No, Tessa didn’t like her for some reason. That was a big problem because Jeff was her youngest child and, as far as Valerie could see, Tessa’s favourite. Maybe she wouldn’t like any girl who was dating Jeff. Maybe she was one of those possessive mothers Valerie often read about in the agony aunts’ columns. Jeff had a very good relationship with his mother – they were always teasing each other – and he didn’t like it if Valerie criticized her. She had learned very quickly to keep her criticisms to herself and put on a mask of polite amiability when she was around the other woman, who did likewise. But there was no love lost between them.
Tessa would not be best pleased to see her, but tough, Valerie thought defiantly, putting her foot on the accelerator and driving towards The Headland. She didn’t want her boyfriend getting soaked to the skin. Tessa would have to put up with her coming to the door. Jeff drove a motorbike now and he wouldn’t drink when he was driving it, having once come off it in a skid when he’d ridden it home the worse for wear after a party. Tessa and his dad, Lorcan, had warned him if he ever pulled a stunt like that again, he could pay his own college fees and get out of the house.
Valerie left the main street and took the curving ribbon of road that led gently up to The Headland. To her right, further down the coast, she could see the lights of Wicklow town, an orange splash in the gloom of the night.
The Egans’ house was right at the point, affording them panoramic sea views as well as over the harbour and the village. It was a beautiful setting, Valerie conceded, even if they were open to the elements. Tessa’s green Toyota was parked outside the blue and white house. And Lorcan’s battered old Peugeot station wagon was beside it. She liked Lorcan. Jeff’s dad was a quiet, good-humoured man who was content to let his wife do most of the talking while chipping in the odd pithy comment here and there, his blue eyes twinkling when he took the wind out of Tessa’s sails.
Valerie took a deep breath. Would it always be like this? If the relationship between her and Jeff developed into something more – and she fervently hoped that it would – she could be stuck with Tessa for a mother-in-law. Now there was a thought to put her off marriage, she reflected drily as she ran for the front door. She didn’t like to take a liberty and walk around the back and let herself in like most people did. She felt Tessa would think it too presumptuous if Jeff wasn’t there. She took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell, hoping that Tessa wouldn’t be the one to answer it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘Valerie!’ Lorcan opened the door, his rugged face creasing into a smile when he saw her. She blinked in the light that spilled out into the darkness and stepped inside as he held the door open for her.
‘I was just wondering, has Jeff left? It’s such a bad night I thought I’d give him a lift—’
‘Who is it?’ Tessa’s voice rang out and then she was emerging from the kitchen wiping her hands on a tea towel.
‘Oh it’s yourself,’ she said unenthusiastically. ‘You should have come around the back, and not be knocking on the front door like a visitor.’ Valerie wasn’t sure if Tessa was issuing a subtle rebuke, implying that she thought herself too grand to come in through the back door like everyone else. You just couldn’t win, she thought irritably.
‘I didn’t want Jeff to get wet – it’s an awful night – so I thought I’d call and see if he’d left yet.’ She knew she was babbling and she just wished Jeff would come and put her out of her misery so they could leave immediately.
‘Come in, come, in,’ Lorcan urged, shutting the front door behind her.
‘Ah, if Jeff’s gone I’ll get going myself,’ she said hastily.
‘I gave him a lift down about ten minutes ago,’ Tessa said smoothly. ‘You should have phoned and saved yourself a journey.’
‘Oh!’ Valerie was thrown. It hadn’t dawned on her to ring, she’d been in such a rush to get out of her own house. Besides, Terence was always giving out about the phone bill, even though she contributed to it every pay day.
‘I won’t come in then. I’ll . . . I’ll get going.’
‘Enjoy your night.’ Lorcan smiled kindly at her. ‘See you, Valerie.’
‘See you, Mr Egan.’ She smiled back at him.
‘Lorcan, call me Lorcan. “Mr Egan” make me feel like an ancient,’ Jeff’s father chided good-naturedly as he went into the big kitchen where she could see a fire roaring up the chimney. She thought how snug it was compared to their small functional kitchen at home.
