Martina Devlin - Three Wise Men

She’s not even sure you can count all four sessions since he lost his erection halfway through the last effort. Effort was the operative word, his heart clearly wasn’t in it and neither, as it transpired, was his lad. She broods. It’s not a pleasant experience to find your husband has lost his erection halfway through work in progress. There you are, legs akimbo, having quite a nice time really, when you suddenly get that shrinking feeling followed by the sinking one. He pumps on for a while, as though neither of you have noticed anything unusual, but eventually he concedes defeat.

Then of course he’s desperately upset, manhood compromised, so you end up cuddling him and saying it doesn’t matter when it does. Especially as he doesn’t offer to distract you. Especially as you’re not convinced he’ll be ready to play house with you in the foreseeable future. Not on his track record.

After that, Mick seemed to operate a sexual shutdown. Gloria considers. It’s entirely possible he takes himself in hand after she’s fallen asleep but she’s discovered no evidence of it.

‘Let’s see a counsellor,’ she suggested.

He slammed the door on his way out.

‘Mick, we need expert help,’ she insisted.

He slammed the door on his way out.

‘I’m at my wits’ end,’ she pleaded.

He slammed the door on his way out.

‘I’m leaving you,’ she threatened.

He slammed the door on his way out.

So here she is in Donnybrook with Eimear, sleeping in her spare room on cream linen sheets and eating her meals off primrose pottery. Gloria misses her own embroidered duvet covers and her own willow-pattern plates. She ran away with nothing more than her make-up purse, some clothes and her pillow. She can’t sleep on any other pillow, this goes everywhere with her.

Gloria wanders back along the hall to Kate, stacking dishes in the kitchen sink.

‘Any word from Mick?’ Kate calls over her shoulder.

‘Not a dicky bird.’

She’s been staying with Eimear for a fortnight and Mick has only contacted her once. That was the night after she moved out, when he rang up and ordered her to get a grip, she was mentally unbalanced and she should come straight home and stop dragging friends into their problems. Now who could resist an invitation like that.

Kate turns around, drying her hands on a teacloth. ‘Maybe he feels contact should come from you, Glo – after all you’re the one who jumped ship.’

Gloria focuses on the jet earrings set dancing by the way Kate’s holding her head. She’s watching Gloria with an expression of affectionate concern but Gloria doesn’t notice as she ruminates on Kate’s suggestion. It’s forcing her to consider her motivation more narrowly than she’s allowed herself.

Does she genuinely want to save her marriage or is Eimear and Jack’s split the equivalent of the butterfly’s fluttering wings in Ballaghadreen that spark an earthquake in Bombay? Not to mention a marital severance in Ranelagh.

‘I’ve thought it over, Mick, and it’s the only way I’ll come back to you,’ Gloria says levelly, bracing herself for a row. She’s not disappointed.

His face turns magenta as he yells: ‘It’s insulting, it’s degrading, it’s bestial, it’s treating me like a sperm bank.’

‘I don’t see that, it’s not as if I want to get pregnant by any piece of testosterone on legs, it’s not as if I’m walking down the street pointing to the first man I meet and saying, “You’ll do nicely, big boy.” It’s not as if I’m selecting a suitable sperm donor based on his IQ. I want your baby, Michael Patrick McDermott’s, my husband’s, the man I’ve loved since I was sixteen. I want us to be a family.’

‘But you’re telling me that the only way you’ll come home to me is if we shell out for fertility treatment,’ he protests.

‘So it’s the money that’s bothering you.’

‘No, it’s not the money, Gloria, it’s the way you’re going about this I don’t like. You’re doing it entirely back to front. Any sensible person would sort out their marriage before they’d ever contemplate something as drastic as intravenous fertilisation.’

‘You see, you know so little about it you can’t even be bothered to get the name right,’ she snorts. ‘What do you think I am, a druggie hooked on babies?’

So much for her mental promise not to lose her temper and descend to trading insults.

‘Don’t be so superior, Gloria, you knew what I meant. You’ve latched on to this treatment as though it’s the miracle cure but what happens if it doesn’t work, have you thought about that? Just because you empty your bank balance into the hands of some specialist doesn’t mean you’ll walk away with a baby.’

Gloria pauses before responding, determined to haul the conversation back on to an even keel. ‘Of course I know there’s only a one in four chance but why shouldn’t we take it, why shouldn’t we be among the lucky 25 per cent?’

Then irritation takes over: ‘You’re always so negative, Mick McDermott, you need to take a risk. We have no chance of a baby at the minute, at least this gives us something to hope for. Live dangerously for once, why don’t you. I’d have thought it would’ve suited you down to the ground, you don’t even have to kiss me this way, you get to be a father without any of the bother. And we all know what an effort it is for you.’

He leaps up, face contorted with rage. ‘I wondered how long it would take before you harped on about that. You’ve blown it out of proportion, just because I couldn’t perform to suit you that once when I was tired.’

‘Whatever. Now how about leaving your legendary caution to one side and taking a chance on medical science?’

Mick is still furious. ‘I don’t mind taking chances, it’s typical of you to paint me as some kind of tippy-toed big girl.’

‘The prudent virgin,’ Gloria muses. Mischievously of course.

There’s murder in his glance but he steadies himself visibly. ‘I’m not overly cautious, I just like to be aware of all the possibilities first. And you can wipe that supercilious smirk off your face, Gloria. What gives you the right to call me negative when you’re the one laying down all these conditions for continuing with our marriage?’

‘Sit down, Mick. It’s not conditions, just one.’

‘And a hefty condition it is. You’re blackmailing me into something I’m not sure I want to do,’ he hops from one foot to the next.

‘Well, let me know when you are sure, you know where I’ll be.’

‘Burying a knife between my shoulder blades with your friends from the sisterhood on hand to mark the spot.’

He flings himself into the sofa opposite rather than joining Gloria on the one she’s occupying in Eimear’s sitting room. Her friend has gone to an art exhibition to afford them a chance to ransack their relationship for a solution. Gloria refused Mick’s suggestion they meet in their own house – there’s no way she’s setting foot over that threshold until he agrees to try for a baby and she doesn’t mean by scrutinising thermometers and calendar dates. They’re way past that stage.

Gloria tries to reassure him but takes the wrong tack: ‘Why would the three of us waste our time gossiping about you? You’re developing a paranoia complex.’

‘No wonder, when I hear Eimear Mulligan or O’Brien or whatever she calls herself has been going around telling people I have a low sperm count,’ he splutters.

‘Of course she hasn’t, I don’t know where you get these notions from,’ she protests.

Mick pantomimes disbelief.

‘A neighbour commiserated with my mother about it, as it happens. The poor woman was mortified, being approached by a venomous old biddy agog to discuss the contents of her son’s testicles. So if it travelled all the way back up to Omagh then you can be sure tongues have been wagging freely in Dublin. And you’re the only one who knew about the sperm test so it’s a dead cert it went from you to Eimear and then she broadcast it on the RTE news bulletin.’