My Mother's Secret

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  Summer laughed.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Roisin glared at her. ‘You find something funny?’

  ‘Hard liquor,’ said Summer. ‘I’ve never heard someone call a margarita hard liquor before.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I call it,’ said Roisin. ‘Cocktail hour is over. It’s wine, beer or water from now on.’

  ‘OK. OK,’ said Paul. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Well I’ll take this with me before the ban comes into force.’ Summer picked up the margarita and disappeared through the doors to the garden.

  Roisin continued to glare, this time at Paul.

  ‘What?’ he asked defensively.

  ‘She gatecrashed this party and you’re encouraging her to get the guests totally legless!’ cried Roisin. ‘For God’s sake, Paul. What d’you think you’re at?’

  ‘She didn’t gatecrash. Carl brought her. And they’re not that strong, those cocktails.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ demanded Roisin. ‘Aunt Moya is half cut already. Bobby and Tom are guzzling them like there’s no tomorrow. Alivia is posing in the garden with hers.’

  ‘So what?’ Paul smiled at her. ‘It’s a party. Lighten up.’

  ‘I’m in charge,’ Roisin said. ‘And I’m telling you that I don’t want the guests on the floor before we’ve cut the cake and made proper speeches and everything. You did remember to bring the gift, didn’t you?’

  Roisin planned to give her parents a crystal bowl with an inscription after they cut the cake.

  ‘Of course I did,’ said Paul.

  ‘Well then,’ said Roisin. ‘I want you to be sober enough to hand it over at the right time.’

  ‘I’ve only had a couple,’ protested Paul.

  Roisin said nothing.

  ‘OK, OK. I’ll switch to water for a while.’

  Roisin sighed as she rubbed the back of her neck. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to get stroppy. But I’ve worked hard to make this a nice day and I don’t want it ruined by the actions of that … well, whatever she is.’

  ‘She’s just a kid,’ said Paul. ‘She’s harmless.’

  ‘Oh sweetheart, if you think that …’ Roisin shook her head slowly and left the room.

  Colette Mullens arrived late to the party. She hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. She had no interest in family gatherings, and although she liked her aunt and uncle, she didn’t think that her being there would make the slightest difference to them. But her mother, Sarah, had nagged and nagged at her, telling her that Roisin and Steffie had gone to a lot of trouble to get as many people as possible to celebrate with their parents, and that Colette should remember that Jenny and Pascal had had her entire family stay with them one summer and that she should show her gratitude by turning up.

  Colette remembered the summer – a particularly wet and miserable one, when she was about twelve, which had confined them to the house a lot of the time and probably driven Jenny mad. It had been the year that her parents had split up. But instead of talking to them about it like normal people, Sarah had packed Carl, Colette and their two younger brothers off to Aranbeg so that she and James could … well, what? Colette wondered. She’d never figured that out. She didn’t know if her father had left the day after they’d gone or if he’d stayed at home for a while afterwards. She didn’t know if her parents had tried to work at their marriage without the stress of four children around the place. All she knew was that her mum rang every night and ordered them to have a good time. Colette didn’t know how she was supposed to have a good time when she was stuck in the middle of nowhere with her three brothers, plus Steffie, who was the baby of the family, and Roisin, by then too wrapped up in her own life to notice her. Despite the fact that Aunt Jenny tried to cheer her up with visits to the cinema and offers to teach her to paint, Colette spent most of the summer in her bedroom reading Sweet Valley High books, pouring her heart out into her diary and wishing she lived in California.

  It was a long time since she’d seen Roisin or Steffie. Or Davey. Davey had been the only one of Jenny and Pascal’s children who’d bothered with her while she was at Aranbeg, mainly because he’d got a motor scooter and was always looking to take people places. So every time she wanted to go to Wexford to buy another book, Davey offered to take her. She’d felt quite grown up putting on her helmet and climbing on the back of the scooter behind him. And she’d enjoyed whizzing along the country lanes, her arms tightly around his waist.

