With All My Love

by Patricia Scanlan

  About the Author

  Patricia Scanlan was born in Dublin, where she still lives. Her books have sold worldwide and have been translated into many languages. Patricia is the series editor and a contributing author to the Open Door series. She also teaches creative writing to second-level students and is involved in Adult Literacy.

  Find out more by visiting Patricia Scanlan on Facebook.

  Also by Patricia Scanlan

  Apartment 3B

  Finishing Touches

  Foreign Affairs

  Promises, Promises

  Mirror Mirror

  Francesca’s Party

  Two for Joy

  Double Wedding

  Divided Loyalties

  Coming Home

  Trilogies

  City Girl

  City Lives

  City Woman

  Forgive and Forget

  Happy Ever After

  Love and Marriage

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2013

  A CBS Company

  Copyright © Patricia Scanlan 2013

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Patricia Scanlan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Sailor

  Words & Music by Fini Busch, David West & Werner Scharfenberger

  © Copyright 1961 Universal/MCA Music Limited.

  All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

  Used by permission of Music Sales Limited.

  Seeman

  Words & Music by Werber Scharfenberger & Fini Busch

  © 1959 Hermann Schneider Buehnen-Musikalienverlags (AUME)

  All Rights Reserved

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  HB ISBN: 978-1-47111-076-4

  TRADE PB ISBN: 978-1-47111-077-1

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47111-079-5

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

  Dublin

  November 12th, 2012

  Dear readers,

  It’s been more than twenty-two years since City Girl, my first novel, was published and I wanted to thank you for all your support down the years. You have been such loyal readers and I’m so grateful to all of you.

  To my new readers, a warm welcome also. I hope you enjoy With All My Love as much as I enjoyed writing it and that you will like my other books.

  I am now on Facebook and to all of my readers who have contacted me there, a big thank you. I love being able to interact with you and keep you updated about events and signings and the progress of my novels as I’m writing them. And it’s great getting your feedback and hearing your news.

  So, dear readers, Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy!

  With all my love,

  Patricia xxx

  I dedicate this book with huge gratitude to the following men who have enhanced my house and my life. Their professionalism and good-humoured kindness was much appreciated. So to Mark Kennedy and Dara Mulhern for the lovely plans and to Philip Halton and James Igoe (the apostles) of Halton Construction, and their terrific team, Doril, Tomas, Robbie, Mark, Bruce, Rupert, Eddie and the gang, you did a fantastic job and I’m very grateful to all of you. XXX

  When the heart weeps for what is lost. The spirit laughs for what it has found.

  Sufi saying

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  He could feel the heat of the sun streaming over him, and had a flash of vibrant memory of lying with his brother in a field of prickly golden stubble, the scent of new-cut straw filling his nostrils, the drone of the tractor fading as it drove away, towing its bounty of neat bales to the nearby farm.

  As adrenalin surged through him he raised his face to the blue immensity of sky, reaching higher, higher, every muscle, ligament and fibre protesting as he strained to reach his target. His hands curved around the hard leather of the ball and Jeff felt a rush of emotions, triumph, joy, and deep satisfaction that nothing else in life could equal. Every aching bone, every second of weary exhaustion from the punishing training regime he followed was worth it for this moment.

  The roar of the crowd lifted him higher. The shiny red faces of the men he soared over, a blur in the bright sunlight. If only Valerie were here to see this, he thought with a brief pang of regret as his hands tightened around his prize and he plotted the optimum trajectory towards the goalmouth. But Valerie didn’t like football. She resented the time he spent training. He should be spending it with her and their young daughter, she’d say. He hated how she made him feel guilty about his passion. It took the good out of moments like this. He twisted on the downward descent, elbowing his marker in the shoulder as he tried to grab the ball from him, clearing his way to prepare his onslaught on the box.

  The pain hit, gripping him like a vice, forcing the breath out of his lungs, and bringing him to his knees. The roar of the crowd faded. Surprise and shock staggered him. He crumpled to the ground and saw the blue of the sky briefly before the darkness enveloped him.

  And then it seemed that only a moment had passed and brightness bathed him in a soft light as he opened his eyes and felt a wondrous sense of wellbeing. Thank God for that, Jeff thought, relieved. He felt so well, so fit, so . . . so . . . perfect. Perhaps he’d imagined that brief, shocking jolt of pain. Or maybe he was in hospital and they had injected him. That must be it. He had no memor
y of getting there, no memory of being in an ambulance. He must have been out like a light.

