‘But we’ve a gaming league at the weekend,’ Ethan moans, and Cal, who clearly knows when they are fighting a losing battle, reaches out his arm in front of his brother as if to signal that he should stop before he makes things worse.
‘Nope. Not until that place is clean as a whistle and fumigated of all noxious odours. It’s bad enough that your room is that messy to begin with, but the smell? Dear God, lads. Have a bit of dignity,’ Paul says.
‘And what are you going to do, Dad?’ Ethan asks, defiantly.
‘Whatever it takes to make sure your mum doesn’t want to walk out that front door to go and live in a witchy cottage by the sea all on her own,’ he says, and Niamh smiles. He’s listening too.
‘Well, then, what about Jodie? What is Jodie going to do?’ Cal asks.
‘Well, that’s another thing we have to tell you,’ Niamh says. ‘Or at least it’s something Jodie wants to tell you all.’
All eyes in the room move immediately to Jodie, who grasps hold of her daddy’s hand.
‘Well, I know that you’ve noticed I’ve been a bit sick recently. And Adam stayed over too.’
‘Are you going to be dead?’ Fiadh asks, filled with alarm.
‘Oh, God, no! I hope not, anyway. No. I’m not ill. Not properly ill anyway. The truth is, I’m going to have a baby.’
The room erupts with questions, cheers and the occasional quiet moment as Fiadh takes in the news she won’t be the baby of the family for much longer. Niamh just sits and watches it and she has to hold on to hope that this is the start of good things happening for her family.
Even as Jodie explains that it’s still early, and there’s a chance something might go wrong, Niamh just gets this overwhelming feeling that everything will be okay.
‘What are you going to call the baby?’ Fiadh asks. ‘I think Taylor or Sabrina for a girl.’
‘No. No. We’re thinking of Ella, maybe?’ Jodie says, her hand going to her stomach.
‘No,’ Niamh says, that name striking fear deep into her heart. ‘No. I will give you £500 if you call the baby something other than Ella. And for the record, Jayden is also off the table. Totally.’ She’s only partially joking, of course.
* * *
The following day, Niamh meets Laura and Becca at the Green Cat Bakery café for a debrief and chocolate cake session. In a quiet corner of the coffee shop with an extra-large slice of chocolate cake in front of her, she feels no guilt at all not being in the classroom and instead enjoying this leisurely afternoon with her girls.
‘This tastes so good,’ she says, taking the time to enjoy the texture and taste of the cake and not, as she has been doing over the preceding weeks, simply shoving vast quantities of chocolate down her throat in a bid to give herself an energy boost, or to fill the void that seemed to be opening up inside of her. It hadn’t been a particularly effective method of either – any energy boost she got was quick-lived and accompanied by a sugar-rush headache and a severe bout of nausea, while any void it was supposed to fill just widened to now include self-loathing into the mix. ‘I think I’d forgotten how to just enjoy and appreciate food, you know?’
Becca and Laura both nod. ‘I get it,’ Laura says. ‘Always rushing from place to place. Not sitting down to eat and relax. Then after Mum died, I just lost my appetite altogether.’
‘I wish I was the kind of person who lost my appetite when I’m stressed. I go the other way. I could eat everything in sight, then I get annoyed with myself,’ Becca says. ‘It’s only Adam being home and having to cook him a proper dinner that has kept me on track these last few weeks. When he goes back, I’ll have to be extra careful not to fall back into my old habits.’
‘When is he going?’ Laura asks, delicately.
Niamh already knows the answer. Just as she already knows that Jodie is also going back to do her exams in Belfast next week. She’d tried to encourage her to take a little time off to rest. She can always resit her exams in the summer. But Jodie is as stubborn as her dad and, Niamh is coming to realise, as stubborn as her mum too. She wants to do her exams and has been studying for them. She swears she’ll do nothing more strenuous than walking for the bus to get to the exam hall or to the library to study.
‘Sunday,’ Becca says. ‘Saul will meet him at the airport and if I know my boys, and Saul in particular, it will be straight to the pub.’
‘I suppose they might as well,’ Laura says. ‘Things will change soon enough when he has a baby to consider.’
‘That’s what I think,’ Niamh says. ‘Because he’ll not get away with that nonsense when he’s a daddy.’
Immediately she looks to Becca, wondering if threatening her son might have been a bad move. Becca just laughs. ‘Bloody right! I’ve him warned. His granny has him warned too,’ she laughs. ‘Did you know she is now on to crocheting a second baby blanket? If she keeps up at this rate, there will be a new one for every day of the week.’
‘That’s so lovely of your mum,’ Niamh says. ‘I remember her crocheting stuff when mine were wee. I’m pretty sure I still have some of it up in the attic.’
‘Me too,’ says Laura. ‘Actually, Robyn still has one of her baby blankets at the bottom of her bed. I think it’s like her security blanket or something. It’s definitely seen better days, but she’ll never part with it.’
All this chat is making Niamh feel fuzzy and warm, but she accepts that might just be down to the new antidepressants swimming around in her system.
‘In all seriousness,’ Becca says, ‘Adam is already talking about how determined he is to be a good dad. He’s a good lad.’
