by Miranda Lee
‘Yes,’ Megan agreed, trying her best not to cry. But her chin was beginning to wobble. ‘It is. But it was inevitable.’ Megan carried her bag inside the cavernous foyer, dropping it onto the marble-tiled floor with a weary sigh.
‘Why do you say that?’ Roberta asked as she closed the door.
Megan scooped in a deep, gathering breath and turned round to face the housekeeper. ‘Because he doesn’t love me, Roberta.’
‘What? Why, that’s rubbish! He does so love you.’
‘I’m sorry, Roberta, but you’re mistaken. He never loved me. Right from the start. All he wanted was a wife and a child.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
Megan sighed. ‘He admitted it, Roberta.’
The housekeeper’s mouth fell open, then snapped shut. ‘Well, I never!’ Now she looked both shocked and affronted. ‘Oh, you poor dear.’
Megan gave her a wan smile. ‘Would you come upstairs and help me get packed up? I have quite a bit of stuff.’ Not just her clothes but also her art equipment, plus all her paintings.
‘You’re going today?’
‘James said he wanted me out of the house by the time he returned.’
‘What? The bastard!’
Megan shook her head. ‘No, Roberta, he’s nothing of the kind. Not really. He’s very upset with me. The thing is…I gave him the impression when I agreed to go on this second honeymoon that I was quite happy to try for another baby. But I wasn’t. I was on the Pill and he found them.’
‘Oh…’
‘He was very, very angry with me.’
‘Yes, I can imagine. But surely he can understand why you’re afraid to get pregnant again this soon. You went through a lot when you lost your baby.’
‘Yes. Yes, I did.’ She almost told the housekeeper then that this was when she found out James didn’t love her, but felt that was taking confidences too far. They weren’t close friends, after all. And the woman would no doubt want to go on working for James. It was a well-paid position which included her husband. They would find it hard to find a better one.
‘Maybe you can patch things up,’ the housekeeper said.
‘No, Roberta. It’s over.’
The housekeeper frowned. ‘I find it hard to believe Mr Logan doesn’t love you. The way he acts…I could have sworn…’ She seemed genuinely perplexed. ‘Look, maybe he does, but doesn’t realise it.’
‘That’s sweet of you to say, but I can’t afford to think like that. I’ve got into the trouble I’m in by being a hopeless romantic. It’s time I grew up and faced life as it is, and not as I’d like it to be.’
‘So where are you going to go?’ Roberta asked as both women trudged up the winding staircase.
‘To my parents’ place, I suppose. They live in Woolahra.’
‘That’s not too far away. I’ll get Bill to drive you and your things over, if you like.’
‘It’s all right, I can drive myself.’ She did have a small car, a twenty-first-birthday present that her parents had bought her. It was not as flashy as anything James drove but it got her around. Not that she’d driven anywhere since her miscarriage. She hadn’t had the confidence.
‘Are you sure, Megan?’ Roberta asked doubtfully.
‘Positive.’
It was getting on for six by the time Megan pulled into the driveway of her family home, which, whilst not a twenty-million-dollar mansion with a view to die for, was still a substantial two-storeyed house with wrap-around verandahs top and bottom and large, well-looked-after grounds. Even with the present property market slump, it was worth a heap, having been a wedding present from Megan’s grandfather to his only son and heir.
The Donnelly family had emigrated to Australia from Ireland shortly after the first world war, Megan’s paternal great-grandfather making a small fortune with an industrial patent for a new packaging machine. His son—Megan’s grandfather—had increased his father’s wealth with some wise investments in property in the inner suburbs of Sydney, including this house, bought back in the fifties for a song. Megan’s own father—not such an astute businessman as it turned out—had succeeded in greatly reducing his inherited fortune when he decided to sell several of these properties and put the money into the stock market just before the eighties crash.
Megan had heard the story of his disastrous investments so many times over the years, she’d lost count. Her mother never let an opportunity go by to rub in her father’s failures. Losing money was the worst possible sin in Janet Donnelly’s eyes. Megan was well aware of the reception she would get after revealing she’d left her seriously wealthy husband of less than six months.