‘Good night,’ she said to Tessa, who was tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Even in her late forties, Tessa Egan was still an attractive woman, Valerie admitted. Dressed in jeans and a bottle-green polo jumper, Tessa had a curvy figure and long, slim legs giving her a good three inches over Valerie. She wore little make-up, just a hint of lipstick, and her tanned face, framed by a curtain of thick chestnut hair, exuded a healthy, vibrant glow. Only the faint spider’s web of fine lines around her dark eyes, and the odd glint of grey in her hair betrayed her age. It was from Tessa that Jeff got his melting brown eyes.
She and Lorcan were a handsome couple, and they were still mad about each other. Valerie could see it in the way Tessa would lay a hand on her husband’s shoulder when she was giving him a cup of tea, or how he would meet her gaze when he said something to make her laugh, his own blue eyes glinting with enjoyment. They were so different from her own parents. Terence and Carmel’s coldness towards each other permeated every nook and cranny of their house, such a contrast to the warmth and conviviality that radiated from Jeff’s home.
‘Good night, Valerie,’ the older woman said levelly. ‘Enjoy your evening and make the most of it. Jeff’s going to need to knuckle down and study for his exams; he won’t have time to be gadding around. He needs to get good results because we can’t afford to be paying for him to be repeating. You’re lucky you don’t have that kind of pressure on you with your permanent and pensionable job.’ Tessa added extra emphasis to the last bit of her sentence, as though trying to induce some form of guilt in Valerie.
‘Yes, I’ve told him he needs to get his head stuck into Rogers and Mayhew,’ Valerie responded coolly, letting Tessa know she knew all about Jeff’s need to study and dropping in a reference to a well-known engineering textbook for good measure.
‘Excellent, we both know then what Jeff needs right now.’ Tessa’s eyes were cold, belying her smile as she opened the door to let her out.
‘If Jeff doesn’t pass his exams it won’t be because of me.’
‘Good. Oh, and by the way, he’s playing a match tomorrow so don’t keep him out too late. He knows not to be drinking either. Good night, Valerie.’
‘Good night, Mrs Egan,’ Valerie said politely, pulling her collar up over her ears and hurrying to the car without a backward glance. ‘Snooty bitch,’ she muttered, revving the engine and doing a U-turn to head down to the hotel and her boyfriend’s welcoming arms.
‘I can’t take to that young one at all. Jeff could do much better for himself,’ Tessa grumbled as she plonked down beside her husband on the shabby fat-cushioned sofa in front of the kitchen fire.
‘Aah, don’t be giving out, she’s grand.’ Lorcan lowered his paper and reached out to draw her into the crook of his shoulder.
‘It’s the airs and graces she gives herself with her fancy clothes and her car. You could scrape the make-up off with a trowel!’ Tessa nestled in against him, loving the comfort of his hard muscled torso.
‘Sure, that’s the fashion now. Look at Lisa, she always has her eyes done up and her lipstick on,’ Lorcan pointed out, referring to their daughter, who had recently got married to the son of a neighbouring fisherman. Valerie had been Jeff’s guest at the wedding, much to Tessa’s chagrin.
‘Lisa’s twenty-eight, she’s a grown woman, not a flighty little article just out of school, with an attitude problem.’ Tessa kicked off her shoes and wriggled her toes, allowing the heat of the fire to warm them. ‘I know she and Jeff are having nookie; they
sneaked off to a room at the wedding. I’ve warned him about not getting a girl pregnant, for all the good it’s doing.’
Lorcan yawned. ‘All we can do is advise him, Tessa, you know that.’
‘His life will be ruined if she gets pregnant—’
‘Stop worrying, it will get you nowhere,’ he said gently.
‘I can’t help it, Lorcan. I know—’
‘Shush, Tessa, we have the house to ourselves and what’s rare is wonderful. I bet we could show those youngsters a trick or two.’ He silenced her with a kiss and slid his hand up under her jumper and cupped her breast. Tessa’s mouth curved into a smile beneath his and she traced a finger along his blue-jeaned leg. She slid her hand along his crotch and felt his answering response.
