by Melissa Hill
Jenny stopped short. That’s exactly what she had thought at the time. Was there a possibility that she might have been right – that Siobhan had just given him a lift, rather than gone on the trip with him? “What? Then, who did you go with?”
“I went on my own, obviously. Jenny, you don’t seriously believe that I would do something like that, do you?”
“Your mother said … ”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Jen, my mother doesn’t know her arse from her elbow. She gave you her version of events, that’s all. I’ve told her a million and one times that Siobhan and I are finished, but she won’t accept it. She and Mrs Hennessey – Siobhan’s mother – are always trying to get us back together.”
“But why did she say that you were like an old married couple, then?”
“She does that all the time. When you phoned the house, she assumed, correctly, that you were someone I was seeing. She wanted to throw you off, afraid that it might get serious between us. Obviously it worked.” He paced angrily up and down the room.
Jenny felt unsure of herself. Now she’d lost her nerve a little. He had behaved as though nothing at all was wrong and sounded thrilled on the phone earlier. Then he turned up here with a bunch of flowers and a big smile. What was going on?
Was it possible that Mrs Williams had lied to her? But she would have to be an awful cow to do something like that, just to try and get him back with Siobhan. No mother would do that to her son, would she? Yet Roan seemed adamant that he had gone to Venice on his own.
“But why on earth did you go on your own? Wasn’t I supposed to be going too?” Jenny said, her thoughts spinning.
Roan slumped down on the sofa. “I was angry with you. When I saw you with that other guy … ”
“What other guy?” she asked. What was he talking about?
“The guy on Grafton St. I was in town for a few pints with the boys, and we were on our way out of Bruxelles, when we saw you pass by on the street, laughing your head off in the arms of some other guy. I was absolutely mortified, I can tell you.”
“What?” For a moment Jenny didn’t understand what he was talking about. Then she remembered. The night out with the girls. Charlie’s friend Brian giving her a piggy-back up the street. Roan had seen them.
“But that was nothing. We were out that night, just having a laugh. This guy started chatting up Karen and his friend – ”
“Started hitting on you?” Roan finished shortly. “I know how it works, Jen, and I know what I saw. You looked as though you were having a great time. Do you have any idea how embarrassed I was? All the guys saw it too, you know.”
Jenny tried to gather her thoughts. Her mind was racing a mile a minute.
“So you went off to Venice without me because you wanted to get back at me? Why the hell didn’t you ask me about it, or at least have it out with me?”
He wouldn’t look her in the eye. “I was annoyed with you, Jen. I organised this trip for us, and you didn’t seem at all pleased – you just kept going on at me to pay back the money I owed you. Which I would have done – actually,” Roan stood up and put a hand in his pocket, “here’s some of it.” He threw a roll of notes on the breakfast bar. “When we had that argument, I felt bad about the money and decided I’d try and make it up to you by bringing you out for a slap-up meal. I told you I’d pay you back at the end of last month, but you didn’t seem happy with that. I knew you were annoyed but – ”
“So when you saw me that night on Grafton St, it was the last straw …” Jenny sat back on a stool, guilt flooding through her. Why had she carried on like that with Charlie’s friend? She should have been more careful. Naturally, Roan had got the wrong idea. She wouldn’t have too impressed to see him crawling all over some strange girl like that, would she?
“Exactly,” he answered. “I’ll admit I was stupid not to ring you – I have a tendency to sulk a little, and for that, I’m sorry. But the trip was coming up, I had the tickets and I had to use at least one of them. So, I decided to go off on my own, and have a think about things, about us, and what would happen when I got back.”
Think about things? Oh no, Jenny thought – now she had really ruined everything. She hadn’t meant to go overboard about the money. She was just trying to stand her ground, and look what had happened? When she thought about everything she had accused him of, and everything that had happened, she couldn’t blame Roan for being angry with her.
