With All My Love (20 page)

‘It will be OK,’ Jeff assured her, trying to ease her panic. ‘It happens lots of times to people and nothing goes wrong.’

‘Did it ever happen to you and Ursula?’ She was frantic for reassurance as she wriggled out from under him.

‘Yeah,’ he’d muttered. ‘It was fine, though. Have a bath. It will be OK. Stop panicking.’ He yawned and seemed unconcerned as he lay back against the pillows.

Easy for you to say, she thought edgily as she got out of bed to run a bath.

‘Maybe you should think of going on the pill,’ Jeff suggested warily as they sat at the kitchen table a while later, having a cup of hot chocolate to try to ease her agitation and induce sleep. Her fears were beginning to impact on him and he was starting to feel jittery.

‘Yeah, I’ll go to the Well Woman,’ she agreed, knowing in her heart of hearts that it was already too late.

She would never forget the look on his face, a few weeks later, when she told him that the pregnancy test she’d taken was positive. They were sitting on a bench under a massive oak tree in Phoenix Park, the sun-dappled leaves dipping down over their heads in the late evening sun. The park was buzzing with joggers, dog walkers, and families and couples out for a stroll after work. She had met Jeff after a training session and he was tired, thirsty and keen to go for a pint.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said hesitantly, and saw the last vestiges of his boyish carefree
joie de vivre
disappear before her eyes as shock, horror and dismay took up residence in his psyche.

‘God, Valerie, are you sure?’ he demanded, jumping to his feet.

‘Positive,’ she retorted, her heart sinking as she saw the trapped desperation in his eyes. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘Well . . . ah . . . could you do something to bring on a miscarriage? Can you have very hot baths or . . . or lift something heavy?’ He was pacing up and down in front of her, grey-faced beneath his tan. ‘This is a disaster,’ he burst out.

‘Oh, Jeff,’ she murmured in dismay, and burst into tears.

‘Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he said gruffly. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’ He took her hand, embarrassed that people were looking at them as Valerie wept uncontrollably. They walked to the car in silence and she struggled to compose herself.

‘Where do you want to go?’ he asked.

‘Home,’ she muttered, distraught.

‘Will you be OK to drive? I can’t leave the bike here. I’ll follow you.’ He held the car door open for her.

‘OK,’ she said even though her hand trembled as she put the key in the ignition.

He’s going to dump me, she thought fearfully as she drove past the American Ambassador’s Residence. The Stars and Stripes fluttered gaily in the breeze, mocking her with its carefree abandon. People were walking along talking, laughing. Anger and resentment ripped through her. Her life was in tatters and no one cared.

She drove towards the North Circular Gate, glancing in the rear-view mirror to see if there was any sign of Jeff following her on the bike. She might never see him again, she thought in sudden terror. She’d seen the horrified look in his eyes when she’d told him that he was going to be a father. He wanted to be a million miles away from her. She was a fool to think otherwise. He was probably blaming her for what happened. If blame was to be apportioned it had to be half and half, she screamed silently. It took two to make a baby. That was always forgotten when a girl got pregnant outside of marriage. The boys more often than not got away scot-free to continue their lives unhindered and unfettered. It was the girl who paid the price. She was now one of those girls that everyone judged so freely. People would whisper about her behind their hands at work. She would be the talk of the village and her parents would be ashamed.

She had believed the myth of liberation perpetuated in all those glossy magazines she devoured avidly. She had believed that women were free to have it all, including a sex life outside of marriage. How many articles had she read about ‘Pleasing Your Man’? She’d bought sexy lingerie and slathered herself in moisturizers and lotions to keep her skin silky soft, and believed she was a ‘liberated woman’, ‘A Woman of the Eighties’. She’d looked at the glitzy soaps,
Dallas, Dynasty
and the like, and wanted to be just like those characters. And look at where that had got her. What a fool she’d been to take such a risk. She’d been so shallow and impressionable, thinking that she was cool and sophisticated, especially when she was back in Rockland’s socializing with Jeff in the hotel, impressing the hell out of her peers. The girls she’d been so desperate to keep up with. For the first time in her life she’d felt she was as good as they were. How sad was that, she thought, to define herself as being a success because she had a boyfriend and she was sleeping with him, and she was a so-called ‘liberated woman’. How sad, and how utterly immature.

