Maggie didn’t need to answer. Sadie was right.
‘And Clementine?’ Sadie continued. ‘Would she ever be able to forgive me, trust me with you? I don’t think so, and I can’t blame her. It’s as if each of us was somehow assigned a role to play in our family and I got the short straw. It wouldn’t matter what I’ve done with my life since then, all I’ve achieved, no matter that I have Larry and a successful business and Maudie and a grandchild on the way —’
‘A grandchild? You’re going to be a grandmother?’
Sadie nodded, a beautiful smile appearing on her face. ‘Maudie’s seven months pregnant. She’s only young, not nineteen yet, but she’s in a great relationship. Larry and I are very happy about it.’
There were so many questions Maggie wanted to ask. ‘How did you meet Larry? How did you get to be here?’ She managed a laugh. ‘What have you been doing for the past twenty years?’
Sadie told Maggie the bare facts of her story. She described the months after she left Hobart. Meeting Larry. Starting their business together; getting married; having Maudie. Coming to Ireland. She told her about the fake stories; her pretend background. The reason why Maggie couldn’t ever meet Larry or Maudie.
Maggie listened intently to every word. She imagined herself in Sadie’s position. Sadie kept calling it ‘being on the run’. It didn’t sound like that to Maggie. It sounded brave. She told her as much.
‘I didn’t feel brave. I felt desperate and scared. I felt like I’d made a mess of my life. And I know that if I was to see Leo – to see all of them – again, I’d go straight back to being that old Sadie. And I didn’t like being her. I don’t ever want to be her again.’
Maggie understood. More than Sadie could have known. Hadn’t she spent most of her adult life trying to be each of the different nieces her aunts wanted her to be?
‘I would never have hurt you,’ Sadie said again. ‘They thought you were in danger, but you never were.’
‘I wish I could remember.’
‘You can’t remember anything from that time?’
‘I don’t think so. If I think back to my childhood it’s just women everywhere, and Leo in the middle of it.’ She smiled again. ‘I still have your scrapbook, you know.’
‘You do?’
‘Of course.’
‘I thought Clementine would have thrown it out.’
‘She might have wanted to, but she didn’t. I still love it. Did you do that for Maudie?’
‘No, I did something different for her.’
‘Can I meet her, Sadie? Can I meet Larry?’
Sadie didn’t hesitate. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie, but you can’t. You are from one part of my life and they are from another part. I can’t mix the two. I don’t dare, in case I lose my own family. And I couldn’t bear that.’
‘You don’t want to see the others? Not even Leo?’
‘I can’t, Maggie. I just can’t.’
‘He loves you. He misses you. I know he does. He’s been like a driven man since he tracked you down. He’s gone to so much trouble. If he could just see you – talk to you. Know that you’re all right.’
‘He knows I’m all right. That’s why I send you that card every year.’
‘If he even saw you just for a minute, Sadie. So he could see that you’re okay. Even if he spoke to you on the phone.’
Sadie shook her head.
Maggie had to try again, for Leo’s sake. ‘Sadie, why not? It would mean so much to him —’
‘Why not?’ All the hurt, the pain and the vulnerability was suddenly visible on Sadie’s face. ‘Because I’m too scared, Maggie. Because I know how fragile a good life is. How flimsy good luck is. I could have gone another way, but I met Larry, we had Maudie and piece by piece I have rebuilt and remade my life. And if I let Leo in, then there will be a crack, a tiny chink in that life, and I risk it all. Because what if that one conversation isn’t enough for him, or for me? What if I want to see him again? If I want him to meet Larry and Maudie? If I tell him he’s about to become a great-grandfather? When would it stop? Where would it end? In ruin. It would all come tumbling down around me again and I don’t know if I could rebuild my life again. I don’t know if I can be this lucky twice.’
Maggie didn’t say anything. She felt her eyes well with tears, but if they were for Sadie, or Leo, or for all of her family, she didn’t know.
