My Mother's Secret

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  Steffie was lying in the crook of Liam’s arm, but she was thinking about Steve. It seemed like an eternity since she’d felt hurt by his decision not to come to the anniversary party and then decided to break up with him. But she hadn’t actually said anything to him before she’d jumped into bed with another man. If he knew where she was, he’d say she was cheating on him. But circumstances altered the facts. Didn’t they?

  Her mother had said that to her earlier when trying to explain about her fake marriage and her fling with Gregory. Steffie hadn’t wanted to believe that when presented in a particular way people’s actions could seem callous and unthinking, but that they were in fact influenced by what was going on around them and maybe even understandable. Not that Jenny having an affair was remotely understandable, or forgivable, but Steffie wondered if, twenty-seven years ago, her mother had been swept away by the same feelings that had taken over Steffie herself tonight. An overwhelming desire for someone that was simply irresistible. A feeling that what you were doing was inevitable and right.

  Not that what Jenny had done could ever have been considered right. Fair enough, thought Steffie, she herself might have technically cheated on Steve, but at least she wasn’t supposed to be married to him. Jenny didn’t have that excuse. The fact that she wasn’t actually married to Pascal was completely irrelevant.

  Steffie shifted slightly in the bed and Liam pulled his arm from beneath her. But he didn’t roll away as she’d expected, just turned so that he was curling up behind her, pulling her close to him.

  ‘Okay?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know you were amazing earlier.’

  ‘So were you, to be honest.’

  He chuckled in the darkness.

  ‘I never thought I’d sleep with you, Steffie Sheehan. Never even dreamed about it.’

  ‘You weren’t exactly on my radar either.’

  He didn’t answer. His breathing became deep and steady and Steffie realised that he’d fallen asleep. Men did, she thought, after making love. She’d read somewhere that it was because of hormones or something. Men slept but women … She couldn’t remember what she’d read about women, but she knew that it took her ages to fall asleep after being with someone for the first time. Not that there had been all that many notches on her bedpost. She wouldn’t be breaking any records. But she had a bit of experience. Enough to know that making love to Liam Kinsella was in the number one position by a mile. That first time had been phenomenal. And the second even better. So where did that leave her, she wondered, in the emotional stakes? Because she wasn’t the sort of girl, experienced or not, who normally put out on a first date. A minimum of three was where she set the bar. With Steve it had been four, because the first date didn’t really count; they’d gone for something to eat after working late, nothing more. And this thing with Liam – well, it wasn’t even a first date, plus he’d made it clear earlier that he didn’t have time for relationships because he was so caught up with running the restaurant. Which was fine. Tonight had been a one-off, sparked by the situation they’d found themselves in. She wasn’t expecting anything from Liam. It was too complicated. But the idea that they wouldn’t do again what they’d done tonight was heartbreaking.

  Was that what Jenny had thought about Gregory? That it had been so good she couldn’t say no? Despite Pascal and despite Roisin and despite Davey? Had Gregory been her Liam Kinsella? Steffie wrinkled her nose at the thought. She really didn’t want to compare herself to her mother, especially when the subject was their sex lives. She didn’t want to think of Jenny’s sex life even for a nanosecond. And yet she herself was the result of it. Of Jenny’s days of wild abandon. She was the result of a passionate fling. She supposed the newspapers would call her a love child.

  At least there was no chance of there being a pregnancy from her own passionate sex with Liam. They’d been upfront about protection, and although she’d briefly wondered how many times he’d had the conversation before, the only thing she’d cared about was how wonderful being with him was.

  Tomorrow I’ll get up and walk away, she said to herself. But tonight – if for no other reason than it was the best sex of my life – I’m very glad I was here.

  ‘People are going to bed, Camilla,’ said Davey. ‘They’ll be wanting to use the bathroom. You can’t stay in there.’

  There was no reply. He leaned his head against the locked door and sighed. Then he almost fell as it opened inward.

  ‘I’m leaving the bathroom so that no one is inconvenienced. I don’t want to talk to you,’ said Camilla as he steadied himself.

