Free The Breezes by Joseph O'Neill Page B

and does it very well, and not long ago she was promoted to number two in the team. Professionally, things are coming along just fine for her.
    Pa holds her in awe. He seeks out her opinion on various matters with great seriousness. ‘What are the prospects, Angela, of an early recovery from the recession?’ Or, ‘Is it true that the poverty of the Third World is the most vital economic challenge of all?’ ‘She’s something else, that Angela,’ he says to me in a hushed voice when she has temporarily left the room. ‘So intelligent, so well educated. A fine young woman,’ he says. ‘Just the sort of person we’re crying out for at the Network.A few more like her and we’d turn the whole thing around.’ Angela returns, and Pa again assumes a shy, almost humble posture. She, of course, is embarrassed, and does her best to put him at his ease by giving him modest and respectful answers. She likes Pa a lot. ‘He’s wonderful, your father,’ she said to me after they first met. And then she put her arms around me and kissed me fully on the mouth. ‘Just like his son,’ she whispered.
    As a result of Angela’s success at Bear Elias, Pa, like me, has had less opportunity to enjoy her company. I don’t resent this one bit – I am delighted, I really am, that Angela is prospering to such a degree; nothing brings me more joy than the proud pleasure she derives from her work – but there is, inevitably, a flip side. While Angela has been on the up and up, I have been on the slide. The disparity is not trivial. Winners do not stick around for ever with losers. I also suspect that there comes a time when a woman takes a cold look at her partner and asks herself whether this is the man she wants to father her children. I walk over to the mirror. I do not see, in the rather shambling figure with the Breeze sloping shoulders reflected there, a likely paterfamilias.
    But then I don’t hold myself out as promising fatherly material. Although, at the beginning, we toyed like every new couple with the notion of a baby and tried out names for fantastical offspring, I’ve since made my position clear: I’m not bringing another soul into this world, not if I can help it. As far as I’m concerned, the Breezes have reached the end of the line. I said so in terms only three months ago: this is where the Breezes get off.
    â€˜But why?’ Angela said. ‘Why, my darling?’
    We were seated at that table there and had just finished eating. I pushed at my empty plate and picked up my glass of red wine. ‘It’s not justifiable,’ I said. ‘When you look at what’s going on, when you consider how, how, you know, how …’ My voice broke. I speechlessly waved my hand and drank a mouthful of wine. ‘I don’t know, Angie, bringing some poor defenceless kid into the world just so that we could have something to do with our lives …’ I looked into the blues of her eyes. ‘I just don’t think I’m cut out for it,’ I said. ‘So manythings can go wrong. I mean, look at Pa. Look at what he goes through. I just couldn’t take it.’
    â€˜Johnny, he’s happy. You could do a lot worse than have what your father has.’
    â€˜That’s what worries me.’
    She filled my glass. ‘But without a family, what have you got?’ There was affectionate tolerance in her face as she humoured me.
    I said, ‘You’ve got a clear conscience, because you haven’t inflicted life on anybody.’
    She saw I was serious and came over and sat on my lap, her left arm hooked around my neck, her lips brushing lightly against my brow. ‘Really, Johnny? Is that how you really feel?’
    I nodded. I was holding her tightly by the waist, my hand against her skin beneath her blouse. Her skin is always so warm.
    â€˜But things aren’t really that bad, are they?