The Stone House (30 page)

He smiled and her heart lurched as she went towards him. She would never have imagined him here in Buck's!

‘Kate! What are you doing here?'

Her cheeks flamed. It was hardly the place to find an expectant mother.

‘I'm with Minnie and a crowd of the girls. It's Dee's hen night. What about you?'

‘I'm with a friend.'

He hugged her awkwardly, and the smell of his Hugo Boss cologne and alcohol and sweat made the familiar longing to stay in his arms wash over her.

‘How have you been?'

‘Never better.' She felt giddy and it wasn't the baby, it was just being around him.

‘You look great. Glowing.'

She stood there simpering like an eejit.

‘You know if there is anything you need . . . anything!'

‘Anything . . .' she repeated slowly, wanting to pull him closer to her.

‘For the baby.'

She stood for a second, suddenly conscious of a petite dark-haired girl who had appeared beside them.

‘Derry, I told you they had food. There's panini, pasta or fish. The waitress said she'd bring a menu over to us in a few minutes.'

The sallow-skinned vixen pushed in between them, her green eyes teasing. She was about five foot two and was tiny and perfect, wearing a simple cream shirt and a pair of black trousers, her waist emphasized with an expensive silver belt.

‘Nadia, this is a friend of mine, Kate. Kate Dillon.'

Wary, they said hello to each other. Kate could feel the other girl's eyes run dismissively over her, deciding she was no threat as she possessively put her arm around Derry's waist. She didn't own him! She should have known that a man like Derry was bound to be involved in an intense relationship. She had been a diversion, a simple diversion, sexy, pleasurable, a few days' fun. Nothing more than that. Who knew what went on in a guy's head, but judging by the lady at his side Derry was most definitely taken.

‘I'm starving, Derry,' Nadia complained.

Derry looked uncomfortable and Kate surmised he was only being polite to her. There was no competition between herself and the raven-haired sexy nymphet who was obviously his girlfriend. This was all too bloody awful and embarrassing to be true and she could have happily murdered Minnie for not letting her follow her instincts and stay home. He must think she was pathetic. On the prowl with a rowdy lot of women who were doing their best to disgrace themselves on the dance floor. It had to look bad!

Kate fixed a polite smile on her face. Dee and Lisa and Jane and Minnie were screaming at her to join
them. Derry looked amused. ‘I'd better go,' she excused herself, ‘my friends are waiting for me. Nice to meet you both.'

She felt hurt and humiliated and longed to grab her coat and leave the stupid club immediately, but knew it would be too obvious.

Hell would freeze over before she'd join the girls and give that Nadia the satisfaction of seeing her make a fool of herself. Instead she slipped back to the couch. Sorcha was weepy and was now confessing the fear that her affair was coming to an end. ‘What am I meant to do?' she wailed. ‘What am I meant to say?'

Kate tried to look interested and ignore the couple wrapped around each other in the back booth. She had to get away, get out of here. It was as if every bit of her was over-aware. Senses heightened, she was conscious of Derry's presence only a few yards away. She thought she had accepted her position with him, but now realized that the idea of him kissing or touching or being intimate with another female was too much to bear.

Minnie and Dee collapsed hot and sweating on the bench beside her. She hated being a killjoy but she had to get away, escape.

‘Dee, I'm really sorry but I'm going to have to go.'

‘Ah Kate, c'mon! Don't be such a loser!'

‘I'm sorry, Dee. I just feel exhausted. I'm not much fun at the moment.'

Minnie glared at her.

‘Look I
am
sorry.' She stood up to go, hugging them both. ‘Have a great night. I'll ring you both tomorrow.'

‘Will you be OK?'

‘Yeah, sure.'

Never had anyone got a coat and run up the stairs and into a cab so quickly. Kate was relieved that Derry hadn't even once glanced in her direction or noticed her leave. Tears pricked her eyes and she cursed her own stupidity. She wondered when Derry would get round to telling his beautiful girlfriend of his impending fatherhood!

