The Baby Trail Read online

  ‘Not yet, you haven’t promised to stop masturbating.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘But how can you promise when all men seem to have to do it? It’s like a basic need or something.’

  ‘I’ll manage. I have incredible self-control. Now can we please change the subject?’

  ‘Just one more thing, would you be thinking about me or Halle Berry when you do it?’

  ‘Halle, in the James Bond bikini, of course.’

  5

  I went to meet Lucy for a drink and a moan. I’ve known Lucy since I was six. We moved in together after college with high hopes of finding fame and fortune. Neither of us found fame. I found James and Lucy found money – she earned shedloads of cash as a management consultant, but worked all the hours in the day.

  ‘Hi, sorry I’m late, last-minute crisis in work,’ said Lucy, as she plonked herself down on the couch beside me.

  As usual she looked really well. She had long, slim legs that went on for ever. She also had long, thick, shiny black hair and green eyes – if I didn’t love her so much I’d hate her. ‘No worries. You look great. New suit?’

  ‘Yeah, I treated myself to it last week. Cost a fortune but what the hell? Us single girls have to look our best at all times. It’s dog-eat-dog out there.’

  Lucy had been single for two years and was becoming increasingly cynical about love and meeting Mr Right.

  ‘How was Saturday night? I’m dying to hear all the gories,’ I asked, hoping it had gone well, though judging by the ‘dog-eat-dog’ comment, it didn’t look too good.

  Lucy had been at a singles party organized by a friend from work. It was all very Sex and the City. Each of the ten girls invited had to bring a platonic straight single male friend, a bottle of champagne and a bottle of spirits. Lucy had taken Stephen, a friend of ours from college who had recently been dumped by his girlfriend of five years.

  ‘God, it was awful. I should never have brought Stephen. Initially it was fine, everyone was a bit nervous so the drinks were going down like rockets. You’d swear we’d never seen alcohol before. Anyway, I was chatting to this cute doctor when Stephen came over and pulled me outside. He said some girl had just tried to snog him and he realized that it was a bad idea to have come because it was too soon and he was too raw and blah-blah-blah. I mean, he even squeezed out a few tears!’

  ‘Poor Stephen.’

  ‘Fuck Stephen! Poor me. I got stuck counselling him for an hour and by the time we finally went back inside my cute doctor was rolling around on the couch with some brain-dead blonde Aussie. Stephen, having offloaded all his woes, bounced over to the girl who’d tried to snog him and shoved his tongue down her throat. The bloody Comeback Kid wasn’t in it. By that stage I was freezing from standing outside for so long, sober and extremely pissed off. So I left, went home and ate a full box of Milk Tray.’

  ‘Oh, God, Lucy, what a nightmare. I can’t believe you spent your night comforting Stephen.’

  ‘Tell me about it. I give up. I’m so sick of trying to meet someone. I spent ages getting ready, I looked about as well as I’m going to look, I clicked with a cute doctor, and then it all went horribly wrong. Story of my bloody life.’

  ‘Come on, Lucy, you’re stunning and loads of guys fancy you.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Like all the guys we were in college with.’

  ‘They’re all married, Emma! They all ended up marrying the square-bear girls who never got drunk and made fools of themselves. It’s the tinsel versus the calm scenario. They all married the calm ones.’

  She had a point: they did all marry the calm ones. Lucy and I had this theory – Tinsel and Calm. It was based on a Christmas party we had gone to in college when neither of us had snogged the guys we fancied and they had gone off with two boring girls. The problem – we discovered after hours of analysis – was that we had spent far too much time wrapping the decorations and tinsel from the Christmas tree around ourselves and leaping about the dance-floor like maniacs while throwing back neat vodkas. We were much too busy having a laugh, and had lost focus. Meanwhile the calm girls, who wouldn’t dream of wearing tinsel as it didn’t match their outfits, looked on from the edge of the dance-floor, sipping their red wine, smiling and shaking their heads at us as though we were the hired entertainment.

  The guys we fancied joined in our fun and laughed and leaped with us until about midnight, when they – never ones to lose focus for long – went in search of Calm. They’d had their fun and now they wanted to score with minimal effort.

