PAST SECRETS

CATHY KELLY

Keep a secret too long and it will creep out when you least expect it...
Behind the shining windows and rose-bedecked gardens
of Summer Street, hard-working single mother, Faye,
hides a secret from her teenage daughter, Amber. And
thirty-year-old Maggie hides one from herself.
When fiery Amber decides to throw away her future for
love, and when Maggie ends up back home looking after
her sick mother, secrets begin to bubble over.
The only person on Summer Street who appears to know all the answers is Christie Devlin. Wise and kind, she can
see into other people's hearts to solve their problems. Except that this time, she has secrets of her own to face...
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ISBN 978-0-00-715408-1
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By the same author:
Woman to Woman
She's the One
Never Too Late
Someone Like You
What She Wants
Just Between Us
Best of Friends
Always and Forever
CATHY
Past Secrets
HARPER
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental.
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www harpercollins.co.uk
This paperback edition 2007
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2006
Copyright © Cathy Kelly 2006
Cathy Kelly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978 0 00 715408 1 ISBN-10: 0 00 715408 9
Set in Sabon by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publishers.
For Laura, Naomi and Emer
CHAPTER ONE
If a road could look welcoming, then Summer Street had both arms out and the kettle boiling.
Christie Devlin had lived halfway up the street for exactly thirty years in a small but exquisite red-bricked house that gleamed like a jewel in a necklace of pretty coloured stones.
Summer Street itself was curved and ran for half a mile from the crossroads where the cafe sat opposite a house which had once been a strawberry-ice-cream shade and was now a faded dusky pink.
From the moment Christie had seen the graceful curve of the street, where maple trees arched like kindly aunties over the pavement, she'd known: this was the place she and James could raise their family.
Those thirty years had gone in a flash, Christie thought on this beautiful late-April morning as she went about her chores, tidying, dusting, sweeping and wiping.
Today the sun streamed in through the windows, the house seemed filled with quiet contentment and Christie didn't have to go to work. She loved her job as an art teacher at St Ursula's secondary school, but she'd cut back her hours recently and was relishing the extra free time.
Her dogs, Tilly and Rocket, miniature dachshunds who had clearly been imperial majesties in a previous life, were sleeping off their morning walk on the cool of the kitchen tiles. The radio was playing quietly in the background and the old steel percolator was making the rattling death throes that signalled the coffee was nearly ready. All should have been right with Christie's world. And it was except
for a niggling feeling of disquiet. It had been simmering in her subconscious since she'd awoken at six to the joyous chorus of birdsong outside her bedroom window. 'Happy Anniversary,' James had murmured sleepily when the alarm went off at a quarter past and he rolled over in the bed to cuddle her, to find Tilly squashed between them. The dogs were supposed to sleep on their corduroy beanbags on the floor, but Tilly adored the comfortable little hollow in the duvet between her master and mistress. James lifted the outraged dog and settled her at his other side, then moved closer to Christie. 'Thirty years today since we moved in. And I still haven't finished flooring the attic.'
Christie, wide awake and grappling with the intense feeling that something, somewhere, was
wrong, had to laugh. Everything was so normal. She must be imagining the gloom.
'I expect the floor to be finished this weekend,' she said in the voice that could still the most unruly class in St Ursula's. Not that she had ever had much trouble with unruly students. Christie's love of art was magical and intense, and transferred itself to most of her pupils.
'Please, no, Mrs Devlin,' begged James, in mock-schoolboy tones. 'I don't have the energy. Besides, the dog keeps eating my homework.'
Panting, Tilly clambered back defiantly and tried to make her cosy nest in between them again.
'The dog would definitely eat the homework in this house,' James added.
Christie took hold of Tilly's warm velvety body and cuddled her, crooning softly.
'I think you love those dogs more than you love the rest of us,' he teased.
'Of course I do,' she teased back. Christie had seen him talking adoringly to Tilly and Rocket when he didn't think anyone noticed. James was tall, manly and had a heart as soft as butter.
'Children grow up and don't want cuddles, but dogs are puppies for ever,' she added, tickling Tilly gently in her furry armpits. 'And let's face it, you don't run around my feet yelping with delight when I get home from work, do you?'
'I never knew that's what you wanted.' He made a few exploratory barking noises. 'If I do, will you whisper sweet nothings to me?' Christie
looked at her husband. His hair was no longer a blond thatch. It was sandy grey and thinning, and he had as many fine lines around his face as she had, but James could still make Christie smile on the inside.
'I might,' she said.
From the bedroom floor, Rocket whimpered, wanting to be included in the fun.
James got out of bed and scooped her on to the duvet beside her mistress, whereupon Rocket began to smother Christie in kisses.
'I hope I get to come back as one of your dogs in my next life,' he remarked, heading to the bathroom for his shower.
Christie shivered. 'Don't even speak like that,' she said, but she was talking to a closed door.
Thirty years in this house. How had the time passed so quickly?
'I love it,' she'd told James that first day, as she stood, pregnant with their second child, Shane, outside number 34, a house they could only afford because it required what the estate agent hilariously described as 'a wee bit of renovating'.
'You're sure you don't prefer the mock-Tudor heap seven streets over?' asked James, holding tightly to little Ethan's hand. At the grand old age of three and a quarter, Ethan's current favourite hobbies included trampolining on his bed and wriggling out of his parents' grasp to fling himself in danger's path.
Christie had arched a dark eyebrow at her husband.
The heap's front garden had been tarmacked while the back garden contained two fierce dogs who hadn't responded when Christie instinctively reached out her hand. There was a sinister brick-sized hole in one of the upstairs windows and when James had casually asked the estate agent why there was no gun turret complete with AK47 peeking out, Christie had had to smother her laughter.
'Call me old-fashioned,' she told James, 'but I somehow prefer Summer Street and this house.'
Despite the obvious dilapidation, the very bricks of number 34 seemed to glow with warmth, and the stained-glass oriel window over the graceful arched porch was in its original condition.
From where they stood, the Devlin family could see the Summer Street Cafe with its aqua-and-white-striped awning and paintwork. On the pavement outside stood white bistro chairs and three small tables covered with flowered sea-blue tablecloths that looked as if they'd been transported from a Sorrento balcony.
On the same side of the street as the cafe there were terraced houses; then a couple of slender detached houses squeezed in; eight small railway cottages, their classic fascia boards traced with delicate carvings; then a series of redbricks including theirs; five 1930s bungalows and, finally, a handful of one-storey-over-basements. The other
side of Summer Street was lined with more terraced houses and cottages, along with a tiny park: two neatly kept acres with a colonnaded bandstand, an old railway pavilion and a minuscule fountain much loved by the pigeons who couldn't bear to poop anywhere else.
The maple trees that lined the street were flanked by colourful border plants, while even the doors to the dizzying variety of houses were painted strong bright shades: cerulean blues, poinsettia scarlets, honeyed ambers.
Christie would always remember how James had responded when she'd said she loved the house. He'd put the hand that wasn't holding on to Ethan around hers and squeezed.
'Then we've got to have it,' he'd said. They hadn't even looked inside. When Christie told astonished people afterwards that they'd decided to buy 34 Summer Street without crossing the threshold, she'd explained that you knew when you were in the right place. Homes were about more than actual walls.
'You can't go far wrong with a well-built redbrick,' James's brother said sagely, put out by all this talk of feelings.
And indeed, the house was beautifully proportioned even though it was sadly down at heel, like a genteel lady who'd fallen on hard times but still polished the doorstep every morning even when she could barely afford milk for her tea.
But James and Christie knew it was more than
decent proportions or the welcoming width of the copper-coloured front door that had made up their mind. Christie had simply known it was the home for them and James had learned to trust his wife's instincts.
When she, James and Ethan moved in a month later, they were the proud owners of a ramshackle four-bedroom pile with one bathroom, nothing resembling a usable kitchen and a butterfly sanctuary for a garden. In those days, there was no three-storey apartment block at the bottom of the street and no unneighbourly huffing about parking since most families were lucky to own just one car. But it was also before the park was given the primary-coloured playground equipment where small children roared with both delight and temper, depending on how the arguments were going over whose go it was on the slide.
Christie used to take Ethan and Shane to the park to play. Now, she walked Rocket and Tilly along the neatly trimmed pathways. Her two beautiful granddaughters, Sasha and Fifi, had been wheeled into the park in their buggies, and Sasha, now two and a half, loved hurling herself at the fountain as if she was about to leap in. Just like her dad, Christie thought fondly.
Ethan had always had so much energy. He'd thrown himself into life at full tilt from his very first breath. And he'd adored Summer Street.
'We'd better get the mower out,' James had
observed that first day as Ethan ran into the garden, whooping with excitement, his blond head almost disappearing in the long, wild grass. The van they had rented to move their belongings was parked on the drive and a few friends were due round to help shift all the heavy stuff. But for the moment, the small family were alone. 'It's like a jungle out
there.'
'It's like a jungle in here too,' Christie had said wryly, looking up at the corner of the kitchen where a particularly murky black bit of wall stood out amid the peeling cat-sick-yellow plaster. 'Please tell me there wasn't that much mould on the walls when we viewed. We should have got the infectious diseases people to survey the house instead of an architect.'
'You think we'll be eaten in our beds by a noxious house fungus?'
Christie smiled affectionately at her husband, who'd given their son both his blond hair and sunny disposition. The pride of finally owning their own house shone in James's eyes, noxious fungus notwithstanding.
'Probably. Now, are you going to rescue Ethan, or am I to shift my five-months-pregnant bulk out after him?' Tall and normally slender, she'd carried Ethan easily with a neat little basketball of a bump that was unnoticeable from behind. This time round, her slender figure was a distant memory and she felt like a giant stretch-marked pudding, equally enormous whichever angle she was viewed from. Her sister Ana reckoned it was second baby syndrome, where all the muscles gave up the ghost. But Christie knew that her inexplicable cravings for huge bowls of deep-fried banana with ice cream hadn't helped.
'I'll go and rescue him, o Massive One,' James said, laying a hand on her swollen belly. 'I don't want you so tired out that you don't have the energy to christen the house with me tonight.' He grinned suggestively.
A laugh exploded out of Christie. The exhaustion of pregnancy meant she was asleep by nine most nights and not even a vat of aphrodisiacs could rouse her. But then she relented, seeing the look of hope on her husband's face.
'Back massage first,' she bargained. Why her back should be an erogenous zone, Christie didn't know. But feeling James's supple hands kneading away her aches always got her in the mood for love.
'Deal.'
The upside of living in such a wreck of a house was that Christie didn't have to worry about Ethan crayoning on the walls, though he was an intrepid mountaineer so she spent much of her time rescuing him from various pieces of the second-hand furniture which was all they could afford. The downside of the house was that it seemed to take for ever before the damp was banished and they could eat a meal without a bit of ceiling falling on to their plates.
Now, a lifetime later, Ethan was thirty-three, Shane was almost thirty and Christie was a grandmother twice over.
The long dark hair she'd worn in a loose pony-tail all those years ago was now cut to jaw length and waved, its cool silvery white highlighting the warmth of her olive skin and dark, winged eyebrows.
She still wore a delicate flick of eyeliner, which gave her eyes a magical tilt at each olive green corner, but had swapped the block of cake eyeliner she'd grown up with for a modern miracle liner pen. She liked embracing new things, believing that living too much in the past made a person look their age.
The kitchen wasn't showing its age, either. Currently on its third incarnation, it had been decorated in brightly coloured chic, then antique pine and was now showcasing modern maple. Many woman-hours of hard work had turned the garden into a honeytrap for lazy bees, which moved from one variety of lavender to another in the height of summer.
Now, in the last days of April, the old French rose that Christie had been nurturing to sweep over the pergola had produced its first decent crop of antique white flowers with a musky, amber scent. Her garden was so sheltered that her roses bloomed at least a month before they should and she could smell their fragrance from the open window as she stood rinsing the breakfast dishes at the sink.
Scrubbing at some stubborn crumbs of toast glued to a white plate, Christie tried to rationalise the niggling anxiety in her head.
Anniversaries brought up old memories, that was all it was, surely.
Christie had been so lucky these past thirty years. Blessed, almost. There had only been that one time in her married life when it had all nearly gone wrong, and, like catching a falling glass before it hit the floor, Christie had averted the disaster. There was a tiny crack left behind from that time, but nobody except Christie could see it. That couldn't trouble her now, could it?
No, she decided firmly, as she slotted the clean plate into the drying rack. That was all in the past.
She knew she was blessed. James was as good a husband as he'd been when she married him. Better, in fact. They'd grown closer as they'd grown older, not apart, like so many others did. Christie knew plenty of people her own age who'd stayed married and had nothing to show for it except spite and old wedding photos. They bitched and bickered and made everyone around them uncomfortable. Why bother? Christie wondered.
Wouldn't it be better to be happy on your own instead of coupled off in sheer misery? She liked to think that if she and James fell out, God forbid, they could end it with dignity and move on.
'I bet you wouldn't,' her sister Ana had pointed
out mischievously once, at the end of one long night on the small terrace in the garden when the wineglasses were empty and the conversation had turned to what-ifs.
'There wouldn't be a bit of dignity involved. I bet you'd stab James with your secateurs one night, bury him under the rhubarb and act delighted when it turned out to be a good crop!'
'Ah, Ana,' said James, feigning hurt. 'Christie would never do that.' He paused for effect, looking round the garden his wife adored. 'The lilac tree needs fertilising, not the rhubarb. That's where she'd bury me.'
'You're both wrong,' said Christie amiably, reaching out to clasp her brother-in-law Rick's hand. 'I'm going to bury James right here, under the flagstones, then Rick and I are going to run off into the sunset together.'
'As long as I get this house,' Ana said, getting
to her feet, 'the pair of you can do what you want.' It was a beautiful house, Christie knew. One
of the loveliest on Summer Street. Christie's artistic
talent had made it just as beautiful inside as
outside.
'If Mum and Dad could see this place,' Ana said wistfully as the sisters hugged goodbye in the hall where Christie had black-and-white photos of the family hung alongside six watercolour paintings of irises of the kind that she used to sell to make money during the early days of paying the Summer Street house mortgage.
'Dad would hate it,' laughed Christie easily. 'Too arty farty, he'd say.'
'Ah, he wouldn't,' protested Ana, who at fifty-four was the younger by six years. 'He'd love it, for all that it's nothing like the house in Kilshandra.'
Kilshandra was where they'd grown up, a small town on the east coast that was never a destination, always a place cars drove past en route to somewhere else.
'No, it's not like Kilshandra,' Christie murmured and the fact that it was nothing like her old home was one of the best things about it.
Thinking of the past made the anxiety tweak again. She didn't want to think about the past, Christie thought with irritation. Get out of my head. She'd spoken out loud, she realised, as the dogs looked up at her in alarm.
The dishes done, she poured a cup of coffee to take into the garden while she went through her list for the day. She had groceries to buy, bills to pay, some letters to post, a whole page of the by-the-phone notepad filled with calls to return . . . and then she felt the strange yet familiar ripple of unease move through her. Like a thundercloud shimmering in a blue sky, threatening a noisy downpour. This time it wasn't a mild flicker of anxiety: it was a full-scale alert.
Christie dropped her china cup on the flagstones. Both Rocket and Tilly yelped in distress, whisking around their mistress's feet, their
matching brown eyes anxious. We didn't do it, we didn't do it.
Automatically, Christie shepherded them away from the broken china.
'You'll cut your paws,' she said gently, and shooed them safely into the kitchen. Dustpan in hand, she went outside again and began to sweep
up.
Her whole life, Christie had been able to see things that other people couldn't. It was a strange, dreamy gift: never available on demand and never there for Christie to sort out her own problems. But when she least expected it, the truth came to her, a little tremor of knowing that told her what was in another person's heart.
As a child, she'd thought everyone could do it. But there was no one in her deeply religious home whom she could ask. Something warned her that people might not like it. Her father prayed to centuries-dead saints when things went wrong, ignoring them when all was well, but he disapproved of the local girls having their fortunes told and hated the Gypsies' gift of sight with a vengeance. Her mother never ventured any opinion without first consulting her husband. Opinions that Father didn't approve of meant his black rage engulfed the house. So Christie had learned to be a quiet, watchful child. Her six elder brothers and her baby sister made enough noise for nobody to notice her, anyhow. And as she grew older and realised that her gift wasn't run of the mill, she was glad she'd kept it quiet.
How could she tell people she'd known the McGoverns' barn was going to burn down, or that Mr McGovern himself had set fire to it for the insurance money?
The first time she even hinted at her gift was when she was nineteen and her best friend, Sarah, had thought Ted, handsome with smiling eyes and a blankly chiselled face like Steve McQueen, was the man for her.
'He loves me, he wants to marry me,' said Sarah with the passion of being nineteen and in love.
'I just have this feeling that he's not being entirely honest with you. There's something a bit two-faced about him,' Christie had said. It was a flash of knowing that Ted didn't love Sarah and that there was someone else Ted made promises to.
'I don't believe it,' said Sarah angrily.
Christie noted the anger: there was a lot of truth in the cliche about shooting the messenger.
It transpired that Ted had indeed been seeing another girl, one whose family had money, not like Sarah or Christie, who came from a world of hand-me-down clothes and making do.
'How did you know?' asked Sarah when her heart was broken.
'It sort of came to me,' Christie said, which was the only way she could explain it.
The closer the person was to her, the fuzzier it became. For herself, she could never see anything.
Which was probably as it should be. Except that today, for the first time ever, she'd had a horrible feeling that the premonition of gloom was for
herself. In the pretty kitchen with its bunches of herbs hanging from the ceiling, a place where Christie always felt perfectly happy, panic now filled her. Her family. Something awful must be about to happen to them and she had to stop it. Yet, the feeling had never been like this before. She'd never, ever seen any harm coming to her sons or
James.
There was the day thirteen-year-old Shane had broken his collarbone falling from a tree, and Christie had been on a school trip to a gallery, explaining the gift of Jack B. Yeats to twenty
schoolgirls.
When the frantic St Ursula's secretary had finally reached Christie, she'd cursed her own inability to see what mattered. How could she not have seen her own son in pain? What use was her gift if it only worked for other people?
This morning, within ten minutes, Christie had phoned her two sons to say a cheery hello, she was thinking about them and her horoscope had said she was going to have an unfortunate day, and she thought it might extend to them, so not to walk under any ladders.
Finally, Christie phoned James, whom she'd only said goodbye to two hours before as he headed off to the train station for a meeting in Cork.
'Is everything all right, Christie?' he asked carefully.
'Fine,' she said, not wanting to transmit the intensity of her fear to him. 'I felt a bit spooked, that's all. It's thundery here.' Which wasn't true. The sky was as blue and clear as the single oval sapphire in her antique engagement ring. 'I love you, James,' she added, which was entirely true. And then the signal on his mobile phone went, the connection was severed and Christie was left with her feeling of terror still beating a tattoo in her chest.
She left a message on her husband's mobile phone: 'I'm fine. Off shopping now, phone me later and tell me if you're able to get the earlier train. I love you. Bye.'
James worked for a government environmental agency and had worked his way up the ranks so he now held a senior position. He travelled round the country a lot, and Christie worried that the endless trips were getting too much for him. But James, still fired up wanting to be busy and to make sure that everything was done properly, loved it.
By ten, Christie was on her way along Summer Street with her shopping bags in her hand, trying to put the fear out of her mind. On the three days a week when she worked at St Ursula's, she turned left when she walked out of her garden gate. Today, she'd turned right in the direction of the Summer Street Cafe.
It was a pleasant time of day, with not much traffic. The stressed morning drivers were at their offices and Summer Street belonged to the locals again. Many of Christie's original neighbours were gone, but there were some who'd lived on the street nearly as long as the Devlin family.
Like the Maguires, Dennis and Una, possessors of a series of clapped-out cars and gloriously oblivious to the outrage of their current next-door neighbour who clearly felt that a car with that many dents in its paintwork should not be parked beside her gleaming BMW. The Maguires had one daughter, Maggie: a good kid, Christie recalled. Tall, shy, always polite, hiding her prettiness behind a heavy veil of carroty red curls as if she needed a retreat from the world. She'd never been in Christie's art classes but, like many of the girls on Summer Street, she'd had a crush on Shane. Lots of girls had. It was that combination of tousled blond hair and a slightly cheeky smile. He was a few months older than Maggie extraordinary
that they could both be thirty now and
indifferent to her pubescent longing.
'Just say hello to her,' Christie said, exasperated that Shane couldn't see that even a few words from her idol would make a difference to this shy girl.
'Ah, Mum, she'll only think I like her. Get real, would you?'
'What does that mean?' demanded his mother. 'Get real? I am being real. I'm saying show a bit of kindness, Shane. It doesn't cost you anything, does it?' Her voice had risen up the scale.
'OK,' he muttered, realising his mother was off on her high horse about how goodness and kindness filled your soul with happiness. It was a sweet idea and all, but it didn't work with girls, did it? 'I'll say hi, right?'
'And be nice.'
'Should I propose as well?'
Maggie lived in Galway now and Christie hadn't seen her for ages.
But the adult Maggie had lived up to the early promise Christie had seen in her. She was truly stunning-looking, her hair darkened to glossy auburn, her face a perfect oval with silvery cobalt-blue eyes, wide expressive lips and the translucent skin of the pure redhead. Yet she didn't appear to be aware of her beauty. Rather the opposite, in fact. Christie sensed that Maggie Maguire was still hiding her real self.
'She's doing so well,' Una Maguire said every time Christie asked. All those years ago, Una had been red-haired, too, but now the red was a faded strawberry with fine threads of grey. She was still beautiful, though, with the fine-boned face her daughter had inherited. 'Maggie's going out with this fabulous man. He's a lecturer in the college and she's in the library research department now. They're made for each other. Living together for three years and they have a beautiful apartment off Eyre Square. No sign of them getting married,

but young people don't bother with that these
days.'
'No, they don't,' agreed Christie easily, who
understood quite plainly that Una longed with all
her heart for her only child to be settled down
with a husband and children.
They'd gone on their separate ways, Christie
sure that Una had no notion of what she'd really
seen in Una's heart.
Along with learning about her' odd gift, Christie
had learned that mostly people didn't want you
to know their deepest, darkest secrets. So she kept
her insights to herself unless she was asked.
Ten yards ahead of her, Amber Reid shot out
of her gate at number 18, long tawny-gold hair
bouncing in the telltale manner of the newly
washed. Amber was seventeen, in her final year at
St Ursula's and undoubtedly one of the stars of
Christie's class.
Amber could capture anyone or anything with
her pencil, although her particular gift was for
buttery oil landscapes, wild moody places with strange houses that looked like no houses on earth. Even in a large class, Amber stood out because she was so sparky and alive.
An unfashionable pocket Venus shape, with
softly curved limbs and a small, plumply rounded
face, her only truly beautiful feature was that
pair of magnetic pewter eyes, with the ring of
deepest amber around the pupils. She'd never have
been picked as one of the school's beauties, the languorous leggy girls with chiselled cheekbones.
Yet Amber's vivaciousness and the intelligence of
those eyes gave her an attractiveness that few of the teenage beauty queens could match. And the artist in Christie could see the girl's sex appeal, an
intangible charm that a photographer might not
capture but an artist would.
Christie knew that unless St Ursula's had been
evacuated for some strange reason that morning, Amber should be in school. And yet here she was, trip-trapping along in achingly high heels and a
colourful flippy skirt that flowed out over her hips
unlike
the institutional grey school uniform skirt that jutted out in an unflattering A-line. Amber
was holding a mobile phone to her ear and Christie
could just overhear.
'I'm just leaving now. Has anyone noticed I'm not there? MacVitie's not got her knickers in a
twist over the absence of her best student?'
Mrs MacVitie was the maths teacher and
Christie doubted that Amber, who was typically
left-brained and hopeless at maths, was her best
student. Favourite, perhaps, because it was hard
to resist Amber, who always paid attention in class
and was a polite, diligent student. But not best.
She must be speaking to Ella O'Brien, to whom
she was joined at the hip, and Ella obviously told
her that no, the St Ursula's bloodhounds had not
been alerted.
'Sweet. If anyone asks, you think I was sick
yesterday and it must have got worse. I phoned
in earlier and told the school secretary I was sick
but, just in case, you back me up and say I'm
puking like mad. It's true,' Amber laughed. 'I'm
sick of school, right?'
Christie wondered if Faye, Amber's mother,
knew what her daughter was up to.
Faye Reid was a widow, a quiet, businesslike
figure who'd never missed a school meeting and
was utterly involved in her daughter's life. Even
though they lived on the same street, Christie didn't
see much of Faye. She kept herself to herself, head
down, rushing everywhere, clad in conservative
navy suits and low-heeled shoes, with a briefcase
by her side. There was such a contrast between
the, butterfly beauty of Amber who had the best
of everything and caught people's eyes, and her
mother, who always appeared to be rushing to or
from work, trying hard to keep the mortgage paid
and food on the table. A person didn't need
Christie's gift of intuition to see that Faye's life
had been one of sacrifices.
'She's one of the most gifted students I've ever
taught,' Christie had told Faye two years before, shortly after Amber arrived in her class. 'Any art
college in the world would love to have her.'
And Faye's face had lit up. Christie had never
seen a smile transform a person so much. Faye
was defiantly plain beside her daughter, overweight
to Amber's curved sexiness and with her brown
hair pulled severely back into a knot that only
someone with the bones of a supermodel could
get away with. Faye Reid didn't have the supermodel
bones. But when she smiled that rare smile,
she suddenly had all the charm of her daughter
and Christie caught herself wondering why a
woman like Faye, who could only be forty, lived
such a quiet life. No man had ever been seen kissing
Faye a wistful goodbye on the doorstep. Her
clothes, the discreet earrings and low shoes that
screamed comfort they
were like armour. It was
as if Faye had deliberately turned her back on
youthful sexiness and hidden behind a facade of
plain clothes.
Christie wondered if she could see more ... but
suddenly, it was as if Faye Reid had abruptly closed
herself off and Christie could see nothing but the
woman in front of her.
'Thanks, Mrs Devlin,' Faye said. 'That's what
I think too, but I love her so much, I thought I
was totally biased. Every parent thinks their kid
is Mozart or Picasso, don't they?'
'Not all,' replied Christie grimly, thinking of
some of the parents she'd met over the years with
no belief in their kids whatsoever.
Her comment apparently touched a chord with
Faye and the smile vanished to be replaced by her
more usual, sombre expression. 'Yeah, you're
right,' she said, nodding. 'There are always a few
who don't appreciate their kids. Nothing that
twenty years of psychotherapy wouldn't cure.'
Up ahead, Amber said a cheery 'byee' into her
phone. Christie knew that the correct teacher
response at this point would be to catch up with
her and ask what she was doing out of school.
But suddenly Amber broke into a run, high heels
notwithstanding, and was gone down the street
before Christie could move.
Christie shrugged. Amber was a good student,
hardly a serial absentee. She and Ella had never
been part of the school's wilder cliques and had
both managed to move from adolescence to young
womanhood without any noticeable bursts of
rebellious behaviour.
There might be a perfectly good reason for her
absence today. And Christie herself knew that you
could learn plenty of things outside school as well
as in.
When she'd been young, she hadn't done everything
by the book either.
Yet again, Christie thought about the past and
the places she'd lived. The house in Kilshandra
with bitterness and misery engrained into the wallpaper
so that she'd barely been able to wait till
she was old enough to leave. The bedsit on Dunville
Avenue where she'd met so many friends and
learned that she didn't have to hide her gift. And
Summer Street, where all the best things in her life
had happened.
She could remember what the young Christie
had looked like when she'd moved to Summer
Street long
dark hair drawn back in a loose ponytail,
always in jeans and T-shirts and
she could
remember how lucky she'd been, with a kind husband, enough money so they weren't in debt,
with one beautiful, healthy child and another on
the way. Yes, the years on Summer Street were the
ones she liked to remember.
But there were other times she'd like to forget.
The strange feeling came through her again
and despite the warmth of the morning, Christie
shivered.

CHAPTER TWO

Amber Reid was concentrating so fiercely on
getting to the bus stop in time that she hadn't
noticed Mrs Devlin walking along Summer Street
behind her. This was despite her intention to watch
out for anyone who might sneak to her mother
about her appearance out of uniform on a school
day.
'We're going on a field trip,' Amber had planned
to say blithely should the need arise, though the
final-year students at St Ursula's didn't have time
for field trips this close to the all-important state
exams. And even if they did, what sort of field
trip would require her best high heels Oxfam spindly sandals revitalised with bronze paint a sliver of a silk camisole and a flippy skirt, all topped
off with the curious and fabulous silver tiger's-eye
pendant she'd recently found buried in her mother's
bottom drawer? The pendant was a mystery. She'd
never seen her mum wear it. Faye dressed in boring
suits and was resolutely against making the best
of herself, no matter what Amber said. The pendant
was so not 'her'. Amber was still wondering where
her mother had come by such a thing. She didn't
like to ask, because Mum would be hurt that she
had been snooping. But it was odd of her to keep
it hidden because they shared everything.
Well, not everything. Amber felt a splinter of
guilt pierce her happy little cocoon. Today was a
secret she couldn't share with her mother. It wasn't
the first time she had concealed something. Mum
was so square, so protective, that on the rare occasion
that Amber had done anything outside her
mother's rigid code of what was acceptable, she'd
had to fib a little. But the current secret was
certainly the biggest.
Ella had phoned just as Amber slammed the
front door behind her.
'Ring me later and tell me how you got on,
won't you?' Ella begged.
'Promise.'
'Wish I was bunking off,' Ella grumbled. 'I've
history in ten minutes and I haven't finished my
bloody essay on the Civil War.'
'Sorry, I did mine and I could have lent it to
you so you could use some of my ideas,' Amber
apologised. She loved history and the words flowed
effortlessly from her pen to the page. Although
how she'd written her essay last night was largely
a mystery, as she'd been consumed with excitement
thinking about today.
When she'd said goodbye to Ella, she broke into
a run so as to race past the Summer Street Cafe
in case of neighbours lurking within.
A minute later, she was at the bus stop on
Jasmine Row, just in time to catch the 10.05 bus
into the city, and Karl.
Karl. She whispered his name to herself as she
gazed dreamily out of the windows on the top
deck. Karl and Amber. Amber and Karl.
It sounded just right, like they were destined to
be together.
Destiny had never been a concept Amber had
held much faith in up to now. Just a few weeks
away from her eighteenth birthday, and a month
from the hated exams, she felt that she was in
charge of her own life.
So she'd only been half paying attention when
Ella read their horoscopes that fateful Friday at
lunch. Horoscopes were fun but hardly to be relied
on. Mum always insisted that Amber was responsible
for herself and that life should not be lived
on the word of what some astrologer had dreamed
up for that day.
Mum was firm that Amber should never follow
the crowd or do anything just because of someone
else's opinion or because 'everyone else is doing
it'. It was a lesson Amber had followed very well
up to now.
'Crap for Aries, as usual,' muttered Ella, reading
hers quickly. '"Rethink your options but don't let
your enthusiasm wane." What does that mean?
Why doesn't it ever give us hints on what's coming

up in the maths paper? Now that would really be
seeing the future.'
They were eating lunch on the gym roof strictly forbidden but the current cool spot for sixth years
plotting
their weekend and how to fit exam study
in around at least one trip to the shopping centre
to flip through rails of clothes they couldn't afford.
All study and no play made you go mad, Ella
insisted.
'Yours is better. "Single Taureans are going to
find love and passion. Expect sparks to fly this
weekend."'
'Sparks at the football club disco?' Amber roared
with laughter at the very ridiculousness of this
idea. It was the same big gang of people she'd
known all her life and you couldn't get excited
about a bunch of guys you'd watched grow up.
Where was the mystique or the romance of that?
'Patrick?'
'Too nice. He'd want to walk along with his
hand in your jeans pocket and yours in his and
discuss the engagement party. Gross.'
'Greg's cute.'
'He called me Chubby Face once. No way.'
Growing three inches taller in the past year meant
Amber had gone from being childishly plump to
womanly and voluptuous. The addition of honeyed
streaks in her rich brown hair meant that all the
boys who'd previously talked to her like a clever
younger sister suddenly sat up and took notice.
This new power over guys was heady and Amber
was still testing it, gently. But she wanted to go
somewhere more exciting than the football club
disco to do so. Somewhere, beyond the confines
of Summer Street, the football club disco and St
Ursula's was Life with a capital L: pulsing, exciting,
waiting for her.
'You're getting so choosy,' said Ella. 'You fancied
Greg last year.'
'That was last year.'
'Should I get more highlights?' asked Ella,
pulling forward a bit of the long, streaky blonde
hair that was almost mandatory in sixth year and
examining it critically. 'Your highlights look great
but mine have gone all dull and yellowy.'
'Use the special shampoo for blondes,' said
Amber.
'It costs a fortune. I bet your mum buys it for
you. Mine wouldn't.' Ella was indignant. Because
there were only the two of them, Amber's mum
bought her everything she wanted, while Ella's,
with three older sons as well, could hardly do the
same thing.
'I'll give you some of my shampoo,' offered
Amber. She knew how lucky she was and always
shared any goodies with Ella. That's what best
friends were for. 'Now, tomorrow night.' The pewter
eyes gleamed. 'Not the football club disco, please.'
'Well ...' Ella began. 'We could try something
different.'
'. . . Something bad ...' Amber shivered deliciously. 'Let's try to get into a grown-up club.
Come on, in a few months, we'll have left school
and we'll be the only people in our class to have
never done anything interesting, Ella. Everyone else
has gone to clubs they're not supposed to be able to
get into, except us because we're the sensible ones.
I'm fed up being sensible.'
Sensible was nice when you were thirteen and
adored by all the teachers, but less so when you
were nearly eighteen. The girls who never had their
homework done and never got top marks in exams
seemed to be having all the fun now, which seemed
like an unequal division of spoils.
The too,' Ella breathed. 'And I've just thought
how we can do it.'
Amber's eyes glittered. 'How?'
This feeling of dissatisfaction had in fact been
incubating for weeks. Fed up with studying for
exams and stifled by the pressure-cooker atmosphere
at school, they felt the need to do something
wild and rebellious for the first time ever, but their
options were limited.
Most of their pocket money went on clothes or
their mobile phone top-up cards, so they had little
cash left over for wild behaviour.
Smoking was considered cool by some of the
older girls, who insisted that it kept them thin, but
cigarettes were too expensive to be more than a
rare treat. Alcohol was easily available, like hash
and ecstasy, but Amber's mother had a nose like
an airport sniffer dog and could smell badness
anywhere, so coming home drunk or stoned was
hardly an option. Faye would have had a fit and
grounded her for a month, not to mention being
hurt by her daughter's behaviour, which would, in
turn, make Amber feel bad for failing her beloved
mother.
And that was the crux of the matter: their family
unit was just two. Two people who adored each
other, two people who'd gone through it all
together, who protected each other from the world.
But sometimes, that could be a burden too.
At least Ella had three brothers who could share
living up to their parents' expectations: Amber had
the weight of her mother's hopes and dreams
resting squarely on her shoulders alone. And unlike
Ella's parents, who seemed to understand that their
kids eventually tested their wings and flew the nest,
Faye Reid still seemed to think that she and Amber
would be together for ever.
'What's the plan?' Amber asked now. 'Where
are we going? Nowhere round here, surely? There's
nothing but boring pubs.'
'Exactly. So forget about round here.' Ella
grinned excitedly. 'Marco's going into town to a
club tomorrow night, and if we went with him,
we could get in without being carded.'
Marco was Ella's middle brother and they both
realised he was their best bet for an illegal excursion.
Her eldest brother wouldn't dream of taking
two schoolgirls into a city nightclub, while her
youngest brother was too square to go at all. But
twenty-three-year-old Marco, who had his own late-night show on a small radio station and went
to all the coolest places, just might be persuaded
to take them with him.
'Where?' asked Amber. 'Highway Seven.'
'That's twenty-ones and over.' It was hopeless.
Doormen were up to speed on the best fake IDs.
Amber and Ella didn't even have fake IDs. All the
best clubs were over twenty-ones only. They'd be,
busted before they got in the door.
'Yeah, but there's a gig on there tomorrow night,
some new band Marco's going to check out for
his show,' Ella explained. 'He'll be on the guest
list and he'll be going in the back door of the club,
so the bouncer will let him in no hassle, and if
we're with him ...'
'... We'll waltz right in,' laughed Amber gleefully. 'You are one clever chick, Ella O'Brien. But
how do we get Marco to take us in the first
place?'
'Bribery and corruption.' Ella had thought it all
out. 'We'll twist his arm this evening after school.'
Marco looked a lot like Ella: dark eyes, pale
skin and the same dark hair as she'd had before
she discovered peroxide. Easy-going to a fault, he
wasn't keen on taking his little sister and her friend
out with him.
'In your dreams,' he said.
'Mum would go mental if she knew you'd had
that huge party in the house when the rest of us
were in Kerry at Christmas,' Ella said, all wide-eyed
innocence. 'The one where the neighbours called
the police. You'd be chopped liver if she ever found
out. You know what she's like about not upsetting
the neighbours ...'
'How did you hear about that?' demanded
Marco and then slapped his forehead and groaned. 'You didn't know, did you? You were just guessing.'
'Oh, Marco, we knew about the party,' Amber
said, exasperated. 'We were only guessing about
the police, but we found some guy's coat under
Ella's bed, along with a lot of empty Heineken
cans and a condom.'
Marco blanched.
'It's not as if Ella put the beer cans there. We
never drink beer. We prefer wine or vodka,' she
added, hoping to sound worldly-wise.
'Can't you go out with your own friends?'
Marco begged, not even commenting on the wine
or vodka remark. It seemed like only last week his
sister and her friend had been sobbing their hearts
out over guinea pig funerals in the back garden
and winning badges for Guides.
'Think of it as community service for deeds
previously unpunished,' Amber pointed out. 'We
won't be any trouble. Once we're in the club, you
can forget about us. We can look after ourselves.'
'OK, you're nearly eighteen and you know
everything, right?' he said sarcastically.
'I've a yellow belt in karate,' Amber said,
assuming what she hoped was a karate stance,
though it was years since she'd set foot on a dojo.
Her mother's insistence on self-defence lessons had
been fun when she'd been ten, less so when she
hit puberty.
Marco sighed. 'Close combat is not the answer
to all situations in life. The most dangerous guys
in the club probably won't ask you to arm wrestle,
Amber. Understand?' He looked at both girls as
sternly as he could. 'I don't want to have to come
home at two in the morning and tell Mum and
Dad that I've lost you two. Or worse, tell your
mother, Amber. She'd rip me limb from limb.'
Amber's mother had always made Marco a bit
nervous. There was something steely in Mrs Reid's
gaze, as if she was warning him that she had his
measure.
'We're not kids,' growled Amber. 'We're coming.
It's no skin off your nose. You only have to get
us in.'
'Well, you'll have to watch your drinks,' sighed
Marco, knowing when he was beaten. 'There are
guys out there who'll slip a date rape drug in your
glass and, well ... you don't have any experience.
You don't know the half of it.'
'You're a wonderful brother.' Ella gave him a
hug.
'This is a one-off deal,' Marco insisted. 'OK?
And you've got to behave yourselves.'
'Of course,' said Amber, who had absolutely no
intention of behaving herself. She could do that in
the football club.
The truly difficult part of the plan was lying to
her mother about where she and Ella were going
that night. They decided that, because of Faye's
ultra-vigilance, they'd stay at Ella's that night after
their alleged trip to the disco. Having gone through
it all before, Ella's parents were definitely more
relaxed about their daughter's behaviour.
'Mum will check we're home, but if I put pillows
in the beds, she'll think we're there,' Ella said.
Amber thought of how her mum never slept
until Amber was back after an evening out. How
many nights had they sat up on Amber's bed on
her return, Mum listening as Amber recounted her
triumphs and disasters?
Then, she brushed the feeling of guilt away. It
was only because Mum was so protective that
she had to lie. She wasn't a kid any more. She
didn't want to hurt Mum's feelings but she had
to move on and Mum must be made to understand
that.
Getting into Highway Seven worked precisely as
Ella had predicted, although Amber only felt her
breathing come right when they were deep inside
the club, far from the stern eye of the doorman.
In spite of her outward nonchalance, she was
nervous. She and Ella might have sunbathed on
the forbidden gym roof and smoked a few illicit
cigarettes, but they were strictly homework-on-time
girls in other respects. This was breaking
into new territory, both exciting and scary at the
same time.
Dark, moody and almost vibrating with bass deep
music, the club was crowded with bodies,
perfume and a sweet smell that Amber knew was
marijuana because even the football club wasn't
trouble-free.
'Er ... what do you want to do now?' asked
Marco, wondering how he'd got lumbered with
this situation. Thankfully, the two girls looked old
enough to fit in, but hey, they were still his little
sister and her friend. He had a bad vibe about the
whole thing.
'We're fine,' Amber said airily.
'Yeah, you go off with your mates. We're cool,'
Ella added, matching her friend's unconcerned
look.
Marco shrugged, but he looked relieved. 'If
you're sure . . .'
'We're sure.' Both girls nodded.
Amber scanned her surroundings idly, her body
moving gently to the music. Ella adopted the same
laid-back hauteur.
Marco was no match for them. He was fooled. 'Text me if you need me,' he said, then turned
and was swallowed up by the crowd.
On their own, Amber and Ella clutched each
other and shrieked, all pretence at being cool gone. Nobody heard them over the pumping beat. 'We're
here,' they screeched and did their own little war
dance.
'Loos,' gasped Amber, taking Ella by the hand.
In the toilets, they re-adopted adult cool while

Amber applied a line of smoky kohl around the
rims of her eyes like she'd seen in a magazine. The
effect was startling: her beautiful eyes seemed larger
and more hypnotic than ever.
'You really do look twenty-one,' sighed Ella,
pausing in the act of applying another coat of
sticky lip gloss.
A woman rinsing her hands at the next basin
glanced at them.
'Thanks!' said Amber. 'I'm actually thirty-two
but my plastic surgeon is a miracle worker.'
The woman left in a hurry and they creased
over laughing again, high on their own daring.
They had enough money to order one drink
each, which they'd have to make last all night, and
they stood at the bar, nursing their vodkas, trying
to look as if they'd been here a million times before
and were bored with it all.
Behind her calm facade, Amber was enthralled,
watching everyone, envying them the way they all
seemed to fit in.
In a corner cordoned off by velvet rope sat a
dozen people drinking champagne. All beautiful,
having the time of their lives, utterly at home. One
slender brunette in faded, sequin-decorated jeans
was holding court, talking and laughing, while
everyone else watched her with evident fascination.
In that one second, Amber longed to be just
like her: part of the scene instead of watching enviously
from the sidelines.
Then, one of the guys saw her watching them, a guy with dark cropped hair and stubble that was
probably five o'clock shadow at ten in the morning.
His gaze was so intense Amber looked away in
embarrassment. Shit, how gauche to be caught
staring hungrily like a schoolgirl.
She did her best to stare anywhere else, but she
really wanted to look back at the guy and drink
him in. She'd never felt that connection before,
that instant buzz from another human being, the
feeling that she knew him.
But who was she kidding? He was probably
only staring at her because it was obvious she
and Ella were out of place. She'd thought they
looked old enough but perhaps they didn't and
the guy was wondering what a kid was doing
there.
'Nobody's bothering to chat us up,' moaned Ella
beside her.
'It's early yet,' said Amber with more enthusiasm
than she felt. Perhaps Marco had been right
and they should have gone out with their own
friends, but the football club would seem so tame
after this. After him.
'Are you lost?' said a low voice.
Amber swivelled round. The dark, crop-haired
man stood beside her, staring at her with intense
blue eyes. Every nerve in her body quivered into
alertness, though she tried to stay calm.
'Lost? No.' She shrugged, hopelessly trying to
adopt the laid-back aura of the brunette in the VIP
section.
'You weren't looking for someone?' he asked.
His voice was soft and deep, a man's voice, not a
boy's.
Amber shook her head.
'I thought you were looking for me,' he added, 'and you've found me.'
Amber just stared at him, concentrating on
breathing.
Chat-up lines,for her usually consisted of the
guy asking what class she was in at school. This
approach was wildly different. Amber felt her spine
lengthen, some new instinct making her stand up
straighter, yet slightly closer to him.
'I wasn't looking for you,' she said, nonchalant.
How was she doing this? She'd never spoken this
way before, like a heroine from a film. 'I was
watching people. I'm an artist: I like watching
people.'
'You draw them, then?'
Amazingly, he didn't spot that she was making
this up as she went along. Buoyed up, Amber
lowered her eyelids and gave him a sultry gaze
she'd rehearsed in her bedroom in front of the
faded line of her childhood teddy bears.
'If I like the shape of them and the look of them,
I might draw them,' she replied coolly.
'And me? Do you like the look of me?' he asked.
It was noisy, so he'd moved till he was very
close to her and, despite the gloom of the club,
she could see that his face was moulded like a
beautiful Renaissance statue: a straight, proud nose, flaring cheekbones, a finely planed forehead
and a mouth so sensitive it would take a sculptor
months to get right. Tightly cropped brown hair
and a filament-thin cotton shirt flattened against
his lean body took him into the modern era, but
otherwise, he was like the historical princes of art
that Amber had grown up admiring.
'I like the look of you very much,' she breathed,
not bothering to be cool any more.
And he smiled at her, revealing an endearing
dimple on one side of his mouth and perfect white teeth. Amber forgot about everything else in the
world except this fabulous man. She wanted to
touch him, kiss him, feel him wrap his arms around
her and press his body against hers for ever. This,
she thought, was love at first sight.
Karl was in a band, he told her. She introduced
him to Ella and he led them over to the VIP area.
Ella squeezed Amber's hand in delight as they
were ushered past the velvet rope, but Amber was
too engrossed in Karl to sense Ella's message of 'Wow! Look where we are now!'
Some of Karl's as yet unsigned band were among
the group. The rest, the ones who'd undoubtedly
got everyone into the VIP area in the first place,
were a band with an album that had just been
released, the ones Marco had come to hear.
'The Kebabs, of course I've heard of you! My
brother came to hear you play. Tell me, you do,
like tours and stuff?' asked Ella, fascinated, as she
was handed a glass of champagne.
As Ella listened to stories of life on the road,
Amber barely heard a word. She was conscious
only of Karl sitting beside her, with an arm loosely
around the back of her seat, his leg casually close
to hers.
She didn't want to hear about anyone else, only
Karl.
'What do you do in your band?'
'I am the band,' Karl shrugged as if it was
obvious. 'I write the songs, I sing, I play lead guitar.
The band is me.'
'You're an artist too.' She smiled and took his
hand, tracing the lines on it with sensitive fingers. 'I could paint you.'
'I could write a song about you,' Karl said,
touching her face with his other hand.
Their faces were inches apart now, Karl was
drinking in every inch of her, his eyes travelling
from her tawny hair, past the softness of her jaw
down to the firm, high curve of her breasts highlighted
in the tight little T-shirt she'd borrowed
from Ella.
'You're so sexy,' he whispered. His eyes roamed
lower, past her waist to the rounded curve of her
hips and along her jean-clad legs. For once, Amber
didn't bother trying to lift one thigh up so her leg
looked thinner. There was no mistaking the fact
that Karl liked her the way she was, and that was
headier than any alcohol she could have drunk.
'Get a room!' shouted someone to them, and
everyone creased up laughing.
Amber and Karl didn't hear the jest or the insistent
throbbing of the club music: they were locked
into their own beat, aqua eyes in a lean face staring
fiercely into grey-and-amber eyes in a gently
rounded one, the red stain on each of Amber's
cheeks owing nothing to her makeup.
They moved at the same time, Karl's arms
winding around Amber's waist, her hands
spreading out to feel the heat of his torso through
the thin shirt. Before her fingers had a chance to
revel in the fine muscles of his back, his mouth
met hers and they were kissing. It was unlike any
kiss Amber had experienced: Karl's tongue snaked
into her mouth with practised ease, banishing the
memory of every St Bernard slobber of a French
kiss she'd ever had before. They melted against
each other, his hands cupping her face, her hands
raking through his hair. The heat of their bodies
burned through their clothes. And long afterwards,
when Amber was again capable of thinking, she
realised that this was what love was all about.
As the morning bus lurched along into the city,
Amber sat on the top deck in her finery and thought
of how much had changed in the past two weeks.
She had been a kid then, but now she was an
adult.
An adult with an adult relationship. Or at least,
she'd be properly having an adult relationship
soon. Today, she was meeting Karl to take him
home where they'd have the place to themselves
all day. There was no privacy in the poky flat he
shared with five other musicians. In her bedroom
on Summer Street, there would be as much privacy
as they needed. Briefly, Amber thought of how
she'd explain it all to her mother if she arrived
home early from work. She could imagine Faye's
horrified face, and how hurt she'd be to have been
lied to. But Amber flicked the thought away. She'd
worry about that later. Everyone had secrets, didn't
they?
CHAPTER THREE
Twice a week for the past six months, Faye Reid
had taken an early lunch and walked a mile to the
swimming pool complex near her office. The brisk
walk past the mirror-windowed buildings of the
docklands was soothing. Striding along the pavement,
away from the incessant phones and the
beehive drone of the busy recruitment company
where she worked, she listened to music, watched
seagulls swoop and dive towards the river, and
relaxed.
Today, she had Billie Holiday on her portable
CD player. Billie's golden voice told of men who'd
left and Faye thought how wonderful it was
that, no matter how many times she heard Billie,
it always sounded as if the guy had just that
second gone, the screen door still banging behind
him.
Music talked to Faye. Sound was the most evocative
sense for her and the first few bars of a song
on the radio could take her right back to where a
she'd been when she'd first heard it. She herself
had a softly husky singing voice that few people
had ever heard and could repeat a melody after
only hearing it once. When she'd been Amber's
age, she'd always been singing but she rarely did
now.
For music could be a curse too. There were still
some songs she couldn't listen to, songs that would
break her heart because of the memories they
brought to life.
Billie Holiday songs thankfully, for all their pain,
didn't fit into that category.
'It's lovely and everything, but it's kind of
depressing, Mum,' Amber had pointed out the
previous weekend about her mother's love of
exquisitely melancholy jazz.
'Some of it is,' Faye agreed, trying to see things
from her daughter's point of view. It was an
unseasonably warm Saturday for the end of April
and they'd spent the afternoon in the garden,
Amber keen to start a dusting of golden tan on
her face.
With the iron discipline Faye brought to every
area of her life, the housework in the Reid household
was always up to date. But when it came to
gardening, she didn't know weed from plant.
Occasionally, she wished she was more like Christie
Devlin who'd created an exquisite all-white garden
at the front of her house. Faye had never seen
Christie's back garden, had never seen the inside
of the Devlins' house, actually, because they barely
knew each other in spite of living mere doors apart
for ten years, but she'd have bet that it was just
as beautiful, with frothy roses and trailing blooms
that flourished under Christie's magic hands.
On this particular Saturday, Faye wore a tired
pale-pink polo shirt over cheap loose-fit jeans that
did nothing for her shape, and was trying to uproot
any weeds she could identify. It all looked weedy
to her. Surely that big thing that looked strangely
like a marijuana plant couldn't be a flower?
Although since she'd thrown those packets of wildflower
seeds every which way last year, it was hard
to tell. That would be a fine advert for sensible
single parenthood, wouldn't it: a hash plant in
Faye Reid's garden.
She grinned. If there was any illegal vegetation
in her garden, nobody would cast aspersions on
the arch-conservative Mrs Reid, the very model of
a career-minded widow with an equally model
teenage daughter. Faye had worked very hard to
reach that place in the local psyche. She'd learned
that a single woman bringing up a child needed
to be beyond reproach. Nobody would ever have
cause to accuse her of trying to steal their husband
or of letting her daughter run wild.
'I like songs like "Respect",' Amber went on.
She was lying on her tummy on a rug on the lawn,
her feet in the air and a school book propped up
in front of her. 'Not sad ones where everyone's
depressed, like no guy will ever look at them again
'cos they messed it up the first time.'
Faye paused in her weeding.
'You've got to remember, Amber, that the old
jazz and rhythm-and-blues songs are from another
age, when life was different and women didn't
have the same opportunities we have today,' she
said, wiping her hands on her jeans so she could
clip a few strands of light-brown hair back. Faye
didn't bother with her hair much: shoulder length,
wavy and undyed for many years, it got washed,
tied back firmly and treated to conditioner when
she had the time, which wasn't often.
'They didn't have contraception, any hope of
equal pay or equal rights in lots of things. So it
might sound depressing to you now,' she explained, 'but they were brave. I think they were feminists
in their own time because they sang when it wasn't
considered a decent job for women. They didn't
have what we have now. Girl power hadn't been
invented then.'
'Yeah, I know that, but why do all the women
hang around waiting for the lover man to turn
up?' Amber wanted to know, abandoning her book
with a speed that showed she hadn't been that
engrossed in revising maths equations. 'The women
do all the waiting in these songs and in the old
movies. If a guy doesn't respect you, he's going to
walk all over you. They're waiting for him to make
it right. It's so passive. You don't need girl power
to see that.'
'You and Ella have got to stop reading the therapist's
sections in women's magazines,' Fayegroaned, but she was smiling. 'I thought you were
going to study art, not psychotherapy.'
'Ha ha. All I'm saying is that some people want
to be rescued and that's, like, not going to
happen.' Amber's small face was determined, her
chin lifted to signify that life would have to take
her on her terms, and not the other way round.
Faye felt the familiar clammy grip of a mother's
anxiety on her heart. Amber was full of energy
and hope, for all her careful studying of women's
magazines' problem pages.
What if one day, despite all Faye's efforts at
protecting her daughter, someone or something
destroyed that energy and hope?
'My little suffragette.'
Amber looked pleased. 'I like to think so,' she
said, 'only I'm the modern version. No chaining
yourself to the railings involved. I'm glad it's
different now.'
Faye said nothing. It was hard to tell a seventeen-year-old
with her whole life ahead of her that
heartache and loss crossed every century, women's
rights notwithstanding. She sat back on her heels,
tired from gardening. If only she could wave a wand
and conjure up a lovely garden: then she'd take care
of it. But creating it was another matter.
Her house was one of the smallest on Summer
Street, the first of the eight railway cottages lined
up in a terrace like an illustration in a Victorian
picturebook. The painted front doors theirs
was
teal blue carved
fascia boards and perfectly
square windows were like something a child would
draw.
Most of the cottages had been extended at the
back. Faye's extension had made the kitchen bigger,
creating a T-shaped upstairs attic bedroom for
Amber, and taking the already tiny garden down
to shoebox size. It had a small block of mossy
lawn, flower beds on either side and a rackety
garden shed at the bottom.
'I can't imagine Gran waiting for a man to fix
what was wrong,' Amber added, 'and she grew up
when it was different. I mean, she takes the car
to get it fixed, not Stan. She's a real role model.
I tell all. the girls in school about her and they
think she's amazing. They think you're amazing
too, Mum, because you don't take crap from
anyone.'
'No,' said Faye, ignoring the use of the word
crap and wondering if that would be her only
epitaph. Here lies Faye Reid, who never took crap
from anyone. It wasn't what she'd hoped she'd be
remembered for when she was younger, but it
certainly fitted now. When she'd been Amber's age,
she'd wanted to be thought of as exciting and
glamorous, a mysterious woman loved by many
men. Teenage dreams were funny in retrospect,
weren't they? She'd bet that Amber would never
imagine that her mother could think like that.
Before Amber had been born, Faye had been a
very different person altogether, not the cautious,
dowdy mother she'd become.
'Nor does Gran,' Amber went on. 'And not
everyone her age is like that. Ella's grandmother
makes them all run round after her like headless
chickens since she had her heart operation. Ella's
terrified her grandmother is going to end up living
with them. She says they'll all have to be on drugs
to cope. I'm glad Gran's not like that.'
Faye's widowed mother, Josie, had got married
again a few years previously to a widower who
understood that his new wife had got too used to
the independence of almost twenty years of being
on her own to ever be under a man's thumb again.
A retired teacher with boundless patience, Stan
was a calm breeze to Josie's cyclone of activity.
Josie ran her local meals on wheels, while Stan
was the Martha to her Mary.
'Your gran was on her own for a long time so
she had to learn to take care of herself,' Faye said
absently.
'Like you.' 'Yes, like me.'
'I was thinking.' Amber swung her legs back
and forth. 'About Dad being dead and Granddad
being dead, and now Gran is married to Stan and,
well ... When you go to heaven, how do they
work it out if you've had more than one husband?
I mean, if Stan dies and then Gran dies, who does
she live with in heaven Granddad
or Stan? It's
a problem, isn't it? They never talked about that
in religion classes. Just that we'd all be happy but
how?'
'Your gran's probably not planning on shuffling
off to meet her maker just yet,' Faye said,
startled.
'I know, I can't stand the thought of her not
being here.' Amber shuddered. She was very close
to her grandmother. 'But how does it work? Like
if you met someone and Dad's up there waiting
for you. He's still only in his late twenties, and
then you come and you're this old lady, but you've
got another husband who's waiting too, because
women live longer than men, so he's there first.
Do you see what I mean? Reincarnation sounds
better,' she added, 'because then you're not all
going to be in heaven at the same time. It makes
more sense.'
Faye had a sinking feeling in the pit of her
stomach, the same feeling she always had when
Amber talked about her father. The long-dead and
beloved dad who was reduced to a photo in a
frame, a misty figure who never did anything
wrong, never shouted or discussed tidying up her
bedroom. Never said no to a mobile phone or the
purchase of a mini-skirt of belt-like proportions.
The dead could do no wrong.
'I hope Dad's waiting for you in heaven,
though. That's nice. I like to think of that.' Amber
smiled. 'For your sake, really. So you can be
together again, like in Titanic. Although the
woman in that was really old at the end, and
then when she joined them all on the ship, she
was young and back being Kate Winslet. Which
was a bit convenient, wasn't it? Does that
mean you get to be at your best in heaven, like
twenty-one, even if you're very ancient and
falling apart when you die? I think it's a bit too
convenient.'
Faye breathed an inward sigh of relief at this
rapid turn in the conversation. It meant she didn't
need to discuss the concept of Amber's father
waiting patiently for her in heaven. Not that he'd
have waited. Patience had never been one of his
virtues.
It was because saying he was there already would
be a lie and now that Amber was older, it was
getting harder and harder to lie. Adults lied to
children all the time, little white ones for their own
good. But time had turned Faye's white lie into a
giant black one and now she couldn't stomach
repeating it any more.
'I think the whole problem with heaven is that
nobody really knows anything about it,' she said,
copping out. 'You're supposed to believe even
though you don't know.'
Amber grimaced.
'That's what the whole faith thing is about,'
Faye added, feeling she was on shaky ground
here. 'Believing when you don't know for sure.'
Like you've always believed me, she thought
guiltily. 'You could ask Stan. He studied
theology.'
'The thing is, you have one person who's right
for you, your soul mate, the one who's waiting a
for you,' Amber said. 'But if they die, how can
you meet another soul mate? There's only going
to be one person who makes you feel complete,
who you can't wait to see and talk to, right?
Isn't there? People say that, anyway,' Amber
added hurriedly. She bent her head to her book
again.
A few more minutes passed by and Faye tugged
listlessly at a couple of weedy plants, obsessing
over her daughter's vision of her dad happily
waiting in heaven for Faye to turn up. Amber never
needed to know, did she?
'Ella said something totally crazy the other day,
Mum.' Amber broke the silence.
'She said that maybe you have to pretend not
to be independent and that's what men like. That's
crap, isn't it? Why should you pretend? I told her,
Ella, you have to be you.' Amber was earnest,
sounding like a much-married matron explaining
the ways of the world to a teenage bride.
'That doesn't sound like Ella.' Faye knew her
daughter's best friend as if she were her own
daughter. Like Amber, Ella was clever, sweet,
responsible and had never caused a moment's
trouble in her life. 'What's come over her?'
'Giovanni's new girlfriend, that's who,' Amber
went on. 'Dannii. With two i's and little hearts
over each of them. The hearts are very important.
She's messing up Ella's head and saying that
the reason Ella and me don't have boyfriends is
because we're too clever and too independent
and guys don't like that.' Amber snorted dismissively.