  Had they won the match? He’d liked to have scored that goal; it would have been a beauty, one of his best, he mused, feeling utterly relaxed. Whatever they’d given him was working a treat. The light drew closer and his eyes widened . . .

  Everything was going to be absolutely fine, Jeff knew as he recognized his beloved grandmother coming towards him, smiling at him as he took her outstretched hand.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Briony McAllister felt the glorious heat of the Mediterranean sun on her upturned face as she contemplated the cobalt sky above her and felt the tension ease out of her body, dissipating into the soft green tartan rug she was lying on. Little cotton puffs of clouds drifted over the sharp-ridged peaks of the sierras to the north, and the breeze whispered through the pine trees.

  Beside her, her 4-year-old daughter, Katie, was engrossed in plaiting her Moxie Girl’s hair. It was a Sunday afternoon in September and a somnolent, peaceful air pervaded the Parque Princessa Diana, a pretty park on the Costa del Sol. Katie had wanted to go there instead of the beach, the swings and modest playground being a big attraction. Thankfully, she was now happy to play with her dolls after twenty minutes of blissful soaring back and forth on the swings, and Briony was content to lie drowsily in the late afternoon sun, her novel unopened beside her.

  Riviera, a small town on Spain’s southern coast, was empty of tourists, who had long gone back to their jobs and mundane lives, their Costa holiday a faded summer’s dream. Where once older couples and retired ex-pats would have filled the many restaurants and coffee shops, the recession had ensured that the Costa del Sol was decimated after many years of lavish boom. Briony knew full well the effects of economic collapse. She, too, should have been back behind her desk, dealing with the thousand and one queries that came with being an administrator in a busy private hospital. But life as she knew it had changed completely the day, two months previously, when the owners of the Olympus Sports clinic had called staff together and told them that due to the current economic climate and falling patient numbers, redundancies would have to be made.

  Briony knew, even before it was her turn to meet with HR, that she would be one of the staff to be ‘let go’. She had been last into the department, having left a similar position in a big teaching hospital the previous year to work nearer home and closer to her daughter’s crèche.

  Briony sighed and brushed away a mosquito that had taken a fancy to her lightly tanned flesh. The truth was that with all the cuts in her salary in the last couple of years, the prohibitive crèche fees had taken most of what was left, and now that she was redundant she and her husband, Finn, were almost no worse off with her dole money, especially without having to pay for child-minding. They had decided after much discussion that for the next year, before Katie started school, Briony would be a stay-at-home mother.

  It was disconcerting adjusting to her new circumstances. Strange not having to get up at the crack of dawn and wake her daughter from sleep to feed and dress her before dropping her off at the crèche, greeting the other equally stressed, bleary-eyed parents she had got to know. And then making the bumper-to-bumper commute to work, hoping that she would get a parking place and not be last in, keeping her head down like a naughty schoolgirl and not a thirty-something, self-confident, career woman and working mother. She was still a ‘working’ mother, she thought defensively, realizing in these last few weeks how irritating the term was to mothers who could choose to stay at home and rear their children themselves.

  Why did she feel guilty every morning, though, when she and Katie shared cuddles in bed when Finn had left for work? It was such a treat having a leisurely breakfast and fascinating conversations with her 4-year-old. She had already missed so much of her child’s development. When she’d worked in the clinic, the time they’d had together after Briony collected her from the crèche in the evenings was often ruined by teary tantrums and squabbles over bath-time and bedtime, both of them exhausted after their early start. It was all so different now, so much fun! But no doubt this, too, would change. It was still very new and different. She felt like she was playing truant from real life.

  She was going to make the most of this unexpected blessing. It would be her gap year, Briony decided. This unemployment that had been foisted upon her would not diminish her. She would not allow herself to feel guilty that she wasn’t contributing to the family income, or that she was taking money from the state. She had paid her hard-earned money week after week, in social insurance, for just this eventuality.

  How she and her colleagues had complained bitterly about the previous government’s atrocious handling of the economy and the ‘brown envelope’ mentality that pervaded every level of society from the top down, the avarice of bankers, politicians, developers and the so-called ‘golden circle’. The negligence and incompetence of the so-called regulatory authorities, too, had led to the country being bankrupted and Briony and Katie’s generation, and generations to come, would carry a huge burden of debt. For all the good their complaining did. Ordinary folk like them were being hammered while the people responsible were still living in their big houses, holidaying in the sun and paying outrageous sums for lavish weddings, at the expense of tax payers. Every tea-break there would be heated discussion of some new revelation of chicanery, or some new pay cut proposed, that would leave Briony and her friends despairing of how they were going to manage in the future and worry about what lay ahead for their children.