  ‘I have to explain—’

  ‘I do not believe in explanations,’ said Camilla. ‘People trying to justify themselves. Trying to come up with something that will make other people happy.’

  ‘I’m not coming up with anything,’ said Davey. ‘All I want is to tell you what happened.’

  ‘I don’t want to know what happened.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’ He caught her by the wrist and she stood perfectly still. For a moment he thought she was going to snatch her hand away and accuse him of assaulting her, but they heard voices on the stairway and both of them hesitated. Davey opened the door to Roisin’s bedroom, which was the nearest, and pulled Camilla inside. It took a couple of seconds for their eyes to adjust to the almost total darkness. Davey could see his nephew curled up asleep in the middle of the big double bed.

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong about Colette and me,’ he whispered to Camilla. ‘And I can’t let your stubborn pride allow you to think there was anything at all going on between us. I’m not making up stories so that you feel better. I’m telling you the God’s honest truth. If, after you hear it, you’re still mad at me and never want to see me again, that’s fine. But you have to hear me out.’

  ‘OK,’ murmured Camilla, after a short pause. ‘Say what you have to say.’

  So Davey did and Camilla listened.

  ‘You’re saying that your cousin has been in love with you all her life?’ asked Camilla, when he’d finished.

  ‘Not in love with me,’ amended Davey. ‘In love with some kind of ideal that she thought I represented. She was only a kid when she stayed with us that summer. Her parents’ marriage was crumbling. She was miserable. I guess she saw me as some kind of romantic figure.’ He could sense, rather than see, the sceptical expression on Camilla’s face. ‘I was a lot younger and better-looking back then,’ he added.

  ‘A heart-throb,’ said Camilla.

  ‘To an impressionable young girl,’ said Davey.

  ‘And now?’ asked Camilla.

  ‘Like I said, she’s been engaged three times,’ Davey told her. ‘She’s looking for something and someone but at last she knows it isn’t me.’

  ‘It’s hard to believe,’ said Camilla.

  ‘Because in it I’m some kind of sex symbol?’ Davey sounded rueful.

  ‘Maybe real life is always harder to believe than things people make up,’ said Camilla.

  ‘Maybe.’ He peered anxiously at her. ‘So … do you believe me?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Camilla after a pause. ‘It’s too ridiculous not to be true.’

  ‘In that case – are we OK again?’

  Camilla didn’t answer straight away. She was reliving the emotions she’d felt when she’d seen Davey and Colette together, when she’d rushed to conclusions about their relationship. The jealousy was still like a dagger of ice in her heart. She knew now that she loved Davey and wanted him for herself. Which went against everything she’d ever believed in before – being detached, being cool, being in control. She’d been proud of how she’d cultivated that personality. How she never crumbled. How she’d changed after her mother had joked about how emotional she’d been. It had been important to her for a long time. But perhaps it was different now. Perhaps it always should have been different. Perhaps she, Camilla Rasmussen, was different too. She allowed her head to rest on Davey’s chest.

  �
�We’re OK,’ she whispered. ‘I shouldn’t always jump to conclusions.’

  ‘The talk about Vaseline didn’t help,’ murmured Davey, and felt Camilla giggle. A wave of relief washed over him. The woman he loved believed him. Believed in him. Enough to stay with him for ever?

  It wasn’t how he’d planned it, of course. But then nothing ever worked out the way he planned. He reached into the pocket of his trousers and took out the engagement ring.

  ‘I wanted this moment to be special,’ he said softly. ‘I wanted it to be memorable. I had all sorts of plans for how it was going to be. But the only thing that matters now is to ask you. Will you marry me, Camilla?’

  She took the ring from him. The ring that she’d seen another woman wearing. She supposed that if you were the sort of person who looked for omens and portents, it might mean something. If you allowed yourself to become emotional about things. But even if she was allowing herself to be more emotional than usual tonight, she was, and always would be, a practical woman and the ring was beautiful. She slid it on to her finger. It fitted perfectly. She looked at Davey and smiled.

