Chapter 2

"For God's sake Joey, just how many women are you aiming to get pregnant?" Nellie's voice was high pitched and getting higher by the second. Soon she would be audible only to dogs.

"Mam, this is the first. I told you the lad isn't mine. Roxy admitted that. She wanted maintenance for him, she was desperate for money." Joey spoke quietly and calmly.

Nellie snorted as she banged two cups of coffee down onto the table, slopping half of Joey's into the saucer. "And this is yours?"

"It is, yes." Joey spoke deliberately, pouring his coffee back into the cup.

"Sure?" Nellie wasn't ready to accept that Joey, her Joey, had been well, active.

"I am, yes." He was still quiet. Then he looked into her eyes and reached for her hand.

"But the thing is, well there are two things rea..."

"What Joey, what things?" Nellie glared at him, unable to contain herself until he'd finished what he was trying to say. "Don't tell me she's a married women? Even you can't have…"

"Well," Joey gulped and interrupted her, frantically rubbing her arm.

Nellie gazed at him with horror. "She is isn't she, she's a married woman?"

"Well,"

"Stop saying well Joey." Nellie snapped with a shake of her head.

He took a deep breath. "Yes mam, she is, but she's been apart from her husband since March 1981. They've just never got round to formalising things. And," he put his finger to Nellie's lips to stop the response that they were forming, "she's one of us, but he wasn't so they married in a registry office, so as far as the church's concerned she's not married at all."

Nellie stared at him, unable to get a coherent sentence together. The only positive thing about it was it wasn't that Roxy, whoever she was she had to be an improvement.

"She was only eighteen when she married mam. From what she's said I think she was desperate to escape a difficult home. Not everyone's as lucky as us mam, having a loving family." Joey was trying to be at his most ingratiating.

Nellie was slightly pacified. "Hmm yes, that's all very well, but this baby will be born to parents who are, who are what, Joey?" Her voice rising again.

"I don't know mam, she's put in for a divorce, they've been apart more than five years so it's straightforward, but we don't know how long it'll take. And anyway, I don't know about getting married. I," he stopped, no need to tell his mam how ambivalent he was feeling. And anyway, Martina was carrying God knows what with her. She'd not taken kindly to his ill thought out suggestion of marriage. He should've known better. She'd flipped when he made a throwaway comment about Rome and romance, let alone introducing the idea of marriage.

Nellie looked at him sharply. He always thought he could pull the wool over her eyes, forgetting that she had carried him inside her for nine months and known him all his life.

"What's the other thing Joey?"

"Well," he stopped, the hint of a smile as he caught his mam's look at his use of the word, "the thing is she works at the DHSS. I think you might have met her that one time you went down."

If Nellie had been shocked at the news he'd got someone pregnant, she was completely bowled over by this latest announcement. Of the three counter clerks two had been at least fifty, so that only left the one, about Joey's age, who'd been the stroppiest, sarkiest, most frosty faced of them all. She'd heard Adrian, Billy, and Jack mention her as well. Adrian always complained she 'stripped him down to his innermost underpants' and always came back home quaking after being interviewed by her.

"That Martina, that madam. You've got her pregnant Joey?" Nellie's voice went back up an octave.

"I have yes."

"Dear Lord!" She stopped herself from saying anything further about her son's bizarre taste in women. First Roxy, now Martina. If she'd been disapproving about the large number of hanky-pankies he'd owned up to when that letter had come it was nothing to the way she was feeling about this latest bolt from the blue. Perhaps it would have been better if he'd stuck to that. Didn't look like 1989 was going to be any better than 1988.

She contented herself with, "honestly Joey." Hopefully Father Brennan would be in a sympathetic frame of mind. He wasn't a patch on Father Dooley, far too modern for her liking, but still it was early days in the parish. And Father Dooley did deserve a quieter parish after all these years of rough and tumble now he was nearing retiring. She'd slip round as soon as she could.

Nellie looked at the woman opposite her fiddling nervously with her watch and her heart went out to her. In an instant she could see, what Joey had glimpsed but not processed, the wounded, confused individual. Never mind the sarky, frosty faced DHSS lady, Nellie could see a woman who'd been pummelled and injured, kicked around by life. And who moreover was carrying her grandchild, Joey's baby.

"What will you do luv?" Nellie's voice was unrecognisably gentle.

"I dunno," Martina shook her head. "Work till the last minute, take maternity leave, sort out some childcare and get back to work I suppose."

Nellie was so relieved she hadn't said get rid of it. "Where will you live?"

"Where I am. I've plenty of space, it's got three bedrooms and a shared garden."

"What sort of childcare? Will your mam be willing to?" Nellie was desperate to help, but didn't want to seem too pushy.

"I haven't thought that far to be honest with you, and me mam works herself so she won't be able to. I've," she hesitated, could she trust Nellie? After all her own mother had been disparaging when she'd tried to talk to her, her parting shot being, 'don't go expecting me to be looking after it, because I won't.' Her father had been disheartened, but he'd taken her in his arms and asked if she needed any money. Pointless really given that he was always in debt up to his ears, but at least he'd shown her some affection.

Nellie looked straight at her, her eyes reflecting her emotions.

Perhaps she could. She went on, "I've gone into a sort of denial I think. I can't really get to grips with what's happened or what's gonna happen. Me mind just seems to have shut down. I seem to be just following me routine because it's what I'm used to and that's about it. I can't get me head around a baby at all."

Nellie held out her arms, and Martina practically threw herself into them and sobbed onto Nellie's shoulder. Nellie held her, stroking her hair.

"Oh luv, you won't be on your own. We'll look after you. It's the one thing we do famil-y and that's a Boswell baby you're carrying."

Heaven help me, thought Martina, although she was grateful for Nellie's support. She'd been dreading meeting the Boswell matriarch, especially after everything that had happened with Roxy.

"Our Joey's an honourable man. He'll do what's right." Nellie still held her tightly.

"Yeah I know, but I just can't think straight. I mean he's not over Roxy yet is he? And I'm not," she stopped. The last thing she needed to do was talk about Tom, who'd broken her heart not once but twice. The second time shattering it so comprehensively she doubted it would ever be fixed.