THE COLLEGE’S MEDICAL office was quiet as Romy filled in a form listing all her details: home address, course, health cover, etc. Fortunately, except for a girl with severe acne, the room was deserted. Twenty minutes later the doctor had called her in.
Embarrassed, she haltingly told him the results of the home pregnancy kit she’d done five days before. The doctor passed her a jar and sent her outside to the toilet, than examined her on her return.
‘Well, Romy, as you suspected you are definitely pregnant. You seem fit and healthy and I would envisage a normal pregnancy.’
‘I can’t have a baby,’ she blurted out appalled. ‘I’m only in second year arts.’
He stopped writing and put his pen down.
‘When was your last period?’
She tried to remember: it was about two weeks before Moya’s wedding.
He took out a circular cardboard wheel and turned it around.
‘My exams, what am I going to do?’
‘You could defer,’ he said gently, ‘or repeat the year.’
The full horror of her circumstances hit her as she sat in the black leather chair opposite him.
‘I don’t want to have a baby. I’m too young.’
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
She thought of Brian. She loved him like crazy but she wasn’t sure she could call him a boyfriend.
‘Do you know who the baby’s father is?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded dumbly, feeling humiliated.
‘Is he a student also? I could talk to him if you want.’
She shook her head vigorously. She needed time to think, to decide what to do.
‘Have you told him yet?’
‘No.’
It was like some awful nightmare that you would see in a film or read about in a book, never imagining it could happen to you.
‘What about your parents? Will they be supportive, do you think?’
She moaned aloud, thinking of breaking the news to her parents.
‘Listen, Romy, don’t panic. You are young and fit and healthy and we can organize to book you into a maternity hospital and arrange for you to see an obstetrician for your pre-natal care.’
‘I don’t want it,’ she said, breaking down. ‘I don’t want to book into a hospital or a doctor. I don’t want to have this baby. Do you understand?’
‘Listen, you’re scared. Many young women are nervous when they discover they are pregnant. We handle a number of student pregnancies here on campus every year. The college make allowances, there are programmes put in place, counsellors and advisers who will talk to you, lend you support.’
‘I don’t want their fecking help. I just don’t want to be pregnant!’ she yelled at him, jumping up.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ he said, reassuring her, making her want to bawl in his arms as he passed her some tissues from his desk. ‘Nurse Malone is outside. She will give you some general information leaflets on pregnancy and a bottle of folic acid tablets, which are important for you to take for the baby at this stage. Also I’d like her to do a general blood test on you, which we should get back next week.’
Romy felt sick at the thought of tablets and tests.
‘She will make an appointment for you to come and see me again so we can talk about where you’d like to have the baby and the kind of cover you want.’
Like a zombie she walked to the door with him and sat in the seat beside the nurse, rolling up her sleeve, not wanting to think about what was happening to her.
She sat through a lecture on American literature contrasting the work of Steinbeck and Scott Fitzgerald in a total daze, not writing a single word on her pad, hardening her heart for the days ahead. Now she had definite confirmation she’d get in touch with Brian, and talk to him.
She got home before the others and dialled the code for England, praying she’d catch him. His uncle came on the phone.
‘I’m sorry, Brian’s not here at the moment.’
‘Will he be back soon?’ she asked, trying to keep the panic from her voice.
‘Well that’s just it, love. We’re not expecting him back. He signed up for a six-month contract in Germany. He left for Frankfurt about ten days ago.’
‘Frankfurt!’
‘Who is that?’
‘It’s a friend of his, Romy. Romy Dillon.’
‘Ah sure I’ve heard him talk about you.’
‘Do you have an address or phone number for him, Mr Murphy? I need to talk to him fairly urgently.’
‘Brian’s staying in a hostel but he told Mary he’d write with an address once he got one, but unfortunately we haven’t heard from him yet. You know what lads are like! I’m sure we’ll hear from him soon if you want to call again, or otherwise try his mother. She might know.’
She thanked him for his help and getting up her courage phoned Lavelle’s. Sheila O’Grady was surprised to hear from her but admitted she too was awaiting a letter with Brian’s new address and was anxious to discover how he was getting on in work.
‘Is everything all right, Romy?’ she enquired.
‘I just badly need to talk to him about something, that’s all.’
Puzzled, Sheila began to put down the phone.
‘Mrs O’Grady, if you are talking to him,’ Romy struggled to control the emotion in her voice, ‘will you please ask him to phone me immediately.’
Two long weeks passed and there were no phone calls, no letters, Brian unaware of the calamity of her pregnancy. Romy had never felt so isolated and alone in her entire life. She couldn’t think straight and didn’t know what to do. The campus nurse had made an appointment for her in Holles Street Hospital where a Dr Ryan would look after her. On a noticeboard in college she had found the number of two clinics in London that arranged terminations of pregnancies, which involved only an overnight stay. The cost was exorbitant and she didn’t know how she was going to find the money. She was already beginning to show and knew she could not leave it much longer to decide about ending the pregnancy or having the baby.