  ‘Of course I’ll marry you,’ she said and kissed him.

  ‘Oh yuck.’ Dougie sat up in bed. ‘You’re kissing. In my bedroom. That’s totally disgusting.’

  ‘This takes me back,’ said Lucinda as she and Sarah sat on the end of Steffie’s bed, a selection of tea lights flickering on the dresser in front of them.

  ‘How many years?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘Since we shared a room? Gosh it must be thirty-five … no, oh my God, Sarah, it’s thirty-seven years!’

  ‘That makes me feel old.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘But then we are old. We’re in our fifties.’

  ‘Fifty is the new thirty,’ said Lucinda. ‘So they say.’

  ‘Hmm. They were never around to say that when I was thirty,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Me neither.’

  The two of them laughed.

  ‘I don’t feel all that different,’ Sarah said. ‘I still think the best years of my life are ahead of me. But they can’t be, can they? Being realistic, there’s more years behind than in front now.’

  ‘No reason why the ones in front can’t be the best,’ remarked Lucinda.

  ‘Do you actually believe that?’

  Lucinda sighed. ‘I wish I did. If that was the case, I’d meet someone gorgeous and baggage-free and live happily ever after with him.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ said Sarah. ‘I suppose if there is a gorgeous, baggage-free man out there, he’s looking for a gorgeous, baggage-free woman. And let’s face it, neither of us count on that score!’

  ‘True.’

  ‘So maybe we need to adjust our expectations.’

  ‘It would be good to think there was someone out there who wasn’t weighed down by his past,’ said Lucinda. ‘But by our age the baggage is huge, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mine came spilling on to the carousel earlier,’ said Sarah. ‘First when we got here and everything seemed so perfect. And more when Jenny told us her secrets and we realised it wasn’t. I managed to blame her both for getting nothing wrong and for getting nothing right.’

  ‘Poor Jenny. I feel sorry for her tonight.’

  ‘I’ve never felt sorry for her in my life,’ said Sarah. ‘Truthfully, I don’t think I ever will. But today has to have been a nightmare for her.’

  ‘She’ll get over it,’ said Lucinda. ‘But nothing will be the same again.’

  ‘And what about Steffie? Will she forgive Jenny?’

  ‘I like to think children forgive their parents. I want to think that Alivia forgives me for not understanding when she went looking for her dad. I gave her an unnecessarily hard time. I thought I was losing her but in the end I think I was driving her away. And I know I can be clingy, but the thing is, Sarah, she might have been my greatest mistake, but she’s also my greatest joy.’

  ‘I suppose everyone makes at least one tremendous mistake in their lives,’ said Sarah. ‘The trick is learning from them. I don’t think I’ve quite nailed that yet.’

  ‘You can’t go back,’ said Lucinda. ‘You can’t erase your mistakes. You can’t start over. All you can do is move on and live with them.’

  ‘From tomorrow I’m going to try to do that.’ Sarah yawned. ‘We never talked like this before we went to bed when we were younger.’

  ‘We didn’t have such dramas to talk about.’

  ‘We probably did, over boyfriends or something, but of course those so-called dramas all fade into insignificance eventually.’ Sarah began to peel off her clothes. ‘I suppose everything does. You won’t be offended by the sight of me in my bra and knickers, will you?’

  Lucinda laughed. ‘Not a bit of it. As long as you’re not offended by me either.’

  ‘Right so,’ said Sarah. ‘I’m getting in first. Will you blow out those tea lights? I don’t want to burn the house down.’

  Lucinda extinguished the lights then got into bed beside her sister. ‘I hope you don’t snore these days,’ she said.

  ‘Like a trooper,’ Sarah assured her.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Lucinda’s voice was already drifty. ‘I’m so tired and this bed is so comfortable. G’night, Sarah.’

  ‘Good night, baby sister.’

  The two of them closed their eyes.

  They were asleep within five minutes.

