Secrets and Lies

by Joanne Clancy

  The funny thing was that Niall was also making more of an effort with his appearance in the hope of bumping into her again. She found out later that he'd even asked some of the other dog walkers what time she usually walked Poppy so that he could “accidentally” bump into her. Before he met Hope, he would regularly walk Candy at nine o' clock in the morning, but suddenly he was waking the poor dog at the much earlier time of seven! Candy was permanently tired and dopey; she probably wondered what on earth was wrong with her master!

  Eventually, Niall and Hope met again and their dogs took an instant liking to each other which they'd displayed rather amorously, much to the embarrassment of their respective owners! It had taken them quite some time to disentangle their dogs. They'd laughed about it afterwards over a coffee in the park's cosy cafe. Hope liked Niall immediately.He had a friendly, open manner and he smiled a lot. She couldn't help smiling back at him. He seemed very easy in his own skin and happy with life; qualities which she found very attractive.

  When they first started dating they would talk for hours and really got to know each other slowly, which Hope believed helped to set the solid foundation for their relationship. She'd jumped into bed with her past boyfriends after a few dates and had already been married briefly but disastrously. Her ex-husband had dumped her within months of their being married and had moved back in with his previous girlfriend.

  Hope had been playing it safe on the relationship front by the time she met Niall. She had been single for almost a year and was carefully taking time out from boyfriends. She'd rushed into relationships in the past and had gotten badly burned. She'd realised the hard way that it was best to wait and take things slowly but she was enormously impatient; when she wanted something, she wanted it now and that's what she was usually like when she met a man she fancied. It was difficult for her to hold back and let the relationship evolve naturally. Before she met Niall, she'd have forced the issue if she wanted something to happen with a guy, but she'd come to believe that most men enjoyed being in control and chasing a woman.

  She'd arrived at a point in her life where she was examining her past mistakes and reflecting on where she'd gone wrong. When she met Niall, she was ready to let him to do all the chasing; she wanted to feel like a woman. She took it slowly and six weeks later he asked her out.

  Two weeks after their first date, they shared their first kiss. Before Niall, she'd always gone for the “naughty but nice” type of man, the type you can't really trust with other women, which was wrong and very tiring. She just didn't want to have that sort of a relationship any more.

  Niall was a good, decent person. When her friends met him they raved on about how solid and kind they found him. Hope knew that he was very good for her and she believed that he felt the same way about her. She thought they complemented each other perfectly. Niall was quietly confident while she was quite loud and extrovert.

  A year after they'd first bumped into each other on that fateful day in the park, the couple and their two dogs were all living happily together. Their romance almost seemed like it was straight out of a Hollywood movie.

  Life was about to become even more romantic when they flew to Switzerland the year after they’d first met to spend Christmas with his family. He presented her with a dazzling diamond and platinum engagement ring on Christmas Day and asked her to marry him.

  The actual proposal was quite a big surprise to her. Niall didn't actually get down on one knee as he was a little merry from too much wine at dinner! He'd later hit the vodka for a bit of Dutch courage before popping the question. Hope said yes after she'd recovered from the initial shock of his unexpected proposal because until she saw the ring she was too frightened to believe that he was actually asking her to marry him. She'd expected him to suddenly say, “I’m only joking” but she quickly regained her composure and of course said yes. She was on cloud nine and immediately began planning their wedding.

  Hope had no qualms about taking the plunge again, despite the failure of her first marriage. She'd thought long and hard about her decision to marry Niall, but she knew what was involved this time and she definitely didn't want to go through another divorce. She was sure of what she was getting herself into when she married him and was glad that they had decided to live together beforehand. It was lovely that they had taken their time getting to know each other slowly at the start of their relationship. She knew that he was a wonderful man and that he thought the world of her. They were absolutely besotted with each other and Hope felt more at peace with herself than at any other time in her life.

  Hope’s childhood had been quite unconventional. She was the daughter of an Irish father, Darren Kennedy and a French mother, Chantale Decoursiere. Chantale already had a daughter, Sandrine, from a previous relationship when she was only eighteen years old. Chantale was very glamorous, but very wild, and Darren had tried to explain to Hope on numerous occasions that her mother just didn't have it in her to look after a child. She was very young when Hope was born and her father had tried to explain to his young daughter that her mother couldn't cope with the responsibility of raising a baby.

  Hope was only two years old when Chantale fled from her marriage to Darren and ended up living in an apartment in the exclusive eighth arrondissement (district) in Paris, near the Champs Elysees.

  She never really believed her father's excuses for her mother abandoning her. How had Chantale coped with raising Sandrine who was five years older than Hope? Chantale would have been just eighteen years old when her first daughter was born and surely having a child at that young age would have been much more daunting than having a child at twenty three. Darren tried to explain to his daughter that her mother was a free spirit who hated being tied down to anyone or anything.

  Hope still kept a photo of her mother hidden in her journal. She really was the most beautiful woman that she had ever seen, with classic Gallic good looks and an air of mystery about her. Her father said that she was the image of her mother but Hope couldn't really see the similarity.

