‘Hello, Mrs Bligh.’
‘It’s Miss and just call me Estelle, please.’ The drunk woman looked him up and down.
‘Mum! This is Conor. Conor, this is my mum Estelle.’ Star began to unwrap her mother’s foot. ‘How did you do it anyway?’
‘I was only wearing one shoe and I slipped down the decking steps. What I needed was a strapping young fella like you to land on, Conor. Steren! Ow!’
The woman’s little toe was bright red and slightly swollen. Her breath was acrid with alcohol.
‘They can’t do anything for broken toes at the hospital even if there is a fracture, I don’t think,’ Star said, ‘so you’ll just have to rest it. Did you hurt anything else?’
‘Not that I know of. I think the vodka broke my fall.’ Estelle tipped her head back and laughed hysterically. ‘The vodka broke my fall, get it?’
An apologetic Star looked to Conor who winked at her encouragingly and advised: ‘Just a plaster will do. Wrap it around the other toe to keep it stable.’
‘I forgot you were a Boy Scout.’ Star smiled, heading off to the bathroom cabinet to see if she could find a suitable Band Aid.
‘Well, my girl certainly knew how to pick a good father for her children. What beautiful babies you are going to make.’
Hearing this, Star froze in the doorway of the bathroom.
Conor gave a nervous laugh. ‘I’m very fond of your daughter, Estelle, but we’re not quite at that stage yet.’
‘Aren’t you? I think maybe she owes you a little chat.’
As Conor gazed over at Star with a look of bafflement on his face, she threw the packet of plasters at her mother.
‘Refusing to tell me about my own father and even how he died was a pretty low blow but this,thistops even that,’ she shouted. ‘From now on you are dead to me!’ And she stormed out of the mobile home and into her car.
Conor said a hasty goodbye to Estelle then ran off, calling, ‘Star, calm down, darling. Talk to me. It’s OK, it’s all right.’ He squeezed himself into the passenger seat.
Without saying a word Star started the car and tore out of the park and on to the coast road. Ignoring Conor’s attempts at reassurance and emitting sounds which had never before come out of her, Steren Bligh drove, white-hot with rage, until she reached her chosen destination. Here she stopped and got out. On a cold Sunday afternoon in November with the dark gloam of the night sky already forming she made her way over to her thinking bench. Conor was right by her side.
She looked out to sea as if the familiar view would soak up and whisk away the painful conversation she was about to have. With a massive sob, the words, ‘I am pregnant,’ flew out of her mouth and into the world, hitting the confused Irishman’s ears, causing his mouth to drop right open like some bizarre fairground attraction into which you throw balls.
‘How?’
‘Do you want me to draw you a picture?’ Star sobbed again. ‘I am so sorry, but we had the conversation about condoms, and I guess because we were having so much sex, whatever precautions we were taking didn’t work, did they?’
‘Feck!’
‘Are you angry?’
‘No, of course not, just a bit shocked, that’s all.’ He put his arms around her quivering shoulders then took his warm jacket off and wound it around her. ‘How far gone are you?’
‘I don’t know for sure. I’m going to the doctor’s on Tuesday.’
‘And how are you feeling?’
‘I feel fine so far. I was a bit sick after we had those oysters the other night, but I don’t think that was baby-connected.’
‘Do you want to keep the child?’
‘I had to talk to you first, but yes, I do.’ Before he could say anything Star began to gabble, ‘I know you’re a wanderer, I would never trap you. I can manage fine on my own.’
Conor stood up and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Let me just take this in, OK, before you start saying things like that. Jesus, Star. I was just getting myself back on track.’
‘And that doesn’t have to stop. We’re not in the Dark Ages. I have a successful business. I don’t need your money, Conor.’
