by Cathy Kelly
‘If it wasn’t transition year, there is no way both girls would be able to take that much time off without having to stay back a year,’ Sister Fidelma had said. ‘They have exams coming up and I know people think transition-year exams aren’t important, but they are.’
Leonie had explained passionately that Abby’s state of mind was more important than any attendance record or summer exams.
‘The Department of Education might not agree,’ Sister Fidelma said testily. But she had nevertheless made all the arrangements. Leonie had remarked to Doug that you’d swear she was sending her daughters off as apprentices in a Thai sex-shop instead of a visit to their father in Boston.
‘And don’t leave the kitchen in a mess like you do at home,’ Leonie warned. ‘It’s not fair on Fliss. And please phone,’ she added.
‘Of course we will,’ Mel said, impatient to be off.
‘They should probably go through now,’ Doug said gently. ‘The immigration process takes a while.’
Leonie could only nod, she was incapable of speech. She and Doug walked the twins to the security barrier leading to the departure gates, where they were to meet the Aer Lingus representative helping them through immigration because they were minors.
Both girls kissed Doug goodbye.
‘Look after Mum, will you?’ asked Abby.
‘Of course,’ he replied.
Abby turned to Leonie.
‘Bye, Mum,’ she said.
‘Goodbye,’ Leonie replied, her strength disappearing. She sobbed, not able to help herself, reaching out blindly to grab Mel and Abby.
The three of them hugged each other tightly before Mel broke away.
‘Don’t panic, Mum,’ she said, ‘we’ll be back before you know it.’
She took Abby’s hand and pulled her away. ‘Let’s go. I hate goodbyes.’
They waved until they were out of sight. Doug put one strong arm around Leonie’s heaving body. ‘They’re only going for six weeks, you know,’ he said. ‘They’ll be back.
Now come on, let’s get out of here. I’m bringing you out to dinner somewhere posh tonight and we’ve got to walk the dogs first.’
She had stopped crying by the time he parked outside the cottage an hour later.
‘I’m coming in to make you some hot tea,’ he said.
‘Better make it hot whiskey,’ Leonie snuffled through her bunged-up nose.
‘That’s a deal.’
Good as his word, Doug boiled the kettle and made her a strong hot whiskey. When she was finished drinking it, he got up.
‘Leonie, I’m not letting you sit here moping all day. Get your walking gear on and I’ll be back in ten minutes with Jasper and Alfie. We’re going to walk some of the Wicklow Way and when you’re too knackered to walk any more, we’re going to dinner in the Hungry Monk.’
‘You’re so bossy,’ she grumbled.
His stern face softened into a smile. ‘It’s working, though, isn’t it?’
It was a glorious day. As they walked past acres of the sulphur yellow gorse that covered the Wicklow hills, Leonie brooded. She answered Doug in monosyllables until he got fed up with her moping.
‘I’m only going to say this once, Leo. You’re a great mother. Those kids love you. They’re growing up, that’s all, with all the pain growing up involves. So stop moping and pull yourself together.’
‘Well why do I feel like such a bloody awful mother, then?’ she demanded angrily. ‘I feel so fucking furious.’
Hugh would have been shocked if he’d heard her swear, but Doug wasn’t in the least put out.
‘Why?’
‘Why? That’s a stupid bloody question, Doug,’ she hissed.
‘You’re not God,’ he said calmly. ‘Things happen that are outside your control and you’ve got to learn to deal with them. I’ve had to. Do you think I wanted to get burned in a fire and have the woman I loved dump me because she couldn’t cope with a disfigured shell of a man who was no longer the darling of the art gallery scene?’
Leonie was too astonished to say anything. Doug had never spoken about his past before. She’d discovered that he was a famous, critically acclaimed artist but they never talked about that. He sometimes showed her his paintings and Leonie loved them all, especially the wild, fierce landscapes that leapt from the canvas into your heart.
‘I had no control over that,’ Doug said solemnly. ‘I had to deal with it. You must too, or you’ll be eaten up with bitterness and resentment. I’m not letting that happen to you, Leo. Now come on, we’ve still got three miles to go.’
Doug marched on resolutely, leaving even Leonie, with her long legs, hurrying to keep up.
