Sam felt relaxed as she drove away from her home on her first official back-to-work trip, which was to the nursing home in Ballyglen. Vera was over minding India, and there was no doubt about it, Vera took care of India as if she was the Christ Child himself. In fact, Ted and Sam joked among themselves that if Vera was still minding India when she was much older, India would probably think that she was a combination of the Dalai Lama and some sort of fabulous princess into the bargain. Vera laughed when they said this.
‘Ah, go away out of that,’ she’d say, flushing with pleasure. ‘She’s my granddaughter. I just love her.’
‘And probably spoil her a tiny bit,’ Ted teased.
‘You can’t spoil a small baby,’ Vera insisted.
‘She’s right there,’ agreed Sam. ‘And we are not spoiling our little princess anyway. She’s just being treated the way she deserves to be treated.’
‘Exactly,’ said Vera.
Sam’s mother had said she could babysit if they were stuck, but she’d added that she knew she wasn’t good at it, and would need her husband too.
‘You two can do your bit, don’t worry,’ Sam had said. And she’d meant it. But for a long trip, Vera was a better option.
She still hadn’t really talked in depth with her mother after their conversation, but now Jean came round more often, always with her husband, but she was doing her best. For two women who so rarely shared their feelings, it was enough.
‘What can I do to help?’ Jean used to ask formally.
‘Fold those baby clothes for me, if you wouldn’t mind,’ Sam would say, just as formally.
Even though neither of them was able to discuss their confrontation, this new plan was somehow working. Jean was seeing her granddaughter and Sam was slowly learning to come to terms with the fact that motherhood did not come automatically with a complete set of maternal feelings.
She thought of the quote Joanne had found for her and had had laminated: ‘You can’t change other people: you can only change how you react to them.’
‘Who said this?’ she asked, staring at it.
‘Dunno,’ said Joanne, ‘but it’s good. Sums it all up. Read and repeat every morning, big sis.’
In the meantime, Vera was their go-to help. If there were any problems, Vera could always call on Cynthia next door, who was only mad to get in and have a go at India herself. Cynthia was the backup babysitter and was getting into training, as she explained, because Shazz was pregnant.
‘I don’t know how this has happened,’ Shazz had said, the day she’d imparted the news to Ted and Sam in the driveway. Shazz was still tall, blonde, beautiful and there was a hint of a tanned bump spreading out from underneath her crop-top. Her belly button was an outie and it had already popped out a little bit.
‘No idea how it could have happened?’ said Ted, deadpan.
‘I don’t know, I mean it’s . . . confusing,’ Shazz said, as if she’d never had a single sex education lesson in her life.
Cynthia was more prosaic about the impending birth of her first grandchild.
‘Shazz never did pay much attention in school and I think she thought that pregnancy happened to other girls. It’s not that she doesn’t know how it happened, it’s just that she has absolutely no idea how it happened to her. Because Shazz is one of those people who coasted through life with good things happening to her.’
Shazz certainly seemed to be enjoying pregnancy and delighted in going around with her tiny bronzed beach-ball belly on show for all to see.
‘Mum says it’s winter and I should be wearing more clothes, but you know, I’m hot,’ she said.
Sam giggled. Even in previous winters, Shazz had worn skimpy little clothes all the time and being pregnant wasn’t really changing that, except for the fact that her pink hair was now blonde and tipped with a fabulous feathery purple.
‘Have you got names for the baby?’ Ted asked. Ted loved Shazz and her dizzy madness. He looked at her as if she was a sort of slightly daft alien from the planet Moon-Dust, a planet where normal rules did not apply and where the inhabitants lived in a lovely hazy world of unicorns and moonbeams.
‘Yeah,’ said Shazz dreamily. ‘I just can’t get my head around the right sort of names. Petal and Flower, I love all those names, but Unicorn – that’s so pretty and I have a unicorn tattoo on my lower back. Have I ever showed it to you?’
‘Yes,’ fibbed Sam.
‘Yes,’ agreed Ted hurriedly, ‘we’re fine, we don’t need to see the tattoo. Today. Again, I mean.’
Sam grinned. While Ted loved Shazz, he was also a bit scared of her.
‘I was going to get it coloured in, but I’ve been told that you shouldn’t have any tattoos done when you’re pregnant, so I’m going to be careful because I’m going to be a good mum, like you, Sam. You can explain to me how to be a good mum.’
‘Your mother could explain how to be a good mum because she’s amazing,’ Sam had said.
‘I know,’ said Shazz, ‘but she’s, you know, old. I mean you’re old too, but you’re different old, you’re young old, you know.’
Sam grinned at the memory as she drove off down the road. With Cynthia and Shazz living next door it was always lively. Vera and Cynthia had struck up a surprising friendship and spent much time talking to one another about baby India’s routine. All in all, thought Sam as she headed towards Ballyglen, she was incredibly lucky.
Even work was flying. Somehow, they’d managed to keep the lid on the whole credit card scandal in Ballyglen and Andrew had covered the whole of the misappropriated funds personally. Today, Sam was going to visit the local nursing home who’d received some funding from the charity and to see their whole place. She couldn’t bear to think that they would miss out on thousands of euros of help.
She’d downloaded a book onto her phone, stuck the jack into her car dashboard and prepared to listen to Jane Austen all the way there. All was right with her world.