City Girl (42 page)

‘Baby’s crying, Maggs. For God’s sake, do something about it! I’ve got to get a decent night’s sleep, I’ve got the Goodwin account tomorrow and it’s
very important to us.’

Terry’s voice held a note of barely concealed impatience and Maggie had to fight down the impulse to tell him exactly what he could do with the Goodwin account. Having had little or no
sleep for the past six months she was at the end of her tether. Sleep was all she could think about these days, craving it like an alcoholic craves a drink or a drug addict a fix. All she wanted
was just one night of oblivion to sink into the soothing balm of slumber, undisturbed by crying babies.

Nobody had ever told her that motherhood was like this! When she had discovered that she was pregnant, Maggie had envisaged herself gently rocking her sleepy offspring in her arms for ten
minutes or so in the evening before laying it in its delicate wicker basket where it would sleep undisturbed the whole night through. It was a long time since she had worked with newborn babies.
Time had dulled her memory and the reality was vastly different. To say that Terry and herself were finding the going a little difficult was more than an understatement.

In the first place they had surprised themselves and everybody else by conceiving twins. Maggie shuddered as she remembered her pregnancy. It had been a nightmare! She had suffered morning noon
and night sickness all through her pregnancy, excruciating backache compounded by a bad kidney infection for the last three months and then she had got toxaemia. Things had gone from bad to worse
and in the end she’d been induced four weeks early and the babies had had to spend a month in incubators in Saudi. Their plans for coming home had been delayed and it seemed to Maggie that
from the moment the twins had been born, she hadn’t had a full night’s sleep.

On their arrival in the Ryan household the two tiny little beings had taken over her life and it was the rare moment she had to herself, what with feedings, nappy changes and baths . . . and
more feedings. It was one endless cycle. In Saudi it hadn’t been too bad because she had domestic help but once she got home to Ireland Maggie found the going tough. Terry did help out
occasionally but he had to spend long hours in the office, building up the consultancy firm he had set up on their arrival home from Saudi. She found to her dismay that she was very much alone.

A second wail joined the first and wearily Maggie slipped out of bed and went into the babies’ room. Scooping her two bawling treasures from their cots she eased herself into the single
bed in the corner. It was cold and unwelcoming, which added to her irritation, and she felt quite sorry for herself. In the next room she could hear her husband snoring loudly and she felt like
throttling him. No such thing as equality of the sexes for her darling Terry! Maggie unfastened the top of her nightdress and smiled in spite of herself as two hungry little mouths fastened on her
nipples like two ravenous piranhas. At least tomorrow was Friday and she would see Devlin and Caroline. The thought comforted her. She loved their get-togethers. They were imperative to her sanity.
How glad she was that she had persuaded Devlin to leave London and come home. At least they had one another to share the delights of child-rearing. The babies suckled contentedly, their downy
little heads resting against her breasts and, settling herself more comfortably against the pillows, Maggie gave herself up to the joys of motherhood. She must remember to bring a tart and a
casserole for Devlin. Honest to God but there were times when Maggie was sure she was going hungry. Of course Devlin had such pride! There was no room for pride in friendships – that was one
lesson that Maggie had learned from hard experience. Pride was a destroyer, a barrier that she had crossed once and which she could safely say would never come between her and anyone.

She suddenly felt sad. Where was Marian now? Had she, too, got married? Did she know the joy of holding a child to her breast? Maggie had written to her once, asking her to reconsider her
decision to end their friendship, telling her that she would always be there for Marian and that the door would always be open for her to come back. She never received a reply and had heard nothing
from the other girl since. She could be dead, for all Maggie knew. Did she ever think of Maggie? Probably not! Had Marian just used Maggie and her parents while she was at boarding school? They
were questions she had asked herself over and over again. She would never know the answers. Time and the friendship of Caroline and Devlin had healed the hurt for Maggie, but not knowing why was
something that would always puzzle her.

She sighed, observing the two sleepy little heads nestled close against her. Her children would have to learn for themselves the hard lessons of life. Unfortunately, there were people who would
use and abuse others; that was the way of human nature. Her arms tightened their hold on her two feeding babies. What on earth had made her think of Marian Gilhooley after so long? Between Marian
and Devlin and Caro there was no comparison. No fairweather friends they. Through thick and thin they had stuck with one another as their lives had changed over the past few years.