Giovanni was Ella's youngest brother and Faye
had heard about this new girlfriend enough times
for alarm bells to tinkle gently. Giovanni was in
his second year in college, handsome like all Ella's
half-Italian family, and Faye knew Amber had a
mild crush on him, despite the fact that she said
he was boring. The appearance of an actual steady
girlfriend was certainly a catalyst for Amber to
realise this. Faye wouldn't have minded if her
daughter's first serious boyfriend was someone like
Giovanni: someone she knew all about and
approved of.
'Dannii's OK-looking, I suppose,' Amber
conceded, grudgingly, 'but she's a pain and she's
round Ella's house all the time talking this crap.
She's doing business studies, Mum, right, and
when she's with Giovanni, she behaves like she's
had her brain sucked out. You don't get into business
studies in college if you're a moron, so I don't
know who she's kidding. Well,' she added
gloomily, 'Giovanni appears to be falling for it.
Big dope. Dannii told Ella that Giovanni's a really
hot guy. You can't say that to your boyfriend's
little sister! Your brother is so sexy. Yeuch. That's
disgusting. I can't stand her. She hasn't a clue
about anything.'
Faye said nothing for a while. She gazed at her
work so far. She'd definitely pulled up some genuine
flowers along with the weeds. How was it that
carefully planted flowers could be ripped up easily,
while unwanted weeds needed incredible force to
shift them?
'If you act stupid with a guy, he's only going
out with you because of how you look,' Faye said
eventually.
'Exactly what I said,' Amber pointed out. 'Oh,
I suppose Ella was only thinking out loud. She
couldn't act dumb, anyway. She's going to come
top of our year in the exams.'
Talk of the exams made Amber stare wearily
down at her maths book again. 'That's not love.
Love is different. If any guy's only interested in
what a girl's like on the outside, then he's not what
you want, is he?'
It was half question, half statement.
'That's what I think,' Faye said decisively. This
was safe ground: she'd been telling Amber to appreciate
her worth all her life. 'If he doesn't love you
for who you are, then he's not the right person
for you. Have you and Ella met any hot guys?'
she asked lightly. She'd love to ask if Amber
thought she might fancy Giovanni.
'No,' said Amber hastily. If her mother hadn't
been so busy being thankful at the change of
subject, she might have noticed just how hastily
Amber had spoken. But Faye didn't notice. She
was pulling at weeds and she didn't see the hint
of red on her daughter's cheeks.
'Summer Street is not exactly awash with hot
men my age.' Amber fanned herself with her book
as if the sun was responsible for the heat suffusing
her complexion. 'Ella's road is just as bad. The
whole neighbourhood's full of nerds and middleaged
men with beer bellies who suck them in when
we walk past.'
Savage but accurate, Faye thought with a
smothered laugh. Amber and Ella's teenage beauty made them a stunning pair, Amber all
tawny hair and those spectacular eyes contrasting
with Ella's flashing dark Italian looks. Though
they'd never have believed it, they were
gorgeous a
scary prospect when you were the
mother of one of them. But Amber was so
sensible. Faye had taught her well. How not to
make mistakes, how not to be led by other
people. Except, Faye thought, she'd never
explained to her daughter how her mother knew
these lessons were so important.
'The people from number 42 have sold up,' Faye
said breezily. 'Who knows, a handsome father-son
combo might have bought it.'
'Doubt it. But hey, if you're right, you could go
out with the dad. Wouldn't that be great?' Amber
was delighted. 'You could come home and tell me
all about it. And I'd laugh and warn you not to
let him get past first base on the first date!'
Faye grabbed a nettle by mistake and gasped
with pain.
'Ouch. That was stupid,' she muttered lamely. 'It's a serious subject, Mum,' Amber said gravely.
Just to show how serious, she sat up cross-legged a
and gazed at her mother, her face solemn. 'I know
how much you've given up for me but I'm an adult
now and you can have your life back. I'll be going
to college. You need to do your own thing.'
The little speech sounded like one Amber had
been working on for ages and Faye almost grabbed
the nettle again for the comfort of physical pain
against this shocking emotional stabbing sensation.
She was meant to be urging Amber gently
into the world, not the other way round.
Seventeen-year-olds were supposed to be too
involved with their own problems to notice their
mothers'. If Amber was urging her to get a social
life, she must be a total basket case. Well, Faye's own mother thought so, too.
'Come on, Faye, don't bury yourself. You're not
dead yet,' Josie had said many years before, and
it had triggered the one big row between them
since before Amber was born.
'Leave me alone to live my life my way! You
don't know what I want,' Faye had said furiously.
She'd never forgotten what her mother had said.
Josie hadn't understood at all. This life with Amber
wasn't being buried: it was living peacefully and
contentedly without the interference of any man.
'I'm just saying think about it,' Amber went on. 'I'll be gone and I'll worry about you, Mum. I
won't be here so much and you'll need to keep
busy. And I don't mean doing overtime,' she added
sternly. 'I mean having fun. Getting out. Going on
dates. Grace would love to set you up on a blind
date at one of her dinners, you know she would.
Sure, you'd probably meet a few men you'd hate,
but you never know, you might find romance.'
Lecture over, she went back to her maths book,
leaving Faye feeling that their roles had been
reversed. She'd been the one receiving the lecture
on life from her daughter.
Amber's remarks had been running through Faye's
head since Saturday afternoon.
Climbing the steps to the swimming pool
complex, Faye wondered, was this all normal
teenager stuff: get a life, Mum, because I'm going
to and I don't want to worry about you. Or was
there something else?
Faye went into the women's changing room,
switched off her music and changed into her plain
black swimsuit quickly. She did everything quickly
and efficiently.
'Economical and precise,' Grace said, which was
high praise indeed because Grace, Faye's boss in
Little Island Recruitment, turned efficiency into an
art form.
'Economical and precise or obsessional?' Faye
wondered from time to time when she was interviewing
in her office and saw candidates staring
at her pristine desk with everything exactly at right
angles to everything else. A cluttered desk meant a
cluttered mind and Faye had never had time for
a cluttered mind.
But didn't it signify an obsessional mind if you
arranged all your paperclips to lie lengthwise in
their compartment in the desk organiser?
She stowed her navy skirt suit in a locker and
pulled on a swimhat. She never looked at herself in the mirror like some women in the changing
room, anxiously making sure they didn't look
awful in clinging Lycra or admiring a physique
honed by laps.
At the age of forty, and carrying probably two stone more than she should, Faye was no fan of mirrors. They lied. You could be scarred to bits on the inside and look beautiful outside.
She walked out of the changing room, shivered under the cool shower for a moment, then slipped
into the pool's medium-fast lane where she pushed off into the water.
The Olympic swimming selectors were unlikely to be calling on her any time soon, but over the
last six months she'd worked her way up to swimming
sixteen lengths each time and she knew she
was getting faster, no matter how unprofessional her forward crawl. She felt more toned too but that wasn't the primary reason for the exercise.
What she loved about swimming was the solitude
of the pool. Even if the lanes were full and
every noise was amplified by the water, when her
head was down and her body was slicing through
the pool, she felt utter peace.
This was her time, time for Faye alone.
Six months previously, when she'd paid for the swimming complex membership, she'd realised it was the first time in seventeen years she'd indulged
herself in something that didn't directly benefit Amber. Even the CD player she used was an old
one that Amber had discarded when she'd saved
up her pocket money for an iPod.
The money she'd spent on the membership fee could usefully have gone somewhere else. Amber would need a whole new expensive kit for art
college, and there would surely be trips to galleries abroad. There never seemed to be enough money for all the things Faye thought Amber should have. But the pool had called to her.
'I wish I was into swimming,' Grace had begun
to say on the days that Faye took an early lunch. Grace and her husband Neil ran the recruitment
company together. Grace regularly said they couldn't have done it without Faye, and Neil, who actually worked very little, was smugly convinced its success was all down to him.
'Swimming sounds so easy, swim, swim and the
weight falls off,' Grace had said.
Faye grinned, knowing that Grace liked the idea of exercise and the results that exercise provided but wasn't that keen on actually doing it.
'Is it better than running, do you think?' Grace went on. 'I'd quite like to run but I've weak ankles.
Swimming could be the answer.'
'You'd get bored in a week,' Faye told her. Grace was a chataholic and got anxious if she hadn't had at least four friends phone her a day in between her hectic schedule of business calls.
'There's nothing sociable about swimming. You
put your head into the water and plough on. You
can't hear anyone and you can only see what's
ahead of you.'
It was like praying, she often thought, although
she didn't say that to Grace, who'd have thought
she was abusing recreational pharmaceuticals. But
it seemed like that to Faye here
it was only you
and God as you moved porpoise-like through the
water, nobody else.
'Really? No Baywatch male lifeguards?' 'I haven't noticed any,' Faye said drily.
'Well, who needs a Baywatch lifeguard anyway?'
Grace said.
Which was, Faye knew, her way of moving on
to another line of conversation. Because Grace,
although happily married, had many fantasies
about a muscle-bound hunk who'd adore her. It
was strange when Faye, who'd been on her own
for most of the past seventeen years, went out of
her way not to notice men at all. She was with
Billie Holiday on the whole men issue: they were
too much trouble. And she'd learned that the hard
way.
Lunchtimes could be busy in Little Island
Recruitment because that was when staff from
other offices got the opportunity to slope off, march
into Little Island, relate the sad tale of their current
employment and discuss the possibility of moving
elsewhere where their talents would finally be
appreciated. But today when Faye arrived back
from her swim, damp-haired, pleasurably tired out
and dressed in her old reliable M & S navy suit,
reception was empty except for Jane behind the
reception desk.
'Hi, Faye,' said Jane cheerily and held up a sheaf
of pink call slips. 'I've got messages for you.'
The office was very high-tech and designed to
impress. Nobody could fail to be dazzled by the
glass lift, the stiletto-crunching black marble floors,
or the enormous modern-art canvas that dominated
the reception. Faye thought the picture
looked like what two amorous whales might paint
if they'd been 'covered in midnight-blue emulsion
and left to thump around for a while on a massive
canvas. But having an artistic daughter, she understood
that this was probably not the effect the
artist had anticipated.
'People are scared of modern art,' Grace said
gleefully when the painting had first been hung. 'It can be intimidating,' Faye pointed out bluntly. 'But this one's a bit dull, to be honest.'
'Perhaps you're right,' sighed Grace. 'But it says
we've arrived. We've come a long way from that
awful dive of an office we started out in, remember.'
Faye remembered. Ten years ago, Faye had been
broke after a series of dead-end jobs, and was
desperately trying to get her foot on an employment
ladder that didn't involve late-night bar work.
She'd been so grateful to Grace for taking a chance
on her in the fledgling recruitment business she
had made sure Grace never regretted it. Nobody
in Little Island worked harder than Faye. The two
had forged a professional friendship that grew
stronger every year.
'The ex-barmaid and the ex-banking queen,
who'd have thought we'd make it?' Faye used
to say, smiling. She didn't let many people past
her barriers, but Grace was one of the few. What
if Grace was a social butterfly, was married to
the obnoxious Neil, and could air-kiss with the
best of them? Despite all that, she was a real
person. True, kind, honest. Faye trusted her,
which made Grace part of a very small and exclusive
club.
'You should say "ex-beverage administrator",'
Grace chided. 'Besides, you should have been
running that bar. If you'd had the childcare and
the opportunity, you would have been.'
Grace knew Faye's history and how she'd
worked in dead-end jobs so she could take care
of Amber herself. She knew most of Faye's secrets,
but not all.
Faye took her messages, walked past what was
now dubbed 'Flipper Does Dallas', went up to her
office and got ready for the afternoon meeting.
At three in the afternoon, on Mondays and
Wednesdays, there was a staff meeting in Little
Island Recruitment. Grace said it kept everyone in
touch with what the whole company was doing.
They'd been holding it for nine years and it was
a marvellous idea because it made every single member of staff feel both personally involved in
the company and valued by it.
'We're only as good as our last job,' Grace
would remind the staff at the meeting, where there
was always a buzz of conversation, until the apple
and cinnamon muffins came in. 'This is the think
tank where we come up with ideas to improve
what we do.'
The staff all believed the idea for the meeting
had been Grace's. After all, she'd been a banking
hotshot for years before starting up the agency,
and could write a book on how to get ahead in
life.
It could be called Who Moved My Emery Board?
joked Kevin who was in charge of accounts. Grace's
nails were things of beauty: ten glossy beige talons
that clacked in a military tattoo on the conference-room
desk when she was irritated.
Clack, clack, clack.
In fact, Faye had suggested the staff meeting
shortly after she joined.
Grace felt that some benign presence had been
on her side the day Faye walked into her life. Grace
may have been the one with the financial acumen
and the qualifications as long as her fake-tanned
arms, but Faye was the one who'd made the agency
work.
On this afternoon, nineteen members of staff
sat around the conference table and worked their
way through the agenda.
Today's meeting focused on the few sticky
accounts where the jobs and the jobseekers didn't
match. There were always a few. Little Island had
an ever-growing client roster, with just three
companies who created the problems, people for
whom no applicant was good enough and who
went through staff faster than Imelda Marcos went
through shoe cream. Chief among the difficult
clients, known as VIPs, in-house code for Very
Ignorant People, was William Brooks.
It was wiser to transfer a call from him by saying, 'It's Mr Brooks, one of our VIP clients,' and risk
being overheard, than to say, 'It's that horrible
bastard from Brooks FX Stockbroking on the
phone and I'm not talking to him, so you'd better.'
William Brooks, the aforementioned company's
managing director, was yet again looking for a
personal assistant. This was his third search in six
months, the previous two assistants having decided
to leave his employment abruptly.
Little Island also supplied temps, and only that
morning, Faye had been on the phone to Mr
Brooks's current temp who said she was giving it
a month more, 'Because the money's so good, Faye,
but after that, I'm out of here. He's a pig. No,
strike that. Unfair to pigs.'
'We have no PAs on our books that will do for
him.' Philippa, who was responsible for Mr Brooks,
scanned through the file wearily. 'Out of last week's
interviews, we found two wonderful candidates
and he doesn't like either of them. I don't know
what he wants.'
'I do. He's after a Charlize Theron doppelganger
who can type, operate Excel and doesn't mind
picking up his dry-cleaning or listening to his dirty
jokes,'-said
Faye.
'If such a person existed, she wouldn't want to
work for a fat, balding executive who goes through
secretaries faster than I get through Silk Cut Ultra,'
Philippa said with feeling. She hated William
Brooks. The only person who seemed to be able
to handle him was Faye, who somehow made
William rein in the worst parts of his personality
and who stared him down into submission.
Philippa wished she could glare at men in the steely
way Faye did. Mind you, the steely gaze seemed
to scare guys off too, because in the years Philippa
had known Faye, she'd never had a man around.
She couldn't imagine Faye with a guy, anyway.
There was something about Faye, something about
the look on her face when the computer repairman
came in and flirted with everyone in the office,
which suggested Faye was one of those women
who had no interest in men.
'It's a prestigious account,' Faye pointed out
gently. 'We've made a lot of money out of Brooks
FX and having them as clients looks great on our
prospectus. William is the fly in the ointment but
it would be sensible to work with him.'
Recruitment was a delicate balance. Finding the
right person for the right job didn't sound too hard
in principle, but, as Faye had discovered during her
ten years in the industry, it could be impossible in
practice. The right person in the right job might
suddenly realise that her boss (sweet on recruitment
day) was a control freak who insisted on just
two loo breaks a day, didn't allow hot drinks at
the desk in case coffee spilled on the keyboard and
thought that paying a salary meant he owned her,
body and soul.
'The right PA for William Brooks exists,' Faye
said. 'And we'll find her.'
'Only if someone comes up with a PA robot,'
muttered Philippa. 'They won't complain if they
get their bums pinched.'
'He's pinched somebody's bum?' This was news
to Faye. Difficult clients were one thing, sexual
harassment was another.
'Well . . .' Philippa squirmed. She wasn't
supposed to say. The second assistant they'd placed
with William had phoned her up in tears.
Faye looked grim. 'Tell me. Chapter and verse.'
Philippa told her and gained some satisfaction
from the steely look on Faye's face.
'You'll talk to him?' Grace asked warily, also
seeing the look.
'I'll talk to him,' Faye agreed.
The women around the table grinned at each
other. Mr Brooks was about to be taken down a
peg or two. If only they could witness it, but they
wouldn't. Because Faye was so famously discreet.
After the meeting, Faye poured herself another
coffee and shut the door to her sanctum.
She loved her job. Recruitment suited her
perfectly because it was about placing the right
person in the right job and to a woman who liked
the towels in her airing cupboard folded just so
and in the correct place, it was very satisfying
indeed. People were not towels, but life might have
been easier if they were.
Over the years, she'd discovered that the main
skill was interviewing potential employees and
working out whether a certain job and company
would suit them. With no training whatsoever, Faye
turned out to be a natural at it.
'It's like you can work out precisely what sort
of person they are from just twenty questions,'
Grace said admiringly.
'Yes, but you've got to know which twenty questions to ask,' Faye said. She was justifiably proud
of her ability, if a little amused. It was odd being
successful in business by seeing through people's
facades to the character within, when the biggest
problems in her private life had come from being
unable to do just that.
'It's easy to suss people out when you're not
involved with them,' she added. 'You might never
have met them before but it's possible to gauge
fairly soon whether someone is hard-working, easygoing,
anxious, a team player, whatever.'
In the early days, they only recruited secretarial
staff and the competition was vicious, but the
combination of Faye's talent and Grace's business
savvy meant the company took off. Then, there
would have been no question of dropping difficult a
clients: they needed everyone they could get. But
not any more, as William Brooks was about to
find out. Recruitment was a small business where
everybody knew everybody. Faye phoned a couple
of her old colleagues, now with other agencies,
and asked what the word was on William Brooks.
Fifteen minutes later, she hung up the phone a lot
wiser.
After a moment or two of deep thought, she
dialled the number for Brooks FX. She was put
straight through to Mr Brooks, probably because
he thought she bore news of a suitable PA with
the required Miss World physique.
'Well,' he snapped. 'Found anyone?'
'I'm not sure Little Island is the right recruitment
agency for you,' Faye began blandly. 'What?' He was instantly wrong-footed, she
knew. Few agencies could afford to turn down
business. 'As you know, we work with Davidson's and
Marshal McGregor.' She named the two biggest
stockbroking firms in the country, both of which
could buy and sell Brooks FX with the contents
of their petty cash boxes. 'And we have excellent
relationships with both those companies, but you
do appear to have peculiar requirements, Mr
Brooks.'
'I'm exacting, that's all,' he snapped. 'You've
been sending me morons. Call yourselves a recruitment
agency ...'
'You're more than exacting,' Faye interrupted,
feeling cold rage course through her. She'd planned
to do this the official way, but it was clear that
Brooks needed the unorthodox approach. 'Let's
put it this way, Mr Brooks, if we were offering
sports massages, I believe you'd be the client
insulting our therapists by asking for a massage
with a "happy ending".'
'What?' exploded out of him again, and Faye
grinned to herself. 'Happy ending' was code for a
massage with sexual services included, the sort only
available in red-light districts.
'How dare you ... ?'
Probably nobody had ever talked to William
Brooks this way. She knew his sort: a bully. And,
importantly, she now knew some even less pleasant
things about him.
'We have our reputation to consider too, Mr
Brooks,' Faye went on, the vein of ice evident in
her tone. 'And we've been hearing stories from
the staff we've placed with you, stories that neither
of us would like to hear repeated. You see, we
place temps in the equality agency too, and with
some of the city's top legal firms, and we can't
have any hint of scandal associated with our
company.'
'What are you implying?' he roared.
'We've placed a lot of staff with Wilson Brothers
too,' Faye went on. 'They're one of our best
customers and actually handle our legal affairs, so
if there was any, shall we say, unpleasantness, we'd
naturally go to them.'
This time, there was an audible indrawn breath
at the other end of the phone.
Wilson Brothers was a law firm where the senior
partner just happened to be William Brooks's
father-in-law. The unspoken message was that Mr
Wilson would be fascinated to learn of his son-in-law's
fondness for touching up his assistants.
'How about we pretend we didn't have this
conversation, Mr Brooks,' Faye went on, 'and we'll
resume our search for a PA for you. However, if
and when we do find one, I shall be in constant
communication with her and I assure you, I expect
any Little Island person to be treated with the
utmost respect and dignity. I'm sure you agree that
bullying and sexual harassment cases can be so
messy and time-consuming?'
'Oh, yes,' blustered William Brooks but the fight
had gone out of him. 'I'll talk to you again, Mrs
Reid,' he muttered and hung up.
Result, thought Faye, leaning back in her chair,
relieved. She knew that what she'd done was unethical
and that Grace would have had a coronary
had she overheard, but sometimes the unorthodox
approach was required and this time, thankfully,
it had worked. She'd never had a problem thinking
outside the box when it came to business. And
being tough was second nature to her now.
Some people thought it was being hard-nosed,
but it wasn't: it was self-preservation.
'You are responsible for you,' Faye used to
repeat mantra-like. 'It's not clever to be led by
other people or to do what you don't want to do,
just to fit in. You have the power to do and be
anything you want and to make your own choices.
Believing in yourself and in your own power is
one of the most important things in life.'
'Ella's mum says to behave like a little lady, not
to hang around with rough boys in the park and
that if a stranger tries to get you into a car, to
scream,' Amber reported when she was younger
and her friends thought Faye's 'be your own boss'
mantra was cool. 'But Ella thinks your rules are
better. I told her you were a feminist because you
never let anyone walk all over you. It's because
Dad's dead, I said. You had to be tougher because
we were on our own.'
Faye spent an hour on paperwork, then returned
her emails, by which time her eyes were weary
from staring at the screen. She fetched another
coffee, shut her office door firmly, kicked off her
shoes and lay down on the couch for a few minutes.
She was tired today. The reason still worried her.
Amber had woken her up at three the night before,
talking loudly to herself in her sleep, saying, 'No,
I will not!' firmly.
Faye had stood at her daughter's door in case
this middle-of-the-night conversation became a
nightmare, but it didn't. Amber muttered 'no'
Amber had been prone to nightmares when she was a small child and Faye, who couldn't bear to think of her darling lonely and frightened in her bed, would carry the pink-pyjama-clad little girl into her own room.
Having your baby sleep with you when you were a lonely, affection-starved single mother was probably against every bit of advice in the book, Faye knew. But she needed the comfort of her little daughter every bit as much as Amber needed her. The sweetness of that small body, energetic little limbs still padded with baby fat, gave Faye strength. No matter how tough life could be, she'd go on for Amber. Her daughter deserved the best and Faye would provide it, no matter what.
'Mama,' Amber would mutter in her lisping, babyish voice, and fall into a deeper sleep, taking up half the bed by lying sprawled sideways.
'Mama, how did I get here?' she'd say in wonder the next morning, delighted to wake up in her mother's bed. And Faye would cuddle her tightly and they'd giggle and tickle each other, and the nightmare would never be mentioned.
Now, Amber didn't have nightmares, just the odd restless night when she had a lot on her mind, like exams or last year's school play where she was in charge of painting the scenery and used to sit up in bed murmuring about more Prussian blue paint for the sky.
She was probably suffering from the most awful exam stress, Faye decided, as she sipped her coffee. There were only weeks to go, after all.
If there was anything else worrying her daughter, she'd know, wouldn't she?
Except that recently, she was beginning to think it was easier to understand total strangers searching for the perfect job than work out what was going on in her daughter's mind.
CHAPTER FOUR
One hundred and fifty miles away, Maggie Maguire didn't know what impulse made her go home that afternoon instead of trekking off to the gym. Karma? Fate? Destiny twirling a lazy finger in the human world?
Unexpectedly getting off work early meant she could have had a rare meander around Galway's shops before taking her normal Wednesday evening Pilates class. But some unknown force made Maggie walk past Extreme Fitness, bypass the lure of the bohemian boutiques, and go home to the apartment she shared with Grey. A modest third-floor flat, it was her pride and joy, especially since she'd gone ahead and painted the tiny cloakroom's wall tiles a mesmerising Indian Ocean blue.
'You can't paint tiles,' Grey had said, lounging against the door of the cloakroom, barefoot and jean-clad, as Maggie sat on the floor and read the instructions on the tin. Grey had the sort of shape that lent itself to lounging: long, long legs, a lean torso and an elegance that made women stare, admiring the swept-back leonine hair, strong, patrician face and intelligent eyes that were the same colour as his name.
'You can. It says it right here.' Maggie peered at the instructions, her nose scrunched up. Her auburn hair was held up with a big clip, but bits still straggled wispily round her freckled face. Maggie could have used cement as a hair product and red wisps would still have escaped to curl
around her face.
Grey said he loved her hair: it was unruly, wild, beautiful and unpredictable. Like her.
After five years together, Maggie believed him, even though his last three girlfriends before her had been Park Avenue-type blondes with sleek hair, sleek clothes, push-up bras and shoe collections organised by Polaroid. Maggie's shoe collection was organised by age: old cowboy boots at the back of the wardrobe, new ones at the front. Her clothes were rock chick rather than chic, faded Levi's being her must-have garment. Being boyishly slim, she didn't have enough boob to fit into a push-up bra. And nobody looking at her pale freckled face with the silvery cobalt-blue eyes that showed exactly what she was thinking could have imagined Maggie having even a grain of Park Avenue Princess hauteur.
Alas, she'd have loved to be such a creature: icily cool without a hair out of place, and could never see that her wild russet beauty and eyes that
belonged to an ancient Celtic warrior queen were far rarer and more precious than high-maintenance blonde glamour.
'And this is the last bit of beige in the whole place. It's got to go,' she'd added, opening the tin of paint and breathing in, as if the salty tang of the sea would drift out, scenting the air with memories of a foreign beach.
They'd bought the apartment two years ago and the previous owners had been keen on beige, beige and more beige. It was like living in a can of mushroom soup, said Maggie, who'd grown up in a quirky house on Summer Street where her bedroom had been sky blue with stars on the midnight-blue ceiling. Dad had been going through his planetarium phase and the stars had been in their correct places too. Ursa Major and Ursa Minor would not be the wrong way round when Dennis Maguire was in charge.
The cloakroom in the Galway apartment was the last room Maggie had painstakingly redecorated. Now it was all cheery blues and whites, like a small beachside restaurant from their last holiday, a glorious, special-offer week in the Seychelles. Holidays had been off the agenda for the past few months as they were broke but Maggie had an almost physical longing for the feeling of sweltering sun toasting her skin while her toes wriggled in sand.
We need a break, she thought as she stepped out of the lift on to their floor. Sun, sand and no conversations with irritated students when they'd discovered that the very book they needed for that night's rush-job essay on Greco-Roman funerary practices wasn't in its place.
Grey was a politics lecturer and Maggie was one of six librarians in the vast, modern Coolidge College library, a job she loved because it allowed her mind to wander over many varied subjects from medicine to literature. The downside was that pre-exams the stress levels of the students went up and people who'd spent six months working on the formula for the perfect Long Island Iced Tea to fuel a party suddenly required actual research materials for their courses. And Maggie was the one they got mad at when the research material in question was booked out by someone else.
'But, like, I need it today,' a radiantly pretty brunette girl had said only that morning, slim fingers raking through her hair, which irritatingly made her look even better. What hair product did she use? Maggie wondered briefly but didn't ask.
Instead, she said, 'I'm really sorry but I can't help you. We've only two copies and they're both booked out every day for the next week. You've got to make arrangements in advance with some textbooks.'
'Well, thank you very much,' snapped the girl sarcastically. 'You've been a great help, I must say.' And she marched off in high dudgeon.
'You can't win 'em all,' commiserated her colleague Shona. 'Still, she's not like the back of
a bus, so she can always sleep with her prof if the going gets tough.'
'Shona! That's so sexist. I thought you were reading The Female Eunuch?
'I did and it's marvellous, but I'm on to the new Jackie Collins now. I know Germaine Greer wouldn't approve, but I'd have slept with my prof if it'd have improved my degree,' countered Shona wistfully. 'He was sex on legs, so it wouldn't have been a hardship.' Shona's degree had been in European Literature. 'When he talked about the Heart of Darkness that was in all of us, I swear, I felt a shiver run right down my spine into my knickers.'
Shona was, in fact, happily married but she was an irrepressible flirt and batted her eyelashes at every passing cute guy, despite many weary conversations with the head librarian about appropriate behaviour in the workplace. 'Just because I've eaten doesn't mean I can't look at the menu,' was her motto.
Fortunately her husband Paul, whom she adored and would never cheat on, was merely amused by all this.
'Professors don't have sex with students, except in the fevered imaginations of people like you,' Maggie retorted. 'Besides, she's in third-year history. Have you seen Prof Wolfowitz? Brilliant, yes. Beddable, no. He is totally bald except for that one eyebrow. Every time I see him, I want to pluck a few of the middle hairs out and give him two eyebrows instead of one.'
'Maggie, Maggie,' sighed Shona. 'The eyebrow is immaterial. Sleeping your way to success has precisely nothing to do with how good-looking the powerful person is. You may wear scuffed cowboy boots and a tough attitude, but you're Haven't-a-Clue Barbie at heart. You don't have a calculating bone in your body apart
from the one hot Dr Grey Stanley puts there, of course.' Shona laughed like a drain at her own joke.
Maggie groaned. She was used to Shona by now. They'd become fast friends from the moment they'd met on Maggie's first day in the library, where she discovered that her new friend's second degree subject was indubitably Teasing: Honours Module. Now Maggie leaned over and swatted Shona on the arm with her ruler. 'Brat.'
'Haven't-a-Clue Barbie.'
'Slapper.'
'Oh, thank you,' Shona said, pretending to preen. She was impossible to shock. 'Shona O'Slapper, I like that. Now, can you swap shifts with me? I know you're on till six tonight, but I'll do it and you can go early if you'll do tomorrow afternoon for me? You could spend another hour honing your body in Extreme Fatness,' she wheedled. Shona had accompanied Maggie to the gym once and hated it, hence the new name.
'Are you and Paul going out?' inquired Maggie.
'I'm providing a shoulder to cry on,' Shona informed her. 'Ross has broken up with Johann.' Ross was a hairdresser who lived in the apartment
below Shona and Paul, providing the perfect opportunity for Shona's fag-haggery and giving Paula chance to watch football on the television while she and Ross sat in the apartment below, rewatching old Will & Grace episodes and bitching happily.
'He's inconsolable, even though he whined all the time they were going out about how insensitive Johann was and how he didn't like Nureyev.' Nureyev was Ross's beloved pet, a lop-eared rabbit, who was spoiled beyond belief and had his own Vuitton bunny carrier as well as a purple velvet collar with his name spelled out in diamante. He lived in luxury in Ross's Philippe Starck-style kitchen and was house-trained to use a cat litter box. 'Nobody's ever truly gorgeous until they dump you, right? We're partying to get him over it.' 'On a Wednesday?'
'Woe's day, sweetie, as the ancient Danes would say. It's apt.'
'Who's looking after Nureyev?'
'We're going to leave the Discovery channel on
for him. He loves all those shows about meerkats.'
Maggie was still laughing at the idea of the
rabbit sulkily glued to the television when she got
to her own front door and pulled out her keys.
The mortice lock was undone. Grey must have
got home early, she thought with a smile. That was
good, they could have a blissfully long evening
together. Good call, Maguire, she thought as she let
herself in. Sometimes a girl's gotta know when to miss stretching on a mat so she can stretch on a bed. And for all of his intellectual cool, Grey knew some pelvic contortions the Pilates teacher had never taught. It was funny though, Grey was supposed to be at a meeting perhaps
it had been cancelled?
'Shouldn't be too late, honey,' Grey had said on the phone earlier. 'You've got your class tonight so I'll pick up That food on the way home.' Grey believed in sharing cooking duties, although he preferred takeout to actual slaving and stirring with wooden spoons.
Inside the apartment, Maggie heard muted noises coming from the apartment's lone bedroom. Grey must be watching the TV, she thought, and, shedding her possessions as she went, handbag on to the floor, jacket on the couch, she crossed the small living room, went down the hall and pushed their bedroom door open.
The door was still swinging open when Maggie stopped on the threshold, frozen.
Grey was on the bed, naked and lying underneath a woman, also naked.
The woman's hair hung like a silken curtain, erotically half covering a lingerie-model body with a hand-span waist and high, perfect C-cup breasts. Three mouths opened in surprise. Maggie twisted her head sideways to try to get the scene to make sense. It was like a clever illustration in a psychoanalyst's office, a bizarre, mind-bending scene designed to make you question everything you knew: what's wrong with this picture?
Well, Doctor, that's our bed with our duvet tangled up on the floor, and my side table pretty much the way I left it this morning with a book open on it. And there's the photo of me and Grey outside the cathedral in Barcelona, but in the bed, there's this strange blonde girl with an unbelievable body arched over my boyfriend who has -well, had an
erection. And there really is no other explanation for this apart from the obvious.
'Maggie, I'm so sorry, I never meant you to see, I wouldn't hurt you for anything,' Grey said urgently, wriggling out from under the blonde girl so fast that she squealed.
Maggie didn't answer him. She couldn't. She just stared in disbelief.
Politicians were supposed to be excellent at wriggling out of embarrassing situations. Perhaps Grey taught that, too, along with analysis of world power structures and globalisation.
Bile rose in Maggie's throat and she turned without a word and ran to the tiny cloakroom she'd decorated with such pride. Student. That girl had to be one of Grey's students. Someone who'd possibly stood in the college library and looked calculatingly at Maggie sitting at the research desk, pleased to realise that her rival was older. Perhaps wondering what Grey saw in thirty-year-old Maggie with her tangle of wild hair when he could have a twenty-one-year-old with a silken mane like a hair commercial, and a va-va-voom figure with the peach-bloom skin of youth.
Students were always getting crushes on Grey. The two of them joked about it, because it seemed so funny, despite Shona's stories. Grey was miles away from the image of a fusty academic with woolly hair, badly fitting jackets and mismatched socks. When they had first met, five years previously, when she was finding her feet in the city, Maggie herself had found it hard to believe he held a doctorate in political science. At a start-of-term college party, he'd stood out among the soberly dressed professorial types. He wore jeans, and, around his neck, a couple of narrow leather coils from which hung a piece of obsidian that glittered like his cloudy grey eyes. Maggie had heard of Dr Grey Stanley, a brilliant thinker who'd resisted attempts by various political leaders to advise their parties and who was the author of several widely read articles on the state of the country. Nobody had mentioned how jaw-droppingly handsome he
was.
'Hey, Red,' he'd said, tangling long fingers in the tendrils of her auburn hair. 'Can I get you a glass of the vinegar that passes for wine round here?'
Maggie, tomboy extraordinaire whose shoulder-length hair was one of her few concessions to femininity, would normally have given the death glare to any strange guy who dared to touch her. But this man, all heat and masculinity so close to her, made it hard to breathe, never mind shoot murderous glares. She exhaled, suddenly glad she'd
worn the black camisole that hung low on her small breasts, the fabric starkly dark against her milky white skin. Her skin was true redhead type, so white it was almost blue, she sometimes joked.
Grey stared at her as if milky white with a smattering of tiny freckles was his favourite colour combination. The party in a draughty hall on the Coolidge College campus was full of fascinating, clever people with IQs that went off the scale, and he'd chosen her. Even now, no matter how many times Shona told her she was beautiful and that Grey Stanley was lucky to have her, Maggie shook her head in denial. It was the other way round, she knew.
'Maggie
As she slammed the cloakroom door shut and slid the lock, she heard Grey's anxious voice outside. He rarely called her Red any more. Red was the girl he'd fallen in love with, the feisty redhead who was fiercely independent, who needed nobody in her life, thank you very much. She was so different from the Park Avenue Princesses, she must have struck him as a challenge he couldn't resist. But five years of coupledom had surgically removed her independence and now, she realised, she had become like a tiger in a zoo: lazily captive and unable to survive in the wild.
She leaned over the toilet bowl and the cloudy remains of her lunchtime chicken wrap came up. Again and again, she retched until there was nothing left in her except loss and fear.
She was the old Maggie again, the one who hadn't yet learned to hide her anxiety under an armour of feistiness. Stupid Maggie who'd never imagined that Grey would cheat on her. Just like Stupid Maggie from years ago. It was a shock to feel like that again. She was so sure she'd left it all behind her. The memory of those years in St Ursula's, when her life had been one long torment of bullying, came to her. She'd had four years of hell at the hands of the bullies and it had marked her for ever. Now she was right back there reeling
from the shock, sick with fear.
When she could retch no more, she sank on to the floor. From this unusual vantage point, the bathroom had turned out well, she realised. The colours were so pretty and it was so carefully done. Even Grey had said so.
'You're wasted in the college library,' he'd laughed the day she finished it. 'You should have your own decorating business. The Paint Queen: specialising in no-hope projects. Your dad could consult.' Grey had seen and admired the planetarium ceiling in her old bedroom in the house on Summer Street.
'Lovely,' he'd said and joked that her parents were sweetly eccentric despite their outwardly conservative appearance.
Grey's parents were both lawyers, now divorced. He'd grown up with money, antiques and housekeepers. She couldn't imagine his French-cuff-wearing father ever doing something as hands-on
as painting stars on the ceiling for his son. Or his mother, she of the perfect blonde bob, professionally blow-dried twice a week, breathlessly explaining about winning €75 in the lottery and planning what she'd do with the money, the way Maggie's mum had.
'My parents are not eccentric,' Maggie had told Grey defensively. 'They're just enthusiastic, interested in things . . .'
'I know, honey.' Grey had been contrite. 'I love your mum and dad. They're great.'
But it occurred to her that Grey had been right. Her parents weren't worldly or astute. They were endlessly naive, innocents abroad, and they'd brought her up to be just like them. Blindly trusting,
She put her head on her knees and tried not to think about anything. Numb the brain. Concentrate on a candle burning. Wasn't that the trick?
There was noise outside in the hall, muffled speech, the front door slamming. Grey's voice, low and anxious, saying: 'Maggie, come out, please. We should talk, honey.'
She didn't reply. He didn't try to open the door but she was glad it was locked. She had absolutely no idea of what she'd say to him if she saw him. There was silence for a while.
After half an hour, he returned, sounding harder this time, more lecturer than contrite boyfriend. 'I'm going out to get us some That takeout. You can't sit in there all night.'
'I can!' shrieked Maggie, roused to yell at him with an unaccustomed surge of temper. How dare he tell her what she could and couldn't do.
'You can stay in there all night,' Grey said patiently, in the voice he used to explain difficult concepts to stupid people at parties, 'if that's what you want to do, but you ought to come out and eat something. I won't be long.' The front door slammed again.
Gone to phone his nubile student, perhaps? To say that Maggie would get over it and then it would be business as usual.
We'll have to use your place instead of mine.
Grey mightn't like it so much if he had to bonk his lover in some grotty student digs, though. He liked the smooth crispness of clean sheets, a power shower and wooden floors where you could comfortably walk barefoot without wondering how many other zillions of people had walked barefoot on it before, shedding flakes of dry skin. He'd been brought up in luxury. Before she'd met Grey, Maggie had known nothing of the world of Egyptian cotton sheets with a 400-thread count. To her, sheets came in only two varieties: fitted and flat.
Maggie stuck her ear up against the door and listened. Nothing. She unlocked the door, came out and looked around the apartment, thinking that it no longer looked like the home of her dreams, only an identikit apartment trying hard to be elegant and different, but still looking exactly like its neighbours.
Everything she had achieved had been done on a budget, from the bargain basement African-inspired coffee table to the Moroccan silk cushion covers she'd bought on a street stall and which were now woolly with loose threads. Despite the kudos of being an ultra-clever doctor of studies whose lectures were always packed, Grey wasn't paid well.
The library paid less. But Maggie was used to not having money. She'd grown up that way. Making do, managing: they were the words she'd lived with as a child. There had been great happiness in her home, for all the lack of hard cash and the shiny new things some of the other girls had. Money wasn't important to her. Love, security, safety, happiness were. She'd tried so hard to make their home beautiful, the heart of their love. What a waste of time that had been.
Sinking down on the low couch, still numb, she wondered what she should do next. Storm off? Or wait for Grey so she could rage at him that since he'd cheated, he should be the one to go.
Maggie's Guide to Life didn't cover this one.
He'd tell her not to be stupid. She could almost hear him saying it, in measured tones that made any argument he laid out sound entirely plausible.
Honestly, Maggie, listen to yourself. There's absolutely no point in being hasty. Think about this, don't give in to some primitive emotional response. It was just sex.
Just sex. One of Grey's endlessly philosophising colleagues had probably written a paper on the subject: how just sex was occasionally justifiable. If the partner in question was away; if the potential bonkee was particularly gorgeous; if nobody would ever know.
Even with her eyes open, Maggie could still see Grey and the blonde on her bed, imagine it all: the blonde's moans of pleasure as she rose to orgasm; Grey saying: 'Oh baby, oh baby, that's so good.' The words he murmured to Maggie, her words. But they'd never be truly hers again.
Although there was nothing left inside her stomach, Maggie felt she might be sick again. No, she wouldn't wait for him to explain it to her. Grabbing her handbag from where she'd dropped it so happily what felt like a lifetime ago, she ran out of the apartment. If she was somewhere else, a place where every single ornament didn't remind her of Grey, she might be able to work out what she'd do next. A bus was coming down the road, the bus to Salthill where she could walk on the beach. Without hesitation she ran to the stop and got on.
CHAPTER FIVE
On Summer Street, the sun had shifted in the afternoon sky. Christie Devlin's back garden was bathed in a golden glow that lit up the velvety roses and turned the cream-coloured trellises a glittering white. It was the sort of afternoon Christie loved.
James had phoned to say he'd caught an earlier train and should be home by seven instead of nine. The postman had arrived with a late-afternoon bounty of the gadget catalogues Christie loved to devour at night, picking out useful things she'd buy if she could afford them. The dogs, too tired of the heat to clamour for another walk, were content to lie in the shade of the kitchen door, dreaming happily, two sets of paws twitching.
Sitting on her tiny terrace with a cup of iced tea, Christie was supposed to be marking art history essays for tomorrow morning, but she couldn't concentrate.
The heat, the glory of her garden, James coming home early, none of it mattered. Nothing except the fear that sat hard and stone-like in the pit of her stomach, telling her there was something very wrong.
In her kitchen seven houses away, Una Maguire was standing on a chair looking for a spare tin of baking powder in the larder cupboard beside the fridge. She'd decided to bake a Victoria sponge for the church fair and there had been only a scraping of powder in the old tin.
'Dennis, have you been at my cupboards again?' she yelled good-humouredly at her husband. It was a joke. As their daughter, Maggie, was well aware, Dennis Maguire barely knew how to open the cupboards in the kitchen and his only domestic duty was washing and drying. He never put away the dishes he'd dried. Una did that.
For years, it had been Maggie's job in the production line of washing and drying, but she was long gone with her own life, and the duty fell to Una again.
'Never touched them,' Dennis yelled back from the living room where he was putting the final touches to the model of a Spitfire that had taken two weeks to complete. The construction was entirely accurate: Dennis had checked in his Jane's Aircraft Guide.
'Don't believe you,' teased back Una, overreaching past a pack of semolina because she was sure she'd seen the red metallic glint of the baking powder tin. With a swiftness that surprised her,
the chair tilted, she lost her footing and fell to the floor, her left leg crumpling underneath her.
The pain was as shocking as it was instantaneous. Cruelly sharp, like a blade neatly inserted.
'Dennis,' whimpered Una, knowing that she'd done something serious. 'Dennis, come quickly.'
In the comfort of her bedroom at number 18 Summer Street, Amber Reid lay in her boyfriend's arms and heard the sound of the ambulance droning up the street to the Maguires' house. Amber had no interest in looking out the window to see what had happened. The world didn't exist outside the tangled sheets of her bed, still warm from their lovemaking.
'What are you thinking?' she asked Karl.
She couldn't help herself, even though every magazine she'd ever read said that this sort of question was a Bad Idea. She didn't think she was a needy person, but there was something about this intimate moment after lovemaking, that made her want to know. She'd been a physical part of Karl. She wanted to be inside his head too, inside for ever, always a part of him.
'Nothing. Except how beautiful you are.'
Karl shifted, laying his leg over hers, trapping her.
As fresh heat swelled in her belly, Amber realised that there was nothing more erotic than the feeling of naked skin against naked skin. Just lying there after the most incredible lovemaking was almost beyond description.
She ran questing fingers along his powerful chest, feeling the curve of his muscles, the sensitive nubs of his nipples, so different from hers.
She'd seen men's bodies before, but never fully naked except on a canvas or on a plinth carved from finest Carrara marble. And marble felt different from the warm, living beauty of a man's body beside hers, inside hers. Desire rushed through her veins again. Why had nobody told her lovemaking could be like this? All those talks about pregnancy, AIDS and being emotionally ready, nobody had said how utterly addictive it all was.
'We should get up,' Karl said. 'It's after six. Your mother will be home soon.'
Half six, Amber had said. Her mother ran her life on a strict schedule. Half six home, change out of her office suit by 6.35, dinner on the table -pre-prepared from the night before, obviously -by seven.
Amber used to love the comfort of their evening routine. It made home seem like a refuge. No matter how much life changed in the outside world, her mother put dinner on the table at seven. But lately, Amber found herself telling Ella that when she moved out of home, she'd never have a schedule as rigid as her mother's as long as she lived. Life was about being a free spirit, not a slave to the clock or the powers of good kitchen cleaning products, or having to hear the oft-repeated phrase 'a good education and you can go anywhere, Amber'.
Right now, education suddenly seemed so boring. Her mother's view of life was stifling and there was no escape from it. And Mum would hate Karl, who was a free spirit, would hate his intrusion into their tightly run lives. It wouldn't be the two of them any more. It would be a different twosome, Amber decided firmly: her and Karl.
She slithered over until she was astride Karl, her long tawny mane a tangle over his lightly tanned shoulders. 'We don't have to get up,' she said, smiling. 'We've ages yet.'
There was so much they could do in that precious twenty minutes.
'And if my mother arrives home early, you can always hop out the back window and climb down the flat roof of the kitchen.'
Her mother was still paying off the credit union loan for the kitchen extension, a fact that often brought a worried look to her face.
Money: that was another subject Amber never wanted to worry about again, along with timetables and exams. Karl was going to be a famous musician and they'd have loads of money. Enough to pay off her mother's debts, enough to buy anything Amber wanted.
Just once, she'd love the thrill of shopping and never looking at the price tag. Wouldn't it be glorious to spend without worrying or feeling guilty over it?
'The neighbours will call the cops if they see a strange bloke hop out of your bedroom on to the kitchen roof and down the lane.' Karl put both hands around her waist and splayed his fingers.
Amber was proud of her tiny waist. She'd inherited her mother's hourglass figure, although, thank God, she hadn't inherited her total lack of interest in looking good. Her mother wouldn't have been seen dead in the clothes Amber wore: slivers of vintage fabric that barely covered her breasts, low-rise jeans that revealed more than a hint of bare skin. Mum just never bothered making herself look good or showing off her waist.
Amber arched her back as Karl's fingers moved up to cradle her ribcage. She didn't want him to go. They had plenty of time.
'Everyone's at work or cooking kids' dinners,' she said, feeling sympathy for anyone engaged in such boring duties. 'Nobody will see you.'
There was only one person on the street who might possibly know she had phoned in sick to school and might wonder at her having a strange guy in the house, and that was Mrs Devlin.
Amber approved of Christie Devlin, even if she was old and, therefore, should be totally wrinkly, boring and incapable of remembering what it was like to feel alive. For all Christie's silver hair, she had a way of looking at Amber that said she knew what was going on in the girl's head. Scary. Amber wondered if Christie would know by looking at her that Amber had just had the most incredible sex of her life.
Losing-her-virginity sex. She'd nearly done it
eighteen months ago, with cute but dopey Liam, who was a friend of Ella's youngest brother. She'd called a halt to the proceedings just in time. Liam's hand was burrowing into her jeans and she'd realised that she was about to have sex with a guy just to see what it was like rather than because she would die then and there if she didn't.
A woman had the right to say no at any point, her mother had said in one of her talks about sex.
'Whaddya mean, you don't want to after all?' demanded Liam, who clearly didn't agree with Amber's mother on the whole issue of coitus interruptus.
'I mean no,' said Amber. 'No means no. Got it?'
And although Liam hadn't spoken to her since not
a big worry she
was glad she'd said no when she did. Imagine having to live your whole life knowing you'd lost your virginity to an ordinary guy like Liam when you could have the memory of a man like Karl Evans?
This was sex with a man of the world, a twenty-five-year-old man with a future. He was her future. She was going to travel the world with him and discover life, with a big L. She'd be eighteen in less than three weeks. She could do what she wanted then. Nobody could stop her.
'So you'll come with us?' he asked, returning to the subject they'd discussed earlier, before they'd fallen into bed. 'If we're going to work with a producer in New York, we'll be gone at least six months. I'd hate to be away from you. I couldn't bear that.'
'I'd hate to be away from you too,' Amber answered, stroking his skin with exploring fingers.
This was love. Pure contentment flowed through her veins. Karl was so crazy about her that he wanted her to travel with his band to America to record their album.
He needed her, he said. He'd been writing songs like a man possessed since they'd met. 'You're my muse,' he'd said.
And Amber, who'd been told all her life how talented and special she was, believed him. She and Karl: they were the twosome now.
As the ambulance carted Una Maguire and her frantic husband Dennis off to hospital, Amber gazed at her lover with shining, besotted eyes and imagined all the wonderful times they'd have. Her mother would flip when she discovered Amber wasn't going to art college after all, but Amber was an adult now, wasn't she? She could do what she liked. That, surely, was the point of all those years of 'you have the power to do what you want' conversations. Amber would do what she wanted and although she hated hurting her mum, Faye would have to live with it.
Faye left work early so she could dash into the mini-market near home and pick up a few last-minute bits. They were out of basmati rice and she'd defrosted a home-cooked vegetarian korma the night before.
Ordinary rice wouldn't work, it had to be basmati.
Near the checkout, she dallied briefly by the ranks of magazines and papers. She loved the interior decoration magazines but they were all so expensive, so she didn't splash out very often. But she felt weary this evening, and the house felt lonely when Amber was upstairs at her desk bent over old exam papers. Faye could do with a treat. Finally choosing a magazine with a supplement on bedrooms, she looked down and her eye was caught by the lead story in the local free newspaper.
Developer's Deal With Council: 25 Apartments in Summer St Park
She picked it up and moved to the checkout.
'They must have got it wrong. They can't be talking about the park here, opposite my house?' she said to the cashier.
That's the one,' the woman said, scanning the groceries. 'Shame to rip up that lovely little park. I don't know how they get away with that type of thing. There won't be a bit of green left around here if the developers get their way.'
'But it's tiny,' Faye protested. 'And surely nobody's allowed to buy an actual park?'
A queue appeared behind her and Faye was in too much of a rush to stop to read the story, so she stuffed the paper into the top of her grocery
bag and left. In her car, she read it all quickly with mounting horror.
The pavilion in the park was falling down and the council had decided to sell it, and the half-acre of land that accompanied it, to a developer in return for the developer building another park and a community centre on a sliver of waste ground a mile away.
'We're not tearing up the park,' insisted a council spokesperson. 'The park is staying. The pavilion was never part of the park. People just thought it was. We've every right to sell it because we can't afford to renovate it and it's dangerous, besides. Summer Street will still have its park.'
Except that it will be half the size and have a dirty big apartment block cutting out the sun, Faye thought furiously.
She drove home angrily. Amber would be just as annoyed to hear about this, she loved that little park. Honestly, why did things have to change all the time?
The evening walkers were out in force when Maggie left the beach at Salthill and got the bus back into the city. The bus was only half full and she sat a few seats behind a group of schoolgirls still in uniform.
Half listening to their chatter, she stared listlessly out the window. She'd come to no conclusions because she couldn't think about Grey. Her mind refused to cooperate, racing off on ideas of
its own. She had to work late the next evening instead of Shona. Were they out of coffee? Should she and Grey go to see the new Pixar film? Anything was better than thinking about what had just happened.
From the depths of her handbag, her mobile phone rang. On auto-pilot, Maggie retrieved it, saw that her father was calling and clicked answer.
'Dad,' she said, managing to sound bright. Her entire world hadn't just crashed and burned, no. All was well. Faking happiness wasn't
that what communicating with your parents was all about?
'What's up, Dad?'
'Hello, love, it's your mum.'
Maggie's hand flew to her chest.
'She's in hospital, she's broken her leg.'
A breath Maggie didn't know she'd been holding was released. 'I thought you were going to tell me something terrible,' she whispered, cupping her forehead in one hand with relief.
'It is terrible,' he went on. 'Your mother insisted they did a bone density scan in the middle of it all, and it seems she's got osteoporosis. The doctor says he doesn't know why she hasn't broken bones before.' Her father had to stop talking for a moment and gulped. 'I don't know what to do, Maggie. You know how your mum copes with everything and all, but she's taking this badly. She keeps saying she's fine but she's been crying. Your mother crying.'
He sounded shocked. Una Maguire could see the silver lining in every cloud and had taught her daughter that a smile was easier to achieve than a frown. Mum never cried, except at films where a child was hurt or the dog died.
'Maggie, I know it's not fair but could you come home for a couple of days ... ?'
Maggie could imagine her father standing obediently outside the hospital entrance, not using his mobile phone inside as per the instructions on the hospital walls, even though nobody else obeyed them.
Dad, with his wide-open eyes, his few strands of hair and his endearing inability to deal with daily life to the extent that Maggie felt he ought to wear permanent L-plates. Dad, who'd never seen her mum cry over anything.
'I'll be home tomorrow,' she said. 'Don't worry about a thing.'
It was, after all, the solution to everything.
You're running away, said a voice in her head: a voice that sounded remarkably like Shona when she was in Dr Phil mode. Shona loved Dr Phil and felt that America's favourite television doctor's principles could be applied to every life situation.
Are you doing the right thing? Ask yourself that. Would you advise a friend in a similar situation to do what you're doing? Will running away solve your problem? Dr Phil asked all the right questions and so did Shona.
No, no and no. Maggie knew the answers. But
Dr Phil hadn't the benefit of Maggie Maguire's Guide to Life.
Don't stuff your bra to make your A-cups look like B-cups. Boys won't get close enough to notice but nasty girls from school will. Nobody wants to be No-Tit Maguire for a whole month, as Maggie knew from experience.
Guys who say things like 'I've never met anyone like you' are not lying, exactly, but probably don't mean it the way you think they do.
Maggie had a new piece of advice to add to the Guide:
When in doubt, put your running shoes on. Nothing will improve but at least you don't have to stare your defeat in the face on a daily basis. And if you can't see it, surely it can't be there?
In a trendy little internet cafe close to the apartment, she ordered a latte and a session on the web. Flicking through flights to Dublin, she found one that left the following afternoon, giving her time to pack as well as to negotiate with the library for emergency leave. When she'd booked it, she knew there was only one more big task left: to go home and say goodbye to Grey.
Goodbye Grey, I'm going and we're selling up so you'll have to take your jail bait somewhere else from now on. No, too bitter.
Bye, Grey, I'm going home to Dublin for a while to think. You cheating son of a bitch. Again, too bitter.
Maybe she ought to stick at Goodbye, Grey.
When she got back to the apartment, Grey and the remains of a That meal were both in the living-room area. Maggie didn't feel even mildly hungry.
The words 'You lying, cheating bastard' ran round in her head like a washing machine on final spin.
'Hello,' she said. See, not bitter.
'Honey.' Grey leapt off the couch and went to touch her, but the frozen look in Maggie's eyes stopped him. They stood several feet apart, staring at each other, misery on both their faces.
'I am so sorry,' Grey said, and he sounded it.
He honestly was sorry. But sorry that he'd had sex with a stunning blonde student or sorry he'd been caught? Bastard.
'I love you. You might not believe that, but I do.'
Then why did you do it?' Maggie asked. She hadn't meant to ask anything, had meant to tell him bluntly she was going home for a while. But the question had shot out of her mouth before she could stop it.
Grey's gaze didn't falter, she had to give him that. 'I don't know,' he said dismally. 'She was there, I could have her ... it sounds dumb, but I still love you, Maggie. You're different, special.'
The spinning washing machine still kept rattling out 'lying, cheating bastard' as Maggie struggled to make sense of Grey's words. Her heart was broken and this was his sticking plaster?
'She was there? Is that your only excuse, Grey? She was bloody well there? If I'm so special, why would you even want to make love with someone else whether she was there or not? If I'm so special, then you wouldn't want to look crossways at another woman, never mind screw one in our bed. IN OUR BED!'
He looked taken aback at this. Maggie was not a shouter.
'It wasn't making love, it was sex. It's not what you and I have. That's . . .'
'Don't tell me,' she snapped, 'special.' Infidelity must have a previously undetected side effect of robbing people of their linguistic skills. Even Grey. She had never known Grey to run out of words before.
'I'm not explaining it correctly,' he began.
'Oh yes, you are, and it still doesn't make sense. You're the one who says he's logical, I'm supposed to be the klutzy one who forgets her bank card numbers and can't program her mobile phone.' Maggie knew her voice was rising but she couldn't help it. If Grey was tongue-tied, her word power was on 110 per cent. 'So how can you come up with such an illogical explanation? If I'm so different and special, you shouldn't want sex or love with anyone other than me. Simple. QED. That's what I thought I was getting when we moved in together: fidelity, monogamy, no threesomes. Did I miss the briefing where you said we'd sleep with other people? Or were you just lying through
your teeth when you said that I was the sort of woman you wanted, not a pneumatic blonde like all your previous girlfriends?'
'I wasn't lying and I do believe in fidelity, really,' Grey said helplessly. He sat on the edge of the armchair, running a hand through his hair. He had such long, sensitive fingers, like a pianist, fingers that could elicit a ready response from Maggie. He still looked handsome and desirable, with sexily rumpled hair as if he'd been so lost in his books he had forgotten to comb it. Maggie, who spent all her time surrounded by books, had always found this combination of brains and beauty utterly captivating. She could totally understand Ms Peachy Skin wanting to sleep with him. Grey was gorgeous, clever, and powerful within his sphere, all wrapped up in one package.
Just not faithful.
'I love you, Grey, I don't look at other men,' she said. 'I don't think about anyone else but you, I almost don't see anyone else but you. If there was anyone else there, if Brad Pitt and George Clooney and Wesley Snipes and anyone else you can think of were there for the taking, you know what?' She paused. 'I'd still say no.'
'I know, I'm sorry, so sorry.' The long piano-player's fingers ran through his hair again and for a flicker of an instant, Maggie thought of his hands running through the girl's hair in the throes of passion, twisting it and pulling gently like he did with Maggie.
'I love your hair,' he'd mutter when they were naked together. Maggie almost never cut it now. Grey loved its length lying tangled on the pillow as he hung over her, cradling her face before he kissed her. He thought she was feminine and sexy, things Maggie had never felt in her life until he'd come along and made her feel them. Now he'd taken all that away.
When her mother or Shona or other people said she was beautiful, she didn't believe them. They loved her, they were being kind to her. But when Grey said it, she had believed him. He made her beautiful because she glowed from being with him.
That he had so much power over her made her feel helpless now. Going back to the sort of woman he'd had before her made it a double betrayal a
blonde with curves that Maggie would never have. She felt so hurt that she wanted to hurt him too.
'You're lying. You're not sorry, only sorry I got home early and ruined it all. You screwed her. In, Our. Bed,' she said slowly. 'That's not love and respect.' She paused. 'Were there others?'
A strange look touched his face briefly, a look of sheer guilt, and it was gone so quickly that only someone who loved his face and knew it in every mood would have noticed. But Maggie was that person. She noticed.
'No,' he said. She didn't believe him.
The armchair seemed to rise up to greet her. Collapsing into it, she hugged her knees to her chest, a gesture that said 'keep out'.
There had been others, of that she was sure and she wasn't strong enough to hear about them. Her mother was ill, crying and not coping. Her father was asking for her help. Maggie's world was topsy-turvy
'Just tell me, what's so hard about fidelity?' she whispered, afraid she knew the answer.
It had to be her fault. This confirmed what she'd known all along. She'd always felt lucky to have Grey, astonished that he was with her.
Someone like Grey could manage faithfulness with other people, with one of those icy blondes, but not with her. For one of those women, the right sort of wife for a man with a political future in front of him, he'd have got married. But Maggie obviously wasn't the right sort of wife for him. She was an experiment between the Carolyn Bessette Kennedy types, the trophy women. She wasn't worth giving up other women for. That was what this was all about.
The demons of anxiety and the self-doubt she'd grown up with rushed back howling into her mind and it was as if they'd never been away.
'I'm sorry, Maggie, I swear this will never happen again, never.' He looked up at her but Maggie was away in her head, remembering the years when she'd lived with a permanent clench of anxiety in her gut.
Sunday nights were the worst, when the weekend was careening to an end and Monday loomed, Monday with Sandra Brody and her taunting crew
who'd made it their mission in life to destroy Maggie Maguire. Maggie had never done anything to them but that didn't appear to matter. Maggie was the chosen scapegoat. Daily verbal torture and cruel tricks were her punishment. The self-loathing because
it had to be her fault, hadn't it? felt
just like it did now.
'I'm sorry, Maggie,' Grey repeated. 'I don't know why I did it. I wouldn't hurt you for the world.'
'Really?' she asked with a bitter laugh. Why was he bothering to pretend? She'd prefer it if he told her the truth: that he loved her but just not enough. She wasn't quite good enough.
'You're different, Maggie,' Grey began and sat at her feet, pulling both her hands from around her knees, trying to make her hold him. 'I love you, I never meant to hurt you. I am so, so sorry. Can't you forgive me?'
She whisked her hands away, but he laid his dark head on her chair, pleading, imploring. It would be so easy to reach out and touch him, make it all go away and start again. Go on holiday, sell the apartment, move somewhere else, anything to paper over the crack. Maggie felt her fingers reach out, an inch away from brushing the softness of his hair.
Marriage that
would be the ultimate Band-Aid. A sign that they were together despite it all. Her mum would love it if she got married. Poor Mum, always hoping for the fairytale ending for her daughter. But Grey had never discussed marriage with her. Perhaps she wasn't worth that, either.
Maggie's hand stilled on its way to his hair. She could forgive Grey, she could forgive him almost anything. But then it would happen again. Other women, who'd work at the university and pity her, understanding that a prince like Grey wouldn't be satisfied with just one woman. That was the price a woman like Maggie had to pay to be with a man like Grey. Why hadn't she realised that there was a trade-off, a price?
She pulled her hand away. She couldn't pay that price.
Suddenly, her running shoes seemed very inviting. Even home, the confines of Summer Street where her life had never been storybook perfect, was better than this.
It was familiar, somewhere she could lick her wounds. Shona and Dr Phil were probably wrong about running away. Now, staying was the hard option and running was easy.
Christie had cooked a beautiful goulash by the time she heard James's key in the lock.
Goulash in honour of her dear Hungarian friend, Lenkya, who'd once said, 'You can kill a man or cure him in the kitchen.' This had been nearly forty years before, when Christie's culinary expertise extended to making porridge or boiling eggs.
'Cooking is the heart of the home and is the
place where the woman is queen,' Lenkya pointed
out in the husky Hungarian accent that would
have made the phone book sound fascinating,
should she ever want to recite it.
Lenkya had lived below Christie in a house on
Dunville Avenue that contained a veritable warren
of bedsits.
'If you can kill in the kitchen, I'll end up in the
dock for murder,' Christie had said merrily.
She was dark-haired then and when she and
Lenkya walked the half-mile to Ranelagh to buy
groceries, people often mistook the two women
with their flashing dark eyes, hand-span waists
and lustrous curls for sisters.
'You should learn to cook,' said Lenkya, who
could rustle up the tenderest stew from a handful
of root vegetables, a scattering of herbs and a
scraggy piece of meat. 'How have you never learned
before this? In my country, women learn to look
after themselves. I can grow vegetables, raise
chickens, kill chickens, pouf -' She twisted both
hands round an imaginary chicken's neck. 'Like
that. If you are hungry, you soon learn.'
'My mother cooked for all of us, my father, my
brothers and sister,' Christie told her. It was harder
to explain the family dynamics which meant
cooking was the only power her mother had ever
had. Under Christie's father's thumb all the time,
it was only when Maura was in front of her stove
that she was in charge. If it was possible to kill
or cure a man in the kitchen, Christie wondered
how her mother had resisted the impulse to kill
her overbearing husband.
James hadn't known Lenkya well, but he'd been
benefiting from her cooking expertise ever since.
Food was all about love, Christie knew now.
Feeding your family, giving them chicken soup
when they were sick, and apple cake to take away
the bitterness in their mouth when they were
lovelorn: that was how you could cure them. Love
and healing flew out of her kitchen into her home.
Her life was nothing like her poor mother's and
she had no need of killing.
'Hello, Christie.' James put his arms round her
and held her tightly. He smelled of the train, of
dusty streets and other people's cigarette smoke.
He looked, as he so often did these days, tired and
in need of a long, long sleep.
'Hard day?' Christie took his briefcase and
jacket, resisting the impulse to push him up to their
room, tuck him into bed and make him stay there
until the exhausted look had gone from his face.
'Ah no, fine,' he said, removing his shoes and
pulling on the old leather slippers he kept on the
second step of the stairs. 'The trip takes it out of
me, I don't know why. I'm sitting on the train half
the day, not driving, so I should be in fine fettle.'
'Travelling is exhausting,' Christie insisted. 'There's a difference between sitting in your own
armchair at home and sitting on a train at the
mercy of leaves on the track, worrying about
missing your meeting.'
'I'm hardly Donald Trump,' he joked.
'He has a limo, I'd say, so he's not at the mercy of the leaves.' Christie handed her husband a glass of iced tea. 'And someone else to drag his briefcase around after him. How did the meeting about
the emissions go?'
'We're getting there. But one of the people was sick today, so there's a chance we'll have to go through it all again.'
'For heaven's sake,' exclaimed Christie. 'Surely if they're sick, they have to catch up with the rest of you, not the other way round.'
'You know how it works, love,' said James. 'For some people, the more meetings there are, the better. Then nothing actually gets done, but lots of minutes are typed up and the department's accounts' people are kept busy printing out expenses cheques for tea and coffee. Global warming won't kill the planet: bureaucracy will,' He followed her into the kitchen and sat down on a low stool to pet the dogs, who'd been clamouring for love since he arrived.
He normally knelt on the floor to pet them, she knew. His hip must be bothering him again. Not that James would ever say so. Christie knew many women with husbands whose flu symptoms were always at least on a par with Ebola, if the patient was to be believed. She was the lone dissenting voice with a husband who never magnified his illness to the power of ten, which worried her because James could be having a heart attack in front of her and he'd probably say he had 'a bit of an ache' and that a moment sitting down would cure it. How could you look after a man like that?
'Now, what was that all about this morning?' he asked when Tilly's inner ears had been rubbed to her satisfaction and Rocket had snuffled wetly all over his shoes to establish that no other dogs had been admired that day.
'What was all what about this morning?' said Christie, feigning innocence.
'You know, the phone call when I'd only just left the house.'
'I was having an anxious day, that's all,' she relented. 'Sorry, I didn't mean to worry you but I had this awful feeling that something bad was going to happen to us.'
James pulled her over on to his knee and the dogs whimpered in outrage. This was their time for cuddling, not Christie's. Tilly stormed off to her bed to sulk.
'You can't take my weight on your hip . . .' Christie began. She knew it was stiff, she could see from the way he'd been walking that morning.
'Oh, shut up about my bloody hip, woman,' James said and held her tight. 'I love you, you daft creature, d'you know that? I love that you still worry about me.'
'Yes and I love you too, you daft man,' she replied. 'Even if your hip is aching and you won't mention it.'
'It's only a twinge.'
'I don't believe you. You'd be in agony, and you'd still say it was only a twinge. You're not impressing anybody with your stoicism,' she said crossly.
'It's not agony.'
'If your arthritis is playing up, it's not good to have me on your lap,' she said.
James laid his head against her cheek. 'The day I can't manage to have you on my lap,' he said, 'get them to shoot me.'
'They couldn't shoot you,' Christie murmured, hugging him. 'You're an endangered species.'
'Like the dodo?'
'The poor dodo's been and gone, sorry. You're more of a white tiger: rare and special.'
'You say the nicest things,' he replied, his lips close to her cheek.
'Impossible man,' sighed Christie, kissing him on the forehead and getting up. 'I made goulash.'
'Lenkya's recipe? Great, I love that.' James sat down at the table expectantly. 'Whatever happened to her? She hasn't been in touch for years, not since Ana was involved with that artist fellow and they were all here for the big exhibition in Dawson Street. Remember that? How many years ago is it?'
Christie opened her mouth but no sound came out. Fortunately the phone blistered into the silence and she leaped to answer it.
It was Jane from the Summer Street Cafe, with news that poor Una Maguire had been carted off in an ambulance after a fall.
'I knew you'd want to know,' said Jane, 'and that Dennis might not get round to telling people.' Which was a kind way of saying dear Dennis would be too flustered to brush his teeth and might need some hand-holding. Christie was good at that: calm in a crisis.
'I'll pop a note through their door telling him I'll drop in on Friday and to phone me if he needs anything before then,' Christie said and Jane hung up, knowing it was all taken care of now that Christie Devlin knew.
'Looks like your feeling of gloom was right after all,' James said as they sat down to their goulash. He'd opened a bottle of lusty red wine to go with the stew, even though it was only midweek, and they stuck pretty much to the wine only at weekends rule.
'Yes,' said Christie, thinking of the Maguires and how Dennis would cope with being the carer instead of the cared for. 'That must have been it, after all.'
But she wasn't telling the truth. Whatever dark cloud had moved over her head was still there, looming, promising bad things to come.
And James had mentioned 'that artist fellow' of Ana's, Carey Wolensky, who'd turned out to be one of the most famous painters of his generation. When James had carelessly referred to him, Christie had felt a shiver run right through her. She didn't believe in coincidence. Everything happened for a reason. There were tiny signs of
the future everywhere and only the watchful spotted them. First her anxiousness, now this mention of a man she wanted to forget. Christie was scared to think of what it might all mean: her past coming back to haunt her. Why now?
CHAPTER SIX
The next afternoon, Maggie's suitcases arrived together on the carousel. They looked shabby among some of the classier travellers' bags from the Galway to Dublin shuttle.
She hauled them off the belt with some difficulty, having murmured, 'No thanks, I'm fine,' to the man who'd leaped to offer to help the tall redhead in the trailing pale suede coat.
Her eyes were raw with crying and she kept her head down as she spoke, embarrassed by how she must look. The man probably felt sorry for her; thought she was one of those care in the community patients who rattled because of all the Xanax bottles in their pockets.
Maggie didn't need anyone feeling sorry for her today. She felt sorry enough for herself.
The first piece of luggage was the heaviest, a wardrobe-on-wheels affair that was fit to burst, only a bright purple strap preventing its internal organs splurging out over the concourse. An orange
'heavy item' sticker hung from the handle. The second was a hard candy-pink case that was a dead weight even when empty.
Grey used to joke that it had been cursed by so many baggage people, it had probably developed magical powers itself.
'If our plane ever goes down, the pink case will
be the only survivor, you wait and see,' he'd laugh.
Fresh misery assailed her at this thought of Grey
and the fabulous holidays they had saved up for
and shared before they'd bought the flat.
They'd never go away together again. Not when she'd be watching like a jailer every time he tipped a beautiful waitress or glanced at a woman on the beach. Only a fool would trust him again. Maggie was not going to be that fool. Last night she'd packed and said they'd talk later, trying to delay the inevitable argument in case she gave in.
'Would you like me to sleep on the couch?' Grey had asked, and she wanted to whisper: no, lie next to me and hold me. Tell me it'll be all right, it was a mistake, that you'll make it better.
'Yes, sleep on the couch,' she said, finding the strength from somewhere to say it.
We'll try again, I know you love me, her heart
bleated.
But her head had to do the talking. Leaving this way was easier, because if she stopped and thought about actually losing him, about not sharing her life with him, Maggie was afraid she'd relent. And her head told her that staying would destroy her, in the end.
Gulping back a fresh batch of tears, she grabbed Cursed Candy Pink and shoved it on to the luggage trolley behind Wardrobe, ignoring the interested gaze of the man who'd tried to help her. She wished he'd stop looking at her. Honestly, what was wrong with people? Couldn't a person cry in public?
On top of the trolley, she dumped her handbag, a banana-shaped black leather thing that held everything, and cleverly deposited the most vital bits right at the bottom, thus deterring both purse-snatchers and Maggie from locating her money in shops.
She wheeled her trolley hopefully past the special mirrored section, holding her breath.
On those girls-only holidays to Greece, in the pre-Grey days, the others had always trooped through customs happily clinking contraband bottles of ouzo and Metaxa brandy, while she (the only one who'd actually read the customs bit of paper about only importing 200 fags and giving notice if they'd been loitering near goats) was the one to have to unpack her case in public.
Today, fortunately, the customs people behind their two-way mirrors resisted the impulse to go through Maggie's blameless luggage.
Then she was out into arrivals, into the spotlight, where hundreds of eager people scrutinised and rejected her as they searched for whichever
special person they'd come to meet so they could wave their welcome home placards, wobble their helium balloons and scream 'hello!!!'
It brought home to Maggie that she had no special person any more. The person for whom she used to be special had cheated on her. God, it hurt.
Trying to look cool, as though she didn't care, she was thankful when her mobile rang and she could busy herself answering it.
'We're home from the hospital,' said her father happily. 'Where are you, love? Are you nearly here yet? Will I boil the kettle? Your mother can't wait to see you.'
Maggie felt the usual dual burst of affection and irritation reserved for conversations with her parents. The plane had only just landed, for heaven's sake. She'd already given Dad the details and told him to add another fifteen minutes for normal plane delays. Unless Clark Kent was bursting out of his Y-fronts in a telephone box nearby in order to whisk her off home at supersonic speed, she wouldn't reach Summer Street for another three quarters of an hour at least.
'Not quite, Dad,' she said, keeping her tone cheery. It was only because he cared. 'I've just come through arrivals.'
'Oh, right then. You'll be here in . . .'
'Less than an hour,' she said. 'See you then. Bye!'
She stuck the phone back in her jeans pocket and tried to ignore the feeling that the walls were closing in. She was back home. Back with nothing to show for five years away in Galway and the Maguire family clock always
at 'Where were you? Why didn't you phone? We were worried!' was
ticking once again.
Maggie manhandled all her worldly goods towards the door and the taxis. It was too late for the if-onlys but she went through them all the same -if only Grey hadn't screwed someone else, if only she hadn't witnessed it, if only he'd realised how much he loved her and pledged undying faithfulness instead of saying he couldn't help himself. If only she wasn't so stupid to fall for someone like him in the first place.
That's what it all came back to: her stupidity. An intelligent woman would have known that Grey, who could have had any woman, would one day stray. An intelligent woman would have got out before this happened. An intelligent woman would have made it calmly clear long beforehand that straying wasn't an option and that if he did, their relationship was over. For such a woman, Grey would have agreed.
But not for Maggie. For all that he'd said she was special, that he didn't want a pert blonde, he'd lied to her.
Now all she had to do was work out what to tell her parents. With luck, she'd have some peace on the ride home to adjust and get her story
straight. They didn't need her in tears right now, with her mother in such distress.
'. . . So you see, what the politicians don't realise is that if you have a system with toll roads, it's the people like myself who are paying for it..."
'Right, I see.'
The taxi driver's monologue was only stemmed by having to negotiate the tricky box junction just before St Kevin's Road. Since picking her up at the airport, he'd been talking at high speed about the price of property, chewing gum on car seats and now toll roads. Maggie hadn't felt able to interrupt. It would have been rude and in the grand scheme of things, there was no excuse to be rude, was there? Her mother's training had kicked in as usual.
Maggie was the one who got stuck with bores at parties, charity muggers in the street, and sweet bewildered people who wandered into the library for warmth and who ought to have been thrown out. She was too kind and too polite to say no or ignore people.
'That's what I said to that woman politician. I said: that's my opinion, Missus, and if you don't like it, don't get in my cab,' the taxi driver went on. 'Was I right to say it?' As with all the other questions he'd posed on the forty-minute trip, didn't pause for a reply. 'I was right, you see. Nobody stands up to these people. Nobody.'
The taxi turned the corner, driving slowly past the Summer Street Cafe where people sat outside at the small tables, looking as if they hadn't a care in the world. Mum and Dad loved the cafe, loved the buzz of meeting people there. Mum would listen to all the gossip and pass it eagerly on to Maggie, forgetting that she'd lived away for five years and didn't know all the people they met..
Maggie, who didn't know all of the people in her Galway apartment block and clearly didn't know her boyfriend at all, had learned that the wild-eyed Mrs Johnson was off the sauce after failing the breathalyser test one night and losing her licence, that Amber Reid, the teenage girl who lived alone with her mother lovely
woman with a big job but never too busy to bake cakes for the Vincent de Paul fundraisers was
going to art college and would be a big star one day. Christie Devlin said she was a marvellous artist, and Christie would know, wouldn't she? Look at those lovely paintings Christie had done for Una's sixtieth. Maggie knew that the carrot cake muffins in the cafe were now sugar-free; oh, and she knew that Jane and Henry in the cafe had hired this lovely Chinese waitress.
'Xu her name is, although we call her Sue, because it's almost the same. Came all the way from China by herself, brave little thing, and not knowing anybody here. She'd put us to shame,' Mum had said. 'Learning English and working at the same time, and not knowing a sinner here. It must be terrible hard to leave your country and start again.'
Maggie loved the way her mother was so interested in people. Maggie used to be like that too, she realised, before she met Grey and became so wrapped up in him that she had no space or time left for anyone else. Yet how could she be totally involved with him and still not see the obvious? Love wasn't just blind, it was lobotomised.
In the back seat of the taxi, her thoughts miles away, Maggie realised they'd passed the third of Summer Street's maple trees and suddenly they were slowing down outside her house.
'Number forty-eight you said?' the driver asked.
'Yes, thanks,' she replied.
She scrabbled in her bag to pay him.
'Cheer up, gorgeous,' he said, beaming up at her from the window, 'it might never happen.'
True to form, Maggie managed a smile.
'See ya,' she said. There was no way she was going to tell him it had already happened.
She turned and stared at number 48. Home. It was one of the 1930s houses, white with dark beams painted on the front gable and diamond-paned windows. Part of the house was covered by the bronzed leaves of a Virginia creeper that had science fiction film capabilities to regrow no matter how often it was pruned back to the roots.
Maggie felt the years shrink away. Home made her feel not entirely like a child again but as if still under the influence of all the old childhood problems.
Her father met her at the gate, dressed up in his going-into-the-hospital outfit of navy blazer and tie, but still comfortingly familiar. When he put his arms around her, Maggie snuggled against him like the child she once was, even though he was shorter than her and as skinny as ever.
'It's so lovely to have you home,' he said. 'Thank you for coming. I know it's a lot to ask, but thank you.'
'How could I not come?' admonished Maggie, pulling away briskly. If she let her reserve drop, she'd sob her heart out. Better to be brusque and not give them a chance to ask after Grey. She'd tell them later, when she and
they felt
stronger.
'How's Mum?'
'Much better today.' Her father's face brightened. 'She got an awful shock, you know. It was all so quick. One minute we were here, the next, she'd passed out with the pain. I thought she was dead, Maggie,' he added, and he looked so forlorn that Maggie had to take a deep breath to steady herself.
'Where is she?'
'Where do you think?'
The kitchen at the back of the house was certainly the heart of the Maguire home. A cosy room which had been decorated at a time when there was no such concept in interior design as using too much pine, it was the room Maggie felt she'd grown up in.
Sitting in an armchair at the table (pine) with her plastered leg up on a kitchen chair (pine),
watching the portable television that was perched on the Little House on the Prairie dresser (distressed pine), was Maggie's mother, Una.
As tall a woman as her daughter, she was just as slender but with faded red hair instead of Maggie's fiery curls. Their faces were very similar: perfect ovals with otherworldly cobalt-blue eyes and wide mouths that were always on the verge of a smile. But whereas Maggie's smile was tremulous, anxious, Una's was the all-encompassing beam of a woman who embraced life. Now Una sat listlessly in the chair, as if breaking her leg had taken the strength out of all her bones. Beside her was the crossword, nearly finished.
'I've left the hard ones for your father,' Una said, which was the standard and affectionate lie in the Maguire household.
Dennis was no good at crosswords. A champion at the Rubik's Cube, and deeply sorry when that had gone out of fashion, he was marvellous with gadgets, figures and magazine quizzes where you had to work out which tetrahedron was the odd one out.
But words defied him.
'What'll I say?' he used to beg Maggie when he had to write the only birthday card his wife didn't write for him.
'To Una, happy birthday, I love you so much, Dennis,' was Maggie's usual suggestion.
It was what she'd have liked written on a card to her. Grey, for all his eloquence, hadn't been much good at cards either, although Maggie had kept every single one he'd given her.
Mum hugged Maggie tightly, then somehow managed a final squeeze and whispered in her ear: 'We're so glad you're here, Bean.'
Bean or Beanpole was her nickname, so given because she'd been long and skinny as a child.
'Like a beanpole!' her cousin Elisabeth used to say joyfully.
Elisabeth, also tall but with Victoria's Secret model curves instead of Maggie's racehorse slenderness, was never called anything but Elisabeth.
While Dennis bustled off with Maggie's suitcases, Una told her daughter that the osteoporosis was advanced.
'They can't believe I haven't broken anything before,' she said finally. 'It's a bit of a miracle, and at my stage, I could end up breaking bones with just a knock against a bookcase.'
Maggie was shocked. 'Oh, Mum,' she said. That's terrible. Dad said it was osteoporosis but he never said it was that bad.'
They heard Dennis coming back.
'I don't want him to know everything,' her mother went on. 'It'd only worry him and what's the point of that?'
'He ought to know, Mum.'
'Ah, why? It won't be good for his heart if he's watching me every moment worrying about me. I'll be fine.'
Maggie's father came back into the kitchen.
'What'll we have for dinner?' said Una breezily. 'I can't wait for a decent meal. Your poor dad is doing his best but he can only do soup and rolls, How about a roast? I fancy beef.'
'Roast beef? Is there beef in the fridge?' Maggie asked.
Her mother looked blank. 'I don't know, love. I can't get near the fridge. But look. Or you could go to the shops. The car's there.'
At that instant, Maggie began to feel panicky. Everything was more serious than she'd thought.
Her father wasn't exactly one of life's copers. He'd never been able to cook, and viewed both the iron and washing machine as arcane specimens, beyond his ability. Her mother had done everything in the Maguire household.
And yet here she was, expecting Maggie, who had just arrived, to know what was in the fridge, not to mention to feel confident hopping into a car she had never driven before and going to the supermarket. Maggie had passed her driving test when she was a teenager but she'd never owned a car and could barely remember the difference between all the pedals.
Had breaking her leg broken something else in her mother too?
'Mum,' Maggie said, feeling horrendously guilty at not being able to do this simple thing in a family crisis, 'I can't drive. You know I can't.'
She looked into the fridge. There were several big chill-cabinet cartons of soup, half a pack of butter and eggs. Nothing else. 'We shop from day to day,' her father-added helpfully. 'I'll stay with your mother.'
Maggie shut the fridge. She was in charge. She wondered how this had happened. She was not qualified for this. Her mother was the one who was in charge.
'You'll be able to go, won't you?' Una's voice quavered slightly.
With frightening clarity, Maggie saw that their roles had swapped. One cracked femur and she was the parent.
She had no option.
'I'll do a shop right now,' she said firmly. 'The mini supermarket will have everything we need. I'll walk.'
Speedi Shop on Jasmine Row had been open from dawn to dusk since Maggie had been in infant school. More expensive than the proper supermarket a mile away, it was always busy but there were never any long queues at the checkouts, mainly because Gretchen, the owner, didn't encourage chitchat. She was, however, an interrogator of Lubyanka standards and Maggie had always felt that Gretchen was terrifying. She didn't smile much and when she did, her forehead and face remained static, as if filled with Botox, although it was hard to imagine Gretchen spending the money on such a thing. Beauty, a bit like politeness, was a waste of time in Gretchen's book.
She was there behind the counter when Maggie
arrived at the checkout, her basket spilling over
with the makings of a roast dinner, shop-bought
apple pie and ice cream for pudding.
'Maggie Maguire, a sight for sore eyes. Long
time no see. I thought you were living in married
bliss in Galway.'
Maggie translated this bit of faux politeness in
her head: fancy seeing you here, and is it true
you're not married at all but still shacking up with
some fellow who clearly won't marry you?
'Home for a few days,' said Maggie, aiming for
the happily unconcerned approach. Had Gretchen
X-ray vision? Could she see that Maggie's man
had cheated on her? It wouldn't surprise her if the
answer was yes. 'And I'm not married, actually,
I've a long-term partner.'
Translation: I am a fulfilled woman who has made interesting life choices and wouldn't be bothered
getting married when I could live the free life
of a modern feminist unshackled by silly old wedding vows.
'Right.' Gretchen nodded appraisingly and began
to scan Maggie's groceries. 'You remember my
Lorraine, don't you? You were in the same year in
school. Lorraine's living in Nice, married to this gorgeous French pilot, Jacques, with three kids and
a live-in nanny. You should see their house: Jacuzzi,
pool, bidet in every en suite, the lot.' I don't buy
your story, said her eyes. Long-term partner, my
backside. Now Lorraine, she's a success story. She has it all: fabulous husband, children, everything
money can buy. She's not home with her tail
between her legs at the age of thirty with no ring
and no kids either.
'How wonderful for her,' Maggie said, adding
a large bar of chocolate to the basket to comfort
herself. 'Lorraine always knew what she wanted,
didn't she?' She snatched back her shopping and
shoved it into a bag. Lorraine was a hard-nosed
little madam and she was always keen on selfimprovement
without doing any actual work. Like
stealing other people's homework or hanging round
with the class bullies.
'Bye, Gretchen, have to rush.'
On her way home with the grocery bags
weighing her down, Maggie passed the time by
trying to remember who lived in the various houses on Summer Street. Many of them were
still owned by the people who'd lived there when
she was a child, like the Ryans, who bred Burmese
cats and never minded the neighbourhood children
coming in to coo over the latest batch of
apricot-coloured kittens. Or sweet Mrs Sirhan,
who'd looked eighty when Maggie had been
small, and now must be unbelievably old, but
still went for her constitutional every day, up
the street into the cafe for a cup of Earl Grey
with lemon.
There was a sign on the park gate: 'Save Our
Park', written in shaky capitals on a bit of cardboard,
and Maggie idly wondered what the park
had to be saved from. But the sign-writer hadn't
thought to add that bit of information. Rampaging aliens, perhaps? Or people who didn't scoop the
dog poop?
The old railway pavilion was her favourite part
of the park: she'd played in it many times during
her childhood and it was easy to imagine it as a train station, with ladies in long dresses sobbing
into their reticules as handsome men left them
behind, sad stories behind every parting. There
hadn't been a train that way for many years.
The train tracks were long gone, too. Maybe
that was the lesson she needed to learn: nobody
cared about the past. Her misery over Grey would
mean nothing in a hundred years.
It was ten before Maggie managed to escape to
bed and to her private misery. She'd left her mobile
phone unanswered all day and when she finally
checked there were seven where are you? texts from
Shona, along with two missed calls and one I am so sorry, please answer your phone text from Grey.
Yeah, right, Maggie thought furiously, erasing it. One lousy text and a couple of phone calls.
What an effort that must have been. Feeling angry
with Grey was easier than giving in to feeling hopeless
and alone. If she let go of the anger, she'd
collapse under the weight of the loneliness.
She unwrapped the giant bar of milk chocolate
she'd bought and dialled the only person in the
world, apart from Shona, who might possibly
understand: her cousin Elisabeth. Despite coming
up with the nickname Bean, Elisabeth was one of
Maggie's favourite people.
Elisabeth was tall, athletic, had been captain of
the netball team and was wildly popular at her
school, a fact that had often made Maggie wish
they'd gone to the same one. She might have
protected Maggie. She was now a booker in one
of Seattle's top model agencies and incredibly,
despite all these comparative riches, she was a nice
person.
It was eight hours earlier in Seattle and Elisabeth
was on her lunch break, sitting at her desk with
her mouth full of nuts because she was still doing
the low-carb thing.
'How are you doing?' asked Elisabeth in muffled tones.
'Oh, you know, fine. You heard about Mum's
accident?'
'Yes, Dad told me.' Her father and Maggie's
were brothers. 'You don't sound OK,' she added
suspiciously.
Elisabeth picked up tones of voice like nobody
else. Certainly nobody else in the Maguire family,
who all had the intuition of celery. 'What's up?' 'I told you.'
'I mean what else?'
'You can hear something else in my voice?'
'I spend all my life on the phone to young models
in foreign countries asking them how they are, did
anybody hit on them and are they eating
enough/drinking too much/taking coke/ screwing
the wrong people/screwing anybody. So yes, I can
hear it in your voice,' insisted Elisabeth.
'I caught Grey in bed with another woman.'
Silence.
'Fuck.' 'I didn't know you were allowed to say that
outside Ireland any more,' Maggie remarked, in an attempt at levity. 'Everyone on your side of the
Atlantic nearly passes out when they hear it, when
here, it's a cross between an adjective and an
adverb, the sort of word we can't do without.'
'Desperate situations need desperate words,' said
Elisabeth, then said 'fuck' again followed by, 'Fucking bastard.'
'My sentiments exactly.' 'Is he still alive?'
'He has all his teeth, yes,' Maggie said. 'And they're not on a chain around his neck?'
Maggie laughed and it was a proper laugh for
the first time all day. Elisabeth was one of those
people with the knack of making the unbearable
slightly more bearable. With her listening,
Maggie didn't feel like the only person on the
planet to have been hurt like this before.
'No, they're still in his mouth. I did think about
hitting him but he was attached to this blonde
fourteen-year-old at the time ...'
'A fourteen-year-old!' shrieked Elisabeth. 'Metaphorically speaking,'. Maggie interrupted.
Which was really a bummer. I mean, if she was
ugly and wrinkly, I might manage to cope, but
being cheated on with a possible centrefold doesn't
do much for your self-confidence.'
'Oh, Maggie,' said Elisabeth and there was love
and pity in her voice. She'd long since given up
trying to boost Maggie's self-esteem, although
having a beautiful cousin with a skewed vision of
her gorgeousness was perfect training for working
with stunning size six models who thought they
were too fat and faced rejection every day. 'I wish
I was there to give you a hug. What did you do?'
'Dad phoned about Mum, so I left to come
here. Ran away, in other words, which is what
I'm good at.'
'You haven't told them.' 'No. Couldn't face it.'
Maggie heard muffled noises at Elisabeth's end. 'Sorry, I've got to go. Call me tomorrow?' 'Sure.'
Maggie looked at her suitcases waiting patiently
to be unpacked. It was hard to feel enthusiastic
about moving back into her childhood bedroom.
All she needed now was one of those big doll's
heads that you put eye make-up on, her old Silver
Brumby books, and she'd be eleven again.
She'd read so much as a child, losing herself in
the world of books because the outside world was
lo cruel. And yet she hadn't learned as much as she'd
possibility that the prince would betray you. They
never pointed out that if you gave a man such ferocious
power over your heart, he could destroy you
in an instant.
She finished her bar of chocolate slowly.
If everything had been different, she'd have been
at home now in her own flat with Grey.
Without closing her eyes, she could imagine
herself there: sitting on their bed, talking about
their day, all the little things that seemed mundane
at the time and became painfully intimate and
important when you could no longer share them,
Like waking up in the night and feeling Grey's
body, warm and strong beside her in the bed. Like
leaning past him at the bathroom sink to get to
the toothpaste.
Like hanging his T-shirts on the radiators to dry.
These things made up their life together. Now it
was all gone. She felt betrayed, broken and utterly
hollow inside.
She was back in her childhood bed with nothing
to show for it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mrs Devlin's art classes were different from any
other lesson in the school, agreed all the girls in
the sixth year. For a start, Mrs Devlin herself was
not exactly your average teacher, although she was
older than many of the others. Even her clothes
bypassed normal teacher gear, whether she wore
one of her long honey suede skirts and boots with
a low-slung belt around her hips, or dressed down
in Gap jeans and a man's shirt tied in a knot
around the waist. Compared to Mrs Hipson, headmistress
and lover of greige twinsets and pearlised
lipstick, Mrs Devlin was at the cutting edge of
bohemian chic.
Most of all, the girls agreed, it was her attitude
that made her different. The other teachers seemed
united in their plan to improve the students whether
they wanted to be improved or not. But Mrs Devlin,
without ever exactly saying so, seemed to believe
that people improved themselves at their own rate.
So on May the 1st, with just weeks to go to the
state exams and with the whole teaching body in
a state of panic, Mrs Devlin's assignment to her
sixth-year class was to 'forget about the exams for
a moment and paint your vision of Maia, the
ancient pagan goddess who gave her name to May
and who was a goddess of both spring and fertility'.
'As today's the first of May, it's the perfect day
for it.'
She stopped short of pointing out that the exam
results probably wouldn't matter in a millennium.
Not the way to win friends and influence people
in a school. 'You've all been working so hard with
your history of art,' Christie added as she perched
on the corner of the desk at the top of the class.
She rarely sat down at the desk during art practicals,
preferring to walk around and talk to her
students: a murmured bit of praise here, a smile
there. 'I thought it might be nice to spend one
hour of the day enjoying yourselves, reminding
yourselves that art is about creativity and forgetting
about studying.'
The class, who'd come from double English
where they were re-butchering The Catcher in the
Rye for exam revision, nodded wearily.
The most art they got to do these days involved
colouring in their exam revision timetables with
highlighter pens - generally a lot more fun than
the revision itself.
'Maia is the oldest and most beautiful of the
seven stars called the Seven Sisters, or the Pleiades,'
Christie continued. 'The Pleiades are part of the
constellation of Taurus, which is ruled over by
Venus, for those of you interested in astrology.
Maia is around five times larger than our sun.'
It was such a sunny morning that flecks of dust
could be seen floating on shafts of light filtering
in from the second-floor windows. St Ursula's was
an old building, with decrepit sash windows and
huge sills perfect for sitting on between classes and
blowing forbidden cigarette smoke out into the
netball court below.
'In art, spring is represented, as you know, by
the sense of sensuality and passion,' Christie went
on. 'Can anyone remember any artists who painted
spring in such a way?'
'Botticelli,' said Amber Reid.
Christie nodded and wondered again what
Amber had been getting up to on Wednesday. The
way she'd been dressed and the joy in her step
made Christie damn sure that Amber had been on
her way to some illicit activity.
'Yes, Amber, Botticelli is a good example.
Remember, girls, artists didn't have television to
give them ideas, or films. They looked at their
world for inspiration and got it from nature. Keep
that in mind during the exam, they were influenced
by their times. By war, poverty, nature, religion.
As we discussed in art history last week,
religion is important as an influence on artists.
Remember the puritanical Dutch schools with their
hidden messages.
'Today's the pagan festival of Beltane, which is
if you need me.'
The class were silent as they considered
painting a fertility goddess. At St Ursula's in
general, sexuality was given a wide berth by the
teaching staff. Even in sex education classes, the
concept of passion was diluted, with scientific
words like 'zygote' giving students the impression
that it was a miracle the human race had
gone on for so long considering how boring
procreation sounded.
'Is it true that Titian only painted women he'd
gone to bed with?' asked Amber suddenly, her eyes
glittering.
Christie had a sudden flash of knowledge: a
picture of Amber and a dark, moodily dangerous
young man came into her mind, entwined on a
childhood bed doing grown-up things. Christie
knew exactly what Amber had been up to
yesterday. She blazed with burgeoning sexuality.
To embody Maia, Amber just needed to paint a
self-portrait.
Christie felt a rush of pity for poor old Faye
who probably hadn't a clue that her teenage
daughter had just taken one of the giant steps into
womanhood. Having sons was definitely easier than daughters, she thought gladly. Sons were
rarely left holding the baby.
'So I believe,' said Christie carefully. 'Paint,
Amber,' she whispered, 'don't talk.'
'I swear Mrs Devlin'd bring in nude life models
if she was let,' groaned Niamh to Amber. Niamh
was struggling with art in general and was sorry
she hadn't done home economics instead. How
was she going to embody a fertility goddess?
Couldn't they please do a still life instead - a couple
of bananas or a nice simple apple?
'I wish she did bring in nude models,' said
Amber, glaring at Niamh. 'It's impossible to learn
to draw people properly with their clothes on.' At
least in art college, she'd be able to study line
drawing properly with nude models ...
But she wasn't going, was she? She was going
to New York with Karl, before the exams, and she
had to tell her mother all this, and soon.
'It's not as if you haven't seen a man with no
clothes on, Niamh,' added the girl on the other
side of Amber with a wicked grin. 'You've been
going out with Donnie for a year now, don't tell
me he's kept his boxers on all this time.'
It was Niamh's turn to grin. 'He's worth drawing,
Silvery-white hair was a fabulous disguise,
Christie thought as she managed not to smile.
Schoolgirls appeared to think that white-haired
equalled deaf, which meant she overheard all
manner of things she mightn't have heard otherwise.
These girls probably would have been
stunned to think that their esteemed art teacher
had made the same jokes once, a lifetime ago,
when she was as young and when men's heads
turned to look at her.
Young people always imagined that sex and
passion had been invented by them. Christie
fingered the gold and jasper scarab necklace that
James had once bought for her in a market in
Cairo, and smiled.
When you were over the age of sixty, if you
hinted at a moment of wildness in your youth,
people smiled benignly and imagined you meant
a reckless time when you'd sat in a public bar and
drank a pint of Guinness when such a thing was
frowned upon. But she'd known plenty of passion.
Still did. Being a stalwart of the local church didn't
mean she was dead from the neck down, no matter
what the youngsters thought.
That holiday in Cairo had been before the children
were born, when she and James had been
able to take advantage of a cheap week-long trip.
They'd sighed with pleasure over the treasures of
the Egyptian Museum by day, and lay in each
other's arms in their shabby hotel by night with
the overhead fan not quite doing its job.
Despite that, they'd made love every night,
caught up in the sensuality of Cairo with its iconic
sights, and the heady perfume of the spice markets.
The heat was an incredible aphrodisiac, James
said, on the last night of their holiday, as he lay
back against the pillows, sated, and watched his
wife standing naked in the moonlight in front of
the hotel-room mirror.
'Just as well we don't live here all the time,
then,' Christie teased, admiring the necklace that
lay between her full, high breasts. 'I love this,' she
said, holding it tenderly. 'Thank you.'
'You do understand that I'll want to rip your
clothes off every time you wear it?' he asked. 'Even in the supermarket?'
'We'd probably have to wait till we got to the
car park,' he amended. 'Wouldn't want to bruise
the avocados.'
'How about we introduce a one-hour rule? Once
you notice the necklace, we have one hour to get
to bed.'
James grinned lazily. 'Sounds good to me.'
No, she thought now, watching her class concentrating
on their drawing boards: young people
thought that old age was at best fifteen to twenty
years older than they were, and reckoned your life
was over once you hit forty. They'd learn one day.
Christie had no teaching in the period before
lunch, so she headed for the staff room to mark
the art history revision test the fifth years had
handed in earlier. St Ursula's staff room was in the
original, 1940s part of the school, surrounded by
small classrooms with creaky wooden doors, crumbling
parquet floors and thick walls that you
couldn't hammer a nail into. The staff room itself
was the biggest room in this section of the building and, in the fifteen years she'd worked in the school,
Christie had decided it had a routine about it, an
ebb and flow rather like a sea.
There was the calm of half past eight in the
morning, when Christie sat at the long veneered
table with its decoration of mug rings and drank
green tea while she mentally prepared for the rest
of the day.
By 8.45, the staff room would have filled up,
the teachers all business, fuelling up on murderous
coffee from the large catering tin.
By late afternoon, the tide had swept steadily
out and no amount of coffee could raise the energy
of the staff as the clock ticked on towards four
and freedom.
Once, when an Italian teacher - Gianni, a man
who looked as if he'd love to whip you off to bed
and teach you how to roll your 'R's properly had
arrived to teach languages, there had been talk
of buying a proper coffee-making machine.
'This ees muck, this coffee,' Gianni would say
when he caught the rest of the teachers listlessly
spooning brown dust into their mugs. 'If we had
a proper machine, then you would have coffee
worth dreenking.'
A coffee machine collection had been started,
not to mention a few diets, but then Gianni had
decided that he missed the Italian climate too much,
and had gone home to Florence.
Christie, who'd been immune to Gianni's Paco
Rabanne-scented charms and wasn't as heartbroken
as the rest of them by his abrupt departure,
suggested they buy a small television with
the coffee machine fund.
'Not to watch junky soap operas on,' insisted
Mr Sweetman, who taught English.
'What's wrong with soap operas?' demanded
Mademoiselle Lennox, French.
'You're both so busy, you probably won't get
to watch much but the lunchtime news,' Christie
remarked gently and there was much muttering in
agreement.
The news, yes, that's what they'd watch. Keeping
in touch with current affairs was vital, Mr Sweetman
agreed.
The television was now a much valued part of
the room, with the channel screening Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire repeats being the favourite. Mr
Sweetman was currently top of the league having
got to the quarter of a million question four times,
with Mrs Jones, physics and applied maths, in
second place.
Today, the TV was off, though, and only Christie
and Liz, who taught home economics and biology,
were there. Christie pulled the uninviting pile of
essays towards her.
She'd only had two classes that morning, but
she felt tired because she'd slept so badly, waking
three times in the clammy grip of a cold sweat
after nightmares, one particularly horrible one
involving a sea of giant black spiders which burned
people they touched. She often had vivid dreams
- the downside of her gift of intuition. But giant
spiders? Very strange.
Eventually, she had stopped trying to sleep and
did her best to lie quietly, eyes closed, amusing herself by imagining how useful the inside of her
head might be to a roomful of psychiatrists.
Some people left their bodies to medical science
- she might leave her brain because there was definitely
something weird going on in there.
'Are you all right, love?' James had murmured
drowsily at half five when Christie had given up
on the psychiatrists, slipped out of bed and pulled
on her jeans and a Tshirt.
'Fine, I'm fine. You go back to sleep, pet,' she'd
replied, gently pulling the pale-blue sheet over his
shoulders.
James's nightmares had to do with losing his
job or not having money to buy food for his family.
Christie had long ago decided that he could do
without hearing about her horror movie versions.
Now her eyes felt gritty with tiredness and the
nagging sensation of doom was still there.
'Christie, how are you?' A voice interrupted her
thoughts.
Liz, the other teacher, plonked herself and her 'You don't have to be mad to work here but it helps' mug down beside Christie and the untouched
pile of essays.
'Busy?' she said, obviously hoping the answer
would be no.
Liz was in her early thirties, attractive with dark
curly hair, and had been a big hit with the pupils
since she'd arrived at the school the previous
September. She'd replaced eccentric Mrs Cuniffe
who'd been at St Ursula's for over twenty years
and refused to be in the same room as a microwave
because of a story she'd heard about a man cooking
his liver by accident. Eventually, this had made her
position as home economics teacher untenable and
Liz had arrived to take her place.
'I'm not really busy,' fibbed Christie. 'How are you.
'Fine,' Liz began and stopped herself. 'Awful.
Sorry.' Her eyes brimmed. 'I only wanted to say
hello, not burst into tears.'
Christie reached into the tapestry bag that served
as her briefcase, rifled a bit and came up with a
pack of tissues.
It transpired that Liz was in love with a man
who loved her back but felt it was all moving too
fast, and perhaps they should see other people.
'He said he needs time,' wept Liz helplessly. 'We've been going out for a year. He's never
mentioned this before, why does he need time? I
don't know what to do, Christie. I love him. My
sister says I should send him packing but she's
never liked him. She thinks I'd be better off without
him. He says we're still going to my brother's
wedding as a couple, so it can't really be over, can
it? What should I do?'
The hardest questions were often simplest,
Christie thought. Stay and hope, or walk away to
start again?
'I can't tell you what you should do, Liz,' she
said gently. 'Only you know that.'
'But I don't.'
'Close your eyes and tell me what does it feel
like in there?' Christie gestured at the place on
Liz's chest where her heart resided.
Liz obediently closed her eyes and instantly her
face lost some of its tension. Her shoulders slackened.
'I
think it's over. He's being nice by saying he'll
go to my brother's wedding with me and he thought
it was all fun between us until I mentioned that I
wanted a baby.' She snapped her eyelids open and
stared at Christie in misery.
'Then it's over,' Christie said gently. She hadn't
seen the future for Liz, she'd merely let Liz reach out and think the unthinkable herself.
'You're right. I was kidding myself, wasn't I? I
think I always knew he wasn't in it for the long
term,' Liz said sadly. 'I kidded myself because I
wanted it so much. Looking back, I can see it all
now and I should have done everything differently.'
'Looking
backwards is a terrible thing,' Christie
added, smiling. 'With the benefit of hindsight, there
are lots of things we should have done and didn't,
and vice versa. But we learn from them and do
better next time.'
'You're being kind,' Liz whispered, getting up. 'I bet you've never been as stupid as me. You think
before you act, Christie. I blunder along and
convince myself that everything's fine when it's
not. I only wish I could stop myself doing that. I
wouldn't be in bits now if I did.' She bent to give
Christie a small hug. 'You're very good for listening
to me. I know why everyone says you're wise. You
really are.'
The room was filling up again as lunchtime
arrived. Liz took her cup and her folder and left
Christie sitting at the table, frozen in thought.
For all the noise going on, all the chat about
the third form's behaviour that morning and the
traffic being a nightmare, Christie might as well
have been sitting in a room all on her own. She
heard nothing, except Liz's words. You think before
you act, Christie.
Because there had been a few times when she'd
acted before thinking, and one time in particular
that haunted her. One stupid, awful thing she'd
done and regretted ever since.
She thought she had put it out of her mind,
filed in the memories best left forgotten box, and
had tried to forgive herself ever since. And recently
she had been thinking of it again and again and
it was as red and raw as if it had all happened
yesterday. How was it that she hadn't been wise
then, when Ana had been involved with Carey
Wolensky and the world had been a different place?
And why did the memories of that time keep
sneaking into her mind, so many years later? She
simply didn't know.
Shane phoned her that afternoon as she walked
home.
'Mum, I've something to tell you,' he said, after
the howareyous.
Even in late-afternoon sun as she stopped on
the footpath on Summer Street, Christie felt the
shadow of fear over her again.
'Yes,' she said, dry-mouthed, thinking of all the
terrible things that could happen to her beloved son. 'Janet's pregnant. We didn't want to tell anyone
until she was three months gone and then, the
other day, we thought she was having a miscarriage
but she didn't and it's all fine.' Pride and joy
sounded in every one of Shane's words.
It really was like having a great weight lifted
from her. The fear fell away. 'Oh, Shane,' was all
she could say. 'Oh, Shane, my love, I am so happy
for you both.' She leaned weakly against a garden
wall, her eyes focused on the park opposite where
children played and dogs barked. Thank you, thank
you, God, she prayed silently.
'That's the best news I've heard in a very long
time,' she said. 'It's wonderful. I'm so happy for
you both. How is Janet? Tell me everything.'
'Delighted, and so relieved after we thought she
was going to lose the baby.'
Christie's mind flashed back. It was then the
insight had started - something was about to go
horribly wrong. She'd been right. Her grandchild
had almost been lost from the world.
'She's had a scan, though, and everything's fine.
You can see your third grandkid in a speckled
black-and-white picture. We got one for you and
Dad. Could we come over at the weekend and give
it to you both?'
'I can't think of anything I'd like more.' Christie
sighed with pure happiness. 'Shall I tell your father
or did you want to phone him yourself?'
'I'll tell him.'
He sounded so like James at that moment:
proud daddy-in-waiting, that Christie felt overwhelmed
with the emotion of it all. She was so,
so lucky.
'Let's have Ethan and Shelly and the girls over
too, and maybe your Aunt Ana. Just a small family
gathering on Sunday afternoon, not a party in case
you think it's bad luck, but just us celebrating the
baby getting this far. If you think Janet would like
it?' Janet loved the Devlin family get-togethers but
she might not be up to even a small one right now
and Christie was never one to bulldoze.
'That'll have to be a few weeks away,' Shane
said eagerly. 'We're going to a house-warming this
weekend, and something else the next weekend,
but I'm sure Janet would love a little party. It
nearly killed us both not telling anyone. Well,
Janet told her mum when she thought she was
miscarrying ... I'm sorry, it's not that we were
leaving you out, Mum ...'
'Shane, you know me better than that,' Christie
admonished. 'Girls tell their mothers more, it's the
way of things. And I'd be some piece of work if
that vexed me. Now, if we have the little party the
Sunday after next, why don't you ask Janet's mum
to come too?' she urged. Janet was an only child
with a widowed mother. 'We'd love to have her
here.'
'You're a star, Mum,' Shane said. 'Hey, you'll
be up for babysitting, right?'
'Count me in,' Christie said fervently.
At home, humming happily as she thought about
the good news, she spent an hour and a half
cooking, then filled a basket with dishes for Una
and Dennis Maguire. She hadn't heard yet that
Maggie was home, and Dennis didn't know one
end of the kitchen from the other. If it was left to
him, the pair of them would starve. So Christie
had made a huge stew, enough for two days, some
chicken soup with her own home-made stock, and
a dozen fat floury scones. Then she hurried up
Summer Street to see Una.
'Christie, how lovely to see you,' said Una when
Dennis led Christie into the kitchen.
'And you too.' Christie laid down the basket,
pulled up a chair and sat beside her old friend,
laying a comforting hand on Una's.
'This is terrible, Una. Such bad luck. How long
will you be in plaster?'
'Six weeks,' said Dennis, hovering in the background
anxiously. He was sorting out papers for
recycling, a job his wife usually did efficiently, while
he was getting in a muddle.
'Five and a bit now,' corrected Una. 'The doctors
and nurses were lovely; said I'd be right as rain.'
This was clearly said for Dennis's benefit.
Christie had felt the fragility of Una's bones as
she'd touched her: instead of strength, she'd felt a
spider's web of bone, fragile, tissue-thin. Christie
had a sudden flash of the gleaming wheels of a
wheelchair in her mind and she hoped, as she often
did when she saw something sad, that this was
only one out of many possible futures. Her hand
patted Una's in a gesture of understanding and
their eyes met in complicity.
'Dennis, you know, I believe I didn't shut the
front door properly behind me,' Christie smiled at
him. 'Perhaps you should check ...'
'No bother,' he said, getting up. 'I have to put
the rubbish out anyway and sort it out. It's the
recycling collection next week instead of normal
rubbish and I've got to tie up all the newspapers
with string.'
'Is it that obvious I'm worse than I'm letting
on?' Una said when he'd bustled off.
'Only to me,' Christie replied. 'What did they
really say?'
'I wish I had your gift,' Una sighed. 'It must
be great to know things, to see what's up ahead,
although I don't know if I'd have liked to see
this.' She looked morosely at her leg in its plaster
cast.
'My gift?' asked Christie, genuinely surprised.
She still rarely talked about what she could do.
And she'd certainly never talked about it with Una.
Not everyone approved of the concept of visions
and she'd never wanted to be labelled a dotty old
dear.
'You see things, don't you? My mother had a
friend like you, she read the cards for us when I
was younger.'
'I don't read cards,' Christie said. 'I think I had
it engrained in me as a child that the Church didn't
condone anything like that, but you're right, I do
see things sometimes. Not so much the future, as
what might be. I can't see for people close to me,'
she added quickly, in case Una asked her what her
future held. 'If I could see everything, I'd have seen
that you knew!'
'You can see when people are lying, though?'
Una asked perceptively.
Christie nodded. 'It's more intuition than
anything,' she added, which wasn't entirely true. 'I knew you weren't as well as you said. What did
the doctors say?'
'It's osteoporosis, quite advanced,' Una said. 'My mother had it, you see, so I pushed them to
do a bone scan in the hospital, although they kept
going on about how I could have it done later,
and I insisted. Seems it's a miracle I haven't broken
things before. I'm going to have to be careful now
or I'll be like a mummy in a film, all bandages
trailing after me.'
'How's Dennis coping?'
'Maggie's back, so she's looking after us both,'
Una pointed out.
'And is she well?' asked Christie warmly. 'Great,' said Una with pride. 'She's just nipped
off to get the papers and something for dinner.
Although she needn't have bothered now you've
come with food. She's so good to us, you know,
Christie. Dennis phoned her from the hospital on
Wednesday and she was on a plane yesterday, quick
as anything. She's a great girl. I just wish she'd
settle down like your two lads. But you can't make
them do what you want, can you? Still, she's happy
and that's the main thing, isn't it?'
'Yes,' said Christie, resolving that now wasn't
the moment to tell her friend the news about her
daughter-in-law's pregnancy. 'Shall I make a fresh
pot of tea?' she said, indicating the tea-cosied pot
that sat on the table.
'Go on,' said Una. 'Milky tea is one way of
getting more calcium into me. Far nicer than those
awful tablets they have me on. You should have
a bone scan done, you know. It's our age, unfortunately.'
'I
know,' said Christie, rinsing the teapot and
automatically tidying up around her. Dennis's
newspapers. caught her attention. There were
Sunday supplements from weeks ago jumbled up
with daily papers open at the crossword pages and
she organised them neatly into a pile while she
waited for the kettle to boil. Una was telling her
about the hospital and the steam from the kettle
was building as Christie threw the last paper lightly
on to the heap. Before the newsprint landed, the
small headline caught her eye:
Polish Artist's First Irish Show in 25 Years
Christie caught the countertop to stop herself
swaying. It was only a small story and she pulled
it towards her, hardly daring to read it. Carey
Wolensky was coming to Ireland next month for
an exhibition of his work, including his most
famous paintings, the Dark Lady series.
Much prized by the world's richest art collectors
and quite unlike all his other work, the
Dark Lady paintings are Wolensky's mysterious
masterpieces.
Before Christie could rip the story from the page,
she heard Dennis come back.
'Christie, don't bother with those,' he said,
scooping up the pile of papers. 'I'll put them out
with the bins.'
He carried them off and Christie was left staring
into the neat shrubbery of the Maguires' back
garden, barely hearing what Una was saying. She
was thinking of Carey Wolensky, her darling
younger sister's one-time boyfriend, the man who'd
almost destroyed everything. He was coming back
into their world and, even now, he could devastate
their lives.
Now, at last, Christie knew for sure what her
feeling of doom had been about.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Motherhood was harder than marriage, Grace
realised, as she admired the art portfolio that Faye
had just purchased, at great expense, for Amber's
forthcoming eighteenth birthday. At least with
marriage, you got time off for good behaviour and
could duck out when the going got tough. But
motherhood was never-ending and was clearly
designed to make you a selfless person. Like when
you spent more than a week's wages on something
for your kid.
'She'll love it,' Grace said, thinking that if she
ever bought anything of supple leather that expensive,
it would be hanging off her arm right now
with a discreet label inside proclaiming that it was
handstitched lovingly by people at the Tod's leather
goods factory. Still, that was Faye for you: the only
exquisitely dressed thing in Faye's house was
Amber. 'Any art student would kill for it.'
'Do you think so?' Faye asked anxiously.
She'd just spent a fortune buying the portfolio from the most expensive art shop in town because
she wanted her darling Amber to have the very
best of everything when she started art college.
Basically nothing more than a large wallet for
transporting drawings and paintings, it wasn't the
most important bit of art college kit. Amber had
an old plastic portfolio that could have done her
perfectly well. But this large zippered folder was
a thing of luxury and it would be nice for Amber
to have a beautiful creamy leather one. Except,
maybe Amber would have preferred a black leather
one. Who knew? The fact that she'd once admired
a cream leather one might mean nothing now.
She could have totally changed her mind, in the
way she'd announced the night before that she
might start having a quick dinner before Faye came
home, so she could retreat to her room to study.
'If I eat earlier, I sleep better,' she explained. 'You've got to eat properly,' Faye had said,
motherly hackles raised.
'Mum.' Amber dragged the single syllable out
in exasperation. 'I'm not anorexic or bulimic or
anything. I like to eat early, that's all.'
'OK,' agreed Faye, deflated.
It was mid-May, the exams were looming ever
closer and it wouldn't be fair to complain that she
missed mealtimes together, the only time the two
of them could really talk these days. Amber was
under a lot of strain, she looked tired too from
all that studying, with violet circles under eyes that
looked wildly alert.
Faye had never seen her work so hard, locked
in her room for hours every evening, sometimes
emerging pale at ten to say she was going to sleep
and not to bother going in to say goodnight.
That was what worried Faye most: her daughter
not wanting to talk to her. They'd been so close
for so long, had managed to bypass most of the
awfulness of adolescence, only to end up with this
coolness between them over Amber's exams.
For the past few weeks, Amber had barely
spoken to her and seemed lost in her own world.
Was she that worried about failing?
'I can see your mind whirring,' Grace warned,
interpreting Faye's look incorrectly. 'Stop already.
She'll like it, OK? If she doesn't, she's being ...'
She'd nearly said rude but stopped. The childless
should not criticise other people's children;
that was the eleventh commandment and came
right before the twelfth, which was not to criticise
how other people put their own lives on hold
for the said children. When she saw how Faye had
given her life over to Amber, Grace felt glad that
her own biological clock had never started the
fabled ticking.
She'd known Faye for ten years and among all
the things she'd learned about her - like the fact
that Faye was incredibly clever, yet liked hiding
her light under a bushel, and was the only single
woman Grace knew who genuinely had no interest
in finding a man - foremost was the fact that
Amber was Faye's reason for living.
Surely that wasn't right. Were children supposed
to be the only thing in a woman's life? Grace was
sure her other friends with kids had more fulfilled
lives than Faye.
'If she doesn't like it, it might be a fashion thing,'
Grace amended, 'but the natural look is very chic.' 'I'm sure she'll love it,' Faye agreed, thinking
that she no longer knew any such thing.
The catch on Amber's window had finally given in
and broken. She'd jemmied it so many nights when
she crept in well after midnight, pushing the window
up and praying it wouldn't creak and wake her
mother. Burglary must be easier than people thought:
nobody had stopped her or even appeared to notice
her late-night climbs in and out of her bedroom
window.
'I don't know how you've got away with it,'
Ella remarked.
She and Amber walked to school together most
days, although they were getting later and later,
as Amber was finding it hard to drag herself out
of bed.
'Your mum must be losing it if she hasn't noticed
that you're not in your room at night. So,' Ella
added, 'what did Mr Luverman do with you last
night? Spill.'
'I wish you'd stop calling him that.' Amber didn't mind really, but she felt bad when
Ella reminded her that she was deceiving her
mother.
'Mr Luverman? I call him that 'cos he can take
you places that nobody else can.' 'Ella, give it a rest.'
'OK, but I'm just jealous. Being a boring old
student with no boyfriend and exams on the
horizon, I have no sex life and I want to hear all about yours. I don't know how you're doing any
revision at all. Are you?' Ella asked suspiciously.
'Of course,' Amber snapped.
She still hadn't told Ella that Karl had asked
her to travel to America with him and the band.
She didn't know why; it wasn't as if Ella would
disapprove. They'd wanted to be daring, the opposite
of sensible, and skipping the exams was just
that. But she hadn't managed to say it yet.
It was Thursday evening, less than a week to go
to Amber's eighteenth birthday, and less than three
weeks to the exams. Faye paused in her driveway
and looked across Summer Street to the park,
There were no children running or scampering
there now, but the evening dog walkers were out
in force. She could see Christie Devlin in the
distance, light and elegant as a ballerina, with those
two cute little dogs skipping around her feet. Mr
Coughlan, a very elderly gentleman who owned
three pugs, was just in front, walking slowly with
his nose in the air, just like his dogs with their
squashed-up faces and airs of refinement. People
did look like their dogs, Faye thought with a grin.
When Amber had been younger, Faye had spent many hours in the park, overseeing five-a-side football
matches or watching racing games. They'd both loved the park then, but now, well, Faye
rarely went in there. There wasn't any time in her
life for sitting in parks, she was always busy.
And yet now it was going to be ripped in half,
she felt oddly angry.
Summer Street wouldn't be the same without
the rackety old pavilion surrounded by its carpet
of green. Faye knew it was crazy to mourn something
she never used, but just because she didn't
go into the park, didn't mean she didn't appreciate
it.
If only she had the energy or the time to do
something about it, to fight the council, to insist
that they stop the deal. But that would involve
going around the neighbours and getting names
and signatures, drafting petitions, all sorts of work
that Faye didn't have time for. Also, that job was
for people who were good at chatting to strangers
and Faye had lost that ability a long time ago. No,
somebody else would be bound to start a campaign
and she would add her name to the signatures.
That'd be enough. Getting involved was always a mistake.
The house was quiet. Amber wasn't home yet. Probably at Ella's revising. Good, Faye thought.
It gave her a chance to make a special dinner for
the two. of them. A pre-birthday dinner. She'd
decided to give Amber the portfolio tonight instead
of waiting until her birthday the following
Wednesday, half hoping that the gift would have
a magical effect on the coolness between them.
And as an extra treat, she quickly rustled up some
flapjacks. They used to be Amber's favourites years
ago, and although they were such a childish food,
she'd suddenly felt like making them. Feeding her
daughter the love that Amber didn't seem to want
any more.
Amber arrived after seven, laden down with her
school books and looking, yet again, oddly alert
and excited.
The portfolio lay at her place on the table, a
giant package wrapped in gold paper, tied with
narrow gold ribbon.
She stared at it in silence for a moment. A
present? She'd planned to talk to her mother about
Karl tonight, had spent ages with him to buoy
herself up for this moment and now her mother
had ruined it all with a gift. How could they have
the conversation from hell now?
Mum, I'm not going to do my exams because
my boyfriend and his band have a development
deal with a New York producer and I'm going
with him because he needs me and I love him. Oh
yeah, and thanks for the portfolio.
'It's an early birthday present.'
Mum looked so thrilled with herself. And she'd
made stupid flapjacks too. Kids' biscuits. That was
what was wrong with Mum, Amber thought, guilt
making her angry. She still treated Amber as if she
was a kid.
Don't stay up too late: you won't be able to get
up for school.
Take a scarf in case it's cold.
I don't care if everyone else in the class is going,
you're not.
She meant well, but she'd never accept that
Amber was an adult with adult desires and her
own choices to make.
Amber knew with sudden certainty that there
would be no easy way to tell her mother about
Karl. The umbilical cord couldn't be stretched only severed.
'Open it.' Faye couldn't understand why
Amber hadn't launched herself on the gift and
ripped it open, the way she used to do with
presents.
Amber shot a tense look at her mother, then
carefully opened the gift.
'Well, do you like it?'
Amber bit her lip. The portfolio was beautiful,
and had cost her mother a fortune she didn't have.
Worse, the treacherous thought slipped into her
mind of what she and Karl could have done with
that money. It would have paid Amber's ticket to
America. The band's fare would be covered by the
production company but she and Karl had to come
up with hers.
This present was so typical of her mother: spend
what she didn't have just so Amber could have the
best. It was so unnecessary. And it made Amber
feel guiltier than ever.
'Of course I like it.' She managed to keep the
irritation out of her voice.
'Really?'
Amber felt the tension coil in her.
'Really,' she said. 'It's lovely.' Lovely but totally
bloody useless, since she wasn't going to art college
and wouldn't need it. Not yet, anyhow. She could
study art anywhere, any time. When she and Karl
were settled, she'd do it. A gift like hers couldn't
be lost.
'I thought you'd prefer the cream but we can
change it if you'd prefer a black one,' Mum went
on fondly.
The hands holding the portfolio tightened and
Amber felt as if she was holding in a scream. Would
her mother ever stop?
'Thank you, it's lovely,' she said, forcing the
words out of somewhere. She pecked her mother
on the cheek. 'I've so much work to do.'
'But what about dinner?'
'I'm not hungry. I ate at Ella's,' improvised Amber. 'Amber, I know you're worried about the exams
... began Faye, desperate to get her daughter
talking.
The tension in Amber finally sprang free. 'The
fucking exams aren't what this is all about!' she
yelled. 'You don't understand, you don't understand
anything!'
Faye's face was stricken. 'Amber, please, talk to
me. We've always talked about everything. What's
wrong?'
'I told you,' hissed Amber, 'you wouldn't understand.
You've never done anything with your life,
you've never taken a single risk. I'm different from
you. I need space, not you hanging over me waiting
and hoping for me to live my life the way you
want!'
'I never wanted that.' Faye could hardly speak
with the hurt. How could Amber accuse her of
this, of expecting too much from her, when all
she'd ever wanted was for Amber to be safe and
not to have to go through what she had. 'I only
ever wanted you to be happy.'
'No,' shot back Amber, and it was fear and guilt
talking, making her say hateful things because she
couldn't bear her mother looking at her with those
huge wounded eyes. 'You wanted me to be happy
in your way. The sensible, dull and boring way.
That's not what I want. I don't want to end up
like you.'
'Oh, darling, please, listen to me ...'
'No, I won't listen to you any more, Mum. I'm
an adult now and I've got my own life to lead,
and so do you.' Amber paused, flushed with
emotion. 'I can't be responsible for being here with
you, you've got to move on and not stay stuck in
the past, stuck remembering Dad. Being a widow
shouldn't define your life.'
There, she'd said it: told her mother to move
on. It wasn't quite how she'd meant to put it but
it was a start. She wouldn't be around any more,
she'd be away with Karl and even if she hadn't
got round to saying that, she'd said the main part.
They weren't a little family unit any more. She
and Karl were the unit. Her mother had to be
made to understand that.
Faye said nothing at all. She watched Amber as
she tucked her present under her arm and left the
kitchen, anything to be away from her mother's
anxious face and the weight of her expectations.
Alone, surrounded by flapjacks, Amber's
favourite feta and filo-pastry pie, and torn wrapping
paper, Faye felt lost and unbearably hurt.
What had she done wrong?
For once, she didn't bother to tidy up the
kitchen, scrubbing with her own solution of bleach
and water, eau de Faye,, as she used to joke. The
dinner sat untouched on the table and she walked,
sleepwalked almost, to her bedroom.
It was a pretty room, feminine, luxurious in its
way, a boudoir that nobody at Little Island would
easily identify as hers.
Her office, with its clean surfaces, tables and
chairs set at precise right angles, and the pot plant
whose leaves she cleaned every week, was a far
cry from this haven of soft fabrics. There was a
luscious velvet throw in antique rose on the bed,
and Tiffany-style lampshades that cast a soft
burnished light.
Not knowing quite what else to do, Faye sat
on the edge of her bed. She felt powerless. It was
so long since she'd had that feeling and it flooded
back into every vein as if it had never been away.
'What can I do now?' she said aloud. Inner
strength could get you through anything. She'd
trained herself to believe that and loved to read
about other women who'd gone through pain to
emerge stronger, tougher, untouchable. They were
proof that she was in some kind of women's club.
The We Screwed Up But We're Still Here
Club.
But to do it, you needed that inner strength and
hers was centred around one central core, Amber.
Golden, loving, talented, funny Amber. Without
Amber's love, that strength crumbled. And Amber
had just cast herself off like a shard of ice shearing
off an iceberg.
She sat on the bed for a long time, hearing
Amber moving around upstairs, then the sound of
music thumping through from the attic bedroom.
The Scissor Sisters were playing, and Faye managed
a half-smile because to her they sounded like a
classic seventies rock band, like one of her old
vinyl records. She still had some of her old LPs.
And the photos.
They were hidden in the big bottom drawer of
Faye's 1930s wardrobe, under a bundle of spare
sheets and a couple of elderly Foxford rugs. She
got up and pulled open the drawer. Spare pillowcases, said the label on the box. Who'd open that?
Faye had reasoned. Not even Amber, who rooted
around in her mother's dressing table for makeup,
would bother to look in there. Perhaps if Amber
had known her mother had something to hide, she
might have found it. But Faye knew that she'd
managed to keep her secret very well.
What had her daughter called her? Sensible, dal
and boring. Seventeen years of trying to become
someone she wasn't had been very successful, it
appeared.
She hadn't touched the box for years, but now
she carried it over to the bed and, settling herself
against her pillows, took off the lid.
On top of the pile of memories inside was a
grainy colour photograph of a girl with wide,
laughing eyes and tawny hair rippling around her
shoulders. Very like Amber, in fact. She was sitting
in the middle of a group of smiling people, captured
mid-laugh, frozen in time. Behind them was a wall
of leatherette from a curving banquette; in front
of them, a bar table spread with bottles, glasses,
cigarette packs, ashtrays.
Faye didn't remember the names of everyone in
the picture, but she could hear the music that had
been playing when Jimi had taken it - Led
Zeppelin, something dark and moody, the
mahogany darkness of 'Kashmir', perhaps.
She wondered where Jimi was now. Then, he'd
been a sweet guy with spiky punk hair and a lost
puppy-dog expression who hung around the fringes
of the gang. He was probably unrecognisable now,
working in a strait-laced office job with a tie, lace
up shoes and normal hair. But then, she was hard
high street navy suit and her neat little earrings
could imagine her as the girl in that picture, the
one who'd been swaying sexily to the music moments before the photo had been taken.
When she moved the pile of photos, a faint scent
of perfume rose from the box. YSL's heady Opium,
she remembered. She closed her eyes, and it was as though she was there once more in her former
life. She could almost smell the atmosphere of The
Club. Smoke, marijuana, the full-bodied reek of
Jack Daniel's, perfume and sweat. And excitement.
The excitement of not knowing what might happen
next.
The mixed-up girl she'd been then was no more,
but Faye would never forget her.
That girl represented both the great tragedy and
the triumph of her life, a former life she'd never
been able to share with Amber.
Keeping it all a secret had been an obsession
with Faye because if Amber knew, she'd never
understand and their relationship would be
destroyed. Except that somehow, her relationship
with Amber was fracturing more every day anyway.
Faye was beginning to wonder if things might be
better if Amber actually knew the truth.
CHAPTER NINE
Hi Shona,
How are you? Is all still well on your
planet? I miss you, Paul and Ross and the
fun we had.
So much, Maggie thought. How come you only
realised how great your friends were when they
weren't around?
No news here at all. I am sitting in my
bedroom at my dad's ancient laptop on Friday
morning and I keep getting this weird feeling
that it's a Sunday night and I've got school
in the morning. If Hart to Hart was still on
the telly, it'd be like nothing has changed.
Did I ever tell you that I wanted to be
Jennifer Hart? She was always so nice, so
beautiful, had a rich husband and never had
grow up to be her and I'd have a gorgeous
Mercedes-driving husband who happened to be a multi-millionaire and my hair would look
fantastic, auburn rather than carrot, and
there'd be a Max around to do stuff. Where
have all the millionaires gone? I might sign up
to a class to find one. Ooops, can't. I couldn't
keep up the act: the long nails, the long blonde
hair or the giggling at my chosen millionaire's
stupid jokes - which is what all the magazines
say is vital. I am also at a loss in the boob
department. Millionaires seem to like women
with tiny waists and big boobs who simper
that they only eat grilled fish and nothing but
nuts after six o'clock. My chest and my waist
are the same size and I like a proper dinner,
plus dessert and maybe a bar of chocolate or
two after six. I would not fit in.
Anyway, I hate men. Except for Ross and
Paul, and they don't count. And Dad. Nice
men who don't hit on me don't count, either.
Not that any men are hitting on me, Shona. So no mad phone calls about how I should
put mascara on and wear flat shoes so I'm
shorter than them because men like short
women, OK? Summer Street is a date-free
zone, like wildlife preserves where hunters
can't go after ducks. Men around here are Like my parents' friends, the nice dad sort
And when did men fling themselves at me anyway? Like, never.
Elisabeth had been on the phone a lot from Seattle
telling her to get out and get a life.
'Please don't say that the only way to get over
a guy is to get under another one,' warned Maggie,
which was what Ross had said to her on the phone,
adding that if he left it too long between dates,
both he and Nureyev got depressed.
Maggie got depressed just thinking about having
sex with another man. That electric attraction she'd
felt for Grey could hardly be found twice in a lifetime.
All she wanted was him and she couldn't
have him, mustn't have him.
'That's old-fashioned drivel about getting another
man,' Elisabeth said, 'and I'd never give advice like
that. A man's the last thing you need. I mean go
out with co-workers, friends. Go to galleries, take
up charity work, try a new sport, have fun.'
Maggie didn't think she knew how to have fun
any more.
Don't know if the boss told you but they've
let me extend my unpaid leave. After that, I
have to put up or shut up. Get another job
or come back. Don't know if I can face the
college again.
Mum's librarian friend who gave me my
first job years ago has asked me to do a
few shifts in the local library as a huge
favour. One of her people is pregnant and
has had to go off early because of back
pain. So I'm filling in and it's great, actually.
Almost a relief, which sounds unkind
to Mum and Dad, but you know what I mean.
She hadn't worked in a public library for years and
it was quite nice to get out of the house for a few
hours, to escape from the claustrophobia of home.
I'm in the children's department and I
really like it, actually. The kids are gorgeous
and no, I'm not broody, so don't even go
there. Kids say the funniest things. They're so blunt, it's hilarious. Plus, I get to flick
through the books I loved as a kid. I'm
rereading the Narnia series. I can't believe I
haven't read them for years.
Have you seen Grey? No, don't answer
that. Yes, do. And as for that blonde piece,
put a note on her file. 'Slept with librarian's
long-term boyfriend' should do it. 'Known
for ripping pages out of books' might be even
better.
I don't know what her name is. Probably
something like Flower or Petal or Butterfly,
stupid bitch. He must still be with her. It's
been two weeks and I haven't heard anything
from him since the first day. Some boyfriend
he turned out to be.
Not that I'm bitter. I am better off without
him.
Love Maggie.
She logged off. The last bit was untrue. She was
bitter and right now, no, she didn't feel better off
without Grey.
Since she'd been home, her mother had perked
up no end having her daughter around, while
Maggie herself felt strangely adrift. She was living
in the house she'd grown up in with her parents
- whom she loved, even if they did occasionally
drive her mad - and yet the sense of belonging
had gone.
All the remaining remnants of her younger self
- the furry cushions on her bed, the Holly Hobbie
dolls on the shelves - only made her feel more
alone, more isolated.
In this bedroom, she'd cried with misery over
the hell of school and dreamed of a wonderful
future, where she would be wise and successful.
Now she was back, futureless and feeling not a
lot wiser.
'Bean!' her father yelled. 'We're going to the
cafe for lattes and paninis. It's the Friday-morning
special. Want to come?'
Sense of belonging wasn't the only thing to
change. When had her parents started having lattes
and paninis? What was wrong with a coffee and
a bun, which was what they used to sell there.
Home had moved on without her, Maggie thought,
almost childishly. It wasn't supposed to change. It
was supposed to stay exactly the same so she could
come back and refresh. Still, latte and panini was
better than sitting in her bedroom.
'OK, coming.' At least in the cafe, there couldn't
be too many probing questions about Grey.
Breakfast in the cafe ended in a cholesterol inducing
flurry at eleven when eggs done every
which way came off the menu, and wraps, paninis
and ciabatta bread sandwiches went on. Henry
was painstakingly writing the day's lunch specials
on the blackboard outside the cafe when the
Maguires arrived, first Una, regal with her crutches,
and then her people-in-waiting, Maggie and
Dennis, bringing up the rear, carrying Una's
handbag and a cushion so she could rest her leg
on a hard chair.
'Henry, love, how are you?' asked Una.
Henry, a fatherly balding man in cords and a
checked shirt, stopped writing to greet Una, who
was one of his favourite customers.
'How's the poor leg?' he asked solicitously. 'Sore but what's the point of complaining?' said
Una. 'If that's the worst thing that happens to me,
won't I be fine?'
They went in and arranged themselves at a table
by the window, Una swivelling herself until she
was comfortable before handing her crutches to
Maggie. Xu, the petite Chinese waitress, appeared
with a silent smile and gave them menus. Maggie
smiled hello back at her. There was something that
fascinated her about Xu. Imagine coming all that
way to a country where you knew nobody. Yet Xu didn't appear lonely or sad, just grateful for
this chance of a new life in Ireland. Her life must
have been hard before, Maggie surmised, but she
didn't want to offend Xu by asking intrusive questions, so she settled, Maggie-style, for smiling a
lot at her.
Henry finished working on the blackboard and
came inside.
'Tell me, Henry, what's good today? We're trying
to feed poor Maggie up or she'll go home to
Galway and Grey will think we starved her here. Grey's her partner,' Una added in her version of
sotto voce, which meant only half the street heard.
Maggie managed the required polite smile at
this. Had her mother always mentioned Grey this often or was it noticeable only now that he was
gone?
'Great soup, wild mushroom,' said Henry, who
had come in after them. 'Jane's trying out this new cookbook and herself and Xu were slaving away
all morning at it.'
'Let's have that, then,' said Una. 'We love trying
new things, don't we?'
She beamed at Maggie who was trying to make
herself think cheerful thoughts so she could join
in this happy family lunch instead of looking like
a shrivelled old misery guts. But what was a
cheerful thought?
the truth than to suffer endless public comments
about how wonderful Grey was.
'Grey and I have split up,' she blurted out.
Her father immediately looked concerned and
laid a hand on hers, while her mother bit her lip.
'Oh, Maggie, love,' Una sighed. 'I wish you'd
told us before, you poor pet, instead of bottling
it up. We love you.'
There it was: the most simple and most poignant
thing any parent could say. They loved her and it
didn't matter if she was single or about to be
married to the planet's most eligible bachelor, they
loved her.
'I didn't mean to cry,' she said, crying. Honestly,
what was wrong with her? It was like being sixteen
again, tearful at the drop of a hat. 'We broke up
just before you had the accident and I thought you
had enough to deal with without my worries as
well. I - well, he - it wasn't working.' She couldn't
tell them about the blonde. It would be too humiliating.
'He
wasn't good enough for you,' snapped her
father, angry wolf circling his precious cub. 'Should
have asked to marry you. I said that all along,
didn't I, Una? What sort of a man goes out with
a girl for five years and never wants to make an
honest woman out of her?'
'Dennis,' warned his wife. 'This is not the time
for recriminations.'
it, but it wasn't good enough for me bucko, no
sirree ...'
'Dennis!' 'Dad, Mum, it's OK. I'm OK about it all,'
Maggie lied. 'Really, we both knew it wasn't
working.' She was glad she hadn't mentioned Petal,
or whatever her name was. Her normally mildmannered
father might run off to purchase a gun
and remould Grey's intestinal tract with a bullet.
Who could tell?
'You'd had enough of him?' asked Dad, suddenly
concerned with getting a speck of dust from his
eye. 'That's my girl. Dump him and move on, that's
the ticket. You always knew how to take care of
yourself.'
It was almost too much for Maggie. She'd never
known how to take care of herself. She'd spent four years of hell in school for that very reason.
But inexplicably her dad believed otherwise. She
wasn't sure whether to laugh or sob. Did he and
Mum not understand what sort of a mess of a
person she really was?
The next morning, Maggie was on her knees in
the library playhouse tidying up books when she
heard her name called.
'Maggie!' Tina, the other librarian in the children's
section, hissed urgently. 'You've got a visitor.'
It was hard for a tall person to squash down
enough to get even half of themselves inside the
library's red wooden kiddie zone, so Maggie figured
that unless Bill Clinton was outside exuding
charisma and charm, whoever it was could wait
until she'd finished tidying up the picture books
that small kids loved to take into the house.
'Maggie!' hissed Tina again.
'Keep your knickers on!' Maggie hissed back as
she grabbed The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and
instantly wished she'd said nothing. It had only
taken one day of being under the watchful gaze
of wide-eyed primary school kids for her to realise
that children loved saying things to their parents
like: 'The lady behind the desk said "crap",
Mummy. That's a bad word. Is she going to get
into trouble?'
Books still in her arms, she wriggled out of the
small space and sat back on her knees. There were
no kids in hearing range, thankfully. But standing
beside Tina, who looked intrigued, was Grey,
particularly drop-dead gorgeous in his serious business
outfit of dark brown jacket, collar and tie. It
was his meeting-with-the-boss outfit, and today, it
seemed, Maggie merited boss treatment.
It was strange how easily she'd managed to
forget the effect Grey's physical presence had on
her. Away from him, it was simple to think him
ordinary, a man who left beard scum in the bathroom
sink, upturned his cereal bowl to drink the
milk, and snored like an asthmatic pig in bed. Now
that he was here, arrestingly handsome, her
stomach flipped, remembering.
'Hello, Grey.'
'Hi, Maggie.'
They stared at each other. Maggie's instinct was
to move to hug him until the picture flashed into
her mind again: Grey and his blonde in their bed.
Immediately, her stomach did the other sort of flip,
the betrayed and devastated flip that completely
neutralised the effect of his charisma.
'How are you?' he said. 'I've really missed you.'
For an instant, she forgot where they were: all
she could think was that Grey was here to tell her
that he loved her and that they should forget the
past, she was the one for him. Then, reality
reasserted itself. She was at work. Grey was saying
these things in front of Tina, whose eyes were
protruding so far it looked as if she was a rabbit
with myxomatosis.
She imagined his face if the positions had been
reversed and she'd accosted him in a tutorial. He'd
have been furious.
This was not a game, Maggie thought darkly.
It was her life and she wasn't going to be played
with.
'Long time no see. What are you doing in
Dublin?' Maggie asked evenly.
'I came to see you,' he replied. 'To bring you
home.'
He hadn't spoken to her in two weeks and now
he'd just turned up at her place of work and
thought he could fix everything. How dare he?
Anger and heartache fought in Maggie's head
and anger won.
'How did you know I was working here?' she
asked. 'Paul told me. By mistake,' Grey added. 'He
said Shona would kill him. And me,' Grey added,
as if the possibility was ludicrous. Women never
stayed angry with him for long, he was too
charming. Able to charm them into bed, Maggie
thought.
'I'm at work, Grey,' she said with a coolness
she didn't know she possessed. 'I can't talk.' 'Later then?' he asked. 'Lunchtime?'
Maggie managed to keep her game face on. 'I'm
busy at lunchtime,' she said with the air of someone
with so many appointments she needed an assistant
to keep her diary straight. The keep-'em-keen
angel that was Shona hovered in her head,
shrieking, make him suffer, make him wait for you!
She remembered Shona's advice when she had
told her what had happened.
If you go back to him, I'll never speak to you
again! Don't ditch your principles just because
you're crazy about him. You deserve better.
Grey leaned against the end of the J-K shelf,
graceful as ever, long legs crossing at the ankles.
Maggie could almost sense Tina sighing in appreciation,
and she felt irritated again. Not for jealousy's
sahe but because Tina - who was twenty
years older than Maggie and should know better was.falling into the same trap Maggie herself had
tumbled into: believing that a stunning-looking
man was a prize beyond rubies.
Only if he was faithful.
'When then?' And Grey looked straight into her
eyes as if they were in a private room and he was
able to caress her into agreeing to anything.
'After work. Half five.' Maggie felt jolted by
how much she suddenly wanted him to hold her,
despite it all.
'The Summer Street Cafe.' It was the only place
she could think of and instantly regretted it. Just up the road from home and her parents might
drop in, you never knew. Maggie couldn't cope
with a scene, not now.
'That pretty little blue and white place on the
corner?' Grey asked.
She remembered she'd taken him there once
before when he'd visited her parents. It had felt
like a royal tour, showing him where she'd grown
up, wanting him to love it all and approve of it,
and Grey had said he did, but she'd imagined
he felt it all a bit provincial really. A street where
everyone knew everyone else. The only street where
Grey would like to know everyone was probably
in a toney neighbourhood in Washington DC where
world policies were discussed with undersecretaries
at dinner parties, not gossip over muffins in a little
cafe.
On that occasion, Maggie had lost count of the
people who'd come up to them in the cafe and
said, 'I haven't seen you for ages, Maggie,' and
then, with unconcealed fascination: 'And who's
this gentleman?'
'Yes. We'll only have half an hour but I'm sure
that'll be long enough,' she said coolly.
He didn't respond to the barb.
'See you then.' He touched her arm gently as
he left and Maggie closed her eyes in pain.
Tina took the books from Maggie's arms. She
was at least a foot shorter than Maggie and
favoured pale blue above all other clothes
colours.
With books in her arms and a glint of pearl
earrings peeking out behind a grey bob, she looked
like the archetypal librarian. But Maggie knew she
had a wicked sense of humour and could make
the library staff room rock with laughter.
'There's a new hair salon up the road,' she said,
eyeing Maggie's unwashed, tangled locks. 'You
could take early lunch today. It's my turn, but I
don't mind. I wasn't going anywhere.'
Maggie felt herself come back to earth and
smiled at Tina.
'I need a hairdo?' she asked in mock surprise. 'It wouldn't hurt,' Tina said. 'Might make him
wonder what you were doing for lunch and with
whom.'
'I don't want him to think I got my hair done
for him, though.'
'When did a man ever notice your hair?' Tina
demanded. 'He'll think you're looking amazing
without him, and you'll feel better if you're going
to dump him and you look marvellous.'
'True,' sighed Maggie without much enthusiasm.
Tina shot her a gimlet-eyed look. 'You are going
to dump him?'
Maggie nodded, and found herself confessing. 'I caught him with someone else. Younger, sexy,
big boobs: your basic nightmare.'
'Well, you're hardly the hunchback of Notre
Dame yourself,' Tina responded.
'Oh, I'm just thin,' Maggie said, exasperated.
People who weren't thin always thought it was the
be-all and end-all of looks. It wasn't. Sexy and
curvy, and with skin that could be tanned and hair
that could be tamed: that was something.
'Just thin, huh?' Tina came closer. 'Do yourself
a favour, Maggie. I don't know where they've put
the mirrors in your house, but there's a lot more
to you than just thin. And if Romeo hasn't told
you so, then you've got to dump him because he's
a vampire sort of guy - sucks the life force right
out of you and convinces you that you're ugly and
useless.'
Maggie stared at her. She wanted to say that
Tina was wrong, that Grey was the only one who'd
made her feel sexy and gorgeous, and that his
leaving her had taken it all away from her. But it
would sound so silly.
All afternoon, after she got back from the hairdressers
with tumbling glossy curls that made a
gang of workmen on the road whoop and whistle
at her, she thought about what Tina had said. And
Shona. And Elisabeth.
You're worth more, they'd said. Grey didn't
deserve you, they'd said. And she'd dismissed their
advice because it was well-meaning girlfriend talk
where people said the right thing to buoy up your
spirits. It didn't have to be true. It was just verbal
hugging. We love you even if he doesn't.
But for once, she tried to step outside herself
and imagine if she was wrong. What if Grey wasn't
good enough for her?
He'd never asked her to marry him, though
they'd been going out for five years and it seemed
like the next logical step. Even at Shona and Paul's
wedding, where Maggie had been a bridesmaid
and had caught the bouquet - well, Shona had
flung it directly at her, so catching wasn't the operative
word - even then, Grey hadn't held her hand
tightly or looked at her in a manner that suggested
it could be them next.
'Hasn't today been romantic?' she'd said that
evening as they sat in the sunset on the hotel
terrace, Grey handsome in his pale linen suit,
Maggie like a wood nymph in hand-dyed green
silk, with tiny creamy flowers woven into her hair.
'Must be costing them a small fortune,' Grey
had remarked, sucking on his cigar. Shona's
dad had passed round cigars after the toasts and
Grey had insisted on going out to smoke it instantly.
He looked like a character in a Scott Fitzgerald
novel, Maggie thought, with love. His hair suited
him swept back and he twirled the fat cigar
expertly, savouring it. 'You could put a down
payment on a fine house for what today's costing.
'Is it typically Irish, I wonder,' he added thoughtfully, 'this business of a huge, costly ceremony with
everyone you know there? It's like our obsession
with owning land. We can't just rent, we have to
own. It's always the grand gesture. I could write
a paper on it, what do you think?'
In the library, an entire year after the event,
Maggie felt suddenly aflame with anger at what
Grey had said. She'd been annoyed then, too, but
hadn't said it, assuming Grey was just bored
because he wasn't Shona's biggest fan - it was
mutual - and wasn't as fired up with enthusiasm
over the whole event as Maggie had been.
'It's nice to have everyone you care about watch
you marry the person you love,' she'd said hopefully.
Her mother would be in seventh heaven
organising Maggie's wedding, and her father would
probably spend months working on his speech, a
speech that would be loving, respectful and would
probably halt halfway through for Dad to wipe
his eyes behind his glasses.
That's what she'd been thinking of at Shona
and Paul's wedding, and bloody Grey had been
thinking of another bloody paper. It wasn't
that he wasn't clever enough to understand
what Maggie had been getting at: he wasn't one
of those academics who understood chaos
theory but couldn't change a light bulb. Grey
was savvy. He'd simply avoided a discussion
about marriage because he wasn't interested in
marrying her.
And she'd been so besotted, so terrified or frightenning
him off, she'd let him get away with it. She'd
shut up like a good girl.
Maggie wasn't sure which of them she was most
angry with: herself or Grey.
She'd never seen Summer Street quite so busy as
today, when at 5.28 she walked up to meet Grey
at the cafe. Just when she wanted no one to notice
them. 'Hello, Maggie!' Somebody waved across
the road at her. Maggie felt cornered. A woman
with grey-blonde hair, vaguely familiar. Maggie had
no idea who it was.
'Hello,' she said brightly. 'How are you and ...
er, everyone?' Everyone was the fail-safe for when
she couldn't remember if the person in question
had a husband or children or a budgie menagerie.
'Oh, they're all fine,' said the woman. 'Fine.
How are you? Your poor mother, I heard about
her leg. I haven't dropped in to see her because
I'm just so busy with the Guides.'
The Girl Guides! That was it, thought Maggie,
delighted. Now she knew. Mrs Cooke, lived at the
bottom of the road and was an outrageous busybody.
It was a complete miracle that she hadn't
been to the house already to see Mum's leg, pass
comment on the furniture and circulate details of
her visit.
'I'll call in now, though,' said Mrs Cooke with
horrible intent.
'Well, she's not really having visitors today,'
Maggie said hurriedly. 'She's tired, needs to sleep
a lot really. It takes it out of a person when they
break their leg.'
'Of course, I completely understand,' said Mrs
Cooke. 'I'll drop in next week instead. She'll be
feeling better then.' And she was gone.
By the time Maggie made it to the cafe, she had
nodded, waved, smiled and recounted the story of
her mother's leg to two more people. So much for
trying to meet Grey in a quiet place.
The cafe was the centre of the local universe
and entirely the wrong place to meet a man whom
your parents were hatching a plan to stab.
Not that the lovely Henry and Jane would
breathe a word to Dennis and Una if Maggie had
met King Kong himself and sat at one of the back
tables, stroking his furry arms and discussing big
buildings to climb. But someone else might blab.
It was in this frame of mind that Maggie shoved
open the door of the cafe and looked around suspiciously.
It came as a great relief to see that, apart
from Grey, it was empty.
Grey had naturally got the best seat, at a slightly
larger than normal table in the window. There he
sat, looking gorgeous and relaxed, a black coffee
in front of him along with a croissant that he had
half nibbled and pushed away. How typically manlike,
Maggie thought, irritably. He'd only eaten
half the croissant and realised he didn't need the
rest. A woman would have eaten it no matter what:
she'd bought it - she'd eat it.
'Hello,' Maggie said, and plonked herself down
in the seat opposite him. She was angry and nothing
Grey could say would change it.
'Maggie,' said Henry, coming up before Grey
could open his mouth. 'Can I get you anything?' 'Erm, ah, coffee, black,' she said stupidly,
because she took milk and sugar.
'Anything to eat?' 'Muffin, erm, sugar-free.'
'Carrot or lemon or chocolate?' Henry asked
politely.
It was as if her ability to speak had disappeared. 'Lemon,' she said finally.
So much for getting her hair blow-dried into
tousled, artful curls at lunchtime. What use was
looking glamorous and untouchable when she
couldn't string two sentences together? Henry
vanished and Grey and Maggie stared at each other. 'So,' she said.
'I'm really glad you came to meet me,' Grey said,
looking the picture of penitence. 'I've missed you.
You've no idea how much.' He reached across the
table and grabbed her hand. Maggie pulled it away. 'Sorry. I shouldn't rush it,' he said.
'No,' she agreed.
They sat in silence.
'How have you been?' he asked. 'Fine.'
'You don't look fine.'
'Thanks for that vote of confidence,' she said
sarcastically.
'I didn't mean it that way. You look beautiful.'
He reached out again for her hand but thought
better of it. 'You always look beautiful.'
'I thought you preferred blondes with big tits,'
Maggie said, aiming for flippant and sounding
desperately hurt instead.
Henry put a coffee in front of her and pretended
he hadn't heard.
'You know, Henry, maybe you could put a bit
of frothy stuff on the top of it, I changed my mind.' 'No problem.' Henry whisked it away. Thirty-five
years in the cafe business meant he knew better
than to question a woman's change of mind.
'I don't prefer blondes,' Grey said earnestly. 'I
prefer women with wild red hair, and liquid blue
eyes I can't stop thinking about . . .'
'Oh, Grey, stop it,' she said. 'That's crap. You
were in bed with her. Nothing you can say can
change that.'
'I know.'
'Let's talk about the apartment and what we're
going to do with it,' she added. That was good,
she was firm, in control. She would not turn into
the old Maggie, desperate for approval.
'I'm not here to talk about the apartment. I'm
here to make you come home.'
'I left two weeks ago, so it's taken you quite a
long time to get here,' she said sharply.
'I was giving you time to think, time to get over
being mad at me,' he said with such simple sincerity
that she felt herself being pulled back in.
'I'm not mad, I'm hurt. Betrayed. Devastated,'
she emphasised. 'Mad is what you get when you
stub your toe. I loved you with all my heart for
five years and you threw it back at me by taking
another woman to bed in our apartment, so no,
mad doesn't quite do that justice.'
'It was just a figure of speech,' he said, giving
her that wry grin she adored.
Maggie felt herself being reeled in again, despite
her plans to tell him it was all over. Because that's
what she'd told herself she'd do, wasn't it?
Henry put the coffee down a second time. 'Is that all right for you, Maggie?' he asked. 'Yes, thank you, perfect,' she said.
Henry looked shrewdly from one to the other,
smiled and walked back into the kitchen.
'You've every right to be angry with me,' Grey
went on, as if they hadn't been interrupted. 'I didn't
know what to do to make it better, that's the truth.
I ...' He hesitated. 'I know what you think, but
nothing like this has ever happened before, I want
you to believe that, Maggie. It was a stupid oneoff
thing and I can't forgive myself - that's why I
haven't been in touch. I didn't think you'd even
want to see me. I can understand how hard it is
for you to forgive me but please, we've got so
much going for us. We can't throw it all away.'
'I didn't throw it all away - you did!' she
breathed. 'You did.'
They both sat back in their chairs, a pair of
gladiators wondering how to attack next.
Again, the moment on the terrace at Shona and
Paul's wedding flashed through Maggie's mind. She
hadn't been a strong modern woman and asked
her boyfriend if he thought they should get married.
She'd wittered on about how romantic the wedding
was, waiting for him to say something, and then
when he'd dodged the subject, she'd never
mentioned it again. What a wimp.
'Why did you never want to get married?' she
demanded suddenly. 'You knew I did. I hinted that
I did. But you avoided the subject.'
'Well ... I . . .' For once, Dr Grey Stanley was
nonplussed.
Maggie watched him think. She could read his
face like a book, or so she'd once believed - now
she realised she was wrong. She hadn't read signs
of his infidelity. Another certainty crumbled.
'You didn't want to get married, did you?' she
said, looking down at her coffee.
'No,' he said. 'Truthfully, no. I thought we had
everything already and that marriage would spoil
it. Why fix what's not broken, right?'
'You're the one who broke it.'
He bowed his head, as if the weight of the pain
was too much to bear. 'I can't tell you how sorry
I am, Maggie. I miss you so much, I want you
back, I should never have let you leave that
morning. Everyone says I must be mad to have let
you go, you're so stunning, beautiful, too good
for me, they tell me.' And he laughed, but it was
clear that somebody had indeed said that to him.

