‘Good enough for her, the pretentious old bat! She really thinks she’s above us, a superior being. It makes me sick.’
‘She is above us . . . in orbit. Anyone who goes around calling herself “an officer of the Corporation” has to be on a higher plane,’ laughed Lainey, chuffed with herself that she’d only have to put up with her boss for another fortnight.
‘Ssshh! Here she comes . . . on her broomstick,’ murmured the irreverent Anne.
Lainey found it surprisingly easy to settle into her new job, despite her fragile emotional state. It was just what she needed. She was constantly meeting people, she was given a lot of responsibility and she turned her energies to the job with a ferocity that surprised even Tony. When sales rose by fifteen per cent after her first three months with the firm, her boss called her in, congratulated her and raised her salary. Travelling around the country was what she enjoyed most. The beauty of Ireland astounded her. It was so varied: the lushness of Cork and Kerry, the barren beauty of Connemara, the diversity of the midlands. She enjoyed calling to the bookshops in the cities and small towns, always feeling a great personal satisfaction when she persuaded the wholesalers and retailers to order more books. She worked hard and kept herself busy and somehow succeeded in keeping her misery manageable. But back to Moncas Bay she would not go.
‘You’ve got to go home for Christmas!’ Tony insisted.
‘I’m staying up here in Dublin. I’m just going to pretend Christmas isn’t happening. The thought of it is making me depressed.’ She groaned. Christmas in Dublin without Steve would be bad. Christmas in Moncas Bay, watching him and Helena Casey together, would be unbearable.
‘Look, Lainey, you can’t go through the rest of your life not going home in case you bump into Steve McGrath,’ Tony said firmly. ‘You’re coming home with me. People will think we’ve started dating again, that will give the gossips a field-day and you can look at Steve McGrath and tell him to go to hell. Now go into town and treat yourself to something really exotic and get packed and be ready to leave for Moncas Bay tomorrow evening. We are going to waltz into Fourwinds, smiling, without a care in the world and to hell with the lot of them. Lainey Conroy is made of stern stuff and who knows better than me? Now go and get ready.’
With mixed emotions Lainey did as she was told. She treated herself to a gorgeous Chantal Thomass slinky black dress that clung to every curve of her shapely body. If she was going socializing at home at Christmas, she was damned if she was going around looking like a shrinking violet. Deciding to go the whole hog while she was at it, she had a beauty treatment and a session on the sunbed to bring up her tan. To her surprise she actually felt a bit better. There was nothing like going on a spending spree to cheer a girl up!
She left her own car in Dublin and got a lift down to Moncas Bay in Tony’s Volvo.
‘Now I have it all planned,’ Tony reassured her. ‘You can have tonight and tomorrow at home. Boxing Day you start socializing. We’ll be having the usual do up at the house. The Ryans and the Clearys will be having their bashes. And then we’ll go to the New Year’s Eve Ball in Fourwinds as usual.’ He looked at her anxiously, as though expecting an argument, but she didn’t have one to give him. Tony was right. She had to start living again and if she wanted to show Steve that she was over him what better way than by swanning around dressed up to the nines on Tony Mangan’s arm. Besides, she had to show the rest of the village that there was life after Steve McGrath, and that she was living it to the hilt. Tony deposited her at her parents’ house where she was greeted with hugs and kisses, and before long she was engrossed in the usual Christmas Eve preparations, making stuffing, trimming the turkey, cooking the ham, and she didn’t even have time to feel depressed.
On Christmas morning, she took extra special care with her appearance. Lainey knew that it would be her first meeting with Steve McGrath since they had parted, and what was more, it would be a very public meeting. Practically everybody in the village went to Christmas mass at ten-thirty. Today, she had to pull out all the stops.
