The Bird Woman (33 page)

“Almost everyone is.” And as far as I knew that was true, but I wished she wasn’t so alone. I tried to remember my way back
to carrying Barbara Allen. Robbie had wanted that baby, but for all the use he actually was I might as well have been alone.
I’d survived. The same could not be said of Barbara Allen.

She was the last appointment, so I asked her to stay and eat with us, but she shook her head. She was off to visit a sister
who lived in Kildare, she said, her favourite sister—one with a husband and children and ponies and rabbits and dogs.

“Everything perfect,” Catherine added. “And a perfectly plain gold ring on her wedding finger. White gold, very understated.
I’ve dropped a few hints to prepare the way, but tonight’s the night.”

“Will it be alright?”

“It will. She’ll tell me I can’t, she may even cry, but Tom will be there, he’ll fill her with drink, then she’ll cry again
and give me her blessing. She thinks babies need daddies and fluffy pet rabbits and stable lifestyles. So do I, but there
you go—things don’t always work out the way you intended. All I need her to do is tell the parents. God knows, it’s no big
deal anymore, but there’s no saying which way they’ll jump and Fran’s much better at all that than I am. Better at everything.
She’s solid gold—like her ring.”

“Not better at rock pools.”

She grinned, her pleasure at the opening resurfacing. I walked her out, then waited on the step, watching while she stood
by the car searching her pockets for keys. She found them, held them up to me, smiled, and signalled for me to go in. I waved
and headed for the kitchen, my thoughts already moving ahead to the dinner.

I don’t know what made me turn back when I reached the steps, but I did. Dermot was there, opening the passenger door, about
to get in. I was surprised, for I hadn’t known he’d come with her and she hadn’t said. He must have been round in the studio
with Liam, I thought, and at that moment he’d lifted his head, looked me full in the face, and smiled. He looked well, better
than I’d seen him looking for ages. I waved again and went in.

The next morning Marie phoned from Dublin. Dermot was in hospital in Kilkenny—flat on his back, drips and a catheter—a neglected
kidney infection. He’d been there three days without telling anyone; she’d only found out herself because
she’d been trying to change the weekend arrangement for the kids. Would we go and see him, find out the story?

I said I’d send Liam right away, and I’d go myself when I could, then I’d ring her.

I put down the phone. Dermot had been here, flesh-and-blood Dermot, not something vague that I nearly saw, some intuition
or flash of knowing. He’d stood there, not twenty yards away. He’d turned his head and looked me straight in the eye. And
all the time he’d been flat on his back in a hospital bed.

Catherine had been going off to her sister’s house to break the news to her family that she was pregnant. Yd watched Dermot
get into the car with her and drive away.

So that was it. Catherine’s one-night stand that had been a mistake.

Catherine came back every week, she said she felt better after I’d had my hands on her, and safer as well, for they gave her
the courage she needed for what lay ahead. From time to time I’d slip Dermot’s name in, testing to see had things changed
for her, but they never had.

Dermot was over his kidney infection, and for once he had luck on his side and there weren’t any complications. At first the
scare sobered him up, but that soon wore off and he went back to his old ways. Liam said Dermot’s studio was littered with
half-realised paintings, hardly touched for months, and the shake in his hands was getting worse.

“Can’t you do anything?” Liam had asked me when Dermot had been in the studio, talking, and then had stayed on to eat.
Eat
did I say? He’d pushed the food around the plate, then left looking white-faced and sick. I’d shaken my head, surprised at
the request, though I knew how hard it was for Liam, watching his best friend self-destruct.

I’d told Liam addictions were outside my field, which might have been true—I didn’t know, for I’d never been asked before.
But Dermot’s was—I was certain of that, I’d never felt anything in my hands at all when he was near me. I came close then
to telling Liam about Dermot and Catherine, I thought if he knew he might talk to them both, and that might ease some of the
pain, or it might for Dermot. Not for Catherine though, which is what stopped me. Catherine was going for the virgin birth;
if she’d wanted Liam to know the truth she’d have told him herself.

I kept wondering how she’d got Dermot to keep his mouth shut, even in drink, but as well as that I wondered how she’d landed
herself with him at all. From her dates it must have been sometime around the back end of February, the four-o’clock-in-the-morning
month, the hour before dawn when the knock comes at the door. Perhaps it was as simple as that, perhaps she’d just been lonely
for too long.

When I’d first come here I thought I liked everyone Liam liked, especially Dermot, who was always good craic and easy to have
around. But when Liam asked me to help him, I realised that deep down I didn’t—perhaps never had—and that was disturbing,
and a shock as well.

And he wasn’t good craic anymore, he was alcoholic, which meant that a whole lot more of him was visible than ever had been
before. He was a beached ship hauled up onto the sands, the hull exposed, its burden of rust and barnacles laid clean to the
morning sky. I realised then that Dermot was noisy around women because he was afraid of us. More than that, he didn’t much
like us except when it came to sex. But he liked Catherine. It wasn’t only that she was a mate, an honorary man, it was
because she’d always seen under his act and she’d liked him, rust and barnacles and all. He must have sensed that and found
it soothing, so he’d relaxed with her in a way he couldn’t with most women. She didn’t put him down or make him feel clumsy
and stupid, so he wasn’t.

But now he wanted to be with her both sexually and as a partner, and she didn’t want that, though she must have tried the
sexual bit because there was a baby, getting nearer all the time to being born. The end of November seemed suddenly way too
close. Maybe Dermot was staying quiet because he loved her, or maybe he couldn’t bear the thought of her contempt if he spoke
out. Whichever it was, once you knew, it was plain as the nose on your face that Catherine was his obsession. What had been
simple between them had gone all twisted and wrong.

