‘I’m…’ HowwasI feeling? ‘I’m actuallydelighted.’ Yes that was it.Delighted and happy. Giddy with new possibilities and new adventures to be had. Rosie was going to be all right, I knew that. I’d be there for her with everything she needed and now Michael, God bless him, had fallen in love with Lucy, it meant there was nothing stopping me. I had been determined to stay in the marriage for the simple reason that I wanted my daughter to have a mother and a fatherin the same house. I’d been wrong, it wasn’t any good having a mother and father who didn’t love each other, who weren’t even a team.
But somehow, now, life stretched out like a glittering and exciting carpet. Or like the ‘Billie Jean’ floor in the Michael Jackson video. Enticing and exciting. ‘And Lucy’s pregnant.’ And then I realised it wasn’t all going to be plain sailing, that I couldn’tafford to be giddy and excited. I still had to tell Red about my baby.Ourbaby.
‘Good grief.’
I could do with a hug, I thought, as I stood to one side to let him go past me, his jacket brushing my hand.I could do with the biggest hug of my life. From you. I’d hold on and never let go.
I pulled him by the arm, feeling his muscles beneath his shirt, into the kitchen. We bumped up against eachother and there was a lightness, a giggling quality, a slight hysteria was infecting us.
‘I hope you don’t mind, Mrs… Tabitha,’ said Lucy when we went into the kitchen, ‘but I made the tea. I haven’t had a decent one for two days. One thing I don’t like about Brussels. The water. You can bring your tea bags but it’s not the same.’.’
‘Michael, you remember Redmond Power.’
‘Ah yes,’ he said,holding out his hand. ‘Tabitha’s old friend.’
‘That’s right,’ said Red. ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling at this time…’
‘Time of what?’ said Michael. ‘Time of me being a national laughing stock?’
‘No!’ said Lucy suddenly and passionately. ‘You’re not a laughing stock. You’re still the same Michael Fogarty you ever were: upstanding, proud and principled. That’s the Michael Fogarty you were,the Michael Fogarty you are and the Michael Fogarty you will be.’ She looked quite hot around the collar. Everyone needed a Lucy on their team. Finally, Michael had the life partner he deserved.
I glanced at Red and he widened his eyes at this impassioned speech and I felt like I might laugh, from happiness, hysteria or knowing that Red ‘got me’, understood me.
‘Lucy, this is Red… a friend ofmine… And Red, this is Michael’s…’ Lucy’s smile was rictus. ‘Michael’sgirlfriendand mother of his unborn child.’ I turned to Lucy. ‘Is that all right?’
‘Yes…’ She hesitated. ‘I think so. Well, it’s factually correct, I suppose, but rather bald when you say it out loud.’
‘Good to meet you,’ said Red, shaking her hand. ‘I recognised you from the newspaper.’
‘Oh stop,’ said Lucy, blushing. ‘I’mam mortified. Mammy is furious. She says she can’t face Mass today because of all the talk. Expecting… when I’m not married!’
Michael patted her on the shoulder, a look of resignation on his face as he realised his hours and hours of lovely sleep were about to be cut short.
‘Everything’s going to be all right, you just take care of yourself and that baby. Now,’ I said, ‘where are those JaffaCakes? Jaffa Cake, Red?’
‘Tea, everyone?’ said Lucy. ‘Michael?’
‘Would you make mine black?’ he said. ‘I think I’ve gone off milk.’
And while Lucy and Michael were whispering together, Red held out his hand and touched mine and my smile turned into a goofy, giddy grin. Red, meanwhile, was looking as goofy and giddy as me. This is how it used to feel, I remembered, this is how we used to be.
‘Well,’ said Michael, ‘we’re going to hit the road. We’re going to stay in the flat in town. I’m going to take Rosie out for pizza tonight and we can talk about everything.’
Michael hung back a little when I saw him and Lucy off at the front door. This was my husband leaving me. Shouldn’t it be more dramatic, a bit moreEastEnders? Shouldn’t I be crying? Or at least hitting the vodka? Or him?
‘Thank you,’ said Michael. ‘Thanks for being so good about things… about everything.’
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘We’re all human. Anyway, it’s something of a relief, to be honest. We were never right for each other.’
‘Well, thank you for trying, anyway,’ he said.
‘We both tried,’ I said. ‘We did it for Rosie.’
‘A most noble cause,’ he said and reached towards me and hugged me awkwardly andstiffly. We hadn’t actually had such close physical contact in years, not since the last by-election and he was so overexcited he hugged all of us standing there at two a.m. I thought I was going to drop with tiredness, but he and Lucy were on cloud nine. Thinking back, I should have twigged something was up when he hugged all of us but not her. It was the classic putting people off the scent trick,but I was too tired that night to see it.
‘Goodbye Michael, and good luck with your Standards In Pubic Lice thing,’ I said. ‘I mean publiclife!’
‘I think that’s over,’ he said, sadly, looking not unlike a wounded lion, ‘along with my career. And the milk scheme will never be a runner now. I was so sure they would be ground-breaking. They were going to make my name in Europe.’