Three hours later, they sat in a dark corner of the Hungry Monk in Greystones, tearing into the bread rolls and drinking gin and tonics.
‘I’m ravenous,’ Leonie said. Her limbs ached pleasurably from their six-mile hike and she felt relaxed for the first time since she’d found those awful laxatives under Abby’s bed. ‘Exercise is definitely better than booze for making you relax.’
Doug, with his head in the wine list, laughed. ‘Exercise and booze are the best yet.’
They ate amazing fat mussels, corn-fed chicken and sinful potatoes laced with cheese and cream. After a bottle of red wine, they moved on to an Australian dessert wine with the apple dessert they shared, happy to sit and listen to the chatter of the other diners. Feeling reckless, Leonie decided she’d have an Irish coffee to round things off.
‘You’ll regret it in the morning,’ Doug warned. ‘Mixing your drinks like that will give you a murderous hangover.’
‘No it won’t, silly,’ she said, happy now that she was physically tired and mentally a bit dopey thanks to alcohol. If she had one more drink, she’d sleep like a baby and wouldn’t spend the night worrying about her beloved twins.
Languorously tipsy, Leonie found the courage to ask Doug about what he’d said earlier.
‘I never ask you about your past,’ she said, ‘but you did bring it up. Tell me. After all,’ she added, ‘you know everything there is to know about me and mine.’
Doug fiddled with the stem of his wine glass. ‘I don’t like talking about it,’ he said gloomily.
‘It’s only me,’ Leonie protested.
‘Well, seeing as it’s you,’ he said. ‘This is not a story with a happy ending, you know.’
‘Pish posh,’ said Leonie dismissively. ‘Spill the beans, Mansell. I know you too well for this coyness.’
‘Did you ever think of investigative journalism as a career?’ he enquired.
Leonie giggled. ‘You have to learn to ask leading questions when you’ve got three kids, otherwise you’d never know who their friends are or what they were up to.’
For once, Doug didn’t grin back. He looked sombre as he started his story: ‘I was going to be married to a woman I’d been seeing for three years. I’d lived with a few people over the years,’ he explained, ‘but I’d never wanted to marry anyone until I met Caitlin. She was a sculptor and it seemed like the marriage made in heaven. I’d have my studio and she’d have hers right beside it.’ He took a gulp of wine, his eyes opaque. ‘One night we were out late and we decided to stay in town with a friend of mine who lived over his gallery in this second-floor flat. An electric heater caught fire downstairs. I woke up and couldn’t find Caitlin. There was smoke everywhere, I thought maybe she’d gone down to try and get out that way, even though there was a fire escape. I got burned down there.’
‘What happened to her?’ Leonie asked, horrified.
Doug shrugged wryly. ‘She’d decided to go home to her own place earlier. Left me a note, she said, because she hated sleeping in the flat and had to get up early, so she went home at about three. You don’t notice notes on the pillow when the room is filled with smoke,’ he said with heavy irony. ‘Afterwards, she couldn’t cope. It was a mixture of guilt that I’d been burned because of her and the fact that she loves beautiful things.’ The old bitterness that Leo
nie hadn’t seen on his face for a long time returned, twisting his mouth into a grim shape. ‘I wasn’t beautiful any more. Caitlin loved touching things; she’d run her hands over my face with her eyes closed as if she was reading Braille. As a sculptor, she saw with her fingers. She didn’t like what she saw any more.’
How horribly cruel, Leonie thought. This Caitlin couldn’t have loved Doug very much if she left him over that.
‘That’s when you moved in here,’ Leonie prompted.
‘I’d planned a reclusive life of painting and then this local woman fell over outside my house and that was it: so much for privacy,’ he joked. ‘I can’t get rid of her, actually.’
He pretended to consider this. ‘Ah no, that’s not true. If she wasn’t around, I’d miss her. She drives me mad but she’s great fun.’
Leonie blushed.
Doug waved at a waitress. ‘Could you order us a taxi, please?’ he asked.
In the taxi home, Leonie drifted off to sleep. She woke up as the car pulled up outside the cottage and found herself leaning comfortably against Doug’s bony shoulder.
‘Wake up, sleepy head,’ he said, gently shaking her.