Fortunately, her mother had still not returned from her Saturday afternoon’s bridge party when she arrived, giving Megan the chance to deposit all her things in her old room and gather herself for what was going to be an unpleasant reunion.
Her father, the dear man, fussed around her, making her tea and generally being sweet. She kept her explanation to him pretty simple but truthful, eliciting words of comfort and understanding. She wasn’t hoping for more of the same when her mother came home.
Megan was back upstairs in her bedroom when that happened, Janet Donnelly’s return heralded by voices coming up the stairs, the woman’s loud and strident, the man’s low and muffled.
Megan’s mother burst into her room without knocking.
‘Your father tells me you’ve left your husband,’ were her first words, spoken with disapproval and disgust.
Megan was astounded to find that she wasn’t instantly reduced to a panic attack, which she once might have been. Instead, she straightened her spine and gazed with surprisingly cool eyes at the woman who’d given birth to her.
‘Actually, that’s not quite accurate,’ she replied calmly. ‘I didn’t leave James. He threw me out. Sent me back home from Dream Island with orders to be out of the house by the time he returned.’
Janet Donnelly looked totally floored. ‘Good lord! Why on earth would he do such an appalling thing?’
‘He found out I was on the Pill.’
‘The Pill!’ she practically screamed. ‘You were on the Pill on your second honeymoon? Oh, you stupid, stupid girl!’
Megan had expected no less. Amazingly, the insults slid off her like water off a duck’s back.
‘But not all is lost yet,’ her mother raved on, pacing round the room with her hands rubbing her cheeks as they did when she was agitated. ‘He’s just angry with you, that’s all.’
Megan almost laughed. The word ‘angry’ did not quite describe James’s mood at the time.
Her mother ground to a halt in front of her. ‘You should not have left the house,’ she said, shaking her index finger at her. ‘You never voluntarily leave the marital home. Now, here is what you have to do. You go home straight away, and when James gets back you apologise profusely, and then you—’
‘No,’ Megan interrupted firmly. ‘I won’t be going back home, Mother. And I certainly won’t be apologising. For anything. James doesn’t love me. He never did. All he ever wanted from me was a child. He deliberately got me pregnant in the first place to make sure I was capable of having children, unlike his poor first wife, whom he divorced when he found out she was barren.’
‘Really? That’s not what I heard. I heard she refused to have children. But that’s beside the point. Marriage has nothing to do with love in the long run, my girl. It’s about security, and status. James Logan is a brilliant and very rich man. Marrying him was the wisest thing you ever did. Divorcing him would be crazy.’
‘I don’t want to be married to a man who doesn’t love me,’ Megan argued.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’
‘Yes, for pity’s sake,’ came another voice. Male.
Megan’s eyes widened as she watched her father—normally quelled into silence when his wife was having a hissy fit—stride confidently into the room and come to stand beside her.
‘If you had any pity in you at all, Janet,’ he
addressed his wife as he wound a gentle arm around his daughter’s somewhat stiff shoulders, ‘you would be comforting your daughter, not haranguing her into returning to a man who doesn’t love her. I, better than anyone, know what it’s like to be married to someone who doesn’t love and respect them. I wouldn’t wish that fate on a dog, let alone my own daughter, whom, I might add, is in no way stupid. She is a fine and intelligent girl who deserves better than a ruthless liar of a husband. Deserves better, too, than a mother who thinks of nothing but money.’
Megan’s mother had the decency to blush. But not for long. Soon her haughtily handsome face lost all shame, her dark eyes hardening once again.
‘If Megan had had the wretchedly poor childhood I had, then she might appreciate money more. But what does she know of doing without? Why, she’s never even had a job! And the same applies to you, Henry. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. Both of you went to the best of schools and had the best of educations. You didn’t have to leave school when you were fourteen to work in a chicken-gutting factory. By the time I was twenty I would have done anything not to be poor.’
