by Cathy Kelly
‘I got in late, I thought I’d sleep here so I wouldn’t wake you,’ he said, as if he was bestowing some great favour.
Tara just stared back at him. How could he lie there and act so nonchalantly?
‘Why didn’t you come home last night?’
‘I told you yesterday,’ he said, ‘a work thing with clients. We’ve nearly netted that big cleaning company contract. It’s a huge franchise and they’re going to buy a lot of computers for their outlets all over the country.’
Seeing Tara’s lip curl, he added: ‘You’ve got to network to stay ahead of the game. Going out and buttering people up over dinner is part of my job.’
That was Finn’s standard response to any comments about his socialising. Tara had thought of getting the phrase chiselled into one of the apartment’s walls.
‘Hey, some of the lads were talking about a trip to Cork at the weekend.’ Finn looked over at Tara hopefully. ‘You know, a gang of us could go and stay in some really nice place. Nice dinners, a bit of clubbing. It’d be a blast. You’d love it.’
The tension in her neck spilled over into migraine alert. Tara reached up to massage her neck before the pain made its inevitable journey up to behind her eyes.
‘We can’t afford a weekend away,’ she said. ‘We’re broke, Finn. The mortgage hasn’t been paid.’
‘Never mind,’ said Finn good-humouredly. ‘The lads will have to do without us in Cork.’ He got out of bed, stretching his arms up to the ceiling and yawning.
Tara flipped.
‘Don’t you realise what I just said, Finn?’ she shrieked. ‘We’re broke and the mortgage hasn’t been paid because you’ve been cleaning out our account. You even took money from my credit card.’
‘I was going to tell you about that,’ he said guiltily. ‘It’s just that I needed some cash and I had none, but don’t worry about the mortgage,’ he added. ‘I’m due my bonus any day now, it’s going to cover everything.’ He was smiling now, like a child. ‘We could go to Cork for the weekend, in fact. You just need to be cool about the money because it’s coming, and we can have a fantastic time. The bonus will be in the account in a few days and that’ll clear all the bills. You know I’d never mess up our mortgage payments or anything, Tara. I just miscalculated, that’s all.’
He reached out tentatively and touched her arm. ‘Don’t be angry with me, love, please. I’ll buy you a top-notch present when the money comes in, I promise.’
Tara jerked her arm away from him. He just didn’t get it, did he?
‘It’s not about the money, Finn,’ she said, ‘and a present won’t solve things. The problem is that you took money from our account without mentioning it to me, and I bet you anything I know what you needed the money for. Booze. You promised me you’d stop, you promised you’d cut down but you haven’t, have you?’
‘Course I’ve cut down,’ Finn said sharply. ‘I don’t have a drink problem, if that’s what you’re implying. I have to socialise for work. You’re just uptight because of your parents splitting up.’
‘That’s not it and you know it!’ she shouted back at him.
‘Yes it is,’ Finn said wearily. ‘You can’t cope with the fact that everything in the Miller garden isn’t rosy. Well, face up to it, Tara. Family life isn’t all fun and games and picnics. We didn’t all have an idyllic childhood, you know. You’ve got to get on with life and forget about the past.’
Tara wanted to scream that her parents weren’t the problem, that it was Finn and his bloody selfishness that upset her, but the words didn’t come. Instead, she thought of her father’s betrayal of the family and how she, Tara, had loved him almost more than her mother and now she’d been proved wrong. He wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. He’d hurt them all for nothing. She’d chosen the wrong daddy and now she’d chosen the wrong husband.
Tara wasn’t the sort of person who cried. But in the five days since the disastrous ruby wedding, she’d felt the threat of tears welling up inside her. She’d fought them off furiously, refusing to give in, but now they flooded out. Finn watched in amazement as Tara silently started to cry. She didn’t sob or howl. She barely moved, but still the tears rushed down her cheeks.
‘Tara, love, don’t cry, please.’ He wrapped himself around her, holding her tightly in his arms. ‘We can get through this, we love each other. That’s all we need, isn’t it?’
