She decided to do what she had done for the last twenty years whenever she felt uncertain about something. Talk to Larry about it. She checked the time. It was late, but not too late.
He was in his Galway hotel room, still working at his computer, happy to be disturbed. She launched straight into the story. Midway through, he stopped her. ‘I think I know where this is leading to. Tell me, did you check out his magazine? Make sure it actually existed?’
‘Well, no. He sounded so businesslike when he rang and he looked the part. Tape recorder, notebook, all the right questions.’
‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘I’m online at the moment. Let me check. What did you say it was called?’
She spelt it out, heard the click of his computer keys down the phone and waited. More clicking, then Larry came back on the line.
‘Oh, my Sally. My innocent little Sally.’ He was laughing, not mad at all at her. ‘There’s no magazine with that name. I’d bet you a thousand euros he was a snoop, sent by one of our competitors. It’s an excellent cover, I’ll give them that. Was he asking about clients? Staff numbers? Marketing approaches?’
He’d asked about all those things. Sadie shut her eyes. ‘How could I have been so stupid?’
‘You’re not in the least bit stupid. It’s just that you’re so honest yourself, you don’t expect other people to be dishonest. Don’t worry about it. You didn’t tell him anything that wasn’t common knowledge. So what if they know we’re successful, that we’ve got clients all over the country? The dogs in the street know that. Besides, we’ve got a fifteen-year head start on the business here. They’ll never be able to catch up, ill-gotten research or not.’
‘Are you ever pessimistic, Larry O’Toole?’
‘Never. What’s the point? Now, go to sleep and stop worrying. It’s my fault, not yours, anyway. I leave you alone for a few weeks and look what happens.’
‘I fall to pieces and get taken in by a wily competitor.’
‘You didn’t get taken in, so stop your worrying. Goodnight, love. Sleep well. Talk to you tomorrow.’
As she went upstairs to bed, her mind eased by the conversation, she thanked her stars for the hundredth time that Larry O’Toole had come into her life all those years ago. Where would she be, what would she be doing, what sort of person would she have turned out to be if he hadn’t? She hated to think.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
‘So let me see if I’ve got this straight,’ Gabriel said to Maggie as they sat side by side in the plane’s business-class section. Leo was just across the aisle. ‘You’ve got three brothers, two sisters, your mother is a ballerina and you grew up in Africa?’
‘That’s it. Well done. You’ll pass with flying colours.’
‘Thank you, Millie. Your name is Millie, isn’t it?’
‘You really do have a mind like a steel trap, don’t you?’
‘Steelier than that, even.’
‘Would you mind if I pulled my blanket over my head and screamed?’
‘Why? Is that another Faraday family tradition? You certainly are an active family in that regard.’
For the past few hours she had been giving Gabriel a crash course in her family history. At first he’d taken her very seriously, asking questions, taking it all in. Over the past few minutes it had fallen in a heap.
‘It’s not too late, Gabriel, seriously. You can change your mind about going through with this.’
‘And do what? Jump out over —’ he looked past her, out the tiny window ‘— what look like shark-infested waters? No, a challenge is a challenge. I’m here till the end.’ He smiled. ‘Please don’t look so worried, Maggie. If we manage to pull it off, fantastic. If we don’t, we’ll tell your family it was a delayed April Fool’s Day trick.’
‘They won’t be happy either way.’
‘Leave it with me then. I’ll come up with something spectacular to finish it and you’ll be blame-free, I promise. In the meantime, just correct me in front of them if I get anything too wrong. Isn’t that what is so wonderful about our relationship? Discovering new things about each other every day?’ He spoke the final two sentences in a saccharine voice.
She relaxed. ‘If you talk to me like that, I’m going to tell my family that you earn your living as an Avon lady.’
‘Oh really? Well, I’m going to tell your family that I met you when you were go-go dancing in a seedy nightclub in SoHo.’
‘Go-go dancing?’ She started to laugh.
