was pointing right through the telly at me. Ugh. ‘They’ll pay for this, the Guards,’ says he, snarling — I mean to say, are people allowed to talk like that?”
Minogue shook the paper open. Kathleen sat back.
“All right,” she muttered. “All right.”
Minogue closed the paper again.
“Iseult phoned last night, you said.”
“She did,” Kathleen said. “You’d think it was me going to have the baby.”
“Worrying, are you?”
“’Course I am. Aren’t you?”
Kathleen did not need to hear of their daughter stalking his dreams. Water, daughter… fought her. Iseult and her imprinting. A Mozart composing right there as he was delivered.
“I am and I amn’t,” he said.
“‘It’s just her personality,’ is that what you’re going to say?”
“It’s just her personality, Kathleen.”
“You…!”
She put the lid on the margarine. He studied the tendons by her knuckles.
“I just wonder,” she whispered, “if it’s triggered something, like.”
He turned back to the paper again.
“She’s going to have a baby, love A fine, big, healthy, good-looking, and decent child from day one. Like its grandfather.”
Kathleen waited until he looked up.
“Well now,” she said. “You remember your uncle Miko, don’t you?”
“What? Give me a chance. I’m only after getting — ”
“Schizophrenia, Matt. Let’s not mince words here now.”
“Miko? Miko Minogue?”
“Your uncle Miko Minogue. And what about the aunt you never met: Mary, the one in America, who died in the looney bin?”
“Ah, Miko was quare. He never married. So maybe he was gay.”
Kathleen gave a breathy chortle.
“Denial.”
“Heard that before. And very recently, as a matter of fact.”
“Oh, did you now. Well at least you know what you’re good at.”
“Kathleen, it’s, it’s exuberance. Temporary state of being off her rocker. Come on now. You were dotty enough when you were expecting. You should hear Jim Kilmartin on the topic, let me tell you. He got stuff heaved at him.”
“You’re not listening. You don’t understand.”
“‘Men.’”
“Yes it is! She’s seven months, Matt. The ups and downs with the hormones should be gone now.”
“Oh, just steady fear now, is that it?”
“No! More, more… serene or something.”
“Iseult? Serene? Love — ”
“Genes, Matt, genes! Stop trying to cod me here! I know you think about her morning, noon, and night. That’s how you are. Don’t be elbowing me because I worry! I read up on it at the library last night.”
“What?”
“Schizophrenia strikes young adults. -”
“She’s twenty-three. -”
“- but is frequent statistically in the twenties. Freud called it the Irish disease, did you know that?”
“Freud? The same Freud who declared that the Irish were the only crowd who couldn’t be helped by psychoanalysis?”
“Did he? If you say so. I didn’t know that, isn’t that interesting.”
“Freud’s a gobshite.”
Kathleen stared at him. He let out a breath and sat back.
“I beg your pardon. Barrack room talk. Slipped out. I’m sorry.”
Her voice was softer now.
“Look,” she said, “your uncle Miko ‘went quare’ when he was in his twenties. He was in and out of the mental hospital then all his life. Mary was hospitalized for years at a time there in Philadelphia. As I recall, she went that way after she had her first. Her first and only.”
Minogue stared at the want ads. They seemed stupid now. Why did he read them every morning anyway?
“I don’t know anything about it, Kathleen. Sorry. Maybe I think it’s mi adh to be talking about it. So there. I am primitive.”
She touched his knuckles. He unclenched his fist. She fenced with her fingers before twining his in hers. Miko, the uncle singing in the fields, talking to himself at night, wandering the roads. They’d found him in his garden curled up like he was asleep by his beloved rhubarb, a smile on his face.
“We have to face it, Matt,” she whispered. “It’s nobody’s fault. Genes.”
“I’m not a nutcase, Kathleen. God knows I could be, easy enough. The job.”
“We carry things though Transmit them.”
“Look at Daithi, then? We’re opposites, aren’t we?”
Kathleen rubbed at his hand.
“We’ll see when he’s older. When he gets to be himself.”
He made to protest but she yanked on his hand.
“Come on now,” she said. “I hear it often enough from you in bed.”
Minogue studied the ingredients on the margarine lid.
“As cracked as her oul lad,” he murmured.
“You know that’s not what I meant now.”
“She thinks she’s God, Kathleen. Creation. Isn’t that what a woman thinks when she’s pregnant?”
Kathleen’s laughter turned to whoops. She let herself back in the chair. He watched the tear work its way from the eyelid’s edge down to her ear.
“Oh you’re a scream,” she said. “A panic entirely!”
“Are we quits then?”
She nodded and dabbed at her eyes. Minogue poured her more tea. She was somber now.
“God but she’s taking the hard route, Matt. What’s the matter with her?”
“Her baby will be the first baby in the world. She always starts from scratch.”
She sighed.
Minogue read an ad for piano lessons. Rates reasonable. Iseult had been going to the Wednesday recitals in the National Gallery for months now. He tried to ignore the phone ringing.
“That’s for you,” she said. The phone rang again He rose from the table.
“You’re sure, are you?”
“I told him to phone back a half an hour later. John Murtagh. I turned the phone down after I got up. You dozed off again after the alarm.”
“Kathleen…!”
“I know, I know. But I decided. He told me it could wait, that’s why.”
CHAPTER 15
Fergal Sheehy slammed down the boot lid. Raindrops flew up as it rebounded. He swore with little fervor.
