“How old is Finn?” asks Seamus.
“Ten months. Do you want children?” I ask, so we’ll stop talking about mine, my son, my heart.
“Not given the crisis we’re in.”
“In Ireland?”
“With the climate,” he says drily.
“Oh. Because you’re worried about what they’d suffer, or because you don’t want to add to overpopulation?”
“The second,” he says. “You can never predict what your children might suffer.”
I try to ignore that. It wasn’t directed at me.
“Which population models have you seen?” I ask, and we talk about demographics as Marian, Niall, and Damian drift back over. I still feel shaky. Seamus knows my son’s name, his age. I try to stop myself from thinking that means something, that I’ve failed to protect him.
Niall messes with one of the balloons, fidgeting with its string. “Don’t tie that around your neck,” says Marian. “Idiot.”
As we move into the banquet room, Seamus falls into step beside me. “Marian told me what you said to the police.”
My shoulder blades draw together. Here it is, finally. Here’s the accusation. I feel myself harden, preparing to deny it.
“About her being pregnant,” he says, and the knot in my stomach loosens. “That was clever. Fair play to you.”
We’re seated at separate tables for the dinner. I slide into my chair and take a sip of ice water. Under the tablecloth, my legs are shaking. My mother sits down across from me, and our eyes catch. She knows, I realize. Marian has told her. She’s aware of this situation, that I’m an informer, at an IRA wedding.
I don’t understand. She’s my mam, she should be making any excuse to get me out of this hotel.
Around us, the others talk and pour wine. My mam must see the hurt in my face. Her own expression is blank, but when she reaches for her glass, she misjudges, jolting red wine onto the tablecloth. “Slow down, love,” says her brother, laughing. “You’ll never make it to ‘Rock the Boat’ at this rate.”
My mam says, “Get away with you,” as she spreads her napkin over the stain. Her hands are trembling.
The waiters offer us bread rolls, and a choice of the chicken Kiev or the salmon. I seem to have forgotten how to use silverware. I keep jabbing myself with the fork tines, biting the inside of my cheek. My mouth tastes like iron.
During the dinner, Aoife sits in the center of the high table, between the two families. I wonder if she understands what she has gotten herself into, marrying into Cillian’s family.
When a waiter appears near the high table with a microphone, Marian glances at me. “Do you need the toilets?” she asks, and we slip out of our seats before the toasts begin. A few people are at the bar, and we walk past them, around the corner and down a hallway.
Marian pushes open a door and we step into a small room with wood paneling, flocked wallpaper, and a mounted stag’s head. From a shelf behind the bar, she takes down a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses and sets them on the counter. I press my ear to the door to listen for footsteps.
Something has happened to my eyes, making the light smear at the corners of my vision. Marian takes the listening device from inside her bra and uses a penknife to wedge it under the glass eye of the stag’s head. She presses the eye back in place with a small tube of glue, the kind meant for applying fake eyelashes.
“Marian,” I say, as she adds another drop of glue. She steps away to meet me at the bar, and I pour tequila into the glasses, too quickly, spilling some onto the bar. I wipe the liquid with my palm as the door opens. I recognize the man from outside the chapel earlier. He was standing shoulder to shoulder with Cillian Burke.
“What’re you doing in here?” he asks.
Marian holds up the bottle. “The other bar won’t do shots. Do you fancy one?”
26
FINN STANDS AT THE sliding door with one hand pressed to the glass, like a king greeting his people. I kneel behind him, my arms around his waist, and consider the garden with him. His snub nose touches the glass, as does the rounded curve of his forehead. He makes a series of short, urgent sounds, and I long to know what they mean. Past the garden wall, sheep move through the drizzle. Finn turns from the door and pats his hand, cold from the glass, against my face.
Raise the drawbridge, I think. Finn will be one year old soon. He will never be this small again. Everyone needs to leave us well alone. No more informing. No more work, no commuting, no day care, no friends, no answering texts or calls or WhatsApp messages.