Something You Should Know

by Melissa Hill

  “Wow,” was all Jenny could say. Roan married – and with a baby!

  “Doesn’t this make you wonder whether or not you should have rushed into telling Mike?”

  “Nope.” Jenny said, with a definite shake of the head.

  “Nope?” Karen repeated. “What do you mean ‘nope’? All of this could have been avoided if you’d known about Roan’s little family, surely? I mean, he’s no threat to you now.”

  “I told you before – it was never about Roan, it was about me. Me, and my guilt. What you’ve just told me has simply made my mind up never to tell him anything about Holly. I’ll admit I mulled over it, but now he has his own life, and a wife and a child who need him. I’m sure they could do without the complication.”

  “Jenny, you’re a strange girl. I still don’t understand why you did what you did but you seem to have come to terms with it all anyway.”

  Jenny shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that yet. But I’ll get there, eventually.”

  Chapter 47

  After lunch, when Jenny had set out for Dun Laoghaire, Karen decided to make the most of a quiet afternoon to herself by catching up on her reading. She was sitting comfortably on the couch in her tracksuit bottoms with the latest John Grisham – legs sprawled across the table, and a packet of half-eaten Boasters biscuits alongside her – when she heard the doorbell ring. Thinking it was Jenny returning early from a cancelled appointment, or an unsuccessful viewing, Karen let out a loud exaggerated sigh, hoping her friend would hear and be amused by it.

  But when she opened the door Karen got the shock of her life.

  There, standing in her doorway and looking oddly uncomfortable, was none other than Nellie Quinn.

  “Hello, Karen,” Nellie said quietly and, Karen noticed, almost shyly. “Can I come in for a minute?”

  “Um, yeah, sure.” Karen was so surprised to see her there that she forgot to affect the menacing manner she normally used for dealing with any member of the Quinn family. She and Nellie Quinn hadn’t spoken to one another face-to-face for well over a year. She stood back to let Nellie pass her and instantly wished she hadn’t. As usual, whenever a member of the Quinn family came within ten yards of her, the house was like the aftermath of a hurricane. Jenny had left a pile of Holly’s freshly-washed baby clothes on one arm of the couch, a pair of dirty mugs sat on the coffee table, and the floor was littered with children’s toys – toys that Jenny had insisted Karen leave for her to tidy when she got back from Dun Laoghaire.

  Nellie, for once, didn’t comment on the mess and Karen thought she seemed too preoccupied with whatever was on her mind to even notice that the dust was nearly an inch thick on top of the television.

  “Karen, about this ‘thing’ on Wednesday,” Nellie began, referring to the court case. “I’d like to talk to you about it.”

  Karen instantly felt her instincts sharpen and her hackles rise. “Fire away,” she said, folding her arms defensively across her chest.

  “Look, do you mind if I sit down?” Nellie asked, looking wearily towards the couch.

  Karen sat across from her in the armchair and waited, arms still folded.

  “I don’t know how to begin, really,” Nellie said. “I suppose I just want to tell you that I’m sorry.”

  Sorry? The word echoed in Karen’s brain. The very last thing she expected to hear from Nellie Quinn was ‘sorry’.

  “I’m sorry for the way we’ve treated you since …well, since we lost poor Shane.”

  Karen’s mind began to race, and her brain clicked into overtime. What was Nellie trying to do? Was this some kind of trick to try and get her to back down?

  “You see, Karen, we didn’t – well, I suppose I didn’t really understand what you were going through back then. You and I never really got along, even when Shane was still alive. Somehow I always saw you as a spoilt little girl trying to play house with my son.”

  “Now, hold on a minute … ” Karen began but Nellie interrupted her with a quick shake of the head.

