A Perfect Match (2 page)

‘Who were you on to? I’ve been trying to get through for the past ten minutes.’

‘The adoption people,’ I said, without thinking.

‘What?’

I wanted to bite my tongue in half. How on earth could I have been so casual? Telling my mother that we were going to adopt a baby required build up. It should have started with lots of subtle hints about the wonders of adoption. Throw in a few stories about people I knew she’d heard of who had successfully adopted – Mum loved Mia Farrow and thought her multiple adoptions were wonderful. She was always saying how it was the Irish blood in Mia (her mother was the famous Irish actress Maureen O’Sullivan) that made Mia such a good and charitable person. After a series of long discussions about Mia’s successful adoptions, I should then have just hinted that we were thinking of going down that route ourselves. Never, but never should I have pounced the news on her as I had just done. And, let’s face it, I had thirty-five years’ practice – well, I only started talking at three, but you get the idea – so it was a very stupid mistake on my part.

‘Adoption people? What on earth are you at, Emma? Lord save us, you’ve only been trying for a family for a short while, what in God’s name are you rushing into that for? I’d say they laughed you out of the place.’

‘No, actually they didn’t. They’re sending me out the application forms today and I’ve been trying to get pregnant for two years which is not a short time. It feels like an eternity to me.’

What the hell, I had landed myself in it now, I might as well ram the point home.

‘Pffff, eternity my eye. You young ones expect everything to happen instantly. Life’s not like that. Application forms? I never heard the like. It takes time to get pregnant. Rushing out and adopting the first child that comes along is foolish. What does James think of all this madness?’

‘He is one hundred per cent behind me. He thinks it’s fantastic, in fact it was his idea,’ I lied.

My mother thought James was the bee’s knees and the cat’s pyjamas. He could do no wrong in her eyes. The fact that I had managed to marry someone who was normal, stable, extremely attractive and successful had thrown her completely. You couldn’t blame her really because before James there had been a string of abnormal, unstable, unattractive losers. The icing on the cake was the fact that James was English – she seemed to think I’d married a young David Niven. The fact that James looked and acted nothing like the actor was irrelevant. He sounded a bit like him and that was good enough for Mum. She loved telling all her Bridge cronies about her wonderful ‘English’ son-in-law. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my mother, but sometimes I wished she worked. Her three children were all grown up now and she had too much time on her hands. My younger brother Sean had been living in London for over ten years and my sister Babs – my parents’ afterthought – was now a bolshie twenty-three-year-old student who ignored her. So Mum’s spare time was spent focusing a lot on me, my marriage, my attempts to get pregnant and now the adoption.

‘I somehow doubt that James had anything to do with this hair-brained scheme to adopt. You should …’

‘So, Mum, what did you call for?’ I said as firmly as I could without being short.

‘Well, I was just railing to tell you about Frances Moran.’

‘Who?’

‘You know Frances well – you used to play together when you were kids.’

‘I have no idea who she is.’

‘Oh, for goodness sake, you used to pal around with her and sure isn’t her brother the managing director of that mobile phone company … what’s this his name is? Greg … no … Gary … no … Gerry, is it?’

‘I’ve no idea who you’re talking about.’

‘Well, anyway, didn’t Frances go to Turkey on her holidays and get engaged to a waiter out there. Her poor mother is beside herself.’

‘Well, if she’s happy what’s so terrible about it?’

‘Happy? With a Turkish waiter she met on a week’s package holiday? Sure, everyone knows he’s only marrying her to get a visa to come over here.’

‘Maybe it’s true love,’ I said, defending my childhood pal who I had no recollection of ever meeting.

‘Come on now, Emma, don’t be ridiculous. Frances was always a bit wild. I remember when you used to …oh, actually, now that I think of it, it wasn’t you she was pally with at all, it was Sean. I better go and ring him to fill him in. OK, bye.’

‘Bye,’ I said into the empty receiver.

When James came home later that evening I told him about the adoption people being rude and not having any local babies and having to adopt abroad …

‘I hate to say I told you so,’ he said, saying it anyway, ‘but I did warn you that this wouldn’t be easy.’

‘I don’t understand why it’s so hard. I mean- Mum’s school friend saw a documentary one time about the orphanages in Romania and the next day she hopped on a plane. A week later, she came back with a kid under each arm. They were delighted to let the children go.’

