A Gift to You

by Patricia Scanlan

  Poor old Ciara – she was just a nuisance to her parents, who were far too concerned with having a good time to worry about the effect it was all having on their daughter. Kathy was so angry she really wanted to tell Garry and Alison what she thought of them. She hadn’t seen Garry since that dreadful night when she’d walked in on him and Brenda. He hadn’t had the manners to contact her or Mike once. It was as if they didn’t exist in his life. Some friend he’d turned out to be. He didn’t have the backbone to face them. Or maybe he just didn’t want to. He’d dropped them like hot potatoes when he didn’t need them, and all their happy times together meant nothing.

  Kathy could understand why Garry couldn’t face her, but she couldn’t forgive him for the way he was treating Ciara. She’d never forget Hannah telling her last summer that Ciara had got a postcard from her daddy and his girlfriend on holiday and she hoped they’d buy her a nice present.

  He’d only seen her three times that summer. At least Alison had taken her away for a week. But Garry had taken his two weeks holiday and spent them driving around the country with his mistress. The best he could do was to send Ciara a postcard. Kathy had been incensed.

  ‘It’s neglect, Mike, that’s what it is, and I’m going to have it out with him. And with Alison. The two of them are off having the life of Reilly and it’s you and me that are here worrying about Ciara.’

  ‘And if you cause a row, who’s going to suffer? Ciara. Say nothing. It’s not our place to interfere. All we can do is be here for Ciara as long as she needs us. If there’s an argument, they might stop her from seeing us. That poor kid has enough traumas in her life without that. Say nothing,’ Mike had advised.

  Kathy knew he was right and she’d held her tongue, but she sizzled with resentment. She’d liked Garry and Alison as friends. They’d had a lot of good times in the past. Never in a million years had she expected this of them. It was quite obvious Garry didn’t give a hoot about her and Mike and that hurt.

  Alison was using them at every possible opportunity, emotionally blackmailing them by saying how much Ciara loved staying with them. Kathy was sick of it, heartily sick of it. Users, that’s what they were. If it wasn’t for the fact that she loved Ciara like one of her own she’d tell them to get lost, and never wish to see them again, she thought angrily as she set the table for the dinner.

  Brenda sat in the staff canteen drinking coffee. The chatter and buzz and the rattle of china and cutlery was giving her a headache. Being involved with Garry left her feeling as if she was walking on a tightrope. One false move and that was it. Why didn’t he want to marry her the way she wanted to marry him? Why wouldn’t he commit to her? Why did he keep using Ciara as an excuse? It wasn’t as if he was exactly Father of the Year Award material. Actually, he wasn’t as good a father as she had once given him credit for, that couldn’t be denied. He admitted it, but he was too selfish to do anything about it. It was a side of him that Brenda didn’t like, but she tried not to think about it.

  If he was living with her permanently, Ciara could spend more time with them. The trouble was, Brenda knew he was happy enough living with his mother. He was well looked after. Better than when he’d lived with Alison. He had all the home comforts. And then he had her for sex when he needed it.

  How could she compete with Ma McHugh? Garry had told her that his mother liked him living with her. It made her feel more ‘secure,’ he said. He wouldn’t like to ‘desert’ her.

  That had chilled Brenda to the bone. Something drastic had to be done. She needed to make living with her a more attractive proposition for him.

  Brenda got up from the table and marched upstairs. She Googled for a couple of minutes on her iPhone, found the number she was looking for and dialled it. ‘Hello,’ she said to the person at the other end, ‘I’d like to make an enquiry about getting Sky Sports. How do I go about it?’

  Ciara sat in class listening to her teacher explain about the assessment test for deciding the maths groups. It was like a huge big weight on her shoulders. It made her feel sick to think about it. She was such a dunce at maths. She was going to stay with Hannah this weekend. She’d ask Mike to explain Simple Interest to her. He was very good at explaining things.

  She was glad she was staying with the Stuarts. She didn’t want to go to Kilkenny for the weekend with Alison and her new boyfriend. She hated seeing her mother in bed with another man, just as she hated seeing her Dad in bed with Brenda of the knitting needle legs. She’d never forget the sight of those skinny legs wrapped around her father’s white arse. Ciara bit her nails. They were down to the stubs. They looked awful but no matter how hard she tried to, she couldn’t stop.