It was nice being held and having her tears gently wiped away as if she was a child again. Like a child, Tara didn’t try to stop crying. She simply let the misery wash over her, draining away the pain, she hoped. She didn’t want to hurt like this but she couldn’t help it: the hurt was just there, deep inside her.
‘I love you, Tara, you know that, please say you know that.’ Finn stroked her tenderly. ‘I know I’m hard to live with but I’ll try, honestly I’ll try. Will you give me another chance?
With his arms encircling her and feeling his heart beating close to hers, Tara said yes. ‘I love you,’ she said through the muffled veil of tears. ‘I want to be with you, I don’t want to be alone.’ She couldn’t bear to be alone now. All the things she’d planned to say to Finn had vanished from her mind. She wanted the comfort of him holding her because if he wasn’t there, she might have to think about it all.
‘You won’t be,’ Finn said reassuringly. ‘I’m here, love, I’m here.’
Tara wiped her face with her sleeve and buried her face in her husband’s shoulder again. Everything would work out, wouldn’t it?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Holly sipped her takeaway latte gratefully as she joined the last few stragglers in the queue for the Kinvarra train. She’d been sure she’d be too late for the half six train because she’d missed two buses to Kingsbridge Station and had ended up leaping in a taxi and promising the driver a big tip if he got her there on time.
Miraculously, the taxi had slipped through the worst of the traffic and got her there with ten minutes to spare, long enough to buy a ticket, a magazine and a latte. Even more incredibly, she got what had to be the last seat on the train. She hoisted her hold-all onto the luggage rack, managing not to hit anyone while doing it, and then flopped onto the seat and relaxed.
She hadn’t even got round to the magazine crossword when the train pulled into the tiny station at Kinvarra forty minutes later. Holly got off to see her father waiting patiently behind the barrier, waving the way he’d waved so many times over the years when he’d picked her up from the station. With a shock, she realised that he’d aged years in the past week. His face was lined and drawn, and his usual beaming smile was absent. He stooped, as if the mental anguish was physically weighing him down.
‘Hi, Dad,’ said Holly, desperately trying to hide how shocked she was by his appearance.
His answer was to enfold her in his arms so tightly it hurt.
‘Hello, Holly,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s so nice to see you, so nice.’
Holly thought he was going to cry there and then.
‘Come on, Dad,’ she said, taking his hand in hers and heading briskly for the station door. ‘I’m starving, why don’t we go out to eat?’
‘Do we have to go out?’ asked Hugh plaintively. ‘I thought we could stay at home. Angela sent Alastair over with a stew. They’re trying to feed me up.’
He could certainly do with feeding up, Holly thought worriedly. Her father’s tall frame had always allowed him to carry a few extra pounds round his middle without making him look even vaguely overweight. But there wasn’t an extra ounce of flesh on his frame now.
‘A huge steak and lots of fat, greasy chips, that’s what you need,’ Holly said. ‘I hate stew, even Angela’s!’
They went to Maria’s Diner, ordered steak for Hugh, Maria’s special seafood pizza for Holly and two glasses of red wine. When the wine came, Hugh didn’t touch it. He gazed into space beyond Holly as if he didn’t even see her.
She chatted idly about her week in work, how it looked as if she might be moving out of
children’s wear, possibly to interiors, and how she’d really love to be in international fashion, but that was a bit unlikely because she didn’t have any experience in that department. Normally, Hugh would indignantly point out that international fashion would be lucky to get someone of her calibre, that she was clearly the brightest person in the entire department store and she ought to realise how skilled she was. Tonight, he just nodded blankly and made ‘um’ noises as if he was listening, but he was miles away. Holly ploughed on.
She told him about the plans for Joan’s show, which was in ten days and promised to be a wildly glamorous social occasion, complete with real models and television cameras. She told him that Stella and Tara were worried about him, but didn’t mention that she’d spoken to her mother the previous night.
Rose hadn’t said a single word about Hugh.
