When All Is Said(24)

Young and confident, he greeted us with a compassion that made me wary. I wasn’t used to kindness, having never looked for or given it to those beyond my own. But Sadie grasped hold of it for all it was worth, trusting and believing all he said. She did the talking. I stayed quiet while she answered every question. He tried to engage me, but it was as if there was a boulder stuck in my throat, stopping me from telling him any of those intimate details that Sadie seemed only too willing to expose. Every time a question was pointed in my direction she laid a hand on my leg and answered for me. He sent us off with our instructions and promises of further interventions.

‘Tests,’ he said.

I did manage to say one thing to him just before we said our goodbyes:

‘And how much will all this cost us?’

Sadie shoved me out the door.

Over the coming weeks and months, we had tests and charts and appointments coming out our ears. It drove me demented. ‘Rhythm’ fecking this and ‘cycle’ fecking that. I hadn’t a clue. I just did what I was told. Performed when it was required and looked for nothing when the calendar had a big mark through it.

‘Well, everything is looking very well, Sadie, I must say,’ Doctor McRory beamed at her one spring day. ‘The reports are showing no difficulties. If we keep going as we are [we? I thought], I’m hopeful that soon there might be news. Yes, it’s all looking very promising.’

He hadn’t lied. Within three weeks of that great proclamation, our teatimes came back to life. Sadie was indeed pregnant. She couldn’t be contained for the joy of the news over the following months. And neither could I. Everywhere I turned the world was a nicer place. People were nicer. I was nicer. I bantered with Lavin, smiled at Nancy Regan in the street and even tipped my cap to the bank manager.

Our little Molly was to be born 9th of January 1966. Not that we knew it was a girl for sure. Or should I say, not that I knew. From the get-go Sadie was convinced of it. She’d bought pink and yellow bedding and a couple of wee dresses, as she said herself, home from one of her trips to Duncashel. The little heart was beating perfectly Sadie was told, at every visit to the doctor. Limbs dancing and kicking away, elbowing her mammy to pure ecstasy. It was a happy time. They say women glow when they are pregnant. It was no different with Sadie. The woman shone. Everything about her seemed alive and triumphant in the happiness of what was to come.

Things couldn’t have been better for me workwise either. I was powering away. All the bits of business, the cows, the land buying was motoring better than I’d hoped. I had gotten into leasing machines at that stage, combines and tractors. I had a few on the go. I was putting the hours in and seeing the benefits. I had a whole team of lads around me, taking care of the everyday stuff while I was off making sure the bigger picture kept expanding. They were good lads, dependable. Things felt as they should be: a happy wife, a new home and a baby on the way. I was doing right by everyone. Making sure they would never have to worry about anything and want for nothing, or so I thought.

I arrived home one evening to find Sadie sitting in the kitchen staring at her eight-month-old bump, holding it.

‘I can’t feel her, Maurice,’ she said, looking up at me.

‘Sure, she’ll be asleep.’ I went over to her and hunkered down, putting my hand on hers, on Molly. ‘Having an auld snooze.’

‘But not now, Maurice. She’s usually doing somersaults at this time.’

‘Ah, don’t be worrying. I’ll make the tea. You just go on and have a lie down on the bed,’ I said, distracted by a meeting I had planned that evening with Jim Lowry, a solicitor from Navan. He was selling some land up in north Meath on behalf of the estate of a farmer who’d died a few weeks prior. I’d gotten a sniff of it on the grapevine and approached him immediately. I had plans to begin leasing my machinery up that end of the county. No one else was operating there at the time. It wasn’t a huge farm by any means. What I wanted were his sheds. Big and modern they were. Secure enough for my machines. The revenue would be good enough with Cavan, Monaghan and Louth on the doorstep. An opportunity not to be missed.

Sadie did as she was told and lay in the bed all evening, staring at our Molly’s quietness.

At eight, I popped my head around the bedroom door.

‘Just going out for a half hour, Sadie. You sleep, and I’ll be back before you know it.’

I didn’t wait for her reply, didn’t respond to her worried face, simply marched my way out of there to secure another bargain. With not a shred of guilt or concern, I turned the key in the ignition and drove off down the driveway.

At around eleven I came home with the deal done. Happy out. I crept into the bedroom, tiptoeing to the bed only to find her still wide awake.

‘Where were you?’ she said, her voice unsteady. ‘I rang every hotel in the county looking for you. You said you wouldn’t be long.’

‘It took a bit longer than I thought.’ I was sitting on the side of the bed taking off my socks.

‘She’s gone, Maurice.’ Her words steadier now – matter-of-fact almost. No tears, no hysterics. Was there blame, though? I can’t remember the sting, even if she had intended it. Just – she’s gone. ‘We’d better go,’ she added.

I got up and followed her to the car for the trip to Dublin. Not one word passed between us the whole way. They induced her the next day. Fifteen minutes, that’s how long we held her. Our little porcelain doll with her golden hair. Plump cheeks, a dimpled chin and a red birthmark on her lower lip, like she’d been sucking away at it for all that time in her mammy. Still and quiet, she lay in Sadie’s arms with no breath to feel the rise and fall of, to awe over. But that didn’t stop your mother rocking and singing to her. Her tears falling on the yellow blanket.