So I didn’t say anything to Liam, and he didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he just didn’t want to see. But it was awful, all
this pain, and in an odd way I felt worse about Dermot since I’d discovered that I didn’t much like him, for I couldn’t pretend
to myself that I wanted things between him and Catherine to work out.

N
OVEMBER
2000

T
here was a ring at the doorbell, and Liam got up from watching the news. He was gone for longer than usual, but I knew I’d
not have to rouse myself, for whoever was out there wasn’t in need.

Liam came in, closing the door behind him.

“You’ll never believe who’s there,” he said, an odd look on his face.

I rested my head on the back of the chair and waited to be told.

“It’s the buyer you were talking to at Catherine’s opening—”

“Buyer?” I was puzzled. “I wasn’t talking to any buyer—”

“The businessman. The rich one who bought that big rock pool of Catherine’s for his third-best bathroom—”

“His daughter’s bedroom.”

“His daughter’s bedroom. Well, he’s out there waiting, he’s driven all the way down from Dublin to see you.”

“He’s not sick.”

“I never said he was. He wants you to look at some plans, some property he’s thinking of buying. He says the deal looks sound,
but there are glitches, it could seriously backfire.” Liam paused, and it dawned on me that he was trying to keep a straight
face. “It’s a gamble, he says. Could go either way. He wants you to tell him if he should go ahead—”

“He wants
what?”

“Someone told him you were clairvoyant. So he wants you to look at the plans and tell him if he should buy. He’s got his business
partner with him and a wad of money he keeps waving under my nose—”

I stared at Liam. He stared back, completely po-faced, then all at once we were laughing so hard we couldn’t stop. It was
the unlikeliness of it, the sheer silliness. I laughed till my stomach hurt. I tried not to look at Liam, but then I did and
I was off again.

“What’ll we do?” I asked Liam when I could speak.

“Tell him you can’t read plans.” We both cracked up again, though it wasn’t that funny. Then I straightened up, wiped the
laughter tears from my eyes, and went to the door. There on the step was the man who’d been kind to me at the show.

“I’m not clairvoyant,” I said. “Whoever told you that, told you wrong.”

He didn’t believe me, he kept saying he’d come a long way, and all he wanted me to do was take a look.

I told him I didn’t care how far he’d driven. I wouldn’t because I couldn’t, and that was flat. I was very firm and determined.
The business partner kept nodding encouragingly at me as I spoke. It was clear that he thought your man had lost the run of
himself altogether.

I went on saying no, but I must have been smiling as well because Mr. Rich-Man started in about being sent home empty-handed
and without so much as a sup of tea before setting off—

So we brought them in and he set the roll of plans down on the table, and I thought if he mentioned them even the once he’d
be out on his ear. Liam’s hand reached for the press where the
whiskey lived, but I vetoed it with a look. They’d asked for tea, so tea they would get.

I made a pot and down we all sat. Mr. Rich-Man was in no hurry, though it was clear as the moon in the sky that the sidekick
just wanted them both to get back in the car and drive home. We talked about art, about Catherine, about her show; he even
had me describing the baby’s stage entrance en route to the hospital in Catherine’s sister’s borrowed four-wheel drive.

“She was staying here?”

“No, Ellen was over with her,” Liam said. “Only visiting, keeping an eye. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that, she wasn’t
due for another eight days.”

“Daniel Conor,” I told him. “Eight pounds, seven ounces. And they were both fine—he was early because he was ready, so what
was the point in hanging around?”

Mr. Rich-Man took it all in, and he never so much as glanced at the plans. Instead he asked about Liam’s work, and nothing
would do but he had to go out to the studio to see for himself.

When they came back Mr. Rich-Man’s attitude to Liam was different, so I knew he’d liked the work. He told me my husband was
going to be a better painter than he’d ever been a sculptor, but both were there in the new work, there was no such thing
as wasted time. Then he picked up the roll of plans and tossed them across the table, and before I had time to think, my hands
had lifted and caught them. At once they began to vibrate.

At first it was just a small vibration, but it didn’t stay small for long. I wanted to let them go, but I couldn’t; my fingers
were glued to them, my hands were rocking and bucking like a dowser’s when he’s close to water. The others stood and stared
as well—it was that peculiar. Then Mr. Rich-Man walked across and lifted his plans from my hands, and my hands let them go.

He smiled and smiled, a cat with cream. Then with a flick of
his eyes he summoned the sidekick, thanked us for our hospitality, and made for the door. Just as he got there he turned,
and his left hand came out of his pocket and tossed a bundle of rolled-up bank notes in my direction. I was wise to him this
time. I kept my hands fisted tight at my sides, and the money rolled onto the floor. We all looked at it. Mr. Rich-Man said
he’d got what he wanted, let someone else do the clearing up, he was away back to Dublin to pin down his deal.

“You’ve not seen the last of me,” he said. “I’ll be back down to look at the work when it gets to where its going.”

He didn’t take his eyes off mine all the time he was speaking, and I didn’t drop mine or look away. It’s strange when something
deep inside you connects like that with someone else, though there isn’t any connection at all on the surface. Strange and
strong.

“Look after her,” he said like an afterthought to Liam. “She’s a rare one.” Then the door closed behind them, and they were
gone.

D
ECEMBER
2000

W
hat was she doing here? I didn’t know. All that was wrong with the child was a head cold—no need for panic. Marie would know
that, she’s a capable woman—that’s why she’d extracted her life from under the weight of Dermot’s.

The only puzzle for me was her marrying him in the first place.

“She was pregnant, glad enough of a ring on her finger. It wasn’t like it is now.” That’s what Liam had said when I’d asked.