Three Women (17 page)

‘Well Sally, I’m not sure and I’m not taking that risk. They’re my family and it’s my choice.’

‘I’m sorry for interfering, Kate, and trying to put my big oar in as usual,’ apologized Sally, ‘but Erin has come back into your life. Don’t let her go again. There is no guarantee you will get her back next time.’

Kate thought about it. She did want to see Erin again, but certainly not anywhere near her home. She’d phone her and arrange to collect her, maybe, and they could go somewhere Erin wanted.

She had to admit she was excited thinking about it and rooted around in some of her old family photograph albums to find one or two family photos to copy for Erin.

KATE WANTED TO
meet her again – Erin couldn’t believe it. This time it was her birth mother who had made contact, and to make sure she wasn’t going to be left hanging around, Kate offered to collect her at her flat and maybe they could go for a walk or get something to eat. Erin was amazed that her mother was actually the one reaching towards her. It felt good. She would arrange to meet her on Saturday and just see how things went.

‘Stop looking out the window!’ she yelled at Nikki and Claire, who were trying to see if they could spot Kate pulling up outside their apartment block. Getting a text message from Kate, she grabbed her jacket and left them to it.

Kate looked younger, even prettier. She had make-up on and her hair was perfectly blow-dried. She was obviously making an effort.

‘Where should we go?’ Kate asked.

It was dry out, but rather blustery. Erin directed her to the car park down near Sandymount Strand and the two of them went for a walk, heads bent, barely taking in the views
as
they had so much to tell each other. Afterwards they drove up to Sandymount Green and went for soup and a roll there, deciding to share a large slice of apple tart for dessert.

As they were eating, Kate produced some photos from her handbag. ‘I thought you might like some of these,’ she explained, passing them over to Erin. ‘They are of my family and me when I was younger.’

Erin took them in her hands, amazed by how she felt. The faces she was looking at were all people related to her.

‘That’s my dad, your granddad, and that’s my brothers and there’s Sally and Mike on their wedding day. I was her bridesmaid – check out the awful purple dress she made me wear!’

‘Who’s that?’

‘That’s Sally and me and our Granny Anna outside her house in Furbo. She was an amazing woman. Spoke Irish fluently and had nine kids and baked her own bread.’

‘What about this woman?’ Erin stared at the photo. It was so weird – she could have been looking at a photo of herself taken at a different time, with a new hairstyle and vintage clothes.

‘That’s my mum, Julia. She was up in Dublin and a guy took her photo on O’Connell Street near the big cinema. It was taken before she married my dad. I think that you two are very alike.’

Kate was right, there was such a strong family resemblance. There was no denying it.

‘And this is mammy and daddy’s wedding photo. She looks gorgeous in it.’

Julia Flanagan did look beautiful and Erin felt a lump in her throat for all the parts of the jigsaw that she had missed for so many years.

‘Have you one of my father?’

Kate shook her head vehemently. There were no more photos.

‘Please tell me a bit about him?’

She could see that Kate was uncomfortable with the conversation. She obviously didn’t want to discuss him or go back over whatever had happened between them.

‘Do you ever hear from him?’

‘No, we lost touch years ago – it was better that way. He moved to London. I believe that he is still there.’

‘Did he get married, have a family?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Kate said, calling the waitress over so that they could pay their bill.

‘I would like to meet him, to see him … He is my father after all,’ Erin continued stubbornly. ‘I might try to make contact with him if you have an old address or phone number or anything.’

‘Erin, I’m not sure that would be wise. It could be a disappointment.’

‘Thanks for the photos,’ Erin said, kissing Kate’s cheek. ‘Here – I’ll take one of the two of us!’

Ignoring Kate’s protest, she quickly pressed the button on her iPhone and captured the image of the two of them standing on the Green together.

‘We’ll keep in touch,’ promised Kate when she dropped her off, and Erin knew that she meant it.

MONIKA DE BERG WAS JUST
doing a run-through of the Powerpoint presentation on some logos for a new mobile company when Alice came into the room.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Erin, but one of your friends is on the line and she says she needs you urgently. Your mobile is turned off so she phoned through to reception. Will I transfer the call?’

