He tried to sound casual. “No worries, man, my mistake. I’d forgotten she’d mentioned something about moving hotel.” Anxious to escape Quan’s sympathetic eyes, he headed back upstairs.
In the background, a phone rang.
“Mr Jack! Mr Jack!” Quan’s excited voice called after him. “It’s the lady – she’s on the phone for you!” Quan was just short of jumping for joy, as he waved the phone, his hand over the mouthpiece.
Jack felt a rush of relief. He knew something had gone wrong. Helen wouldn’t just leave like that, especially not leaving her ring behind.
Quan cleared his throat. “One moment please, madam,” he said coolly before handing the phone over to Jack. With the excitement of winning the lottery, Quan nodded and winked. Everyone loves happy ending.
“Hello, Jack?”
Jack heard the unmistakable voice of the woman on the other end of the line.
“Amy?”
Quan resumed his duties but kept looking back at Jack, who nodded, smiled and gave him the thumbs-up, to indicate everything was good.
“Jack, you’ve been a hard man to trace,” Jack’s ex-girlfriend said softly.
“How did you find me? More importantly why did you find me?”
Amy sighed heavily. “Don’t get mad. Your mom gave me your hotel’s number. She knows how I’ve been trying to get hold of you. I need to see you, Jack.”
Jack’s mother thought Jack and Amy were a match made in heaven, despite recent events. This was obviously her idea of necessary intervention.
“Just hear me out, Jack, please.” Amy’s voice was strained. “I’m coming to see you. I just need you to wait in Hanoi for one more day until I get there.”
“Don’t be crazy, Amy. It’s the other side of the world – besides, it’s not exactly up to your standards.” He was remembering Amy’s dislike of all things non-sterile.
“Surely that tells you how serious I am. Hear me out, Jack, that’s all I ask – if you decide to walk away, I’ll let you go. For what we had, Jack, our childhood together. Our seven years as lovers, just give me this one little thing.”
Jack twisted Helen’s ring around the top of his little finger. Where was she?
He weakened, the hostility left his voice. “I’ve moved on, Amy, I met someone here.” He wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth.
There was a pause. Jack imagined Amy bristling – another woman.
“I’m pleased for you, Jack,” she said tightly. “I’ve booked into the Hanoi Hilton. All I ask is that you hear me out, and then the decision is yours.”
The Hanoi Hilton, how apt.
“The prison or the hotel?”
“I’m heading for my flight now. I’ll be there in less than a day. Twenty-four-hours – that’s all I’m asking, after all our years together.”
Amy knew how to manipulate – the gentleman in Jack would not let her down.
He sighed.
“And, Jack?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
Chapter 56
Poppy felt like throwing up. Now back in Dublin, she wasn’t sure she could hold herself together any longer.
The flights had gone smoothly enough – they had travelled first class because Helen said it would ensure minimum cock-ups. As they disembarked from one plane, they directly boarded the next. With Helen’s phone dead and hers an out-of-credit pre-pay, they’d tried to swap SIM cards only to realise their phones were locked into different networks. If God was trying to test them, She was doing a sterling job of it. They got to a public phone long enough to leave a message that they were on their way. But the flight was on last call so they hung up, for fear of missing it. They’d run all the way to the gate.
Despite the tight flight connection, every minute had felt like an hour, every hour like an eternity. She had watched people laugh and felt angry that they were happy. She wanted to scream at the businessman in the row in front, who complained his duck was overcooked and his champagne not quite chilled to the correct temperature. Usually she’d have laughed at the triviality of it.
Helen had tried to get her to eat but instead she asked the air-steward to leave the full bottle of wine, in the hopes it would numb her pain or at least make her sleep for a while. It did neither.
When they landed in Dublin, a steward approached them.
“Ms Power, Ms Devine, please follow me – our VIP service has been requested for you.”
Helen and Poppy were ushered from the plane to a waiting Mercedes with blacked-out windows. The other passengers gawped and whispered as they tried to figure out in which movies they’d seen either Helen or Poppy.
