All That I Leave Behind (46 page)

And then he found himself reaching out and taking Daphne’s hand, pulling her gently towards him until she was standing opposite him, and before he could overthink it, he tilted his head to one side and kissed her on the lips. She tasted of mint and garlic and Vaseline and her skin was so soft and pillowy. He groaned and pulled her tight to him, feeling the softness of her, the rolls of milky flesh which were so gorgeous they were almost edible. He ran his hands through that glorious hair, feeling the silky texture in his fingers. ‘Thank God you aren’t wearing that hat,’ he blurted.

‘What’s wrong with my hat?’

‘Nothing. It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful,’ and he kissed her again, before saying, ‘you could wear a burka, Daphne, and you’d still be the most beautiful girl in the world.’

‘Oh, stop.’ Daphne blushed. ‘You know, you’re not too bad yourself.’ And she leaned back in his arms to look at him properly.

He ran a hand over the stubble on his cheeks and chin. It felt like sandpaper and he felt sorry for Daphne, having to kiss it.

‘Would you mind if we took things slowly, though, Pius?’ Daphne was saying now into his ear as they stood there and held each other close. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready yet for, you know …’ and she blushed. ‘We’ve been on our own for so long, it takes a bit of getting used to.’

He pulled himself back a little so that he could hold her face in his hands and look her in the eye. ‘I’ll do whatever you want, Daphne. But I’ve spent thirty years waiting for my life to begin, not realising that I was living it. That every day was an opportunity that I was wasting, sitting in this place and feeling sorry for myself. All those years, just gone and nothing to show for it. And you and Dara, well, you both made me realise that I haven’t got any more time to waste.’

‘That’s a long speech.’

He cleared his throat. ‘It is, I suppose. I probably won’t speak for the next fifty years.’ He smiled.

‘Well then we’ll have a very quiet relationship,’ she said, stroking his chin, running her fingers over the stubble. She searched his eyes with hers. ‘I’m glad I found you, Pius.’

‘I’m glad I found you, Daphne.’

W
hen
Rosie went into labour, as the canal bank burst into summer life, she knew who she had to call. There was only one person who she really trusted with this, who could go through this with her, she thought as she dialled the number, closing her eyes as the phone rang, imagining her sister picking it up, wondering how she’d explain it all to her in five minutes, how she’d account for the months that had passed when her only contact had been John-Patrick and Melissa, who’d appear at the door because they were ‘just passing’, carefully skirting the fact that Rosie and their mother didn’t seem to be talking. Melissa had been thrilled about the pregnancy, downloading an app to her mobile so that she could monitor her aunt’s progress, becoming an expert on the height of fundus and stages of development, but even though Rosie loved her niece, it wasn’t the same. She needed her sister.

The phone rang to some novelty voicemail and Rosie had to stifle the urge to laugh as Bart Simpson asked her to call back. ‘Mary-Pat, it’s me. Rosie,’ she added helpfully. ‘Look, can you call me?’ She had to break off then as a wave of pain hit her, her mobile falling onto the floor.

She’d woken early that morning with an odd feeling of lightness in her abdomen, as if the baby wasn’t there any more, and she’d had to reach out her hand and touch the mound of her belly to be sure. She sat upright as quickly as she could, a sudden panic gripping her and the sensation that something had emptied out of her. Heart thumping, she’d patted the bedsheets and then she realised that she was sitting in a puddle. The sheets were wet and clammy and she was freezing, her skin covered in goosepimples. She opened her mouth to call Pi, but all that came out was a hoarse whisper. In the end, she had to scrabble around for the mobile on the floor and ring him. His voice was a low rumble. ‘Hello?’

‘Pi, I think it’s started.’

There was a long silence at the end of the phone, and Rosie could see the wheels turning as he tried to work out what to do. ‘Will you ask Mary-Pat to meet me at the hospital?’

He cleared his throat. ‘OK.’ Rosie was grateful to him that he hadn’t asked for an explanation. ‘Can I, ehm, help you with anything?’

‘No, if you could just get the car ready – not the Beetle,’ she added hastily. There was a rumble then a murmur and the phone went dead, which Rosie took to mean that he was doing as he’d been asked.

She was surprisingly calm as she washed and dressed. Margaret had told her not to shower if her waters broke, in case of infection, so she dabbed at herself with a towel, then put on a comfy pair of tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt and fleece. She’d have to ask Pi to help her to lace her trainers because she couldn’t reach. The baby, who normally started every morning with a vigorous bout of kicking, was completely still in her belly, and Rosie felt a flash of panic before remembering that Margaret had also told her that that happened when you went into labour, that the baby was just ‘in the departure lounge’ and didn’t need to move about any more.

