Woman to Woman (14 page)

“I spilled a bit,” he said unnecessarily, handing her the tumbler with two inches of milk sloshing around in the bottom and milk splashes clinging to the side.

“But I cleaned it up.”

Thank you,” Aisling said gravely, wondering what item of clothing her untidy son had ripped off the radiator to clean up with. Still, cleaning up at all was a start.

“Have you got a headache, Mum?” he asked, spotting the tablets with eagle-eyed ten-year-old’s eyes.

“Why were you crying?”

“I didn’t sleep, darling, and I’ve got a dreadful headache. But the milk will help.” She rumpled his hair affectionately and he grinned at her, his eyes crinkling up just like his father’s.

Other mothers had talked about their sons hitting twelve and suddenly shrugging off each affectionate gesture, furious if their mothers hugged them the way they’d been doing for years. Thank God she still had a few years of nighttime cuddles before the twins became too grown-up for hair rumpling and tickling sessions.

“Mum, can we have money for McDonald’s today?” Paul asked.

“Mr. Breslin is bringing us all to Stillorgan after the match and we can go into McDonald’s if you let us.”

“Yes. But no milkshakes. You know how sick they make

“I promise.”

He was out the door and yelling for his brother in a flash and Aisling felt the tension leave her body as another normal day in the Moran family home began to unfold. Everything was going to be fine, she just knew it. Last night was just a glitch, a bad patch that had to come out into the open. They shared so much: the boys, their life, their

home. How could Michael give all that up? The man who had cried in her arms when the boys were born wouldn’t be able to leave them for some floozie. He’d come back. It was just a matter of time.

“Sorry about that Jo said.

“My next-door neighbour’s alarm went off and she couldn’t remember the code, so we had to ring her son and … oh, it took ages.”

“What are you doing today?” Aisling asked briskly, her new-found optimism giving her strength.

“I don’t know.” Jo sounded forlorn.

“I had planned to hit Mothercare and look at baby clothes before buying some ” books on pregnancy … But I don’t know if I’d be able to face it now.” “Well, that’s just what we’re going to do,” Aisling said firmly.

“Lounging around crying won’t solve anything. I’ve got to get the boys ready for soccer and then I’ll meet you in the Ilac Centre outside Dunnes at…” she glanced at her watch, ‘half ten and we can start shopping. Oh, and I’ll bring some of my pregnancy books it’s not as if Michael and I are going to decide to have another child right now.”

Jo said nothing, mainly because she didn’t know what to say to such a bizarrely blinkered idea.

That’s settled,” Aisling declared.

“I’ll see you then.”

Hanging up, Jo sat for a moment on the couch in her small living room, thinking about her friend’s sudden change of mood. Last night she had been scared. that Aisling would drink herself into unconsciousness; now it seemed as if the previous day’s events had never happened.

Was Aisling blotting everything out or was she really as well as she sounded? Leaning back against a cushion, Jo contemplated the whole messy situation. Which of us is worse off, she asked herself.

Gratefully sitting down on a bench in the centre of the busy shopping centre at twenty-five minutes past ten, Jo was still thinking about Aisling’s predicament. Leaning back against the wooden bench, she looped her handbag strap around her wrist and tried to relax. Casually

dressed in jeans and a cream cotton cricket sweater with her hair curling around her shoulders and a smattering of freckles on her face, Jo was the picture of health and casual chic. That was on the outside, of course.

On the inside, her stomach was gurgling away volcanically, considering whether to send her second breakfast up the way it came or not. Nausea came over her in waves and she wondered how long she could last without having to race for the loo which was, naturally, at the other end of the centre.

Please don’t let me be sick, she prayed silently. I promise never to eat muesli ever again. She closed her eyes and willed her stomach away from the notion of morning sickness. Just let me be OK long enough to meet Aisling and then you can be as sick as you want, right?

Amazingly, her stomach obeyed and the nausea subsided. It must be all those stomach-toning classes, she thought proudly, opening her eyes with relief. Now I can even control the insides as well as the outsides!

Six minutes later, she watched Aisling emerge from the car-park exit, her well-rounded figure hidden in a long navy and cream striped shirt worn over navy ski pants.