Had any of them envisaged how things would turn out? Devlin living in a high-rise flat with her illegitimate daughter. Caroline, wealthy, wanting for nothing yet obviously unhappy in her
marriage. And herself . . . she made a wry grimace. She, who had been the most exuberant of the trio, travelling, living life to the full, had at the age of thirty-one had her wings well and truly
clipped. The fetters of wife and motherhood had slipped around her so slyly that she hadn’t been aware of them. It was only when she remembered how life had been that she realized quite how
dramatically she had changed. Was it worth it, she often wondered, watching her suckling twins.

Maggie knew, no matter how hard she tried to suppress the knowledge, that she was not content with her life as it was. Being a wife and mother were not enough to fulfil her. She missed her job,
badly. She was torn between the desire to take up the reins of her career again and the need to be at home for her children. On no account did Terry want her to employ a child-minder. But, then, he
didn’t have to give up his career. He wasn’t imprisoned within the four walls of the house with only the babies for company. Yet she knew that if she did go back to work she would worry
about the twins. She wouldn’t be there to see their first tentative footsteps. Another woman would have that pleasure. Her mother had always been there for Maggie and the boys. She was the
first person they saw when they came in from school, standing at the cooker preparing their dinner, ready to listen to all their excited chatter. How much she had taken her mother for granted. Had
Nelsie ever got fed up cooking, cleaning, caring? Did Maggie have the right to deny her children the stability of motherhood while she searched for fulfilment? Did they have the right to expect her
to give up her own desires? What was fair? What was right? Maggie didn’t know and Terry was no help.

The twins were almost asleep, sated, untroubled by worrisome thoughts. She smiled down at them. It was such a pleasure to see them gaining weight. They had been so frail and tiny at their birth
that she had feared for their lives. A while later, having winded them and changed them, Maggie dropped into an exhausted sleep noting that it was already six a.m. A howl of outrage shocked her
into wakefulness and tears of frustration rose to her eyes. It was only seven! They should have stayed in Saudi, she thought miserably. At least she would have had servants to attend to Terry and
the housework.

Her son lay contorted with colic and she did her best to comfort him. Being a nurse she knew the attack would pass but it was distressing for the child and she felt powerless to do anything.
Crooning softly to him, she rubbed his back and tummy as she paced the bedroom floor, noticing glumly that it was lashing out of the heavens and that she’d never get her washing dry today. By
the time she had the baby settled it was time to get Terry’s breakfast and reluctantly, Maggie gave up the notion of getting any more sleep. Bleary eyed, she slapped rashers and sausages on
the grill, cut up a grapefruit and burned two pieces of toast.

‘Shit!’ she cursed as the distinctive smell of burned toast pervaded the orange kitchen. She hated this kitchen! All bright oranges and yellows. They were living in a rented house on
a large housing estate in Templeogue and out of it she thought they would never get. She felt so closed in. There were hundreds of young children and teenagers. The noise level was incredible.
Maybe the rain was a blessing in disguise; they wouldn’t be out kicking ball and screaming and roaring from early morning to after midnight. Many was the night she had tried in vain to get
the babies to sleep, even get to sleep herself, but the racket outside made it impossible. Thank God the summer holidays would soon be over and maybe there’d be some respite.

‘Are ya trying to set the kitchen on fire, Maggs?’ Terry enquired cheerfully as he noted the little puffs of smoke emanating from the ancient toaster.

‘Oh shut up!’ She just wasn’t in the mood for Terry’s humour this morning.

‘Jesus, Maggie, but you’re becoming a right grouch,’ her husband informed her indignantly as he stuck his head into his
Irish Times.

Thirty-three

The twins were almost a year old before Maggie began to feel she could cope. Thankfully, after much nagging, Terry bought a house out in Castleknock on the north side of the
city, a big detached four-bedroomed house with good gardens front and back. Maggie decorated it in soothing pastel colours and compared to the hideous orange and yellow monstrosity they had
inhabited in Templeogue, the new house was a castle. By dint of very hard work, Terry was making a great success of his business, which was expanding rapidly. He expected her to entertain his
clients at the drop of a hat. They had many a hot argument about his nasty habit of arriving unexpectedly with some stranger for dinner.

