“Let me,” he said, and took the umbrella from her, holding it so that it sheltered both of them from the persistent drizzle.
She said nothing but allowed him to walk beside her, matching her step to his, wishing that her heart wasn’t thumping so much within her chest.
“Have you been talking to Ben lately?” he asked.
She glanced at him. “No. He’s been in Drumcondra the last couple of days.”
“No news of him and Carey or him and Leah?”
“If you want to know about Ben’s love-life, why don’t you ask him,” said Freya spiritedly.
“It’s my love-life I’m more concerned about really,” said Brian. “You know how much you mean to me, don’t you?”
Freya stopped walking and turned to look at him. “You’ve told me before,” she said. “But sometimes it isn’t enough, is it?”
“I’m bloody hopeless at this,” said Brian. “I’m not good at saying how I feel. Not deep down. I’m not good at emotional stuff. I hate talking about things, I really do. That’s why I love you, Freya. Because you don’t go for Valentine cards and huge boxes of chocolates and bouquets of flowers either.”
“The odd bunch of flowers is nice,” she remarked. “The odd box of chocs too.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m trying to joke my way out of this and I can’t, can I?”
“There’s no way you can joke your way out of leaving me in a restaurant on my own,” she said. “I know I told you to, but it still wasn’t the best moment of my life when I realized that you’d taken me at my word. All the same, I understand why, Brian. I really do. It was just that when it happened I found it more difficult to deal with than I expected. Still, I’m fine now. So don’t feel that you have to apologize to me for it or anything.”
“I shouldn’t have left you,” said Brian. “It was cruel. And unnecessary.”
She shrugged and began walking again.
“Freya!”
She stopped. “Brian, if you want me to forgive you, I absolutely do. I know that this menopause thing isn’t easy for you to deal with. And maybe if I were you I’d have reacted the same way. It doesn’t matter. Really it doesn’t. I’m over it and you can do whatever you want. I did love you. I still care about you. But I’m not about to go into a decline over you.” She smiled suddenly and her ice-blue eyes warmed. “I’m not some silly teenager who believes that her heart is broken, never to be mended. At least that’s one advantage of getting older. You know that no matter what happens you get over it.”
“I don’t doubt for a second that you’d get over anything,” he said feelingly. “You’re a remarkable woman, Freya. But before you put me into your getting-over box there’s stuff that I have to tell you that I didn’t before now.”
She heard the seriousness of his voice and looked inquiringly at him.
“We need to go somewhere private,” said Brian. “Your place or mine?”
Nadia Lynch pushed the bedroom door open. Jeanne was lying on her bed, her eyes closed. “Mum says do you want to come downstairs and watch the movie?”
Jeanne shook her head.
“We’re all going to watch it,” said Nadia. “Nobody’s going out tonight. Not even Donny, and his girlfriend rang to ask him.”
Jeanne kept her eyes shut.
“It’s a good movie,” said Nadia. “And Dad’s doing popcorn in the microwave.”
“Go away,” said Jeanne.
“OK,” said Nadia. “But you’ll be sorry you missed it.”
Jeanne listened to the sound of the door closing and opened her eyes again. They were red and sore from the entire day’s crying that she’d done as well as (she supposed) the reaction to the amount of vodka she’d drunk the night before. She didn’t know whether smoking a joint could give you red eyes too, but she was prepared to accept that it might.
How could she have been so stupid! When she’d seen the keys to Carey’s apartment she’d picked them up, because knowing that Carey was away she’d thought that it would be a really cool thing to be able to say to Gary that they’d got a place for the night if he wanted. He’d been totally impressed when she told him and totally impressed, too, by Carey’s place. They’d wanted somewhere to be on their own. It wasn’t just, as Sylvia had suggested, so that they could fumble furtively — it had been the whole feeling of being somewhere with each other, without other people, somewhere that nobody else was going to barge into and disturb them.
She wished they hadn’t smoked the joints. She’d felt great afterwards, but then sleepy, so that curling up beside Gary had been a perfect thing to do. She flushed as she remembered Carey’s expression at the sight of them together.
To be fair to Carey, she’d been really good, thought Jeanne. She hadn’t lectured her or given out to her or anything. She’d simply told her that Sylvia was worried out of her mind and she’d rung her mother and told her to come and collect her. Ben had been pretty good too. He’d called a cab for Gary straight away, told them that he didn’t think it would be a good idea if Gary was there when Sylvia came, and had then been sympathetic when the younger guy had thrown up in the bathroom. Jeanne frowned suddenly. In all of the fuss and bother she hadn’t wondered before why Ben and Carey had arrived at the apartment together…
There was another knock at the bedroom door and she sighed deeply. She wished they’d leave her alone. The door opened. She bit the inside of her lip as John walked in. Her father had been furious with her when she arrived home. Truly furious. She’d seen the veins on his temple actually pulsate as he spoke. He’d made it clear to her that he thought her only barely better than a prostitute.
“Nadia told you we were going to watch a movie?” he said.
She nodded wordlessly.
“We’d like you to come down and watch it with us.”
“I’m OK,” she said.
“I know,” said John. “But we’d still like you downstairs.”
