Mary wants to take a taxi to the theatre but Sybil is in the mood for a walk. "This is my night out," she teases. "Shouldn't I get to do what I want? It's not that far." And so they stride along the pavement, three abreast in the crisp winter air.
As they walk Edith chatters about the play for which she's secured them tickets, a rather avant-garde sounding production put on by one of the Fringe theatres. "It's a little more out there than what Anthony and I usually go to see, but I think you'll enjoy it, Sybil."
"I know how you love all of that weird stuff," says Mary, whose tastes run more to Coronation Street than Twin Peaks.
"I don't love weird stuff." Sybil reconsiders. "All right, well, maybe I do."
"I think it's good to get out of your comfort zone once in a while," Edith says.
"I am terribly provincial," Mary admits, her tone breezy. "But then, we've got no culture to speak of in Manchester, only smokestacks and chip shops." She leans to look around Sybil at her middle sister and cast her inevitable barb. "What's your excuse?"
That puts Edith into a mini-snit and they walk in silence for a few minutes, until Sybil thinks of something to break the ice. "When's your next book coming out, Edith?"
Edith brightens. "Early next month. Apparently the pre-orders are rolling in at a nice clip." She writes romance novels. Lavinia Swire—her pen name—is one of England's more successful authors in the genre.
"And what's it called?"
"A Love for the Ages. I went out on a bit of a limb for this one." She becomes more animated, grinning and gesturing with her gloved hands. "It was really rather difficult to write, what with the time travel angle, but I was getting so bored of nothing but horses and corsets. I only hope my readers will be willing to go along for the ride." She goes on a bit more about the main storyline, which Sybil thinks sounds rather like Doctor Who meets Wuthering Heights with a generous shot of semi-explicit sex.
"Good heavens. I'll be sure to watch the post for my invitation to see you collect your Man Booker Prize." Mary readjusts her scarf, staring straight ahead with a faint, unkind smile.
Edith's mouth twists. "As if you'd come. Even if I did invite you."
Sybil opens her mouth to say something that will both reproach Mary and soothe Edith, but before she can speak Mary stumbles and collapses, making a sound like the cry of a sparrow that's flown into a window. Sybil's annoyance veers into alarm. "Shit, Mary, are you all right?"
Mary's crumpled in the middle of the pavement, drawing looks from the passersby. "Fine, I think." She takes Sybil's outstretched hands and tries with uncharacteristic clumsiness to rise. "I just caught my heel on—Augh!" She sinks back down, white-faced.
"Let me have a look." Sybil drops to her knees and palpates Mary's ankle, making her wince. "It may be sprained. Can you put any weight on it?"
Mary tries and grunts in pain. "No."
"All right." Sybil glances around at the pre-theatre crowd, which is numerous and only getting thicker. "We'd better get you to A&E."
Mary groans and Edith says, "But what about the play?"
Sybil's head snaps up. "Really, Edith. Does Mary look like she's in any shape to go to the theatre? Though of course you can go on if you like."
Edith drops her eyes, chastened. "I'll just hail us a taxi." She steps over to the kerb and starts scanning the roadway.
Sybil shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking, making you walk in those shoes." Mary has on four-inch heels, which didn't slow her down at all until two minutes ago.
"It's not your fault, darling." Mary takes them off, grimacing as she undoes the strap on her bad ankle.
Edith hurries over with wrinkled brow to help Mary to the waiting cab. Between them she and Sybil manage to move Mary across the pavement, hop-stepping clumsily until she can sink down into the seat. Edith exchanges a few words with the driver about which hospital will be quickest to reach in current traffic conditions and they're off.
"We'll have to ring Tom when we can find a phone," Sybil says. "Who knows how long this will take."
"Use mine." Mary digs in her handbag and pulls out a cherry-red-and-silver Nokia, thumbing the code to wake it up.
Sybil raises her eyebrows. She's not surprised Mary has a mobile phone, as obsessed as she is with always being available for work. As for getting one herself, Sybil doesn't see the attraction in the idea of people being able to ring her wherever she might be, even though more and more of her and Tom's friends seem to have them. She punches in her home number. "I have to press the green button to make it go through?"
"Exactly."
The ringtone flutters into Sybil's ear fruitlessly. "He's not answering. We've got the sound on everything turned down so it doesn't wake Siobhan." A click, and her own voice greets her brightly with the outgoing message she recorded a few months ago: Hullo, you've reached Sybil, Tom, and Shrimpy! Leave a mes—She rings off without leaving one.
"Oh, darling, I'm so sorry to have ruined your night." Mary's forehead puckers as she puts her mobile back into her bag.
