Past Secrets

by Cathy Kelly

  It really was like having a great weight lifted from her. The fear fell away. ‘Oh, Shane,’ was all she could say. ‘Oh, Shane, my love, I am so happy for you both.’ She leaned weakly against a garden wall, her eyes focused on the park opposite where children played and dogs barked. Thank you, thank you, God, she prayed silently.

  ‘That’s the best news I’ve heard in a very long time,’ she said. ‘It’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you both. How is Janet? Tell me everything.’

  ‘Delighted, and so relieved after we thought she was going to lose the baby.’

  Christie’s mind flashed back. It was then the insight had started – something was about to go horribly wrong. She’d been right. Her grandchild had almost been lost from the world.

  ‘She’s had a scan, though, and everything’s fine. You can see your third grandkid in a speckled black-and-white picture. We got one for you and Dad. Could we come over at the weekend and give it to you both?’

  ‘I can’t think of anything I’d like more.’ Christie sighed with pure happiness. ‘Shall I tell your father or did you want to phone him yourself?’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’

  He sounded so like James at that moment: proud daddy-in-waiting, that Christie felt overwhelmed with the emotion of it all. She was so, so lucky.

  ‘Let’s have Ethan and Shelly and the girls over too, and maybe your Aunt Ana. Just a small family gathering on Sunday afternoon, not a party in case you think it’s bad luck, but just us celebrating the baby getting this far. If you think Janet would like it?’ Janet loved the Devlin family gettogethers but she might not be up to even a small one right now and Christie was never one to bulldoze.

  ‘That’ll have to be a few weeks away,’ Shane said eagerly. ‘We’re going to a house-warming this weekend, and something else the next weekend, but I’m sure Janet would love a little party. It nearly killed us both not telling anyone. Well, Janet told her mum when she thought she was miscarrying…I’m sorry, it’s not that we were leaving you out, Mum…’

  ‘Shane, you know me better than that,’ Christie admonished. ‘Girls tell their mothers more, it’s the way of things. And I’d be some piece of work if that vexed me. Now, if we have the little party the Sunday after next, why don’t you ask Janet’s mum to come too?’ she urged. Janet was an only child with a widowed mother. ‘We’d love to have her here.’

  ‘You’re a star, Mum,’ Shane said. ‘Hey, you’ll be up for babysitting, right?’

  ‘Count me in,’ Christie said fervently.

  At home, humming happily as she thought about the good news, she spent an hour and a half cooking, then filled a basket with dishes for Una and Dennis Maguire. She hadn’t heard yet that Maggie was home, and Dennis didn’t know one end of the kitchen from the other. If it was left to him, the pair of them would starve. So Christie had made a huge stew, enough for two days, some chicken soup with her own home-made stock, and a dozen fat floury scones. Then she hurried up Summer Street to see Una.

  ‘Christie, how lovely to see you,’ said Una when Dennis led Christie into the kitchen.

  ‘And you too.’ Christie laid down the basket, pulled up a chair and sat beside her old friend, laying a comforting hand on Una’s.

  ‘This is terrible, Una. Such bad luck. How long will you be in plaster?’

  ‘Six weeks,’ said Dennis, hovering in the background anxiously. He was sorting out papers for recycling, a job his wife usually did efficiently, while he was getting in a muddle.

  ‘Five and a bit now,’ corrected Una. ‘The doctors and nurses were lovely; said I’d be right as rain.’

  This was clearly said for Dennis’s benefit. Christie had felt the fragility of Una’s bones as she’d touched her: instead of strength, she’d felt a spider’s web of bone, fragile, tissue-thin. Christie had a sudden flash of the gleaming wheels of a wheelchair in her mind and she hoped, as she often did when she saw something sad, that this was only one out of many possible futures. Her hand patted Una’s in a gesture of understanding and their eyes met in complicity.

  ‘Dennis, you know, I believe I didn’t shut the front door properly behind me,’ Christie smiled at him. ‘Perhaps you should check…’

  ‘No bother,’ he said, getting up. ‘I have to put the rubbish out anyway and sort it out. It’s the recycling collection next week instead of normal rubbish and I’ve got to tie up all the newspapers with string.’