And Maggie felt a surge of pleasure that at least someone on campus had thought good of her.
'Is that why you're here? Because your colleagues
think you should be with me instead of some beautiful
little blonde?'
Grey looked up and stared at her with mystification. 'Beautiful? She's nothing compared to you.
You've never had a clue how beautiful you are,
Maggie. It's one of the most beguiling things about
you. Most beautiful women are like stockbrokers,
always bartering. Their presence costs. Presents, dinner, compliments. But not you. Even when
you're sitting on the couch in your old jeans and
that horrible cardigan you love, with your knees
scrunched up, biting your cuticles watching a movie, you look like someone should be photographing
you,' he added. 'I suppose I'm more used
to the stockbroker beauties, they've got hard shells.
They know their worth. But you don't.'
He reached out and took her hand now. 'Please
come back to me. I do love you. Don't you believe me?'
'I believe you,' she said in a small voice, loving
the feeling of his hand on hers. Her resolve to tell
him it was over between them crumbled some more.
'But what does that mean, Grey? What does your
loving me mean? I only want the sort of love that's
not shared. I can't share you. That would kill me.'
'Let's get engaged,' he said eagerly. 'We'll set a
date. Soon, let's get married soon. Please, can't you see that I'm serious?'
It sounded so seductive the way he put it. How
easy it would be to go back to him. Familiarity
lured her in. And marriage. Was this a proposal?
If so, she would never have the face to tell people
how she'd got engaged. Because her fiance had
had an affair ...
'Now's not the time to talk about getting
engaged,' she said firmly, taking her hand back.
But marriage. It was what she'd wanted ever
since that day watching Shona and Paul make their
vows.
There was one question she still had to ask. 'I know what you said, but I need to be certain:
were there others?' She was sure she'd seen it in
his eyes that night. A flash of guilt when she'd
asked him if he'd slept with other women. Yet
now, there was no guilt in his face, no sign that
he had ever cheated before.
'I swear to you,' he said fervently, 'there has
never been anyone else, Maggie. She came into my
office and she was coming on to me and ... I
don't know, I felt flattered.' He hung his head,
paused for a moment before looking up at her
again, pleading. 'It's stupid, isn't it, stupid to be
flattered by a student? She's just a kid and not
even very bright. And I had you and you're so
clever and brilliant and wonderful and a grownup.
Oh, I can't articulate all the things that you
are, all the amazing things you are to me.'
In her head, Maggie computed that he was
saying all the right things. But in her heart, she
didn't care whether he was or not. He loved her,
wanted her. That was what mattered. She needed
him in her life.
'There was nobody else, ever?' she asked.
'No, never,' he said. 'I'll be honest, I was
tempted. Sometimes kids get a crush on lecturers.
You know that, we've talked about how flattering
it is. Come on, I'm nearly thirty-seven, I'm over
the hill as far as these kids are concerned and it's
hard to resist their attention. Who wouldn't be
flattered? You know what I mean,' he pleaded, 'you've had the guys come into the library, smile
at you and flirt. It turns you on a little bit and
you feel good. But it doesn't mean anything. None
of that takes away from the love that you feel for
one person, and that one person is you, Maggie,
I love you. I don't love some kid. She's nobody.'
'Which is worse,' Maggie said, all the hurt of
seeing him in bed with that blonde nobody flooding
back, crashing into her hopes of them being a
couple again, 'that you think she is a nobody or
that you could have sex with someone you think
is a nobody?'
He leaned back in his chair and his eyes glittered,
the way they did when he was thinking. He
was so clever. His mind could work on so many
different levels and today Maggie could almost
hear the cogs whirring.
'I didn't mean it like that,' he said. 'I don't think
of women in that way.'
'Oh, for heaven's sake,' she interrupted, 'this is
not a party political broadcast. I'm not a feminist
voter you have to convince to come over to your
side. I'm not worried about being politically correct
when it comes to the person you fucked on our
bed. I'm making the point that it says a lot about
you when you can have sex with someone and
then say they're nothing. I'd prefer it if you told
me the truth.'
But she didn't really want to know the truth. 'You know what, this is a mistake,' she said
wearily. She couldn't go back to him, not yet
anyway. She needed more time to think about
everything that had happened. 'You coming here.
I was wrong. It's too soon. Maybe we should just
talk on the phone or something. I'm not ready to
see you and Mum's sick and ... it's difficult.'
She had mused that afternoon in the library that
two weeks was plenty of time to get over the fierce
pain of his betrayal and talk sensibly but two weeks
had turned out to be just a heartbeat after all. The
agony was just as intense as it had been. She felt
angry, hurt, stupid, so many conflicting emotions.
She couldn't make a decision now.
'Let's talk about everything later. I'll come back
to Galway soon and we can talk then.'
'No,' Grey said firmly. 'I want to talk to you
now. I want to get it sorted out now. I can't go
on living like this, with this uncertainty, wondering
what's going to happen, wondering if you're going
to come back to me.'
'Oh, so it's about you now, is it?' retorted
Maggie furiously. 'You sleep around, wait two
weeks to come to see me, then you have the
audacity to say you were waiting for me to phone
and you want to get it all sorted out and back to
normal. Well, no thank you very much, Dr Stanley.'
'Please.' He grabbed one of her hands between
both of his and his touch was electric.
'You shouldn't do that,' she said weakly, but
she didn't mean it.
'I love you, Maggie,' he said. 'I'm going to go
in a minute because I think that's what you want
me to do, but I just want you to remember that I
love you so, so much. Please remember that. I
made a mistake, one mistake, don't crucify me for
it, please. We're stronger than that. We're worth
more than that.'
He stood up and leaned over the table and
kissed her very gently on the lips. Almost against
her will, Maggie found her head tilting up to get
closer to him.
Then he moved away and stroked her cheek
with exquisite gentleness.
'I love you,' he said. 'Please believe that.' And then he left.
Maggie stared back down into her coffee and stirred it. She added a couple more little packets
of sugar and drank slowly, thinking. What on earth
should she do?
Part of her desperately wanted to run out on
to the street and call him hack, to say that she
couldn't live without him. But part of her was still
too hurt to do that. His betrayal had broken something
precious inside her and it could never be
fixed.

No matter what, their relationship would never
quite be the same. And, inside her, a voice relentlessly
whispered: if they got back together, would
Grey cheat on her again?

CHAPTER TEN

The brass knocker shone, the doorstep was spotless
and delicious scents of beeswax polish and
home baking wafted from the hallway.

Faye loved the home she'd grown up in but

there was something about walking back through

the door that made her feel she'd failed her mother
in some way. From this tiny council house, with

a combination of her widow's pension and what
she earned in her part-time job, her mother had

put Faye and her brother, Miles, through college
at a time when there weren't many kids on their

street in third-level education.

The maze of houses in the vast Linden Estate

had been a tough place to bring up children, riddled

as it was with petty crime and the scourge of drugs.

But Josie Heffernan had managed to keep her

children on the straight and narrow so that Faye
could win a place at art college and Miles could
achieve the school exam results he needed to study

economics at Trinity.
Now Miles was a high-flyer in corporate
banking, making good use of his mother's hard
work. Although Faye regretted that they didn't
make enough time to see each other very often,
she knew he was a loving husband and father as
well as a hard worker. He'd never gone off the
rails in his life. But Faye still felt a twinge of guilt
that she had wasted her early promise.
It was late on Sunday morning and the house
was full of Josie's friends from St Michael's Church.
Josie was what people called 'a pillar of the community'
in the best sense of the phrase. She got
involved with kindness and capability and really
made a difference.
Today, as usual, her mother was holding court
in the kitchen, with every seat in the place taken,
the big stainless-steel teapot on the oilcloth, and
the remains of some home-made scones on jammy
plates.
'Hello, Faye,' said her mother, jumping up
lithely. Josie was light on her feet. A small woman,
like her daughter and her granddaughter, she didn't
carry an ounce of spare fat because, as Amber
accurately put it, 'Gran never sits down for long.'
Whether it was cleaning St Michael's, taking
care of meals on wheels or working in a local
daycare centre for disabled children, Josie gave it
her all.
Stan Stack, Faye's stepfather, was reading the
newspapers in the quiet of the tiny living room,
although how he could concentrate with the
laughs coming from the kitchen, Faye didn't
know.
'When Father Sean said she could feed the baby
in the church and she says "fair enough" and whips
out a boob, I swear, I thought I'd laugh up a lung!'
shrieked one woman, church perfect in a navy suit.
'Ah, Father Sean wouldn't mind, he's been on
the missions and he's seen it all,' grinned Josie. 'He'd take that in his stride.' She loved Father Sean
and called him the Under Boss, in that he answered
to the Man Above.
'It wasn't the boob so much as the tattoo,'
insisted the navy-clad woman. 'Robbie 4Ever in a
heart. And the husband's called Tom. That's what got me.'
'Robbie Williams,' suggested one of the ladies thoughtfully over her scone. 'I do like him.' 'They can get them off with lasers nowadays.' 'Robbie Williams?'
'No, tattoos.'
More howling ensued.
Eventually, the visitors had had enough scones
and tea, and took their leave. Mother and daughter
were left alone in the kitchen. Without Josie's
chatty, lively crew of friends, it seemed very quiet indeed.
'How's Amber?' asked Josie, making quick work of tidying up her kitchen.
'Fine,' Faye said.
Her mother said nothing but looked at Faye inquisitively.
'All right, she's not fine,' Faye gave in. Her
mother would get the information out of her
anyway. She might as well explain that Amber had
been avoiding her since Thursday, using the excuse
of studying to rush upstairs any time Faye tried
to talk to her. 'She's moody and she wants to eat
her dinner on her own instead of with me.'
Josie nodded.
'She shouted at me for going into her room the
other night too, because I thought she was having
a nightmare.' Faye could barely cope with how
much it had hurt when Amber had sat up in bed
and shouted at her, hissing that she needed some
privacy. Faye was used to wandering into Amber's
room any time, to chat to her daughter. Now she
felt that she couldn't do that, either. 'She's cutting
me off.'
'And you can see how it hurts,' finished Josie
softly.
Shocked, Faye looked into her mother's face and
saw remembered pain there. Nearly two decades
ago, she'd caused Josie exactly the same hurt
Amber was causing her, she realised. Yet her mother
had never for a second betrayed how wounded
she'd been. There had been no recriminations.
Nothing but help when she'd needed it. Her mother
was extraordinary, Faye realised, not for the first
time.
'Is it a man?,
'She's not that into boys,' Faye said. 'You know
what she and Ella are like: they run rings around
Ella's brothers and they're dead set on getting into
college. Modern girls are different, they're sorted,
they know what they want and they won't let
anyone or any man stop them.'
'If you're sure . . .' The rest of the sentence hung
in the air.
'I'm sure,' Faye said. She'd know, wouldn't she? 'Where is she today?'
'Off at Ella's, studying. It's these bloody exams,'
Faye went on. 'That's the problem. When they're
over, everything will be fine again.'
'For sure,' said Josie. 'Myself and Stan were
going to take the train out to Howth for a bit of
lunch. Would you like to come?'
Faye smiled. 'I'd love to,' she said. After all, it
wasn't as if she had anything else to do without
Amber.
Sunshine, beautiful food and all the people she
loved most in the world together - what could be
better than that? thought Christie.
It was the Sunday of the celebration, the day
the Devlin family celebrated the new life they'd
nearly lost. Christie stood in her kitchen and
thought of dear Lenkya's pronouncement on how
you could kill or cure in the kitchen as she got
ready to carry trays of food outside to the garden
where her family sat, some in the full sun, some
in the, shade of the terrace. Dear Lenkya. She'd
left Ireland many years ago and although they'd
kept in touch for a long time, there came a point
when her letters stopped and Christie's ones were
never replied to. Christie hoped she was happy
wherever she was.
Today, in the same way Lenkya had woven
comfort and friendship in her stews, Christie had
put all her wisdom and love into her cooking to
nourish her family every way she could. She wished
and prayed happiness into every recipe, hoping
that the ferocity of her love would provide a
talisman for her sons, their wives and her born
and unborn grandchildren.
And hoping that this love could keep the feelings
of danger away.

But no, Christie refused to think about Carey
Wolensky. That man would not ruin today. This
Sunday was for her family, a day of love, celebration
and food.
There were tender chicken kebabs and bowls of
chilled salad heaving with avocado, cherry tomatoes
and honeydew melon. Baked potatoes laced
with sour cream and chives sat with a dish of
grilled rosemary-scented slivers of lamb, and
Christie's own sliced tomato and fennel bread
nestled in a basket with crusty white rolls.
'Are you cooking for the apocalypse?' James
had teased the evening before when Christie
missed her favourite TV show because she was
up to her eyes in flour, -baking, measuring and
peering into the oven to see if the honey and
poppy-seed cake had risen. 'I haven't ordered the
nuclear shelter for the garden yet, but I can if you
want. Although most people take cans of food
with them ...'
'I cook therefore I am,' Christie said serenely,
spooning mixture into muffin cases.
Which was true. Cooking was therapy for her
as well as an expression of love for her family and
right now, she needed that spiritual nourishment.
James's hand snaked out towards the mixing
bowl.
Christie laughed and let him take one finger's
worth of dough, before slapping his hand away. 'People who tease me don't get fed,' she said. 'Are you making guacamole for me?' he asked,
eyeing the avocados. James loved food and would
eat most things, but his love for guacamole was
legend in the Devlin family annals.
'Have I ever forgotten to make it for you?'
Christie patted his cheek with a floury hand and
went on with her spooning.
'No,' said James and put his arms around his
wife for a kiss.
Who'd have thought guacamole would be the
secret to love, Christie thought, closing her eyes
and leaning back into his arms: on such strange
things were marriages made.
'Mum, this is delicious,' sighed Ethan, sitting
back in a striped deckchair, the dogs at his feet
and a plate piled high on his lap.
'Yes,' murmured Janet, who was paler than usual,
but had a light in her eyes that Christie had never
seen there before. 'I like this eating for two thing.'
'It really kicks in at dessert,' Ethan's wife, Shelly,
informed her sister-in-law. 'You don't think you
can eat two entire pieces of cheesecake or two
wedges of chocolate cake, but you can.'
Ethan and Shane, well trained by their mother,
helped her tidy up so she could bring the desserts
out.
'Thanks,' Shane said, kissing her affectionately
on the cheek. 'This is a lovely party.'
It was getting so hot that the dogs came in to
lie on the kitchen floor, panting in the heat.
James carried in the last of the buffet plates and
stacked them in the dishwasher.
'I don't know if it's the wine talking, but today
has made me think. We're very lucky, Christie,
aren't we?' he said as he straightened up. 'We've
got everything, a healthy family, each other, a few
quid in the bank.'
'Hey, don't you think I know it?' replied Christie,
smiling at her husband. She'd had a glass of wine too and finally felt the tension leave her. She must
stop thinking about Carey Wolensky. After all, how
could something from so long ago touch her now?
'I thank God every day for what we've got.'
From outside in the garden came the sounds of
their family enjoying themselves. Sasha was
shrieking as she chased around after balloons that
Christie really hoped wouldn't get caught on the
spiky thorns of her Madame Pompadour,
Christie didn't have to look out to know that
Shane would be beaming from ear to ear, the proud
look of the daddy to be. He'd had that look on
his face all day and Christie could remember when
James looked exactly the same. The pride of the
family man.
'I say thanks every day too,' said James. 'But,
you know,' he paused, 'do you ever worry that
something will happen? That one of us will become
ill, something random, something we can't do
anything about.'
Christie stared at him. James was never maudlin,
not even after a glass of wine. Instantly, she
wondered what he knew, how he'd found out. Yet
he couldn't know anything, could he?
'What do you mean?' she asked tightly.
'No, no, it's nothing,' James said. 'It's just ...
I don't know. It all seems so good. Sometimes I
worry that it could all go horribly wrong and we
could end up bitter and twisted.'
Christie's anxious eyes looked for some sign that
he knew, but there was none. Perhaps it was just
that her feeling spooked had transmitted itself to
him.
'Is that all?' she said with relief. 'You're the least
bitter and twisted person I know. Just because we're
happy doesn't mean something has to come along
and ruin it all.'
.thing.' James brushed his melancholy
'You're too old for the male menopause,'
Christie teased. 'That was supposed to happen ages
ago, when I went through mine. I didn't do too
badly, I didn't run off with some handsome young
stud.'
'If you had, I'd have bloody killed them,' James
said, suddenly serious.
'Lucky no one fitted the job description at the
time,' she teased, but felt sick inside. Why had she
said that? How stupid. 'Seriously, you're safe
enough, my love. What would I want with a young
stud, when I have you?' Christie put her arms
around James, and they kissed, sinking into an
embrace that was familiar and reassuring, except
that today Christie didn't feel reassured.
'OK, back to basics,' she said, leaning against
him. 'What are we going to do, financially, for
Shane and Janet? We've got to do something.
They're totally broke and they have no idea how
expensive babies are.'
'I was thinking about that too,' James said. 'We've got some savings. What are we keeping
them for?'
Christie kissed him. 'You're a great father,' she
said, thinking of how hard it had been to save that
money.
'What are you two looking so thoughtful about?'
said a voice. It was Ana wandering in with another
empty wine bottle. 'This is a celebratory day,' she
added a touch too merrily. 'We should be happy,
celebrating.'
'We're just having a chat,' Christie said lightly. 'James, will you get another bottle out of the fridge
and I'll sort out the cake? Ana, you could take
out these little fairy cakes I've made for the children.'
She'd spent ages doing them the night before:
pretty-coloured iced cakes with little animal faces

to tempt the toddlers' appetites.
'Delighted to help,' said Ana, slurring her words
slightly.
Over her head, James and Christie exchanged
a glance. Ana had never been used to drinking and
after two glasses really needed to lie down in a
darkened corner.
'Come on, Ana,' James said, putting his arm
around his sister-in-law affectionately. 'I'll take the
plate.'
Christie was left alone in the kitchen to sort out
the cake. Looking out the window, she could see
Ethan cuddling little Sasha. Shelly and Janet were
engrossed in baby talk, while Janet's mother,
Margery, threw a balloon up into the air for Fifi.
James was smiling as he helped a giggling Ana to
a comfy chair.
Christie watched her family and wished she
could see the future when it mattered.
James was right, they had been lucky. But it
was more than luck that had made their marriage
so strong over the years. You didn't spend thirty-five
years with somebody without wanting to kill
them occasionally. Or even leave them.
There had been that time when the children
were very young and she and James had drifted
far apart, when work had taken over his life and
Christie had been low on his list of priorities, but
they'd got over that. Eventually.

