‘So, how are you now?’ I managed to say to Sadie one day, nodding in the direction of the bathroom from where I’d just come and seen the evidence of another failure, a blood-soaked napkin.
‘Just leave it, Maurice.’
‘Sadie…’
‘No, Maurice. I can’t do this now. Please.’
She raised her hand to stop any further efforts I might attempt and simply left the kitchen. Leaving me to land in my chair and run my finger around and around the wood-knot on the table. Listening to the incessant tick of the clock over the Aga that had never gotten on my nerves before. I looked at it and considered throwing the Meath Chronicle in its direction. It was killing me that I couldn’t fix this thing, this barren nothingness of us. For a man accustomed to being able to solve anything once he threw enough money at it, this was bloody torture.
I didn’t try talking to your mam after that. We skirted around each other’s lives from then on. Coming together in the bed when we tried to rid ourselves of our burden, giving it another hopeless go. Until one night she turned away from me for weeks on end. Not wanting to try any more, exhausted by our collective failure. And so, the silence grew stronger and wider and took us over until there was nothing to say over the teacups of an evening.
That was until Doctor Arthur McRory arrived in Duncashel. His practice wasn’t open a wet week and there we were, in line to see him. Where she’d heard this man could help us any more than Doctor Matthews in Rainsford, I had no idea. But I came home one evening to find her standing waiting for me at the door. I was barely through it and she had the coat and boots off me. I was escorted to the table where she sat me down and took a seat beside me.
‘Maurice. We’re going to a doctor.’
‘We are, are we?’
‘He’s new. In Duncashel.’
‘And why might we be doing that?’ I asked, having a good look around to the stove to see if there was any sign of a rasher for the tea.
‘For to see. You know,’ she said, nodding her head below.
‘Oh, right.’
‘You’ll go so?’
‘Suppose.’
‘Grand. Tuesday. Four o’clock. You’ll have to have your bath Monday night so.’
Young and confident, he greeted us with a compassion that made me wary. I wasn’t used to kindness, having never looked for or given it to those beyond my own. But Sadie grasped hold of it for all it was worth, trusting and believing all he said. She did the talking. I stayed quiet while she answered every question. He tried to engage me, but it was as if there was a boulder stuck in my throat, stopping me from telling him any of those intimate details that Sadie seemed only too willing to expose. Every time a question was pointed in my direction she laid a hand on my leg and answered for me. He sent us off with our instructions and promises of further interventions.
‘Tests,’ he said.
I did manage to say one thing to him just before we said our goodbyes:
‘And how much will all this cost us?’
Sadie shoved me out the door.
Over the coming weeks and months, we had tests and charts and appointments coming out our ears. It drove me demented. ‘Rhythm’ fecking this and ‘cycle’ fecking that. I hadn’t a clue. I just did what I was told. Performed when it was required and looked for nothing when the calendar had a big mark through it.
‘Well, everything is looking very well, Sadie, I must say,’ Doctor McRory beamed at her one spring day. ‘The reports are showing no difficulties. If we keep going as we are [we? I thought], I’m hopeful that soon there might be news. Yes, it’s all looking very promising.’
He hadn’t lied. Within three weeks of that great proclamation, our teatimes came back to life. Sadie was indeed pregnant. She couldn’t be contained for the joy of the news over the following months. And neither could I. Everywhere I turned the world was a nicer place. People were nicer. I was nicer. I bantered with Lavin, smiled at Nancy Regan in the street and even tipped my cap to the bank manager.
Our little Molly was to be born 9th of January 1966. Not that we knew it was a girl for sure. Or should I say, not that I knew. From the get-go Sadie was convinced of it. She’d bought pink and yellow bedding and a couple of wee dresses, as she said herself, home from one of her trips to Duncashel. The little heart was beating perfectly Sadie was told, at every visit to the doctor. Limbs dancing and kicking away, elbowing her mammy to pure ecstasy. It was a happy time. They say women glow when they are pregnant. It was no different with Sadie. The woman shone. Everything about her seemed alive and triumphant in the happiness of what was to come.
Things couldn’t have been better for me workwise either. I was powering away. All the bits of business, the cows, the land buying was motoring better than I’d hoped. I had gotten into leasing machines at that stage, combines and tractors. I had a few on the go. I was putting the hours in and seeing the benefits. I had a whole team of lads around me, taking care of the everyday stuff while I was off making sure the bigger picture kept expanding. They were good lads, dependable. Things felt as they should be: a happy wife, a new home and a baby on the way. I was doing right by everyone. Making sure they would never have to worry about anything and want for nothing, or so I thought.
I arrived home one evening to find Sadie sitting in the kitchen staring at her eight-month-old bump, holding it.
‘I can’t feel her, Maurice,’ she said, looking up at me.
‘Sure, she’ll be asleep.’ I went over to her and hunkered down, putting my hand on hers, on Molly. ‘Having an auld snooze.’
‘But not now, Maurice. She’s usually doing somersaults at this time.’
‘Ah, don’t be worrying. I’ll make the tea. You just go on and have a lie down on the bed,’ I said, distracted by a meeting I had planned that evening with Jim Lowry, a solicitor from Navan. He was selling some land up in north Meath on behalf of the estate of a farmer who’d died a few weeks prior. I’d gotten a sniff of it on the grapevine and approached him immediately. I had plans to begin leasing my machinery up that end of the county. No one else was operating there at the time. It wasn’t a huge farm by any means. What I wanted were his sheds. Big and modern they were. Secure enough for my machines. The revenue would be good enough with Cavan, Monaghan and Louth on the doorstep. An opportunity not to be missed.
Sadie did as she was told and lay in the bed all evening, staring at our Molly’s quietness.
At eight, I popped my head around the bedroom door.
‘Just going out for a half hour, Sadie. You sleep, and I’ll be back before you know it.’
I didn’t wait for her reply, didn’t respond to her worried face, simply marched my way out of there to secure another bargain. With not a shred of guilt or concern, I turned the key in the ignition and drove off down the driveway.
At around eleven I came home with the deal done. Happy out. I crept into the bedroom, tiptoeing to the bed only to find her still wide awake.
‘Where were you?’ she said, her voice unsteady. ‘I rang every hotel in the county looking for you. You said you wouldn’t be long.’
‘It took a bit longer than I thought.’ I was sitting on the side of the bed taking off my socks.