At first Elva didn’t seem to care. But then she started sending him notes, on pink scented notepaper, telling him that she still loved him. She said that she understood why a boy as immature as him might find it difficult to go out with an older woman. She realised that he’d been under stress. She forgave him for dumping her. He didn’t reply to the notes, and when they stopped, he thought that she’d finally come to her senses. Then he heard that she wasn’t eating. That didn’t bother him too much – Elva talked a lot about how she needed to diet to keep her elegantly slender figure. So he ignored that too. What he couldn’t ignore, though, was the day she was fished out of the Bawnee River and rushed to Kilkenny hospital. The official line was that she’d fainted at the riverside, but almost immediately rumours began to circulate that she’d thrown herself in because she was broken hearted at the end of their relationship. He thought about going to see her but dismissed it as a bad idea. Better to just let her get over it all, he thought. Better to stay away. His father, who was the Slaters’ family doctor, told him that she was a type-A personality. Highly strung. Difficult to live with. Not a good long-term prospect, no matter how beautiful she was.
Sean agreed. He was both relieved and surprised when he heard, a few months later, that Elva was engaged to Paudie O’Malley. Sean had never had much to do with the man, who was eight years older than him, and who he regarded as vintage Ardbawn – home loving and uninspiring. But the O’Malleys had a lot of land in the area and Paudie’s parents had never been short of money. Elva liked the good things in life. Perhaps, Sean thought, she believed that Paudie could give them to her. And perhaps he was the sort of man who was so overawed by having snared such a beautiful woman that he wouldn’t mind having to tell her how happy he was every second of every day. Elva marrying Paudie certainly lifted the vague sense of responsibility that Sean had constantly felt towards her, and he went off in search of his new life in Dublin and new girlfriends with renewed vigour.
She was married by the time he came back to Ardbawn again, and he was astonished to hear that she was pregnant. He was even more astonished when she had more children in quick succession. Elva had always seemed to him far too self-centred to be the sort of person who’d rush into motherhood. He counted himself lucky that he’d split up with her when he had, because the idea of being trapped into a marriage resulting in a brood of children made him shiver.
The day that he first spoke to her following their break-up and her subsequent marriage and family, they met by chance in St Stephen’s Green. He was living in Dublin by then and the Green was one of his favourite places to relax. He was sitting on the grass enjoying some late summer sun when she walked by. He recognised her straight away, even though her long hair was shorter now and she was wearing a skirt and jacket instead of a wispy cotton dress. She was still enchantingly beautiful. When she turned and saw him, her blue eyes widened in surprise. For a moment he thought she would continue walking without acknowledging him, but then she came over and sat down on the dry grass beside him.
‘How is it I never see you in Ardbawn any more but here I am on a rare trip to Dublin and one of the first people I see is you?’ she asked.
‘I’m hardly ever in Ardbawn,’ he said, and went on to tell her about his acting career, making it sound like he was perpetually in demand for parts.
‘I’d love to be doing that,’ said Elva.
‘Acting?’ He looked surprised. ‘I never thought it interested you.’
‘Not acting. Just something that I loved.’
‘Don’t you love being Mrs Paudie O’Malley?’ asked Sean. ‘I hear the farm’s doing well and that Paudie is developing outside business interests. And you’re a mother, of course.’
‘Can you believe it?’ she said, in a tone that clearly showed she didn’t believe it herself. ‘I’m not even thirty and I have three kids already.’ She looked at him from beneath her surprisingly dark lashes. ‘You and I were lucky not to get caught out, Sean. I seem to be the most fertile woman on the planet. The man only has to turn back the bedcovers and I get pregnant.’
‘Ellie!’ Sean wasn’t comfortable with the conversation.
She laughed. ‘Oh, chill out. It’s a fact, though. Maybe it’s him. Maybe he just has strong swimmers.’
‘Elva!’
‘You lose a sense of something when you get married and have kids,’ said Elva. ‘You don’t care what you say quite so much. You don’t get so embarrassed either. That’s because the kids will always do things to embarrass you first.’
