Can Anybody Help Me? (25 page)

The thought disappeared as her breath escaped her lungs with a whoosh and she felt herself plummeting towards the ground.

‘For the next three months.'

‘Ah, would you ever give over.'

‘I mean it, Claire. Your arse is to be glued to that sofa. You heard what the doctor said.'

‘You heard what the doctor said.'

Claire repeated, mimicking her husband's concern in a way that used to make him smile. But Matt was the far side of furious and unwilling to be jollied out of his mood.

‘Don't start.'

His voice was steady, but unusually harsh. She turned her head away, unable to meet his eyes. She stared instead at her hands, folded on top of her bump, which looked bigger than ever from her prone position on the sofa. Not on her ‘bump'. On her stomach. She hated that word, bump. Baby bump. Baby on board. Stupid phrases. Cutesy. Matt could have looked cutesy too, standing as he was in the gap between the kitchen and the sitting room, pen behind his ear, cloth shopping-bag in hand. But despite the embroidered motif there was nothing soft or domesticated about him this morning.

Matt never got angry. That was one of the things Claire appreciated about him, one of the reasons, if she were being
honest, that their relationship had lasted so long. She herself was a thrower, a shouter and when pushed or pregnant, a crier. But usually, no matter how furious her mood, he would just sit and watch and wait for the fury and the rage to die away. Sometimes if her digs hit home, he would wait for a pause and insert a reasonable comment, a move which never failed to infuriate her and usually started the shouting again. But he was never nasty. And when her fury had been spent, he was always willing to have the conversation, tease out the problem, move things along. Sometimes his reasonable attitude got to her and she wished he would shout, or shake a fist or unleash a stream of curses the way she was prone to do. Well, last night she had got her wish. He was angry now.

He had been angry for over twelve hours, ever since he'd burst into the public ward of the maternity hospital and found her sitting up in bed, texting Flynn and rummaging through the case file she'd insisting on bringing from the car. Up until then, she suspected he'd been too worried to be annoyed. No expectant father wants a call from the maternity hospital to say their wife has been admitted, but a quick chat with the doctor on call had put his mind at ease about the big picture. There was nothing wrong with the baby. And, technically, Claire was fine too. She had fainted, after a combination of lack of food and high blood pressure brought on by stress. High blood pressure that ‘probably' – the doctor had looked over her glasses for emphasis – probably wouldn't lead to anything more serious. If Claire agreed to rest for the remainder of her term.

‘No bloody way' had been her initial response. Insane, undoable and unnecessary. She had looked to her husband for
the unqualified support he always gave. But Matt's face, now that the initial fright had diminished, had been shuttered and grave.

‘You heard what the doctor said.'

He repeated it like a mantra, before leaving her overnight for ‘observation' and again in the morning while driving her home at a funereal pace, the car almost stalling at every speed bump. And now, lying on the sofa, remote control in her hand, she was starting to realise he was serious. And she mightn't be able to argue her way out of this one.

‘I'll be back in a couple of hours. You're not going to move, are you?'

‘Hardly.'

Claire pouted, and then realised how childish she sounded. In fairness, she had given him quite a fright, not to mention the McDonald's manager who had phoned an ambulance, the Gardai and a fire engine when confronted with a collapsed pregnant woman outside his freshly swept door. She'd be lucky if she didn't end up the lead story in the
Westmeath Independent
the following week. By the time the emergency services had arrived, sirens blazing, she had been sitting at the edge of the children's play area, sipping water and wondering how best to get herself out of the situation with minimum fuss. But the paramedics had been positively Matt-like in their insistence that she come with them, and she had quickly found herself being transported to Dublin. Not without her briefcase, though.

And at least she still had that. Matt had wanted to confiscate it, but Claire had bristled visibly at the suggestion and he had realised that it was one battle too far. She could keep her
paperwork as long as she moved no further than from the sofa to the bed for the rest of the pregnancy. It wasn't reading and writing that had got her into trouble, he'd intoned solemnly. It was the rest of it.

‘Steak for dinner?'

Matt gave a flicker of a smile, which, under the circumstances, Claire decided to return. He crossed the floor and bending down grabbed her shoulders for a long, clumsy hug.

‘I only want what's best for you two, you know that.'

‘Yeah.'

Claire patted his shoulder awkwardly. Clearly having decided that his lecture had been absorbed, her husband stood up, his mood significantly lightened.

‘So I have that meeting at twelve and then I'll go to Tesco on the way home. See you around four? Do you have everything you need?'

Claire forced a bright smile.

‘Sorted, thanks.'

‘Great.'

Within moments, Claire heard his car engine start and she sank back on the cushions with a sigh.

So. Here she was. Stuck on the sofa. With so much to do. She'd have to call one of the lads later, for a start, get her car picked up from Athlone and driven home. It was alright for Matt to talk about resting, but he wasn't thinking of stuff like that, was he? The practicalities. It was all very well him being nice and reasonable and You Heard What the Doctor Saidish, but that wasn't going to get the job done. Bloody stupid pregnancy body. She couldn't believe it had let her down like that. She was mortified.

