I looked around me critically.
Housework was as low on my scale of priorities as cooking but the Villa Naranja would definitely benefit from a bit of a clean. Being active helped to keep the darker thoughts away. I knew this, even though being active at work hadn’t banished my despair.
I rummaged around the shelves beneath the sink and found bleach, surface cleaners and furniture polish as well as microfibre cloths. A tall cupboard held a bucket, mop and vacuum cleaner. And behind the gingham curtains I also found a light stepladder, which allowed me to reach the wall cupboards.
I opened them, one by one, including the cupboard where I’d just stacked the coffee, rice and sauces. The shelves were covered with old newspapers, which I took down and put in a cardboard box beside the kitchen door. I didn’t know the original purpose of the box but I reckoned it could do for recycling. Judging by the dates and the sticky residues from old bottles and jars, the papers had been lining the cupboards for years. I didn’t have anything to replace them with but I’d never bothered lining shelves before, and I didn’t see the need to start now.
I began to wipe them all down and then sprayed the old wooden doors with the furniture polish to shine them up. I abandoned that idea after the first attempt, though, because the doors were greasy and the dust was sticking to them. So I used soapy water to clean them instead.
It took ages, and I was lathered in sweat by the time I was finished. My hair was damp and so were my clothes. I looked at my watch and realised that it was mid-afternoon, the traditional time for a siesta. Pilar had told me that Spain was as much a 24/7 country as anywhere else in the world, these days, but that people took the opportunity for a siesta if they could. ‘After all,’ she’d pointed out, ‘we stay up late. We need a few zzzs in the middle of the day.’
I’d laughed at her then, but a siesta seemed like a great idea to me now. I was sure I wouldn’t sleep, but maybe a twenty-minute break would be good for me. I locked the door but left the windows open, secure behind the iron grilles. Talking to Rosa earlier had left me less paranoid about being on my own. This was a nice town. A safe place. There was no reason to be worried. And, of course, ghosts (if I believed in them) wouldn’t appear in daylight.
I went upstairs and lay on the bed. Despite my promises to myself I couldn’t help thinking of Brad as soon as I closed my eyes. I wished I could wipe him from my memory but I couldn’t forget that I’d loved him. And that I thought he’d loved me. Yet what troubled me most, what I couldn’t stop thinking about, was that I’d never know if what we had was a brief affair or if he’d expected it to be something else.
I wished he’d given me the choice about that.
Chapter 5
The earthquake had been headline news for nearly a week. The Irish newspapers focused in on Brad and his family, as they were the only local people caught up in it. The stories all described him as a devoted family man, a brilliant radiologist, a pillar of the community. Alessandra, they said, was a bright, popular woman who’d given up her job in the health service to be a full-time mum while continuing her voluntary work for a local children’s charity.
I pored over every story, particularly any that mentioned Alessandra. Nothing gave the impression that their marriage had been anything other than happy. There was no sense that they’d come to San Alessio to resolve issues. And yet everything couldn’t have been perfect if he’d been cheating on her with me. But maybe they wouldn’t say anything negative in the newspaper reports? Maybe they wanted to paint a happy picture? It was more newsworthy that way. I wanted to know the truth about their relationship but I couldn’t see any way of finding it out. Certainly not from the papers, which were portraying them as practically perfect.
Brad and Alessandra’s bodies were eventually flown back to Belfast. I told Cleo and Saoirse that I needed to go to the funeral service.
‘Are you nuts?’ demanded Cleo. ‘Why would you put yourself through all that?’
‘I need it to be real,’ I replied. ‘I need to hear people talking about him in the past tense. And if there’s any information, any talk . . . well, I need to hear that too.’
‘Juno, sweetheart, it’s going to be madly emotional,’ Saoirse told me. ‘Plus it’s going to be all about his family. There won’t be any talk. You can’t possibly be there.’
‘I have to,’ I said. ‘Unless I see it, I won’t truly believe it.’
I was still in denial and I needed proof.
