Emma Donoghue Two-Book Bundle Read Free Page A

discussion. ‘All I mean is, I know you want to help.’
    ‘We both do. Me and Padraic both.’
    ‘But you most of all, you’ve been through the whole thing with me, you know what it’s been like, with the clinic … And I swear I wouldn’t have asked if I had anyone else.’ Sarah was all at once on the brink of tears. She stopped and tried to open her throat.
    ‘Of course.’ After a minute, Carmel went on more professionally. ‘How’s your mucus?’
    ‘Sticky as maple syrup.’
    ‘Good stuff. It’s going to happen, you know.’
    ‘Is it?’ Sarah knew she sounded like a child.
    ‘It is.’
    All at once she couldn’t believe what she was planning. To wake up pregnant one day and somehow find the nerve to go on with it, that was one thing, but to do it deliberately …
For cold-blooded and selfish reasons,
as the tabloids always put it. In fantastical hope, as Sarah thought of it. In fear and trembling.
    ‘Are you sure you can’t come over for a little visit?’ asked Carmel.
    ‘I really can’t. I’ve a meeting in Brussels tomorrow morning, before I head back to the States.’
    ‘Ah well. Next time.’
    Padraic was leaning on the senior porter’s desk, which was more like a lectern. He spoke in a murmur, as if at confession.
    ‘Our library on the third floor has all the papers as well as a range of contemporary Irish literature, sir,’ muttered the slightly stooped porter, as if reading from a script.
    ‘No, but magazines,’ said Padraic meaningfully.
    ‘We stock
Private Eye, Magill, Time
…’
    ‘Not that kind.’ Padraic’s words sounded sticky. ‘Men’s magazines.’
    The old man screwed up his eyes. ‘I think they might have one on cars …’
    ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ he said under his breath.
    Then, at his elbow, just the woman he could do without. ‘Are you all right there, Padraic?’
    ‘Máire.’ He gave her a wild look. She was just trying to catch him out at this stage. Was she following him all over the hotel to examine the state of his trousers? Just as well he didn’t have the bloody erection he’d spent the last fifteen minutes trying to achieve. She’d probably photograph it for her files.
    ‘This gentleman—,’ began the porter in his wavering voice.
    ‘I’m grand, actually.’ And Padraic walked off without another word.
    What did it matter if they thought he was rude? Máire had clearly made up her mind that he was cheating on Carmel with his wife’s best friend. When the fact was he would never, never, never. He wasn’t that type of guy. He had his faults, Padraic admitted to himself as he punched at the lift button, but not that one. He was a very ordinary man who loved his family. There was nothing experimental about him; he didn’t even wear coloured shirts.
    Then what the fuck am I doing here?
    He didn’t have a key to room 101; he had to knock. Sarah let him in, talking all the while on a cordless phone. Her smile didn’t quite cover her irritation. ‘Cream,’ she said into the phone. ‘Cream linen. But it didn’t travel well.’ He gave her a thumbs-up and headed into the bathroom.
    Now he was well and truly fucked. Tired out, without so much as a picture of Sharon Stone to rely on. Funny how it seemed so easy to produce the goods when they weren’t wanted. He considered the gallons of the stuff he’d wasted as an adolescent when he locked himself into the bathroom on a daily basis. He thought of all the condoms he’d bought since he and Carmel got married. And tonight, when all that was required was a couple of spoonfuls …
    He sat on the toilet and rested his head on his fists. What on earth had induced him to agree to this mad scheme? It just wasn’t him. He knew Irish society was meant to be modernizing at a rate of knots, but this was ridiculous. It was like something off one of those American soaps with their convoluted plots, where no one knows who their father is until they do a blood test.
    Sarah was still on the phone; he could