Her trip to Toronto would find the answers to all these questions, Marie-Claire knew. One way or another it was make-or-break time.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Toronto
“I knew you’d come back to me when your six months’ self-imposed exile was up. We’re meant to be,” Marc said smugly, swinging Marie-Claire into his arms and kissing her passionately.
“Marc, stop!” she protested.
“Why? I’m kissing my girl, who I haven’t seen in nearly six months,” he said, holding her tight, smiling down into her eyes.
“It’s very public here,” she murmured, relaxing against him. It was good to feel his arms around her.
“You wouldn’t meet me at my place,” he chided.
She’d arranged to meet him in the Amsterdam BrewHouse on Queens Quay, where they’d often gone for brunch. She’d made sure to be there first, and had ordered a coffee while she waited for him.
“I fancied a smoked brisket sandwich and a craft beer,” she said easily. “It was one of my favourites.”
“You look great,” he complimented her, pulling out the chair opposite hers and waving at a waiter to catch his attention.
“You look pretty good yourself, Marc,” Marie-Claire returned, leaning her elbows on the table, smiling at him. For a few moments at least, it was easier to pretend that there was no hidden secret between them.
It was a warm, sunny day. The boats were bobbing gently on the lake, which glistened and rippled in the sun. She remembered how lovely Toronto was in summer and what happy times they’d had, and suddenly felt unutterably sad.
“So… how are things at work? Is New York doing well?” she asked as he reached across the table and took her hand in his.
“Flying—it’s really starting to take off, like I knew it would. You’d love it, MC.”
“Would I?” she said slowly. “How would Amelia feel if I came back? I don’t imagine she’d be too happy.”
Marc’s eyes narrowed and he looked uncomfortable.
“Amelia? What about her?” He frowned.
“You take her to New York—”
“Ha! I knew that got back to you.” He grinned. “When you tweeted about being there with me, at Christmas. I knew you were pissed. See, I can make you jealous. You do love me, MC!” he exclaimed triumphantly.
“I was just wondering where is she in the picture. I presume you did sleep with her.” Marie-Claire took a sip of her coffee with pretended nonchalance. If he admitted everything, there might be the faintest chance, she argued silently with herself. Or maybe not. At least if he was honest and owned up, she’d have some respect for him.
“She’s not my type. Don’t be silly.” He shrugged dismissively. “She’s only a junior.”
“Really? But you promoted her. Lizzie told me. We do keep in touch, you know.” There was an edge to her voice.
“What are we talking about Amelia for?” Marc said irritably. “She’s of no consequence.”
Marie-Claire took a deep breath. It was now or never. “She’s the reason I left, Marc. I know you’re having a relationship with her, and you were sleeping with her when you were with me before Christmas,” she said steadily, not taking her eyes from his.
He reddened and dropped his eyes, unable to meet her unwavering gaze.
“Look, the thing is, it’s only a fling. And it was only a fling when I was with you. My last one before I settled down with you, if you want to know the truth,” he said gruffly. “How did you find out?”
“That’s neither here nor there. I just did. And you know, to hear a man say about a woman that he’s sleeping with that she’s of ‘no consequence’ is pretty disgusting. I’m sure Amelia thinks she has a future with you—and why wouldn’t she?”
“I never gave her reason to think that,” he said heatedly. “It’s a casual thing. She knows it.”
“Does she know that I’m back and we’re meeting today?” she challenged him.
“It’s none of her business—”
“Marc, are you for real?” Marie-Claire retorted angrily.
“Ah, you know what I mean,” he blustered. “You’re the woman for me, Marie-Claire, no matter how many women I sleep with, or slept with. I love you! That’s what I meant when I said ‘of no consequence.’ There won’t be anyone else if you come back to me, I swear it,” he said earnestly, gripping her hand.