‘First of all, I doubt very much it happened quite like that and, second of all, that was ten years ago, times have changed.’

James is one of those guys who will never let you get away with exaggerating. I like to exaggerate; I like to say it took me three hours to get home when it actually only took an hour and ten minutes. I think it makes for a better story. James, on the other hand, likes facts to remain facts and not turn into fiction. When he pulled other people up on it, I thought it was smart and funny, when he did it to me I wanted to poke his eyes out.

‘That is how it happened actually. I’ve seen pictures of her carrying the two babies out of the orphanage. She was carrying her little girl in her arms and holding the little boy’s hand. They looked as if they were a normal family – except for the fact that the kids look nothing like her. Anyway, the point is, we’ll have to go abroad to adopt because there are no Irish babies.’

‘I expected that. I read an article recently which said that something like 80 per cent of all adopted children in Western Europe are foreign.’

‘Well, next time don’t keep the statistics to yourself, share them with me so I don’t go making a fool of myself. So what do you think?’

‘About having ling Su Wong as a daughter? I dunno, but if she looks like Lucy Liu from
Charlie’s Angels,
I’m OK with it,’ he said, finding himself very entertaining.

2

A week later I called over to Lucy’s flat. Lucy is my best friend. We were in school and college together and she is an all round fab person. Until last year she was single and beginning to get a bit angry about it, but then I set her up with Donal – the captain of James’s rugby team. Donal is a bit rough around the edges – there is a touch of the caveman about him – but underneath it all he is a really good guy. After a rocky start they fell madly in love and have now decided to move in together.

I arrived at Lucy’s apartment which looked as if a bomb had hit it. For someone who was normally so organized both in work – she had one of those ball-breaking management consultant-type jobs – and at home, Lucy was looking unusually frazzled. I sat down on her bed and watched her sift through her belongings.

‘I just don’t know what to bring and what to leave behind. What happens when you move in? Where do I put my Tampax? Do we have sex every night? Do I need to wear hot underwear every day? Help, Emma,’ said Lucy, as she sifted through her gorgeous La Perla underwear. Looking good was not going to be a problem for Lucy, I thought, as I picked up a beautiful midnight-blue lace bra. Apart from her gorgeous underwear, she was tall, slim and good looking with long thick black hair. Lucky Donal.

I on the other hand was five foot four, ginger and a little chunky around the hip area. I’m not saying I didn’t scrub up well, but first thing in the morning I was not a pretty sight. Poor old James was subjected to my M&S cotton underwear and was lucky if the colours matched. As for suspenders, I hadn’t worn them since the first time we had sex to conceive – as opposed to ‘just for the sake of it’ sex. Maybe I should get new underwear. It couldn’t be pleasant to have to look at my big white ass in sexless cotton knickers. I’d have to make more of an effort. I’d look up the Ann Summers’ website when I got home and order some gear. Spice things up a bit. No sex toys or anything, just some hot lingerie to detract from my flabby thighs.

‘Relax, it’ll all be fine. You’ll just find your own rhythm. And no, you don’t have to wear suspender belts every day. Well, I don’t anyway.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ said Lucy. ‘Seeing someone twice a week is manageable. You get your hair blow-dried, you put on your best underwear and it’s all great. But on a daily basis it’d be hard to keep up. What about sex though? On the one hand I’m worried he’ll be gagging for it 24/7 and on the other I’m worried he won’t want it at all. I keep reading about couples who move in together and their sex life dies. They go from not being able to keep their hands off each other to only having sex once every few weeks.’

‘To be honest, Lucy, my sex life has been so regimented over the last two years I can’t remember what we were like before that. Maybe you should ask Jess?’

Lucy looked at me and raised her eyebrows. We giggled. I had forgotten about the night Jess confessed to not having had sex for eight months after the birth of her first child. Jess was our other best friend. She was married with two children and was finding it hard going. The good news was that she had got back to having sex only three months after her second child was born.

‘I’m going to miss this apartment, it’s been a real haven for me,’ said Lucy, looking around her lovely cream and beige apartment. ‘Donal’s place is a bit smelly and bare. It’s a real bachelor pad.’