“Look, I’m really sorry about everything,” she said to him. “I know I shouldn’t have gone on at you like that, and I can understand why you thought I was being ungrateful about the trip. But when I rang your mother, and she told me about Siobhan, well … I just didn’t know what to think. Put yourself in my position – what would you have thought?”
“You put yourself in mine, Jenny. What would you have thought? One week, you accuse me of sleeping around and giving you some ... disease. To try and cheer you up I organise a romantic – not to mention expensive – holiday away for the two of us. The next week, you’re shouting and roaring about this money that you lent me, and soon after, I see you all over some stranger in the street. I snapped. I’ve done everything I can do to try and make you trust me, but you still don’t. And I’ve done nothing wrong.” He sat down and put his head in his hands. “I missed you so much when I was away, and then I come back to this. What do you want from me?”
Jenny sat down beside him and tentatively put her head on his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, Roan, really I am. I just didn’t know what to think or who to believe. I was out of order about the money, and about the trip. I know that now. I do trust you. It’s just sometime things happen and – ”
He pulled away from her and stood up. “Look, let’s just forget it, let’s forget about the whole thing. I’ve always tried to be as honest with you as I could possibly be, but I’m sick of it now. If you can’t trust me, then I’m wasting my time.” He walked towards the door, and then turned back to her. “It’s a pity, because I really care about you, Jenny.” He looked away for a moment, before opening the door. “I’ll make sure you have the rest of your money by the end of the week.”
“Wait, Roan, please.” Jenny said tearfully. This was awful. What had she done? She ran into his arms and, just before she kissed him, Jenny was sure that she saw a flicker of something in his eyes – relief, maybe? It didn’t matter. She and Roan were together again, that was all that mattered. There were a few things that they needed to sort out, but those things could wait.
She felt his arms wrap tightly around her as the kiss became hungrier, and more passionate. They walked backwards together towards the bedroom and lay down on the bed. As he kissed her, Jenny felt all the doubts and despair melt away. She was going to make it up to Roan and make sure that this relationship would work. She was lucky that he hadn’t dumped her long before now, what with all her accusations and recriminations. Well, no more, Jenny decided. From now on, she would make sure that everything was perfect.
After all, hadn’t he proved himself to her, over and over again?
Chapter 18
Shane looked up in surprise when Karen came in and slammed the living-room door behind her. They were at his flat, having decided to stay the night there, after coming back from Rathrigh, earlier the same evening.
“What’s up with you?” he asked, seeing her dark expression.
“You’d better keep me away from Roan Williams,” she said angrily. “That was Jenny on the phone. You won’t believe it, but she’s gone and fallen for his lies again.”
Shane was confused. “Who has? What lies?”
“Oh Roan has concocted some cock-and-bull story about why he went off to Venice without her, and Jenny believed every word that came out of his mouth. What is wrong with her?”
“Ah, Roan’s not that bad,” Shane said. “Me and Aidan met him down the pub the other night, and he bought me a congratulatory pint. We had a right laugh – he cheered Aidan up no end.”
&n
bsp; Earlier that week, Aidan had come off duty, tired and depressed, having attended a particularly horrific fire the night before. Their unit had saved three children from a burning two-storey house, but unfortunately they hadn’t been able to save the parents. Afterwards, Aidan had found both charred and blistered bodies, lying arms entwined under a bed. As was often the case in his line of work, the incident had affected him deeply, and Shane had insisted on bringing his friend out for a quiet drink, to try and prevent him dwelling on the episode.
“He’s not that bad? Just because he bought you a pint?” Karen said. “Come on, Shane – be honest, the guy’s a snake.”
“I don’t agree, as it happens,” Shane said calmly. “I think he’s alright, and I don’t know what you have against him. OK, he can be a bit of a lad but that’s no crime, is it?”
“You don’t know what I have against him …” Karen was stunned. “Am I the only one around here that can see through it?”
“See through what?”
