All That I Leave Behind (47 page)

Margaret nodded and said diplomatically, ‘They’re all mothers to us.’

‘You’re dead right. Now, do you think Rosie could get up and start moving around, or else this baby will never go anywhere.’

‘Well, she just needs to be monitored for a few more minutes and then—’ But Mary-Pat was ignoring her, ushering Rosie
gently up on the bed. ‘C’mon, Rosie-boo, up we get, there’s work to be done.’

Margaret tutted and rolled her eyes to heaven, and Rosie shot her an apologetic look. ‘Off you go,’ she said reluctantly, removing the straps of the foetal monitor from Rosie’s belly.

‘Thanks, love,’ Mary-Pat said. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea? I’m parched.’ And then, as the door swung shut behind the retreating Margaret, ‘What’s wrong with that woman? You’d swear I’d asked for cocaine.’

Rosie was shaking with laughter now as the pain gripped her, so that she was laughing and moaning at the same time. ‘Oh, Mary-Pat, stop making me laugh, it’s making things worse.’ She gritted her teeth and grabbed her sister’s wrist. ‘I won’t be able to do it, I won’t.’

Mary-Pat held onto Rosie, matching her grip, her strong hand grasping Rosie’s, giving it a tight squeeze. ‘You will, love. You will, and before you know it, you’ll be looking at your baby and you won’t be able to believe he’s yours and you’ll start out on the greatest journey of them all. I know, because I’ve been there myself, and there’s nothing like it. It’s a miracle.’

A miracle. It sure didn’t feel like it right now, Rosie thought. She lay back on the bed, and Mary-Pat fussed around, pulling a little facecloth out of the holdall and soaking it in cold water from the sink before folding it and placing it on Rosie’s forehead. Rosie felt the damp, cool cloth soothe her, the lull between contractions a blessed relief. ‘Mary-Pat, I’m glad you’re here.’

‘Well, I’m glad to be here too, love. And I’m sorry about everything, I really am.’ Mary-Pat took Rosie’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze.

‘You don’t have to be sorry, MP.’

‘I do, love. I was trying to protect you. It wasn’t a nice story and we all felt ashamed that something like that had happened to you. You just got caught up in events that weren’t of your making, pet. Sometimes people do dreadful things, even though they don’t mean it. Mammy and Daddy weren’t bad people, just foolish and a bit naïve, I suppose. They didn’t understand that what they did affected others.’

‘I know, Mary-Pat, but can we talk about it another time?’ Rosie moaned, unable to respond because another contraction had gripped her. She held Mary-Pat’s hand so tightly she could feel the bones in her sister’s hand rubbing against each other. ‘Sorry,’ she managed, through gritted teeth.

‘Ah, for God’s sake, less of the sorries, pet. Now, before we all slit our wrists, let’s take a little walk, will we?’

‘Thanks, Mammy,’ Rosie joked.

‘Enough of the Mammy shite. Not that old,’ Mary-Pat barked, but Rosie knew that she was pleased.

Later, much later, Rosie was kneeling on the bed, cursing and swearing, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. She felt as if she would split in two, so searing was the pain. The baby cannot come out that way, she told herself. He or she just can’t. She won’t fit. A cold sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead and a wave of exhaustion swept over her. She leaned forward and rested her head on the pillow. She was done. She’d had it. She couldn’t give birth to this baby and that was it. She leaned her head against her arms and moaned softly to herself. She could hear the two women arguing somewhere behind her, but it felt as if she were underwater, unable to surface. She suddenly wanted Mark; wanted to have him hold her hand and crack jokes to distract her. He should be here, she told herself. Why didn’t I tell him? I need him to be beside me. ‘I need him here now,’ she moaned softly to herself, then louder to Mary-Pat. ‘Mary-Pat, I want Mark here now. Get him for me, please. I don’t care what you have to do.’

‘Let’s just let Rosie calm down and gather herself for a few minutes, shall we?’ Margaret was glaring at Mary-Pat.

‘Look, if she gives up now, she’ll just get too tired and won’t be able to push,’ Mary-Pat said.

‘She’s too tired now, Mary-Pat.’ Margaret was trying a conciliatory tone.

‘Ah, for feck’s sake,’ Mary-Pat said. ‘Rosie, will you listen to me. That fellow of yours can’t be here right now, because he’s on the other side of the world, but we’ll call him as soon as we can. Now, if you don’t push, some pimply young one of a house doctor will be in here with the salad spoons to pull that baby out of you and, let me tell you, you won’t like that. So when you get your next contraction, I want you to push harder than you’ve ever pushed before and we’ll get this baby born, what do you say?’