They'd worked hard to get over their differences.
There hadn't been many big rows in the
Devlin family household. Having grown up with
nervous tension as a constant backdrop, Christie
hated rows. Her father's rantings had been enough
to put her off arguments for life. James was easygoing
and affectionate and had brought their children
up to be the same. So yes, there had been
hard work involved. All the same, they were lucky,
Why was James suddenly worried that their luck
was about to turn? Christie shivered despite the
heat.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was Sunday evening, one of the most important
evenings ever for Karl and the band. Amber had
escaped from Summer Street by telling her mother
she was going to be studying late and not to bother
her.

She'd left the radio on low in her room, closed
the door, and hoped her mother had listened the
night Amber had made her point about deserving
a little privacy. That privacy meant keeping her
mother away from her room so she could escape
out to Karl. It also meant huge guilt over the deception.

Now,
despite the two giant Southern Comforts
Karl had bought her, Amber's mouth was dry and
her heart was thudding. She prickled with nerves.
She'd found the perfect position at the right side
of the SnakePit stage, behind a giant light where
there was a small box she could sit on and see
perfectly, yet remain out of sight.

Huge cables trailed around her feet. The stage
and backstage were both hives of activity as muscle.
bound guys with tattooed biceps shifted amps and
equipment, shouting to each other as they worked.
Two men with radio headsets directed the backstage
dance, snapping out directions, ticking off
on clipboard lists. Everyone backstage at the venue
appeared to have a role, from the various
promoters' staff rushing round with laminates
rattling off their chests to the bands themselves,
cocooned in their dressing rooms to get ready.
'Give us a moment, kid?' Karl's newly appointed
manager, Stevie, had said to Amber in the band's
poky little room fifteen minutes previously. Before
she'd been able to throw a questioning look at
Karl to say how dare the man dismiss her like
that, Stevie had hustled her out into the dimly lit
corridor right behind the stage. Here, nobody
seemed to know or care that she was Karl Evans's
girlfriend and muse. Here, she was a blonde in
jeans in a place that had seen a lot of blondes in
jeans who were with the band. Amber had felt she
might cry. This Sunday evening event was so important
for Karl and, therefore, for her. A big showcase
gig that horrible Stevie had got for them.
Producers, heads of record companies, everyone
who was anyone was going to be there to see the
hot new bands. It was huge, but Amber, who felt
she was irrevocably tied up with Karl and his
future, had been sidelined.

Anxiously, she fiddled with the tiger's-eye
pendant she'd found in her mother's drawer and
which she wore on many of her trips with Karl.
It had always comforted her before, making her
think of Mum and home, where she was safe,
treasured, much more than a hanger-on.
But since the terrible row on Thursday evening,
when Mum had given her that stupid present,
nothing had given her much comfort.
They'd had rows before, but never like that.
Never with such words of bitterness and anger.
Amber could hardly bear to think of what she'd
said, but she couldn't back down and say sorry,
because there was so much more to be said.
Mum, I'm leaving with Karl and I won't be
sitting my exams, won't be going to college. She'd done her best to avoid her mother all
weekend, muttering about having to study and not
meeting Faye's eyes. She couldn't face it. The
tension was killing her.
She hadn't told Karl about the row, either. He
had been worrying so much about tonight he hadn't
noticed how upset she was. And now he'd let Stevie
throw her out of the dressing room, hadn't fought
for her, hadn't sneaked out to see whether she was
all right.
She hugged her knees up close to her chest, and
laid her cheek on one knee. Hidden away here,
safe and unseen, she'd be fine.
There were three bands before Karl's, and Amber
listened, her eyes half closed in concentration, jealous
of any sign of anyone better than him. And then
they were on stage and her nerves returned in force.
Please let them be brilliant. Please let there be
no bum notes. Don't let Karl fall apart from stage
fright.

There were four of them in the band, Ceres:
three other guys who were good-looking and good
musicians, too, but Karl had been right when he'd
told her that first night that he was the band. It
was the simple truth. The magnetism he had
offstage was magnified tenfold on it. Brooding and
Byronic, he held the mike to his mouth with two
hands, like a man might hold his lover's face cupped
close to his own before kissing her lips.

Now I've found you, I can't let you go
You're in my blood
In my dreams

Like a sleepwalker, I'll come back to you
My love
It was the song he'd written for her.
'You inspired me,' he said softly after he'd played
it to her one afternoon in the quiet of her bedroom
when she should have been at double history.
Amber had listened with her heart singing along,
because this was pure, true love: to be immortalised
in song as the beloved of a man as gifted
as Karl.

And it was all worth it, even putting up with
nasty Stevie, who looked at her with appraising
eyes as if she was a piece of meat he was bidding
for at a market. He'd only known Karl for a week.
Wait till he realised that Amber wasn't some bit
of fluff, that she was part of Karl, then Stevie
would change his attitude.
The last note of their three-song set finished,
and Karl raised his hands in triumph at the crowd,
who cheered wild approval.
They'd loved him and his band.
A huge grin split Amber's face as her lover
turned to where she sat hidden and smiled that
private, sexy smile he kept for her alone. He'd
seen her! But just as quickly, he turned to his
audience, still with her smile on his face, a smile
of such languorous heat that people screamed.
Then, applause ringing in his ears, he dragged
himself away from the drug of the crowd's
approval and stalked offstage, longlimbed,
panther-like, utterably fuckable. He passed feet
away from Amber's hiding place and never
glanced her way. He hadn't seen her at all, she
realised with a jolt. That private smile had not
been for her, but for the thousand-strong crowd
he'd held in the palm of his hand. It wasn't her
smile any more: it was everybody's.
Amber snatched at her tiger's-eye pendant for
comfort but there was none there.
An hour later in a small, late-night restaurant,
Amber went to slide into the curved banquette seat
beside Karl, but Stevie - stocky, slicked-back hair
Stevie in his heavy leather jacket and chunky Tag
Heuer watch - muscled in past her so subtly that
only Amber felt the nastiness of the gesture.
'How's my best lead singer?' he said, grabbing
Karl's shoulders in a matey manner.
'Walking on air,' replied Karl. 'That was some
buzz in the SnakePit, wasn't it?'
'In two words, in-credible,' said Lew, the
drummer, moving in to sit the other side of Karl,
pulling his girlfriend, a shy girl called Katie, in
after him.
'Amazing,' Kenny T, the keyboards man,
pronounced, squashing up beside Katie.
'Total blast,' sighed Sydney, bass guitar. Sydney's
girlfriend was away, so had missed their night of
triumph. Syd had spent ages on the phone trying
to describe how wonderful it had all been, and
was now drinking himself into oblivion to make
up for her absence. Syd settled in beside Stevie and
then looked up at Amber, still standing beside the
table, waiting for Karl to notice her and make
space for her beside him.
But Karl didn't notice. He was wrapped up in
Stevie and the flannel that spewed effortlessly from
the manager's mouth.
Everyone wanted to sign the band.
They were the hottest ticket there. Stevie was
so shallow, so fake, Amber thought.
Could nobody see it except for her? They were
all in thrall to Stevie, laughing at his hopeless jokes.
What do you call a drummer with no girlfriend?
Homeless.
Lew, the drummer, laughed himself sick at that
one, seeming not to realise that it was totally true
in his case because Katie's teacher's salary
supported him.
It was a horrible evening and Amber had never
been so glad as when it ended and she and Karl
were alone in the taxi.
'Will you stay the night? Please, this was so
special. I want you here beside me when I wake
up so I know it hasn't all been a dream.'
Karl's head was resting on her shoulder in the
taxi, his breath still sweet with the orangey tang
of the final glass of Cointreau. There had been
endless drinks, champagne even. 'You better get
used to it because it'll be premier cru all the way
from now on,' Stevie had said, summoning waiters
with a rude click of his fingers.
At least the waiters could see what he was like,
filling his glass more slowly than anyone else's,
glaring at him. She hoped they'd spat in his coffee. 'Stay,' repeated Karl sleepily.
Amber never stayed. Staying might mean her
mother finding out that her bed wasn't slept in,
that she hadn't been burning the midnight oil in
her bedroom, studying diligently like the sensible
schoolgirl she was supposed to be.
And then Karl's hands unbuttoned her jacket
and reached into the cavern of her cleavage,
expertly finding the exact place where the lacy
strap of her bra gave a finger's-width access to the
bare skin beneath.
She felt the liquid rush of desire hit her groin
and moaned softly, moving closer. 'I want to be
with you tonight, Amber. Please.' Suddenly, the
words of the song he'd written for her came into
her mind.
To hell with not wanting her mother to know.
She'd have to know sometime. Karl was a part of
Amber's life now, for ever.
'I'll stay,' she murmured back. 'Just try and stop
Faye woke early the next morning. It was Monday
and she hoped that a new week would bring peace
between her and Amber. Her daughter was definitely
avoiding her and, yesterday evening, had
gone upstairs to study at six, saying she'd see her
mother in the morning.
Faye had stood at the door before she went to
bed, but she could still hear the low sound of the
radio Amber always listened to when she worked,
and she decided that interrupting the study might
result in another argument.
Faye normally liked waking early and would
get a cup of coffee and sit up in bed reading and
thinking. But today, she was too restless to sit. She
brewed coffee and decided to take a cup in to
Amber both to wake her up and as a peace offering.
Not that Faye felt she was the one who had to
say sorry because Amber had been the one to fight.
But being a parent had taught her that getting
over an argument was what mattered: not how
you did it or who felt they'd won. You could be
victorious or be happy was the child/parent mantra.
She knocked on Amber's door and then walked
in, expecting to see the gloom of shut curtains and
Amber, a sleepy lump, huddled in her bed.
But the curtains were open, so was the sash
window and Amber's bed was patently unslept in.
The radio hummed low in the background, set to
Amber's favourite station. The room was cool from
the window being open a long time and Faye
realised that her daughter hadn't slept at home the
night before.
Faye dropped the cup of coffee, didn't care that
it spilled all over the floor.
'Oh Lord, what's happened?' she cried. 'Amber,
where are you?'
She ran for her phone and dialled Amber's
mobile but got nothing but the automated message
asking her to leave a message.
'Amber, wherever you are, please phone me
back, love, please. It was only an argument, that's
all. I understand how stressed you are, just call.
It's all OK.'
Faye had no idea what she should do next. She
certainly couldn't go into work as normal with
Amber missing. Panic had robbed her of her senses.
Finally, she sank to her knees on the landing floor
and prayed. Dear God, I know I haven't been
around much lately after all I prayed to you when
she was a baby, but find her for me, please, please,
I beg you.
Ella's phone was off too. They could be together.
That might be something, at least together they'd
have each other. But if Amber was alone and
unhappy, out there somewhere thinking her mother
was furious with her ...
Faye scrolled through her mobile directory,
found the number for Ella's house and phoned.
The fact that it was six forty-five in the morning
was immaterial.
A male voice answered.
'Marco, it's Faye Reid. Is your mother or Ella
there?'
'Hang on,' Marco said, catching the urgency in
her clipped tone.
She heard muffled conversation and then Trina,
Ella's mother, came on the line.
'Faye, it's Trina. What's wrong?'
'It's Amber, she's not here and her bed's not
been slept in,' Faye said shakily. 'I can't get her
on her phone. We had a row on Thursday, it was
over nothing, you know how it is. But she's been
avoiding me since then, barely said two words to
me, and now, when I went in to wake her, she's
gone. I'm sure she hasn't been home all night.
Trina, is Ella there? Amber might have stayed with
you, or Ella might know where Amber is.'
'Ella's here but I know that Amber isn't,' Trina
said, doing her best to hide the instinctive relief
that at least she knew where her daughter was. "I
had to wake Ella for school and Amber's not there.
Hold on, I'll get Ella now.'
'Ask her,' Faye begged, 'ask her if she knows
where Amber is, if they talked about the argument.'
It was several long minutes before a reluctant sounding
Ella said 'hello' into the phone.
'Ella, I know she'd talk to you if she was upset,'
began Faye, her voice shaky. 'Just tell me where
she's gone.'
'I can't, Mrs Reid,' Ella said slowly. 'I think I
know who she's with but I don't know where
exactly. I'm sorry - I shouldn't be telling you this,
Amber should.'
'Tell her what?' demanded Trina's voice in the
background. 'If you know anything about where
Amber is, you better spill the beans now. Her poor
mother is sick with worry.'
'She'll kill me if I do,' Ella hissed at her mother. 'I'll kill you if you don't,' Trina hissed back. 'Where is she?' demanded an anguished Faye.
Ella sighed. 'His name is Karl and he's in a band
called Ceres. We met him in a club in town and
they've been going out for a few weeks. She's probably
at his flat. I don't know where it is, though,
sorry.'
Two mothers made involuntary gasps of shock.
The phone rattled as it changed hands and Trina
came back on the line.
'Faye, I'm so sorry. I had no idea,' she said. 'Is
there anything I can do?'
'No, thanks,' said Faye, sure that Ella had already
fled the scene to text the grisly news to Amber. Your mother knows and you're up to your neck in it. 'I'll leave a message on her phone and then, I'll
have to wait until she decides to come home.'
Faye rang in sick. She couldn't cope with work
with this huge issue unresolved. She was tidying
the kitchen when Amber finally made it home at
half eleven that morning, still in her going-out
clothes, her eyes wary, her pale skin evidence of
lack of sleep. And sex, Faye thought, horrified.
Her baby had been out with some man having sex
when she'd thought Amber was tucked up in bed.
'Tell me about this Karl,' said Faye grimly.
'I love him. I'm going to New York with him.'
Amber snapped the words out in a voice that
brooked no opposition. On the journey home, with
both Ella's text and a phone message from her
mother telling her that she knew about Karl, she'd
been caught between fear and fury. Her mother
would not stop her seeing Karl. No way.
'You're what?' said Faye, disbelieving. 'Don't
be ridiculous. You don't even know him, how can
you love him and leave the country with him?'
'I know enough to know he's the man I love.'
Amber spat it out.
'When did this happen?' This had to be a sick
joke, a game that Ella and Amber had dreamed
up.
'Last month. He's a musician, he's in a band.
He's a songwriter, he's brilliant,' Amber said
fiercely. 'I love him.'
'You love him? You can hardly know him. And
what do you mean about going to New York with
him?'
'I do love him and I do know him. Where do
you think I've been every night for the past month?'
hissed Amber. 'Not in my room, that's for sure.'
The kitchen suddenly seemed cold to Faye, even
though it was sunny outside, as the enormity of
what Amber had kept from her struck home.
Nothing or no one in her past had ever made her
feel so betrayed before, simply because she'd never
loved anyone the way she loved her daughter.
'I can't believe you lied to me,' she said, then
tried a different tack. 'Amber, you know this is
crazy. You can't head off with a strange guy. You've
got exams. You can't have been studying and you'll
never pass ...'
'I'm not doing the exams, didn't you hear me?'
shouted her daughter. 'Don't you ever listen? I'm
not going to college, I'm going away with Karl.
You can't stop me, you know.' Amber realised her
mother looked as if she'd been struck in the face.
Well, it was her mother's fault - she never listened.
'You can't stop me,' she yelled again. 'I'm an
adult. I don't want to go to college. You've always
said an education was the most important thing
in the world, well, you dropped out of college and
you've done fine. I can paint any time I want to,
Mum. This is about living life now, something
you've never understood.'
Faye thought of how she'd lived her life and
the pain it had brought her and how the only good
decent thing she'd felt she'd ever had was her life
with Amber. Now it was disappearing in front of
her eyes.
'Running away with some guy in a band isn't
a life,' she said softly. 'You think it is but it isn't.'
She took a deep breath. 'I know.'
'You don't know a thing about it,' yelled Amber. 'I've been there,' insisted Faye.
'Yeah right!'
Amber's gorgeous face was angry and bitter.
She'd never looked at Faye like that before and it
was crueller than all the words to see the fury and
resentment in her eyes.
'How did all this happen?' Faye asked helplessly,
knowing the question sounded stupid but
not knowing how else to put it.
'It happened while you were trying to make me
live the life you want me to live,' Amber said. 'I'm
not that sort of person, Mum. You can't make me
just like you.'
Faye choked back a bitter laugh. There were
so many things she should have taught Amber.
Things she'd had to learn the hard way, lessons
she'd sworn her daughter would never need to
learn.
Instead, she'd hoped she could keep Amber
cocooned from the crazy wild world and wrap her
up in mother love and domesticity. A good school,
nice friends, cosy happy families - that would keep
her safe. And she'd still failed.
'I'm going,' Amber said briskly, wanting to be
out of there. 'I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt you
but I've got to live my own life and you've got to
too. You can't live through me.'
'Is that what you think I've been doing?' asked
her mother quietly.
'Isn't it?' Amber's face was the impetuous mask
of youth. She knew everything and her mother
knew nothing, right?
'I'll be in touch.'
'You can't go now.' Faye came to life and
dragged herself to her feet. 'Don't be silly, I've got
to meet this guy. And your exams are only a couple
of weeks away, Amber. Think about what you're
doing.'
'I have thought about it,' Amber said simply. 'And I'm going. There's nothing you can do about
it. I'll be eighteen in two days. Old enough to vote,
old enough for anything.'
'You can't leave now.' Her mother looked crazy,
fluttery, uncertain, which was scary because that
wasn't Mum.
'I'm sorry, I can't hang around. We'd just fight
and you'd stop me seeing Karl.'
'Karl,' repeated her mother bitterly. 'Why can't
I meet this Karl, then, if he's so fabulous? Or is
he a down-and-out in a band of no-hopers?'
'He's amazing and I love him. He makes me
feel alive.'
She couldn't bear anyone to criticise Karl, not
even her mum. Especially not her mum. Her mum
didn't understand, nobody did, not even Ella.
'I'm going to pack,' Amber said coldly. 'Don't
bother running after me. I want to live my own
life now and you can't stop me.'
Faye was silent, thinking of the many things she
needed to tell Amber but couldn't. Because then
she'd have to give up her secret and that was the
one thing she could never, never do. Amber would
hate her for it. Faye hated herself.
Amber ran upstairs to pack, trying to quickly
work out what she needed in her new life: not the
knick-knacks on the white chest of drawers, which
she'd lovingly painted with butterflies one
weekend, Mum varnishing the artwork afterwards,
saying how beautiful it was. Not all the good-girl
clothes. But she'd take a lot of her stuff. She was
moving out, after all. This wasn't just a holiday.
And she'd take the pendant. She'd take it because
it was beautiful and it was a reminder of home.
Not that she needed it but something of the past
was good. God knows where her mother had got
it in the first place. She couldn't imagine her mother
wearing it, looking cool. What had she said: I've
been there. Oh yeah, right.
As if her mother had ever done anything wild
in her life.
Maggie was walking briskly past the railway
cottages when she saw the woman standing at the
gate of the first cottage, staring wild-eyed up the
road, her face wet with tears. She was dressed in
a plain navy suit with her hair tied neatly back,
but there all vestiges of normality ended. Her face
was distraught, as if she'd had the worst news ever
and her world was crashing around her.
Maggie didn't know the woman's name,
although she sort of recognised her, and for a nanosecond,
she wondered what the etiquette was for
this situation.
'Are you all right?' she asked, stopping. To hell
with etiquette. If the woman wanted to tell her to
get lost, then that was fine too. But she just couldn't
walk on by in the face of such human pain.
'No,' said the woman in a low moan, not even
looking at Maggie. 'She's gone and I didn't try to
stop her. I knew I couldn't and now she's gone
and I don't know where. What am I going to do?
I should have locked her in the house, made her
stay, but I didn't.' She began to cry again, a low
keening noise.
This was bad. Maggie looked around and saw
the familiar figure of Christie Devlin on the other
side of Summer Street walking her two small dogs
back from the park. Christie might know this
woman and what to do, because Maggie sure as
hell didn't.
'Mrs Devlin?' called Maggie. 'Mrs Devlin? Can
you help? Please.'
Together, Maggie and Christie helped Faye into
Christie's house where they sat her on an old soft
armchair in the living room. Once Christie had
established what had happened, she thought that
Faye might be better off away from her own home
and the scene of the row, where Amber's presence
was everywhere. Maggie had located house keys
and Faye's handbag in the Reids' kitchen, closed
the door, and then the trio had walked to the
Devlins' house, with the dogs following quietly,
anxious at all the crying.
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but Amber, she's a good
girl. You know,' Faye kept muttering over and
over. 'She's run off, you see. With a man, someone
I've never heard of before and have never met, and
I didn't try to stop her. I let her go and I don't
know where she's gone.'
'It's hard to stop someone when they've made
their mind up,' Christie said gently. 'Amber
certainly has a mind of her own, Faye, and she's
an adult now. She's nearly eighteen, right? So
legally, she's an adult, whether or not she is
emotionally.'
'She's still a baby,' wailed Faye. 'She's nearly
eighteen on the outside but she's so vulnerable on
the inside and I've let her down because I never
told her the truth. I thought she'd be better off
not knowing and now she thinks I want her to be
boring and have no fun, except it wasn't that. I
wanted to protect her from what I went through.'
It was like watching a rock crumble, Christie
thought compassionately. She hardly knew Faye
Reid and, from the outside, nobody would have
guessed that this outwardly together woman would
ever react with such wild grief.
Christie knew that Amber was Faye's life and
that the two were very close. But a man had come
into the mix - that's what Amber must have been
up to the day Christie had spotted her skipping school, Christie remembered, and shook her head
grimly. The result was the sort of relationship
triangle that could never work and Christie felt
sorry for the loser - Faye.
In spite of her exasperation at Amber for leaving
her mother in such a way, Christie could see that
running away from the scene of the emotional
crime often seemed like the only option. It was
what she herself had done, wasn't it?
'You stay with Faye,' she told Maggie now. 'I'll
make tea, hot and sweet to give her energy.'
A faint grin lit up Maggie's face. 'Now I know
why you and my mother are such friends, Mrs
Devlin,' she said. 'She thinks tea is the answer to
all life's problems too.'
'And shortbread biscuits,' Christie added wryly. 'Don't forget the biscuits. They might not be the
answer but they help you back on your feet so
you can deal with the pain. And don't call me Mrs
Devlin. It makes me feel about a hundred when
I'm not at school. I'm Christie.'
It wasn't like talking to someone of her mother's
generation, Maggie thought when Christie had
gone.
She could also see why her mother said Christie
Devlin was sought by all in times of crisis: Una
Maguire would have made the tea, all right, and
then talked rapidly about anything to fill the air
in case anyone started talking about what was
really wrong. But Christie said little, and waited
calmly and serenely in case Faye needed to talk.
And she'd know when there was a deep, dark
subject waiting to be brought up, Maggie thought
with a flash of pain. She was thinking of herself
as a teenager when the painful subjects had never
been touched upon. If Christie had been her mother,
she'd have seen the trouble Maggie was going
through from the very first day she came home
from school, shell-shocked at the naked hatred
she'd encountered from the gang of bullies.
And she'd have sorted it all out, too. And Maggie
might have become a different person, not anxious
and insecure. She might have become the person
she'd like to be.
'Are you all right, Maggie?' whispered Christie,
coming back with the tea and laying a cool hand
on the young woman's wrist.
Maggie nodded, flashing a smile. Christie
thought that, with her flaming hair and wistful
eyes, she looked more beautiful than Una had been
when Christie met her thirty years ago. But Maggie
was different from her mother in other ways,
Christie realised. Una was a whirling free spirit,
happy wherever she was, content in herself and
her world. While Maggie was like a nervous deer,
easily startled, unsure of herself, hopelessly unconfident.
Faye
was not the only one here today with some
secret past, Christie decided.
The hot, sweet tea did as hoped and stopped
Faye crying, but she still looked bereft.
'I suppose you think I'm a hopeless mother,' she muttered to Christie. 'I didn't know what was going
on under my own nose. Teachers always say they
hear the real story from kids when the kids can't
talk to their parents at home, but Amber did talk
to me, she did.'
'I don't think you're a hopeless mother at all,',
Christie said. 'I think you're a wonderful mum,
and it's not an easy job, I know.' She gave a rueful
laugh. 'You should try having two boys. They can
challenge you, that's for sure. And there were lots
of times - are lots of times still,' she corrected
herself, thinking of Shane and news of the precious
third grandchild on the way, 'when you think you
know what's going on and really you haven't a
clue. Any teacher who says otherwise doesn't know
much about human nature.'
Faye nodded, sniffing.
'We were so close, you see, that's what's hard.'
She turned to Maggie. 'I know you don't really
know me, but I know your parents and they'd tell
you, Amber is a good girl.'
'Mum's said,' Maggie interrupted. 'She's a
wonderful artist, right?'
'Right.' Faye looked so pleased and proud for
a moment, before the realisation hit her again Amber wasn't going to college to work on her
great artistic ability. She was going off with that
horrible man.
'Could we phone the police?' she asked suddenly.
Christie looked at Maggie, a look shot through
with pity, before replying: 'They can't help much
when the person is of age, you know. She can go
where she wants, really. When's she eighteen?'
'On Wednesday,' said Faye.
'And she's taken her passport, I suppose. Has
she got one?'
'Yes, but I didn't look. But how can she go to
America without a visa or anything ... Maybe
she won't go if she can't get into the country?'
Faye was hopeful.
'If he's in a band and they're going there for
work, they might organise visas through the record
company, with one for her too,' Maggie said, shrugging. 'With travel security so tight, they might get
round it that way.'
There was a silence as Faye digested that bit of
information. 'So she's really gone. After eighteen
years, she's gone.' And she began to cry again,
only this time they were the silent, body-wrenching
sobs that were somehow more painful to hear than
any noisy ones.
'Oh, Faye,' Maggie said in anguish, grabbing
Faye's hand. 'She's a clever girl, everyone says so.
She'll be able to look after herself and growing up
with just the two of you, she'll have learned so
much about taking care of herself. She'll be fine.
This guy could be a wonderful guy after all. Think
of all you've taught her and trust her.'
Faye's eyes, when she looked up, were hollow with pain. 'That's it, you see,' she said bleakly. 'I
could have taught her so much but I didn't. I
wanted to protect her. There's so much badness in the world, men who treat you like dirt and really
don't care. I've been there, I've been down there.
I'll never forget it. I never wanted my daughter to
go through what I went through.'
'But you never told her what you saw and experienced,
did you?' Christie asked intuitively. 'No,' Faye said. 'I never told her. I was ashamed
of what I'd been and done, and thought if I could
just keep her in this cosy world, then she'd never
go down the same path as me.'
Christie could suddenly see everything. The old
Faye Reid had gone, her facade was shed like an
old skin and the real Faye sat there, a woman
without all the answers for the first time in years.
'And that's just what she's done,' Faye finished. 'I've sent her off into the world not knowing the
truth about anything that mattered because I
wanted to protect her, and it turns out, I haven't
protected her at all: I've left her completely
unarmed.'
'Music,' Faye said, as she began to tell her story. 'That was my passion when I was a teenager. Music
and stories about love. I spent every penny on
records, and myself and Charlotte, my friend from
school, read romance novels and dreamed. I loved
the books with the clinches on the cover. You know
the ones: there was a woman and a gorgeous man
holding her to him, as if he'd never let her go.'
Her eyes were misty, dreaming of that time.
'That's what I wanted. I wanted to be beautiful
and adored. I wanted to be the woman in that
picture with the man telling me I was too beautiful,
too incredible for him to live without me. I
grew up in a place called the Linden Estate, it's a
council estate and not many dreams came true
there. But there were ways of escape and I chose
mine: I remember the first time Charlotte and I
went out like grown-ups. I was in college then,
and there were all these cool places to hang out.
One in particular was on the quays. They had latenight
live music. It was all red inside, dark red
with smeared mirrors and shiny seats where you
could sit for hours making your drink last,' she
said. 'It wasn't like I'd thought it would be at first.
There weren't people fighting over us, we were on
the edges. Charlotte didn't like it much, but I did.
And I wanted to fit in. I figured out that if you
hung around long enough you'd become part of
the scene and somehow I did. I was supposed to
be working on my degree but I wasn't doing any
work. I loved sitting and watching, learning about
life but not out of a book.'
Faye's eyes were dreamy. They were the same as
her daughter's: a luminous and magnetic pewter
grey with that startling ring of amber around the
inky black of the pupils, Christie realised. She could
suddenly see the beauty of the young Faye, the girl
who'd cared how she looked, with long streaked
hair like her daughter's, a grown-up woman's body,
and the heart of an eager young girl who'd wanted
to be loved, to be part of something.
Christie reached out and took Faye's hand, but
Faye didn't appear to notice. She was lost in remembering
the past ...
There was TJ, there was always TJ. In the outside
world, there were no jobs then, people were leaving
the country for London and New York looking for
work, wearing their best suits and fine-tuning their
resumes. But not TJ. He wasn't cutting his long,
dark hair to get a boring job. He wore his in a
ponytail and it suited his long, lean face with its
soulful hollows. He wasn't a man from a romance
novel, he wore a leather jacket instead of a white
shirt, but his body was the same sinewy combination
of muscle and energy, and there was passion
in his soul and in his eyes. Faye had seen it, seen
the way he looked at her, knew he wanted her.
There were a lot of them from her college hanging
around The Club, and they all looked up to the
older guys, the regulars like TJ, who'd seen it all
and bought the ripped T-shirt. And she was a regular
now, too, as much part of the place as the scent
of stale smoke - cigarette and other kinds - in the
air. The Club was like a second home to her.
'Silver, baby,' TJ said that night, 'they oughta
have a picture of you over the door.'
He called her Silver, even though it wasn't her
name. It was her new name, her club name, so it
was what she was called now. She loved it. Her
hair had long strands of platinum through the
tawny golds and browns. Silver strands.
The music was low with an insistent bass. No
matter what music was in fashion, The Club played
rock - tonight, TJ's favourite, the Stones. Faye
loved their music. Song after song, reaching into
her heart and tearing it out. Every emotion was
there: pain, love, sexual ecstasy, heartbreak, Mick's
voice speaking directly to her.
TJ passed her the joint.
'Try this, Silver, you'll like it.'
His hand was around her shoulder, touching her
breast through her thin T-shirt, a gesture of possession
to all the other men around the booth. Telling
them she was his, Faye thought with pride.
There was a moment before she took the first
drag of the joint when she thought how odd it
was - her, goody-two-shoes honours student, here
in a smoky bar about to smoke hash. This was
unlike anything she had envisaged before. And
then, the moment passed, for the heady numbness
soaked into her limbs.
TJ smiled, sipped more of his Jack Daniel's and
smiled some more as he watched her get happy.
When she was happy, Faye got up and danced on
her own, with TJ looking on from the back booth,
his eyes hooded, watching her body undulate to
the music.
That night, he sent Faye up to the bar to order
drinks.
'Hi, Maria,' she said to the barmaid. 'Can I
have four JDs, one Coke, and three double vodkas,
no ice.'
Maria was forty, maybe older. She had dyed red
hair, big brown eyes and a smoker's mouth with
lots of lines. In her black jeans and teeny Tshirt,
with the tattooed butterfly on her biceps, she didn't
look like Faye's mother, but she spoke to her like
a mother now.
'Honey, you shouldn't be here,' Maria said,
expertly filling the drinks order. 'You're just a nice
kid. What are you, nineteen, twenty? This place
isn't for you.'
'Why not?' Faye asked, confused.
"Cos that man is using you, can't you see?
They're laughing at you, honey.' Maria paused at
the disbelieving look in Faye's eyes. 'I'm only trying
to help. I hate to see you get tangled up in this
world. Get out, while you can.'
'You're wrong,' Faye said. 'Nobody's using me.'
Maria moved closer to her. 'Honey, you know
what they call you? Silver.'
'It's because of my hair,' Faye said, smiling,
shaking her mane.
'No,' said Maria flatly. 'It's because TJ's the
Lone Ranger. His horse was called Silver. It's
because he rides you.'
'What's up, Silver?' TJ asked when she came
back with the drinks. 'You don't look happy to
see me.' He didn't like people's minds moving from
him. Except when they were wasted, and even
then, he'd keep his hand on her thigh possessively,
reminding her of his presence.
'Nothing,' she said. She drank half of her vodka
and leaned in against him to take the joint.
This was it, right? What else was there?
The next morning, there were so many of them
lying around TJ's tiny flat, the usual assortment
of bodies on the floor, the smell of dirty feet, sweat,
cigarette smoke, who knew what else. Faye sat up
in the bed. She was wearing her T-shirt and knickers
but no jeans, and she couldn't really remember
getting here. She hugged her knees up to herself
in an attempt to get comfort. From somewhere
she could hear 'Gimme Shelter' playing on the
stereo, another song in the soundtrack to this life.
This life, the life of being TJ's Silver.
She felt her skin crawl.
Faye had never liked herself much. Other people
she liked. It was herself she had no time for.
She had been grateful to lose herself in this
numbing new life with TJ and The Club. But now
she saw it all with stunning clarity and she loathed
who she'd become.
'Hey, Silver,' said one of the guys from the floor,
opening an eye. 'How's it going?'
Silver. Everybody had known what it stood for
except her. That's all she was: Silver, the Lone
Ranger's ride, nothing more. Not a person. A ride.
All the hopes and dreams of a young human being
cruelly dismissed by one word.
She found her jeans at the end of the bed, pulled
them on.
She bent down to put on her socks and winced.
In the mirror, she saw the reason for the pain: there
were bruises down her back, angry, livid marks.
Trawling back through the mental fog of the
night before, she could remember her and TJ in
the kitchen having sex up against the kitchen cabinets,
with people everywhere, nobody noticing,
nobody caring. Even now, she could feel the ridge
of formica digging into her tender back. This was
the great new world she was in, this was where
she'd thought she was special.
A world of being treated like dirt by people who
didn't care, who were looking for victims, people
to use.
Faye didn't know where she got the strength
but, somewhere deep inside her, she found courage.
She gathered her stuff together. There wasn't much
really, nothing to mark her presence there at all.
There was no sign of TJ. He was probably off
with some other woman, poor cow. Faye felt sorry
for her.
Nobody noticed as she slipped out and closed
the door behind her.
'But I was pregnant,' she told Christie and Faye
as they sat in Christie's beautiful room with the
dogs at their feet. 'It must have happened that
night, the night before I left. I worked it out. Him
and me in the kitchen, up against the cabinets.'
She wiped her eyes with a rough gesture. 'Pregnant
and alone.' She laughed, mirthlessly. 'Because I was
hardly going to find TJ and say, "Hi, Daddy, what
sort of cot will we buy? Are you planning to be
there at the birth?" I had to leave college because
I was so unwell and couldn't cope. My mother
was so good to me and took care of us both. She
helped through the pregnancy, then, after Amber
was born, she would babysit so I could work. I
did anything - bar work, McDonald's. You can
eat your dinner off the floors in McDonald's,' Faye
said, suddenly smiling. 'I know, because I've
scrubbed them. You wouldn't believe how fussed
they are. Finally, when I got a proper job we moved
here, to start again on Summer Street. There's
something so hopeful about this place, isn't there?
I felt it from the first.' She looked beseechingly at
Maggie and Christie, wanting them to understand. 'I could begin again here, I could be someone new,
someone Amber could be proud of. And I wanted
her to be proud of me. The only other person who
knows the whole story is my mother,' Faye added. 'Nobody else. I was too ashamed. My mother
worked so hard all her life to put me and my
brother through college and I paid her back like
that, thinking so little of myself that I let people
use me. Mistaking sex for intimacy, thinking TJ's
behaviour signified love and respect and affection.
How dumb could I have been?' she said hoarsely.
'You were only a kid,' Christie said, feeling nothing but compassion for Faye. 'You did what
so many women do: think sex is love, when it's
not. You know now, and you must forgive yourself.
You can't feel guilty for ever.'
'I should have told Amber,' said Faye blankly,
as if she didn't hear Christie. Or, at least, couldn't hear the words 'forgive yourself' because she'd told
herself so often that she had ruined her life. 'As a
parent, you want your child to look up to you, to
respect you and, as I don't respect myself for what
I did, how could she? How could I tell her that
her father was a low-life scumbag who had never
cared?'
'Did he know about her?' Maggie asked.
'I brought her to see him at The Club when she was six months old.'
Faye thought she looked pretty good by then. A
lot of the baby weight was gone and she could
fit into her old jeans. Men still looked at her,
admiring.
Amber was so cute, fluffy hair spilling out from
under her crimson fleecy hat, wrapped up against the cold. Even then, her intelligence was apparent.
She was so alert, watched everything with those
huge magnetic eyes. How could anybody not love
her, not want to be her father?
The Club hadn't changed an iota, even the
people slumped at the bar in the early evening looked the same
'You can't bring a kid in here,' yelled the barman
grumpily.
'Why not?' Faye said.
He shrugged. 'Don't come moaning to me about
passive smoking, OK?'
'I'm looking for TJ.' 'He's in the back booth.'
She should have known. Why even ask? The
back booth: their spiritual home.
Some of the faces round the table had changed.
There was no sign of Jimi. She hoped he'd got out.
He was like her too, a sweet guy in over his head.
Everyone at the table was clearly out of it, and
holding court in the middle was TJ, the inevitable
girl on his arm, not someone Faye knew. Except
he was thinner now, and his face was even more
gaunt.
'Hey, darlin'.' He smiled. 'You joining us?'
He didn't recognise her, Faye realised, and she
was standing there with his child in her arms.
'TJ, it's me, Faye,' she said. His eyes remained
distant, the thousand-yard stare of a joint-smoker.
Then, with a shock, she saw that the long,
sinewy arm thrown around the girl had needle
tracks in it. That was the one thing she had never
known TJ do: shoot up. He could drink or smoke
anyone under the table. He smoked dope and when
he could get it, he was a hound for coke, but
heroin had been off limits. Heroin was playing
Russian roulette with a bullet in every chamber.
Thank goodness she had got away.
'It's Silver!' said someone.
It was Jackie, older than TJ, one of the leaders
of the crew, a man with a face like a gravel pit.
Jackie raised a glass to her. 'Hey, sweet kid you
got there. She's not yours, is she?'
'Yeah, she's mine,' said Faye, holding Amber so
tightly to her that the baby, who'd been drifting off to sleep, woke up and mewled with discomfort.
'What
are you bringing a kid here for, Silver?
It ruins the atmosphere. How can we party with
a kid around? You up for a party?'
'I was supposed to meet someone,' Faye said,
realising there would be no sign of recognition
from TJ. 'But I guess they're not here.'
And without looking back, she walked out of
The Club. Amber, her reason for living, snuggled
in closer, happy, in her mother's arms.
'I never saw him again,' Faye told her audience. 'I
never even tried to look for him. I told Amber her
dad was from Scotland and died in a car crash
soon after she was born. I said we'd never married,
but we meant to, so it was like being a widow. I
changed my name to my mother's maiden name
but called myself Mrs so people wouldn't label us.
And I said when he'd died, I'd lost touch with his
family, that his parents were dead and he was an
only child. More lies. It scared the hell out of me
to wonder what would happen if Amber discovered
the truth and tried to find TJ. He might still
be a junkie.' She shivered. 'If he hasn't died of his
habit - ninety per cent of heroin addicts do, you
know. So that's the story. Memoirs of a woman
from The We Screwed Up But Hey, We're Still
Here Club, that's what I used to think it should
be called.'

Maggie burst out laughing. 'Hey, can I join up?'
Faye looked at Christie, as if expecting the older
woman's disapproval but there was nothing but
sympathy and warmth in Christie's kind eyes.
'You deserve to be president of that club and
get a medal,' she said. 'Amber's a beautiful girl,
Faye. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You
should be proud of the way you've brought her
up on your own and she should be proud of you.
But she deserves to know the truth, doesn't she?'
Christie stopped. The truth. It was easier to say
it than to live it. She wasn't telling anyone her
own truth, was she?
'We've all done things we thought we should
hide,' she said carefully. 'I've hidden stuff from the
people I love and I wish to God I hadn't because
it eats you up from the inside out.'
'How can I tell her any of this now?' Faye
groaned. 'After all the lies I've told her.' 'You've reached the point where you can't do
anything but tell her,' Christie said. 'She knows
what a good person you are, because that's how
you've brought her up. And the truth is it wasn't
completely your fault, Faye. Stop imagining what
other people will think and realise you were a
scared, vulnerable young woman. Forgive yourself.
Stop thinking of how everyone else would live
your life in your shoes. You have to live it. You
had to live it and you did your best. Tell her, face
that truth.' Christie knew now she wasn't just
talking to Faye, but also to herself.
Maggie, hanging on to every word, stared at Christie. Her hand unconsciously stroked the top
of her thigh through her jeans, touching the scars
that lay underneath, scars that would never go
away.

So facing the truth made you stronger? She
hadn't thought of that before. She'd certainly never
faced any of the truths in her own life, she'd buried
them instead, kept them from her family and
friends, from everyone. But perhaps she had been
wrong to do that.
'But what if Amber doesn't come back?' Faye
asked.

Christie tried to push her mind into the future.
It never worked that way, not usually. The future
came to her, rather than the other way round. But
now, in the face of Faye's raw, naked pain, she
tried. And when the answer came to her in a flash,
it was a mother's intuition rather than anything
otherworldly.
'You've got to go and find her.'
CHAPTER TWELVE
Amber had expected flowers and wine, well, even
a few beers. After all, it was a horrible Monday
morning and she'd just had the row from hell with
her mother and had left home. It was like something
out of one of those sweeping romantic epics
on Saturday afternoon television.
Despite her misery, Amber's sense of the dramatic
meant she could see herself in the role of tearstained
heroine fleeing from a tyrannical home to
the arms of her lover.
Except that Karl clearly hadn't seen the same
movies.
When he'd met her off the bus, he'd hugged
her, taken the big suitcase from her and pulled it
along, chatting all the while. There was no wild
passion at what she'd given up for him, how he'd
never forget her leaving her home to be by his
side.
'What is it with women and all this stuff?' Karl
grimaced, pretending he had put his back out
hauling her case. 'How can one small woman own
so much? Or is this just the makeup?'
Amber, still torn between tears and defiance,
was not in the mood for jokes. She wanted passionate declarations of how he loved her and
would take care of her.
But perhaps she mustn't be too clingy or needy. 'It's all my stuff from home,' she said shortly.
'Nearly eighteen years of belongings.' Including
her four cuddly toys, although she'd stashed them
in a pillowcase.
'Only slagging you, babe,' Karl said. 'Dunno
where you'll put it all, though. The flat's a bit
cramped.'
They reached Karl's front door. He manfully
hauled her case into the rather smelly hallway and
up two flights of stairs to a scuffed blue door that
stood ajar.
'We're having a band meeting,' Karl said, as he
kicked the door of the flat open with his foot.
He left her case in the hall, and pulled her into
the cluttered living room that was testimony to a
cleaning rota gone very wrong. Old papers and
magazines, dirty dishes, empty takeaway containers,
ashtrays, items of clothing and dust covered every
surface. Kenny T, Lew and Syd were sprawled on
the room's couch and single armchair that were
grouped around a coffee table that Amber had never
seen without its coat of detritus. In turn, they all
got up to hug and welcome her. To her shame,
Amber burst into tears. After the huge row with
her mother, it was so lovely to feel welcomed again
and not a wayward child.
'There's no need to cry,' Karl said, hugging her.
'It's just I've never had a real row with my
mother before,' she sobbed into his shoulder. 'We've been there for each other always. Her and
me. But she's so square, she can't understand this
and she never will. You didn't hear her, Karl: she
hates me for this, hates me!'
'Your ma will get over it. My ma was the same,'
Syd said easily. 'She never copped on that there's
more to life than exams, you know. Saw me as a
lawyer, she did. Jaysus, can you see me in court?'
'Only in the defence box,' cracked Lew.
'You'll be fine with us, Amber,' Kenny T added. 'You can teach Karl how to wash his underpants.
I've seen him using the cleanest ones off the floor.'
'No, I've seen you taking my cleanest ones off
the floor, you skanger,' joked Karl in return.
Amber wiped her eyes and tried to join in the
joking. She felt absurdly pleased to be welcomed
in like one of the boys. Never mind that the place
was a pit. She'd show them how to be tidy. It
might be nice to be the mother figure for a change.
She'd show her mother that she could survive
and be happy. There wasn't just one way to live
your life, by the bloody boring book.
'Lew was just going to phone out for pizza,'
Karl said to her. 'But now you're here, could you
cook? We're mad for some lunch.'
'We've got chicken,' Lew said hopefully.
'It smells a bit,' Syd warned.
'Nuke it,' advised Karl. 'It'll be fine then, won't
it?'
All eyes turned to Amber, who was a girl and,
therefore, would know all about cooking chicken.
Cooking was her mother's department, Amber
realised with a jolt. Hers was reheating or writing
things on the list on the fridge, like Out of muesli or Can you get me shampoo?
'Sure, it'll be fine,' she said confidently. How
hard could cooking be?
The fridge stank. Syd had been right about the
chicken, although he should have just binned it,
which was what Amber did.
Nothing else in there would have stretched to
a meal for five without a bad dose of salmonella
ensuing. There were lots of packets and cartons,
but they were mostly empty, with the exception
of a half-full orange juice carton which was curdled
with age. The freezer box was jammed icily shut
and Amber couldn't prise it open. And the
cupboards, stocked with crisps, cereal and lots of
nearly empty bottles of booze, yielded nothing but
a few stray bits of pasta and rice.
She marched into the band meeting.
'The chicken is an ex-chicken,' she announced. 'I'll go to the shops and get something for lunch
but I need money.'
'Yes, ma'am,' said Karl and made a collection.
Amber smiled. She was in charge, what a nice
feeling. Last week, she'd been a schoolgirl with a

uniform and a childhood bedroom. Now she lived
with a man, shared his bed, cooked his meals.
How was that for progress?

But later afternoon, she started to feel tearful
again.

'I might call Gran,' sniffed Amber on the phone
to Ella.

'Why?' Ella couldn't see the point in this. Any
grandmother worth her salt would surely side with
Faye's mother. There would be tears and shouting. 'Why don't you call your mother?' Ella said. 'She's
the one you should be talking to, not your gran.'
'My mother will only go on about the bloody
exams,' said Amber bitterly. 'There's more to life
than exams. It's a stupid system to put people in
little boxes based on how well they do on one
particular day when asked one particular set of
questions. How does that work out what sort of
person you are and what you're capable of doing?'
For someone who'd been the poster girl for
education for all her school life, Amber had honed
her arguments against it pretty quickly. She didn't
know how any of her new flatmates had got on
in their final-year state exams, but Karl, who had
passed his, was always saying that life was the real
educator, not school books. She said this, not
mentioning that it was Karl-speak.
Ella's lip curled. 'The hottest band on the planet
all failed their exams, right?' she said succinctly. 'Karl is brilliant,' Amber snapped back.
'Yeah, well, did he stay in school to finish the
year and his exams?'
Amber knew he had. After school, he'd gone to
university for two years but had dropped out of
his arts degree.
'But that's not important,' she said.
'Course it is. So he did pass them and now he's
forcing you to skip your exams so you can be with
him. Your mother's right, Amber. Why don't you
finish school properly? It's only a few weeks away
and you'd be wasting years of study for no reason.
If Karl doesn't want to wait for you until the exams
are over, then he doesn't deserve you.'
'He loves me,' said Amber, hurt and angry. 'I
thought you were on my side.'
'I am. I'm only saying what I think.'
'Karl would love to wait for me but they've got
to travel now.'
'And you can't stay here, do your exams and
join him later?' Ella demanded. 'Or are you scared
that if you're not with him, he'll find someone else
to be his muse and keep his bed warm?'
The barb hit home. Amber was glad Ella wasn't
there to see her blush. She knew it was stupid to feel so unsure of Karl after all he'd said to her,
but doubt was a sneaky bedfellow and crept into
her mind when she least wanted it. She could stay
and make up with her mother, but what if Karl
left and she never saw him again?
'We love each other,' she said coldly to her best
friend. 'You wouldn't understand.'
'I understand plenty. I understand that you used
to listen to me. We shared everything and now
Karl's on the scene, I'm not important any more.
That's a nice way to treat your closest friend,
Amber.'
'Oh, grow up, Ella,' snapped Amber. 'You make
it sound like we're kids again, with nothing to
worry about except which My Little Pony is our
favourite.'
Ella had had enough. 'I liked you better then,'
she said. 'You were still Amber Reid, my best friend
ever, and not Amber the dizzy groupie who's
forgotten everything she ever stood for. You were
the clever one in school with the future and you're
risking it all to behave like a Ricki Lake Show guest and cling to a loser guy. He'll dump you,
you know. And you'll ask me why I didn't stop
you. Just so you remember, I did my best. Bye,
Amber, have a nice life.'
Amber hung up feeling lonelier than ever. Why
didn't anyone understand?
Love changed you and made you a different
person. What was wrong with that?
Why did everyone think she had to choose: them
or Karl? Couldn't she have both?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The card was nothing but a rectangle of fine cream
paper, folded over, with a heart hand-drawn on
the front, and on the inside written in Grey's unmistakable
copperplate handwriting: I love you. I miss
you, please come home.
Maggie reread the card yet again, then traced
her fingers over the writing reverentially. A shopbought
one wouldn't have touched her but this,
this gesture of love, made her ache with wanting
to go back to Grey.
She'd been thinking about what Christie Devlin
had said earlier, and then she'd come home from
work to find this on the bundle of post on the hall
table, a card from Grey wanting her back.
Stop thinking of how everyone else would live your life in your shoes. You have to live it, Christie
had said to both her and Faye.
And she'd been right. Maggie hadn't been able
to get the words out of her head.
She wanted to go back to Grey, that was all
that mattered. Not what anyone else said. Not her
pride or fear or lack of trust. It could all be worked
through. What had happened had changed her, so
their relationship wouldn't go back to the way it
had been before: it would be better, stronger. Like
her.
It was half seven in the evening and Grey would
certainly be home from work. She desperately
wanted to speak to him now.
She dialled the apartment but got their
answering machine, still with its message saying
that neither Grey nor Maggie could come to the
phone right now. She hung up without leaving a
message. This conversation had to be in person.
Next, she dialled his mobile but it was switched
off.
Damn. She felt so wound up. She wanted to
talk to someone ...
'Hi, how are you?' she said, when Shona
answered the phone.
'Great,' said Shona breezily.
There was a lot of noise going on in Shona and
Paul's flat. The noise of two people who knew
how to enjoy themselves and weren't worried about
bothering the neighbours by having the stereo
turned up to This May Damage Your Hearing level. 'I just wanted to talk,' Maggie said.
'Serious talk?' asked Shona.
'No, not really.' She paused. 'Yeah, serious talk.' 'Turn the music down,' Shona yelled.
'So what happened?' demanded Shona, when
the noise level dropped slightly. 'He turned up on
your doorstep, confessed undying love and promised
never to be a naughty boy again.'
'How did you know?' Maggie asked. She hadn't
spoken to Shona since Grey had turned up to see
her.
,You mean he did?' said Shona. 'Talk about
Cliche City.'
'I didn't know he'd come,' Maggie said.
'Well,' said Shona, 'it's just the sort of thing a
man like Grey would do. Bonk somebody else on
your bed, not know how to say sorry properly, let
you run away while he thought about it and then
rush into your arms and bleat, "I'm sorry darling,
it will never happen again", because he realises it's
very boring doing your own washing and cleaning.
And besides which, it's against faculty rules to
screw your students and his college career would
be finito if word leaked out. Not that myself or
anyone in the library would say anything, no.'
Shona sounded gleeful. 'Silent as the grave we are.
Gossip never touches our lips - we spit it out so
fast, it never gets to touch our lips.'
Maggie had felt cheerful a moment before but
Shona's analysis of Grey's behaviour made it all
sound so sordid and miserable. Not so much a
great passion as a tawdry fling.
But Shona hadn't heard him speak, hadn't heard
the tenderness in his voice.
'He said he missed me,' she protested, 'in
public. And that he loves me. He means it, Shona.
I know you think he doesn't, but if you'd seen
him ...,

'Oh, that's so Grey,' Shona said critically. 'He
loves a scene, that boy, just loves it. I don't know
why he's pretending he won't go into politics. If
ever a man wanted to stand on a podium and have
the party faithful worship at his feet, it's your ex,
He's addicted to the applause, darling. That's why
he likes bonking girl students.'
There was a sudden pause.
'What do you mean he likes bonking girl
students?' Maggie asked fiercely. 'I knew he liked
bonking one particular girl student but students
plural ... ? What have you heard?'
She could almost hear Shona running through
escape scenarios in her head.
'The truth, Shona,' she insisted. 'Tell me the
truth. I wish somebody had told me the truth a
long time ago.'
'Oh sweetie,' sighed Shona, and Maggie knew
it was bad news. 'Don't worry, I was going to tell
you. You know me, tell all. I don't believe in that
shoot the messenger crap. Well, like a good pal,
I've been asking around ever since you caught Dr
Grey Stanley sticking it to his cutesy, blonde student
and it seems that she wasn't the only one getting
some private tuition. Turns out, he's got quite a
name for it.'
'Oh.' Maggie couldn't manage to say anything
else. It was like thinking the world was round, and
then finding out it was flat after all.
'Sorry, darling, but you had to know.'
If anybody else but Shona had told her this,
Maggie realised, she would've wanted to shoot the
messenger. But Shona was a true friend. She loved
Maggie. It was comforting to think that somebody
still did.
'I want to hear everything,' she said. 'Are you sure?'
'Yes,' she said firmly. 'Everything.'
'Paul,' called Shona. 'Turn off the music and
make me a cocktail. This is going to be a long
conversation.'
She could hear Paul reply: 'You're not telling
her everything about that bastard, are you?' 'Somebody has to. The girl needs to see sense.'
There had been four women that Shona had
been able to find out about, including the latest
blonde. All students of Grey's, which was probably
the worst thing about it. He was always such
a stickler for ethics and doing the right thing,
Maggie recalled.
Having sex with people whose papers he marked
was breaking every rule of teaching.
'The good news is that none of them was long
term,' Shona finished up. 'So you can console yourself
with that, darling. I mean, he did love you in
his own screw-around way. I had to dig deep to
find it all out, so I honestly don't think he meant
to humiliate you.'
'Doing it in our bed wasn't supposed to humiliate
me?' Maggie shouted.
'Don't scream,' Shona screamed back. 'I'm
clutching at straws here, trying to make you feel
better. Yes, he's a class A shit but it's obvious that
his brain is not his primary organ and he's clearly
not as cerebral as he'd like us all to think.'
'Meaning he thinks with his dick,' Paul yelled
in the background.

'He still didn't have to do it in our bed,' Maggie
said, still reeling. 'Doesn't that say he wanted to
be found out?'

'Oh I don't think he wanted to be found out,,
said Shona. 'Come on, why would he? I think there
was nowhere else to go, you were off at work,
then you were doing your Pilates or whatever, the
coast was clear.'

'He asked me to come back to him,' Maggie
said, with a little laugh that held no humour.
Only minutes ago, she'd felt a little bit of hope
warming her at the idea that it might all work out,
she could have it all, again, only better this time, 'He wants us to be together. He said we should
get married.' Her voice broke. 'And you tell me
he's had four girlfriends in the past ... how many
years, five? Why marry someone if all you want
to do is sleep around?'

'It's the eternal question of life,' Shona sighed
in a world-weary way.

She could hear Paul wanting to know what the
eternal question of life was. Shona told him.
'I thought it was, was there life on other planets?'
Paul could be heard saying, plaintively.
'No, that's the third eternal question, after why
all the good ones already have boyfriends.'
Despite herself, Maggie managed a hoarse laugh. 'What a lovely sound.' Shona was pleased. 'Don't let Dr Dick ruin your life, Maggie,' she
pleaded. 'You're an old romantic despite your best
attempts to hide it. You want the fairytale, darling,
and you're not going to get it with him, are you?'
'They say serial monogamy is the way forward,'
Maggie said, not wanting to answer Shona's question. 'I wanted something longer and Grey obviously
doesn't. Am I the old-fashioned one? Is everyone at
it? Should I have been having an affair too?'
'No,' said Shona, 'joking aside, you shouldn't
have been having an affair. You're too straight, it
would kill you. When you love, it's with all your
heart. He's different. If he'd gone to you and
admitted about the other women, said he'd never
do it again, well, there'd be some hope. But he
didn't, did he? He just said sorry for Miss Bimbo.
And by the way, her book-borrowing days are
over. I'll have the word out in the library and that
girl will never get another book out. She can try,
but no matter what book she wants, it'll be unavailable
or her card will be out of date. The library
looks after its own!'
Maggie smiled.
'What am I going to do now, Shona?' she sighed. 'I was going to go back to him. I can't stay with
Mum and Dad for ever, it's lovely and everything
but ...' She paused.
The shock hit her again. Damn Grey, damn him.
Just when she'd begun to think there might be a
future for them, his past had ruined it all again.
She'd begun to feel a little better the past day
or so. Insulated in Summer Street. She'd even got
used to her old bedroom again and the reassurance
of looking at the same wallpaper she'd
grown up with. It was easy to block out the pain
of finding Grey in bed with another woman. The
pain of feeling so stupid, so betrayed. And she
liked the local library, it was a nice place to work.
Maggie knew she was hiding, just a tiny bit, from
the past and its power. But she didn't care. She
wanted a little peace after everything that had
happened.
And now Grey had knocked her right back to
square one. He'd reminded her why she was here,
alone. What's more, he hadn't betrayed her with
one woman, he'd betrayed her with four.
'Are you still there?' asked Shona gently. 'Yes,' Maggie said. 'Sorry. I don't know whether
to stay here or go back to Galway. I don't know
what to do about anything. I'm a mess.'
'Join the club, darling,' Shona said lightly. 'My
roots need doing, my nails are like hooves and I
haven't had a moment since you left, you know.
The relief librarian they sent thinks the rota is set
in stone and I'm having terrible trouble trying to
swap shifts with her. Anyway, listen, sweetie, take
your time, you don't need to make a decision
quickly, you've got another week. You could come
back and have nothing to do with Dr Grey or his
nymphets. He's not in your life any more, you
don't need him.'
Shona would say that, Maggie thought ruefully.
Shona was strong and knew her own worth. She
hadn't needed Paul to make her feel fulfilled. But
Maggie wasn't so strong, she didn't know if she
could go back and start again with all the memories
of her and Grey everywhere she went.
But then, there were painful memories everywhere,
even here, on Summer Street.
She wished she had told Shona about her school
years, then maybe she'd understand why Maggie
was so anxious about staying in Summer Street.
But there had never been a right time to tell her.
Shona knew the reinvented Maggie, the feisty
person with a kooky personality, a soft heart and
a clever word for every situation. It would be
strange to tell her now. Talking about the bullying
would make it all real and she would only have
to confront it. Despite what Christie had said about
facing the truth, it was far easier to keep the memories
buried.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
If wishing could make a phone ring, Faye's mobile
would have been blistering loudly all Tuesday
morning. Her office phone rang every few
minutes but her mobile, the number Amber
always called her on, just sat there on the desk,
silent. And despite being surrounded by all the
other people in the office, Faye had never felt
more alone.

It was a little over twenty-four hours since
Amber had run off and changed Faye's world.
There had been no phone call from her, nothing,
just the blank emptiness of the house without
Amber in it and Faye reliving her mistakes over
and over again in her mind.
She'd spent hours the evening before with Ella
and her mother, trying to work out where Amber
might be, but Ella honestly didn't know.
'If I did, Mrs Reid, I'd tell you,' she said. 'I
think she's crazy and you know she's my best
friend. And I've told her I think she's crazy too,'
she added, just in case anyone doubted her determination
to make Amber see sense.
'I just don't understand,' said Trina, Ella's
mother. 'She's always been such a good girl.'
Both mothers had talked before of how lucky
they were with their daughters. Amber and Ella
had never given any trouble before, and their
parents agreed that having tough rules about
what was and wasn't allowed was certainly a
factor.
'When she gets home, you should ground her
for a month!' Trina insisted.
Ella and Faye looked at each other. They both
knew it had gone far beyond that.
When Faye had left Ella's house that evening
and returned home to Summer Street, she entered
a house that felt like an empty shell. With Amber
there, it had been a lively home; now it was cold
and hard, all the life and the warmth gone. This
was the rest of her life, Faye realised bleakly: being
alone without the one person she loved most in
the whole world. It was like the end of a love
affair, except Faye knew she'd never have felt the
loss of any man the way she felt the loss of her
daughter.
Christie had phoned on Tuesday morning before
Faye went to work.
'I wanted to see how you were,' she said, in her
soothing way. 'To remind you that you're not on
your own, that you've got people to talk to in
this.'
'Thank you,, said Faye. 'Did you sleep?'
'If you call lying in bed crying, yes, I slept really
well.'

'I'll bring you over some wonderful herbal tea
later this evening,' Christie promised. 'I got it in
a little shop in Camden Street and it's called Sleep
Tea. It's very relaxing.'

'Do you have Instant Happiness Tea or Make
Everything Better Tea?' Faye inquired.
'No,' sighed Christie. 'I wish I did. In fact, I'd
also love a packet of the Make All the Old Secrets
Disappear Tea but they were out of stock. Are you
going into work?'
'Of course.'

The idea of doing anything else was ridiculous to Faye. Work had been her saviour for many
years. Work made you forget about humiliation
and pain, and people who treated you like dirt.
Work gave you confidence and courage and a tiny
glimmer of self-respect.

Except not today. No matter what she tried, she
couldn't concentrate.

She sat at her desk miserably. She had no idea
how to get Amber back and all she could do was
see the mistakes she had made and regret them.
Faye had been so sure that she had brought
Amber up in the right way, in a lovely cosy world,
where education and faith in your own power
were the most important things. She had been
so sure that was right, and now it seemed, like
mother, like daughter. Amber was merely repeating
her mistakes. And Faye, who, she could see
now, should have told Amber the truth, had let
Amber grow up thinking her mother was a plaster
saint.
She didn't tell anyone at work about Amber
going. She couldn't. Keeping people at a distance
was too firmly engrained in her. Yesterday, she'd
let Christie and Maggie get closer to her than
anyone had in years - she was still getting used
to having done that.
Grace popped her head round the door at eleven.
She didn't come in because she always felt it was
really only a quick chat if she didn't stand entirely
in a room.
'I've someone you've just got to meet, Faye.
She's an image consultant and a life coach. You
know, that's not even describing her properly, she
changes people's lives. She has degrees coming
out of her armpits and I thought it would be a
brilliant idea to bring her into the business as
part of our getting women back to work
campaign.'
Faye had come up with the idea of a drive to
recruit women coming back into the workplace
after a few years of being at home taking care of
their children and the campaign had become
Grace's special project. Grace set up the interviews
and had organised a whole retraining programme
for mothers wanting to brush up on interview techniques
and computer skills. It had been a huge
success, with scores of brilliantly qualified women
signing up, but the only problem, Grace said, was
that some of the women coming back to work
were terribly anxious about it all.
'No matter what top job they had before, they
keep saying everyone's moved on and they've
become mumsy and out of touch. You wouldn't
credit the sort of superwomen who say they don't
know what to wear or what to say because they've
lost the knack. I tell them you never forget,' Grace
added, 'but honestly, women's anxiety is terrible.
Why do we do this to ourselves? I bet men don't
obsess that they won't fit back in if they haven't
been in the workplace for a few years? I mean,
can you imagine Neil feeling like that?' she asked
Faye.
As Faye felt that Neil didn't really work in the
first place, she couldn't answer this accurately. But
she nodded and said yes, she knew what Grace
was getting at: the age-old problem of confidence
had undermined many a woman.
'So your plan is to help people dress properly
and do their hair and be full of enthusiasm?' Faye
asked now.
'That's part of it.' Grace inserted her whole body
into the room. 'It's giving women back their confidence
more than anything. This life coach is just
totally amazing. Her name's Ellen. You'll love her.
She's in my office now and if you've some free
time, come on in. She's going to do a consultation
on me.'
A few days ago, Faye would have loved to meet this woman, but not today. She couldn't summon
up the enthusiasm for life coaches or even her
beloved business.
'Grace, you don't need a consultation. Nobody
has more confidence than you and they don't
do any better ball-busting office suits than the
sort of things you wear. What help can she give you?'
'Well, I'd love to know if longer hair would
suit me,' Grace said, thoughtfully, fingering her
short, expertly highlighted blonde hair. 'And Ellen
has such an eye. You know, my hairdresser says
he likes the way my hair is, but he would say
that, wouldn't he? He cuts it. Come on, meet
her.

'Just for ten minutes,' countered Faye. 'I'll follow
you down to your office.' She shouldn't have come
into work at all - she should have phoned in sick.
How could she make polite conversation in the
midst of her grief?
She delayed following Grace, hoping that by the
time she arrived in Grace's office, Ellen might have
gone. No such luck.
'Hello,' Faye said. 'I've really only got a minute,
Grace, because I've got to ...'
'Hey, sit down,' interrupted Grace, in a voice
that brooked no opposition.
Faye knew when she was beaten. Still, she
could say hello, be charming and leave in five
minutes.
'Meet Ellen.' Ellen was not the tall and exquisite
creature that Faye expected. All the life coaches
and stylists she had ever seen had exuded as much
glamour as confidence. Ellen was remarkably
normal-looking, around Faye's age and was simply
but elegantly made up. She was beautifully dressed
in a fitted skirt suit in a lovely pale grey that Faye
wouldn't have looked at in a million years. Her
eyes shone with a wealth of experience and innate
self-confidence.
'Hello,' said Ellen. 'Nice to meet you, Faye.'
Even her voice was elegant.
They talked about the business for a few
moments, with Faye eager to be gone. This was
Grace's area of expertise.
Grace liked nice clothes and high heels because
she liked attracting attention, sexual allure was
part of what made Grace tick. It was a part of
Faye that she'd ruthlessly ripped out. She never
wanted a man to fancy her again.
No man would ever call her honey or Silver or
touch her again. Men were not on her agenda,
ever.
'I've got to go,' she said finally, when she judged
she could leave.
'It was nice to meet you,' said Ellen, and Faye
could see the other woman's eyes on her, perhaps
itching to do a makeover on her.
It was all so superficial - style your hair, weir
better suits, have a make-up lesson - who cared?
Faye thought, rage from somewhere deep inside her bubbling up. Who really cared what people
looked like? The outside didn't matter. It was
the inside that counted - didn't anybody understand
that? Never mind that Faye's inside was a mess.
Five miles away, in the comfort of Karl's admittedly
rather fusty-smelling bed, Amber stretched
and luxuriated. It was eleven o'clock in the morning and she wasn't sitting in crappy old Irish
class, bored out of her brain, thinking of the exams
and what she was going to do for the summer.
No, she was lying beside the man she loved, the
man who was soon going to wake up and start kissing her gently, nibbling her neck and making love to her.

Then, maybe they'd get up and have a late,
luxurious breakfast, padding around the flat
together in their bare feet. She might wear one of
his shirts: people did that in films, it was sort of
cute. Then they could curl up on the couch and
watch old movies and it would be blissful.
She and Mum used to love the afternoon movies
when she was growing up, all those blackandwhite
classics. It was especially nice on winter weekends when the rain pelted down outside and
they'd sit, cosy in their home, and ...
Amber didn't want to think about Mum, because
then she'd feel guilty. But it was all her mother's fault really. Her obsession with never upsetting the neighbours and having to always be whiter than
white because 'you've got no dad and we don't
want anyone looking down on the Reid family,
making assumptions and remarks'.
What sort of assumptions would they make? it
used to drive Amber mad.
If only Mum hadn't been so obsessed with all
that crap she might have noticed Amber changing,
or she might have understood why Amber had
wanted to change.
None of it mattered any more anyway. She
was with Karl and that was what mattered, as
she'd told Mum. It had been horrible but it was
over.
Amber had kept her mobile phone off since,
afraid her mother would ring, demanding that she
come home. Or worse, crying and looking devastated,
as she'd been yesterday. It had been weird
to see her like that, all sad and pleading. Not like
the strong mother she knew.
'Hiya, baby,' murmured Karl, half awake. He
rolled over in the bed, closed his eyes and appeared
to sink back into sleep.
Amber stroked the back of his neck hopefully.
She didn't want to lie here with her feelings for
company: she wanted Karl to take her mind off
them.
But Karl was asleep again.
Maybe she'd ring Gran, just to tell her to keep
an eye on Mum, because knowing Mum she
wouldn't tell anybody that Amber had left. That
would be so her.
She'd ring Gran and explain, then Gran could
explain to Mum, who'd get over it and perhaps,
even fly out to New York to meet them when she
and Karl were settled. Amber hoped the record
company could sort out an apartment for them to
stay in, something with a balcony, perhaps.
Or maybe a modern house, with huge glass
windows that looked out on to the sea in the
Hamptons. Now that would be major league. Ella
could come and stay too, when they were back
talking to each other again.
Time, Amber decided, was all it would take and
everyone would get used to the idea. Stan answered
the phone at Gran's house and he sounded as he
always did, relaxed and laid-back, as if every day
was a joy to be savoured, which indeed it was,
according to Stan.
Ella and Amber thought Stan was a howl. The
complete opposite to Gran, who fired on all cylinders
and never stopped moving or talking. Stan
could sit in his chair and listen, without saying
anything for ages. He was a good step-granddad,
Ella used to say, seeing as Amber couldn't really
remember her real granddad.
'You don't have much luck with male relatives,
do you?' Ella had said one day. 'I mean, your dad's
dead, your granddad's dead, you don't know your
dad's family, what's all that about?'
'Dad was Scottish and he was only working in
Ireland, I told you that,' Amber said, annoyed at
her friend's thoughtlessness. 'Oh, it's complicated.'
Ella was such a pain sometimes. Just because
she had all her family around her with relatives
coming out her ears, she thought everyone else
should be the same.
'But it's romantic, isn't it?' said Ella, wistful
now.
'Make up your mind,' Amber said crossly. 'One
minute it's weird and strange, the next minute it's
romantic, which is it?'
She'd often wondered about her dad, and what
sort of father he'd be: strict and tough, or pretending
to be strict, a bit like Ella's dad, who was a total
softie under all that crosspatch, 'I'm your father
and listen to me' stuff. Amber's mum didn't talk
enough about Dad, she felt. She knew so little about
him. Even Gran said practically nothing about him.
She just knew he'd loved her. They hadn't known
each other long when Mum got pregnant.
'We wanted to bring you up properly, together,'
Mum had said. And then Dad was killed in a car
accident, and he'd only a few relatives left and
they'd moved, so Amber and her mum had lost
touch with them. She'd like to search for them
sometime.
'Your gran's in the kitchen baking,' said Stan
now to Amber. 'Yet another church event she's
been asked to make cakes for.'
Just like Mum, thought Amber, another tinge
of irritation hitting her. What was it with her
mother and grandmother and all this church
baking, holier than thou stuff?
'I'll get her for you,' said Stan.
'Hello, love,' said Gran cheerily after a long
period when Amber could imagine her dusting off
her floury hands and sitting down on the tapestry
stool in the hall where the old-fashioned round dial
phone sat. 'I can't talk for long. I'm about to
put my cakes in the oven and you know how cakes
can flop if you hesitate. How are you, love? And
why are you ringing me now? You should be at
school - is something wrong?'
'No, I'm fine. The thing is, Gran,' said Amber,
and suddenly it seemed quite hard to say this, 'I'm
not at school because I've left home and ...'
'You've left home?' The tone of her grandmother's
voice didn't change, but something steely
came into it.
'Yes,' said Amber. This was definitely more difficult
than she'd thought. 'I've left home because
I've fallen in love with somebody and Mum doesn't
understand. I want to go to America with him. I
just thought I'd tell you so that you'd keep an eye
on Mum, because she's really upset.'
'Really upset, was she?' asked her grandmother,
still steely, and Amber winced. 'That's not
surprising if you told her you were leaving school
to go to America with a man. When did all this happen?'
'Yesterday.'
'I meant,' Gran said, when did you fall in love
with this man?'
'Over a month ago.' It seemed such a short
length of time and yet, Amber felt as if she'd been
with Karl for ever. Like Romeo and Juliet. Heloise
and Abelard. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio
in Titanic.
'His name is Karl. He's a musician, Gran, he's
so talented. You'd love him, really you would. And he loves me. Oh, Gran, say you'll be on my side?
Mum doesn't get it, you know what she's like. I told her yesterday and, well, we had a row.'
'Hold on and start from the beginning,' her
grandmother instructed.
So Amber did, leaving out the bit about how
she and Ella had got into the club illegally and
leaving out the sex stuff, obviously, because she
couldn't tell her grandmother that, but giving her
the basics. How she and Karl were each other's
futures, how he really wanted her to come to
America with him because he wrote better songs
when she was with him. It made so much sense.
She could study art any time, that was a gift you
never lost, wasn't it? She could paint in America
just as well as she could paint in Ireland and, as
for the exams, she didn't need a bit of paper to
prove that she was going to be a doctor or a scientist
or a teacher. She wanted to paint, it was simple,
and she could do that anywhere.
Education was a fine thing in principle, but really
what was the point of putting people in little boxes,
so that you could decide what they were going to
do for the rest of their lives, when you knew
already what you wanted to do?
Amber finished this explanation in a rush and
there was a pause. A long pause, that she found
a bit uncomfortable.
'Are you still there, Gran?' she said, anxiously. 'You haven't gone off to put your cakes in the
oven?'
'I'm still here,' her grandmother said with a
certain coolness in her voice. 'The cakes have
shifted down my list of priorities, Amber. I'm trying
to work out why you can't be in love and be somebody's
muse without finishing your exams first, or
perhaps without telling your mother in such a way
that the two of you ended up in a big fight.'
Amber flinched at the way Gran said 'muse',
much the way people said 'door-to-door doubleglazing
salesmen'.
'That doesn't sound like you, Amber, and it
certainly doesn't sound fair to your mother. You
know how much she loves you.'
Amber did and this wasn't what she wanted to
hear.
'Look, Gran, I'm not telling you this so that
you can change my mind, I'm telling you so that
you can keep an eye out for Mum. Obviously she
doesn't want to talk to me right now.'
'I think that's highly unlikely. I'm quite sure she
has been ringing you on the hour, every hour,'
snapped her grandmother.
Amber flushed. She knew there were probably
millions of messages on her phone but she didn't
want to listen to them, didn't want to hear her
mother's anxious, pleading voice. Everybody was
blowing this whole thing out of all proportion: it
was getting bigger and bigger, and it was going to
be harder to sort out.
'Look, all I'm saying is that you can be a grownup,
live your own life and do what you want with
the love of your life, but you can do it gently, in
such a way that it doesn't break your mother's
heart, Amber. And you can do your exams while
you're at it. You've spent your whole school life
working towards this moment. What's another
month?'
'That's what everyone says,' Amber said furiously. 'It's my life, I can make the decision. Isn't
that what you and Mum have always told me? To
be in charge, to make my own decisions, not to
follow the crowd.'
She knew that they hadn't wanted those same
words and ideas turned against them.
Gran sighed.
'Without your father,' she said delicately, 'it was
a very hard time for your mother.'
'Yeah, well, I didn't ask her to bury herself for
me,' Amber insisted. 'That was her choice, Gran.
She built her life around me, but I can't be responsible for that, so don't try to make me feel guilty,
because I'm not.'
That was what Karl had said when he told her
she shouldn't feel guilty. 'You're going off to have
your life and she's got to get it together on her
own.'
Except that she did feel guilty and nervous:
everyone was furious with her. What had she
started?
'Amber, why don't you come here and I'll ring
Faye and get her to come here and we can all talk
and get over this and maybe move on and ...'
'No,' said Amber, thinking of Karl and how
she couldn't risk not being with him. If she
contacted her mother, Mum would stop her and
she had to be with Karl, she had to. 'It was a
mistake ringing you, Gran. I just wanted you to
check up on Mum. I wanted you to know what
had happened, that we'd had a row, but that's it.
I'm going, OK?'
'Call your mother, please,' Gran begged. 'Does
she even know where you are? If you give her a
chance to talk to you, you might understand.
You've got to see her side of the story, Amber,
promise me you'll phone her.'
'Gran, I can't,' Amber blurted. She couldn't face
her mother.
'Please, Amber. She tried so hard to give you
everything because you didn't have a father, you
owe her the chance to explain it all to you, why
she was so protective . . .'
'Bye, Gran,' said Amber and pressed the end
call button. She felt shaken. What was Gran
harping on and on about? Get your mother to tell
her, tell her what? Tell her how to make the perfect
muffin, the perfect flapjack? What could Mum
possibly teach her? If it was anything important
she needed to tell Amber, she'd have told herby
now, wouldn't she?