"Don't be ridiculous," Sybil says absently, rubbing the center of her forehead. "It's not as if you twisted your ankle on purpose." She takes a deep breath: No good getting upset. If she allows the annoyance snapping at the edges of her thoughts to take over, it'll only make things more difficult.
"But once we've got me registered at A&E I want you to go home. There's no need for you to be kept out when you don't get to have any fun."
Sybil would like to take Mary up on the offer. Even before things went pear-shaped, her mind had wandered back to the flat more often tonight than she cares to admit. But Siobhan and Tom are not the only ones who need her: things could quickly get ugly with Edith and Mary left to themselves in a hospital waiting room. She imagines the Mail headline: This is Nobility? Earl's Daughters Brawl in London A&E. "I'm not leaving you."
"But won't the boys be worried when we're not back after the play lets out?" Edith takes off her gloves in the warm dry air of the car, arranging them on her lap.
"We'll try ringing again later. Best not to worry them until we know how bad it is, I guess." Sybil pulls off her own gloves and glances at her wristwatch, smiling slightly when she sees the time. "Besides, it's just about what Tom and I call the witching hour. I imagine they've got their hands full."
-ooo-
As Tom has adapted to the new normal over the past six weeks, he's learnt that parenthood is less a matter of fitting Siobhan into his and Sybil's routines than of rejiggering their rhythms to fit Siobhan's. Mornings are for lying on the floor in a patch of light from the window, kicking footie-pajamaed feet, and huffing excitedly; afternoons and early evenings are for drowsing on Mummy or Daddy's chest while mellow music or the telly plays in the background; late evenings, wearing into the nights, are for inconsolable screaming. So when Siobhan cycles up shortly after seven o'clock, Tom just gives a resigned sigh and tells a startled-looking Matthew and Anthony, "This is what she does. We've just got to ride it out."
Usually he or Sybil will walk the floor with her, or else pop her into the swing and play her a song (it drowns her out some, even if it doesn't stop her crying). But of course he can't manage the guitar with a full arm cast, and between that and his narcotic-induced drowsiness Tom doesn't feel safe carrying her. So he fumbles with the CD binder while Matthew wears a path back and forth across the living room with his daughter.
Anthony comes up behind him. "Is there something you're trying to find?"
"She likes the Pogues." Tom's irritation mounts along with the intensity of Siobhan's cries, and escapes in a noisy breath when he finds the liner notes in their designated sleeve, but no CD. "I guess Sybil didn't put it back last time." He feels a sudden and completely unreasonable stab of rage and wishes she were there: not so she could tell him where she put the bloody thing, but so he could yell at her. It only takes a second for him to realize how ridiculous this is.
"Would it still be in the CD player?" Anthony somehow manages to avoid sounding like this should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, and goes over to check. The disc is indeed in the carousel; a moment later Shane MacGowan and punk rock accordions are adding to the general anarchy. Anthony winces and turns down the volume. "She likes this, does she?" He has to raise his voice, as Siobhan's worked herself into a proper frenzy.
Tom collapses onto the sofa and pinches the bridge of his nose with his left hand. "It sometimes works." He should really get up and help Matthew, but he just wants to sit with his eyes closed for one minute. By the time it's up Siobhan has gone beyond wailing into square-mouthed screaming, not even producing tears anymore.
Poor little prawn. She's so unhappy. The now-familiar urge plucks at him: when his daughter is distressed, he can't not try to make it better. The compulsion is even worse for Sybil. If Siobhan is crying—even when it's Tom's turn to care for the baby, even when he's doing all that can be done and Sybil should really be catching up on her sleep—Sybil can't help but fidget and hover and anxiously offer suggestions: Have you tried…? until the baby is content again. It's as though the sound itself scratches her raw.
Tom gets up and half-stumbles to the window. "Well, fuh… bloody hell, it's ten degrees colder over here," he says, immediately feeling sorry when Matthew's face drops. "Best bring her into the kitchen," he continues in a gentler tone. "She seems to like it in there. It's warmer, anyway."
In the kitchen Tom pulls up a chair at the table while Matthew treads the tiles with Siobhan. Anthony gets another bottle out of the refrigerator to heat up, just in case. "Would you like me to take her for a while?" he asks.
"Not unless you want to," Matthew replies. He tightens the circle of his arms about the baby, rubbing her back. She's calmed down some, though she fusses whenever Matthew shows any signs of slowing down.
"Still want one?" Tom smiles and rolls his eyes. He nods his thanks to Anthony, who's gotten him a glass of water and sat down opposite.
Matthew breathes the scent of Siobhan's head. "Mary still doesn't."
