Three Wise Men. Martina Devlin

a vote of confidence from the man supposed to be your biggest admirer but he meant well.

      Where’s the allure in names like Bernadette or Teresa or those other beacons of purity they were supposed to be modelling themselves on, Gloria wonders. Agnes was another name the nuns approved of – apparently Saint Agnes was stripped naked by her pagan jailers but God sent angels from heaven with a piece of cloth to preserve her modesty.

      Agnes Kearney, who sat in front of Gloria, would cringe every time that story was mentioned. She counts back: there were two Teresas and three Bernadettes in her class, including Bernadette Lynn, who did everything humanly possible to prove she had no aspirations towards canonisation – to the delight of half the fellows in the youth club.

      Gloria inspects Kate with heightened interest across the toasted cheese crumbs. There must be something magnetic about Jack to send Kate off her head like that. There has to be an overwhelming reason why she couldn’t retain herself, like her innate sensuality responding to his incessant demands and leaving her in a haze of intoxicated befuddlement.

      ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it,’ Gloria shrieks mentally, sidling off to use Kate’s bathroom. ‘I’m getting myself all worked up speculating about a friend’s love life, it’s indecent.’

      Anyway, it’s all conjecture because she’s never encouraged Kate to discuss her sheetside shenanigans – but everyone who knows her agrees she’s a goer. ‘A ride and a half,’ as Mick puts it. Although how he’d know is beyond her.

      Mick was only insistent about sex before they married. There was a noticeable sliding off after their grand day out and her ectopic pregnancy was the straw that broke the camel’s hard-on. Left it limp, anyway; it may not be permanently inactivated but she’s not the girl to fix it.

      ‘Woman,’ she corrects herself, leaning on the hand basin. ‘I must stop referring to myself as a girl, if only on the grounds of accuracy.’

      They’ve made love four times since her ectopic; that’s four times in five-and-a-bit months. A rate of not even once a month. According to Gloria’s February issue of Image magazine, couples who’ve been together for a few years settle down to an average of twice a week. So someone, somewhere, is getting all her turns. She was never that bothered about jiggery pokery until she realised she wasn’t going to have it unless there were twenty-eight days in the month. ‘Enjoy this, my pet, it’ll have to keep you going for the rest of the year.’ The less she’s allowed her conjugal rights the more she feels entitled to them.

      She’s not even sure you can count all four sessions since he lost his erection halfway through the last effort. Effort was the operative word, his heart clearly wasn’t in it and neither, as it transpired, was his lad. She broods. It’s not a pleasant experience to find your husband has lost his erection halfway through work in progress. There you are, legs akimbo, having quite a nice time really, when you suddenly get that shrinking feeling followed by the sinking one. He pumps on for a while, as though neither of you have noticed anything unusual, but eventually he concedes defeat.

      Then of course he’s desperately upset, manhood compromised, so you end up cuddling him and saying it doesn’t matter when it does. Especially as he doesn’t offer to distract you. Especially as you’re not convinced he’ll be ready to play house with you in the foreseeable future. Not on his track record.

      After that, Mick seemed to operate a sexual shutdown. Gloria considers. It’s entirely possible he takes himself in hand after she’s fallen asleep but she’s discovered no evidence of it.

      ‘Let’s see a counsellor,’ she suggested.

      He slammed the door on his way out.

      ‘Mick, we need expert help,’ she insisted.

      He slammed the door on his way out.

      ‘I’m at my wits’ end,’ she pleaded.

      He slammed the door on his way out.

      ‘I’m leaving you,’ she threatened.

      He slammed the door on his way out.

      So here she is in Donnybrook with Eimear, sleeping in her spare room on cream linen sheets and eating her meals off primrose pottery. Gloria misses her own embroidered duvet covers and her own willow-pattern plates. She ran away with nothing more than her make-up purse, some clothes and her pillow. She can’t sleep on any other pillow, this goes everywhere with her.

      Gloria wanders back along the hall to Kate, stacking dishes in the kitchen sink.

      ‘Any word from Mick?’ Kate calls over her shoulder.

      ‘Not a dicky bird.’

      She’s been staying with Eimear for a fortnight and Mick has only contacted her once. That was the night after she moved out, when he rang up and ordered her to get a grip, she was mentally unbalanced and she should come straight home and stop dragging friends into their problems. Now who could resist an invitation like that.

      Kate turns around, drying her hands on a teacloth. ‘Maybe he feels contact should come from you, Glo – after all you’re the one who jumped ship.’

      Gloria focuses on the jet earrings set dancing by the way Kate’s holding her head. She’s watching Gloria with an expression of affectionate concern but Gloria doesn’t notice as she ruminates on Kate’s suggestion. It’s forcing her to consider her motivation more narrowly than she’s allowed herself.

      Does she genuinely want to save her marriage or is Eimear and Jack’s split the equivalent of the butterfly’s fluttering wings in Ballaghadreen that spark an earthquake in Bombay? Not to mention a marital severance in Ranelagh.

CHAPTER 12

      ‘I’ve thought it over, Mick, and it’s the only way I’ll come back to you,’ Gloria says levelly, bracing herself for a row. She’s not disappointed.

      His face turns magenta as he yells: ‘It’s insulting, it’s degrading, it’s bestial, it’s treating me like a sperm bank.’

      ‘I don’t see that, it’s not as if I want to get pregnant by any piece of testosterone on legs, it’s not as if I’m walking down the street pointing to the first man I meet and saying, “You’ll do nicely, big boy.” It’s not as if I’m selecting a suitable sperm donor based on his IQ. I want your baby, Michael Patrick McDermott’s, my husband’s, the man I’ve loved since I was sixteen. I want us to be a family.’

      ‘But you’re telling me that the only way you’ll come home to me is if we shell out for fertility treatment,’ he protests.

      ‘So it’s the money that’s bothering you.’

      ‘No, it’s not the money, Gloria, it’s the way you’re going about this I don’t like. You’re doing it entirely back to front. Any sensible person would sort out their marriage before they’d ever contemplate something as drastic as intravenous fertilisation.’

      ‘You see, you know so little about it you can’t even be bothered to get the name right,’ she snorts. ‘What do you think I am, a druggie hooked on babies?’

      So much for her mental promise not to lose her temper and descend to trading insults.

      ‘Don’t be so superior, Gloria, you knew what I meant. You’ve latched on to this treatment as though it’s the miracle cure but what happens if it doesn’t work, have you thought about that? Just because you empty your bank balance into the hands of some specialist doesn’t mean you’ll walk away with a baby.’

      Gloria pauses before responding, determined to haul the conversation back on to an even keel. ‘Of course I know there’s only a one in four chance but why shouldn’t we take it, why shouldn’t we be among the lucky 25 per cent?’

      Then irritation takes over: ‘You’re always so negative, Mick McDermott, you need to take a risk. We