‘Even marry a man you didn’t love,’ her husband accused.
Megan could see the confusion in her mother’s face. ‘But that’s not true. I did love you, Henry. I thought you were the loveliest, nicest man and the best husband in the world. But then you lost all that money, and I…I was just so angry with you.’ The tears which suddenly flooded her mother’s eyes stunned Megan. She’d never seen her mother cry. Not once.
No, that wasn’t true. She had seen her mother cry once. When her grandmother had died. Megan had been about twelve. Her mother had just come out of the mortuary, the day before the funeral. She’d climbed back into the car—Megan had been waiting outside for her. Her mother had just sat there behind the wheel, saying nothing for ages. Finally, she’d muttered something about how old her mother looked for a woman of only fifty-five. Old and defeated.
It was then that she’d started to cry, terribly noisy sobs which shook her shoulders. She’d dropped her head into her hands against the steering wheel and wept for ages. Megan had found her mother’s tears disturbing at the time, not knowing what to say or do. It wasn’t like her mother not to be in control.
This time, Megan knew what to do. She went forward and put her arms around her mother. ‘It’s all right, Mum,’ she said. ‘I know you love Father.’
Her mother’s head jerked up, her eyes glistening. ‘You called me Mum.’
Megan smiled. ‘Do you mind?’
‘No. No, I rather like it.’
‘What about you, Dad? Can I call you that instead of Father?’
‘Of course you can, dear girl.’
‘You will still have to get yourself a lawyer, Megan,’ her mother pointed out, quickly getting back to her usual priorities. ‘Divorces can be messy.’
‘I don’t think this one will be,’ Megan said. ‘I don’t want anything from James.’
‘Don’t want anything!’ Her mother looked horrified. ‘But…but he should be made to pay for what he did. I mean…it’s not as though he can’t afford it. He has millions and millions.’
‘So have I,’ her father said so quietly that Megan wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
‘What was that you said, Henry?’ her mother asked, obviously not sure either.
‘I said I have millions and millions as well. About two hundred and eighty million, at last count.’
They both stared at him. Megan knew her family was well off but not to that extent.
Her father smiled a smile unlike any she’d ever seen him smile before. It was close to being smug.
‘When I lost all that money in the eighties crash, it was, really, only paper money that I’d lost. There seemed no point in selling any of the stocks and shares considering they were at rock-bottom, so I kept them. But I watched the market closely for signs of overheating, warning signs that I’d ignored in the eighties. I wasn’t going to get caught a second time. I always resolved that if I regained all my losses and made a healthy profit by the year 2000, I would get out of the stock market and invest my money back in property. Which I did, avoiding the seven-eleven crash in 2001. I bought units, by the way, near the city. Then, after the 2001 crash, when I saw an opportunity to buy lots of blue-chip shares at greatly undervalued prices, I did, then rode the subsequent boom till early 2007, when I saw signs of overheating, and got out again. If you recall, the global financial crisis began soon after that. But I haven’t been adversely affected. In fact, I’ve been making a lot more money, due to the sharp rise in rents.’
Megan could not help being impressed.
‘Megan doesn’t need any money from Logan,’ he said proudly. ‘I have more than enough to keep her. And even you, my love,’ he added, giving his wife a somewhat sardonic glance.
‘Henry Donnelly!’ she pronounced with a huff and a puff. ‘You are a wickedly deceitful man. But a very clever one,’ she added, rushing forward to give him a big hug. ‘Now we can buy a bigger house.’
‘We won’t be doing that, madam,’ he refuted firmly. ‘This house is way big enough. What we might do, however, is go on one of those world cruises, in our own luxury stateroom. And we could stop over in Paris, where I could buy you some seriously expensive clothes. Would you like that?’
‘Oh, Henry,’ she gushed, and fluttered her eyelashes up to him, solving the mystery for Megan of why her father had married her mother in the first place.
‘Now, let’s hear no more about Megan returning to that louse of a husband of hers.’
