

Heartbroken, Kate had realized that it was finally over with Johnny. He was not going to change his mind. He did not want a baby and that’s all there was to it. He was a student and had no intention of settling down with her. She was alone and she felt trapped. How could she manage raising a baby?

She had panicked. She had talked to the social worker a few times about the possibility of adoption, but now, faced
with
life in a bedsit living on social welfare with her small daughter, she realized that she wanted more – more for herself and certainly more for her daughter. So the process she had explored about giving up her child for adoption suddenly became real, and she signed the necessary papers and the adoption agency took over.

Sally kept asking if she was sure this was what she wanted, urging her to consider what she was doing, not to rush into it; but Kate was determined. She had done the right thing, gone through with the pregnancy, had her baby, but, like Johnny, she too was young and scared and just wanted to run away and forget about it. In hindsight, she knew she was in some sort of shock and didn’t realize the consequences of what she was doing in giving up her daughter.

So her baby, Anna, had been adopted by a married couple who were desperate to have a child of their own. The final adoption order was granted almost twelve weeks after Anna’s birth.

Kate had never returned to the college in Rathmines. Johnny had come back into her life briefly, some of the old magic rekindled, both of them crying for their baby – but she knew that the decision that had been made was something that would always eat away at any relationship between them. He was moving to London and asked her to come over, see how things went between them, give it another go; but there was no real commitment, and one of her friends hinted that he might even have started seeing someone else.

Johnny was gone, the baby was gone, and there wasn’t a day that Kate didn’t think about her impetuous decision.

* * *

She stopped suddenly. She heard someone’s key in the front door and recognized Paddy’s footstep immediately. What was he doing home?

‘Kate, are you there?’ he called from the kitchen.

She quickly pushed the box back into its hiding place and gathered herself. He was coming upstairs.

‘I forgot my wallet,’ Paddy said, making straight for the shelf in the wardrobe where he kept his keys and cufflinks and things.

‘Why didn’t you phone me?’ she asked, watching as he rooted around.

‘There it is!’ he said, relieved, grabbing the brown leather wallet and sliding it into his trouser pocket. ‘I was hoping I hadn’t dropped it somewhere.’

‘Do you have time for a coffee?’ she asked.

‘Sorry, love, I don’t have time. I’m meeting someone from a New Zealand wine company to see what lines they’re importing. Hey, you’re all dressed up!’ He suddenly noticed what she was wearing. ‘Are you going out somewhere?’

‘I was meant to go to a lunch thing with Sally, but she’s come down with some kind of tummy bug so she cancelled it. I’d better change out of this.’

‘Listen, I’ll talk to you tonight.’

She kissed him briefly and watched from the window as the large, solid figure of her husband returned to the silver Toyota parked in the driveway.

Glimpsing herself in the mirror, she began to tear off her clothes, flinging them all over the bedroom floor. She thought of the girl sitting in the restaurant … She was a stranger to her. She must have been mad even to have considered going and meeting her. Heaven knows what that girl wanted from
her
. What good could come of meeting her? The past was the past, nothing could change or rewrite it. Her baby … Anna … was gone. Johnny was gone. Both hidden away like the old memory box deep in her mind.