Patrick and Moya traditionally went for dinner in Allen’s on their own the night before he went back to England.
This year it was awkward. Moya stared across the table at her handsome husband, wondering if she could trust him. A month ago she’d borrowed his Mercedes for the day as her car was in for a service and he was away on business in Gothenburg. Danny had got a nosebleed and she’d yelled at Fiona to quickly open the glove compartment and get some tissues or a cloth.
Fiona, tumbling everything on to the seat, found one of Patrick’s expensive hankies for Danny to use. Tidying up the car later, lying beside the service manual and some CDs, Moya discovered a phial of Mitsuo, an Issey Miyake perfume she never used, and a tube of brown Chanel mascara. Her own lashes were jet black and when she did use mascara only black would ever do. She mentally ran through a list of possible females that might have left some make-up in his car, drawing a total blank!
Back in the house she left the kids downstairs watching a video, while she went and did something she had never done before. She checked Patrick’s bank and Visa statements. Like all accountants he was organized to a T, and it was easy enough to lay her hands on the indexed files. She started with January and went through the months. Restaurant bills. Most were ones Patrick used regularly for entertaining clients, then she spotted two that were not the corporate type: they were small intimate Italian restaurants. There were tickets for two to a jazz night in a London nightclub, and in March a payment for a small boutique hotel in Bath. She froze. That was the weekend of the Ireland v. England rugby match. Patrick had told her he was taking clients to Lansdowne Road and that it was going to be a boozy stag three days. She’d believed him!
She could still remember the awful feeling in the pit of her stomach as she thought about it. Patrick romancing another woman! Going to bed with her! She had put the files back carefully.
She was calm and composed when he returned from Sweden, nonchalantly presenting him with the evidence from the car.
‘Whose are these?’
‘I don’t know,’ he’d bluffed. ‘Maybe one of the girls from work.’
‘Are you seeing somebody?’
He’d been affronted, shouting at her, ‘How dare you suggest such a thing?’
‘Patrick, you didn’t answer me. Are you having an affair? Yes or no?’
He’d talked and argued and blamed the pressures of work and his career and her lack of understanding. Moya, relentless, kept on, demanding the truth. ‘Yes or no?’
‘No! No!’ he shouted.
‘So you didn’t have an affair, you can swear that to me.’
He’d put his head in his hands, eventually admitting the truth.
‘Do you love her?’
‘Don’t be crazy! I love you.’
‘How long has it been going on?’
‘Two months. It’s nothing, just a bit of fun, a change. She knows that.’
‘I see,’ she said bitterly.
‘It’s you I love, Moya, you know that.’
‘Well you sure have a strange way of showing it,’ she snapped as she sat on the bedroom floor contemplating what to do. Leave him? Divorce him? She felt like getting a knife from the block down in the kitchen and killing him, he’d hurt her so much.
There were the children, the mortgage on this big new house they’d moved to in Richmond, the years together, the life they had built. She didn’t want to throw it all away because Patrick was a stupid shit!
‘It will never happen again, I swear,’ he promised.
‘You utter bastard!’ she’d screamed.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. What are you going to do?’
She could sense his nervousness. He had so much to lose. A messy divorce would be disastrous.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.
‘Jesus, Moya.’
And she had. She had given it huge consideration and thought. She was no doormat but being a single parent with three kids would be hard. She thought of her mother who had always put home and children first and knew that she too was the same kind of person and that Fiona, Gavin and Danny’s happiness was paramount. She still loved Patrick and underneath it all, though it seemed pathetic and crazy, believed he still loved her.
By tacit agreement, the mistakes and hurts were once again put behind them, and their marriage for everyone’s sake was bandaged back together. Some day they might discover it had become irreparable or she might decide she was better off on her own. Patrick knew that, but for the moment, sitting across the candlelit table from each other in one of Rossmore’s most expensive restaurants, they were together.
‘I’ll miss you,’ he said, pouring more red wine into her glass.
She didn’t bother replying.
‘You’ll be here with the kids and Frank and Maeve and all your old pals. You won’t have time to miss me!’
There was a lot of truth in what he said but Moya felt a strange mixture of guilt and mistrust thinking about him back in London commuting to the office, staying in an empty house while she lolled around for another glorious five weeks doing nothing. ‘I wish you could take longer holidays,’ she sighed.
‘Ten days back in the old country is enough for me,’ he admitted. ‘Golf with Ron and Simon and the rest of the guys in Villamoura in the autumn, that’s more my idea of a switch-off holiday.’
‘You know I’m not coming back till just before term starts.’
He nodded.
‘Danny will be at St Michael’s till three o’clock every day then except for Wednesday.’
He looked bored.
‘So I’ll have a lot more time on my hands. I was talking to Brigid and you know how well we work together. Anyway, she might be prepared to take in a partner.’
‘Partner!’
‘Don’t look so surprised, Patrick. I’ve always dreamed of opening a gallery of my own, you know that. I mean, we could think of doing up our basement, converting it or look for a suitable piece of property close by.’
‘It would cost a fortune,’ he protested.