‘Just think of all the fun you’ll have doing it up and making your mark,’ I said, doing my best Pollyanna impression.

‘God, Emma, I’m really scared,’ admitted Lucy, in a rare display of vulnerability that made my heart melt. “What if it doesn’t work out and I end up on my own again?’

‘Hey,’ I said, giving her a hug, ‘you’re going to be fine. Donal worships the ground you walk on. I’ve never seen you this happy with a guy. You’re made for each other. It’ll be fine.’

‘Yeah, but it’s not just the two of us, is it?’ said Lucy, referring to Donal’s niece Annie. Five years ago when Annie was ten, her parents – Donal’s sister Paula and her husband Tom – were killed in a car crash. Paula had named Donal as legal guardian to Annie. So Donal had moved back to Ireland from the UK, where he was playing rugby professionally, to look after his niece. She was in boarding school now and only got out one weekend in six, but little orphan Annie had reacted very badly when Donal told her that Lucy was moving in. She clearly didn’t want another woman taking Donal away from her, so Lucy was understandably nervous about dealing with a fifteen-year-old who hated her.

‘Don’t worry about Annie, she’ll come around. She obviously just has abandonment issues being an orphan and all that. She’ll love you when she gets to know you. Speaking of adoption, I called the Health Board and they told me I have to go overseas to get a baby, so we could end up with the united colours of Benetton!’

‘What happened to all the Irish babies?’

‘There are none. It’s weird actually that you will be kind of adopting Annie – well, being lumped with her – at the same time that I’m trying to adopt a baby.’

‘God, that is a bit weird. You can come over and practise your parenting skills on Annie if you like, she’s out in three weeks. Come on, I better get all my stuff moved in before she has a chance to change Donal’s mind.’

A few days later Lucy was unpacking her boxes in Donal’s house when he strolled into the bathroom and saw his cupboard – the one that used to hold a bar of soap and a toothbrush – crammed full of products.

‘What’s all this?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it’s just stuff for my hair. I’ll need to buy a new cabinet for my other products, there’s no room in here.’

‘Hair products?’ said Donal, gazing down at the numerous bottles cluttering up his sink. He picked one up:
‘Kerastase Aqua-Oleum, Nang-nutrition – nourishing recharge …
What the hell does that mean? Is it in Chinese?
Frizz-ease,
mirror image heat-activated laminator,
’ he read. ‘Laminator! For your hair? Whatever happened to shampoo? Ah, Jesus, Lucy, you’ve got to be kidding me. Is there one product for each hair on your head?’

‘Donal, it takes time, energy, money and good products for a girl’s hair to look good, so buzz off and leave me to it.’

Donal shook his head and walked into his bedroom. Lucy heard a roar.

‘What the hell?’

She followed him in and saw him staring at his wardrobe which was now filled with her shoes – just the fifty pairs.

‘How in God’s name could anyone in their right mind need all these shoes. You have – one, two, three … eight pairs of black boots in here.’

‘They’re all totally different,’ said Lucy.

‘Fifteen pairs of little strappy shoes! We live in Ireland, not Barbados.’

‘I wear my Jimmy Choos every Saturday night. I’ll let you in on a little secret – women suffer to look good.’

‘Jimmy what?’ asked Donal.

‘Choo, he makes amazing shoes.’

‘What’s the story with all the Chinese stuff? Hair products and now shoemakers. Whatever happened to Head and Shoulders and Clarks shoes?’

‘Some of us actually moved out of the seventies. It’s really quite liberating. You should try it.’

‘All the Chinese wear is those old flip flops, so why would I want them to make my shoes? Hey,’ said Donal, staring at the wall, ‘where’s my poster gone?’

‘If you are referring to that tacky picture of Pamela Anderson in a thong, it’s in the bin.’

‘What? I love that picture. It’s good for the soul to wake up to a beautiful sight every day. I open my eyes in the morning and there she is winking at me. It’s fantastic. Where is she till I put her back up?’

‘You’re joking?’ said Lucy, looking appalled. ‘If you think that I’m going to have those plastic boobs staring down at me every morning, you’ve got another think coming.’

‘They may be plastic, but they look fantastic. Seeing Pammie helps me get motivated in the morning. She gets me going. Right, where’s the poster?’