She picked up her hospital bag and looked around the room and thought, when I come back, I’ll have a baby with me. I’ll be a mum. And the thought filled her with a sense of wonder. What kind of mum will I be? Will I be like Mammy or like my real mum? Will I know how to do this job as well as Mary-Pat? She’d always thought she didn’t have a rule book, a road map, but now she realised that of course she had. She had one of the best.

And then she thought of Mark and wondered where he’d be right now. Somewhere out there in the world, unaware that he was to be a father. She closed her eyes and tried to picture him, but the picture was fuzzy even now, blurry around the edges. Maybe I’ve done the wrong thing, but please forgive me, she thought quietly to herself before closing the door behind her and shuffling gently down the stairs to where Pius was waiting, a set of towels in his hands, as instructed. ‘I called Mary-Pat. She’ll be along in a bit.’

Rosie nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She leaned gently against her brother, her big oak tree, and closed her eyes. ‘There, there, Rosie-boo, it’ll be OK,’ his voice a deep rumble in his chest as he gave her a gentle squeeze. ‘We’ll all be there for you. Don’t you worry.’

‘Thanks, Pi. I’m sorry for everything.’

‘Sure, for God’s sake, what do you have to be sorry for? None of it was your fault,’ he mumbled into her hair. ‘It’s us who should be sorry, love, that we made such a hash of things. We’ll try to do better with the third generation.’ He smiled.

Rosie tried to argue that he’d been a great brother, that she was lucky to have him, but a contraction gripped her with such ferocity she had to close her eyes and grit her teeth against the pain, the vice which gripped her abdomen and then slid downwards, a great wave of it, which made her grab hold of Pius’s wrist until it passed.

‘Better?’ Pius’s voice was soothing.

‘Thanks, Pi. You’re a natural.’

‘Must be all the practice I’ve had,’ he said ruefully. And then he paused. ‘I’m sure Mammy would be proud of you, Rosie.’

Rosie shook her head. ‘No, Pi. I’m sorry. No. She’s gone. I already have a mammy, or as good as, and I don’t need another.’

Pius looked down at her and then he kissed her forehead. ‘You’re right. Of course you are. And now, let’s go before you have this baby right here. The kitchen’s in a right state.’

Rosie balanced on her pile of clean towels in the passenger seat, gripping the door handle and Pius’s arm as she rode the contractions all the way to Dublin. It was strange, she thought, that she could go from being speechless with pain to being able to continue chatting to Pius about the programme on the radio, a phone-in where people talked about their favourite childhood memories. He kept up a good patter to distract her. ‘Do you remember the time you helped me to skin that rabbit that I shot and Mary-Pat walloped your backside because you got your good dress covered in rabbit blood? And she nearly killed me too, into the bargain. That was you, Rosie, always a tomboy, always getting stuck in.’

‘Skinning a rabbit, an essential life skill,’ Rosie joked, before she had to grip the dashboard as another contraction built and then ebbed away again. ‘Oh, Christ, that was a bad one. Are we nearly there yet?’

‘Just another ten minutes. Hang on, Rosie, we’ll make it,’ Pius said, shooting her a worried look.

‘It’s OK, Pi, I’m not going to have it in the car.’ Rosie managed a short laugh before muttering, ‘Oh, crap, another one.’ What had she been thinking, that the pain would just be like bad period cramps? Now she knew why nobody ever talked about it – if they did, there wouldn’t be a woman alive who’d go through it.

Pius put the boot down and they did the rest of the journey at about seventy miles an hour, screeching into the car park and bullying another driver out of a parking space. ‘That’s not like you, Pi,’ Rosie joked weakly.

‘Yes, well, needs must,’ Pius said grimly. ‘Thank God I got you here in one piece. Mary-Pat would kill me if I didn’t. She said she’d break my knees if I didn’t deliver you safely. Now, let’s get you inside.’

Rosie couldn’t walk for laughing.

Naturally, Rosie heard Mary-Pat before she saw her. Margaret was at the ‘business end’ as she called it, examining Rosie to see how many centimetres she’d dilated. ‘Hmm, I’d say it’s early days yet, but we’ll see how we go. We might need to move things along if there’s no progress in the next couple of hours. How are the contractions?’

‘Well, they were really bad in the car, but they’ve eased off now,’ Rosie said.

‘It’s because you’ve come into hospital. They all do that.’ Margaret laughed. ‘They must sense it somehow and decide that they’re not ready to come out and, sure, who could blame them. It’s a scary old world.’

