What Happened That Night: The page-turning holiday read by the No. 1 bestselling author

by O'Flanagan, Sheila

  ‘You can’t say that,’ Philip told her.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Bey. ‘Although in fairness she’d probably be very emotional if you told her you’d offered me a job. Just not the way you think.’

  ‘I agree that you and Adele aren’t necessarily on the same page,’ said Philip. ‘But she cares very much about the company.’

  ‘And not so much about the people.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Bey.

  ‘Please think about it,’ said Philip. ‘We could go with Darren’s idea for the new Clematis range and it might work but it’s not what we want. It’s not what we need.’

  ‘Did you bring the drawings?’ Bey couldn’t help asking.

  Philip opened his briefcase and put them on the table in front of her. She studied them while she sipped her tea. Then she sat back in her chair.

  ‘Well?’ said Philip.

  ‘They’re very nice,’ she told him.

  ‘But they’re not special, are they?’

  ‘Even if I did come to work for you, it would be a nightmare.’ Bey didn’t see the need to answer his question. ‘Most of you hate me.’

  ‘We don’t hate you,’ said her father. ‘ I don’t hate you. I wouldn’t offer you a job if I hated you. Peter doesn’t hate you either. He thinks you’re our only hope of salvation.’

  ‘Adele loathes me,’ said Bey. ‘She has done from the start, although I never quite understood why. I’m not sure that Anthony or Astrid like me very much either. And they matter, don’t they, because it’s their business too.’

  Philip looked at her in surprise. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Isn’t it true that Anthony will eventually be the one taking it over while Astrid swans around showcasing the jewellery? Adele said so, when I was with you for Christmas.’ She kept her voice as even as possible.

  ‘You remember her saying that?’

  ‘Of course I do. I remember everything about that day. How could I possibly forget?’

  ‘Anthony is currently our retail manager.’ Philip ignored the tautness in her voice. ‘But he has nothing to do with product development. And you’re right, Astrid does wear a lot of the jewellery. In fact . . .’ he shrugged, ‘it was Astrid who made me see how poorly we were doing with the Adele range. She said at the birthday dinner that she preferred the Snowdrop and the Rose to the Hyacinth or the Pansy.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Bey. ‘Actually, being honest, peak Adele was the Bouquet. That was magnificent and everyone loved it. But the Snowdrop is the collection everyone dreams of owning.’

  ‘You’re wearing Adele Bluebells yourself,’ observed Philip.

  ‘Because they were a gift from Mum.’

  ‘From Lola?’ Philip suddenly thought it would be better not to talk about the earrings. ‘We should work together,’ he said. ‘It would be nice, don’t you think? Another generation of Warrens.’

  ‘I can’t honestly believe you have the nerve to say that,’ she told him.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m a Fitzpatrick not a Warren.’ She got up. ‘I’ll think about it, as you asked. But I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.’

  Chapter 33

  Morganite: a transparent pink variety of beryl

  ‘He did what?’ When Lola heard about the job offer, she was as gobsmacked as Bey herself had been. ‘And what did you say to him?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be thinking about it,’ said Bey.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘I’m thinking it would be a total nightmare,’ she said.

  ‘It probably would,’ agreed Lola. And then, when Bey said nothing, she added, ‘But would you like to do it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Bey was pensive. ‘If it were anyone else, a different company, I’d be seriously considering it. I love Bijou by Bey, but I miss fine jewellery. Yet how on earth could I even think about working for them? Why would I put myself through it?’

  ‘Because it’s a challenge?’ suggested Lola.

  ‘I don’t mind the professional challenge,’ said Bey. ‘But – oh, Mum – being part of their . . . their empire! Having to interact with them every day. Having to be nice to Adele! How on earth could I cope with it?’

  ‘Are you looking for reasons to say no or reasons to say yes?’ asked Lola.

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ confessed Bey.

  ‘It’s difficult to get your head around it,’ admitted Lola. ‘But it would be doing what you really want to do and I’d hate to think you’d cut off your nose to spite your face.’

  Bey laughed.

