by Karen Swan
Willow nodded. Of course she was.
‘And ashamed.’
Willow arched an eyebrow. What did Shula have to be ashamed of? It was her husband who was the cheating bastard.
Her mother tapped a single fingernail on the table top. ‘But more than anything, I think she’s relieved.’
‘Relieved?’
‘Relieved that her suspicions have been confirmed. Bertie had convinced her she was going mad, imagining things.’
Bastard! Willow felt another spike of fury. She could hardly contain her contempt. Her rage. She was trembling from the sheer effort it took not to stand there, screaming until her lungs bled. ‘She’s better off without him,’ she sneered.
‘Yes. She is.’
‘He’s a cheating bastard.’
‘Yes. He is.’
‘Once a cheat. Always a cheat.’
Her words, deliberately provocative, hung in the air as Willow stared at her mother, waiting for a reaction. It would be now, surely . . .? The conversation they had spent three years avoiding was now in the room and pulsing like a light, unable to be ignored a moment longer. Lives were falling apart around their feet. How was her mother ignoring it?
Willow felt her anger flare again as the silence lengthened.
‘He obviously never loved her if he could run around cheating on her like that. No one would do that to someone they loved.’ Every word was a hot prodding iron. ‘It’s despicable.’
Her mother looked up, hearing her finally – understanding her tone, recognizing her subtext, facing her challenge. ‘It’s not always that straightforward.’
Willow felt her heart somersault, anger and fear eddying through her. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘No . . .’ She heard the catch in her mother’s voice. ‘Sometimes people cheat because they love their partner.’
Willow gave a mocking laugh. Was that it? Was that actually her defence? ‘No, Mam. They don’t.’
‘Willow—’
She couldn’t do this after all. She wouldn’t listen to the excuse that love had made her do it. ‘I’ve got to go find someone,’ she said, pushing her chair back abruptly. ‘I’m tired. I just want to go home.’
‘You are home—’
The simplicity of the words stopped her in her tracks. Willow stared at her mother, aware their words were a dance tracing the shape of the subject they had avoided for so long now.
‘This has always been your home.’
Willow shook her head. ‘No – not mine. I never belonged here. And words in a will don’t make it true.’
Her mother’s eyes instantly filled with tears, overcome with emotions she usually buried so well. ‘. . . I never . . .’ Her voice was tremulous. ‘I never knew he knew, Willow. You must believe that. I only realized when the will was read.’ Her voice cracked on the words, like shells being dashed against rocks, and she pressed a finger to her lips, as though the emotions could simply be pushed back in like knickers in a drawer. ‘The shock of it . . . I felt so ashamed. So horrified. I couldn’t bring myself to look at you. I thought you must hate me. I thought he must have d-died hating me.’
‘Maybe he did,’ Willow said coldly, though her blood was rushing like a flood. ‘. . . How did he find out?’
‘I don’t know.’ Her mother shook her head and swallowed. ‘He took your leaving here very badly, your silence . . . He tried to hide it from us but he felt sure you’d been driven from here. He must have . . . worked it out somehow.’
‘The fact that I’m dark and the others are fair, perhaps? That they’ve got green eyes and I’ve got blue?’ she asked sarcastically. It was so obvious once you saw it.
‘No – lots of siblings have different hair and eye colourings. It’s not so unusual.’ Her mother’s lips were stretched thin.
‘So maybe he found the letter too then.’
Too? Her mother’s eyes flashed up to hers, seeing the anger, the hardness that had formed at the very heart of her, freezing her from the inside out. She didn’t – couldn’t – speak for several moments. ‘. . . Perhaps,’ she nodded finally. ‘I never knew what became of it. I had to hide the letter in a rush, I didn’t see which book . . .’ She squeezed her eyes shut, tears bleeding through her lashes. ‘I should have burnt it.’
‘Yes. You should have,’ Willow said coldly. But perhaps, she thought to herself, so should she – she shouldn’t have slipped it back in the covers of the book in the library where her father was making his way through every single one . . . But she had thought he’d already known.
