Woman to Woman (27 page)

She’d tell her mother, Jo decided. She’d have to. Her mother could detect something out of the ordinary in about two seconds, which was why Jo had only made a few hurried phone calls from the office since she’d found out she was pregnant. It wasn’t that Laura Ryan would pass out at the news that her only daughter was pregnant before they’d gone through the big church wedding shenanigans. Her mother had never been one of those people who gossiped disapprovingly at the back of the church before Mass, the ones who tut tutted over any poor girl who was pregnant and unmarried.

But Jo knew what her mother had gone through. It had been a huge struggle to raise three kids on her own when their father died. She had been both parent and sole breadwinner for four-year-old Jo, seven-year-old Tom and ten-year-old Shane. While Laura was able to run the small dairy farm her husband had left her, she was determined that her children never wanted for anything.

When times were lean she sold eggs from her Rhode Island Reds and the rich yellow butter she churned every week. Jo loved her job of collecting the eggs in the morning and evening, leaving one in each nest to confuse the hens into laying there again the next day. By the

time they were teenagers the three Ryan kids could drive the tractor with ease, knew how to help a cow give birth and could milk in their sleep. When Tom decided to study to be a vet, Laura knitted Aran jumpers for sale in Innisbhail’s craft shop to help pay his fees. Now that Shane ran the farm and had turned it into a much larger business, the bad times were over. Laura still kept her hens and made her own butter, but she’d handed over the farm to her elder son and was finally able to relax after twenty years of difficult single parenthood.

So much had changed since Jo had first talked to her mother about settling down and having a family. She’d been seventeen then, in the first flush of what she thought was the love of her life, dreaming of a fairytale wedding, exquisite children, a bungalow beside the sea with a tennis court out the back and a garden big enough for ten kids.

Seventeen years later, she could laugh at her teenage dreams. At least she could afford a baby now. Then, her entire fortune had consisted of a collection of much loved secondhand books, four David Bowie albums and thirty pounds in her post office account. Not exactly enough to keep a small child in nappies, never mind pureed vegetables.

She’d planned to rely on Steve, of course, her well-off, clever boyfriend. Would he have been a better father than Richard, she wondered?

She passed a bus bound for Dublin, ready to pick up scores of weary office workers and students and bring them back home for the weekend.

That particular journey was burned into her head like a cattle brand, hours of endlessly winding wet roads interspersed with mind-numbingly boring stops in rush-hour traffic and only one longed-for break in Mullingar for steaming tea. Four hours in a rackety bus had never been her ideal way to spend Friday evenings.

She remembered that freezing January night the bus had broken down outside Foxford and she and the other passengers had been stranded there for two hours before another bus arrived. Three squares of

chocolate and a sip of tea from someone else’s flask were not enough to keep hypothermia at bay when the wind whistled wickedly outside and the heating didn’t work inside.

Her mother had been quite frantic when Jo finally reached home, convinced that there’d been some dreadful accident. Jo could understand how she’d felt. Just a few miles down the road from where the bus had broken down, the tiny white cross was still there, tucked neatly into the ditch at a deceptively gentle-looking bend. A few plastic flowers were jammed up close to the cross, just under the letters “RIP’.

She’d thought those little grottoes were pretty when she’d been a child, always full of flowers, the small Virgin Marys in their sky-blue cloaks brightening the roadsides.

The road widened just before she reached Ballina. Jo remembered driving out that way with Steve, going to a party in his mother’s precious Mercedes. Banana yellow with cream leather seats and an opulent interior smell Jo would never forget. It was Mrs. Kavanagh’s pride and joy.

Being Steve, he’d taken the corner badly and the car had nearly ended up in the ditch. Jo didn’t know which thought’ had terrified him most being injured or facing Mummy’s wrath if he dented her car.

That had been Steve all over, but she hadn’t seen it at the time. Of course, she hadn’t seen it this time either. She’d screwed up exactly the same way seventeen years down the line. Awful though it was to face it, Richard and Steve seemed to share some awful genetic code, Bastards’ DNA, which helped them forget responsibilities and promises as soon as something or someone more interesting appeared on the horizon.