  ‘Seriously,’ said Lola. ‘I probably made more mistakes with that damn family than in anything else I did in my whole life. I don’t want you to do the same.’

  ‘You made decisions, not mistakes,’ said Bey.

  ‘Bad decisions,’ Lola said. ‘In the end, I messed up my relationship with all of them and I didn’t need to. I could’ve done things better. I was weak when I should’ve been strong and I allowed myself to be swayed. And that’s impacted on you, sweetheart, which was the last thing I wanted.’

  ‘You had your reasons for not marrying Dad, and for not telling him about me, and they were perfectly good ones,’ said Bey. ‘You did it all on your own, Mum. You were – you still are – incredibly brave. I was the one who brought the Warrens back into your life by wanting to know about my father. You were doing fine on your own. We were doing fine on our own.’

  ‘That’s not strictly true.’ Lola looked distressed. ‘And I wasn’t brave, just pig headed. I’d planned to tell you about him sooner but . . . I made another bad decision and . . .’

  ‘Gran said something to me about that,’ said Bey. ‘But then you changed your mind.’

  Lola nodded. ‘I let myself be persuaded because I was an absolute idiot. I told myself I was doing the right thing, but I knew I’d live to regret it. And I did. I still do.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ asked Bey. ‘Who persuaded you? What happened?’

  Lola took a deep breath and closed her eyes, then opened them again. Bey watched her intently.

  ‘I met your grandfather when you were three,’ said Lola. ‘It was an accidental meeting. Then he came to see me . . .’

  When her mother had finished speaking, Bey stared at her in shock.

  ‘So . . . so Grandfather bought you off?’ Her voice was just above a whisper. ‘You could have sorted everything out with my father back then, but because Richard offered you money you decided not to?’

  ‘That’s not exactly how it was,’ said Lola.

  ‘You always said you didn’t marry him because you didn’t love him enough. I thought you didn’t tell him about me because . . . well, when I was very small I had romantic ideas about it. Afterwards I thought that he sort of knew but wasn’t in touch for a whole heap of different reasons. But never for a single moment did I think you were being paid to keep me away from him!’ Bey’s eyes glittered.

  ‘It wasn’t because of the money.’ Every time she said this – to Philip, to Richard and now to Bey – Lola wondered if there was the slightest chance that she was lying to herself. She didn’t think so, but she’d been asked so often she could never be a hundred per cent sure. ‘I felt I’d caused your father enough grief and I didn’t want to bring my problems to his marriage. Donna was pregnant with twins. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t butt into his life when I’d made such a determined effort not to be part of it before.’

  ‘I always thought I had a little bit of connection with Grandfather,’ said Bey. ‘He was nice to me that Christmas. Well, as nice as a Warren can be. And then after he died and I found out about Raymond Fenton, I felt closer to him than any of them. Yet I was completely wrong about him. He didn’t want me close. He wanted to shut me out.’

  ‘He thought he was doing the right thing,’ said Lola.

  ‘Spare me from people who think they’re doing the right thing!’ cried Bey. ‘Because they very rarely ar
e.’ She said nothing more for a moment, then looked up at her mother again. ‘When I asked and asked and you finally gave in and contacted Dad . . . what happened to your stupid agreement?’

  ‘The money stopped, of course,’ said Lola. ‘Richard was a man of his word.’

  Bey’s eyes widened.

  ‘But when they invited you for Christmas, I thought that perhaps he’d had a change of heart. Or that your dad wanted to take some responsibility for you.’

  ‘So you sent me there for money too!’ cried Bey. ‘I didn’t want to go but you thought it was a good deal?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Lola was close to tears. ‘I never would’ve done that. I wanted what was right for you. I thought I’d been wrong before and so if your dad felt . . . if he wanted . . . I thought if they saw what a great person you were, they’d love you as much as I did and things might be different.’

  ‘I don’t understand you at all,’ said Bey. ‘All my life I thought you were as straight as a die. But now . . . now I can’t help thinking that every choice you made was based around what the Warrens could do for you.’

