This Child of Mine Read online

  Jason looked at his feet. ‘Sorry.’

  Anna patted him on the back. ‘Good boy, Jason. Now, Molly, you need to apologize for teasing Jason.’

  Molly’s mother wagged a finger at Anna. ‘Excuse me, she’ll be apologizing for nothing. Jaws here needs a muzzle to stop him ripping the arms off innocent bystanders and from using bad words in the class. I’ve a good mind to call Social Services about this.’

  ‘What the fuck are you on about?’ Jason’s dad asked. ‘He’s said sorry to your precious daughter. It’s over now.’

  Molly’s mother folded her arms defiantly. ‘What if he decides to go for her again because he can’t handle a bit of teasing? What if next time he bites her ear off, like that Mike Tyson?’

  ‘He’s not a fucking heavyweight boxer, he’s a little kid.’

  ‘It’s hardly surprising he’s got problems, with a junkie for a mother.’

  Jason’s dad narrowed his eyes. ‘Leave my wife out of it.’

  ‘She’s out of it, all right,’ Molly’s mother proclaimed. ‘She’s out of her tree morning, noon and night.’

  Anna stepped in. ‘OK, folks, we need to keep this civil. Jason has apologized and –’

  Jason’s father shook a fist at Molly’s mother. ‘Don’t you slander my wife, you stupid cu–’

  ‘STOP!’ Anna jumped in before a fight broke out. ‘The incident is over now and tomorrow we’ll start afresh. Molly and Jason, I want you both on your best behaviour in the morning. Now we can all go home and cool down.’

  Molly and her mother stormed off. Jason’s dad turned on the little boy. ‘If you ever embarrass me like that again I’ll fuckin’ kill you. I’ve enough on me plate trying to get your mother off the gear. I don’t need you causing me hassle.’

  Jason’s eyes watered. ‘I’m sorry, Da.’

  ‘Mr Cooney,’ Anna said, ‘Jason is trying very hard in class and his behaviour is generally good. I’m very pleased with his progress.’

  Jason’s dad looked surprised. ‘Oh, right. Well, that’s good to hear. If he keeps his fangs to himself he should be all right so. Come on, Jaws, let’s get a burger – I’m fuckin’ starving.’

  Jason looked over his shoulder at Anna, and smiled gratefully.

  2.

  Laura

  Christmas Eve 1992

  Laura groaned. Her head was thumping. She had the worst hangover ever. She lay back on the couch and closed her eyes.

  Joan came in and glared at her. ‘Where were you until three this morning? Have you no shame?’

  Laura sat up, the last thing she needed was her mother knowing she’d been drinking last night. If Joan even suspected it, there would be World War Three.

  ‘Relax, Mum. I was just out with the girls, we stayed in Chloë’s house chatting, it’s no big deal.’

  Joan clicked her tongue. ‘It is a big deal. Pregnant women need rest. You’re always out – you need to stay at home and put your feet up so the baby has time to grow. The doctor said it was on the small side and that you were to stop gallivanting about and take it easy.’

  Laura rolled her eyes. ‘Leave me alone. You’re such a nag.’ She switched on the TV and turned up the volume.

  Joan stood watching her daughter and prayed silently for patience. When Laura had told her she was pregnant and wanted to have an abortion, Joan had been shocked. To find out, in the space of thirty seconds, that your nineteen-year-old daughter is pregnant by a stranger and wants to have an abortion is too much for any mother. She had begged Laura not to terminate the pregnancy. No matter what people said, abortion was wrong in Joan’s eyes, and she could not – would not – let that happen. She had promised Laura that she’d help her raise the baby, and eventually Laura had relented.

  For the millionth time Joan wondered how her sweet daughter had turned into this angry, selfish stranger. If she was being honest she had to blame Harry for some of it. He had spoilt Laura far too much. And after he was diagnosed with lung cancer, he had gone into overdrive. He had said that whatever time he had left in this world was going to be happy, and he was determined to enjoy the money he had made. He never said no again. He gave Laura and her elder brother Frank everything they wanted. In those last two years of his life, before the cancer had beaten him, they had gone all over the world, dined in the finest restaurants, shopped in the swankiest stores and had the most elaborate birthday parties imaginable.

