by Des Ekin
‘What?’ Tara was taken completely by surprise.
‘He loves you. But yet he will leave. He will leave, not in spite of his love for you, but because of it. Be careful.’
Andres rejoined them. Tara could only stare open-mouthed as Mathilde gave her an encouraging smile, patted her arm and headed for the departure gate.
They watched her walk away towards the security scanners, her svelte hips sashaying with an unconscious and confident sexuality that caused luggage trolleys to collide all over the departure lounge. She didn’t look back.
‘I’ve a feeling she’ll do OK,’ said Andres.
Tara nodded. ‘I’ve a feeling you’re right.’
‘Now,’ smiled Andres, taking her arm, ‘how about lunch?’
Damn. She couldn’t.
‘I’m sorry, Andres, I’d love to,’ she apologised, ‘but I’ve got something else on. What about tomorrow instead?’
He shook his head. ‘I have to go to London on business.’
‘Next day, then?’
‘Perhaps.’
Damn Andres and his ‘perhaps’. With him, you could never tell whether ‘perhaps’ meant yes, maybe or never.
‘Goodbye, then, Tara,’ he said, giving her a hug which seemed to go on much longer than necessary for two friends parting company for a couple of days.
‘Okay, Andres, see you later,’ she said cheerfully. ‘And sorry I can’t make lunch. It’s just that can’t break this appointment. I promised to visit someone in hospital.’
‘Oh?’ He looked surprised. ‘Relative or friend?’
‘Neither,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It’s someone I don’t even know.’
All the other doors in the beautiful Georgian terrace had several brass panels and half a dozen doorbells apiece. Each lofty house, with its fanlight-crested door and multi-paned windows, was shared by solicitors’ offices, insurance companies, accountants and architects, all paying a fortune in rent for a few square metres of office space.
But the door Tara was interested in had only one brass panel, a modest rectangle that bore the two words: RUSSETT CLINIC. There was no further explanation of its purpose, no elaboration as to why it should occupy an entire multi-storey building in one of the most expensive terraces in central Dublin.
Tara pressed the bell and gave her name into the intercom. The yellow-painted door buzzed like an angry wasp and an electronic bolt snapped back.
‘Good afternoon, Ms Ross.’ The receptionist smiled warmly. A pleasant woman in her early fifties, she had the jolly, roly-poly face of a farmer’s wife from an Enid Blyton book. ‘We were expecting you. Please take a seat. Mr Fitzpatrick will be with you in a moment.’
Tara sat on the plush white leather sofa and leafed through the current issue of Country Life. A hidden sound system was softly playing an Andrew Lloyd-Webber tune on panpipes.
‘Ms Ross?’
Tara looked up. Mr Frederick Fitzpatrick, consultant psychiatrist to the Russett Clinic, was not the stuffy middle-aged man she had expected. He was in his early thirties, he wore his hair long, and he had a well-trimmed black beard that framed his ready smile. He had on blue Levis and a light denim shirt, and his multicoloured, multi-patterned waistcoat seemed to be the result of days of painstaking labour by some Third World craft worker.
He must have noticed her expression. ‘I know, you were expecting a suit,’ he said in a disarming Liverpudlian accent. ‘Everybody does. But I don’t believe in pinstripes. They’re symbolic barriers – prison bars you wear.’
Tara was glad she hadn’t worn her chalk-striped charcoal suit. Her own outfit – light blue jeans and white cotton shirt – would no doubt meet with the good doctor’s approval.
‘You must be Dr Fitzpatrick,’ she said, shaking his hand.
‘Well…Mister Fitzpatrick, actually. It’s a funny old profession. You go in as a Mister, you work for years to get called a Doctor, then they make you work like a Trojan for another few years for the privilege of getting called a Mister again. But it’s all pretty irrelevant, really, because everyone around here calls me Fred.’
‘And may I?’
‘Of course, and I’ll call you Tara. Please.’ He opened the door of the reception area and led her up a flight of varnished stairs with plush red carpeting and brightly-polished brass stair rods. The old-wood banisters were immaculately polished. High above, on the ceiling, she could discern white, perfectly-preserved plasterwork moulded into intricate shapes of fruit and leaves.