‘I’m sorry, Maggie.’ Sadie’s voice was soft.
‘You don’t have to apologise to me.’
‘But I do. Because I’m about to ask you to do something difficult. I need you to promise me that you won’t tell Leo, or your mother or your aunts, that you’ve seen me.’
‘Sadie, I —’
‘You have to promise me, Maggie. Please. I didn’t ask anyone to come looking for me. I need you to respect my privacy. My whole family’s privacy.’
Sadie’s whole family. A different, new family.
‘What do I say to Leo?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t mind what you say to him. Tell him it wasn’t me. That the detective made a mistake. Whatever you think is best.’
‘What if he comes looking for you himself?’
‘He won’t if you tell him that it was all a mistake. That it wasn’t me.’
‘I can’t even tell him you’re okay? Give him a message from you? A hello? Anything?’
Sadie didn’t answer her that time. She just shook her head.
Maggie didn’t push her again. It was clear that Sadie had made up her mind. ‘Can I keep writing to you?’
‘Of course you can. I’d hate it if you didn’t.’
‘Will you write back to me, properly? Not just a card? Tell me about your granddaughter? I can give you my address.’
‘I need to keep things the way they are, Maggie.’
‘But can I see you? If I come back to Ireland again?’ She didn’t say next July. She didn’t know yet whether there would be another July Christmas here.
‘I don’t know. I need to think about that.’
They walked back towards the two cars. Gabriel was still sitting inside their car.
‘What happened to your boyfriend in London?’ Sadie asked.
‘We ended it.’
‘And this man? Is he more than a friend? Is he —?’
‘No. But he’s a very good friend. Would you like to meet him? He knows, not all of it, but a lot of it —’
Sadie stopped again. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie, but no. I don’t think it’s a good idea. I shouldn’t even have asked you about him. I need to keep a distance from anyone connected with the family. If I met him, I know I would want to know more, talk to you both. I already have so many things I want to ask you and I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to you or to me. It would get even more complicated. I’m sorry. I hope you understand.’
‘I do. And so will he.’
Sadie glanced at her watch. ‘I have to go, Maggie. I’m late already.’
‘Thank you for coming, Sadie.’
Sadie smiled. A sad smile. ‘Thank you for coming, Maggie.’
‘I miss you. I wish you hadn’t gone away.’
‘I miss you too.’
Maggie felt the tears welling again. She didn’t try to stop them. They hugged each other, close and tight. Sadie pulled back first. ‘Let me look at you again, one more time.’
‘You’re just double-checking my ears stick out more than Maudie’s.’
Sadie smiled. ‘Yours win, Maggie. I promise. They were always the best in the world.’ She hugged her again. ‘Thank you, for understanding and for listening and for finding me. I can’t stop you from saying anything. It’s up to you. But I won’t go back, Maggie. If I ever had doubts, I haven’t now. I can’t. All I ask is that you please don’t spoil what I have. What my life is now. I couldn’t bear it if I lost Larry and Maudie, and I’m scared I would if they found out. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I can’t risk it.’
‘I won’t do anything to hurt you, I promise.’
‘Thank you, Maggie.’
They hugged once more before Sadie got into her car, waved and drove away. Maggie stood and waved until her aunt had driven out of sight.
Gabriel didn’t get out of the car until Sadie was gone. She walked towards him. It felt natural and right for him to open his arms, to be enfolded in a hug. It felt good to be close to him, to feel his arms around her back. To feel his chest against her cheek, to breathe in the scent of his body. She wanted to stay there.
‘Are you okay?’
She pulled back from him, reluctantly, then nodded. ‘I’m so glad to have seen her.’
‘And does she want to come to Donegal? See everyone?’
‘No. She won’t even consider it.’
Gabriel didn’t ask why not. She was grateful for his understanding. She needed time to think it through before she could talk more about it.
‘What will you tell Leo?’