“This big act that he has going. For goodness sake, it’s sticking out a mile that he’s bogus. Jenny’s being taken for a ride.”
Shane shook his head. “I told you before that you shouldn’t get involved. Jenny’s relationship is her own business. How would you feel if she started questioning your relationship with me? Wouldn’t you resent it a little?”
“Maybe, but I might at least listen to what she had to say. But no, Jenny sticks her head in the sand, and believes every word that comes out of his lying little trap. It’ll end in tears, Shane, I guarantee you that.”
“Well, if it does, just make sure that you’re not the one doing the crying. Anyway, Jenny’s a big girl – she doesn’t need you to look out for her. I’m sure she knows exactly what she’s doing.”
“Maybe, but I’m glad I’m not staying at the flat tonight. I couldn’t be responsible for what I might do – to either of them.”
Shane put down the newspaper he was reading. “Speaking of which, what did you think about what Mam said earlier about the house?”
Karen shrugged. “I suppose there’s no harm in looking.”
Shane’s mother, Nellie, had suggested that she and Shane start looking immediately for a house of their own.
“There’s no time like the present, and if you wait much longer, house prices will just keep getting dearer,” she had said, in the bossy tone that Karen had noticed she used, whenever she spoke to any of her children.
Nellie Quinn seemed a nice enough woman, and had been very gracious and friendly towards Karen throughout the visit, but she had quickly got the impression that the older woman wanted to retain a certain level of influence over Shane’s future. For this, she supposed she couldn’t blame her. Just because Karen’s parents were happy to let her live her life without any interference, didn’t mean that Shane’s family dynamic would be the same. She had sensed this instantly upon her arrival, when Nellie had hugged Karen and said, “So you’re the reason he gave up that great job in Germany.”
She had taken this as a joke at the time but as the evening went on, she wondered if there was a little resentment towards the fact that Shane hadn’t taken advantage of the opportunity proffered by his brother Jack.
Jack, back from London for the weekend to visit his mother, was also present at the Quinn house, but came across to Karen as a very serious type and not at all friendly. He had barely uttered a word to her throughout the visit, but then again, she thought wryly, he would have hardly had a chance.
Shane’s house had been absolute bedlam. He had warned her about Paddy the family dog, who tried continuously to hump visitor’s legs, and that was fine – Paddy behaved as exactly as predicted. But he hadn’t warned her about the kids. Shane’s sister Marie had brought her toddlers to the farmhouse for the visit, and although there were only three of them – a five-year old boy and two younger girls – to Karen it seemed like she was caught in the middle of a chimpanzee’s day out at Disneyland. They seemed to be everywhere all at once – the baby screaming constantly, the other girl demanding that Karen brush her Barbie doll’s hair, and afterwards brush her own with a sticky, sweaty comb – then more screaming when the boy decided he wanted attention, and frazzled said Barbie in the microwave.
By the time she left the Quinn household, Karen was doubly determined that she would never put herself through the misery of having kids. Never a child-lover by any means, her experience with Shane’s nieces and nephews not only put the final nail in the coffin that was Karen’s maternal instinct, but encased it in reinforced steel. She had had to sit through the usual, wait-until-you-have-own apologies and eye-rolling from the misfortunate mother of the three gremlins.
“Karen, you have it all ahead of you,” Marie had said, while trying desperately to prevent her eldest from choking his sister under the coffee table. “They’re just at that stage where nothing will keep them quiet.”
She smiled sympathetically at Marie. It was obvious that the poor girl hadn’t an ounce of control over any of her boisterous kids. Nope, she told herself – as the baby screeched loud enough to almost shatter Karen’s eardrums – she was never having children.
But she couldn’t be too sure that Shane felt the same way. He seemed delighted with his nieces and nephews, picking up each of them in turn, and floating them above his head, pretending that they were aeroplanes.
The noise levels didn’t seem to affect anyone else in the Quinn household either.
