UNDER A GREEK MOON
Carol Kirkwood
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021
Copyright © Carol Kirkwood 2021
Jacket design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021
Jack photographs Bill Oxford/Getty Images, Shutterstock.com (sand, figure and back jacket)
Carol Kirkwood asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008393380
Ebook Edition © July 2021 ISBN: 9780008393403
Version: 2021-05-19
Dedication
For Donald and Steve,
for always listening and being there.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part Two
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part Three
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
Prologue
The young woman looked out across the sea from her room, high up above what passed for a main thoroughfare on the small island of Ithos. From her vantage point, she could see the bustle of the harbour but was spared the heat of the midday sun and the throng of holidaymakers who swarmed the narrow streets, here on trips from the larger islands of Crete and Rhodes.
The room was sparse, furnished in the traditional Greek way: terracotta tiles on the floor, a simple bed, a pine dresser, crisp white sheets, shutters on the window. A light breeze lifted the thin voile curtain, which swirled around her like a veil before hanging limp once more.
She drank in the sight below – fishermen hailing each other across the boats which lined the jetty, each man moving with a rhythm handed down from the generations before them. Mooring their boats, hauling the nets, passing their precious cargo of sardines and mackerel from ship to shore. Watching them, it seemed to her that nothing had changed here for centuries.
She turned away, tugging the rucksack zipper closed which was already carefully packed with everything she needed, and turned to survey the room one last time.
Catching sight of the postcard lying next to the bag, she picked it up and reread the words that were so familiar she could recite them by heart:
Always have hope. We have our dreams. Don’t wait for me …
She turned the postcard between her fingertips, looking again at the image on the reverse, the shot of Ithos, a Greek island idyll with its white beaches and sapphire sea, cobbled streets lined with traditional buildings, and behind them the craggy hills of the interior, always changing, always the same.
With a sigh she propped the postcard up on the dresser, no longer wishing to keep it. She didn’t need it now; the words were indelibly etched in her mind – she would never, could never forget them. Then she heard the clatter of footsteps on the stone staircase leading up to the room. A knock at the door. She took one last look at the postcard and turned to answer the door.
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Los Angeles, September 2000
Shauna Jackson adjusted her dark glasses, even though there was no need for them with the early morning light barely penetrating the windows of Los Angeles International Airport. She checked her watch, impatient to reclaim her luggage and board the limousine that would take her home. Home, she thought; what a mass of contradictions that threw up. She’d just stepped off a plane from Ireland, a place that hadn’t been home for years, but as the old adage said, you can take the girl out of Enniscrea …
There were times, and today was one of them, when she felt like an imposter in LA. As if Shauna Jackson, award-winning actress, widow of Dan Jackson, the directors’ director, was a fraud and at any moment she’d be stripped of her Golden Globes and Emmys and sent back to Enniscrea with her tail between her legs – an outcome which would undoubtedly please her mother.
She shivered, wondering if the drizzle and mist of the west coast of Ireland had got into her bones, or maybe there was still a little shard of ice left in her heart that even the rising heat of California couldn’t melt. If only her father were here to sprinkle some of his magical optimism over her. She could imagine him telling her, C’mon, Shauna, buck up – there’s joy and happiness underneath every paving stone if you’d only take a look. Instead she was alone, and though she had wealth and all the trappings of fame, it couldn’t shield her from the humiliation and anguish.
Oh Dan, why did you do it?
Shauna peered through her Chanel sunglasses, surveying the baggage claim area to see if anyone had recognized her. There had been a time when she would have smiled and been happy to sign autographs, but today she’d employed all the little tricks Hollywood’s finest used to go undetected: she’d made sure she was the last one off the plane, she’d kept her luggage to the minimum, her flame-red hair was concealed under a fedora and her green eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, and she’d travelled under her maiden name, Shauna O’Brien, in case anyone tipped the paparazzi off after seeing the flight manifest. She’d had enough of photographers to last a lifetime. In the aftermath of her husband’s shockingly sudden death they’d hounded her, driven into a feeding frenzy by the news that he’d been unfaithful and had fathered a son by another woman. As if the loss weren’t bad enough, she’d had to cope with Dan’s mistress selling her story, airing all the dirty secrets. Her life had turned into a never-ending nightmare.
And in Ireland things had gone from bad to worse …
When she recalled stepping off the plane at Shannon Airport, it felt as though time had stood still. No paparazzi lying in wait, no one giving her a second glance. The taxi driver who delivered Shauna to her parents’ trim white cottage chattered away oblivious to the fac
t he had a celebrity on board. It was as if she’d reverted to being Shauna O’Brien, as if she’d never left Enniscrea.
