Sowing The Seeds Of Love Part 14

Once I'd given them their tea, I set to work on Michael's favourite dinner: steak fried with mushrooms and onions and homemade chips.

'What's all this?' He came through the kitchen door, his face showing delight he'd smelled the steak out in the hall.

'I thought you deserved a treat.'

He put his arms around me and I allowed myself to be kissed.

'How lucky am I?' he said.

I hugged him tight and closed my eyes tighter.

'To come home to a wife like you, to food like this. Two beautiful children. I don't deserve it.'

No, you don't, I thought.

'Does this mean I'm on a promise?'

He smiled at me with such warmth, his eyes full of love.

'Might do.'

While he read Liam his bedtime story, I jumped into the shower and scrubbed myself furiously especially the important bits. He was already in bed, waiting for me, when I came out.

'You don't have to wash on my account.'

'I know. I was feeling grimy.'

He turned the sheet down. 'Come on in.'

The phone rang.

'I'll just get that.' I rushed to pick it up. 'h.e.l.lo?'

'Aoife.'

My heart pounded and my mouth dried. I could hear him breathing rhythmically, like waves cras.h.i.+ng against the sh.o.r.eline.

'I'm sorry. You have the wrong number.' I put the phone back in its cradle.

'Good,' said Michael. 'Now come to bed.'

I got into bed with my husband and put out. At least, half of me did. Good Aoife. Bad Aoife was very far away indeed.

Perhaps I could be like a Frenchwoman. I could take a lover between eating salade and smoking Gauloises. That's a.s.suming real-life Frenchwomen actually did such things outside the genre of film noir. Occasionally I would attempt to justify my actions. But my excuses were paltry and pathetic and did nothing to convince me. I couldn't just blame my bad self. It was my whole self and my whole self was wrong. I did my best to keep away from Peter after that first time in his office but, unfortunately, he didn't try to keep away from me. His marriage was, I think, in a genuinely bad place at the time. He might have felt he had nothing to lose but I had everything. I was the truly stupid one. But I thought I was in love although I loved Michael too. It was all so confusing. Maybe I just loved Michael as a best friend but was 'in love' with Peter. If only a woman could have two husbands. If only Michael would have an affair too, then I wouldn't have to be the baddie any more. If only he'd run off with Lara all our problems would be solved. But he wasn't going to do either because he loved me. Properly 'in-loved' me. It was exquisite torture. How could I be so happy yet so unhappy at the same time? Happy to the power of infinity when I was in bed with Peter, and miserable as soon as my conscience got the better of me.

Peter and I knew we couldn't go on like that indefinitely, but we avoided talking about the future, hoping, I think, that events would overtake us and that we'd be spared making any horrible definitive decisions.

It was an evening like any other. Dinner had been eaten and the dishes cleared away. Liam was tucked up in bed, Thomas the Tank Engine stories read to his satisfaction. Katie was restless, fretting and fussing. She was unhappy in my arms and unhappy out of them. I rocked her to no avail and fancied that she was absorbing my own agitated state. Michael and I were knackered and she was knackered, but she wouldn't sleep.

'Maybe it's her teeth.' I tried the Teetha, I tried the Calpol. I considered downing the bottle myself. Frustrated, I handed her to Michael. 'Here. You take her.'

'What can I do?'

'I don't know. Go out for a drive or something. It might knock her out.'

When Katie was younger, the rhythmic rocking of the car used to lull her to sleep. It was worth a try.

'Okay.' Michael grabbed his keys and a blanket for her. 'I'll give it a go. See you in a few minutes.'

Except I didn't see him in a few minutes.

My husband and daughter went out for a drive and never came back.

And, just like that, my family was halved.

23.

Emily had stopped crying. Aoife had started, then stopped. They were silent for quite a while. Until Aoife spoke: 'A truck ploughed into them. The driver had a heart-attack at the wheel.'

'I'm so sorry, Aoife. I had no clue.'

Aoife shrugged. 'I told you for a reason. And I wouldn't have told you if I didn't think I knew what you were already thinking.' She looked at Emily seriously. 'I've lost my baby for ever. But you have a chance to get yours back.'

The Summer Garden.

A sensitive plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.

And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley,

'The Sensitive Plant'

24.

Uri could barely keep up with his lawns. Every week he was out there with his mower. Mrs Prendergast's roses were cl.u.s.ters of light-filled beauty, among which she floated in a selection of floral dresses, trailing her hands dreamily against the delicate petals taking full credit for their glory even though Seth had put up the trellises, had kept down the weeds and fed them well-rotted manure much to Mrs Prendergast's disgust.

'Must you?' she said. 'It stinks to high heaven.'

'Look. Do you want them to grow or don't you?'

'There's no need to take that tone.'

'If you want roses, you gotta have s.h.i.+t.'

'Honestly!'

But he didn't say a word now, surprising Aoife as he let Mrs Prendergast take the credit. Although, on second thoughts, she wasn't surprised. There was a new atmosphere in the garden of joy. A sense of hard work paying off. In such a beautiful, life-affirming setting, it was virtually impossible to be anything but entirely pleasant to every other soul. It hadn't always felt this way not to Aoife. There had been times when she'd felt that nothing was happening, that the earth was intent on retaining all her secrets. The morning she had arrived to find her Peter Rabbit lettuces devoured by slugs. The times she had knelt on the earth and willed her veggies on. 'Grow, G.o.ddammit,' she would hiss, peering into the furrows for signs of green. She agonized over everything every blade of gra.s.s. The tomatoes weren't ripening quickly enough and she feared that there wasn't enough suns.h.i.+ne left in the season to redden them. As for the apple trees a very poor showing considering all the pruning that had gone into them.