She wore her blonde hair up in a sophisticated chignon. Her green eyes, outlined by eyeliner and mascara and a brown-gold eyeshadow, looked huge and mysterious. On her lips she wore hot-pink lipstick that matched her nail varnish. In her royal blue David Clarke coat, with black trim sleeves and reveres, and patent high heels that made her legs go on for ever, she looked magnificent. Traditionally, the family walked together to Christmas mass, as did most families in the village. It was a crisp frosty morning that brought colour to the cheeks and by the time they got to the church, Lainey was glowing. As she walked up the gravel path laughing and chatting to her sister, Lainey’s heart gave a lurch. Coming up the other path were Steve and Helena. They reached the porch simultaneously. He looked so rugged and so handsome and so familiar that it took a supreme effort of will not to let it show how much she still loved him. The pale delicate girl with the steely eyes, standing with her arm possessively on his, helped Lainey to remain composed. She wouldn’t give Helena Casey the satisfaction of knowing the pain she had caused her. Steve caught Lainey’s eye. And she knew he was remembering how they had walked to church together last Christmas. ‘Morning, Lainey. How have you been?’ the familiar voice was asking – that voice that had once murmured passionate endearments to her.
Lainey summoned all her reserves, aware that half the parish had found some excuse to remain in the church porch. She smiled. ‘I’ve been just fine, Steve. Busy, of course, but fine.’
‘You got the job then?’
‘Of course!’ she said coolly. ‘That’s why I don’t get home as much as I’d like. I have to do a lot of travelling – London, Frankfurt, it’s all go!’ She was delighted to have been able to slip that in. It was a bit of a fib to give the impression that she was constantly jetting abroad, but she had been to London twice, and the bookfair in Frankfurt had been in October. At least he wouldn’t know that he was the reason she hadn’t been home since their break-up in August.
Steve’s eyes widened a bit and he was looking at her very appreciatively. Then Helena gave a discreet tug at his arm. ‘Steve, if we want to get a seat, I suggest we go in.’ She smiled frostily at Lainey. ‘You know what it’s like at Christmas.’
‘Oh indeed,’ smiled Lainey, equally frosty. ‘Everybody likes to get a good seat to show off their finery, don’t they? Just as well it only happens once a year.’ Helena was dressed in a red suit with a white blouse that had a big fussy collar and which was a bit too little-girlish. Compared to Lainey, she looked overdressed. Helena was furious, as Lainey intended her to be.
Before she could respond, Tony arrived, kissed Lainey on the cheek and said, ‘Good morning, darling, Helena, Steve. We’d better get in or we’ll be late.’ He took Lainey’s arm and marched her through the crowd in the porch. ‘Hope you didn’t mind me calling you darling. I thought it might give them something to think about,’ he whispered as they walked up the aisle to where her family was already seated.
Lainey gave Tony’s arm a squeeze. He was such a brick. So supportive. Although outwardly composed, inside she was in bits. The physical pain she had felt when she caught her former lover’s eye had been intense. Suddenly she felt as though she wanted to run out of the church and go back to Dublin and never come home again. Iron will got her through the moment, and through mass and through the visitors who called to her home afterwards, but she couldn’t eat her dinner. It tasted like sawdust to her. Around nine, pleading a headache, she went to bed and cried herself to sleep.
She didn’t see Steve again until the New Year’s Eve Ball. As he had promised, Tony kept her busy, whirling her from one party to the next, but when she tried to cry off going to the New Year’s Party, he was firm. ‘You’re going. Once you have this over you’ll be fine.’
‘But it’s in Fourwinds. I don’t want to go there again,’ she protested. She hadn’t been in the hotel since that awful night.
‘Precisely!’ Tony stated. ‘Once you’ve bee
n there, you’re over the worst of it. And besides, if you don’t go everyone will have something to say. You know what they’re like in the village for talk. Come on now, you did so well on Christmas Day,’ he cajoled. ‘Anyway, surely you don’t want to be at home sobbing into your pillow when Cecily’s there. You can’t let her see you’re miserable, now can you?’ He added this wickedly, knowing exactly how to persuade Lainey. She certainly wouldn’t let her soon to be sister-in-law divine how badly the break-up with Steve had affected her. Cecily was staying with them for the New Year.
On New Year’s Eve, having listened to Cecily rabbiting on about her wedding plans, Lainey was fit to be tied. The other girl was deliberately needling her, saying how much she looked forward to being married and starting a family, and wasn’t it time Lainey started making plans herself, and that she had always thought that she and Steve were the perfect couple, and how surprised she had been to hear the romance was all off and was it Steve’s decision or Lainey’s to end it.
