"Why won't you tell Helen I said hello?" asked Adam again.

Now's the time to get this thing sorted out once and for all, I decided. If Adam is messing me and my little sister around, then this is my chance to put an end to it.

I was managing to get nicely worked up. The bloody arrogance of him.

Just because he's really handsome he thinks he can waltz in here and ride roughshod over all of us, I thought, mixing my metaphors and quickly working myself up into a self-righteous fury.

"Look, Adam," I said sharply as soon as I could hear Helen, Mum and Dad arguing in the living room and I knew that it was safe to speak. "I don't really know how to say this. In fact, I don't even know what I should say."

"For God's sake, what?" he interjected forcefully.

Go on, you tell him, I encouraged myself.

You have every right to know.

But I was already starting to lose my nerve.

"Look, maybe it's none of my business, but are you Helen's boyfriend?"

I finally managed.

A silence followed.196.

Oh God, I thought. He is is going out with Helen. And he was just being nice to me because I'm Helen's reject older sister. And now he knows that I like him. Damn, damn, damn. I should have kept my fool mouth shut. going out with Helen. And he was just being nice to me because I'm Helen's reject older sister. And now he knows that I like him. Damn, damn, damn. I should have kept my fool mouth shut.

I've ruined everything because I have no patience.

"Claire," he eventually said, sounding stunned, "what on earth are you talking about?"

"You know," I said. I felt highly foolish, but even more relieved.

"No," he said, sounding a bit cold. "I don't know."

"Oh," I said, really really embarrassed now. embarrassed now.

"So you think I'm Helen's boyfriend?" he said stonily.

"Well, I thought you might be..." I said, mortified.

"And just what exactly did you think I was doing by asking if I could see you?" he continued, sounding almost contemptuous. "Well?" he prompted as I remained silent.

"Either you think I'm extremely thick or extremely cynical," he said.

"And I'm not sure which one I'm more offended by."

I still said nothing.

Mostly because I didn't know what to say.

I felt terrible. Adam had been nothing but decent and respectful to me.

I had no proof that he was having anything at all to do with Helen, and now I had hurt him by doubting his motives.

"Claire," he said, sounding exhausted. "Claire, Claire, Claire, listen to me. I am not now, nor have I ever in the past been, your sister Helen's boyfriend. And I don't want to be either.

"She's a lovely girl," he added hastily. "But she's not for me."

"Look, Adam," I stammered. "I'm really sorry, but I didn't know..."

"I'm sorry too," he said. "I keep forgetting what you've just been through.

You've been badly hurt. Who could blame you for thinking that we're all a crowd of two-timing bastards?"

My hero, I thought, melting.

"Claire," he continued, "I don't know what kind of impres-197 sion you've formed of me, but it's obviously not the one I was hoping for."

"No...Adam..." I protested weakly. I had so much to say and I didn't know where to start.

"Just give me a minute," he said. "Just listen to me. Will you?"

He sounded so earnest and boyish, how could I resist? "Of course," I said.

"I have lots of women friends but I don't do the romance thing a lot.

Hardly ever, in fact. Well, hardly ever compared with the other people in my year in college, but maybe they're just especially prolific."

"That's fine," I said, anxious for him to shut up now. You don't have to explain anything to me, I wanted to tell him.

I had established that he wasn't Helen's boyfriend and that was plenty for now. Mortified by my earlier histrionics and accusations, I just wanted to forget the whole thing now. The poor guy! He only knew me a few days and already we'd had several mini-fights.

What on earth made him think that I was worth the bother?

But before I got to think about this, Dad reappeared in the hall with a face like thunder.

"Claire!" he yelled. "Off the phone, now now!"

"You've got to go?" Adam asked.

"Yes," I said. "I'm sorry."

I didn't want to end the conversation until I knew that everything was all right. That Adam wasn't annoyed with me for thinking that he was some kind of home-wrecking Lothario. I also wouldn't have minded some kind of indication that, apart from not wanting to do the romance thing, as he so delicately put it, with Helen, he might want to do the romance thing with me.

As Mum would say, I wanted jam on it.

"Oh, I nearly forgot why I actually rang you," he said.

"Why's that?" I asked. Tell me that you really like me. Go on, go on, I urged him silently.

"There's a good film on at eleven o'clock. I'm sure you'd like it. You should watch it if you're not too tired."

"Oh," I said, the wind having been surgically removed from my sails.

"Well thanks."198.

"See you soon," he said.