Kate had arranged to meet her after work in the Bad Ass Café for pizza and to go the cinema. Romy’s stomach had almost turned over at the sight of the plates of pizza and feeling queasy she had contented herself with eating the garlic bread and salad and two huge glasses of Coke.
‘You OK?’ joked Kate. ‘I’ve never seen you turn down the offer of pizza before.’
‘My stomach was sick during the week, so I guess I should rest it.’
Kate put down the menu and stared at her.
‘Now you say it, you do look a bit peaky. Are you still on for the cinema?’
‘Sure.’
They went to Sleepless in Seattle in the Savoy, tears rolling down Romy’s face as Meg Ryan waited for Tom Hanks at the Empire State Building. She was so weepy and miserable at the moment that the slightest thing got her started.
‘College going OK?’ asked her big sister as they walked back along O’Connell Street afterwards.
‘Why does everything always have to be about college with you?’ she snapped.
‘I just wondered, you seem tired. Maybe you might need a grind or some help. I don’t know.’
‘Yes, Kate. You don’t know. I am tired but I’ll get over it. We can’t all be geniuses like you. Studying and lectures and all that crap gets some of us down, OK?’
Kate Dillon studied the pale face under the freckles, the greasy tied-back hair and thrown-together ragbag of dirty jeans and T-shirt. The poor kid, she thought, determined to phone her mother the minute she got in and get her to make Romy go down home for a few days’ break.
Down at home in Rossmore Romy curled up in her own bed, studying the familiar pattern of the wallpaper, wishing she never had to put foot out of it again for the rest of her days. She looked around at her noticeboard full of invitations and college timetables and pictures of dogs and horses and one of Brian playing the guitar and old tickets for a few of the gigs his band played locally and for U2 – the best band in the world. Her desk and chest of drawers were covered in photos. Some were of herself and Brian when they were younger, one of the two of them in their school uniforms. She swallowed hard. It seemed like all her life she had been waiting for him, waiting to be loved by him, and now when she needed him most he had simply disappeared. She knew he’d been seeing a girl in London, Gina something or other. He hadn’t hidden it from her. The night they’d had together after the wedding had been special, a reminder of times past. Perhaps that was all it had been to him and he would have no interest in the child she was carrying now.
Hot tears slid down her face, her throat aching with the hurt inside.
‘Are you all right, Romy love?’
Maeve Dillon took in the tearstained face and the utter misery of her youngest daughter, who looked like every bit of wildness had been crushed out of her, as she lowered herself onto the corner of the bed.
‘Do you want to talk, Romy? You know there is nothing you can’t tell me. No bad thing, no trouble you’re in, nothing awful you’ve done that I won’t try and help you. I promise.’
A shudder went through the long thin frame.
Maeve tried to brace herself. Maybe it was drugs or she’d been expelled from the college, or was having some kind of a breakdown. She ran her hand along Romy’s shoulder.
‘You can tell me, pet. No matter what it is, you can tell me,’ she urged.
The silence filled the small bedroom, stretching between them as Romy turned to the wall, hiding.
‘I’m pregnant.’
Maeve stopped. Had she heard right?
‘Pregnant?’
Romy sat upright in the bed, almost screaming it out.
‘I’m pregnant.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’ve been to the doctor.’
‘To Myles.’
‘No, not to Dr Deegan, I went to the doctor in college. The baby’s due in May.’
Maeve Dillon could feel her heart pounding, her breathing almost stop, a panicky tightening in her chest.
‘May, when you have your exams?’
‘Mam, I don’t give a feck about those exams. They are the least of my problems!’
Maeve pulled Romy into her arms like she used to when she was small and sick and scared.
‘You poor old pet.’
‘Mam, it’s so awful. I don’t know what to do.’
‘What about the father? Have you told him yet?’
She shook her head.
‘Who is it?’
She was tempted to tell the truth but instead just shrugged ‘I’m not sure.’
Maeve Dillon felt dizzy. How had she let Romy’s behaviour get so out of hand and crazed that she couldn’t even be sure who was the father of her unborn child?
‘Just some guy.’
Maeve was sick with disappointment. Her beautiful live wire of a daughter, intelligent and full of high spirits, caught in the trap of an unwanted pregnancy.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. The doctor has booked me into Holles Street.’
Maeve breathed a sigh of relief. It was much better Romy have her baby in one of the big maternity hospitals in Dublin than in the small local hospital where everyone would know her business.
‘That’s if I have the baby.’
‘I don’t have to have it, Mam, not if I don’t want to. I can go to England. And then get on with my life.’