‘I’m sure they’re great children,’ said Sean.
‘JJ’s bright as a button. Sinead’s lovely. Peter, the youngest, is mad as a hatter.’
‘They’re lucky to have you for a mother,’ said Sean.
‘You think?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘They have the sexiest mother in Ardbawn.’
It was as though the earth tilted with his words. She looked at him enquiringly. And he remembered why he’d once thought he was in love with her.
It was a moment of madness, Sean often thought afterwards, his asking her if she was in a rush back to Ardbawn and her reply that she wasn’t, and his suggestion that she might like to see his flat and her amused ‘Why not?’
And then they were together in his bed and he was running his fingers along her silky-smooth body, thinking that childbirth hadn’t changed it at all. Afterwards, as they lay side by side, she told him that it had been wonderful but that she was a married woman and couldn’t see him again. He thought perhaps it was a kind of revenge – dumping him as he’d dumped her. But he was relieved, too. Great though the sex had been, he knew that it was also a mistake. He didn’t want to get entangled with Elva again. He couldn’t afford the grief it might bring.
The next time he met her, he was married himself. Their meeting was in Ardbawn, at a hurling match. Paudie, whose businesses were doing well, was now a sponsor of the local club and he went to lots of matches. The team had been doing well that year, and everyone had turned up to the game, which was against local rivals. Sean and Nina had bumped into Paudie and Elva after it had ended in a victory for the Ardbawn team. Paudie was polite and courteous, while Elva greeted Nina with a certain reserved diffidence. Afterwards, Nina said that while Paudie was always a real gentleman, she couldn’t really take to Elva. She’d asked Sean what she’d been like when they’d gone out together, and he’d replied cheerily that he’d had a lucky escape. Because no way would his life with Elva have been half as good as it was with her. Nina laughed. And right then, Sean knew that she was and always would be more important to him than Elva Slater.
Even after Alan was born, Nina continued to find ways to improve the guesthouse. She was the one to decide that Sunday lunches and afternoon teas would be a draw, and Sean agreed that they could be good money-spinners. She was right. Bawnee River Sundays attracted not only the residents of Ardbawn but people from outside the town too.
They had two Sunday-lunch specials under their belts when Paudie made the booking. It was Elva’s birthday, he told Nina, who took the call. Did she think she could provide a small cake too? They’d be coming with their children, so there’d be six of them.
Nina was excited when she told Sean about the booking. Paudie had become the town’s most prominent businessman. He employed a lot of local people in his two printing companies and he’d recently been interviewed by RTÉ radio for a business programme, discussing opportunities for development outside of major cities. He’d been articulate and passionate, although a little brusque and impatient with the reporter, who wasn’t as quick as Paudie himself. But think, she said to Sean, he could give us a mention next time. We’re a successful business after all!
Sean realised that he was apprehensive about having Elva in his home, although he told himself that nerves were ridiculous. He was a bit anxious about seeing Paudie, too. After all, he’d had sex with the other man’s wife. It could certainly make the occasion a little awkward.
T
hey were an attractive family, he thought, as they walked through the door. Paudie was tall and broad and strong. Elva was pale and slender and ethereal. The three oldest children had inherited Paudie’s dark good looks, but Cushla, the latest addition, was far more like Elva in appearance. Her hair was fair and curly and she had the same aquamarine eyes as her mother.
Sean welcomed them and showed them to their table. He didn’t know if the brush of Elva’s hand against his was deliberate or not. He felt a quiver of desire run through his body and he stepped away from her. She looked at him with the faintest hint of amusement and pushed her fingers through her still flaxen hair. The sun glinted off the warm amber of the ring she wore on her right hand, while the diamond on her left glittered hotly.
He’d given her the amber ring for her birthday when they’d first gone out together years before. He was both flattered and amused that she still had it and had worn it today.