The black limo sped across the tarmac to a private security gate. They had their own two uniformed officials, one from passport control, and the other from customs.
“Welcome Home, Ms Power, Ms Devine,” the officer said, handing them back their passports.
Bewildered, they entered the softly lit lounge.
“Eden really must value you, Helen,” said Poppy. “I’ll never be able to thank them enough.”
That’s when Helen spotted him – standing waiting.
“Rob?”
Rob Lawless came rushing forward. “Helen, Poppy. I have a driver waiting outside – we’ll go straight to the hospital.”
In all the years Helen had known Rob, he’d never waited on anyone.
“Poppy, they’ve taken Lily out of her induced coma. She responded well. She has a few broken ribs, but they’ll mend. It was the knock she took to the head that was the main concern. But the swelling has gone down – she’s asking for you. She’s going to be fine, Poppy.” Rob’s expression was grave, his eyes filled with compassion.
Poppy hugged him hard – this man she’d spent so many years disliking. Relief flooded every sinew of her body.
But Helen knew Rob – his face was still etched with worry.
There was more.
“What is it, Rob? There’s something you’re not telling her,” she asked quietly out of Poppy’s earshot.
“Your phone has been off, Helen – we’ve been trying to reach you,” he said under his breath. “Get into the car, I’ll explain on the way to the hospital.” He held the car door open and they climbed in.
Helen’s momentary feeling of joy quickly left her as a renewed sense of dread crept back. Rob hadn’t come for Poppy. He’d come for her.
“There was a bit of confusion as to who to contact,” he said. “Your phone was off.”
“You said that already. Christ, my battery died! Poppy left a message with the hospital.” Helen tried to keep the irritation out of her voice.
“The cops didn’t realise you were with Poppy. By the time we cleared up the confusion, you were over the Middle East somewhere. We decided to wait until you got here.”
“Wait for what?” Helen shouted, her mouth dry.
Poppy linked Helen’s arm, taking on the role of carer. “What kind of traffic accident was it, Rob?” she asked urgently.
“A car crash. Mary was driving. I’m so sorry, Helen, she’s in a coma. They’re waiting for you to arrive. You’ve got to prepare yourself.” Rob put his hand over Helen’s – she looked devastated. He hadn’t wanted to destroy her world, with his words – again.
Her surroundings swirled out of control – she couldn’t breathe.
“She’s alive though, right?” Poppy clutched at straws.
Rob looked at her and gave an almost undetectable shake of his head.
Helen looked at him.
“She is alive,” he said.
He hoped he was telling the truth.
Helen approached Mary’s bedside. The beautiful, brave Mary Devine lay battered and broken. Her chest heaved up and down as a machine pumped oxygen in and out of her lungs. Cyril sat beside her, his eyes bloodshot.
“I’ll leave you alone with your mother,” he said when he saw Helen. “I’ll wait outside – call me if you want anything, pet.”
“Thank
s for staying with her, Cyril. I’m glad she wasn’t alone.”
Cyril nodded and patted Helen’s hand as he left.
Helen sat alone with her mother. Poppy had gone to Lily. She took Mary’s hand in hers and began talking.
“Hi, Mum, it’s me. Sorry I was late – it’s as you always say – I’ll be late for my own funeral.” Helen’s voice shook. “So, this was a bit of an extreme way to get me home, hey?” She thought she saw her mother’s eyelids twitch. “Anyway, Vietnam was beautiful – you’d love it – I thought maybe we’d go together some day. What do you think? We could go to one of those luxury spas in Thailand along the way. Chiva Som? Wasn’t that the one you always admired in magazines?” Helen continued to talk and watched for signs of recognition from Mary.
The machines continued to beep. Oxygen continued to pump. Helen counted the tubes that were keeping her mother alive. There were sixteen of them: Helen’s lucky number.
“Please don’t leave me, Mum,” she suddenly pleaded. “I’m not ready to be alone. I’ve been a lousy daughter. Please, Mum, just wake up. I’ll move back to Dublin, I’ll do anything, just please don’t die.”
