Tara Road (70 page)

Barney listened open-mouthed. 'You can't make these demands,GCO he said eventually.

'You don't have to accept them,' she countered.

He looked at her for a long time. 'You hold all the cards,' he said.

'People can always get up and leave the card table, they don't have to play.'

'Why are you doing this, you don't need me, Mona? You don't have to have me hanging around the place as some kind of an accessory.'

'You have no idea what I need and what I don't need, Barney.'

'Have some dignity, woman, for God's sake. At this stage everyone knows about me and Polly, we're not hushing anything up that isn't widely known already.'

'And they'll know when it's over too,' she said.

'This will give you pleasure?'

'These are my terms.'

'Do we have lawyers to fix it up?' He was scathing.

'No, but we do have the newspapers. You've used them already, I can do the same.'

If anyone had ever suggested to Barney McCarthy that his quiet compliant wife would have spoken like this to him Barney would have laughed aloud.

'What's brought this on, the thought of being poor?' His lip was twisted as he spoke.

'I pity you if you really think that. I never wanted to be rich. Never. It always sat uneasily on me. But anyway as it happens I am rich, and I'll be richer if I don't help you out of the hole that you are in.'

'So why then?'

'Partly from a sense of fairness. You did work hard for what you got, very hard, and I enjoyed a comfortable life as a result. But mainly because I would like us to move with some grace into this period of our lives.'

He looked at her with tears in his eyes. 'It will be done,' he said.

'As you choose, Barney.'

Hubie left them at the carport.

'Nothing is ever the way Brian says it is,' Annie said to him sadly.

'I know.'

'So will I see you again?'

'Of course. Anyway neither Sean bloody Maine nor I will ever see you again after this summer, so what the hell?'

'I'd hate to think that,' she said.

'About which of us?'

'About both of you,' she said.

And they ran inside. They saw Danny's grip bag packed.

'You really are going then?' Annie said.

'Did you think I was making it up?'

'I thought you might want to get us back from the Maines,' Annie said.

'You'd want to have seen Annie and Sean MaineGCa' Brian began.

'No we wouldn't,' Ria said. 'We wouldn't have wanted to at all, any more than we'd want to have seen the way you left your bedroom here, Brian. But let's not waste time, we only have an hour before I take your dad to the bus station. There are a lot of things to be said so we must all talk now.'

'Zach might have seen me coming home, he could call in,' Brian began.

'Well, he'll just be asked to call out again,' Annie said.

Danny took control. 'I came over here to tell you that there are going to be a lot of changes, not all for the better.'

'Are any of them for the better?' Brian asked.

'No, as a matter of fact,' his father said. 'They're not.'

They sat silent, waiting. Danny's voice seemed to have failed him. They looked at their mother, but Ria said nothing, she just smiled encouragingly at Danny. At least she wasn't fighting with him and it reassured them. A little.

He cleared his throat and found the words. He told them the story. The debts, the gambles that hadn't worked, the lack of confidence, the end result. Number 16 Tara Road would have to be sold.

'Will you and Bernadette sell the new house too?' Brian asked.

'Yes, yes of course.'

'But Barney doesn't own that one?' Annie asked.

'No.'

'Well, maybe we could all live there, couldn't we?' Brian enclosed the whole room in his expansive gesture. 'Or maybe not,' he said, remembering.

'And I would have told you all this tonight, with more time for us to discuss what was best and to tell you how sorry I am, but I have to go home.'

'Is Mr McCarthy in gaol?' Brian asked.

'No, no it's not that at all, it's something else.' There was a silence. They looked at Ria again; again she offered nothing but a look of encouragement for Danny to speak. 'Bernadette isn't well. We've had a message from Finola. She's had a lot of bleeding and she may be losing the baby, she's in hospital. So that's why I'm going home early.'

'Like it's not going to be born after all, is that it?' Brian wanted to make sure he had it straight.

'It's not totally formed yet so it would be very weak and might not live if it were born now,' Danny explained.

Annie looked at her mother as she listened to this explanation, and bit her lip. Never had things been so raw and honest before. And Dad had been telling the truth on the phone, they were not rowing and fighting.

Brian let out a great sigh. 'Well, wouldn't that solve everything if Bernadette's baby wasn't born at all?' he said. 'Then we could all go back to being like we were.'

Danny gave the taxi-driver the address of the maternity hospital. 'As quick as you can, and I have to pay you in US dollars, I don't have any real money.'

'Dollars are real enough for me,' said the taxi-driver, pulling out in the early-morning sunshine and putting his foot down on the empty road.

'Is this the first baby?' the driver asked.

'No.' Danny was curt.

'Still it's always the same excitement, isn't it? And every one of them different. We have five ourselves, but that's it. Tie a knot in it, they told me.' He laughed happily at the pleasantry and caught Danny's eye in the mirror. 'Maybe you're a bit tired and want to have a bit of a rest after the flight.'

'Something like that,' Danny said with relief, and closed his eyes.

'Well, make the most of it, you'll have plenty of broken sleep for the next bit, there's a promise,' said the driver, a man of experience.

Orla King was having a routine check-up at the hospital. Something had shown up on a smear test but it had proved to be benign. Her blood tests had also showed much improved liver function. Apart from the catastrophic lapse at Colm's restaurant she was keeping off alcohol.

'Good girl,' said the kindly woman specialist. 'It's not easy but you're in there winning. GCO

'It's a funny old world. I stay off the booze and God says: okay, Orla, you don't have cancer this time.' Orla was cynical.