‘I’m delighted that you decided to come,’ he said, taking the stairs two steps at a time and obviously expecting Tara to do likewise. ‘Not everyone would have the courage, after what you’ve been through.’
‘I wanted to come.’
‘I know.’ He paused on the stairway and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Our patient is just up here.’
‘How is he, anyway?’
‘Making steady progress. Meeting you in a friendly, non-threatening environment could do wonders for him. But…’ He paused again. ‘It might be a very short meeting. You don’t mind that?’
‘Not at all.’
‘I know I can rely on you to be calm and non-judgmental,’ he whispered as they reached a landing. He knocked on a polished pine door marked ‘Private’. Without waiting for a reply, he turned the handle and threw the door open with the confident air of someone who has ready access to all areas. ‘This is Ms Ross. Sorry, I mean Tara.’ He smiled at her. ‘She’s travelled a long way to see how you’re getting along, our kid.’
Tara hesitated in the doorway. The room was warm and sunny, and simply but expensively furnished with half a dozen armchairs. On the wall, pinned to cork notice boards, were watercolour paintings that had obviously been created by the clinic’s patients. They looked like depictions of dreams.
At first, she wondered who the figure in the armchair was. Then, as logic prompted her towards recognition, she stepped forward and held out her hand.
‘Hello, Manus,’ she said.
The man in the smart Ralph Lauren sweatshirt smiled shyly and returned her handshake with surprising warmth. ‘Hello, Tara. I’m glad you were able to make it.’
‘I couldn’t wait to come, Manus. May I sit down?’
‘Yes, of course. Sorry.’ He motioned to the five empty armchairs. ‘Do you think you can find a seat?’
They shared a smile. As she sat down beside him, she glanced at him again. His brown hair was shiny, clean and neatly-cut. He was clean-shaven, and his eyes were quiet and content. With his plain, pockmarked face, he would never be considered a movie star, but he looked good in a boy-next-door, butcher-delivery-lad sort of way. She could hardly recognise him as the filthy, wild-eyed fugitive who had confronted her in the forest.
‘And how are you doing?’ she asked at last.
‘Fine. I like it here.’ His voice drawled slightly – he was probably on some sort of sedative, she guessed – but otherwise he sounded normal. ‘They treat me really well.’
‘I’m glad. It’s a good place. They’re good people.’ God, she sounded like a presenter on Sesame Street.
‘I’m sorry I scared you.’ He was staring at her a bit apprehensively, like a nervous puppy. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘I know you didn’t. You were just trying to warn me.’
‘Yes.’ He looked relieved. ‘Is your friend all right? The red-headed girl?’
‘Melanie? Yes, don’t worry. She’s made a full recovery. She realises now that you weren’t trying to hurt her. She knows that you’d come to the cottage looking for me. To warn me about Fergal.’
Manus nodded. ‘What happened was, I looked through the window to make sure he wasn’t there. Then I went to the door. But when your friend made a go for me with the shotgun, what happened was, I panicked and pushed the barrel upwards away from me. The gun went off and knocked her backwards. She banged her head on the floor. I just got scared and ran.’
‘It’s okay,’ Tara reassured him. ‘It could have
been an awful lot worse. I suppose Melanie did overreact a bit. She was terrified because your warnings sounded so much like threats.’
Manus looked remorseful. ‘I know. The doctors have explained to me that I have a real problem…’ he frowned, trying to remember the phrase…‘communicating with people.’
He yawned, stood up, and lifted a brown parcel from the table beside him.
‘I want you to have this, Tara,’ he said. ‘My mother’s solicitor says it belongs to me and I can do what I like with it. So I said I wanted to give it to you, and he told me that would be all right.’
The parcel was small and heavy.
‘What is it, Manus?’
‘Just something.’ Manus’s face began to redden. ‘The solicitor tells me it’s worth an awful lot of money, but I don’t care. It never brought us nothing but bad luck. Please just take it and do whatever you want with it.’
Tara put it into her bag.