  ‘Is it that obvious I’m worse than I’m letting on?’ Una said when he’d bustled off.

  ‘Only to me,’ Christie replied. ‘What did they really say?’

  ‘I wish I had your gift,’ Una sighed. ‘It must be great to know things, to see what’s up ahead, although I don’t know if I’d have liked to see this.’ She looked morosely at her leg in its plaster cast.

  ‘My gift?’ asked Christie, genuinely surprised. She still rarely talked about what she could do. And she’d certainly never talked about it with Una. Not everyone approved of the concept of visions and she’d never wanted to be labelled a dotty old dear.

  ‘You see things, don’t you? My mother had a friend like you, she read the cards for us when I was younger.’

  ‘I don’t read cards,’ Christie said. ‘I think I had it engrained in me as a child that the Church didn’t condone anything like that, but you’re right, I do see things sometimes. Not so much the future, as what might be. I can’t see for people close to me,’ she added quickly, in case Una asked her what her future held. ‘If I could see everything, I’d have seen that you knew!’

  ‘You can see when people are lying, though?’ Una asked perceptively.

  Christie nodded. ‘It’s more intuition than anything,’ she added, which wasn’t entirely true. ‘I knew you weren’t as well as you said. What did the doctors say?’

  ‘It’s osteoporosis, quite advanced,’ Una said. ‘My mother had it, you see, so I pushed them to do a bone scan in the hospital, although they kept going on about how I could have it done later, and I insisted. Seems it’s a miracle I haven’t broken things before. I’m going to have to be careful now or I’ll be like a mummy in a film, all bandages trailing after me.’

  ‘How’s Dennis coping?’

  ‘Maggie’s back, so she’s looking after us both,’ Una pointed out.

  ‘And is she well?’ asked Christie warmly.

  ‘Great,’ said Una with pride. ‘She’s just nipped off to get the papers and something for dinner. Although she needn’t have bothered now you’ve come with food. She’s so good to us, you know, Christie. Dennis phoned her from the hospital on Wednesday and she was on a plane yesterday, quick as anything. She’s a great girl. I just wish she’d settle down like your two lads. But you can’t make them do what you want, can you? Still, she’s happy and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Christie, resolving that now wasn’t the moment to tell her friend the news about her daughter-in-law’s pregnancy. ‘Shall I make a fresh pot of tea?’ she said, indicating the tea-cosied pot that sat on the table.

  ‘Go on,’ said Una. ‘Milky tea is one way of getting more calcium into me. Far nicer than those awful tablets they have me on. You should have a bone scan done, you know. It’s our age, unfortunately.’

  ‘I know,’ said Christie, rinsing the teapot and automatically tidying up around her. Dennis’s newspapers caught her attention. There were Sunday supplements from weeks ago jumbled up with daily papers open at the crossword pages and she organised them neatly into a pile while she waited for the kettle to boil. Una was telling her about the hospital and the steam from the kettle was building as Christie threw the last paper lightly on to the heap. Before the newsprint landed, the small headline caught her eye:

  Polish Artist’s First Irish Show in 25 Years

  Christie caught the countertop to stop herself swaying. It was only a small story and she pulled it towards her, hardly daring to read it. Carey Wolensky was coming to Ireland next month for an exhibition of his work, including his most f
amous paintings, the Dark Lady series.

  Much prized by the world’s richest art collectors and quite unlike all his other work, the Dark Lady paintings are Wolensky’s mysterious masterpieces.

  Before Christie could rip the story from the page, she heard Dennis come back.

  ‘Christie, don’t bother with those,’ he said, scooping up the pile of papers. ‘I’ll put them out with the bins.’

  He carried them off and Christie was left staring into the neat shrubbery of the Maguires’ back garden, barely hearing what Una was saying. She was thinking of Carey Wolensky, her darling younger sister’s one-time boyfriend, the man who’d almost destroyed everything. He was coming back into their world and, even now, he could devastate their lives.