  Biting her nails made her think of food. She hoped Kathy would cook chicken and mushroom pie for the dinner. It always tasted scrumptious. Everyone thought she was dead lucky to have a mother like Alison. A mother who let her wear make-up and minis and who brought her into pubs and gave her sips of wine and who allowed her have a TV in her room. Her friends thought Alison, who went to nightclubs, and knew all the words of the latest pop songs, was dead cool. Ciara just wished she’d stay at home and cook real dinners and help her with her homework. Like Kathy. Kathy was a proper mother, Ciara thought enviously. Hannah was very lucky.

  ‘Are your Ma and Da going to get a divorce, like mine?’ Sadie Flynn had whispered to her in class earlier.

  ‘No, they’re just separated for a while; they’re going to get back together,’ Ciara whispered back. She always said that, hoping against hope that it would come true.

  ‘Oh!’ said Sadie . . . disappointed.

  The knots tightened in Ciara’s stomach. She’d pushed the D word to the back of her mind over the last while. Now it loomed large and threatening again. Another great worry to add to the ones she already had.

  Alison McHugh sang to herself as she packed her toilet bag for the weekend. She was looking forward to the trip to Kilkenny immensely. She felt young and carefree, so different from the past few years. It was a joy to be free and almost single again. Not that she wanted a divorce, she decided as she folded her white lacy negligee. She’d given the matter a lot of thought.

  No, she was happy as she was. She wasn’t going to disgrace the family name with a divorce. Brenda could have Garry, but she wasn’t getting her mitts on a half share of the house and whatever money would be divided between her and Garry if they divorced.

  Alison didn’t want Brenda to become Mrs McHugh. That would alter the status between them too much. She’d had always enjoyed being the object of Brenda’s envy and, as long as she stayed married to Garry, Brenda would be the poor little spinster who couldn’t quite get a man of her own and had to settle for used goods, while Alison would have the security of her wedding ring and still have men attracted to her like moths to the flame. It was almost like being a teenager again.

  I’m quite the femme fatale, she thought giddily as she packed her sexy black suspender belt.

  Garry switched off the news and switched over to Lyric as he drove home along the M50 after work. He hoped his mother had cooked a roast dinner. He was hungry. He’d have his dinner with his Ma before going over to watch the match on Sky in Brenda’s. He’d heard on the grapevine at work that the Carrolls, a couple he and Brenda knew, had divorced. No doubt she would give him another ear-bashing tonight. Well, she was barking up the wrong tree there. He had no intention of ever getting married again. Once was enough. Besides, he was dammed if that cow, Alison, was going to get her hot sweaty little paws on one penny of his money. He’d worked hard for that house. It was his investment. He wasn’t going to split the profits for it down the middle so she could go and set up with her new toy-boy lover. Let him buy his own house and set her up in the style to which she was accustomed. Not that he’d let on to Alison that he didn’t want a divorce. He’d keep her dangling. It was the best way to keep women. On their toes. Anyway, he had Ciara to think about, he thought self-righteously. He wouldn’t inflict divorce on her. He had to be
a responsible parent. And besides, if Brenda got tired of him, and his mother kicked him out, he’d need to have a roof over his head.

  No, Garry scowled, divorce was not an option and if people didn’t like it, they could bloody well lump it. His life suited him just fine the way it was.

  A Dish Best Served Cold

  George Hume paced the Italian marble floor in the lounge of his Kensington apartment and let fly a stream of profanity as he flung the paper he’d been reading onto the leather sofa and glowered at his wife. ‘It’s not looking good for me declaring bankruptcy here; they’ve turned down another pair from home now. They’re appealing but I have my doubts. I should have gone to the States like that Anglo fucker, and “The Baron”. Those cute hoors will get away with it.’

  ‘Don’t curse,’ his wife Cora said wearily.

