Woman to Woman (12 page)

And he was all hers. She couldn’t help feeling a little self-satisfied as she pulled his head down and whispered into his ear.

“I’ve something really, really special to tell you. Follow me.”

With an apologetic glance at Sascha, Richard followed Jo into one of the glass-fronted offices which opened onto the newsroom. He leaned up against a steel grey filing cabinet and Jo wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning her head against the comforting bulk of his chest.

“You know you said that you never expected to settle down with anyone in the way you have with me,” she began.

“Well, I think we’re going to become really settled soon. In about seven months,” she added with a little laugh.

“We’re going to have a baby!” Looking up excitedly, Jo waited to see Richard’s reaction. He was going to be thrilled, she was sure.

“Well,” she whispered, “what do you think? You’re pleased, aren’t you?” He was speechless.

Of course, it was a shock, a huge shock, she knew that. And it would take a moment to sink in. But he’d be so pleased, wouldn’t he?”

“Say something,” she said nervously.

“Oh, I just don’t know what…” He stopped mid-sentence, an expression of mounting shock on his face.

“How could it happen?” he stuttered.

“This is unbelievable, I don’t believe it.”

“I know it’s a shock, darling she said swiftly, wanting him to take her in his arms.

“I’m having our baby, Richard,” she said softly.

“Aren’t you pleased?”

She stared up at him, willing him to smile and kiss her. She wanted to feel strong arms around her and his voice telling her it would be all right. But he stared at her with the sort of expression she had only ever seen on his face when Ireland was thrashed at Landsdowne Road or when an entire roll of film had been overexposed.

Jo felt nausea quiver in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t believe this was happening. This was the moment when Richard should kiss her and hug her as if she was Belleek china. If she was china, he obviously didn’t like the pattern.

What the hell was going on?

“B-b-but how?” he asked incredulously.

Jo’s temper suddenly snapped.

“Jesus, Richard, what do you want, a biology lesson? How the bloody hell do you think it happened?”

She knew she sounded shrewish and she didn’t care.

Richard was supposed to love her and she had just told him the most wonderful news in the world. And all he could do was stammer and stutter and ask how it happened!

This is our baby!” she cried.

“Don’t you care? Aren’t you happy? We’re going to be parents in seven months, Richard!”

“I don’t believe this,” he said hoarsely, ‘how could you be pregnant?”

“Well I suppose it must have something to do with making love, which we do all the time, and the fact that condoms aren’t one hundred per cent safe. Look, I only found out this morning,” she said, suddenly weary.

“I know we didn’t plan it…”

“You can say that again,” he snapped.

“Look, it just happened, right? I’m as surprised as you are, Richard.”

Jo rubbed one hand over her left temple, feeling the familiar throbbing migraine build up.

“What was I supposed to do? Shut up and pray it would go away, like a terrified sixteen-year-old girl? I thought you’d be happy and that you wanted to settle down finally,” she hesitated for a moment. The baby’s due in January.”

“What do you mean it’s due in January?” he asked.

“Jesus, we’re not ready for a baby, I mean, why didn’t you tell me?”

he said incredulously.

“I am telling you,” she answered.

“I do not believe this is happening, I just don’t believe it,” he repeated, running a hand jerkily through his hair.

“OK, let’s think about this. Who else have you told? Not that bloody Janice I hope, otherwise it’ll be all over the place like a rash.

You know what she’s like he spat.

“I didn’t want to tell anyone until I told you she faltered.

“Look Jo, this is an awful mess, can’t you see? I don’t want children, not now anyway. I’m not ready for all that stuff yet, you know that. What made you think differently?”

Jo stepped away from him. For the second time that day, her pulse was racing and she could feel the blood racing in her veins.

All she wanted to do was sink into her bed at home and close her eyes, or start reading her latest book, curled up under the duvet. And not think, not think about anything.

“Let me get this straight. You don’t want this child Jo said quietly, ‘and you don’t want to settle down with me. Have I got that right?”