MOLLY CATHERINE DILLON
Donovan was born two weeks early much to the surprise of her mother, who on her last day in work was standing at the office lift when she went into labour. Kate frantically tried to remember what she had learned in her pre-natal classes as a wave of contractions overcame her on the taxi ride from the IFSC to Holles Street Hospital.

Only minutes from delivery with a nurse holding her hand, Derry arrived in, having driven like a lunatic up from Wicklow when he'd got her phone message.

‘Are you sure you want to be here, Derry?'

‘I'm sure,' he insisted, sitting down beside her and kissing her sweaty forehead.

Her labour was fast and furious and thirty minutes later she delivered a most perfect baby girl.

She had a fuzz of light fair hair and a rosebud mouth and button of a nose and cried loudly until Kate held her, skin touching skin. Overcome, Derry wrapped them both in his arms.

Exalted and exhausted, Kate was glad of the small
private room where Molly greedily sucked on her nipple, as Derry took photos of his beautiful new daughter.

Lying awake in the darkness later that night Kate stared at her sleeping child, realizing that now her world had changed for ever.

Her mother and Aunt Vonnie arrived up to see the new arrival two days later.

‘She's such a darling,' laughed her mother, with Molly's fist wrapped around her little finger. ‘I just wish your father was here to see her.'

Aunt Vonnie took a turn at holding the baby.

‘Kate, she has your eyes but don't you think she's got a great look of Maeve?'

‘Will you be all right going home, Kate, or would you like me to stay up for a few days with you?' offered her mother, delighted.

‘No, Mum, I'll be fine. Anyways, Molly and I have to get used to each other.'

‘You know you're more than welcome to come down home and let me pamper you!' smiled her mother. ‘New babies are hard work.'

Moya had sent a huge bouquet of flowers and a card, and Bill her boss had arrived in looking sheepish with a spray of white roses and a big teddy bear for Molly.

Minnie produced a bottle of champagne and a few glasses during visiting time, telling Kate it was high time they drank a toast to her new god-daughter. Two days later, Derry collected them and drove them home.

Her modern apartment suddenly seemed even less roomy as it began to fill with baby paraphernalia, every
spare surface covered. Molly, noticing the strangeness of the place, opened her mouth and yelled as Derry and Kate did their utmost to quieten down the baby. So much for a calm homecoming, she thought, as they took turns pacing the floor with the tiny bundle, who loved being walked and held.

Exhausted Kate fell into bed after a sandwich and a glass of milk and was almost unconscious with sleep when Derry woke her to tell her Molly needed feeding again.

They managed to struggle through those first few days, Kate eternally grateful for Derry's calm demeanour as he walked and held and changed the baby, making sure she got time to eat and sleep and get showered.

A few weeks later, walking together along Sandymount Strand with Molly dozing peacefully in the buggy, she realized how impossible her situation would have been without him, and how utterly attached to him both she and Molly had become.

‘Marry me, Kate,' he asked, as she stared at the Poolbeg towers and the cranes and towers of the distant docklands. ‘Molly needs a father.'

‘You are her father,' she replied, surprised.

‘She needs to be able to go to school or playgroup and be like all the other kids with a mammy and daddy, Mr and Mrs Donovan, that the teachers can write home notes to.'

‘I think it's a bit too soon for that.'

‘Please, Kate, think about it.'

She must be mad, she thought. The man she was crazy about was proposing for a second time and she
still couldn't say that simple word yes. He didn't have to be besotted and madly in love with her – surely loving Molly would be enough. She swallowed hard, she was expecting far too much, expecting someone like Derry Donovan to swear undying love and devotion for her. She'd read too many soppy romantic novels and watched too many mushy films and now when she was faced with reality was hoping for an orchestra and violin strings and a Tom Hanks ending. Fucking wise up, Kate, she told herself as she promised Derry she'd think about it.

Molly thrived, and her own hormones finally began to get under some control, so she didn't weep when she saw a child and a kite or an old man and his grandson kicking football in the park and was finally able to sit at her kitchen table and eat toast and drink coffee and finish the
Irish Times
crossword.

