Past Secrets

by Cathy Kelly

  ‘Everyone’s at work or cooking kids’ dinners,’ she said, feeling sympathy for anyone engaged in such boring duties. ‘Nobody will see you.’

  There was only one person on the street who might possibly know she had phoned in sick to school and might wonder at her having a strange guy in the house, and that was Mrs Devlin.

  Amber approved of Christie Devlin, even if she was old and, therefore, should be totally wrinkly, boring and incapable of remembering what it was like to feel alive. For all Christie’s silver hair, she had a way of looking at Amber that said she knew what was going on in the girl’s head. Scary. Amber wondered if Christie would know by looking at her that Amber had just had the most incredible sex of her life.

  Losing-her-virginity sex. She’d nearly done it eighteen months ago, with cute but dopey Liam, who was a friend of Ella’s youngest brother. She’d called a halt to the proceedings just in time. Liam’s hand was burrowing into her jeans and she’d realised that she was about to have sex with a guy just to see what it was like rather than because she would die then and there if she didn’t.

  A woman had the right to say no at any point, her mother had said in one of her talks about sex.

  ‘Whaddya mean, you don’t want to after all?’ demanded Liam, who clearly didn’t agree with Amber’s mother on the whole issue of coitus interruptus.

  ‘I mean no,’ said Amber. ‘No means no. Got it?’

  And although Liam hadn’t spoken to her since – not a big worry – she was glad she’d said no when she did. Imagine having to live your whole life knowing you’d lost your virginity to an ordinary guy like Liam when you could have the memory of a man like Karl Evans?

  This was sex with a man of the world, a twenty-five-year-old man with a future. He was her future. She was going to travel the world with him and discover life, with a big L. She’d be eighteen in less than three weeks. She could do what she wanted then. Nobody could stop her.

  ‘So you’ll come with us?’ he asked, returning to the subject they’d discussed earlier, before they’d fallen into bed. ‘If we’re going to work with a producer in New York, we’ll be gone at least six months. I’d hate to be away from you. I couldn’t bear that.’

  ‘I’d hate to be away from you too,’ Amber answered, stroking his skin with exploring fingers.

  This was love. Pure contentment flowed through her veins. Karl was so crazy about her that he wanted her to travel with his band to America to record their album.

  He needed her, he said. He’d been writing songs like a man possessed since they’d met. ‘You’re my muse,’ he’d said.

  And Amber, who’d been told all her life how talented and special she was, believed him. She and Karl: they were the twosome now.

  As the ambulance carted Una Maguire and her frantic husband Dennis off to hospital, Amber gazed at her lover with shining, besotted eyes and imagined all the wonderful times they’d have. Her mother would flip when she discovered Amber wasn’t going to art college after all, but Amber was an adult now, wasn’t she? She could do what she liked. That, surely, was the point of all those years of ‘you have the power to do what you want’ conversations. Amber would do what she wanted and although she hated hurting her mum, Faye would have to live with it.

  Faye left work early so she could dash into the mini-market near home and pick up a few last-minute bits. They were out of basmati rice and she’d defrosted a home-cooked vegetarian korma the night before.

  Ordinary rice wouldn’t work, it had to be basmati.

  Near the checkout, she dallied briefly by the ranks of magazines and papers. She loved the interior decoration magazines but they were all so expensive, so she didn’t splash out very often. But she felt weary this evening, and the house felt lonely when Amber was upstairs at her desk bent over old exam papers. Faye could do with a treat. Finally choosing a magazine with a supplement on bedrooms, she looked down and her eye was caught by the lead story in the local free newspaper.

  Developer’s Deal With Council: 25 Apartments in Summer St Park

  She picked it up and moved to the checkout.

  ‘They must have got it wrong. They can’t be talking about the park here, opposite my house?’ she said to the cashier.

  ‘That’s the one,’ the woman said, scanning the groceries. ‘Shame to rip up that lovely little park. I don’t know how they get away with that type of thing. There won’t be a bit of green left around here if the developers get their way.’

