by Cathy Kelly
Beth didn’t want to deal with her mother crying and alone, so she simply didn’t deal with it.
Lying down with several pillows cushioning her and the duvet loosely over her, Anneliese looked around the room. Maybe she should sell up. It was a beautiful cottage but it held too many memories for her now. It wasn’t as if she could redecorate it and make it different. As a beach cottage, it was perfect the way it was, all bleached wood, white walls and pale blue detailing. No, she couldn’t decorate it and change it. Selling was the only option. She ought to talk to Edward about it – well, talk to Edward’s lawyer. That would be next she supposed: his lawyer talking to her lawyer. She didn’t have a lawyer. There hadn’t been much call in her life for legal help, but she’d have to get one now. Not from Tamarin, of course. Even if the lawyer was the very model of discretion, still Anneliese winced at the thought of somebody local knowing everything about her and Edward’s break-up.
She could imagine it. Nell, sitting in a lawyer’s office, crouched like a witch on her chair, saying: ‘No, Edward, make sure you get half of everything – more than half.’
Anneliese shuddered. She’d get a lawyer in Waterford and let them deal with it. She’d say she wanted it done as simply and cleanly as possible, like amputation. Cut the limb off, cauterise it and walk away. But where would she go then? Would she stay in Tamarin? If Lily wasn’t there, she probably wouldn’t and Lily might not survive.
It had been over a week since her stroke and it was time to face facts. Lily might never come back and the more Anneliese visited her, the more she thought that Lily was getting older and frailer and more distant in the bed.
She could move to Dublin to be close to Beth and Marcus and her beautiful grandchild, but that might be crowding Beth; it wouldn’t be fair.
Her family home had been the other side of Waterford, but her parents were long dead and her brothers and sisters were scattered all around the country and the globe. There was no one place to call home any more, except Tamarin. When she’d married Edward, Anneliese had made this place her home.
God, the tablets were great, she thought sleepily. They allowed her mind to roam into areas she’d previously locked off. Which had to be good – or was it bad?
She closed her eyes, allowed herself to stop thinking about what she’d do next, and somehow she fell asleep.
The sound of a car crunching up on the stones on the drive woke her up. Beth was back. She should have been cooking and she’d fallen asleep. Blast it.
She threw back the duvet and looked out of the window, only there were two cars parking, Beth and Marcus’s car and Edward’s.
Anneliese’s chest tightened. She couldn’t cope with Edward right now. Clearly this was some idea of Beth’s to bring him here and make him talk to Anneliese. But Edward and Anne-liese didn’t want to talk to each other. They’d had two weeks to do it and neither of them had so much as picked up a phone to speak to the other. There was simply nothing to be said and too much pain would emerge during the saying of that nothing.
Anxiously, Anneliese pulled on her sweatshirt and jeans.
‘Mum,’ said Beth from the door of the bedroom. ‘Mum, I know you’re not going to like this, but…’
‘I saw your father’s car,’ Anneliese said. ‘Beth, this isn’t a good idea.’
‘Mum, please.’ Beth came into the room and sat on the bed. ‘Please.’
‘I’m not able for this.’
‘But talking is good, Mum, and you haven’t spoken to each other since he left, Dad told me.’
‘So?’ snapped Anneliese, feeling suddenly angry. ‘What is there to talk about? That he’s sorry and can we all be friends and do this amicably? I can guess what he wants to talk to me about, and I don’t want to listen. Once upon a time, he told me he loved me, and all the time he was involved with Nell. So frankly, I’m not interested in anything your father has to tell me.’
Beth looked taken aback. Anneliese knew she should apologise. It wasn’t her daughter’s fault, after all, and she never spoke to Beth like that, but she was fed up with considering everyone else’s feelings before her own. That was the old Anneliese.
‘Beth,’ said Anneliese firmly, ‘I do not want to talk to your father. Now get him out of my house.’
‘Please, Mum.’ Beth’s eyes filled up with tears.
She looked so forlorn and Anneliese knew at that moment that she’d have to go down to talk to Edward.