‘It was mutual,’ Lainey lied in as civil a tone as she could muster. ‘And no, I’m not interested in getting tied down just yet. I’ve a fascinating career and I want to travel; I just couldn’t settle down without having done something with my life.’ That shut Cecily up and Lainey escaped to the bathroom to have a long soak. No doubt Cecily would be watching her and Steve very carefully. Well, she could watch. Tonight Lainey was going to put on an Oscar-winning performance. And she did.
She strolled into Fourwinds on Tony’s arm and handed her coat to the porter. Then they entered the ballroom. A slight hush descended on the couples gathered there as they observed Lainey in her black off-the-shoulder dress that clung sexily to every curve, showing off her sunbed tan, and looking sensational. Helena, dressed in virginal white which did nothing for her colouring, had gone a lighter shade of pale, Steve just stared, and Cecily gawped. ‘All in all,’ Tony whispered as they danced cheek to cheek for the benefit of the gossips, ‘everyone was gobsmacked!’ Lainey laughed, causing Steve to flash her a grim stare. Let him stare, she thought as she entwined her arms around Tony’s neck. ‘Just as well I’m gay,’ grinned Tony, ‘or I might end up ravishing you on the floor and that would really give them all something to talk about.’
Lainey laughed again. Tony was such a tonic! If it hadn’t been for him, she would never have faced Steve again.
As the night wore on, keeping up the façade got harder for Lainey as she observed Steve holding Helena in his arms as they danced around the ballroom floor. Once, he touched his lips to her cheek and Lainey just wanted to lie down and die. Tony, ever-sensitive, decided that enough was enough. He didn’t want Lainey to be there when the clock chimed midnight and ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was sung and kisses were exchanged. Watching Steve kiss Helena would be too much, so around eleven-thirty he told her they were leaving. Lainey did not argue. She had made her appearance, been the belle of the ball, been danced off her feet, kept a smile on her face and she had had enough. Tony took her home and they sat in the kitchen drinking hot chocolate and not talking much. After midnight, they hugged each other, went in and hugged her parents, and then he was telling her to go to bed and that he’d see her in the morning. It was the worst New Year’s Eve of her life.
Lainey went back to Dublin and threw herself into her work. The next time she went home, two months later, she didn’t see Steve at all and then she had heard that he and Helena were engaged. That had set her off into another depression and Tony was hard put to keep her going. When she eventually found out the date of the wedding, and heard all the talk in the village about it, Lainey thought she was going to go mad. Secretly she had cherished the hope that Steve would realize that Helena wasn’t the woman for him despite her money, and that he would return to her. Many nights she had imagined their reunion – she imagined it so much that eventually she almost believed it. To hear that Steve was actually taking the irrevocable step and getting married to Helena left her utterly shocked.
‘It’s over. Face it!’ Tony told her, over and over.
‘I want to see them getting married. Then I’ll know,’ Lainey said harshly.
‘Don’t put yourself through that. You won’t be invited so don’t let him see you in the church. Where’s your pride, Lainey?’ Tony snapped, at his wits’ end.
‘I have to go, Tony. I have to see for myself, then I’ll put it behind me.’
‘Right!’ declared Tony. ‘In that case you might as well say to his face, “I still love you.” Because if you set foot in that church on his wedding day, it will be written all over your face.’
‘I won’t let him see me.’
‘Don’t be daft! Someone’s going to see you. It will be all over the village.’
‘You’re right, I suppose,’ she muttered miserably.
Tony thought for a moment and a gleam came into his blue eyes. ‘You could go in disguise!’ He laughed and clapped his hands. ‘Perfect! Robert can get you a wig. Black!’ Robert was Tony’s partner and he owned his own hairdressing business.
‘That’s a good idea,’ Lainey agreed.
‘Now this is what we’ll do . . . ’ Tony was full of enthusiasm.
‘We’ll do?’ echoed Lainey in surprise.
‘Well, you don’t think I’m letting you go by yourself, do you?’ he demanded. ‘I’ll see this through to the bitter end.’
