The Stone House (29 page)

That night Derry stayed until the early hours of the morning, both of them talking non-stop, thrashing out their opinions on shared parenthood, and access. Kate felt comforted by Derry's assurances to her that he would be a good father and would help with raising their child.

‘I promise to be there for you both, Kate. I'm not some kind of heel who's going to run off and leave you. Honest I'm not.'

She sensed that with little encouragement on her behalf Derry would have stayed the night but knew she had to get things clear in her mind. Her impetuosity had landed her in this situation, but now with a baby to think of she had to take things slower, be more practical and put notions of sexual attraction and lust behind her! Derry gently kissed her at 3 a.m. as he was finally leaving, telling her she looked even more beautiful than ever. She longed for them to make love again and swore at herself for being so prudish as she snuggled up in bed alone.

Minnie had yelled and screamed when she'd heard the news.

‘Congratulations! You'll be a great mother!'

Kate hung onto the phone and gave her blow-by-blow details of finding out and Derry's reaction to fatherhood.

‘Are you and this Derry guy getting married?'

‘Hey Min! Don't you know having a baby doesn't mean you have to get married? I'm fine the way I am.'

‘Then I'm delighted for you. What does Maeve think about having another grandchild?'

‘I haven't told her yet,' she explained. ‘I don't want to upset her, so soon after Dad.'

‘Don't be surprised but your mother might be pleased,' hinted her best friend. ‘My mother has me demented looking for a grandchild!'

In work she informed the personnel department of her need for maternity leave and for them to organize cover for while she was out. Nesta, the girl from the department, congratulated her warmly and went into raptures about her own year-old baby who was ensconced safely below in the company crèche. But Bill had taken it badly, refusing to believe that it was true.

‘How will you manage?' he asked. Kate simply raised her eyebrow at him, reminding him he was stepping on dangerous equality territory.

‘I'll work hard as I always do and look after my family, like lots of women do!'

Ignoring the gossip that went around the departments, Kate concentrated on keeping her work up to date.

She had excellent health cover and booked in with a forty-year-old female obstetrician who had worked right
through her own pregnancies and declared her to be very fit but a little anaemic.

‘Liver, steak and plenty of spinach and greens and a bottle of these,' she said, prescribing folic acid tablets.

Minnie had gone shopping with her helping her to choose two very expensive work suits in the French maternity shop in South Anne Street and comfy underwear in Dunne's Stores.

‘Do you think I'm mad?' Kate asked her.

‘Mad having the baby? No. There's Colm and I married a whole year and like two rabbits and not a sign of a bambino and you go and do it one night and bingo!'

‘Minnie!'

‘This baby is going to be the cutest in the world and Auntie Minnie's going to spoil it rotten.'

‘What happens if I can't cope, can't manage work and a new baby and . . .?'

‘Will you stop, Kate. You are one of the most capable, organized people I know on the planet. We are talking about one small baby here, not a frigging elephant.'

Kate burst out laughing.

‘And knowing you, you could probably rear an elephant too if you had to.'

Derry and Kate had argued about telling her mother, Kate deciding to go down home by herself for the weekend.

‘I'm not having her think that the father of the child is some fly-by-night guy, who doesn't give a shit,' he protested. ‘Let me drive you down.'

‘No,' she'd insisted. ‘I'm going on my own but don't worry, I'll tell her you're supportive.'

Four days later she'd driven down to Rossmore. As always, she was welcomed with open arms and trailed around admiring the garden and her mother's hard work in the beds and vegetable patch.

Maeve Dillon fussed over her and, stuffing her with pancakes and scones and strawberries and cream, asked her all about the office and her career. Kate for once was lost for words.

‘Mum, at this rate I'll burst,' she joked, ‘and I can't afford to put on too much weight. Listen sit down, I've something important to tell you.'

Her mother had sat quietly as Kate told her about the new grandchild she was carrying which was due in early March.

‘I should gave guessed,' she joked. ‘You look all aglow!'