The birthday lunch was a success. The cake that Nina had baked was devoured after Elva had blown out the single candle. The O’Malleys stayed long after the other guests had left, and Paudie chatted to Nina about how well the guesthouse was doing and how proud her mother would be of her. He told Sean to come to him if there was any help he could give, and offered a discount on any printing they might need. No job too big or too small for a fellow Ardbawn man, he said warmly. We’ve got to help each other out whenever we can.
The O’Malleys came again the following Sunday. But the Sunday after that Elva came alone. Paudie had taken the children to see their great-uncle in hospital in Dublin, she said. They were going to stay overnight. She’d had a terrible headache that morning and had decided not to go with them. But it had lifted now. She felt a lot better.
She ate her lunch at a corner table, reading the newspaper and ignoring everyone else in the dining room. Afterwards she sat in the garden, smoking a cigarette and drinking a glass of white wine, her soft white cardigan wrapped around her shoulders against the chill of the breeze.
‘She’s a strange woman,’ Nina observed as Sean loaded the dishwasher. ‘She looks so fragile and yet I bet she’s a tough cookie.’
‘She’s different,’ agreed Sean.
Elva drank another two glasses of wine before deciding it was time to go. She stood up and wobbled on her high heels.
‘I don’t think you should drive home,’ said Sean, who’d been watching her from the kitchen.
‘I need my car at the house,’ said Elva. ‘I have to go out early in the morning.’
‘It’s still not safe for you to drive. Wait there.’
He called to Nina and told her that he was going to drive Elva home in her own car.
‘Best thing,’ agreed Nina. ‘You don’t want her wrapping herself around a tree. We shouldn’t have allowed her to drink the guts of a bottle of wine. I didn’t realise she was having so much.’
Sean brought Elva to the car, a bright red Honda Civic, and helped her into the passenger seat. It didn’t take long to reach March Manor.
‘Come in,’ she said, her words more slurred than they’d been back at the guesthouse. ‘Come in for a drink with me.’
‘I can’t,’ said Sean.
‘You’re walking home,’ she pointed out. ‘It won’t matter.’
‘I can’t,’ said Sean again.
She walked over to him and rested her head on his shoulder.
‘Please?’ she said.
Sean thought about Nina and the various chores that awaited him back at the guesthouse.
‘Oh, all right,’ he said. ‘But I won’t stay long.’
He hadn’t intended it to be the start of an affair, but it was. There was something about Elva that drew him to her as it had before. She was so different to Nina, cool and edgy, and able to do things with her body that his wife had long forgotten. She’d lost the neediness, too. She never asked him if he loved her.
He told himself that he deserved a short fling; he’d been working really hard lately. Maybe Elva deserved one too, married to someone like Paudie and with her brood of kids. He’d end it before it went too far and before anyone got hurt. In any event he knew it would have to finish before someone saw his car at March Manor when he was supposed to be somewhere else, or before Nina began to realise that he spent a lot of time nipping out to do some trivial chore that took far too long. Besides, this was Ardbawn. It was practically impossible to keep a secret. Sean couldn’t decide whether it would be worse to have it discovered by Paudie, who would destroy him, or Nina, who would be devastated by his betrayal. He didn’t want to be destroyed by Paudie and he didn’t want to hurt Nina, but he couldn’t yet give up the thrill he got from being with Elva. Besides, Nina was pregnant again, and embracing the kind of earth-mother persona she’d adopted when she was expecting Alan. Elva never made him think that she was a mother at all. She was still unbelievably, thrillingly sensual. Nevertheless, it was a dangerous road to travel. And he knew that he had to pick the right time to stop.
But he was still waiting for that time to come.
During the affair between Sean and Elva, the O’Malleys continued to be regular visitors for the Sunday lunches at the guesthouse. Sean thought these visits were entirely due to Elva, who would always behave so demurely in front of her husband that Sean himself sometimes found it hard to believe that he had slept with this woman and that she would cry out with the excitement of making love to him.