‘There’s a letter inside,’ said Manus. ‘Promise you’ll read it before you decide what to do?’
‘I promise. Get well soon, Manus.’
She stood to leave, shaking his hand again and wishing him well. She was able to meet his eyes and she knew, with a deep inner satisfaction, that she had confronted her worst fears, and that the figure in the wood was exorcised for ever. Manus Kennedy would never again visit her in her nightmares.
‘Thank you for coming here, Tara,’ he yawned as she walked away. ‘Thank you for doing that for me.’
‘You’re very welcome, Manus,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me.’
Chapter Thirty
NEXT DAY Tara Ross rose early and took a lengthy walk along the shoreline near Claremoon Harbour. For a long time, perhaps half an hour, she did nothing more than lift gnarled hunks of driftwood and toss them aimlessly into the ocean.
Back at her cottage, Manus Kennedy’s package still lay unopened on the kitchen table, exactly where it had lain since her return from Dublin. She knew what was in the heavy little parcel, but she couldn’t bring herself to open it. The memories were too vivid and the wounds were still too raw.
Besides, another matter was weighing even more heavily on her mind. It had begun with Mathilde’s enigmatic warning at the airport. Andres was in love with her, she’d said, but he would soon be gone. He would not leave in spite of his love for her; he would leave because of it. What on earth was that supposed to mean?
And yet, Mathilde’s cryptic remark explained a lot of things Tara hadn’t understood before. It explained Andres’s oddly protective attitude towards her – an attitude she’d wrongly interpreted as arrogant interference in her affairs. It explained why he’d gone to such enormous lengths to help her. It explained all the mystifying occasions when it had seemed he was trying to say something to her, but had drawn back at the last minute…
She tossed a jagged, bone-white stick of driftwood far out to sea. Yes, it explained all those things, and, if she were honest with herself, it also explained something about her own tangled and confused emotions towards him. The feelings she’d refused to acknowledge because of her misplaced loyalty to Fergal. Now that Fergal was gone, she could suddenly see things clearly, as though a dense and impenetrable sea-fog had abruptly lifted and she could glimpse the true, wide horizon for the first time.
She looked out at the real ocean horizon, shimmering gently as the rising sun burned off the early morning mists. With a sudden jolt, she realised that she would miss him more than she could bear. She would miss his strange accent and his quaint, old-fashioned, Indian Raj way of talking. She’d miss his tales of foreign places, his Far Eastern paddy-field cooking, his Swiss wines, and his droll, understated sense of humour.
No, it was more than that. It was much, much more than that.
Tara quickened her pace as she walked back towards the cottage, filled with a renewed sense of determination. She would phone him at his apartment in Dublin and arrange to meet. She would treat them both to a long, luxurious dinner, and for once, they would stop shadowboxing and be honest about their feelings for each other. If Mathilde had been right, if he did feel the same way about her, then anything was possible.
Tara saw the grey Mercedes car outside her cottage long before she saw the statuesque strawberry blonde at the wheel. She felt her heart give a sudden leap of trepidation. She’d never seen the woman before, but she immediately recognised Jean Murphy’s description of the stunning beauty she’d spotted having lunch with Andres in the restaurant off St Stephen’s Green.
As Tara walked up, feeling scruffy and disreputable in her blue-ringed Breton fishing-smock and ancient Levis, the woman got out of the Merc and smoothed a non-existent wrinkle out of her immaculate Paul Costelloe suit.
‘So you’re Tara Ross,’ she smiled, as she stretched out an elegantly-manicured hand. ‘I’m Wendy Killegar. And you’ve got something I want.’
They shared a pot of Java among the fuchsias in the back garden, enjoying the warmth of the morning sunshine. Bumblebees mumbled drowsy complaints as they struggled in and out of the purple flowers. In the background, the ocean whispered gently across the stony beach.
‘The sheela-na-gig, darling,’ explained the gallery owner, her shrewd eyes watching Tara closely from behind her darkened Ray-Bans. ‘I’ve been talking to Manus, and he tells me you’re now the legal owner. Has anyone else made you an offer for it?’