She could see her mother waiting for the next announcement, about a partner, a lover, a boyfriend, a future son-in-law, becoming confused and awkward about the situation when she realized that Kate would be a single parent.

‘And what will you do about the baby?'

‘Mum. I'm keeping the baby.'

‘I'm glad, pet,' she said, relief in her eyes.

‘I'm healthy and well and single, earning enough to keep us both. The father will also be supportive and involved.'

‘Oh Kate, I'm so delighted for you,' smiled her mother, hugging her. ‘And you know I'll do anything I can to help.'

Sitting in the cosy warmth of the kitchen, Maeve confided about the shock of her own first pregnancy.

‘I was scared out of my wits! Your grandfather was furious, as in those days he couldn't stand Frank, didn't think he was half good enough for me.'

‘Mammy, I don't believe you!'

‘Poor old Eamonn had to marry us. I think it was the first marriage ceremony he performed, not long after his ordination. We hadn't a penny then and ended up having to move in here with your grandfather. He looked after us and we ended up taking care of him!'

Kate relaxed listening to her mother, looking forward to the idea of sharing her life with a child.

The weekend passed far too quickly, with her mother insisting on treating her to dinner in the Sandbank. Aunt Vonnie and Uncle Joe decided to join them. Glancing across the table at Kate engrossed in conversation with Vonnie, Maeve Dillon found herself thinking of Frank and how he would have taken Kate's news and of her youngest daughter Romy, lost and afraid, who'd panicked and chosen to run away.

‘Congratulations, Kate dear!' Her aunt smiled, toasting her. ‘Babies are always to be celebrated. And we all know you will make a wonderful mother.'

AS THE WEEKS
passed, Kate began to adjust to her condition, to the office porter holding the door for her, the post boy keeping her supplied with fizzy Ballygowan water, and Bill not blowing a gasket when one day she actually dozed off in the middle of a meeting and woke up to find herself covered in a throw and with the blinds drawn.

Derry phoned her once or twice a week and their conversations often went on for hours. They went for healthy walks every few weeks and he had accompanied her to the hospital for her ultrasound scan, which made her feel like a character in a Richard Curtis film. But otherwise she saw very little of him for he travelled a lot and was busy designing and supervising the building of a catamaran in Belfast. Kate in turn was content to live a quiet life. To read and relax and walk, and enjoy solitary pleasures before the impending upheaval of a child which her friends were warning about.

‘Everything will change. Just you wait and see!'

‘Come on, Kate. Come out and enjoy yourself now!' pleaded Alison, who was organizing her sister Dee's hen night.

Kate had never considered the raucous behaviour of a group of women, single or married, celebrating the impending nuptials of one of their group by coming together in the shared female spirit of drinking and eating and dancing together till all hours something that needed to be copied. She often sidestepped such gangs as they giggled through the city streets with Manchester and Limerick and Belfast accents. However, now that Dee, one of her college friends, had finally decided to tie the knot with her partner Johnny after five years, a form of ritual female celebration was definitely necessary and she had agreed to join the merry throng.

Minnie's whirlwind romance and marriage to Colm had been celebrated with a glitzy hen weekend in New York with a faithful few. Dee's at least was simpler, less expensive and less exclusive, friends she'd amassed over thirty years all roped in. Kate was really only going along with Minnie and the rest of the girls in a vague attempt to make herself feel young and sexy and available. Dee was determined to give it a lash on one of her last nights of freedom.

There was dinner in Eden, followed by a pub-crawl to two places in Temple Bar and then a nightclub.

‘What's the point to me going?' she'd argued with Minnie. ‘It's not like I can drink a lot with the baby and all I keep doing at the moment is falling asleep.'

‘All the more reason you need to come, Kate! You're not sitting at home knitting bootees, that's for sure.'

She'd pulled on a John Rocha black top and a Guess skirt that didn't cut into her waist and made her feel floaty and feminine. Lots of black eye-liner and a ton of mascara made her eyes huge in her face, which of late seemed to have got rounder and full. She had forced herself to eat half a packet of water crackers and some cheese, washed down with a glass of milk, before she went out. She promised to be good and stay on the straight and narrow and confine herself to wine spritzers for the night.