  Of course Davey was living abroad now, like so many people. Roisin, as the oldest of them, tended to ignore her completely. And Steffie – well, she always felt a little uncomfortable with Steffie, because she’d pushed her cousin out of an apple tree that summer and Steffie had broken her arm. They’d both got into terrible trouble over it. Although they kept in occasional contact through social media, Colette wasn’t sure that Steffie had truly forgiven her.

  As it was over an hour since the party had been due to start, and her aunt and uncle had undoubtedly been surprised by now, Colette didn’t bother parking her Hyundai Santa Fe in the GAA grounds as requested on the invitation, but simply drove up to the house and left it outside the front door. She checked her appearance in the rear-view mirror. Her hair, raven black with a gold streak at the front, was held in a high quiff by industrial quantities of spray. Her eyeshadow was smoky and dramatic and her lips (her best feature, she thought, soft and pouty) were glossy and red. She leaned down and changed from her flat driving shoes into a pair of sparkly gold slingbacks before opening the car door and hopping on to the driveway. She was tugging her yellow and black striped dress into place when another car, driven far too fast, slid to a halt on the gravel beside her. The driver emerged and Colette opened her mouth, ready to complain about the dangers of speeding. But she didn’t. She looked at the driver in surprise.

  ‘Hello, Bernice,’ she said.

  Chapter 10

  Steffie had abandoned the veranda to sit in the shade of an apple tree. She adjusted the purple comb that was holding up her hair, and wriggled her toes in the slightly too long grass as she sipped the glass of cranberry juice she’d opted for in the place of more fizzy rosé. Leaning back against the tree trunk, she saw Roisin stalk out of the house and stand on the veranda overlooking the garden. She hoped she wasn’t looking for her to do anything. She was feeling nicely chilled from the rosé and not inclined to move from the shade. She wished that Roisin knew how to chill out too, but it was one skill she doubted her sister would ever possess.

  If Steve had come to the party, they’d be having a laugh together now at Roisin’s unstoppable energy. Having a laugh was Steve’s speciality. He didn’t take life or himself too seriously. Which made it all the more irritating that he’d decided to be serious about work today. Or maybe it was just that coming to the party would have implied he was serious about her.

  We’re not a serious couple, she reminded herself. We don’t want to be. But she couldn’t help thinking that right now she’d love to have someone in her life who’d turn up at a family event even if he didn’t want to, simply because he cared.

  Her eyes flickered around the garden and rested on Jenny, who was in her bare feet, talking to one of the neighbours. She wondered if her mother had ever felt anxious about her relationship with Pascal, if there had been times when she’d felt that the balance of power between them was all wrong. There must have been bad days, Steffie acknowledged, but whatever they might have been, they overcame them. I bet she never kept checking her phone and wondering if Dad was going to call. Not that there were mobile phones back then, of course. But I bet Dad always called whenever he said he would.

  They were lucky to have found each other, she thought, but it’s more than luck that’s kept them together for so long.

  She found it hard to imagine herself living with someone for such a long time. She certainly couldn’t imagine spending forty years of her life with Steve. In fact, right now, she couldn’t even imagine spending another forty minutes with him. And
what was the point of being with him at all, she wondered, if they were always going to be friends-with-benefits? Where was it leading?

  Maybe I should follow Roisin’s advice and start looking for The One, she thought as she idly pulled the white petals from a daisy. Or maybe I should forget about men altogether and concentrate on my work instead. So that one day I’ll have a proper office in a proper office building. I might even have an assistant. And a receptionist! She thought of Liam Kinsella and how he had moved on from the overweight teenager into someone who had his very own restaurant. Not only that, she conceded, but those saturnine good looks, totally unexpected from the teenager he’d been, wouldn’t have gone amiss on a celebrity chef. She should tell Alivia about him. Her cousin could even interview him on her show and put Cody’s on the map.

  ‘I was just thinking about you,’ she said as Alivia herself flopped on to the grass beside her.

  ‘You were?’ Alivia ran her fingers through her dark hair and fixed her huge brown eyes on Steffie.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ said Steffie.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Put on your caring presenter look. The one you use when you’re doing one of your human interest sob stories.’