  ‘But it’s tiny,’ Faye protested. ‘And surely nobody’s allowed to buy an actual park?’

  A queue appeared behind her and Faye was in too much of a rush to stop to read the story, so she stuffed the paper into the top of her grocery bag and left. In her car, she read it all quickly with mounting horror.

  The pavilion in the park was falling down and the council had decided to sell it, and the half-acre of land that accompanied it, to a developer in return for the developer building another park and a community centre on a sliver of waste ground a mile away.

  ‘We’re not tearing up the park,’ insisted a council spokesperson. ‘The park is staying. The pavilion was never part of the park. People just thought it was. We’ve every right to sell it because we can’t afford to renovate it and it’s dangerous, besides. Summer Street will still have its park.’

  Except that it will be half the size and have a dirty big apartment block cutting out the sun, Faye thought furiously.

  She drove home angrily. Amber would be just as annoyed to hear about this, she loved that little park. Honestly, why did things have to change all the time?

  The evening walkers were out in force when Maggie left the beach at Salthill and got the bus back into the city. The bus was only half full and she sat a few seats behind a group of schoolgirls still in uniform.

  Half listening to their chatter, she stared listlessly out the window. She’d come to no conclusions because she couldn’t think about Grey. Her mind refused to cooperate, racing off on ideas of its own. She had to work late the next evening instead of Shona. Were they out of coffee? Should she and Grey go to see the new Pixar film? Anything was better than thinking about what had just happened.

  From the depths of her handbag, her mobile phone rang. On auto-pilot, Maggie retrieved it, saw that her father was calling and clicked answer.

  ‘Dad,’ she said, managing to sound bright. Her entire world hadn’t just crashed and burned, no. All was well. Faking happiness – wasn’t that what communicating with your parents was all about?

  ‘What’s up, Dad?’

  ‘Hello, love, it’s your mum.’

  Maggie’s hand flew to her chest.

  ‘She’s in hospital, she’s broken her leg.’

  A breath Maggie didn’t know she’d been holding was released. ‘I thought you were going to tell me something terrible,’ she whispered, cupping her forehead in one hand with relief.

  ‘It is terrible,’ he went on. ‘Your mother insisted they did a bone density scan in the middle of it all, and it seems she’s got osteoporosis. The doctor says he doesn’t know why she hasn’t broken bones before.’ Her father had to stop talking for a moment and gulped. ‘I don’t know what to do, Maggie. You know how your mum copes with everything and all, but she’s taking this badly. She keeps saying she’s fine but she’s been crying. Your mother crying.’

  He sounded shocked. Una Maguire could see the silver lining in every cloud and had taught her daughter that a smile was easier to achieve than a frown. Mum never cried, except at films where a child was hurt or the dog died.

  ‘Maggie, I know it’s not fair but could you come home for a couple of days…?’

  Maggie could imagine her father standing obediently outside the hospital entrance, not using his mobile phone inside as per the instructions on the hospital walls, even though nobody else obeyed them.

  Dad, with his wide-open eyes, his few strands of hair and his endearing inability to deal with daily life to the extent that Maggie felt he ought t
o wear permanent L-plates. Dad, who’d never seen her mum cry over anything.

  ‘I’ll be home tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about a thing.’

  It was, after all, the solution to everything.

  You’re running away, said a voice in her head: a voice that sounded remarkably like Shona when she was in Dr Phil mode. Shona loved Dr Phil and felt that America’s favourite television doctor’s principles could be applied to every life situation.

  Are you doing the right thing? Ask yourself that. Would you advise a friend in a similar situation to do what you’re doing? Will running away solve your problem? Dr Phil asked all the right questions and so did Shona.

  No, no and no. Maggie knew the answers. But Dr Phil hadn’t the benefit of Maggie Maguire’s Guide to Life.

  Don’t stuff your bra to make your A-cups look like B-cups. Boys won’t get close enough to notice but nasty girls from school will. Nobody wants to be No-Tit Maguire for a whole month, as Maggie knew from experience.

  Guys who say things like ‘I’ve never met anyone like you’ are not lying, exactly, but probably don’t mean it the way you think they do.