‘I can’t tell him anything. Sadie doesn’t want me to. She asked me to promise.’
‘Not even a message?’
‘Nothing.’
‘But he’s seen the photograph.’
‘I have to say it wasn’t her. She’s asked me to do it.’
‘But Leo —’
‘I know. What can I do?’ She was in an impossible position. Caught between a promise and a lie. If she honoured what Sadie had asked, she had to lie to Leo. If she honoured Leo, she would break her promise to Sadie. She also knew that Leo wouldn’t leave it at knowing that Sadie was all right. He would come to Dublin to see her. Complication upon complication.
Maggie was sure of only one thing at that moment. ‘I wish we hadn’t found her, Gabriel. That Leo hadn’t seen that photo and tracked her down. I wish it hadn’t been her. Because what choice do I have but to lie to him? To tell him that we made a mistake? Even if I told him the truth it would break his heart. That it was her, that I spoke to her, but she doesn’t ever want to see him again or have anything to do with us as a family. The only good thing I can tell him is that Bill isn’t her father. That I finished the diaries and I know that for sure.’
‘That’s something, isn’t it? That will give him some solace?’
‘But it won’t, don’t you see? Because once he hears that, he’ll want to read the diaries. He’ll decide that he can, because the thing that he feared most isn’t in it. And then what happens? He reads all the terrible things Tessa said about him. The way she thought about her life, how bored she was with him, how she felt about Hobart. The terrible things she said about Sadie. He feels bad enough about Sadie being gone. The truth about Tessa would destroy him.’
Gabriel was silent for a little while. ‘It all comes back to the diaries, doesn’t it?’
Maggie thought about it. He was right. None of this would be happening if Tessa hadn’t written them. If Leo had destroyed them as he said he had. If Sadie hadn’t found them. And now she, Maggie, had read them and the knowledge of them felt like a bruise, something bad inside her, something she wished she didn’t know. ‘I can’t do it, Gabriel. I can’t take them back to him and hand them over and say, “Sorry, it wasn’t Sadie and here, read these.”’
‘What else can you do, though? Tell him that you met her? You can’t. You promised Sadie.’
‘I can’t break that promise. But I don’t have to give him back the diaries.’
‘But you do. He’s kept them for so many years. What are you going to do with them?’
Maggie looked around, anxious, upset. ‘I wish I could destroy them. Here and now. Get rid of them. Get them out of my family, out of our lives.’
‘They’re not yours to do that with, Maggie.’
‘Whose are they, then? They were Tessa’s. She apparently told Leo to burn them and he didn’t. So they’re not lawfully his property any more than they are my property, are they? They shouldn’t belong to anyone.’
‘You have to let Leo decide that.’
‘But I can’t, Gabriel, can’t you see? Perhaps he decides not to read them, then what? He hides them away somewhere else. And then he dies one day, and who finds them? Miranda? Juliet? My mother? Eliza? And then they’d be angry with him for lying to them all these years. And they would; I know they would. They dearly wanted to read them all those years ago and he said they were gone. And once the anger with Leo passed, what next? They would read them and they would feel as sick as I did. Even worse, because it was their mother. And believe me, Gabriel, she’s not the mother any of them would want to remember.’
‘I still think you have to give them back.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Maggie —’
‘She was my grandmother. I have a say in this too. And I want to destroy her diaries before they hurt my family even more.’ She took a breath. ‘You know what I wish, Gabriel? I wish the park rangers had decided today was the perfect day to have a big bonfire. And I wish I could take those diaries, throw them onto the flames and watch them turn to ashes. It’s what Leo should have done thirty-five years ago.’
‘But what would you tell him?’
‘That I’d tripped and accidentally thrown them into the fire. All nine of them.’
‘You could, I guess.’ Gabriel changed position, and leaned back against the car. He was quiet for a moment. ‘I meant to tell you, I read a very interesting article in the paper at breakfast this morning.’