Across the aisle, Leo called for Gabriel’s attention.
‘Excuse me, darling,’ Gabriel said to Maggie.
‘Of course, darling,’ Maggie answered.
She shut her eyes and leaned her head back, still smiling. She would never have thought it possible, not when Leo first broke all of this to her, but she was starting to enjoy herself. She had never laughed with Angus the way she laughed with Gabriel. He kept her on her toes too. Quick witticisms, lots of storytelling. They’d spent most of the day in each other’s company, between waiting at the airport when their flight was delayed and now the flight itself, and not once had Maggie felt bored or uncomfortable. They kept finding things to talk about. She’d asked him a lot about his childhood, and been thoroughly entertained by his stories – a New York City upbringing a long way from her own relaxed Hobart days. The more he told her, the more she wanted to know. She needed to know as much about him as he knew about her, after all. She could already imagine the third degree she’d get from her aunts, not to mention Clementine. She had another shimmer of guilt about lying to them, but quickly pushed it down. It was Leo’s idea, not hers. He was the one who was behind all of this.
That thought reminded her that this visit wasn’t going to be all fun and games. There were the diaries to read. Just as important, the question of Sadie. Leo had tried calling the private detective before they left New York, but had got only his voicemail. ‘No news is good news,’ he said to Maggie. ‘I just have to be patient.’
Maggie had debated whether to tell Gabriel the whole Sadie story. If all Leo hoped was true, that Sadie had been found alive and well and living in Dublin, then Gabriel would probably meet her one day and – she stopped herself. Why would he meet Sadie? For one silly moment, she seemed to have convinced herself that Gabriel really was her fiancé.
Wishful thinking, said a voice in her mind.
It was true. The more time she spent with him, the more she liked him. Not just because he was easy to talk to, though he was. Not just because he was good-looking, though he was definitely that as well. It was the whole combination, she realised. The intelligence, the humour and the looks. How on earth he hadn’t been snapped up by any other woman she didn’t know, but the fact was —
Oh God. She actually had a crush on Gabriel.
‘Maggie?’
She turned, convinced her thoughts were somehow visible.
‘Would you like a drink?’
She hadn’t noticed the flight attendant with the drinks trolley. ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’
Leo and Gabriel returned to their conversation. Maggie took a breath. She had to get back to the business in hand. The diaries were the most urgent thing. She’d done a calculation – nine of them, each with one hundred pages. Nine hundred pages. It would take her several minutes to read each page. A few days’ solid reading at least. She really had to get started.
The briefcase and the diaries were in her overhead locker. She stood up, moving past Gabriel and opening the hatch.
He stood up too. ‘Let me do that for you,’ he said. He took down the briefcase and handed it to Maggie.
‘I thought I’d make a start,’ she said to Leo.
‘Thank you, love.’ He smiled at her, that glimpse of vulnerability evident again. ‘It’s all part of this project we have you working on, Gabriel. Collecting memories of my wife and Maggie’s grandmother. This needs to stay between the three of us, but I’ve appointed Maggie chief reader and editor of some diaries Tessa kept. Now, stop me if
I’m repeating myself, but did I tell you about my very first invention?’
That would keep Gabriel occupied until they landed in Ireland, Maggie knew.
She opened the briefcase and took out the first of the blue notebooks. Settling herself in her seat, she opened the front cover, traced her fingers over the flamboyant script on the inside page: Tessa Faraday – Private and Confidential, and began to read.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Tasmania. He’d mentioned Tasmania.
Sadie sat upright in bed. She didn’t know what time it was or what had woken her, but she suddenly knew why she had been so bothered by the journalist that afternoon. He had mentioned Tasmania.
How had he known of her links there? She hadn’t told him. There was nothing about it in any of the company’s promotional material. She’d never spoken about Tasmania to Larry or Maudie, either. Both of them believed she had been brought up in Adelaide.
