‘Hello, Tessa,’ Terence said coldly.
‘Have you gone up to see them yet? Jeff said Carmel had been up earlier today.’ Tessa knew she was prattling.
‘No, I haven’t,’ he said stiffly.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Well, of course, you were at work.’
‘Nor do I plan to,’ he added dourly. ‘When I said I was washing my hands of the whole affair, I meant it. And I won’t be coming to any party, thank you.’
‘Oh, Terence!’ Tessa exclaimed, dismayed. ‘What a shame to feel like that. You have a beautiful little grandchild.’
‘I’d far prefer to have a beautiful little grandchild in wedlock, but thanks to you, that didn’t happen.’ He thrust his jaw out aggressively and his eyes sparked with antagonism.
‘Carmel backed me up on that, Terence,’ Tessa said heatedly.
‘Well, the pair of you were very misguided, if you ask me,’ he said shortly, his anger evident in the thinning of his mouth and the hard glare he gave her.
‘But, Terence, there’s plenty of time for them to marry. They’re so young. Isn’t it better for them to be sure of their feelings for each other?’ she protested.
‘Better for him, you mean.’
‘Look, Terence, I stood up for my son. I’m a mother – that’s what a mother does. I didn’t want to see him adding one mistake to another,’ Tessa said crossly.
‘And I tried to stand up for my daughter, for all the good it did me. Do none of you see that?’ he said indignantly. ‘How would you feel if it was your daughter, Tessa? In that situation you’d do the same. You’d want to see her married. Wouldn’t you? Or if you were in Valerie’s position? Ask yourself, Tessa, how would you feel if it was you?’
It was me! She screamed silently. It was me!
For one awful moment she was sure she’d spoken the words aloud.
‘Ye see, you’ve no answer to that,’ he said triumphantly.
‘I’m sorry you feel like that,’ she said stiffly, and walked away. She struggled to compose herself but it was no use. Tears smarted her eyes and she hurried to the safety of her car, hoping that she would get to it before she was accosted by Nellie Andrews, a sharp-eyed, nosy busybody who ran the church committee. Nellie was bearing down fast but Tessa made it to the car and had the engine started with seconds to spare, giving the woman a wave as she drove off at speed.
Her composure faltered and a cry that came from the depths of her erupted in an animal-like howl. She drove out of the village, desperate to get away so she could be alone with her sorrow as the grief she had struggled to keep a lid on since Jeff had told her of Valerie’s pregnancy would no longer be denied.
‘How would you feel if it was you?’ Terence had tormented her. Well, she knew more than anyone what it was like to be pregnant outside of marriage at a time when girls who were unfortunate enough to get into the situation were treated like the lowest of the low. She had endured that particular anguish, she thought bitterly, as she spun the wheel of the car to drive down a narrow lane that led to a small, secluded beach known only to the locals.
Valerie thought she was a bitch. Tessa knew that. She’d seen the look of horror and dismay on her face when Tessa had put her spoke in about them waiting to marry. Valerie had been gutted. She’d thought Tessa was acting out of spite. Nothing could have been further from the truth. If only the young woman could have realized that Tessa was trying to save her from an agony that she herself had endured for the whole of her marriage. The misery of not knowing if Lorcan truly loved her had blighted her life and her relationship with her husband as she tormented herself with wondering if things had been different would he have asked her to marry him because he wanted to, not because he had to.
Lorcan was a good man. The best. He had been a loyal, supportive husband. But she knew him, knew the cut of him. When Lorcan put his mind to something he gave it his best shot and followed it through to the best of his ability. He had iron discipline and strength of will. Once he had asked her to marry him when she’d discovered that she was pregnant with their daughter he had put his shoulder to the wheel and made the best of it. But after her encounter with Lorna Burton, his ex, she could never get over the notion that he loved her because he had to make the best of things and not because it was how he really felt.