‘Mr Ever Ready,’ she murmured against his lips as he pressed her back against the sofa, his leg parting her own. ‘Here or up in bed?’ she said, unbuckling his belt.
‘Here first and then upstairs,’ Lorcan said, laughing, undoing the top of her jeans and sliding them down over her hips while she did the same to him.
Later, as she lay in their bed, spooned beside her husband in the dark, his arm around her midriff, Tessa’s thoughts returned to Jeff and Valerie. Were they lying somewhere – the back of her little Mini, perhaps – similarly sated after lovemaking? It was a bitterly cold night; there wouldn’t be much comfort in it for them.
It was so hard to think of her younger son as a man, in a relationship of his own. She didn’t want him to be all grown up, ready to fly the nest, her lovely light-hearted boy. He should be having fun with his friends, playing football, enjoying his college days, and not getting tied down in a serious relationship. And if Valerie Harris had her way, it would be serious, Tessa thought grimly. She’d seen the way the young woman hung out of him possessively, as though she owned him, the day of the wedding. The possessive ones were the worst. Her elder son, Steven, had dated a girl once who stuck to him like a limpet and threw a tantrum every time he so much as glanced at another girl. And she had hated when he spent time with his family, kicking up a rumpus when he had spent a couple of hours doing the garden for Lorcan instead of being at her beck and call.
That relationship hadn’t lasted, luckily, and Steven was now dating a lovely girl from Galway. Perhaps once Jeff got tired of Miss Clinging Vine he’d end it and go and enjoy his life. She certainly hoped so, Tessa thought as her eyes grew heavy and she drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The smell of engine oil and wet sand mingled with the scent of Jeff’s aftershave, and his mouth tasted of mints as they leaned against the old wooden walls of the boat shed, his breath coming in raspy gasps as he held onto the last shuddering moments of orgasm.
‘Was it good for you?’ he breathed into her hair.
‘Yeah,’ she whispered back. ‘It was great.’
‘I wish we had a place of our own to go to. I feel like going to sleep now.’ He smiled down at her and she could see the gleam of his teeth and just make out his eyes in the dark. It was freezing cold and her bum was numb. She shivered and pushed him away, bending down to pull on her jeans. She straightened her clothes and pulled her coat close around her.
‘We might have one soon.’ She nuzzled in against his neck again. ‘I’m going to try for a transfer to Dublin, the Corporation or the Council – I don’t care as long as I get one of them – and then I’m moving into a flat with Lizzie. I’ve had enough here. I can’t stand living with Da any more. He’s being even more obnoxious than normal and I hate having to make love here or in the back of the car. It was OK when the weather was good but it’s winter now and it’s the pits. And I’ll be able to cook for you when you’re studying. You won’t be at the mercy of that ould landlady of yours.’
‘Sounds good to me.’ Jeff tucked his shirt into his waistband. ‘But what will we do when I’m working on the trawler in the summer and you’re up in Dublin?’
‘Why do you have to work on the trawler? Get a job up in Dublin,’ Valerie replied tartly. Now that the high of their lovemaking was over she felt flat and dispirited. There was no place to have a comforting cuddle. They were going to get drenched walking back over to the pier and up to the village because the car was in the hotel car park. She hadn’t driven to the boat shed. She didn’t dare risk it. She had drunk Guinness and then a couple of Bacardis and she knew she was on the far side of sober.
‘I can’t let Dad and the lads down. I need the money for my fees,’ Jeff said cheerfully. ‘C’mon, Val, don’t let’s argue and ruin our lovely night.’
‘What about letting me down? It would be nice to know I was somewhere near the top of your ladder rather than hovering on the bottom rung to get kicked off when your dad and “the lads” need you, or you have to go training,’ she grumbled petulantly.
‘Look, I shouldn’t have been drinking tonight, because I’ve a match tomorrow but I did drink to keep you company. So don’t be giving out to me. You always get like this after we make love.’
‘I just want to be able to cuddle in a bed like normal people and not have to do it in a smelly old boat shed in the middle of winter.’ She wrapped her scarf around her neck.
