Three Wise Men. Martina Devlin

You’ve blown it out of proportion, just because I couldn’t perform to suit you that once when I was tired.’

      ‘Whatever. Now how about leaving your legendary caution to one side and taking a chance on medical science?’

      Mick is still furious. ‘I don’t mind taking chances, it’s typical of you to paint me as some kind of tippy-toed big girl.’

      ‘The prudent virgin,’ Gloria muses. Mischievously of course.

      There’s murder in his glance but he steadies himself visibly. ‘I’m not overly cautious, I just like to be aware of all the possibilities first. And you can wipe that supercilious smirk off your face, Gloria. What gives you the right to call me negative when you’re the one laying down all these conditions for continuing with our marriage?’

      ‘Sit down, Mick. It’s not conditions, just one.’

      ‘And a hefty condition it is. You’re blackmailing me into something I’m not sure I want to do,’ he hops from one foot to the next.

      ‘Well, let me know when you are sure, you know where I’ll be.’

      ‘Burying a knife between my shoulder blades with your friends from the sisterhood on hand to mark the spot.’

      He flings himself into the sofa opposite rather than joining Gloria on the one she’s occupying in Eimear’s sitting room. Her friend has gone to an art exhibition to afford them a chance to ransack their relationship for a solution. Gloria refused Mick’s suggestion they meet in their own house – there’s no way she’s setting foot over that threshold until he agrees to try for a baby and she doesn’t mean by scrutinising thermometers and calendar dates. They’re way past that stage.

      Gloria tries to reassure him but takes the wrong tack: ‘Why would the three of us waste our time gossiping about you? You’re developing a paranoia complex.’

      ‘No wonder, when I hear Eimear Mulligan or O’Brien or whatever she calls herself has been going around telling people I have a low sperm count,’ he splutters.

      ‘Of course she hasn’t, I don’t know where you get these notions from,’ she protests.

      Mick pantomimes disbelief.

      ‘A neighbour commiserated with my mother about it, as it happens. The poor woman was mortified, being approached by a venomous old biddy agog to discuss the contents of her son’s testicles. So if it travelled all the way back up to Omagh then you can be sure tongues have been wagging freely in Dublin. And you’re the only one who knew about the sperm test so it’s a dead cert it went from you to Eimear and then she broadcast it on the RTE news bulletin.’

      ‘Mick,’ says Gloria as patiently as she can manage, ‘you know very well your sperm count was checked and found to be normal.’

      The outrage level continues to soar.

      ‘I know that and you know that but someone’s got hold of the wrong end of the stick and my reputation is being smeared to hell and back and Eimear’s the odds-on favourite. Now that her marriage is over she’s trying to put the evil eye on yours.’

      Gloria inhales deeply. ‘Mick, you’re being unjust – and what’s more you’re straying completely off the point. Now can you turn your attention to deciding if our marriage is worth enough to you – if I’m worth enough to you – to have a baby. That is,’ she corrects herself, ‘to allow medical science to help us have the baby I thought we both wanted.’

      ‘And if there’s no baby there’s no marriage, right?’ He folds his arms.

      ‘If you must put it that way.’

      As he rocks back and forth on his sofa, Gloria is distracted by the sight of his stomach, still a pudding-sized hillock above his trouserband but no longer the mountain range it once was. Come to think of it, there are no fleshy gaps between his shirt buttons. Good God, has he lost weight? And how could he manage that when she’s certain he’s been living on takeaways since she left him? She realises she’s just accused him of changing the subject but she can’t help herself.

      ‘Mick, are you on a diet?’ she demands.

      He looks smug. ‘No, the weight’s been peeling off me since you stormed off into the night. Granted, I don’t have as much of an appetite as I used to, I have a lot on my mind.’ He looks sanctimonious. ‘I may need to buy some new trousers soon.’ Sanctimony turns to triumph. ‘A size down,’ he adds, in case she hasn’t grasped the significance.