Twenty-one

Anna’s news left Vincy dumbfounded. It was not a condition he experienced very often.

‘You’re what?’ he said.

Anna laughed. ‘That’s a joke,’ she said. ‘How did the northsider propose to his girlfriend? “You’re wha?”’

‘Sorry.’ He put his arm around her shoulder, in a demonstration of solicitude. But he did not call her ‘darling’ or ‘Anna’.

They were in his apartment again. Joe was still away. Anna had visited the apartment three times during the past few weeks. Her wish had come true. All along, the problem had been simply, as Vincy had said, that Joe was in the way. Anna had been wrong to be so suspicious.

‘When is he coming back?’ she asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ Vincy said. ‘Not for a while.’

Before she was pregnant, Anna would have found this answer unsatisfactory. She would have wanted to ask for a date and a time, but would not have. However, she would have worried. A while? What did that mean? A week, a month? A year? She would have accused him of evasiveness and felt frantic.

He was evasive, but she didn’t care, since she was more than evasive herself. The time had come, however, to break the news. So she had.

She had told him almost casually, as she lay in bed, relaxed as a jellyfish. The fire was not lit today – he only bothered to make a fire on that one occasion, after he had come back from Basra. But the flat was warm enough anyway without one. He had a few electric heaters. The bed floated like a white ship in the big dark room.

‘But Anna … are you sure about this?’

She nodded. ‘Mm, quite sure. It happened that time in my house, I’m pretty sure.’

‘And …’ He looked embarrassed. ‘You’re sure …’

She nodded again. ‘We can do a dna test when it’s born if you like. But I know.’

He looked as if he might cry. ‘What are we going to do?’ he asked.

She pulled the duvet up around her chin. She had not known exactly how he would react, but this was not what she had anticipated.

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said neutrally, looking at him. Although she knew exactly, and it astonished her that he could not read her mind on this issue, he who had understood her every thought and mood so well at the start of their courtship.

He set his mouth in a hard line and looked at her accusingly.

He got out of bed and started to dress. ‘I’ve got a meeting,’ he said. ‘And I suppose you need to be getting home. We can talk about it tomorrow.’

‘Sure,’ she said.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s a shock. And there isn’t time to deal with it now.’

‘Oh, I understand,’ she said. ‘Work.’

‘Yes, there is work. I’ve to meet this Leo Kavanagh in half an hour … you know him, the fellow from Kerry.’

‘Him?’ Anna could not place him immediately.

‘You know. Leo Kavanagh. Kate’s chap.’

Kate. Not a name Anna wanted to hear at this moment.

‘His lobby group, Killing Roads or whatever it is he calls it, is calling for the resignation of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Transport. One’s not enough for him!’

‘What?’

‘As you say, what? And so what? It’ll never happen. The Taoiseach! It’s mad. But the story might get bigger than it is … there might be something behind it.’

‘Well that’s obviously more important than my baby,’ said Anna. ‘That there might be something behind Leo Kavanagh’s crank campaign.’

He winced. ‘Anna. Don’t. Come around tomorrow, can you, at noon? We’ll have three hours. We’ll have a good talk.’