I wasn’t scheduled to be off work but I managed to swap a shift with one of the other radiographers, even though swapping shifts was frowned upon at the hospital. I caught the Enterprise train from Connolly Station and then took a cab from Belfast Central to the crematorium where the service was to be held. Although I was early, a large crowd had already gathered. Seating in the crematorium itself had been restricted to close family, but speakers had been rigged up so that everyone else could hear what was going on. The building was set in a surprisingly large and well-tended garden filled with shrubs and trees, which meant that the crowd could be accommodated. Somewhat inappropriately, it was a warm spring day, and the garden was a beautiful place to be.
I leaned against the trunk of a spreading beech tree, trying to keep my distance, but by the time the cortège pulled up even more people had arrived and I was surrounded by mourners who, from their murmured words, all seemed to be neighbours of the family.
There was a hushed silence as the undertakers slid the coffins from the hearse, and then people began to cry. I think if I hadn’t been practically wedged against the tree trunk at that point I probably would have collapsed. It was so unbelievably tragic and so unutterably sad.
Over the loudspeakers came the sound of an unaccompanied female voice singing ‘Amazing Grace’.
‘The poor wee pet, left without his Mammy and Daddy,’ murmured a woman behind me. ‘Please God he’ll recover.’
‘A lovely family,’ said her companion. ‘So devoted to each other. Why are the best taken so young?’
‘I heard she was pregnant,’ whispered the first woman. ‘Another life lost.’
I felt my head spin. Alessandra was pregnant? Pregnant? And I felt a spasm of disgust that I even allowed myself to wonder for a nanosecond if the baby was Brad’s.
Silence fell again as the last notes of ‘Amazing Grace’ faded. I leaned against the tree trunk, grateful for the support as a wave of self-loathing engulfed me. My friends were right. I shouldn’t have come here. It had been selfish and hypocritical. I didn’t deserve to be among people who’d loved them, listening to the minister soothe the congregation, praise the lives of Brad and Alessandra and mourn their passing as well as leading prayers for the recovery of their beautiful son. I’d been in love with a completely different Brad, and I hadn’t really known him at all.
I shivered despite the balmy breeze and the heat of the crowds around me. I pulled my jacket tighter and concentrated on staying upright as the minister told us that someone called Max would be giving the eulogy.
‘I was five years old when I first met Brad McIntyre.’ The man’s voice, calm and gentle, carried over the crowd. I recognised it. He was the man who’d spoken on TV. Holding it together then, solemn and steady. Holding it together now too, his voice even and measured. ‘I walked into the house clutching my teddy bear who went everywhere with me. Brad came over to me and said hello. Then he looked at my teddy bear, who was missing an eye. “I can fix that for you,” were his first words to me. And he’s been fixing things ever since, because that’s the sort of person Brad McIntyre was.’
Max continued speaking but I was lost in my own memories and the tears that were now flooding down my face.
‘I loved my brother,’ said Max in conclusion. ‘I will always love him.’
His brother? I looked up as I blew my nose on my already sodden tissue. Brad hadn’t said anything about a brother either. And how could he be his brother if he first met him when he was five? I realised that Brad hadn’t told me
anything about his life. I’d thought I’d known everything I needed to know, but I was wrong.
Brad and Alessandra hadn’t been on a break. They were a married couple with a child, and possibly expecting another one. He’d lied by omission about everything in his life while he’d conducted his affair with me. I’d meant nothing at all to him. How could I have been so stupid?
The service concluded and the mourners began to drift away, still murmuring about how awful it all was, what a wonderful family they’d been and how eloquently Max had spoken. I moved along with the swell of people, although my legs were trembling and I felt as though I could keel over at any minute. Then I spotted a wooden bench in the corner of the garden and made my way towards it.
I collapsed on to it and closed my eyes. I tried to imagine what it had been like for Brad and Alessandra in those terrifying last moments. The house shaking, the walls crumbling, knowing that there was nothing they could do. The noise. The dust. The darkness. The panic. The fear that both Brad and Alessandra must have had for their son, and for their unborn child too. She’d been found beside Dylan. Brad had been a little further away. Had he been killed trying to get help? Or trying to reach them himself? I felt the tears roll down my face and I pulled another tissue from my bag.
