by Mary Malone
Watching her closely, he remembered his earlier conversation with Carl, his warning that he was to disappear from Beth’s life. How would she take it? Should he allow the final choice to be hers? Should he test her feelings for him? Was this his opportunity, the two of them on neutral territory with nobody else around to either interfere or interrupt?
Reading his mind, she faced ahead, not meeting his eyes. “Why are you helping Carl and Ed?”
“What has he told you?”
“He said it was to do with keeping Ed’s business afloat. Is that true?” She couldn’t trust that what Carl had told her was the truth.
“Well, yes . . .”
“But, Dad, Ed’s business is drowning, probably beyond saving. You’re wasting your time and money.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” Frank insisted. Why couldn’t Carl have kept his mouth shut instead of dragging Beth into this? Probably safeguarding his back to ensure Frank didn’t have a change of heart.
“But we’re in as much trouble as Ed. It’ll take thousands for us to try and get our heads above water. Why can’t Carl get his priorities in order? Or you for that matter?”
Frank’s despair deepened. “That’s low, Beth. You married Carl and brought him back here, letting us know in no uncertain terms that you wanted to make your own decisions.”
“But I asked you for help and you refused!”
“Buying that ridiculous house – no matter what mumbo-jumbo you listened to from the auctioneer – is the rock you two will perish on.”
“I’m doing my best to turn it into a business. And we have quite a few interested clients. But I’ve no backing, monetary or otherwise!” She turned to look at him.
Her eyes were filled with sorrow and despondency, breaking her father’s heart.
“Carl?” he asked.
She shrugged indifferently. “He’s done a bit but nothing to secure finance to get it up and running. Too busy safeguarding his brother’s failed empire!”
“Sometimes we need to fight our own battles and learn from our mistakes,” Frank advised.
Though he’d have liked nothing better than to offer her reassurance, promise her the sun, moon and stars to make her feel better and see a brighter look in her eyes, he didn’t want to jeopardise this one opportunity he had to get Carl out of her life once and for all. In Frank’s opinion, he was single-handedly her biggest problem, his lack of support dragging her down. With him out of the picture, Frank would see what he could do to coax his daughter back to studying and offer her the chance to start over. Still a young woman, her options were limitless. She could do anything she pleased – even though it didn’t appear like that now. The prospect of her realising her dreams and capabilities focused him on clearing Ed’s name and seeing his son-in-law out of the country.
“Has he any interest in meeting debts? Does he expect the world to fall at his feet? He’s certainly not cut from the same cloth as his brother.”
Beth’s eyes narrowed. What could she say? She agreed with everything he was suggesting but pride prevented her from admitting aloud that her choice of husband had landed her in dire straits. So instead of being honest with Frank, she attacked him.
“Did you bring that into the conversation you had with him when you and he were all cosied up in the café?”
“Not for me to tell him what to do. Is it, Beth?”
“I guess not. Men don’t like speaking the truth, do they?”
Frank exhaled, finding the exchange with his daughter tough going. He ached to take his youngest child in his arms, stroke her hair and tell her everything would be okay. He watched as she stood up from the bench.
“Thanks a lot, Dad. I won’t make the mistake of asking for help again! So much for putting family first!”
She walked away from her father, leaving him feeling even more fed up and frustrated than he’d been when he’d left his wife and brother-in-law to their private conversation.
Standing at Polly’s graveside, an immeasurable sense of peace washed over Frank as he silently shared his problems with his sister. How he wished she hadn’t died. How he wished he had appreciated her more when she’d lived. How he wished he’d realised she’d always had his best interests at heart instead of considering her an interfering older sister who hadn’t always made the wisest decisions herself.
Beth’s anger had upset him. Things were moving extremely slowly on Ed’s case. Mags hadn’t returned his call. He consoled himself that she’d changed her number. Life had been depressing enough lately without shattering any illusion he carried that she’d be pleased to hear from him. In the absence of her assistance, he was waiting for Interpol to update him on their search into copyright and patent agreements, concrete proof of plagiarism being in short supply, making it very difficult to mount further pressure on his contacts. They’d all returned requesting more evidence-based information, the case needing to be watertight before any of them would touch it.
“I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Frank jerked his head up at the sound of Kieran’s voice. Deep in thought, he hadn’t noticed him coming to stand alongside him.
“I could say the same to you.”
A comfortable silence settled between them as they stood together, neither of them in a hurry to converse. The afternoon playing football with Greg had been tremendously enjoyable for both, diffusing any remaining annoyance after John Kilmichael’s visit.