  Alivia laughed. ‘It gets results.’

  ‘It creeps me out,’ said Steffie.

  ‘Not really?’ Alivia frowned. ‘It’s meant to be empathic.’

  ‘Yeah, but I know you,’ Steffie said. ‘I know it’s a TV thing.’

  ‘You wagon!’ Alivia made a face at her before dissolving into laughter. ‘I am empathic. Everyone says so.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘Really,’ she said. ‘I do honestly care about the guests. Not all of them, of course. Some are there for publicity and to flog whatever their latest thing is, but lots are good people. I want them to feel OK about being on the show and I want to highlight whatever their problem is.’

  ‘Well whatever you do, it’s working,’ said Steffie. ‘Your face has been all over the papers the last couple of weeks.’

  ‘Because the new season is starting,’ Alivia said. ‘I’m looking forward to it. Actually,’ she leaned closer, ‘I was thinking it would be really cool to do a piece about couples who’ve been together for a long time. I know forty years is pretty good, but I bet there are a fair few golden wedding anniversaries and more out there too.’

  Steffie nodded her agreement.

  ‘But I could wangle your parents on as well,’ said Alivia. ‘Ask them the secret of their success.’

  ‘Gosh, that’d be fun.’ Steffie immediately forgot about Liam Kinsella and celebrity chefs. ‘Although Mum doesn’t really like a fuss, so she might not be too keen.’

  ‘She’s enjoying the fuss today,’ Alivia said.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Steffie. ‘Or maybe she’s making the best of it. Well, more than that, you’re right: with it being a fait accompli, she’s getting into it a bit more. But it’s not something she’d ever have thought of herself.’

  ‘I definitely think I’ll try to put that show together,’ said Alivia. ‘I bet I could persuade her to agree on the basis that it would be a serious programme about love and marriage. We could get a newly engaged couple on as well, see how long they think they’ll last.’

  ‘I’d imagine they’d be hoping for ever.’ Steffie grinned. ‘I don’t think anyone gets engaged thinking their marriage is only going to last a couple of years.’

  ‘You’re not thinking about it yourself by any chance, are you?’ asked Alivia. ‘It’d be supercool to have you and your mum and dad all on the same show.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ said Steffie. ‘I think I’ve just dumped my boyfriend.’

  ‘Steffie!’ Alivia looked around as though she might see the rejected man walking away.

  ‘I was thinking about where I am with him and stuff and … well … all of a sudden it didn’t seem as great as it had before.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I asked him to come today and he ducked out of it. Not that I can totally blame him. Family things can be a nightmare for an outsider.’

  ‘Though not for Carl’s new girlfriend.’ Alivia grinned as she looked across the garden. Summer was standing beside Carl, her arm around his waist.

  ‘She’s something else, isn’t she?’ Steffie grinned. ‘And what’s he like with her? I mean, Liv, I know he’s not some middle-aged aul’ fella with a young wan on his arm, but really and truly, she’s nothing more than eye candy, is she? And I can’t help thinking he should have more sense. Poor Bernice, too. She’s a pet, and she thinks they’re on a break, not that he’s having his ego massaged by Lolita.’

  ‘More than his ego, I bet,’ said Alivia.

  The two of them laughed.

  ‘Thing is,’ Alivia continued, ‘if he’s not going to marry Bernice, he might as well have a bit of fun.’

  ‘And I agree with him, mostly. But thinking about Mum and Dad and their forty years together has put me into a different frame of mind.’

  ‘So you’re looking to get hitched?’

  Steffie laughed. ‘No. Not yet. It’s made me think the complete opposite. That I should steer clear of men altogether and concentrate on developing my career. Although that’ll piss Roisin off big time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She thinks I should get married and have kids so that she’s not the only one providing grandchildren for Mum and Dad.’

  Alivia smiled. ‘That’s so Roisin, isn’t it?’

  ‘She means well, I guess.’

  ‘Yeah, we all say that about people who do things that drive us nuts. Like my mum.’

  ‘What’s your mum doing that’s driving you nuts?’