‘God, sorry,’ she muttered sleepily.
Doug got out of the taxi and helped her out. ‘You all right?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘See you tomorrow.’ And then she reached up and did something she’d never done before: kissed him. His beard felt funny against her lips, funny but nice. Doug was nice too. Happy in her alcohol haze, she patted his cheek lovingly before turning to meander up the drive.
The sound of Penny barking woke her the following morning. It sounded like the Rank Organization man with the gong was in her bedroom, banging it for all he was worth.
‘Stop it, Penny,’ moaned Leonie, pulling a pillow over her head. Her head ached and her mouth felt dry. The night before drifted in and out of her mind. The Hungry Monk, lovely food, Doug being sweet to her, his story about the fire and…oh no. She sat up abruptly. She’d kissed him goodnight. How awful. He’d hate that, he’d think she was coming on to him. Ohmigod no! And she had a man in her life, too. She had Hugh. It wasn’t as if she was desperate for a man. No, but she still had to act like some middle-aged slapper who threw herself at her friends because she was drunk.
After a while, thirst got her out of bed. Struggling into her towelling dressing gown, she shuffled along to the kitchen, her slippers slapping against her heels. Danny was listening to the radio at top blast, making toasted sandwiches and creating a mess of crumbs, squelches of dropped mayonnaise and melted cheese.
Penny immediately sat at his feet adoringly, waiting for scraps.
‘You look terrible, Mum,’ Danny said cheerfully.
‘Would you mind turning the radio down,’ Leonie said in a feeble voice, ‘and make me some tea.’
‘Tea?’ roared Danny wickedly, knowing she was hungover.
Leonie shot him a murderous look. ‘Next time you come home from the Micro Club plastered and I make you drink a pint of water and put you to bed, I’ll remind you how cruel you were to me today.’
‘Only kidding, Mum,’ he said. ‘Tea coming up.’
Outside the kitchen window, she could see Clover standing on the sill, staring in at them with an outraged expression on her feline face. She obviously hadn’t been fed.
‘Feed Penny and Clover, too,’ Leonie added. She got to her feet. ‘I’ve got to make a phone call.’
As she rang Doug, she quailed at the thought of how he might react.
‘I’m sorry, was I awful last night?’ she asked as soon as he picked the phone up, not wanting to know the answer.
Doug laughed heartily. ‘Terrible,’ he agreed. ‘I had to stop you dancing on the table in the Hungry Monk, and as for what you tried to do with the cream from your Irish coffee…Well,’ he said, dead-pan, ‘I don’t think they’ll ever accept a booking from us again.’
‘Oh God,’ she groaned.
‘I’m kidding, you fool. You were fine,’ he said. ‘Apart from the bit…’
Leonie held her breath. He was about to say apart from the bit where you tried to snog me.
Instead, he said, ‘…where I had to watch you stagger up the drive to your front door. The taxi driver and I were taking bets on how long it’d take you to get your door keys out of your handbag. I should have walked up with you,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Leonie with relief. ‘I shouldn’t have had that last Irish coffee. It sent me right over the edge.’
Danny came in with a pot of tea.
‘I have to go. I’ll see you soon,’ she said to Doug. ‘Thanks for last night.’
‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, Mum,’ Danny said, helping himself to one of the chocolate biscuits he’d put on the tray with the tea. ‘The girls phoned this morning, early. They got there safely last night so they rang to say they were fine.’
‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ wailed Leonie.
‘You were asleep,’ protested Danny, injured.
‘I’ll ring them now,’ she said frantically.
‘They’re going out for the day, Mel said,’ Danny pointed out. ‘Fliss is bringing them shopping. To some market or something, I can’t remember exactly. You know Mel, dead excited about shopping.’
‘Did you speak to Abby?’ his mother asked in a small voice.
‘Yeah. She sounded excited too. I’m going out, Mum,’ he added. ‘I’ll probably be late tonight. See you.’
‘See you,’ echoed Leonie sadly.
When Hugh phoned later, she was delighted to hear from him. She’d spent such a lonely day in the house. Penny had done her best to comfort her, shoving her cool wet nose into her mistress’s hand occasionally, saying, I’m here. But Leonie felt so inconsolable that even her beloved Penny couldn’t cheer her up.