‘I was never sure if you knew.’ Her mother stared back at her, broken, still beautiful. ‘I feared it – the thought that you knew terrified me. The suspicion that was why you’d gone haunted me. I was crippled by terror that I’d hurt you and yet I could never say, never ask, in case I was wrong.’ Her voice wavered. ‘And then to discover that your father knew too . . . It breaks my heart that he never gave me the chance to explain it to him.’
Willow’s eyebrows shot up. ‘So you’re angry with him for robbing you of the chance to justify what you did?’ she said scornfully.
‘I did it for him, Willow.’
‘How?’ Willow cried. ‘How was cheating on your husband for him?’
Her mother flinched, shaking her head. ‘The odds of having another girl were going up with every daughter. I was trying to break the pattern—’
‘Pattern? Or curse?’ Willow sneered, remembering the famous family legend, Black Bess’s curse.
‘He needed a son. I needed to give him that.’
‘And so you decided the way to achieve that was by sleeping with someone else?’
Her mother recoiled, but the words hung in the air, solid and true.
They stared at one another across the table.
‘Not a great plan, huh, Mam? You ended up with not just another bloody daughter but an illegitimate one to boot!’ She gave a bitter laugh that made tears fall from her eyes. ‘Jeesht, I bet you couldn’t believe it when I popped out! It was bad enough with Ottie and Pip but with me? What more did you have to do, right?’ Willow threw her arms out.’ You couldn’t ever have been more disappointed in your life! Either one of you!’
Her mother jumped up, her palms pressed flat on the table. ‘No! I was the failure, Willow, not you! Your father never blamed you, never.’
‘He wasn’t my father!’ Willow sobbed.
‘Yes, he was. In every single way that counted! He loved and adored you! You were his little bird.’
‘Yes! The cuckoo in the nest!’
‘Willow!’ Her mother stared at her with imploring eyes. ‘Your leaving here broke his heart. It was all my fault and I knew it. And now I can never make it up to him.’ A sob broke up her words and she collapsed down into the chair again, hiding her face in her hands as the sobs wracked through her. Willow watched, frozen; it was as though the little boy had removed his finger from the dam, the tears like a flood.
Willow sank back into her chair too, feeling depleted. She had thought that with confession would come peace. Closure. Instead there was only more sorrow and more regret.
The minutes ticked past, both of them lost in their own pain. Talking would change nothing.
Her mother looked up finally, her face swollen and blotched. ‘. . . Let me make it up to you, Willow.’
‘How?’ Her voice was toneless. ‘How exactly can you undo all the damage you’ve done?’
‘The same way your father did – by letting you have the final word. Everything that came before, it was done to you, chosen for you. Now you get to choose what happens next.’
Willow shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I came here tonight to try to stop you; Pip told me about the sale. And when she told me you were selling to Connor Shaye again, I knew you were doing it to punish me. But that’s your right. It’s precisely why your father left the estate to you.’
‘No – he left it to me because he knew I was the only one who could sell it with
out the burden of guilt. I’m not a Lorne by blood. I’m an interloper, not really supposed to be here. And when he realized I knew that, he knew I could be rid of it without a backwards glance – fuck it! Take the money! His legacy, this birthright, none of it was ever mine to begin with, so what do I care, right?’
Her mother shook her head sadly. ‘You’re wrong, darling. That’s not why he left it to you.’
‘Yes it is.’
‘No. He left it to you because he wanted to give you the freedom to be rid of it – if that’s what you wanted. Don’t you see? By giving you Lorne and the choice to decide what to do next, he was saying you mattered more to him than any son, any title, any castle. Nothing else was important. He chose you above all else. You were his little bird, his youngest daughter, his b-baby girl . . .’
Willow turned away, but the tears were sliding down her cheeks too. Was that true? These past three years of thinking she’d been a mistake, a failure, an impostor. A stranger in her own family . . .
‘I’m not asking you to forgive what I did. It was unforgiveable, I know that. And it was the biggest mistake of my life – there’s not been a day when I haven’t hated myself for it – but on one point alone, I will never ever regret it.’ Her voice became choked. ‘And that is because it gave me you. And if I had the chance to do my life over, I would do it again because I would always choose you.’
