The making of her, p.19
The Making of Her, page 19
“Are you sure we can’t get you anything stronger, Joan?” Dan said.
“No, thanks, I’m grand.”
It was clear that Dan and Oliver knew nothing about the baby. Of course they didn’t. You couldn’t expect a respectable young college student like Martin to air his private life in public. No, he had done the right thing keeping their secret to himself.
* * *
—
Joan stood sideways, looking at herself in the full-length mirror. A draft blew between the gaps in the old sash windows, and she shivered in her nightdress, noticing that her belly now stretched the fabric. Soon it would be impossible to hide her pregnancy, even in loose clothes. She’d only gotten away with it for this long because she was tall. In the new year it would be obvious to everyone.
She thanked God every day that she didn’t have to walk through Harold’s Cross in this state, her belly straining against the buttons of her winter coat. To avoid going home for Christmas, she made excuses about money being tight. She’d posted a couple of small gifts—a shocking-pink chiffon scarf for Teresa and new gloves for Da. She knew he wouldn’t write as long as she kept sending him the few shillings Martin gave her.
Martin told his mother he couldn’t come home because he had exams early in the new year—and anyway wouldn’t he be home soon for good? Mrs. C was spending Christmas with her son in York, and the lads from Cork were getting the ferry back home. So this time there was no need to sneak Martin into the house.
They talked and kissed in bed, but there was an unspoken understanding between them that sex wasn’t welcome now. They slept soundly, him spooned behind her, his arm draped over her belly. Joan woke on Christmas morning to Martin kissing her behind the ear.
“What time is it?” she said, still foggy with sleep.
“Just gone nine.”
“I can’t believe I slept this late,” she said, rolling to face him.
“You must have needed it,” he said, stroking her cheek. “Why don’t you stay here and keep warm. I’ll go down and light the fire.”
“That would be lovely,” Joan said, touching his arm. “I won’t be long. Why don’t we go for a walk after breakfast?”
“You’re on!” he said, throwing back the covers.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Martin had set two places at the table. “Sit down,” he said, pulling out a chair. Next to her place, Joan saw a flat package wrapped in white tissue paper tied with red string.
“What’s this?” she asked, looking at him.
“Just something small,” Martin replied. “I know we said no presents, but I wanted to get you something.” He picked up the package and handed it to Joan. “Sit down and open it.”
She sat and tugged on the string, then unfolded the tissue. Inside was a photo album. Its smooth cover smelled of new leather, and each page was separated by gauzy paper. “It’s for our memories—to keep them safe,” Martin said, looking down at her. “I remembered what you told me once about not having any photographs of your mother.”
Tears welled in Joan’s eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered, standing now to hug him. “But I didn’t get you anything.”
“I’ve got everything I need right here,” Martin said, kissing her forehead. “Well . . . apart from a decent fry-up.”
“That I can definitely do,” Joan said, as she folded the tissue paper around the album again.
After breakfast, they set out on a walk around the deserted London streets. “It’s as if the city is all ours,” Joan said, as they crossed Compton Road without looking left or right. Kids with new bicycles who had pestered their parents out of their cozy beds into the cold swerved up and down the icy footpaths. “Slow down, Robert!” a father yelled as he ran alongside a freckle-faced boy pedaling like the clappers.
“That’ll be us before we know it,” Joan remarked. Martin squeezed her hand. They walked arm in arm, like any other couple expecting their first child the following spring might have done, peering into the bay windows of the elegant houses on Gibson Square, where Christmas trees draped in fairy lights twinkled behind the glass. Joan imagined their life together, a proper family, here in London. All gathered around a real tree, stuffing themselves with mince pies and belting out carols without a care in the world. It was only a matter of time.
They had planned to see in the New Year at an old London pub that served pale ale and Cornish pasties, with Dan and Oliver and a couple of girls from Sheffield the boys had met. But Martin had second thoughts when he realized they could no longer hide Joan’s pregnancy.
“It’ll be lovely just the two of us,” he soothed her. “Like old times.”
Joan pouted. “Like old times when you had to hide me away, you mean,” she said.
“No, not at all. You know I didn’t mean it like that,” Martin replied. “It’s just . . . people ask too many questions. The less they know the better. Anyway, it’s nobody’s business but ours.” He straightened to his full height so he was looking down on her. “Now, let that be an end to it.” And so it was decided that they’d avoid people altogether, not just the Irish pubs like the Auld Triangle.
There was always the danger of meeting someone from home: a distant second cousin or a friend of a friend, someone’s sister or so-and-so’s nephew who went to school with yer man’s brother. Anyone and everyone was a threat, a person who might ask whereabouts you were from, someone who remembered they knew Joan Quinn’s family from way back or, worse, Martin Egan’s. They played it safe, evading all but polite conversation with strangers.
“Only three more months,” Martin told her. The weeks would fly in, and then all their worries would be over.
Chapter 31
In early January, Joan was on her way back from posting a letter home, taking care not to slip on the icy footpath, when something in the window of the wool shop on the corner of Cross Street caught her eye. There among the colorful display of wools and ribbons was a snow-white baby cardigan. Without giving it much thought, she found herself pushing the shop door open.