It was all just a ploy to get Amber to stay, but
she wasn't going to stay, she was going on to her
new life with Karl. Older people were so obsessed
trying to tell you about the mistakes they'd made
You had to make all the mistakes yourself, didn't
you? Besides, Mum had probably never made any
bloody mistakes apart from being the over.
protective mother from hell. She was always Mrs
Perfect, wasn't she? .
'Hey, baby, where are you?' called Karl.
'In here,' said Amber, trying to calm herself
down.
Karl padded into the kitchen, sleep-fogged and
beautiful.
'I was going to make some breakfast,' said
Amber, trying to recover from the horrible conversation
she'd just had.
'Breakfast, I could kill some breakfast,' said
Karl. 'What are you going to make?' He sat down
on one of the stools and looked at her patiently.
'I don't know,' said Amber. Cereal or toast was
her limit. Her mother was the scrambled eggs
expert. Amber gritted her teeth. 'Scrambled egg?' she said confidently.
'Yeah, sure,' he replied with a sleepy stretch.
Amber opened the fridge where one egg satin
glory in the box. She was sure there had been a
few more last night.
'No eggs,' she informed him.
'Hey,' Karl said, 'maybe we'll go out.'
He reached and pulled Amber up against him,
until she was resting between his legs, his arms
around her waist. 'Or we can go back to bed and
go out in another hour?'
Amber leaned into him, loving the feel of his
skin against hers, this was so much better than
Irish class.
'That sounds like a fabulous idea,' she said.
After saying a polite goodbye to Ellen, Faye stuck
it out at her desk for another half an hour. Her
head throbbed. Her daughter had run away and
not bothered to so much as phone to tell Faye
where she was. It hurt so much.
She left her desk and went into the women's room.
The women's room in Little Island was big, airy and
full of light so that you could see to put your makeup
on. It also boasted a small bench seat so that
people could sit down during important searches of
handbags or for tights-changing exercises.
'I've worked in far too many offices with
appalling loos,' Grace had said when they were
checking over the premises originally. 'This is a
woman-oriented company, so let's have a woman oriented
loo!'
One of the stall doors was shut when Faye came
in. She went over to the sink and splashed water
on her face. She had painkillers in her bag, she'd
take them too. Although the real ache wouldn't
be lessened with aspirin.
Despite Grace's beautiful lighting, the face that
stared back at Faye was grey and tired, with violet
bags under the eyes. Even her skin looked grey.
The stall door banged. 'Hello again.'
Hell, it was Ellen, the super-duper life coach
and life revamper looking appallingly marvellous
beside her. Ellen washed her hands, but surprisingly she didn't have a bag of tricks to apply
half a stone of lipstick or glue her hair into place.
In fact, Ellen looked remarkably good without
doing any of that. Her hair was dark, shoulder
length and glossy. Simple but it suited her. She
looked confident, happy, businesslike.
Beside her, Faye felt like a lost soul who kept
all her belongings in a shopping trolley. 'Hello,' Faye answered automatically, as she
searched her handbag for the aspirin.
Ellen didn't say anything for a minute. She
appeared to be watching Faye in the mirror,
thinking.
'How are you?'
'Fine,' snapped Faye, finding the elusive
painkillers. 'Just a headache.'
'You don't look fine,' Ellen said candidly.
Faye was stunned by this honesty.
She thought that faking sincerity was top of the
list for stylists and life coaches.
'Listen, I'm fine. I'm going through a bit of a
personal crisis at the moment,' she said, 'that's
all.'
Her eyes saw in the mirror what Ellen could
see - her hair looked as if she'd slept on it badly
instead of being smoothly under control as usual.
She pulled the scrunchie from her ponytail, raked
her fingers through it like a comb, then corralled
it all back into the band again.
I used to be just like you, Faye,' Ellen said
suddenly. 'Invisible. I dressed down, wore no makeup,
hid behind boring clothes and banished any
vestige of attractiveness I had. It kept people at
bay, you see. I used to think that if nobody saw
me, it was safer.'
Faye's hands stilled on her ponytail.
'I'm not asking you what's going on in your
life,' Ellen went on. 'I'm just saying I can recognise
the signs, because that was me. Invisible and
in pain. You're not doing yourself any favours by
living like that.'
'Grace put you up to this, didn't she?' Faye said
furiously.
'She didn't set me up to do anything,' Ellen said
bluntly. 'I just recognise something in you that
used to be in me. The same utter hopelessness.
Someone helped me to move on and I did. I'd like
to help you do the same, but you have to come
to terms with it yourself.'
'So what if I don't care about clothes or having
my hair done in a fancy place,' Faye said sharply.
'Big bloody deal. Those things don't matter.'
'It's not your clothes or your hair that tell me
you think you're invisible. It's in your eyes. Most
people don't see it, only a woman who's been in
that place too. You might as well have a sign
around your neck saying keep away.'
Faye stared at her silently, her heart thumping
as hard as her head.
'You know, I think you've got the wrong idea
about what I do,' Ellen went on. 'I'm not here to
make a fortune on the back of telling women to
change their hair, wear red lipstick and high-heeled
shoes and, wow, life will be suddenly better. That's
not what it's about. It's about looking at your life,
trying to change it and change it for the better
Taking back some power. You might be running
the company here with Grace, but somewhere along
the way you've lost some of your power. I did the
same thing too, thanks to a bad marriage, and one
day, I copped on and took my power back. Anyway,' she said brusquely, 'I didn't mean to insult you,
just wanted to say I was like that too and I found
out how to change. Right now, despite all the bad
things that have happened in my life, and, trust
me, there have been a few, I'm happier than I have
ever been. And it doesn't involve a man, by the
way, Faye, that's not what this is about. So if you
ever want to talk, you know where to find me.
Otherwise, I'll see you around. Bye.'
She swept out the door, leaving only a scent of
jasmine and vanilla perfume behind. Faye slumped
down on to the bench seat, stunned and angry,
How dare she?
And yet, her words drifted back..'

Faye had tried very hard to be invisible, for a good reason, and she'd succeeded. People didn't notice her. They saw a business person, not even
a woman.
And who had she done that for? She had believed she was doing it for Amber, but Amber was gone
now, and, suddenly, she knew.
Standing in the bathroom, Faye faced one of
her uncomfortable truths. Although Ellen had said that a man was not responsible for her becoming
strong again, Faye realised that fear of being
involved with a man again was the reason she,
Faye, had made herself invisible. She'd spent years
telling herself that men were not part of her plan
for her and Amber's lives, that men only complicated
things, that it wasn't fair on a child to bring
boyfriends into the fold because they would
inevitably leave. And how could she face Amber's
hurt little face, wondering where the latest father
figure she had come to trust had gone?
But that wasn't why she'd kept away from men,
Faye knew.
She'd simply never wanted to go through the pain of being with a man again.
As Faye sat on the little bench in the women's room, thinking over the past, a sense of longing
suddenly came over her. Amber might not need
her mother at the moment, but Faye certainly
needed hers.
ran downstairs, shouting over her shoulder to Jane
on reception: 'Jane, I have to go. Family emergency.
Tell Philippa to handle my calls.'
'Can I do anything to help?' asked Jane to Faye's
retreating back.
'No, nothing, but thanks.'
Her mother's front door opened as soon as Faye
rang the bell and before Faye could say anything,
her mother put her arms round her.
'I know,' Josie said. 'You do?'
'She phoned a while ago.'
'And what's happening?' Faye almost wailed.
'Is she safe, is she coming home ... ?'
'She's still going away with him,' said her mother. 'Come on in, we'll talk.'
When they'd shared all they knew, mother and
daughter sat quietly at the kitchen table.
'Not hearing from her is the hardest thing,' Faye
said.
'I think she's realised what she's done and she's
scared to get in touch with us right now,' Josie
said. 'But she'll change her mind. She'll miss you,
you pair are so close. Don't worry, it'll work
out.'
'What if it doesn't?' Faye demanded. 'I've got
to do something.' 'Like what?'
'I'm going to go after her,' Faye said simply. 'Find her, tell her the truth and then, it's up to
her.'
'You should have told her the truth a long time
ago,' her mother said, although there was no criticism
in her voice. It was just a statement of fact.
Josie had always told Faye that she should tell
the truth to Amber. She'd never wanted to lie to
her granddaughter although she had, for Faye's
sake

'How did you feel, back then, when I was ruining
my life and dropping out of college?' Faye asked.
They hadn't had a conversation about this for so
many years that she couldn't precisely remember
it all. She knew her mother had tried her best to
tell Faye that she was hanging around with people
who'd hurt her. But Faye had refused to listen, just
like Amber was doing now.
'I felt as if I'd failed as a mother,' Josie said.
'My friends said I couldn't live your life for you,
but I kept thinking that if I'd been a good mother,
you'd have been able to see that those people were
bad for you and that you'd only get hurt.'
'You didn't fail,' Faye insisted, getting up to sit
beside her mother. 'It wasn't you. I wanted excitement
and thrills and romance, you couldn't have
stopped me.'

'And couldn't have stopped Amber,' Josie
added.

The comparison was neatly done.
But in her guilt and self-contempt, Faye still
refused to see it that way.
'It's different. You had always been truthful
with me, had warned me about things. But I knew
things I didn't tell Amber and I lied to her. If I
had been more open with her, then she'd have
known that men like this Karl are all smoke and
mirrors ...' Ella had not held back in her unflattering
portrayal of Karl. He sounded like the
worst sort of man - beautiful on the outside, vain
and selfish on the inside. Men like him never
thought of others.
'It's not different at all,' Josie interrupted. 'It
just seems worse because you're so close.'
Faye nodded, tears in her eyes now. That was
the awful thing, how she and Amber could share
so much and that Amber could still leave. Christie
had said something similar: that it was because of
their very closeness that Amber had made the break
this way.
You have huge love and closeness, leaving you
was like leaving a lover: to be done quickly, ripping
the ties, before she'd have a chance to change her
mind. She's only just eighteen after all. It's a time
of passion, isn't it?
As Faye sat in her mother's kitchen, she felt
heartfelt gratitude to Christie again. It was
comforting to interpret Amber's leaving that way,
though it didn't make it hurt less.
'You know it wasn't your fault, don't you?' she
asked her mother. 'About me.'
'I do now. I blamed myself for a long time.
But blaming doesn't work. You can't beat yourself
up about everything for evermore. I realised
that you can't lay every problem at someone else's
door, either. Your parents might do their worst,
but then you're on your own and you can shape
yourself the way you want and learn from what
they did wrong. Stan taught me that,' she added,
smiling. 'He says learn from the past and move
on. I'm not saying your father wasn't a wonderful
man, but he didn't think the way Stan did. Stan
doesn't say much but when he talks, he makes
sense. You can change up until your dying day,
he says, so there's no point blaming the people
who only had the moulding of you until you left
home.'

'He's right,' Faye said, 'except he isn't accounting
for parents who try to mould you too much. I didn't want Amber to have my past as a template.
I wanted to give her a clean slate, not to have to
learn from my poor example. I don't know why
I never thought she'd rebel against that. Stupid
really. She's my daughter, after all.'
'If you'd told her, she might have run off all the
same.' Josie shrugged. 'You'll never know. But if
you can sleep better at night having told her, then
do. I don't worry about Amber so much as you
do, love. I have great faith in her. You've brought
her up well and she's a clever girl. She won't do
anything really stupid, you'll see.'
But Faye, who thought of drink and drugs and
what damage they could do to a clever girl's
common sense, and of the people who take pleasure
in destroying innocence and girlish dreams, did
worry.
'Look at what happened to me,' she said.
Her mother laid a hand on Faye's and her eyes
were shining with pride. 'Yes,' she said, 'look at
you.,
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
People's concepts of time were strange, Christie
reflected. When you were six, a child of twelve
was like a being from another planet. And when
you were sixty, those six years meant nothing.
The six years between herself and her younger
sister Ana had shortened over their lives so that
they now spoke of 'people our age'.
But the maternal feeling Christie had for Ana
had never quite gone away and she'd always looked
out for her sister, trying to take care of her the
way she had all those decades ago in Kilshandra,
when their father raged and their mother tried to
ignore it all.
Which was another reason why the thought of
Carey Wolensky hurt so much. For when he'd come
into their lives, Christie hadn't taken care of her
darling little sister. And she simply couldn't forgive herself for that.
Ever since she'd seen his name in the paper, she
had thought of little but Carey and the past, which
was why she felt so jumpy and guilty when Ana
phoned later that week and asked to meet her one
afternoon.
'I want to talk about Rick's birthday surprise.'
Ana sounded breathless, as if she had a huge
secret to impart.
'In the Summer Street Cafe at three?' Christie
suggested.
By ten past, the two sisters were sitting at a
window table with coffee and cake in front of
them. At a table outside sat a group of girls from
St Ursula's sixth year and they'd smiled at Christie.
She grinned back, imagining them cursing her
under their breath because they'd undoubtedly
chosen that table so they could enjoy forbidden
cigarettes - smoking while in uniform was
supposed to be off limits. They were like glossy
birds of paradise in the royal-blue uniform, with
long colourful scarves wound round youthful necks
and gorgeous long hair whipping around in the
breeze, all looking far older than their years. Ella
was there, and she looked diminished without
Amber, her partner in crime. Where was Amber
now? And how was poor Faye coping?
It was four days since Amber had gone and
Christie and Maggie had dropped round to Faye's
each evening, just for a chat and a cup of tea.
Faye was travelling to the States the following
morning even though she didn't know exactly
where Amber was. Ella's information had been
patchy. All she knew was that the band had talked
about being produced by some company based in
New York.
'That's not much to go on,' Maggie commented. 'If I'm in the same city, I'll find them,' Faye said
firmly.
She'd spent the past few days sorting out things
at work so she could take extended leave. She was
being outwardly businesslike and calm, but inside,
she was still broken-hearted. Each day, she sat on
the bed in Amber's room, looked around, and
wondered at how she'd managed to get it so badly
wrong. Amber had left one message on the house
phone:
'I'm fine, Mum. We're going to the US. I'll talk
to you. I'm fine, really. Bye.'
If only she'd phoned on the mobile, Faye
thought. But Amber had undoubtedly not phoned
Faye's mobile on purpose, and at least she knew
Amber was all right.
'You'll get through it,' Christie had told her.
It was good to see Faye getting to grips with
her situation, but Christie was beginning to feel
like a fraud giving any advice. She had her own
dark cloud hanging over her and she'd done
nothing to address it. She didn't dare. She just
longed for some peace in her head. Perhaps she'd
never have peace again, or at least not until Carey
Wolensky packed up his exhibition and left the
country.
'I love it here,' sighed Ana, stirring her cappuccino
happily and licking the spoon. 'It's so homey.
You can just imagine this sort of place in
Kilshandra when we were growing up, everyone
knowing everyone else. Summer Street's great for
that sense of community, it does remind me of
home.'
Christie didn't agree but said nothing.
The difference was that she'd have hated people in a small cafe knowing her business in the
home town of their youth because everyone would
have looked at Christie and Ana MacKenzie with
pity. Their father didn't confine his bullying and
bad temper to his own home but spread it around liberally, so people knew what the MacKenzie
children and poor Maura MacKenzie had to put
up with.
'He's not an easy man, your father,' was about
the kindest thing anybody had ever said of him.
The idea of drinking your tea in a public room
where everybody pitied you was not Christie's idea
of fun. The Summer Street Cafe was a haven for
many reasons and the fact that she was happy
with her own life meant she could appreciate it.
Nobody had reason to feel sorry for Christie
Devlin here.
'Actually, I don't want to talk about Rick's
birthday,' said Ana. 'I've something to tell you. A
secret. If I don't tell somebody I'll go mad.'
Christie felt herself go icy cold in spite of the
warmth of the sun beating down on the window. 'You won't tell anyone, not even James? I know
you tell him everything, so promise.'
'I promise,' said Christie, dread in her heart. 'It's Carey Wolensky. He's going to be here
in Ireland for an exhibition, so I contacted
his hotel and left a message for him. It's so
strange,' Ana went on, looking flushed, 'an old
boyfriend coming into your life. I haven't told
Rick. Not that Rick would really mind. He knows
it's all in the past and it was before I met him, so it's not as if he and Carey were rivals or anything.'
'No,' agreed Christie automatically. 'That might
be hard for him.'
'Well, it could be, so I haven't told him and I
feel awful about it. Not that I still have feelings
for Carey or anything like that.'
Christie sat immobile and felt sick. This was
the meaning of the great dark wing of fear in
whose shadow she'd been ever since that morning
at the end of April. This was the disaster she'd seen in the future, in her future.
'Besides, Carey's had women to beat the band since. I've followed his career; I know it's wrong,'
Ana went on guiltily. 'But only out of interest,
honestly. I love Rick. Me and Carey would never
have made it as a couple. We were wrong together,
I know that. He was too old for me, too sophisticated,
too mad about art. He was much more
your type, really. At least you and he could talk about art together. I didn't know a Picasso from a can of soup.
'But it's interesting when someone you were once
in love with is famous and you can watch them.
Of course, he's gone out with all these younger women. How is it men can do that? Imagine me with a thirty-year-old? Everyone would fall about
laughing, but men can do it.'
Ana held up her knife to look closely at her reflection, squinting so that the lines around her eyes became more pronounced. She favoured their
father's side of the family, with fair hair, pale eyes
and sun-shy skin. Christie looked more like their
mother and was the picture of her maternal grandmother,
who'd died before she was born, a woman with the fine bones of Breton heritage, and slanting
dark eyes like Christie's.
'Would Botox help?' sighed Ana. 'I have furrows
like trenches everywhere and I don't care what they say about rubbing creams and serums in. I've done everything I was supposed to. I've cleansed,
toned, moisturised and dabbed eye cream on with
my ring finger. I haven't gone to bed once in my
whole life with my make-up on and look at me:
I'm a human SharPei.'
In spite of the knot in her stomach, Christie
laughed. 'You don't look a bit like a SharPei,' she said. 'They are adorable, though. I wouldn't mind one, although the girls would go mental.'
The velvety Chinese emperor dogs with their
heavily wrinkled skin were exquisite, but Christie
knew that Tilly and Rocket would be devastated
if another dog invaded their kingdom. Dogs were
like children: fiercely territorial.
'You're still lovely, you big muppet,' Christie
said, forgetting her shock to berate her sister in
the way she'd been berating her for decades. Ana
had gone through life thinking she was too fat,
too fair, had bad ankles, and Christie had been
the one who'd buoyed her up, told her they were
needless worries.

'Was I wrong to phone his hotel?' Ana went on
anxiously.

The thought that she was the biggest hypocrite
ever danced in Christie's head.

'He might never get back to you,' she said,
hoping. Please, please let Carey have forgotten the
MacKenzie sisters.

'That's it, you see.' Ana bit her lip. 'I got a call
from his assistant to say he'd love to meet up and
talk about old times except that his schedule hasn't been finalised yet and she'd get back to me. But imagine, he'd love to meet up. He hasn't forgotten after all.'
When Ana had gone home, Christie sat in the
garden and sipped a large glass of wine. James
would be astonished to see her drinking at this hour of the afternoon. She'd tell him she just felt like a moment of hedonistic pleasure, sitting in the
sun-drenched garden with chilled Chablis. Which was all complete rubbish. She'd simply wanted something to dull the spike of fear inside her. Carey
Wolensky was back in her life. All those years of
trying to forget it and her guilty secret had sneaked
back into her life as easily as if it had all happened
yesterday.
The months leading up to Christie's thirty-fifth
birthday were endlessly busy. She'd started working
part time at St Ursula's and in an attempt to make
some extra money, was painting botanical watercolours
which a dealer friend sold in markets at
the weekend. James was working all the hours too,
on a massive environmental study that meant late
nights at the office and monosyllabic conversations
when he did come home.
Christie could have coped with him working
hard, but not with his withdrawal from the human
race. It was as if he wasn't interested in her any more and the only bit of affection left in him was
given to their sons.
'How was your day?' Christie would ask when
he came home, trying to keep the lines of communication
open.
'Fine,' he'd mutter, hugging the boys. A
Once the children were in bed, James worked
silently at the dining-room table.
Christie started to go to bed early to read, and
was often asleep when he came upstairs. If it hadn't
been for Ethan and Shane, she'd have packed her
bags and left.
She adored her sons, loved every moment of
their hectic days, and sometimes felt overwhelmed
by love for them: two small boys who did everything
passionately, whether it was cycling tricycles
hell bent around the garden or fighting to the death
with toy soldiers.
'It's scary, loving them so much,' she told Ana
on the phone one day. She hadn't talked about the crisis in her marriage with Ana: doing so
would make it more real, more raw. Part of
Christie hoped that eventually, when James's study
was done, he'd come back to her. 'When I read about a disaster or an accident in the paper, I
think what would I do if anything happened to
the boys?' she told her sister. 'It's like a physical
pain thinking about it.'
Ana, working in administration in a hospital
and enjoying a series of relationships with hardworking
doctors who didn't have the time to find
girlfriends anywhere else, said she wished she knew
what Christie meant.
'I'm never going to find a man to settle down
with and have babies,' she said morosely. 'I worked
it out the other night: in the past two years, I haven't gone out with anyone for longer than three
months. I must have a "ninety-day limit" sticker
on my forehead. Three months and zip, they're gone. I am so fed up of hearing "you're a
wonderful woman, but . . ." I'm going to shoot the next man who says "but" to me. And I've
had it with doctors. They're all obsessed with
work. Girlfriends are just a mild diversion between
shifts. Never again. I need to get out and meet
different types of people.'
Christie felt guilty for being so insensitive and
reminding Ana, who was wildly maternal, that she
was still childless with no hope of a daddy for her
children in sight. It was James's fault, she thought
crossly. If he wasn't so tied up with his work, so
oblivious to her, she could have talked about her
love for the boys with him, instead of upsetting
poor Ana with it. What was the point of being
married if the extent of your conversation was
competitive exhaustion?
'I'm tired.'
'No, I'm tireder.'
'Of course you'll meet someone,' she said
quickly to her sister. 'You're gorgeous, Ana, your
time will come, I promise. You've been going out
with the wrong sort of men, that's all. Get out
and meet other people, go to museums, lectures,
parties. Enjoy yourself and don't look for a man.
When you're least expecting it, one will come
along.'
How she was to regret that advice.
The day before Christie's birthday, she told
James that they were going to a gallery to meet
Ana's latest boyfriend - a Polish artist who was
years older than her and sounded like he'd be
another guy for the 'you're a wonderful woman but . . .' speech - and then on to dinner for a
birthday celebration.
'I'm sorry, I forgot to organise anything for you,
Christie,' James said matteroffactly.
He wasn't even apologetic, Christie realised in
fury. It was as if what he was doing was so important that everything else came a poor
second, including her.
'What do you want?' he asked. 'A husband?' she said bitterly.
'Christie, don't be such a nag,' he snapped back. 'You know how busy I am.'
'I'm not nagging. I'm being honest. The boys
and I never see you any more, James. You're
obsessed with that bloody study. I cook, clean,
work and take care of our sons, and the least I
can expect is you to remember to buy me a birthday
present. It's not rocket science. Even a card would
be nice. I bet you haven't got a card for me for
tomorrow either.'
He grimaced and said nothing.
Which meant no. 'Thank you, James. I'm
touched by your thoughtfulness,' she said, hurt
beyond belief. Not even a card. It was like her
parents' marriage all over again. She must have
been mad to get married. She should have just had
kids and lived on her own. Men and women were
utterly unsuited to being together for ever. It was
the hunter-gatherer thing: men were warriors at
heart, more suited to roaming, while women were
better taking care of their children and fighting
their own battles.
They were on the bus from Summer Street into
the city and they sat in silence for the next ten
minutes.
'So,' said James, keen to end the cold war, 'tell
me about this new bloke of Ana's.'
Christie, who had many friends in the art world,
had heard that Carey Wolensky was a charming and
wildly sexy genius with a brilliant future ahead of
him and many dumped besotted women in his wake.
'He sounds like a nightmare,' she said to James. 'The more brilliant they are, the madder they are.' 'You're an artist and you're not mad,' said James
equably.
He was obviously trying to make up to her for
not remembering her birthday.
'I'm one of the practical ones and we're a rare
breed in the art world,' she said. 'Besides, I haven't
been able to earn much of a living painting, have
I? I'm missing the mad gene. Thank God for
teaching.'
'He might be as normal as you and me and turn
out to be just the man for Ana.'
'I doubt it. If he messes with Ana, I'll throw
turpentine on all his canvases, I swear,' she added
grimly. She'd been protecting Ana all her life and
she'd protect her from this maniac if it was the
last thing she did. Then again, who was she to say
what sort of man was right for Ana? She'd picked
James and he'd recently transformed himself into
a grumpy chauvinist.
Word of Carey Wolensky's fame had certainly
spread because there were bodies crushed all
around the entrance to the Bamboo Gallery when
they arrived, and people clutching catalogues
emerged from the gallery itself, crying 'fabulous', 'marvellous', and 'such talent!'
They joined the crush and squashed their way
inside, where walls of dark and brooding
Wolenskys glared down at them. Christie loved art
in all its forms, but she'd never been a fan of dark
abstract work like this. Oils painted with masterly
knife strokes, these pictures were like tornadoes
caught on canvas, full of energy and power, and
infinitely startling.
There were a few portraits in the collection, but
the people in them were cold, harsh and angular,
not warm and curved like the Gauguin women
Christie loved.
But clearly she was the only one who didn't
approve. There were lots of little red sold stickers
stuck on the frames and it was clear that Wolensky
would not need to teach at St Ursula's to pay the
rent.
This was all wrong, Christie felt. This man with
his dark sinister paintings was not the right sort
of man to court her sister. Ana didn't know a sausage about art and didn't have a pretentious
bone in her body.
The man who'd painted these pictures was fierce
and utterly in control. She'd have to warn Ana off
him. Christie didn't want another controlling man
like their father to take her over.
'You got here! And you look wonderful, almost
Birthday Girl!' Ana proclaimed, admiring her
sister.
In honour of her birthday dinner, Christie had
left her hair down and had stuck heated rollers in
it, so it now tumbled darkly around shoulders gleaming in a plum velvet halterneck dress that
clung to her tall, womanly body.
'Really, you don't look like fifty at all,' Ana teased, and Christie threw back her head and laughed her
rich, deep laugh. It felt lovely to be with her sister
someone who appreciated and loved her.
When she looked back at Ana, a man was
standing beside her, and Christie felt something
she didn't think she'd ever experienced before: a
spark of tinder and a sensation that this was a
person she'd known all her life.
Carey Wolensky wasn't any oil painting himself,
Christie thought drily, but the same passion and vivacity that inhabited his work inhabited his
person too. She was tall but he was at least six
inches taller and lean, with rather wild dark hair
and deep-set eyes that stared bird-of-prey-like at
her over a broken boxer's nose, taking in every
detail. He was around her age, maybe older, and
looked as if he wanted to taste every emotion, touch every second of life, in case he missed
anything. There were many people crowded
around and yet Carey Wolensky had that rare
ability to be the person every eye was drawn
towards.
'Pleased to meet you,' said James, who seemed
to be enjoying himself now he had relaxed with a
couple of drinks.
Carey nodded and smiled, and the bleakness left
his face.
More people gathered round him to say how
much they admired his paintings, and Ana's friend
Chloe announced that the gallery owner was having a huge party in his house, 'a mansion on
Haddington Road, with a swimming pool in the basement!' and they were all invited.
'We're going out to dinner,' said Christie loudly. 'We can't come.' She didn't know why but she knew that staying here was a mistake.
'A party's exactly what we need,' James said, 'a wild, music-filled night to get you over the
misery of being thirty-five.'
'I'm not miserable,' insisted Christie. 'I just don't want to go.'
'If Christie does not want to go, she does not
have to go,' said a voice. It was the first time Carey
had spoken and she thought his accent was like
Lenkya's, the deep purr of drawn-out syllables. It
was a voice used to the harsh rasp of Polish consonants
and it growled over the softness of her language, making it a language of love.
They stared at each other, oblivious to everyone
else. Christie could have drawn his face instantly,
she knew it so well. He watched her as if he would
touch the contours of her face, then move down
to her body, unhooking the halterneck dress to caress the skin beneath ...
'Isn't he wonderful?' sighed Ana, taking
Christie's arm. 'I think he's the one,' she whispered
for Christie alone. 'Well, I hope he is. He
says he's too old for me and that's sexy, isn't it?
Reverse psychology. It makes me want him even
more now.'
Carey still locked gazes with Christie and she
knew she'd have to look away or it would be
obvious to everyone around them, obvious that
Carey Wolensky and Christie Devlin were experiencing
a physical attraction hot enough to send
the whole room up in flames.
'Wolensky, marvellous show.' A well-dressed and
well-padded man with a cigar broke the spell by
standing between them.
A rich collector, Christie surmised, exactly the
sort of person to take Wolensky's attention. Only
the greenest artist didn't know that the official
language of art was hard currency.
Christie stood back and breathed deeply. She
was married. This was her sister's boyfriend, her
beloved Ana's man. There would be, could be, no
electricity between them.
'Shall I take you round the exhibition?' asked
Ana.
'Yes, take me round,' Christie said.
With James at one side and Ana at the other,
they toured the pictures, Ana explaining what
each canvas was called and James standing back
and raising his eyebrows occasionally. Normally,
Christie would have teased him every time he
did this, whispering that he was a philistine and
the only picture he'd really adored was the one
of the tennis player scratching her knickerless
bum. Which would make James grin and say no,
he liked the poster of the dogs playing poker
best.
This time, James's lack of comprehension irritated
Christie. Couldn't he see how amazing these
paintings were, the energy and fire that burned
out at the audience?
By the time Lenkya arrived at the gallery,
Christie and James weren't talking to each other. 'Argument?' asked Lenkya, kissing Christie
twice, European-style.
'Yes,' sighed Christie. 'What's new?'
Lenkya was with her partner, a sculptor, and
they toured the exhibition quickly.
'We're going to dinner,' Lenkya said, putting an
arm round her friend. 'You are sad, you should
come with us. You and James will never make up
your differences here in this noisy place.'
'No,' said Christie firmly, 'we're staying a little
longer.' Another thing she regretted. For if she
and James had left then, it might never have
happened.
As the crowds milled around, Christie could
feel Wolensky watching her, feel the intensity of
his mind turned towards hers. She did all those
things you did when you were being watched:
stood up straighter, held herself even more gracefully,
smiled more, wanting to look more beautiful
in his eyes even though, as she did it, she knew
it was wrong.
They went to the party on Haddington Road. 'It'll be a bit of craic,' James said. 'We said we'd
be home by twelve and it's only half nine now. We
can phone Fiona on the way to say we won't be
in the restaurant but we won't be late, either.'
Fiona, who was babysitting, was a college
student who lived on Summer Street with her
parents. Her mother was a nurse, which gave
Christie peace of mind that if anything did happen
- please God it wouldn't - Fiona's mother would
be at number 34 in a flash with the full breadth
of her medical training.
'I don't know ...' Christie began, feeling
strangely edgy.
'Stop being a martyr!' exploded James. 'You're
furious I didn't arrange a big birthday evening for
you, and now we have a chance of a party where
we'll have some fun, and you don't know if you
want to do that either! You don't know what you
want to do.'
Perhaps if they hadn't had the argument, perhaps
if Christie hadn't felt so lonely and neglected for
so long, perhaps if Ana hadn't started flirting with
a young man with merry eyes, and perhaps if
Christie hadn't felt pure admiration at Wolensky's
stunning paintings, then none of it might have
happened.
The house on Haddington Road was a large
Victorian mansion with pale floorboards and walls,
perfect for displaying art, and utterly unsuitable
for a wildly boozy party. Christie felt old
surrounded by Ana's friends, who'd soon located
a stereo and a stack of records to organise an
impromptu disco. Ana and a group of her girlfriends
began to dance. The young man with the
merry eyes joined in, and Christie watched as Ana
laughingly held his hands, clearly not caring
whether her supposed artist boyfriend saw them
or not. He was nothing compared to Wolensky,
Christie thought, mystified.
James was still barely talking to her and was
ensconced on a deep window seat with a man who
turned out to be one of his brother's old friends.
Christie felt alone and miserable, until a hand
took hers and led her out of the kitchen, into a
small hallway and up three flights of stairs to a
huge attic room hung with paintings.
'This is where he keeps the good stuff,' Carey
said, not letting go of her hand. 'The paintings
that are valuable. He has two of mine, see.'
They were alone, standing hip to hip, and even
though her head told her it was wrong, her heart
screamed that it was right.
She adored Ana, and she adored James. This
should not be happening, she had to get out of
there. Yet she felt as if she'd die if Carey didn't
swing round and haul her into his arms, sinking
into her soul and her body.
'You feel it too,' Carey said softly. He was
looking down at her hand now, examining it,
touching the palm as if he could see her whole life
through the lines on her hand. 'What is between
us. You feel it, I know.'
'No, I don't,' she lied. 'I'm married.' As if that
was a talisman she could hold up like a crucifix
to Dracula.
'So,' he said, still looking down at where her
hand was trapped by both of his. 'Marriage severs
the mind from the body, yes?'
'It does for Catholics,' Christie replied in an
attempt at levity. 'It's in the ceremony. Forsaking
all others.' She couldn't remember the rest of the
vows, to her shame.
Then who are not allowed to have women make
up those rules,' Carey murmured. 'They cannot be
expected to understand that such rules cannot
always be followed.'
'I believe in those rules,' Christie said. 'And I
love my husband.' This was true, utterly true. But
she felt shaken still. For if she absolutely loved
James, how could she feel so wildly attracted to
this man? If he made just one move towards her,
she'd offer herself to him, here on the floor with
scores of people beneath them.
'Ah.' He let go of her hand and Christie felt bereft.
She hadn't been teasing. She'd meant every word
she said, but having him touch her had been so
tender.
'I will let you go,' he added, 'but can I touch
your face, first, to remember?'
Her eyes, shining with excitement, must have
said yes, because Carey stood inches away from
her and with both hands cradled her face, rubbing
his thumbs over the high planes of her cheekbones,
down to the sweep of her jaw, and over the softness
of her mouth.
When his thumb massaged her lower lip, slipping
into the cavern of her mouth, she couldn't
stop herself biting gently.
Watch out, said every instinct inside her. This is not a game.
'Not a unicorn after all but a lioness,' he said
as her bite eased.
She made herself pull back from his touch.
'Married lioness,' she reminded him. 'And you're
supposed to be going out with my sister.'
He shrugged. 'She is happy tonight,' he
remarked. 'She has found the sort of young man
she should be with. I told her so. I prefer' - he
paused, looking at her - 'more complicated women.'
'I've got to go,' Christie said. 'Nice meeting you, Mr Wolensky.'
'Is that it?' he called as she almost ran down
the stairs.
'That's it,' she replied over her shoulder.
In the kitchen, she filled a glass of cool water
and drained it quickly, hoping it might douse the
heat on her face and neck.
Back in the main part of the house, she searched
for James. They had to go. He was still sitting on
the window ledge laughing. Christie watched the
man she curled up beside in bed, the man who'd
held her hand through the births of two children,
the man she loved. Despite his current obsession
with work, James was a good man. He was being
blind, not seeing how he was hurting her, that was
all. If she told him, sat down and said she was on
the verge of walking out because of his behaviour;
he'd be shocked and she knew he'd change in an
instant.
And yet the image of James in her head was
being crowded out by the dark brooding face of
Carey Wolensky, who was all the things she'd ever
dreamed of when she was young, and who'd come
into her life when it was already full. Too late.
In the taxi on the way home, she held James's
hand tightly. She would force Carey Wolensky out
of her head. This was the man she loved, the father
of her children.
James was exhausted and went to bed after
politely walking Fiona, the babysitter, home.
Christie stayed up and scrubbed the kitchen tiles
with the small scrubbing brush. She made James's
favourite apple cake, diligently and carefully, where
normally, she flung ingredients in at high speed.
She would push Carey out of her mind.
Ethan and Shane's little trousers hung on the
clothes horse and she ironed them. Normally, she
folded carefully, not bothering ironing garments
that would be on and off within an hour.
She couldn't stop it: more than anything, she
yearned to have Carey holding her in his arms,
taking off her clothes, touching her breasts,
lowering his head to kiss them, to feel his body
covering hers, against hers, in hers.
Like the magic that came into her head unbidden
and told her of the future, this longing was too
powerful to push away.
Christie could no more resist Carey Wolensky
than she could stop her mind from seeing what
might happen.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Faye and Maggie sat in Faye's garden listening to
the exquisite tones of Julie London on full blast
telling everyone about how she'd cried a river and
now it was his turn.
They had a bottle of rose between them and a
giant box of Ferrero Rocher half gone, with
scrunched-up gold foil wrappers littering the table.
Christie had said she'd drop in but hadn't turned
up.
It was four days since Amber had left and, the
following day, Faye was going to the States to find
Amber and she couldn't wait to be off.
At least if she was travelling, trying to find
Amber, she'd be doing something. And that was
preferable to being at home in the silent misery of
number 18. Without Amber, the house was gravelike.
Faye jumped every time the phone rang in
case it was Amber; she checked her answering
machine by remote access ten times a day, and in
the morning, she ran to the letterbox when the
postman came just in case there was a card, a
letter, anything saying that Amber was all right.
'Should I turn the music down,' asked Maggie,
In case the neighbours go mad?'
Faye's next-door neighbour was an irascible man
who had no animals, no wife, no children and no
sense of humour - or at least, that's what Amber
had always said. Faye used to hush her when she
said this. 'He might hear!'
'Screw the neighbours,' Faye muttered. 'If Mr
Dork next door has a problem, he can come in
here and tell me face to face.'
'Fine by me,' said Maggie, who knew a woman
gunning for a fight when she saw one.
Since Amber had gone, Faye had appeared
defeated and sad. Today, something had clearly
changed inside her and she was filled with fierce
energy and rage.
Maggie suspected she was going through the
phases of grief: she'd done disbelief, and hopelessness,
and now was on to anger.
Maggie had been through that herself.
'Exercise helps me,' she volunteered. 'I do Pilates
when ... sorry,' she added. 'It's very boring to
have people giving you advice all the time, isn't
it?' She wished Christie were here. She felt singularly
incapable of saying anything useful. Her
boyfriend had been cheating on her for years and
she hadn't had a clue about it, so both her skills
of observation and her credentials as agony aunt
were questionable.
Faye shot her a genuine, warm smile. 'Thanks,'
she said. 'I appreciate that. Everyone else wants
to tell me what to do.' Everyone else was Grace,
whom she'd told about Amber's disappearance,
and who was full of suggestions about what action
Faye should take next.
'Grace at work has my head wrecked saying she's
there if I need her and after all, Amber was going to leave eventually and all families fight, don't they?
She's trying to help but she doesn't understand. She
doesn't have kids ... Well, perhaps that's not fair,'
Faye amended. 'You don't need to have children to
understand and I've only told her half the story. Me
and my secrets. Perhaps I should have brazened it
out and told her the truth years ago. We've been
through a lot together professionally, so in many ways we know each other well. But at first I was
too ashamed, I thought she'd look down on me.
Grace is so together, I couldn't imagine her doing
anything she was ashamed of. And then, too much
time had passed for me to suddenly say: hey, Grace,
I'm not really a widow after all. I just say I am.'
'When you're ashamed, it's easy to build it up
into a huge secret you dare not trust anyone with,'
Maggie reflected, thinking of her own past.
Faye looked interested now, so Maggie had to
go on.
'My problem was that when things went wrong
for me, I felt I couldn't confide in my parents,' she
said, amazed at her courage now. She'd never said
that to anyone before.
'About Grey?' Faye was puzzled. Maggie had
said her parents knew about her break-up, though
not about Grey cheating on her.
'No, before that.'
'What ... ?' began Faye, and stopped.
Maggie's eyes had filled with tears. Whatever
her big secret was, it was too painful to touch.
'So, back to this cheating man of yours,' Faye
said firmly, switching subjects. 'What has your dad
threatened to do to him lately?'
Despite herself, Maggie laughed. 'They don't
have a surgical name for it yet.'
'But it's performed without an anaesthetic?' 'With two bricks and a rusty razor blade,' said
Maggie. Then sighed. 'Poor Dad has got it into
his head that I left Grey because there was no sign
of us getting married. He calls Grey "that bastard
who felt he was too good to put a ring on my
daughter's finger after five years".'
'That is a very dad thing to say,' Faye agreed. 'Luckily for Amber's father my poor old dad wasn't
around by the time I started getting into trouble
with men. But what happened to you was pretty
rough.'
'You don't seem that shocked actually,' Maggie
said, surprised. 'Not that I've been broadcasting
the information but so far, everyone I've told about
what Grey did has been stunned.'
'They all live sheltered lives, I guess.' Faye
grinned. 'I've heard of guys doing much worse and
he did say sorry afterwards, although I know that's
not the point. You were living together, he was
your partner and it was way out of line. You're
not taking him back, I hope.'
'I wanted to,' Maggie said. 'Isn't that pathetic?
I thought he was right for me. I loved him and our life together.'
Faye interrupted: 'You just don't love coming
home and seeing him bonking some blonde babe
on your bed.'
'No,' agreed Maggie, 'that does sort of ruin
things.'
'So you've got to dump him and start again.' 'I'm going to dump him all right.' Since Shona
had told her about Grey's other women, she'd
thought of practically nothing else. She felt so
humiliated by the news. To think how he'd looked
her straight in the eye and lied to her. It's never happened before.
I love you.
To think of him offering to marry her while
hiding the fact that he'd betrayed her in the past.
Grey had tried to phone her every day but she
never answered when she saw his number appear
on her phone screen. She wasn't ready for him yet.
She'd cry if she spoke to him and she didn't want
to do that: she wanted to build herself up to be
strong and angry for that conversation.
'I'm not starting again with anybody ever,'
Maggie said decisively. 'I can't go through all that
dating, smiling and trying to be something you're
not. Hoping they'll like you.' She shuddered, partly with remembered shame. She'd tried so hard to be
what Grey wanted and, in the process, had lost sight of who she was. The past had scared her and
Grey had made her feel safe, so she'd never tried
to work out who Maggie Maguire actually was
and what she wanted from life.
'Hoping they'll like you sounds like me once,'
reflected Faye. 'Trying to be something I wasn't instead of having the courage to be what I really was.'
There was silence. The CD had stopped playing
and there was no noise at all, apart from the sound
of somebody's lawn mower and a dog barking, far
away in the distance.
'You have to tell Amber about the past when you see her,' Maggie said. 'All of it.'
Faye nodded. She had been thinking a lot about
everything over the previous few days.
Ellen, the makeover lady, had been right when
she said Faye tried to be invisible. Faye had tried
to blend into the background, to make herself as asexual as possible, so nobody could connect her
with the wild child she'd been. And she'd protected
Amber like a crown princess, stifling her out of
love, never telling her the truth. It kept coming
back to secrets and lies.
'I'm going to tell Amber everything when I see
her,' she told Maggie. 'It's just that I thought I was
doing the right thing by inventing this person: Faye
Reid, mum extraordinaire, conservative, decent,
long-skirt-wearing person, pillar of the community,
the sort of woman no one would ever imagine
hanging out with dodgy men, having no respect
for herself. I thought if I insulated Amber from the
world, bad things would never touch her and
she would grow up strong and confident. And if
she ever met a man like her father, I thought by
then that she would know better, that she would
be stronger than I was. But I was fooling myself.'
The too,' said Maggie, thinking that she wasn't
much different from Faye after all. At least Faye
had changed her life and begun to respect herself
once she'd given birth to Amber.
While Maggie had always felt as if she wasn't
worthy of Grey, that it was surprising someone
like him loved her. She'd had to pretend to be the
confident person to hide her insecurities. If that
wasn't living a lie, what was?
'And the more you lie, the more you have to
lie. The lies become bigger until there's no way
out, apart from admitting that you're fabulous at
being deceitful. What mother wants to say that to
her daughter?' Faye asked.
'You thought you were protecting her,' Maggie
said. 'She'll understand that, when you tell her.' 'But it's gone on for so long,' sighed Faye.
'Imagine if you have an adopted child and you
never find the right time to tell them. Maybe, you
miss that window of opportunity when they're two
or three, when it should become part and parcel
of their life - You're adopted. Mummy and Daddy
love you and picked you to be our baby, so our
love is special - and time moves on and you haven't
told them. So you wait a bit longer and then you
have to turn around when they're an adult and
go, Well, actually, by the way, we're not your
parents, we adopted you. It's like that with me
and Amber. I should have told her in the beginning,
but I didn't know how. It's gone on so long
that telling her will destroy her and she'll hate me
and I...' Faye paused. 'I don't know if I can face
that. I love her so much, Maggie. Everything that
I've achieved in my life this past eighteen years,
has been for her. I couldn't bear for her to hate
me.' Maggie got up and put her arms around Faye,
holding her tightly.
And Faye, who longed for the comfort of
another human being since Amber had stormed
off, leaned against Maggie and began to sob.
'I just wish she'd come home, I wish she'd make
contact, anything. Just so I could tell her I love
her and explain it all to her, that's all I want,' she
said, as she sobbed. 'I'm sorry, Maggie, I'm sorry.
You don't need this.'
'Don't be silly,' said Maggie, still holding Faye
tightly, as the other woman's sobs subsided. 'Hey,
you'll be doing this for me in a minute, when I
tell you all my deep, dark secrets.'
'You mean you have deep, dark secrets too?'
hiccupped Faye. 'Oh please, tell me, I don't want
to feel like the only screw-up on Summer Street.'
Maggie laughed. 'There are lots of screw-ups
on Summer Street,' she said. 'It's lust we don't
know about them, that's all. Do you think everyone
hiding inside the pretty houses, with the coloured
doors and the beautiful maple trees, lives a perfect
life? Of course they don't. If you knew my mother;
then you wouldn't think that. She knows everything
that goes on around here.'
'Really?' asked Faye.
'Oh yes,' said Maggie, seeing that Faye looked
cheered by this line of conversation. 'Mum is a
fount of knowledge about everyone on Summer
Street. It's the cafe, you see. She and dad go into
the Summer Street Cafe at least once a day and
Mum learns things, all the time. Not in a bad way:
she's not a gossip, but she's interested in people's
lives and she knows what goes on. Christie's the
same, really,' she added thoughtfully. 'Christie
seems to know about everyone.'
'She's a wise woman,' agreed Faye. 'I wish I'd
known her properly before, instead of just nodding
a distant hello in the street. That was another one
of my obsessions,' she added. 'I thought if we kept
ourselves to ourselves, nobody would get close
enough to ask what exactly happened to Amber's
father. But someone like Christie, she'd never ask
you those sort of questions, would she? If I'd
known her then, she might have been able to help
me, stop me screwing everything up.'
'No,' insisted Maggie, 'we've got to help
ourselves. I've got to fall out of love with my
cheating boyfriend, a man who must think I'm the
dumbest woman on the planet if I agree to marry him when he's had other women all the time we
were going out.'
'You can't be the dumbest woman on the planet,'
Faye joked. 'That's me.'
'No,' argued Maggie. 'It's me, I'm afraid.'
'Did you cut the arms off his suits and throw
paint all over his car before you left?' Faye inquired. 'Don't be daft,' said Maggie. 'I'm a wimp. I went
back to the apartment that night, talked to him
like an adult and even considered - in my own
head of course, I didn't say this out loud - letting
him sleep in the bed with me because then he'd
hug me and cuddle me and it'd all be all right.' 'Ouch,' said Faye.
'I know,' Maggie agreed, 'not just the world's
dumbest woman, but the wimpiest too. But fortunately
I stood firm and made him sleep on the
couch. Then, the next morning, I packed and flew
home to Summer Street. Cutting the arms off all
his clothes might be fun though. He doesn't really
wear suits, he's more of a casual jacket type of guy.'
'You could tell people he had some appalling
venereal disease?'
'My friend, Shona, thought of that one too,'
laughed Maggie. 'She works in the library with
me and was all set to spread the rumours, but I
said that sort of revenge would be beneath me.'
Faye grinned. 'It wouldn't be beneath me. Fight
fire with fire. He slept with a student, so why don't
you let that be known? He'd be sacked. The ultimate
revenge.'
'True,' said Maggie, 'but I'm trying to put myself
in that happy, Zen state where the only true revenge
is living my own life well.'
'You're right,' Faye said gravely, 'that's exactly
the right thing to do. Modern and very politically
correct.' But she added wickedly, 'It would be great
fun, wouldn't it?'
'Not as much fun as telling him I don't need
him,' said Maggie firmly.
'Good for you. When are you going to do it?'
Maggie took the last chocolate. 'Tonight,' she
said. 'I'll tell him tonight.'
'I've got some chocolate-covered biscuits in the
kitchen,' Faye said. 'I quite fancy one of them.
What do you think?'
'Good plan,' said Maggie. Then are nothing but
trouble. We should stick to chocolate. It's safer.'
When she left Faye's house, Maggie walked
across Summer Street to the park. Its cast-iron
gates would close in half an hour but there were
still plenty of people enjoying the summer evening.
She headed for the pavilion and climbed the old
wooden steps to sit on one of the built-in benches
that overlooked the tiny fountain.
Birds sang to one another in the trees overhead,
and there were giggles coming from the group of
girls huddled on the benches beside the playground.
Normal life went on no matter what personal
disaster you were living through, she thought,
taking out her mobile.
Grey answered the apartment phone quickly.
'Maggie, hello,' he said warmly.
'Hi, Grey,' she said, her voice flat. She still didn't
feel angry. Her anger seemed to have deserted her
and her main emotion was sadness at seeing how
hollow her life with Grey had turned out to be. 'I
don't want us to get back together, I'm afraid. It
wouldn't work.'
'What?' 'It's over. I can't go hack.'
'But Maggie, you want to, you know that. I
love you and you love me. That's all that matters.
We can get over what happened. We could have couples' therapy,' he volunteered, which made her
smile wryly. Grey was proud of the workings of
his own mind but would hate to have a third party
probe it and question his beliefs.
'I don't want therapy,' Maggie stated. 'I want
to sell the apartment and move on. You could buy
me out, if you'd like. It's a good apartment and I
don't want it. I'm not sure if I want to move back
to Galway at all.'
She had friends there but a total break would
help her more. The whole city was filled with
memories of the past five years.
'We can start again, Maggie. We can move apartments,
get married, do all the things I said.' He
sounded earnest and Maggie's feeling of sadness
grew. How easily he lied. And how easily she'd
believed it all.
'I want to be with someone I can trust, Grey,'
she said, 'and you're not that person. It's not easy
doing this. I feel like I'm wasting five years of my
life ...'
'You are!' he cried. 'You can't give up on us
that easily.'
'I'm not the one giving up,' Maggie replied. 'You
are. Because you lied to me about how you'd never
cheated before and now I know that's not true.
There have been other women. Don't try to deny
it. Shona told me. It's no secret apparently, except
to me, that you've had other women.'
'Why does she have to interfere?' he growled. 'That's not interfering, that's telling a friend the
truth,' Maggie said. 'I can't live that way any more,
Grey. You've cheated on me, not with one woman,
but with at least four - who knows how many?
So you're the one who's ending our relationship.
You made the choice to sleep with other women.
Not me.'
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
She wondered if he'd lie again or confess. What
would the politician in him do?
'It was stupid,' he said finally. 'I have no excuse,
Maggie. None whatsoever. But it will never happen
again, I promise. Please come home. I love you.'
Maggie wiped her eyes but once the tears started
to flow, she couldn't stop them running down her
cheeks.
'You just don't love me enough, Grey,' she said. 'I won't accept second best. I'm sorry. I'll call again
about the apartment but don't call me. It's over
Believe me. I won't change my mind.'
And without giving him a chance to beg, she
hung up.
The birds singing in the trees didn't take any
notice of the woman sobbing silently on the
pavilion. Neither did the teenage girls chattering
and texting furiously on the opposite side of the
park.
They probably still believe in true love, Maggie
reflected, watching them through blurry eyes.
She wished she could warn them, but there were
some things you had to experience yourself.
Mum and Dad were in the kitchen watching a film
when she got home. It was National Lampoon's European Vacation and the Griswold family were
touring Europe, leaving mayhem and bewilderment
in their wake.
'Sit down, Bean,' said Dad, wiping the tears from his eyes. 'This is hilarious. You used to love
it.,
Maggie pulled up a chair, settled the cushion on it, and sat down.
'Did you have any dinner?' asked her mother. 'Yes,' fibbed Maggie. She'd had chocolate
biscuits after all. She didn't feel up to eating
anything else now and her mother would be bound
to start fussing if Maggie had said no.
'I'll make us a pot of tea,' Dad said, patting her
knee. 'Isn't this nice? It's like old times, isn't it,
Una?'
'Yes,' sighed Mum happily.
Maggie looked at her parents with love. It wasn't
what she'd planned to be doing when she was
thirty - back living with her mum and dad,
boyfriendless, and with her confidence shot to
pieces. But it must have all happened for a reason.
Faye wasn't letting circumstances stop her in her
tracks: she was going to find Amber and try to
make sense of the past. And that's what Maggie
had to do too. If this was what a new life was all
about, then she was going to give it her best shot.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
On the plane, Faye sat in an aisle seat and watched
her fellow passengers board. She had a fat magazine
on her lap, but the scenes playing out in front
of her were far more intriguing than anything else.
An older couple walked down the aisle slowly,
resigned expressions on their faces at such a long
flight ahead. A large group of teenage schoolgirls
in some kind of sports strip arrived in a frenzy of
excitement, already discussing swapping seats for maximum fun.
'Girls, you're supposed to sit in your correct
seat,' said one of the harassed adults with them, either a teacher or a parent, already, Faye reckoned,
realising that they'd bitten off more than
they could chew.
'Oh, a baby, how cute!' one of the girls said,
and the woman in the opposite row with an infant
on her lap smiled weakly because at least she'd be
surrounded by people who wouldn't object to the
poor child's crying.
It had been years since Faye had been on a plane
on her own. It was nice, she decided. Freeing,
There was nobody to worry about but herself.
Nobody could reach her on her mobile phone with
bad news; nobody needed her.
For the first time since Amber had left, Faye
felt a strange sense of acceptance at being alone.
Amber would have left home inevitably and Faye
would never have been ready for it. She could see
that now. Her world was too tied up with her
daughter, which hadn't, it turned out, been the
right thing for either of them.
Faye ate the airline meal, watched the movie,
then stuck in earplugs, pulled on a homemade
lavender-filled eyemask Christie had given her for
exactly that purpose and went to sleep.
The midtown hotel where her taxi pulled up was
part of a budget chain and looked nothing like the adorable boutique hotels that the airline magazine had mentioned glowingly as places to stay in New
York. Here, she reckoned the concierge wouldn't
be able to whisk tickets for a Broadway show our
of thin air. However, the marble lobby was clean
and the whole place felt safe to Faye. Her room
was a tiny twin on the seventh floor, with a microscopic bathroom and a mini kitchen that consisted
of a kettle, toaster, microwave and sink, cunningly concealed behind one cupboard.
Faye double-locked the door, stripped off ad
climbed into bed for another hour's rest.
It was mid-afternoon when she woke up and
she stood at the window looking out over the city.
She couldn't see much but other buildings, and
directly below, she was staring at a grimy rooftop
where somebody had once put a few wooden
deckchairs, then forgotten about them.
But never mind the view, this was New York. She wasn't the victim any more, she was doing something, taking her power back, as Ellen, the
makeover lady, had said. Ellen had a point, Faye
realised. Somewhere along the way, she'd lost her
power. Not any more.
In the lobby, she sat at a public phone and fed
in her credit card. She couldn't afford the hotelroom
charges, but down here, the price was pretty
standard. It took seven calls to track down the
production company who were supposed to be
working on Karl's album with the band, Ceres.
Then an interminable wait followed as a bored
young guy searched for details of the band's
schedule, saying all the time: 'I can't give you inside information, lady, this is only public domain stuff.
If you're a stalker, I'm not taking the rap.'
'Do many unsigned bands have stalkers?' Faye
demanded. 'I wouldn't have thought so. I told you,
I'm Amber Reid's mother, she's Karl Evans's
partner, and I have an urgent message for her.'
He didn't reply for a minute, then said: 'They
did a gig at the O'Reilly Tavern recently, and that's
all I have written down here because Sly was
supposed to go to it. That's all I can help you with.'
'But they're recording an album and your
company are producing it. I can leave a message
for them, surely?' said Faye, who planned on just
turning up and surprising them but wasn't going
to tell this guy so.
'They were,' the guy said, and she could hear
him flipping pages, 'but they're not down in the
log any more. Doesn't say why.' More pages
flipped. 'Not down for next month neither.'
'How could that be?' asked Faye, confused. 'Hey lady, it's all about dollars. If you can't pay,
you can't stay. Guess whatever deal they had fell
through. If they're good enough, Sly and Maxi
will produce your album for a percentage deal. If
you're not and nobody else is paying, it's hasta la
vista.'
'Oh,' she said in horror, her only lead gone.
Her anxiety finally transmitted itself to the guy
on the other end of the phone.
'All right. They were staying in the Arizona Fish
Hotel over beside the Port Authority,' he said. 'You
didn't hear it from me, OK?'
'Bless you,' said Faye with gratitude.
It was the sight of the Arizona Fish Hotel that
made Faye begin to feel really worried. Her own
hotel was hardly a palace, but it was Trump Tower
compared to this run-down place with its tawdry
cloak of hip.
It might have boasted a lobby full of retro chic
furniture and framed yellowing sheet music of hit
songs allegedly penned in the penthouse suite, but
Faye could see the seediness seeping from the walls.
No amount of trendy furniture or psychedelic
prints on the walls, or even the neon sign for the
hotel's own nightclub, A Fish, could hide the dirt.
It reminded her of The Club in her previous
life: a dump dressed up as a cool hang-out by
virtue of the fact that some band or other played
there once, partying till the LSD or the heroin was
gone. Not that she'd ever travelled anywhere with
TJ, but she knew that if she had, she'd have loved
the decayed glamour of the Arizona Fish. To a girl
like Amber, raised in the quiet of Summer Street,
hearing of the songs allegedly written in room
seven, or the bed that had probably fallen through
the roof in room eleven during an unbelievable
party after a rock festival, would have made her
feel a part of it all. This was excitement, this was
life. And she was in the middle of it.
Faye knew exactly how excited Amber would
be to be living this life, because she'd been just
as excited twenty years ago to find herself in the
world of The Club. But that life was like being
in the eye of the storm. You thought you were
safe, untouchable, when the storm was actually
raging inches away. Then, nobody could have
told Faye Reid that. She'd had to find it out for
herself.
Faye wanted to get her daughter out of that
storm before it hurt her. She wouldn't stop
searching for Amber until she found her. And if
she had to stay in New York for ever, she would.
She'd get Amber back.
Amber looked at the cockroach and the cockroach
looked back calmly. It wasn't as big as a rat, as
some people claimed they were in this part of Utah,
but she wouldn't have minded a rat. Furry was
infinitely preferable to scuttling, crackly insects.
Breathing deeply, she backed out of the room,
past Karl and the man with the dirty T-shirt, and
stood in the hallway, feeling her skin crawl.
'I am not sleeping in there,' she said.
The man moved into the room, banged about
a bit, and emerged smiling.
'He is gone, you can go in now.'
'Where is he gone?' demanded Amber, looking
around the floor in the hallway with distaste. 'Into
the corner he hides in with his eight million relatives
until we're in bed asleep and he comes out to
dance the Macarena?'
'No Macarena. He is gone,' the man repeated. 'It's all we can afford,' said Karl, sighing and
hauling his stuff into the room. He'd stopped
hauling Amber's stuff days ago.
It was hard to imagine that she'd once felt that
the Arizona Fish Hotel was a bit on the grubby
side, Amber thought wryly. The Arizona's dust balls
and smeary windows were nothing to the squalor
of this joint, a place where health inspectors clearly
feared to tread.
Karl was right: it was all they could afford. The
band were travelling across the country in a yenta-wreck
van, which was the cheapest way to get
them all to LA, and staying in the most inexpensive
motels around. This way, Karl had worked
out, they'd have enough money to survive in LA
for a few months in order to set up another production
deal with somebody hot.
'Screw Stevie,' Syd muttered every day they
climbed into the van and set off on the interstate.
The suspension was not what it might have been
and it took a while each day to get used to the
bumpiness of the ride.
'Like a roller coaster,' said Lew the drummer
happily.
'You must have a stomach of steel,' Syd replied
in disgust.
When Demon had decided against producing the
band's album, Stevie's big talk had dried up along
with the meals out and the free-flowing booze.
Citing problems at home, Stevie had hopped on
a plane back to Ireland, saying he'd work on a
new deal for them and they'd talk when they were
all back in Dublin.
'Crap,' said Syd succinctly. 'We'll never see him again.'
Stevie hadn't bothered with the last outstanding
two days of their hotel bill, either, so when he left
for JFK, reception were on the phone asking if
the band were moving out or not, because with
Stevie's credit card gone, they had to pay up or
pack up.
Everyone had return flights home, a precondition of their entry visas, so following Stevie's yellow
belly seemed like a sensible option.
'We can't go home with our tails between our
legs,' Karl said furiously. 'I'm not anyway, I don't
care what you guys want to do. This is my dream
I don't need guys like Stevie. I'll do it in spite of
him.'
Amber waited for him to put his arms round
her and say that the two of them would make it
one way or the other, but he didn't. This was a
band discussion, it seemed.
'I think I'll go for a walk,' Amber said abruptly
She grabbed the room card and was halfway to
the lift when Karl caught up with her. 'Baby, don't go,' he said.
'You were talking as if I wasn't there,' she
accused, tears stinging her eyes. She brushed them
away with her sleeve. She would not cry.
'That was band stuff,' Karl said, pulling her into
his arms. 'Course you're staying with me. Aren't you?'
And he'd looked worried, as if there really was
any chance of her leaving him.
'I'm staying,' she said, leaning against him with
relief. For one awful moment there, she'd though
she didn't mean anything to him. She'd given up
so much too: home, Mum, Ella ... so many things,
really. If Karl went off without her, she'd haw
done it all for nothing.
'Let's go out on our own, to dinner and a club'
he murmured against her ear.
'Can we afford it?' asked Amber, ever practical. 'Anything for you, baby.'
That evening had been the last romantic moment
they'd shared, Amber reflected now as she pulled
her case into the now allegedly cockroach-free
motel room in some truck-stop off the Utah interstate.
They'd rented the van, left New York and were now driving hundreds of miles every day
through the vastness of America. It should have
been a dream trip, like the kooky road trips of teenage movies, but those movie-star kids had
dollars to spare, while the band had none.
Their mobile phones didn't work here, even
Syd's, which was a super-duper thing his girlfriend
had bought him. He'd spent so long messing with it that it had locked itself and was now useless.
Karl was relentless in his quest to reach Los
Angeles with the minimum number of nights spent in motels ('every night on the road is another few
days in LA renting,' he insisted), so they couldn't
dawdle in pretty towns off the interstates or take
trips to places that caught their eye.
Karl was a man with a mission, and Amber and the band were following in his wake.
'I'm beat,' he said now, lying down on the bed
cover. 'Three hundred and fifty miles today, it's
got to be a record.'
Amber didn't reply. She was looking at the stains
on the carpet and wondering what had made them.
If only she had a vacuum cleaner and maybe some
carpet stain remover, and cream cleaner ...
could have been her mother talking.
Look at the state of this place! Amber, get the
antiseptic wipes out of my bag.

They hadn't gone on many holidays: the money
hadn't been there. But Mum had always packed
cleaning materials so that if the place they stayed
didn't come up to her standards, she'd clean it
herself.

Amber felt a lump in her throat at the memory
of the laughs they'd had in the places they'd stayed.
Turning to the bathroom, she went inside and
shut the door. There was no tub, just a lived-in
shower with a curtain beaded with other people's
dirt. Amber sat down on the toilet seat and buried
her face in her hands.

This was so not what she'd expected when she'd
left home.

She'd thought she was running off to experience
life and become a woman: instead, she
was enduring life on the road with an obsessed
boyfriend and staying in a series of dumps. She
mightn't have minded if only Karl was obsessed
with her but he wasn't.

He hadn't called her his muse in a very long
time. We are not amused, she thought. And then
she did cry.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Monday after Faye had left the country,
Christie came home from school to find a disturbing
message on her answering machine.
'Hello, my name is Heidi Manton and I'm
phoning on behalf of Carey Wolensky. He's trying
to locate a Mrs Christie Devlin to invite her to
the private viewing of his exhibition in Dublin in
two weeks' time except he's not sure if she still
lives at this address. If Mrs Devlin could phone
me, I'd be most grateful. And if she's moved, any
information on her whereabouts would be marvellous.'
The
clipped tones of the woman recited a
number in London and Christie allowed herself to
take a deep breath. At least Carey wasn't in the
country yet.
'From next week, you can contact myself or Mr
Wolensky in Dublin at this number.'
The voice reeled off another number and
Christie's relief evaporated.
He was coming here and he wanted to see her.
It couldn't get any worse. What on earth was she
going to do?
While the maelstrom of Summer Street relationships
whirled unnoticed around her, Una Maguire
had taken it upon herself to set up the 'Save Our
Pavilion' campaign.

'We can't let our lovely park be destroyed by
those developers,' she said to Dennis and Maggie, 'Evil, that's what they are,' she added, as though
the developers were in league with the devil and

were ripping down the pavilion as part of some
satanic bargain for making loads of money out of
big ugly apartments.

'You don't want to overdo it,' said Dennis,
attempting to be the voice of reason. 'Don't forget,
darling, your leg is still broken and ...'
'Oh fiddle faddle, my leg is fine,' said Una. 'Isn't
it better to be doing something to help our community
than sitting at home worrying about my old
leg and thinking that I'll be ending up in a wheelchair
before long?'

Maggie glanced over at her mother, but Una
went on regardless.