Even though Lorcan assured her to the contrary many times, it was like a horrible black malignancy of doubt deep inside that she could never escape from. She had thought she had put it behind her and dealt with it, especially in the latter years of her marriage, which she had to admit had been a very happy one for the most part. But when Jeff had come home and told her about Valerie it had all come surging back, and the malignancy had grown and grown again until sometimes it was all she could think of.
Valerie thought it was malice that had made her act as she had, but it wasn’t. It was hard, bitter experience, she thought as she pulled on her parka and got out of the car to walk along the windy beach. The sun had set and the dusk was deepening the sky, but there was another half-hour of light so she made for the shoreline where it was easier to walk.
She hadn’t particularly taken to Valerie when Jeff had first brought her home, Tessa acknowledged as she made her way across the dunes and slithered down onto the beach. She’d seen a young girl with the world at her doorstep. Her own car. Money to spend on fashion and make-up. A life in the city. All the things Tessa would have loved to have experienced when she was young and beautiful herself, and eager to escape the confines of village life. All of that had passed her by, as had her youth. She was now a middle-aged woman with no opportunity to spread her wings. That was very difficult to accept. The dreaded menopause was wrapping its tentacles around her. Her body was changing, losing its elasticity, aching, reminding her that she was no longer young. Grey hair was invading what had once been her crowning glory. The lines around her mouth and eyes were deepening, so yes, she was jealous of Valerie, Tessa conceded. Not admirable. Not nice. Irrational, she knew, but honest.
Valerie had seemed so confident, so sophisticated, with her stylish clothes and her own car. She’d had a bockety old bicycle when she was young, Tessa remembered with a pang.
Oh yes, she had been horribly jealous of Jeff’s girlfriend at first. Envious that Valerie would have all the things that Tessa had longed for and would have treasured. The declaration of love. The romantic proposal. The engagement and all the excitement that went with it. The white wedding and the romantic honeymoon. And eventually, a baby when the time was right.
It hadn’t worked out at all like she’d dreamed of. She and Lorcan had been dating for a year and she loved him with all her heart. He was in ag college up in Dublin and she was always afraid some sophisticated city slicker would get her claws into him. They had gone to a dance one hot summer’s night, and drank too much. They’d gone courting in a barn, full of sweet-smelling hay, on her father’s farm on the way home, and it had been so wonderful having him in her arms, desiring her as much as she desired him, that all their hitherto caution and restrained behaviour was swept away in a tide of wanting, and she’d lost her virginity eagerly and paid the price for her recklessness for the rest of her life.
She’d fallen pregnant, been proposed to, married – in a pale blue suit – with only her parents and Lorcan’s, and her sister as bridesmaid and his brother as best man, at the wedding, all within the space of three months. Her parents had been horrified, as well as furious at the shame she had brought on the family and had wanted her away from the village as soon as she could get going. The wedding had been a grim affair. They had been married at eight o’clock in the morning, the priest radiating disapproval, her mother sobbing into her handkerchief, her father stern and unyielding. There had been no wedding breakfast. No speeches and throwing of bouquets. She and Lorcan had got into his car immediately after the ceremony and driven straight to Dublin.
The honeymoon had been a weekend in Dublin in Wynn’s Hotel. She had left her village, where she had been the
subject of much whispered gossip, to live in Lorcan’s village, Rockland’s, in his elderly aunt’s rambling home, until they had enough money to buy a place of their own. He had given up college to work on his father’s fishing boat there and so Tessa carried the added guilt of knowing he had ended up working in the very job he had wanted to escape from.
Her husband had borne his new circumstances stoically, but she had been riven with grief and regret and an unquenchable fear that he had only married her out of duty and not love. The day she’d met Lorcan’s ex, Lorna Burton, had reinforced that belief beyond a doubt.
She’d taken Lisa for a walk to settle her down after a feed one Saturday not long after she was born and had been feeling surprisingly happy as the afternoon sun warmed them. And then she’d seen Lorna Burton walking briskly in her direction and her heart plummeted. Lorna had been dating Lorcan for a year before they’d had a falling out and he had started going with Tessa. Lorna was a sexy little blonde vamp who was always flirting with men and playing them off against each other. She couldn’t be more different from Tessa.