‘Are you OK?’
The man who came over to me was wearing a black suit and tie. I recognised his voice from earlier and I recognised his face from the TV. It was Max. The brother I hadn’t known about. It was hard to tell if he was older or younger because his grief was etched on his face, giving him a pale, drawn appearance.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I just . . .’
‘It’s difficult for everyone.’ He was comforting me, even though I should have been the one with the words of comfort. ‘Were you a friend of Allie’s? Or Brad?’
‘I . . . worked with Brad occasionally,’ I replied.
‘He was a great doctor.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He was.’
‘Well, nice to meet you.’ His grey eyes were serious in his angular face. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘I had to come.’
He nodded. And then, as I thought he was going to say something else, he spotted someone walking along the gravel pathway and murmured a brief goodbye. He strode across the garden, tall and lean, holding himself with a certain dignity. I wished I could be more dignified myself but I was crying again and rubbing my eyes with yet another balled-up tissue.
It was about twenty minutes later before I left the crematorium. The next train to Dublin wasn’t for an hour but I got a cab back to the station and had a watery coffee while I waited for it. I texted Cleo and Saoirse to say I was on the way back and that I hadn’t made a show of myself.
But I hadn’t achieved what I’d wanted either.
To say goodbye.
To have closure.
To leapfrog over anger, bargaining and depression straight into acceptance.
Because I was still struggling to accept what had happened.
I didn’t know if I ever would.
This time it was a definite crash downstairs that jolted me out of my thoughts. I reminded myself I’d locked the door and there were grilles over the windows so nobody could be in the house. But there were no grilles on the bedroom windows, I recalled, as I slid off the bed. Someone could have climbed up – and God only knew what they were planning.
I peeped out of the window. There was nothing to see.
I tiptoed downstairs in my bare feet, holding my flip-flops in my hand. I’ve always been scathing about women in movies who investigate unexplained noises. I scream at them to lock themselves in the bedroom or phone for help. But there was no lock on the bedroom door, and I’d left my phone charging in the kitchen socket.
I held my breath as I stepped off the bottom stair. Everything was silent. If there were marauders in the house they were doing their marauding very quietly. I walked gingerly into the kitchen and immediately saw what had caused the noise. My phone was on the floor. It had clearly fallen from the counter on to the tiles, and that had been the crash I’d heard. I picked it up, hoping against hope that the screen wasn’t broken.
A hairline crack snaked across it but the phone itself was working. I looked around me. Nothing else had been disturbed, and the door was firmly closed and locked. There was nobody here. The house was a marauder-free zone. So who – or what – had knocked over the phone? Was Doña Carmen’s spirit still in the house and was she outraged at the wanton hussy who’d come to stay? Or was it Brad, trying to connect with me, to explain to me how things had turned out the way they had?
‘You’re losing it,’ I muttered as I stood in the centre of the room. ‘You know these are nonsense thoughts. You’ve finally tipped yourself over the edge.’
Then I saw the tiniest of movements out of the corner of my eye and heard a scrabbling sound. I went to the recycling box and looked inside. Slanted amber-flecked eyes looked back at me. The silver-grey cat was curled up inside, apparently having decided that the newspapers made an excellent bed.
‘You again!’ I exclaimed. ‘You’re quite determined to give me a heart attack before the week is out, aren’t you?’
The cat yawned.
‘Are you a ghost or a marauder?’ I asked.
He licked his paw and began washing his face.
‘I wish I knew your name.’
The cat finished his ablutions, stretched out in the box and then curled up again.
‘I suppose you only speak Spanish.’
He closed his eyes.
‘Do you live here?’ I asked.
The cat ignored me.
But he’d clearly moved in.
I finished cleaning the kitchen while the cat snoozed contentedly in the recycling box. He didn’t even open his eyes when I accidentally threw some used kitchen towel on top of him, simply rolled over and continued to sleep. Having a living creature in the house made it feel different. It made me feel different too. Less alone, obviously. But somehow calmer.
