"Kate's asleep at the moment but she'll be awake in about half an hour so you can see her then."

"Great," he said, looking at me.

Honestly, he was gorgeous. His eyes were a kind of navy blue. And he had the most beautiful body. I thought this purely from an objective point of view. He was my sister's boyfriend, so it was all right for me to admire his beauty just aesthetically speaking, as it were.

I felt a bit like a wise old woman admiring the handsome young men.

Realizing how gorgeous they were while acknowledging that my day of dalliance with them was long gone.

For dessert I produced the chocolate mousse, which was greeted with a great deal more enthusiasm than the dinner was. The jostling and scuffling that broke out among Anna, Helen and Dad for the biggest piece was nothing short of shameful, and us with a visitor in the house.

But Adam just laughed good-naturedly.

After a while I took him to see Kate.

We tiptoed into the room.

"Can I hold her?" he asked reverently.

"Of course." I smiled, very touched by his awe.

I thought it was the sweetest thing I'd ever heard that such a big tough man wanted to see my baby, sort of like a huge burly truck driver crying at country and western songs. Incon-111 gruous and touching. I handed Kate gently to him and he took her and held her gingerly.

She didn't even wake up.

The idiot! What kind of daughter was I rearing? Being held, for the first time, by a beautiful man and she slept through it. It made such a beautiful picture. The huge young man holding the perfect little baby.

"What color are her eyes?" he asked.

"Blue," I said. "But all babies have blue eyes first. Then they usually change to another color."

He continued to stare at her with an expression of wonder on his face.

"You know, if you and I had a baby its eyes would definitely be blue,"

he mused, sounding almost as if he was talking to himself.

I jumped with shock. Was he flirting with me? I felt a surge of rage.

I had thought he was so innocent and nice. A sweet young man.

The nerve nerve of him! of him!

Not only was I old enough to be his mother...Well, very nearly. But he was here with my sister sister and was doing a very good impression of being her boyfriend. and was doing a very good impression of being her boyfriend.

Had he no respect?

No sense of decency?

But I was wrong. I looked at him and our eyes locked for a minute. I could see that he was really deathly embarrassed.

He definitely knew that he had made a faux pas.

The room was full of tension and embarrassment.

"Well, I'd better get back to Helen and the essay," he said hurriedly, practically flinging Kate back to me and rushing from the room without a second glance.

I sat on the bed feeling a bit funny.

Was I feeling foolish for overreacting?

Was I feeling sad at my cynicism for just jumping to the wrong conclusion?

Was I feeling...God forbid... disappointed disappointed?

No, I decided. Definitely not disappointed. But certainly a bit foolish.

You've been away from men too long, I told myself sternly. You'd better get back into circulation. So that the next 112 time you meet an attractive one you won't be jumping to any ridiculous conclusions.

But at the same time I must admit that I was slightly piqued by the way he'd reacted at the suggestion that we have a baby. There was no need for him to look quite so horrified.

God, but it was typical.

In time-honored tradition I had gone from being furious at the suggestion that he did like me to being furious at the suggestion that he didn't like me in about thirty seconds. Being rational was never my strong point.

I mean, I might well be an "older woman" but I wasn't exactly the Bride of Dracula. I'd have him know, plenty of men found me attractive. Well, I was sure there must be some somewhere who did. There were three billion people on this planet. Out of that lot I was sure I could have rustled up a few poor misfortunates who liked the look of me.

The nerve of the guy. Just because he happened to be extremely good-looking didn't give him any right to make me feel like a horror.

And I might not have been quite as beautiful as Helen.

In fact, I wasn't even remotely as beautiful as Helen.

But I was a kind person.

Not that anyone ever liked someone because they were a kind person.

I fed Kate and put her back to bed.

Then I went downstairs to Mum.

I passed Helen's bedroom on the way and the door was firmly shut. The pair of them were obviously well ensconced in there. Easy writing, indeed!

Mum and Dad might have bought that line, but I've used it enough times myself to know what it really means.

But at the same time, if they were having sex, they were doing it very quietly. Not, of course, that I was listening at the door or anything. And not, of course, that it had anything, in the whole wide world, to do with me.

Helen could screw whomever she liked.

With great purpose I watched television with Mum.

Much later we heard Helen and Adam in the kitchen.

Then we heard her saying good-bye to him.113.

He stuck his head around the door and thanked us for the lovely dinner and said that he hoped to see us again soon.

Mum and I smiled our good-byes at him.

"Lovely polite lad," said Mum in a satisfied fashion.

I didn't answer her. I was thinking that he didn't look too disheveled for someone who had just been having sex. And wondering why I cared.114.

eleven.

After Adam left, and Helen had sent him out into the wet and wild March night to make his way home to Rathmines, she closed the front door behind him and came into the television room and sat down with Mum and me.

"He seemed like a lovely lad," said Mum approvingly.

"Did he?" said Helen distantly.

"Lovely," said Mum emphatically.

"Oh, don't go on like you usually do," snapped Helen irritably.

There was a little bit of an awkward pause.

Then I spoke.

"How old is Adam?" I asked Helen casually.

"Why?" she asked without looking away from the television screen. "Do you like him?"

"No," I protested, blushing hotly.

"Oh, really?" she said. "Everyone else does. The whole college does.

Mum does."

Mum looked a little bit taken aback and startled and like she was about to defend herself. Before she could, though, Helen started talking again to me.

"And you looked like you fancied fancied him. Giggling and smiling at him. him. Giggling and smiling at him.

You're worse than Anna. I was mortified."

"I was being polite polite," I insisted.

"You weren't being polite," she told me tonelessly, still looking at the screen. "You fancied him."115.

"Helen, for God's sake, did you expect me to ignore him and not talk to him?" I asked her angrily.

"No," she said coldly. "But you didn't have to be so obvious about fancying him."

"Helen, I'm a married woman," I said, raising my voice at her. "Of course I didn't fancy him. And he's much younger than me."

"Hah!" she shouted back at me. "So you do fancy him. You're just afraid that he's too young. Well, don't worry, because Professor Staunton is married and she's in love with him and got drunk and was crying in the bar and saying she'd leave her husband and everything. We were all in fits laughing. And she's ancient ancient. Even older than you!"

At that Helen jumped up and ran out of the room, slamming the door thunderously behind her. No doubt dislodging the last few remaining slates from the roof.

"Oh God," sighed Mum wearily. "It's like a bloody relay race around here. No sooner does one daughter stop behaving like an Antichrist than another one starts. How did you all get to be so temperamental? You're like a pack of Italians."

"What's wrong wrong with her?" I asked Mum. "Why is she getting all touchy about Adam?" with her?" I asked Mum. "Why is she getting all touchy about Adam?"

"Oh, I suppose she's in love with him," said Mum vaguely. "Or at least she thinks she might be."

"What?" I asked, aghast. "Helen in love? Are you out of your mind? The only person Helen is in love with is herself."

"That's a very unkind thing to say about your sister," said Mum, looking at me thoughtfully.

"Well, I don't mean it unkindly," I explained hurriedly. "I just mean that everyone's always in love with her. It's never the other way around."

"There's a first time for everything," said Mum wisely.

We sat quietly.

Mum broke the silence.

"Anyway, she was right."

"About what?" I asked her, wondering what she was talking about.

"You did did like him." like him."

"I did not not like him," I said indignantly. like him," I said indignantly.116.

Mum turned to me with raised eyebrows and a knowing look.

"Don't be ridiculous," she scoffed. "He was gorgeous gorgeous! I liked liked him myself. him myself.

If I was twenty years younger I'd give him a run for his money."

I said nothing. I was feeling a bit upset.