The beeping continued.
Two doctors approached Helen. The nurse who’d been monitoring Mary looked pleased to see them. “Here’s your mother’s surgeons now, Helen, they’ll be able to explain everything.”
The first doctor, a tall man in his mid-fifties, shook Helen’s hand. “Seán Flood, cardiologist, I operated on your mother,” he introduced himself. “This is Mr Paul O’Reilly, her neurologist.” Their handshakes were firm and strong. Helen took comfort in that. “Your mother is a strong woman, Ms Devine.” He paused. “It would appear Mary suffered a heart attack at the wheel. We managed to contain the bleeding but there were added complications. There’s a room just outside the ICU. If you follow us, we can go through everything with you, in privacy.”
Helen hesitated as she looked back at Mary. “I always worried about her diabetes, her having a stroke –”
“Is there someone who can come with you?” Paul O’Reilly asked. “It can be a lot of information to digest.”
The nurse had gone to get Cyril. He entered the ICU as the doctor spoke. “I can go with her – if Helen would like me to, that is.” He looked at Helen.
She nodded, with an almost imperceptible smile. “I’ll follow you in, doctors – I’ll just be a moment.”
She returned to Mary and whispered something into her ear as if she was telling her a secret.
Helen finally understood how Lily had felt when she was cutting herself.
“The pain inside gets so bad, I can’t bear it. When I cut myself, it relieves it, lets it out,”Lily had said.
Helen had wanted to understand but couldn’t. How could emotional pain be felt physically?
Now she understood. Now she wanted to cut her heart out – just to stop the feelings. Her breathing quickened as her heart-beat raced. The more she struggled to breathe, the harder it became. She sat in the small windowless room with three well-meaning men. Strangers to her. One was her mother’s lover, the other two her mother’s doctors.
The doctors sat opposite her, their expressions grave. Cyril sat beside her. She couldn’t see his face, just his shoes, meticulously polished brown brogues. His slacks looked slightly too short, the way the men had worn them in the sixties.
Dr Seán Flood interlaced his fingers as he rested his hands on the table as though praying in a church pew. His colleague mirrored him. Their words came at Helen as if they were talking through a long foggy tunnel . . .
“Chances of full recovery are slim . . .”
Helen went further down the rabbit hole.
“Survival percentages are low . . .”
A kaleidoscope of colours whizzed around her head as she gasped for air.
“Better to prepare yourself . . .”
“She’s having a panic attack.”
The doctors were on their feet now.
“Ms Devine? Ms Devine, Helen, can you hear me?”
They were touching her shoulders now. She couldn’t see Cyril’s shoes anymore.
“Helen, relax, just breathe.”
But Helen didn’t want to breathe.
Poppy sat by Lily’s bed. Rob was right. Lily’s injuries turned out to be relatively minor. Lily had been put in a temporarily induced coma. Mary wasn’t so lucky.
“You can’t know how much you staying with Lily until I got here means to me, Angelo.” Poppy smiled across at her Italian barista, her friend.
“No worries. When I heard about the crash, I wanted to be here.”
Lily continued to doze. She still had concussion.
“Could I ask you one more favour?” Poppy asked.
“Of course.”
“I want to check on Helen. Will you sit with Lily – I’ll only be a few minutes?”
“Via! Go!” Angelo smiled. “I say a lot of prayer for Mary – I think she will be okay. You have a beautiful family, Poppy.”
Poppy suddenly felt tearful. Angelo had called her “Poppy”.
Chapter 57
Helen screamed – she couldn’t stop. Nor would the gut-wrenching pain in the pit of her stomach subside. It was Tuesday morning, a month after the accident, in the frozen-food section of Tesco Extra – a super-sized supermarket.
“Excuse me, dear, I just want to get to the frozen peas.” A small stout woman with thick glasses had waited patiently for a few minutes for Helen to move on but instead she had stayed staring at the cabinet doors.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Helen was flustered – thankful that her screaming was internalised, otherwise security would escort her off the premises. Or arrest her – then she’d have to call Rob to get her out of jail. He’d be the hero, she’d be the nut-job, but at least she’d have an excuse to ring him.
