When it got a little calmer, after the opening of the restaurant when Quentin had gone away with an easy heart to Morocco to leave them totally in charge, Brenda began to th ink about it all again. They had been many years married now, both of them apparently fit and strong.
"About us having children?" she began one evening when they were sitting with mugs of tea in the kitchen they had insisted on having in their upstairs flat. Even though they would live over one of the best kitchens in Dublin, they didn't want to go down there if they needed a scrambled egg.
She saw Patrick's eyes light up and he reached for her hand. "Brenda, no?" There was such hope in his voice and face.
"No, sadly no." She tried to keep her own voice light and not to dwell on the sense of loss she had just noticed.
He got up to try and hide his face. "Sorry, I just thought when you said about us having children," he muttered away from her.
She sat still. "I know. I want it as much as you do, Patrick. So don't you think we should talk?"
"I didn't think that's how you got children, by talking," he said in a slightly mutinous way. He didn't usually have a tone like that. She decided to ignore it.
"No, I agree with you, but we do a fair amount of what does get children as well and it's not working, so I wondered, should we go and get ourselves looked at, if you know what I mean?"
"I know what you mean," Patrick Brennan said. "And I'm not crazy about the sound of it."
The neither, a lot of legs in stirrups and things," Brenda said. "But if it works, then it will have been worth it."
"When you think of what you read in the papers, half the country seems to get pregnant after one drunken fumble on a Friday night," Patrick grumbled.
"So will I make an appointment for us with Dr. Flynn?" Brenda asked.
"Does he see us both together, do you think?" Patrick wondered.
"Probably for a chat, I'd say, and then he sends us off for tests."
They both thought about the whole undertaking ahead with no pleasure at all. They didn't book the appointment that week, because it was the week the inspectors were coming to check the ventilation. Nor the next because there was the huge excitement that Blouse Brennan and Mary O'Brien announced they would marry. Nor the week after, as there were several intense social visits with the O'Brien family, who had to be convinced that a man called Blouse was the right match for their daughter.
And then there were the meetings with Quentin's accountants, with the bank, and with lawyers. Even the meeting with the sign painter, who was coming to put their name up, took far longer than it should have. It was in heavy gold paint on very dark rich green: a huge Q in front and a hanging sign with the name on the side. They looked at it in disbelief. The whole word ran into one; the painter had put no apostrophe after the name.
"But we showed you, Brian, look at the drawings, we agreed."
I know, it's a mystery all right." Brian scratched his head.
"Brian, we could have had really good painters like the Kennedy
Brothers and instead we took you to give you a start, and what happens? We're the laughing stock of Dublin, that's what. We can't spell the name of our own place. That's what people will say."
Brian saw the two upset faces looking up at the sign. Til give it to you for nothing. Can't be fairer than that, can I?" he asked.
They asked Quentin on his weekly phone call.
"I was never one for punctuation. I'd prefer it the way your painter did it," he said.
So week after week went by without Brenda and Patrick Brennan thinking they had the luxury of an hour or two to visit the doctor about something which was not after all a serious illness.
And often at night, after their long, busy days, they reached for each other in their big double bed with the white lace curtains around it. If they thought that maybe the whole matter would right itself before they needed to discuss it with Dr. Flynn, neither of them said anything about it at all. Blouse and Mary had a small wedding and a week's honeymoon on an organic farm in Scotland. They came home full of further ideas of what they could grow. Blouse was a married man now. No more living in a shed up beside the allotment. No, indeed. They had transformed the small room at the back of Quentins, taking in other storerooms, and made the whole thing into a perfect little apartment.
Mary got herself a regular column in a newspaper where she became highly respected as an adviser on growing your own vegetables in a small space. She even appeared on television programmes as an expert on the subject, her wonderful red curls bobbing and her eyes dancing as she spoke of her husband Blouse, without any self-consciousness about the name but with huge pride in the man.
Blouse grew more confident every day and no day did he seem more happy and self-assured than the day he told Patrick and Brenda that they were expecting a child. Four months married, and now this great news.
They managed to show their enthusiasm and hide their jealousy until they were alone that night in their bedroom. They tried to be generous but it was hard. The sense of unfairness was all around them. Although they sat side by side there was a huge gulf between them. Their shoulders didn't even touch. "I will be all right," Brenda said.
"Of course it will," Patrick said.
Til ring Dr. Flynn tomorrow," she promised. "To wave his magic wand."
When they got into bed, she put her arm around him. At bad times they were a great consolation to each other. So often making love had washed away the cares and anxieties of the day.
But not tonight.
"I'm tired, love," he said, and turned on one side away from her.
Brenda lay awake all night looking at the walls covered with pictures and memories. Even though her limbs were aching with fatigue, she couldn't find any sleep. Dr. Flynn was pleasant and technical and made them feel that he was not sounding overly intimate when he asked questions about whether full penetrative intercourse had taken place. He then sent them both to a hospital for a series of tests and asked them to come back in six weeks.
It was a strange time in their lives. They made love only twice and a third time, when it had seemed likely, Patrick said there was no point as it was the wrong time of the month for Brenda, nothing would come of it.
And during all this time, Mary patted her small bump proudly and Blouse talked about the responsibilities of fatherhood ahead of him.
Every woman Brenda met seemed to be talking about children, for good or evil. Either they were such darlings and so wonderful that the women couldn't bear to go out to work and leave them. Or else they were as troublesome as weasels, snarling and ungrateful, and if their mothers could get rid of them legally they would.
And Brenda listened and smiled.
The only person who understood was her friend Nora, miles and miles away in Sicily. Nora who could never tell the village that she loved Mario, even though many of them may have suspected. Sometimes people then said to Signora, which was what they called her, not Nora, that she was lucky to be childless, not to have the problems they had. But Nora would sit at her window and watch Mario playing in the square with his boys. How she yearned for a little dark curly-haired baby of his to hold in her arms. She longed with such an ache that she nearly convinced herself he might leave Gabriella and his other children and stay with her if she were to produce a baby for him.
But fortunately she had never tested the theory.
Brenda wrote to Nora as she could write to no one close. She wrote one night as Patrick slept on deeply on his side of the bed: He doesn't love me as me any more. He will only consider touching me when I am meant to be most fertile. The tests showed that there is nothing preventing us conceiving. I ovulate normally. Patrick's sperm count is normal. They keep telling us we're not ready for fertility drugs yet. Patrick just keeps wondering how old do we have to get? I don't know any more, Nora, I really don't. You keep hearing of people having eleven embryos with fertility drugs. Then Mary and Blouse will have their baby next week. And I have to be glad and delighted and thrilled. I feel so mean-spirited not to be. Patrick didn't want to talk about it. "What do you mean, how do I feel about Blouse being able to father a child when I'm not? How do you think I feel?" he snapped.