  Tinsel girls were too much trouble. A guy would need buckets of energy to keep up with one, excellent negotiation skills, and a rugby tackle or two to tear her away from the Christmas-tree decorations for a snog. Tinsel girls won’t laugh at a guy’s joke if it isn’t funny. They drink more, talk more and know more about music, politics and sport than a guy. Calm is by far the easier option: she will titter at all his crappy jokes, tell him that all his boring lads-on-tour stories are interesting and say she wishes she could drink more but she’s so petite that alcohol goes straight to her head.

  Tinsel wakes up the next day fully clothed, tongue stuck to roof of mouth, eyes moulded shut with mascara, alcohol stains all over her clothes, Santa decorations hanging from her ears and layers of tinsel wrapped around her. She is, unsurprisingly, alone. Meanwhile Calm is up, showered, dressed in her smart-casual day clothes – neatly ironed jeans and a baby pink cashmere jumper – cooking breakfast for her new man.

  Lucy sighed and took a slug of wine. I decided to help her out. That’s what best friends are for. So I suggested a blind date.

  ‘With who? I know all your male friends,’ Lucy said suspiciously.

  ‘With Donal from James’s rugby team.’ I knew Donal wasn’t quite her type, but opposites often attract. Besides, the guys she usually went for never worked out, so it was probably time she tried something new.

  ‘Is he the big ugly-looking yoke from the country?’

  ‘Well, yeah – he’s tall, but he’s not ugly. He’s actually very attractive and he has a brilliant personality. He’s hilarious company. I’m telling you, loads of girls fancy him. You should see them after the matches, they’re all over him.’

  OK, I admit I was exaggerating slightly. But he was tall, he wasn’t traditionally good-looking but you wouldn’t call him ugly, and girls did seem to find his insane sense of humour entertaining. I also knew that if I said other girls fancied him Lucy’s competitive streak would be aroused. I spent the best part of an hour singing Donal’s praises until she finally agreed.

  ‘I dunno. He’s no looker. But I suppose there’s no harm giving him a try-out. I’ve snogged everyone else in Dublin, so I have to look for bog-men now. My bloody biological clock is about to pack it in, so go ahead and set it up. I’m game.’

  ‘Great, I’ll get James on the case. Drink?’

  ‘Yeah, vodder and Diet Coke, please.’

  I ordered the drinks and sat back down. ‘Speaking of biological clocks, bloody Imogen’s pregnant and she’s expecting twins.’

  ‘Oh, shit, Emma, what a nightmare.’

  ‘Tell me about it. She rang last week to tell me and started having a go at me for not having babies myself. Stupid, insensitive wench. She even accused me of not being maternal.’

  ‘What? How dare she? You are maternal. What the hell would she know?’

  One of the things I loved most about Lucy was her unswerving loyalty. If someone was mean to you, she’d hate them out of solidarity.

  ‘Don’t let that cow put you down. On the bright side, at least it means you could have twins too. Wouldn’t that be perfect? You’d have a ready-made family in one go!’

  ‘I was thinking that myself, actually,’ I confessed. ‘Triplets would be totally ideal. I’ve always wanted three kids, so that would be perfect.’

  ‘Remember that woman in England who had the sextuplets? That could be you.’

  ‘I’d settle for one. I really h
ope it happens soon. The thought of having to listen to Imogen for six more months is doing my head in.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Emma, it’ll happen for you. I know it will. And you’ll be a brilliant mum,’ said Lucy, squeezing my hand.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, choking back tears. She was right: I would be a brilliant mum. Sod Imogen.

  James was a bit dubious when I told him of my great plan to match up Donal and Lucy. In fact, he looked at me as if I was deranged and recently escaped from a mental institution. ‘Lucy and Donal? Have you lost your mind? They’ll kill each other.’

  ‘What do you mean? Why?’

  ‘Donal thinks women should be barefoot and in the kitchen, and somehow I doubt that Lucy would agree. She’s a career woman.’

  ‘Just because she has a good job doesn’t mean she wants to be working fifteen hours a day for the rest of her life, James. That’s the whole point. She wants to meet a guy, settle down and have a family.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but I just don’t think Donal’s the man for her. He’s a great guy, but he’s a man’s man. I don’t think he’s Lucy’s type.’

