The Heartbreak Cafe (26 page)

‘
Oh don’t mind that; I knocked it off the counter as I was
doing the washing up,’ Emer stuttered making Jess even more
suspicious. Despite her friend’s protests something was seriously
wrong here. But she wasn’t going to push her to talk about it – if
Emer wanted to reach out, she would do it in her own
time.

Emer
quickly cleaned up the mess and kept up a steady chatter as she
readied herself with making a pot of tea.

‘
So, how have you been?’ she asked. ‘Any news?’

‘
Oh fine, fine. I finally finished that blasted G-Force
project, which I was really glad about, I can tell you …’ Jess
said, happy to talk to someone who understood her work.

‘
No I mean, any news?’ Emer smiled, raising an eyebrow, and
Jess reddened realising what she was getting at.

‘
Oh nothing yet, but here’s hoping!’ she grinned, raising
crossed fingers into the air.

‘
I’m sure it won’t take too much longer. Especially when you’re
so dedicated to the idea.’

Jess
wondered privately how long it would take when she was the only one
dedicated to this idea but she couldn’t share this with
Emer.

‘
I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see,’ she said
diplomatically, this time hoping her friend wouldn’t push the
subject.

‘
That’s the right attitude. At least you’re not like I was when
we started. I was like a women possessed! I don’t know how poor
Dave put up with me, but of course when Amy arrived, it was all
worth it.’

‘
I can imagine.’

But
considering the argument she’d heard not five minutes before, Jess
wondered if this were actually true.

Later
that same evening, Jess sat in front of the TV with a glass of
wine, feeling dejected. Despite that awkward situation with Dave,
she and Emer had had a great day in Lakeview, having lots of fun
with Amy, and discussing how much Jess’s life would change once she
had one of her own.

‘
You won’t be able to remember what you did with your time,’
Emer assured her, but Jess figured she’d remember all right, as
much of her time was spent alone in this house while Brian was
either working late or abroad.

Yet
another good reason for starting a family; she’d be so busy with
their child, it might help chase away the loneliness that she’d
been feeling lately.

Jess
realised she was slightly tipsy as she grabbed the TV remote and
flicked through the TV stations. She channel-hopped for a while,
unable to find anything of interest, until finally she stopped at
one those True Lives channels that was showing a programme called:
My Surprise Baby. It was a documentary about women who gave birth
when not having the foggiest idea they were pregnant beforehand.
She watched the show; entranced by the notion that a woman could go
an entire nine months without knowing she was knocked
up.

How could
you not know? Jess thought to herself, feeling slightly put-out
that these women could achieve so easily what she herself
wanted.

Then she
heard the front door open and immediately changed the
channel.

Brian
walked in, cheerful and smiling. ‘Hello love,’ he said popping his
head around the living room door. ‘What are you doing sitting there
in the dark?’

‘
Hey,’ Jess managed a smile. ‘I was watching TV, but there’s
nothing on.’

‘
There never is,’ Brian wasn’t a big fan of television, and
Jess always joked that this was because he could never sit still
long enough. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘
Yes, I had something earlier. You?’

Brian
patted his stomach. ‘Just back from a very long lunch at my
favourite restaurant.’ He grinned satisfactorily. ‘So I won’t be
hungry for a while.’

‘
You were at L’Ecrivain again?’ Although she shouldn’t have
been surprised. The Travel Company always liked to wine and dine
their clients in style.

‘
Yep – and we managed to get that Murray account situation
resolved over a nice bottle of Sancerre. So a good day all round
I’d say. How was yours? Did you enjoy your day off?’

‘
It was great.’

‘
Buy anything nice?’

Jess
stared at him. Why did he automatically assume she would use her
day off to go shopping? Maybe because that was what she usually
did? she reminded herself quickly. More often than not she’d spend
the day in town, getting her makeup done at BTs before dropping a
fortune on shoes and beauty products. She really was a silly,
one-dimensional person, and Jess was only sorry it had taken her so
long to realise it.

‘
I didn’t go shopping Brian, I spent the afternoon at
Emer’s.’

Her
husband raised an eyebrow. ‘Again?’

‘
Yes again – why?’

‘
It’s just that you seem to be spending all your free time in
Lakeview lately. You’ll be talking about us moving down there
next.’ The words sounded jokey, but Jess knew the sentiment behind
them wasn’t.

‘
Well maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea. It’s a nice
place, very friendly and peaceful.’

‘
Peaceful?’ he chortled derisively. ‘Since when did you like
peaceful?’

Jess
folded her arms across her chest. ‘Maybe since I decided that it’s
time for you and I to grow up and start behaving like
adults.’

Brian
sighed. ‘Oh I get it. Here we go again.’

‘
Yes, here we go again. Although it seems there is no ‘we’
these days. It’s all about you and what you want.’

‘
For crying out loud Jess….’ Brian loosened his tie. ‘Do we
need to do this now? I’ve just got home from a very hard day and –
‘

‘
A hard day wining and dining in a Michelin star restaurant?
Wow, sounds tough.’ Jess couldn’t believe how bitter she was
sounding but she couldn’t help it. She felt bitter and frustrated
and confused and a whole lot of other emotions that were alien to
her. ‘My heart goes out to you.’

‘
What the hell is wrong with you, Jess?’ Brian said, sounding
hurt. ‘OK, so it might have been a nice restaurant but trying to
hold onto clients these days sure isn’t fun. You know the company’s
been struggling lately so why are you laying this on me
now?’

‘
You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s just that … well, it seems that
for us, life is all about work, and has been for years.’