‘How did you get him here?’ she asked.
‘I told him to do it for me. He didn’t want to come, but I know if the two of you would just talk to each other, it would help.’
Anneliese raised her eyes to heaven. She knew that Edward, like herself, could never deny their daughter anything. Even now when Anneliese couldn’t bear the thought of being in the same room as Edward, she knew she would endure that because it would make Beth happy.
Nobody else would be able to make her do it. They were hardly at the family-mediation stage, unless mediation involved throwing kitchen implements and screaming blue murder. Oh well, she’d talk to him for five minutes, that was all. Anneliese glanced at herself in the mirror. Her hair was wild and her face tired. She looked like she looked when she came in from a wild, windy walk on the beach, except that then she might have some glow in her cheeks and now she just looked drained. There was no point primping or beautifying. Edward had gone. He’d hardly come back just because she was wearing lipstick.
‘I’m ready,’ she said.
‘But your hair…’ began Beth.
‘My hair’s ready too,’ said Anneliese grimly.
Downstairs, Edward was standing just inside the front door, looking anxious. Sitting down on one of the armchairs was Marcus, looking more anxious. Anneliese was very fond of her son-in-law. He was kind and gentle as well as being a clever, thoughtful man. He probably thought it was an appalling idea to see his in-laws turning out-law and screaming at each other in the same room, but Marcus was another one who would do anything for Beth. She’d undoubtedly twisted his arm too to make him go along with this crackpot plan.
‘Do you want to come in?’ Anneliese said to her husband.
‘I wanted to wait until you invited me in properly,’ Edward said formally.
‘I think the time for formality is over,’ she snapped.
Edward sat on the edge of the armchair opposite Marcus.
‘Come on, darling – let’s go for a walk on the beach,’ said Beth, grabbing Marcus and hauling him to his feet.
‘Yeah, sure. We’ll be just outside if you need us,’ Marcus said, shooting anguished looks at both Edward and Anneliese.
Anneliese felt the faint stirrings of a grin.
‘I’m not going to kill him,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I’ll just rough him up a little bit, OK?’
Beth hustled Marcus out of the front door before he could respond to this.
‘I’m really sorry about my turning up, Anneliese,’ said Edward, still formal. ‘It’s just, Beth insisted.’
‘I know,’ said Anneliese. ‘I understand, not your fault.’
‘You’re being very magnanimous,’ Edward said.
‘I’m not magnanimous at all,’ Anneliese replied. ‘I’m just tired and I don’t have the energy for gilding the lily. We’re here because we love Beth, she’s pregnant and we don’t want to upset her.’
‘Isn’t it wonderful news,’ Edward said eagerly and then stopped, as if he suddenly remembered that they weren’t normal would-be grandparents discussing their imminent grandchild. Anneliese thought the same thing.
She’d allowed herself to think about how she and Edward would react to the news that Beth was having a baby and this scenario had never figured in her imaginings.
‘It is wonderful,’ Edward went on, ‘that something nice is coming out of all of this.’
‘You talk like there has just been a natural disaster and none of us are responsible for it,’ Anneliese snapped. ‘There’s nothing natural about it at all. You
cheated on me, left me for Nell. Nell! For God’s sake, how could you do that, Edward? Nell was our friend. I used to feel guilty inviting her over all the time, in case you were fed up of there being a third wheel at dinner. How stupid of me: you loved having her here. I was probably the one you wanted to get rid of.’
‘No, it wasn’t like that,’ Edward said.
‘Well, what was it like? You know, now that you’re here, you can answer some questions.’
She sat on the edge of one of the chairs opposite him and glared at him.
‘When did you start screwing my friend? Please tell me – not that I expect you’re going to tell me the truth,’ she went on. ‘Because you won’t, will you? That’s one of the rules of infidelity, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she argued. ‘You make it sound like it was only going on five minutes and then, eventually, I’ll learn you’ve been together months, years, so that everything I thought was real wasn’t real at all. Talk about a recipe for making someone go mad. That’s what I keep doing, Edward: thinking of the past and what bits were real and what bits involved you faking happiness so you could spend more time with Nell.’