  Now, at last, Christie knew for sure what her feeling of doom had been about.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Motherhood was harder than marriage, Grace realised, as she admired the art portfolio that Faye had just purchased, at great expense, for Amber’s forthcoming eighteenth birthday. At least with marriage, you got time off for good behaviour and could duck out when the going got tough. But motherhood was never-ending and was clearly designed to make you a selfless person. Like when you spent more than a week’s wages on something for your kid.

  ‘She’ll love it,’ Grace said, thinking that if she ever bought anything of supple leather that expensive, it would be hanging off her arm right now with a discreet label inside proclaiming that it was handstitched lovingly by people at the Tod’s leather goods factory. Still, that was Faye for you: the only exquisitely dressed thing in Faye’s house was Amber. ‘Any art student would kill for it.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Faye asked anxiously.

  She’d just spent a fortune buying the portfolio from the most expensive art shop in town because she wanted her darling Amber to have the very best of everything when she started art college.

  Basically nothing more than a large wallet for transporting drawings and paintings, it wasn’t the most important bit of art college kit. Amber had an old plastic portfolio that could have done her perfectly well. But this large zippered folder was a thing of luxury and it would be nice for Amber to have a beautiful creamy leather one. Except, maybe Amber would have preferred a black leather one. Who knew? The fact that she’d once admired a cream leather one might mean nothing now.

  She could have totally changed her mind, in the way she’d announced the night before that she might start having a quick dinner before Faye came home, so she could retreat to her room to study.

  ‘If I eat earlier, I sleep better,’ she explained.

  ‘You’ve got to eat properly,’ Faye had said, motherly hackles raised.

  ‘Mum.’ Amber dragged the single syllable out in exasperation. ‘I’m not anorexic or bulimic or anything. I like to eat early, that’s all.’

  ‘OK,’ agreed Faye, deflated.

  It was mid-May, the exams were looming ever closer and it wouldn’t be fair to complain that she missed mealtimes together, the only time the two of them could really talk these days. Amber was under a lot of strain, she looked tired too from all that studying, with violet circles under eyes that looked wildly alert.

  Faye had never seen her work so hard, locked in her room for hours every evening, sometimes emerging pale at ten to say she was going to sleep and not to bother going in to say goodnight.

  That was what worried Faye most: her daughter not wanting to talk to her. They’d been so close for so long, had managed to bypass most of the awfulness of adolescence, only to end up with this coolness between them over Amber’s exams.

  For the past few weeks, Amber had barely spoken to her and seemed lost in her own world. Was she that worried about failing?

  ‘I can see your mind whirring,’ Grace warned, interpreting Faye’s look incorrectly. ‘Stop already. She’ll like it, OK? If she doesn’t, she’s being…’

  She’d nearly said rude but stopped. The childless should not criticise other people’s children; that was the eleventh commandment and came right before the twelfth, which was not to criticise how other people put their own lives on hold for the said children. When she saw how Faye had given her life over to Amber, Grace felt glad that her own biological clock had never started the fabled ticking.

  She’d known Faye for ten years and among all the things she’d learned about her – like the fact that Faye was incredibly clever, yet liked hiding her light under a bushel, and was the only single woman Grace knew who genuinely had no interest in finding a man – foremost was the fact that Amber was Faye’s reason for living.

  Surely that wasn’t right. Were children supposed to be the only thing in a woman’s life? Grace was sure her other friends with kids had more fulfilled lives than Faye.

  ‘If she doesn’t like it, it might be a fashion thing,’ Grace amended, ‘but the natural look is very chic.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll love it,’ Faye agreed, thinking that she no longer knew any such thing.

  The catch on Amber’s window had finally given in and broken. She’d jemmied it so many nights when she crept in well after midnight, pushing the window up and praying it wouldn’t creak and wake her mother. Burglary must be easier than people thought: nobody had stopped her or even appeared to notice her late-night climbs in and out of her bedroom window.

  ‘I don’t know how you’ve got away with it,’ Ella remarked.