You’d think I’d have copped on by now, Jo thought all of a sudden. What if I have a baby boy and he turns out to be a mini-Richard?

Don’t be ridiculous. She patted her belly and turned up the volume. Mariah Carey’s clear, piercing voice filled the car singing “Always Be My Baby’. Mariah’s man wanted to leave her but she knew he’d be back.

Lucky girl. Jo was beginning to wonder if she could keep any man.

The car crested the hill and Innisbhail lay before her, a small town nestling in a shallow valley, facing a remarkably sedate Atlantic on the fourth side. On bad days, the sea was a murky grey, surf crashing violently against the rocky shore.

Today it was calm and the couple of small fishing boats far out to sea bobbed serenely on the water.

In the distance, she could see the remains of the old abbey beside her mother’s home and the small wood where she’d played as a child.

The view always brought a lump to Jo’s throat. Today was no different. This is where your mummy comes from, she told the baby tremulously, wishing she didn’t feel so emotionally precarious all the time.

Just last week, she’d cried when the owner of a health farm had rung up to say thanks for the lovely piece they’d written in the June issue. And on Wednesday, when she’d stupidly pulled out of a parking space in front of another driver on Capel Street and he’d responded with angry gestures and lots of honking, she’d felt like dissolving into tears.

Cop on, Jo, she commanded. Don’t wimp out now.

She drove down the familiar winding road and into the town, past the convent where she’d gone to school and along the main street where she and Marie Brennan had spent five years walking their bikes wearily up the hill before the long cycle home. Everything looked exactly the same, apart from the bright orange plastic burger bar sign hanging over the old post office, jarring with the sedate black and white shop fronts on the left side of the road.

The seats outside O’Reilly’s Bar had been repainted, and someone had finally replaced the tired-looking hanging baskets with new wire ones from which rampant nasturtiums hung in wild clumps.

The Birkenstock twins were walking along past Dillon’s, the butchers, their once-auburn hair tied back into greying sensible plaits as they marched steadily up the hill, nattering non-stop in German, no doubt.

They’d tried to teach Jo once but she’d never got beyond the “How are you? I’m fine’ stage.

She was sorry now that she hadn’t made the effort to learn German. Then again, she was sorry she’d never learned how to play the piano, how to knit Aran and how to change her own spark plugs.

Well, there’d be plenty of time for that when she was the size of a house and could spend hours reclining on the settee, reading educational books and waiting for baby to make an appearance.

A man on the footpath was waving energetically at her. She jerked back to reality and stopped the car, opening the window all the way down.

“Hello!” roared Billy Gallagher enthusiastically, dragging two small cross-looking boys over to Jo’s car.

“How are you?” His sunburned face was warm with greeting, as friendly as it had been when they’d been in high infants together and she’d stuck up for him when the big boys bullied him because he was the teacher’s son.

“I’m fine, Billy. How are you? God, the boys are getting so big now, I can’t believe the size of them!”

“Say hello to your auntie Jo, Connell and Michael,” he demanded, pulling the boys closer to the car.

No joy.

“Ah sure, they take after me.” He grinned.

“Shy.”

“You were never shy, Billy, don’t give me that!” Jo laughed.

“A slow developer, then “How’s Marie?”

“Bringing her granny into Ballina to get her glasses changed.

She’d have been here if she knew you were coming today,” he said, mildly reproachful. Jo knew that Marie would be vexed if she found her old friend was coming home for Shane’s fortieth birthday party a day early and hadn’t told her.

“It’s so busy in the office now that I didn’t know if I’d be able to get away a day early,” she said, not quite truthfully. It was difficult to pacify everyone when you lived a long way from home.

Everyone thought they should be first on your visiting list. She didn’t want to upset Marie, but once she’d told her exactly what was going on, the other woman would definitely understand why she had come home early without mentioning it.

“Will I get her to ring you when she gets home?” asked Billy, as three-year-old Connell started to pull in the direction of an ice cream van.

“Do that. Bye boys, bye Billy.”

After that, she waved at people but didn’t stop. You could be stopping all day, saying hello to this one and that, giving potted histories on what you’d done or where you’d been. Jo loved the friendliness of Innisbhail, the sensation of being enveloped in a warm, welcoming blanket. But it could be a bit overwhelming, especially when you were in a rush.