'Some people find that kind of attitude helps.' The doctor had seen it all and heard it all.

'Fantasists.' Orla dismissed them.

'What would help you?'

'I don't know. A singing career, the one fellow I fancied to fancy meGCa'

'There are other fellows.'

'So they say.' Orla went out into the corridor and walked straight into Danny Lynch. 'We do meet in the strangest places,' she said.

'Not now, Orla.' His voice was hard.

'It can't be baby time yet surely?'

'Please, excuse me.' He was trying to step past her.

'Come and have a coffee in the canteen and tell me all about it,' she pleaded.

'No. I'm meeting someone, I'm waiting.'

'Go on, Danny. I'm sober, that's one bit of good news, and a better one I don't have cancer.'

'I'm very pleased for you,' he said, still trying to escape.

'Look, I behaved badly some time back. I didn't ring or write or anything, but you know I didn't mean it, it's not the real me when the drink takes over. GCO

Across the corridor was a men's toilet. 'I'm sorry, Orla,' he said and went in the door. When he was inside he just leaned over the hand-basin and looked at his haggard face, sunken eyes from a sleepless night on the plane, crumpled shirt.

He had been told she was still in Intensive Care, and he could see her in an hour or two. Her mother would be back shortly, she had been there most of the night. Oh yes, she had lost the baby; there had been no possibility of anything else. Bernadette would tell him everything herself, it wasn't hospital policy to tell him whether it had been a boy or a girl, the woman would do all that. In time. Go and have a coffee, they had urged him, and then he had met Orla King of all people in the universe.

His shoulders began to heave and the tears wouldn't stop. Another man, a big burly young fellow, came in and saw him.

'Were you there for it?' he asked. Danny couldn't speak and the proud young father thought he had nodded agreement. 'I was too. Jesus, it blew my mind. I couldn't believe it. I had to come in here to get over it. My son, and I saw him coming into the world.' He put an awkward arm around Danny's shoulder and gave him a squeeze of solidarity. 'And they say it's the women who go through it all,' he said.

Polly Callaghan came back from London early on Monday morning. Barney was waiting in his car outside her flat.

Polly was thrilled to see him. 'I didn't call you or anything, I wanted to leave you a bit of space. Aren't you good to come and meet me?'

'No, no not at all.' He seemed very down.

Polly wasn't going to allow that. 'Hey, I bought the Irish Times at Victoria Station in London and I saw that piece about you, it's wonderful.'

'Yes,' he said.

'Well, isn't it?'

'In a way.'

'Well, get out of that car, come in and I'll make us coffee.'

'No, Poll, we must talk here.'

'In your car, don't be ridiculous.'

'Please. Humour me this once.'

'Haven't I spent a lifetime humouring you? Tell me before I burst. Is it true, are you being rescued?' 'Yes, Poll, I am.'

'So why haven't we the champagne out?'

'But at a price. A terrible price.'

'Polly, it's Gertie here. Is this a good time to talk? I have a bit of a favour to ask you.'

'No, Gertie, it's not a good time to talk.'

'Sorry. Is Barney there?'

'No, and he's never going to be here again.'

'I don't believe it! I knew he was in a bit of trouble butGCa'

'He's in no trouble now, it's all been smoothed out for him, but he's not ever going to be here again, that's part of the deal. Actually I'm not going to be here much longer, that's part of the deal too.'

'But how?'

'His wife. Wives always win in the end.'

'No they don't. Ria didn't win, did she?'

'Ah shit, Gertie. Who cares?'

'I do, I'm very sorry. Maybe he doesn't mean it.'

'He means it. It was either or. What was your problem by the way?'

'JustGCa it doesn't matter, it's not big compared to yours.'

'What was it, Gertie?'

'It's just that Jack got some silly notion in his head that I was earning the extra money, well you won't believe how he thought I was earning it, so I had to tell him I was working for you. He might come round to check so can you say yes?'

'Is that all? Is that the big problem?'

'It was quite big at the time, and might be again if he's still brooding about it.'

'Were there any stitches this time?'

'No, no.'

'Gertie you're such a fool, such a mad fool. I'd love to come over and shake every remaining tooth out of your head.'

'That wouldn't help me. Not a bit.'

'No, I know that.'

'It's only because he loves me you see, he gets notions.'

'I see.'

'And you know that Barney loves you, Polly, he'll be back.'

'Of course he will,' said Polly Callaghan and hung up.

Marilyn Vine said to Greg that they were going to drive out to Wicklow for the day on Monday. It was less than an hour's journey, and very beautiful. She was going to make what would pass for a picnic.

'Here, I'll show you a map, you love maps,' she said as she got out Ria's picnic basket. 'Now, you can see where we're going and navigate if I take the wrong turning.'

He looked at her in amazement. The transformation was extraordinary. The old enthusiasms were back. 'We can go to the country in one hour?' he said, surprised.

'This is an extraordinary city, it's got sea and mountains right on the doorstep,' she said. 'And I want to take you to this place I found. You can park the car and walk over the hills for miles and meet no one, see no one. You can't even see any dwelling places. It's like Arizona without the desert.'

'Why are we going there?' he asked gently.

'So that nobody can interrupt us. If we stay here in Number 16 Tara Road we might as well be in Grand Central Station,' said Marilyn, with the easy laugh that Greg Vine had thought he would never hear again.

Bernadette looked very white. His stomach nearly turned over when he saw her. 'Go on, talk to her. She's been counting the moments till you got here,' the nurse said.