“Marc, when it happened, and when we had dinner on Christmas Eve in Edulis—which was the day I found out about you and Amelia, by the way—I swore I’d never let you know why I left you. I wanted to keep you wondering. I know you love me, inasmuch as you’re capable of loving someone—and, strangely enough, I love you. But I can’t be with you. Not because you had an affair—although that was pretty shitty—but because you haven’t been honest with me. Even today, now, you had an opportunity to come clean and clear the slate, and you didn’t.” She looked him in the eye. “I came back because I wanted to give you that chance. And, if you had taken it, perhaps to see if we could try again—”
“We can try again. I’ll never do that to you again, Marie-Claire; I promise you. Stay with me. Give me another chance,” Marc pleaded, and she knew that at that moment he truly meant what he said.
A clip from an old western, High Noon, which she’d seen on TV a while back, came into her head. Talking of Kane, the marshal, the character Katy Jurado played had said to a cowboy, “You’re a good-looking boy. You have big broad shoulders. But it takes more than big broad shoulders to make a man, and he is a man!” It had resonated deeply with Marie-Claire because she knew that Marc—handsome, personable, successful though he was—did not and never would have that indefinable quality, that strength of character, that made someone a real man.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and a lump came to her throat. “I can’t do it. But I hope when you do meet someone, again—and you will, Marc—that you will remember this, and stay on the straight and narrow with her. And that’s what I wanted to say to you today.” She stood up and picked up her bag. “I wish you every good thing in life, Marc. I had very happy times with you, and that’s how I will remember us,” she said quietly, before turning and walking away from him with tears streaming down her cheeks, leaving him bereft.
* * *
“You did what was best for you. And if it’s any comfort, I think you did the right thing, Marie-Claire,” Lizzie said forcefully as they necked a couple of beers on her patio that evening. “He’s one leopard that will never change his spots.”
“Yeah,” Marie-Claire sighed. “I gave him his chance. He didn’t take it. I know when he was telling me he’d never betray me again that he believed it. But in years to come, whenever temptation reared its head, when our marriage had settled into domesticity and all the rest of it, and he became bored, as he inevitably would, I’d always be checking up on him because I wouldn’t trust him. Some women can cope with men like Marc, and fair dues to them. But for me, infidelity is a dealbreaker. I couldn’t live like that.”
“Me neither.”
“And I guess being honest was, in the end, a lot more satisfying that being ‘passive-aggressive,’ ” Marie-Claire said wryly, remembering her grandmother’s accusation.
“There was nothing passive-aggressive about what you did today, MC. You told him straight. Guess who’s going to come into work tomorrow in a fouler?” Lizzie grinned, chomping on her Tayto crisps with relish. “How about I meet you at the Amsterdam for lunch and I can tell you all the news from the office and you can have the smoked brisket sandwich you never got to have today?”
“Sounds good to me, Lizzie.” Marie-Claire clinked bottles with her friend, then lay back in her lounger feeling the stress and tension that had built up in her since she’d made her arrangement to meet Marc begin to drift away on the balmy Canadian breeze.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Dublin
“Have I got news for you!” Marie-Claire stood up and hugged Ella, who had emerged through a throng of people o
n Dame Street, into Eddie Rocket’s, where Marie-Claire had managed to secure a booth. Town was heaving as the people who had voted Yes and worked on the campaign for the Repeal referendum came to mark another step on the long, hard road of choice and equality for Irishwomen, with a landslide victory announced earlier in the day.
Ella and the girls had arranged to meet her to be with the thousands of women who were finally going to have a say in the right to make decisions about their own bodies. It was a momentous day in the lives of Irishwomen, and Marie-Claire, remembering what her grandmother had told her about the Contraception Train all those years ago, wondered whether Ella’s daughters realised that the freedom they took so much for granted was hard won, and what a debt they all owed to that small group of women who had ploughed the furrow of liberation.
“Where are the girls?” Marie-Claire sat down and took some of Ella’s shopping from her.
“They’re getting a cross-town Luas. They’ll be here in the next twenty minutes or so. I don’t care; I’m not waiting for them. I’m ordering a Coke. I’m parched. Do you want another coffee?”