‘Did you?’ she said, puzzled, even a bit annoyed, at the change of subject.
He nodded. ‘Apparently Dublin has one of the highest levels of petty crime in Europe. Car theft and vandalism, especially. Particularly directed at tourists’ cars. It’s terrible, I believe. Tourists come back to their cars and discover they’ve been broken into and bags taken, contents and all. It’s happening all the time, apparently.’
‘It is?’
He nodded. ‘The thieves take whatever happens to be lying on the back seat.’
Maggie looked into their back seat, at her bag containing the diaries.
‘They don’t even have to smash the windows sometimes,’ Gabriel said. ‘Apparently the tourists often forget to lock the car properly. They leave a back window open.’
‘And the thieves just reach in and take things?’
Gabriel nodded.
‘And what do the tourists say to their families when they get home?’ Maggie stopped all pretence that they were talking hypo-thetically. ‘Would Leo believe it?’
Before Gabriel had a chance to reply, she answered her own question. ‘He would have to, wouldn’t he? Because the diaries would be gone.’
She thought about it. She imagined knowing the diaries were no more and that no one else, not Leo, not Clementine, not any of her aunts, could read them, deliberately or accidentally. She felt immediate relief – a lifting of stress and worry. Tessa’s words would be silenced, as they should have been silenced many years before.
There was only one obstacle. It would mean lying to Leo. Not only about Sadie, which was going to be hard enough, but about the theft of the diaries. She would have to lie to the man she had loved all her life, who had looked after her and encouraged her and spoilt her for as long as she could remember. She didn’t know if she could do it.
Then she thought of the alternative. Everyone reading Tessa’s words. The distress that would cause. She thought of the story she had been told all her life, about Sadie running away to become a hippy. She thought of Leo’s stories about Tessa, the myth he had created around her. She thought of Clementine and her aunts being told the diaries had been burnt, when all that time Leo had kept them.
Maggie knew then that she could lie if she had to. It was a Faraday family tradition, after all.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
As they drove up the laneway to the house five hours later, Maggie felt calm. She and Gabriel had gone over all the possible scenarios. Gabriel had posed different questions that Leo might ask. She hoped she could answer them all.
They had decided not to stay in Dublin any longer. They returned to the
guesthouse, gathered their bags and checked out. They were on the road to Donegal by ten. Maggie didn’t phone or text Leo to let him know they were on their way. She knew he would want to know how she had got on. She needed to wait until she saw him face to face.
They made a stop on the way out of Dublin. Gabriel had asked at the guesthouse. There was a recycling station on the main road from Dublin to Donegal. They did it together, standing in front of the metal bin, tearing each diary up one by one. Gabriel had asked her before they started if she was sure. There was a moment when she could have changed her mind. She could have put the diaries back in the bag, gone back to the car, returned to Donegal and handed them all back to Leo.
No. Getting rid of them was hard. The alternative would be worse.
‘Do you want to do it yourself?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘It’ll be quicker if we both do it.’
It took less than five minutes. She left her brown leather bag beside the bin. It was a small price to pay.
He gently touched her arm as they walked side by side back to the car. ‘Are you all right?’
Was she? She didn’t know yet. She had no regrets about getting rid of the diaries. She was glad to leave them behind, glad to have seen Tessa’s words being ripped up and thrown away. What she felt uncertain about was telling Leo. How to lie to him.
Three hours into the journey they stopped for lunch. It was Gabriel’s idea. He called into a small store in a village just over the border into Northern Ireland, came back with two bags and wouldn’t tell her what was in them. Half an hour later, as they passed into County Fermanagh, the expanse of Lough Erne appeared. Maggie hadn’t even noticed it on the journey down, her attention too taken with the diaries. She gazed out at it now. It stretched for as far as she could see, a silver–blue expanse of rippling colour, dotted with tiny tree-covered islands, a shadow fringe of dark-purple mountains visible on its furthest reaches.
Those Faraday Girls Page 50