  “I’m sorry, that’s not the way I meant it to sound. What I mean is that back then I could see only what I wanted to see. Shane was my youngest and – I suppose I might as well admit it – my favourite. Jack was, and still is, very independent and the girls – well, you know yourself, girls are different.” Nellie removed her glasses and smiled then – a real smile that softened her features and displaced the older woman’s normally brittle countenance. “It wasn’t that Shane was a Mammy’s boy,” she continued. “It’s just that I could never quite picture him all grown-up and with a wife. I knew he had lots of girlfriends growing up, like any normal young fella, but when he met you, I knew things were different. You were the one he wanted for the long haul, and it broke my heart, to be honest.”

  She gave a short laugh, and Karen didn’t know whether to be insulted or touched by this last remark.

  “Karen, I know this will be hard for you to understand, but I would never have imagined Shane with a girl like you – now don’t take that the wrong way,” she said, putting a hand up to prevent Karen from speaking. “What I mean is that I always imagined Shane with a quiet little thing who was afraid to say boo to a goose – or to me. But you were nothing like that. You were never afraid to speak your mind, and you never left us in any doubt about your feelings on marriage, children or otherwise. You had everything, a good education, your own career and a strong mind and to be perfectly honest, I felt threatened by you. And after a while, everything became a battle between us. It was always you versus ourselves – Shane’s family. I’ve thought about this before, and I’ve told myself that I don’t really know how it happened – but now I think I do. You won’t like to hear this, Karen, but you remind me of myself when I was a young one.”

  Without meaning to, Karen snorted.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” Nellie said, “but I’m not wrong, you know. You and I are so stubborn that between the two of us we could make the Dalai Llama look fidgety.” She laughed and Karen had to smile. “And I couldn’t tolerate it. I couldn’t tolerate someone getting the better of me, particularly when it came to Shane. And I know I’m not the only mother who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with her daughter-in-law – sure, there have been many books written about that very struggle.” Nellie paused. “But when Shane died, I didn’t reach out to you and, Karen, I should have. For some reason, I was never able to imagine that you were grieving as much as I was, maybe more so because you had lost the man you were supposed to marry, whereas I had lost my son. I never pictured you grieving for him the way I did, and I was angry and upset when I heard you weren’t going to the funeral. I wasn’t able to put myself in your shoes, but I should have been able, because I knew what it was like to lose my Patrick.” Her eyes glistened, as she stared across the room at nothing in particular.

  “When Patrick died, he took a big piece of me with him. If he were here now he would probably tell you that he wished the piece he had taken was my sharp tongue.” She chuckled softly. “Anyway, over time, you and I built up a wall between us, and after Shane’s death and all this business with this house, it became thicker and stronger.”

  Karen nodded wordlessly, still wondering where this was going.

  “Karen, I was in the cemetery the other day when you were visiting Shane’s grave,” Nellie said slowly. She saw a shadow cross Karen’s face, but continued when the other woman said nothing. “I go up there a lot. It’s a nice walk and it’s very peaceful – a welcome break from the farmhouse, especially if Keanu is around.”

  She chuckled at Karen’s surprised expression. “Sure, don’t I know he’s a little brat, and he’s only getting worse as time goes by? Anyway, a good friend of mine is buried across the way, and I said I’d pay her a quick visit before heading over to Patrick and Shane. I was in the middle of a decade of the rosary when I saw you come up. I knew you hadn’t seen me, and I made my way over to you, fully intending to give you a piece of my mind for deigning to visit then, when I knew that you rare
ly did.”

  “But it isn’t that I don’t care.” Karen blurted out, unable to hold her counsel any longer.

  “I know that, pet,” Nellie soothed. “I discovered that when I overheard you talking to him. I didn’t intend to eavesdrop but I was glad I did, because it was only then that I could get it into my thick skull that you had loved Shane just as much, if not more, than any of the rest of us.” Nellie removed her glasses again and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief.

  Karen fixed her with a look of utter disbelief. “How could you not know that!” she almost shouted. “How could you not know that I was hurting as much as the rest of you, that I’m still hurting?”

  “Shush, child, let me finish, please.”

  Karen sat back rigidly in her seat.