That was how Lainey found herself, in a short black wig, wearing sunglasses, seated in the car beside Tony outside the church in which Steve McGrath made Helena Casey his bride. Tony was wearing an auburn permed creation, with a false moustache for good measure. Although she had roared laughing at the sight of Tony as they drove down from Dublin, as they got nearer Moncas Bay she had become more subdued. How crazy could you get, putting on a wig to watch an ex get wed. It was pathetic. If anyone ever found out she’d die of embarrassment. This was the lowest point of her whole life. But she had to do it to try and end her obsession with Steve. This was it, she promised herself. Once today was over, it was time to get on with life. But she couldn’t stop crying once she saw the newly-weds and as she sat with Tony overlooking the Bay, she cursed herself for being such a fool. As the cavalcade of cars, led by the white Rolls Royce carrying Steve and his new bride, drove past where they were parked on the way to Fourwinds, she watched with bitterness in her heart. When the last car had gone, she took off her wig, put on her make-up and said grimly:
‘Let’s get the hell out of here. There’s more to life than Steve McGrath and I’m going to prove it!’
DOMINIC
Wednesday 25 October 1972
Dominic Kent hated himself for the surge of resentment that enveloped him as he watched his wife Rita feed his three-month-old son. Outside in the smoky dusk of an autumn evening his three other children played amidst the gold and copper leaves that covered their back garden. He loved all his children. It was just that Rita never seemed to have time for him any more. Once the babies came he had been pushed into the background and it rankled. It was all the baby this and the baby that! He never got a look-in. That’s why he’d sprung this on her. ‘It’s only for a weekend, Rita, I’m sure Mona would mind the kids. God knows you’re always minding hers,’ he added a little sarcastically.
‘Dominic, I couldn’t leave the baby, I’m still breast-feeding,’ Rita said reproachfully.
Dominic tried to keep his temper. ‘You’ve been giving him the bottle as well. Surely one weekend on the bottle wouldn’t do any harm.’
He’d gone and arranged a weekend away for two at the beginning of November, thinking that his wife would appreciate the break away from the children. But she just wouldn’t hear of it. He had spent the last twenty minutes trying to persuade her to go away with him.
‘The children need me, love!’ his wife said as she lifted her son to her shoulder and proceeded to wind him.
‘I need you too,’ Dominic said quietly but Rita wasn’t listening to him. She was gooing at her son, who was chuckling with delight.
&nb
sp; ‘Rita, I think we need a break away together,’ he reiterated.
‘Sure, aren’t we always together, love,’ she smiled affectionately at him.
‘Ah Rita! Think of it as a second honeymoon!’ he urged. ‘No babies crying, no kids disturbing us. We could eat out and take in a few shows up in Dublin.’
‘Dublin!’ Rita’s eyebrows shot up, as the baby puked down her front. You’d think he’d asked her to go to Outer Mongolia. ‘That’s too far away if anything happened to the kids.’
‘What’s going to happen?’ He tried to keep his tone reasonable.
‘Mam! Mam! Michael threw wet leaves on me and there were snails in them,’ wailed their six-year-old daughter Denise, erupting into the room like a mini hurricane.
‘She started it!’ Michael accused, hot on his sister’s heels.
‘Look what I found.’ Kimberley, his four-year-old, arrived, proudly holding aloft a dead bird. Rita and Denise shrieked simultaneously. The baby started to bawl and the phone rang.
Gently removing the dead bird from his daughter’s grasp, Dominic told her older sister to bring her upstairs to wash her hands, warned his son not to throw leaves again and went to answer the phone.
‘It’s Mona for you,’ he informed his wife. ‘Ask her about the weekend,’ he reminded her. An hour-and-a-half later, after he had buried the bird, changed the baby and put him in his cot, put the younger children to bed, helped Denise with her homework and tidied up the sitting-room, Rita finished her conversation with Mona, her best friend. ‘Well, did Mona say she’d take the kids?’ he inquired anxiously.
‘Oh Dom! Sure I couldn’t go away that weekend anyhow. Just as well Mona reminded me. It’s the AGM of the ICA guild and I’m up for treasurer. We’ll have to go some other time. Maybe in the New Year, love.’
‘And pigs will fly!’ her husband snapped. ‘I’m going out for a pint.’ Rita’s jaw dropped. Dominic never went for a pint during the week. He always went after work on a Friday and that was all. Whatever had got into him?
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