  ‘She’s on at me to move back in with her,’ said Alivia. ‘I’m renting an amazing apartment in Galway but she thinks it’s a waste of money and I’d be better off at home. I know it’s because she hates not being able to keep tabs on me every minute of every day.’

  Steffie nodded sympathetically.

  ‘It’s partly because I tracked down my dad,’ added Alivia. ‘She sees it as a massive betrayal.’

  Alivia’s father had disappeared as soon as he’d heard that Lucinda was pregnant.

  ‘But I needed to know,’ said Alivia. ‘And it’s not like I’ve abandoned her for him or anything. I see him a couple of times a year, that’s all. I think it’s the fact that he got married and had a family of his own that bothers her as much as anything. That he married someone and had kids and it wasn’t her.’

  ‘It was thirty years ago,’ Steffie said. ‘Surely she’s got over it by now!’

  ‘You’d think,’ agreed Alivia. ‘But you know my mum. Never forgets.’

  ‘Whereas mine would forget her own head if it wasn’t screwed on,’ remarked Steffie.

  ‘Mum will be fine eventually,’ said Alivia. ‘But her overwhelming interest in my life is driving me mad right now. Especially as …’ she lowered her voice, ‘I have a new man in it.’

  ‘Ooh, sounds exciting? Is it serious?’

  ‘It’s early days.’ Alivia’s eyes twinkled. ‘But it could be. It’s Dermot Falconer.’

  ‘From Inisfree? The Irish-language soap?’

  ‘The very man.’

  ‘But he’s married!’ cried Steffie.

  ‘Not for much longer,’ Alivia said.

  Steffie looked enquiringly at her.

  ‘He’s getting a divorce.’

  ‘I don’t want to appear less than enthusiastic for you,’ said Steffie, ‘but weren’t he and his wife together at that music award thingy a few weeks ago?’

  ‘It’s PR,’ said Alivia.

  ‘Really? They seemed very loved-up to me.’

  ‘He’s an actor!’ protested Alivia. ‘He’s meant to be able to look loved-up with her.’

  ‘Sophie Fisher, isn’t it?’ said Steffie. ‘The newsreader?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are they still living together?’

  Alivia shook her head. ‘He has a place in Gal
way, she’s in Dublin. So not surprising it’s all fallen apart.’

  ‘I can’t believe it’s not in the gossip mags. I can’t believe you’re not!’

  ‘We’re keeping it totally under wraps,’ said Alivia. ‘Until he gets the divorce.’

  ‘And when will that happen?’

  ‘He’s working on it,’ said Alivia.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Steff, stop being so feckin’ negative!’

  ‘I’m not, I’m not!’ she cried. ‘It’s just – I guess I thought they were a solid couple.’

  ‘Nobody’s a solid couple these days,’ said Alivia. ‘Except Aunt Jenny and Uncle Pascal, obviously. It’s not possible any more.’

  ‘Oh, I hope you’re wrong about that,’ Steffie said. ‘I’d like to think that one day … maybe …’

  ‘I never took you for a soppy romantic,’ teased Alivia.

  ‘It’s not romantic to want to find someone you’ll stay with for ever,’ said Steffie. ‘It’s practical. After all, it’s expensive to extricate yourself, as Dermot will undoubtedly find out.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Alivia took out her phone and began to tap out a text. ‘They both have their own lives and their own careers, but she still wants money. That kind of does women and women’s rights a disservice, doesn’t it?’

  Steffie nodded. ‘I hope it all works out,’ she said.

  ‘It will.’ Alivia was confident. ‘And the sooner the better. I’d’ve loved to bring him here today, but he was doing a charity thing later this afternoon. He couldn’t dump sick kids for me.’ She smiled as her phone buzzed with a return text and began typing furiously again.

  ‘You’d certainly have set tongues wagging if you’d rocked up with him on your arm. Nobody knows about him and Sophie getting divorced.’

  ‘The tongues are busy enough wagging about Carl and Bernice,’ remarked Alivia as she sent her text. ‘Davey and Camilla, too. Isn’t she gorgeous? I reckon he’s hit the jackpot with her.’