Rosie nodded, a vision of a small doctor waving a very large pair of salad servers flashing into her mind, which alternately terrified and amused her, and she found herself laughing and crying at the same time as Margaret and Mary-Pat urged her on, whooping and cheering as if she were nearing the finishing line in a race, which she supposed she was, in a way. ‘Oh, here’s the head,’ Mary-Pat squeaked. ‘Feckin’ fantastic, Rosie.’

Margaret tutted. ‘Right, Rosie, one more push and we’re there.’

Rosie thought the bottom half of her would just fall off. ‘I have a bowling ball inside me,’ she gasped. ‘I can’t push it out, it’s too sore.’

‘Well, you sure as hell can’t keep it there,’ Mary-Pat said. ‘It won’t like being jammed halfway up your ass, that’s for sure.’

‘Oh, Mary-Pat, stop,’ Rosie said, bracing herself again as another contraction hit. She gritted her teeth and wondered if that burning sensation would just go on and on and whether she’d split open in the process. And then, she felt a gush of warm water leave her and the baby slid out, like a warm fish.

‘Will you look at the head of hair on him,’ Mary-Pat exclaimed. ‘You’ve given birth to a mop.’ She laughed as Margaret lifted a large pink thing covered in goo up.

‘Congratulations, Rosie, you have a grand big boy.’ She beamed and darted Mary-Pat a dagger look while she was at it.

He
was
big, Rosie thought. Big and red and angry, with his tiny fists clenched up close to his face and his eyes clamped shut, mouth wide open as he let out a loud roar.

‘He has a fine set of lungs anyway.’ Margaret laughed as she urged Rosie to sit down and began to tidy her up. ‘You just hold him for a while, pet, and then we’ll dress him to keep him warm.’

Rosie could feel herself tremble as she held her son, warm and heavy in her arms, a solid mass of gorgeous lobster pink, even now, little folds of fat at his wrists and ankles. Her teeth were chattering and her skin was covered in a riot of goosepimples, and the elation was like nothing she’d ever felt in her whole life.

‘What the hell size is he anyway?’ Mary-Pat marvelled. ‘He looks like a sumo wrestler already, don’t you, love?’ At the sound of Mary-Pat’s voice, he stopped roaring and listened, mewling quietly, then venturing to open his eyes, two inky black splashes underneath a heavy forehead. ‘A chip off the old block, that’s for sure, isn’t that right, isn’t it?’ Mary-Pat burbled, hovering over Rosie’s shoulder, a look of rapt attention on her face.
She gave Rosie a brief squeeze. ‘I’m proud of you, pet. There’s plenty of women who’d have the C-section booked for a grand fellow like himself, but you made it look easy. Well done.’

Rosie was speechless, looking down at her son as he gave a huge yawn, uncurling his fists so that his hands, which were wrinkly like an old man’s, made a starfish shape, then curled up again as he made a little moue with his mouth. You’re mine, she thought. You’re mine and I can’t quite believe it.

He twisted his head now and opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish. ‘Oh, he wants a feed already, the greedy so-and-so.’ Mary-Pat laughed. ‘Will we set you up, love, and you can get started?’

Feeding? God, I have to do that, Rosie thought. I am responsible for this baby’s survival. The thought made her feel panicky and elated at the same time as she let Mary-Pat lift the baby to her breast, where he latched on as if he was to die of thirst, fixing her with a beady stare as he did so.

‘He’s no wallflower, that’s for sure,’ Margaret said, laughing. ‘He won’t fade away, anyway.’

‘He will not. He’s an O’Connor through and through.’ Mary-Pat beamed, lifting his bottom up and tucking him in tight against Rosie. An O’Connor; Rosie turned the name over in her head as the room fell into a contented silence, thinking that it was the first time that any of them had thought it was a name to be proud of. She felt the tears fill her eyes and spill over onto her cheeks and soon she was sobbing, clutching her soft, warm little bundle to her.

‘It’s the shock, love. You’ve just climbed a mountain and you need to sit for a while and take in the scenery,’ Mary-Pat said, rubbing her shoulder.

‘That’s right,’ Margaret agreed. ‘And we’ll just need a bit of quiet so you can deliver the placenta and then we can tidy you up.’ She shot Mary-Pat a meaningful glare.

But Mary-Pat continued, ‘And none of that shite about wanting to eat it or bury it in the garden. All that New-Age nonsense.’

Rosie knew that her sister was trying to distract her while Margaret worked away, and she was grateful. Her teeth were chattering and she wanted nothing more than a cup of tea. A cup of tea and Mark. ‘He should be here, Mary-Pat. I shouldn’t have done it without him. What was I thinking? I wanted him to be free of me and all of this … stuff that I seem to bring with me. I didn’t want to tie him down.’