Maggie was a great cook. She was a creative person, and to her cooking was an art, but she liked to have notice that visitors were coming so she could spend time preparing a special meal with
all the trimmings. She knew Terry never thought of things like that. Bringing someone home wasn’t such a big deal in his eyes. She knew her husband felt that it was up to her to take care of
things on the home front just like his mother had. That’s what marriage was all about, in his opinion. All he wanted, and was it too much to ask, he enquired testily, when they were having an
argument over his attitudes, was to come home after a hard day’s work, relax over a drink and have a tasty dinner. If a client came with him what difference did one more mouth make?

‘What about what I want?’ Maggie demanded. ‘Do you ever think about that?’

Terry was shocked. Hadn’t he given her a lovely home, didn’t she have her own cheque book, plenty of food on the table, time to come and go as she pleased while he slaved away to
provide for her and the children? What more could she possibly want? He genuinely couldn’t understand her attitude. ‘If my mother had had a tenth of what you have, she would have
thought she was in heaven. You know it’s no joke at work. The pressure is killing me. All you have to do is take care of the babies and get a dinner. The rest of your time is your own,’
he said indignantly.

‘I am not your mother and these are the Eighties you’re living in, Terry. I am your wife, not your housekeeper. And I have a life to lead too and, believe me, I have precious little
time to myself,’ Maggie told him furiously one evening after he complained when he came home with a friend and found her surrounded by talcs and nappies and his dinner not yet cooked.

Another thing they argued about was sex, or rather the lack of it. Maggie was the first to admit that their sex life had suffered since the birth of her twins. Before she’d got pregnant
Maggie was always ready to make love. She’d been a wild uninhibited lover and she knew that Terry had never looked at another woman once they’d started to sleep together. But her
pregnancy had changed things. As she got bigger and more ungainly she hadn’t felt like making love and she had seen Terry looking at other women in the compound with that old familiar light
in his eye. He had started working late, leaving her alone with only Mehemed and the house boy for company. And she’d seen that sly bitch Ria Kirby, who lived on the floor below them,
flirting with him. She’d tried to ignore it all, hoping that things would sort themselves out when she’d got over the birth and they were back home.

She’d got over the birth, they had come back home, but things didn’t improve. Although Terry was eager to resume their active sex life, and she was also, Maggie found that by the end
of the day, and with her sleep constantly interrupted, she was exhausted. Making love was the last thing on her mind and Terry just couldn’t understand it.

Marriage certainly hadn’t been what they had both expected. There was a lot of adjusting to do and it seemed to Maggie that she had to adjust the most. Her life had changed much more than
her husband’s. Somewhere along the line her identity had disappeared. Now she was Terry’s wife, Michelle’s and Michael’s mother and caring daughter to her parents who, now
that she was back home in Ireland, expected her to visit regularly. Once a week she would drive down to the farm where she would help to hoover and polish, do the weekly baking as well as take care
of the twins. Then she would drive home, put them to bed and turn around and make a meal for herself and Terry. It seemed that everyone wanted something of her and there was nothing left for
herself.

A few months later she found that she was pregnant with her third child and well and truly smothered in her suburban rut. Each day she would get up, give her husband his breakfast, feed and bath
her infants, do her washing and housework, bake, mend, garden, it was a never ending routine that often had her at screaming point. Even doing the weekly shopping in the enormous shopping centre
ten minutes away was a break for her. Maggie even found herself listening to Gay Byrne and enjoying his programme on the radio like thousands of other Irish housewives. It was something she had
always vowed she would not do! She would not become another bored housewife dependent on a daily radio programme for stimulus and entertainment. When she lived at home her mother used to drive her
mad about Gay Byrne! Nelsie listened to him religiously each weekday. Well, her daughter was not going to follow in her footsteps. Every morning, Maggie would deliberately tune into a pop station
immediately she heard the annoying jingle that preceded the GB Show. One morning though, she had forgotten to do this, and a letter that was being read out over the airwaves caught her
attention.