‘I know, that’s why going in with Brigid would be a good investment. She wants to cut back a bit from the gallery and concentrate on her own painting, visit that house in the Dordogne that Charles bought, but she just can’t close up the place. The Hamilton is the ideal place for me to work and build up the business.’
‘But where would you get the money?’
Moya looked at him across the table.
‘Well I thought you were always on the lookout for good investment opportunities,’ she teased.
He realized with a jolt that Moya was flirting with him, noticing the dusting of light freckles across her nose that made her more beautiful than ever. Her beauty had always got to him, somehow made him feel unworthy of her. Sipping his wine he became aware that perhaps his wife was blackmailing him and if he didn’t accede to her wishes he was in real danger of losing her.
Once Patrick had gone back to London, the house settled into an even more relaxed routine, with breakfast mid-morning after a swim. Then back to the beach to relax in the sun and read or just close her eyes and daydream, the kids busy building or chasing around.
Cora Costigan had arrived down from Dublin with her two daughters to stay with her mother, and Mary Joyce, another school friend, was ensconsced for the whole month in one of the holiday cottages overlooking the harbour with her four kids; her husband, like Patrick, only visited for a week or two.
‘It’s like old times,’ sighed Cora. ‘All the gang back down here again.’
‘Only this time we have the kids.’
Moya watched Fiona down playing at the water’s edge with Cora’s daughter Lucy, the two of them engrossed in trying to catch a crab or something, their voices shrieking, laughing, catching on the breeze, Fiona’s sallow skin already tanned, Lucy like her mum a mass of pale skin and freckles.
The boys were only a few yards away busy building a sand car, trying to work out the size the seat
should be, and everyone was screaming at Mary’s little guy Emmet, as he ploughed across it.
‘I just love to see them all together,’ smiled Moya, taking her camera from her bag. ‘I guess it reminds me of us growing up.’
She watched as Danny dug shovelfuls of sand, scooping it up and then putting it to the back of the car shape, his small face rapt with concentration.
‘He’s got taller,’ smiled Cora. ‘I think maybe he looks bigger, stronger.’
Moya was grateful: grateful that Danny was finally managing to catch up with boys his own age and staying healthy.
‘Stop worrying, love, he’s a normal little boy,’ her mother kept saying to her over and over again. Moya was finally able to believe it.
She knew her mother relished those golden days surrounded by her grandchildren, often coaxing her sister Kate to come down home for a few days too. The house was packed with laughter and jokes and mess, the washing machine on full tilt, the line heavy with towels and togs. There was endless cooking of sausages and chips and pizza and huge plates of toast, along with cleaning and hoovering up sand from the strangest of places. The children would play in the garden till it got dark, only coming in for bed when they had to, Maeve putting on her glasses and reading them stories from favourite books until they fell asleep.
‘I wish we could stay here for ever, Granny,’ confided Fiona, curled up in her pink striped pyjamas with her teddy bear Sam in Romy’s old room.
‘I wish that too, pet,’ confessed Maeve, ‘but you have a lovely house in Richmond and your school and your friends. You’d miss it all terribly and you’d probably get bored if you were living here all year round and seeing Grandad and myself all the time.’
‘I’d never get bored,’ she said ferociously, throwing her arms around her.
Moya swallowed hard. All her mother had ever wanted was her children and family around her, yet here she was with one daughter living in England, only seeing her grandchildren twice or three times a year if she was lucky, Kate working too hard, obsessed with her career with absolutely no sign of settling down, and Romy like a tinker moving from place to place. God knows where in the world her sister would end up! She must envy her friends and neighbours whose children had married and stayed in the area, content with their local life. Frank Dillon was the one who had encouraged them all to spread their wings and fly, ensuring they got a good education.
‘Now come on! You all have to go to sleep now,’ their grandmother threatened. ‘Or there’ll be no picnic tomorrow.’
Moya smiled to herself as within minutes all three were curled up under their duvets, eyes closed, mouths open, fast asleep.
They’d driven over to Kilmore Quay, her father pleading an urgent meeting, Moya knowing full well he was trying to avoid Gavin and Danny’s constant chatter and pleas for him to do things with them.
‘I’m too old to be flying kites and having swim races and cycling to the pier,’ he sighed. ‘Patrick should do those kind of things with them.’
They had concocted a fabulous picnic, which would feed an army and had spread the tartan rugs on the sand in a good sheltered spot where they could keep an eye on the children and watch the small boats loop in and out of the tiny harbour.
After racing along the strand and swimming the children collapsed on the rugs, demanding to be fed.
‘Can I have another slice of ham and a roll please, Granny?’
‘Pass the salami . . . pleeasse.’
‘I’m thirsty.’
Moya watched her mother calmly deal with them. She was devoted to her grandchildren.
‘How are things with Patrick?’ Maeve asked, once the children disappeared looking for crabs in the rock pools.
‘He’s really busy at the moment, taken on more clients and is training in new staff.’ Moya grimaced. ‘And he hardly ever gets home, so what’s new!’