  Whatever it was that caused her mother to flee back to her native France, it was left to her father to decide what would be best for his beloved daughter. Darren realised that he probably wouldn't cope very well with the emotional demands of raising his daughter on his own while he was trying to hold down a job as a travelling sales representative. He thought a good option would be to have Hope live with his parents while he was on the road, at least then she would have some stability in her life and, if nothing else, he could see her at the weekends. She dearly loved her grandparents but Sundays would always be filled with dread when her father had to leave her behind again.

  Hope flicked through her old photo album. Amateur photography was a hobby she'd had since her thirteenth birthday, when her mother had presented her with her very own camera. Now every event, from ordinary to extraordinary was represented in her well-worn and battered ever- expanding photo album which she'd taped together several times over the years. She smiled at the many precious memories that she'd captured on camera.

  There were many photographs of her grandparents and lots of her mother too who she used to see during her school holidays. It was quite confusing at times to have three sets of parental figures in her young life. Her grandparents cared for her during the week, her dad spoilt her rotten at the weekends and then she'd fly off to Paris to be with her mother during the school holidays. At first, the young Hope thought that her mother was a very exciting woman to be around, with an electric if somewhat eccentric personality. Chantale was always the centre of some drama, but she had an amazing sense of humour too. Hope often felt that she was the parent and her mother the child in their relationship, as she often found herself trying to look after her and keep her under control.

  Whenever Hope thought of her mother these days, she pictured her dressed head to toe in a scarlet, floor-length fake fur coat, which she would dramatically wear to her local cafe, where she'd flirt outrageously with somebody completely inappropriat
e. Chantale would even make citizen's arrests when someone dared to pinch her bum! She was completely mad, but very funny and fantastic, as long as you weren't her daughter. Hope was the envy of all her friends who thought Chantale was the coolest mother on the planet, but Hope would simply cringe with embarrassment at her mother's crazy antics.

  Hope left school when she was eighteen years old, fluent in French and with a decent final year examination result which was enough to follow her classmates to university, but she decided instead to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. She'd shown a natural acting talent while at school and had often been chosen as the lead in her school plays. When she saw Vivien Leigh's magnetic performance as Scarlett O' Hara in the epic Hollywood romantic blockbuster “Gone with the Wind” she was completely entranced and made up her mind to be an actress. She'd often dress up as Scarlett and prance around her grandparents' living room, treating them to her version of the leading lady. She would traipse around in a discarded evening dress of her grandmother's and dramatically quote the immortal lines “quite frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!” Rhett Butler had the best lines in her opinion and she explained that she was using her artistic licence when she stole his infamous line.

  However, in spite of a few notable appearances in some low-profile independent films, she was still chasing that ever elusive “big break” role. Her career path to date had been interesting but eclectic to say the least.

  Shortly after leaving school she went to live in Paris where she worked as a singing waitress at the Moulin Rouge, which is still the most famous and oldest of all the cabarets in the world and is one of the most legendary monuments of Paris. Edith Piaf, Ginger Rogers, Lisa Minnelli and Frank Sinatra are just a few of the famous names to have played cabaret at the venue. It is also where topless dancers take audiences on a travelogue across the ages and continents with performances of folklore histories from around the world. It is, of course, the only place where the French “Can-Can” is truly to be found and Hope would always be proud to say that she worked at the infamous Moulin Rouge.

  Hope spent almost a year working in Paris, before returning home to Cork where she dabbled in modelling for a while. She thought it would be a good way for her to get noticed and make contacts in the acting world, but she hadn't counted on the backstabbing and bitchiness which she encountered on the catwalk and she soon decided that modelling wasn't for her.

  Later, she worked as a nightclub hostess which gave her time for her acting classes during the day and allowed her to be available for any possible acting roles that might come her way. The job played to the dramatic side of her personality as it involved her dressing up in often quite provocative outfits which ranged from wearing a sexy nurse's uniform to a black leather basque with stockings and suspenders and outrageously high stiletto heels. The idea was to entice and select what the club owners considered to be the “right” type of risque but upmarket clientele. It was a job which Hope relished, but with her acting classes during the day, then working at the club in the evenings it was seldom that she got to bed much before four o' clock in the morning.

  It was exhausting but Hope was determined to make it as an actress one day. She seized every opportunity to network her way around the nightclub scene in the hope that she would get noticed. It wasn't long until she begun indulging in the drink and drugs that permeated the club culture and very soon the partying lifestyle began to take its toll on her.

  She was a drug addict and a complete mess by the time she was only twenty two years old. She was a bright young woman but wasted what should have been her golden years. At first, she tried justifying her drug habit as a means of staying awake and maintaining her momentum. Although it felt like she was having a wonderful time, the drugs were ruining her life. Everyone else was taking drugs and drinking to excess so the immature part of her felt that she had to do the same. She had a job and never missed an acting class or interview, so from the outside, it seemed as if she was keeping it together, but eventually the cracks began to show on her carefully constructed facade. She started to feel physically drained and often couldn't remember where she'd been or what she'd done for hours at a time.