“Hear any more from our friend Kilmichael?” Frank asked after a while, his gaze fixed on his sister’s burial place, imagining her curiosity. Harsh rain had decimated the few remaining floral tributes, petals shattered in the wind, nothing left but withered stalks and stems. The artificial wreaths, though still intact, would undoubtedly fade, the condolence messages disappearing. Yet still, despite their lack of authenticity, the plastic arrangements would survive the elements – in the same way as Polly’s love for her only son did.
“Not since but I called Olivia to verify I wasn’t mistaken. Their meeting is moved to next week.”
“What I don’t understand is why she lied to me. There shouldn’t have been a reason. I never judged, barely discussed John with her. She broached the subject on every occasion, insisting he didn’t know he was her son.” Frank’s voice caught in his throat.
Kieran shuffled his feet, his father’s raw emotion making him very uncomfortable. He’d never seen his father cry. What should he do if he did? Throw an arm around his shoulders? Pat him on the back? Would that be enough? Surely he wouldn’t be expected to hug him in broad daylight? His eyes darting around the grave looking for something to do and escape the awkwardness of the moment, he collected the withered flowers, bundling them in his arms and resuming his stance at the graveside next to his father – ensuring there was a safe distance between them. Even if I wanted to, I can’t hug him now, he thought, not with all these dead flowers in my arms.
“Dad, you might as well fill me in on what you know. John’s not a man for disappearing, it seems, and I’ve walked myself into enough trouble with him already.”
“I rue the day she tracked him down.” Frank gazed into the distance, a peculiar look in his eye. “Her life was easier without him. He’s been nothing but an added complication.”
“Huh? Tracked him down? That’s the part I don’t get. She went to the trouble of finding him and inviting him into her life in order to lie to him!” Kieran was confused. It didn’t make sense.
“She wanted to be close to him, yet was determined not to tell him the truth about his conception.”
“I don’t understand. I’m assuming she had him adopted? You heard me asking him but he didn’t respond.”
A breeze kicked up. Frank pulled the collar of his navy wax jacket around his neck, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“It’s difficult to explain, Kieran. Handing him over hours after his birth devastated her. The way she described it, it was like a part of her died in that moment.”
“But all
I remember is her being full of life, always in good form. That can’t have been an act. I couldn’t be so insensitive that I didn’t notice.” Kieran was insistent, not wanting the warm memories of his aunt to be thwarted in any fashion. He’d have noticed if she’d been depressed. Wouldn’t he?
“On the outside, maybe, but what she felt inside told a whole other story and many years had passed by the time you started staying there.”
If he’d felt guilty for neglecting his aunt in recent years, he felt ten times worse now! There I was every summer, he thought, treating her home like a hostel and happy to enjoy her meals and warm welcome without giving a thought to her feelings. “I must have been blind not to notice,” he admitted.
Frank turned to look at his son. “She adored you, Kieran. It was years after his birth before she confided in me. Can you imagine how I felt?” Shaking his head, he still found it difficult to believe he’d been so selfish, so caught up in his own life and career that he’d taken little notice of what she had been going through.
“She must have felt so alone.” Kieran stared at the grave.
Sensing his son’s anguish and unfounded guilt, Frank strived to reassure him. “I often wondered if she substituted you for him, if you somehow managed to take his place.”
Kieran shook his head and groaned. This was too much to take in. “I can believe she had a son – but, of course, why not? But he doesn’t seem like her at all, neither physically or in personality. Though there is something familiar about him too . . . Don’t you think so?”
“Can’t say. I met him by accident – just happened to be there one day when he called. After that – because I can’t say I was very civil to him – Polly made sure our paths didn’t cross unless it was unavoidable.”
“When did she tell you about him? Was it that first time you met him?” Kieran stared at the grave again, wishing Polly could rise from the earth, sit there without hurrying him, grinning at him and answer his questions – like she’d done so many times in the past.
Frank shook his head, remembering an afternoon several years before when he’d turned up on Polly’s doorstep unexpectedly. Turning the door handle, he’d been surprised to find it locked in the middle of a summer afternoon. The door to Number 5 was never locked. In fact, on a warm sunny day it was seldom even closed! Sensing something was amiss, he let himself in through the back gate, his heart skipping a beat when he found his sister curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor, her body heaving as she sobbed her heart out. Though she’d been reluctant at first to tell him what was wrong, she’d eventually relented when he’d refused to leave while she was in such a state. Sitting with her brother that afternoon, she’d disclosed every gory detail, apart from the father’s identity. It was a long time before she disclosed that final nugget of information.
“Dad?”
Frank’s thoughts were interrupted. He’d forgotten Kieran’s original question, anxious instead to warn his son about something very important where John Kilmichael was concerned.
“I swear to you, she never told John that he was her son.” Frank’s expression was very serious.
“Well, he knows now!”
“So he found out in some other way!”
“But I just don’t get it! If she went to the trouble of tracking him down, why didn’t she tell him the truth?”