  ‘If I’d wanted that, I would’ve gone to your father as soon as I found out about you,’ Lola said. ‘I would’ve begged him to marry me.’

  Bey shook her head. ‘I can’t process this,’ she said. ‘All these things going on in the background of my life that I didn’t know about. Secrets and deals and hiding away and . . . It’s too hard. I have to . . .’ She got to her feet and picked up her bag.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Lola.

  Bey didn’t reply.

  ‘Bey, please!’

  She walked out of the house and slammed the door behind her.

  Lola sat on the two-seater sofa and stared unseeingly ahead of her. Somehow she’d known that one day it would all come crashing down around her. That her bad decisions would be seen as exactly that and not the justifiable ones she’d always imagined they were. What had given her the right to keep Philip in the dark about Bey for so long? And what had given her the right to keep Bey in the dark about Richard’s involvement? The fact that he hadn’t wanted her to say anything was totally irrelevant and had only stored up more trouble. Including the trouble with Adele, which had made the old battleaxe resent Bey even more.

  Oh God, thought Lola. Her foolishness had hurt everyone who’d ever known her. Even her parents, who’d wanted nothing but the best for her but who’d had to put up with the gossip and innuendo when she’d turned up at the farm with a bump and no boyfriend.

  Why was she such an idiot? Even now?

  It was almost midnight and Bey had been working on the bracelet since she’d let herself into the workshop.

  Now she was polishing it; first with fine sandpaper, then a series of silicone wheels to bring up the shine. As she attached the pink wheel to the flex shaft, her mobile rang. Lola’s name came up on the screen. It was the fourth call since Bey had left the house. She ignored it like all the others.

  Then the doorbell buzzed. She got up and peeped through the small window. Her mother was standing outside holding two takeaway coffees.

  Bey hesitated for a moment, then opened the door and let her in.

  ‘You weren’t answering your phone,’ said Lola. ‘It’s late and I was worried about you.’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake!’ exclaimed Bey. ‘Did you just ring from the street?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lola. ‘I messed it all up. My life. Your life. Everyone’s lives.’

  ‘Y’know, that’s something that Dad might be right about.’ Bey moved aside to allow her mother in. ‘He said you were a drama queen. That you were obsessed with the past. And you probably are. You didn’t mess up anyone’s life. We’re all perfectly capable of doing that ourselves.’

  Lola handed Bey a coffee then sat on the chair in the corner of the room. Bey returned to her seat at the workbench.

  ‘I have to finish this,’ she said as she placed the coffee to one side.

  ‘I’ll wait for you,’ said Lola.

  ‘Whatever.’

  Lola watched as Bey put on her safety goggles and dust mask before continuing to work on the bracelet. She didn’t speak and Bey took no notice of her as she worked. Finally she switched off the flex shaft, pushed her goggles from her face, removed her mask and examined the bracelet.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Lola. ‘It’s a pity people don’t realise how much work goes into each one.’

  ‘All most of us care about is how things look on the surface,’ said Bey. ‘Same with families really, don’t you think?’

  ‘I should have told you everything,’ said Lola. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Everything?’ Bey began to wash her hands at the sink. ‘What more could there be? I’m really Aunt Gretta’s daughter? Dad sold the farm to the Warrens? Adele is an alien?’

  ‘Nothing quite so dramatic,’ said Lola. ‘But you need to know about your grandfather. He didn’t want me to tell you about the money. Like I said, he stopped paying it after you met your dad. But . . .’

  ‘Oh God, what?’ demanded Bey.

  ‘But he stayed in touch with me. He knew it wasn’t working out with your dad but he wanted to know how you were getting on. When you left school, he was delighted when you decided on jewellery design. He thought that maybe one day you might end up with Warren’s. He . . . I’d put the money he’d given me into a fund for your college fees. That’s how we were able to pay them. But Richard started to give me money again. To pay for your accommodation.’

  ‘You told me you’d got a tax break for that!’ cried Bey.

  ‘He still didn’t want you to know.’