“Might as well add to my high. Yes, I’ll have another,” Marie-Claire agreed.
“Why are you high? Because we got a great Yes vote?” Ella slid in behind the table and grinned at her friend. “Isn’t it heartening? Women in Ireland finally got the support we need after all these years of being second-class citizens.”
“I’m very glad I’m here for it and so proud of everyone who flew home to vote Yes, especially the younger generation. It gives me great hope for the future.”
“So.” Her friend raised an eyebrow. “How did it go with Marc? You gave him his walking papers, I presume?”
“I did!”
“Aaahhhh, Marie-Claire, I’m so proud of you! Well done, missus!” She half stood up and leaned across the table and hugged her. “Tell me everything!”
“… then I said I hoped he’d never do it to another woman, and that was that,” Marie-Claire concluded five minutes later.
“Perfect, Marie-Claire. I love it.” Ella applauded. “What a way to take back your power.”
“Yep, I was rather chuffed with myself, because I did love him, and I was gutted when I found out about him and Amelia.”
“I know you were, sweetie. I was worried about you for a while.” Ella took a swig of her Coke.
“No need to worry about me, Ella, life’s just peachy,” Marie-Claire assured her.
“And not even the merest flicker of wanton desire when he kissed you?”
“Not enough to make me ride him, and you know how I envy you your shags with Shay.” Marie-Claire laughed.
“Hmmm. How is your bogger detective from next door?” Ella teased.
“He’s not a bogger; he only has a hint of a Connemara accent. Anyway, I’m not interested. He’s got two pre-teen daughters, and a divorce coming down the tracks. I don’t need a man with baggage,” Marie-Claire said firmly.
“He’s good at unblocking pipes in washing machines, though, and I thought he had a very sexy ass and deliciously muscular thighs, lying on your utility room floor trying to get at your… ah, stop… cock…,” Ella said innocently. She’d called over to Marie-Claire with a birthday present before she went to Toronto, to find her standing beside her next-door neighbour, whose head was stuck in a press under a sink, effecting an emergency shutdown of Marie-Claire’s water flow.
“Give over.” Marie-Claire grinned. “Not going to happen.”
“Indeed!” Ella grinned back. “Here’s the girls.” She smiled at the sight of her teenage daughters barrelling through the door. “They’re in a good mood today,” she whispered. “We must be thankful for small mercies. And thankful too that they’ll never have to worry about being denied necessary medical treatment in a maternity hospital in Ireland; they’ll never have to go through what I went through.”
Marie-Claire squeezed her best friend’s hand in silent support, before she was enveloped in hugs and kisses from her posh besties, as she called them, warming the cockles of her heart.
“Isn’t it a great day for Irishwomen, Marie-Claire?” Julie, her younger godchild, said fervently, scooting in beside her.
“Empowering, sweetie. A day when we came into our own, at last,” Marie-Claire agreed.
“History in the making and we were part of it. Like the civil marriage referendum,” Jada, Marie-Claire’s older godchild, remarked proudly.
“It’s a far different country to what your mother and I grew up in, for sure—”
“You sound like our parents.” Ella grinned.
“And God knows they had to put up with so much we didn’t have to. When my mum was training to be a teacher in a college run by nuns, she’d to kneel down and have her dress measured to see if it was long enough to go out. If it didn’t touch the floor, she had to change.”
“OMG!” squealed the teenagers.
“That’s like from the ark!”
“Wow! Like, unbelievable.”
“You certainly wouldn’t have been getting piercings, tattoos, and the like if you were growing up in our day!” Ella pointed out, and laughed when Julie did a dramatic eye-roll.
They ate their meal, and for once the girls put their phones away and lively chat and banter went to and fro across the table. Later they mingled with the throngs of people gathered together to affirm the result of the referendum, which had been divisive and bitterly fought.