The christening was held in the Stone House, during the summer, when her Uncle Eamonn was home from the States and Moya and her family were over. Kate knew the Monkstown apartment would never fit the relations and friends and besides neither Derry nor herself had any affinity with any particular parish.

‘I do pray,' she protested, ‘but in different churches and places.'

Minnie was thrilled at the out of Dublin location for her god-daughter's christening. ‘Who'll be the godfather?' she quizzed Derry.

His brother Tom was away working in Saudi and Kate was pleased when he suggested Conor Quinn, her cousin.

‘After all, if he hadn't dragged you off sailing, Molly minx might not be here!'

On the first Sunday of the month in July the christening was held. Father Glynn had no problem handing over his altar and baptismal font to Father Eamonn Ryan who at this stage had become an old friend. His predecessor Father Bolger wouldn't have let Kate Dillon and her child across the threshold of the church but thankfully those days of hell and brimstone Catholicism were gone and he was delighted to welcome another Dillon to the parish.

Kate had picked out a simple cream linen dress with a square neck and broad straps to wear and a pair of strappy sandals, determined to enjoy Molly's big day. Moya helped her to dress the baby in the family christening robe that had last been used for Danny's christening.

‘She's like an angel,' she declared, covering her little niece in kisses. Derry took photo after photo of his daughter as she gurgled and smiled for him before they left for the church.

‘I think she's a “daddy's girl,”' remarked Patrick.

Kate tried to be nice and smile and banish any enmity between them. Now he was more than just her brother-in-law, he was the father of Molly's first cousins, her uncle. Maeve Dillon fussed around, thrilled to have another grandchild to love and pet, and Fiona, Gavin and Danny ran around the church grounds.

Moya dressed in turquoise, though stunning, looked too thin. She had confided in Kate that the gallery was taking up a bit more time than she'd planned and that Patrick was objecting to her not being around when he needed her.

‘We're mounting a big exhibition of illustration at the end of September, you should try and come over for it. There's a lot of work pulling it together but the work is so wonderful!'

Minnie had taken the role of godparent very seriously and had arrived in a subtle soft mauve suit with a skirt that actually came to just above her knee, Conor whistling with appreciation when he saw her.

Molly was as good as gold as Uncle Eamonn anointed her with the baptismal oils and poured the holy water on her forehead. Kate tried to compose herself as she looked around the font at all the people in her life that mattered: her mother, her sister, her niece and nephews, her aunt and uncle, her cousins, her close friends and Derry. She wished that more of his family had been able to make it, but with the exception of his Auntie May and her husband Bill, and their son and daughter, and his friend Erik and his wife Shona he was on his own, his widowed father in early-stage Alzheimer's too elderly to come.

After the ceremony, they made a run in the drizzling rain back to the house where her mother had laid on plates of baked ham and salmon with salad and potatoes and fresh bread; Fiona and Gavin passed around the wine. Aunt Vonnie over in the corner was regaling Derry and his aunt with stories of what a good baby she'd been. Afterwards, there was champagne and an enormous layered sponge christening cake inscribed with Molly's name, which her mother had made, and everyone raised their glasses to Molly Dillon, her granddaughter.

Kate had decided to stay on for a few weeks after the
christening as she was still on maternity leave. Derry was heading off on a three-week project to the South of France. Kate, trying to stifle her pangs of jealousy, wondered if Nadia was with him. Her mother was in her element at the thought of having two weeks to get to know her latest grandchild. It felt weird to Kate moving back into her old room with the cot set up at the end of the bed, and a mobile dangling from the overhead light, not something she had ever imagined.

Moya and her brood had taken over the rest of the house, Patrick sloping off to play golf most days while the rest of them relaxed and enjoyed late breakfasts and walks to the beach and a swim. Two or three nights herself and her mother babysat while Patrick and her sister tried out the newest gourmet restaurants in the area. Kate demurred when Moya invited her to join them, because she was breastfeeding. At night she was content to curl up on the couch with the kids and play Snap and Fish in the Pool and make bowls of popcorn to eat while they watched videos of
The Wizard of Oz
and
Mary Poppins
.