  ‘What is wrong with you people?’ demanded her daughter. ‘Why shouldn’t I have known? Anything else?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  Bey looked at her mother in complete exasperation.

  ‘That first time, he also gave me something for myself,’ Lola admitted. ‘He called it a sweetener.’

  ‘He was paying you separately?’

  ‘No,’ said Lola. ‘He gave me the Bluebells.’

  Bey’s fingers went to her ears.

  ‘These Bluebells?’ she exclaimed.

  Lola nodded. For the first time she explained about leaving Dublin not realising she was wearing them, and the Warrens’ fear that she’d stolen them – and her belief that for a long time they still believed she’d tried.

  Bey took the earrings from her ears and looked at them.

  ‘So that’s it,’ she said slowly. ‘That’s why Adele thought . . .’

  ‘Thought what?’ asked Lola.

  ‘I heard her say it was in my genes,’ explained Bey. ‘That Christmas. I was sitting on the stairs and they were talking about me and Astrid’s ring and she said “like mother, like daughter” and I thought maybe you’d once taken something from them and they knew about it only nobody talked about it.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I didn’t actually believe you’d stolen anything,’ Bey said. ‘But I thought they’d decided you had . . . It was part of the reason I ran away. I wanted to get home to you before they started phoning up and saying that we were a family of jewel thieves and they were going to report us to the police.’

  ‘Is that why you didn’t want to go to the Garda station after your abduction?’ Lola’s eyes were wide.

  Bey nodded.

  ‘Oh God. I never realised. I didn’t think . . .’

  ‘I was worried they’d start investigating you and arrest you even though deep down I knew you couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong. I thought if that happened I’d be left in Dad’s care. But they all hated me so it would’ve been awful. I didn’t want you to go to prison either. And I knew Granny and Grandad would be really upset too. I was afraid they’d never ask us to Cloghdrom again.’

  ‘Oh, Bey.’ Lola was distressed. ‘If only I’d said something before.’

  ‘It sounds mad now and like I was keeping secrets of my own, but in my defence I was only twelve,�
�� Bey added.

  Lola’s expression was stricken.

  ‘I was going to ask you more about the Bluebells when you gave them to me,’ Bey told her. ‘You said you’d been given them too and I wondered about it. But you sort of avoided the issue and I didn’t want to drag it up in case it was something you didn’t want to talk about.’ She rolled the sapphires around in her palm.

  ‘Richard gave them to me in an enormous padded envelope,’ said Lola. ‘Naturally I thought it was cash. I felt wrong about opening it. So for months I didn’t. But on the first day we moved into the house in Ringsend, the central heating boiler packed in. The guy who came around to fix it said he’d do a better deal for cash. So I thought of Richard’s envelope. I got a shock when I opened it.’

  She hadn’t quite believed her eyes when she’d seen the earrings. And the note from Richard saying that they were hers to keep no matter what. I gave my wife a piece of jewellery after the birth of both my children , he’d written. It seems only fair that I should do the same for the birth of a grandchild.

  ‘Oh.’ Bey’s hand closed around the earrings. ‘I hate him and love him at the same time.’

  ‘I offered to give them back after I got in touch with your father,’ she said. ‘But Richard pointed out that I might need them in the future. He said that a piece of Warren’s jewellery was an heirloom. That perhaps one day I’d want to pass them on to you. And when you went to college, I did.’

  ‘You said you sent me to Cleevaun because you thought Richard might be having a change of heart. Or that Dad might want to take responsibility for me. Did he? Financially, I mean. Do I owe him too? As well as Grandfather.’

  ‘Obviously everything went a bit pear shaped after that Christmas,’ said Lola. ‘I didn’t speak to your dad for ages. When he heard you were going to counselling, he offered to pay for it but I told him I was doing fine and didn’t need anything. He didn’t know back then that your grandfather had paid me anything at all. He didn’t know about the earrings either.’

  ‘What was Adele’s role in all of this?’ asked Bey. ‘Was she part of the agreement?’

  Lola pursed her lips.

  ‘Was she?’ demanded Bey.