  Maggie had a new piece of advice to add to the Guide:

  When in doubt, put your running shoes on. Nothing will improve but at least you don’t have to stare your defeat in the face on a daily basis. And if you can’t see it, surely it can’t be there?

  In a trendy little internet café close to the apartment, she ordered a latte and a session on the web. Flicking through flights to Dublin, she found one that left the following afternoon, giving her time to pack as well as to negotiate with the library for emergency leave. When she’d booked it, she knew there was only one more big task left: to go home and say goodbye to Grey.

  Goodbye Grey, I’m going and we’re selling up so you’ll have to take your jail bait somewhere else from now on.

  No, too bitter.

  Bye, Grey, I’m going home to Dublin for a while to think. You cheating son of a bitch.

  Again, too bitter.

  Maybe she ought to stick at Goodbye, Grey.

  When she got back to the apartment, Grey and the remains of a Thai meal were both in the living-room area. Maggie didn’t feel even mildly hungry.

  The words ‘You lying, cheating bastard’ ran round in her head like a washing machine on final spin.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. See, not bitter.

  ‘Honey.’ Grey leapt off the couch and went to touch her, but the frozen look in Maggie’s eyes stopped him. They stood several feet apart, staring at each other, misery on both their faces.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ Grey said, and he sounded it.

  He honestly was sorry. But sorry that he’d had sex with a stunning blonde student or sorry he’d been caught? Bastard.

  ‘I love you. You might not believe that, but I do.’

  ‘Then why did you do it?’ Maggie asked. She hadn’t meant to ask anything, had meant to tell him bluntly she was going home for a while. But the question had shot out of her mouth before she could stop it.

  Grey’s gaze didn’t falter, she had to give him that. ‘I don’t know,’ he said dismally. ‘She was there, I could have her…it sounds dumb, but I still love you, Maggie. You’re different, special.’

  The spinning washing machine still kept rattling out ‘lying, cheating bastard’ as Maggie struggled to make sense of Grey’s words. Her heart was broken and this was his sticking plaster?

  ‘She was there? Is that your only excuse, Grey? She was bloody well there? If I’m so special, why would you even want to make love with someone else whether she was there or not? If I’m so special, then you wouldn’t want to look crossways at another woman, never mind screw one in our bed. IN OUR BED!’

  He looked taken aback at this. Maggie was not a shouter.

  ‘It wasn’t making love, it was sex. It’s not what you and I have. That’s…’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ she snapped, ‘special.’ Infidelity must have a previously undetected side effect of robbing people of their linguistic skills. Even Grey. She had never known Grey to run out of words before.

  ‘I’m not explaining it correctly,’ he began.

  ‘Oh yes, you are, and it still doesn’t make sense. You’re the one who says he’s logical, I’m supposed to be the klutzy one who forgets her bank card numbers and can’t program her mobile phone.’ Maggie knew her voice was rising but she couldn’t help it. If Grey was tongue-tied, her word power was on 110 per cent. ‘So how can you come up with such an illogical explanation? If I’m so different and special, you shouldn’t want sex or love with anyone other than me. Simple. QED. That’s what I thought I was getting when we moved in together: fidelity, monogamy, no threesomes. Did I miss the briefing where you said we’d sleep with other people? Or were you just lying through your teeth when you said that I was the sort of woman you wanted, not a pneumatic blonde like all your previous girlfriends?’

  ‘I wasn’t lying and I do believe in fidelity, really,’ Grey said helplessly. He sat on the edge of the armchair, running a hand through his hair. He had such long, sensitive fingers, like a pianist, fingers that could elicit a ready response from Maggie. He still looked handsome and desirable, with sexily rumpled hair as if he’d been so lost in his books he had forgotten to comb it. Maggie, who spent all her time surrounded by books, had always found this combination of brains and beauty utterly captivating. She could totally understand Ms Peachy Skin wanting to sleep with him. Grey was gorgeous, clever, and powerful within his sphere, all wrapped up in one package.

  Just not faithful.

