Chapter Twenty-Seven
At the airport, Red dropped me off and went to park the car. Inside the terminal, I explained everything to a security guard.
‘It’s a friend of mine. Mary Hooley. I have a copy of her passport to prove she is an Irish citizen. I don’t know why you didn’t just ask her to speak. She’s from Ballyjamesduff and she has the accent to prove it.’
He jerked his thumb. ‘She’s backhere.’
He led me through a secret door, flashing and skimming his pass through a warren of corridors and electronic gates until he pushed open a door. And there was Mary, drinking a cup of tea, with another security guard.
‘Cavalry has arrived,’ said the first guard.
‘We are so sorry to drag you all this way,’ said the second guard. ‘But with things as they are, you know, we’d get in terribletrouble, so we would. We can’t let people through without passports. It’s not like the old days when any Tom, Dick or Paddy would swan through passport control. Now, Mary here and the little lady can finally be away. They’ve had a terrible journey all the way from Beijing so they have. They’re both fit to be tied.’
‘Little lady?’
Mary was looking at me with big eyes, tears pooling. ‘I’ve gother, Tabitha,’ she said. ‘She’s here. My little angel is finally here.’ She unpeeled the top of her coat to show me what was tucked inside. A tiny face, eyes closed, a thatch of black hair on her head. The sweetest little rosebud for a mouth. ‘This is little Huan… my new daughter, adopted from China. I’ve waited so long for her but this time everything is all right… everything is just perfect.’
‘Oh my God…’ I looked at Mary with wonder. A huge smile of awe and amazement spread on my face, matching the one that had appeared on Mary’s. ‘You are a dark horse,’ I said, bending over the tiny figure, nestled against her new mother. ‘Hello Huan,’ I said gently to the little black head. ‘Hello little lady.’
‘It means joy,’ said Mary. ‘Who would have thought that something so small could bringso much joy?’
She pulled her coat down lower so I could see Huan’s tiny hands balled into fists, her bright intelligent eyes looking at me, wondering where on earth she was. She still had on a beautiful jade-coloured Chinese jacket and tiny little embroidered slippers.
‘She’s beautiful,’ I said, overawed by this adorable baby who had travelled so far. ‘Welcome to Ireland, little girl of happiness.You’ve come a long, long way and it’s time to go home.’
*
We helped settle Huan into her new house, their house, making sure the heating was on and warming up Huan’s cot – which Mary had bought before heading off – with a hot water bottle.
Finally, we drew up outside my house. We sat in the car for a moment, talking about Mary and Huan.
‘So you knew everything?’
‘Only some of it,’ he admitted.‘I knew she was going through this long and arduous process, that she had travelled to China before and that it hadn’t worked out. Frankly, I don’t know how she kept it together, there were so many disappointments, near-misses… and then this happened. She got the call that there was a baby who needed a home and… well, she just had to leave. I think she talked to me because I was an outsider.No judgement…’
‘I wouldn’t have judged,’ I said, quickly, defensively.
‘We became friends,’ he said. ‘I think it was our shared love of Johnny Logan. And then going to see improving films together. She told me what exactly she’d gone through to get to this point.’
‘A baby…’ I said. ‘There’s nothing like a baby.’ For a moment, I watched Red and wondered what he was thinking. He was looking thoughthe windscreen at the road ahead.
‘Would you have liked one?’ I said, tentatively. ‘A baby, I mean.’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘But with the right partner. Teaching has been a way of being around children, of being part of their lives but I would have wanted one I could call my own. If you’re allowed to call them your own.’ He turned to me, a wry, regretful look on his face. ‘It never happened.And it’s probably too late…’
I wasn’t sure what to say in return as I thought about the baby – our baby. The baby we lost.
‘I’m starving,’ he said, suddenly. ‘Would you like to go for something to eat? Maybe Rosie would like to come.’
‘She’s still in Alice’s,’ I said. ‘And then going out with Michael. I hope he doesn’t go on about trying for Trinity again.’
He smiled. ‘Is she good at dealingwith him?’
‘Better than me,’ I said. ‘Fathers and daughters are different to wives and husbands. Daughters have more power than they maybe realise.
