They all laughed at his words, especially Christine.
'Jesus, Breda, you look like you've just been exhumed,' quipped Declan.
Breda didn't say a word, but she looked at Declan and her expression told him everything he needed to know. She poured herself a cup of tea and, sipping the hot liquid noisily, she sat down heavily at the kitchen table. Her son was sitting on his grandmother's lap, and he grinned saucily at his mummy as she put out her hand and caressed his hair.
Christine looked around her. She had never experienced anything like this in her life. Breakfast in her house had always been a solemn affair – no chat, no camaraderie, no radio blaring in the background. She loved the mornings now, looked forward to them.
'How's the morning sickness, Chris? Shall I get you a couple of cream crackers?' Veronica's voice was filled with concern for her. She had been great about the baby, about the wedding, about everything in fact.
'I'm fine. Really, I feel great.'
Veronica lifted her grandson from her lap and placed him on her chair. Going to the cooker, she put the frying pan on to the hob, saying cheerily, 'How about a bit of sausage and egg? Could you manage that?'
Christine shook her head, pleased at the attention she got from this kind and caring woman. 'Honesty, I couldn't eat a thing yet. I still feel a bit queasy. I'll have some toast later.'
Veronica frowned, her eyes almost disappearing inside the sockets as she surveyed the young girl with mock severity. 'Mind that you do, that child you're carrying needs fuel. Food is fuel for humans. It's what keeps us going. I reckon you've a boy there. Morning, noon and night sickness usually means a son. Girls are easier to carry. No trouble at all really.'
Breda laughed then, a scornful, hateful laugh. Christine saw that whatever ailed Breda, it was much more than a hangover. 'Is that so? Your boys have never caused you any trouble of course, have they, Mother?'
Christine looked at her soon-to-be-sister-in-law's bloated face, and saw the way she looked around the table at her brothers. She watched as Phillip stood up abruptly and walked out of the room, his back ramrod straight and his hands clenched into fists. Sometimes she hated Breda for the way she casually lashed out at her family, her cryptic sarcasm delivered with such venom it made everyone around her as unhappy as she was. Christine picked up her mug of tea and sipped it anxiously; the atmosphere was heavy with dread now. Breda's son was looking at his mother intently, even he was aware that something was suddenly amiss.
It was Declan who spoke first, playing the peacekeeper. He rounded on Breda, not allowing for her son's presence as they usually did. Pushing his face almost into his sister's, he spat at her, 'You're a bitter pill, Breda. You are a vicious, bitter bitch of a woman, and one of these days you'll go too fucking far.'
Veronica walked quickly to where her son sat and, slapping him heavily across his shoulders, she said in a low voice, 'That's enough, Declan. I won't have another word said.'
Declan stood up then and, looking down at his mother, who at just five feet tall was over a foot shorter than him, he answered her, with a loud and angry sneer, 'That's right, Mum, you keep defending her. But she needs to know that all any of us are guilty of is looking out for her. Whore that she is.'
Christine was shocked at the turn the morning had suddenly taken, but this kind of confrontation was par for the course in this house. The rows were as easily forgotten as they were easily started. These people said what was on their minds and, as much as it could be upsetting, like it was now, it was also their way of getting things off their chests and out into the open. After all the years in her own home, where nothing was ever really resolved, she loved that the Murphys felt comfortable enough to say what they needed to without fear or favour. They cleared the air and then forgot about it.
Spandau Ballet were playing on the radio, and Jamsie was eating his breakfast as if nothing was going on around him. Breda was staring at her son, Declan's vitriol for once subduing her usual argumentative personality, and Veronica was shaking her head sadly in despair at her children's need to fight each other.
Declan walked from the kitchen, and Christine knew he would be going to Phillip, would make sure that his brother was OK. Phillip often seemed to take the brunt of Breda's disaffection with her life, and Christine admired him for the way he accepted it from her. Breda, though, was rarely cross with her. In fact, Breda was very kind to her personally. But that could be because she wasn't a blood relative.
Christine waited a few minutes and then, picking up her tea, she excused herself and left the kitchen. She hoped the house Phillip was buying for them went through soon. She decided they needed to put some space between him and his sister.
As she went up the stairs to the bedroom she shared with Phillip, she heard the low murmur of Phillip and Declan's voices coming from the small front room.
Chapter Twenty-Three
'He's a bruiser all right, Chris. Just like his brother.'
Christine grinned with pride at the praise. Breda was genuinely thrilled with her nephews. Phillip Murphy the third was a handsome child, who delighted everyone around him. Even her own mother had succumbed to his charms; the woman who had taken her daughter's pregnancy and marriage as a personal insult to herself was mad about her grandsons, especially the first-born. His thick, dark hair and his sparkling blue eyes which were so like his father's hadn't put her mother off him one iota. In fact, everyone worshipped the ground he walked on.
And walk he did; at ten months he had taken his first tentative steps and by thirteen months he was running around the house like Roger Bannister on speed. He was talking by eighteen months, not just words, but whole sentences. Now at nearly three he could chat with the best of them. Even the arrival of his little brother a year earlier had not fazed him; instead of the jealousy predicted by everyone around her, Philly, as they referred to him, had taken one look at his new-born brother, his handsome face concerned and rapt with interest, and declared loudly and confidently, 'I like him, Mummy, can we keep him?'
The newly born Timothy Murphy had taken to his older brother with the same zeal. Christine was thrilled at their closeness, it made her life much easier because they were so happy in each other's company. Each kept the other amused and they thrived on the closeness that being together brought to them. They looked alike, had the same mannerisms, and they were both possessed of an easy-going nature, that is unless they were crossed about something: a toy another child wanted, or being denied a favourite sweet. Even then, they tended to gang up together, the one-year-old Timmy following his brother around like a faithful puppy. Young Phillip would charge around the house, his loud voice cutting through all the adults' conversation. He was a natural leader; even Breda's child Porrick didn't have the strength to overpower him, or his dominant personality. Philly, as they called him, had the knack of making older children bend to his will. Christine was thrilled to bits with her two handsome sons, and at how easily she had slipped into the role of a mother. All the fears she'd had about being responsible for a small human being had turned out to be groundless in the end. Even though she'd had a bit of a hard time with Timmy, she was a natural nurturer, a born mother, even her own mother remarked on it, and coming from her that was high praise indeed.
Veronica had, as always, given her the support she needed, but without butting in too much. From the very beginning she had praised Christine loudly and often for the way she cared for her children. She blossomed with the birth of her sons. All the fears that she had trapped herself with her pregnancy and had lost the chance to make something of her life had disappeared with her first glance at her elder son's angry red face. From the moment she had delivered each of her boys she had been besotted with them.