The Better Woman

by Ber Carroll

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Sarah

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Jodi

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Sarah: Moving Up

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Jodi: Moving On

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Sarah: Old Love

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Jodi: Old Crush

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Two Paths Crossing

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Ber Carroll was born in Blarney, County Cork, and moved to Australia in 1995. She worked as a finance director in the IT industry until the release of her first novel, Executive Affair. Ber lives in Sydney’s northern beaches with her husband and two children, and has been published in five countries, including Ireland. Occasionally, in search of inspiration, she dons a business suit and power shoes and returns to the world of finance.

  If you would like to know more about Ber, you can visit her website at www.bercarroll.com

  Also by Ber Carroll

  Executive Affair

  Just Business

  High Potential

  the better woman

  Ber Carroll

  Pan Macmillan Australia

  First published 2009 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

  1 Market Street, Sydney

  Copyright © Ber Carroll 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  Carroll, Ber, 1971-

  The better woman/Ber Carroll

  ISBN 978 1 4050 3908 6

  A823.4

  This story is entirely fictional and no character described in this book is based upon or bears any resemblance to any real person, whether living or deceased, and any similarity is purely coincidental.

  Typeset in 12.5/15.5 pt Granjon Roman by Post Pre-press Group

  Printed by McPherson’s Printing Group

  Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  These electronic editions published in 2009 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  The Better Woman

  Ber Carroll

  Adobe eReader format

  978-1-74198-455-2

  EPub format

  978-1-74198-482-8

  Mobipocket format

  978-1-74198-509-2

  Online format

  978-1-74198-536-8

  Macmillan Digital Australia

  www.macmillandigital.com.au

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.

  This book is dedicated to my sisters, Catherine, Deirdre and Angie.

  Acknowledgements

  This book began its life in Caroline Ross’s front room, born over many hot chocolates and glasses of wine. Thank you, Caroline, for sharing your fascinating, funny anecdotes about New York, and for ensuring that I did not go thirsty while I listened!

  Thank you to Bernadette Balkus for describing your life as a concert pianist and for those lovely cups of peppermint tea and glasses of wine (mmm . . . there’s a worrying pattern here!).

  Thank you to the awe-inspiring Victoria Havryliv for educating me on the intricate world of criminal law, and for reading over my drafts and correcting my mistakes. If I ever end up on the wrong side of the law, I know who to call!

  Thank you to Catherine Hammond, Karen Penning, Trish Thorpe, Angie Glavin, Deirdre O’Mahony and Amanda Long-more for your feedback and recommendations. Thanks to Kylie Alexander and Stuart Folkard for answering all my questions on what it’s like to live and work in London. Thanks to Cate Paterson at Pan Macmillan for your enthusiastic response to the first draft of this book, and for your amazing commitment since. Thank you to Julia Stiles for your wonderful editing, to Trisha Jackson, for your excellent notes and suggestions, and to Jane Novak, Jane Hayes, Louise Bourke and everyone else at Pan Macmillan.

  Thanks to the usual suspects: my agent, Brian Cook, and my husband, Rob, for many, many reasons . . .

  Finally, I pause to remember my remarkable grand-aunt, Hannie Burke, who spent ninety-nine years of her life in a village not dissimilar to Carrickmore. May she rest in peace.

  Sarah

  Chapter 1

  Cork, 1980

  Sarah’s breathing sounded sharp and shallow in her ears. She regulated it with deep intakes of cold air. Ignoring the burning in her lungs, she pushed herself harder, faster. Wild grass tickled her shins. Mud squelched beneath her new sneakers. Nan would not be happy.

  ‘You’ve ruined them!’ she would cry. ‘Fifteen pounds, they were!’

  Sarah would bite on her lip. There was no point in retorting that sneakers were for running and, as they lived out in the middle of the countryside, an hour’s drive from Cork city, she had nowhere else to run but across the fields.

  Sarah trained for at least thirty minutes every day. She wasn’t training for anything in particular: Carrickmore was too small for an athletics club and her school’s sports day wasn’t for another six months. She ran because she loved the sensation of creating distance with her feet; because the exertion tingled every part of her body, even the inside, which often felt a little empty; because her father had been a runner too and it made her feel connected with him.

  A drizzle started to fall and sprinkled Sarah’s flushed face. At first she defied it and ran on. But it grew steadier. The grass became slippery, the earth even more soggy. Cold drips rolled down her forehead. Reluctantly, she turned back towards home. Nan thought that rain should be avoided at all costs: one drenching and you’d surely be struck down with the flu.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Sarah could hear her say. ‘Get out of those damp clothes before you catch your death.’

  It meant that Sarah would be in trouble on two counts: the state of her sneakers, and being caught in the rain.