She and Jeff had never even discussed what would happen if she got pregnant. She had taken no responsibility for her own state of being. She should have been proactive and used some sort of contraception other than condoms. At least then she would have had a degree of control. She’d been completely irresponsible, sickening though it was to admit. She’d thought she was mature, but
this
was the beginning of maturity, she realized, her first instance of real self-awareness.

She had Lizzie and she had her mother to depend on, otherwise she was on her own. Fear swamped her again as she emerged onto the North Circular and had to brake suddenly when a taxi cut in front of her. ‘Bastard!’ she swore viciously, pressing hard on the horn. The taxi driver flipped the finger at her and she felt hatred for every man she knew. She hoped her baby would be a girl, she thought bitterly.

Jeff
wanted
her to have a miscarriage. He had been surprisingly direct about it. It would solve everything. She wondered if he would ask her to go to England for an abortion. Rita Gallagher, who worked in the village post office, was supposed to have travelled to a clinic in Liverpool for a termination, or so the rumour went. She was having an affair with the local Garda sergeant, who was married with two grown sons. It had been going on for years. Rita ignored all the gossip that swirled around her and held her head high always; much to the disgust of some of the Altar Crawlers, who held the high moral ground and conveniently forgot the biblical precept of not judging lest you be judged. Valerie sighed, thinking of Rita. She couldn’t bear to have a rumour like that following her around. What a difficult and lonely journey that must have been if it was true. Valerie knew that no matter what happened she would not be taking the boat to England, but she would never judge anyone who did. Being unwantedly pregnant was something she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy.

Let Jeff abandon her. That was what men did and she was a mug to expect otherwise, she thought as she drove towards St Peter’s Church, with no sign in the mirror that her boyfriend was following her on his motorbike. She swung left at Doyle’s Corner, speeding through Phibsboro and Cross Guns Bridge, desperate to get home.

Lizzie was out on a date with Dara Fallon, the guy she’d fancied for ages, and the flat had never felt so quiet, the silence amplifying the thudding of her heart. She felt so utterly alone. ‘What am I going do?’ she asked aloud as she studied her reflection in the big gilded oval mirror that hung over the mantelpiece and saw how pale she was, how sunken and dark her eyes were. Eyes that were full of fear and apprehension. She was going to be a
mother!
She was going to have a little being depend on her totally. What did she know about babies? Nothing! Carmel had never been pregnant after she’d had her. There had been no babies in their house for her to help rear. She’d never even fed a baby its bottle, she thought in blind panic as her stomach lurched and her thoughts whirled around her brain until she wanted to scream, ‘SHUT UP!’

She heard the sound of a motorbike growing louder along the road and hurried to the window. She actually felt weak with relief as she saw Jeff dismount and lock the bike to Mrs Maguire’s railings. ‘Thank God! Thank God! Thank God!’ she breathed. He hadn’t abandoned her . . . yet.

She hurried down the stairs to let him in. ‘I thought you weren’t going to come back,’ she blurted. ‘I thought you were going to leave me.’

‘I won’t leave you, Valerie,’ he said stoutly, and she felt more love for him at that moment than she’d ever done. ‘Come on, let’s go upstairs and decide what we’re going to do.’ He took her hand and started up the stairs ahead of her.

Oh, no, he wants me to have an abortion.
Relief was superseded by dismay as they reached the top of the stairs.

‘Do you want tea?’ she asked hesitantly as he stood back, then followed her into the kitchen.

‘No, no, thanks.’ He ran his hand over his stubbly jaw. He looked shattered as he leaned against the doorframe. ‘We’ll have to tell the folks, but before we do we better make our plans. We should try and get married around Christmas when I’ve finished my term exams. It will give us a few months to try and save. What do you think?’

‘That’s sounds . . . er . . . fine,’ she said weakly, and had to sit down on one of the kitchen stools because her legs had started to shake. Jeff was going to
marry
her. Everything was going to be OK. She felt faint with relief.