  But he had died when Frank was eighteen and Laura was sixteen and had left a huge hole in their lives. Joan was glad Harry wasn’t here to see this. Laura had become uncontrollable since he had died. He would have been heartbroken to see his beautiful daughter pregnant at nineteen. He had called Laura his little princess, and it would have devastated him to think she had had unprotected drunken sex with a stranger, whose name she couldn’t even remember.

  ‘He was just some American musician over in Dublin for a few days with his band,’ she had said, when Joan had demanded to know who the father was. ‘I met him one night at a party. He’s long gone.’

  ‘But you have to find him and tell him,’ Joan insisted.

  Laura had laughed. ‘Find him? Mum, I don’t even know his name. I was drunk, it’s over. I’ll get rid of it.’

  That was when Joan had started to plead with her to keep the baby and now here she was, a forty-two-year-old woman, soon to become a grandmother.

  Joan left the room before she told Laura what she thought of her. She couldn’t face another argument – and it was bad for the baby to have Laura shouting and screaming. She passed Frank on the way out.

  ‘Talk to your sister, will you, Frank?’ she asked her eldest and finest. ‘She was out until three a.m. It’s not good for the baby.’

  Frank grimaced. ‘Sure, Mum, I’ll have a word.’

  He went into the lounge, picked up the remote and switched off the TV. He sat down opposite his younger sister.

  ‘Hey, I was watching that,’ Laura grumbled.

  ‘How’s your head?’ he asked.

  ‘Bloody awful.’ Laura groaned.

  ‘Hardly surprising – you really went for it last night.’

  ‘Yeah, it was a fun party. I needed a blow-out.’

  ‘You were very messy. It looked pretty bad, Laura.’

  ‘I was not messy,’ Laura said indignantly. ‘The drink went straight to my head, that’s all. It must be the bloody hormones or something.’

  ‘You were out of your head. You were all over Danny like a cheap perfume.’

  Laura blushed. ‘Sod off.’

  ‘He had to peel himself away.’

  ‘That’s bullshit. He was all over me.’

  ‘Laura, you were completely pissed. A pregnant girl falling around is really embarrassing. Seriously, sis, go easy on the drink.’

  ‘I wasn’t that bad.’

  Frank raised his eyebrows. ‘You set Tara’s hair on fire when you were trying to light a cigarette. Seriously, smoking when you’re pregnant is not cool.’

  Laura giggled. ‘Did I really burn her hair?’

  ‘It’s not funny – she freaked.’

  ‘It only caught fire because she had so much hair spray in it.’

  ‘Luckily for you, Nick threw his scarf over it so she only lost a few hairs.’

  ‘Tara could do with a trim.’

  ‘No one thought it was funny except you.’

  ‘Did Danny say anything?’

  ‘About the hair fire?’

  ‘No, the other thing, me being a bit keen.’

  ‘No, but he was stone-cold sober. None of the guys on the team are drinking because we’ve got a big game next week.’

  ‘Sober? Oh, God, I thought he was drunk too.’ Laura put a cushion over her face.

  ‘He had to help me carry you out to my car.’

  ‘Stop! Don’t tell me any more.’

  ‘You also called Vanessa an air-head.’

  Laura rolled her eyes. ‘Well, she is. She thought Marc Chagall was a French rugby player.’


  ‘She’s not thick. I know he isn’t a rugby player because I can name that French team in my sleep, but who the hell is he? A singer? Chef?’

  ‘Duh! He’s, like, a really famous amazing French painter.’

  Frank yawned. ‘We’re not all studying history of art, Laura. Some of us are studying real subjects.’

  ‘Give me a break. Social science is a sad excuse for a course. The only reason you’re in college is so you can play more rugby.’

  Frank smirked at his sister. ‘Social science was a stroke of genius. There are only three guys in the class and one of them is gay. All the rest are babes.’

  ‘Most of whom you’ve shagged.’

  ‘Not most, but I’m working on it.’ Frank flexed his muscles. ‘This body was made for lovin’.’

  ‘It’s not fair. You can go around sleeping with tons of people and no one thinks you’re a slut, and I get pregnant on my third bloody shag and I’m labelled a whore.’

  ‘The key is not to get pregnant.’

  ‘I’m paying for my mistake every day.’