Two miles out of town, she took a left turn at the abbey and drove a quarter of a mile before turning left again, past the old green gates and over the cattle grid to park beside her mother’s Mini.

The Albertine climbing rose was out in force, covering the front of the small, whitewashed cottage in a wreath of baby-pink flowers. She could smell its rich, heady scent on the afternoon air as Prince, the old sheepdog, stumbled sleepily out into the sunshine and started wagging his tail as soon as he saw her.

“Hello, old boy,” she said delightedly, rumpling his fur.

Prince panted and wagged, gazing up with rheumy eyes, happy to have someone new to pet him.

“Darling, how wonderful to see you!” Laura Ryan stood at the porch, her hands covered in flour and more than a bit of it on her dark curly hair.

“Mum.” Jo ran up and hugged her mother, breathing in the smell of lemon soap she always used along with the scent of Charlie Red she’d worn ever since her seven-year-old grandson, Ben, had bought it for her for Christmas.

“You look good,” her mother said slowly, standing back and taking in her daughter’s ever-so-slightly fuller figure which was admittedly well

hidden by her flowing dress. “Have you been baking or bathing in flour?” Jo demanded, laughing as she brushed flour from her mother’s hair.

“Baking until Flo Doyle rang me to say she’d seen your car in the town. It’s impossible to answer the phone when your hands are covered in flour.”

“Good to see the old bush telegraph is still working as reliably as ever.” Jo said.

That woman has nothing better to do but look out her front window and use the phone all day long,” her mother answered, heading back into the kitchen to put the pastry lid on her apple tart.

“She rang “so I’d be prepared for you” to put it in her words. What does she think I’d be doing that I wouldn’t want you to see? Having it off with the postman?”

Jo laughed and automatically went to the black iron range to move the heavy metal kettle onto the hottest plate. Prince followed her, his nose snuffling her dress in the hope that she had a couple of Mixed Ovals hidden somewhere. The kettle hissed satisfactorily, already nearly boiled.

“Just give me a moment to finish this one and I’m all yours,” her mother said, putting the finishing touches to the tart.

“There’s coffee in the cupboard if you want it,” she added.

“No, I’ve given up coffee.” It had been nearly two weeks since Jo had tasted a drop of coffee.

“You’ve what?” Tart forgotten, Laura turned around and stared at her daughter. Dark brown eyes met dark brown eyes as her mother’s quizzical gaze bored into Jo’s head.

“Given up coffee, that’s all,” Jo answered. Then she laughed out loud. She should have known better than to try and hide the news from her mother for even one millisecond. She should have just announced it as soon as she’d got out of the car.

“It’s not good for babies, is it?” she said simply.

“Oh Jo!” Her mother’s face crumpled into tears and she threw her arms around Jo, clinging to her as if for dear life.

“Oh my darling, that’s wonderful news. I’m so happy for you, so happy. Now sit down she said, leading Jo to the old faded green armchair

which had been in the kitchen as long as Jo could remember.

“Sit down and tell me everything.”

Jo sank gratefully into the chair, feeling immeasurably comforted by her mother’s love and affection. The small kitchen, with its flowery wallpaper, lace curtains and gallery of Seanie, Dan and Ben’s finger paintings, was so familiar. So what if Richard had left her. She still had her family. Her mother pulled up a small stool and sat down beside Jo.

“When did you find out? And why are you only telling me now?” she demanded.

“If you told Richard’s rat bag of a mother before me, I’ll murder the pair of you!” She was only half joking. Although Laura Ryan had never actually met Richard’s mother, she’d heard enough about her from Jo to loathe the other woman.

That’s the problem,” said Jo, wondering how best to broach the subject. Head on, she decided.

“Richard doesn’t want to know. He’s baby-phobic or commitment-phobic or something like that…”

Her mother’s freckled face paled visibly.

“What do you mean, he doesn’t want to know? It’s his baby, what is there to know?”

“I mean that he didn’t want me to have it, Mum. It was an accident, we didn’t plan it or anything. But I thought he’d be happy, it’s my fault really.” She sighed.