‘I don’t want to talk about your father,’ she’d said firmly when Holly had phoned. ‘Tell me all your news.’ So Tara had, and in return, heard all about Freddie’s wonderful house, the dogs, and how Rose was cooking for meals on wheels. It was as if Rose was away on some marvellous holiday with a return date all planned, so there was no need to talk about it. Holly was an expert at not mentioning tricky subjects, so she listened to her mother’s holiday diary and said nothing.
The food arrived and Holly dug into her pizza. Her father didn’t even pick up his fork.
‘Dad, you’ve got to eat,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s not doing you any good to starve yourself. You’ll get ill.’
He raised tortured eyes to hers. ‘I don’t care,’ he said listlessly.
‘You won’t get Mum back like this.’
‘Your mother isn’t coming back to me. I know that for sure. She never does anything by half measures. She’s left and she’s gone for good.’
‘How can you be so defeatist?’ Holly asked. ‘Perhaps Mum is waiting for you to talk to her. You know she’s staying with Aunt Freddie?’
‘Stella told me. But it doesn’t make any difference. She could be staying down the road or she could be in the North Pole for all it matters because she won’t see me. She left me a letter, you know.’ His face was grey with misery. ‘She said she didn’t want me to think I could follow her and sort it all out, because there was nothing to sort out. Our marriage was over and she naturally wanted a divorce. She said she should have done it years ago, that she hated me for humiliating her and she hated herself even worse for letting me do it. I hope you’re suffering as much as I suffered. Those were her exact words. I’ve read it over and over.’
Suddenly, Holly didn’t feel hungry any more.
She could understand why her father kept staring into space dismally. They left after eating little of their food.
‘Was the meal all right?’ asked the waitress anxiously.
‘Lovely, it was lovely,’ said Holly. ‘We weren’t as hungry as we’d thought.’
They drove home with the radio loud to cover up the gaping silence. Holly thought about her mother. The woman who’d written such a hard, angry letter didn’t sound like Rose.
It was sad to see this new side to her mother, this hard edge of anger in that normally calm and lovely facade. Holly had grown up with everyone wistfully saying that Rose was a truly marvellous person, so much so that Holly had felt disloyal for ever thinking that she wished her mother loved her as much as she seemed to love everyone else. When she’d heard about how her parents had longed for their third child to be a boy, Holly had decided that this was the root of the problem. It wasn’t that Rose didn’t love Holly, she told herself, just that her mother had hoped for a son.
As Hugh negotiated the familiar bends and twists on the way to Meadow Lodge, Holly was filled with the desire to ask him about this forbidden subject that burned in her heart. She glanced at him, noticing the way his knuckles were white from clenching the steering wheel. He didn’t need her angst right now. He had enough to deal with.
‘All right, Dad?’ she squeezed his shoulder affectionately.
He nodded, not saying anything. Holly thought she saw the glint of tears in his eyes but she couldn’t be sure.
The next day was glorious, with not a cloud in the sky and the scent of summer in the air even though it was only early May. Holly jollied her father along enough to get him out for a walk with Alastair and Angela.
‘We can’t stay stuck in the house all weekend and a walk will do us both good,’ she said, hurrying round before they left to collect the bits and bobs they needed like her lip screen and a baseball hat to protect Hugh’s head from the sun.
He took the baseball hat meekly and put it on. ‘A walk will do us good,’ he repeated blankly.
Alastair seemed pathetically pleased that Holly was talking to him.
‘Stella’s been so very cool with me on the phone,’ he said mournfully as the four of them made their way along a lakeside path in Kinvarra’s huge nature reserve observed by several odd black and white ducks who were clearly hoping that somebody in the party had brought along a few crumbs of bread. ‘She seems to blame me more than your father.’
Holly patted Alastair’s hand. ‘She’ll get over it, Alastair. She wants to blame someone and Dad is too shattered to blame him.’
‘You’re getting very wise in your old age, Holly,’ said Angela fondly.
‘Am I?’ Holly looked pleased. ‘Stella was always the wise one.’