  “All this time, I thought that you were fighting to keep this house simply to try and get one over on us – on me even. That you were determined to fight to the death for the house, just to prevent us from getting our hands on it. It was only when I heard you talking the other day that I realised exactly why you’re doing what you’re doing. You’re trying to hold onto him, aren’t you Karen? You’re simply trying to preserve all that you have left – your memories.”

  Nellie leant over and took one of Karen’s hands in hers. Karen looked away from her; her eyes brimming with unshed tears. “But, love, that won’t work – Shane is gone. There’s only one place where you can keep those memories safe, and that’s there, in your heart.” She grasped Karen’s hand tightly. “When Patrick died, at first I wouldn’t let anyone near anything belonging to him. I wouldn’t let them get rid of his things – you know the way people always force you to do that afterwards? They tell you that it’s for the best, that it’ll be easier, but how do they know? How do they know that it’ll be easier? They don’t know how it feels – how you feel, when it’s like someone has sliced you in two, taken away one half and told you to fend for yourself with the half that’s left. Karen, I did you a great disservice when Shane died, because I left you to fend for yourself. I should have helped you, I should have known what you were going through, because I went through it too.”

  Karen sat quietly on the couch; her entire body heaving with sobs that wouldn’t come. When eventually they did, Nellie went to her and held her close, and the two women wept together for a long time – at last sharing one another’s grief.

  “I’m sorry,” Karen said, after a little while. “What you said there was true for me too. To be honest, when Shane died, I didn’t give a toss about what you were feeling, I was too wrapped up in myself and so determined to keep you away from the house.”

  Nellie waved her away. “There’s two of us in it, and we’re as bad as one another. At this stage, there’s no point in going back over it. What’s done is done, and we’ve both made some stupid mistakes.”

  They sat in silence and then, after a while, Nellie smiled and patted Karen’s hand. “Go in there and make us an oul cuppa, and the two of us will have a chat about the house, and see if we can sort something out between us.”

  Karen stood up and did as she was bid. Then, as she walked towards the kitchen, she heard Nellie give one of her trademark sniffs. “Now are you going to tidy this place up,” she asked, “or will it be left to me, as usual?”

  Karen looked back sharply, and then let out a sigh of relief when she saw the twinkle in Nellie’s eyes, and the smile playing about her lips.

  Chapter 48

  Jenny struggled with her City of Dublin map, while trying to block out the sound of Holly la-la-la-ing to the Steps song playing on the radio. Holly was a huge Steps fan and by the sounds of it, Jenny thought, she had serious aspirations towards becoming a pop star herself once she was old enough.

  “King’s Green, King’s Lawn – where the bloody hell is King’s Terrace?” she asked out loud impatiently, and then instantly put a hand to her mouth. She was a very bad mother. If Holly’s next words were ‘bloody’ or ‘feck’; then Jenny had only herself to blame.

  She finally located King’s Terrace, which was, from what Jenny could make out on the map, a lot closer to Seapoint than to Dun Laoghaire.

  It was here that she was to meet the estate agent to view the two-bedroom apartment that might possibly end up as her and Holly’s new home. She drove expertly along the narrow streets, turned left where the map indicated, and a few minutes later spied a row of run-down three-storey terraced houses. The faded green and white sign fixed to the red-brick wall of the end house confirmed to Jenny that she had reached King’s Terrace. She checked her watch. It was two-forty, she was ten minutes late and there was no sign of the estate agent.

  “Terrific,” Jenny said out loud, to no one in particular. Holly chuckled contentedly behind her in the car seat. “Oh, you might think it’s funny now, missy, but if Mummy doesn’t find anywhere for us to live soon, we might have to give away all your toys to the St Vincent de Paul.”

  Holly was silent on cue, and Jenny searched in her handbag for the estate agent’s telephone number. She was certain that she had the number in her wallet. Or had she put it in the glove compartment, just in case?

  “Da-Da. Da-Da.” Holly cried, waving her arms up and down. “Da-Da.”