Maeve could scarcely believe what she was hearing. She firmly believed in the right to life and here was her daughter telling her she planned to get rid of her baby.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Romy, you can’t do that! Destroy your own child?’
‘It’s my decision.’
‘Oh I know that, love. It’s just you need time to think, to get used to the idea of having a baby.’
‘I don’t want a baby, can’t you understand that!’
‘But for the love of God, Romy, you don’t know what it is like to lose a child. You might never recover from it, never.’
The tenor of the raised voices attracted her father, who had been shaving in the bathroom and was still in his dressing gown.
‘What are you two fighting about?’ he interrupted.
Romy clenched her lips. She wasn’t saying a word.
‘Tell him!’ urged her mother.
‘Tell me what?’
‘I’m pregnant.’
Frank Dillon stumbled for a second in the bedroom doorway.
‘But you’re only a child. Are you sure?’
‘I am, Daddy.’
He banged his fist on top of her desk, sending the photos flying onto the bedroom floor.
‘Well who’s the bright bucko got you in this position?’ he demanded. ‘I have a few things I want to say to him.’
Romy said nothing. She could have put a bet on about her father’s over-the-top predictable reaction.
‘Tell me who he is and I’ll knock some bloody sense into him! Is he going to marry you?’
‘No.’
‘No!’ He roared so loud that the house seemed to shake.
‘Maeve, do you know who he is?’
‘He’s just some guy from college, Daddy, it was a one-night stand, an accident.’
‘A one-night stand? By Christ, are you some kind of easy lay, the college slut?’
‘Leave her alone, Frank.’
‘She’s obviously some kind of tramp, with the morals of an alley cat,’ he blustered, his face red and still flecked with remnants of shaving cream.
‘She’s your daughter,’ her mother reminded him. ‘Don’t you dare speak about her like that!’
‘She’s your daughter too, Maeve. What’s that they say – like mother like daughter!’
Romy watched, incredulous. For one second she thought her mother was actually going to slap him across the face, as they turned on each other and began fighting. What had her dad said about her mother? She didn’t understand it.
‘How dare you, Frank!’ screamed Maeve, jumping up off the bed. ‘How dare you?’
‘She’s not bringing some good-for-nothing’s bastard into this house.’
‘Don’t you dare talk about Romy’s baby like that!’
‘This is my home and I won’t stand for it,’ he ranted furiously. ‘People have respect for the Dillons, look up to me. In this town I stand for something. The child won’t be raised in this house.’
‘Might I remind you that this is my home too. I inherited this house from my father so I have some say in what happens under this roof. Some say.’
‘We’ll be disgraced,’ he threatened. ‘We’ll be the talk of the place.’
‘We’ve survived worse scandals and rumours,’ Maeve Dillon said coldly.
Her father fell silent momentarily but blustering, began again. ‘She’s got to go away, stay in Dublin.’
‘Going to Dublin was what caused all this,’ said her mother. ‘Don’t you think she’d be better off home here with us? We could look after her till the child is born, help out afterwards.’
Romy turned to the wall. She didn’t want there to be an afterwards.
‘I don’t want it! I don’t want a baby!’
‘Stop that talk immediately!’ ordered her mother. ‘I won’t have it in this house.’
‘Listen, Maeve, maybe she’s right. She’s young and has made a stupid bloody mistake. Maybe she should put it behind her. Make a fresh start, not ruin her life with a child no-one wants!’
Appalled, Maeve Dillon shook her head.
‘And I suppose you’d write the cheque, pay for it, you self-centred bastard. You’re not thinking of Romy or the unborn child. All you’re thinking about is yourself. What will people think of the great Frank Dillon with a pregnant daughter! Frank Dillon’s stupid young one got herself into trouble. You’re pathetic.’
‘Shut up, woman!’
‘This is my decision,’ interrupted Romy. ‘I have to decide what to do, it’s my fecking life, not yours!’
‘Don’t mind whatever your father says. You’ll get through this,’ promised her mother. ‘I’ll help you, help with the baby, do whatever you want. Just don’t rush into a decision you might regret.’
She could see the rage on her father’s face. He was used to getting his own way in deciding what happened within the circle of the family, he wasn’t used to being challenged, having his leadership questioned.
‘Please just leave me alone, the two of you. I feel shite!’ she said and rolled over, pulling the blanket around her shoulder.
‘I mean it, Romy,’ insisted her mother.
She only relaxed when they’d left her room. Her mind was in turmoil. This was splitting the family apart. Her mother like some kind of holy flipping Joe, spouting on about the precious unborn’s right to life – she was sick of it! And as for her father, all he wanted was for her to disappear into some hole in the ground lest she embarrass him. She’d made a mistake coming home, thinking that her parents could solve her problems just like they did when she was a kid. That day was gone. For now she was on her own. She turned on the stereo, Bono’s voice filling the pressing silence of her room.