Read Online From Here to Maternity by Sinéad Moriarty - Free Book Online Page A

DIY. I have a bag full of clips that need to be attached to all the cupboard doors.’
    James groaned. ‘Mercy, please. I’ve just spent three hours at a training session.’
    ‘Well, why on earth did you have to train with the team? You’re the coach, for goodness’ sake. I doubt Alex Ferguson jogs about in his tracksuit with the Manchester United squad.’
    ‘He’s in his sixties and, besides, it’s good for me. It keeps me fit. Do we have anything decent to eat? I’m starving.’
    ‘I’m afraid I spent half my day pulping food for Yuri so I didn’t cook. You do, however, have the choice of mashed banana, stewed apples and pears or chicken and pasta, also mashed.’
    ‘I’ll order pizza.’
    ‘No. I’ll order pizza. You get out the screwdriver. Oh, and, James?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘You’re not planning on leaving me any time soon, are you, because I look like a bag of hammers?’
    ‘I don’t know, darling. Between your handicap and your loss of looks, I have strong grounds for annulment.’
    ‘Seriously, though, do I look that bad?’
    ‘I presume I owe this latest attack of paranoia to your mother?’
    ‘The one and only.’
    ‘Emma,’ he said, getting down on his hands and knees to talk to me at eye-level, ‘with my airborne pollutants, I’m in no position to complain.’
    The next day Lucy called in. She was back from honeymoon and, aside from some nasty grazes on her arms and legs, she looked great and was as brown as a berry. I felt like a washed-out ninety-year-old beside her. She rushed in, hugged me, then ran to Yuri, who was sitting in his playpen looking angelic.
    ‘Oh, Emma,’ said Lucy. ‘He’s perfect. Can I hold him?’
    ‘Sure, but I’ve just fed him so he may burp on you.’
    ‘Who cares?’ she said, lifting Yuri and kissing him. She bounced him up and down in her arms and then, as if on cue, he threw up all over her.
    ‘Oh, shoot,’ I said, taking him from her and handing her a towel.
    ‘No problem,’ she said, as she tried to wipe vomit out of her hair. Lucy was an only child and had no nephews or nieces. Babies were as alien to her as they had been to me – until I found Yuri.
    I cleaned him up and put him back into his playpen, surrounded by at least thirty toys. I was hoping for twenty minutes with Lucy before he started acting up. ‘So, how was it?’ I asked.
    ‘Brilliant,’ she said, grinning.
    ‘Oh, God, you’re all loved up, and brown and skinny and stunning. If you weren’t my best friend I’d hate you. Tell me all. Sex three times a day, cocktails served in coconuts, dinner at sunset on the beach…’
    ‘Pretty much all of the above until Donal got bored and decided to book us on a jungle trek.’
    I began to laugh. ‘Oh, God, how bad was it?’
    ‘Well, these scars on my arms and legs are the result of being flung off my bicycle while I was hurtling down the side of a mountain – the same mountain that I had just cycled up, in one hundred degrees heat.’
    ‘You? Cycling?’
    ‘I know. But I kept thinking, marriage is about compromise, so I agreed to it. Mind you, we left the camp immediately after my fall and booked into the most luxurious hotel in Thailand. So we ended on a high note. Anyway, enough about me, how are you? How’s motherhood?’
    ‘It’s amazing, and he’s such a little dote. I honestly can’t remember what it was like before he arrived. I can’t believe we have him. He’s as much our own child as the next one will be,’ I said, getting a little emotional.
    ‘Oh, Emma,’ said Lucy, squeezing my arm. ‘It sounds perfect.’
    ‘It is – but you know the way you always hear mothers going on about how exhausted they are and how nobody could possibly understand the tiredness unless they’d experienced it first hand?’
    ‘God, don’t remind me,’ said Lucy, rolling her eyes. We had always thought Jess was exaggerating when she droned on about how tired she was all the time and how we couldn’t understand