Hugh’s phone call, therefore, was welcome. Perhaps he’d rung to tell her there was a change of plan and that they were going out after all.
‘Are you still bringing Jane to the theatre?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Yes,’ Hugh said. ‘She’s so excited about it. Poor love is all cut up about that awful ex-boyfriend of hers.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Leonie said untruthfully. She wished Hugh had cried off from his trip with his daughter. Leonie could have done with some company tonight. But kids had to come first, she thought dully. Except Jane wasn’t a kid.
‘You don’t suppose there’s any way Jane would cope if you cried off tonight and came to see me instead?’ Leonie said daringly.
Hugh sounded horrified. ‘I can’t, Leonie,’ he said in shocked tones. ‘That bastard of a boyfriend was stringing her along for ages, she’s so upset about him. She needs me.’
But what about me? Leonie wanted to cry. I need you too. My daughters have gone and they’re more precious to me than some boyfriend-of-three-weeks is to bloody Jane. But she said nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Three months later
Felix’s proposal became the stuff of interviews. Another fact to be sculpted into a media sound-bite. The lovely story of how he’d arrived at her house with fifty bouquets (a smidgen of exaggeration was de rigueur for interviews, Felix explained) and a huge diamond, only to end up waiting outside for hours for his beloved to arrive, whereupon he’d nearly developed hypothermia and had needed half an hour in front of the fire before his teeth had stopped chattering.
Hannah was heartily sick of their life becoming fodder for interviews. At least their Caribbean wedding hadn’t made eight pages in Hello! (although Hannah reckoned it was only because Bill, Felix’s agent, had failed to get what she considered a suitable offer from the magazine), but several Sunday newspapers had featured some of the photos. Hannah had been very critical of herself in the simple ankle-length Ben de Lisi gown with her hair trailing down her back and flowers entwined in it. She’d felt fat and pregnant beside Bill, who turned out to be a chain-smoking, over-the-top Londoner who felt a day was wasted if she hadn’t
screamed at someone that they were a ‘fucking idiot!’
Short, thin to the point of emaciation, and with big hair the colour of damson jam, Bill turned more heads than the bride did when she arrived at the beachside wedding in a cream trousersuit with nothing on underneath. Apart from the bouffant hair, she looked very Bianca Jagger.
Hannah, who’d been brought up to believe that it was rude to upstage the bride by wearing white or cream, was furious. She’d felt perfectly dressed beforehand. Her skin was a golden colour and gleamed with a healthy sheen thanks to a silken moisturizer with hints of gold in it.
‘She’s a cow,’ she longed to hiss to somebody as she stood beside the pretty altar which was decked out in all manner of exotic blossoms. But there was nobody to hiss to. They were on St Lucia and the guest list consisted of herself, Felix, Bill, her assistant – a lanky young bloke who practically never spoke even when Bill screamed at him – and the official who was going to marry them.
Hannah would have killed to have just one close friend with her on this special day. Even Gillian from the office would have been welcome: just someone she could talk to normally.
By the time Felix had finished his telling of it, the wedding had become a last-minute decision and they’d simply left their home with just the clothes they were standing up in (which didn’t quite explain Hannah’s exquisite dress that had to be ordered three weeks in advance and altered twice to cope with her ever-growing five-months-pregnant belly) and hopped on a plane to the Caribbean.
Just like the romantic charmer he’s playing in his new series, Felix Andretti couldn’t resist marrying his fiancée, Hannah, in the most idyllic manner possible. Instead of spending months organizing church, flowers and the reception, two months ago Felix whisked brunette Hannah off to St Lucia where they married in a simple beachside ceremony with just two close friends as witnesses.
‘We wanted it to be as simple and pure as possible,’ Felix says earnestly, unable to tear his eyes away from his stunning Irish wife. ‘I’m a romantic sort of guy and I’d always thought that when I met the right woman, I’d want to get married immediately with no fuss. Marriage is sacred to me and the idea of marrying outdoors with the ocean and nature all around made sense: you’re at one with nature and the one you love. We were both barefoot on the sand. I’ll never forget it. It was just a wonderful spur-of-the-moment thing.’