Claire shifted on the sofa again and poked irritably at the remote control. There was nothing on but cookery programmes. Matt had called the Super earlier that morning, informed him she wouldn't be back to work till after her maternity leave, nine months away. Nine months! It was like starting the whole bloody process all over again. The Super had been sympathetic, of course. Matt hadn't revealed the full details of the conversation. But Claire had a sneaking suspicion the phrase ‘could see it coming' had been used. And she wasn't one hundred per cent sure from which side.

But at least her jailer husband had let her ring Flynn, and had gone out of the room while she did it. To make a pot of nettle tea, which Dr Google had informed him was good for blood pressure. Bleaurgh. But his evil brewing had given her enough time to ask Flynn, well, order him really, to keep her in the loop. Not officially, of course. The investigation into Miriam Twohy's killing was now being coordinated by Inspector David Byrne: a tall, sickeningly healthy gym bunny who was a notorious rule follower and, Claire knew, wouldn't allow her to make so much as a phone call of inquiry while she was on leave. Claire allowed herself some grim humour in imagining how DI Byrne, with his south Dublin accent and love of blue jokes, would get on with Brylcreamed Phil. She'd pay money to see those case conferences. But Byrne's appointment and the inevitable personality clash would probably keep Flynn on side. She wasn't asking for much. Just the odd email and call to keep her up to speed, that was all.

Sighing, she picked her phone up from the coffee table. Even holding on to that had required negotiation. Matt had initially threatened to confiscate it too, worried she'd spend
hours on to her colleagues, chasing up leads and generally working as hard as she could without actually changing out of her pyjamas. But, she'd pointed out, the primary use of the device was for communication. Her mother was up the walls; she'd need daily updates if she wasn't to carry out her threat of coming up to Dublin and moving in until the baby arrived. And Matt wasn't going to be able to give up work for the next four months: they couldn't afford it. Freelance IT specialists didn't get holiday pay. He'd have to leave the house sometimes, the phone would be her lifeline. He'd finally agreed and left it within reach.

Only problem was, there was no one she wanted to call. Her fingers tapped irritably through the names in her contacts book. What she really wanted was a good moan and she couldn't think of a single individual who would want to listen to her. Not her mother, oh no. The only message she was sending westwards was that everything was okay and the doctors were only being cautious. Last thing she wanted was Nuala Boyle sighing and clucking from the sofa on the far side of the sitting room. But she wanted someone. She felt sad and sick and frustrated and worried, and she wanted to tell someone, someone who wasn't Matt. She just wanted to give out really. Let off a bit of steam.

And Aidan, the one person who might have understood wasn't an option any more.

Aidan. That's exactly what she didn't need right now. A wallow in that particular memory. That wouldn't improve the blood pressure reading.

She picked up the phone again and opened the internet browser. Tapped in ‘blood pressure' and ‘six months pregnant'.
And winced as page upon page spilled out in front of her. Most of them were doom-laden, mentioning words like preeclampsia which she hadn't even heard of before this morning. Now, after a lecture in the hospital, it was emblazoned on the front of her eyeballs. Well, she didn't need to hear any more about it today.

She tapped at the browser again, made sure Google was open at its Irish portal. Typed in ‘blood pressure', and ‘worried', and ‘bed rest'. And ‘Dublin' for good measure. No harm in narrowing it down.

Three results. One, a lecturing leaflet from her own maternity hospital. No thanks. One piece of spam from an online drug sales company. Definitely not – she stroked her stomach protectively, she wasn't completely stupid. And one link to a discussion page. She squinted at the address. Netmammy. Strange. She had a feeling she'd heard of it before. She shook her head. It could come to her eventually. Extending her finger, she poked at the link and watched as a twee navy-and-gold page unfurled on the phone screen.

HIGH BP

Yeah, if you're into cookery programmes. Claire checked the date on the post – it was over ten months old. The woman Baby4Me would have had her baby by now, and presumably everything had been fine. Was there a way to find out, she wondered?

She clicked on the username and was directed to another page telling her that Baby4Me had over 1,000 posts on Netmammy. And no life, clearly. She clicked on the most recent one.

WILL I EVER SLEEP AGAIN?

Claire shut that page down. No, thanks. She had enough to be doing thinking about the pregnancy, time enough to worry about shitty nappies when the time came. Still, obviously everything had worked out okay for Baby4Me, given that there was a baby filling the nappies. It was reassuring in way, knowing that someone else had been through the same thing. She had been at a much later stage, though. Wonder if anyone else …

She put her phone down and picked up the remote again. Ridiculous. Ridiculous to go looking for answers online. She had had a long chat with the doctor yesterday; she'd even had a flick through one of Matt's many baby books when she came home. She knew what was going on. Still though.

The cookery programmes had now changed to home improvement shows, each one as out of date as elephant flares.

Netmammy. Why did that name ring a bell? Claire stared into the distance and then frowned.

Bloody pregnancy. Couldn't keep facts in her head half the time. Not that she'd ever admit it, though.

Taking a quick look around the room as if someone would spot her foolishness, Claire picked up the phone again. Opened Netmammy. And registered her name.

HI THERE

She sent the message, heaved herself off the sofa and went to make a cup of tea. After another inevitable trip to the toilet she entered the site again. Responses! She settled herself back down and began to read.