‘I don’t like it very much either,’ he retorted. ‘Do you want to stop having sex?’ He dropped the used condom into a bag of rubbish and turned to look at her, holding the torch at a low angle.
‘Do you?’ she asked, startled. Maybe he was going off her, she thought fearfully. Maybe Ursula was back on the scene.
‘I asked you first?’
‘Well, if you don’t want to, that’s fine with me,’ she said huffily. ‘Let’s go home.’
‘Don’t be cranky. I just want to do what you want to do,’ Jeff growled as he held the door open for her. They walked across the sand, trying to avoid the slippery seaweed thrown up by the stormy inky sea, and climbed the ramp to the pier in silence. It had stopped raining and the moonlight, when it fleetingly appeared from behind sullen banks of bad weather, was reflected in the puddles along the uneven paving slabs. The fluorescent glow of the village streetlamps glimmered up the hill ahead of them and the pools of light spilling from curtained windows in the houses dotted around The Headland conjured up visions of welcoming homes and hearths for weary travellers and sailors.
How she would love to live in a cosy cottage with a big blazing fire, and a huge double bed, somewhere up on The Headland, with beautiful views and a garden filled with roses and flowering shrubs. They would be deliriously happy, she daydreamed as she trudged by his side over the railway line towards the hotel.
‘You don’t have to walk me home,’ she said curtly, determined not to be the one to make up first, when they reached the main street.
‘Fine,’ he said coldly. ‘See you.’
Bastard. Valerie swore silently, racing across The Triangle without looking back. Her mother was right: men were only after one thing. She slowed just in case he followed her to apologize for his churlish behaviour. It was a forlorn hope – Jeff was nowhere to be seen – and she let herself into the house and bypassed the sitting room where her father was watching a cowboy film. She hurried in to the succour of her bedroom where she flung herself down on the bed and cried silent bitter tears. Their first row might well be their last. Perhaps he wanted out of their relationship, but Jeff was so much a part of her life now she just couldn’t imagine it without him.
Women were the oddest creatures, Jeff thought. They got into huffs over the least thing. One minute they were bright and bubbly and full of fun, the next they were glowering and spitting like cats, full of fury and indignation.
It wasn’t as if he wanted to be making out in the boat shed. They couldn’t really do it in the back of the car in the hotel car park. There were too many people toing and froing. Neither of them had a free house. They had no money to go to a hotel. At least he had the key to the shed and it afforded them some shelter. Some of his mates had to do it up against the wall at the back of the Ball Alley. Valerie had been al
l eager at first, but it was always afterwards, when the thrill of their lovemaking was over, that she got cross and grumpy. Their row had spared him the ear-bashing about his football match tomorrow and how much time he’d be able to spend with her afterwards before heading up to Dublin.
At least she hadn’t burst into tears before storming off. He hated when girls cried. Ursula had been a great crier, far moodier than Valerie, and he was absolutely certain she would never have done it standing up against the walls of a cold, smelly boat shed. She had been a bit prissy sometimes, and she had expected him to spend a lot more time with her than Valerie did, in fairness. But sometimes, like now, he wondered if he would be better off single, just having fun and concentrating on his studies and his football. Of course, that’s what his mam would say, he thought wryly, letting himself into the back porch. He could hear her moving about in the kitchen. He had expected her to be in bed.
‘Nice night?’ Tessa asked as he took off his duffel coat and scarf. She was in her dressing gown, making hot chocolate.
‘It was OK.’ He shrugged.
‘Only OK?’ Her eyebrow rose at his grouchy tone. ‘Did you have a row?’ she asked perceptively. She knew his moods, knew him inside out.
‘A bit of a one,’ he admitted, coming into the kitchen where the fire still glowed brightly.
‘Do you want a mug of hot chocolate and a slice of tea brack?’ Tessa asked kindly.
‘Sounds good.’ He stood in front of the fire and warmed his hands. A low faint rumble overhead told him that his dad was sound asleep. Tessa bustled around the kitchen, stirring powdered chocolate into hot milk and buttering a doorstep-sized slice of brack for him. Jeff felt some of his irritation ease away in the familiar comfort of the kitchen.
With All My Love Page 11