Monika gestured to her to take it and Erin went outside the door.

‘Oh thank God! I’ve been trying to get you for the past hour nearly!’ screamed Claire.

‘What is it?’

‘Nikki’s been taken into hospital. She’s bleeding.’

‘What?’

‘She’s bleeding! Her office got an ambulance for her but she’s on her own now. She’s like a basket case … Her mum and dad are gone to Amsterdam for a break and I have about eight patients lined up for me – I can’t just cancel on them. Erin,
you’ll
have to go to the hospital. She needs one of us with her, especially if it’s going to be bad news about the baby.’

‘But I’m not a good person for that!’ Erin said. ‘You’re the medical person, not me.’

‘That doesn’t matter. She needs someone to hold her hand and stay with her, that’s all, Erin. She’s probably scared shitless.’

Monika totally understood, so Erin found herself literally running from their office to the big maternity hospital on Merrion Square. The porter on duty told her where to go and Erin found Nikki in a small pre-natal room off one of the main wards with one other woman.

Nikki looked absolutely awful, whiter than the bedsheet she was lying on, and she burst out crying the minute she saw Erin.

‘They’re not sure if the baby is still there,’ she cried. ‘It could be gone.’

‘Oh Nikki, I’m so sorry.’

‘They did one scan but now they are going to do another to check things again. The bleeding is easing a bit … Oh Erin, what am I going to do if I’ve lost my baby?’

Erin didn’t know what to say. She just pulled her chair right up beside Nikki and held her hand.

‘You’re not sure of anything yet, Nikki. Let’s wait and see what the doctor says.’

Nikki drifted off for about half an hour, her fingers clenched round Erin’s. Erin silently prayed, ‘Don’t let this happen! Please, don’t let this happen!’

A little later a nurse came in to bring Nikki down for a major scan. She began to cry hysterically again. The nurse talked to her, trying to reassure her and calm her down.

‘Can I go with her?’ offered Erin. ‘I’m her best friend.’

A few minutes later she was sitting beside Nikki as the ultrasound nurse began to do the scan. Nikki had her eyes closed, tears streaming down her face – it was unbearable. The doctor pushed the scanner all along her belly, up and down, backwards and forwards, as if looking for something that was missing. Nikki had her hand held so tight that the pain was excruciating. Erin could make no sense of what was on the screen.

Suddenly the doctor stopped. He moved the scanner in a small circle, round and round, and Erin thought she could see some kind of shape in outline. It looked like a foot, some bit of a bone. There was complete silence except for Nikki’s sobs.

‘Nicola, you can open your eyes,’ the doctor said gently. ‘I want to show you your baby.’

‘My baby?’

‘Yes, there’s your baby. This is the spine,’ he pointed with his finger, ‘and this is the head, and in here we can just about see the heart. Look – it’s pumping.’

Nikki had stopped crying for a moment, then began all over again, even more violently. The doctor turned up the machine and suddenly they could hear a really fast pumping, beating sound.

‘Listen to that! That’s your baby’s heartbeat. I don’t think this baby is going anywhere for the moment except mum’s tummy,’ he said.

As Erin looked at the screen she realized that she was crying too. It was the most wonderful thing ever, Nikki’s baby there on the screen in front of them.

‘Hello, Snoopy B,’ said Nikki, touching the screen and her tummy.

* * *

They wheeled Nikki back up to her ward. She was going to be kept in for twenty-four hours and then could go home, but she had to promise to take it easy for the next few days.

‘I’m taking it easy until Snoopy B is safe in my arms,’ she insisted furiously.

Erin phoned Claire to tell her the good news and stayed with Nikki till her sister, Hayley, arrived on the train from Limerick where she went to college and Claire came in after she finished work.

‘She really needs to rest,’ bossed Claire, ‘so in ten minutes we are all going home and letting her and the baby have some peace.’

‘Snoopy B,’ murmured Nikki, yawning. ‘I love my Snoopy B.’

‘She had a Snoopy toy when she was young and she loved it,’ explained Hayley.

Erin and Claire made sure Nikki was settled before they left for home. Erin, exhausted herself, just wanted to collapse into bed.