  ‘I’ll curse if I bloody want to,’ George snarled. The phone rang and he stiffened. ‘Answer that,’ he ordered brusquely. ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone. Tell them I’m out.’

  Cora picked up the receiver. ‘Hello,’ she said, trying to keep her voice composed.

  ‘Cora, it’s Brian Dolan from Brook and McConnell. I had an enquiry about houses in your area – a Chinese businessman wants to buy. Discretely. I said I’d let George know. Not a bad offer, considering prices have dropped fifty per cent. He’s willing to go two and a half.’

  ‘Oh, dear, Brian, that’s a big drop. I’ll tell George you rang,’ Cora said dispiritedly.

  ‘I might get another 20K at push; unfortunately, it’s a buyer’s market.’ Brian said glumly.

  ‘Indeed. Thank you, Brian. I’ll get back to you before the weekend.’

  ‘What was that all about?’ George glowered at her. Middle age had not been kind to her husband, Cora reflected, studying George dispassionately. He was florid, balding, and two jowls on either side of his mean little mouth gave him the look of a particularly aggressive bulldog. His eyes were sunken beneath puffy eyelids, like two little grey marbles.

  Cora took a deep breath; he was going to flip when he heard what Brian had to say. ‘Some Chinese businessman is interested in buying in our area. Brian thinks he could get two and a half million for the house, or perhaps two seventy at a push,’ she said calmly.

  George’s eyes bulged and he turned purple. ‘Is he for real?’ he spat. ‘That house cost me five and I had an offer of ten for it in 2006. Tell him to go fuck himself if that’s the best he can do for a detached seven bedroom house in Ballsbridge.’

  ‘At least we’d have money at our back if we sold it; they can’t come after it because it’s in my name,’ Cora pointed out. ‘And we’d get at least another million for the paintings and furniture.’

  ‘I couldn’t live on two and a half million; are you mad?’ George looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  ‘Well George, bankruptcy is our only route and you’re spending a fortune here trying to declare it in the UK. And we can’t afford the mortgage on this place any more and—’

  ‘Enough, Cora, why can’t you say something positive instead of spouting out negative crap,’ he raged. ‘Do something to help me for a change.’

  ‘Like what?’ she asked exasperatedly, thoroughly fed up of him and their precarious financial situation.

  ‘Go over to Dublin and make sure the house is OK and make sure that fella you hired to maintain the gardens is doing a proper job. I don’t want the place going to rack and ruin, and then go and put the place in Spain on the market. That’s in your name too. Open a separate account out there; we can use that to pay some of these bloody legal fees. We’re going to take a hit out there but it’s costing too much to maintain. I’ll get Valentina to book your tickets. I’m going to the club.’ He marched out of the room and a few minutes later she heard the front door slam.

  Goodbye and good riddance, Cora thought jadedly, walking over to the window to look out over the elegant square with its small private park in the centre. Their three-bedroom, three-bathroom, two-reception, high-ceiling apartment in a smart mansion block, ten minutes’ walk from Kensington High Street, had been their home for the last year, as George tried to persuade the courts and his creditors that London and not Dublin was the base of his business operations so that he could avail of the UK’s far more lenient bankruptcy terms. Nothing Cora could say would dissuade him from his quest, despite the fact that every Tom, Dick and Harry at home knew he had worked out of a swanky office in Merrion Square. George couldn’t accept that his greedy, acquisitive career as a developer was well and truly over and he owed the banks millions.

  Cora couldn’t care less about the banks. They had behaved so appallingly and given loans that were clearly unsustainable, where no checks had been carried out regarding ability to pay. Those immoral bankers had gambled just as much as the clients they had actively encouraged to borrow massive amounts. They had all wooed George in the boom and now were determined to get their money back.

  George and his fellow gamblers were all squealing like stuck pigs, maintaining they had been taking for a ride. Well, she was no genius, or financial expert, but she understood what a ‘personal guarantee meant’, and had insisted years ago that her husband pay off the mortgage on their home and that it was never to be used as a guarantee for any loan he applied for. He had pooh-poohed her but she’d stuck to her guns and eventually he’d paid off the house in Ballsbridge, with a loan from Anglo. Now they were suing him, but the mortgage had been with another bank, it was paid off, she had the deeds and they couldn’t touch the house. When the first signs of the bust became apparent, he transferred the house to her name as well as the villa in Spain.