'Somebody needs to stand up to those developers
and I'm going to call a meeting of the residents
of Summer Street and the streets all around.
We don't want to use some hopeless new park
three miles down the road when we have this lovely
little jewel right here beside us. We will fight the council all the way!' and she waved her crutch
menacingly in the air.
'Right, Mum,' said Maggie, alarmed her mother
might take someone's eye out. It was easiest to
humour her when she was in this mood. 'What
do you want me to do?'
A printing firm would run off a hundred flyers
for next to nothing if Maggie dropped by with
details of the meeting. The only problem was that
the firm's office wasn't on a direct bus route. The
task would require the car.
'Your dad can drive,' Una said, then added, 'You
won't be long, will you?'
She didn't like being left on her own these days,
Maggie had noticed, sure it was fear of falling and
hurting herself again.
'Dad can stay with you. I'm sure I can remember
how to drive,' Maggie said a little wearily. If she
was going to become a stronger person, she had
told herself, she would need to accept life's challenges,
and trying to drive again would be the first.
At least the fear of driving might take her mind
off her own personal misery, the misery that kept
her awake late at night, thinking about her and
Grey.
'There's nothing to it, Bean,' said Dad, delighted. 'Of course there isn't,' she said cheerily. 'It's a
long time since I've driven, that's all.'
'Any eejit can drive,' said her father. 'And you're
so clever, it'll be nothing to you.'
With both parents smiling at her proudly, clearly
believing that their only child was a cross between Stephen Hawking and Condoleezza Rice, Maggie
had to smile back. They didn't have anything
particularly to be proud of, but what was the point
of telling them that? She'd managed to hide her
misery pretty well. So well, in fact, that nobody
at home appeared to see how sad she was underneath the smiling exterior.
The family car was a Volvo, like all the Maguire
cars had been. Her father felt that Volvos could
tackle the world head on and still win.
'Reliable,' her father insisted.
'You could hit a moose with one and there
wouldn't even be a dent,' her mother would add, 'Extra hard side bars or something.'
Maggie sat in the driver's seat, looked at all the pedals, buttons and dials and hoped that the local
moose population was safely off the road today.
The car started first thing and despite its general air of decrepitude because it was almost an antique,
it moved forward smoothly when she let off the
handbrake.
Indicator, check the road, off in first gear, smoothly into second. It was like riding a bike,
Maggie thought triumphantly. She was driving.
Nothing to it. Pity Grey couldn't see her now, the
lying, cheating pig.
At a sedate twenty-five miles an hour, she made it to the printer's where they ran off her leaflets at
high speed and she was back in the car within half
an hour. Next, she stopped off at the supermarket and loaded up a trolley. The petrol tank was almost
empty, she noticed as she pulled out of the supermarket
car park on to the road.
Emboldened by her success at driving, she
decided that a trip to the garage would round off
her maiden voyage nicely.
A confident woman driver with a brave new
life ahead of her would know how to pump her
own petrol. Why had she never had a car before?
The sense of freedom was heady.
She had to jiggle the pump nozzle a bit to fit
it into the tank, and even then it leaked, but
then the numbers clicked up on the pump counter
in a most satisfying fashion, and when she
reached twenty euros, Maggie pulled the pump
out. She'd been thinking she'd make a gorgeous
dinner for the three of them, nutritious, something
out of a book perhaps, looking after her
family and .. .
The little sticker on the petrol tank flap winked
up at her. Diesel. Diesel.
With whiplash speed, she turned to the pump.
Unleaded petrol. She'd just put unleaded petrol in
a diesel car.
She stared at the car in shock. Trust her parents
to have a diesel car and not tell her. No. Trust her
not to notice. Shit.
She ran into the shop and stood at the back of
the queue, thinking she might cry or maybe even
laugh. She could feel her paper-thin happy face
beginning to crack.
Anyone could do it, right? Someone could suck
it out, couldn't they? Or something.
The man in front of her swivelled round and
Maggie realised she'd spoken out loud. 'Anyone could put petrol in by mistake when
it's a diesel,' she said, trying to put the whole 'they
could suck it out' remark into context. 'It's my parents' car and I was doing them a favour and I
didn't look at the tank. Thought it was petrol, not
diesel. Could happen to a bishop.'
There, it was better to say it and surely he'd
laugh. It had to happen all the time. There was
probably a special queue for people who did it.
But the man gave her a glare that she instantly
translated as All Women Are Idiots with a hint of
We Should Never Have Given Them the Vote added
in for good measure. 'Of all the thick things to
do,' he grunted and turned his back on her.
'But the nozzle isn't supposed to be able to fit
in,' pointed out the woman who'd just joined the
queue behind her.
'Yeah, they're different, the diesel and the petrol
ones,' someone else said unhelpfully.
'I thought I was doing it wrong, so I made it
fit,' said Maggie forlornly, thinking of all the petrol
she'd spilled on the ground. She hoped nobody lit
a match out there or the whole place would go
up.
Mr Stupid Woman Glare gave her another withering
blast of it on his way past.
Maggie tried to ignore his contempt.
'You'll never believe what I've done,' she said
to the impassive woman behind the counter,
pleading with her eyes to be given a bit of female
bonding.
The woman blinked slowly during the story,
then jerked with her thumb.
Out back. Ask for Ivan. Ivan Gregory. He owns
the place. He's busy but he might help you.'
There was a queue waiting for the pump where
the Volvo was parked but Maggie ran past it to
the back of the garage. Away from the shiny forecourt,
she found a small workshop.
There were several cars in various states of disrepair
suspended over pits or parked in small bays, and a radio tuned to a local station provided a
backdrop to the noises of banging and welding.
The only person not working on a vehicle was a fresh-faced young man who was leaning against
a desk with a mug in his hand.
'I'm looking for Ivan, the owner?' Maggie said. 'He's under there.'
She followed his gaze. A pair of overalled legs
stuck out from under a large green jeep, legs with
big round-toed boots that a clown might wear.
Were they hobnailed hoots? she wondered irrelevantly.
'Hello,'
she said, leaning down, 'are you Ivan?
I was told you could help me. I've ...' God, she
felt stupid. 'I've just put unleaded in my parents'
car and it turns out, it runs on diesel. Wouldn't
you know. I hoped there might be some gizmo to
it out. Like a vacuum cleaner. Can you vacuum
out all the unleaded?'
The legs seemed to shake a bit. 'Or drain it?' Maggie went on.
Yes, draining, that sounded like the business.
They were always draining things in garages and
doing stuff with stopcocks, or was that cisterns?
Whatever.
'I'm sure you're busy but I'd be really grateful
if you could help me. My mother's sick and I've
got all her shopping in the car and there's a big
queue behind me . . .' Maggie didn't say she
thought she'd cry if anyone in the queue shouted
at her for blocking the petrol pump. 'They're probably
all going mental, saying they bet it's some
stupid woman who's left her car there.'
One enormous oil-stained hand appeared from
under the jeep, gripped the edge of the car and
pulled. Maggie found herself staring down at a
giant of a man who was looking up at her with
undisguised mirth. He was filthy with dirt on
his overalls, in his face, even in his hair, which
was dark except for a few streaks of grey near his
temples, and cut as close to his head as any
marine's.
She was relieved to see that his face was nice,
a bit square with a nose that looked as if he'd
taken a few punches in the ring, and that his smile,
because he was smiling broadly, was friendly.
He got to his feet lightly for such a huge man
and stood towering over her. Good-looking, in an outdoorsy way, she thought absently, and probably
Grey's age or thereabouts.
'You want to use the petrol-sucking vacuum?'
he said evenly in a low gravelly voice. He wiped
sweat off his brow with the back of his hand.
'If that's all right?' said Maggie. With any luck,
she'd be home in no time and nobody would he
any the wiser.
'Jack,' he called to the young guy. 'Where's the
petrol-sucking machine?'
Jack had to bend over with a sudden spasm. 'You're telling me you don't know where it is?'
inquired Ivan. 'What do I pay you guys for? Mick?'
A face appeared from under the bonnet of a
Citroen. 'Yeah?'
'The petrol-sucking machine. You got it?'
Mick's gaze flickered over Maggie and knowledge
began to dawn.
'Right,' she said, in a shaky voice. 'The joke's
on me. There is no petrol-sucking machine.' 'Whaddya think this is? A milking parlour?'
asked Mick, before succumbing to the same spasms
as Jack and doubling up with laughter.
Ivan, the giant, looked at her with mischief in
his face. He had the deepest brown eyes she'd ever
seen, and they positively glittered with humour.
His mouth quivered at the edges, as he tried to
stop himself grinning and failed.
It had been a horrible few days, in which her
world had turned upside down, and Maggie felt
that if one more person made her feel she was
stupid, she was going to hit them, so help her. Her
composure shattered.
'It's not funny!' she shrieked, reaching out and
thumping the bonnet of the jeep he'd been working
on.
This was it, the last straw. All the pent-up fury
at seeing Grey in bed with someone else, at running home to find her mother injured and herself
appointed in charge, at discovering that Grey had
a bloody harem and it had been happening under
her nose, it all came flooding out. Thump, thump
went her curled-up fist on the bonnet.
'I just wanted some help and nobody appreciates it. You jackasses think it's the biggest laugh
ever to snigger at someone in trouble.' Thump,
thump.
Ivan clamped her wrists in his steely hands and
gently lowered them to her side.
'You'll hurt yourself and it was only a joke,' he
said tenderly. 'I'm sorry, I thought you sounded
so funny.'
'You thought you'd take the mickey out of me,
well, I've had that done enough lately, thank you
very much,' Maggie said, dry sobbing. She ran out
of the workshop to the car, sat in the driver's seat
and started it up. The engine turned over instantly,
allowed her to drive a few yards then suddenly
belched loudly and died like an elephant in great pain.
'Horrible, horrible car!' she said, crying on the
steering wheel. She banged it hard, succeeding only in making her aware of how much she'd hurt her
hand from bashing the jeep in the garage. 'Ow!'
The driver's door was opened and Ivan squatted
down beside her seat, apology written all over his
face.
'It's better not to drive it,' he said. As kindly as
if he was taking care of a tiny baby, he helped her
out of the car and took the keys. 'I'll drive you and
your shopping home, and I'll look after the car.'
'You will do no such thing, you jumped-up
pump jockey,' she hissed. 'I'll bring my own bloody
shopping home, thank you very much.'
Ivan looked into the back of the car which was
piled with grocery bags.
'You sure?' 'I'm sure.'
She pulled every single bag out and dragged
them to the kerb. 'I'll be back for the car
tomorrow,' she said. 'Just bloody fix it, will you?'
Ivan nodded and went back into his workshop,
whereupon Maggie got out her phone and dialled
a taxi. So much for selfconfidence.
Una
was thrilled with the leaflet, which advertised
a meeting at the park at eight o'clock in the evening
in two days' time. And to Maggie's relief neither
of her parents laughed or were angry when she
explained, rather bashfully, what had happened to
the car. 'I can't face going there to fetch it, I'm so
embarrassed,' she said, 'but I suppose I must.
Except I've got to work.'
'Don't worry, darling,' said her father, giving
her a hug. 'The garage isn't far from the doctor's
surgery and I must fetch a new prescription for
your mother. It won't take me long to walk up
there and I'll kill the two birds with the one stone.'
'Are you sure?' said Maggie, remembering that
she was supposed to be strong and confident now,
facing up to her mistakes. Except she just couldn't
face those men in the garage again, especially the
big one, Ivan. 'I could go after work,' she said.
'It'll do your dad good to get out,' said Una
sternly, and so the burden was lifted.
In return, Maggie wasn't surprised to find that
she was expected to be postie for the leaflets. She
spent several hours late the following afternoon
braving yappy dogs and pushing the leaflets
through doors of the neighbouring streets and
asking local shops to site them in their windows.
One of the last places .Maggie visited was the
Summer Street Cafe, where Henry and Jane were
thrilled to hear about Una's call to arms.
'That's fabulous, and so professional,' said Jane,
reading the leaflet Maggie showed her and passing
it to Xu, the shy Chinese waitress.
Xu smiled but said nothing. In all the time
Maggie had spent in the cafe recently, she'd never
heard Xu speak a word. But she smiled a lot, like
she was doing now.
'Well done to your mother,' said Henry. 'She's
a great woman. I can see where you got it from.' 'Oh,' said Maggie, pleased, and she flushed.
'It's very good of you to come home and look
after her,' Henry went on. 'I know it has been
difficult for you, but she's a good woman. Now,
since you're doing so much for the community,
would you like a latte on the house, or is it cappuccino
you drink?'
'Plain old white coffee for me,' said Maggie, 'and thank you, that would be nice. It's weary
work delivering all these.'
'That looks lovely,' said Maggie politely, when
Xu brought her the coffee.
Xu bobbed her head in reply. She must be lonely,
Maggie thought suddenly. The girl was young,
probably only in her mid-twenties, half a world
away from home. Maggie wondered whether she
had any friends. Jane and Henry were sweet people
but probably not sparkling company for a voting girl.
Word of the onslaught against the council quickly
spread and the following night, at eight o'clock,
the park was jammed with people from Summer
Street and the surrounding streets all wanting to
know what they could do to save it.
Maggie had been at work all day and so wasn't
entirely sure what her mother's plan was. She was
a bit disappointed to find out that all Una had
thought of was a petition, signed by everybody
and their granny, saying the evil developers
shouldn't get their way and the council owed it to
the people of Summer Street and the whole area
to save their park. 'We need our voices to be heard!'
said Una Maguire, standing at the front of the
crowd, brandishing a crutch.
Maggie thought her mother had turned out to
be surprisingly good at this rabble-rousing. Who'd
have thought it?
'A petition is going to be no good,' a man down
the back shouted dismissively, and privately Maggie
had to agree with him. 'They don't take notice of
petitions. We'll have to do something else, something
more forceful.'
'Like what?' demanded Una. 'Come on, suggestions,
please. If you're not part of the solution,
you're part of the problem.'
This started a row with people shouting at the
man down the back for trying to rain on their parade, while his supporters shouted that a petition
was going to be no good whatsoever. What
was needed was legal action or political involvement.
It
was descending into chaos and even Una
seemed to have run out of energy.
The man at the back got fed up and shouted, 'Who else can help? Anyone with friends on the
council?'
Maggie looked around to see if there was somebody
there who was up to leading the charge.
Ideally somebody who knew how councils and
businesses worked, she thought, and who could
go through the proper channels. But she realised
there were no volunteers. Everyone wanted the park saved, but, apart from Una, there wasn't
anyone ready to stand up and do it.
It was the curse of the modern age, her mother
often said, when it came to getting people to help
out with charities and meals on wheels: everybody
was too busy with their own lives to do much for
anyone else.
'Well,' Maggie said, reluctantly, feeling she ought
to help her mother out. 'I do work in the library
and I suppose I would be able to research how we
could go about this.'
She'd hardly got the words out of her mouth
before people were saying, Yes, good woman, fair play to you, brilliant idea. Then the man who had
heckled Una smiled broadly at the tall, slender
redhead and called out, 'Chairwoman, let's have
her for chairwoman.' And, without realising it,
Maggie Maguire - who'd never so much as
captained a friendly netball game in school - was
elected chairwoman of the rapidly formed Save
Our Pavilion committee.
'I'm so proud of you,' said her mother as they
headed home, after several other people had been
elected on to the committee, buoyed up by Maggie's
supreme sacrifice and the hope that she'd do all
the work. 'I knew you'd know what to do. I
thought, if I started you off on the right path,
you'd follow through. Didn't I say that, Dennis,
didn't IF
'Yes,' said Maggie's father happily. 'Your
mother always says you're well able to run things.
You can do anything, our Maggie can do
anything.'
'And,' her mother went on, 'we should have a
big party, in the park, when we get it all settled.' 'Hold on a minute,' said Maggie, 'nothing's
settled yet. We might not win. Mum, be realistic.'
Maggie was still shocked at how quickly it
had all happened - shocked and horrified. She
was chairwoman of the committee. Chairwomen
were tough, no-nonsense women like Shona, not
wimpy people who had cheating ex-boyfriends
and put petrol in diesel vehicles. If only there
was a way out of it, but she knew there wasn't.
What if she made a complete mess of the whole
project?
'Ah now,' said her mother, confidence written all over her face. 'You'll have worked it out, I
know well you will. There's nothing you can't do.'
'She's mad. Breaking her leg has affected her brain,'
Maggie said on the phone to Elisabeth. She'd
needed to get out of the house and had taken her
mobile and walked slowly along Summer Street,
thinking that Elisabeth might understand.
'Your mother was always mad,' said Elisabeth
absently. Her office sounded noisy and busy. 'Not normal mad: thinking-I-can-do-everything
mad. It's different,' Maggie went on.
'She always thought you could do everything,'
Elisabeth said, surprised. 'It used to drive me nuts.
Your mother never stopped talking about how
clever you were and how marvellous your report
cards were, which made my mother obsessed with
my report cards being as good. The pressure.'
'Really?' Maggie couldn't quite remember that.
All she could recall from school was the misery
and how she'd never been able to tell anyone, apart
from Elisabeth. 'If only I could do everything,' she
added gloomily.
'Maggie, listen to me.' Elisabeth sounded stern,
the way she spoke to teenage models on the phone,
Maggie guessed. 'I'm up to my tonsils with work
here and I'm irritable, which means I'm going to
say something I've wanted to say for a long time,
something I'll probably regret saying because you'll
be hurt but I've got to do it: stop feeling sorry for
yourself about what happened at school and get
on with your life.'
Maggie gasped.
'I know you're going to hate me for saying this,
but I've got to. You are clever and funny, you can do anything, and you should stop thinking otherwise.
Now you've dumped that loser boyfriend of
yours for good, go out and get a life. Auntie Una's
right: you can do anything. You're the only person
who doesn't believe it. Gotta go, bye.'
It took Maggie a full thirty seconds to take the
phone away from her ear. Elisabeth had never
spoken to her like that in her life. She was shocked.
Elisabeth was the only one who'd known what
had gone on in school, her only ally and now she
had turned against her.
Maggie walked along in stunned silence, oblivious
to where she was going. But finally something
odd happened. In the midst of the shock and
the self-pity, she began to feel a glimmer of selfworth.
Everyone seemed to think she was capable
of so much. They couldn't all be lying, could they?
Later that night, the gloom settled once more. It
was sinking in that she'd somehow been elected
as chairwoman of a committee with a tough job
to do.
'I don't even know how to run a committee,'
she moaned to Shona on the phone. 'I was never
even on the debating team in college!'
'Oh, babes,' said Shona easily, 'it'll be no bother
to you. You've seen plenty of university committees
at work, you know how it goes. People sit
around in rooms, have arguments, discuss things,
discuss them even more, break for tea and biscuits
and finally agree to disagree. At the end, they make
arrangements to meet up at the same time next
week where they'll go over all the same stuff again,
Simple.'
'I know,' groaned Maggie. 'That's what I don't
want. I want this committee to actually save the
park, not talk about it until the cows come home or
until the developers whip a JCB in one night
and pull the pavilion down, making the whole
thing a fait accompli.'
'Right,' said Shona, thoughtfully. 'You mean this
is a committee where you actually want to achieve
something. Mmm. University life doesn't prepare
you for that. Paul,' she shouted, 'Maggie's chairwoman
of a committee and they actually want to
get something done. What should she do?'
Paul was one of the top research and development
men in a computer software firm with dozens
of people under him.
Maggie heard a rustling noise like the sound of
a paper being folded. It was late and she could
imagine Paul sitting on the cosy couch in his and
Shona's apartment, the newspapers around him,
with his feet up on the coffee table and the remote
control on his lap.
'Hello, Maggie,' he said, taking over the phone. 'My advice is to write out what the aim of the
committee is on a big sheet of paper, take it to
your first meeting and stick it up on the wall.
Explain that nobody is on the committee to make
themselves popular or to give themselves something
to brag about. They're there simply to achieve
the aim you've written on the paper. What's the
committee for, exactly?'
'We want to stop the council selling half of our
park to a developer who's going to build apartments
there.'
'Well, I guess you need to lodge a formal planning
objection with the council, then talk to local
politicians ...'
'Talk to the newspapers,' said Shona in the background. 'Yes,' said Maggie excitedly, writing this down.
She had an inspiration. 'What about finding out
more about the park? They want to pull down
this beautiful old pavilion. It's Victorian at least
and it could be a meaningful historical site.'
'Exactly,' said Paul with satisfaction. 'Tie them
up with surveys and formal objections and politicians
complaining so that the whole thing's not
worth their while. Or so that the bad press they'll get for it will scare the developers away. The key to committees, Maggie,' he said, 'is like amateur
dramatics. Never let them see you're afraid.'
The following night at eight, Summer Street Cafe
was closed to everyone except the Save Our
Pavilion committee. There were ten of them sitting
around two tables pushed together, with Maggie
seated at one end.
She'd gone out and purchased a businesslike
navy jacket which she wore over her best dark
denim jeans and a turquoise camisole. She'd tied
her hair up into a chic knot, had a writing pad
and pens in front of her, and was keeping all her
anxiety firmly locked on the inside. The other
committee members were all older than her and
probably had miles more experience than she did,
but she was still chairwoman and she was going
to make this a success.
'The most important thing tonight,' she said, 'is
our aims. None of us are here so we can boast
that we're on a committee, or to have something
to talk about or because we like arguments.'
One man opened and closed his mouth like a
goldfish at this.
Paul had said there was always one person who
joined up because they liked both the sound of
their own voice and a good fight.
Maggie felt a wave of confidence hit her.
Forewarned was forearmed.
She was ready for Mr Goldfish Face. 'We're
here to save something very important to Summer
Street. So this is not going to be one of those
committees where everyone argues or grandstands
or tries to get the better of anyone else. We're here
to save the pavilion, that's it.'
The nine people facing her stared back, nodding,
and Maggie thought how unbelievable it was that
she was able to confront them and talk in such
calm, measured tones, when inside, she really was
quivering.
Luckily, nobody could see the inside.
'I've made up a list of what I think we should
do and I'll go through it. Then everyone else can
come in with their suggestions until we've come
up with a blueprint for what we're going to achieve
over the next few days, right? I'm new to this and
would appreciate ideas but we've got to work as
a team, or we're going to go nowhere fast.'
The next hour and a half passed in a flash, but
when Maggie wound up the meeting everyone had
been allocated a useful task to perform before they
reconvened. Maggie herself was to try to interest
several politicians in their cause.
When everyone was gone, Maggie and Xu, who'd
stayed behind to help and make coffee, tidied up.
'I hope you weren't bored out of your mind
listening to that,' Maggie said to Xu.
Now that they were alone, she hoped Xu might
talk to her.
'It was interesting,' Xu said. She had a low sweet
voice and perfect English. 'We do not do this in
my country. If the authorities want to pull down
a building, they pull it down. It's very different.'
Maggie stopped collecting cups and sat down. 'Tell me,' she said. 'Tell me how you came here
and what you'd like to do and what your country's
like. I'd love to hear.'
She'd never seen Xu give anything other than
a shy smile that was more defence mechanism than
emotion, but now Xu really beamed at her.
'I never asked before because I was afraid I'd
insult you or something,' Maggie admitted. 'You're
very brave to come here on your own.'
'Brave is the only way in China,' Xu shrugged.
'My mother is much braver than me. This is
nothing compared to what she suffered during the
Cultural Revolution. I only had to get on an aeroplane
and learn another language so I could go to
college here. I can make choices in my life - she
could make none.'
'Will your mother come here too?' asked Maggie,
not wanting to upset Xu now she'd got her talking. 'Maybe. She loves China, it's her home. I'd like
her to visit. But she doesn't speak English.'
'And will you go back?' asked Maggie.
'I don't know. I love China but I feel at home
here. We are very alike, the Chinese and the Irish.
We love our families.'
'Your English is fantastic. When did you start
learning?'
'Nine months ago,' Xu said casually.
'Nine months ago! You're so fluent. I can't
imagine being that good in such a short length of
time.'
Xu laughed so loudly that her curtain of thick
dark hair shimmered. 'Chinese people know how
to work.' She grinned.
They sat talking for an hour, whereupon Xu
said she ought to go home and Maggie said
the same, because she knew her mother would
be sitting up waiting for her to hear how the
meeting went.
'Perhaps you'll come out with me sometimes?'
Maggie asked Xu. 'To see a film or something?'
'I would like that very much indeed,' Xu replied.
On the way down Summer Street, Maggie
reflected that if a girl from a small town in China
could travel thousands of miles to a strange land
where she knew nobody to start a new life, then
she wasn't going to spend the rest of her life being
afraid of what happened to her when she was a
schoolgirl.
'Well, how did it go?' demanded Una, when Maggie
got home. Her mother had been mad to go to the
meeting, but since she wasn't on the committee,
she couldn't.
'Marvellously,' said Maggie, still astonished at
how she'd stood up in front of a room of strangers
and handled it well. 'Everyone had loads of ideas
and we've all got various jobs and I think we have
a really good chance.'
'I'd like to be involved though,' said Una. 'Of course you're involved,' Maggie placated
her. 'It was your idea in the first place, don't forget
that. But you do need to rest.'
'Ah, rest, schmest,' muttered Una. 'I'm sick of
resting. I want to do something.'
'Well, I need to make appointments to see three
local politicians and you could come with me to
see them,' Maggie said, thinking that she'd be
braver with company.
'Marvellous,' Una said, satisfied. 'I better get
my best suit out. Don't want to go stalking the
corridors of power looking like some mad old dear
in a bobbly cardigan, do I?'
The following morning, Christie phoned Maggie
to ask her round for coffee.
'You can fill me in on the meeting,' Christie
said. 'I couldn't make it, although the Summer
Street grapevine has already broadcast the fact that
you're in charge.'
Maggie laughed. 'The lunatics have taken over
the asylum,' she said. 'But yes, I'm in charge. I'd love a coffee.'
When she arrived, Christie hugged her and
rushed back into the kitchen to take scones out of
the oven.
Maggie took the chance to stop and admire the
paintings in Christie's hall, marvelling at the intricate
watercolour strokes that brought delicate
plants to life.
One wall was covered with lily paintings, interspersed
with tiny Klimt prints in antique gold
frames and black-and-white family photographs.
On the other were displayed exquisite paintings
of herbs, from the lacy froth of sweet cicely to the
fire-red flowers of bergamot. There were herbs
Maggie had never heard of, like comfrey, lovage
and feverfew, alongside the soft purple of French
lavender and sleek, slender chives, so well drawn
she could almost smell their tangy scent.
'These are beautiful,' Maggie called into the
kitchen where Christie was brewing coffee. 'You're
so talented.'
'I love herbs and foliage,' Christie said. 'So many
artists only want to paint flowers, but plants and
the history behind them are fascinating. They have
incredible medicinal uses and we've lost that, sadly.
I try to put herbs from my own garden into my
cooking. And if you haven't tasted proper fennel
and lemon balm tea, you haven't lived.'
A lovely sense of warmth and comfort emanated
from the Devlins' house. It was partly due to the
scent of Christie's white tea roses with their tightly
furled buds, and a burning candle that filled the
downstairs with a citrus scent. But there was something
more, more than the sum of its parts. It was
a house of peace and security. Maggie felt as if
nothing truly bad could ever happen as long as there
were people like Christie in the world to make sense
of everything and to offer her home as a refuge.
Finally, with the dogs scampering ahead, she
wandered into the kitchen. Christie had laid coffee
cups and the scones on a tray.
'You carry this into the garden,' Christie said, 'and I'll be out in a moment with the coffee.'
Christie had been thinking so much about
Maggie and Faye lately that it was no surprise to
wake up that morning with Maggie again in her
mind. Only today, as Maggie stood there, holding
out her arms for the tray, Christie had a moment
of seeing exactly what had hurt the younger woman
so much.
Sweet, tall, kind Maggie, who should have had
lots of confidence, but didn't. Lovely Maggie,
who'd been bullied when she was at school.
Lying in bed, listening to the birdsong and the
rising and falling of James's breath the past came
flooding back. Hers and Maggie's. It was easier to
think about other people's problems than focus on
her own. She'd tried to put Carey Wolensky out
of her mind, but hadn't managed it. He loomed
large in her fears.
So she made herself remember Maggie starting
at St Ursula's almost twenty years before: shy and
lanky, falling over her own feet all of the time.
She was clever and good fun, so it was hard to
work out why bullies had picked on her. Sister
Aquinas, who had been headmistress at the time,
had talked in the staff room one day about bullying
in general and the fact that young Maggie Maguire
appeared to have been targeted by a particular
coterie of little madams in her year, led by a really
nasty piece of work called Sandra Brody.
'We'll just keep an eye on it for the moment,'
said Sister Aquinas, who was a great believer in not
rushing into things. Girls needed more backbone,
she felt. Sister Aquinas had spent twenty years in
the field in Africa and was of the opinion that Irish
girls could do with a little hardship because,
compared to the children in the townships, they
hadn't a clue about life.
Christie hadn't thought too much about it
because Maggie hadn't been in one of her art
classes, but she'd seen her sometimes at lunch.
Maggie was so often on her own, reading, when
everyone else was out playing tag or netball, or
sitting in little groups discussing boys and the
unfairness of life.
When Maggie went into the fifth year, the leader
of the gang of bullies, Sandra Brody, left, although
Christie couldn't recall why, and her gang fell apart
without their natural leader.
But it seemed obvious now that the damage had
already been done where Maggie Maguire was
concerned. There were lots of naturally quiet, shy
people in the world, but Christie now felt that
Maggie hadn't been one of them when she'd
arrived. It was as though she had found that
keeping her mouth shut and blending into the
background was the easiest way of survival.
Having taken the jug into the garden, Christie
poured coffee into the cups and proffered scones. 'This is lovely here, a little oasis,' sighed Maggie,
sitting back and looking around her. She wondered
what Christie wanted to talk to her about. Perhaps
she was going to help with the Save Our Pavilion
campaign, which would be wonderful. Christie would be great at getting people to return her
phone calls.
So it came as a total shock when Christie asked:
Were you bullied at St Ursula's?'
Maggie's head shot up and the colour drained
away from her face.
'What? How ...
'I didn't know at the time,' Christie said apologetically. 'You weren't in any of my classes and I
hardly knew more than your name then, but it
suddenly made sense to me. It's your secret, isn't
it? The thing that holds you back.'
Maggie could only nod silently.
'I'm so sorry. I was there and if I'd really been
aware. . .' Christie said. 'Your mum doesn't know,
does she?'
This time, Maggie shook her head, biting her lip
to make sure she didn't cry. This was so unexpected,
like the ground being pulled away from her feet.
'I couldn't talk about it because '
'-Because you thought she should know without
you having to say it?'
'Yes, I suppose so.'
Tilly leaped up on to Maggie's lap, circling
slowly on delicate paws, before lying against her.
Maggie clung to this soft comfort, stroking the
pansy-soft fur, grateful for a creature to hold. And
she felt her shock subside slowly.
Christie leaned across the table and touched
Maggie's hand gently, a touch that helped even
more, filling her with peace.

'It's all right to talk about it,' Christie said. 'The
people we love often don't see our pain, and that's
one of the hardest things in the world to cope
with. We think they should see, they should know. If they don't, we feel as if they've failed us somehow
and we have to deal with it all on our own.'
Maggie nodded. Mum hadn't seen what was
going on and that had made Maggie lonelier than
ever. Home hadn't been her refuge: it became a
place where nobody understood her and what she was going through. Her parents' lovable idiosyncrasies
had become irritating, their cheerful innocence
annoying. If' only they'd been more
observant, they'd have understood.
'It's not their fault,' Christie said. 'It was St
Ursula's fault. Bullying shouldn't have been tolerated.
And it was Sandra's fault.' She noticed how
Maggie winced at the mention of her tormentor's name. 'You were not to blame.'
'I thought I was,' blurted out Maggie. 'Something about me that was weak or odd.' 'Nothing I could see, though we all have weaknesses.
But that's no excuse for their behaviour.
You were just someone to pick on, nothing more.
Christie paused. 'Have you ever seen Sandra since?' 'No, although ... I've been thinking about it a
lot,' Maggie admitted. 'Since I met Faye and you,
and Faye has had to face her own demons, I keep
thinking I should face her. Stupid, I know. I haven't
seen her for years.'
'Not stupid at all. You last saw her as a child.
As an adult, you could put it all behind you, lay
the secrets to rest.'
'Yeah, but who knows where she is.' Maggie
couldn't even bring herself to say Sandra's name. 'What are the odds on her walking back into my
life now?'
'You'd be surprised,' said Christie thoughtfully. 'You're thinking about her and talking about her.
You're ready to meet her again. That's happened
for a reason. Life is never random: I always find
that, don't you?'
Maggie was on a late shift at work which meant
she started at noon. As she walked towards the
library, she went over what Christie had said to
her.
Christie seemed to think that seeing Sandra
Brody would allow the past to settle into the past,
but it wasn't that easy, was it?
And Maggie had quite enough on her plate right
now, anyway, what with being chairwoman of the
campaign, getting over Grey and trying to get her
life back on track.
She could face most things, but not Sandra
Brody.
CHAPTER TWENTY
That afternoon, Christie went into St Ursula's and
found that overnight, almost the entire teaching
population had plunged headfirst into exam
anxiety. June was fast approaching and on the
third of the month, the state exams would begin,
the culmination of years of hard work distilled
into a dozen two-and-a-half-hour exams spread
out over three tortured weeks.
'It's like an incessant headache pounding away,'
said Mr Sweetman, thinking of the third years'
still-limited interest in As You Like It and how a
small section of the English sixth-year class had
still only half read Pride and Prejudice and were
using one of the movie versions as their guide
instead of the actual novel.
'C'est vrai,' sighed Mademoiselle Lennox, who
was reciting Guy de Maupassant in her sleep
because of how many times she'd read out passages
to her beloved girls in 6 and 6A.
'We must be positive, for the girls' sake,' boomed
Ms Ni Rathallaigh, the sports teacher, who didn't
care much because the fifth-year netball team had
won the league.
Everyone in the staff room glared at her.
Everyone except Christie, who was finding it hard
to concentrate on worrying about the exams because
of how much she was worrying over Carey Wolensky
and his trying to track her down. She hadn't returned
the strange phone call asking her to get in touch,
and during the day, she left the answering machine
off in case James came home early and heard another
message on it. Nobody, she hoped, would phone in
the evenings, would they?
In the meantime, mentions of Carey were everywhere.
The arts section in one of the Saturday
papers had carried a review of his work, accompanied
by photographs of three of his paintings.
Thank heavens there wasn't a picture of him,
Christie thought with relief. She couldn't have
coped with seeing his brooding eyes gazing out at
her from a photograph.
Instead she had to look at one of his trademark
wildly furious landscapes, and two of his rare and infinitely more valuable - paintings of a darkhaired
woman. In one, she was lying between the
paws of a predatory stone tiger in a crumbling
Greek temple, and in the other, she stood in the
centre of a Turkish bath, where other women chattered
and bathed, and she was alone, staring out,
hair partly covering a face that was never
completely shown in any painting.
'It is his uncanny ability to bring new meaning
to traditional themes that makes Wolensky a master,'
raved the article. 'His moody landscapes are imbued
with energy, but it's his Dark Lady paintings that
elevate him to another level. They are his masterpieces,
but the identity of the lovely Dark Lady
remains one of modern art's most fascinating secrets.'
Those words made Christie break out in a sweat.
She'd spent long enough studying symbolism in
art to understand that the dark-haired woman in
Wolensky's paintings was always slightly beyond
his reach, and by obscuring her face, he wanted
her to be beyond everyone's reach. If he couldn't
have her, nobody else could, either.
Her naked body was womanly, complete with
the not-so-pert breasts and stretchmarks of childbirth.
He'd painted his first Dark Lady some
twenty-five years before and she was no figment
of the imagination, the art critics reckoned.
Wolensky had lived in Ireland round about then,
the article went on, and this was his first trip back
with this triumphant exhibition. Christie thought
of Carey Wolensky back in her city, living,
breathing only miles away in some classy city centre
hotel, and felt sick.
If only she could really see the future and know
what was happening, then she could deal with it
all. Tell James, if that's what it took. Face his pain.
Whatever was required.
But the waiting and not knowing was killing her.
Ana hadn't mentioned Carey again, which was something, but still Christie couldn't think of
anything else. How she'd betrayed James and Ana
in one fell swoop.
Suddenly fed up with the stuffy staff room and
everyone's moaning, she left early for her next class.
At least she'd have a few moments of peace before
the lesson started.
In the blue-painted corridor that led to the art
room, a pile of papers lay scattered on the floor.
Bending, she slowly gathered them up and as she
did so a white feather fluttered out from underneath,
lifting in the gentle draught, drifting away.
White feathers were a sign of angels passing by,
her mother used to say.
Christie looked down at the papers. They were
exam notes, several scrawled sheets of foolscap
with a small bit of paper sandwiched in the middle.
She pulled this out. It was a flyer for a market
where stalls promised second-hand books, antiques
at prices nobody would believe, plants, homeknitted
sweaters, a coffee shop and there, at the
bottom, almost as an afterthought, were the words,
fortunetelling.
Things happened for a reason - wasn't that what
she'd told Maggie only the other day? This flyer
and the white feather had come to her for a reason.
She folded the flyer up and put it in her pocket.
She'd think about it later.
That evening, she and James were supposed to go
to a party at the house of some neighbours. The
Hendersons had lived on Summer Street for fifteen
years and they had been good friends with James
and Christie for most of that time. Tommy
Henderson, the husband, was a motorbike aficionado
and while James had never had the funds for a bike,
he loved standing in Tommy's garage watching him
take apart the latest model, discussing the merits of
the new BMW versus the classic Norton.
While James got on with Tommy, Christie found
that she got on pretty well with Laurie Henderson.
Tom and Laurie had three sons around Shane and
Ethan's ages, and Laurie had worked outside the
home for most of her life too, so she and Christie
had reached the same stages in their lives together.
Therefore, when Tommy Henderson hit sixty and
a big party was to be held in the Hendersons' back
garden, it was natural that the Devlins should be
the first on the list.
'I'm not really in the mood to go,' said Christie
as they pottered about their bedroom getting ready. 'You'll change your mind when you get there,'
said James soothingly. 'It'll be fun. There'll be loads
of people you'll know.'
'That's the problem,' said Christie, with irritation. 'I'm not in the mood to talk to the same
old people.'
James stopped putting in his cuff links and began
to massage her neck tenderly. For once, it didn't
instantly relax her. 'You are tense, Christie,' he
said. 'Is everything OK, darling? Do you have a
headache?'
'No,' said Christie, slightly crossly. 'I don't, I'm
just tired, that's all.'
Being tired was the ultimate excuse for everything,
wasn't it? Any bad behaviour could be
excused with 'I'm sorry, I was just tired.' I'm sorry,
your honour, I didn't mean to steal a million
pounds, I was just tired. I'm sorry, darling, I didn't
mean to cheat on you with another man, I was just tired.
She turned to face James. 'I am sorry for moaning. I'll be fine.'
'Good,' said James, pleased. 'It'll be fun. You
got flowers, didn't you?'
'Yes,' said Christie.
'I'll find a bottle of wine and we're all set.'
James finished getting ready, a job that took
perhaps seven or eight minutes, and he was gone,
leaving Christie sitting at her dressing table, staring
at herself in the mirror, wondering if guilt was
written all across her face.
They got there a bit late and the fun had obviously
started.
'So you decided to grace us with your presence?'
beamed Tommy Henderson, at the front door.
He threw an arm around James and Christie
and pulled them together in a giant bear hug.
'So glad you could come,' he said.
'We only came for the free drink and the free
food,' joked James.
'Free drink? You mean you didn't bring your
own?' demanded Tommy. 'You lousers, I never had
you down as mean, James Devlin.'
And the two men were off, joking, teasing,
laughing, James asking what fabulous motorbike Tommy had got for his birthday from the family
and Tommy jovially explaining that they hadn't
got him a bike at all, but a girlfriend in a flat. 'That's what every man needs when he hits sixty,'
he said. 'The wife thinks it's a brilliant idea too.
No more messing about giving me my conjugals!'
The two men roared with laughter and Christie
tried to join in, half-heartedly. She was so fond of
Tommy and normally loved his palace jester
persona, but not tonight.
The party was set up in the garden and it seemed
as if half of Summer Street were there, talking, chattering animatedly, laughing, drinking, spearing
bits of chicken into dip, discussing house prices,
what their children were up to, what their children
weren't up to and, of course, what the developers
planned to do to the Summer Street park.
'I was at the meeting you know,' said one
woman, 'and Una Maguire suggested a petition,
but really a petition isn't the way to go. No council are going to be moved by a load of names on a
list. Her daughter, Maggie, is taking it over, she's
chairwoman. Clever girl, I always say, quiet
though. I think there was some problem with her
and the boyfriend, you know.'
Christie moved on, irritated by this gossipy
attitude to Maggie. She must be growing old, she
thought. So many things irritated her now. Some
stranger, who barely knew Maggie, talking about
her life and her pain, as if it didn't matter a bit.
There was probably lots of gossip about Faye
and Amber too. How the ultra-private and conservative
Faye Reid hadn't a clue what was really
going on in her house and what a wild one that
Amber had turned out to be, for all her nice manners and the way her mother had tried to
bring her up.
Christie moved over to where Laurie was
holding court, wondering if in a few weeks the
neighbours would be able to talk about her.
Did you hear about Christie Devlin, the most
incredible news ever. Split up with that lovely
husband of hers, I always said he was too good
for her. She was a bit wild and arty really, despite
her airs and graces and reputation for wisdom. Hem, if she was that wise she might have seen this
one coming. Imagine, some story about a Polish artist who painted her in the nude. He's filthy rich
apparently. Disgraceful. Goes to show you don't
know people, do you? You can live beside them
for thirty years and you haven't a clue what's going on in their lives.
'Christie, how lovely to see you.' Laurie moved
away from the group of people she was talking
to, reached out, and gave Christie a genuine, welcoming hug. There was nothing two-faced
about Laurie. She wouldn't gossip about Christie, no matter what happened.
'Sorry we're late,' said Christie. 'I'm a bit tired
and I couldn't get ready, to be truthful.'
'That's fine,' soothed Laurie. One of the many
nice things about Laurie was that she wasn't the
sort of person with whom you had to pretend. 'Come and let me introduce you to my sister in
law, Beth. You met before I think? She's a teacher
too, and a gardener, you'll have a lot to talk about.'
Christie smiled gratefully at Laurie.
Mercifully, Laurie's sister-in-law wasn't an art
teacher, so there was no conversation about new,
exciting exhibitions by enigmatic Polish artists who
painted nude, dark-haired women over the past
twenty-five years. She was an English teacher and
they enjoyed a highly pleasurable hour talking
about the difficulties of teaching, how hard the
exams were on the students and how schools had
changed so much over the past few decades.
'Oh, look,' said Beth.
Laurie had wheeled in a hostess trolley with an
enormous cake on top. For pure fun, she hadn't
gone for the one big candle saying happy sixtieth:
she'd gone the whole hog with sixty single candles
blazing with heat and possibly visible from space.
'There's a lot of candles there. Is it your ninetieth,
did you say, Tommy?' said one wag.
'Call an ambulance, please,' said another. 'He'll
need it by the time he's blown all them out.' 'Come on everybody,' insisted a third voice.
'We'll have to help him. Poor Tommy doesn't have
the energy for anything physical any more, apart
from the mistress in the apartment that they're
setting him up with.'
'Tommy!' came Laurie's voice furiously. 'That
was a family joke, you didn't have to tell everyone!
What will people think?'
'Ali, Laurie,' grinned Tommy happily, putting
his arm around his wife and standing as close to
his cake as the furnace of candles allowed. 'People
know I adore you. You keep me busy enough, how
would I have time for a mistress, tell me?'
Everyone laughed. From the other side of the
garden, James smiled over at Christie. He
motioned that she should come over and stand
with him. But Christie shook her head, as if to
imply that it was all too squashed to get there.
She blew him a kiss, feeling like an absolute traitor.
For the truth was that she didn't want to stand
beside her darling husband and shriek happy
birthday to one half of a happily married couple.
Proximity to such a loyal marriage made her feel
even more disloyal than ever. When Tommy closed
his eyes to blow out his candles and wish, Christie
Devlin closed her eyes too and wished with all
her heart that she had never met Carey Wolensky.
She knew that everyone did silly things in their
youth, in their middle and old age too. But they
moved on, made their peace and got on with life.
Except, this was one thing she had never made
her peace with and it had hung over her for years:
Carey Wolensky and how he'd changed her life.
It was the one big secret in her life and she was
terrified, petrified, it was going to come out now and ruin everything.
A few days later Christie made a trip to the market
advertised in the flyer she'd found on the floor of
the corridor. The market itself was based in a big
covered-in former flower market which had been
taken over by stallholders who sold everything
from dodgy antiques to velvet scarves, old leatherbound
books and health food.
Christie walked through the market with a shopping
bag slung over her shoulder. It was a perfectly
reasonable place for her to be, she thought. She
could buy some vitamins and perhaps some nice
organic vegetables. Maybe think ahead and pick
out some things for Christmas.
The reason she was trying to convince herself
that this was a normal shopping jaunt was in case
she met anyone she knew. In fact, the only excuse
she needed was for her own conscience. For
someone with a traditional Catholic upbringing
like herself, going to see a fortune-teller was a big,
slightly frightening step. Her gift of foresight was
just that, a gift she had been born with. But deliberately
consulting someone else who had that gift
might well be frowned on by the Church, even in
these more flexible times.
She circled the market once, purchasing some
organic mushrooms, still fluffed with the earth
they were pulled from, and some tea brack, darkly
wet and honeyed-looking. James would love that
for his tea. And then, she saw the fortunetelling
stall. It wasn't the exotic spot she had been
expecting. There were no velvet curtains or goldsequined
chiffon trailing all over the place. Just
this small stall with a seating area of two chairs
in front of a wall covered with old French posters,
obviously from the stall next door. There was a
little door, made of the same thin board as
the wall, and presumably behind that lurked the
fortune-teller. She looked about in case someone
recognised her. There was no one. It was now or
never.
She sat down in one of the chairs and waited.
A few minutes passed and she was just about to
get up and go, thinking that there was clearly
nobody behind the door, when it creaked open
and a woman appeared.
She was remarkably young, Christie thought,
cross with herself for expecting some wizened little
old Romany woman, but this woman couldn't have
been more than thirty. Pale and small with long
dark-blonde hair tied back, the woman wore a
decidedly plain blue blouse and dark trousers.
Neatly put together, she could have been working
behind the counter in any bank. Christie berated
herself for stereotyping.
'Would you like to come in?' the woman said
to Christie, her accent putting her from somewhere horn the midland of the country.
'Yes, of course,' said Christie.
The little room boasted a table covered with a
black velvet cloth, two chairs and was lined with
heavy curtains.
'Sound-proofing,' the girl said matteroffactly.
She tilted her head slightly. 'Why are you here?' 'What do you mean?' asked Christie, wrongfooted.
'Why
do you want me to tell you things?' the
girl said, sitting down and gesturing for Christie
to do the same.
'Well, you're a fortune-teller,' Christie said. 'Yes,' said the girl, 'but so are you.'
Christie sat down, dropped her shopping and
her handbag and leaned on the table. 'Sorry, what?'
she asked.

'You can See, can't you?' the woman said, saying
the word with a gravity that gave it capital letters. 'I can always tell.'
Whatever Christie had been expecting, it wasn't
this. 'I'm Christie,' she said.
'I'm Rosalind,' said the girl. 'Nice to meet you.'
They shook hands across the table and it felt
odd, this formality in such strange circumstances.
Christie only hesitated a moment, she had come
here not knowing what to expect, yet faced with
Rosalind, who clearly could see that Christie had
some sort of gift, she felt there was no point in
hiding or prevaricating.
'You're right,' she said. 'I can see, I've always
been able to see, but it's a strange gift. I've never
been able to control it, it just comes to me sometimes.
And I can never see anything for me.'
Rosalind nodded. 'That's often the way it is,'
she said. 'There are plenty of people in my
mother's family like you, they have a great gift,
but they have never developed it. Not being able
to see for yourself is common enough. Lots of
people with the gift don't see for themselves or
deliberately blank it out because they don't want
to know. I try not to look into my children's
lives,' she said with a shudder. 'I'd be afraid of
what I would see.'
'So, what is your gift and how did you know
about it?' asked Christie.
'I can see into the future, the probable future,'
Rosalind said slowly. 'I'm a medium too, although
I don't work as a medium very often because it
drains me. It's exhausting.'
Christie shivered. 'I don't want to see a medium,
I don't want to see people there beside me.' 'That's fine,' agreed Rosalind. 'A lot of people
don't want that. Even as a child, I knew I had
the gift. My mother has it too. It's a gift and a curse because there is no escaping it.'
'I know what you mean,' said Christie with
feeling, thinking of the last month and the fear
she'd felt. 'It comes when you don't want it to.'
'And you came here to me because you saw
something you didn't want to?' Rosalind asked
suddenly.
Christie nodded.
'I can never see for myself, I wouldn't want to,
but I've just had these feelings of fear, of anxiety.
Somebody has come into my life from the past
and...'
'A man,' said Rosalind. She sounded a bit
different now, more professional. 'A man once
came into your life and you felt something for him
but you were married and he went and you thought
it was safe and now, a long time later, he's back
making contact.'
'How did you know?' sighed Christie. It was a
relief to hear somebody speak her fears aloud. 'The same way you've seen things before,'
Rosalind said. 'I've learned how to develop my
gift. You never did?'
'I wasn't brought up in that sort of home,'
Christie explained. 'My father was religious and
he would have gone mad. He didn't believe in
seeing anything unless it was there in front of him
or unless Father Flynn talked about it. I couldn't
have told Dad.'
'But you know it must have come from somewhere?'
Rosalind said. 'Would you like me to see
where?'
Christie Devlin, possessor of a gift she had never
understood, felt like crying. For the first time in
her life she was able to talk about it to someone
who understood. Why hadn't she done this years
ago?
'You didn't know your grandmother, did you?'
Rosalind asked and her voice was slower now, as
if she was concentrating hard. 'Your mother's
mother, I mean. I can feel that you didn't.'
Christie nodded. 'I never met her. She was a
quarter French '
- And she died before you were born. She was
from a large family and was the seventh daughter,
and so was your mother. And you're the seventh
child too, aren't you?'
Rosalind looked straight at Christie, who
nodded again. She wasn't feeling shock or astonishment
any more.
'Your grandmother had the gift,' Rosalind said. 'She could see things and if she'd been around
she'd have told you what to do with it. She's here,
you know. She's with us in the room.'
Christie gasped. 'I don't want to know that type
of thing,' she said.
'Fine,' said Rosalind calmly. 'She's the one who
had the gift and she's sorry that you had to grow
up not knowing anything about it, but your father
wasn't the sort of man to let you know. Your
mother had the gift but when she married your
father, he hated it so much, he forbade her to use
it. She would have liked you to know that you
might have it too, but your father told her never
to talk about it, ever. She was very nervous of him,
I think, he overpowered her.'
Christie smiled sadly, that was right for sure. 'There's nothing wrong with being able to see.
Your grandmother was a good woman, she helped
lots of people, she was kind, Christian, good. She
said there was a lot of fear in her day. People
thought that if you could see, you couldn't possibly
be a good, true religious person. She says to tell
you it's just another type of seeing, another type
of wisdom, that's all. She'd have told you that, if
she'd been alive.'
'I never wanted to see too much,' Christie said. 'It allowed me to be wise and I could help people
and that was lovely, but I never wanted to be able
to see for myself or see bad things coming or ...
I suppose that's why I was frightened of coming
to you, that you could see all the bad things.'
'Bad things happen whether you see them or
not,' said Rosalind firmly, 'and anything I see for
you in the future is the probable future. Nothing
is set in stone, we can all affect our own destiny.
If you read the cards and they tell you there is danger ahead, you will change your life: change
what you do so that the danger doesn't affect you.
Destiny is in our own hands. We all have choice
and free will. Seeing the future is merely another
type of wisdom.'
'Well, why are we so frightened of it?' Christie
asked, thinking of her father. It all made sense
now, how he hated the Gypsy fortune-tellers that
used to come through Kilshandra occasionally. He
hated them because he'd known that his wife's
mother could have been one of them, and it frightened
him. Maybe her grandmother had seen that
her son-in-law was a bully and had warned her
daughter against him.
'People don't like what they can't understand,'
said Rosalind, shrugging. 'The reality is that there
are people like you and me, who can see, for whatever
reason. We'd be stupid to turn our back on
it, because it's a gift, like any other gift, like being
musical or having a lovely voice. As long as you
are not seeing things to hurt people, as long as
you're trying to help, well then, what's wrong with
being a wise woman?'
'Yes, that's it,' said Christie, feeling a little peace
enter her soul, 'a wise woman. People often say
I'm a wise woman.'
'And you are.' Rosalind smiled. 'But even wise
women need a little help sometimes. This man ...'
She reached out and touched Christie's hand. 'Why
are you frightened of him coming back into your
life?,
'Because if he came back and he told about
what he meant to me, it would hurt the people I
love most in the world. I don't want that to happen.
I feel so powerless, that he's coming and I can't
stop him and I've had this sense of fear for so long
now that it never goes away.'
Rosalind nodded. 'I could read the cards for
you,' she said, 'but I don't think I need to. I think
you understand what you need to do. You're just
afraid of doing it.'
'I don't understand at all,' said Christie.
'Yes, you do,' insisted Rosalind. 'Look in your
heart. Close your eyes and think.'
For a moment, Christie thought of herself and
Liz in the staff room in St Ursula's, when Liz
had been worried about the man she loved and
how he wanted to run out on her because it was
all getting too serious. Christie had told her to
close her eyes and think about what was in her
heart. It was funny, she realised, she'd been using
her gift just the way Rosalind did without any
training or help. Perhaps she was a wise woman
after all.
Closing her eyes now, she thought of Carey
Wolensky and what he had meant to her. How his
coming back could hurt so many people: Ana,
Ethan and Shane, and James, most of all James.
Because it really hadn't been his fault, it had been
a series of coincidences and happenings that had
led Carey to her.
She opened her eyes. The answer had come. 'I
need to see him and tell him to leave my life, that
he's not a part of it, that if he's kept a torch burning
for me all these years he should let it go out. I've
got to talk to James about it and tell him. Let him
know, whatever the consequences.'
She shivered because she didn't know what those
consequences would be, but she knew that's what
she had to do.
Rosalind didn't comment on this. 'Maybe you'll
come back and see me again some other time,' she
said. 'I could read your cards.'
Christie smiled. She wasn't sure if she was ready
for that. Better to get used to the information that
the gift did run in her family and see where telling
James about Carey Wolensky would lead her and
then ...
'Thank you,' she said. She opened her purse. 'How much do I owe you?'
'No.' Rosalind stilled her with the word. 'There's
no fee. People who share the gift never charge
other people who share it,' she said.
'You're sure?' asked Christie.
'I'm sure,' said Rosalind, 'and please, come and
see me again.'
It was odd, Christie thought, as she walked back
through the market, she felt a lightness in her heart
that she hadn't felt in a long time, ever since the
gloom had first appeared. She'd been so stupid
really. For the past month, she'd let the memory
of Carey Wolensky overshadow everything else in
her life, all the wonderful things: James, her family,
Janet's pregnancy, the good things she had. She'd
let Carey overshadow them all, because she'd
allowed herself to be a victim.
She'd done something she'd been ashamed of
and, instead of facing up to it, she'd been scared
it would destroy her family. In doing so, she'd
almost allowed it to destroy her family. Ironic that,
she thought wryly. But she wouldn't be scared any
more. Rosalind had just helped her to see what
was in her heart and what she had to do.
She sat down on a bench near the market and
made the call to Carey's hotel from her mobile
phone. She was put on to Heidi, Carey's assistant,
instantly.

'This is Mrs Christie Devlin,' she said coolly,
although she was quivering with nerves. 'You've
been trying to contact me with regard to Mr
Wolensky's exhibition.'
'Yes, he'll be so thrilled you've got in touch,'
said Heidi with obvious enthusiasm.
'I don't want to go to the private viewing. I'll
be away,' Christie said, lying. 'But I'd like to meet
with Mr Wolensky, if that's possible.'
'I'm sure it is. He was most keen to see you.'
Christie nearly hung up there and then, but she
had to be strong. She had to do this.
'He's here next week from Wednesday on for
ten days.'
'I can see him on the Monday morning,' Christie
said, shocked that she'd have to wait that long to
get this all over with. 'No other time, I'm afraid.'
'He's busy then but I can rearrange his appointments,'
Heidi replied quickly. 'Eleven, here in the
hotel?'
'Eleven would be fine. Thank you.'
Christie pushed the 'end call' button. She'd done
it. She'd stopped running from the past. But she
didn't feel any sense of relief - only pure panic.
She could have just made the biggest mistake of
her life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Thousands of miles away, sitting in the back of a beaten-up van with the band, Amber was
wondering the same thing. Was this whole trip the
biggest mistake of her life?
They hadn't expected a traffic jam in LA.
Gridlock, a freeway nightmare. Cars jammed end to end, creeping along. That sort of stuff happened
at home, not here, not in fabulous LA. But they
still got stuck in it until finally, after three quarters
of an hour in the heat - the air con didn't
work very well in the rent-a-wreck - Syd took an
off ramp and they ended up in a small, beat-up
neighbourhood, with a couple of pool halls and
what looked like a pub.
They all piled in. None of them really had
enough cash to spend on drinks, but they were
dying for something cool: cool beer, cool lemonade,
cool anything. The bar was half full, but nobody
even glanced at Amber, which made her feel even
more miserable, although she knew she looked a

sight. How was it that men ignoring her could be
so depressing, when she and Ella had so often been
dismissive of men who did notice them? Her skin
was greasy and she'd got spots. She hadn't washed
her hair for the last couple of days, she'd been so
tired. How could you be tired getting up in the
morning when you hadn't done anything all day
except sit in the back of a van, bumping along?
They ambled over to the bar and ordered some
drinks.
'You can drive from now on,' Syd said to Karl. 'I'm having some real liquor.'
'Hey, you're turning into an American,' laughed
Lew.
'Yeah, right,' said Syd glumly.
The night before he'd confided in Amber that
he was missing his girlfriend, Lola, so much. She
was a make-up artist who worked for herself, often
travelling around Ireland for jobs. There was no
way she could have come on this crazy trek across
America.
'It's impossible to get hold of her without my
mobile,' he had grumbled to Amber, as they sat
on the fire escape of last night's crummy hotel,
Amber sipping a Coke, Syd chain-smoking.
'She wasn't worried that you were going away
without her, was she?' asked Amber doubtfully,
thinking that she'd been too nervous to let Karl
go off on his own.
'No,' said Syd, with a laugh. 'We're too close
for that.'
And then, she could see him realise what he had
said, realise he knew exactly why she'd tagged
along with the band to New York and now on the
trek to LA: because she didn't trust Karl.
'But you know,' Syd said rapidly, 'people are
different and she's busy. Plus, she's been to America
a few times and she'll come out when we're settled.
It's different for you and Karl, right?'
'Yeah, different,' said Amber, thinking of the
exams her friends at St Ursula's were sitting now.
Thinking of her seat in the big exam hall, near to
Ella, and the grins and the glances and the
anguished stares they'd have exchanged, had
exchanged for every exam they'd sat through
together since they'd met. Ella always had a supply
of sweets and crunched them noisily. Amber was
more a chewing gum sort of girl. She wondered
who was sitting in her place now, what dreams
and hopes they had.
Thinking of Ella made her think of Mum. The
guilt about Mum was always there in the pit of
her stomach. Mum had done nothing wrong except
stifle Amber in an attempt to protect her, and look
how Amber had repaid her.
She was a horrible daughter and her mother
must hate her. Every time Amber thought longingly
of home and of hearing her mother's voice,
she reminded herself of her mother's hurt face that
last day. She, Amber, had done that - hurt her
mother as much as if she'd stabbed her. She didn't
know how she'd ever say sorry for that. It was
such a huge weight to carry that she didn't know
how to try.
'It'll work out,' Syd said.
'What?' said Amber, half lost, not quite
knowing what he was talking about. 'The band,
you mean? You're all very talented, I'm sure it
will work out.'
Syd looked at her silently, for a moment. 'Yeah,'
he said, 'that's what I meant: the band. It'll work
out, I'm sure of it.'
Now in the seedy bar in LA, Karl sloped off to
phone Stevie in Dublin, just in case there was any
news. Syd looked at Amber.
'What'll you have?' he said, gently.
Normally, Amber stuck to a couple of light
beers, since she still wasn't the drinking sort of
girl. Ella would laugh at that: to think they'd both
been keen to have grown-up drinks in grownup
bars and now that she could, Amber had discovered
she didn't like them that much.
'I don't know, Syd,' she said now. 'Something
to cheer me up.'
Syd grinned. 'I know just what you need!'
By the third tequila shot, Amber was feeling no
pain.
'It's great this stuff. Why did I never try it
before?' She was smiling happily, arranging and
rearranging her shot glasses in different patterns.
'We never could afford it before,' Kenny T
laughed.
'We can't now,' added Lew. 'Karl will go stark, staring mad when he comes back and finds that
we've been spending the savings on tequila.'
'Well, Karl's not the boss, is he?' snapped Syd. 'Amber can have Cuevo Gold if she fucking well
wants to. In fact, she'll have another one and so
will I.'
When Karl came back from the phone a few
moments later, Amber looked at him with eyes of
love. She felt warm and hazy inside. It was all
going to be wonderful. LA was a fabulous place,
they'd live in a gorgeous house and go to amazing
celebrity parties. Karl would be a world-famous
musician, they'd have loads of money and people
would look at her, envy her and think she had a
fabulous life ...
'Tequila?' said Karl, looking down at the empty
shot glasses on the table.
'Hey, we felt like cheering ourselves up,' Syd
said defensively.
Karl didn't look upset, though.
'You're not going to believe it,' he said, 'but
Stevie came through.'
'Came through how?' asked Lew.
'Came through in that he's got us a meeting
with a production company out here. It's a guy
called Michael Levin and he's hot, Stevie says. He's
one of the best producers around and he liked the
stuff Stevie sent him. We're to meet him in his
office tomorrow. Guys, it's going to be OK.'
The tequila-drinkers erupted in a cheer.
'That's incredible,' said Amber, getting up to
throw her arms lazily around Karl's neck. 'You're
incredible. Oh, I love you, I love you so much,
that's wonderful. You're so talented and clever and

'Right,' he said, moving his face away from her
boozy breath. 'You shouldn't drink tequila, Amber,
it smells horrible.'
'We needed cheering up, you see,' she whispered.
What he'd said hurt, but she was still insulated
by the cosy fire of the alcohol.
'Yeah, yeah, whatever.' Karl settled her back in
her seat. He sat down beside the band and began
to plan with them. What they'd say to this
producer, what they'd play for him, how they
weren't going to be taken for some load of green
young guys because now they'd been around.
Amber sat on the edge, sidelined again, but she
didn't care. It was all working out, it was all going
to be great. She knew it.
That night they stayed in another fleapit motel,
the sort of place that was quite safe, mainly because
there were two police cars parked outside the door
most of the night. Sirens blared, people screamed
and laughed and Amber barely slept a wink, partly
because of the tequila hangover that had kicked
in at about ten, and partly because of anxiety. She
didn't like this town: it was scary. These constantly
bright and busy streets weren't the palm-treed oases
she'd imagined. There were no haciendas in this
part of town, no nice cafes with movie stars sitting
outside, no sense of Hollywood glamour: just
dangerous guys driving big cars with music
vibrating out from everywhere, and skinny girls in
hotpants on the street corner opposite the hotel,
watching every car that slowed down. Nobody smiled at anyone, nobody looked at anyone, as
though eye contact was a threat.
However, in the California sunshine of the next
morning, the streets didn't look menacing any
more: just edgy and hip, like a scene from a video on MTV.
'Come back to bed,' murmured Karl, sitting up
against the pillows, watching her looking out the
window and admiring her body in the pink spotted
G-string she'd slept in.
'Bed?' she said, doing her best call-girl voice. 'Can you afford me?'
She climbed on to the bed and began to crawl
towards him, swinging her hair provocatively.
'I don't know,' Karl said, pulling her closer. 'I'm
pretty broke now but I think there might be some
money coming my way soon. Will you take an IOU?'