Her mother rose and came over, pale and trembling but there was a fire in her eyes that hadn’t been there since before her father had died. ‘I came here tonight to give you that, because I thought it would stop you.’ She pointed to a large Tesco carrier bag propped up against the side of the larder, tufts of newspaper sticking out of the top. ‘But I’m not going to try to stop you. Take it anyway. Sell Lorne. None of that matters. Daddy gave you a choice in order to show you how loved you are and I’m doing the same. I’m giving you a choice too.’
‘What is it?’ Willow hiccuped, looking over at the bag.
‘The freedom to decide your future. Your whole life has been dominated by the past and my and your father’s feelings of obligations to it. But no more. We won’t look back. You get to choose what happens next and whatever it is, it will be the right thing because you are loved, no matter what.’ Her mother clasped her wet face between her warm hands, kissing her on her forehead and the tip of her nose, as she’d always done as a little girl. Their eyes locked for the first time in three years. ‘No matter what. Okay?’
Willow nodded as she kissed her forehead again: tender, motherly. ‘. . . I’ll see you back at home.’
Willow watched as her mother walked across the kitchen. ‘Mam,’ she called weakly, as she reached the door. Her mother turned back.
‘. . . Does Shula know?’
Her mother looked down at the ground, two spots of shame staining her cheeks, before she looked back at her again. ‘No. I believe it’s a kindness to keep some secrets.’
Willow nodded, thinking of Ottie’s.
Yes, perhaps sometimes it was.
Chapter Thirty-One
‘I know! I’m in my bloody pyjamas! Get over it!’ Pip snapped at an aghast-looking couple on their way in to the castle, as she and Ottie staggered out. They looked more like a Halloween pair than Christmas revellers, with their pale faces and streaked cheeks. ‘Have you got the keys?’ Pip asked her, one hand held out as they got to the car.
‘Willow drove,’ Ottie replied flatly. She seemed to be hearing everything five seconds later.
‘Oh great. And Mam’s got my keys.’ Pip sighed with her hands on her hips. ‘Okay, fine. I’ll go back in. You just wait here.’
‘No, I’ll go.’
‘You’re not fit for walking anywhere in the state you’re in. Just sit here.’ And Pip perched her against the car bonnet like she was a doll that needed propping up.
‘Hey, Pip!’
They both looked over to see Joe lurching down the steps, arms waving wildly.
‘You’re looking a little worse for wear there, Joe!’ Pip called back brightly, disguising the shock and devastation that was still reverberating from the events in the kitchen. None of them was okay right now.
Ottie frowned as she noticed her sister shivering in the cold temperatures. Even in her stunned state, she knew Pip couldn’t afford to get cold.
‘Aye! Sign of a great party! Oh, hey Ottie!’ he called over, noticing her, sitting motionless and silent.
‘Hey, Joe.’ She sounded like a shadow – dark and flat. Flattened.
‘You’re not leaving already, are ya?’ he asked, almost weaving straight into a potted bay tree.
‘Joe, it may surprise you to learn this but I am in fact at the party of the century in my feckin’ pyjamas,’ Pip hollered. ‘I’ve also nearly died twice in the past couple of weeks so I’m thinking I’ll head back to bed soonest if it’s all the same.’
Joe laughed. ‘Shame. I was going to invite you back to the Hare for a lock-in.’ He pressed a finger to his lips. ‘VIPs only. I reckon tonight’s the night to open a rather special bottle of Teeling Vintage Reserve I’ve been saving.’
Pip’s eyes narrowed interestedly. ‘Teeling, you say?’
‘Aye, the thirty–year-old platinum.’
‘Pip, you need to get back to bed,’ Ottie said, rousing herself as she saw that look come into her sister’s eyes.
‘Tsht,’ Pip hushed her. ‘I’m not due my next antibiotics for another . . .’ She checked her phone. ‘Two hours.’
‘You can’t drink whiskey on antibiotics.’
‘Maybe not, but I can smell it.’
‘You’d go to a lock-in just to smell the whiskey?’ Ottie asked in disbelief.
‘Only for two hours, mind. I’m recuperating.’ Pip looked back at Joe as he staggered over to a waiting car they all knew well. ‘How you getting into town, Joe?’
