This had never happened to him in his life before. He was never unable to control his emotions. His daughter’s pregnancy was bad enough but, coupled with her bare-faced refusal to name the culprit, his usual aplomb was rapidly deteriorating. He took another large sip of the whisky, praying for it to calm him down and give him some kind of peace. He needed to deaden his emotions for a short while, until he could once more control himself – and his actions.
He was going to kill someone soon – that was a given – and, if his daughter didn’t answer his questions, there was a good chance that the dead person might actually be her. It was her reluctance to name anyone as the father which had finally convinced him there must be more than one person in the frame. If it had been a love job, she would have come clean. He could have accepted that, could have understood the power of youth, of being in love for the first time. He wasn’t a complete fucking moron, he could have overlooked such behaviour if it was down to love. He would still have been angry, but he would have allowed for his daughter, his baby, to have been caught up in her hormones.
But it wasn’t like that at all. This was devoid of any romance and, therefore, of any reason he could have found to forgive her. She had no idea who was the father of her child and she didn’t seem to care either. It was as if the child she was carrying inside her was nothing more than an inconvenience. She just wanted it gone from her, aborted, taken away as soon as. It was actually her complete disregard for the child inside her that really concerned him. His Assumpta, his lovely girl he had adored, was treating her pregnancy as simply a problem to be solved. She did not seem to comprehend the enormity of what was happening to her, that she was now the guardian of another human being, a child that she had created. She didn’t understand that, as Catholics, they had no option but to bring the child into the world, and love it unconditionally, no matter the circumstances of its conception. That was the whole ethos behind being a fucking Catholic in the first place – especially an Irish Catholic. You sinned, and you then lived with that sin. You loved that sin, and you cared for that sin until it wasn’t a sin any more – it was the best thing to have happened to you, a gift from God Himself. It was given to you for a reason – to make you a better person, and show you the miracle of life, and how it can bring you peace, and more love than you could ever imagine.
Assumpta just wanted it gone from her, as if she was drowning an unwanted kitten.
The door of his office opened quietly, and he stood still as a statue. His daughter was there. He could smell her, the perfume she wore, the heavy scent of her make-up. She had always worn far too much make-up. She was a beautiful girl, and he had never understood her fascination with painting her face. But he had allowed it. He had given his wife the final say on the girls and their lifestyles. Now he was sorry, even though he knew that his Carmel had done her best by the girls. She was as baffled as he was about Assumpta and her predicament. He stood stiffly, looking out of the window, seeing the beauty of the view, all the while forcing down his anger, his disappointment and his shame that his daughter had really thought that he would not have a problem arranging for her to have her child scraped out of her. One wrong word from his daughter now, and he would likely seriously harm her.
Assumpta looked at her dad. For her whole life he had only been there as a provider – her mum had been the main carer. She had done her best, but she had always been more interested in how she herself looked, or in how they were dressed.
Assumpta had been sexually active since her early teens. Her reputation meant nothing to her. She was a Costello and that had given her the power over everyone in her orbit since she could remember. Everyone was nice to them because they were Costellos – no other reason. She had started sleeping around to prove to herself that she could transcend the Costello name. If only she knew then what she knew now.
She was already four months gone, and all she wanted was for her dad to make it go away and let her start her life again, properly this time, sensibly, with the gift of hindsight. Now she knew the pitfalls, she was more than willing to learn her lesson. Whatever it took, she would do it.
‘I’m sorry, Dad.’
Patrick closed his eyes in distress. She sounded so young, so innocent. This was his baby, his first-born. This was the girl who adamantly refused to give him the name of her child’s father.
He gulped at his whisky. Then he said as calmly as humanly possible, ‘Just tell me who the father is. That is all I want to know.’