  ‘I know,’ Frank said, with a sigh, ‘but you have to deal with it and stop pretending it’s not happening. You’re huge now and you can’t hide it any more. You need to cut out the drinking and smoking.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say. You’re not trapped with a baby for the rest of your life.’ Laura’s eyes welled.

  Frank patted her arm. ‘Come on, you know Mum will help and I’ll do my bit. You’ll be OK.’

  ‘I’m scared, Frank. What the hell am I going to do with a baby?’

  ‘You’ll just take it one day at a time. Now get some rest. You’ll feel better when the hangover wears off.’ He stood up. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got training.’

  Laura watched Frank leave and began to feel panic rising inside her. She was getting these waves of terror every other day now, as her due date drew closer. She felt bile rising in her throat and ran upstairs to the bathroom where she threw up.

  Wearily, she dragged herself into the shower to try to wash away the night before and the smell of vomit. While the water could wash away the smell, it couldn’t do anything about her feeling of claustrophobia. She felt as if she was drowning under the weight of this unwanted pregnancy. She hated it. She hated being trapped. She didn’t want to be a mother. She didn’t want a kid. She could barely look after herself. She wanted to have fun. But she knew that once this baby was born, she’d never be free again.

  Laura dried herself slowly and then, afraid to spend any more time on her own with her dark thoughts, she decided to call her best friend Chloë. She needed to get out of the house.

  ‘Come on over,’ Chloë said. ‘A few of the girls are calling in for wine and mince pies tonight, except I forgot to buy the mince pies.’ She giggled.

  ‘Great. I’ll see you later.’

  A few hours later, Laura went downstairs. Joan was sitting on the couch watching a cookery programme.

  Laura took a deep breath. ‘Mum, I’m just popping over to Chloë’s. She has a Christmas present for me,’ she lied. ‘I won’t be long.’

  Joan looked up. ‘I want you home at eleven, do you hear me? You need an early night and I want some help with the Christmas dinner tomorrow. There’s a lot to do.’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ Laura rushed out of the door before her mother interrogated her.

  When she got to Chloë’s, Hayley and Amber were already there, tucking into white wine. Chloë’s parents had a big wine cellar in their house, and whenever her mum and dad went out, Chloë would go down, pull out some bottles from the back where they wouldn’t notice and share them with her friends. Tonight, she had selected three very dusty bottles of white wine.

  ‘Oh, my God, Chloë, this one says 1938 on it. I hope it isn’t mouldy or anything,’ Hayley said, waving the bottle in the air.

  ‘It tastes a bit funny.’ Amber scrunched up her face.

  ‘It’s not great.’ Chloë stood up and went to get a large bottle of Sprite. She mixed the lemonade with the wine in her glass. ‘That’s better.’ She knocked it back.

  The other girls did the same. After two drinks, Laura felt much better.

  ‘Wow, Laura, you really are getting big. You look like you’ve got a bowling ball in there.’ Amber smirked.

  Laura shuddered. ‘I really don’t want to talk about it tonight. Honestly, guys, I can’t take much more of this. I am way too young to have a kid. It’s like having a noose around your neck.’

  ‘I can’t even begin to imagine it. I mean, my little brother is five and he wrecks my mum’s head and she has a full-time nanny for him,’ Hayley said.

  ‘Maybe that’s what you need, like, proper help. Why don’t you hire a nanny?’ Chloë suggested.

  Laura lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘I wanted to, but my mum said no way. She keeps going on and on about taking responsibility and raising my own child, blah-blah-blah. I’m sick of it.’

  ‘It’s such a bummer you didn’t get that musician guy to wear a condom,’ Hayley said.

  ‘Such bad luck,’ Chloë agreed.

  ‘I think about it every day.’ Laura sighed. ‘Why was I so stupid?’

  ‘Probably because you’d just done five tequila shots,’ Hayley reminded her.

  ‘I’ll never drink tequila again,’ Laura said, shaking her head.

  ‘Didn’t Danny look amazing last night?’ Amber gushed, changing the subject.

  They all nodded in agreement. Laura tensed. Danny was her guy. Well, he wasn’t actually her guy, but he was Frank’s friend and she had fancied him for years. They had kissed a few times but then she’d met the American musician, got plastered and pregnant and blown her chances. Her friends knew she still really liked Danny so they didn’t flirt with him out of loyalty.