“I don’t want to be downstairs.”
He sat on the end of her bed. “I might have been a bit harsh with you earlier,” he said, “but you frightened us beyond belief, Jeanne. You’ve no idea what it was like.”
She bit her lip harder, wanting to keep the tears in, but knowing that they were going to fall again.
“When we called the police — well, all I could think of was those newscasts where parents appeal for news of their missing children. And how so many times those children never come home.”
“I’m not a child,” she said.
“You’re not a grown-up either,” said John.
“I’m sorry.” The tears spilled down her face again.
John put his arms round her and hugged her to him. “You won’t go through life without making mistakes,” he said. “But you see, you’re my daughter, and I don’t want you to make mistakes. I don’t want you ever to feel hurt or unhappy. I don’t want to think that some bloke looks at you and thinks he’s on to a sure thing…”
“Gary didn’t think like that,” said Jeanne rapidly. “It was me who took the keys and me who told him about Carey’s apartment.”
“So your mum told me.”
“So don’t blame Gary just because I wanted to do something.”
“I won’t,” said John.
“And I know it was wrong but I did it anyway,” said Jeanne.
John held her closer. “Life would be pretty boring if we did the right thing all the time,” he murmured.
Jeanne sniffed loudly.
“Blow your nose,” said her father. “And come downstairs.”
She sniffed again and took a tissue from the almost empty box beside her bed.
“OK,” she said.
Carey and Peter went into town for something to eat that night. They sat in one of Temple Bar’s myriad ethnic restaurants and ate Mexican food to the soundtrack of a mariachi band. Carey told him about Jeanne and Gary and her race up from Shannon to find them in her apartment. She was going to have to go back to Shannon in the morning, she told him, to r
etrieve her car, which was still parked in the hotel car park, but really it was a small inconvenience against the fact that Jeanne was OK and that everything had turned out all right. Although, she added, she hadn’t envied Jeanne the undoubted trauma that John and Sylvia would put her through.
“I’m surprised you didn’t think of the apartment yourself,” said Peter as he loaded a tortilla chip with hot salsa. “It wasn’t a difficult leap to make.”
“I wasn’t thinking at all,” she said. “D’you know, it’s funny, you can watch a detective drama on telly and you don’t understand why some of the characters don’t ask the obvious question, but when it’s happening to you — well, you just don’t!”
“So it was lucky that Ben asked it for you,” said Peter.
Carey looked at him. “Are you jealous?” she asked.
“Jealous!” He laughed.
“You sounded a bit bitchy just then.” She dipped her tortilla chip into the bowl of guacamole.
“Not bitchy, just sarcastic,” admitted Peter. “Come on, Carey, you’ve got to admit that he comes out of the whole thing looking like some knight in shining armor. Just like he did out of that damned Jeep episode too.”
“Not really,” she said. “He reacted to the circumstances, that’s all.”
They were silent for a moment, then Peter said suddenly, “Actually, you’re right. I was jealous.”
“Oh?”
“You’re married to him, Carey, not me. And he was there when you needed him, not me.”
“I’m out to dinner with you, not him,” she reminded him. “We’ve been out together half-a-dozen times since I bought the apartment. I haven’t been out with him at all.”
“But you haven’t slept with me,” said Peter.
Carey stared at him. “I haven’t slept with Ben either.” And she felt her face flush because she couldn’t admit to Peter that when Ben had been sleeping on the sofa of her apartment she had, for an instant, stood beside him and wondered what would happen if she slid her hands beneath the black T-shirt he’d been wearing and pulled him to her as she unexpectedly wanted to do.
“I’m sorry.” Peter hadn’t noticed her blush. “I can’t help feeling jealous of someone who actually married you.”
“I don’t think my marriage is anything to get jealous about,” she told him. “Anyway, I’ve decided to do the Dominican Republic divorce.”
“Why?” asked Peter. “From what you said before, it’s not likely to mean much in Ireland and surely it’s just hassle to go there.”
“I have to do it,” she said. “Closure.” She stabbed another tortilla chip into the guacamole. “I know closure is an over-used term these days, but I definitely need closure about this.”
“And when you have closure, what then?”
She shrugged.
“Will you want to get married again?”
She smiled. “Getting married is less important than getting the right guy.”
“And am I the right guy?” asked Peter.
“You could be,” said Carey.
“That’s good to know.”
“You could be, but I’m still kind of bruised about everything,” she said. “All the same, I’m really glad you were there when I needed someone.”
“No problem,” said Peter. “I was glad to be there. And glad to help with easing the bruising too.”
Carey almost said that part of the bruising was his fault in the first place, that she’d been carrying the scars when she met Ben. That maybe because of Peter, Ben had been her big rebound thing. But she knew that wouldn’t be fair. She couldn’t blame anyone else for her own silliness.
“Why don’t you combine the divorce with your apartment-warming,” suggested Peter. “Have a big closure and opening party at the same time.”
“Not a bad idea,” she conceded as she scooped up the last of the guacamole.
“It’d be fun.”
She nodded. “I’ll think about it. It’s time I did something just for fun.”