Frank kicked at some stray earth with the toe of his shoe, pushing it over the side of the grave.
“Various reasons. So she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye and admit she had given him away. So she wouldn’t have to disclose the identity of his father. And there was another factor – she was honouring the memory of her beloved Glen, her lost husband. She was a widow after all and he wasn’t that long dead when she became pregnant. It would have been a scandal – brought disgrace on his name.”
“But she denied herself . . .”
“Story of her life,” Frank said. “Polly was a saint, went to her grave putting everyone else before herself.”
Kieran twisted the stems of the flowers, liquid seeping from some of them as he squeezed them tightly. “Even me now, Dad? Willing me the house, she has denied her own son.”
Frank continued as though he hadn’t heard. “Some of those she was protecting barely gave her the time of day, didn’t even attend her funeral!”
“Dad?” Frank’s statement confused his son.
“Polly knew exactly what she was doing leaving her house to you, asking you to stay there for twelve months so that you wouldn’t sell it first chance you got. She had high hopes for you, felt you’d been away long enough but wouldn’t ever say it directly to you.”
Kieran’s head was melting. “Did you know what was in the will?”
Frank shook his head. “Not an inkling. But she often spoke about you, worried about you wandering the world for too long. I think in her own way she was showing you that putting down roots isn’t the worst thing you could do.”
“Well, it looks like John Kilmichael knew more than Polly then?” Kieran deduced.
“Your solicitor will have the answer to that,” Frank said.
“Why don’t we go to the city next week and wait outside Olivia’s building, witness him going in and catch him red-handed?”
Father and son looked at each other, both struggling with an inherent obligation to Polly but neither wanting John Kilmichael to have the satisfaction of deceiving them.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Frank admitted. “We could be outside her office when he’s on his way out. Then there would be no denying he’s lying.”
“So what did Polly tell John when she tracked him down?” Kieran asked.
“Pretended his birth mother had been a very good friend of hers, invented a tale about her dying, keeping a promise not to divulge any more.”
“Sounds a bit loose to me. Did he fall for that?”
“He did when she handed him €10,000 and pretended his mother had left it in trust for him!”
Kieran zipped his jacket up to his neck. “And she told you this?”
“Eventually,” Frank sighed. “Like you I kept questioning. Eventually she told me.”
“And he never pressurised her for more information about his supposed mother or even his natural father?”
“Not that she told me,” Frank replied, turning to leave the graveside with Kieran following a short distance behind.
“And John’s father? Do you know who it is, Dad?”
Frank chose to ignore his son’s final question, allowing the words to disappear in the wind, guarding his sister’s secret as he’d promised he would.
Chapter 33
“Yes, I can hold,” Charlotte said, swinging around in her office chair to take in the magnificent view from her office and savour the heat from the sun shining through the enormous windowpane.
“Olivia Jacobs speaking.”
Charlotte swung her chair around once more, referring to the page of notes she’d prepared in advance of the call. “Hi, thanks for taking my call.”
“How may I help you today?”
“I’m calling about Pauline Digby’s will. My brother tells me you’re the solicitor looking after it.”
“Yes. Are you a relation of Pauline’s?”
“Her niece, Charlotte Dulhooly,” she replied, fiddling with her computer mouse, unable to resist opening Facebook and logging in as Mia Zepo.
“Is there something specific you’d like to discuss?”
Charlotte’s response was delayed, her attention wavering as Philip Lord’s profile picture appeared on the screen and his name popped up for instant chat.
I’d like to meet you?
The message was glaring, his intention even more so. Instantly she was transported to similar messages she’d received from him a couple of years before when she’d been a junior in the bank.
“Charlotte, is this a bad connection? My secretary tells me you’re calling from Toronto.”
“Sorry, my fault,” she said. “I was distr
acted for a moment. I’m ringing about an objection that was lodged against my aunt’s will.”
Her voice trembled, Philip’s suggestive message mocking her. She noticed he’d uploaded a video on his profile. Curious, she clicked on the play button and watched him come to life on the screen. His voice filled her office. She froze and dropped the receiver, clicking frantically on the mouse to try and mute the volume.
“Hello, hello, are you there?”
Charlotte disconnected as she watched in dread. Philip took a microphone and began his presentation speech. His voice, the sneer on his lips, his insincere tone – the same details that regularly tormented her as she lay in bed at night – reverberated in her office as clear as if he were standing over her. She was back in the nightmare of his attack, her flesh cut open, her mind fraught with fear.
After what was only a few seconds but felt like an age, she managed to silence him, immediately directing the cursor to the Facebook settings, her hand trembling as she frantically figured out how to deactivate the account. It was time to delete Mia Zepo, time to let her and Philip Lord back to their virtual world where their antics would no longer be a form of torment for Charlotte.