‘I didn’t mean work. I meant things between the two of you.’
Moya stared out at the sea, watching a seagull circle above the waves. What was she going to tell her mother: that she’d discovered Patrick was having an affair? She didn’t trust herself to speak.
‘He’s hurt you.’
Moya nodded.
‘I could kill him for that,’ said her mother softly.
‘He’s an utter bastard. Did you know that?’
‘Suspected, maybe.’
‘Well, it’s true. He’s been sleeping with other women, having affairs. He says they mean nothing and that he still loves me, but yet he does it again and again. For all I know he is with someone else as we speak.’
Maeve Dillon shuddered, thinking of her charming son-in-law and the pain he was inflicting on her daughter.
‘Remember when Danny came home from the hospital and for months I was too scared to leave him.’ Moya tried to control her voice. ‘Patrick had to go to Paris on business. I don’t know who she was, maybe somebody from the company or one of the clients. It went on for weeks. I was worried sick about our baby while he just couldn’t keep his pants on!’
‘Oh Moya.’
‘I forgave him, blamed myself for not going to bloody Paris, and of course he promised it would never happen again.’
‘And?’
‘It did!’ Moya watched the children paddling in the distance, Fiona lost in concentration as she tried to scoop something from the pool.
‘Was this woman important to him?’
‘I don’t know,’ shrugged Moya, ‘and I really don’t care.’
Maeve didn’t know what to say, wondering how it was that time and time again history repeated itself with mothers and daughters.
‘Your father and I went through a bad patch.’ She hesitated. ‘It was a long time ago, and was the roughest time in all our years of marriage.’
‘When Sean died.’
‘Yes, well you remember what it was like for all of us. I couldn’t love him then, couldn’t bear to have him near me so he found somebody else. Someone who would give him what I couldn’t. It’s no excuse but I blamed myself. I was awfully good at that.’
‘Daddy had an affair? I can’t believe it!’
‘It’s the truth, Moya. You were all young and there was no question of me leaving him. So I accepted it. Accepted her. What else could I do?’
‘Did anyone else know about it?’ Moya asked.
‘There was a bit of gossip and rumour-mongering but I just ignored it all.’
Moya was appalled. She had always known that her father was a gambler and a risk-taker but to have an affair in a small town like Rossmore was crazy.
‘What did you do?’
‘I held my head high. I loved your father and he loved me. I stayed home and raised you girls. I was mad as hell with Frank for what he was doing to us but my home and my family were more important than a hundred women.’
‘Things are different nowadays,’ sighed Moya. ‘More complicated.’
‘Not so different,’ her mother comforted, patting her hand. ‘Though the minute you stop loving him, well, that’s a different matter.’
‘Granny, Granny, look at the fish I caught. It’s a rock breen!’ yelled Gavin, running towards them with his net and a slopping bucket of water.
‘Come and show it to me,’ smiled Maeve, arms open wide, ending the conversation.
Lying in bed that night, listening to the sound of the tide in the distance, Moya remembered all the happy years of her childhood and realized how hard her mother had fought to protect them from everything, just like she was doing with her own children.
Chapter Twenty-four
KATE WASN’T SURPRISED when her mother phoned and asked her to come down home for the weekend for she knew with Moya and the children gone back to London it must be lonely for her.
‘The house is so quiet your father and I are rattling around like two old codgers, it would be lovely to see you, pet.’
‘I’ve a work function to go to on Friday night, Mum, but I’ll come down on Saturday and stay over,’ she of
fered.
‘Couldn’t you stay longer, pet? Maybe take a few days off work.’
Kate’s holiday days were precious, her mother knew that! She might be earning a high-flying figure and paying off the mortgage on the new apartment that she’d bought in Monkstown – which hopefully had already doubled in value – and had made two small investments in start-up companies she’d advised, but the one thing she wasn’t rich in was time!
Take a few days off! ‘Are you all right, Mammy?’ she asked, suddenly worried.
‘Yes, love, I’m fine. It’s your dad I’m concerned about.’
‘Is he sick?’
‘No, it’s not that,’ she said secretively, ‘it’s something else. I don’t want to discuss it on the phone, but he might need your help in the office to sort out a few things.’
Kate was aghast. In all her life her father had never once asked her for a bit of professional advice or even properly discussed the number of business investments he was involved in. He was a wheeler-dealer type, full of bravado and show, turning money easily one day and making it by the skin of his pants another, but he’d always been able to provide his family with a good living. She suspected he sailed too close to the wind but now, she wondered, had he finally run himself into trouble? ‘Listen, Mum, I’ll ask Bill for a day or two, OK, but that’s all I can manage. I’ll see you both on Saturday around lunchtime.’
Her mother had made a thick vegetable soup, which was like a meal it was so filling. Her father, at the other end of the kitchen table, looked embarrassed. He’d lost weight recently, had gone grey.
‘Daddy, you’ll have to tell me what’s going on if you want me to help you. The first thing I usually do with clients is sit them down and get the whole story.’
He dunked a piece of bread in the soup, avoiding her eyes.
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