Her face was pale as she looked at him, wanting the truth, hoping that his answering smile would abruptly banish any doubts. She could hear sounds of merriment coming from the newsroom. Corks were popping. Jo guessed that the paper’s managing director was about to launch the supplement with a champagne toast.

At the sound, Richard unconsciously reached for the camera slung around his neck on a fraying Canon strap and looked longingly in the direction of the party.

Jo was close to tears but she had to get an answer from him. Talk to me, Richard. What do you want to do?”

“Oh God, Jo, why did you get pregnant, now of all times?

He ran a hand through his hair and for a brief moment she remembered lying in the Egyptian cotton sheets on his bed, running her fingers through his hair while he lay sexually sated in her arms. They were so close, that was why she could never have imagined this.

“Why now, of all times? In a few years, yes, but not now,” He looked at her beseechingly, like a naughty boy who’s just sent his football through the neighbour’s kitchen window.

“Will can look after the agency for a few years and I planned to go to London to work with one of the sports papers there.

It’s a brilliant opportunity, darling. I was going to ask you to come with me.” He was pleading now.

“It’ll be marvelous. Just a few more years and then we can settle down and maybe “have kids if you really want them …”

His voice rose excitedly as he looked eagerly at Jo, waiting for her to agree, waiting for her to smile and say what she’d always said, “Whatever you want.”

Memories came flooding back to her, memories of the times she’d asked him about his previous relationships.

Among the litany of model girlfriends, there had been one long-lasting relationship with a German girl who had left Dublin when she and Richard broke up.

“Beate wanted to settle down and I just wasn’t ready for that.” Richard shrugged.

“We were too young.” She’d believed his simple explanation, grateful that he hadn’t wanted to marry any of her predecessors, and that he’d been too young to settle down with the only one who sounded like a true love.

Richard Fitzgerald had once been the Don Juan of the photographic world, but she had tamed him. He’d given up a lifetime of bimbos to be with her, or so she’d thought. He wasn’t too young to settle down any more: he was thirty-seven to her thirty-four. Surely it was time for him to stop running away from responsibility and start a family?

Obviously not. Commitment-phobic, Janice had called him the first time she had seen him. Perhaps her friend had been right.

Richard gently stroked her palm, tracing delicate circles and kneading the fleshy base of her thumb. People with lots of soft flesh in that precise spot were supposed to be very sensual he had always said, joking that she must be the sexiest woman in the world because of her soft, caressing hands.

Before, when he’d murmured endearments into her ear and stroked her skin, her heart leapt with love for this funny and talented man. Not tonight.

“Darling, don’t be upset, please.” He was all charm again.

He’d always been able to charm his way out of any trouble.

He just smiled that boyish smile and wheedled until she gave in and forgave him.

Like that time he’d promised to pick her up from the office Christmas party and simply never showed up. It had taken two hours to get a taxi that night because the streets were black with ice and half the city had left the car at home so they could get drunk.

He’d been so contrite, so full of remorse at having forgotten all about the party, that she’d forgiven him by lunchtime the next day. It was funny the way he never forgot any professional commitments, only personal ones.

“We can have children later, my darling,” he said pleadingly.

“We’re not ready for this yet, are we?” he murmured, reaching out to stroke her cheek, waiting for her to give in. She always gave in, Jo realised suddenly. For all his relaxed charm and boyishness, Richard always got his own way. In everything. It didn’t matter whether they’d argued over where to go for dinner or what -film to see, somehow Richard always got what he wanted. For once, he was out of luck.

“What are you suggesting?” she asked, her voice dangerously low.

“Well,” he looked around as if to check that nobody could hear them, ‘you know, get rid of it.”

She snatched her hand away as though his fingers were burning her,

staring him in the face angrily. “And if I don’t “get rid of it” as you so euphemistically call it, what then?”

“Jo, you’re being unreasonable. All I’m saying is that this is the wrong time in my life for a baby.” Richard’s face was fast losing its engaging smile. “I’m not ready for it. We’re not ready for it.”

“No, you’re not ready. You’re so bloody selfish,” she hissed.

“You just couldn’t bear to have to think about someone else besides yourself. We can’t have a defenceless baby interrupting your plans, or getting in the way of your life, can we?”