‘Seamus here. Why? D’you need a lift?’
‘Well, we’ve not got any bloody car keys so . . . yeah.’ Pip looked back at her. ‘It’s that or freeze to death. I’ll text Willow when we get there. She can pick us up.’
Ottie groaned but her sister had a point and it was more important to keep Pip out of the cold right now. At least the Hare was guaranteed warmth.
Reluctantly, she allowed Pip to link arms and lead her over. Joe opened the back door for them and they slid in. ‘Hey, Seamus!’ Pip said brightly.
‘Hey, Seamus,’ Ottie said, but she was distracted by something she’d noticed as her little sister had climbed into the car – she was holding her hand strangely. And now that she was sitting down, she saw it was curled up in her lap like a wounded bird. ‘Pip, let me see your hand,’ she whispered.
‘No, it’s fine,’ Pip said quickly, sliding it away, out of reach, as the taxi lurched into throaty life.
Ottie said nothing but it was clear she wasn’t the only one hurt tonight. Pip was injured and not just physically. Ottie knew her devil-may-care attitude was just a cover for her dismay at what Ottie had done, the shocking secret she had kept from her sisters and her family for all these years. At heart, her fiesty little sister was a far more fragile creature than she let on.
Joe started singing along to the radio, Pip joining in with him, and as they pulled away Ottie turned to look back through the window at the pink castle and its not-so-pretty surprises. She had gone in tonight wanting to grab her Red Dress life, and instead she was leaving as a scarlet woman.
But all the while, Lorne Castle just kept on standing.
Joe locked the door behind them, a low cheer going up amongst the small group of regulars still in there. ‘Lock-in!’ he cried, prompting another cheer.
Ottie saw Taigh O’Mahoney come back in from the toilets, taking in the sight with a look of surprise – the look turning into a scowl as he saw Pip making her way over to the bar.
Ottie gave him a little wave and he came over. ‘She shouldn’t be out of bed!’ he said firmly.
‘I know. But we’ve had a bit of a night,’ Ottie said
quietly. ‘I think she needs to come down a little first.’
Immediately he frowned, looking concerned. ‘Everything okay?’
‘It will be,’ Ottie nodded, hoping she sounded more certain than she felt. ‘You didn’t go to the party then?’
He gave an apologetic shrug. ‘Sorry, no. I should’ve been more supportive, I know, but it’s not really my scene, all that dressin’ up.’
‘Hey, you don’t need to apologize to me, Taigh. It wasn’t our party.’
‘Was it any good? I heard there was some big scandal.’
She instantly stiffened. ‘Scandal?’
‘That Lorna Delaney’s been having it off with Bertie Flanagan and Shula’s kicked him out.’
She felt sick to her stomach every time she heard the words, every time she thought of it. And to think she had left home tonight wanting the world to know . . . ‘Oh. Yes.’
‘Did you hear about it too then?’
She swallowed, managing a nod. ‘Mmmhmm.’
Taigh wrinkled his nose. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised.’
‘No?’ For years she had wanted the truth about them to come out, to have everyone know about their love, admire them for it, but now the scales had fallen away and she saw their relationship for what it was, she couldn’t think of anything more horrifying. She felt ashamed. Appalled by what she had done.
‘No. I mean, it’s no secret I was seeing Lorna for a while back there. She said a few things which, looking back, I should’ve seen were red flags . . .’ He shrugged. ‘But I just wasn’t looking for it, you know?’
‘Of course not. How were you to know?’ she mumbled, knowing her own cheeks were flaming.
‘Well, the American fella called it,’ he shrugged. ‘He saw what the rest of us were blind to.’
Ottie fell completely still. ‘American?’
‘Yeah. Ben. The runner guy who got injured. Did his ACL, broke his arm . . . Old Paddy made some comment at the bar about him dropping his big lawsuit, and Ben said Flanagan was a cheat in more ways than one.’ He shrugged. ‘It was lost on us at the time, we thought it was sour grapes ’cos Bertie’s lawyers had him on the run, but not a half hour ago, in comes Fergal Sheehan with the gossip about Lorna and he was proved right.’