The Old House on the Corner by Maureen Lee

his cot in a tangle of blankets looking as weary as he sounded. He was kicking his legs and waving his arms in a half-hearted way. ‘You’ll be sending your poor mam to an early grave, so you will,’ Marie told him. He had on one of those stretchy towelling suits her own lads used to wear. He felt very hot when she picked him up.
    ‘You don’t need all that bedding when it’s such a warm day,’ she chided, as if Alastair had put the clothes on himself. ‘And I think we’ll get this outfit off you too.’ She undid the snappers and unpeeled the suit away from his clammy limbs, then removed his nappy and rubber pants. He was sweating cobs, poor little lamb.
    She stood, laid the baby on her shoulder, and put her cool hand on his back. ‘When Irish eyes are smiling,’ she crooned, and Alastair stopped crying immediately, peed all down her frock, and fell asleep. She was wondering where to lay him, when Sarah came upstairs.
    ‘I thought you’d murdered him,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve thought of murdering him myself a few times over the last few days.’
    ‘No, he went out like a light,’ Marie whispered back. ‘He was far too hot. Have you got some clean cot sheets? Those are all damp. And I’d take them blankets away if I were you. Just put a few towels and a nappy under him in case he pees again and a single sheet on top should be enough in this weather. Next time you nurse him, do it standing up. Me own mammy told me that and it seems to work. And press your hand against his flesh. He’ll feel closer to you than through his clothes.’
    ‘You’re a miracle worker.’ Sarah was looking through drawers. All the furniture was that nice yellow pine stuff. The walls were painted pale blue and the curtains were white cotton with a broderie anglaise frill. ‘I can’t remember where his bedding is.’
    ‘There’s no hurry, girl. Don’t get yourself in a state,’ Marie said calmly, when she herself had been busy biting her nails to the quick less than half an hour before. There was nothing like other people’s problems to take your mind off your own, or so her dear, darling mammy was fond of saying.
    Victoria had invited her friend Carrie to lunch. They had met at school and were still close. Carrie had married at twenty-two and divorced four years later. There were no children. John had been ‘playing around’, and she’d hated men ever since, which was a pity, Victoriathought, because Carrie, with her little snub nose, pouting pink lips, and baby-blonde hair, oozed sex appeal and could have married half a dozen men instead of John.
    ‘I sometimes wish I were a lesbian,’ she said over the curried chicken and rice that had come out of a packet and been heated up in the microwave. ‘Trouble is, I don’t fancy women, not sexually.’
    ‘That is a bit of a drawback,’ Victoria admitted.
    ‘Women are so much more trustworthy and dependable.’
    ‘A bet a lot of men don’t think like that, the ones whose wives have been unfaithful.’
    ‘They probably deserved it.’ Carrie sniffed disdainfully. ‘Hey, this wine’s the gear. What sort is it?’
    ‘I’ve no idea. I just picked the cheapest.’ Victoria looked just a touch shamefaced. ‘I keep forgetting I’ve got money. Perhaps I should have bought champagne. This is the last Sunday lunch we’ll have together in a long time.’
    ‘Miser,’ Carrie said affectionately. She gave her friend an appraising look. ‘You’re remarkably unbitter, considering what that Philip chap did to you.’
    ‘Is there such a word as unbitter?’
    Carrie wrinkled her cute nose. ‘What does it matter as long as you understand what I mean?’
    ‘It matters if you’re a teacher. I hope you’re not teaching the children words that don’t exist. Anyroad, as regards Philip, he didn’t do anything except forget to mention he had a wife who was expecting his child. If the wife had found out about us, she’d have been hurt far more than I was.’ Victoria somehow