“There’s no need to be insulting.” Richard gave her one of his superior looks and tried another tack.

“We should talk about this tomorrow when you’re less hysterical.”

“Hysterical!” Jo hadn’t felt so close to hitting anyone in years. That’s typical! Just because I’m pregnant, I’ve suddenly turned into a neurotic, moody brood mare with no brain whatsoever she shouted.

“Shush, someone will hear Richard hissed.

“Oh, we can’t have that, can we?” she snarled.

“Listen, I don’t care who hears me. In fact, I want everyone to hear me so I can find out what they think about the wonderful photographer everyone adores begging his girlfriend to have an abortion because it’s “… not the right time in my life”.

When will it be the right time, Richard? Because you’re running out of time, you’re nearly forty, don’t forget.

“It’s not as if we were two scared teenagers or didn’t have any money either she glared at him.

“We can certainly afford another mouth to feed and let’s face it, the world will hardly be scandalised by us having a baby and not being married, Richard. So what’s wrong with me having our baby?”

If someone had told her that her feelings for him could be reversed in a matter of moments, she’d have laughed at the idea. Nothing could wipe out the love she felt for Richard, the bond which tied them to each other, she would have said. But that was before he had looked her in the eye and suggested that she abort the child she wanted with all her soul.

“I’m no good with children Richard said helplessly. Hisfingers played nervously with the frayed camera strap in a way that she found suddenly irritating.

“If you want it, it’s your decision. I’ll give you the money if you change your mind.”

“Keep your money. I don’t want it or any part of you,” Jo said coldly.

“I’m having this baby, Richard, and that’s final. You can go off with Sascha and play at being adults. She’s just about the right IQ level for you and she’s unlikely to ask you to do anything more taxing than teach her to read.”

” Furious, Richard turned and stormed back into the newsroom while Jo walked slowly over to an open window and breathed in deeply. Gradually her pulse slowed down and she opened her eyes to stare out at the city silhouetted in the It dusk’ in In the middle of the towering spires and office blocks, she could see the minty-green-domed roof of Rathmines church, the one she and Aisling had gone to when they lived a stone’s throw around the corner. Well, the one Aisling had gone to. She remembered the thrill of Sunday mornings in the flat when there was nobody there to tell you to get up and get ready for Mass. Luxuriating in her comfy single bed, Jo always snuggled in deeper, resisting Aisling’s attempts to get her to come to eleven Mass.

Aisling had loved sitting in the huge dark church. She said that Sunday Mass in the huge church was the only time that the various people of Dublin’s flatland came together, until Jo remarked that not everyone in Rathmines was Catholic.

“You know what I mean,” Aisling said in exasperation.

“It in doesn’t matter to me what religion people are, it’s just that sense of being together for a while. It would feel the same in ii any church or mosque or whatever,” she added passionately. Sometimes she managed to drag Jo out of bed and hurried her along with the other, more eager churchgoers. And Jo had enjoyed Mass. The anonymity of this church made a change from Mass in her small home town where you knew everyone’s great-granny’s uncle, what they did for a living and why young P. J. had turned out bad. “In Innisbhail, she’d explained to Aisling, all you had to do was ask the chemist for some throat lozenges and half an hour) later every second person on the street would ask you how you were feeling.

She’d had so many plans when she left her home town in Sligo to go to journalism college. Journalistically, she was going to change the world and if she didn’t win a Pulitzer prize for her ruthless exposes of injustice, she was damn well going to win the Booker for her novels.

So much for literature, she thought wryly, when you can’t even find yourself a decent man who’ll stand by you. Her hands involuntarily slid down towards her stomach, caressing the tiny bulge which was probably more Twix bars than baby.

That other girl, the one with all those crazy dreams, was long gone. In her place was a strong woman who was determined to be the best mother she could for her baby, her fatherless baby.

She’d certainly written enough articles about single parents, now she was going to find out what it really felt like. When she’d interviewed women who’d been left holding the baby, she’d wondered how they got by on their own. Now that her own selfish boyfriend had run for the