‘So this is Lorcan’s daughter!’ Lorna forced her to come to a halt in the middle of the footpath. She cast a cursory glance into the pram at Lisa. ‘Lovely baby, Tessa. Clever move, getting pregnant. Congratulations. But he would have come back to me if you hadn’t, you know that, don’t you?’ Lorna’s green eyes were icy flints as she stared at Tessa.
It took every ounce of self-control not to betray how deeply wounded she was by Lorna’s cruelty.
‘Lorcan was free to do whatever he wished, Lorna, I can assure you, and if he’d wanted you he’d have gone back to you, make no mistake about it,’ she said coldly, manoeuvring the pram around her.
‘As I say, Tessa, clever move, getting pregnant but not one I’d use to get a man,’ Lorna said scornfully over her shoulder as Tessa gripped the handles of the pram tightly and tried hard not to cry.
Those cold, harsh words had ploughed a deep furrow of torment in Tessa and undermined her marriage, despite Lorcan’s protestations to the contrary and reassurances that he did indeed love her. The damage had been done and Tessa could never entirely convince herself that what he said was true.
And so when Jeff, the child she loved the most of all her children, had arrived home with his new girl, she had seen in Valerie shades of the girl she was all those years ago before that first pregnancy had robbed her of all her dreams. All her old fears and regrets seemed to resurface just as she was inexorably sliding headlong into menopause and all the difficulties that entailed.
And then Jeff had come home with the news that his girlfriend was pregnant and it was like her and Lorcan’s past was being replayed all over again. A pattern being repeated. But things were different now from in her day, Tessa reassured herself as the sea caressed the shore and the breeze brushed her hair from her face, and a faint thrum of a fishing boat’s engine as it chugged towards harbour, broke the silence of the encroaching night. She turned to walk back towards the car. Valerie might hate her now, but the day would come when she would be grateful for the stance Tessa and Carmel had taken that had prevented her from rushing down the aisle and having to live with all the torments and doubts such a hasty trip entailed.
Perhaps Jeff would want to marry her in the future, and Tessa would be happy for them if it was what he really wanted, but for now her son had to focus on his chosen career. She would be damned if he had to give up college like his father had. His life was not going to be ruined. He had choices and she would try her utmost to make sure that he made the best ones for him, his baby and Valerie. In the meantime she would support them as best she could.
She would throw a lovely christening party to honour Briony, where their new grandchild would be surrounded by family and friends welcoming her into the world. So different for her own daughter’s christening which had been attended only by Lorcan and herself and the godparents; a subdued, restrained affair that had to be endured rather than enjoyed, with no sense of celebration, just shame.
Briony’s christening would be so different: a time of welcome and joy, with the church full of family and Jeff and Valerie’s friends. She sincerely hoped Carmel would come and that Valerie would see it as an olive branch. There was nothing more she could do about Terence; she’d made her offer of peace. The arrival of a baby was a special occasion, no matter what the circumstances. Patterns could be changed, Tessa decided, feeling suddenly energized as she climbed up the dunes to get to the car. This was an opportunity for all of them to put the past behind them and start afresh. Something to celebrate and look forward to, no matter what Terence Harris thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Valerie sat in her dressing gown beside her bed, rubbing Briony’s back gently. Her daughter gave a small burp, and then her eyelashes fluttered down over her cheeks and she fell asleep.
‘Good little girl,’ Valerie crooned, placing her back in her cot and covering her with her blanket.
A nurse poked her head around her cubicle curtains. ‘Valerie, I’m just going to take baby for her heel prick test.’
‘Will it hurt?’ Valerie winced at the thought.
‘She’ll be grand,’ the nurse said reassuringly, pushing Briony’s cot briskly down the ward. The cubicle felt strangely empty and she pulled back her curtains and smiled at the woman in the next bed.
‘I think I’ll just run down to the bathroom to slap on a bit of make-up. Jeff’s parents are coming in this afternoon; I need to look presentable.’