She traced back over the conversation again. Perhaps she’d been mistaken. Imagined it. Her family had been on her mind all week, as they always were this time of the year, especially the past few years, knowing they were gathering less than five hours from Dublin.
She could still remember the shock she’d got receiving Maggie’s letter that year. It had finished with the casual announcement that Leo had surprised them all again, buying a ‘holiday house in Donegal, of all places. We’ve decided to spend our July Christmas celebrations there each year. You know you’d be welcome, if you ever felt like making a trip to Ireland’.
For once, she had read the letter Leo enclosed with that one straightaway. She didn’t always read his the day they arrived. It depended on how she was feeling. His letter also mentioned the Donegal house. ‘If you ever want to go there, to feel close to Tessa, you know I would pay your airfare in a shot.’
She had shredded his letter immediately, then Maggie’s. She had shredded all their letters and cards over the years. She’d had to. She couldn’t risk Larry or Maudie finding them. She knew only too well the dangers of leaving personal material lying around. But while the letters were shredded, the news of the house in Donegal had stayed with her.
It had been very simple to discover which house it was. A phone call to an auctioneer in Letterkenny, the main town in Donegal, a casual enquiry about recently sold properties in the southwest of the county, near the village of Glencolmcille. She was directed to several different web sites, each featuring dozens of properties in the area. She found it within the hour: a beautiful extended whitewashed house with views of the sea and mountains.
She’d driven past it once. She and Larry had been in Letterkenny on business. Driving back to Dublin she’d suggested they take a scenic drive. She drove into the village, took the road that wound up the hill, following all the directions from memory. It was easy to spot the house, the largest one in the area. There was a discreet signpost in the front garden: Available for rent. A local caretaker’s number listed was below.
She stopped the car, leaving the engine running. ‘What do you think? Will we rent this place one summer?’
Larry shuddered. ‘No, thanks. Too much scenery around here for me.’ He was a city man through and through.
She had been tempted. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t been. To stay there on her own, in their house, without them knowing. To stay nearby when they were all there. Shop in the same shops, drink in the same pubs. Would they know her? Would she know them? She hadn’t changed that much in twenty years. A few grey hairs these days and she was still battling with her weight, but she was certainly not plump any more. They’d recognise her, as she knew she would recognise them.
They’d be there now, she realised. If she wanted to, she could get up, drive for five hours and walk right into the house. ‘Hi, everyone. I’m back.’
Hell would freeze over before she would do that.
She got up, too unsettled to sleep. She tried to be rational about it. That man’s reference to Tasmania was just a fluke.
She went into the kitchen and made herself a hot milk drink, despite it being a warm night. She wished again that Larry was home. If he was there, all she would have to do is wrap herself around him to feel safe and secure. She’d told him that once. That being with him made her feel so protected, peaceful. Complete.
‘That’s because we’re soul mates,’ he’d said, very matter-of-factly. ‘We were destined to be together. Look at the odds. The gods were looking down on us when we met. Blessed with luck, the pair of us.’
Sadie had felt cursed, not blessed, at that time. Those five months before she met Larry in Brisbane had been the loneliest and scariest of her life. It still shocked her sometimes to think back. It was like someone else’s life. Someone so unhappy, so desperate.
She knew exactly why she had run away. But if someone were to ask her now why she had taken Maggie with her, she still wasn’t sure what she would say. Anger? Desperation? Shock? To hurt her family, to make them feel as bad as she was feeling? Or for another, quite simple, reason?
So many things had been going wrong for her at that time. She had felt so lost, so out of place. Unappreciated. A stranger in her own family. If it had been possible to do so without Eliza hearing, she would have cried herself to sleep most nights. The only good thing in her life had been Maggie. She was the only person in her family with whom she felt a connection. Maggie didn’t pick on her, judge her, put her down or compete with her. She just enjoyed being with her. Sometimes when they were out together she would catch someone smiling at the two of them. ‘How old is your daughter?’ ‘Hasn’t your daughter got a lovely smile?’ It didn’t mean anything, Sadie knew that. But she liked hearing it. It made her feel like she and Maggie were a family. It made her feel good at a time when not much else did. She knew she drove her sisters crazy. She could feel Leo’s disappointment in her. She couldn’t keep up with any of them, achieve even half of what they achieved. Why was she like that? Where had it all gone wrong for her?