The blast of disapproval as she hauled her cases over the threshold was just like old times too. She’d known that the last thing her mother would want was her arriving unannounced, but it was the only way Shauna was going to catch her off-guard, get some answers.
‘Staying a while, are you?’
‘If it’s a problem, I can always go to a hotel, Mammy.’
‘I didn’t say it’s a problem,’ she sniffed. ‘I just wasn’t expecting you to visit.’
‘Your letter had me worried. I booked the first flight I could.’
‘Well, your da will be pleased to see you.’ Her tone implied that she didn’t much care either way.
‘What’s wrong with him, Mammy?’ She lowered her voice in case Da was somewhere within earshot, though if he had been, he’d surely have come to the door to greet her. ‘Reading between the lines, I got the impression it’s serious. I’ve been worried sick, not knowing what’s going on. Why must you always be so mysterious?’ Shauna knew why: it was a form of control, a way of keeping a tight rein on the flow of information between her daughter and her husband.
‘I reckoned you had enough on your plate, what with that scandal all over the news.’ Her mother’s lips pursed, prune-like wrinkles radiating out from her mouth. ‘I’m shocked that woman dared show her face, and at the wake, of all things. I can’t help thinking it’s a blessing the two you of never had children. The shame of it all … What must the priest have thought when he saw the papers? I hope you apologized to him. And to think your husband … I’ve barely been able to look Father Sean in the eye. This wouldn’t have happened if you’d stayed in Enniscrea.’
Shauna knew to argue was pointless. ‘Where’s Da?’
‘He’s having a lie-down. He’ll be awake shortly. I’ll put the kettle on while you go get yourself sorted?’
Shauna knew there’d be no answers from her mother until she was good and ready, so she bumped her suitcases up the narrow staircase to her old attic bedroom with its view of the sea in the distance. It wasn’t quite the panoramic view of Pacific sunrises and sunsets you got in California, but still the views in Enniscrea could take your breath away, with showers and sunshine combining to throw rainbows across the sky, two or three at a time. She’d never tired of gazing at them as child, shouting for her da to come see. She could picture him now, jiggling her on his knee and telling her stories of the leipreacháns, the mischievous little people who hid their pots of gold at the end of the rainbow where no one would ever find them.
‘Sure, you don’t need rainbows or crocks of gold to be happy,’ he’d tell her.
Her eyes blurring with tears, Shauna turned away from the window. In the taxi on the way here she’d steeled herself for whatever news it was her mother was keeping back, but now that she was here, surrounded by childhood memories, her resolve seemed to have left her. Rather than go downstairs, she stood looking around her at the little bedroom under the eaves. It seemed to have been left pretty much as it was when she was a child. Her old clothes were gone from the wardrobe and drawers, but the shelves were still crammed with her favourite novels and school exercise books. She opened a cupboard, and her eyes lit up when she saw her precious collection of Photoplay back issues. While other teenagers had pored over Jackie and Seventeen with their pages full of pin-ups like David Cassidy and David Soul, Shauna had invested her meagre pocket money in old editions of the cinema fan’s bible, preferring to lose herself in Hollywood gossip of days gone by. She reached out and teased a magazine from the pile, pausing to drink in the cover, unconsciously returning Grace Kelly’s all-American smile as it beamed out at her from a 1956 edition. She turned the yellowing, well-thumbed pages, and read again Grace’s ‘Untold Story’. It was as she remembered: no revelations, merely a well-trodden recap of Grace’s life up to the year of the issue, accompanied by a photo from High Society featuring Grace and Bing Crosby.
The Hollywood legend turned fairy-tale princess had been a lifelong obsession for Shauna. As a teenager, she’d hated her red hair and dreamed of being blonde and beautiful like Grace. It had taken years for Shauna to embrace her looks, despite Dan calling her his ‘pre-Raphaelite dryad’ and urging her to stop lightening her hair in an effort to be more like her idol. Ironically, it was after she reverted to her natural colour and pale complexion, realising that it set her apart from the perma-tans and facelifts of LA, that Dan betrayed her with another woman.
Shauna winced. She’d resolved not to keep torturing herself with memories of Dan. Instead, she steered her thoughts back to her idol, and the night they’d met. The memory was fixed in her mind, the graceful handshake, the charming smile. There was so much else she could never forget about that night, too. A promise. A caress. A dream that could never be real. ‘You’re like no one else, Shauna …’
If only Grace had lived and they’d had the chance to get to know each other. What advice would she have given to Shauna in her current situation? Smile and act like you don’t care, darling.