During dinner, while ducking a spoonful of baby food that came hurtling through the air past her nose, Shane’s mother Nellie had suggested that Shane and Karen begin searching for a house.
“There’s a site going over by John Corbally’s,” she had said to Shane, and Karen realised to her horror that Nellie was talking about somewhere local. “You should ask him about it.”
“Oh, we were hoping to settle in Dublin,” she had said quickly, before Shane answered. They hadn’t really spoken about where they were going to live – in fact they hadn’t made any plans other than getting engaged – but there was no way that Karen would even consider living up in the wilds of Meath.
To her relief, he had agreed. “No, Mam, we’ll more than likely be getting a place in Dublin. The two of us have good jobs up there.”
“I could get Karen a job at the council offices,” Marie had interjected. “My husband works for the County Council,” she explained to Karen proudly.
Karen had been so shocked that she was unable to answer.
“Thanks, Marie, but Karen is happy where she is, aren’t you, hon?” Shane said quickly, noticing the look of horror on his fiancé’s face. “Anyway we’ve already begun looking for a place in Dublin.” He took a bite from his thickly-buttered scone, and washed it down with a mouthful of tea.
Upon hearing this, Karen felt momentarily relieved. It was obvious from Shane’s behaviour, that his family must often interfere like that, and he had lied simply to put them off. But the visit had shaken her a little. The Quinn family all seemed so involved in one another’s lives, whereas her parents had always left it up to Karen to decide how she wanted to live her life. When she and Jenny were under age, they used to escape out of their respective bedroom windows, to sneak off to the local disco. One night, they were seen by the local busybody who took great pleasure in afterwards outlining events to the Hamiltons and the Cassidys.
While Jenny had been given a right rollicking by her parents, and had been grounded for a month, Jonathan and Clara Cassidy had simply shrugged and said, “Why didn’t you just tell us you wanted to go out? We wouldn’t have minded.”
At the time, Jenny had thought that Karen’s parents were ‘the coolest in the town’, as did Karen, until she realised that her parents were just so busy with their own lives that they were happy to let their only daughter live hers as she pleased. As a result, Karen had grown used to her independence, and had come to value it. She wouldn’t tolerate her parent’s intrusion in her life now, in the same way that they wouldn’t ap
preciate her interference in theirs. They had, naturally, been thrilled with the news of Karen’s engagement, but still had no intention of rushing away from their business in Tenerife, ‘even to see the ring’, as Jenny had said one day, wondering why Karen’s parents didn’t seem that excited about the news. But Karen didn’t expect them to rush home. She and Shane would go out and visit them sometime this year, and it would be way too much to ask for them to come back to Ireland, just to pass on their congratulations.
But she sensed that things were different in the Quinn family.
“Was Jack upset with you for not taking the job in Germany?” Karen asked.
Shane shrugged. “I suppose he was a bit miffed about it. After all, he had pulled a few strings to get me the job in the first place. You have to understand that Jack is more like a father than an older brother in our family. I suppose he took Dad’s place, in a way.” Shane’s father had died from a heart attack when Shane was ten years old. Karen had suspected from his demeanour and his sibling’s reverential manner towards him, that Jack was considered something of a father figure in the Quinn household. Shane had just confirmed that.
“Anyway, about the house,” he said, “I’ll have a chat with a guy I know from college – he works for an estate agent in town. I’ll ask him to put a few feelers out and see if he can come up with anything around here – what do you think?”
Karen grimaced. “Around here? Shane, do you think we could afford to buy in this area? The house prices are manic.”
“Well, I know you don’t want to have to commute. I don’t mind because with this job, I’ll have to travel from place to place anyway.”
Since his return from Germany, Shane had managed to secure a job with McCann Engineering, an older, more established Civil Engineering firm. He was currently working on the design team for the construction of a second toll bridge on the M50 motorway. The company’s offices were based in town, but Shane often had to liase with various project managers on-site.