Reading the diaries, she had finally known why. It all made sense. She could never forget how it felt to read her mother’s words. The further she read the more distressed she’d become. How had Leo been able to keep talking about Tessa with such love? He must have read all of this, yet he had chosen to keep up her traditions, paint a picture of the perfect mother, the happy family.
It was an entry written two days after Sadie’s own tenth birthday, just a few months before Tessa died, that had hurt the most. She could remember herself so clearly at that age. So ungainly, so clumsy; desperate to be as pretty and witty and clever as her sisters. She’d asked for a birthday party and been told by Tessa and Leo that she could invite three friends over. She’d taken ages making the list, trying to choose between the girls in her class. Eventually she had whittled it down to three. She’d drawn the invitations herself, ignoring Miranda’s teasing that her pictures of cats looked like deformed mice. She’d gone to school the next day with the invitations in her bag and at recess had proudly walked over to the three girls. She handed them out and waited, grinning, imagining their responses: ‘A party? Great! Thanks, Sadie.’ One by one they opened them. The tallest, Kym, had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘We can’t come that day, Sadie. Sorry.’
‘Why not?’
They had shuffled their feet, looked at each other, not at her, until one of them spoke. ‘Because we’re all going to another party.’
Kym’s birthday party was on the same day. Everyone had been invited except for her and three other girls who Sadie herself thought of as the dregs of the class.
She’d run home after school, desperate for her mother. Her uncle Bill had been on holiday from England, sitting out on the verandah smoking a cigarette. She ignored him. She had run inside the house in tears, wanting a hug, wanting to be consoled. Her mother was in bed. All of them knew never to wake her up from her afternoon naps, but this was different. Sadie needed her. She remembered running into the room, crying, starting to tell her mother all about it, and the s
hock she had got when her mother had sat up, told her to be quiet and leave her alone.
Reading the diaries, reading her mother’s account of that day had felt like a blade going through her. She had obviously picked up the diary straight after Sadie had gone away and put down all her feelings on the page.
Sadie remembered sitting in the shed in the middle of the night, reading it, recalling the same event from her own perspective, feeling the tears fall down her face. She had decided to leave her family that night. If Leo wanted to live a life of lies, paint Tessa as the perfect wife and perfect mother, then that was his choice, but Sadie knew she couldn’t be a part of it any more. She had to leave, get as far away from the family as she could.
She had planned to use the two weeks in Melbourne with Maggie only as thinking time. Her intention was to wait until Miranda returned and let her take Maggie back to Hobart. She was going to move on then, to Perth, or perhaps even Darwin. Somewhere as far from her family as possible.
It was just circumstances that led to her taking Maggie with her. Talking to her about having an adventure, seeing how excited she was. Having so much fun together. Maggie telling her that night, in that beautiful way she had, ‘I have to tell you a secret. You’re my favourite auntie.’ It had gone straight to Sadie’s heart. She’d decided then that she couldn’t say goodbye to Maggie. Not yet, anyway.
She still remembered every detail of the night Leo and Clementine turned up. The shock of it – Clementine hitting her, Leo snatching Maggie away from her as though she had been in some danger, then coming back and saying over and over again, ‘Why, Sadie? Why did you do this? Has something happened to you? We love you. We’re your family. Tell me.’
He couldn’t have chosen worse words if he’d tried. She hadn’t intended to tell him, but the words blurted out of her. ‘Don’t lie to me, Leo. I read her diaries. I know the truth.’
Those Faraday Girls Page 40