  ‘I love you, Grey, I don’t look at other men,’ she said. ‘I don’t think about anyone else but you, I almost don’t see anyone else but you. If there was anyone else there, if Brad Pitt and George Clooney and Wesley Snipes and anyone else you can think of were there for the taking, you know what?’ She paused. ‘I’d still say no.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry, so sorry.’ The long piano-player’s fingers ran through his hair again and for a flicker of an instant, Maggie thought of his hands running through the girl’s hair in the throes of passion, twisting it and pulling gently like he did with Maggie.

  ‘I love your hair,’ he’d mutter when they were naked together. Maggie almost never cut it now. Grey loved its length lying tangled on the pillow as he hung over her, cradling her face before he kissed her. He thought she was feminine and sexy, things Maggie had never felt in her life until he’d come along and made her feel them. Now he’d taken all that away.

  When her mother or Shona or other people said she was beautiful, she didn’t believe them. They loved her, they were being kind to her. But when Grey said it, she had believed him. He made her beautiful because she glowed from being with him.

  That he had so much power over her made her feel helpless now. Going back to the sort of woman he’d had before her made it a double betrayal – a blonde with curves that Maggie would never have. She felt so hurt that she wanted to hurt him too.

  ‘You’re lying. You’re not sorry, only sorry I got home early and ruined it all. You screwed her. In. Our. Bed,’ she said slowly. ‘That’s not love and respect.’ She paused. ‘Were there others?’

  A strange look touched his face briefly, a look of sheer guilt, and it was gone so quickly that only someone who loved his face and knew it in every mood would have noticed. But Maggie was that person. She noticed.

  ‘No,’ he said. She didn’t believe him.

  The armchair seemed to rise up to greet her. Collapsing into it, she hugged her knees to her chest, a gesture that said ‘keep out’.

  There had been others, of that she was sure and she wasn’t strong enough to hear about them. Her mother was ill, crying and not coping. Her father was asking for her help. Maggie’s world was topsy-turvy.

  ‘Just tell me, what’s so hard about fidelity?’ she whispered, afraid she knew the answer.

  It had to be her fault. This confirmed what she’d known all along. She’d always felt l
ucky to have Grey, astonished that he was with her.

  Someone like Grey could manage faithfulness with other people, with one of those icy blondes, but not with her. For one of those women, the right sort of wife for a man with a political future in front of him, he’d have got married. But Maggie obviously wasn’t the right sort of wife for him. She was an experiment between the Carolyn Bessette Kennedy types, the trophy women. She wasn’t worth giving up other women for. That was what this was all about.

  The demons of anxiety and the self-doubt she’d grown up with rushed back howling into her mind and it was as if they’d never been away.

  ‘I’m sorry, Maggie, I swear this will never happen again, never.’ He looked up at her but Maggie was away in her head, remembering the years when she’d lived with a permanent clench of anxiety in her gut.

  Sunday nights were the worst, when the weekend was careening to an end and Monday loomed, Monday with Sandra Brody and her taunting crew who’d made it their mission in life to destroy Maggie Maguire. Maggie had never done anything to them but that didn’t appear to matter. Maggie was the chosen scapegoat. Daily verbal torture and cruel tricks were her punishment. The self-loathing – because it had to be her fault, hadn’t it? – felt just like it did now.

  ‘I’m sorry, Maggie,’ Grey repeated. ‘I don’t know why I did it. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.’

  ‘Really?’ she asked with a bitter laugh. Why was he bothering to pretend? She’d prefer it if he told her the truth: that he loved her but just not enough. She wasn’t quite good enough.

  ‘You’re different, Maggie,’ Grey began and sat at her feet, pulling both her hands from around her knees, trying to make her hold him. ‘I love you, I never meant to hurt you. I am so, so sorry. Can’t you forgive me?’

  She whisked her hands away, but he laid his dark head on her chair, pleading, imploring. It would be so easy to reach out and touch him, make it all go away and start again. Go on holiday, sell the apartment, move somewhere else, anything to paper over the crack. Maggie felt her fingers reach out, an inch away from brushing the softness of his hair.