Mary-Pat shushed her. ‘For a start, that stuff, as you call it, is you, Rosie. You might not like it, but it’s who you are. And I have a feeling that that fellah of yours is strong enough to cope with it. He’s a good man, Rosie, better than that eejit you married anyway. You dodged a bullet there, love, when he vamoosed.’

‘Mary-Pat!’

‘Well, contradict me if you disagree, Rosie,’ her sister said crisply. ‘And do you know what’s more? The timing’s never right, love, God knows, I should know,’ she said, rolling her eyes to heaven and stroking her own small bump. ‘Nothing is ever perfect, so you just have to get on and make the most of the life you have.’

Rosie sighed. Her sister was right, of course. She was always bloody right. ‘Let me take himself for a moment,’ Mary-Pat said. ‘We’ll clean him up. Won’t we, my little sausage?’ she crooned, taking him in her arms. ‘Yes, we will, we will …’ Her voice faded as she went out the door and it closed behind her.

Rosie leaned back on her pillow and closed her eyes for a moment. It was a lovely summer evening and through the open window of the room she could hear the clatter and hum of city life, could smell the faint metallic odour of petrol fumes, and she longed to be back on the towpath, smelling the sweet clover in the grass, hearing the rushes whispering in the wind. She could feel herself drifting now, even as the thought nudged at the edge of her mind that she wanted the baby back from wherever Mary-Pat had taken him. She wanted him in her arms. And she wanted Mark beside her. And if he couldn’t be beside her, because of her own silly pride, she’d need the next best thing. She pulled herself up in the bed, reaching out to the bedside locker and pulling her bag onto the bed. God, the pain. She’d never have another baby.

She thought for a few moments. How could she say what she needed to say in a text – how could she explain it all? And then she had an idea, and she began to type, fingers clammy on the phone screen. And, before she could tell herself not to, she pressed ‘send’. Then she smiled and leaned her head back on the pillow and fell asleep.

M
ary-Pat
had reluctantly agreed to let Margaret bathe and clean her nephew and she supposed the woman would manage, she thought now, as she sipped tea in the hospital canteen. She’d picked mint tea, even though it tasted like mouthwash, because caffeine wasn’t good for the baby. Mind you, nothing was good for the baby now, was it? It seemed you could eat nothing at all nowadays; no prawns or tuna or smelly cheese. She’d lived on tuna when she’d been expecting Melissa, not knowing she’d been filling her daughter’s brain with mercury. It seemed that people had become so cautious nowadays, afraid to take any risks at all. Everything was a danger, a hazard. But, sure, where would you be without taking a risk?

She sipped the warm mouthwash, wincing slightly as she did so. Funny, Rosie being a mum. Part of Mary-Pat always thought
of her sister as a child, forever dancing around in a fairy costume that June had made her out of an old pair of curtains. She looked as if she were hardly old enough, but she was thirty-two, and Melissa and John-Patrick had been at school when Mary-Pat was the same age.

And now, here she was again. Mary-Pat closed her eyes at the thought of it. She’d never have the energy for it at her age, all those sleepless nights, the feeding and the colic, but she supposed she’d have to. And John-Patrick and Melissa would help, in spite of themselves. They were good kids.

PJ, once he’d got over the shock of it, had set his shoulders and said they’d just have to get on with it. ‘Kids keep you young anyway,’ he’d said, in a way that had made Mary-Pat guffaw with laughter. ‘I know, I don’t sound very convincing, but we’ll be good parents, MP, I know we will. We
are
good parents.’

They said that babies couldn’t save a marriage, and Mary-Pat knew that, but she also knew that this baby came after the fact, so to speak, so it didn’t count. The marriage had been saved, and the baby was the result, so it was a win-win situation, she supposed. And it had all been worth it anyway, to hold PJ in her arms and feel close to him again, to feel protected, with her man by her side. You can stuff that up your gingham pinny, she’d thought as she’d lain there with PJ after, thinking of that young one and her bright smile. This man’s taken.

It was funny, Mary-Pat thought as she relived the rest of that evening, looking out the hospital window, that he’d said that she was still the girl he used to know. She wasn’t. She’d changed and for the better, she liked to think. She knew that she was still capable of sharp words, but at least now she could think before she opened her great big trap. At least, most of the time. The words didn’t come bursting out of her before she’d had time to edit them, probably because she wasn’t keeping them down all the time. Now, she was more inclined to say what was really on her mind and not just bark out smart comments.