  ‘Well, what is Lucy’s type?’

  ‘I don’t know, a city-type guy with a college degree, a successful job and a flash car, not a professional rugby player from Ballydrum.’

  ‘You’re wrong. She’s gone out with successful businessmen and it hasn’t worked out. I think it’s time she tried someone completely different, which Donal is.’

  ‘OK, well, I’ll talk to Donal.’

  ‘Call him now.’

  ‘I’ll see him tomorrow and ask him then.’

  ‘No, call him now. Come on, I want to hear you selling Lucy properly. I want you to tell him how gorgeous and fabulous and clever and funny and great she is. Come on, James, call him now,’ I said, handing him the phone.

  ‘OK, OK, I’ll do it now,’ said James, sighing.

  He dialled Donal’s number and I pressed up close to listen in. I wanted to make sure he said the right things about Lucy.

  ‘Hi, Donal. How do you fancy going on a blind date with Emma’s friend Lucy?’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘Nothing, she’s a bit of a looker.’

  ‘Would you do her?’

  ‘Yeah, I would, actually, she’s tasty.’

  I gave James a dead arm at this point.

  ‘No limbs missing?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘OK, so.’

  ‘Great. See you tomorrow.’

  The next morning, as James was taking his shower, I decided to time him – fifteen minutes. In that time I could shower, moisturize, put on my makeup, get dressed and eat breakfast. What was he doing in there? I opened the door and shouted over the noise of the water: ‘What are you doing in there?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What are you doing in there? You’ve been in there for fifteen minutes.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, I want to know if you’re masturbating. I thought we had an agreement. No more pipe-cleaning in the shower.’

  The shower door opened and a very red-faced James glared out at me. Shampoo was dripping into his eyes and he looked really cheesed off. ‘What I do and how long I spend in the shower is my own business. Jesus Christ, a man needs some privacy. I will not have you standing over me like some psychotic sergeant major, accusing me of masturbating every time I take a shower. It’s eight o’clock in the bloody morning, now get out of here before I come over there and strangle you.’

  Yikes! James very rarely lost his temper, but when he did he was a bit scary. I’d have to trust him not to jerk off in the shower and not give him the third degree. I decided to cook him breakfast and apologize. He said it was fine, but that I needed to calm down about the whole masturbation issue and he didn’t want it mentioned again. Some things were sacred.

  6

  I rang Lucy to tell her that Donal was keen for the date. She said she had seen a picture of him in the paper scoring a try and was having second thoughts. ‘He’s desperate-looking, Emma.’

  ‘No, he isn’t. That’s a bad photo and, come on, he was covered in mud and sweat. No one looks good when they are all mucky.’

  ‘Yeah, nice try. He’s a fierce-looking yoke, but I said I’d go out with him so I will. OK, what’s the plan?’

  ‘Well, he said he’d pick you up after the game this Saturday to go out for dinner.’

  ‘Where’s he taking me? What’ll I wear?’

  ‘Uhm, I’m not sure, actually, but he’s not short of cash, so I’m sure he’ll bring you somewhere nice. The little black dress should do the trick.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s not too dressy and not too casual. I’ll wear it with my new Jimmy’s.’

  ‘Oooh, did you get Jimmy Choos?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re to die for. Black with really pointy toes and killer six-inch heels.’

  ‘Wow! Poor old Donal won’t be able to keep his hands off you.’

  ‘Mmm, on second thoughts,’ she said, giggling, ‘after seeing that photo, maybe I should wear a tracksuit and runners.’

  I had no idea where Donal was taking her. He wasn’t the most sophisticated guy in the world, but I was hoping he’d pull out the stops. I had told James to tell him that Lucy was a bit of a high-flyer and was used to going to nice places. I hoped he wouldn’t blow it.

  When James came in I quizzed him as he made himself some toast. ‘You know the date with Donal?’

  ‘What date?’ he said, stuffing a slice of bread in his mouth.

  ‘James! The date with Lucy.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. What about it?’

  ‘Where’s he taking her?’

  ‘No idea. Why?’

