Two For Joy (25 page)

So far he hadn't mentioned a word about it and it was getting to her. He knew how important this was to her, he could at least make an effort and get his skates on. Time was of the essence in case she needed fertility treatment. If he didn't do something about it soon she was going to go and have her own tests done. At least she'd know then, one way or the other, whose fault it was and if anything could be done.

‘I want to sit up at the front, Oliver,' Cora declared as they went into the porch. They had given Oliver's mother a lift to Mass and her eyes were bright with anticipation. She loved midnight Mass and proudly informed Noreen that she hadn't missed one in the past thirty-five years. She'd chattered away in the front seat of the car and for once Noreen was glad of her presence, as it meant she didn't have to make an effort to talk to Oliver. And that was what it was lately, she thought sadly. An effort. He'd gone quiet and moody and shut himself off from her. Maybe he might thaw over Christmas; if she was lucky he might even make love to her. He hadn't come near her in the last few weeks and she missed their intimacy and the comforting feel of his strong arms around her.

‘Well, helloo,' Maura trilled gaily as she stood chatting with Andy to one of their neighbours. ‘Happy Christmas, and to you too, Oliver, and Mrs Flynn.'

‘Happy Christmas to you both,' Oliver said politely. Cora gave a regal nod, as if accepting homage, and proceeded into the church and up the aisle. Noreen smiled into her scarf. Maura might think she was someone, but in Mrs Flynn's eyes she was well below the salt.

Maura patted her substantial bump. ‘It has to be a fella, he's hopping and lepping like a flea in there. The kicks!' She rolled her eyes up to heaven theatrically.

‘A full forward for sure,' Andy exclaimed jovially and Noreen could smell the brandy fumes off him. He'd obviously started seasonal celebrations early.

‘How are you keeping, Maura?' Noreen asked civilly, wishing she hadn't bumped into her sister and brother-in-law.

‘Great, not a bother, thanks. Listen, we're having a few people in for champagne and smoked salmon after Mass, why don't the two of you call in? We'd love to have you,' Maura invited cordially.

‘Yes, yes, come along and have a couple of snifters!' Andy whacked Oliver on the back.

‘Ah … ah … we have to bring Mrs Flynn home after Mass,' Noreen pointed out hastily.

‘Bring her along too,' Andy said ebulliently.

Maura flashed him a look of irritation. ‘It might be a bit late for her. Why don't you come back with us, Noreen, and when Oliver has dropped his mother home he can join us,' she said smoothly. ‘Come on, we haven't seen the pair of you in ages.'

Noreen glanced at Oliver in dismay. She knew a soirée at Maura and Andy's was the last thing he'd want. It was the last thing
she
wanted, for heaven's sake, but she felt churlish saying no and she felt more than a little guilty for not being more supportive to her sister in her pregnancy.

‘Well, I suppose we could go for an hour or so,' she said doubtfully.

‘Excellent,' Maura approved. ‘We'll wait for you in the porch after Mass. We'd better go in or we won't get a decent seat.'

The strains of ‘Silent Night' wafted through the decorated church, as Oliver and Noreen hurried up the aisle and slipped into the front row with Cora.

‘What do you want to go back there for?' growled Oliver as they settled themselves in the seat.

‘What else could I say?' hissed Noreen. ‘I didn't see you coming up with any brilliant excuse and besides, she
is
my sister,' she added tartly. ‘You don't have to come if you don't want to.'

He didn't answer her, just picked up the Mass leaflet and studied it intently.

Noreen sizzled silently.
Peace and Goodwill to all mankind indeed,
she fumed as Cora cast a censorious look in their direction. The choir began to sing ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing', incense wafted around the altar, and Father Walters's kindly tones welcomed them all to church before beginning the Mass. Noreen tried her best to immerse herself in the comforting, familiar ritual, hoping for some sort of spiritual sustenance.

Two and a half hours later she was enjoying sustenance of a rather more secular nature. The hum of chatter and laughter surrounded her as she nibbled on smoked salmon and brown bread and quaffed her third glass of champagne. Maura was in her element bustling around and Andy played the expansive host with great aplomb, his hail-fellow-well-met veneer even more exaggerated with the amount of drink he had consumed.