Good advice, but impossible to follow. Especially with her mother waiting downstairs to break the news she had come all this way to hear. Now that she was here, the prospect filled her with such dread that she wanted to run or hide, as if so long as the truth about her da’s condition remained unspoken, it wouldn’t be real and she could go on clinging to the memories of him as he used to be.
Shauna composed herself, readying herself to go back downstairs again, then reapplied her make-up, before closing the door on her old belongings and her youthful dreams.
The day they buried her father, the weather was a typical mixture of sunshine and rain – the classic Irish combination. Father Sean’s eulogy was good-humoured and intimate, as befitted a long-standing member of his flock. The church was packed with old friends and colleagues, local acquaintances and the usual random people who no one ever seemed to recognize but who turned up at every funeral in the parish, usually for the free tea and sandwiches afterwards.
Shauna’s mother clung to her, weeping as her husband was lowered into his grave, her brittle exterior gone for once. As she tried to find words to comfort her, Shauna felt like a child forced into the role of an adult, lost and uncertain, desperate for her strong and uncompromising mother to take the lead instead of looking to her.
At the graveside, Shauna had read from her father’s favourite poem, ‘He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ by W. B. Yeats. Her voice faltered when she came to the line, ‘tread softly because you tread on my dreams’, her mind conjuring his musical voice reading it to her as a child. She drew on all her acting ability to get through it and prayed she was doing him justice. As a rainbow burst across the sky, she told herself it was a message from him that she was.
Shauna’s thoughts returned to the present with a jolt as the limousine left the freeway and turned into North Knoll Drive. Her penthouse apartment wasn’t in the showiest part of Beverly Hills, but she had bought it with her first pay cheque from her first Hollywood movie, Only the Brave. Her role as the wife of a paraplegic Vietnam vet had won her an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress and launched her career. Perhaps because of that, the apartment had sentimental value and she had insisted on keeping it on even after she and Dan moved into their sprawling beachfront mansion in Malibu. Though she’d justified it to Dan by pointing out it was more convenient for the studios, the truth was she liked having what Virginia Woolf would have called ‘a room of one’s own’, a sanctuary she could retreat to.
As she stepped out of the limo and into the lobby entrance, she immediately felt calmer, more composed. Yes, this was home now, and it was so good to be back.
Chapter 2
‘Shauna, you’re home!’
After eighteen hours’ jet-lagged sleep, Shauna had come out onto her balcony to escape the persistent flashing light of her answering machine. She’d barely had time to take in the view of the W
est Hollywood hills when a red open-top Cadillac pulled up outside with Roxy Lennon, her oldest and best friend, waving excitedly from the passenger seat. Within minutes, Roxy had sprinted up the stairs and was at the door.
Five foot eleven inches in her Jimmy Choo heels, Roxy towered over Shauna, who was barefoot and casual in Levis and a New York Yankees baseball jersey. While Shauna kept her make-up minimal, her friend as usual had opted for a more vampish look, her black spiky hair a masterpiece of through-a-hedge-backwards chic, thick black eyeliner to set off her brown eyes, her lips a gash of scarlet currently beaming with pleasure. Resplendent in red tartan trousers with a battered biker jacket, she cut a dramatic figure.
‘Shaunie!’ Sweeping her friend into her arms, Roxy hugged her long and hard, then stood back to subject her to a close inspection. When she spoke, her once broad Liverpool accent was softened with a transatlantic twang. ‘That bad, eh?’
Shauna’s shoulders sagged. ‘Thank God you’re here. I feel like I’ve been going mad.’
‘Oh, that’s crap, you’re the sanest person I know.’
‘Not any more. Who’s that in the Cadillac?’
Roxy winked playfully, took her by the hand and led her out onto the balcony. Below them, looking up from the driver’s seat was a handsome, olive-skinned young man who looked to be half Roxy’s age.
‘That’s Marco, isn’t he gorgeous!’
Marco responded with a friendly wave and Roxy blew him a kiss. ‘He was one of my models at Milan Fashion Week – doesn’t speak much English but can read a road map, if you know what I mean.’ She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
‘What happened to that young designer you were championing – the one you said adored you, and that you couldn’t live without?’
Roxy frowned. ‘Jason Turner? Got too big for his boots, wanted me to set him up with a new label. I might have been happy to oblige if I hadn’t caught him screwing one of the interns. I told him to move out, fuck off and set himself up with his own money.’
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