Baby Love

‘That’s right, honey. Janie was your mummy but she died so I’m being your mummy.’

‘Who will be my mummy after you?’

‘I’ll always be your mummy if you want me,’ I said.

‘I want you,’ she said.

‘I want you back,’ I said.

‘Do they know my mummy?’

‘They did, when she was alive. Well, the man did. The woman is his wife.’

‘The lady.’

‘Yes.’

‘She’s not my mummy.’

‘No.’

‘Children have daddies,’ she said.

Not now. Why now? How does she know?

‘Yes, love.’

‘I haven’t got a mummy or a daddy.’

I hugged her. ‘You’ve got me and Grandma and Grandpa and Brigid …’

‘And Caitlin and Michael and Anthony and Christopher and Maireadh and Aisling and Reuben and Zeinab and Larry and Hassan and Omar and Younus and Natasha and Kinsey and Anna and …’ She was off on the game of listing the ones she loved. Reassuring herself.

‘And I love mummy even if she is dead.’

‘Of course. And so do I.’

‘And so do I.’

‘And so do you.’

‘And so do you. And she loves me too.’

‘Yes she does.’

‘And when she comes back to life she can come and live with us.’

‘She won’t come back to life, darling.’

‘But if she does.’

‘Yes, if she does. But she won’t.’

‘So I’ll live with you for ever and ever.’

What do you say?

‘Mummy?’

‘Yes, hon?’

‘If you have a baby in your tummy will it have a daddy?’

Oh, blimey. Maireadh’s pregnant and so’s one of the teachers, so it was bound to come out at some stage.

‘Yes, love. But I haven’t got a baby in my tummy.’

‘Can I borrow its daddy? If I want one?’

‘Do you want one?’

‘Yes.’

We went downstairs. Jim tried to play with the ballroom with Lily but he didn’t have a clue. Anyway his fingers were too big. After another fifteen minutes or so they left. The tea was cold, untouched. Like Nora, I thought, irrelevantly. Though presumably she wasn’t untouched.

*

If he wants regular visiting rights it will be very hard for me to get a court to refuse him. No one will accept now that he was violent. Nobody ever proved anything. He hasn’t been, to my knowledge, since Janie’s death. I could try to find out. Funnily enough, Harry might know. Harry always hated him. He might know. If there’s anything to know. Perhaps there is.

If he wants parental responsibility he will have to apply for it. Because they weren’t married, he has no claim on anything unless Janie or the courts give it to him. And she’s not going to, is she?

I have parental responsibility jointly with Mum and Dad. I have three years of looking after her. I have something he doesn’t have.

I don’t think I frightened them off for good. Each of them, separately, seemed to have something in them that meant they would cling on. The tidiness of her clothes and her dark head hummed with efficiency, achievement, the chosen object in the correct place, priorities listed, and carefully polished successes ticked off. She wouldn’t go for what she couldn’t get. But she doesn’t know everything. She doesn’t know children. Perhaps she is beginning to know the desire for them … mother-hunger. Mother-hunger would eat her alive. And those who are astounded by the force of mother-hunger when it hits them are not usually prepared for the force of the tidal wave that follows: the love of a child. The love of a child can destroy nations. Love for a lover is a game next to baby love.