Anneliese slipped into the seat properly. She’d intended to sit on the edge in case she wanted to run out of the room because she couldn’t stand to look at him any longer, but the weariness came over her again.
‘Were you together at Beth’s wedding, for example?’
‘No,’ he shouted.
‘Well, when then? Christmas?’
He didn’t answer.
‘OK,’ said Anneliese. ‘Christmas then: you were together at Christmas. So when before Christmas did it start? Just tell me, so that I can draw a line under the time you were with her and remember the memories before that, because they were real. I hope they were real.’
Another thought occurred to her. Had there been somebody else, other women? A man who could cheat once, could have cheated before.
‘Was there anyone else, before Nell?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘There was never anyone else. I wish you didn’t think that of me –’
‘You mean you wish I didn’t think badly of you,’ Anneliese interrupted. ‘How can I not think badly of you, Edward? You cheated on me. If our marriage was so terrible, you should have told me. You could have given me a choice. But you didn’t. You played a game, where you stayed with me and waited for someone else to come along.’
That was one of the biggest injuries, she realised with stunning clarity. Instead of walking away from their marriage, he’d waited, thoughtfully watching. ‘Is that what you did?’ she demanded. ‘Waited, while looking around for someone, and Nell just happened to fit the bill?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ he said. He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. ‘It wasn’t like that at all. You were…’
‘Oh, my fault again, right,’ said Anneliese bitterly. ‘I behaved in a particular way or I wasn’t what you wanted, and that’s why you had to look elsewhere.’
‘No,’ his voice was getting harsher. ‘I’m not saying it’s your fault. I’m saying we, we as a couple, had drifted apart, that’s all. I was vulnerable.’
‘Vulnerable to what?’ she demanded. ‘Vulnerable to Nell boosting your ego, telling you how fabulous you were?’
He flushed and she sensed that she’d made a direct hit. ‘That’s not a relationship, Edward. That sounds like something schoolgirls do. You’re so wonderful, Edward, why don’t you leave your boring wife to live with me? You know what, I wish you happiness.’
She pushed herself off the seat. She didn’t want to sit in the same room as him any more, there was no point. He wasn’t going to answer any of the questions she needed answers to, and this was too raw to talk about. She’d been doing it for Beth and, in truth, if Beth had understood either of them better, she wouldn’t have pushed them into this.
‘Edward, why don’t you go. We have nothing to say to each other.’
He got to his feet obediently. ‘I’m so sorry about Lily,’ he said. ‘I know it must be terrible for you. I know how much you loved her.’
‘Don’t talk about her like she’s already dead,’ snapped Anneliese, ‘because she’s not.’
The look Edward shot her was of pity. Anneliese turned around and went upstairs into her bedroom, slamming the door. She heard a car door bang shut and then the sound of tyres on the drive as Edward drove away.
Two weeks ago, Edward had been everything to her. They’d spent hours together, happy, content in each other’s company, or so she’d thought. Except that they hadn’t been happy, apparently. If it hadn’t been for a simple migraine that made her come home unexpectedly, she mightn’t have ever known that. The randomness and powerlessness of life hit her again. Why had she been so stupid as to think she had any control of her own life, because she didn’t.
THIRTEEN
‘Here we are,’ Jodi said as she drove over coral azalea petals lying like confetti on the driveway.
‘Oh my,’ breathed Izzie, as she caught sight of the house for the first time. It was early afternoon and bright sunlight painted the graceful façade of the house with a pale, shimmering gold. Set in the middle of a bower of trees and overgrown gardens, Rathnaree was like a graceful bride on her wedding day: no matter how lovely everyone else looked, your eyes were drawn only to her. ‘It’s beautiful.’
They parked beside the estate agent’s car and Izzie began to wander around the garden, touching shrubs and small statues, admiring it all, astonished at this beauty, something she’d grown up so close to and yet had never seen. Here, buried under a Japanese maple and covered with lichen, was a marble goddess with a half-smile on her soft lips.
