And that might be the best solution all round. Wait until the baby was born and the disruption he or she would cause would detract from what was actually going on in Finn and Catherine’s so-called relationship. And besides, no one expected a new mother to be energetically making love to her husband every night!
Having another person in the house would mean that Finn would be able to focus on the best thing to do. And so would she. They could come to an amicable agreement about access, and all the other things people had to discuss when they were no longer together.
Not that she and Finn had ever been together. Not really. Not in the true sense of the word, anyway.
But it was funny how you could grow close to someone, even though your head was telling you that it was sheer madness to do so. She didn’t want to find him funny and sexy and engaging. She wanted to be able to pick holes in his character, to tell herself that actually he was a cold and power-hungry maniac and that she would never have been happy with him anyway.
But she couldn’t.
She told herself that it was easy to get on well with someone over the course of a weekend—that if they lived together all the time they would irritate the hell out of each other. But she couldn’t quite believe that, either.
Energy flowed through her like lifeblood. She wrote throughout the day, sometimes well into the evening, and when Finn rang she would tell him how her day had been. They would talk with an ease and familiarity which was poignant in itself.
One night she told him how she’d been over and helped Aisling with her baking, and that Aunt Finola had taken her to a bingo session at the church hall and Catherine had won an ironing board!
‘What are you going to do with it?’
‘I gave it to the priest’s housekeeper. It seems silly to have two.’
‘Could come in useful,’ he said gravely.
‘As an extra table, perhaps?’ she suggested helpfully.
She told herself that of course it was easy to talk to someone on the phone, because you couldn’t see the expression on their face or the look in their eyes. She told herself that it was important they remained on good terms because she would need to be in touch with Finn for the rest of her life. The baby would always connect them.
And she told herself that she would be okay when the day came—perhaps sooner than she would hope for—when he would tell her gently that the time had come for the parting of the ways. That they had done their best for the baby and now they were both free.
But she didn’t want to be free. Or was that simply sneaky Mother Nature again—tying her emotionally to the biological father of her child?
It didn’t seem to matter how much logic warned her that she mustn’t embrace her new-wife role too enthusiastically, because try as she might she couldn’t help herself.
Every Friday night she felt like a woman whose husband was coming home like a conquering hero. She would see the city-strain etched on his face as he opened the front door and she would pour him a gin and tonic—just like a real wife.
Finn found he couldn’t wait to be out of the city on Friday nights, tying up his work as early as possible so that he could be roaring out of Dublin and heading for the sea.
His apartment now seemed very empty in a way that the cottage never did. But Catherine did girly things; maybe that was why. She put flowers in vases and she baked cakes. Any day now he was fully expecting her to have acquired a new puppy!
She’s just playing another role—a domestic role this time, he told himself, as the glitter of the distant sea told him he was almost home. But surely she wouldn’t be able to keep it up for ever?
He walked into the cottage one night and frowned. Something was different, and it took a moment or two to figure out what it was.
‘You’ve painted the walls!’
‘So I have.’ She gave a serene smile as she walked over to the drinks tray, pleased with the soft-peach wash which had transformed the dingy room. ‘Do you like it?’
He looked around, his expression closed yet edgy, trying to distract himself from the pink V-necked sweater she wore, which showed far too much of the heavy swell of her breasts and seemed far too provocative for a cold Friday night in Wicklow!
‘You should have asked me first!’ he ground out.
The smile died on her lips. ‘I’m sorry, Finn,’ she said stiffly. ‘I was mistakenly using the place as my home, perhaps fooling myself a little too convincingly that we were a married couple!’
‘Even if we were,’ he came back bitingly, ‘surely decorating is something a couple would discuss together?’
‘I wanted to surprise you—’
‘Well, you’ve certainly done that, Catherine!’
And then he turned on her, his blue eyes blazing with an anger which was surely disproportionate to the crime of painting a room.