  With the exception of Summer, who’d abruptly flaked out on the sofa and was lost to the world, nobody who’d been offered blankets, camp beds or sleeping bags was making any move to sleep. Carl covered his girlfriend with one of the lightest blankets and then went into the kitchen, where Alivia was sitting at the table scrolling through her text messages. He poured himself a glass of water, then walked back through the house. Colette was curled up in an armchair in the living room drinking a glass of wine. Bernice was also curled up with a glass of wine, although in her case she was on the veranda.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ Carl asked.

  ‘Where’s your girlfriend?’

  ‘Sleeping.’

  ‘Lightweight.’ Bernice sipped her wine.

  ‘If I’d known you were coming, I wouldn’t have asked Summer,’ said Carl as he sat down beside her.

  Bernice raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I’m not a total dick,’ said Carl.

  ‘Bringing that girl to this party was definite dickdom,’ Bernice said. ‘It was awkward for everyone, not just me.’

  ‘She got on with all of them,’ protested Carl. ‘She’s a sweet person.’

  Bernice said nothing.

  ‘I wanted some fun, that’s all,’ said Carl.

  ‘I didn’t realise that life with me was so fun-free.’

  ‘It became that way.’

  Carl’s words lodged between them.

  Bernice ran the tip of her finger around the rim of her glass before Carl spoke again.

  ‘I thought by now I’d be tucked up in bed at the guest house. I reckoned I’d have left early because Mum would’ve done my head in.’

  ‘You were never keen on family gatherings.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t.’

  Bernice didn’t add anything. She was trying not to think about the last time they’d been together as a couple and the suppressed anger that had crackled between them. She’d asked if they were breaking up and he’d said he needed some space. She’d asked what sort of space, and he’d said he didn’t know; then she’d said that he could leave if he wanted because they weren’t committed to each other, and he’d told her, quite sharply, that he had been committed to her but that she’d gone behind his back.

  Despite the fact that they’d agreed to give it three months, she’d felt as though they were over as soon as he’d walked out the door. She hadn’t expected him to come back. Indeed, he’d waited until she was at work before he’d emptied his wardrobe and taken things that had always been his. As well as the Blu-ray player and the small TV from the bedroom. And it had broken
her heart.

  ‘You always got on with everyone,’ he said when she didn’t speak. ‘They all love you. They were delighted to see you today. Happier to see you than me, I reckon.’

  ‘I doubt that. You’re family. I’m not.’

  ‘You were great earlier,’ he continued. ‘Looking after Poppy. Driving to the hospital in the rain. A real angel of mercy.’

  ‘I didn’t realise the floods would be that bad, to be honest,’ she said. ‘If I had, I probably would’ve let someone else drive.’

  ‘But you did drive,’ said Carl. ‘Everyone was impressed by you. They always are.’

  ‘It’s my job,’ she said.

  He took a deep breath and turned to face her. ‘We always said it would be a joint decision. That we’d go together.’

  ‘I don’t want to have this argument again, Carl.’

  ‘It’s not an argument.’

  ‘That’s what it became. Every time.’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t see my point of view.’

  ‘I know exactly what your point of view is,’ she said. ‘You were relieved each time I didn’t become pregnant.’

  ‘Not relieved,’ he said. ‘It was just … Having a baby is a such a big responsibility, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I do know. I realise that you weren’t ready for it. I’m sorry. I kind of thought that at the age of thirty-five and with eight years behind us, you would have been.’

  ‘I’m responsible about the things that matter,’ he said.

  ‘And this mattered to me.’

  ‘It’s heavy stuff. Going to get tested. Seeing if it’s me or you that was the reason.’

  ‘And grown-ups have to deal with heavy stuff,’ she said. ‘But the truth is, you didn’t even want to be responsible for breaking up with me. You couldn’t say it out loud.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  She gave him a resigned look and nodded.

  ‘It’s not true,’ said Carl. ‘I needed time to think about it. I said so.’

  ‘And your time to think made you decide that what you really needed in your life was someone like Summer,’ said Bernice.

  ‘You made me feel like a machine,’ he said. ‘That I was only there to provide sperm for you. As though all you wanted was a baby, not me.’