‘Do I have your blessing as well, Rosie?’
She nodded. ‘It kind of puts my messing up my Leaving Cert in the shade, so I’m not so disappointed. It’s nice when your parents behave worse than you do.’
He gave her an agonised, tortured smile as though he had no idea if she was joking or not. She wasn’t.
‘Where is Lucy by the way?’ I said.
‘Outside. Waiting.’
‘You’d better bring herin.’
*
When he returned with Lucy, she grabbed my hand, her eyes full of tears. They’d obviously both had a good sob about my awful plight on the journey home. ‘I’m so sorry, Tabitha,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Lucy, it’s fine,’ I said briskly. ‘Can we all stop saying sorry and be grown-up about this?’
‘Yes, yes,’ she said, sniffling and coughing ‘I’m sorry… I mean…’
‘Have you seen the headlines?’Michael said, taking a pile of newspapers from Lucy and putting them on the kitchen table. Finally, he had achieved one of the great tenets of being a politician – a sex scandal. Maybe even conventional people like Michael craved being at the centre of a drama sometimes. We’re all human, we all need attention at times, I supposed. And you don’t go into politics not to be noticed. And Michaelhad finally done it, nationwide notoriety. This was political gold. ‘I’m notorious… I’ll never be known for anything else.’ He looked pretty pleased with himself, the rosy pinkness back in his cheeks.
‘What’s your mother going to say?’
The colour drained out of him again. ‘Mammy… oh God.’
‘We’ll tell her together, Michael,’ said Lucy, back to her marvellous self and taking charge, brilliantly,as she always did. ‘She’ll come round.’ She smiled him a smile full of love and admiration and can-do while he looked at her with gratitude and I was reminded once more why they were so well suited. I had never looked at him like that. Ever.
‘There’s something else,’ he said. ‘Bigger than everything…thisyou won’t be so happy about. It’s something of a bombshell.’
‘What now?’ I imagined theworst. ‘You’ve embezzled money? You’re on the run?’
‘Out with it, Dad,’ said Rosie.
Lucy went over and took his hand.
‘We’re pregnant,’ he said. ‘Well, Lucy is. We only found out this week… and…’
‘We’re going to have a baby,’ joined in Lucy. ‘Tabitha… I’m sorry… we’re really sorry…’
I held up my hand. ‘Enough. Right… a baby,’ I stalled.
‘A baby!’ said Rosie, looking shocked.
‘You’re goingto be a big sister,’ said Michael.
‘I hope you’re pleased for us,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s all been such a rush and I am sure there were far better ways of announcing things.’
‘Better out than in,’ said Michael.
‘Rosie?’ I said. ‘What do you think?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said, truthfully. ‘I feel like we’re on a twenty four hour news channel and everything is moving so fast. But I couldget used to it,’ she said. ‘It might be nice. A little brother or sister. Someone who might actually get to Trinity.’ She gave Michael a look.
‘Well, it’s a little soon for that, but perhaps, you never know, it wouldn’t be too far from the realm of possibility.’Nowhe looked quite delighted with himself.
‘Lucy, you sit down here and I’ll make you some tea. You’ve been travelling all morning.There’s a biscuit here somewhere. Or you can have some of Clodagh’s Baileys,’ I joked. ‘She keeps a bottle here for medicinal purposes.’
‘Just the tea,’ said Lucy. ‘I think I’ll be off the drink for a while.’