  “Daddy’s not here, honey,” Jenny said, absentmindedly continuing her search. Frustrated, she struggled out of her seatbelt to allow herself room to search underneath the passenger seat. When she heard a knock on the driver’s side window, Jenny jumped up with a start, and bumped her head on the inside of the car roof.

  “Jesus!” she said, when she realised who was there. She rolled down the driver’s window.

  “No, it’s not Jesus,” Mike said. “Sorry to disappoint you.” He shifted his gaze towards the back seat. “Hello, baby, aren’t you the pretty girl today?”

  Jenny thoughts raced through her mind like a horse on the first day of Cheltenham. What was Mike doing? How had he known they were here? What did he want?

  Then for one terrible second the thought crept into her mind that he might attempt to snatch Holly.

  “This is a coincidence,” Jenny said to him, as calmly as she could muster. “Are you visiting a client around this area, or something?” It looked unlikely, but some of Mike’s clients had offices tucked away in housing estates worse than this one.

  “No, I came here to meet you two, actually,” he said, resting one arm on the roof of the car. “I think we need to talk.”

  “Oh.” Jenny couldn’t think of anything to say as Mike opened the passenger door, and sat in beside her. He turned back again towards Holly and caught her by the hand. Panicked by his interest in the child, Jenny asked him, “What’s all this about?”

  Mike took a deep breath. “Can we go somewhere else? I don’t really want to talk about it here. Maybe we can take a walk down by the pier – do you have the buggy with you?”

  That was it, Jenny thought. He was going to trick her into bringing Holly down to the harbour and then he would run off with the buggy and grab the ferry to England.

  “I don’t have the buggy with me,” she lied.

  “What’s wrong, Jenny – don’t you trust me?” Mike said with a menacing smile, and all of a sudden Jenny felt terrified by him. But then his face changed, and he laughed.

  “I’m sorry,” he snorted, “but it’s so obvious from your face what’s going on in that imaginative little head of yours. You thought I was about to run off somewhere with Holly, didn’t you?”

  “No, I did not,” Jenny said, her red cheeks betraying her. “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re doing here, that’s all. You have to admit Mike, it’s a bit strange our meeting here like this.”

  “It’s not strange at all. I arranged it that way.”

  “You what?”

  “I arranged it. The estate agent had to cancel today. He lost your number apparently, but recognised you from that time he sold us the house. He had my mobile number on file, so he rang me instead and I told him I’d let you know. So here I am.”
<
br />   “You came all the way out here on a Friday evening to pass on the message face-to- face. Why didn’t you ring me at Karen’s?”

  “Because I wanted to see you,” he said seriously. “We have some things to discuss. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.”

  Jenny said nothing.

  “Look, let’s go for a walk somewhere with Holly, maybe not the pier but somewhere quiet. What do you think?”

  She nodded, wondering what was to come. She drove away from shabby King’s Terrace and drove for a few minutes until she reached The People’s Park, not far from the centre of Dun Laoghaire. With Holly strapped safely into her buggy, and Jenny at the helm, the threesome walked companionably through the park.

  “When you first told me about you and Roan, I didn’t understand,” Mike began. “I didn’t understand why you lied to me for so long, and then shattered all we had built by admitting the truth. I don’t know how many times I repeated that conversation over and over in my head these last few weeks.” He paused for a moment. “But there was one thing you said that stuck out in my mind. ‘I love you too much to lie to you any longer.’ At the time Jen, that didn’t make any sense to me. I mean, how could you say you love me in one breath, and yet destroy everything that was precious to me in the next?”

  “I had to,” she said simply. “The guilt had been killing me, eating me up inside for so long, that I knew I couldn’t go on any longer. I should have told you at the beginning I know that, but it just went on and on, and then I wasn’t even sure if Roan was the father and – ”

  “There was never any question that Roan might not be the father,” Mike said, stopping and turning to look at her. “I should have realised that, and I should have told you that, a long time ago.”