Tara shook her head. So she’d been right about the contents of the mysterious parcel.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘And to tell you the truth, I haven’t even looked at the thing yet, let alone made any decisions on what to do with it.’
Wendy took a sip of her Java. ‘I’m so glad, darling. Because Auntie Wendy will be only too pleased to look after you. With an offer I’m sure you will regard as extremely generous.’
Opening her briefcase, she extracted a printed sheet of A4 paper and passed it across to Tara, whose eyes immediately widened in disbelief at the sum of money shown on the bottom line.
‘We are talking about the same thing?’ she gasped incredulously. ‘A disgusting little sculpture of a naked woman looking like the centrefold in Hustler magazine, except she’s ugly as sin?’
‘Personally, I share your philistine views, darling,’ said Wendy, ‘but it seems that Sluts in Stone are this year’s thing in the best circles of Manhattan society. Don’t question it. Just sign here.’
Tara ignored the outstretched pen. She continued to stare at the series of noughts on Wendy’s contract. The figure had become considerably inflated, grossly inflated, even since Fergal’s abortive attempt to sell the sheela-na-gig to the New York gallery in June. Overwhelmed by the idea of having so much money, she couldn’t help glancing up at the ruined shell of the old spa house on the hillside.
‘You could buy yourself a nice house,’ purred Wendy, reading her mind. ‘Or a decent car.’ She winced as she looked at Tara’s rust-bucket. ‘Or,’ she suggested casually, ‘you could use it to set yourself up in South Africa.’
The astute eyes studied Tara’s face keenly, awaiting a reaction to the final suggestion.
Tara shot her a puzzled look. ‘South Africa?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ chided Wendy. ‘It must have crossed your mind, even if you don’t actually do it.’
Tara set aside the contract. ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, Wendy. I’ve never been to South Africa, I don’t know anyone in South Africa, I’ve absolutely no inclination…’
She stopped short. Wendy was staring at her in genuine astonishment.
‘I don’t believe it,’ breathed the art dealer. ‘That idiot. That absolute…moron. He hasn’t even told you?’
‘Who hasn’t told me what?’ Tara’s head was starting to swim.
‘Andres. He hasn’t told you he’s off to South Africa.’
‘What? When?’
Wendy shook her head slowly in despair. ‘I don’t know when. Sometime today. He may even have left already, f
or all I know. You know what he’s like.’
Tara took a desperate gulp of coffee, hoping that the rush of caffeine would sharpen her senses to the point where she understood what was going on. All right, she thought. So Andres was taking a business trip to South Africa. It wasn’t the end of the world. She’d postpone that dinner until he returned.
‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’ she asked.
‘He won’t be back, silly. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He’ll be gone for good. He’s taking up a job there. In Cape Town.’ She poured herself more coffee. ‘The South African government’s been after him for years to come and work for them as a sort of…well, as a sort of ambassador to the world’s press. After that Robben Island interview, Mandela used to say that Andres was the only journalist who truly understood his vision of the new South Africa.’
‘He’s staying there? He’s not coming back?’ Tara could hear her own voice in the distance, and was aghast at how desperate it sounded. She felt as though she were on the verge of tears. ‘He didn’t even tell me.’
Wendy laid a gentle hand on her arm. ‘It’s obvious that you feel the same way towards him as he does about you,’ she said quietly. ‘Yet neither of you will admit it. You, Tara…you don’t seem to be able to see the wood for the trees. And as for Andres, he’s absolutely terrified that you’ll be taken away from him, the way Manuela was. That’s why he’s leaving before he gets in too deep.’ She sighed. ‘What a pair of prize idiots. You deserve each other.’
For a long moment she sat there, shaking her head in silent wonder. When she spoke again, her voice was hushed and carried undertones of some ancient sadness. ‘When will people like you realise that opportunities for happiness don’t come along in fleets, like buses?’ she asked in quiet frustration. ‘Like, it’s okay to miss one, because there’ll be another one along in a minute? It doesn’t work that way, Tara. When it comes your way, you take it. You grab it. You leap on board.’