GETTING NIKKI HOME
from the hospital, claire and Erin vowed to make her relax, try to get her to eat more and finally to enjoy her pregnancy. A print-out of the scan of Snoopy B took pride of position on their kitchen fridge and Nikki kissed it first thing every morning as she marked up on their calendar another day of the countdown to Snoopy B being born.

Conor, the baby’s father, had made a surprise appearance at the hospital with a bunch of roses, but Nikki was adamant that one bunch of roses did not a father-to-be make.

‘I’ve cancelled my work trips to Berlin and to Paolo Alta,’ said Nikki defiantly. ‘I’ve told Fergus that I cannot do it with the baby, and he’s sending that snake-in-the-grass Derek instead. My career is probably fucked, but I don’t care!’

‘What about our holidays?’

The three of them had planned to go to Claire’s auntie’s place in Marbella for a week in July.

‘I’m sorry to let you down, but I don’t want to take any risks after this scare. I’m just going to go to Rosslare and chill out
down
there in the mobile home with Mum and Dad. I want to be near the hospital.’

Neither of the others could believe what a change there had been, with Nikki now prioritizing the baby’s needs over her own and disappearing off to bed with some pregnancy book or other by ten o’clock most nights. What a change!

Erin was spending as much time as she could with Luke, as soon he would be moving to live in London full time. He kept on and on about her moving, but now with Nikki and the baby, and with her beginning to develop a friendship with Kate, this wasn’t the perfect time. They would just have to do a bit of the commuting thing for a short while.

For his last weekend in Ireland in two weeks’ time they had booked to go to Lough Moyne House, just outside Dublin.

‘I bet he’s going to propose to you,’ teased Claire. ‘It’s fabulous there.’

‘He will not!’

‘He will!’ insisted Nikki. ‘He’s probably got the ring already, and that’s where Ben Murphy, the Irish rugby star, proposed to his girlfriend a few weeks ago.’

‘Shut up, the two of you – it is just a romantic weekend,’ she insisted, embarrassed beyond belief, ‘that’s all!’

Erin didn’t know what to think. What if the girls were right and Luke did propose?

Did she even want him to …?

NINA DROVE DOWN
to the fern house café in Avoca to meet her friends for lunch. She’d been so engrossed working on a cover illustration for a new collection of children’s rhymes and poetry that she hadn’t even realized the time.

‘Nina!’ She could see Mags waving madly at her from a table near the back of the restaurant, overlooking the garden. Avoca’s fabulous shop, garden centre and restaurants were busy as ever with a mixture of locals and visitors.

‘Sorry I’m late, but I was working on something and lost track of the time,’ she explained as she grabbed a menu and ordered the fish cakes and a salad. She and Mags and Dee and Carole met about once every three weeks for lunch or dinner, which was a chance for them to catch up with each other. The venues might change, but the talk was always good. They’d all been friends for years.

‘Did I tell you that Dylan finally got a job?’ beamed Dee. ‘He was so nervous about the interview and I still can’t believe he got it. But he starts next Monday, working in Newstalk, the big radio station.’

‘Newstalk – that’s wonderful!’ exclaimed Nina. Dee’s son was one of those serious political types, always campaigning for a cause, and she and her husband Billy had begun to despair of him ever finding anyone to employ him.

‘What will he do there?’ asked Carole.

‘Hopefully he’ll get to use some of what he learned in that expensive post grad journalism course he did last year,’ replied Dee. ‘He’ll be working as a researcher on the news team.’

Everyone knew just how hard it was for graduates of every discipline to get a job or start of any kind nowadays. Un-employment figures were through the roof, so getting anyone off the family payroll was an achievement. Nina wondered how Jack would fare once he finished his degree in animation.

Mags’s eldest daughter, Jess, had just moved in with her boyfriend, Andy.

‘I’m just a bit worried about what will happen when he discovers the real Jess … They’ll probably break up!’

‘Don’t be so pessimistic,’ laughed Nina. ‘He loves her and probably knows all her little foibles already.’

‘That’s just it – Andy hasn’t a clue, the poor sod. He has no idea of how difficult she really is; the mess, the craziness, and the way she is such a grump in the morning. Poor Dan says that she’ll be back home annoying us within the month!’