Putting Out the Stars (18 page)

Laura wished again that she could talk about this whole thing with Breffni, but she just couldn’t. And the notion of looking for comfort and reassurance from Cecily was so ridiculous that
it would make Laura laugh – if she felt remotely like laughing.

The visit to Dr Goode’s surgery hadn’t been too bad. Thank goodness he hadn’t looked for a sample from Donal – she’d been dreading that. He asked them lots of
questions – their ages and occupations, what contraception they’d been using, Laura’s menstrual cycle, their sexual histories, any previous pregnancies, how often they made love,
whether they smoked, took drugs – and Laura did most of the talking for both of them. Conscious of Donal sitting beside her. Listening to her discussing the most intimate details of their
life together with a man Donal had just met for the first time.

Laura had known Dr Goode for over twenty years, since he’d taken over when their old family doctor had retired – but Donal had a different doctor, had never had occasion to meet Dr
Goode till today. He’d been perfectly polite, in a detached kind of way, when Laura had introduced them; and Dr Goode couldn’t have been more sensitive, directing most of his questions
at Laura, as though he sensed Donal’s silent unease.

They came away with an appointment to see a gynaecologist in a week’s time for the first of the tests. Dr Goode prepared them gently for a long wait – some tests, like the semen
analysis, would probably have to be done more than once, at intervals of one month – and Laura would be asked to keep a temperature chart for a few months, to make sure she was ovulating. Any
more complicated procedures would wait till after that.

Thank goodness he didn’t talk about nature taking its course, or everything happening in its own good time. He stuck to practicalities – and he took his time with them; they must
have been in with him for nearly three quarters of an hour, even though Laura had counted five people in the waiting room before they went in. When they were leaving, Dr Goode shook hands with both
of them.

‘Good luck; I hope it works out for you both.’

Laura had wanted to hug him, but that would have been silly. You didn’t hug your doctor – even if he was the one you were pinning all your hopes on.

On the way home, she stopped the car outside their local and turned to Donal.

‘Is the sun over the yardarm yet?’

He looked over at her. ‘Good idea.’

She drank a hot port – it was the first really chilly day, with a promise of winter in the wind that whipped around them – and Donal had a pint. Their conversation was oddly
stilted.

‘How’s that wardrobe job coming on?’

‘Finished a few days ago, thank goodness. I started the Carr stuff yesterday.’ A cleaning contractor wanted to update his company image; he’d asked Laura to work with a writer
and put together a range of new brochures and leaflets.

‘Right.’ Donal nodded into his pint, and Laura suspected that if she asked him what she’d just said, he wouldn’t have been able to tell her. She cast around for something
to talk about; they couldn’t sit there in silence.

‘Andrew rang this morning, some computer virus that they got in all the machines at work. He said I wasn’t to open any e-mails from some crowd.’

Donal smiled briefly. ‘It’s well for him – sitting reading e-mails all day.’

She made a face at him. ‘Don’t start. It was good of him to warn me. I’d open any old thing that came, just in case it was interesting.’

And they managed to pass the next fifteen minutes not talking about babies and infertility and what might happen when they went to the gynaecologist.

‘Post for you.’

The receptionist handed him a plain white envelope with his name and work address handwritten on it.

His stomach flipped. ‘Thanks, Frances.’ He hoped to God he looked normal as he slipped it into his jacket pocket. As if it wasn’t something that needed his immediate
attention.

It was her. He knew it was her. He walked casually to the nearest toilet and locked himself in, and pulled out the envelope and tore it open.

It was a single folded sheet; the writing was hasty. No greeting, no signature, just three short sentences:

His eyes scanned it rapidly, then he read it carefully again, twice.

It’s not that I don’t want to.

His heart soared:
It’s not that I don’t want to.
He folded the sheet carefully and replaced it in between the ragged edges of the envelope, and put it back into his
pocket.

She felt the same as he did:
It’s not that I don’t want to.
All that day his mind refused to concentrate; but somehow he managed to get through the work he needed to do.

It’s not that I don’t want to.
Really, exactly the same as
I want to.

Ruth picked up a scarf and stroked it thoughtfully. It was deep red and very soft, and terribly expensive – nothing in Brown Thomas was exactly cheap – but they
needed to get Cecily something really special for Christmas, to thank her for letting them stay with her for so long; almost four months at this stage.