“Are you alright, dear?” the woman asked – the stranger in the supermarket, buying petits pois.
Tears stung Helen’s eyes and for a second she considered pouring her heart out to the kindly woman. Instead, she smiled. “I’m fine – thank you. I get electric shocks from freezer doors.” She pushed her shopping trolley on.
From freezer doors and a man I once met, in a previous life.
She wandered around the aisles aimlessly – screaming, still screaming. She wondered if anyone else felt the same, normal on the outside, dying on the inside.
The Dime Bar commercial came to mind, crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside – armadillos. She was losing her mind. An armadillo disguised as a lingerie designer. Or maybe she was a Dime Bar, which she’d only seen on sale in IKEA these days. Suddenly, she fancied a Dime Bar – or Daim Bar as they called it now. Maybe Tesco did stock them. She moved on from the freezer section, fairly confident she wouldn’t find them there. Poppy was right: she had wasted too much of life watching TV.
“Helen? It is you – I’m surprised to see you here.” Cyril walked towards her, holding a wire basket, which contained bread, milk and broccoli.
Helen had no idea why she noticed that.
“I didn’t know you liked broccoli, Cyril.” A stupid thing to say but at least she’d stopped screaming.
“Your mother got me into it, said it was a super food, stop me getting cancer when I get old.” He chuckled.
“Pity she smothered it with bacon bits and butter then.” Helen felt guilty as soon as she uttered the words.
Cyril looked uncomfortable. “I see you like Blu Tack then . . .” he said, looking into Helen’s sparse trolley.
“Always handy to have, you know, Blu Tack – it saves the walls from pinholes – great for putting up posters,” Helen babbled. She hadn’t put a poster on a wall since she was fifteen.
Helen’s hair was unwashed – she was wearing an old tracksuit that had stains down the front of it. She wondered whether Cyril noticed.
He jiggled from side to side, looking unsure of what to do. Maybe he wanted to give her hug, mind her, while Mary couldn’t. Either that or
he needed to use the bathroom. Or did he just find her a little scary?
“Chickens are on special – half-price and it feeds six people according to the wrapper – I never could resist a bargain,” Helen rambled.
“I tell you what. Seeing as you’ve got only two things in that big trolley of yours, why don’t you give them here to me? We’ll go home and eat the chicken and broccoli together – how does that sound?”
“Okay,” Helen said simply.
Not scary at all.
They decided to cook dinner in Mary’s house – it felt right. They sat at the kitchen table as the aroma of roast chicken wafted through the air.
“It’s almost as if she’s just out in the back garden picking herbs to make stuffing,” Helen said, taking a sip from the wine Cyril had put in his basket after she’d gone to get her euro back for returning her cart. She was doing a lot of mundane things these days.
“I know, in a way it’s a nice feeling but on the other hand it’s quite painful, isn’t it? To the wonderful Mary Devine, may she sit and eat with us, even if only in spirit!” Cyril raised his glass in a toast.
“To Mum!” Helen cleared her throat. “And if you can appear for real, Mum, that’d be great, otherwise the two of us will be eating chicken for a week.”
Cyril smiled – Helen always cracked a joke.
“So, how have you been, Helen?”
“Okay, I guess, drinking too much of this stuff,” Helen said as she tilted her wineglass. “The doc gave me tranquillisers but they made me feel spaced. The worst bit is waking up in the morning. You know, before your mind can focus?”
Cyril nodded.
“Everything is fine for the first few seconds, then boom! You remember and that disgusting pain punches you in the stomach and you realise it wasn’t a bad dream, it is waking reality, a living bloody nightmare. And then the wine-head kicks in and I take a couple of paracetamol to ease that and hope they’ll erase everything else as well. But they don’t, instead they wreck your kidneys so I’ll probably die of renal failure anyway.” Helen sighed, relieved to be admitting to her less than flattering behaviour.
The Lingerie Designer Page 32