‘Nothing at the moment. But, like, would you mind if I went?’
‘If I did, that’s my stuff. Right?’
‘Haha.’
‘Sleep on it. See how you feel tomorrow. But’， he growled, ‘you’d better not fall for him again.’
‘I won’t.’
5
I turned out the light and hoped for sleep. But behind my eyelids, my eyes were wide open. I was cast back in time, to over twenty years ago, when Brigit and I were living in Manhattan.
There had been a gang of Irish lads we used to see around. All of them about six feet tall, with mad-long hair, tight, tight jeans and an abundance of neck and wrist accoutrements, they’d looked like they belonged in a hard-living rock band from the early seventies.
They drank Jack Daniel’s, which they called JD, were no strangers to leather waistcoats or a denim jacket worn over a bare chest and were always accessorized by skinny blonde girls in groupie chic.
Dying of embarrassment that they were Irish, terrified we’d be lumped in with them by the cool New York types whose approval we craved, Brigit and I had, oozing irony, named them the Real Men.
But when, inevitably, we got talking to them, they were actually lovely. It was a relief to talk to men who were funny and halfway normal.
Those were the days when Brigit and I were scouring New York City for boyfriends. I was hoping for someone chiselled, hot, well paid and worthy of respect. In fact, so great at generating respect that simply by being his girlfriend, I would also engender some.
What it came down to was, I was waiting for a saviour. But my saviour had been unaccountably delayed. So while I was killing time, I’d ended up having a passionate but messy sort of a thing with one of the Real Men – Luke Costello.
The mess was entirely my fault. With his long hair, as glossy as a blackbird’s wing, and his hard, fit body, Luke was an utter ride. I was happy to spend time – lots of it – in his bed but not to be seen with him in public （seriously, I was awful）。 He finally ran out of patience with me at the same time as I crashed, burned and ended up in rehab in Ireland.
Almost a year and a half later, when a new, clean-and-sober me returned to New York to make amends to Luke, it quickly became clear that the connection we’d once had was still there.
And we were so happy, all about Doing Things Right This Time. Even though we had full-time jobs we both started evening classes – neither of us had been to third-level but now we were keen to ‘better ourselves’。
Then shit got really real when I instigated the ‘kids conversation’。
‘Luke, do you want to have babies? Children?’
He paused. ‘Not right now.’
‘How strongly do you feel about it?’
Another pause. ‘I see my brothers and, like, they’re wrecked the whole time. And they live in Ireland, close to family, who help out. We’re here and we don’t have anyone to pick up the slack. What do you think?’
‘Same. I think I want them but it’s safer to get a career sorted, steady income, maybe even a mortgage and all that, first.’
‘Cool!’
So we were agreed that there was to be no rushing, no crazy impromptu decisions, nothing like the way I used to live. I had become one of those women with a five-year plan. Worse, I was proud of it.
The only worry was that my GP had said that we – and she mostly meant me – might be already on the decline, fertility-wise.
‘So,’ I remember saying to Luke, ‘in case we need a contingency plan, we’re getting checked out next Tuesday.’
‘Oh yeah? How does that go down?’
‘I have a scan to count my eggs and your sperm would get tested, to see if it’s … healthy?’ Was that the word? ‘Enough of it? Good at swimming?’
‘But how would it be tested?’ He seemed a little anxious. ‘Where would they get it?’
‘At the clinic. You’d, aaaah, do it there.’
‘You mean, I’d have to …’ He went pale. ‘Oh God, Rachel. I’d have to … do it, right there?’
‘In a cubicle, I guess. Not, like, in the waiting area.’
I wasn’t wild about the idea either. Luke in a small, bare room with a load of pre-used porn made me feel squeamish, jealous and oddly turned on.
He put his face in his hands and groaned. ‘Rachel …’ Then, ‘This is important to you?’
‘If everything is okay, we can park that issue while we get the rest of our lives in place.’ I added, ‘It will give us peace of mind.’