Elva never seemed to mind the fact that their meetings were sporadic, sometimes at short notice and always now away from Ardbawn, no longer at the riverbank spot that she called their own and where she’d started to paint pictures of him. ‘Good cover,’ she’d told him one day as she’d set up her easel. ‘Paudie thinks it’s important for me to have an interest of my own. I show him ones without you in them.’ Sean thought that she rather liked the cloak-and-dagger nature of their affair. As he did too, even though, after Chrissie was born, he found it more difficult to justify leaving Nina at irregular intervals to look after things on her own. Anyway, it was getting too dangerous. They’d nearly been spotted in Kilkenny the previous week by TJ Meagher. There was no way they could keep it secret for much longer.
When he told Elva that it was over, she looked at him and laughed.
‘You can’t leave me,’ she said. ‘We’re tied to each other. We always will be.’
He didn’t want to have a row with her that night, but he knew that she was wrong. The only woman he was tied to was Nina. He could and he would break up with Elva. He didn’t love her, no matter how much he desired her. Yet making a clean break was more difficult than he’d imagined. There was always some reason to see her again, some reason not to finish it straight away. But the day was drawing closer. He had his own family to think about, and he hated the idea of his children one day finding out that he’d been seeing someone else. It seemed wrong to him.
He said this one night to Elva, who nodded.
‘I’ve been thinking about that too,’ she said. ‘I hate being dishonest with my children.’
Sean was surprised at how relieved he felt at her words.
‘It’s not right for them to think that I love their father,’ she continued. ‘It’s not right for them to be totally unaware of the fact that the only man I’ve ever loved is you.’
He hadn’t expected that. He didn’t know what to say.
‘I was stupid to marry him,’ said Elva.
‘Why did you?’
‘Why d’you think?’ She looked at Sean as though he was crazy. ‘You’d dumped me. You didn’t care about me. I nearly died and you didn’t care. I needed to find someone who did. Paudie is crazy about me, the old fool.’
‘Of course I cared,’ said Sean. ‘I just didn’t see . . . Well, it was over. There was no point in pretending . . .’
‘But it wasn’t over,’ said Elva. ‘You came back to me. You’ve been with me ever since.’
Sean didn’t quite see it that way.
‘We’ve known each other for years
, Sean Fallon,’ Elva continued. ‘We were meant to be together.’
‘Oh well.’ He tried to joke about it. ‘Life had other plans.’
‘No,’ said Elva. ‘We have to do something about our situation. We have to make our own plans.’
‘What plans?’ he asked cautiously.
‘It’s time for us to leave Paudie and Nina,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot. They don’t deserve us. We deserve each other. We deserve happiness.’
‘It’s not that simple.’ Sean felt a chill at her words.
‘It is,’ said Elva. ‘The time is right.’
‘You can’t leave Paudie,’ he told her. ‘It would be a terrible scandal.’
‘You think I care about scandal?’ She looked incredulous.
‘Your children will care,’ he said.
‘And what about our child?’ she asked.
He looked at her in bewilderment.
‘You think Cushla is Paudie’s?’ She snorted. ‘Oh Sean, you’re so naive. Can’t you see that she’s yours?’
She had to be wrong about that. For Cushla to be his daughter, Elva would’ve had to get pregnant when they’d made love the one time six years previously, when he’d seen her in Dublin. He didn’t think so. They’d used protection. Elva was deliberately winding him up. But if she started saying things, dropping hints . . . He wouldn’t put it past her. And that could make things very messy indeed.
So for Sean Fallon, the overwhelming emotion the day Elva died was relief. But he was shocked too. Shocked that it had happened and shocked that she had gone for ever. And worried, because he knew he’d been one of the last people to see her alive.
When he’d driven to March Manor that morning, using the excuse that he needed to see Paudie, he hadn’t known what to expect. His priority was to talk to Elva, because she’d phoned the guesthouse. She’d never done that before. They usually got in touch with each other by mobile phone, a service that was relatively new at the time, though from their point of view brilliantly convenient. It had been lucky that he was the one who’d answered the home phone, because Elva was brittle and nervous, saying that Paudie was angry with her and that they had to talk. Sean didn’t want to go anywhere near March Manor, but after Elva insisted that Paudie would be out all morning, he’d relented.
Better Together Page 39
