Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [16]
Her eyes blazed at him.
“You are such a fool, Noel Lynch. Such a stupid fool. I won’t bloody well be here to bring her up. I’m going to die in three or four weeks’ time. I won’t survive the operation. And the baby is not a boy, by the way, she’s a girl, she’s a daughter, her name is Frankie. That’s what she’s going to be called: Frances Stella.”
“This is only a fantasy, Stella. This illness has made you very unhinged.”
“Ask any of them in the ward. Ask any of the nurses. Wake up to the real world, Noel. This is happening. We have to do something about it.”
“I can’t raise a child, Stella. You’ve already listed all the things against it. Whatever chance she’s going to have, it can’t be with me.”
“You’re going to have to,” Stella said. “Otherwise she’ll have to go into care. And I’m not having that.”
“But that would be the very best for her. There are families out there who are dying to have children of their own …,” he began, blustering slightly.
“Yes, and some other families, like the ones I met when I was in care, where the fathers and the uncles love to have a little plaything in the house. I’ve been through it all and Frankie’s not going to have to cope with it just because she will have no mother.”
“What are you asking me to do?”
“To mind your daughter, to give her a home and a secure childhood, to tell her that her mother wasn’t all that bad. Fight her battles. The usual things.”
“I can’t do it.” He stood up from his chair.
“There’s so much to discuss …,” Stella began.
“It’s not going to happen. I’m so sorry. And I’m really sorry to know how bad your illness is, but I think you’re painting too black a picture. Cancer can be cured these days. Truly it can, Stella.”
“Good-bye, Noel,” she said.
No matter how often he said her name she would not turn towards him.
He walked to the door and looked around once more. She seemed to have shriveled even further. She looked tiny as she sat there on her bed. He fancied that the other women in the ward had heard most of their conversation. They looked at him with hostility.
On the bus home Noel realized that there was no way he could force himself to sit at the kitchen table eating a supper that Emily would have kept warm for him. Tonight was not a time to sit and talk about saints and statues and fund-raising and accountancy and business management classes. Tonight was a night to have three pints in some pub and forget everything. He headed for the pub where Paddy Carroll, Declan’s father, took his huge Labrador dog every night. With any luck, at this time of night Noel might get away without being spotted.
The beer felt terrific. Like an old friend.
He had lowered four pints before he realized it.
Noel had hoped that he might have lost the taste for it, but that hadn’t happened. He just felt a great sense of irritation and annoyance with himself that he had denied himself this familiar and friendly relaxation. Already he was feeling better. His hand had stopped shaking, his heart wasn’t pounding as it had been.
He must stay clear and focused.
He would have to go back to St. Jarlath’s Crescent and take up some semblance of ordinary life. Emily would, of course, see through him at once, but he could tell her later. Much later. No need to announce everything to everyone all at once. Or maybe no need to announce anything at all. It was, after all, some terrible mistake. Noel would know if he had fathered a child with that girl.
He would know it.
It had to have come from her mind having been affected by this cancer. Anybody normal would not have selected