It wasn’t ideal. She would love to have had a long courtship when they were free to do as they pleased, travel and see the world, save for a house, and celebrate their engagement. She would have liked all those things but they weren’t going to happen now. But at least she’d have a wedding ring on her finger and she wouldn’t be an ‘unmarried mother’, as girls in her position were so disparagingly called, she comforted herself. She loved Jeff with all her heart. He was the love of her life, there were no doubts in her mind about that. And he
had
told her before she got pregnant that he loved her. But was
she
the love of his life, she couldn’t help wondering. If she wasn’t pregnant would they have got engaged eventually or would he have tired of her and feel he didn’t want to be tied down? Now she’d never know. And that was something that would always niggle at her, no matter how much she tried to suppress it.
Stop it
, she told herself silently. Circumstances had ensured that they would marry, and far quicker than she had anticipated in those fantasies she’d happily indulged in every so often. This was her reality now and she had to deal with it.

‘I’ll come with you to tell your parents,’ she heard him say.

She jumped up off the high stool and threw her arms around him. ‘Oh, Jeff, you’re so good to me.’ She rested her head on his shoulder and felt a measure of peace descend for the first time since her life had been turned upside down.

He gave her a squeeze. ‘We’ll be OK,’ he said, and because she wanted to believe him she did.

It would be a lovely wedding, Lizzie assured her the following day when Jeff had gone. She, of course, would be the bridesmaid, she grinned. Valerie could wear ivory; it was becoming a popular colour for wedding dresses now. She could have her dress cut in the empire-line style, which would hide a burgeoning bump. Lizzie was enjoying being in charge as she handed the mother-to-be a mug of hot milk and pepper, with dry cream crackers, her own mother’s remedy for nausea.

Valerie burst into tears at her friend’s kindness. ‘I don’t want to be looking like a beached whale waddling up the aisle,’ she wept. Her hormones were all over the place. One minute everything was fine and she was feeling normal and even a little excited, the next she was in floods and everything loomed like a big dark cloud on her horizon. It was most unsettling.

‘You won’t be like a beached whale. You’ll be gorgeous and voluptuous and sexy,’ Lizzie soothed, patting her back.

‘Why did the fucking condom burst?’ Valerie raged between snotty sobs. ‘It’s God’s punishment for us having premarital sex, that’s what it is.’

‘Don’t be
ridiculous
,’ Lizzie scoffed. ‘It was bad luck, nothing more, nothing less. A child is a
gift
not a
punishment
, Valerie.’ Lizzie looked at her sternly. ‘So stop that nonsense.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ sniffed Valerie. ‘I’m just saying what Da will be saying when I tell him.’

‘Stop fretting and worrying about things until you have to worry about them,’ her friend advised as she settled down on the sofa with a crisp sandwich and a mug of tea, to watch
Star Trek.

Terence wouldn’t pay for a big wedding; of that there was no doubt, Valerie mused as she washed up some dirty dishes. She’d be lucky if he didn’t throw her out of the house for good and tell her never to set foot in it again. She felt even more nauseous as she thought of telling Carmel her news. Her mother would be so disappointed for her. She took such pleasure listening to her daughter’s tales of life in ‘the big smoke’, as Carmel called Dublin. They had had a few most enjoyable mother-and-daughter days, including trips to the cinema, theatre and, on Carmel’s birthday, lunch in the Royal Dublin Hotel, a special treat that Carmel had thoroughly enjoyed.

There’d be no more luxuries like that, Valerie thought sadly. Every penny counted now. Jeff was still in college and wouldn’t have finished his final exams before the baby was born. They would have to find somewhere to live and find someone to look after the baby while she was at work, but at least Jeff would be by her side. They would be a family. It was all she’d ever wanted really, even if it was all happening much sooner than she’d anticipated.

Would it be a boy or a girl, she wondered. She’d like a little girl. Jeff would be a very kind and loving father, very different from Terence. Theirs would be a happy home, she thought with rising optimism as she hummed ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’.

Now, two weeks later, as she lay awake in the light of the full moon, her mind racing, her heart was sad. Very sad. Jeff hadn’t come up from Rockland’s. He’d phoned her around six thirty to say he was only getting ashore and he had to be up before the dawn to catch the tide. If it was OK with her he’d give it a miss for tonight and see her at the weekend. What could she say but that it was fine? She could do with an early night, she’d lied.