And hungry, I realised. I didn’t think I’d be hungry again today, certainly not after the cherry pie and coffee earlier. I know that’s hardly what you’d call a substantial meal, nor a healthy food choice for the day, but I’d felt full afterwards and thought it was more than enough to keep me going. It would have been, back in Dublin. But here, today, I was hungry.
So despite having scrubbed the gas hob until it was sparkling, I took out a pan, added some oil and then chopped one of the chicken breasts I’d bought earlier. I put some mixed salad and tomatoes on one of the bright-blue plates from the cupboard and then filled a glass with the wine I’d added to my basket in the supermarket at the last minute. It had been chilling in the fridge since I’d got home. I hadn’t planned to drink it tonight. I’d bought it ‘in case’ – without even knowing what ‘in case’ actually would be.
I took my phone and my mini wireless speakers from my bag and brought them out to the stone table on the patio area behind the house. I set up one of my favourite playlists then went inside and returned with the glass of wine, my chicken salad and a large cushion. The cushion was because the only seating around the table was a stone bench, and I couldn’t see me lasting on that for any length of time.
The music was soothing. The wine was smooth. And the chicken salad – despite my lack of anything other than salt to season it – was tasty. The tomatoes were sweet and juicy, and the chicken itself was bursting with flavour. I was astonished. As well as not being a great cook I’m not a real foodie either. To be honest, I regard it as fuel. Some fuel is better than others (I have a fondness for Maltesers that is borderline fanatical) but I’m not one to go into raptures about anything. And yet this meal, sitting alone in the sun in a place I didn’t even know, was one of the best I’d ever eaten.
It would have been so wonderful to be here with Brad. It would have been magical to share the moment with him. I couldn’t help having those thoughts, even as I tried to push them to the f
urthest recesses of my mind. I wasn’t allowed to think like that. I wasn’t allowed to miss him. I should never have known him. I should never have loved him.
He’d been in love with someone else and I’d been nothing more than the other woman.
Chapter 6
The cat joined me, settling on to the bench with his head beside the cushion, then stealthily taking over more and more until he was stretched across the cushion and I was on the hard stone. I scratched him idly behind the ears as Imelda May sang of love and loss. I tried not to listen to the words and just let the music flow around me.
There were no other sounds in the garden. Just Imelda’s voice and the cat’s regular purr. I stopped rubbing him and he opened an eye, as if to complain, so I started again. It was restful. Peaceful.
Had it been peaceful in the Italian sunshine as they got ready to go to dinner that night? Had they sat in a garden as I was doing now? Had Dylan been running around in excitement? Had they been a happy family unit?
Had Alessandra believed that to be the case? Or had she suspected? Had she quizzed Brad about some throwaway remark, some careless comment? Had she seen his last text to me: Tonight’s dinner location. Joining them shortly. Love you. Miss you. Bxx. Had she yelled at him that he’d betrayed her, even though she was going to have his baby? Or had she simply trusted him, as I’d trusted him, never thinking to look at his texts, simply looking forward to their romantic evening together.
Why hadn’t I guessed? That was the question that I couldn’t stop asking myself. Why hadn’t I ever wondered about the fact that I’d never met any of his family or his close friends in the few months we’d been together? Why had I simply accepted that it was because we were long-distance lovers – even if the journey from Belfast to Dublin can be made in under two hours?
Apart from the couple of occasions I’d gone to Belfast (and when we hadn’t ventured out of the luxury hotel he’d booked), he was the one who travelled every second week to visit the clinic he had a share in. Which meant that it was easy for him to see me in places where he wouldn’t expect to bump into anyone he knew. Of course he had colleagues in the clinic, but I’d never been there or met any of them. He knew one of the senior registrars at my own hospital, but I’d only ever exchanged brief words with Jeff McCarthy in the lift once or twice and was hardly going to start talking about Brad with him. No, seeing me in Dublin was a safe bet for a man who had a secret lover.
The Hideaway Page 6