Minnie was wearing a plunge bra under an almost see-through pale pink shirt and jeans that looked like they were almost sprayed on.

Kate sighed.

She wasn't even a mother yet, but already she felt like an old fuddy-duddy!

Temple Bar was jammered as they made their way to the Eden restaurant, where the bride was already on her third cocktail. Everyone agreed that food was definitely a priority as they perused the menu.

Kate relaxed, letting herself enjoy the atmosphere of the restaurant, and joined in the joking and reminiscing with Dee's school and college friends and the people from Aracon, the computer company where she worked.

Dee was happier than Kate had ever seen her and hugged them in turn when they each read out a verse of poetry they had written about her. The wine was flowing and the conversation getting more animated and noisy when, deciding to skip desserts – ‘We've got to watch our figures for the wedding' – they paid their bill and set off along Eustace Street for the Temple Bar, one of the busiest bars in the area.

The place was heaving and they had to shout at each other. Minnie was fending off a drunken Scot who was on a stag night also.

‘We two should get it together,' he tried to persuade Minnie, tipping a glass of Heineken over her shirt.

‘Piss off!' she told him, before she disappeared to the Ladies to try and get the stain out.

‘This cost me a fortune!' she moaned as Kate patted at it with some water and Minnie dried it off on the hand drier.

Kate checked to make sure the coast was clear before they went back outside.

Dee was flirting outrageously with another Glaswegian, and for her sake Minnie and her sister Alison decided it was time to leave.

‘Come on, Dee, we're moving!'

The reluctant bride had to be reminded of the ring on her finger and Johnny, the man who'd put it there, as she was pushed out the door to safety.

‘God, that was a close thing!'

‘The Porter House next!'

A huge cheer went up the minute they crossed the threshold as a load of Dee's colleagues were already
in situ
.

Brews and beer, wine and vodka . . . Kate had to remind herself of her condition as she ordered a sparkling water. The bar was hopping, the girls going crazy as they joined in a singsong version of ‘Waterloo', and shouted and screamed to be heard. Kate felt like a spinster aunt. Ally was complaining about her boss and Sorcha, a tall thin girl she barely knew, was telling her the intimate details of her five-month affair with a
married colleague. As Minnie passed with a tray of drinks, Kate grabbed a glass of wine. She'd sip it slowly.

The barmen were calling closing time when they finally managed to round everyone up for the trek to Leeson Street, waving like a shower of lunatics as they flagged down a posse of oncoming taxis.

Buck's was still quiet as they marched down the basement stairs, a couple of banker finance types ensconced at the club's bar talking loudly above the music about trades and interest percentage points. Kate stifled a yawn. At the moment they were all busy trying to impress each other. It would be another hour or two before they turned their attention to the ladies. She threw some money into the kitty for champagne, hoping they had orange juice too, and collapsed into the comfort of a red leather couch. This was more like it. The dance floor was empty and a few couples were wrapped up in each other in the small booths. Strange, normally she could keep going, dancing and talking till the wee hours of the morning but at the moment she was like Cinderella, wanting to race home at midnight. Minnie passed her a warning glance and she tried to sit up and appear animated and full of life, banishing her intense longing for the comfort of her own springy mattress and plump pillows. This was awful! She had to pull herself together! Perhaps if she went to the bathroom, threw some cold water on her face, replenished her lipstick and mascara. She slipped out of the seat in the middle of Dee's emotional retelling of the first time she'd had sex with Johnny. That she could definitely do without!

She glanced at her exhausted face in the mirror, using her mascara brush to curl her eyelashes up to make her eyes look more open and alert.

She'd walk around the place slowly on her way back. Another hour and she'd make her excuses. Dee wouldn't mind. As she exited the pink and silver Ladies, she stopped in her tracks. Derry was leaning across the rails opposite. She hadn't seen him for weeks, not since they'd walked along Dun Laoghaire pier and shared a snack in It's a Bagel. He looked over at her.