Izzie ran her fingers over the smooth stone. Rathnaree was from another world and yet Izzie’s own family had been a part of it. To think that her family had worked here in this amazing house, her grandmother and her great-grandmother. And all these years it had remained undisturbed, preserved as if waiting for her to walk in.
‘Come on, Izzie,’ said Jodi, who’d seen the gardens and just wanted to get inside.
In the end, it had been Izzie who had managed to persuade the estate agent to let them see Rathnaree. That she had managed to achieve this was a combination of her charm – and the fact that she and the estate agent had gone to school together.
‘Aggie, we just want to have a look around for this history that Jodi’s writing. Look at it this way: anyone who is willing to put up the money to buy somewhere as massive as Rathnaree is bound to be egotistical enough to want a history of the place written. Rich people have egos the size of Mars, right, and having a history of their new house already written – well, it’s got to be a selling point. You could put it on your marketing brochures. Can you see what I’m getting at? It’s not just a massive old Anglo-Irish wreck in need of restoration…’
‘I thought you were putting a positive spin on it,’ muttered Aggie, the estate agent.
‘– it’s a beautiful example of classic Irish architecture, with a fantastic history that links it to Tamarin and all the great events in Irish history.’
‘Such as what?’ said Aggie.
‘Well, I don’t know yet. That’s why we want to see inside, isn’t it?’ Izzie said. Honestly, Aggie was hard work.
‘I’m not going to tell Peter about this,’ Aggie said, weakening.
Peter Winters was the man who owned Winters & Sons, the estate agency trying to sell Rathnaree. The company’s motto was along the lines of: If you want to sell an exquisite family heirloom, with style and dignity and no nasty modern advertising, then come to Winters & Sons.
That sort of ploy might have worked years ago, but it clearly wasn’t working now, Izzie realised. Rathnaree had been empty for four years and there was no sign of anybody taking it off the owner’s hands.
‘Peter doesn’t need to know anything,’ Izzie said. ‘We won’t tell him, Girl Guide’s honour.’
‘Were you in the G
uides?’ Aggie asked.
‘I went to Brownie camp once,’ Izzie volunteered.
Aggie shrugged. ‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘I’m warning the pair of you, Rathnaree needs a hell of a lot of work,’ Aggie went on as she found the keys for the house. ‘If a bit of plaster falls off and kills you, I’m not liable, right?’
The current owner was one Freddy Lochraven, a distant nephew of the original family. According to Aggie, he divided his time between London and Dubai and had only visited the house once shortly after he’d inherited it.
‘Peter thinks it suits him that it hasn’t sold on the grounds that, with property prices rising all the time, it will make more money when it eventually sells.’
‘And he’d love, I’m sure, a detailed history of the place,’ Izzie interrupted.
‘I suppose,’ said Aggie. ‘Fine, I’ll let you in and I’ll leave you, but don’t take anything, please.’
‘Oh, Aggie, for God’s sake,’ grumbled Izzie. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. We just want to breathe in the atmosphere. Besides, you’ve known me all your life – and Jodi’s the Vice-Principal’s wife, she’s hardly going to start ripping the fireplaces off the walls, is she? No. We’re doing you a favour.’
‘We have to go in through the kitchen,’ said Aggie now, jangling keys, ‘because the front door’s a nightmare. The last time I was here, I could barely open it.’
They walked around the side of the house to the big gate into the courtyard through which Jodi had peered once before. She was so excited and was mentally urging Aggie to hurry up but the estate agent was taking for ever, slowly inserting key after key into the lock, trying to find the right one and muttering as she did so.
‘Hurry up!’ Jodi wanted to scream, but she daren’t. If Aggie changed her mind, they wouldn’t be able to get in and she just had to see inside.
Finally, the stiff lock yielded. Aggie unhooked it and pushed the creaking gates open. Jodi ran in first, looking around, trying to commit everything to memory. Photos! She’d better take photos.