Woman to Woman (28 page)

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Laura said angrily.

“It’s not just your fault. It takes two people to make a baby and he’s old enough to know the consequences of sex. What did he expect?”

Jo barely registered that her mother was talking about sex in such a nonchalant manner.

“He expected me to be the sort of career woman who wouldn’t want a baby messing up her perfect life,” said Jo in a wobbly voice.

“He wanted me to have an abortion, but I wouldn’t.”

She broke down finally and sobbed. Her mother wrapped her arms around Jo, holding her close and whispering the same soft nothings she’d whispered thirty years before to comfort a little girl frightened of

shadows in the bedroom after her father’s funeral. “There there my love. Don’t worry, Jo. We’re all here for you, I promise. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to be there for the birth of a grandchild and this is the perfect opportunity.”

They sat like that for a while. Prince lay on the floor beside them, knowing something was up and waiting with his nose between his paws in an expectant manner.

“I’m OK, Mum, honestly.” Jo felt around for her handbag and got a tissue.

“I’m used to the idea, thinking about the baby is giving me some kind of strength.”

“Are you eating properly?” demanded her mother, getting up to make tea.

“Yes, Mum.” Jo laughed.

“Like a horse, in fact. I’m going to end up like the Michelin Man if I’m not careful. I’ve had the most dreadful morning sickness and I can’t keep anything down, before twelve. After that,” she said, “I eat everything I can get my hands on!”

“You’ll have some fruit cake, then, won’t you?”

“Definitely.”

Jo laid out the china cups and saucers her mother always insisted on using and settled herself at the kitchen table. Hot sweet tea and mouthfuls of soft, crumbling cake gave her an energy boost and she started her story.

The scent of perfectly cooked apple tart filled the kitchen by the time she was finished.

“What’s the plan for Shane’s birthday anyway?” she asked.

“For a start, he’d better not see you or he’ll know something’s up,” her mother said, carefully laying four perfectly golden tarts on the

“He’s gone to Killalla to look at some cows and he won’t be back until late. Mary’s coming over here with the boys and we’re going to finish the cooking.

We’ve got a hundred coming so that’s a lot of sausage rolls.”

“Don’t tell her, will you?” begged Jo.

“I don’t want to ruin Shane’s night. It’s his party.”

“It’s more Mary’s, the amount of work she’s done,” Laura said.

“She’s made enough cakes and quiches to feed the five thousand, so if nobody’s hungry we’ll all have full freezers for the next month. I’ve

said I’m going into Ballina shopping tomorrow so I won’t be over to them for lunch,” her mother added, carrying the tarts away to the tiny pantry.

“It was the only excuse I could come up with. Mary’s telling him she’s going with me, but we plan to make up the salads here and bring everything down to O’Reilly’s. She bought banners and balloons and everything, God bless her.”

- “Shane is going to get quite a shock,” commented Jo.

“Shock isn’t the word for it. Mary’s been telling him he shouldn’t let being forty bother him and that she’s not going to make a fuss. I told him I’d get him a nice pullover and some socks and bring the pair of them out to the pub tomorrow evening before I go to bingo. Poor Shane. He hasn’t a clue.”

They laughed together.

“He hates the thought of being forty, but I think he’s a little upset that Mary and he aren’t doing anything special tomorrow night. I can’t wait to see his face when he realises he’s been had,” Laura said with a grin.

“How are Tom and Karen?” asked Jo.

“It’s been hard for them now Karen’s back at work,” said Laura.

“Oisin is some handful and Anna, the girl who runs the creche, is driven demented with him. Karen hates leaving him in the morning and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she gives up work to mind him herself.”

Lord, thought Jo to herself when her mother had gone outside to make up the hens’ feed. If Karen couldn’t cope with six-month-old Oisin despite having the back-up of a husband, two unmarried sisters living round the corner and a helpful mother-in-law, how the hell was she going to manage totally on her own? She knew that her extrovert sister-in-law loved her job as a beautician. The idea that Karen, of all people, wasn’t able to combine motherhood and career gave Jo a headache thinking about it.

“I’m not giving up my job for any baby,” Karen had said defiantly when she was pregnant and an elderly neighbour commented that she’d better stop working before she began looking pregnant.