Amber straddled him. 'Only for you, my love,'
she crooned before kissing him.
Within hours, their fortunes had changed. It
took one trip to the producer's office. Michael
Levin was a small, slim, dark-eyed guy who clearly
liked the band's work. He said he'd work with
them and that they needed to sort out some paperwork, as well as a lawyer to go over the small
print. He recommended someone.
Amber raised her eyebrows at this: surely if the
producer recommended a lawyer he knew, this was
a conflict of interest? They should find their own
lawyer to work out the percentages, etc, but nobody
else looked askance at the suggestion.
Michael Levin was offering some money upfront
and got them a deal in a lovely hotel near his office
until they could sort out a house to rent.
Two hours after meeting him, they had four
beautiful suites in the Santa Angelina Hotel, a hip
little place with the requisite palm trees outside.
Amber felt the bellboy looking at the five of them
in faint disgust as he showed them up to their
rooms. She was sure that they smelt of poverty,
of life on the road in. crappy motels where the
toiletries ran to thin bars of soap and even thinner
towels. She couldn't wait to get into that vast bath
tub in the huge pale marble and mirrored bathroom
and sink into all the bubbles that would be
sure to emerge from the beautiful aquamarine
glass jars.
'Wow, this is some place,' said Syd, admiring
Karl and Amber's suite.
'I've never seen anything like it,' gasped Lew. 'Hey, relax, guys,' said Karl, trying to be cool. 'You've gotta get used to this.'
Amber felt a flash of impatience with him. Who
did he think he was? They had just spent ten days
on the road in cockroach-infested fleapits with no
money, eating endless fast food until they were all
spotty and lank-haired, and it seemed like sheer fluke that had brought them to this beautiful place.
Now was not the time to be doing the 'we're so
cool, we deserve this' act.
'Cop on, Karl,' she said sharply. 'We're lucky
it's working out, let's not count our chickens. We did that the last time, remember? And then Stevie
left and we were up shit creek without a paddle.'
Karl glared at her. 'I knew it would work, even
if you didn't.'
He marched into their suite's second bathroom
and slammed the door.
'Hey,' said Lew, grinning at Amber. 'Just as well
you've got two bathrooms.'
Karl and Amber didn't talk to each other for
the rest of the afternoon, although Amber didn't
care. She was perfectly happy being in her own
bathroom, lolling in a bubble-filled bath, scrubbing
herself clean, rubbing scented body lotion
into every inch of her body, washing her hair till
it squeaked, feeling good about herself again.
They were being taken out to dinner tonight by
Michael Levin, and as she rooted through her dirty,
faded wardrobe, she realised she actually had
nothing to wear and no money to buy anything.
It was different for the guys, they could wear jeans
and a T-shirt and still look fantastic, but girls
needed something a bit more special.
She could have gone and asked Karl if there
was any money to spare to buy something new
but she didn't want to. Instead, she went over to Syd's suite.
'What's happenin', baby?' he said, opening the
door, a fat cigar in one hand, the TV remote in
the other and himself wrapped in a big, fat
towelling robe. The huge TV blared a pay per view
movie and a room service cart lay pushed to
one side with the remains of a club sandwich and
a bottle of champagne.
'You're fitting in around here very well, Syd,'
Amber grinned.
It was funny, she got on better with Syd these
days than she did with Karl.
'Yeah, I think I like this lifestyle, Amber. Better
not get used to it, though, as you pointed out.' 'Sorry,' Amber apologised. 'I didn't mean that,
I didn't mean that the band wouldn't make it. I
was only trying to be realistic. We, sorry, you
shouldn't count your chickens.'
'I know that,' Syd said, drawing her into the
suite. 'You look all lovely and shiny.'
'I feel great,' said Amber. 'And clean! I thought
I'd never feel clean again. There's only one problem,
I have nothing to wear.'
Syd laughed. 'It must be a chromosome thing:
women and shopping. Lola's just the same. Shop
or die. I've got a few quid left.' He handed her
over a hundred dollars. 'Sorry, it's not much, but
it's all I can afford until we get some of the upfront
signing money.'
'Oh, you're a star!' Amber said and threw her
arms around him and gave him a big hug. 'Steady on,' laughed Syd, 'or you'll have Lola on the phone soon, giving out that I found me
another woman.'
'Oh, sure,' teased Amber. She knew he was only
kidding, he loved Lola to bits. 'Thanks, and don't
mention this to Karl?'
'I won't,' said Syd. 'I understand.'
As Amber went downstairs in the lift, she
pondered those last words. What did Syd understand?
That she and Karl were breaking up in front
of his eyes and that she couldn't go to Karl and
ask him for a few dollars to buy a' new outfit? Or
that he wouldn't understand why she needed to in
the first place?
Far away in New York, Faye Reid wondered if
she should just go home and give up. She'd been
in New York for two weeks now and she felt she
was dying of loneliness. She missed Amber so
much. And since that first phone call just after
she'd left, Amber hadn't even phoned home again.
Faye checked her Summer Street answering
machine with a frequency that was verging on the
obsessional.
Above all, she felt as if she'd failed her daughter
spectacularly if Amber could run away and never
contact home. What sort of a mother did that
make her?
When her own mother phoned her to see how
she was doing, Faye could barely speak from misery. 'I don't suppose Amber's been in touch with
you, Mum?' she asked, ever hopeful.
'No,' said Josie. 'I suspect she feels so guilty
and anxious that she's deliberately not phoning
now. She knows I'd give her a piece of my mind
for running off like that.'
'You're not to say a thing to her if she phones!'
shrieked Faye. It might frighten Amber off and ... 'Faye, listen to me!' said Josie calmly but firmly.
,if Amber phones, I will give her a piece of my
mind because what she's done is unforgivable. I
know she's only eighteen, she's in love and she's
all upset, but that's no reason to treat your family
this way. Yes, I'm sure she's afraid we'll be furious
with her for what she's done, but that's no reason
not to call again. I am furious with her and when
you get over your fit of the guilts, you should be
too. Yes, you lied to her.'
Faye winced.
'Yes, you made up a nice little fairytale about
her father and you know I disagreed with you
about that, but it was your choice. The bottom
line, Faye, is that you've done everything you could
for that girl, everything. You've given up your life
for her. The Lord only knows I love her, but I am
angry with her.'
'Oh, Mum ...'
'Don't "Oh, Mum" me,' said Josie fiercely. 'If
you don't make some progress in the next few
days, then you've got to come home. Amber is a
clever girl. She'll survive. She's got our blood
running through her veins and we've survived,
haven't we? So have some faith in her.'
'You really think she'll be all right?' Faye said, starting to cry.
'She might be wrapped up in young passion,
but she's not stupid,' Josie said with a touch of
pride. 'She's a strong girl. You've done a great job
with her. Remember that.'
'I will,' sobbed Faye. 'I will.' But it was easier
said than done.
Her mother was right: she'd have to go home
soon. What was the point waiting here? Amber
could have left New York days ago. She could be
anywhere by now, and at least when she phoned
home again - and she would, Faye was sure she
would - Faye would be there to talk to her.
The fashion magazines were wrong, Amber
thought crossly, after an hour and a half. They
were always implying that Los Angeles thrift shops
were full of exquisite vintage clothes: barely worn
Schiaparelli gowns, original Dior' suits, everything
for next to nothing. In fact, she was finding an
awful lot of very dull clothes and lots of jeans in
teeny, tiny sizes. She had jeans. But jeans were not
going to cut it in a town where people only wore
jeans with half a million's worth of Harry Winston
diamonds, accessorised with Manolo Blahnik shoes
and a Judith Leiber clutch.
Then, finally, in a tiny little shop off Melrose,
with rails so crammed full of clothes it hurt her
arms to rifle through them, she found it. It looked
like a 1930s nightie, which in fact it probably was:
an emerald-green bias-cut silk-satin dress with
spaghetti straps and a scalloped hem. It clung to
her curves in all the right places and highlighted
her creamy skin and her tawny mane. It was fabulous
and, better still, only sixty dollars. With the
rest of the money she bought an embroidered shawl
with fringing, to throw over her shoulders, and a
shiny lip gloss. There, she'd do.
Karl was sitting on the superking-sized bed putting
on his watch when Amber emerged from her bathroom,
all ready to go, a vision in shimmering green,
her tiger's-eye pendant -highlighting the silkiness of
her slender throat.
'Wow, you look amazing,' he said in admiration. 'Come here.'
It was as if the row had never happened, as if
there had never been any coolness between them
on the road. He began to kiss her and suddenly
Amber wasn't in such a rush for the dinner party
after all. Karl's hands caressed her body and gently
pulled the straps of her beautiful dress over her
shoulders so it slithered like a skin to the floor.
'You're so beautiful,' he said, 'my muse. I
couldn't have done this without you.'
As they made love, Amber thought that these
were just the words she wanted to hear. Karl loved
her, adored her. That was what mattered, wasn't
it?
They were late getting downstairs but the limo
driver didn't seem to mind.
'What the hell were you pair doing?' grumbled
Kenny T, who had been sitting in the back of the
limo with Syd and Lew for ten minutes and was
agitated, as if he wanted to get to this fabulous
party soon.
'Nothing,' said Karl, with a grin that said quite
plainly that he had just had mind-altering sex.
Syd said nothing, he just poked at Amber and
smiled a small, knowing smile. She grinned back,
feeling slightly treacherous for telling Syd she
couldn't ask Karl for the money for the new dress.
This was Syd's money she was wearing and she
couldn't tell Karl. But couples had rows and arguments
all the time, Syd must know that.
Los Angeles was a strange mix of dress up and
dress down. The restaurant they went to looked
as if half the clientele had come straight from the
Oscars and the other half straight from doing their
grocery shopping. There were willowy girls in jeans
and socialites in Versace. Jewels gleamed on both
men and women and everyone looked fabulously
tanned and healthy.
In her second-hand finery, Amber felt she fitted
in pretty well and she was with the most handsome
man in the room, the superbly talented Karl
Evans. Michael, the producer, thought so too, he
spent the night talking about the band with Karl.
They discussed different songs, what they'd
rearrange, how they might bring in some other
songwriters - people Michael worked with all the
time - just to tweak, and perhaps to write a couple
of new songs. Karl, who normally maintained that
his work was not to be touched, and wouldn't
even dream of singing anyone else's music, nodded
vigorously to all this. He seemed fascinated by the
talk of business.
There were ten people at the dinner table but
Amber felt bored. Nobody was talking to her. It
was as if, she realised sadly, she didn't quite exist.
She felt just the same as she had at the SnakePit that night when she'd had to hide at the side of the
stage to watch the band play - a hanger-on. That's
what Stevie had wanted her to feel, she was sure:
that she was nothing but the girlfriend, and of
course, the role of the girlfriend was to keep the
lead singer/songwriter happy, as well as being attractive
and sexually available. So much for feminism,
Amber thought grimly and took another sip of wine.
The waiters, all staggeringly handsome out-of-work
actors with cheekbones like cliff edges and
bodies sculpted by hours in the gym, kept filling
the wineglasses so stealthily and discreetly that it
was hard for Amber to know how much she'd
drunk. At first, as she toyed with her Caesar salad,
she tried to keep a tab, but after a while she gave
up. Karl was at the end of the table, separated
from her by Michael and one of his assistants,
who were talking to Karl at length about musicians
they all admired and where Karl's inspiration
had come from.
'It's got to be Robert Johnson, hasn't it?' Karl
was saying intently. 'Oh, and Hendrix, naturally.'
'Well, you've got his gift too,' said the assistant,
smiling, flattering.
Amber thought she was going to puke. Michael
had seemed upfront and honest when they'd first
met him, but tonight, he had changed: he was
fawning on Karl, hyping up the band and their
brilliance. What a fabulous team they'd all make.
How they'd change the world. And Karl didn't
seem to see.
Amber pushed her plate away, her appetite quite
gone. She loved the climate in LA, adored the sense
of freedom. But the insincerity was something else.
Everything she saw or heard in this town was
wrapped in a fleecy parcel of bullshit. She almost
longed for the straightforwardness of the places
they'd stayed on the road: ordinary towns where
people said what they meant. Or even miserable
old Gretchen in the mini-market back home, who'd
glare at you rudely if she was in the mood.
Or her mum. The mini-market made her think
of Summer Street and of home. Could Mum ever
forgive her? At that moment, Amber didn't feel as
if she deserved forgiveness.
Karl didn't seem to notice her unhappiness. He
didn't smile or even give her one of those 'are you
OK, honey?' looks across the table. On her other side was a female producer. A slim, beautiful
woman with olive skin, dressed in an exquisite
coral wrap dress, she was talking intently to Syd
and Kenny T.
Even Lew, who was never going to be a
contestant on Mastermind, was busily being
chatted up by yet another member of Michael's
team on the other side of the table. But nobody
was bothering with Amber. And she didn't like it.
She was clever, she wasn't some bimbo girlfriend.
She lifted her wineglass and took another big
sip and thought of her mum. Mum always said
that beauty could only take you so far in life, while
intelligence and self-belief could take you a lot
further. Amber didn't allow herself to think about
her mum much, although she fingered her tiger's eye
pendant thoughtfully. She wore it all the time
and she did think of Mum when she put it on. It
was her talisman of home. She hadn't rung since
that first phone call, she knew she should have
but the argument was all too raw, too painful.
She'd been horrible, she knew that now. Not that
she'd made a mistake, no, she'd done the right
thing to go away with Karl.
But she still felt guilty when she thought of
Mum's hurt face and what was it that Gran had
said?
You should let your mother tell you.
She sometimes wondered exactly what her
mother did have to tell her. Gran wouldn't have
said it if she hadn't meant it, if there hadn't been
some intelligent reason behind it. So what could
her mum have to tell Amber that could possibly
change the way she had decided to live her life?
'Was your salad OK for you?' asked the waiter. 'Yes, it was delicious,' said Amber, pathetically happy that at least someone was talking to her. 'It's just I wasn't hungry.'
The evening might have been endured if another
party of people hadn't arrived when their table
was drinking coffee. There was no dessert of
course. God forbid that anyone in LA would actually
eat dessert, apart from toying with some fresh
fruit. Amber was cross because she felt like something
sugary.
The party included a very beautiful woman with
skin like ebony, the body of a supermodel and a
face that Tyra Banks would envy. She came over
to the table and kissed Michael Levin on both
cheeks, a proper kiss, not just air kissing.
She was, Amber heard her neighbour whisper,
the latest hot singing sensation with her first album
just out, produced by Michael.
'She can sing too?' said Amber, staring at this
vision of a woman. She was like an exquisite
Somalian empress.
Wow, Amber thought, she'd be beautiful to
paint: that face, that figure, that elegance.
'Yeah, she's going to make it really big,' said
Amber's neighbour again. 'Everyone will know
about Venetia, I promise you that. She's gonna be
hotter than Beyonce.'
Venetia. Even her name was beautiful, thought
Amber mistily. And then, suddenly, she stopped
feeling so friendly towards Venetia because Michael
introduced her to Karl, not any of the other band
members, just to Karl. A few more chairs were
brought up and the exquisite Venetia snuggled in
close between Karl and Michael, though slightly
closer to Karl than to anyone else. They were
talking and laughing, and Amber couldn't hear
what they were saying but she could see Venetia
touching Karl on the shoulder and on the knee,
as if she had known him for ever.
'She needs somebody to write some new songs
for her,' said Amber's neighbour, catching Amber's
fierce glare. 'Fabulous voice and she's written a
few good tracks herself, but basically she needs
songwriters and Michael thinks Karl has a few
songs that just might suit her. He's a very talented
songwriter.'
'Well, Karl doesn't write songs for anyone else,'
Amber said heatedly. 'He doesn't believe in that
type of thing, he only writes for himself.'
Her neighbour gave her a long, steady gaze. 'Karl seems like a pretty bright guy and if you
want to get ahead in this business, you make your
own music, you make music for other people, hey,
whatever it takes. Venetia is going to go a long
way, it mightn't be bad for him to be attached to
her coattails.'
Amber was sick at the thought of Karl being
attached to any part of Venetia.
She finished her wine with a flourish. She'd had
enough of this. She was going back to the hotel
and Karl was coming with her. They had been
nice, charming, they had partied, you name it, but
now they were going home to bed together and bloody Venetia had better get her hand off Karl's
knee damn quick.
Amber got to her feet unsteadily. Her handbag
was under the table, so she had to bend to pick
it up and she banged her forehead on the table. 'Ouch.'
'You OK?' said Syd.
'Fine, fine,' said Amber with the unconcern of
the very drunk. She swayed a little where she stood. 'I am perfectly fine, just think I'll go. Me and Karl,
we're tired.'
'I'll take you home,' said Syd, pushing his chair
back.
'No,' insisted Amber. 'There's no need. Karl
will bring me home. I came with Karl, I'm going
to go with Karl. He is my boyfriend, I am his
muse,' she said loudly, so loudly that nobody at
the table could have missed it. But Venetia, Karl
and the producer didn't appear to have heard
because they were all talking and laughing happily
together.
Amber shoved her chair back and made it rather
erratically around the table to Karl's side. She laid
a hand on his shoulder. 'I want to go home,
darling,' she said. 'Are you ready?'
Karl looked up at her. 'No, no, you go,' he said. 'I'm fine, baby. Don't wait up, whatever.'
Michael raised a hand and suddenly one of his
team was escorting Amber outside.
'But I'm waiting for my boyfriend, for Karl,'
she said. She could see Karl, but he wasn't watching
her, although Venetia was looking at her with those
exquisite cat-like eyes, her expression one of pity
- not malice or jealousy or triumph, but plain,
old-fashioned pity. It was the last thing Amber
remembered as she was put in the back of the
beautiful limo and whisked away to her exquisite,
empty, hotel suite.
The next thing she knew there was so much
daylight she could hardly open her eyes. She lay
there, wondering where she was and then everything
that had happened the night before flooded
back. Karl. He hadn't come home with her. How
dare he do that to her? She was going to give him
a piece of her mind. She sat up in the bed, ignoring
the murderous throbbing of her head, and turned
to where he should have been, but she was alone.
The bed was so big she'd only taken up a quarter
of it. The other three quarters were pristine, unslept
in. She threw back the covers and ran through the
suite, but there was no sign of Karl.
Next, she phoned Syd and Lew in their respective
suites.
'Gee, Amber, why are you ringing me at this
hour?' groaned Lew.
'It's half eleven,' she snapped, 'hardly dawn.' 'We were out late, must have been six when we
got in. Those people know how to party, one club
after another.'
'You went clubbing?' she asked.
'Well, yeah, eventually. What a blast. You
shouldn't have gone home so early, Amber. What was up with you anyway? Karl hates that sort of
jealous stuff, you know.'
'I wasn't jealous,' said Amber, feeling wildly
embarrassed that even Lew, who wasn't intuitive,
had noticed.
'You were nearly spitting when you were going.
I thought there might be a cat fight between you
and Venetia. She's some babe. I'd pay to see that.'
'Thank you, Lew, you've been a great help,'
hissed Amber and hung up.
Syd was more on the ball, but sounded just as
hungover.
'No, I do not know where Karl is,' he said and,
to Amber's ears, his words sounded like a statement
he'd been practising just in case she should call.
'Well, did he go off or did he come back with
the rest of you? I mean he could have got another
room here so he wouldn't wake me,' she said dubiously,
knowing this was highly unlikely.
'Look, Amber, this is between you and Karl,'
said Syd. 'OK? Just leave me out of it. You know
what I feel.'
Amber didn't know what he felt, but she said
thanks and bye and hung up anyway. Was Syd
telling her that Karl had a thing going with Venetia,
or that Karl was the sort of man that always had
a thing going with some woman? Or was it something
else? Syd was deep.
She went into her lovely bathroom and blasted
herself under the shower, anything to get rid of
this horrible old groggy dead feeling.
Next, she ordered breakfast. Not because she
was hungry, more that she thought strong coffee
and maybe fruit would jerk her out of her hangover.
Afterwards, she sat outside on the balcony,
which overlooked the pool and watched beautiful
people having business meetings around the glistening
water. There were also plenty of people
sunbathing, women with beautiful bodies, tanned
and oiled, in white bikinis or exotic designer ones
in Pucci prints. There was so much money here.
In their trip across the States they had seen the
richest and the poorest. They had certainly stayed
in the poorest places, and now they were in one
of the wealthiest towns on the planet but Amber
didn't feel happy or thrilled, the way she thought
she'd feel.
Her dreams of it had been about her and Karl
being happy together. The problem was, there was
no togetherness. Here, Amber was even more alone
than she had been before she met Karl, when she'd
only been dreaming about what love might be.
And now she had the guilt to carry for hurting
her mother too.
Finally, she went out to the pool herself and lay
there with a book, peeping over the corners of it,
watching what was going on.
Eventually, the heat of the sun got to her and
she fell into a dreamless sleep.
'So this is where you are,' said a voice. 'I've
been looking everywhere for you.'
It was Karl, except he didn't look as if he'd had
a wild night out in clubs. He looked like he'd had
a very good night's sleep. There was that faint hint
of stubble on his jaw, his hair was tousled. The
look in his eyes gave it away though. It was a look
Amber had come to recognise when he walked
offstage: a look of triumph, of sheer, almost sexual,
pleasure. The look said: I've just stood in front of
all these people and they all wanted me.
'You can't have been looking too hard for me,'
she said sarcastically. 'I've been here all day and all
last night,' she added pointedly. 'Where were you?'
'Out,' he said, his gaze raking over her, as if he
didn't like what he saw.
'Out?' demanded Amber, feeling her temper rise. 'Out with whom?' she added for effect.
'With Michael, doing what we came to LA to
do, Amber, remember? Hook up with a big
producer, make our names, you know. We're here
to do more than just lie around the pool all day
and work on our tans.'
'I'm only working on my tan because I have no
money and I can't go anywhere and because I was
waiting for you to come home,' she snapped back,
stung. 'And I was worried, anything could have
happened to you, anything.'
She could see his face soften at the thought that
she'd been worried about him, and he smiled at
her, became the old Karl again.
'Oh, baby, you shouldn't worry about me. Last
night was so amazing, such a blast, talking about
music all night long with someone like Michael.'
He sat down on the sun lounger beside her,
leaned forward, his face boyishly excited.
'You wouldn't believe the people he's worked
with, the bands, the names, people whose albums
I have and he knows them, he's worked with them.
Jesus, it's incredible. I can't believe we're here.'
'So that was it?' Amber asked hesitantly. 'That was it. Sorry, you're right, I should have
called. I stayed over with Michael, he's got the
most amazing house in the hills, you should see
it, all glass and beautiful. Rebuilt after the mud
slides, totally incredible. He said it was an amazing
house before but now it's doubly amazing.'
'Somebody said he had lots of art as well, didn't
they?' Amber asked. 'He's a collector.'
'Yeah, yeah,' said Karl. 'There were paintings and
stuff, you know me, I'm not into that, I didn't really
notice, but yeah, sure, lots of fantastic stuff. You'll
see it. Listen, why don't you and me go out to dinner,
just on our own, not the gang, somewhere nice?' 'How can we afford it?'
'It's OK, Michael's given us an advance against
the advance, if you know what I mean.' Karl
grinned. 'Money, we've got money, baby.'
'Somewhere casual,' said Amber hopefully, 'because I still don't really have anything to wear,
except what I was wearing last night.'
'What was that you were wearing?' Karl said,
furrowing his brow.
'The green dress?' Amber said. 'Remember, you
took it off because you thought it looked so nice.'
'Oh, yeah, yeah. Wear that, it'll be cool.'
The concierge recommended a little crab restaurant
out in Venice, and they got a cab, sitting in
the back, holding hands like teenagers, pointing
out the sights and looking at people, admiring this
place that was so different from home. The cute
little restaurant looked like a shack but with nonshack
prices, Amber realised. That was the problem
with staying in really cool hotels. When you told
the concierge you wanted to go somewhere cheap
and nice, he sent you to the cheapest place rich
people went.
'This is so expensive, we better not have starters,'
Amber whispered, scanning the menu.
'Hey, no problem, baby,' said Karl. 'I've got
money, remember?'
It was lovely, Amber thought, to have some cash
finally. At last she could buy some more clothes
because her stuff from home wasn't suitable. Her
flowery chain-store bikini, which looked really nice
at home, looked sort of ordinary among all the
little designer pieces the girls wore here.
'You'll have to give me some cash too,' she said,
thinking of what she'd buy. 'For clothes and things.' 'Sure, should have thought of it before. Sorry.'
He took out his wallet, a new wallet, Amber
realised, made of very soft suede leather. When
had he been shopping? There was a nice fat wad
of green notes in it, and Karl pulled out a few and
handed them across to her at the precise moment
that their waiter reappeared to take their order.
Amber grabbed the money and stuffed it into
her purse, feeling hideously embarrassed. It was
like she was a hooker and being paid in a restaurant.
But neither Karl, nor the charming waiter,
appeared to have thought so. The only person
dying with embarrassment was Amber. Despite her
happiness that things were working out for the
band and that running away from home hadn't
been in vain, and despite her joy that her relationship
with Karl seemed to be back on track - even
though he was a little different, and LA was
working some magic on him - despite all the things
she should have been grateful for, Amber was
suddenly aware that something was wrong. She,
Amber Reid, raised by her mother to believe in
personal power and a woman's right to independence,
had no job, no qualifications and was being
handed 'pin money' by her boyfriend. That's what
was wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Maggie always laughed when people imagined there
was any faint glamour to the world of academia.
Nobody in academia ever had any money and
the only glamour resided in the feverish dreams of
brilliant students who longed to star on University
Challenge.
However, she got caught in precisely the same
trap when it came to politics, assuming that politicians
worked in a corporate world of money and
style. It took just one visit to a city councillor to
realise that politics was as much a glamour-free
zone as college.
The knowledge hit her as she and her mother
waited in the office of Liz Glebe, their local councillor,
who was having her afternoon surgery. The
only person there before them, an elderly man who
kept anxiously scanning a well-thumbed piece of
paper, had gone in to see Ms Glebe, so they were
alone. The waiting room and the office reminded
Maggie of an old shop where someone had ripped
out the shelf units, painted the walls a sickly yellow
and stuffed political pamphlets and posters everywhere,
claiming better futures, better Irelands,
better everything.
'Pity they don't have better chairs,' muttered
Una, as she shifted to get comfortable on the plastic
chair. '
Liz Glebe was the first politician Maggie had
contacted and when they finally got in to see her,
she looked nothing like the glamorous, heavily
made-up woman in the election posters that hung
in her waiting room.
She still had short blonde hair and a wide smile
but there were dark bags under her eyes, and her
very conservative jacket and shirt looked as if
they'd been to the dry-cleaner's too many times.
'Now, what's the problem?' she said, barely
looking up at them while she shifted through sheets
of paper on her desk. 'Summer Street pavilion,
right? I know the background, shouldn't have
happened, I voted against it. I have young kids
myself and I hate to see the community being ripped
apart, but I was in the minority, I'm afraid. It's
pretty straightforward - the pavilion was never a
part of the park proper. It's officially council property.
I'm not sure what you can do at this point.'
'Don't the people who actually use the park get
any choice in the matter?' demanded Una irritably. 'Well, the concept of politics is that you elect
us in, and we make the decisions,' Liz said, the
mask of politeness slipping.
'Ridiculous idea,' Una snapped.
Maggie shot her mother a warning look. 'I'm on your side about the park,' Liz said. 'That's what everybody says come election time,'
Una said, eyes narrowed.
'If you're on our side,' Maggie interrupted gently, 'perhaps you'd give us some advice on what we
should do.'
Liz Glebe looked from mother to daughter and
sighed.
'Go to see Harrison Mitchell. He's the Green
Party councillor for the area and he's made his
name preserving old buildings. If there's any history
at all to your pavilion, he's your man. And he likes
hopeless cases - he loves appearing in the papers
as the champion of the underdog.'
'Meaning he loves appearing in the papers or
meaning he likes being the champion of the
underdog?' Maggie inquired sharply.
'Think media whore and you won't go far
wrong,' Liz said. 'Good luck.'
Harrison Mitchell wasn't keen on meeting the
members of the Save Our Pavilion campaign
because he was busy fighting for a medieval castle
that the government were trying to build a
motorway over. In terms of column inches, fighting
the government and the motorway was a much
more interesting story than fighting over the fate
of a little park on Summer Street.
'He's very busy at the moment,' said his
constituency secretary on the third occasion
Maggie phoned. 'I have put your proposal to him
but I just don't think he has the time.'
Something in Maggie snapped. The night before,
she and her dad had walked around Summer Street
park, talking about life, the universe and everything,
admiring the flowers and ruefully thinking
that if the campaign wasn't successful it might all
look so different in a few months. Maggie had
decided there and then that she was not going to
lose this fight. She had lost so many fights in her
life. Things were going to change.
She'd got a book from the library on selfconfidence
and had read it twice. Practising affirmations
in front of the mirror in the morning felt
a bit silly at first, but it seemed to work. After all,
if you said, 'I feel useless', it had an effect, so
surely the opposite was also true.
Start believing in yourself and stop knocking
yourself, the book said. So simple and so true. And
it was working.
'Fine,' Maggie said to the constituency secretary
in pleasant tones. She knew exactly what to say,
having practised this argument in front of the mirror
earlier. 'You can tell Mr Mitchell that I'm giving a
newspaper interview tomorrow and one of the main
points I will be bringing up is his complete lack of
interest in our pavilion. I'm going to point out that
Mr Mitchell is obviously only interested in projects
that get his name in the paper and that he has
refused to see us on three separate occasions.'
'Now there's no need to be like this,' interrupted
the secretary.
'Oh, there's every need,' said Maggie. 'Watch
me.' She hung up.
Within fifteen minutes, she had an appointment
to see Mr Mitchell the next afternoon.
'I can't go with you,' wailed Una. 'I've a doctor's
appointment. You really need someone to go with
you. You can't go and see someone like that on
your own.'
'Nonsense,' said Maggie, feeling a certain
amount of renewed vigour. 'I'll be fine.'
Harrison Mitchell's office was much grander than
Liz Glebe's and was in the basement of his imposing
Georgian three-storey terraced house. Handy to
be a councillor when you were independently rich,
thought Maggie, as she went down the steps into
the basement, admiring topiary box trees sitting
in giant stone troughs with just the correct amount
of lichen on them. The effect was very beautiful
and very grand.
She doubted that Mr Mitchell's waiting room would be covered with awful, sick yellow paint.
She was right. It was a tasteful light blue with
white cornices and a flower arrangement on a stand
in an alcove.
'Sorry about the delay in seeing you,' said a
man opening the door to her. It was Councillor
Mitchell himself. Maggie recognised him from the
newspapers. He was tall, good-looking, charming,
and the product of an expensive education that
gave in-built confidence. Maggie drew herself up
to her full height and gave him a half-smile.
'I'm sorry it's taken us so long too,' she said
coolly. Start as you mean to go on.
Politely, charmingly, Harrison Mitchell did his
best to get out of helping with the Summer Street
park campaign.
'I think that local people working together on
something they really believe in is very powerful,'
he said finally, after half an hour of discussing
vague plans for what the protesters could do for
their cause.
Maggie had had enough.
'You're a bit of a snob when it comes to conservation,
aren't you?' she said. 'You like projects
with historical connections or fabulous architectural
proportions and to hell with anything that's
of use to the community but doesn't fit your
criteria.'
'That's not true,' he snapped.
'Yes it is,' said Maggie, listing the last five projects
he'd been involved in. Every one of them was
a historical site, despite his political literature
claiming he was interested in saving community
landmarks irrespective of their age or architectural
beauty. 'I work in the library,' Maggie went on. 'And research is my specialist subject. We need
your help. We've a lot of press planned,' she said,
which was more or less true. Lots of newspapers
and radio stations had been contacted but nobody
was very interested yet. 'This could be a wonderful
campaign for you. At least it would stop critics
from saying you're only interested in getting your
name in the papers,' she added, thinking that a
month ago she'd never have had the courage to
say something that ballsy.
Mitchell narrowed his eyes and looked at the
telegenic redhead before him. She'd be stunning in
front of any sort of camera and she had chutzpah
too.
'All right,' he said. 'But let me deal with the
press.'
'Sorry,' said Maggie calmly, 'we'll deal with it
together. This is our campaign, remember.'
She saw a flicker of respect in his eyes.
'OK,' he said. 'It's your campaign, Ms Maguire.
You're the boss.'
Yes, thought Maggie proudly, I'm the boss.
It was nearly half past seven when she walked up
Summer Street from the park end, still running
over the meeting in her mind. She was so engrossed
in her triumph that she almost didn't notice the
man getting out of a car outside her house.
'Coming home from your car maintenance
class?' said a low, deep voice behind her. Maggie
knew it instantly. Big bear of a man with absolutely
no social skills, greasy overalls and dirt under his
fingernails. The man with the petrol sucker-outer.
She turned and stared at him. She might have
walked in her gate without recognising him if it
hadn't been for that voice. The overalls were gone
and he was dressed casually in jeans and a cotton
jumper that stretched slightly across his huge shoulders.
He
cleaned up well, she conceded. Without the
patina of garage grease, he was really rather attractive
with those sparkling dark eyes. Not her type
obviously; she didn't go in for those big men who
looked like they never went to the gym, just heaved
trucks around the garage to keep their muscles in
shape.
'No, I've given up car maintenance. I'm in
training for the space programme,' she said gravely. 'We're working on a plan to ship mankind off
Earth and leave womankind behind.'
'All men? Or just ones who work in garages
and make stupid jokes?'
'All men,' she said firmly.
'Where are we being sent?' he asked. He really
was tall. Beside him, she felt positively fragile,
which was something Maggie wasn't used to
feeling.
'Somewhere with no oxygen.'
She tried to glare at him, but it was hard, because
he was smiling at her, a relaxed smile as if he felt
utterly comfortable.
'I don't suppose you can tell me when we're
being shipped off: mankind, I mean,' he said, and
it even sounded as if he was smiling. Honestly,
what was the point of trying to be clever with
someone who glinted sexy eyes back at you and looked wildly amused. 'Except I came to apologise.
Sorry, I should have done it the day afterwards
but I thought you might be too angry to
listen to me. I wanted to invite you out to say sorry.
By the way, how much time has mankind left before
being shipped off to this unoxygenated planet?'
'You came to apologise and ask me out?' Maggie
repeated, wondering if this was another joke. 'Unless NASA has a non-fraternisation policy,'
he added, 'and you can't. For reasons of international
security.'
He was teasing her, but it was gentle and Maggie
found she quite liked it.
'Only intelligent life forms are considered a threat
to national security,' she pointed out with a hint
of sarcasm, leaving him in no doubt that she figured
he was in the non-intelligent life-form quotient.
'Well, then it'll be fine for you to go out with
me,' he said evenly. 'Next Saturday at two. It's my
cousin's wedding.'
'A wedding? You don't ask someone you've just
met to a wedding,' she said suspiciously. 'I barely
know you. I can't remember your name.'
'Ivan Gregory,' he said. 'We met at my garage.' 'I know where we met,' she said hastily. 'So,
why are you here asking me out? Did your girlfriend
dump you because of your awful practical
jokes?' Even as she said it, she knew it was bitchy
and not worthy of either her or poor Ivan. But he
took it well.
'No,' he said, 'she dumped me because of the
body odour. Every Christmas I got deodorant,
aftershave, washing powder. I think finally she
realised the message wasn't getting through.'
'All right,' said Maggie, grinning in spite of herself. 'Go on, what's the real reason? You don't turn up
at your cousin's wedding with a woman no one in
your family knows and nobody has ever heard of.'
'They're a bit mad in my family,' Ivan said, with a glint in his eyes. 'They won't mind. They'll be
astonished that a jumped-up pump jockey has a
date at all.'
Maggie flushed at that, remembering what she'd
called him before. She'd better rethink her original
evaluation. He was anything but stupid.
'Are we going to the whole wedding?' Maggie
asked. 'The church, the dinner, the whole thing? Because if we are and it's fancy, I have to tell you,
I don't do fancy. I'm more of a jeans woman.'
'I don't do fancy very well myself,' Ivan said
gravely. 'Although I was going to make an exception
in this case. Maybe buy a new pair of
overalls. But the rock chick look would be fine.'
He flicked an appreciative eye over her outfit,
which was Maggie's standard look of jeans,
cowboy boots and a peach-coloured T-shirt that
clung to her slim body and showed off the rich
russet of her trailing curls. Her new business jacket was slung over one shoulder. 'Be yourself,' he said.
Now Maggie really did laugh. 'Be yourself is one
of those things people say when they don't really mean it and they don't know what else to say.'
'No,' said Ivan, with all seriousness. 'I mean it:
be yourself. What else would you be?'
Maggie thought of all the different people
she tried to be in her life. At school, she'd tried
to blend in so nobody would notice her.
Eventually, she tried to be tough, because invisible
hadn't worked. Tough had been a good
compromise. People left you alone if you were
a bit tough.
She'd been working that whole 'don't mess with
me' phase when she'd met Grey. She toned it down,
then, becoming softer, letting her hair grow the
way Grey loved. In other words, she'd been what
she thought everyone wanted. And here was a man
who wanted her to be herself.
Well, she might as well give it a try. After all,
she had nothing very pressing to do.
'OK,' she said. 'I'll come with you. Not as a
date, right?' The new improved Maggie, chairwoman
of an important committee and worthy
foil of politicians, said what she meant these days. 'No,' agreed Ivan easily, 'not as a date.'
Maggie didn't pursue why he needed somebody
at such short notice. There was bound to be a
story in it, but she'd find out later. 'You'll pick me
up then on Saturday?'
'Your house at two?' he said.
'Done,' Maggie said, 'and I won't be wearing a hat.'
'A hat's not required.'
For a wedding she didn't want to go to, where she
was going to meet lots of people she didn't know,
Maggie found herself remarkably involved in trying
to work out what to wear. On Friday evening, her
mother sat on the bed and they went through all
the various options.
'A little dress always works,' said Shona on the
phone earlier when asked for advice, 'but then you
don't have any little dresses, do you?'
'Shona, you know my wardrobe,' Maggie said. 'The last time there was a little dress in it, I was
four. Although Mum probably still has the item
in question stuffed up in the attic, I am unlikely
to fit into it.'
'What about the bridesmaid's dress you wore
to my wedding?'
'There is that,' Maggie conceded, 'but it's very
glamorous and over the top for a man I don't
know. I can't wear that.'
'Oh God, I don't know,' groaned Shona. 'Ring
me when you're sorting through the clothes and
I'll give advice.'
'Trinny and Susannah by phone?'
'Maybe not,' agreed Shona. 'Wear lots of
lipstick, then. It'll detract from the jeans.'
'I have more than jeans, you know. I have other
trousers too.'
'I know, but unless the trousers are part of a
chic trouser suit with a matching jacket, then you're
not going to be very weddingy, are you?'
'What do you think of this?' Maggie asked her
mother, holding up a midnight-blue silk camisole,
with sparkly, fake jewels sewn on the front. A
thrift-shop purchase, it was a little worn around
the edges but Maggie liked it.
'That's lovely,' sighed her mother. 'It's pretty.
Now, what will you wear with it?'
There followed a big search through the piles of
jeans, smaller pile of black trousers and Maggie's
two skirts. One was a distressed velvet affair that
had possibly once been brown and was now mottled
and faded, in a way that was either fabulously
beautiful or totally shabby, Maggie wasn't sure
which.
'I don't know about that now,' said Una doubtfully. 'If it was fancy dress, that would be great
but ... Well, try it on anyway and we'll see.'
'Cinderella, before the transformation by the
fairy godmother,' Maggie decided, when she'd
pulled on the skirt.
'Oh, now, don't say that,' chided her mother. 'With a bit of make-up and if you curl your hair
up, you'll be the belle of the ball.'
'Mum, I think that fall affected your brain,'
teased Maggie, stripping off.
Her mother laughed. 'That's what your father
says. How would he know, that's what I say! Now
look at that lovely skirt.'
She pulled out Maggie's only other skirt, which
Grey had once urged her to buy. A fitted pencil skirt
that showed off her long, slim legs, she had worn
it only once, for the purpose of Grey removing it.
'That'd look beautiful on you, Maggie. You
never show off your legs.'
'I don't know,' said Maggie reluctantly, because
there was a very good reason why she didn't show
off her legs, which was that people would look at
them. 'Anyway, I've no tights.' What would you
need tights for if you didn't wear skirts?
'I'll get you some of mine,' volunteered her
mother, hobbling off on her crutches at speed.
Finally, there were the beginnings of an outfit.
Maggie barely recognised this slim girl in the
mirror with the long, long legs encased in sheer
nylons and the sleek skirt clinging to her hips.
A memory came to her, a harsh, bullying voice
telling her she was ugly, a long streak of misery,
like a boy. Those taunts had had their effect: for
years, Maggie had believed them. And yet now,
she looked all right, didn't she?
'I suppose a white blouse maybe?' she said, unsure. 'You'll look like a waitress,' said her mother. 'No, it has to be colour. What's wrong with the
midnight-blue camisole?'
'No,' said Maggie, thinking that she'd look
totally unlike herself then with shoulders and throat
on show as well as her legs. 'I wish I had someone
to borrow something off.'
'Pity Elisabeth's in Seattle,' said her mother. 'She
always has amazing clothes, all designer stuff too,
you know. And if you had kept in touch with some
of the girls from school, you'd be able to ring them
up and borrow clothes off them too.'
'Yeah,' said Maggie shortly. She put the camisole
back on.
'You look beautiful,' sighed her mother. 'I'll get
out my marcasite earrings and necklace for you
and Ivan won't be able to take his eyes off you.'
'He's only asking me because his date did a
runner,' Maggie pointed out, not entirely correctly.
It was what she'd said to her parents to explain
how she'd happened to be invited to a wedding
by a man none of them knew.
'Well, it'll get you out of the house and over
that horrible old Grey,' said her mother, firmly. 'The louser. If your father ever gets his hands on
Grey Stanley, well, let me tell you: we'll need bail
money, that's all I'm saying.'
Saturday morning in the library flew by. They were
incredibly busy and Maggie didn't have a moment
to mull over her pleasure that she had a date for
the rest of the afternoon. Still, it was nice to be
able to answer, 'Yes, I'm going out to a wedding,'
when people asked her what she was doing with
her half-day off.
Better than saying, 'No, I'm going to sit at home
and mope about my ex-boyfriend who bonked
someone else.' Definitely, a social life made you
feel more positive. She'd got up early and washed
her hair and even put some of that curl separator
stuff in, so that it was now lots of rippling, glossy
waves, instead of the usual faintly frizzy curls.
'You look lovely,' said Tina as they rushed about
behind the desk. 'Is your man from Galway coming
back?'
'No, actually,' murmured Maggie. 'It's a different
guy altogether.'
Tina looked impressed. 'I'm pleased for you. I
mean he seemed lovely, your man, and everything,
but . . .' she stopped.
'But what?' asked Maggie, fascinated.
'He was a bit too pleased with himself, wasn't
he? Those gorgeous fellas always are. No one will
ever love him quite as much as he loves himself.'
Maggie grinned. 'I think you hit the nail on the
head there, Tina,' she said. 'It's one thing competing
with other women, but you can't compete with
the guy himself, can you?'
'You said it,' replied Tina, in a voice that said
she knew what she was talking about.
Funny, thought Maggie, turning back to the
desk, who would have thought that sedate Tina
had a big history of men behind her? But you never
knew. Everybody had secrets and dramas in their
lives, they just didn't wear them on their faces.
Maggie had just come back from her coffee
break and was making her way back to the library
desk, when she realised with a shock that she recognised
a woman who had just walked in. Billie
Deegan, one of the bullying gang of girls who'd
made Maggie's life hell.
Billie had never been as bad as the gang leader
Sandra Brody. But just seeing her made fifteen years
drop away. Maggie felt the way she always had, her intestines literally churning with fear, her heart
thumping, her hands clammy.
Billie was holding a small boy's hand and seemed
totally and utterly oblivious of Maggie. Her hairstyle,
her expression, were exactly the same as
they'd been all those years ago when she'd swiped
Maggie's school bag and tossed it to Sandra,
laughing like a hyena as Sandra tipped the contents
over the playground.
Unable to stop herself, Maggie ducked in behind
a shelf, heart pounding, and listened.
'Now, love,' Billie said to the boy, 'we've got
to be out of the library in five minutes. Come on,
pick a book, will you? We can't be here all day,
we're going to meet Daddy. He'll go mad if we're
late, you know what he's like.' The boy stood
looking lost. 'Oh, come on now! Hurry up!'
Leaning against a shelf, knowing it was ridiculous
to feel the fear still, Maggie lived again those
four years of hell. Even now, she couldn't quite
explain how it made her feel, how frightened, how
despairing. There was a brief time when Sandra's
game was stealing and vandalising her possessions,
when she'd wondered if killing herself was an
option.
At least then she wouldn't be picked on. At least
then she wouldn't wake up on a Monday morning
with sheer dread in every atom of her being.
Sometimes now she read articles in the newspaper
about bullying. The reporters who had
written them had never been victims themselves,
she could tell. They wrote about it as if it were a
minor blip, something that occurred a couple of
hours every day and then you'd move on to another
part of your life. Those writers never realised that
the bullying became your life, took hold of it,
destroyed you.
'Maggie,' said Tina loudly, indicating the queue. 'We need you over here, sorry. I'm on the phone.'
Maggie took a deep breath and almost ran to
the safety of the desk. Automatically, she stamped
books, smiling at the children and their parents,
saying things like 'The Narnia books are fabulous.
I loved them when I was little, still reread them.'
And the children would grin and their parents
would grin even more, glad to see their kids
reading.
Tina was on the phone again, trying to tell some
woman that the Jacqueline Wilson still hadn't come
in. The queue was getting shorter, bringing Billie
closer to Maggie.
Get off the phone, please, Tina, Maggie thought
in anguish. Please get off the phone and deal with
this woman. There were two more to go before
Billie and her son now.
Peering up surreptitiously, Maggie watched her.
Yes, Billie looked exactly the same, still hard and
still with that dead-straight platinum-blonde
haircut, probably not dyed at home any more, and
the heavy eyeliner ringing her eyes into two cold
slits of muddy blue. She and Sandra had been the
eyeliner queens of St Ursula's, even when makeup was forbidden. They hadn't paid attention to the
rules, naturally: rules were for other people.
Her clothes were remarkably normal: a longsleeved
top and pale trousers, none of them ripped
or bearing a rude logo. That had been another of
Billie and Sandra's idiosyncrasies. Outside school,
they'd favoured tiny T-shirts, ripped leather jackets,
tight pale-blue jeans and high-heeled boots. The
punk slut look, Maggie's friend, Kitty, called it.
She and Maggie loved that name: being able to
call the bullies something rude. It gave them a tiny,
welcome sense of power. It was a shame when
Kitty's family had moved away.
'Now, Jimmy, give the woman your book and
we'll get out of here,' said Billie.
Maggie had no option. Keeping her eyes down,
she scanned the book number, stamped it and
handed it to the child, not saying one word.
'Thank you,' the woman said. 'Jimmy, say thank
you.'
Maggie was gobsmacked. Thank you hadn't
been in Billie's vocabulary when Maggie knew her. 'Thank you,' said Jimmy obediently.
He was eight or nine, Maggie reckoned, so Billie
must have got pregnant soon enough after they'd
left school. For a flicker of a moment, she wondered
if Billie's life had been hard at that time, then
dismissed it: Billie Deegan didn't need her pity.
'Come on, Jimmy, we'd better go,' and without
exchanging one single glance with Maggie, Billie
marched him out of the library.
There was a small stool behind the counter and
Maggie sank on to it. Only days before, she'd
spoken to Christie Devlin about laying her demons
to rest and now, here was one of the bullies in her
life. That bitch. Maggie hated her with a venom
time hadn't diminished and, yet, Billie had strolled
in happily, smiling, lively, as if she had no idea
what she'd done, what she and her mocking pals
had done to Maggie's life. How could she not
know?
'Tina,' Maggie said urgently, 'I just feel sick,
can I run to the loo for one minute?'
Tina, who had just replaced the phone, nodded.
Maggie fled to the staff toilets where she locked
herself in a cubicle, sat down on a seat and held
her face in her hands. She could feel her cheeks
burning and still, that familiar ache in her intestines.
Sandra and her cronies had always been a
cure for constipation. Rage, anger, impotence and
fury flooded through Maggie. Laying your demons
to rest was one thing but why now, why today?
Maggie had cleaned up the mascara that she had
cried down her cheeks and reapplied more by the
time Ivan arrived at the house to pick her up.
'Hello, Maggie,' he said, admiring her outfit. 'You look great.'
He looked pretty good too, all spruced up in a
suit and tie.
'Thanks,' said Maggie shortly. She had read a
book once about accepting compliments and apparently you had to say, 'Thank you, that's
lovely,' instead of 'Oh, this old thing, I've had it
for a hundred years,' or 'My boyfriend gave me
this skirt and I never normally wear it.'
They got into Ivan's car, which was suitably
Ivan, being a classic something or other. Maggie
knew nothing about cars but it had to be old, what
with the ancient dashboard and seats that looked
like they came from a 1960s art installation.
He was playing classical music, Dvofak, if
Maggie could remember anything from her music
classes, a million years ago.
'That isn't the music I pictured you listening to,'
she said.
'No?' he said good humouredly. 'What did you
think? I'd be a Guns N' Roses sort of guy, one of
those dudes who plays air guitar and dances with
his legs spread apart, shaking his head.'
As this was an accurate assessment of what she'd
thought of Ivan the first time she'd met him, she
didn't reply to that but said: 'Lots of people aren't
into classical music any more.'
'My mother taught piano,' he said. 'I grew up
with music. It lifts me.'
'My dad's the same,' she replied. 'He went through
a classical music phase. There were phases for everything.
Phases for learning about stars and phases for
learning about classical music. He's into opera too.
I quite like it as well, but not played full blast, which
is how Dad says you have to play it. His current
phase is model-making. Planes and boats.'
'That sounds nice,' said Ivan. 'I like the idea of
being a model-maker myself.'
He was easy company, Maggie thought. She
didn't have to make an effort to be scintillating or
funny. She just had to be. Sit there in the car and
let the conversation roll on, or not, as the case
may be. Ivan was quite happy to let the strains of
Dvorak glide over them. Undemanding, that was
it. Grey had been demanding, she realised suddenly.
She'd never had anything to compare him to
but Ivan was so relaxed, the contrast showed Grey
up.
'You're not quite yourself today,' Ivan said
abruptly, putting the kibosh on the judgement. 'What do you mean?' she asked defensively. 'You've been crying.'
She flipped down the passenger visor and looked
into the mirror. She'd cleaned away all the mascara,
but her eyes were a teeny bit red.
'Most guys wouldn't have noticed,' she said. 'I'm not most guys,' he replied. 'Do you want
to talk?'
'No,' she said firmly. 'I don't.'
But she couldn't stop thinking about her shock
that morning. The worst thing about it was that
she had been made to realise that she hadn't got
over being bullied, not one little bit. And that
made her conscious that the past would always
imprison her unless she did something about it.
But what?
It was a very modern wedding, although nobody
seemed to have told the majority of the guests.
The women, decked out in floral frocks, hats like
galleons perched on their heads, with fluffy feather
boas, dainty jewelled handbags and shoes in
summery colours, all stared aghast at the bridal
party who might have come straight out of Italian Vogue in their shades of cream and slate grey.
The bride wore a cream shift, so simple it looked
as though Maggie herself could have run it up on
her mother's old Singer machine, although it was
so stylish the label undoubtedly proclaimed it as
a piece of designer art from a Milanese atelier.
The groom wore a Nehru-collared suit in slate
with his groomsmen similarly attired and the
bridesmaids wore slate-grey shift dresses, with tiny
posies of cream roses.
'Very hip and trendy,' Maggie said, trying to
find the right thing to say.
'Where are the frills?' a woman in the pew
beside her was wailing. 'What's the point in getting
married if you can't have frills and flowers and ... look at that for a bouquet, one hopeless flower.
Desperate, that's what it is.'
The bride indeed carried only one flower,
although Maggie wouldn't have called it hopeless,
but she had never been a fan of those birds of
paradise blooms. It looked like a plant that had
somehow eaten a passing bird.
'Well, it's what they wanted, obviously,' she said
to the woman beside her.
'You're very diplomatic,' said Ivan. 'I hate it.' 'I didn't think you had any interest in high
fashion at all,' she teased him. 'I thought your only
cosmetic interest would be in whatever miracle
product you use to get the grease out of your hands
after a day in the garage.'
'You mean after a day of honest, hard labour?'
he said, holding up hands that were spotlessly
clean.
Without thinking, Maggie took one of them to
examine it. 'How do you manage that? If I do any
painting or anything in the apartment, I'm filthy
for days. You can't get stuff like that off your
hands. What do you use?'
'Trade secret,' he murmured, 'but I might be
prepared to reveal it to the right person.'
She dropped his hand quickly.
At the reception, they were at a table made up
of various cousins, which included Ivan's brother,
Leon, who looked a lot like Ivan, although Leon
had more of a wolfish look to his face, as if he
might pounce at any moment.
'Where has my big bro been hiding you?' he
said to Maggie.
'Leave her alone,' said Ivan, goodnaturedly. 'Leon's always wanted everything of mine,' he
added to Maggie. 'Trains, toy soldiers, whatever.'
She was about to say, sharply, that she didn't
belong to Ivan, therefore it was immaterial whether
Leon wanted her or not, but for some reason she
didn't. Instead, she talked to the cousin on the other side, a seventeen-year-old boy who'd brought along
his girlfriend but who was clearly desperately shy,
amidst all these idolised big cousins.
It was a wonderful day. Maggie normally
enjoyed weddings about as much as she enjoyed
twenty-four-hour migraines, but this one was
different. Despite the bridal party stylefest,
everyone else at the wedding was comfortingly
ordinary. Most people were out to have fun - a
few mad uncles throwing shapes on the dance floor,
somebody grabbing the mike from the DJ to belt
out 'Fever' off key and a gaggle of wildly sophisticated
young girls, dancing together, looking horrified
at the carryings-on of the older generation.
'Appalling!' Maggie heard one of them mutter. 'What will people think?'
'Were you like that once?' Ivan asked Maggie,
watching her watching the girls dancing.
She was startled: she hadn't realised he was so
close to her. People had moved seats after the meal
and she'd turned hers so that she could look at
the dance floor, which meant that she didn't really
have to talk to anybody.
'No,' she said, caught off her guard. 'I was the
ultimate uncool girl.'
'Really?' he said. 'Yeah, really,' she said.
'What about you?' she asked, just to shift the
subject slightly.
'It seems so long ago, I can't remember,' he
said thoughtfully, and Maggie figured out it had
probably been great for him. People who didn't
remember generally had enjoyed good school
days. The awful stuff you didn't forget.
He added, 'I'm a few years older than you,
thirty-seven next birthday.'
'Is your biological clock ticking then?' Maggie
asked wickedly. 'Well, that's what thirty-six-year-old
women get asked, it seems only fair to return
the compliment.'
'I'm a mechanic,' Ivan said gravely. 'If anything
starts ticking, I fix it, you know that.'
He persuaded her up to dance, but she only said
yes because it was a fast dance, one where they
could move without touching.
Not that there was something wrong with Ivan. In fact, there was absolutely nothing wrong with
him from the top of his cropped dark head to his
surprisingly elegant leather shoes. She was sure
plenty of women longed to be in her place and
she'd seen a few eyes cast enviously in their direction
during the day. Well, they could have him, no
matter how gorgeous he was. He wasn't for her.
She didn't want any man.
'I hope you enjoyed yourself,' he said that night
as he dropped her home.
They sat in the car outside her house, the engine
growling while Maggie picked up her small
handbag from the floor. 'Yes, I did. Thank you for
asking me.'
'I wondered because you seemed to be in another
place a lot of the time,' Ivan said gently. 'I hope
everything's all right. If there is anything I can do
to help . . .' His voice trailed off.
Maggie felt embarrassed that he'd noticed. 'I'm fine,' she said. 'Sorry, I didn't mean to spoil
the party.'
'You didn't spoil it,' he said, smiling at her, those
dark eyes glinting under the streetlights. 'You were
lovely, they all liked you.'
'Who are they?' she asked.
The smile turned wolfish, like Leon's had been,
and she could certainly see why the envious looks
had been cast in their direction all day. When he
smiled like that, sexily, Ivan was pretty irresistible.
'All my relatives. They were watching you
surreptitiously. You didn't happen to see the big
notice board in the hall with people giving you
marks out of ten on performance, deportment,
dressage '
'Stop it,' she said, laughing. 'OK then, how did
I score?'
He appeared to think about this. 'Pretty good
from all I hear, although there was some talk about
the fact that you didn't throw your arms around
me or kiss me enough. Or that we didn't dance
any slow dances together.'
Maggie felt embarrassed again, this time for a
different reason. 'We weren't going as a couple,'
she reminded him, although she felt strangely
pleased that he might have wanted this.
'I know that,' he agreed, 'but you can't stop the
relatives talking, can you? Any woman who appears
on the horizon, they're hoping I'll slip a wedding
ring on her finger. And don't forget, as you've
pointed out yourself, my biological clock is ticking.'
'Oh, shut up, Ivan,' laughed Maggie and she
leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, her lips
brushing the faintest hint of stubble. 'I'll talk to
you soon,' she said, and got out of the car.
He didn't drive off until she'd opened the door,
stepped inside and waved at him from the lit
hallway. He was a gentleman, he hadn't tried to
pounce on her, he behaved exactly as he said he
would behave, she thought. She liked Ivan and, as
Faye said, she could do with a friend. But for the
moment, she told herself firmly, as she got ready
for bed, that was all.
CHAPTER twenty-three
The night before she went to see Carey Wolensky,
Christie cooked the most beautiful dinner for her
husband she had ever cooked in her life. She put
everything into it that he loved, along with herbs,
carefully tended from her own garden, and thirty-five
years of love, affection, kindness and gratefulness.
As she cooked, Tilly wound herself around
Christie's ankles, clearly in one of her 'pet me, pet
me' moods, making little whimpering noises occasionally.
Christie bent and stroked the dog's pansy soft
head many times. She adored Rocket but had
to admit that Tilly was, ever so slightly, her
favourite. Tilly loved Christie above everyone else
in the world and there was something so very
wonderful about any creature who loved you with
that unconditional love.
She felt a little like a white witch cooking up a
spell of love in her kitchen with her familiar,
gorgeous Tilly, weaving in and out of her ankles,
and her modern cooker in place of the kind white
witch's fireplace. Was she cooking up a meal to
ask forgiveness for what would happen afterwards
or to ward off anything bad happening at all?
Christie didn't know which.
'Wow, that all smells amazing,' said James,
coming downstairs and dropping his report on the
kitchen table. Going over to the cooker, he put his
hands around Christie's waist and leaned over her
shoulder, giving her a gentle kiss on the cheek,
before peering down to see exactly what she was
making.
'Is that roast vegetable soup?' he said. 'I love
that, but you said it's such a pain to make.' 'No, I didn't,' said Christie, 'it's just a little timeconsuming,
that's all. I felt like making soup today.' 'Absolutely,' agreed James, leaning over a bit
further so he could inhale the rich scent, 'and why
not. It's a gloriously hot, sunny day and roasted
vegetable soup is exactly the sort of thing I had
on my mind tonight.'
'Brat,' she said, laughing. 'I cook you one of
your favourite things and you don't appreciate it.' 'I'm teasing,' he said. He moved away, stifling
a large yawn. 'I'm wrecked. If we don't get this
report finished soon, I'll retire early, I'm telling
you.'
He sat down in his usual seat at the kitchen
table and picked up the newspaper which was
folded at the crossword.
'I got most of it done earlier but I'm stuck on
eleven down,' he said. 'I'm having a mental block - it's
the name of that Nathaniel Hawthorne novel:
Hawthorne's red message, the clue is ...'
'The Scarlet Letter,' said Christie faintly, thinking
of Hester Prynne forced to wear a big red A on
her chest as a sign of her adultery.
'Ali, that's it!' James said. 'Thank God I married
a clever wife.'
'Yes,' she said. How did people do it - conduct
full-blown affairs without dying of pain and guilt
and shame? It was beyond her.
She had set up a table outside in the garden and
they ate on the terrace with the dogs at their feet,
the scent of Christie's flowers mingling with the
scent of the food. After the roasted vegetable soup
came dressed crab, another of James's favourites
and a rarity in the Devlin house because crab was
expensive and Christie didn't like to buy it dressed,
preferring to do it herself. It was cheaper but there
was still a lot of palaver about it.
'You're not leaving me are you?' joked James,
when pudding arrived and it turned out to be creme
brulé, his absolute, all-time favourite.
'No,' said Christie, managing a smile. She'd
recovered her equilibrium somewhat thanks to two
glasses of lovely wine. 'I just can't wait for the
exams to be over and life can go back to normal.'
'So this is the almost-the-end-of-exams party?'
James teased.
'Yes,' Christie replied, as if it had all been
perfectly obvious. 'And can I not cook you a beautiful
meal without there having to be a reason?' she
demanded. 'Are you implying I am such a slatternly
housekeeper that you have beans on toast
every night, unless I'm running off with the
milkman?' There, she'd made a joke about it.
'No darling, sorry,' James said. 'I didn't mean
that at all. You're amazing, you know that? I
always think you're an amazing woman, Christie,
and I hope I say it often enough - after thirty-five
years it's easy enough to forget to say it, but you
are. It was a lucky day, the day I met you.'
'Oh, stop,' she said, afraid she might burst into
tears.
'No, I mean it,' James said gravely.
When dinner was over, they sat in the garden
for a while, talking, finishing the bottle of wine,
watching dusk darken into night. Then they cleared
up and went up to bed. Christie loved their
bedroom. As a child, she and Ana had shared a
cold hard little room with bare walls because their
father hated nails knocked into the walls in case
they damaged the plaster. So nothing could ever
be hung to offset the pale-blue gloom. There had
never been any money for furbelows, either, so the
curtains were basic bits of cloth to keep the light
out, and the furniture did nothing more than hold
clothes. There was no beauty, no piece of art just
for the sake of it, like a pretty vase or a picture.
By contrast, this room was a comfortable, beautiful
room full of lovely pieces with no use whatsoever
except to be looked at, like the driftwood Christie
and James had found on a beach in Connemara
thirty years ago and hung on one wall, or the vintage
fan that dangled from the mantelpiece as if just left
there by some elegant lady of the past.
Dominating this bower of lovely comforting
things was a huge bed, where Christie had sat with
her sons and James, all cuddled up in the mornings.
It was where she'd lain with baby Shane and
breast-fed him, Ethan sitting on the bed, playing
with his toys, grumbling about not getting enough
attention sometimes. Other times, he'd tried to
cuddle up on top of Shane and Christie, making
her laugh and making baby Shane squeal in
outrage. And in this bed, she and James had made
love countless times over the years.
James was very laid-back about decor and had
always left it up to Christie, saying he hadn't
minded whatever she did. Now, the room was full
of rich autumnal colours, with a huge patchwork
spread in rust, copper and old gold made up in
satins and velvets swathing the bed. Tonight, they
pulled back the covers, sank into the sheets and
James pulled her into his arms. Christie had never,
or rarely, felt like crying when she made love.
Sometimes the intensity of the moment would make
her eyes well up afterwards as they lay there and
she thought of how wonderful it was, that perfect
closeness from being with someone you loved. But
tonight, every caress, every kiss, every erotic touch,
made her long to cry with the meaning of it all.
Because this might be the last time she and James
ever made love.
When he traced a line down from her neck to
the softness of her breasts - once so full and high
and now, a lifetime and children later, lower, less
firm, but just as beautiful in his eyes, or so he
always said - she felt as if she would start to weep
and not stop. As he kissed her, she felt the unbearable
poignancy of doing something she loved and
might lose. The last kiss, the last caress, the last
time his familiar body entered hers. She knew
the noises James made when he climaxed, the same
way she knew her own face in the mirror, the
same way she was sure he knew the small sounds
she made in passion.
And then they held each other, and the tears
came. She couldn't help herself, she couldn't hold
them back. She'd been holding everything back all
evening, thinking everything was the last time.
'Darling, are you all right?' asked James. 'I'm fine,' Christie said, her face against his
shoulder, their bodies still joined. 'I'm fine, just,
that was so beautiful.' And they lay there, holding
each other until eventually she could hear her
husband's breathing getting heavier and she knew
he had fallen asleep.
She slipped away from him gently, so as not to
wake him, and went into the bathroom to clean
her face and wipe away the ravages of the tears.
Looking in the mirror, she saw a woman who had
everything and didn't deserve it. In that moment
she hated herself. Sometimes, the ordinary and the everyday was
boring. When she was younger, Christie used to
long for the extraordinary, something different to
happen in Kilshandra, something to shake them
all up and make life thrilling.
Yearning for excitement was definitely for
young people, she decided, as she closed her door
the next morning and looked out across Summer
Street to the park. Once you had tasted extraordinary
and the dangers it brought, you longed
for the familiar and you thought how precious
that was.
Today, she yearned for the mundane because
today, she was going to see Carey Wolensky.
She walked more slowly up Summer Street than
usual because she was wearing high heels. Against
all her better judgement, she had decided to show
off her still-good legs in high shoes and her figure
in a wrap dress that clung in all the right places,
with a necklace of larger-than-life pearls that hid
the creping at her throat. She wondered if he'd
think her beautiful still or would he think that
time had been very cruel.
'Hello, Christie, how are you?' yelled Una
Maguire from her front garden where she was
directing operations, with Dennis on his knees,
weeding. Poor Dennis hadn't a clue about the
garden, Christie knew. It was only sheer love of
his wife that had him out there at all, poking
around in the earth with all the vision of a
mole.
'Where are you off to? Into town shopping?' 'Yes, shopping,' said Christie, because after all
she was dressed very grandly for such an hour on
a Monday. If it wasn't for the height of her heels
and the silky sheerness of her stockings, a person
might have thought she was on her way to see her
bank manager, but no bank manager merited such
a slinky outfit.
'How's your leg?' Christie paused outside Una's
gate, not having the time to go in, but wanting to
be sociable.
'Not so bad now. Before you know it, the cast
will be off and I'll be a new woman.'
Would she? Christie wondered, getting that sense she had before of Una's bones as fragile and lacy,
instead of strong and firm.
'You should take care of yourself, Una,' she
said, sternly.
'Oh, I have Dennis to take care of me,' Una
said happily. 'Don't I, love?'
Dennis nodded enthusiastically.
'How's Maggie?' asked Christie, because she
knew that Maggie was the person who did the real
taking care of in that house.
'She's in good form, you know,' Una said. 'Very
busy with the committee. You wouldn't believe all
she's organised - publicity, an official complaint
to the council and they're getting legal advice too.
It's all go.'
Christie waved goodbye to the Maguires and
headed past the cafe, which seemed unbearably
comforting and homely this morning. Wouldn't it
have been nice if it was a normal day, before all
this had happened, when she could sit there, eating
a scone, chatting with people, thinking about her
nice, safe simple life ahead of her? Life before
Carey had come back.
Christie did not frequent many of the city's
grand hotels, but her very presence was commanding
enough, so that when she walked into
Carey's Hotel, a stately block that overlooked the
best square in Dublin, people looked up.
'May I help you, madam?' The young woman
at the desk inclined her head graciously, like minor
royalty greeting somebody.
'Yes, I have a meeting with Mr Wolensky,'
Christie said coolly, hoping she looked like some
important art dealer, rather than a woman with a
past. 'Mrs Devlin,' she added, with a regal nod of
her own. Christie didn't play games but she didn't
suffer snubs either.
'Oh, yes, Mr Wolensky's waiting for you in the
Maharajah Suite. Shall I get somebody to show
you up?'
The receptionist's attitude had changed at the
mention of Carey's name. Clearly he was just as
good as he'd ever been at knocking pretension
out of those around him, although he probably
did it with money and power now, when once
he'd done it with charisma and sheer animal
presence.
'That would be good, thank you.' Christie said.
as if every morning of her life involved being shown
into the Maharajah Suite.
A young uniformed man escorted her up five
floors in the lift and into an ornate corridor where
they passed several doors bearing the names of
long-dead dukes and countesses before arriving at
the Maharajah Suite. A second young man opened
the door and brought Christie into a huge drawing
room, decorated in the eastern style.
'Tea, coffee or would you prefer something else?'
he asked.
'Coffee please,' Christie said, thinking that this
was getting even more bizarre.
She sat on the edge of a fat, bronze-coloured
armchair with her coffee in her hand and looked
around. It was an opulent room full of plump
brocade cushions, rich dark splashes of fabric and
vast creamy candles that had never been burned.
It all screamed money, good taste and phenomenal
success. What a different life Carey had led
to hers.
And then, a door to the right opened and he
was there in front of her.
'Hello, Christie,' he said and his voice was just
the same, with the same power to thrill her, but
his face was different.
He'd aged too. There was no Dorian Gray
portrait in his attic. He was still tall and vibrantly
alive, but now the dark hair was streaked like a
magpie's with brilliant white and his face was
craggy, with heavy lines where there had been smooth skin, and he had a sadness about him that
spoke volumes.
'Hello, Carey,' said Christie, thinking how stupid
it sounded. Twenty-five years of waiting and at
least six weeks of having panic attacks about this
very moment, and the best she could manage was 'Hello, Carey.'
'It's a beautiful room.' She got up and walked
over to the window, to give herself something to
do. She didn't really see the streets below her.
'You haven't changed,' he said. His accent was
still the same: deep and dark, the Polish edge as
strong and caressing as ever.
Christie turned around when she judged it was
safe to do so. 'Of course I've changed, Carey. I'm
older and wiser and so are you, I hope. So tell me,
tell me about your life.'
She sat down on one of the Louis XIV chairs
as if they were ordinary old friends meeting up after many years to chat happily about acquaintances,
times past and the fun they used to have.
If she kept it at that level, then the conversation
might stay there, might never stray into the terrifying
territory of love, lust and passion.
'You're talking to me strangely,' he said, sitting
down opposite her. 'What is this chatter? How are you?' he said, 'like we were strangers.'
'You know that was always one of the annoying
things about you, Carey,' she said, 'you always
refused to play the games, the games other people
played.'
'You mean like pretending that we are just old
friends, who mean nothing to one another?' he
asked. 'You're right, I never played the games, and
I still made it.'
'You made it because of your talent,' she
retorted. 'It was nothing to do with your rudeness.'
'If
speaking the truth is rude,' he said calmly, 'I'd prefer to live my life that way, not to lie, not
to push the past away, like you're doing.'
'Well, that didn't take long,' Christie said and
realised she'd spoken out loud. 'We're four minutes
in each other's company and already all the facade
is gone.' And she smiled at him, because it was
impossible not to.
'That is one of the things I liked about you,
Christie,' he said. 'You were not good at pretending
either. You tried to be, but you were not good.'
'No,' she said quickly, 'I wasn't good at the
pretence. Carey, why did you come back?' she said
abruptly, and that was the right thing to say because
it was what she'd wanted to know.
'I came to have an exhibition here, you know
that.'
She searched his eyes for answers. Years ago,
he'd been good at hiding what he was feeling, but
now Christie was older and wiser, she felt she'd
be able to discern what he was really thinking.
'No, you didn't,' she said suddenly. 'Tell me the
truth, why did you come?'
'I came to see you,' he said.
She'd known that was what he was going to
say. She had never forgotten him and it seemed
that he'd never forgotten her either.
'Oh, Carey, Carey,' she sighed, 'I told you a
long time ago that you had to go away, for my
sake, for both our sakes.'
'I just wanted to see you,' he said gently, 'to see
what you looked like now, to see if you still had
the power you had over me. And you do, it seems.
You've seen the paintings?'
It was a question and she nodded.
'They're you, you know, all those paintings, my
dark lady.'
'I'd worked that out,' Christie said carefully, 'and it frightened me, because I was afraid everyone
would know and would guess it was me.'
'I never showed your face,' he said.
'I know, thank you. I was always grateful for
that.'
'I could have, you know. I could have shown
your face and broken up your marriage and you
would have come to me.' There was real pain in
his voice for the first time and Christie wanted to
hold him and comfort him, but she knew she
couldn't. She had never been able to touch him
without feeling that flood of wild passion surge
through her. It was a thing apart, a feeling she'd
never been able to control. He was that other part
of her, the fierce, wild side. And she'd had to give
him up.
Now she picked up her coffee cup again. 'It
would never have worked, you knew that. You
didn't want a wife and two children tagging around
behind you. That's not the life of an artist. And I
had to think of my children first. I wanted my
sons to know their father. If you and I had been
together, they wouldn't have known James, not
properly, and they wouldn't have had you either.
Quiet family life was never your destiny. Your only
mistress is your art.'
Sadness flitted across his face.
'That was true once,' he admitted, 'but it
wouldn't have been the case if I'd had you. I loved
you more than art, I could have given it up for
you.'
'And made yourself unhappy not doing the thing
you loved just so you could be with me? How
would that have felt after a few years? You'd have
resented me for ever,' Christie said. 'There was
only one solution, Carey, you must see that,' she
begged.
There was a long pause, a pause filled with all
the what-ifs that two people can contemplate over
twenty-five years.
'Why did you come here this morning,' he said, 'if this is all you want to say to me?'
'I came,' Christie said, and it was hard to say
now that she was here, but she had to bury the
ghosts, 'I came because I wanted to end it fully,
to say everything I never said before. I needed
to make sure that you didn't have the power
or the desire to hurt me or my family because of what happened a long time ago. That's why
I'm here.'
'Do you want a drink?' he said, and got up to
move to a sideboard behind them, where a full
bar was laid out with proper crystal glass decanters.
Not your average minibar for him, Christie
thought.
'No,' she said, 'thank you. I don't want
anything.'
He fixed himself something dark and amber coloured
in a tumbler, then another for her and
laid it in front of her without saying a word.
'You followed my career?' he asked.
'No,' she said, making a hopeless attempt at
pretending she had never thought about him when
there were times when he'd filled her thoughts to
the exclusion of everything else.
'You're lying,' he said, sitting down opposite
her again, leaning forward. 'I could always tell
when you were lying. There's a faint flicker of one
of your eyelids, it's a giveaway: a tell, they call it
in poker. I play poker now, you know.'
'Is this your poker face?' Christie asked and it
was like a fencing match, him parrying, she keeping
him back.
'No, this is not my poker face, but you have
followed my career, haven't you?'
'Yes, all right, I have. I teach art, you know
that. I couldn't teach art, talk to my students
about modern art without mentioning Carey
Wolensky.'
'But,' he interrupted, 'you never talked to them
about the dark lady and who she is?'
'Oh, for heaven's sake,' Christie said with irritation
and, unthinkingly, picked up the glass of
whiskey and downed half of it. It burned her throat
as it went down. But there was something about
that harsh violence hitting the back of her throat
that brought her to her senses and stopped her
playing a game with him. 'How do you think I'm
going to tell schoolgirls I teach that I'm the dark
lady, that the woman who stands there naked in
every bloody picture was me? Do a lot for my
teaching career, that would, not to mention what
it would do for my marriage.'
'I like you better when you're angry,' he said,
sitting back and smiling at her, looking relaxed
for the first time. 'You're too passionate to hide
it, Christie. We would have been so good
together.'
'No, we wouldn't,' she said. 'I have too much
and I couldn't give it up and you know that.' 'I'm sorry,' he said, and she knew he was sorry
because of what might have been. 'I needed to
see you again, just one last time. I wanted to talk
to you, look at you, remember you. I have pictures
you know, but pictures don't have warmth and
their eyes don't shine. I had to rely on my memories
to paint you. And you must admit, my memories
were good, the pictures look like you, don't
they? Did your husband ever notice?'
'He never noticed,' she replied. 'He's not interested in art and I thank God for that, because
I love him, I always loved him.'
'If you loved him,' Carey asked, 'then what
happened with me?'
It was a question that always haunted her how could she love James, adore Ethan and Shane
and then risk all that to be with this enigmatic
man in front of her? There was no answer to that
question. It was like asking why did the rain fall,
why did the sun shine? It just happened, and she'd
been swept along in the moment, a moment she'd
been paying for ever since.
'Women aren't supposed to be able to love two
men,' she said, 'but that's not true. I loved James
and I loved you. You were a door into another
me, a Christie who was wild and had nothing to
hold her back. Except I had two little boys and it
wasn't a simple choice of you or James. I had to
choose my family and I don't regret that. I'm not
trying to hurt you, I'm explaining.'
She was determined to explain to him how hard
it had been walking away from him but that it
had been the right thing to do, and that she'd been
so happy with James and her sons. Because the Christie who'd loved Carey was like a person from
another world and she'd had to bury that person
deep inside her and carry on with normal life.
She looked at Carey, remembering all they'd
shared, remembering the passion he'd brought up
in her, remembering how she'd touched his face
in the past and thought she'd die if she didn't have
enough of him. She had to put it all behind her
now and move on.
'In another world, Carey, in another life, you
and I could have been together,' she said.
She got up and sat beside him, not feeling any
danger from the closeness now. He didn't have the
power to hurt her. She had made her mind up to
say what had to be said. She was older and wiser
so that any magnetism, any passion that there had
once been between them, was now gone. And she'd
paid for that bliss a million times over.
She touched his hand and she was astonished
to find that his skin wasn't the warm, vibrant
thing she'd remembered, but felt old and papery
and thin, like he was sickening, as though he was
older even than he was in years. It confused her,
but she couldn't see it properly. What was hiding
there?
'I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt you, Carey,'
she said. 'I never meant to lead you on, to make
you think we had a future, when we didn't. That's
why I came to meet you, not to look back and
think weren't we fabulous and wonderful, because
I felt guilty every day of my life for what happened.
I paid for our time together. Adultery has a price
and it's too high, believe me. I want to put it behind
me. Can you understand that?'
His other hand reached up to touch her face
and she closed her eyes as his fingers traced the
bones, stroked her cheekbones, her jaw, the hollows
of her eyes, the curve of her lips, the way he'd
once touched her until she thought she'd scream
with desire.
'You're still beautiful,' he murmured. 'No matter
what age you are, you will always be beautiful
because it's in your soul and I think that's what
drew me to you, Christie: your soul, your goodness
and your wisdom. I missed you all this time
we were apart. There have been many women and
they all look like you, strange, no? But none of
them was you. So that's why I came. Yes, I have
an exhibition here but they ask me to have exhibitions
everywhere, I can say no, I have the
power. But I wanted to come here, one last time,
to see you.'
'Why do you keep saying "one last time"?' she
asked. There was portent behind his words and
suddenly, with a shock, she knew.
'Can't you tell?' he said, half smiling. 'You have
Gypsy sight after all. I'm sick. I shouldn't be
drinking.' He laughed. 'I shouldn't be doing
anything. I shouldn't be flying. The doctors didn't
want me to. But I can keep going on and the drugs
are good. Medicine has moved on so much.'
She didn't want to ask what was killing him. 'How long do you have?' she said, evenly. 'Months, they think months. I don't know,
maybe not so long, but I want to make my peace
before I go. That's why I had to see you. I didn't
come to destroy your world, I came to say
goodbye.'
'Oh, Carey,' she sighed, taking his hand from
her face and holding it tightly. 'Were you happy?
Did you have a good life?'
'Yes,' he said, 'I did. I didn't have you and for
a long time you were all I thought about, but an
artist needs something to drive him, doesn't he?
And you inspired my best work. You gave me so
many things, Christie.'
'You gave me things too,' she said. 'You made
me see that I could still feel passion. You made
me see how much I loved my husband and my
children,' she added frankly, 'and I know it probably
hurts you to hear that, but that's the truth.
So you gave me a huge amount and I've never
forgotten you.'
'It's good then that we had this chance to say
goodbye,' he said, and, suddenly, he was formal
again.
Christie put her arms around him. Now she
could feel the frailness of his body, hidden under
the beautifully cut jacket. He was dying, she could
feel it, every part of her sensed it, and it might
not be long. He didn't have months at all, and he
knew it, knew she'd know it too.
'Don't pity me,' he said and he laid his lips
against her forehead to give her a cool, dry kiss. 'Please don't pity me, I would prefer you remembered
me the way we were.'
'I understand,' she said, and she did. She got
up.
'I have a small present for you,' he said. 'It may
be nothing you can ever show anyone but I wanted to leave it to you. A bequest, that is the word,
isn't it?' He handed her an old cardboard box,
large and unwieldy. 'Someone will help you out
with it. Goodbye, Christie,' he said and he turned,
but not before she could see the glitter of tears in
his eyes. He left the room and shut the door behind
him.
In the lift down, Christie stared at the box that
the bellboy held carefully. She didn't want to open
it here. She waited until she got into a taxi and
the bellboy had placed the box reverentially on
the back seat beside her. Then she carefully
removed the lid. On top was a wrapped package
that contained a small artist's sketchbook, like a
writer's notebook, full of pencil drawings and charcoal
sketches, cartoons for paintings, ideas,
thoughts that had occurred to him. It must have
been the sketchbook that Carey had used when
they'd met.
The first few pages were full of his trademark
drawings and then the pages were pictures of a
woman, who could only have been Christie, her
face obscured, her body the one Christie knew
well. These were the sketches for his Dark Lady
paintings. The masterpieces painted by a genius
whom the world would mourn when he was gone.
She turned page after page, each more beautiful,
interesting, alive than the rest. Some were just
pencil, others charcoal, and yet more, coloured in
with subtle pastels. It was an incredible gift. The
second package was a small canvas, a scaled-down
version of the most beautiful of all the Dark Lady paintings. The dark lady was again lying on a divan,
in a painter's studio, but in this one her face was
not hidden. Her face was alive with love and it
was clear she was looking at the artist. Christie gazed at it, thought of Carey and what he meant
to her and what was going to happen to him now,
and she cried.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Maggie loved the silence of the library. Ever since
she'd been a child, and her father had explained
why libraries were special places where you had
to whisper, she'd loved the fact that the only sounds
to be heard were muted whispers and the gentle
rustling of pages.
'It's quiet because all the books are sitting on
the shelves, snoozing quietly as they wait to be
picked,' Dad had said, 'because being picked by
you is the start of an amazing adventure for them.'
She'd told that story to a small group of children
only that morning, and they'd stared up at
her, wide-eyed, just as enthralled as she'd been by
the idea of silently waiting books.
'Spot was waiting for me?' asked one small girl
with glasses and a mummy-cut hairdo, who sat
holding one of the Spot books on her lap.
'Yes, Spot was waiting for you!' Maggie said,
thrilled at being able to pass on the message to a
new generation.
'Wow,' said the little girl in awe. 'Wow,' agreed the other children.
Maggie was sitting in the small staff room having
her morning coffee and talking to Shona on the
phone about the children when another call came
through on her mobile.
'Hold on a second, Shona,' she said. 'I'll be right
back to you, OK?'
It was Ivan.
'How's it going?' he asked in his calm way. 'Not bad,' said Maggie. 'I'm at work, you know.' 'I know. You have your coffee break between
half ten and a quarter to eleven, don't you?'
'I do,' she said, fascinated that he'd remembered. 'I wanted to ask if you'd come to the cinema
with me tonight.'
'Tonight?' 'Yes, tonight,' Ivan repeated. 'I know that's probably
bad form in the big book of women's dating
techniques, and I'm supposed to give you a week's
notice and you're supposed to come up with four
other possible dates because you're washing your
hair, having your legs waxed, going out with your
girlfriends, seeing other men. But you know me,
I'm simple. I thought it might be nice to go to the
cinema tonight.'
Maggie had to laugh. 'You're unique, do you
know that, Ivan?' she said.
'It has been said before,' he replied, 'although
not always in a complimentary way. My grandmother
says I speak as I find.'
'I hate that expression,' Maggie said. 'It's the
sort of thing that horrible fathers in gothic novels
say when they're alienating people left, right and
centre. But sure, I'd love to go to the cinema tonight. I have no hair-washing or waxing plans.
What will we go to?'
'I don't know,' he said. 'How about I pick you
up at about seven and we'll decide then?'
'Great,' she said, pleased. 'See you then.' 'Sorry,' she said to Shona when she clicked back
on to the first call. 'That was just Ivan asking me
out to the cinema.'
'Just Ivan asking you out to the cinema?' said
Shona. 'Is this the same big lug of a mechanic
person with dirt under his fingernails who took
the mickey out of you with the petrol-sucking
machine and who made you so angry that you
were keen to hire a contract killer to bury him
with the fishes?'
'And who took me to the lovely wedding. That's
exactly the guy,' Maggie said, laughing. 'I've
cancelled the contract killer, by the way. They
refused to do a two-for-the-price-of-one deal with
Grey included, so I said no. Seriously, though,
Ivan's nice when you get to know him. He's got
a great sense of humour. It just happened to be
working overtime the day I met him.'
'I'm teasing you,' Shona added. 'Go for it. Go
out with this fabulous Ivan and bonk his brains
out in the back of the cinema. Tell me, does he
own the garage or does he work for someone else?'
'Shona, you are appalling,' Maggie said. 'I'm
not interested in him that way, he's just a friend.
And there's more to life than money, you know.'
'People who say that type of thing are generally
not in full control of their senses,' Shona
pointed out. 'Money may not be everything, but
it sure helps, and if you're miserable, you can be
miserable in comfort.'
'Besides,' Maggie interrupted, 'I'm not in the
market for a man. And rebound relationships are
always a mistake and never work out.'
'Dr Phil, right?'
'You're incorrigible,' laughed Maggie. 'No,
that's Maggie Maguire advice.'
Maggie was on until half past six that evening, so
she had to race home from work.
'Hi, Mum, hi, Dad,' she yelled, rushing in the
door and sprinting to her room to change out of
her work clothes into her most comfortable jeans.
'Where are you going in such a tearing rush?'
Dad yelled after her.
'Out to the cinema with Ivan, you don't mind
do you?'
'Not at all,' said her father. 'Oh, the man arrived
today with the posters about the park. Your mother
has them, she's very proud of them. She keeps
saying "to think I designed these myself". A very
talented woman your mother.'
Maggie ran a comb through her hair and considered
putting on some lip gloss, then thought better of it. There was no need, Ivan was only a
friend. She spritzed on a bit of perfume and ran
to the kitchen where her mother was indeed
admiring the posters. Above a line drawing of the
park gates, which Una had traced from a picture,
were rousing words about saving Summer Street's
heritage from the developers.
'It's part of your community, help save it!' ran
the bottom line. They looked good. Nobody would
be able to resist, Maggie thought.
Harrison Mitchell was actually being useful and
had given her the contact numbers for a couple of
journalists who were interested in campaigns like
theirs. She was meeting one of them at lunchtime
tomorrow in the park and they were bringing a
photographer.
'Don't they look great?' said Una happily. 'Fantastic,' agreed Maggie. 'This will make the
councillors sit up and take notice.'
'What film are you going to see?' asked Una. 'I don't know,' said Maggie, 'doesn't matter. It'll
be nice to see a film. I haven't been to the movies
for ages.'
'He's a nice fella, isn't he, Ivan?' said her mother
idly.
'Now, Mother, don't start that,' warned Maggie. 'He's just a friend.'
'I know, love,' said her mother quickly. 'It's nice
to see you happy.'
Ivan's stylish car drew up outside.
Maggie grinned, kissed her mother on the cheek,
snagged a banana from the fruit bowl and gave
her dad a hug as she ran out the door. It was true,
she was happy. Odd that, when just a few weeks
ago she'd felt as if her heart was breaking.
Something was healing her, although she didn't
know what.
'We could go to the multiplex, if you like,' said
Ivan, as they stood in the foyer of the tiny local
cinema where they had discovered that the three
latest releases were fully booked. The only film
with any seats available was a classic French film,
with subtitles.
'Well, maybe we'll go to the French one, what
do you think?' Maggie said, thinking that if she'd
been with Grey, the French film would have been
their original destination. Grey had no interest in
films with popular appeal. The more populist they
were, the less he'd like to see them. An old French
film with subtitles would top his list.
'Whatever you like,' said Ivan easily.
That was the nice thing about having Ivan as
a friend, he never tried to push her into anything.
And he was so comfortable in his own skin that
he didn't need to prove his intelligence by his movie
choice.
'I don't have the energy to go into town. Let's
try the French film,' suggested Maggie.
'If that's what Mademoiselle wants, then that's
what she shall have.'
He went up to the counter to pay. 'No, let me,' insisted Maggie.
Ivan glared at her.
'Or at least let me pay half,' she pleaded. 'I asked you out, so I'm paying.'
The cinema was only half full and they found
two seats right in the back row.
'I always love the back row,' whispered Maggie. 'You feel sort of naughty, as if you're going to get
into trouble for sitting here when you should be
down the front under the head nun's beady eye.'
'I still think you must have been a holy terror
in school,' Ivan teased.
'I wish. Butter wouldn't have melted in my
mouth,' said Maggie.
They were old-fashioned comfortable seats and
somehow Maggie found herself leaning on the arm
rest that separated her and Ivan, so that her
shoulder was squashed against his. And finally, Ivan put his arm around her and pulled her closer
into him, which felt absolutely natural. And
Maggie, the person who kept insisting that they
were just friends, found that she liked it very much.
Don't think about it, she told herself. Just enjoy
Then, somehow, when Ivan moved his other
arm around to touch her face and turn it towards
his, it seemed like kissing him was the most obvious
thing to do and Maggie turned her face to his and
their lips met. Suddenly they were kissing, passionately
and hungrily, and who cared about the film? Who cared if anyone saw them in the darkened
gloom of the cinema? They kissed wildly, Ivan's
hand in her hair, sliding down to caress her neck,
stroking her collarbone, reaching down to the softness
of her shoulders and further, until finally, he
said, 'I don't want to see this film, do you?'
'No,' she muttered, pulling her mouth away
from him. 'Let's go.'
They held hands and ran to the car park. As
he drove, Ivan steered with one hand and left the
other big hand on Maggie's jean-clad leg, stroking
gently, making her feel intensely excited. It was
odd: until a few moments ago, she'd seen him as
a friend, and now, in a flash, it was like a curtain
being pulled down to reveal a totally different
picture and he wasn't a friend any more. He was
a man, a sexual, charismatic man and she wanted
him. The intensity of the want frightened her.
The car pulled into a lane a few streets away
from home and Ivan parked outside a small mews
house. He took her hand again as they went inside
and she barely had time to register what the inside of
the house was like, noticing a giant fireplace with
open brickwork and bare floorboards, before he
had pulled her upstairs to a huge bedroom that
seemed to take up the whole of the upper floor, an
enormous low bed dominating it.
Then they were half sitting, half lying on the
bed and Ivan was tearing her clothes off as she
tore his off with fervour. His mouth found hers,
as if he couldn't bear not to be kissing her.
And for the first time in her life, tall Maggie
Maguire felt like a small fragile creature beside this giant of a man, who touched her lovingly, as
if she might break. It was that, that and the tenderness
and the love in everything he did to her, that
made her melt.
Afterwards, they lay coiled together in bed and
Ivan gently stroked the small scars at the top of
her thigh.
'We should go to French films more often,'
Maggie said lightly.
'Don't.' Ivan held a finger up to the softness of
her lips. 'Don't make a joke about it,' he said. 'You do that when you're unsure?'
She nodded.
'I love that you're so funny,' he added, still
holding her close to him. 'You make me laugh,
but I don't want you to need your defence mechanism
around me, I want you to be yourself, not
to joke about the things that matter.'
'I'm sorry,' she said, turning around and propping
herself up on her elbow, so that she could
look down on him. She ran her fingers through
his close-cropped hair lovingly. She didn't think
she'd ever get enough of touching him. 'I can't