There was no air of triumphalism, no wild celebration. What struck Marie-Claire most was the undercurrent of relief that permeated the crowds of women, and men who had fought the battle for sisters, wives, and daughters, and the sense of a coming of age in dealing with a problem that had been hived off to other countries for generations.
If she ever had a daughter, she would have one less worry for her, Marie-Claire thought gratefully, smiling into Julie’s camera for a selfie of their little group.
EPILOGUE
Sunday, 26 August 2018
“Here’s a packed lunch for you now, and you have the flasks.” Maura handed Marie-Claire a basket filled with freshly baked scones and brown bread and Tupperware containers of cold cuts, salads, and pasta.
“That’s a feast, Maura. Thanks,” Keelin said warmly. “What a treat it is to be here,” she added gleefully.
“I suppose that’s one good thing about the Pope’s visit; we got to see ya! I think Una’s mad to go traipsing up to Phoenix Park to see him, but to each his own.” Maura was less than impressed that Una had gadded off to Dublin. “I thought you might have been up there, too, Imelda,” she remarked casually.
“Huh! Me? There was a time I might have, but those days are long gone. I’ve no time for him and his ilk.” Imelda drained the last drop of tea from her cup. “That fifteen million of our money we’ve to spend on this visit could have gone towards housing the homeless. It’s disgraceful! The Church has billions! And there were well-known people fundraising for this carry-on, expecting the hard-put taxpayers to dip deep into our pockets yet again.” She shook her head in bewilderment. “We’re a strange little country sometimes,” she said crossly.
“We’re getting better.” Brigid smiled. Her hair was damp against her head. She and Marie-Claire had been for a swim in the sea and were having a quick cuppa before getting ready to leave the Four Winds on another “small pilgrimage,” as she’d put it when she suggested today’s trip to the others.
Keelin had flown in from France the previous afternoon, and she and Marie-Claire had driven directly to Glencarraig to collect Imelda, and then driven to the Four Winds.
So different from the last time they had all been here in January, Brigid thought, loving that they were all sitting in the kitchen, chatting and laughing, the hot August sun splashing daubs of light all over the table, through the old-fashioned sash windows.
Una and Maura had welcomed the trio warmly the previous day, and had been exceedingly gracious when Imelda had apologised for ruining Brigid’s party. “I wasn’t
myself,” she explained by way of mitigation.
You were very much yourself, Maura thought acidly, but she refrained—heroically, in her opinion—from making any smart remarks and let her sister take the lead.
“These things happen in families. The important thing is that you all rose above it, so that can only be a good thing,” Una replied, a little embarrassed to see the usually cocky Imelda displaying unexpected humility.
Once the awkwardness was over, and they’d unpacked, Keelin suggested a walk on the strand before dinner.
It had been invigorating. The sand was warm under their bare feet. The heat, which had been a feature of the long, hot summer, was tempered by the southerly breeze that caressed their faces as they strolled along the golden beach below the Four Winds. After an afternoon spent bringing each other up to date on what had occurred in their lives since the trip to Scotland, they gathered to eat dinner on the small patio overlooking the pale blue sea. Una had cooked bacon, cabbage, parsley sauce, and new, flowery queens that melted in the mouth.
“These are such an occasion of sin,” Brigid sighed, scattering salt and a dob of butter on her spuds and eating them with relish.
“That was a real saying of the old days… an occasion of sin!” Keelin laughed.
“Everything was a blinkin’ occasion of sin, then.” Imelda threw her eyes up to heaven.
“Don’t remind me. I hated going to confession when I was training to be a nurse. The priest was always asking me had my work in the men’s ward ever been ‘an occasion of sin’ for me.” Brigid grimaced.
“Are you serious?” Marie-Claire was astounded.
“I wish I weren’t,” her great-aunt retorted.
“It must have been strange for you, though, a young woman and a novice at that, having to nurse men and see their wobbly bits an’ all.” Imelda dipped her forkful of bacon into the mustard smeared on the side of her plate.
The Liberation of Brigid Dunne Page 37