  Sarah climbed over the last gate and came out onto Whitfield Road. There was no traffic in sight and she sprinted down the centre of the unmar
ked road. Her grandmother’s house, two storeys of white pebble-dash, stood as the finish line.

  She was at full throttle when Mr O’Hara, holding a bottle of milk, came out of Nan’s shop.

  ‘Jesus, Sarah, is it the devil that’s after ya?’

  Sarah overshot her imaginary finish line and came to a stop outside Delaney’s pub. She bent over, hands on knees, to catch her breath.

  ‘You’re a fine runner, Sarah,’ said Mr O’Hara as he came alongside her. ‘Just like your father, God rest his soul.’

  Sarah devoured casual mentions of her mother and father like a starved child scrounging for evidence that they had actually existed. She loved her grandmother and knew she was loved in return. But it wasn’t the same as having a mum and dad, being part of a family unit, being normal.

  Mr O’Hara pulled his cap down further on his head. ‘I know you young ones don’t feel the cold, Sarah. But this rain has a chill to it. I’d better be getting home.’

  He walked briskly in the direction of his house. A sprightly old man, he’d once said to Sarah that keeping busy was the only answer he had to old age. For that reason, he had taken on the maintenance of the cemetery and the village park in his retirement.

  ‘He’s a hard worker,’ Sarah had heard her grandmother comment many a time. ‘The graveyard is a credit to him. You wouldn’t know it from the way it was before.’

  As a result of Mr O’Hara’s toil and sweat, the cemetery’s gravelled pathways were weed-free and the hedging along the outer wall was trimmed in a neat line. He had even planted a new bed of flowers inside the main gate.

  ‘So I can put them on the graves of the poor souls who have no one,’ he’d explained to Sarah.

  Sarah saw a lot of Mr O’Hara because she was a regular visitor to the cemetery. She’d sit on the concrete kerb that outlined her father’s grave and daydream about the man she couldn’t remember.

  ‘I’ll make you proud of me,’ she’d whisper to the mottled headstone. ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be someone very, very important.’

  She didn’t precisely know why she wanted to make her father proud. Maybe it was a sentiment that all daughters had towards their fathers. And mothers too, perhaps. All Sarah knew was that she felt very close to him when she sat by his grave. He had grown up in Carrickmore too, run across the same fields, and lived in Nan’s pebble-dash house right up until the day he got married. His spirit was still here. He was watching over her. She was sure of it.

  Sarah crossed the road to her grandmother’s shop. It jutted out from the front of the house like an oversized porch. Colourful promotional posters, stuck to the large panes of glass, lent a little razzamatazz to the ordinariness of the building and the village around. Carrickmore was built on a single crossroads. Nan’s shop presided over one corner. Delaney’s pub, with its black and maroon signage, was situated diagonally across. The church and cemetery occupied the third corner. A park, with lush green grass and a magnificent oak tree as its centrepiece, was on the fourth.

  ‘I’m back,’ called Sarah as she opened the door of the shop.

  ‘Oh, hello, Mrs Burke.’

  ‘You’ve been running again,’ smiled the kindly old woman, a regular customer and a close friend of Peggy’s.

  ‘Yes, but I had to cut it short because of the rain.’

  Sarah gave her feet a good wipe on the mat and didn’t meet her grandmother’s eyes.

  ‘Sure, it’s in the genes,’ said Mrs Burke. ‘Soon you’ll be winning medals, just like your father, God rest him.’

  Sarah saw a flicker of emotion across her grandmother’s face. A tall, regal-looking woman, she wore her seventy years well. Her snowy white hair was pulled back into a neat bun and the skin on her narrow face was only lightly lined. She had sharp blue eyes and thin lips. She was proud of the fact that she didn’t need glasses and her teeth were her own.

  ‘Is that the lot?’ Peggy Ryan asked her friend a little abruptly.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’ Then Mrs Burke laughed. ‘Well, you’re not far away should I have forgotten anything.’

  With precise handwriting Peggy wrote the price of each item on a sheet of butcher’s paper. She underlined the figures and, her expression intense with concentration, manually totted them up.

  ‘That’s ten pounds forty pence. Sure, the ten will do.’

  ‘God bless you.’

  Mrs Burke handed over the cash and, her cane basket full to the brim, made for the door.

  ‘Shouldn’t you wait on until the rain passes over?’ asked Peggy.

  ‘Sure, a bit of rain never did anyone any harm,’ replied Mrs Burke. Then, realising the tactlessness of her words, she flashed a silent apology with her eyes and left, the door swinging shut behind her.

  Sarah watched her grandmother become immediately busy with wiping down the counter. The old woman’s face was devoid of emotion, her mouth a line of efficiency. But her eyes weren’t as sharp as usual. Memories blurred their blueness.