Noreen didn't like him, she acknowledged a little tipsily. He was a gropy, leery drunk and she'd seen him making the most of his snoggy kisses with various women under the mistletoe. She'd made sure to keep well out of his way. She didn't really know why she was here. It was almost to spite Oliver, she thought glumly, wishing paradoxically that he would come and rescue her.

‘I must show you the nursery.' Maura came up to her and offered her another canapé. ‘I went for neutral colours, lots of Winnie-the-Pooh bits and pieces, because I don't want to know whether it's a boy or a girl. Although I do think it's a boy. You know the way they say you can tell by the way you're carrying? What do you think?' her sister asked earnestly.

Noreen swallowed. ‘It's hard to know, Maura, and obstetrics aren't my area of expertise, but you do seem to be carrying to the back, so it could be a boy. Have you any preferences?'

‘I don't mind really as long as it's all right.' She cleared her throat and drew her sister to a quiet corner of the large, ornately decorated room. Maura went in for lots of swags and frills and glass cabinets full of china and ornaments. Noreen looked at her quizzically, wondering what was coming. It wasn't like Maura to want tête-à-têtes with her.

‘Noreen, I was just wondering … ahh … well you see Andy doesn't like the prenatal classes, he fainted at the birth video and he doesn't want to be there … and besides, I read somewhere that men are put off sex after watching a birth, so I was just wondering if you'd come with me when I'm giving birth? I'm a bit petrified to be honest,' she blurted anxiously. Noreen had never seen her normally bumptious younger sister so flustered. Her heart softened in spite of herself.

‘Of course I'll come,' she answered without hesitation, wanting to kick Andy in the goolies. She could see him mauling some new arrivals.

‘Oh, thanks a million, Noreen! Look, here's Niamh and Sophie Lindsay. I'd better go and say hello. I'll be back in a sec.' Maura gave her an awkward pat on the arm and hurried over to greet her guests.

Noreen watched her go, astonished at her own reaction to her sister's request.
Blood must be thicker than water,
she thought wryly. Imagine her agreeing to be there for the birth. She the barren woman. Tears smarted her eyes and she turned her head and brushed them away, afraid someone would see.

Why didn't Oliver hurry up and come to bring her home? It was mean of him, mean, mean, mean, she seethed. And she'd damn well let him know what she thought of him before the night was over.

*   *   *

Cora bustled around happily making tea for Oliver. What a bonus to have him to herself after midnight Mass. And even better, himself and Noreen looked as if they were having some sort of tiff; they hardly had two words to say to each other. Maybe he'd realize now that he should have listened to her and stayed single. Stayed with her to look after him as only she could.

‘Now Oliver, here's the first piece of Christmas cake, I cut it specially for you,' she said, proudly handing him a slice on one of her good china plates. She was delighted with the cake this year. It had turned out beautifully rich and golden, the fruit evenly distributed throughout. The previous year her cake had got slightly burned at the edges and the fruit had sunk a little and she'd been very vexed about it.

She poured herself a cup of tea and sat in her chair by the fire, the log she had thrown on the embers when she came in flaming nicely. She watched her son covertly. He was eating the cake, but his mind was miles away. He looked tired, stressed, and was it her imagination or were there grey flecks at his temples and were the lines around his mouth and eyes grooved deeper than she'd ever seen? Oliver normally had a healthy, energetic air about him but tonight he was certainly not himself. She felt a niggle of worry. She didn't like to see him like this. What if there was something wrong with him? He wasn't the sort to go confiding in her. It had never been his way. They weren't much for hugging or kissing either, she felt awkward with that kind of nonsense, but if there was something wrong with him she'd like to know. She cleared her throat. ‘Er … aahh … you're very quiet tonight, Oliver, and you're not looking the best. What is the matter with you?' she ventured.

Oliver took a gulp of tea and shook his head. ‘Not a thing, Ma, not a thing,' he said easily. Too easily, Cora thought crossly. Something was up and he wasn't telling her and the sooner she got to the bottom of the matter the better.

