‘No!’ said Lucy suddenly and passionately. ‘You’re not a laughing stock. You’re still the same Michael Fogarty you ever were: upstanding, proud and principled. That’s the Michael Fogarty you were, the Michael Fogarty you are and the Michael Fogarty you will be.’ She looked quite hot around the collar. Everyone needed a Lucy on their team. Finally, Michael had the life partner he deserved.
I glanced at Red and he widened his eyes at this impassioned speech and I felt like I might laugh, from happiness, hysteria or knowing that Red ‘got me’, understood me.
‘Lucy, this is Red… a friend of mine… And Red, this is Michael’s…’ Lucy’s smile was rictus. ‘Michael’s girlfriend and mother of his unborn child.’ I turned to Lucy. ‘Is that all right?’
‘Yes…’ She hesitated. ‘I think so. Well, it’s factually correct, I suppose, but rather bald when you say it out loud.’
‘Good to meet you,’ said Red, shaking her hand. ‘I recognised you from the newspaper.’
‘Oh stop,’ said Lucy, blushing. ‘I’m am mortified. Mammy is furious. She says she can’t face Mass today because of all the talk. Expecting… when I’m not married!’
Michael patted her on the shoulder, a look of resignation on his face as he realised his hours and hours of lovely sleep were about to be cut short.
‘Everything’s going to be all right, you just take care of yourself and that baby. Now,’ I said, ‘where are those Jaffa Cakes? Jaffa Cake, Red?’
‘Tea, everyone?’ said Lucy. ‘Michael?’
‘Would you make mine black?’ he said. ‘I think I’ve gone off milk.’
And while Lucy and Michael were whispering together, Red held out his hand and touched mine and my smile turned into a goofy, giddy grin. Red, meanwhile, was looking as goofy and giddy as me. This is how it used to feel, I remembered, this is how we used to be.
‘Well,’ said Michael, ‘we’re going to hit the road. We’re going to stay in the flat in town. I’m going to take Rosie out for pizza tonight and we can talk about everything.’
Michael hung back a little when I saw him and Lucy off at the front door. This was my husband leaving me. Shouldn’t it be more dramatic, a bit more EastEnders? Shouldn’t I be crying? Or at least hitting the vodka? Or him?
‘Thank you,’ said Michael. ‘Thanks for being so good about things… about everything.’
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘We’re all human. Anyway, it’s something of a relief, to be honest. We were never right for each other.’
‘Well, thank you for trying, anyway,’ he said.
‘We both tried,’ I said. ‘We did it for Rosie.’
‘A most noble cause,’ he said and reached towards me and hugged me awkwardly and stiffly. We hadn’t actually had such close physical contact in years, not since the last by-election and he was so overexcited he hugged all of us standing there at two a.m. I thought I was going to drop with tiredness, but he and Lucy were on cloud nine. Thinking back, I should have twigged something was up when he hugged all of us but not her. It was the classic putting people off the scent trick, but I was too tired that night to see it.
‘Goodbye Michael, and good luck with your Standards In Pubic Lice thing,’ I said. ‘I mean public life!’
‘I think that’s over,’ he said, sadly, looking not unlike a wounded lion, ‘along with my career. And the milk scheme will never be a runner now. I was so sure they would be ground-breaking. They were going to make my name in Europe.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’ll be known for adultery rather than public lice and milk. I think that is far more rock and roll, don’t you?’
‘Typical Tabitha answer,’ he said. ‘Everything amuses you.’
‘Michael, I am not amused. Not particularly. But it’s better to find humour in a situation like this, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose,’ he said gloomily.
‘Something tells me you’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘When are you going to talk to your mother?’
‘She’s already called me. Several times. And on Lucy’s phone. I’ll call her. But all courage seems to have left me on that front. If she comes here, tell her I’ve escaped to Darkest Peru. Or Outer Mongolia. Well then…’ He bounced on his feet again, from awkwardness or desire to get on with his new life, I couldn’t tell. ‘Thank you, Tabitha,’ he said, ‘you’ve been ridiculously understanding.’
‘And you, Michael, have been ridiculous!’ I said, but he didn’t hear me as he was already jogging away.
‘Coming, Mammy!’ he called to Lucy. ‘I’m coming!’ And Lucy, standing by the ministerial car (Terry sitting in the driver’s seat, eyes studiedly front), looked as if she didn’t mind her new role at all. In fact, she was glowing with happiness.
I’d hardly had chance to close the door when the doorbell rang again; it was Celia looking more than her usual uptight self.
‘Where is he?’ she said. ‘And where is that homewrecker?’
‘They’ve just this minute left,’ I said, feeling a surge of irritation that Michael was on the run from his mother and had left me to deal with her.
‘They’ve? You mean, Michael and… Lucy?’
I nodded.
‘And you let them go?’
‘Well, I have no choice.’
‘Typical of you, Tabitha,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t fight a wet paper bag. Never mind your marriage, your reputation. You’re happy, are you? Your husband swanning about with a young one, a girl half his age…’
‘She’s only ten years younger…’
‘How am I going to live this down? The shame! Michael Senior, now he had a roving eye but it was never talked about. Never. That’s what men do. Boys will be boys. But to get into the papers. I mean, this is a new low.’ She looked as though she was going to collapse. Her voice wobbled as though she was about to cry. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Celia, come in. I’ll make some tea.’
In the kitchen, Red was leaning against the work surface, drinking his tea.
‘Celia, this is Red, a friend of mine. Red, this is Celia, my… mother-in-law.’
‘Pleased to… whatever,’ she said, the tragedy of her son, the adulterer, making her forget her manners. Something she would never have countenanced before.
‘Listen, I’m going to go,’ said Red. ‘Leave you to it.’
‘No you can stay,’ said Celia, ‘whoever you are. It’s all common knowledge anyway. I am beyond caring. You may as well know everything. The whole world knows. We have no secrets, it seems. Out dirty washing hung on the line for everyone to inspect. Where’s Rosie? I hope to God and all the saints she has been spared this shame. Though how we can keep it from her for much longer, I really don’t know.’
‘Celia, she knows. It was in the papers.’
‘In my day, children did not know anything that went on in the lives of their elders. My own mother never, ever mentioned anything which was not suitable for small ears. It wasn’t until I was married myself did she tell me about her health issues… down there. And my father, he was a rogue – aren’t they all – but I heard not a dickie bird until he was long gone.’ She sighed. ‘How is she taking it?’
‘In her stride, so far,’ I said. ‘We’re all taking it in. But, Celia, I think that there is little we can do about it except wish them well.’
She looked at me as if I was from outer space. ‘Wish them well? Wish them well? What on earth for. Maybe you should hold a party and make a cake. Or move out of the house into the shed in the garden and let them have everything, why not? Let that little minx take everything! When I think of how nice I was to that girl. I thought she was good for Michael, someone he could trust and rely on. I had no idea she was feathering her nest, ready to pounce, the little magpie.’
She fell into the chair at the table and put her head in her hands. ‘Imelda took great delight in showing me the article. The headline… oh…’ She shuddered. ‘I could see it in her eyes. Delight, ecstasy, pure pleasure! At my downfall. She’s been waiting for this for years, she has. Since we were in school. She’s always been jealous of me, just because I was good at spelling and had a long neck and a nice nose. And then when I married Michael Fogarty – senior – and she was stuck with Frank. Fat Frank we called him, secretly – her jealousy took hold. And now I am the mother of –’she coughed twice delicately, ‘ahem-ahem Foggy.’