Part 3 (1/2)

I ran out of the shop and drank in the poisonous air in the street.

'What's wrong?'

'Nothing's wrong.'

'There's something. Tell me what it is.'

'There's nothing. Can we go home?'

'Tell me tell me what it is.'

I couldn't articulate it. I couldn't say that, somehow, by putting a price tag on our relations.h.i.+p, it had disintegrated. I couldn't say I felt a fraud, that I, and not the ring, was the interloper. The ring belonged it belonged to somebody who deserved it.

I told Keith I was feeling a bit woozy and asked him to take me home. So he did.

He brought me back to my apartment and put the kettle on. Surprisingly, a cup of tea was very welcome. I've always envied the way some people can find endless comfort and relief in a cup of tea. I suppose when you've gone looking further afield for your comfort, the humble mix of caffeine and tannin loses its power. Keith pottered about in the kitchenette, putting things away, wiping up, noting I was out of milk and fresh bread. It dawned on me that Keith wasn't going to be my husband: he was going to be my wife. They say everyone needs a good wife; if women had wives instead of husbands the world would be a very different place. He said he was going to run down to the shop to pick up a few things. Before he went he kissed my forehead.

I lay down on the couch and wished life was simpler.

I began to think about my mother's life and her reasons for getting married. Mum has never been one for sitting down with her girls and telling us how it was that she met Daddy and fell in love and got married and lived happily ever after, but from time to time she would intimate that she had no real choice in the matter (I don't mean she couldn't choose whom she married, rather that she couldn't choose not to get married) and that our problem was we had endless choice. Which course to study in college, whether or not to pursue post-graduate studies. To travel abroad or start work immediately? To fall in love with this man or that other man? To marry him or live with him? To have children now, later or never? To handle your life with reasonable reasonableness or to make mess after mess without ever thinking about what you were doing or learning from any of your mistakes? Oh, yes, so many choices.

But it was easier then. You married the nicest man you could find and had babies with him and cleaned the house and n.o.body expected you to have a career, much less be good at it. If you were lucky you had a nice house and good neighbours and and... Oh, who am I kidding? Most of them were miserable because they didn't have what I have.

And then I thought about Daniel O'Hanlon's wife. They'd got married having just left college after going out together since the middle of First Year. Daniel said that neither of them had had a serious relations.h.i.+p before and both were virgins. He said it was inevitable they would get married. He said they got on really well together, they still did, but there weren't any sparks. He said there never had been. Naturally I believed everything he said.

She became pregnant almost immediately. It wasn't exactly planned, Daniel said, but they were both delighted. She didn't go back to work after the first child, a boy, and they had a second straight away. Another boy. Meanwhile, Daniel was kicking a.s.s at Webster and Jones making tons of lucre for the missus and the sprogs. Somewhere along the line they had two more kids, a third boy and a girl. Four kids! And now she was pregnant again.

When Daniel went back to her he said it was for the family. I hadn't realized there was to be more family on the way. It's practically obscene to have five children in this day and age. Five young O'Hanlons running about the place!

He said he would have liked to have a baby with me...

There was no point even thinking about it.

I had already had my cry with Lucy and Marion and I wasn't going to start again.

And then there was Marion's marriage. She had been going out with this guy from Dundalk for ever when he broke it off. He never explained why. He just said he didn't want to marry my lovely Marion. To be honest, the little I knew of him I didn't like. I think Marion was dying to get married because Jean was married. She's always looked up to Jean, though I cannot fathom why. She says I don't understand Jean because I was only a child when she did her growing up. Whatever!

Anyway, as soon as Marion was dumped she started going out with this old boyfriend from school, Nick. They'd never actually broken up, just drifted apart. Within a year they were getting married. Everybody said it was a rebound thing and that Marion was far too eager to walk up that aisle (my mother). But the funny thing is that of all my sisters' marriages, I think theirs is the happiest.

Suddenly I was roused by Keith charging back into the flat.

'I'm going to cook you a little something,' he said, laying a bag of provisions on the table. 'I think you might be hypoglycaemic you never eat properly.'

I was tired of telling him that someone the size of me eating properly and someone the size of him eating properly were not the same thing. But he insisted on whipping out his s.h.i.+take mushrooms and sauteing them in the pan while mixing in creamy scrambled eggs seasoned with nutmeg. (He had walked an extra block to our new organic deli.) He served me the meal (including a gla.s.s of chilled chablis) on a tray so I wouldn't have to move from the couch. Then he took a small box from his inside pocket and placed it on the tray. 'It was my grandmother's. I know why you freaked in the jeweller's. I was being foolish. This ring is much more you. It's unique and amazing, like you are.'

The ring was beautiful a delicate sparkling ruby cl.u.s.ter. He placed it ceremoniously on my finger and I felt a surge of love for him.

'Oh, Keith...' I said.

And, even though it was probably far more valuable than some ring from a shop, I accepted his grandmother's ring, and kissed him.

4.

I knew it would only be a short time before Mum told me about the engagement party she was planning. I knew that by the time she told me her guests would be invited and it would be on a night that definitely didn't suit me. I knew there was no point in arguing, but I did.

'We've already had a party, Mum.'

'That neither your father nor I was invited to!'

'It was informal, impromptu. We're informal people.'

'An engagement isn't informal. What would the family think if there was no proper marking of the event?'

'I really don't want a party, Mum. And neither does Keith.'

'Oh yes he does! I was only talking to him about it last weekend when you disappeared for half the afternoon. He thought it would be a nice surprise for you.'

'Oh, he's only thinking of you. He doesn't really want a party.'

'Kate, thanks to your habit of running away every time a member of the family pays a visit, Keith has hardly met a single one of your cousins, not to mind my sisters. I was on the phone to Mary last night and I got the distinct impression she doesn't believe Keith exists.'

'Oh, G.o.d, Mum, Keith exists! Who cares what Auntie Mary thinks?'

'I care and your father cares. And your sisters care. Jean was on to me as well, wondering when she was going to meet your mystery man.'

'Mum, Keith is no mystery.'

'I'll need you over here on Sat.u.r.day at four o'clock. There's a lot to be done, and seeing as the party is for you, I'll need your help.'

'Sat.u.r.day? This Sat.u.r.day?'

'Of course this Sat.u.r.day. We couldn't wait any longer.'

'But we're going to Dublin to see a play. It was a present from Keith's parents.'

'Well, you'll have to cancel.'

'But they'll be insulted.'

'They won't. They'll understand. They're sensible people.'

'How many have you invited?'

'Not many. Just the family. About seventy.'

'Seventy!'