Two months the builder had promised them in July – Halloween at the very latest – and in their innocence, they’d believed him. Ruth had imagined them unpacking and settling in,
with plenty of time for her to get fixed up with a job by Christmas. And now here they were, Christmas just around the corner, and no guarantee that they wouldn’t still be living with Cecily
at the end of the year.

Ruth’s heart sank as she imagined Christmas dinner in her mother-in-law’s elegant house – because how could they possibly leave her alone and go to Ruth’s family for the
holiday? And Laura wouldn’t even be there; she’d told Ruth that she and Donal always did their own thing on Christmas Day, apart from a brief visit to Cecily in the morning
‘– brief by mutual consent, believe me –’ so it would be just the three of them sitting down to dinner. Ruth, Andrew and Cecily. Perfectly cooked turkey, all the appropriate
trimmings, the right wines with every course, beautifully wrapped gifts – and no fun at all.

No giggling charades, no tins of Quality Street and boxes of Black Magic passed around until everyone felt sick. No slouching in front of the telly in your dressing gown, drinking Buck’s
Fizz made with Jacob’s Creek sparkling wine and watching
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
and
It’s a Wonderful Life
, or playing a very noisy game of Trivial
Pursuit. Thinking of all the Christmases with her family in Dublin, Ruth felt a physical stab of homesickness.

She put the scarf back on the shelf; she’d need to check with Andrew before she bought it, in case he had something else in mind. Or maybe Cecily didn’t like red; Ruth couldn’t
remember if she’d ever seen it on her. As she turned towards the door, she caught sight of a familiar face from the other night.

She walked over, beaming; he was just the tonic she needed right now.

‘Hello, Frank. Doing some Christmas shopping?’

His face lit up as he put his wallet back into his pocket and took the carrier bag from the assistant. ‘Ruth, how lovely. Yes, I’ve just got some gloves for Dorothy; she and Liam
have been so good to me since I moved here. And you?’ He glanced down at her empty hands. ‘Just looking?’

‘Yes, I’m terrible at making decisions. I’ll have to enlist Andrew’s help.’

‘Well, I’m free for the next hour or two, if I’m any good to you.’

She shook her head, smiling. ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t subject you to that . . . but –’ suddenly the last thing she wanted to do was go home ‘– would you like to go
and get a coffee somewhere?’ It would pass an hour if they drew it out, and Frank would be nice easy company.

He beamed again. ‘Lovely. There’s a place just around the corner.’

When they were seated, he planted his palms on the table in front of him. ‘Well . . . how’s everything with you, my dear?’

And Ruth took one look at his kind, open face and burst into tears.

She couldn’t believe it, but there it was, sitting on the doormat. Brazen as you like. She knew it was from him, had to be from him. How dared he? She had a good mind to
put it straight into the bin: what if the wrong person had picked it up? She stood looking down at the envelope for a few seconds, frowning.

But what if he was just apologising for the whole business? Maybe he’d come to his senses, and realised what madness it would be, even to think of doing anything . . . She’d never
know if she just threw it away. And really, it was her own fault, for sending him that ridiculous note. As soon as it was posted, she’d instantly regretted it. What on earth had possessed
her? She should have just done nothing, let it go away quietly. She slid her finger under the flap and lifted it open.

Just a single sheet, like the one she’d sent him. Her eyes darted rapidly over the words:

He’d underlined ‘long’. She put a hand to her mouth.
I long for you.
She closed her eyes and saw his face, imagined his mouth –
no.
She opened her eyes
and quickly tore the letter in half, then screwed it into a ball and shoved it deep into the pocket of her jeans. She’d throw it into the first litter-bin she passed when she went out.

She heard a noise from the kitchen and walked towards it.

So it had begun.

Laura sat on the couch and looked at the blank TV screen. Donal had gone to meet some pals for a drink – he’d wanted her to go, but she’d pleaded a heavy workload.

‘I need to clear the decks a bit for next week.’ She’d heard yesterday that she’d got the schoolbooks job – not as big as she’d first imagined, but a nice
steady little earner all the same for the next few months. She was expecting the first assignment on Monday.

In a way, she was glad at the prospect of keeping busy for the foreseeable future; it might make the time pass by less unbearably slowly.

Because today they’d begun what Laura knew was going to be a long, agonising wait. At least three months before they’d have any sort of definite information to work with, according
to Dr Sloan, the gynaecologist.