  Cora watched her husband rev the engine of the Merc and scorch out of the square, and exhaled. He wouldn’t be home until late. She was free of him for the rest of the day.

  It was a warm May afternoon and she suddenly felt claustrophobic, wanting to get out of the whitewashed elegant square to see trees and blue sky and a vista that didn’t include buildings, no matter how elegant. She missed Dublin and the ease and speed she could get from Ballsbridge to the sea or the countryside.

  She walked down the hall to her bedroom and took a pale pink pashmina from a drawer in the tallboy. She was wearing cream linen trousers and a black long sleeved V-necked cotton top. She wrapped the pashmina around her and took off her nude L.K.Bennett slingbacks and slid into a pair of espadrilles. She took her bag, library book and keys and hurried down the hall, anxious to get out in the fresh air.

  The sound of birdsong lifted her heart as she emerged onto the square. The trees were leafy and fresh, still springlike, and a balmy breeze lifted her ash-blonde hair from her forehead, refreshing her as she walked briskly along the tree lined streets towards the High Street. She normally liked to dawdle along and window shop, or poke around the antique shops, but today she wanted to be away from traffic and people and she kept up her pace. She’d call into the whole food market on the way back and get some corn-fed chicken breasts, and salads for supper. She would be eating alone. George wouldn’t thank her for corn-fed chicken and salads. She’d pop into M&S and get him some lamb and steak dishes and plenty of their creamy mash for while she was away.

  She crossed at the lights just before the Royal Garden and thought wistfully that it would be nice to have a massage and facial in their sumptuous spa. But George was scrutinising all her bills now and it wasn’t worth the hassle. How times had changed, she reflected wryly, as she saw the hotel’s doorman whistle for a taxi. She’d even cut down on the amount of taxies she took and sometimes took the tube, although she tried to avoid it in the rush hour.

  She made a left turn down Palace Avenue and strode through the gates into Kensington Gardens and felt herself relax. It was her favourite place in London and the sight of the palace reminded her of a lovely day she had spent with her sister who had flown over to spend the weekend with her in March. They had explored the palace from top to bottom, thoroughly enjoying the tour of Queen Victoria’s rooms, and the exhibit
ion of Diana’s dress, before poking around the well-stocked gift shop. They’d had a delicious lunch in the Orangery, where she was now headed. She sat at a table outside and ordered coffee and a smoked salmon salad. She tried not to feel guilty spending money on lunch out but she felt she deserved it. George was giving her a dog’s life. He was taking it all out on her and she was at the end of her tether. Tears welled in her eyes and she swallowed hard and strove to regain control before the waiter came back with her order.

  It was the unfairness of it all. She had stood at his side for all these years, the perfect wife and mother, ignoring his little flings in the boom years when little blonde gold-diggers made a play for him and his oversized wallet. She had entertained for him, spent hours making polite chit-chat to people she neither knew or cared to know, she had kept his houses in perfect running order and seen to their impeccable decor and all the thanks she got from him was tirades of abuse as each new unwelcome development unfolded.

  Well, she’d had enough of him and his appalling moods; she was going to go home and do what she had to do in Dublin and try and avoid the prying eyes of the press, and then go to Spain and stay for at least a month chilling out, she thought crossly, composing her features into a smile when the waiter placed her food in front of her.

  She ate her meal and drank another glass of wine and, after leaving her waiter a generous tip, she made her way across the Broad Walk to the Round Pond, and took a deckchair. Another expense for George to worry about, she thought with grim humour as she paid the collector. It was peaceful to sit and watch the tourists feeding the swans and ducks, and children floating little boats over the water, as the breeze caressed her and the azure blue sky delighted her. She took her library book, a Catherine Dunne novel, out of her bag and settled herself to read. Deeply engrossed, she jumped when her mobile rang, and impatiently rooted for it in her bag. She scowled when she saw the name flash up. ‘Hello,’ she said coolly.