‘He’s not a louse,’ Megan heard herself say before she could stop herself.
Both parents stared at her.
‘You’re not going to tell me that you still love that man,’ her mother said, sounding very much like her old self again. ‘Not after what he’s done.’
Megan sighed. ‘I’m afraid I do.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘Janet,’ Henry warned. ‘Leave her be. We can’t always stop loving someone, just because they hurt us.’
Her mother heard the innuendo behind those words and shut up.
‘I won’t be underfoot for too long,’ Megan said. ‘I’m going to get myself a job. And then I’m going to move out. I don’t want you to keep me, Father—oh, I mean Dad—but if you really want to help, then perhaps you have a unit somewhere near the city which I could rent from you. For a reduced price, that is.’
‘No trouble, my dear. But what kind of a job do you think you could get? Unemployment is rather high in Sydney, don’t forget. And you’re hardly trained for much.’
‘Nathan Price said last year he’d give me a job at his gallery. He said I had a good eye for exhibiting artwork.’
‘That sounds splendid,’ he said, nodding. ‘And now, madam,’ he went on, turning to his wife, ‘what’s for dinner?’
‘I thought we might go out to eat, darling,’ she returned sweetly. ‘After all, we can well afford it.’
‘I don’t think Megan’s in the mood for going out.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Megan said quickly. ‘You two go out, by all means. I’ll make myself some toast.’
‘See, Henry? She’ll be fine,’ she heard her mother say as she steered her husband out of the door.
Megan sank down on the side of her bed when they left, thinking to herself that, surprisingly, she just might be fine. Not happy, mind. But she would survive. She’d grown up a lot during this past week. Grown in confidence, and courage. The Megan who’d lost her baby had been incapable of facing the truth, or in taking action because of that truth. Yesterday, she’d done more than that. She’d not just faced the truth, but she’d also spoken it out loud, despite knowing the consequences.
But now she had to live with those consequences. Had to live her life without the man she loved.
Thinking of James brought an inevitable jab of pain. But no tears. She’d cried enough last night, then again on the plane back
to Sydney. The time for tears was over, but not, it seemed, for memories. Of this last week. Megan did not totally regret going on their second honeymoon. How could she? The sex had been incredible. And James’s passion had been real. If nothing else, she had made him mad with lust for her. It wasn’t love, she supposed. But it was something.
As she sat here, remembering, she wondered what James was doing. Had he left Dream Island yet? Or was he going to stay there till Tuesday?
She couldn’t imagine him staying. He would come back before then. He might even already be on his way home.
Home…
Megan glanced around the room which had been her sanctuary during her growing-up years. It was a large room, with a window that overlooked the back garden, and a window seat where she’d spent countless hours sketching. It wasn’t painted pink, as some girls’ rooms were. It was a pale olive-green, with cream trim. The bed was a double, with a colourful patchwork quilt. Her furniture was made in pine, varnished so as not to stain or scratch easily. Besides the bed, there were two bedside tables, a dressing table and a bookcase—filled with books on art. An empty easel stood in one corner.
She’d never covered her walls with posters as some teenagers did. Above her bed hung a print of Monet’s ‘Water-lilies’. She didn’t have an en suite bathroom. The main bathroom was next door. But she did have a walk-in wardrobe, which at that moment was bulging with all the things she’d brought home with her. Not just clothes, but also her artwork.
At least she still had her first love, she thought. She wasn’t sure if she could survive if she didn’t have that.
Breathing in deeply, Megan stood up and walked over to pull out the two paintings she’d done since her miscarriage. Carefully, she positioned the canvasses side by side on the easel—they weren’t big paintings—then walked back to sit on the end of the bed and look them over with a fresh and more critical eye.
They were both self-portraits, although you couldn’t really tell it was her. The paintings were impressionistic in style, with the woman’s facial features not well-defined. They were both nudes, painted in black and white. And they were good, she decided. She’d show them to Nathan tomorrow, when she went to ask him for a job. She had a feeling he was going to like them.