“Sorry I’m late,” she gasped, sitting down on a corner of the bench, her face flushed from rushing down six flights of stairs.

“Everyone and their granny were ahead of me looking for parking spaces so I had to keep going up and up. You look lovely,” she finished.

“Make-up is a wonderful thing,” Jo remarked.

“You should have seen me an hour ago. This morning sickness thing is not funny, not bloody funny at all.”

“You poor thing Aisling said comfortingly.

“It is horrible.

But you’re looking all right now, aren’t you?”

“I think so,” Jo stood up gingerly, took a deep breath and found that she didn’t feel sick any more.

“Right. Let’s shop.”

Twenty pounds’ worth of pregnancy books and a pair of elastic-wasted trousers later, both women were tired of shopping. They’d been in what felt like every shop in Dublin and the Eason’s bag was growing heavier

with every step. Deciding that she was now ravenously hungry, Jo suggested an early pub lunch.

They make the most amazing toasted sandwiches in here she said, leading the way into a small pub on Mary Street.

Like an oasis in the middle of one of the city’s busiest shopping districts, the inside of the quaint, atmospheric pub was cool and welcoming. The pub’s trademark dark wooden chairs and stools were already occupied by regulars who knew better than to saunter into Keating’s during the lunchtime rush if they wanted a seat.

Aromatic smells of barbecued chicken, toasted cheese and garlicky potatoes filled the air and, by the time she led Aisling upstairs to sit in two huge armchairs in the tiny gallery, Jo was hungry enough to eat for three, never mind two.

“Listen to this,” she murmured, scouring the handwritten menu hungrily. Toasted BLTs on garlic bread or cajun chicken with sauteed mushrooms mmm. The food is just amazing here. I could eat two of everything right now! But I’ll have … the chicken. Yes, chicken.”

The cheese salad sandwich sounds nice,” said Aisling, wondering why she didn’t feel hungrier.

“Cheese salad on brown,” she smiled at the casually dressed young waiter who’d appeared pen in hand beside them.

And a little bottle of white wine, if you have icy-cold ones, thanks.” She smiled at him ‘again, but he was already gazing warmly at Jo, eager to please the attractive brunette who was biting her full lips tentatively as she considered what to have.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have that effect on men, Aisling mused, watching the waiter watching Jo. She was used to being ignored when she was out with Jo, although she had never been jealous of her friend’s ability to attract men effortlessly. Aisling had simply never considered herself attractive enough to compete with Jo’s potent sex appeal.

It had been exactly the same when they shared the flat. No matter how long Aisling had spent curling her eyelashes with the, horrible metal

curler or applying judicious amounts of blusher to where her cheekbones should have been, she always felt a little dowdy beside Jo.

Even in those awful secondhand dungarees of hers with her hair tumbling around her shoulders like she’d just been standing in a wind tunnel, Jo still looked good. Men flocked to her as though hypnotised or, as Jo liked to joke, ‘like slugs drawn to begonias’.

“Chicken with garlic potatoes,” Jo said firmly.

“And a cup of coffee. Do you have decaffeinated?”

“Of course,” murmured the waiter.

“Do you want anything else?”

“No.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t offer you a full massage and champagne,” Aisling remarked when he’d gone, full of twenty something unfulfilled lust.

“Young guys are all the same,” Jo said dismissively, settling back into her armchair.

“Give them one smile and they’re already imagining you with your clothes off.”

“Not in my experience, they aren’t. The last time I smiled at a young man he was packing my shopping in Dunnes and he looked at me like I was on day release from John of God’s.”

Aisling sighed heavily.

“But how can I expect strangers to fancy me if my husband doesn’t.” Now the Valium was wearing off, she felt miserable again, miserable and hopeless.

“Come on, Ash,” soothed Jo, patting her on the knee.

“There’s no point torturing yourself. It’s not your fault.”

“But it is,” she wailed.

“It is. It’s all my fault. I pushed him away. No wonder he wanted someone else.” She started to cry silently, her body shaking as the tears started rolling down her

Jo could do nothing except clasp Aisling’s hand between her own. That bastard, thought Jo vehemently.