'We have an apple tree at home,' said Emily, 'an ancient thing, and she produces an incredible crop every second year.'

Maybe that was it. This wasn't their year.

On one such day Uri approached her, her anxiety visible to the naked eye as she peered into the soil. He bent low over her she could almost feel his beard brus.h.i.+ng her cheek and murmured, 'Each blade of gra.s.s has its angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow, grow." '

Aoife looked up into his face.

'It's not all about you, you know,' he said quietly, then smiled and walked away.

Aoife felt her arrogance. She straightened up and relaxed her shoulders, experiencing a new lightness. It wasn't all up to her, thank G.o.d. And she felt that with a new humility quicker than she would have imagined.

'I'm a bit concerned about my potatoes. Would you have a look at them, please, Seth?' she asked one day.

'Sure. What's the problem?'

'Look at the leaves. They've gone yellow and withered. I'm afraid it might be blight.'

'Hmm.' He bent over and examined a leaf. 'I think you may be right.'

'Oh, no. What are we going to do?'

'There's only one thing for it.'

'What?'

'We're going to have to emigrate to America.'

'Seth!'

He laughed. 'When the leaves turn yellow like that, it means it's time to dig them up.'

'What? The spuds? You mean they're ready for eating?'

'No, for juggling.'

'Stop it!'

'Here,' he said, handing her a spade. 'It's only right that you should do the honours.'

She hesitated.

'Go on,' he urged.

She took it from him, feeling a ridiculous level of excitement and antic.i.p.ation. They were spuds, for G.o.d's sake. She sliced the blade into the earth beside the plant closest to her, then stepped down hard on it. The soil gave way easily. She bent low over it and tugged the plant with both hands. She felt it give and pulled it out. Nothing but a compact little network of roots. She looked at Seth in dismay.

'That doesn't mean anything,' he said. 'Look in the ground.'

Aoife hunkered down and sifted through the soil with her fingers. She couldn't believe it. Nestled in the soil, for all the world like precious jewels, were three potatoes. 'They're pink!' she said, holding one up for inspection.

'They are.'

'Incredible.' She brushed away the earth with her thumb. 'They look just like something you'd get in a shop.'

Seth laughed. 'What were you expecting?'

'I don't know. I just didn't think that they'd be so perfect.'

She had an overwhelming urge to ask Seth if he'd bought them in a supermarket the night before and buried them especially for her to find, like a bizarre adult Easter-egg hunt. She rifled around and found three more. Then she dug up another plant. Then another. It was almost addictive, the thrill so unexpected. It made everything worth while the impossible seem possible. It was the proof that everyday miracles could occur.

25.

Michael was killed instantly. I like to think he felt nothing. I don't like to think of the terror he must have experienced as he saw the truck skidding towards him, out of control, on the wrong side of the road. The driver's heart-attack was fatal for everyone. Katie died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, her little heart fluttering in her chest like a b.u.t.terfly. Then still. Alone in the ambulance with no mummy. Not even her daddy's inert, smashed-up body, which stayed behind in the tangled metal that had been a Ford Focus, waiting to be cut out by the firemen. I like to think she was already gone, that only the mechanics of her body were still ticking over. That she was with the two other Kathleens, who'd finally got to hold and cradle their posthumous great-grandchild. Because she needed someone to look after her.

I didn't think I'd ever get through the pain. It immobilized me. Crushed me. I couldn't believe it at first couldn't take it in. How could they be with me at one minute and at the next obliterated? Where was my Michael the essence of him? His soul. And my baby. All the potential locked inside that chubby little body, where had it gone? It couldn't have vanished just like that. Yet it was nowhere to be found.

The morning of the funeral had an air of unreality about it. I wasn't in my own body. I didn't want to be. I was only aware of Liam's small hand, a permanent fixture in mine. He wouldn't let go and I wouldn't have let him. But I could scarcely look at his white, pinched face, permanently upturned towards my own. His large, questioning eyes. When I saw the tiny white coffin I lost all reason and my mother took charge of him. I held Katie on my lap one last time on the way to the graveyard. No need to worry about car seats any more. Hers hadn't saved her anyway. I believe what I did was keen loud, open-mouthed wailing while I rocked over the body of my dead child. It was unbearable. Indescribable. I wanted to throw myself into the grave and be buried with her and Michael. I thought I'd die anyway, from the grief. n.o.body could feel what I was feeling and keep on living. Nor would they want to.

All the arms that encircled me, the arms of the living. All the voices that said sorry, the voices of the living. It was all a blur of black and flesh and tears. My family rallied around me, a human s.h.i.+eld, as did Michael's. Would they have been so understanding if they had known the truth?

Peter didn't attend the funeral, but Lara did. She embraced me fiercely, not attempting to disguise the rivulets of tears flowing freely down her cheeks. I presumed that Peter had elected to stay at home and mind their son. I was grateful for his absence.

He rang me two days later. 'Aoife.'

'h.e.l.lo, Peter.'