  ‘I saw you talking to him for ages, Laura,’ Hayley said.

  ‘It was less like talking and more like swaying and spilling your drink all over him,’ Amber said drily, running her fingers through her auburn hair.

  ‘Frank said I was a disgrace,’ Laura admitted.

  ‘You were not.’ Chloë was loyal to the end. ‘You were just chatting.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I think friends should be honest with each other and you were all over him,’ Amber said. ‘You followed him around all night.’

  ‘It wasn’t that bad,’ Chloë said.

  ‘You were just a bit pissed,’ Hayley added.

  ‘Paralytic.’ Amber stubbed out her cigarette. ‘He had to help Frank carry you out to the car. I met him on the way back in. We had a really good chat, actually. He said he’s worried about you. That you seemed to be drinking too much and kind of a mess, and he’s worried for the baby. I mean, it is pretty dangerous, you know.’

  Laura jutted out her chin. ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I just said that being pregnant was hard for you and that you weren’t going out much any more because you were so ginormous. So when you do get out, you get overexcited and drink goes to your head. He was really sweet about it. He said he felt really sorry for you and that it was such a pity you’d wrecked your life.’

  Laura thought she might be sick.

  ‘It’s not wrecked!’ Chloë said.

  ‘It’s just complicated,’ Hayley added.

  ‘I’m just telling you what he said.’ Amber reapplied her lip-gloss. ‘Anyway, I have to go. I’m meeting my parents at Midnight Mass.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ Hayley got up and put on her coat. ‘Happy Christmas, everyone!’ She kissed Chloë and Laura, and the two girls headed out into the night.

  Laura took a long drink of wine and sighed. Chloë put her hand on her friend’s arm. ‘Ignore Amber. She’s a bitch. You know she fancies the pants off Danny.’

  ‘Well, she can have him. He clearly has no interest in me now. God, Chloë, I wish it hadn’t happened. What am I going to do? I can’t be a mum, I just can’t. I’ll never be able to do anything spontaneous again. I’m never going to be able to go away with you
on your college summers. Everything has to be planned and checked with Mum first. I’ll never be able to travel and go and live in Paris, like I always wanted to, and study art. I’ll be stuck in Dublin for ever. This is it – this is my life. And no one is ever going to want to marry me. Who the hell wants someone else’s kid? And, besides, they all think I’m a slut and it was only my third time having sex. It’s just not fair.’ Laura laid her head on the table and bawled.

  Chloë rubbed her back. ‘No one thinks you’re a slut. You’re stunning-looking so guys are always going to fancy you. You’ve got the most amazing blue eyes and your hair is, like, to die for, so thick and curly. Come on, Laura, it’ll be OK. You’ll get through this.’

  ‘But the thing is, Chloë, it’s never going to end. I’ll never be free again. This baby is always going to be there, needing to be looked after.’

  ‘I know it’s scary but you’ll be a great mum, a cool young mum. You can be friends with your kid and have fun together.’

  ‘I wish I’d never told Mum I was pregnant, just gone to London and had the abortion.’

  ‘Come on, Laura. I know it’s hard on you but you’ll love the baby when it’s here, and I’ll help babysit.’

  ‘I just want to run away from it all. I wish –’

  The kitchen door swung open and Chloë’s father walked in. ‘Ho ho ho, and a very merry Christmas,’ he said, swaying slightly. ‘I see you’ve been having your own little party.’ He nodded at the empty bottles on the table.

  Chloë jumped up and tried to hide the evidence, but it was too late. Mr Jackson-Black picked up an empty bottle and peered at the label.

  His face went pale. He turned to his daughter and, in a controlled but quivering voice, asked, ‘Chloë, are you aware that this is a Château d’Yquem 1938 Sauternes?’

  Chloë looked sheepishly at him. ‘I thought the ones at the front of the cellar were your favourite so I took the oldest-looking ones.’

  Mr Jackson-Black was hyperventilating. ‘Do you have any idea how rare this is?’

  ‘It was at the back and it was all dusty so I thought you’d forgotten about it.’

  ‘FORGOTTEN ABOUT IT? I was saving it for a very, very special occasion.’