“Salad sandwich and wine,” announced the waiter, planting a small plate, a wine glass and a small green bottle on the table in front of Aisling without looking at her, ‘and chicken.” The timbre of his voice

changed as he gently placed a large heaped dinner plate before Jo.

“Your coffee is coming,” he added, gazing at her hopefully.

Jo ignored him.

“Ash, you can’t go to pieces, you can’t,” she said gently.

“He’s gone, but the boys aren’t. They need you now and you can’t let them down.”

She grabbed the paper napkin the waiter had laid reverently in front of her and handed it to Aisling.

“Blow,” she commanded. Aisling blew.

“Listen, I wish it was different, but it isn’t. We’ve both been dumped, nothing’s going to change that, Ash. So we’ve got two choices: we could both go to pieces, cry all day, beg them to come back and bawl in front of anyone who’ll listen.” Jo took a deep breath.

“We could decide to be victims. My baby would be born totally screwed up because I’d be totally screwed up having her, and the twins would turn into little brats from being dragged back and forth between you and Michael.

“We can’t do that to them, can we, Ash?”

Aisling shook her head silently.

“Or we can fight back, survive on our own,” Jo emphasised the words heavily, determined to get her message past the wall of misery Aisling was erecting around herself.

“Maybe Michael will come running back to you, but you can’t rely on that. You have to be strong on your own and so do I. Who knows,” she added wryly, “Richard could be frantically speaking to my answering machine as we speak, begging forgiveness” She broke off with a sarcastic chuckle.

She could just picture his face the night before, furious that he wasn’t getting his own way for once. The chances of him changing his mind about the baby were slimmer than her chances of fitting into her jeans in about six months’ time.

“You’re right, you’re absolutely right.” Aisling opened her eyes abruptly and rubbed the napkin over her cheeks. Then she sat up in her chair and picked up the wine bottle. She poured most of the contents into her glass and took a deep draught.

“I know he’s not coming back, you know.” Her voice shook as she said it.

“I just don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to believe it. I want to exist in the happy place in my head where everything’s all right, where he’s just at work and where he’ll be home tonight.”

“I know.” Jo stared back at Aisling. Picking up her fork, Jo stuck it into a steaming pile of slivered golden potatoes oozing with garlic.

“Despite everything, despite what Richard said about the baby, I’d still take him back,” she said quietly.

“But he’s not coming back though, is he? So it’s up to me now. It’s up to us.

We have to get on with it, Ash,” she urged.

“You’ve got to get some sort of a life for yourself, get a job and

..”

“Get a job now. I can barely think straight, never mind actually do something I’ve been terrified of for years!” Almost crying again, Aisling stared at her friend in horror.

Jo went on eating.

“You can’t be serious?” Aisling demanded.

“Of course I am the other woman answered with her mouth full.

“Realistically, you’re now a one-parent family and, even if Michael is so wracked with guilt that he pays you huge amounts of maintenance for the boys for the next couple of months, it will inevitably change.” She knew she was being brutal, but Aisling had to face facts.

“You don’t know what he’s going to do now, and he could, well they could, have a family and …” she paused to fork up more chicken, spearing a delicious-looking bit of potato as well.

Aisling stared dully at her untouched sandwich, her eyes red-rimmed and sad. God this was difficult, Jo thought.

“I’m sorry, Ash. I’m trying to help, but I’m not making a very good job of it, am I?”

Aisling took another large slug of wine and prodded her sandwich listlessly. She wasn’t even vaguely hungry now, although Jo’s chicken was disappearing faster than 99p knickers in a sale.

She knew Jo was speaking the truth. Hideous to imagine Michael setting up another home with that woman and having more children.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said slowly, twisting her wine glass around by its thin stem. There’s one slight problem.

What am I going to do?”

“Work in an office, of course. What you did before.”

That was eleven years ago. Everything’s computerised now and I haven’t a clue how to work a computer. Anyway, who’s going to employ me?” Aisling asked. There are three hundred thousand unemployed people in this country, so who the hell is going to take on a housewife with two kids, no experience, no skills and no confidence?”

Jo stirred three packets of sugar into her coffee, poured in milk and took a sip.