Freya sat on her sofa and looked at the photograph of Linnet van Roost. She saw, as Ben had seen, a stunningly beautiful girl with Brian’s eyes and Brian’s way of half looking out from beneath a fringe of hair.
“She’s amazing,” said Freya.
“I know,” said Brian. “I find it hard to believe that she’s mine.”
Freya nodded. “I can imagine. Especially if you only see her occasionally.”
“It worked out best that way. Marijka is a wonderful mother.”
“Did you ever want to marry her?” asked Freya.
“No.” Brian shook his head. “It wasn’t that kind of relationship, Freya. I was infatuated with her. It was great while it lasted. But it was never serious.”
“When did you find out?”
“About Linnet?”
She nodded.
“When she was six months old,” said Brian. “I went to Amsterdam to see her.”
“What was that like?” asked Freya.
“Very strange,” he admitted. “When you see your own child — well, there’s nothing like it.” He looked at her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She handed the photograph back to him. “I’m glad for you, Brian. I really am.”
“I should’ve told you before now.”
“Of course you should.”
“I know I had my reasons, but now those reasons seem really daft.”
She shook her head. “Not to me they don’t. I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I definitely shouldn’t have left you in the restaurant,” said Brian.
“You definitely shouldn’t have done that,” she agreed.
“I couldn’t deal with it.” He looked surprised at himself. “Think of all the things I can deal with, Freya — mergers and acquisitions and loans and all sorts of bullshit like that, but I couldn’t deal with telling the woman I love that I have a daughter.”
“The last few months have been laced with shocks,” observed Freya. “What with Ben and Carey and then the accident and then finding out about the menopause and Linnet — it’s no wonder I’m going grey.”
Brian looked at her golden hair. “Not from where I’m sitting.”
“I hate to tell you this, but I get my highlights done once a month,” she told him. “Otherwise things might look very different from where you’re sitting.”
“They never will,” said Brian. “Freya, I love you. I always have.”
“Always?” She looked inquiringly at him.
“Always,” he said firmly.
“I thought we were just good friends for a long time.”
“So what?” said Brian. “I still fancied you like crazy.”
Freya laughed.
“And I fancy you like crazy now,” he said. “Only it’s more than that, Freya.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’m sorry that I kept stuff from you. I’m sorry that I wasn’t confident enough to be able to talk about it.”
“A lot of apologies,” said Freya.
“I feel that there’s a lot to apologize for,” Brian said.
“Not really.” Freya shrugged.
“I don’t want to keep things from you anymore,” said Brian.
“I don’t want you to keep things from me either.”
“Oh, Freya.” He put his arms round her and pulled her close to him. And neither of them felt like talking then.
Chapter Thirty-Two
ROSEWOOD
Ideal for relaxation, this has a subtle woody aroma
Maude was ready and waiting when Sylvia arrived in the cab. She opened the hall door and waved to let her daughter know that she’d seen her arrive, then went into the living room, where Arthur was watching a garden make-over program, his feet propped on the coffee-table in front of him. He looked guiltily at Maude, who told him that she didn’t care where he put his feet but that if he scratched that tabl
e she’d have his guts for garters.
“I won’t,” he promised, nevertheless rearranging his viewing position so that he wasn’t using the table as a footrest anymore.
“I’ll see you later.” Maude grinned.
“Have a good time,” said Arthur. “Mind yourself.”
“I’m sure I’ll have a great time,” said Maude. “And I won’t be too late.”
“Be as late as you like.” Arthur smiled up at her and she kissed him on the lips before going out to the waiting cab.
“Everything OK?” asked Sylvia as Maude settled in beside her.
“Great,” said Maude. “I’m really looking forward to this.”
“Me too,” said Sylvia. “I do like Freya, don’t you?”
“Very much,” said Maude. She looked at her watch. “We’re in plenty of time, aren’t we?”
Sylvia nodded. “She said half-seven. It’s a quarter to now. We’ll be early.”
They arrived at the Clarence Hotel with five minutes to spare, but Freya was already in the small bar waiting for them. She beamed at them in delight and kissed Maude on the cheek.
“Thanks for coming,” she said. “I booked the table for eight so we can have a celebratory drink first.”
“Celebratory?” Maude twinkled at her.
Freya said nothing but ordered champagne from the bar.
“Goodness,” said Maude as she looked at her glass. “You really did mean celebratory!”
“A toast,” said Freya. “To you and Sylvia, Maude, for being so bloody nice to me. And to me and Brian.”
Sylvia looked at her inquiringly.
“We’re getting married,” said Freya.
“That’s great!” Sylvia hugged the other girl. “I’m really happy for you.”
“Thanks,” said Freya. She looked at them and smiled. “I wanted you guys to come out with me because you’ve been fantastic. Maude, when I was so upset and uncertain about the menopause, you helped me put it in perspective. You did too, Sylvia. And maybe because of that, I knew that even without Brian I’d be all right. In the end, though, it didn’t matter because he…well” — she smiled — “he came back to me. And it’s not that I couldn’t have coped without him, but — I love him. I hadn’t realized how much I loved him until he’d gone.”
Too Good to Be True Page 41