The bell above the door announced her arrival, and the shopkeeper came from out the back, holding her knitting, paused in the middle of a row. “You all right there, love? Can I help you?”
“I was wondering . . .”—Joan hesitated—“how much is that baby cardigan in the window?”
“Oh, that’s just for display. We don’t usually sell them.”
“Ah, okay. Thanks anyway.”
As Joan turned to leave, the woman called after her. “Tell you what, why don’t you have it as a present for your little one? Can’t be long now?”
“Three months to go,” Joan replied. “Are you sure?”
“It’ll be put to better use keeping the little ’un warm.”
Joan couldn’t stop thanking the woman as she folded the tiny garment, then wrapped it in tissue and brown paper. “We’ll have you knitting yet!” the woman said.
“I’ll be back,” Joan said. “After the baby comes.”
As she strolled along Islington High Street, Joan hugged the package. Back in her room, she unwrapped the cardigan and ran her fingers along the three pearly buttons. She held it to her cheek, closed her eyes, and imagined tucking tiny arms inside it. Then she folded it and placed it on top of her things for the hospital. A clean nightdress, knickers, sanitary pads, and a tin of Johnson’s baby powder. She’d been turning the cap open every day for weeks just to smell it. With each day that passed she felt more ready for her baby to arrive.
That night she sat up in bed and rubbed her belly in small, slow circles with the palm of her hand, remembering the shopkeeper and smiling to herself. Maybe people would be kind to her and her baby after all.
* * *
—
One evening, at the end of January, Joan was standing up on the packed bus coming home from her doctor’s appointment. Dr. Marshall told her everything was going according to plan. The baby was growing strong inside her. She couldn’t have been happier. As she stood, lost in her thoughts, a silver-haired man tapped her on the shoulder. “Here, love, you sit yourself down there,” he said, offering Joan his seat.
“That’s very kind,” she said, thanking him. The woman in the next seat glanced down at Joan’s belly and then, for the briefest moment, at the bare ring finger of her left hand. She gave her a pitying smile, then turned to stare out the window. Joan’s cheeks grew hot, and she pulled her coat across her middle. I’m marked out, even here, she thought.
That night, as she lay in the bath, looking at her belly rising above the level of the water, she remembered her mother’s wedding ring. When she was in her dressing gown and back in her bedroom, she pulled open her bedside-table drawer. There, under the three letters and the Christmas card Teresa had sent her, was the envelope with the ring. Joan took it out and slid the worn gold band onto her finger. It wasn’t a perfect fit—her fingers had swelled as the pregnancy progressed—but it was good enough.
Mrs. C noticed the ring as soon as they sat down to their cup of tea the following morning. Her gaze moved from Joan’s finger to her face as she set the plate of toast down in front of her.
“It was my ma’s,” Joan blurted, rubbing her thumb against the thin gold.
Mrs. C stirred her tea. “I suppose you’ll wait until after the baby is born to get married?”
The question, which Joan should have known the answer to, unsettled her. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “We haven’t talked about it.”
“Well, I’d say it’s high time you did, Joan.”
Martin knocked on the front door of the guesthouse that evening as usual. It was only five o’clock but already pitch-dark outside. It wasn’t until they were seated at a small round table in the farthest corner of the pub that Martin noticed the ring. “Where did you get that?” he asked, pointing to Joan’s finger.
“It was Ma’s.” Joan tried to read his expression. His hard-set jaw betrayed him. “Look at me, Martin,” she demanded under her breath and placing a hand on her stomach. “I can’t hide this any longer.” The space between them seemed to expand like stretched elastic in the time it took him to react. He put down his pint and said nothing. “I know it’s not Ireland, Martin,” Joan said. “But you’ve no idea what it’s like to walk around in public looking like I do. The pitying looks I get because I’m not married. The ring will just make life easier.”
“Okay, right,” Martin said, picking up his pint again, looking around the room.
“Besides, we can’t go on ignoring the fact that the baby will be here before we know it.”
“We’re not ignoring the fact. How the hell can we?”
“You’ve changed your tune! What’s wrong?” Joan said, trying to keep the panic from her voice. She’d never heard Martin speak about the baby like that before. Not in all the time they’d been in London. Not even when she first told him she was pregnant.
“Ah, it’s nothing. It’s not you,” he said, tracing circles with his finger around the beer-ring stains on the table. “I had a call from my mother at my digs last night.” He took a sip of his pint. “Paul, the warehouse supervisor, up and left yesterday without giving her any notice. I’d put money on it she said something to annoy him and he just walked out.”
Joan sat bolt upright now, her pregnant belly sticking out all the more for it. “What else did she say?”
Martin’s jaw clenched. “She thinks I should finish up the course early and come home now. Says she can’t cope on her own.”
“You can’t—”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to,” Martin interrupted, lifting his pint to his lips again. Joan was about to thank him but stopped herself. She wanted to hug him, but her bump came between them. “I wouldn’t leave you here on your own,” he said, with a fleeting smile. “But we might have to go back home sooner than I planned.”
