Three Wise Men. Martina Devlin

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      After the nativity play they became a trinity. Three was their lucky number: there were three of them, that’s one trio; they were the three wise men, that’s another; each of them was six, that’s two threes; and they were all born in September, the ninth month, three threes.

      As teenagers they fantasised about forming one of those all-girl singing trios and taking on the pop world: Eimear as their lead singer, the blonde one that everyone could fancy. Kate and Gloria mopping up the stragglers – Kate with her copper hair and Gloria with her nearly black. Something for everyone in the audience. It never went beyond a few rehearsals of ‘Leader of the Pack’, with the girls cooing about meeting a biker in the candy store in dire American accents. Everyone sings in brutal American accents in Irish country towns, it’s the rule. They had their name picked out before the first rehearsal: The Unholy Trinity.

      They were inseparable all through school, then diverged to colleges in Belfast, Dublin and London – but it was only a trial separation because they all ended up together in Dublin. That was down to Eimear’s machinations because she kept sending the others ads for jobs cut out of the Dublin papers.

      ‘We might as well have conceded defeat the first time she mentioned us moving to Dublin because Eimear always gets what she wants, she’s one of life’s winners,’ reflects Gloria. ‘I’m one of life’s runners-up and Kate doesn’t even bother going under starter’s orders because she’s not in the same race.’

      Being stuck in hospital is an example of how she always falls at some hurdle or other. She wants a baby and becomes pregnant – so far so good. But it’s not a viable pregnancy, to use that delightful medical term fielded by Dr Hughes, so instead of a baby she ends up with an ambulance ride at 3 a.m., an operation and a chunk out of a fallopian tube. She thinks she’ll have a slash of a scar too, from the peek she took when Imelda was changing her dressing, although she doesn’t like looking at it. The place where they cut her baby out.

      Mick was throwing up while they operated on her. Hospitals have that effect on him.

      Mick’s her husband of eight years, the man she’s loved since a teenager. Wouldn’t you think they could take Dr Hughes’ advice, crassly expressed though it is, and push on with rupturing her other fallopian tube or planting a baby in the right spot? Not if her Michael has anything to do with it. He’s saying they have to take a break from babymaking, a proper break, until she mends – and Gloria has the distinct impression he means from sex as well as procreation. Not that she necessarily wants him to climb on her here and now in the hospital bed but she’d like to think there’d be some cavorting this side of the menopause.

      ‘The trouble is,’ she broods, I’m dealing with a man who looks relieved at the idea he’s under doctor’s orders to tuck his wife into the far end of the bed and drop a chaste kiss on her forehead.’

      To add insult to injury she has a nun who tells her what’s happened is God’s will, a doctor who predicts she’ll go on to produce a brood of seven and, the final ignominy, a bedpan below her backside. Which she’s actually grateful for. But at least the nurses are human and there’s always Kate and Eimear to bring her chocolates and set her laughing. Although it hurts her right side when she does, the missing-tube side where her baby clung fleetingly to life.

CHAPTER 3

      Kate visits Gloria, whispering that she’s ducked out of work for the afternoon. An undertone implies a sense of guilt but it’s obviously not an emotion she’s familiar with.

      Look at her, she can hardly wait to talk about The Revelation – Gloria’s already labelling it with capitals because it’s so sensational. She’s seething with Kate, partly because she senses a furtive glee, even as Kate claims to feel like Judas.

      Kate can’t stop mentioning Jack’s name, she breathes the word lingeringly, describing the affair in bodice ripper-speak – her heart skips a beat when she sees him and her legs buckle beneath his kisses. Gloria thinks she might at least make an effort to avoid clichés if she’s determined to force her to sit through this. As far as she knows, Kate’s never read a Thrills and Swoon in her life but you’d swear she was reared on them from her engorged prose. Anyway, between the irregular heartbeats and unreliable legs, the crux of the matter is that Kate’s conscience is interfering with her big clinch close-ups.

      ‘I don’t want to hurt Eimear,’ Kate sighs.

      ‘Should’ve thought about that before you played Open Sesame with her husband,’ Gloria remarks.

      Kate turns a reproachful gaze on her. ‘I didn’t come here for a lecture, Gloria.’

      ‘I hope you didn’t come for absolution either.’

      She’s becoming increasingly incensed by Kate – she’s risking the triumvirate, measuring a fling with Jack above more than twenty-five years of friendship. And in a dark recess, a part of her consciousness she can scarcely bring herself to acknowledge, Gloria is jealous. Jack’s so glamorous: a lecturer at Trinity College, a published poet, a regular on chat shows, and to cap it all he looks like Aidan Quinn. The first time she saw him her pulse kept time with the Riverdance score but she’d never dream of casting a glad eye in his direction, not only because he belongs to her friend but because he’s too dazzling to be interested in her.

      Yet here he is having it away with Kate who’s no better looking than herself. Of course Kate has the red hair, some men are pushovers for that, usually dodgy ones, Kate claims. Gloria supposes it has to be the intellectual appeal, she’s a lawyer and witty in a flippant way, with brains to burn. Mind you, Kate’s obviously set fire to more brain cells than she can spare if this stupid adventure is anything to judge by. But since when did intelligence stop people making complete eejits of themselves.

      ‘They don’t have kids, it’s not as if I’d be breaking up a family home,’ Kate justifies herself.

      ‘So you’re thinking of galloping off into the wide blue yonder with him.’

      Kate drops her eyes before Gloria’s challenge and a pause drags into a silence.

      ‘Not really,’ she sighs finally. ‘I know it has to end but I feel as if I’ve wandered into a room with no doors marked exit. I’m fond of Pearse, it’s just that Jack is so irresistible.’

      ‘Pearse. I wondered how long it would take before we got around to Pearse,’ Gloria yells.

      He’s the man Kate lives with, an old dear who’s knocking on a bit, but she knew that when she moved in with him. Or rather, invited him to move in with her. He lived some miles outside the city in Skerries, a seaside spot favoured by families but not much use to party animals, according to Kate. Gloria feels her friend is getting a bit long in the tooth for this goodtime girl malarkey but Kate turns huffy if she intimates as much.

      The night is young and so am I,’ Kate insists after an evening out, when the others are desperate for their beds. She makes them feel like social outcasts if they attempt to slope off home at midnight.

      ‘Don’t worry, pumpkins are in this season,’ is her rallying cry as she tries to reconvene the team at some drinking den where staff reverse the Wedding Feast of Cana miracle with the wine served.

      But back to Pearse.

      ‘I’d prefer to leave Pearse out of this,’ says Kate.

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