Mary had coped with two small children and her job as a nurse, Jo reminded herself. Mary had worked four days a week in the local hospital even when Ben was going through the terrible twos and made valiant efforts to demolish any room he was left alone in for more than three minutes.

When Mary arrived at half seven, honking her horn excitedly and sprinting into the house to see her sister-in-law, Jo was desperate to ask her how she coped with both a new baby and a job. But she couldn’t. She’d never really been interested in Karen and Mary’s pregnancies, but now she was fairly bursting to ask questions.

Instead, she rolled out layer after layer of flaky pastry, leaving her mother and the nimble-fingered Mary to handle the lumps of sticky sausage meat. Prince sat glued to Mary’s side, knowing she was soft-hearted enough to slip him the odd bit of sausage meat, something his mistress, who was watching his weight, never did.

“How’s that gorgeous man of yours?” asked Mary with the smile she hadn’t been able to take off her face all evening.

It would have been cruel to ruin Mary’s evening by telling her the truth. She was so excited at the thought of the surprise birthday party that she was running on pure adrenalin.

“He’s fine.” Jo didn’t dare look at her mother.

“How’s his back?” Mary inquired, her professional interest sparked by Richard’s constant lower-disc problem.

“Fine,” Jo answered tautly, wondering whether he was getting a soothing massage from that Sascha bitch. A nice kick in the backside, that’s the sort of treatment she’d like to give him now. She thought of all those evenings when she’d worn herself out gently rubbing massage oil into his aching muscles.

“He’d really want to watch his back, you know. He could have a lot of problems later in life,” Mary continued seriously, blithely unaware of the looks being passed between Laura and Jo.

“Tell us, love, what should we be wearing for autumn?”

asked Laura, as though she actually gave a hoot for fashion.

“Oh yes!” said Mary eagerly.

“I was going to wear my velvet dress tomorrow night, but if you think I should try something else, Jo?”

“What else have you got?” Jo asked, delighted to change the subject.

“I love that amber two-piece you wore for Oisin’s christening. What about that?”

“Do you think that would be nice? I’ve gone off it because my tummy’s sticking out,” sighed Mary.

“Get out of here! What tummy?” demanded Jo, thinking of her own expanding belly.

“Do I look all right?” begged Mary, adjusting her bra strap in the toilet mirror in O’Reilly’s the following evening.

“Shane hasn’t said I look nice at all.”

“He’s shell-shocked, Mary,” Jo pointed out practically. The poor man still hasn’t got over how you managed to set up this entire party without him hearing a whisper. He certainly hasn’t got his brain sorted out enough to tell you that you look beautiful. And you do,” she added.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mary tearfully, fiddling with her lustrous red curls.

“You look lovely Jo said firmly.

“Now come on out and get the dancing started. It’s like a wedding out there, everyone’s waiting for you two to start dancing!”

After several duty dances with old family friends, Jo was about to head outside for a breath of fresh air when a hand on her shoulder made her whirl around.

“Hello, Jo.” She’d have known that husky voice anywhere.

Steve Kavanagh hadn’t changed a bit.

He was still good-looking although he certainly hadn’t got any younger. The gleaming blue eyes that used to dazzle her now had a generous scattering of tiny lines around them.

“How are you?”

For a moment, Jo couldn’t think of anything to say. Her social smile deserted her and she just looked at him blankly.

What did you say to the first man who’d ever broken your heart?

Get a grip, Jo, she told herself sharply. What have you been doing for the last seventeen years, if it wasn’t learning how to get one up on this sneaky, two-timing pig?

“Wonderful, Steve, I’m wonderful,” she breathed in her best sexy voice.

“And how are you?”

Was it her imagination, or did his eyes light up at the tone of her voice?

“Fine. But you look fantastic,” he said, a hint of awe in his voice. Thank God she’d worn the Lainey Keogh dress that moulded her figure like a second skin.

“Thank you, Steve.” She smiled like a cat who’d just found a cat-flap in the cream bun factory door.

“Isn’t Miriam with you tonight?”

“Yes, she’s over by the bar We were on our way back after dinner and thought we’d drop in.”

Thought you’d crash the party because you can’t bear to miss anything, Jo thought nastily. There’s no way you and your horrible wife were invited to this party.

“It’s been a long time, Jo,” he said.