No wait, I wanted to shout, don't go just yet. Talk to me for one more minute. Give me your number so that I can call you. Can I see you tomorrow? Never mind tomorrow, can I see you tonight?

"Claire," Dad rumbled threateningly from the living room.

"Okay, bye," I said, hanging up.

Feeling, among other things, completely exhausted.

There was a disorderly surge from the living room the moment the phone was hung up.

Dad and Helen scuffled at the door.

Dad wanted to get straight on to Auntie Julia to see if the inferno was under control.

While Helen had other plans for the phone.

"I have to call Anthony," she shouted. "I need a lift to Belfast on Tuesday."

"Well, Julia's fire is more important," insisted Dad.

"Let her house burn down," said Helen, "That'd teach her."

Charitable to the end, that was Helen.

I walked away from the battle by the phone.

I went upstairs and moved Kate's bassinet into Mum's room and settled down to watch the recommended film on the little television there. It was the least I could do after I had been so mean to Adam. I'll be able to discuss it with him the next time I see him, I thought.

If there is a next time.199.

eighteen

Time had slowed to a standstill while I had been the Alcoholic Mother from Hell (and the Alcoholic Daughter from Hell and the Alcoholic Sister from Hell, if I'm to be strictly accurate). But now that I had started living again it had started to trot briskly, and before I knew it, it had broken into a sprint.

The days had started to fly past the way they do in films when the dir-ector wants to convey time passing quickly-i.e., the pages of a calendar turning over very speedily in a high wind. And tearing off and blowing away. With brown leaves blowing with the pages to indicate autumnal days and then a few flurries of snow to indicate winter's arrival.

The weekend was over before I knew it, and suddenly it was Monday morning.

James would be back from the Caribbean. Or Mustique. Or from a small, privately owned island just off the coast of Heaven. Or wherever he'd gone to, the faithless bastard.

So I was going to have to call him.

But I felt quite calm about it. What must be done must be done. Of course it was very easy for me to be calm about James when I was worried sick about Adam-it was kind of difficult to be in a mess about the two of them at the one time. Transference of affection, etc., and a big hand for Dr. Freud.

But before I got to call James I had another treat in store for me on Monday morning.

My six-week, postnatal checkup with the doctor. The fun just never seemed to stop in my life.200.

This was a kind of symbolic, watershed type of event. It was a form of recognition that the birth had been a success. Sort of like the launch party they have after the release of a new film. Except at the party after the release of a new film, members of the cast and crew don't have to go around putting their feet in stirrups and have strange men examine their private parts.

Not unless they really want to, of course.

Kate also had an appointment, at the Baby Clinic, so off the pair of us went in the car.

My parents had taken Kate to the clinic a couple of times already, so it was old hat to her. But I wasn't really prepared for the cacophony of crying that greeted us on arrival. There seemed to be several thousand bawling babies with harassed and distraught mothers in the waiting room.

In fact, some of the mothers were crying louder than their children. "If only he'd stop crying," one women was saying tearfully to no one in particular. "Just for five minutes."

"My God," I thought in horror. I suddenly realized how lucky I was.

Kate had her checkup before me, so I carried her in her car seat into the examination room. The nurse was a glamorous red-haired young woman from Galway. Why are nurses always good-looking and sexy?

I'm sure there's some old legend that explains it.

Long, long ago there was a tribe of women who were excessively beautiful. The men were maddened by lust for them and they made all the other women feel inadequate and horrible. All kinds of riots and outbreaks of violence occurred. Homes broke up as previously happily married men fell in love with these babes. Women from the non-good-looking tribes killed themselves because they could never compete with these sirens.

Something had to be done.

So God decreed that all the good-looking women had to become nurses and wear truly awful lace-up shoes and revolting A-line dresses that make their butts look huge, so that their attractiveness would be toned down considerably. And to this very day good-looking women have to become nurses so that their beauty is diluted by the hideous uniforms. Although how201.

this little fable of mine squares with supermodels and their revealing and flattering clothes, I'm at a loss to explain.

Anyway, never mind.

The nurse closed the door firmly behind us, but the noise of the roaring children in the waiting room was still perfectly audible, interspersed now and again with wails of "Just five minutes, that's all I ask."

"Doesn't the noise drive you mad?" I asked her curiously.

"Not at all," she said as she examined Kate. "I don't even hear it anymore."

Kate was so good, she didn't even cry.

I was very proud of her.

I felt like opening the door and saying, in schoolmarm fashion, to all the children out there, "Look, this is how you're supposed to behave. Observe this model child in here and imitate."