‘If you can run I take my hat off to you. I can hardly move,’ the older woman groaned. She had given birth to her third child, a daughter, the same night as Valerie. She was a friendly, good-hearted woman and both of them had confided to each other that they were glad they weren’t in the same ward as the one who had been screeching and roaring the night they were in labour.
Valerie gathered up her toilet bag and towel and made her way to the bathroom. Fortunately it was vacant and she didn’t have to hang around outside. Valerie shut the door with a sigh. It was nice to have some peace and quiet. The hospital was busy and noisy. There was always activity of some sort, and the inevitable background cacophony of babies crying. She hadn’t slept well and a fug of tiredness shrouded her. She was looking forward to going home at the weekend and sleeping her brains out. Lizzie had offered Carmel her bed and said she’d go to Rockland’s for the weekend. She wouldn’t have to worry about her friend being disturbed by a crying baby for the first two nights.
She looked wrecked, she decided, as she washed her face and applied some make-up. She felt she had aged ten years. Her boobs were sore and leaky, and her tummy looked like a pasty pudding. Far from goddess-like, she had informed Lizzie. She couldn’t imagine ever looking attractive or having sex again.
‘Ah, wait until you get a rub of the relic and you’ll be fine,’ Lizzie assured her briskly, having no clue as to what her friend was experiencing.
‘I wonder, will I be much looser down there?’ Valerie worried.
‘Are you doing those exercises?’ Lizzie demanded.
‘Religiously,’ Valerie assured her, tightening as she spoke.
Valerie smiled, remembering the discussion of the previous day. Lizzie had arrived in with a box of liquorice allsorts, a supply of sanitary towels, breast pads, a pretty pale green floral nightdress and two new pairs of big cotton knickers. ‘Not to be seen by man nor beast,’ she advised. ‘But they’ll cover a multitude until you get back to normal.’
Whenever that would be, if ever. Valerie grimaced as she gave her hair a brush, glad she’d got a shaggy cut again. It was so much easier to manage. She could hear people walking and talking along the corridor and knew that visiting hour had started. She squirted a spray of Apple Blossom on her neck and wrists, packed away her cosmetics, made her way back to the ward and spent a while tidying up her bits and pieces.
Briony’s little face was scrunched up and teary when the nurse brought her back and Valerie took her out
of the cot and cuddled her, murmuring soothing endearments until she fell asleep in her arms. She laid her back in her cot and covered her up, and felt suddenly weary.
Valerie eased herself up on the bed, wincing with pain. Piles were the pits, and extra punishment on top of the discomfort after childbirth. She flicked through a magazine but she was too agitated to read. She wished the Egans’ visit was over. She was mortified that they would see her in her dressing gown, but at least she had her make-up on.
Thank you for your kind offer of a party for the christening but we haven’t made a decision on where we’re having it yet, she practised silently. Just be firm, she told herself, yawning. She settled back against the pillows more comfortably. The sun was shining in on her, making her feel even more lethargic than before. She’d just have a little rest until her visitors came.
‘Don’t wake her up,’ she heard a man’s voice say. Something wet was running down her chin. Valerie came to with a start to see Jeff, Lorcan and Tessa studying her as she gazed at them bleary-eyed.
‘Oh, I must have fallen asleep,’ she murmured, wiping her chin. She was mortified. She had a strong suspicion she had been caught snoring with her mouth open, as well as dribbling.
‘God love you, are you exhausted?’ Tessa said kindly, handing her a gift-wrapped parcel.
‘Er . . . Thanks very much, Mrs Egan,’ she said politely, hoping the other woman wouldn’t kiss her.
‘Tessa – please. “Mrs Egan” makes me feel so old,’ Tessa protested. She didn’t look old, Valerie thought. She looked so healthy and tanned and fit compared to herself. Tessa was wearing black trousers, a cream ribbed polo-neck jumper and a smart grey belted trench coat, which she removed. ‘It’s warm in here,’ she remarked. ‘Can we see the baba?’ She leaned over the cot to take a peep.
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