‘And you were the one who underestimated herself,’ Angela replied. The two women slowed down, letting the men walk on ahead. ‘Your father has always thought the world of you: I’m glad you’re sticking by him. I know it’s not easy but he needs you.’
There was one question Holly had to ask.
‘Did you know?’
Angela shook her head vehemently. ‘No, I didn’t have a clue. I’d have told Rose if I did. Believe me, I nearly killed Alastair for keeping it a secret from me. All the modern marriage guidance experts tell you we need our little secrets and our own private space, but I’m of the old school. I like to think I’m the map-maker of every crevice of Alastair’s mind,’ she added firmly. ‘Well, it’s too late now but if I had known, I’d have done something, told Hugh to sort himself out and not risk everything.’ She sighed.
Holly believed her. Angela hadn’t known but she had. She plucked up the courage to tell Angela, in preparation for when she’d have to tell Rose.
‘The thing is, Angela, well, I knew Dad had been seeing someone else. Do you think Mum will be angry with me?’
‘You did?’ said Angela, startled. ‘When did you find out?’
‘When I was sixteen or seventeen. I didn’t know for sure, but I guessed.’
Angela looked so astonished that Holly was sorry she’d said anything. ‘He was just talking to someone on the phone and it sounded so…so intimate. But it didn’t upset me or anything.’ Oh no, that sounded weird, as if she didn’t care about the thought of her father cheating on her mother. Holly tried to remedy matters.
‘It’s just that I loved Dad so much and I was never as close to Mum as Stella and Tara were. That’s not Mum’s fault or anything,’ she added loyally.
Holly, anxiously trying to make sure that Angela understood that none of this was Rose’s fault, didn’t notice Angela stare sadly at the most-loved of her three adopted nieces.
She and Alastair had never been blessed with children of their own. Oh there were godchildren and nieces and nephews, but none wholly theirs. Perhaps because of that, the Miller girls had been like surrogate children to them, Tara and Holly in particular. Stella had been a grave, selfreliant little girl of eight or nine when the Devons and the Millers had first met, a mini version of Rose with the same calm dark eyes and an air of self-possession. She’d adored her mother too much to spend time in the Devons’ house with Hugh when he dropped over to see Alastair. But Tara, an engaging tomboy, had loved joining Hugh and Alastair on their days fishing and had grown up feeling utterly at home with Aunty Angela and Uncle Alastair. Angela loved Tara’s m
adcap sense of fun and sparky humour, and would have done anything for dear, kind Stella, but her heart belonged to the shy, insecure Holly.
As she’d watched Holly grow up, Angela had often felt troubled by the hairline crack she detected in Holly and Rose’s relationship, a flaw so fine that almost nobody else appeared to notice it.
‘Your Mum loves you, Holly, she won’t be angry with you. You didn’t want to hurt her by telling her the truth.’
‘Do you really think so?’ Holly looked so pathetically anxious that Angela felt an unaccustomed stab of irritation towards her friend, Rose. Fine, so Rose had stormed off in high dudgeon over Hugh’s affairs. His carry-on had been shocking any way you looked at it and Angela had told him so in no uncertain terms. But Rose wasn’t the only injured party in the Miller family. Somehow, in the mess that had grown out of Hugh and Rose’s very separate lives, and allied to what had clearly been Rose’s post-natal depression when she’d had Holly, little Holly was the one who’d suffered. It was high time Rose realised that, Angela decided.
‘They’ll work it out, you know,’ she said, linking arms with Holly. ‘Your mum will come back, I’m sure of it.’
‘Just because that’s what we all want, doesn’t mean it will happen,’ Holly pointed out. ‘They have to sort it out for themselves.’ She watched her father walking in the distance with Alastair. Rose would survive, Holly knew. Her mother was a strong person. But without Rose, would Hugh manage?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Vicki rummaged around in her handbag and pulled out a bulging, clear plastic make-up bag. From the middle of a jumble of tubes, pencils and compacts, she extracted a giant brush and a black compact.