*   *   *

Oliver shivered and pulled the collar of his coat up to his ears as he slid the bolt into his mother's gate and got back into the car. It was freezing hard and he set the wipers to fast speed to get the ice off the windows, the hot water he'd already poured on them freezing up again. He yawned tiredly. It had been cosy and warm at his mother's and he would have loved to have gone for a snooze in front of the fire and then stumbled bleary-eyed to bed in his old bedroom, his limbs stretched to the four winds with no one to bother him. He glanced at the clock on the dash. It was gone two a.m. Noreen would be doing handstands wondering where he was. His heart sank at the thought of going to make polite conversation with his in-laws. They'd all be well lubricated and he'd be stone cold sober and Andy would be trying to force brandy on him even though he was driving.

He sat staring out at the starry night, the Plough and Orion's Belt etched into the inky black sky, Mars and the North Star twinkling steadfastly and the swirling curlicues of the Milky Way as mysterious as the first time he'd seen them. Normally the sight would delight him, he never wearied of gazing at the stars, but tonight the magnificence of the universe could not lift his spirits. As soon as Christmas was over he'd better get his ass in gear and get himself to some doctor to get the damned letter of referral for that damned test. He'd told Noreen he'd do it and he never went back on his word. But now that she'd put the idea in his head that the fault might lie with him he was worried. If he couldn't father a child and she wouldn't adopt, what lay ahead for them? The thought oppressed him.

Reluctantly he put the car into gear and drove off along the winding road, wondering how his life had gone so badly astray.

*   *   *

‘God Almighty, Oliver, you might have come and rescued me a bit earlier,' Noreen grumbled as she got into the car. It was almost three a.m. and she was pissed, tired and extremely fed up. ‘And then when you finally did come you sat in a corner and wouldn't say two words to anyone. You could try to make the effort,' she nagged.

‘I leave that to you, you're so good at it,' he muttered irritably.

‘Don't be a smart bastard, Oliver.'

‘Look, I didn't want to go there in the first place,' he snapped. ‘That fool Andy couldn't get it into his thick skull that I wasn't going to drink and drive and he pestered me the whole time I was there to have a bloody brandy, and Maura was as bad. If I get caught for drink driving I may throw my hat at it, you think they'd realize that without it having to be spelt out for them, bloody idiots.'

‘Don't call my family bloody idiots,' Noreen exploded.

‘Well, they are.' Oliver was in no humour to be trifled with.

‘Yeah, well, what about that old witch of a mother of yours that I have to put up with?' she raged, her cheeks scarlet with drink and temper.

‘You knew what you were getting into when you married me,' Oliver growled. ‘You had a choice.'

‘So did you,' she flared. ‘Sometimes I wonder just why you married me?'

‘Because you asked me to,' Oliver said coldly.

Noreen felt the blood drain from her cheeks as the impact of his words washed over her like an icy shower. Suddenly she felt stone cold sober.

‘Oh Oliver!' she said faintly. ‘That was a cruel thing to say.'

‘Maybe it was, but you asked me and I told you the truth,' Oliver said angrily. He knew he'd hurt her. The words had burst out of him, there was no point in backtracking and making it worse, not in the humour both of them were in.

The remainder of the journey passed in silence and when they got home, Noreen went straight upstairs, got her nightdress and dressing-gown from their bedroom and went into the guest room down the landing.

Oliver, now that he was home and didn't have to worry about drinking and driving, poured himself a large tumbler of whiskey and drank it neat. Tonight he wanted to sleep and no troubling thoughts of Noreen's hurt feelings were going to keep him awake, he fumed, raging with himself for hurting her, even if a small part of him deep in his heart acknowledged the truth of what he'd said.

Noreen lay wide-eyed in the unfamiliar bed, her heart thumping rapidly. Her deepest fear in relation to their marriage had been manifested. Oliver had bluntly stated that he'd only married her because she'd asked him. She should never have done it. She'd have been far better off to live with him, waiting for
him
to ask rather than forcing the issue. At least then she could have walked away relatively easy with her head held fairly high when it had all collapsed in a heap around her.

Marriage made it much harder to walk away. She bit her lip to stop it from trembling. She'd never forgive Oliver for making her feel like this. She'd never thought he had it in him to hurt her so viciously. She knew he could be moody and uncommunicative, but in his own way he could be very kind and thoughtful. She'd never expected such deliberate, wounding callousness from him. He didn't love her. That was the be-all and end-all of it, she thought forlornly, and it was that thought that finally made her cry.