She pulled off her gloves and threw them into the bin and went to make a note in the file when the door crashed open and Mary-Pat bustled in in a grey jogging suit and carrying a large holdall. Margaret’s head shot up and her eyes darkened. ‘Excuse me, no visitors in the labour rooms. Please go to the waiting area.’ And she pointed to the door, in case the person hadn’t quite got the message.

‘I’m her sister. I’m to be the birth partner,’ Mary-Pat barked and marched over to Rosie and gripped her hand. ‘Howya, love. Why are you flat on your back? C’mon, get the hell up.’

Rosie thought she’d never been so glad to see anyone in her whole life. ‘Mary-Pat,’ she exclaimed, trying to lift herself up in the bed, knocking over a cardboard hat that Margaret had offered her to be sick into onto the ground. ‘Thank God you’re here. I can’t do this by myself, I just can’t.’ She searched her sister’s face for reassurance, knowing that she sounded panicky. She
was
panicky. The contractions and the pain that came with them were coming fast again now and she could feel herself getting tired and weepy and longing for something to take the pain away. Anything. She’d sworn she wasn’t going to have an epidural, but now she longed for it, longed for the blessed release from the exhausting pain.

‘Excuse me, I have a patient here who’s in labour,’ Margaret bristled. ‘She needs rest.’

‘She does in her nelly.’ Mary-Pat gave Rosie a tight squeeze, before tugging at her gently to get her to sit up. ‘C’mon, love, time to get moving or you’ll never get that baby out.’

Rosie tried to shift forward in the bed, but she couldn’t move. Her stomach seemed to have pinned her there – she was like an upturned crab, arms and legs waving but unable to right herself. Gently, Mary-Pat reached behind her and shifted her forward until Rosie was sitting more or less upright. As she did so, she nudged against Rosie and Rosie felt the hardness of her sister’s stomach, the solidity of it. Surely –?

Mary-Pat looked down, as if seeing her stomach for the very first time, then looked back up at Rosie. ‘It would seem your condition is catching.’

‘You’re kidding,’ Rosie managed.

‘Yes, well.’ Mary-Pat blushed a violent shade of puce. ‘It’s a long story. Blame Victoria’s Secret and a bottle of Chianti.’

‘Oh. My. God,’ Rosie spluttered, then coughed, then burst out laughing, before a wall of pain made her moan and close her eyes, gripping her sister’s wrist.

When she opened her eyes again, Mary-Pat was patting her rounded tummy. ‘It’s no feckin’ joke. I’m forty-three. And the kids are mortified, of course. Melissa says if I think she’s going to push a pram around Monasterard I’ve got another thing coming. And John-Patrick has barely spoken to either of us since we told him – I think he’s too embarrassed at the notion that these old age pensioners are still at it. Still, it was worth it, if you catch my drift.’

‘TMI, Mary-Pat.’

‘I know.’ Mary-Pat shook her head ruefully. ‘I didn’t actually mean it like that. I just meant that I’m glad to have PJ back.’

I didn’t know he’d gone anywhere, Rosie thought, but then, why would I? I never asked my sister about her marriage or about how happy she was. I didn’t care, because I was too caught up with my own dramas. And she felt ashamed that she had no idea that her sister was pregnant. ‘I’m sorry, Mary-Pat, I truly am. I had no idea. I wish to God I had, but …’

‘Sure you had your own pregnancy to be getting on with, love. And,’ she put up a hand as Rosie went to object, ‘I know why you didn’t tell me, and that’s fine – Melissa never shut up about it, to be honest – but I would have liked to be able to be there for you, to make it up to you for all the shit we’ve put you through. And … well, I hope it’s not too late.’ Mary-Pat blushed at the uncharacteristic expression of feeling. ‘I know,’ she said, seeing Rosie’s look of incredulity. ‘I’ve been practising talking about my “feelings”.’ She used air quotes and rolled her eyes to heaven.

‘Well, it suits you.’ Rosie tried to get the words out but gave up as the contraction gripped her. ‘Oh, for Jesus Christ’s sake,’ she roared. ‘The pain is fucking killing me. When the hell will this baby come out?’

‘That’s the contractions talking, pet. Means they must be working.’

At this point, the two women looked at Margaret, who was trying to busy herself at the foetal monitor, her face a picture as she tried to absorb the story she was hearing. Mary-Pat turned to her then. ‘Don’t worry, we’re the only two that are up the duff. The others are grand. And I’m married at least, which is more than I can say for herself here. Although that’s the way nowadays, isn’t it?’