  ‘Because she wants to know what to wear.’

  ‘Birds!’

  ‘It’s perfectly reasonable to want to know where you’re going on a blind date. Where do you think he’ll take her?’

  ‘Knowing Donal, probably Burger King and the Black Hole,’ said James, finding himself very amusing.

  ‘Hilarious. Look, I want you to tell him to take her somewhere nice. Blind dates are bad enough without being taken to some grotty pub.’

  ‘OK, I’ll mention it.’

  ‘You won’t forget now, will you?’

  ‘Remind me tomorrow.’

  ‘James!’

  ‘I’m joking. I’ll tell him tomorrow.’

  Suffice it to say that things didn’t go according to plan. On the day of the date, Donal got a kick in the head in the last five minutes of the game and was stretchered off with his face covered in blood. When they’d cleaned him up on the sideline, it was clear that he needed quite a few stitches and might have a slight concussion, so the physiotherapist took him to hospital.

  Three hours later he emerged with eight stitches down the side of his now very swollen right eye. Being Donal, he decided not to call Lucy, explain what had happened and go home and get cleaned up. Instead he threw on an old rugby jersey, and tracksuit bottoms he found in the boot of his car and turned up at her apartment half an hour late with one side of his face covered in stitches and dried blood. He rang the bell.

  Lucy opened the door, screamed and slammed it shut.

  ‘Hello? Lucy?’

  Jesus Christ, how did this tinker with the mad eye know her name? Was he some kind of stalker? Or axe murderer? Lucy looked out the peephole. He didn’t seem to have any weapons, but then again his tracksuit was quite baggy so he might be harbouring a knife or a gun. There was something strangely familiar about him. She had definitely seen him before. Maybe he’d been stalking her for a while.

  ‘Go away, I’m calling the police!’ she roared through the letterbox.

  ‘Are you Lucy Hogan?’

  ‘How the hell do you know my name?’ said Lucy, trying to sound brave as she dialled 999, her hands shaking.

  ‘It’s Donal. Donal Brady. Are you all right?’

  What? Donal? Lucy looked out the peephole again. Oh, God, it was him. She opened the doo
r. ‘What the hell –’

  ‘Howrya. What’s going on? Are you OK?’

  ‘Your face!’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ said Donal, reaching up to his eye. ‘I forgot. I must look a right state. I got a kick in the head in the game today. No permanent damage done. Did I give you a fright?’

  ‘Well, yes, you did. I thought you were some kind of mad rapist or something.’

  ‘Sorry about that. Come on, we both need a drink. Are you ready to go?’

  ‘Uhm, yeah, I suppose so,’ said Lucy, looking from her tight little black dress and Jimmy Choos to his tracksuit and runners. ‘Where are we off to?’

  ‘I know a great pub so why don’t we go there for a few and see how we go?’ said Donal, as cool as you like.

  Lucy was a bit taken aback. ‘See how we go’ – what the hell did that mean? Was this pub some kind of initiation ceremony where, if he didn’t like her after a few pints, he’d cancel the dinner and save himself a few quid?

  As she sat fuming in the car, Donal howled along to the radio, turning every few minutes to wink at her with his one good eye. They drove to a run-down part of town and Donal rammed the car up on the kerb outside a pub called the Black Hole. Lucy had never heard of it and had only ever been in this part of town once before, when she got lost on her way to the airport.

  ‘Is this it?’ she asked, in shock.

  ‘Yep. The best pint of Guinness in Dublin. It’s owned by a fella from my home town. It’s a great spot. Come on.’

  Donal marched in ahead of her, greeted the barman with a roar and a slap on the back and ordered a pint of Guinness. The pub was a dingy dump with no windows, sawdust on the floor and Christy Moore’s greatest hits belting out from the speakers. When her eyes got used to the dark, Lucy could make out four other people. The barman, and three customers sitting up at the bar. An old guy, an older guy and a guy who was so old he should have been dead. They all turned to stare at her.

  When she asked for a white wine spritzer, Donal and the barman laughed for five minutes and she ended up with a pint of Harp. Lucy hadn’t had Harp since she was fifteen and drinking it from cans outside the local disco.