  She and Amber walked to school together most days, although they were getting later and later, as Amber was finding it hard to drag herself out of bed.

  ‘Your mum must be losing it if she hasn’t noticed that you’re not in your room at night. So,’ Ella added, ‘what did Mr Luverman do with you last night? Spill.’

  ‘I wish you’d stop calling him that.’ Amber didn’t mind really, but she felt bad when Ella reminded her that she was deceiving her mother.

  ‘Mr Luverman? I call him that ’cos he can take you places that nobody else can.’

  ‘Ella, give it a rest.’

  ‘OK, but I’m just jealous. Being a boring old student with no boyfriend and exams on the horizon, I have no sex life and I want to hear all about yours. I don’t know how you’re doing any revision at all. Are you?’ Ella asked suspiciously.

  ‘Of course,’ Amber snapped.

  She still hadn’t told Ella that Karl had asked her to travel to America with him and the band. She didn’t know why; it wasn’t as if Ella would disapprove. They’d wanted to be daring, the opposite of sensible, and skipping the exams was just that. But she hadn’t managed to say it yet.

  It was Thursday evening, less than a week to go to Amber’s eighteenth birthday, and less than three weeks to the exams. Faye paused in her driveway and looked across Summer Street to the park. There were no children running or scampering there now, but the evening dog walkers were out in force. She could see Christie Devlin in the distance, light and elegant as a ballerina, with those two cute little dogs skipping around her feet. Mr Coughlan, a very elderly gentleman who owned three pugs, was just in front, walking slowly with his nose in the air, just like his dogs with their squashed-up faces and airs of refinement. People did look like their dogs, Faye thought with a grin.

  When Amber had been younger, Faye had spent many hours in the park, overseeing five-a-side football matches or watching racing games. They’d both loved the park then, but now, well, Faye rarely went in there. There wasn’t any time in her life for sitting in parks, she was always busy.

  And yet now it was going to be ripped in half, she felt oddly angry.

  Summer Street wouldn’t be the same without the rackety old pavilion surrounded by its carpet of green. Faye knew it was crazy to mourn something she never used, but just because she didn’t go into the park, didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate it.

  If only she had the energy or the time to do something about it, to fight the council, to insist that they stop the deal. But that would involve going around the neighbours and getting names and signatures, drafting peti
tions, all sorts of work that Faye didn’t have time for. Also, that job was for people who were good at chatting to strangers and Faye had lost that ability a long time ago. No, somebody else would be bound to start a campaign and she would add her name to the signatures. That’d be enough. Getting involved was always a mistake.

  The house was quiet. Amber wasn’t home yet. Probably at Ella’s revising. Good, Faye thought. It gave her a chance to make a special dinner for the two of them. A pre-birthday dinner. She’d decided to give Amber the portfolio tonight instead of waiting until her birthday the following Wednesday, half hoping that the gift would have a magical effect on the coolness between them. And as an extra treat, she quickly rustled up some flapjacks. They used to be Amber’s favourites years ago, and although they were such a childish food, she’d suddenly felt like making them. Feeding her daughter the love that Amber didn’t seem to want any more.

  Amber arrived after seven, laden down with her school books and looking, yet again, oddly alert and excited.

  The portfolio lay at her place on the table, a giant package wrapped in gold paper, tied with narrow gold ribbon.

  She stared at it in silence for a moment. A present? She’d planned to talk to her mother about Karl tonight, had spent ages with him to buoy herself up for this moment and now her mother had ruined it all with a gift. How could they have the conversation from hell now?

  Mum, I’m not going to do my exams because my boyfriend and his band have a development deal with a New York producer and I’m going with him because he needs me and I love him. Oh yeah, and thanks for the portfolio.

  ‘It’s an early birthday present.’

  Mum looked so thrilled with herself. And she’d made stupid flapjacks too. Kids’ biscuits. That was what was wrong with Mum, Amber thought, guilt making her angry. She still treated Amber as if she was a kid.

  Don’t stay up too late: you won’t be able to get up for school.