  The lifestyle was fun at the beginning but it certainly wasn't fun after a while. Hope was naturally a loud and colourful character but there was a dark side to her too. She had plunged herself into a misspent but by no means wasted period of partying. She knew lots of people on the nightclub scene and made some invaluable contacts in the acting industry who would eventually give her the biggest break of her career. When she entered a room everyone immediately stopped to take notice of her. She exuded confidence and energy and was an enigmatic and very charismatic character which seemed to draw people to her.

  She used to wear very flamboyant clothes and colourful coats and had a striking affinity to wearing red. Her effervescent, energetic personality attracted a lot of attention from men. She had been single for a total of one month from the age of eighteen to her self-imposed celibate sabbatical at the ripe old age of twenty seven. Sex was a way of bolstering her low self-esteem and boyfriends helped her to avoid being alone. She would see a man in a room and become magnetised by him, which later therapy sessions taught her was very dangerous, because she was keeping herself in a spiral of unhappiness. She realised that she would never have the relationship she so longed for unless she learned to accept herself on her own.

  Deep down, she was actually very unhappy and discontented when she was heavily involved in alcohol and drugs. She put on a fantastic show that she was having an amazing time but even she knew that she couldn't burn the candle at both ends forever. Her hectic lifestyle combined with surviving on just three hours' sleep a night while holding down a job and pursuing her acting dream was becoming utterly exhausting.

  It got to the point where she was desperately trying to resist the drugs whilst constantly battling the incessant little voice in her head that tried to convince her she wasn't really an addict; after all, she wasn't homeless and hungry, she was still holding herself together. She even left a boyfriend who she blamed for her drug habit but it scared her when he was able to quit while her addiction became even worse!

  Slowly she began to realise the truth about her situation and the harsh reality was that she had nobody to blame but herself for her predicament. She was afraid to stop taking everything all at once and wondered if she would still be the same fun person to be around without the drugs and alcohol as her crutches. Abstinence scared her as she was absolutely convinced that she was going to turn into a very boring person and dreaded the thought of remaining abstinent for the rest of her life.

  Her light-bulb moment came when a close friend died of an overdose. It was the reality check that she so badly needed. She was absolutely devastated and it took her a long time to recover from the shock of her friend's unexpected and untimely death. He was only twenty three years old when he died and she realised that she wanted more from life than what drink and drugs could ever possibly offer her. She knew she wanted to settle down and get married one day and maybe even have children and she began to realise that unless she became clean and sober that that life would never be hers.

  When she met Niall it had been exactly nine hundred and twenty two days since she had touched drink or drugs.

  “One day at a time” was what her counsellor had advised. “Tell yourself that you won't have a drink today, focus on one day and everything else will come together,” was the best advice she’d ever been given.

  There was a part of her that was glad of her experiences with drugs and what that life had taught her. She was grateful because her addiction and ongoing recovery had made her a much more grounded person and had instilled an overriding sense of gratitude within her. Now, she appreciated the small pleasures in life. Suddenly, she was getting invited to people's houses again because she'd stopped being the drunken, drugged up, loud-mouth attention seeker who often embarrassed herself and everyone else around her.

  Alt
hough the death of her close friend was the initial trigger for Hope in cleaning up her act, another turning point came when her beloved father threatened to never talk to her again, unless she cleaned up her act. He gave her a ferocious scolding and told her in no uncertain terms that she was a loser. Hope had immediately burst into tears and that's when she stopped taking drugs and her life started anew.

  She still regularly attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings, sometimes going every day if she was feeling particularly stressed. She'd been clean for almost three years but she knew that she had to remain vigilant in her battle against drugs as there was quite a large part of her that would always be an addict. Her Narcotics Anonymous meetings were her lifeline when she'd first embarked on her battle to become clean. She actually liked going there; it was a place where she felt completely safe and absolutely understood.

  There were still days when she desperately longed for a drink; a chilled glass of white wine on a warm summer day or a mulled wine at Christmas. She couldn't even allow herself to have one small glass of wine, which was often like torture to her as her husband, Niall, was something of a wine connoisseur. She often regarded him with envy as he indulged in his ritual of decanting, swooshing and sniffing a bottle of red. It looked like such delectable fun and it was all she could do in those moments not to give in to temptation.

  She was well aware of her own shortcomings and limitations and knew that she was an “all or nothing” sort of person, so nothing was her only choice. She realised that a seemingly innocent small glass of wine would quickly lead her on the slippery descent into drugs again. Her old lifestyle just wasn't worth it to her anymore. Every day she would wake up feeling like she'd been run over by a truck. She was an addictive person and very driven, but the flipside was that she could also be focused in a negative way, which was how she treated alcohol and drugs. It took her a day to stop drinking and taking drugs, but every day, especially at the start, was a constant internal struggle.