‘
You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Brian sighed heavily and rolled
his eyes. ‘I really can’t believe you want to start this whole baby
thing up again.’

‘
Start it up again? Brian, I haven’t been able to start it up
at all, because you won’t even talk about it. You won’t even let
the subject be open for discussion.’

His mouth
pursed. ‘I thought I told you that we would talk about it when you
give up the ridiculous notion of needing a baby to keep up with
your friends. You’re a grown woman Jess, so why are you behaving
like some high-school teenager?’

‘
Exactly, I am a grown woman – well grown actually and soon to
be over the hill.’

‘
This is unbelievable….’

‘
What is unbelievable Brian? The notion that I’m getting older,
or that I’m growing up?’

‘
Don’t talk nonsense, everything was fine before all this
rubbish with Emer and Deirdre started, and now suddenly our life is
pointless and immature! What the hell is wrong with you,
love?’

‘
What’s wrong with me? Actually, I think we need to ask what’s
wrong with you!’

‘
Oh, I can assure you I am perfectly sane. You won’t come home
to find me sulking and meeting you at the door with crazy
talk.’

‘
Crazy talk? What’s so crazy about wanting a baby,
Brian?’

‘
Absolutely nothing, when you want one for the right reasons;
however, there is something totally wrong with it, when you only
want one to keep up with your friends who have turned
suburban.’

She
decided to ignore this, preferring instead to turn the spotlight on
him. ‘No, don’t pretend to think that this has anything to do with
me, when it has everything to do with you. You’re a
commitment-phobe Brian.’

He looked
gobsmacked. ‘Commitment-phobe? In the middle of all this craziness
have you also somehow forgotten I’m married to you?’

But Jess
wouldn’t hear of it. ‘It’s true; you’re not willing to commit to
fatherhood because you’re too busy travelling the world and going
to fancy restaurants and cocktail parties, and you’re completely
focused on your career –’

‘
Jess are you talking about me or yourself? Because travelling
the world and going to restaurants and cocktail parties and focused
on a career sounds a hell of a lot like you too. So if those things
make me shallow, what do they make you?’

Jess
knocked back the remainder of her wine in one go. ‘I’m a woman who
wants a child but has a husband who is too selfish to give her
one,’ she said self-righteously.

Brian
stared at her as if unsure what to say or do next. ‘Actually, I
think you’re drunk and I’m already tired of this
subject.’

‘
Yes yes, always tired … always running away.’

‘
Spare me the raving shrew act Jess, and please just go to
bed.’

With that
Brian walked out of the room, and Jess sat there, staring into her
empty wineglass. Her selfish? How could he say that when she was
the one willing to commit everything to the idea of starting a
family?

Her head
was spinning as she slowly got up off the couch and went upstairs
to the bedroom. Well, maybe he was right about one thing; she was a
little tipsy.

Should
she go into the kitchen and apologise to him? No, she thought
determinedly; let him apologise to her. She had nothing to be sorry
about. After all, he was the one depriving her; it wasn’t the other
way around.

Eventually, she collapsed into bed and fell into a fitful
sleep and a night full of dreams in which she continued a heated
argument with Brian.

The
dreams were so intense and seemed so real that Jess woke up the
following morning still completely exhausted. Her head pounded with
a ferocious wine headache and she felt groggy and
hungover.

She sat
up slowly in the bed, realising that Brian was already gone. Or had
he slept here at all?

Snippets
of last night’s conversation came rushing back, and she felt
terrible.

In all
honesty, she wouldn’t blame him if he hadn’t come up to bed last
night; she had behaved like a nagging old shrew and Brian never
reacted well to that – what man did? As it was they rarely argued,
and had always had a blissful and untroubled marriage up to
now.

But there
was no denying that a rift was starting to develop between them.
She was absolutely convinced she wanted a baby, yet Brian seemed
equally convinced he didn’t. Or more to the point, convinced that
her reasoning was based only on some random fixation.

A sliver
of unease surged through her; what if they couldn’t resolve
this?

If Brian
couldn’t come round to her point of view, and wouldn’t agree to
even discuss having children, what would that mean for them as a
couple?

It would
mean that they would be forever on the outside looking in at their
friends sharing the different happy stages of family life;
christenings, birthday parties, even college graduations. It would
mean that they would of course end up losing touch with those
friends, as soon they would have practically nothing in
common.

And then
as the years went by she and Brian would continue to work, go on
holidays, eat out in nice places and wear nice clothes, but then
what?

How long
could they realistically continue to do the same things without
getting bored, not only of life, but of one another?

Jess felt
a shudder as she imagined her future, and from this vantage point,
it looked very, very lonely.

The bus
pulled up outside Clery’s on O’Connell Street and Nina got out. As
she did, she eyed the other passengers cautiously, hoping that none
of them would recognise her or worse, start chatting about where
she was going. She could have taken the commuter train from
Lakeview either, but it was much more expensive and money was
tight. Not to mention that the bus took her right where she wanted
to go.

Still she
didn’t want anyone from Lakeview to know that she’d come to Dublin
today to pick up maternity wear.

As the
weeks went on, it had become harder and harder to fit into her old
clothes – or worse to hide her bump beneath them, and it had got
the stage where she knew she had no choice but to get something
more suitable.

She
couldn’t do this in the village of course; despite the lovely
boutiques, someone would be sure to ask questions and Nina still
wasn’t ready to let the whole world know her business.

As it was
she had been keeping a low profile since the blow up with her
father. She tried to avoid meeting him and usually tried to leave
or return to the house during times when she knew he would be out
and about. She knew she was being a coward about it, but she still
felt guilty about what she had said to him.