  She hadn’t wanted to be made redundant from her job. She had been perfectly willing to work, albeit, she conceded with hindsight, at the expense of her relationship with her daughter. But the old saying ‘When one door closes another one opens’ was true. Everything depended on the way you looked at things.

  This time had been given to her and Katie to strengthen their bond and that was how she would view it. She no longer had money for life’s luxuries; eating out was a thing of the past for them, where once they had dined out three or four times a week and not given it a second thought. Even buying books, glossy mags and make-up now required a ‘Do I really need this?’ debate, whereas before they would have been tossed willy-nilly into her supermarket trolley. She’d sold her Ford Focus reluctantly, trying not to cry when she’d seen it disappear down her street, and with it, the privileged life she’d taken for granted.

  The upside now, thought Briony, was that she was no longer time poor. The speed on her life’s treadmill had decelerated and she felt she was slowly exhaling years of stress and tension that juggling her life as a wife and mother, combined with holding down a job, had entailed.

  Briony felt the knot that had been in her stomach since she had walked out of her office for the last time loosen another little bit as she lay in the sunshine, and the feelings of failure, guilt, helplessness and fear wafted away on the balmy breeze blowing across the sea from Africa, as the scent of jasmine and the chorus of birdsong sent her drifting off into drowsy slumber.

  ‘Mom . . . Mom . . . I is hungry.’ An indignant poke brought Briony back to wakefulness and she squinted up to see her daughter’s indignant face hovering over hers. ‘Can we have our picnic now?’

  ‘Can we have our picnic now, please?’

  ‘Can we have our picnic now, pleeeease?’ Katie echoed exasperatedly and Briony managed to hide a grin as she struggled up into a sitting position and wrapped her little girl in a joyous hug.

  ‘Let’s have our feast then. I’m hungry too,’ Briony smiled, nuzzling into Katie’s neck. Her daughter smelled of suntan lotion and talc, and as Briony inhaled the scent of her she wished Finn was here to share their lazy Sunday afternoon.

  They had spoken earlier. He was up to his eyes doing a last edit on a report he had written for his MD. He headed the export department of a large food producing company who were constantly looking for new foreign markets. He was good at his job and in the last year the company’s revenue had bucked the
trend as new markets in China and Brazil opened up. Ireland’s booming export market was the one bright shining star on the gloomy economic horizon and Finn had never been busier.

  Briony hated that he had to work so hard, but he was driven and enjoyed it. He had urged her to take the few weeks to help her mother settle into her new villa, despite Briony’s protests that she didn’t want to be away from him for too long. Had she still been working in the clinic, they would have been like ships that pass in the night. Funny how life had balanced out for them as a result of her redundancy, she mused, as she opened the picnic basket she’d brought with them and spread out the egg, and tuna salad sandwiches, and their absolute favourites, the pear and custard tartlets she’d bought from the bakery in the big Super Sol supermarket across the road. She and her mother, Valerie, had done a shop on the way from the airport the previous day and Briony still found the difference in food prices hard to believe. They had bought two huge fillets of salmon and a big bag of prawns for half the price she would have paid at home, and a bottle of Faustino was almost a third less than what she was used to paying.

  The two weeks she was going to spend with her mother, helping her settle into the small beachside villa she had recently purchased, would not cost her a fortune; in fact she’d live far cheaper here than in Dublin. She watched as Katie busied herself putting sandwiches on two bright green plastic plates, revelling in this great new adventure. ‘One for you, one for me,’ she sang in a singsong voice, putting her juice bottle beside her Moxie Girl. Her Lalaloopsy doll, Jenny, had been left back at the villa as a punishment for some naughty deed. Katie was a very stern mother, and the dolls lived under a much stricter regime than Katie herself did, Briony thought, grinning as her daughter admonished her doll to ‘sit up and eat properly and say thank you’.

  Mother and daughter munched companionably on their sandwiches, Katie chattering away to her doll, sometimes singing, oblivious to all around her as she immersed herself in a scenario with her dolly that mimicked what was happening in her life right now. She had a vivid imagination and was a self-sufficient little girl who could entertain herself for hours on end. Even so, Briony longed to get pregnant again, to give her daughter a sibling. She didn’t want there to be too big an age gap between her children should she be blessed with another baby.