“Gosh, I suppose it has, she replied. Ten years at least, she added, knowing well it was fifteen.

“I think about you, about us, sometimes.” Steve stared at her, giving her the benefit of the lethal Kavanagh smile she’d never been able to resist when she was a teenager.

“Do you?” Jo smiled at him indulgently.

“Weren’t we the mad things, convinced we were in love at seventeen?” She laughed, as though she hadn’t spent months crying when she heard he was going to marry Miriam Timmons.

“Sometimes I see your picture in the magazine and wonder what it would have been like if we’d stayed together …”

“Goodness, Steve, you old romantic. We’d have killed each I other if we’d stayed together. I couldn’t imagine it!” it gave her a dart of pleasure to see him flinch as the barb struck home. Serves you right, you bastard, she thought. He wasn’t ageing well.

Funny, thought Jo, eyeing him up surreptitiously. She used to think he

dressed so well. Now she was a fashion editor and Steve Kavanagh was standing before her wearing a red polo shirt which didn’t go with his red cheeks and a pair of cream jeans which did nothing for his beer belly.

“Joanne, nice to see you.” Jo swivelled around to face her old-time enemy, the only person who’d ever called her by her full name since she’d insisted on being called Jo at the tomboyish age of ten.

“Miriam, what a surprise!” The chubby Miriam Timmons she’d known had grown up into a very thin woman, with a short helmet of frosted blonde hair and the sort of mahogany tan which would have cancer specialists shaking their heads in disbelief.

She was dressed beautifully, in a coffee-coloured suede skirt and a silk blouse, but the clothes hung on her bony frame like laundry on a clothes-horse. A cluster of gold bangles and gold necklaces rattled as she moved and she made sure that her ostentatious engagement diamond, in a setting as big as a knuckleduster, caught the light as she waved her hand.

“Well, Joanne, you’re looking well. Are you here on your own?” Miriam looked around the room pointedly as though trying to seek out Jo’s boyfriend. Jo would have bet a year’s salary that Miriam knew damn well she was here on her own and wanted to rub it in. Boyfriend couldn’t be bothered to come with you, huh? Jo could almost hear the words.

Miriam’s heavily made-up eyes dropped to Jo’s bare ring finger

Two can play at that game, thought Jo.

“I didn’t expect to see you two here,” she said.

“Mary didn’t mention inviting you.” Take that, you gate crashing cow, she thought venomously.

Miriam blinked nervously. She’d done that in French class when she tried to pretend she’d mislaid her grammar copybook.

“We, we were … just passing and thought we’d drop in!”

she faltered.

Score one to me. Jo smiled to herself.

“Steve was telling me you buy Style,” she added.

“It’s lovely to know that the people at home follow your career.

Although I should point out, Steve,” she said, ‘that the photo they’ve ‘ been using on my bylines recently is at least a year old. It was taken when I was at the Paris fashion shows last spring and it’s ancient!”

Miriam was simmering.

“Duty calls.” sighed Jo regretfully. She slipped an arm around Steve’s waist and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“So nice to see you, Steve,” she added warmly.

“Bye, Miriam.”

Jo turned and walked away, aware that two pairs of eyes were glued to her back. A little sexy sway wouldn’t go amiss, she decided. What wouldn’t she give to hear the conversation between Steve and Miriam

Maybe it had been plain old bitchy to vamp it up so much and kiss Steve goodbye, but she didn’t care. Miriam deserved it. And the wonderful thing was, she hadn’t felt a thing when she kissed Steve. Not a smidgen of regret at what might have been. She’d shed quite enough tears over him. Thank God she was cured. All she needed to do now was cure herself of Richard.

“It’s so wonderful to be back!” Rhona stood at the office door, a huge smile on her tanned face and bags hanging off her arms.

“Did you miss me, darlings?” she trilled, dropping the bags to hug Jo warmly.

“Sorry I didn’t ring last night, pet,” she whispered.

“We didn’t get in until after eleven and I didn’t want to interrupt your and baby’s beauty sleep. And how has this place been while I’ve been away?” she added more loudly for the benefit of the rest of the staff.

“Great,” said Jo.

“We had a ball and it looks as if you did too.”

“I want to make loads of money and retire to France.” Rhona retrieved her bag and dragged out a batch of tiny tissue paper wrapped packages.