  The rain had in fact done a lot of harm to Peggy Ryan and her family. In 1944 her beloved husband had caught pneumonia after a bad soaking. Billy had not recovered and Peggy had been left alone to manage their small son, Tommy, and the family business. Twenty-five years later, Tommy skidded his motorbike off the Mallow Road. The coroner’s report cited a severe downpour as the cause of the accident. Visibility had been poor and the road surface slippery. The only mercy was that Tommy had been killed on impact. Once again Peggy was left with a small child to rear – Sarah – and the business.

  Peggy scoured the countertop until she had her memories under control. She stepped back and, still holding the cloth, put her hands on her hips.

  ‘You’d better get out of those damp clothes before you catch your death.’

  ‘Yes, Nan. I’ll be back in a tick so you can take your break.’

  Sarah exited the shop through the back door, which led directly into the kitchen of the private residence behind. She ran the tap at the sink and lowered her head to drink from its flow. Then she left her new muddied sneakers by the back door and went upstairs to change.

  ‘Are you sure that’s right, girleen?’ asked Mr Glavin, one of the more cantankerous customers.

  ‘Yes.’ Sarah nodded vigorously.

  ‘But you didn’t write down the numbers,’ he said, looking very suspicious.

  ‘I can add in my head,’ she told him.

  ‘I like to see the evidence before me.’

  Sarah, well trained in customer service by her grandmother, didn’t argue. ‘Right you are.’

  She wrote down the figures on the butcher’s paper and did the long addition out loud. Once complete, and her earlier total confirmed, she used scissors to cut out the sum.

  ‘There you are, your receipt,’ she said and smiled brightly as she handed it over.

  He gave it a brief glance before shoving it deep in his trouser pocket. Then, without saying a word, he strutted out of the shop, clearly annoyed that he hadn’t got the better of her.

  Later on that night, when they were sitting down to a dinner of floury potatoes and fried lamb chops, Sarah told her grandmother about Mr Glavin.

  ‘He’s an awful sourpuss,’ Peggy agreed. ‘But he’s the customer and you should write down the sums for him if that’s what he wants.’

  They started to eat. The potatoes were lovely but the chops were tough. Peggy was a good cook but sometimes the meat, which came from the butchers in the next village, was of poor quality.

  ‘We should get a cash register,’ said Sarah, pushing her half-eaten chop to the side of her plate.

  ‘What would we want with one of those?’ Peggy sniffed.

  ‘We could give customers like Mr Glavin a nice printed receipt,’ replied Sarah, having thought it through. ‘We could also use it to keep record of the day’s takings.’

  ‘Those contraptions cost a fortune,’ Peggy remarked. ‘Money is tight enough as it is.’

  ‘It would be well worth the investment,’ was Sara
h’s reply.

  Peggy thought that her granddaughter sounded more like an adult than a twelve-year-old schoolgirl. Sarah was too old for her age, both intellectually and physically. She was always top of her class. ‘Brains to burn,’ one of her teachers had said. This was no news to Peggy. Sarah’s mathematical abilities had made themselves evident from a very young age. She’d been helping out behind the counter for three years now, but she’d worked out how to count money and calculate a customer’s change long before that. Peggy didn’t know where the girl got her brains from. Her father, bless him, was no Einstein. And her mother, well . . .

  In the last few months, Sarah’s face and figure had become more defined. She was tall for her age, her body lithe from all the running. Her straight chestnut hair fell below her shoulders, its colour so rich and its texture so thick that it alone could have made the most plain-faced girl look pretty. Sarah’s face was by no means plain. Her hazel eyes, fringed by thick lashes, dominated its oval shape. Her nose and lips were in perfect proportion, her pale skin free of the usual teenage blemishes. She could easily pass as sixteen or seventeen.

  It was her emotional maturity that Peggy worried about the most, though. Sarah took life too seriously. She was always trying to prove herself, be it at school, at running, or at the shop, as if she felt she wasn’t good enough as she was. Her thoughts ran deep and she didn’t always share them. She was a lot like her mother. And that frightened Peggy.

  ‘Investment indeed,’ she muttered. ‘What kind of things are they teaching ye at school these days?’

  After dinner Peggy, weary after a long day, retired to the front room with a cup of tea. Sarah washed up. It didn’t take long. Two plates and two cups, a pot, a frying pan and some cutlery. She hung the damp tea towel from the oven door, wiped down the table and laid out her schoolbooks.

  She did her maths homework first: fractions – easy. Irish next: ten sentences to read and translate. English: a poem to learn off by heart. She was reciting the lines of the poem when she heard a knock on the kitchen door: John.