Tom suppresses another, more intense roll of his eyes. Mary, Mary, quite contrary. "Have you told her that you want to have children?"
"We haven't talked about it recently."
"And by recently you mean…"
"Since before she made partner."
Over a year, then. According to Matthew, Mary's meteoric rise within her profession is the stuff of legend. Even he, her husband, seems to hold her career as something not to be hampered by such puny considerations as her family's needs.
Tom almost laughs at the surprisingly chauvinist path his thoughts seem to be taking; but then again, he's not exactly objective where Mary's concerned. He can't get over the feeling that she's never forgiven him for breaking Sybil's heart, never mind that Sybil broke his as well. Never mind that each put the other's back together. But isn't that proof of how fierce and steadfast Mary's love is for those few she allows in? Certainly she wouldn't deny Matthew his heart's desire for the sake of ambition. "Is work the only reason she doesn't want a family?" He asks, feeling as though he's chewing over the question.
Matthew's offering Siobhan milk, but she seems more in the mood for a nap. Her head nestles into his shoulder, then jerks up as her eyes snap open. He sets the bottle on the worktop. "It's a pretty important reason." He shrugs. "To her, anyway. To both of us."
"So your work's important to you as well."
Matthew's shoulders rise and fall again. "Her work's more important to me, if I'm honest. I've always been able to take or leave the job, really."
"You could always quit. Be a house-husband." Tom shoots a glance at Anthony, who seems to be having some difficulty with swallowing his water. "I know it's not the traditional thing."
Anthony coughs and pounds his chest lightly. "It would be rather… unconventional."
"But you don't work," Matthew points out, "and Edith does."
"That's hardly the same. She writes for the fun of it more than anything, and it's not as if she's supporting me."
Tom raises his eyebrows, already framing a rejoinder, but Matthew only chuckles. "That ship's sailed for me and Mary. She's the one who pays eighty percent of our bills already."
Anthony looks even more shocked, either at Matthew's revelation or the frank reference to finances, and hurriedly shifts the subject. "The baby does seem fond of you." Siobhan has fallen asleep, one of those abrupt slack-jawed infantine slumbers, her face burrowed into Matthew's jumper. Tom can see a spot of drool darkening his shoulder already; Matthew appears not to notice.
Tom's urge to needle Anthony has not diminished. "So what about you, Strallan?" He asks. "Have you and Edith any plans for a brood?"
Anthony's face creases in that way it does when a question flusters him, but he feels it would be impolite not to answer. Tom, not being one to shy away from an uncomfortable topic, is rather familiar with the expression on him. "We, er, haven't quite decided."
"You and Maud never had any children?" Matthew's voice is quiet, more respectful than Tom's was.
"No. We tried, but…" Anthony's eyes slide into a corner of the room.
Tom suddenly feels like a wanker for bringing it up. "Sorry." He takes a swallow of his water.
"Oh, it's not as if it was a tragedy." Anthony's face breaks into a fond smile. "We were quite happy, once we'd accepted the way things were." He becomes serious again. "As for Edith and me, I'm afraid I'm the one who's dithering. We've settled into such a nice life, and—" he glances up at Siobhan, who begins the whimper the second Matthew comes to a halt. Matthew sighs and starts walking again. "It's not that I don't like the idea of having children…"
"The reality's a bit intense, I'll give you that." Tom chuckles. "It's amazing how something so small can take up so much time and effort."
"I am pretty set in my ways." Anthony smiles ruefully.
"But she won't always need all this attention." Matthew pivots at the doorway and comes back toward the table again. "Before you know it she'll be off to university."
Tom blinks and swallows hard. Now, why did you have to go and say a thing like that? "Not quite yet, though." His voice catches and Anthony looks down at the floor, but Matthew grins at seeing that his blow has landed. He likes to have his bit of fun with Tom too.
Tom's revenge is not long in coming. Siobhan sighs in her sleep and smacks her lips, snuggling deeper into Matthew's shoulder—Tom can almost hear the blood dripping from his brother-in-law's melting heart—before an ominous putt-putt-putt sound issues from her lower half. Matthew's blissful smile turns upside down. "Did she just do what I think she did?" He sniffs with trepidation. "Yeah. She did."
Tom guffaws. "Well, there you go. You wanted the full fatherhood experience, and you're getting it."
"You are going to help me, aren't you?"
Tom waves his cast and gives Matthew a glittering smile. "This is definitely a job that calls for two hands."
"Oh, for heaven's sake." Anthony bustles to his feet and holds out his arms for the baby, making both Tom's and Matthew's eyebrows jump. "Just tell me where everything is."