She’s had a lovely long sleep, that’s all.’
‘I don’t believe it. Could she have been crying and I just didn’t hear her?’
‘There wasn’t a peep out of her,’ said Rose firmly, not mentioning the earplugs.
Una managed a weak laugh.
‘Didn’t I promise you things would get better?’
‘You did.’
‘Now, don’t be expecting her to pull off a trick like this every night—’
‘I won’t,’ Una assured her mother. ‘I don’t care if she doesn’t do it again for months. Now I know it’s possible—’ Faith glittered in her eyes.
‘So how do you feel?’
‘Fabulous.’
‘I’ll bring you up a cup of coffee,’ said Rose.
‘Decaf,’ said Una, with a smile, sinking back into the pillows with Moya.
That hadn’t gone quite the way she’d planned, Rose thought as she went down the stairs. She’d meant to move from told-you-so to a cheerful confession that she’d given the baby half a teaspoon of her cognac last night.
See,
she’d intended to say,
it did you good, and it didn’t do her a bit of harm!
But something in Una’s eyes had made her reconsider this morning, and perhaps discretion was the better part of motherhood, after all.
Do They Know It’s Christmas?
Trevor could barely see the traffic light through sheets of rain.
‘Quick, before it turns red,’ muttered Louise.
‘It’s amber.’
‘Amber means go if you can. Go on!’
It was red now; he hit the brake and felt it judder. The wipers kept up their whine.
A small sigh. ‘Sorry I snapped,’ she said.
‘That’s OK.’ Leaving Limerick, they’d been snarled up in Christmas-shopping traffic for the best part of an hour.
‘I should have rung Mrs Quirk to ask her to look in on the babies,’ Louise muttered.
‘Mallarmé hates her,’ Trevor pointed out.
‘I know, but it’s better than leaving them alone on such a hideous evening. I’d try her now, but the phone’s acting up again. Hey, we could ask your folks for another one for Christmas.’
The mobile phone had been unreliable ever since Proust had ripped the charger out of the wall. ‘Proust’s always so curious about things,’ said Trevor. ‘Do you think he’s the most intelligent of the three?’
Louise turned on him. ‘That’s not a fair question.’
‘I know, I know, I don’t mean it … divisively.’
‘They’re all really bright in their own ways. Light’s changing,’ she pointed out.
His tires squealed through the puddles. ‘You think they’re all perfect,’ he accused her fondly.
‘No I don’t. Well, nearly,’ she conceded. Nose pressed to the blurred window, her tone sank again. ‘I wish we were home.’
‘Twenty minutes.’
‘Fifteen, if you shift your arse. Gide gets so fractious when it pisses down like this.’
‘We’re living in the wrong climate,’ he observed, not for the first time. ‘Not to mention a cultural wasteland.’
‘Yeah, well next time Barcelona University has simultaneous openings in classics and sociology we must remember to apply.’
‘Ho ho ho,’ he chuckled like some grim Santa.
Trevor’s favourite moment was always when he put his key in the lock. Eruption, joyous noise, crashes against the other side of the door. Tonight he tried to take his raincoat off, but Gide felled him.
‘Sweeties, gorgeous-gorgeousnesses,’ Louise was crooning, Proust swinging high in her arms. ‘We’re home, yes we are, yes we are.’
‘Let Daddy get up. No licky face, no licky,’ Trevor was telling Gide gruffly.
‘How’s he meant to know not to lick it when you offer it to him like a big jam doughnut?’ Louise bent down to kiss her husband under one eye. ‘Mallarmé doesn’t lick faces, does she, lovely girl. Who’s a lovely quiet girl?’
‘Did you miss us, Mallarmé?’ Trevor asked, sleeking her yellow fur. ‘Were you bored silly? Just another three days till the holidays and then walkies anytime.’
Proust writhed in ecstasy in Louise’s arms, and Gide began another round of