His words left Joan cold. She put a protective hand on her belly and tried to act normally, but she couldn’t even return his smile. Surely once the baby arrived Martin would see that the only thing for it was for them to stay in London and forget about their old lives back home? Surely.
—
On Sunday, when Joan and Martin went out, a hard overnight frost still covered the ground, and the forecast was for snow. The entire park was blanketed white. Martin scraped the ice off a bench in the bandstand, and they sat blowing on their numb fingers. He was quieter than usual. Joan didn’t know why his silence made her uneasy, but doubt churned in her stomach.
The baby would be here in a matter of weeks, and they were nowhere near ready. As she was thinking this, the baby kicked hard. On impulse, she took Martin’s hand and placed it on her bump. “Feel!” she said, smiling at him. “We might have the next Bobby Charlton on our hands here. He’ll make a great little footballer, that’s for sure!”
Martin pulled his hand away, as if he’d been jolted by an electric current. Joan stared at him. His blue eyes were serious and sad. Joan’s face flushed, and a cold dread crept into the pit of her stomach.
“We need to talk, Joan.” Martin didn’t have to say another word. He was having second thoughts. She knew—just by looking in his eyes. She knew. “I’ve been racking my brain looking for a way around this.”
“A way around it? What do you mean, Martin?”
His eyes were downcast now, and he was concentrating hard on a crack in the bandstand floor between his feet. Joan’s heart was pounding in her chest. He ran his fingers through his hair distractedly, a sign that he was working up to something he didn’t want to say.
“Spit it out.”
He turned to face her. Joan thought she read pity in his eyes.
“You know I love you, Joan, don’t you?” She didn’t answer. “But I don’t see how we can keep the baby without causing a scandal back home.”
Joan’s insides froze. “I thought you . . .” She couldn’t get the words out.
“Everyone would know. It could ruin us.”
“What do you mean? I’m ruined already if you won’t stand by me.”
“I want to marry you, Joan. But not like this.” He gestured toward her belly with a sigh.
She jumped to her feet. “Well, that’s the first I’ve heard of it!” Her mind was racing. Did he have any idea what he was saying? Did he know her at all?
“This isn’t how I planned for us to start our life together,” Martin said, folding his arms across his chest, his eyes fixed on the frost-covered field beyond the bandstand. “It doesn’t have to be like this. There are plenty of couples who would give their right arm for a baby.” He stood and looked at her now, beseeching her to agree.
She tried to reason with him. “But this isn’t a baby, Martin. It’s our baby. We can’t give it away just like that.” She couldn’t even look at him. “And then what? Go on as if it never existed?” Tears were blurring her vision as she fiddled with her mother’s wedding ring, twisting it slowly one way then the other on her finger. Once the first ones fell, she couldn’t stop them coming. This man she loved and trusted had knocked the feet right out from under her.
“Don’t, Joan. Don’t be like this. Don’t cry,” Martin said, trying to put his arm around her.
Joan pushed him away. “Don’t touch me,” she said through her tears. “Don’t you dare touch me.”
She let herself into the house without a sound that evening and went straight to her room. She couldn’t face Mrs. C. Still in her coat, she sat on the edge of her bed. What was she going to do now? There would be no new life in London for the three of them. Martin had made that clear. He’d be returning home: a single, childless man with prospects, determined to take up his role at the helm of Egan & Son, and there was no way he could risk the whisper of a scandal reaching the ears of Egans’ customers.
He wasn’t asking Joan to marry him. He was telling her to choose. Respectability or ruin. Him or the baby. She couldn’t have both.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Mrs. C’s quiet knock on the door. “Joan, are you there? Dinner’s ready.”
Joan opened the door a crack. “Yes, I’m here. I’ll be down in a minute.”
“You’re still in your coat. What’s wrong?” Nothing much got past Mrs. C. She could probably see that Joan’s eyes were red raw from crying. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked.
“I will be,” Joan replied.
She didn’t sleep a wink that night, and the following morning she forced herself out of bed and through the motions of her routine. Michael, Joe, and Eddie sat around the table, in grubby work trousers, cracking jokes and moaning about their foreman. Joan sat opposite Mrs. C, silent and exhausted, feeling sick to her stomach.
“Here, you sit down there and let me do that,” Eddie offered, stealing a glance at Joan’s belly as she stood to clear the plates.
She gave him a weary smile. “You’re all right, Eddie. It’s good to have something to do.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the lads giving each other a look. As she was stacking the plates next to the sink, she felt Eddie’s big hand on her shoulder.
“Is there anything we can do?” he said, without meeting her eye.
“Not really, Eddie. But thanks for asking.” Michael and Joe were draining the dregs of their mugs and pushing chairs back from the table. “Go on.” Joan smiled at them. “You’d better get going or you’ll be late.”
Over the past few weeks, as her pregnancy progressed, Mrs. C had taken to giving her lighter jobs like tidying out the linen cupboard and folding the washing. She’d also started boiling an egg for Joan’s breakfast. “You need to keep your strength up,” she said every morning.
“Are you not eating your egg, Joan?” she asked now.