help it. I always think that if you make people
laugh they don't see what you're really thinking
or they don't see that you could really be in pain.'
'I know,' he said. 'I saw that in you the first
time I met you.'
'You did?'
'And I wanted you the first time I met you,' he
added and the growl in his voice made her feel
faint with longing again.
'But you teased me,' she protested, and he
laughed then and pulled her close to kiss her on
the lips.
'I'm sorry,' he said gently, his lips against her
cheek. 'Seeing you gave me such a jolt, I wasn't
thinking straight. All I know is that I wanted you
from the moment you came into the garage. I knew
I'd have to wait though.'
'What if I hadn't wanted you?' Maggie asked.
Ivan smoothed her hair back from her forehead. 'I'd have waited,' he said. 'I'd have waited a very
long time for you, for ever in fact.'
It felt odd waking up in a strange bed in the
morning, but only for a moment. Beside her lay
Ivan: large, muscular and warm, one arm flung
over her body. Even in sleep, he was holding her
close. Maggie knew you shouldn't compare, but
she couldn't help it: Grey liked to sleep in his own
space, on his side of the bed, and she did the same.
Except last night, she and Ivan had slept curled
together, drawing comfort from each other. She
wriggled against him, loving the feel of his warm,
hard body against hers. And it was hard, definitely:
a certain part very hard. She wriggled closer
still.
'I wouldn't do that, unless you like making love
in the morning,' came a low, sleepy voice.
Maggie moved a sliver closer, feeling herself
grow warm inside, adoring the power she had over
him. Just her touch seemed to inflame him.
'I warned you,' he murmured, and then, like a
great bear rousing himself from sleep, he swiftly
moved till he was pinning her down on the bed,
grinning at her, his face covered in dark stubble,
his eyes glinting.
Maggie reached up and pulled his face down to
hers, eagerly. 'I thought you had someplace to be
this morning?' she teased as he rested his weight
on his elbows, the lower half of him holding her
to the bed, hard evidence that they weren't going
to be getting up for a while.
'It can wait,' Ivan said huskily and lowered his
mouth on to hers.
Ivan's bathroom was typically male with cream
tiles, a bath he clearly never used because he had
the last word in power showers, and a mirrored
cabinet that contained nothing but shampoo,
shower gel, shaving foam, toothpaste and mouthwash.
'You've
got no stuff in your cabinet,' teased
Maggie, rooting through, trying to find something
that might remove the remains of her mascara.
There wasn't even any male moisturiser. Grey had
as much in the moisturising and sunblock line as
she had and borrowed hers if he'd run out of Clinique for Men.
'Would you prefer if I had a ton of women's
stuff in here?' Ivan demanded.
'No, but you must have had other women here,'
she added, trying to sound diffident, and failing
utterly. 'Go on, tell me,' she said. 'We're modern
adults, we need to know everything about each
other. I've told you about Grey.'
'I'd quite like to hear more about Grey, actually,'
Ivan said, a muscle tautening in his jaw. 'Oh no, you don't.' Maggie shook her head.
Grey was the past, a never to be revisited place. 'Yes, I do,' Ivan said. He'd had his shower and
wore only a small towel tied round his waist as
he began shaving. He looked great, tautly muscular
and just as wantable as he'd been minutes before.
Maggie wished women could look as effortlessly
good as men the morning after. She had panda
eyes and blotchy skin from not taking off her makeup
and needed a shower cap before she could
shower as she didn't have her hair paraphernalia
there to stop the wild auburn frizz.
'Grey was a part of your life for a long time
and I want to know it's over, properly over.' 'Of course it's over,' Maggie said quickly. She
didn't want to talk about this, it was too soon for
her two worlds to collide. The new improved
Maggie and the old, stupid one.
'But Ivan, your past is a mystery to me. When
you took me to your cousin's wedding in the first
place, nobody mentioned any special person you
were supposed to have taken,' she said. 'Did you
train them all to keep their mouths shut, because
I can't believe there's really been a drought on the
girlfriend front lately.'
Once she'd admitted Ivan's fierce attractiveness
to herself, it was obvious that he was the sort of
man who'd appeal to women. However, Ivan was
a hard man to get to know. He was quiet, intense
and very private. Few women would get past his
outward face, to see the man underneath. The kind,
gentle man who was an incredible lover.
'There have been a few women in my life,' he
said, 'but very few of them got to leave their toothbrushes
over.'
'You don't like sharing your bathroom?' Maggie
asked lightly.
'Up till now, no,' he said. 'I think I'm changing
my mind about that.'
She grinned, took his toothbrush from the holder
and began to brush her teeth.
'Nobody's ever used my toothbrush before,' he
said, watching her.
'So this is a first,' she teased. 'Yes,' he said, 'this is a first.'
She'd wrapped a towel around herself and
stripped it off to climb into the shower.
'Show me your thigh,' he commanded abruptly.
The night before, his fingers had touched one
of the pale scars on the top of her left thigh and
she'd muttered about the car crash - the same
story she'd given Grey when he'd seen the marks.
But this time, in the bright light of his bathroom,
he looked at them more carefully.
'Sit down.'
Gently, he made her sit on the edge of the bath
and knelt in front of her. Maggie wished she had
something to hide her thighs but she had nothing.
Her wounds were laid bare. They were ragged
scars, not deep, not ever having required stitches,
but they'd left their mark. There were many of
them, uneven marks that would never fade, like a
barcode scratched into her soft skin.
'It was a car accident,' she repeated.
Ivan's fingers traced the marks.
'These scars don't look like any accident,' he
said. He looked up at her, his fingers still touching
the scars. 'What really happened?'
'I don't want to talk about it,' she said, anxiety
blooming.
Ivan put two strong arms around her waist and
locked them behind her back, pulling her closer to
him. 'I want to know all about you, Maggie
Maguire,' he whispered, kissing her face, 'every inch
of you, every inch of your head, so tell me the truth.
Tell me, where did you really get those scars?'
It had all started so innocently on her first day at
St Ursula's, when she'd arrived full of excitement
and enthusiasm at being in big school. She and
the other first years had spent the morning being
shown classrooms and meeting their new teachers.
It was a busy and interesting day, learning where
everything was, getting used to which lessons
would be in which classrooms.
The group of girls were waiting to be told where
to go next when it happened.
'Hey, lanky, what's your name?' asked a girl
with fair hair, a little freckled face and eyes that
made her look older than twelve.
'Maggie Maguire,' said Maggie eagerly, not
seeing the word lanky as derogatory.
'Big Maggie, huh?' sneered the girl, and the small
group surrounding her laughed.
Maggie had laughed too, half out of nervousness,
half to show that she wasn't offended. 'Sandra, you're a panic,' laughed one of the
gang. 'Big Maggie - that's classic.'
A teacher had arrived at that moment and
corralled the first years into their classes.
The next morning, Maggie was in early, determined
to be ready for this exciting new world.
She was sitting at the front of the class for
English, her first lesson, shyly saying hello to other
girls, when Sandra and her cohorts strolled in. 'Big Maggie's up the front of the class,'
announced Sandra. 'You're a swot, are you, Big
Maggie?'
Sandra walked past Maggie's desk and, in one
swift move, shoved Maggie's neatly arranged textbooks
on to the floor. 'Oops. Sorree,' she said
insincerely, and the gang laughed.
Her face crimson and tears burning in the back
of her eyes, Maggie bent to pick up her books,
hoping somebody would stand up for her or flash
her a sympathetic glance. But nobody did.
Everyone was too scared.
Maggie wasn't the only one of Sandra's victims.
There were several more, and as the years went
on, the bullying ebbed and flowed. Maggie found
if she got to class after Sandra, and ran out of the
door before her, then Sandra didn't bother to follow
her.
She became adept at rushing everywhere and
trying to be invisible at times like lunch or break.
They even ruined netball for her. When she was
alone, she loved the touch of the ball on her hand,
the thought of springing it from long fingers into
the hoop. But as soon as the bullies were in the
background, taunting, teasing, making snide
remarks, her hand-eye coordination fell apart. 'Oh
yeah, look at No-Tit Maguire, screwed it up again,'
Sandra would say.
Ever since she'd tried to make her flat chest
look bigger, Sandra had swapped the Big Maggie name for No-Tit Maguire. Maggie pretended she didn't care and ignored her.
'You're nothing but a long streak of misery,'
was another of Sandra's taunts.
In her more charitable moments, Maggie liked
to think that maybe Sandra had lots of problems
and that's what made her so hard and cross with the world. That was often what was wrong with
people in the books Maggie read: when they were
nasty, they were suffering really and they just took
it out on the heroine, so that could be the answer.
But after a few years of unrelenting nastiness,
she didn't want an excuse for Sandra or her gang
any more, they were just bitches. Kitty, the nearest
thing that Maggie had to a best friend in school,
had no interest in the theory that Sandra's life was
hard, which was why she took it out on other
people.
'She's just a cow,' Kitty said, vehemently. Kitty
was small, very clever, wore glasses and lived in
the purdah of plumpness, which meant she was
Sandra's ideal target.
Brains was the only obvious link between
Maggie and Kitty but the two girls became united
in terror. They had agreed there was no point telling
anyone about it. The teachers knew what Sandra
was like, they couldn't control her either, or the
gang, so it wasn't as if people didn't know.
But nobody seemed able to do anything, not even
that time in third year when it emerged that Sandra
had been taking money from the first years. Nobody
knew quite how that had been brushed under the
carpet, but it had. Sandra had been off school for
two days and then she was back and just as bad
as ever, without even a flicker of remorse. In fact,
she and her cronies seemed worse now, as if their
leader had got into trouble and had walked free,
so they felt they had nothing or nobody to fear.
The first and second years stayed out of their
way. People in third year, Sandra's year, didn't have
that option.
'Why do adults insist on that rubbish that your
school days are the best days of your life?' Kitty
said. 'They're not, they're horrible, I can't wait to
get out of this place, away from those lowlifes.'
At least Kitty could talk about it at home. She
had an older sister who was now at college and
understood that being small, bespectacled and
clever wasn't the route to popularity in school,
and comforted her, but there was nobody Maggie
could tell. Mum and Dad were so thrilled to see
her fabulous reports.
'Look, five more As and an A+. You're
amazing. Where did we get such a brilliant
daughter, Dennis?' her mum would say delightedly,
when the report cards arrived in Summer
Street.
The reports always guardedly mentioned that
Maggie was quite shy and needed to come out of
her shell a bit too, but Maggie knew that her
parents couldn't quite see this because the Maggie
they knew at home was funny and merry. She could
see them working it out: this classroom version of
their daughter was the one who worked so hard
she got A+. That must be why only they saw the
bright-eyed Maggie at home. In class, she was diligent,
that was it.
She didn't know how to tell them that when
she got home she merely felt weak with relief at
having got school over for another day.
Telling them about Sandra, about how she didn't
know if she could cope much longer, would have
seemed such a failure. Sunday nights were the
worst. From about four o'clock on, Maggie could
feel her mood sink lower and lower.
Getting her bag ready for school, making sure
she'd done all her homework, getting a clean
uniform blouse ready, she felt like a French aristocrat
climbing into the tumbrel.
She could never sleep on Sunday nights. She'd
lie there in her bed, looking up at the stars on her
ceiling, wondering if there was intelligent life on
other planets and if there was, what did they do
about bullying?
The production of The Playboy of the Western
World in Maggie's fourth year brought matters to
a head. At St Ursula's the fourth years - because
they weren't doing state exams that year - put on
a play in an attempt to help them understand the
work of the great dramatists. There were sixty girls
in Maggie's year and among the twenty-five or so
with ambitions to be world-famous actresses, there
was huge competition for the big parts in J.M.
Synge's classic.
Maggie, who loved English and had adored
the play the first time she'd read it, would rather
have had an arm removed without an anaesthetic
than get up on the stage and act. So she was able
to stand back and watch the fights that went on
in drama class. The play would be performed at
Christmas with all the funds going towards a
charitable concern.
'I want everyone to be involved,' insisted Miss
O'Brien, the drama teacher, a woman who felt that
public speaking was a great skill for any person
and simply couldn't understand why everyone
wasn't clamouring to be involved. 'It will be so
much fun,' she said, her eyes shiny with emotion, 'the excitement, the glamour. Now, Maggie, you
could be one of the people who help the actresses
learn their lines, you're so good at English and
you love this play. That'd be a fabulous job for
you.'
'Oh, no,' said Maggie instantly, 'I couldn't.' Her
school career had been spent trying to slip into
the background and she'd learned that hiding was
the best form of defence.
Finally, the enthusiastic Miss O'Brien persuaded
Maggie and Kitty and a few of the other quieter
members of their year to help with the scenery for
the play. The stars of that year's art classes were
going to paint the scenery, but a few more people
were needed to put it together, hammer in nails
and be general dogsbodies.
'Maggie, I thought you would want to be more
involved,' said Miss O'Brien sadly when Maggie
agreed to work on the scenery but not help anyone
learn lines. 'A sense of community is vital. I'm
disappointed in you.'
Maggie said nothing.
She liked Miss O'Brien. It would have been
lovely to sit down and tell her the truth.
Miss O'Brien, you don't understand. I'd love
to be doing something with the play, but Kitty and
I have safe places we can go to at break and
lunchtime to hide from Sandra. We'd be sticking
our necks out working with the actresses. Some of the gang are in the play and they would make
our lives miserable.
Instead she said none of this, she just looked
steadily at the teacher and Miss O'Brien studied
the blank face that Maggie had perfected.
'Well, if you don't want to use your talents,
that's your loss,' she said and sniffed to show her
disapproval. 'You could do much more than be in
the background.'
Working on the scenery proved to be quite enjoyable
and there was a certain satisfaction to be had
in cutting up the enormous cardboard boxes they
had been given to help create the kitchen floor.
Kitty, Maggie and a few other girls had been
provided with Stanley knives to do the work. As
sharp as craft knives and much stronger, they
ripped into the cardboard easily.
'Now, be careful,' Miss O'Brien warned. 'I don't
want anyone cutting off a thumb or anything.' 'No, Miss,' said Kitty gravely. 'We'll be careful,
we need our thumbs.'
The only person who hurt themselves was
Maggie. She wasn't sure how she'd done it, but
cutting towards herself, instead of away as they
had all been taught, she'd managed to make a big
swipe along her thigh. The knife cut right through her uniform skirt and made an indent, a bloody
indent, into the skin of her thigh.
'Ouch,' she cried.
'Shit, what have you done?' yelped Kitty.
Maggie pulled up her ruined skirt. Her leg didn't
look too bad. There was a sliver-thin stripe of red
with beads of blood emerging, like a red crystal
necklace, along the rip. And bizarrely, this intense
physical pain was manageable. It hurt but she
could see the hurt, not like the hurt inside her that
nobody could see.
'I'll take you to the school nurse,' said Kitty. 'No, I'm fine, I'm fine,' said Maggie. 'It's OK,
really. I'll put loo roll on it, it'll be OK.'
She ran off to the loo, still holding the Stanley
knife. Sitting in a cubicle with the door locked,
she hesitated before making another slice in her
thigh. God, it hurt, but at the same time, it felt
... good. She could control this pain. The fierce
intensity of the physical hurt took away the pain
in her head. This was centred on her leg. She was
in control of it and that roar of control surging
through her was like a blessed relief from all the
hurt. She'd cut herself and let the hurt drip out.
Who cared if she was marked or cut? Nobody
cared. She'd do it again and feel the power of
control over her life again.
Nobody noticed when the Stanley knife went
missing. Nobody knew it was in Maggie Maguire's
bedroom and that sometimes, not every night,
because she couldn't do it every night, she cut small
marks into her thigh. Over the months, there was
a criss-cross of them: red raw and looking like
she'd been flayed on one thigh. But nobody saw,
she made sure of that. It was easy enough, who
was going to see her with her clothes off?
Sometimes the wounds really hurt, stung her
and she wondered whether they were infected. So
she bought surgical spirit and doused her whole
thigh in it, wanting to scream with the pain, and
yet, that pain was good too, hurting her like everything
else was hurting her. That knife became a
symbol, the one bit of control she felt she had over
her life.
The night of the dress rehearsal, Maggie and
Kitty were waiting in one of the big rooms behind
the stage when Sandra and her cronies came in.
They were all allowed to wear ordinary clothes
and Maggie was dressed in her favourite jeans and
boots with a simple fleece. One of her legs was
faintly bulkier than the other because it was bandaged
up, though nobody else would have noticed.
Her thigh throbbed all the time. There were so
many cuts in it. But she didn't care, the pain made
her feel stronger.
'Hello, No-Tit Maguire. Is this what you call
fashion?' sneered Sandra, who was done up like
a dog's dinner in the best schoolgirl hooker look
money could buy. Her hair was platinum blonde
now and her eyes were hard blue bullets in a ring
of eyeliner black as hell.
Maggie's leg throbbed. She had her knife in the
pocket of her fleece. Carrying it gave her a strange
courage. She clenched her fingers around it now,
feeling the rage well up. Then she felt herself fall
over the edge.
'Fuck off, bitch,' she howled in feral tones and
stood towering over Sandra, her face suffused with
anger. She ripped the knife from her pocket and
flicked the blade a few notches up so it glinted its
dull metallic sheen.
Sandra's eyes widened.
'Don't come near me or Kitty again or I'll make
you fucking sorry,' hissed the new Maggie.
And Sandra, confronted by someone who was
no longer going to lie down and be kicked, backed
off.
'Yeah, whatever,' she said.
'Not whatever, you fucking bitch!' Everyone
heard the roar and watched, openmouthed.
Maggie advanced, rage burning in her head. 'Say
it. Say it or I'll make you sorry. Say you'll never
come near us again, never bully anyone here again,'
hissed Maggie and there was no mistaking her
determination.
'I'll keep away, right? Calm down, right?' And
Sandra, who had enough cunning to know how
to save her own skin, backed off for ever.
'Mad fucking bitch,' she muttered from a good
way away.
The bullies left and there was utter silence in
the room, before Kitty went up to Maggie and
took the knife from her.
'You weren't acting, were you?' she asked,
putting an arm round her friend and maneuvering
her into a chair.
'No,' said Maggie, weak now.
'You'd be up for an Oscar if you were,' Kitty
remarked. She neatly reversed the knife so the blade
was sheathed. 'I wouldn't blame you for carving
Sandra up into little pieces but she's not worth the
hassle. If one of you has to end up in jail, I'd prefer
it to be her.'
Maggie managed to laugh. 'I can't believe I did
that,' she said.
'But I'm glad you did.' Kitty laughed.
A voice from the corner of the room spoke up: 'I'm glad you did too. She's made my life hell for
years.'
'And the meek shall inherit the earth, if that's
all right with the rest of you,' joked Kitty.
Everyone laughed and the tension was broken.
Maggie looked up into Ivan's eyes. 'Do you think
I'm a nutcase now?' she asked, anxiety flooding
through her now that she'd actually told him the
truth.
He smiled. 'I think you're the bravest woman
ever,' he said. 'I'm so proud of you. That took
huge courage.'
'Not really,' she said. 'It was more like madness,
really. I just flipped.'
Ivan's hands touched her leg again. 'You don't
do this any more?' he asked gently.
She shook her head. 'Without her hassling me,
life was easier, better. I felt ashamed about cutting
myself and I stopped it. I never told anyone,
though. It seemed so stupid. I began to like school
and she left at the end of that year. The relief! The
gang of bitches were never the same without her.
They were still nasty, but never to me or Kitty.'
'My warrior princess,' he said, hugging her. 'You
vanquished your enemies.'
'I thought so,' she said, 'but the day of your
cousin's wedding, one of Sandra's gang came into
the library and I thought I was going to be physically
sick. It all came back to me, Ivan, the fear,
the terror. It was like being a kid again.' Her voice
wobbled and his embrace tightened.
'They're the fear I haven't exorcised,' she went
on. 'Like my leg, they're scars that won't go away.' 'They'll go away with time,' Ivan reassured her. 'No, I have to face them. Christie Devlin says
I probably have to face Sandra to get her out of
my head. She's right, you know.'
Ivan pulled her to her feet and looked stern. 'If
you go near those women, I'm going to be with
you,' he said. 'Let them try and bully you with me
there.'
Maggie hugged him, burying her head in his chest. 'Thank you, but no. I have to do this on my own.'
Gossip central on Summer Street was the minimarket
where the surly owner, Gretchen, ruled
supreme. Gretchen's daughter Lorraine, the one
who was married to the rich French pilot, and had
been at school with Maggie, had been in Sandra
Brody's gang. If anybody knew of Sandra's whereabouts,
it would be Gretchen.
So that evening, for the first time ever, Maggie went to Gretchen's checkout on purpose. She might
not have had the courage to do it had it not been
for the afterglow of a successful meeting with the
reporters.
'Hello, Maggie,' Gretchen said, with the air of
a cat who had a mouse's tail trapped between her
paws. 'How are you?'
'Great,' said Maggie cheerfully. She was ready
for tough nuts like Gretchen now.
'How's Lorraine?' she asked idly.
'Fabulous,' said Gretchen, seeming slightly
surprised that Maggie would ask after Lorraine. 'And does she still see Sandra Brody?' Maggie
continued.
'Sandra McNamara, you mean? Not really, I
mean you know Lorraine is living in the South of
France now . . .'
'Yes,' interrupted Maggie, not wanting to hear
Gretchen's boasting all over again. 'But they were
such great friends in school. Their gang did everything
together, didn't they?'
Gretchen looked shifty for a moment. 'Well,
Sandra was a bit wild really, wasn't she?'
'Wild?' said Maggie, acting surprised. 'In what
way was she wild?'
Gretchen looked even more uncomfortable. 'Oh,
you know, she was a bit of a bad influence, we
were all glad when she left St Ursula's.'
'What sort of a bad influence?' went on Maggie,
feeling as if the tables were turned and she was
the grand inquisitor.
'You know, leading girls on, getting them into
trouble. My Lorraine was always a good girl, but
when she was with Sandra, well, you never knew
what they'd get up to.'
Maggie looked Gretchen straight in the eye. 'Actually,' she said coldly, 'I do know what they
got up to and you're right, it wasn't very nice at
all. Does Sandra live around here now?'
'She comes in from time to time,' Gretchen stammered
and for once it seemed as if she didn't want
to talk. She began scanning Maggie's groceries with
an unaccustomed speed.
'And has she changed, do you think?' Maggie
asked. 'Is she still wild?'
'She has children of her own and she's settled
down, wouldn't that change anyone?' Gretchen
said, whisking through the groceries. 'So she's different?'
'You might say that.' 'What does she do?'
'I don't think she works. She's got small children
and the husband has a good job, I hear. That'll
be seventeen euros and eighty cents.'
Maggie counted out the money. 'Do say hello
to Lorraine for me, won't you?' she added. 'I'm
sure she'll remember me.'
'Eh, yeah, yes, yes, of course,' said Gretchen.
Maggie walked down Summer Street towards her
house with her shopping in two bags. She'd made
progress. She'd found out that Sandra's reign of
terror hadn't been a big secret, that people had
known about it. Maggie had spent so many years
wondering whether she had been paranoid, exaggerated
the whole thing to herself, that she felt
vindicated now to find out that Sandra Brody's
actions hadn't gone unnoticed, that other people
had seen what she was. It was just that nobody
had done anything to help the people like Maggie.
This knowledge didn't make her feel even more
upset or betrayed, it made her feel stronger. Having
horrible old Gretchen admit that Sandra had once
been a vicious little bully had given Maggie the
key to her own freedom. She hadn't been at fault,
Sandra had been, and now, she was going to
confront Sandra about it. The past was not going
to keep Maggie Maguire in its stranglehold any
more.
The phone book had the answer.
Tony and Sandra McNamara lived a few miles
away on a new housing estate.
Maggie wondered what Sandra McNamara was
like now. Could she still reduce people to quivering
wrecks with one nasty look? Did she still
smoke and flick her ash at other people? She'd
burned Maggie a couple of times with a cigarette,
always pretending that it was accidental. Once on
her leg, once on her knuckle, there was still a faint
mark from that. At least those scars were surface
ones. The marks on her thigh were Sandra's marks,
hers as if she'd made them herself, with her own
penknife. Maggie would carry those scars till the
day she died. But it was time to heal the scars on
the inside.
'I'm going out, Mum,' Maggie called to her
mother. 'If Ivan phones, say I'll be back soon.' 'Fine,' came her mother's voice from the kitchen.
Maggie hopped on the bus that would take her
past the McNamaras' road. Sandra and Tony
McNamara lived at number 13 and when Maggie
walked up to the gate with her head held high,
she noticed there were two cars parked in the
driveway. One, a standard people carrier with a
baby seat in the back.
Children. Imagine Sandra having children of her
own! Imagine if they were there when Maggie
confronted her. There was no way she wanted to
hurt the kids - it wasn't their fault their mother
was a cow. Maggie faltered at this proof that
Sandra Brody was more than an evil presence from
her past. She was a person after all.
She stood on the pavement outside, trying to
summon up the courage to go to the wooden door,
when it opened and a man appeared. Instantly,
Maggie turned and fled up the street, her heart
thumping.
She didn't want confrontation with anyone else.
A husband who might have no idea what his wife
had once been like. Her heart pounding, she walked
home, feeling ashamed.
That night, Maggie lay in her childhood bed in
the house on Summer Street and stared up at the ceiling. The events of the past couple of months
ran through her head. Betrayal and misery had
taunted her, yet she'd got through it. Incredibly,
she hadn't been flattened by it all. If anything, she
felt stronger and happier now because she'd taken
back control of her life.
It seemed very obvious to her now: she'd been
stuck in victim mode for so long that she'd
forgotten how to take control. Being a victim was
easier as you could blame everything on other
people. Taking control was frightening as it meant
things might go wrong and you mightn't be able
to handle them. But then things went wrong
anyway. So why not face the fear, and take control?
The following morning, Maggie sat in her parents'
car on the road outside Sandra McNamara's house
and waited until Sandra returned from the school
run. She'd left twenty minutes ago with three children,
and now she had just one small boy with
her. Maggie walked over to where Sandra was
taking the child out of his car seat.
'Hi, Sandra, remember me?' said Maggie pleasantly.
Sandra
turned. She was still blonde but her hair
was shorter now, and the heavy eyeliner was
absent. She wore no make-up, and looked pale
and plain in an unflattering sweatshirt and jeans. 'No,' she said. 'Sorry.'
It was uncanny how she sounded the same. She
looked different, but she sounded just the same.
'You honestly don't remember me, do you?'
Maggie said.
'Remember you, should I?'
'We were in school together, St Ursula's, until
you left after fourth year.'
There was no crash of cymbals as realisation hit
Sandra's face, no triumphant chorus as she stared
at Maggie in dismay. Her expression was blank.
'Sorry.' She shrugged. 'I don't remember.'
And she meant it. She really had no idea who
Maggie was. When the crash of cymbals hit, the
noise was inside Maggie's head instead. The girl
who had tormented her and made her life hell had
no recollection of it. Which meant that people
often did horrible things randomly and didn't
remember them.
'Do you live round here?' asked Sandra politely. 'I live on Summer Street,' Maggie said. 'I've been
away for a few years and I'm back now. I'm trying
to catch up on old friends, and people like you. I
was one of the quiet ones at school and you were
the leader of the bullies.'
Maggie could see the dawning of comprehension
in Sandra's eyes.
'We were all a bit crazy then, you know,
teenagers,' Sandra said.
'No,' insisted Maggie. 'It wasn't just a bit crazy,
it was nasty and horrible.'
'I mean we all went through phases where we
weren't very nice, teenagers can be little bitches,'
protested Sandra.
'I wasn't,' Maggie said. 'I wasn't a little bitch,
but you were so horrible to me I hated going to
school. I used to feel sick thinking about it. No,
that's not right - it's not that I hated going to
school, it's that I was frightened of going to school.
You made my life a misery for years. Do you have
any idea what that feels like?'
Sandra shut the car door, leaving the little boy
in his seat.
'Listen, lady, I don't remember you, right, so
go.)
'Maggie Maguire, that's who I am.' 'Oh.'
Maggie could see Sandra staring at her in horrified
recognition. Maggie knew she looked so
different nowadays. Everyone said she was beautiful.
Today, she allowed herself to feel it and stood
tall in front of this woman.
'I knew you'd remember,' she said. 'No-Tit
Maguire, you called me. It's funny you not recognising
me when I'll remember you for ever. You
made me feel so scared of going to school, which
is something so normal you're supposed to do every
day of your life without bother. But you ruined it
for me. Your nastiness affected every part of my
life, did you know that?'
She didn't want an answer. In a way, she wasn't
even talking to Sandra any more, she was finally
voicing how she felt all those years ago. Sandra
just happened to be there: an ordinary, fraught
woman who was the one looking trapped now.
Maggie realised that meeting your demons head on
meant you could see they weren't the huge,
dark monsters of your nightmares, but just stupid,
pathetic people who'd had power at the time and
had used it against you.
'I'm sorry, OK?' Sandra said. 'I know I was a
bit of a pain when I was in school, I had lots of
problems and I took it out on other people, but
please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for whatever I did.
Now, just go. I don't want anyone overhearing
this.' She looked around at her neighbours'
windows, clearly anxious that someone might
witness this strange meeting.
Maggie smiled inside, thinking that Sandra must
have calmed down if she wanted to fit in with the crowd.
'Worried what the neighbours will think? You
never worried in the past. Have you reinvented
yourself as a nice person now? Do you go to coffee
mornings and pretend to be an ordinary mum?'
Sandra flushed.
'Guess I hit the nail on the head,' Maggie said,
looking Sandra coolly in the eye. 'I've one question:
how can you say sorry to me, if you don't
remember what you did to me?'
Sandra remembered, Maggie was sure of it. 'What would you do now if somebody bullied
your children?' she went on. 'How would you
react if they came home from school and said they
were terrified because someone was picking on
them?'
'I wouldn't stand for it,' growled Sandra with
a hint of her old menace.
'Oh, you wouldn't stand for it?' interrupted
Maggie. 'You'd march into the head teacher's office
to complain, would you? That'd be pretty hypocritical,
given how many people you bullied in
school. Would that make you realise how much
you hurt me and all the other kids you bullied, if
you had to watch it happen to your child? That
should be the punishment for bullies, seeing their
own families getting bullied.'
'Look, I can't talk now,' said Sandra, looking
harassed. 'Can I make it up to you? Can we meet
for a cup of coffee and talk and ...'
'I don't think so,' said Maggie. 'I've said what
I wanted to say. I guess I'm lucky enough to have
the courage to stand up to you. I'm sorry I never
had the courage when I was at school, except that
one time.'
'I'm sorry, just go, go!' Sandra said. She
wrenched open the car door and fumbled with her
little boy's car seat straps.
'Bye, Sandra,' said Maggie coldly. There was no
need for her to stay. She'd said what she wanted
to, had given Sandra McNamara something to think
about. Maybe she'd toss and turn in bed at night
from now on, remembering the people she'd hurt.
Then again, maybe she didn't have the ability
to see how much damage she'd done. Incredibly,
her only worry was what if the neighbours overheard.
Maggie walked back to her car. She'd never been
the sort of person who liked confrontation but
nineteen years of bottling something up did strange
things to a person. She'd faced Sandra. She'd had
the courage to coolly say all the things she'd wanted
to say for years. And it felt good.
Maggie drove out of the estate and headed for
home. At the bottom of Summer Street, she parked
and took out her mobile phone.
She dialled Ivan's number, thinking that only a few
weeks ago, the person she would have wanted to
ring was Grey. Except that if she was still with Grey,
if her whole life hadn't come tumbling down, she'd
never have reached this moment in the first place.
Besides, Grey hadn't known about her past. In
five years, she'd never been able to tell him the
secret Ivan had instinctively known was there in
a few weeks.
Ivan was busy, she could tell from his voice
when he answered his phone. But when he realised
it was her, his voice softened.
'Hello, Maggie,' he said.
He didn't call her babe or honey or any of the
things Grey called her. Ivan used her name. 'What's up?'
'Just wanted to say hello,' she said. Then, 'You'll
never guess who I just met.'
There was a beat.
'Not Grey?' said Ivan, strangely uptight. 'No, no,' said Maggie. 'Sandra, the girl at school,
the girl I told you about.'
'And did you say anything to her?' he asked
softly.
'Yes,' Maggie said and she felt proud of herself,
proud for standing up for herself. 'I did.'
When she hung up, Maggie thought back to her
school days. Except, today, it all felt different.
Resolved. She'd faced Sandra Brody with courage
and learned two lessons. First, she hadn't been the
perfect victim - she'd just been in the wrong place
at the wrong time. And secondly, the past could
only ruin your life if you let it.
Sandra wasn't important any more. Maggie had
faced her and won. The real challenge was letting
the past go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Could you ever truly know somebody you loved?
Could you ever know what went on in their minds
when they lay in the dark beside you under the
covers?
Those questions filled Christie's thoughts in the
hours following her last, emotionally charged
meeting with Carey.
As a child growing up, she'd watched her parents'
marriage and known that she'd wanted exactly the
opposite of what they had. There had been no real
closeness between her mother and father, no knowledge
of each other's inner thoughts and dreams.
Her father bullied his way through life and
treated his children like bonded servants, there to
do his bidding.
Christie's mother lived inside her head, not
coming out for any of them. It was her survival
technique and while Christie could understand it,
her mother's mental retreat had made life lonely
for her children.
So Christie had watched them, utterly separate
and yet bolted together in marriage. She knew that
she wanted something different.
That's what had made her marriage to James
so special - closeness, respect, honesty. She shaved
her legs and bleached her upper lip in front of
James, let him know when menstrual cramps used
to plague her and let him rub her knotted belly.
She'd put her arms round his shoulders when he
had the vomiting bugs he was prone to catch,
steadying him as he threw up, wiping his face with
a cool face cloth.
He'd seen her give birth to their two sons, and
it hadn't diminished his desire for her, as some of
the books said it might. He'd seen her cry a thousand
times and knew which scenes in films and
books made her upset and knew that she loved
white roses above all other flowers.
Yet despite her craving for utter honesty, there
were parts of her mind that she kept to herself:
the parts that related to Carey Wolensky.
She'd tried so hard over the years to forget,
hoping that eventually the memory would fade like
writing on old parchment. If nobody could see it,
it was no longer there. Except it was.
Now she could see it in full oil on canvas, hard
evidence of a secret she'd tried so hard to forget.
She'd hidden Carey's gifts in Shane's old
bedroom and found herself flicking through the
sketchbook as a kind of punishment. There were
cartoons of many of his most famous pictures here,
rough sketches of paintings much prized amongst
collectors. And the exquisite drawings that would
become his Dark Lady series, each painting worth
hundreds of thousands.
But it was the painting that revealed her secret.
She knew now what she had to do.
The day after her thirty-fifth birthday, Carey
Wolensky phoned her at home, having found the
number in Ana's address book.
Christie, who'd known instinctively that he'd
contact her, knew what she ought to say. She'd
practised it in fact. 'It was lovely to meet you, but
no thank you, I don't want to see you again.'
However, knowing what you should say, and
saying it, were two very different things. When
she heard that low, husky voice, a voice that she'd
dreamed of, she found herself saying yes.
She'd just meet him, she decided, to get this crazy
bug out of her system. It would all be different in
the cool daylight, when she wasn't annoyed with
James or when she wasn't overwhelmed by the sight
of Carey's stunning paintings.
She would be able to see that the rush of fierce
sexual excitement had all been in her mind, a
fantasy, a little break from the real world.
It was the perfect justification for meeting him.
Despite the churning guilt in her stomach, she
convinced herself that agreeing to meet Carey in
his studio was a wise move. There, nobody would
see them.
There would be no witnesses to what would
inevitably be an embarrassing moment when she
apologised but explained that she was married, he
was going out with her sister, and they should
forget all about that inexplicable moment in the
attic gallery the other night.
In the end, her meeting with Carey took little
planning. She dropped the boys off to school and
playgroup respectively, organising with her friend
Antoinette to pick them up afterwards, in case she
was delayed, in case coffee went on longer. You
had to be practical, Christie reasoned.
The moment Carey opened the scuffed door that
led to the huge loft studio, practicality went out the
window. He was everything that she remembered,
everything and more. Towering, darkly brooding,
danger emanating from every pore. The electricity
was still there, strong enough to power a city.
'I didn't know if you'd come,' he said, his eyes
intense on her face.
'I said I would and I don't lie,' Christie said and
then winced, thinking that she'd lied to be here. 'I want to paint you,' Carey said, which was what
he'd said on the phone, but Christie knew that was
just an excuse - flattering, but just an excuse.
'My studio is up the stairs,' he added, moving
back to make room for her.
She climbed the wooden stairs, conscious of him
close behind her, his presence at once thrilling and
scary. The studio was like all the artists' studios
that Christie had ever been in: devoid of glamour
and warmth. It was a big barn of a place with
huge windows for the light, a paint-stained floor
and canvases stacked in a corner. There was a table
littered with dirty crockery in a small kitchen area.
None of it surprised her. She could imagine that
when Carey painted, he didn't think of boring
things like cleaning up.
'Do you like my work?' he asked as she walked
over to look at the canvases, something she wouldn't
normally have done unless she knew the artist very
well. Strangely, she felt she did know him very well.
'I think it's wonderful,' she said truthfully. 'What
I don't understand is why you want to paint me.
I didn't think you liked painting portraits.' She
was calling his bluff as there had been portraits
at his exhibition.
She turned to face him and realised he'd moved
to stand right in front of her. He moved so silently,
like a big cat. That's what he was like: a predator,
fierce, wild, taking what he wanted. Excitement
rushed through her body, making her nerves stand
on end with the sheer charge of sexual tension.
'I have painted portraits before,' he growled,
the accent husky as his eyes roamed over her face.
He wasn't touching her, but he was standing so
close she could almost feel him tracing the fine bones
of her face with his long-fingered artist's hands. She
had left her hair loose again today, conscious that
it had been that way when she'd met him first.
'I didn't say I would pose for you,' she said,
taking a step back.
'But you're here, aren't you?' he replied.
'I came to see what sort of picture you wanted
to paint.'
'A nude,' he said, as if it was the most obvious
thing in the world.
Christie didn't answer.
Against one wall was an old ormolu day bed,
piled with cushions and swathed in a piece of
crimson velvet. Artists loved velvet: painting the
textured folds was a life's work in itself. To one
side of the day bed was a screen over which hung
a faded silk print dressing gown.
'You can change behind the screen,' Carey said,
watching her.
Christie looked at the day bed and thought of
herself lying naked upon it with him watching.
The very thought made her feel unlike herself and
enhanced the sensation that this wasn't happening
to Christie Devlin, married mother of two. This
was an adventure occurring to her other self.
Christie wouldn't do this but the wild, fey woman
she might have been would.
She went behind the screen, undressed and
pulled the dressing gown on. With huge sleeves
like a kimono and an oriental print, it made her
feel like a geisha.
'What do you want me to do?' she asked when
she emerged from behind the screen.
'Lie with your head on the pillows, one arm
along your side,' he said absently.
He'd already moved an easel so he was facing
the day bed and it was as if he'd forgotten all
about her except as his model. Shrugging, Christie
slipped off the kimono and lay down.
'No, move your hand, further, there, that's right.
And your hair ...'
He strode over to her and every inch of her
flesh tensed, but Carey was not seeing her naked
in front of him. He arranged a tendril of hair to
brush her breast and his hand touched her nipple,
making it tauten into a hard nub, yet he still didn't
react.
'Better,' he said, standing back and assessing her
like a horse breeder looking at a mare. 'Better.'
She lay there for three quarters of an hour until
her muscles ached holding the pose. After art
college, she knew that an artist absorbed in his
work might selfishly want a model to pose for
ever, but she couldn't hold it any longer.
She stretched, no longer feeling conscious of her
nudity, got to her feet, and pulled on the kimono.
Carey grunted and went back to his canvas. 'I'll take fifteen minutes,' she said, walking
stiffly into the kitchen section to make herself a
hot drink.
After fifteen minutes of silence, she went back
to her pose. Half an hour later, she moved again.
It was time for her to leave.
'I have to go,' she said, standing. She desperately
wanted to see the painting but knew better
than to look. He would ask her to look if he
wanted her to.
'Fine,' he said, engrossed in his work. 'Let yourself
out. You can be here tomorrow, yes?'
She didn't reply but she knew that she'd be back.
She couldn't help herself.
The brisk chill of autumn gave way to winter
while Carey painted Christie Devlin and the studio,
no doubt a beautiful place in high summer, became
cold, bringing up goose pimples on Christie's naked
skin. She was used to the pose now, had sat for
Carey several days a week for two months and
even lying on the couch at home in the evening,
she unconsciously found herself sitting the way
he'd positioned her that first day.
She hadn't told James or Ana that she was
posing for Carey. There was no need: it was all
totally innocent, she convinced herself. Carey
barely spoke to her and never touched her, not
after that first day. She wasn't doing anything
wrong. And yet she knew that lying there naked
while this incredible man took in every millimetre
of her skin was not quite as straightforward as it
sounded. She knew that when she lay there on the
day bed, with crimson velvet caressing her body,
she really wanted Carey Wolensky caressing her
body. But nothing had happened, and nothing was
going to happen. As November began, she knew
it was time to end it. She had to because the guilt
was driving her insane. The only time she didn't
feel it was when she was with Carey: every other
moment of her life, guilt over the people she was
betraying racked her.
It was James's birthday in November and he
had been talking about a long weekend away.
Christie knew that if she and James were alone
together, without the children, then the crystal-clear
guilt of betraying him by not telling him
would hit her.
Then there was Ana, little Ana whom she'd been
like a mother to. She adored her sister, and even
though Ana was less enamoured of Carey these
days - 'He's obsessed with painting, Christie. He's
not interested in going out with me. We're too
different for it to work. I don't want to hurt him
but remember that man from the night of the party
in Haddington Road, I've seen him a few times.
He's gorgeous. I know it's wrong, but ...'
It was small comfort to Christie that Ana wasn't
interested in Carey any more. It would still devastate
Ana to discover her sister's involvement with
him.
Finally, Christie knew she had to end it because
she knew she was powerless against Carey if he
raised one little finger to her. The magnetism
between them was so great she would run into his
arms and Christie knew if she did that, she would
never forgive herself.
So, one cool November morning, she decided
that this was the last day she'd pose in his studio.
Surely, he must have seen all he needed, he must
have tilted his head at an angle enough times,
looking at her, analysing her skin tone, her shape,
the movement of her muscles and her skin. He had drunk her in for long enough and she was going
to finish it.
She waited until her break, when, as usual, she
went into the kitchen and made herself some tea.
The weather had grown colder and the thin robe
was insubstantial. She shivered, clutching the mug
of tea close to her chest, with her arms wrapped
around herself.
'I'm sorry, Carey, but I can't come here any
more,' she said, looking out from the studio
windows over the roof tops of the surrounding
artisan cottages. There, she'd said it. She felt herself
tremble.
'Why?' he said, and incredibly, he was behind
her in an instant, his hands on her shoulders, his
strong embrace filling her with warmth. She hadn't
heard him approach, he moved so silently and with
such animal grace.
'You know I've got to stop,' she said, determined
not to relax back against him. His hands
slid further down her arms, pulling her back against
him, making her feel the warmth of his body. She
closed her eyes and leaned back.
'Carey, you must see that?'
'I don't see that at all,' he said. 'I see that you
inspire me. I see what I feel for you and what you
feel for me. Why should we stop that?'
Her eyes still closed, she sighed.
'Because it's wrong. I love my husband, my children,
and Ana. I shouldn't be here. You have no
idea how much I torture myself over you, Carey.
I think endlessly of the people I'm betraying by
coming to see you. If they knew, imagine if James
and Ana knew about this.'
She knew Ana was no longer interested in Carey
but that excuse wouldn't work with her husband. 'Ana is a lovely girl but she's not for me,' Carey
said. 'She knows that. I told her I was wrong for
her in the beginning. She's stubborn. She went out
with me to prove me wrong. I have told her she
should find a nice quiet man to settle down with.
I am not a nice quiet man.'
'Like my husband, you mean?' Christie asked,
sensing the criticism of James. 'He's a nice man
and he doesn't deserve this. It's wrong, all wrong,
what you and I feel for each other.'
'How can it be wrong to feel like this?' he asked,
holding her even more tightly. 'I have been so
cautious, Christie, I haven't touched you, even
though I want to every moment you're here, every
moment you're not here. But I've given you the
distance you need, you deserve. I let you make all
the decisions and now you say you won't come
any more?'
He turned her around gently and she stared into
those dark, dark eyes. She'd never felt anything
like the connection between them, the feeling that
she'd known him for ever, in another life.
She'd heard some say that there were people
destined to meet again and again in many lives,
to search each other out until some scene had been
played and their spirits could rest. Was Carey
Wolensky from her past? The faith she'd been
brought up in didn't countenance such things but
there had to be some reason for the intensity of
her feelings for him, the sense that he was another
part of her.
Then, he took the mug from her hands, put it
down on the table, cupped her face between his
long, sensitive fingers and kissed her. And Christie
knew she was lost.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Her thoughts still with the distant past, Christie
shut the front door quietly.
There was no noise in the house, but Christie
knew James was there. She knew it because the
dogs didn't come rushing frantically to greet her
the way they did when she was the first person to
arrive home.
James's shoes were in the hall, along with his
briefcase and his jacket left on the stairpost.
Everything looked normal: except it wasn't. It
was only a day since Christie had been to see
Carey, and already, everything had changed.
She walked into the kitchen and the dogs
bounced happily at seeing her.
James didn't say hello or get up to hug her. He
was sitting at the table with Carey's sketchbook
spread in front of him and the small oil painting
propped up against the fruit bowl.
'I never knew,' he said, still staring fixedly at
the woman in the picture.
Christie could see the real scene in her mind's
eye: the artist's studio dirty, grubby and in no way
romantic. The smell of turpentine and dust in the
air, old paint-smeared rags thrown on the ground,
and there was the divan, just as musty and dusty
but with a piece of beautiful crimson velvet cloth
thrown over it. Only the best painters could make
velvet look beautiful with the warmth almost of
living flesh. And her lying on it, naked, smiling,
feeling beautiful.
'Did you sleep with him?' James asked, never
taking his eyes off the painting. 'I have to know,
Christie. Did you sleep with him?'
Christie hesitated, thinking. She'd thought about
that for years. Which was the bigger betrayal the act of sex, the intimacy of feeling another
person's body inside yours, skin on skin, flesh to
flesh? Or was it worse being close to them, talking
to them, learning their most intimate thoughts,
laughing to hear their voice, sharing a secret from
the world? Was that a far greater crime than actually
sleeping with somebody?
If their places had been reversed, if James had
gone off with another woman - like dear, sweet
Veronica from his office, who was shy and adored
James, but would never, ever make the move on
him - and shared moments of quiet time together, that would have broken Christie's heart. Not the
fact that he'd brought Veronica to a hotel somewhere,
stripped her clothes off and made love to
her, the way he'd made love to Christie.
No, the intimacy, the kindness, the shared secret:
that would have been the most painful thing to
deal with. Not the sex.
She had to explain before she answered. 'That's not the most important thing ...' she
said.
'It is,' snapped back James. 'Did you sleep with
him?'
The truth was the only answer. 'Yes,' she said
quietly. 'I'm telling you because I don't want there
to be any more secrets between us.' She sat down
at the table beside him.
James looked haunted, aged, not the man who
had left the house this morning.
'I'm so sorry,' she said, the words sounding
useless. Sorry was too small a word to cover the
huge regret for having hurt him.
'I should have told you years ago, but you know
what they say, there is no point telling about an
affair if the only thing you do is salve your
conscience.'
'Then why did you leave this here for me to
find?' he asked hoarsely. 'To salve your conscience
by admitting you'd slept with another man or to
hurt me by showing me his pictures of you.'
Even as she'd left the sketchbook and the
painting there for him to find only hours before,
Christie had agonised. But she knew she had to
do it. James would be home by seven, so she'd
put Carey's work on the kitchen table where he
would see it, and she'd gone to sit in the Summer Street Cafe, staring blankly into an untouched
coffee until it was time to go home and face him.
It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done
but the truth had to be laid bare now. There could
be no more secrets. 'I didn't want to keep this
from you,' she said. 'And,' she paused, 'I was
always scared you'd find out and it would destroy
us. I couldn't bear that possibility.'
'You kept your dirty little secret well. I hadn't
a clue,' he replied, with fingers clutching the sketchbook
tightly as if at any minute he might fling it
across the room, regardless of its worth. 'Ana does she know what her beloved sister did? And why did you tell me now?'
Christie didn't know why - she only knew that
she'd felt this intense compulsion to tell the truth
to her husband. Beyond that, she hadn't thought
rationally. Once she'd told him, he could do what
he wanted with the information and she would
have to take the consequences. 'It's different with
Ana,' she said, thinking aloud. 'She didn't really
love him. She was fed up with all those doctors,
remember? They had no lives outside the hospital
and they just wanted someone to date occasionally.'
'I
remember,' James said grimly. 'You were the one who urged her to get a new life, to meet new
people and she met him.' He snarled the word and Christie had no doubt that if Carey Wolensky had
been in the room at that moment, James would
have killed him.
'You said he was the wrong sort of guy for her,
controlling, crazy, remember that too?' James
demanded.
'I remember,' Christie replied. 'He was all of
those things and he was wrong for her.'
'But not wrong for you?' James snapped. 'He was wrong for me too,' Christie said evenly.
She'd never seen James like this before, but then
she had never admitted adultery to him before. 'She didn't really love him,' Christie said, and
she was pretty certain of that.
When Carey had left Ireland abruptly, Ana
hadn't really cared. Soon afterwards, she'd met
Rick, the great love of her life.
'Are you going to tell her what happened?'James
asked.
'No, I don't think she needs to know.' That guilt
would have to live with her for ever.
'But I did?' He sounded so angry, was clearly
barely holding on to his fury and pain.
'Yes, you did,' she said. 'If Ana knew, it wouldn't
destroy our relationship. We'd go on. But the secret
would destroy you and me. I heard he was coming
back to Ireland for an exhibition and I was crucified
with doubt and fear. I had to have the secret
out, to tell you.'
'To tell me what?' James said. 'That he's here
and you're running off with him, to the land of
millionaires? Is that it?'
He looked angrier than she'd ever seen him
before and Christie felt humbled by his love for her, destroyed by her betrayal of this good, decent
man. But she had to continue her explanation, so
James could understand.
'I went to see him yesterday,' she said, 'and
that's when he gave me the sketchbook and the
picture. I'm not leaving you for him, there was
never any question of that, James.'
'Well, that's good to know,' he said sarcastically.
This
wasn't going the way Christie had planned. 'James, I wanted you to know about the past
and that's all it is: the past, not the present. I've
been so anxious about it and I realise that a secret
like this can't be hidden, it's always going to be
there and it would be better for us to get it out
in the open, for me to tell you.'
'Why?' James demanded. 'To make me realise
that thirty-something years of marriage have all
been a sham?'
'No, they haven't,' Christie replied. 'There's
nothing sham about our marriage, there never was.
It was a moment of madness, stupidity.' She threw
up her hands. 'I can't explain.'
It was impossible to explain that Carey had
stood for the wild passion of art that she'd loved,
something she'd had to suppress inside herself in
order to live the life she had. Perhaps if she hadn't
met James and married him and had two small
children, perhaps then she could have lived happily
in Carey's bohemian world. But James, Shane and
Ethan meant that that path could never be for her.
'I love you, James, I've always loved you. What
I had with Carey was just stupid and crazy and I
knew it at the time and ...'
'And you posed for him, naked,' James spat out,
looking back at the picture. 'This is you. I looked
it up on the internet just now. He's famous for
these mysterious Dark Lady paintings. You knew
I wouldn't know about them. Art doesn't interest
me, so you were pretty safe with your secret. You
knew I was never going to notice a painting by
this man and realise, that's my wife lying there
naked, because I would have recognised you
anywhere.'
'I know,' she said soberly, 'it made it easier that
you weren't interested in art. It must mean something
to you now that I am telling you, that I trust
you enough to say all these things to you.'
'Trust?' he said. 'What's trust, Christie? I thought
we had trust, but I was wrong. What was wrong
with me? Was I too safe, too boring, too dependable,
with my government job? Did you really want
another life with someone else? Have you been
waiting for bloody Wolensky to come and claim
you all these years? Were there secret phone calls
and trysts? Tell me!'
'No,' she shouted. 'I haven't seen or heard from
him in twenty-five years. I wasn't waiting for him.
If I'd wanted a life with someone else, I would have
left to be with him when he asked me, but I didn't.'
'Oh, so you gave up the chance to run away
with the great artist, for me and our dull life?' said James coldly. He got up abruptly, stared at her, as
if she was a stranger. 'I don't know what to say
to you, Christie. I've been looking at that book
for what seems like hours, looking at pictures of
you from every conceivable angle. Drawings by a
man who looked at you in the way only I was
supposed to look at you. Maybe at our age you're
not supposed to care, maybe you're supposed to
be beyond all that jealousy. But you know what,
I do care. I care so much it hurts here.' He struck
his chest fiercely. 'I don't know if I can forgive
you or him. Where is he anyway?'
'No, don't go near him,' Christie said. 'That's
how I have the sketchbook and the picture. He
wanted to give them to me, he's dying.' She said
it quickly, in case James rushed out into the city,
searching for Carey Wolensky with a view to killing
him.
'He's terminally ill, James. He wanted to find
me and say goodbye, that's all. I knew he was
coming, that's why I've been so anxious lately.
Anxious that he'd come and ruin our lives. That's
when I realised I had to tell you myself because I
couldn't live with the fear, the fear of losing you.'
'Well, there's a pity,' said James with uncharacteristic
harshness, 'because you've lost me anyway.
I'll leave you with your lover's grubby little
pictures. Wolensky can come here any time he
wants now, because I won't be here. Isn't that what
you want? Oh yes, you can talk to our sons and
tell them what happened.'
'James, we don't need to bring Ethan and Shane
into this,' Christie begged. 'This is not about them,
this is about us. Please don't let's involve them.'
She couldn't bear it if her two sons learned of
this. She couldn't bear them to look at her with
disgust and anger, to think of what she'd done to
their beloved father. She thought of Faye: how she'd
been terrified of letting Amber know the truth about
her past life, and Christie understood it completely.
Could there be anything worse than having your
darling children stare at you with disgust, where
once they had looked at you with pride?
'Please don't say anything to them,' she begged. 'I'm not saying anything to anyone,' James
snapped. 'I need some time to myself. I'll be on
my mobile phone. I might go fishing.'
He hadn't gone fishing for years. She couldn't
imagine where his fishing boxes and tackle were.
Suddenly, she realised that that was hardly a
problem and that James probably wasn't going
fishing anyway. He just needed to get away, to be
anywhere, except near her.
'I understand,' she said humbly, 'and I'm sorry.
That's all I wanted to say, I'm sorry. It was a huge
mistake and there is nothing else I can say except
I love you. It was a mistake. He was a mistake.
But I didn't go with him when he asked me to, I
stayed here with you.'
'And I'm supposed to be grateful for that fact?'
James said. 'Because right now, I don't feel very
grateful. I just feel very angry.'
'Will you phone me tonight so that I know wherever
you're going, you got there safely?' Christie
asked, not wanting to think of him driving recklessly.
'No,'
he said. 'I don't want to talk to you,
Christie. I can't, I have to think.'
'I don't want our marriage to be over,' she pleaded. 'I can't tell you that either,' James said.
He stormed out of the room, but for once the
dogs didn't get up to follow him halfway up the
stairs, torn between the humans they loved most.
Instead, they lay on the floor, noses on their paws,
big dark eyes looking soulfully and worriedly up
at Christie.
'I know, babies,' she said. 'Daddy's upset. But
it'll be OK.' She talked to them like she'd talked
to her children when they were small. You always
told children that things would be OK even if they
weren't going to be. Christie didn't know how this
would all pan out. Her gift of vision was blank.
She wished she could look into a crystal ball and
see James coming home, forgiving her, throwing
his arms around her, saying it was all in the past
and they could forget it. But that might never
happen. She'd done what she thought was the right
thing, because she couldn't live under the fear for
ever. But now the fear that James would one day
find out about her infidelity had been replaced
with an entirely different type of fear. The fear
that James would leave her for ever. Had she done
the wrong thing after all?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Faye, too, felt lost and alone, waiting in New York
for news of Amber. She'd meant to go home sooner:
she'd been there nearly a month and it was costing
her a fortune. But leaving would be like giving up
on Amber and she just couldn't do it.
She rang Ella each evening, hoping that Amber
might have rung her friend with details of where
she was, but no such luck. It was as if Amber
had fallen off the face of the earth. Now that
she'd made her choice, she was going to stick
with it, not talking to friends, family, anyone, she'd cut them all off. Like mother, like daughter,
Faye thought endlessly, remembering how singleminded
she'd been all those years ago, before
she'd become pregnant with Amber. Then, she
wouldn't listen to anyone. She should have
known that Amber would have inherited that
trait too.
Alone in New York, she had plenty of time to
think. She wasn't a shopper, so she bypassed the stores that would have left Grace in paroxysms of
delight. Instead, she forced herself around the
sights.
She visited Ground Zero one day, and stood
there silently and felt ashamed of herself. She might
not know where Amber was, but she was pretty
sure she was alive. She'd simply chosen not to have
contact with her mother any more. Whereas the
people who had died here were gone for ever. She
could and would see Amber again. The Ground
Zero families were not so lucky.
Faye left with a new sense of determination.
There had to be something else she could do to
find Amber: that was the first thing on her list.
And the second was to move on. She hadn't had
so much time on her own in years, time to look
at herself. She found she didn't like what she
saw.
Getting back to her comfortably familiar hotel
room, she phoned Grace's office answering
machine and left a message.
'Grace, this is Faye, I need your help. When you
get this, will you ring me at the hotel? We can talk
and I'll give you all the details.'
Grace phoned at eight p.m. Irish time. 'You're in late,' said Faye.
'Well, my fabulous partner and second-in-command
is on leave,' retorted Grace, 'so somebody
has to keep the home fires burning. But you
don't want to hear my problems. How's the search going?'
'Not well,' Faye replied. 'Whatever deal the
band had going is off, so God knows where they
are. I imagine they'll be looking for another production
company. Amber's friend, Ella, says that Karl
Evans - he's the guy Amber's fallen for - is very
determined to succeed, so it's unlikely they'd just
give up ... But it's a whole other world here and
I can't get much information. I thought maybe you
could ask around at home, see who knows of the
band or their manager?'
Grace knew everybody, senior policemen, politicians,
business movers and shakers. If anybody
could track down Ceres and Karl, it was Grace.
'Give me all the details,' Grace insisted, businesslike. 'I'll see what I can do.'
Faye felt a weight lift off her shoulders; she
wished she'd asked for Grace's help ages ago.
Three hours later she rang again. 'I think I've
found them,' she said.
'Do you know what day it is?' Amber asked Karl.
They were sitting by the pool at a small table
enjoying breakfast. The rest of the band were
around them, all looking bright and energetic
even though it was half past eight in the morning.
There was no drinking or carousing now. Life
had turned serious. They were working on their
album, had been for the last three days. Amber
had never doubted Karl's ability but she had
never seen him so focused, so dedicated. And so
happy. But she was finding it hard to see the person she loved filled with a joy that had
absolutely nothing to do with her. It made her
feel lost and alone.
'What day it is?' he echoed genially. He had a
Californian tan now. His skin was naturally dark
and even though the band had spent a lot of time
in the studio, he had a fabulous glow about him.
He looked different. It was as though he was
moving away from her, thought Amber, with
growing despondency.
'Yeah, do you know what day it is?' she
repeated.
'No.' He shrugged. 'The fourth day of the rest
of our lives?' Karl had said recording an album
was like starting a new life, the one he'd been
dreaming about since he could dream. 'I don't
know, what day is it?'
'It's the day the exams end,' Amber said.
Right now, she knew Ella was probably still
asleep. Back home it was late afternoon and the
gang at St Ursula's would already be planning to
go out partying to celebrate the end of school and
the end of exams. How many times had she and
Ella thought about that moment, imagining what
it would be like, especially in the dark days of
winter when they trudged home, school bags heavy
with books, their hearts weighed down with the
thought of all the study.
'I know what I'm going to do when it's all over,'
Ella would say dreamily, 'I'm going to go home,
get into bed and lie there and turn my TV on and
read magazines. And paint my nails and have a
bath, oh, and do my hair and put on my makeup
and dance around and go out!'
'Sounds perfect to me,' sighed Amber, although
she didn't have a TV in her bedroom. Her mum
disapproved of televisions in bedrooms. But she'd
put on her CD player and dance around and do
nothing, have absolutely nothing hanging over
her.
And now, here she was thousands of miles away
in beautiful sunshine surrounded by arguably some
of the most beautiful people on the planet, doing
nothing and it should have been wonderful. Except
that it wasn't. The boys were going off into the
studio soon and she'd be alone again.
She'd never been so much on her own in her
whole life. She'd always been with people: Ella,
girls from school, Mum, yet now here she had
vast tracts of time to herself and not really
anywhere to be or anything to do. It was odd.
Doing nothing wasn't as much fun when there
was nothing else you should be doing. The fact
that she felt so out of place here added to her
sense of sadness.
'Bet you're glad you missed all that exam crap,'
Karl said, taking another bran and cranberry
muffin from the pile. 'What's the point of all that
kind of bourgeois garbage? Exams didn't get us
where we are today, did they?' he said, with a
touch of the smugness that was creeping into everything
he said these days. The band were going to make it, they were going to be on the cover of Billboard. He didn't say these things quietly to
Amber in the privacy of their own suite as they
lay in each other's arms and shared dreams. She
wouldn't have minded that. But no, this unshakeable
self-belief was said publicly and without a
shred of embarrassment. Even Syd, who was the
voice of reason, was affected by it and grinned
when Karl went on about how big the band were
going to be.
'I keep thinking,' Amber blurted out suddenly, 'I should have stayed at home to do the exams
after all. I feel guilty now. I mean, it wouldn't
have made any difference if I'd come late. I could
have got on a plane tonight and been here
tomorrow.'
'But you'd have missed all the fun,' said Kenny T. 'Exactly,' said Lew, who was stuffing his face
with an omelette, a full egg one, a fact which had
astonished the waitress.
'Not an egg white one?' she'd said, because
nobody here ever ate full egg omelettes. Think of
the cholesterol, the fat?
'No, the whole egg, the yellow bit and all,' said
Lew happily. Lew planned on never learning how
to spell cholesterol. If he couldn't spell it, it couldn't
get him.
'I mean, think of the fun we had on the road,
the adventures,' he said now.
Amber looked at Lew. He'd rewritten the road
trip in his mind. She remembered it exactly as it
had been: miserable, scary, cockroach-ridden.
Being totally broke was not a nice way to travel
through a foreign country where you knew
nobody.
'You'd have missed being part of the adventure,'
Kenny T added. 'You wouldn't have been part of
our history, the history of the band.'
'You see, when they write about us in Rolling
Stone,' Syd said, with a sly grin in Karl's direction, 'we'll be able to talk about how the five of
us trekked across America with only a dream in
our hearts and you'll have been a part of that.'
A part of the trip, thought Amber. But not a
part of what had happened afterwards. Having
survived the travails of the road didn't make her
a member of the band. Instead, she was a hanger-on,
the girl with the band.
Thinking of this, she glanced at Karl, hoping
he'd say the right thing and make her feel that her
presence was still important to him. She wanted
to hear him say that it wouldn't have been the
same without her, that her presence - as his muse
- had made it all work.
But he wasn't even listening and was flicking
through the papers again.
A helicopter buzzed overhead, breaking up the
perfect sky for an instant before disappearing.
Amber looked up to see the glint of the chopper
between the fronds of the palm tree shading their
table. This really was a slice of paradise. Except
it wasn't her paradise. She wasn't here on her dime, she was here on someone else's. Karl didn't really
care whether she was here or not.
She'd been stupid to think he had. It had been
fun while it lasted, but she'd given up so much
for him and he neither understood nor appreciated
her sacrifice. That realisation was crystal
clear.
The boys sat there eating, and talking, all openly
admiring an extremely attractive, very skinny
blonde who sashayed past in a sliver of a dress
hardly covering the most phenomenal breasts
Amber had ever seen. They were clearly not real,
but the boys didn't seem to realise that, or they
didn't care. They just stared anyway, watching her
skinny flanks appreciatively, even Karl.
Amber found that she didn't mind very much,
whereas, once, she'd have been outraged at Karl
ogling another woman so openly. Was this her
Damascene conversion, she wondered, and then
grinned, thinking that at least Sister Patricia would
be pleased that Amber had been paying attention
at some point in religious education at St Ursula's.
She got up from the table. 'I'll see you guys
later, right?'
'Yeah, sure, right,' they all said. 'Bye, babe.'
'Yeah, see ya,' said Karl absently.
Amber walked back to their suite. She shouldn't
have given up her life for Karl and the realisation
didn't make her feel stupid, it just made her feel
sad.
She'd burned a lot of bridges for him. Even her
eighteenth birthday had turned into pretty much
another day with Karl.
Instead of Ella and her friends organising a night
out after the exams, Amber's birthday had been
celebrated in a pub in Dublin just before they left
when Karl had given her a silver bangle which was
now tarnished, proof of how cheap it had been.
She thought of the lovely portfolio her mother had
bought for her and wanted to cry.
She'd been so blind to his faults, she realised.
At least she was wiser now.
That night, while she was still working out what
she was going to do, Michael took them to another
party. There were parties every night but nobody
stayed out late. Nobody got drunk either. LA was,
as Michael reminded the band, a working town.
Going to parties was a public relations exercise,
not an excuse for wild behaviour.
Tonight's party was in the Hollywood hills and
Amber, who'd worked out in the hotel's gym and
then swum lengths in the pool, felt physically tired
as she got ready in her bathroom. She was wearing
her green thrift shop dress and pendant again. It
looked lovely and she did have a faint tan too,
not Hollywood gold but certainly something she'd
have considered mahogany in Dublin.
The house they were driven to in the requisite
convoy of jeep Grand Cherokees was hotel-sized,
appeared to be mainly made of glass and sat perched on a hillside with an intricate terrace and
a gently curving pool filled with Japanese carp.
Walking in the door was like walking into an interiors
magazine.
Not that it was ostentatious - quite the opposite.
Painted a warm vanilla, with dark floors,
creamy upholstery, and carefully placed modern
lighting, the effect was of simple elegance, like the
guests. The music was muted jazz, the drinks were
clear cocktails, champagne and plenty of juice, and
the band loved it.
Within half an hour of arriving, Karl had left
Amber's side and when she saw him a few minutes
later, he was talking to Venetia, who looked as
exquisite as the first time Amber had seen her,
white linen pants and a white silk halter top emphasising
both her figure and the rich colour of her
skin.
Amber didn't feel threatened by Venetia tonight,
although she couldn't have explained why, if
anyone had asked her. Venetia was so beautiful,
she was in another dimension of beauty. Normal
people like Amber could never compete with
Venetia's exquisite ebony limbs, those dark,
flashing eyes and lips that were full of promise.
Lew wandered up to Amber and put an arm
round her.
'How's it going, babe?' he said, then, when she
didn't reply, he followed her gaze and saw Karl
sitting with Venetia.
'She is one amazing-looking woman,' he said
with the sigh of someone who knew Venetia was
way out of his league. 'No offence, Amber, I mean
you look pretty good too.'
Amber smiled' wryly. 'None taken, Lew.'
At first the evening was fun, seeing people who
looked vaguely familiar, people from the music
industry, people whose albums Amber had bought.
But it wasn't always easy to join the groups of
people who already knew each other and eventually,
she and the band, minus Karl, ended up
relaxing in a split level part of the house in front
of a huge stone fireplace where vast expensive
candles burned in the grate.
Syd was holding forth on the parties they'd been
to, insisting that the people with the entourages
and bodyguards were faking it, despite the bling.
'The quiet ones in jeans with those discreet
watches you've never seen in any normal jewellery
store, they're the multi-billionaires,' he pointed out
shrewdly. 'The bling, blings aren't that bling at all.
Take away the diamonds and the bulked-up bodyguards
and there's nothing left.'
Amber laughed. She liked hanging around with
Syd. He had a sense of humour similar to Ella's.
She'd thought about calling Ella earlier, having
had one of those moments when she'd longed to
hear her friend's voice, to hear someone say 'How
nice to hear from you' and really mean it.
Nobody here needed her like the people back
home did. Kenny T and Lew were sweet guys,
while Syd was a genuinely kind, good man, terribly in love with his Lola. They liked Amber, were fond
of her, probably in the same way you'd be fond
of a puppy or a kitten that clambered on to your
lap and wanted to be patted. Nothing more. And
Karl? Karl had moved on.
She'd chickened out of ringing Ella. So much
time had gone by. In their whole friendship it had
never ever been weeks since they'd talked. Even
when Ella's family had gone to Italy to visit relatives,
they'd kept in touch, Ella facing the wrath
of her mother for making so many international
calls.
But it had been worth it because they were best
friends, weren't they? And now, weeks had gone
by without hearing Ella's laugh or hearing her joke
or moan about her grandmother. It was funny the
things you missed.
She sighed and tried to stop thinking about back
home in case she cried. She forced herself to observe
the party and the Hollywood hierarchy. In some
subliminal way people from lower down the
celebrity power chain ignored each other as they
tried to attach themselves to upper groups.
Amber wasn't part of any of the groups, but
she didn't care. It would all make a wonderful
painting, she thought suddenly, her artist's eye
trying to imagine how she would sketch it out.
She could see it in her head and itched to record
what she'd seen. Paper and a pencil, that's what
she needed.
In the kitchen, in clear contrast to the cool calm
of the rest of the house, the catering staff ran
around frantically. They didn't notice her in the
bustle when she appropriated a pad and a pen
lying on a table. She went back to the lounge,
leaned against the fireplace and began to sketch.
It felt great to be drawing again. Energy burned
within her with each deft stroke of her pen. As
she drew the room and outlines of the people in
it, quickly, speedily, because they were moving all
the time, she felt that buzz she'd always felt when
she had a pen in her hand. That was how she saw
the world: through her eyes directly into her hands
and on to the page. Maybe that's why she screwed
up so much with Karl. She'd seen him only with
her eyes, she'd never made the connection and put
him down on paper. If she had, then she might
have seen that he was insubstantial, not what she'd
first thought.
A tall man, dressed in a simple white shirt and
khaki combats, walked over to her with a glass of
wine in his hand.
'I've been watching you,' he said. 'Are you
drawing us?'
He stood beside her and looked down at the
picture.
'That's really good,' he said, in both shock and
astonishment, 'really good.'
He looked at her again, this time with renewed
respect. 'You're an artist?'
Amber turned her amazing grey eyes with their
copper flecks upon him.
'Yes,' she said, feeling a surge of self. 'I'm an
artist. I'm not really sure what I'm doing here,
hanging out with a band and a man.'
'Which band is that?' asked the man. He was
probably in his forties, way old, sort of a bit like
Ella's dad actually.
'Ceres,' she said, pointing over to where Karl
was sitting on a low couch with Michael and
Venetia. She hadn't sketched them in her picture
yet, she'd been working on the people around them.
'He's the band? Or is he your boyfriend?' asked
the man.
'Both,' said Amber grimly.
The man said nothing, just assimilated the information.
'Who
are you?' she asked.
'I'm Saul, this is my house, my party.'
'Pleased to meet you,' Amber said. 'Where I come
from, you generally know the people whose party
you're going to and, if you don't, as soon as you
get there you're introduced and you say thank you
so much for inviting us. It's different here.'
'You're Irish, right? Land of saints and scholars
and maidens dancing at the crossroads.' 'Exactly,' said Amber, with mock sincerity, 'in
the same way that Los Angeles is a glorious city
where dreams come true and there are beautiful
women on every corner.' She gave him a hard look.
'Touche,' he said.
'Do I look like a maiden who dances at the
crossroads to you?' she asked.
'Not in that dress.'
'Good,' said Amber. 'I wouldn't want to be, any
more than I'd want to be the LA version. This city
does seem to suck the individuality out of people
and make them different, but all in the same way.'
He laughed this time, showing beautiful dental
work.
'And you have lovely teeth,' she added. 'Everyone here has lovely teeth. When people smile,
it's like being in a toothpaste advert.'
'You have pretty nice teeth yourself,' he countered. 'You ought to be a writer instead of an artist.
You've certainly got the bite.'
'I prefer painting,' Amber said. 'That's my first
love.'
'I thought the guy from the band was your first
love?' Saul motioned to where Venetia and Karl
sat together.
'Touche to you,' she replied. 'The truth is I'm
a total moron, following a group of guys around,
watching them fulfil their dream, having dumped
my own dream by the wayside.'
'A common movie theme.' Saul nodded. 'Boy
meets girl, boy tells girl he loves her, boy drags
girl on long trek and pretty much ignores her, boy
loses girl. Boy realises what he's lost and runs after
her. Cue credits. Are you at the boy loses girl part
yet?'
Amber looked over to where Karl and Venetia
were locked in their own world. Karl had that
look on his face, the look he had all the time these days, the look of blazing triumph and excitement.
The power of his talent made him sexier than ever.
He was like a supernova.
'Yeah,' Amber said to Saul. 'I think we're at
that stage.'
She didn't think they'd ever get to the part of
the movie where Karl realised what he'd lost and
ran after her. Movies and real life ran on different
paths.
'And you're not going to race over to throw
your drink over them?' Saul asked.
Amber smiled.
'What would be the point of that?' Amber asked. 'Apart from creating a nice little scene for everyone
to laugh at. I'm with the band, you know.
Girlfriends are supposed to understand that musicians
don't have the faithful gene. Playing lead
guitar removes it.'
Saul grinned. 'As long as you know your place,'
he deadpanned. 'That's very important in this
town. Everyone is trying to get up to a higher
place, but you need to know where you are to
start with.'
'Oh, I know,' Amber said. 'I know. That is to
say, I didn't know when I got here, but I've worked
it out.'
'You're pretty smart,' Saul reflected.
'My mother wanted me to know stuff,' Amber
revealed. 'She wanted me to understand the world,
my place in it, what I could do and what I couldn't
do and never to follow the crowd and . . .'
'That's why you're here, with the band?' Saul
said.
'Precisely. I had to do exactly the opposite of
what my mother taught me.'
'I work on the belief that you've got to learn
by other people's mistakes, because you never live
long enough to make them all yourself,' Saul
remarked.
'I'm the opposite,' said Amber. 'I have to make
all the mistakes myself.'
'Will you stay in LA? It's a nice place to be an
artist, the light is pretty fabulous in the hills.'
'I don't know,' Amber said, shrugging. 'I don't
know what I'm going to do.'
'I guess you're not going to stay with the band,
are you?'
Amber glanced over to Venetia and Karl. Venetia
was so close to Karl that she was almost sitting
on his knee, a position Amber remembered being
in the first time she'd met Karl back home. It
seemed a million years ago. Which of them had
been shallow and stupid, she or Karl, she wasn't
sure.
'I don't know,' she said to Saul now. 'I don't
know what I'm going to do.' But she knew she
couldn't just go home alone, could she?
Amber didn't bother telling Karl she was leaving
the party. She hitched a ride in somebody's Humvee
back to the hotel and she wasn't surprised when
she woke the next morning to find herself alone.
It seemed he and Venetia were now an item, except
he hadn't had the courage to tell her. Never mind,
Amber thought, she had enough courage for both
of them. She was going to move out, she wasn't
going to hang around where she wasn't wanted.
When reception rang to say there was a delivery
of flowers for her downstairs, Amber wondered
what it could be. Flowers with a goodbye note
from Karl? She almost laughed at the thought.
That's probably how he'd do it, with roses and a
card that said, 'Bye and won't be seeing you soon,
Karl.'
She pulled on her jeans, a T-shirt and some flipflops
and made her way down to the lobby. She
was just about to approach the concierge desk
when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a
movement that was instantly familiar. She turned,
and there, halfway out of her seat, was her mother.
Comforting, familiar and utterly welcome.
'Amber,' said Faye, and there was no escaping
the pure joy on her face. 'Amber, it's so good to
see you.'
Amber's first instinct was to run and hug her mother, so that was exactly what she did. It was
wonderful to touch her mother, to feel loved, safe
and secure again.
'Mum,' she said, burying her head in her
mother's shoulder.
'Darling, it's so wonderful to see you,' said Faye
shakily.
'You too, Mum. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, how
it all happened,' Amber muttered, holding tight.
'Hush,' said her mother. 'Hush. It's OK now.
I've missed you so much.'
'I've missed you too, Mum,' Amber said. 'Come
on, come back to the room. We'll talk and we can
have breakfast,' she added eagerly. 'I just have to
pick up a delivery.'
Faye grinned.
'The delivery was from me,' she said. 'I said
they had to be given to you personally, which is
why they rang up to your room.'
She gestured behind her to the table beside the
armchair where she'd been sitting. A small posy
of wildflowers sat in a basket on the table.
'They're beautiful.' Amber felt teary again. She
loved wildflowers.
'I wasn't sure if you'd want to see me,' Faye
went on and Amber felt the weight of guilt. How
awful that her mother had had to adopt such a
ruse.
'I'm sorry,' she said. She ran over and picked
up the flowers, then ran back, linked her arm
through her mother's and said: 'Come on, we'll
have breakfast and we'll talk.'
They might as well have one last big blowout
on Karl, she thought, leading her mum back up
to the room.
They sat on the small balcony with coffee,
pancakes and fresh fruit salad in front of them
and barely touched anything in their eagerness to
talk. Faye wanted to hear everything that had
happened and Amber was amazed to find her tongue rushing away with her, as she described the
hotels they'd stayed in, the misery when the band's
deal had fallen through and how everything had
turned up trumps in Los Angeles. She didn't
mention a word about her and Karl though. Not
one sentence about how they'd moved so far apart
that you could drive a car between them. She was
too proud for that.
'This is a beautiful hotel,' Faye said, when she'd
recounted her fear of seeing the awful Arizona Fish
Hotel and realising that Amber had had to stay
there. 'I've been so worried about you. You couldn't
imagine all the scenarios that came up in my head.
I just kept thinking of all the . . .' she paused, 'all
the trouble I'd got into when I was your age and
in love.'
Amber looked at her curiously. What trouble
had her mother got into?
Faye could see the question forming in her
daughter's eyes. Amber looked so well, she thought,
with that faint tan. Her daughter really was beautiful.
Beautiful, clever, intelligent and a grownup.
She should have told her the truth a long time ago.
Ever since Grace had phoned with news of where
the band were staying in LA, thanks to locating
their manager, Faye had been practising what she
was going to say to her daughter. She'd had a
month to think about it but it was only when she
knew for sure where Amber was that she allowed
herself to have that mental conversation.
In her mind, she'd thought maybe they would
drive to the beach, walk on the sand and talk there.
Amber had always loved the sea and maybe if they
walked side by side and let the wind ripple through
their hair and the waves crash in beside them, she
could tell her story and Amber would understand.
But now, sitting on a small, sheltered balcony
overlooking a beautiful pool, unable to do anything
except drink cup after cup of coffee, Faye knew
that it didn't matter where she told Amber the
truth.
'I want to apologise,' she said first. 'That's what
I came here to do, not to drag you home, which
is what you probably think I am here to do.'
'You're not here for that?' Amber said, startled. 'No,' Faye said. 'You're an adult, you're right,
I'm sorry. I've treated you like a child for so long
I didn't know how to treat you any other way. I
can understand that when you wanted to leave
you thought you had to do it brutally, because I
wouldn't understand it any other way. That's only
part of what I'm apologising over. Remember one
of the things I said before you went?'
That last row was engrained in her memory,
but she wasn't sure if Amber would remember. 'I said I knew because I'd been there and you
didn't believe me.'
Her daughter nodded. At the time, she'd thought
it was a stupid statement, just another ploy to get
her to stay because how could her mother have
any clue what real life was like?
Faye took a very deep breath.
'I lied to you about your dad. We weren't desperately
in love and he didn't die in a car crash,' she
said bluntly. 'He was just some guy in a bar from
a horrible life I lived and I didn't want you to ever
know about it.'
Amber stared at her mother.
'I know it's awful to hear this after eighteen
years of hearing a different story about your father.
I just didn't know how to tell you without you
hating me.'
'I'd never hate you,' Amber said weakly, trying
to process this new information.
'You could hate me because I lied to you about
your birth, your father and my life before you were
born.' Faye stopped.
That was the hardest thing to say: that she'd
lied to Amber about everything.
'I tried to bring you up to be truthful and honest,
yet I spent your whole life lying to you. I hate
myself for that.'
'What really happened, then?'
Faye poured more coffee she didn't want and
began to talk.
Amber sat opposite her and didn't flinch as her
mother's story unfolded. It was incredible to hear
all this for the first time. It was as if her mother
was another woman, a woman she'd never known.
'I didn't value myself or respect myself,' Faye
said finally. 'I ran with the pack, I did things
because other people did them, I didn't stand up
for myself. I tried to fit in. You see, all the things
I spent years telling you not to do, I did every
single one of them. Are you shocked?'
'No.' It was a lie. Amber had never been so
shocked in her life. Her mother didn't look like
her mother any more. She was still the same: the
neatly tied back hair, the plain loosely cut Tshirt,
the slick of lip balm the only sign of make-up. But
her eyes, they were different. Her expression was
different.
'I ... I can't imagine you like that, you're so
strong now,' Amber said. 'I can't imagine you
letting anyone walk on you.'
'Walk on me! They walked all over me,' Faye
said sadly, 'and I let them, because I didn't know
who I was or what I was and that's what I was
ashamed of.'
Amber tried to keep her expression neutral. All
these years her mother had convinced her she was
the epitome of the conservative, working mum.
And now, here she was, telling Amber that she
was just the opposite.
'I never told you the truth because I didn't want
you to grow up being ashamed of me and I didn't
want you growing up being the same sort of person
I was. So I thought that if I invented this new me
who didn't let anybody near, then you would grow
up like that. I'm really sorry, Amber,' Faye said,
and she began to cry. 'I've let you down, I'm so
sorry about your dad, so sorry. All these years
lying to you, telling you we were in love and...'
It was all too much to take in.
'Did he even know about me?' Amber interrupted.
'No,'
said Faye. She might as well tell the whole
truth while she was at it. 'I went to see him once,
when you were a baby, but he was out of it, on
drugs, and I never went back. He was on heroin.
I couldn't cope with that, it wasn't what I wanted
for you.'
'Wow, heroin. Right, so he could be alive or
dead, you don't know,' said Amber. It didn't feel
like her mother was talking about her. She felt
remarkably distant from the whole thing. She'd
grown up without a father, so she'd never felt the
loss of one. But now there was the possibility of
a father after all, a man she might have known,
and her mother had kept him from her.
In the background, Amber heard a click, the
click of the door opening.
She turned to see Karl coming into the suite.
She leaped to her feet and ran over to him. 'Hi,
darling,' she said brightly and loudly.
Karl looked at her in astonishment. They'd been
co-existing in the suite for the past couple of days
and she hadn't run to welcome him for a long
time.
'My mother is here,' she whispered, her mouth
close to his. 'Try to pretend we are still together,
for me, will you do that for me? Just for today
and then we can go our separate ways.'
'What do you mean "separate ways"?' he said,
his face going suitably blank.
'Get real, Karl,' she snapped back at him. 'Do
you think I'm blind as well as stupid? I saw you
and Venetia last night. I know what's going on.
I'm getting out of your hair tomorrow, but I want
my mother to go home thinking it's OK between
us. You can do this for me, I've given up a lot for
you.'
'Sure, OK. Is she angry with me?' Karl asked
anxiously.
'She should be,' Amber whispered, 'but she's
not. Lucky you. I'm bloody furious with you but
that's a discussion for another time, you bastard.'
She turned around, smiling.
'Mum, meet Karl.'
He was every bit as good-looking as Faye had
imagined: handsome, sexy, charismatic. She could
imagine Amber falling in love with this gorgeous
man, wrapped up in his talent, watching him on
stage.
'Hello, Karl,' said Faye, trying to be civil
although it was incredibly difficult not to yell at
this man who'd stolen her daughter and put her
through hell for the past month. She'd do it for
Amber's sake and she just hoped that Karl Evans
would treat her daughter with love and respect,
because if he didn't, he would have Faye to answer
to. 'Nice to meet you, at last.'
When Karl had showered and gone off again
at high speed, Amber took her mother down to
sit in one of the cabanas by the pool.
In her white T-shirt and a pair of cream chinos that did nothing for her figure, Faye was aware
that she probably stood out like a sore thumb
amid all this LA glamour, but she didn't really
care. She was with Amber, that was all that
mattered.
They talked about Summer Street and home.
How Faye had spoken to Ella, who was delirious
that the exams were over.
'She sends her love,' Faye said, 'and wants you
to phone her soon, or email her.'
'I will,' said Amber, guiltily. 'I just felt so bad
when such a long time had gone by and I hadn't
talked to her. Do you think she'll forgive me?'
'Of course she will,' her mother said. Faye went
on to explain how she'd made friends with Christie
Devlin and Maggie Maguire and the plans to
demolish the pavilion and put up an apartment
block.
'They can't do that!' Amber said, outraged. She
didn't want bits of home being ripped up while
she was away. But she changed the subject quickly,
because she didn't want to talk about her going
back to Summer Street, repeating her exams or
going to college.
Her mother never mentioned these things either.
It was as if they'd tacitly agreed that their
rapprochement depended on avoiding the question
of Amber's future.
It was only when evening arrived, and they
walked down the street to a little trattoria, that
Faye had the courage to bring up Amber's return.
'Are you going to stay here long?' she asked. 'Or are the band coming home soon?'
Amber had been holding it together all day. She
felt like a boat on stormy seas, rocked by both
Karl's defection and the story that her mother had
hidden for so long. She'd tried to be calm and
non-judgemental, but her composure finally shattered
under the weight of the two blows.
Karl had cared for her, but not enough. She'd
been the one to make all the sacrifices for him.
He wasn't what she'd thought he was and neither,
it seemed, was her mother.
She wanted to lash out at someone in hurt. 'Mum, I'm doing my own thing now, OK!' she
shrieked. 'I don't know when I'll be home. I'll stay
in touch but there's no point hanging around here
waiting for me. I don't need that. I can make my
own decisions!'
It was said as much for Karl as for her mother,
except that Karl wasn't there and Faye took the
brunt of Amber's anger and shock.
'I'm sorry,' she said, chastened. She should have known that she couldn't tell Amber her history
and expect her daughter not to be hurt. 'I'm not
going to hang around. I'll fly home but I've got
some money for you.' She dug out the envelope
filled with dollars and handed it to Amber. 'I know
you don't want hand-outs but I worry about you.
Please stay in touch.'
Amber nodded, clutching the envelope. 'Mum, dinner's a bad idea. You should go. The band have an event to go to and I have to go too.'
She hadn't planned on going but it made a good
excuse. Right now, she needed to be alone to think.
They stopped on the street and stood
awkwardly, at arm's length.
'I love you, Amber,' Faye said, reaching out to
touch her daughter tentatively. Amber looked as
if she was about to break down and Faye wanted
to hug her, but didn't know if this new Amber
would allow that. Things were different now: the
time apart and all that had happened had changed
them both. 'Don't forget that. I'm sorry I lied. Our
home is always there for you, please remember
that. It'll always be our house, not mine. Never
be afraid to come home or to call me if you need
me.,
'Thanks,' said Amber. She kissed her mother
quickly on the cheek because if they hugged, she
might break down and tell Mum everything. And
she couldn't. There were too many lies around,
too many people not telling her the truth. She felt
so hurt, raw.
'I have to go, Mum. I'm sorry. I need to think,'
she added shakily before turning and running back
down the street to the hotel.
She was more like her mother than Faye knew,
but Amber couldn't say that now.
Behind her, Faye watched until her daughter
was out of sight. She felt as if her heart was being
ripped out of her chest and jumped on. This was
almost worse than the time Amber had run off
because then, she hadn't known all the facts. Now
she did.
This was Faye's punishment for all the years of
lying: Amber couldn't forgive her. She had to give
Amber space, even though she wanted to forcibly
drag her on to a plane and fly her home to Summer
Street. Walking away was the hardest thing she'd
ever done, but she had to do it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Shona threw open the door to her Galway apartment
and dragged Maggie in with a giant hug.
'Maggie, I've missed you!' she yelled happily.
Maggie hugged her back. The too,' she said.
She dumped her small holdall on the floor and
looked around Shona's apartment where she'd
once spent so many happy hours. 'New curtains?'
she asked, instantly spotting the thick creamy ones
that had replaced the old beige paisley drapes. 'And new cushions, too.' She picked up a fluffy
fake-angora cushion. 'I love these cushions,' she
sighed.
'Shows how long since you've been here,' Shona
said, excitedly. 'Wait till you see the kitchen. Paul
painted the units and Ross and I picked the cutest
china handles for the doors.'
Shona hadn't changed in the weeks Maggie had
been away, she thought fondly. Her friend was still
as effervescent as ever and had squealed down the
phone when Maggie had rung to say she was
coming to Galway to take the rest of her stuff
from the apartment.
'You'll stay with us,' she insisted.
'Thanks,' Maggie had said. She couldn't bear
to stay in her old apartment with Grey, not even
for one night. It represented the past and the person
she used to be. And she was still close enough to
that person to want to distance herself.
When Maggie had admired the new-look
kitchen, they sat at the tiny breakfast bar having
tea and Maggie filled Shona in on Ivan, her job
in the children's library, and how she'd talked to
a lawyer about selling her share of the Galway
apartment to Grey.
'I want to do it now,' Maggie said. 'The apartment's
the last bit of that life and I want it removed,
surgically.'
'I'll miss you, though,' Shona reminded her. 'It's
not the same in work without you and it'll always
be different now with you living in Dublin and us
here.'
'I know,' Maggie said apologetically. 'I'll miss
you too, but it's not as if I'm emigrating to the
moon or anything. We have email, the phone and
cheap flights to Dublin.'
Shona nodded, looking as if she was about to
say something else, but had thought better of it. 'Come on, let's go out and liven up this town,'
Shona said. 'I fancy a French pastry in Delaney's,
or maybe a slice of double chocolate cake.'
They took the stairs. pausing briefly by Ross's door on the floor below. Loud music could be
heard through the door.
'Is that "I Will Survive"?' Maggie asked. Ross
had had so many break-ups, it was his anthem.
"Fraid so,' said Shona. 'He's very cut up about
it, says he's going to emigrate to somewhere where
men are allowed to wear pink velvet and kiss on
the streets.'
'You mean San Francisco?' grinned Maggie. 'He's got his heart set on Edinburgh. I know,
I've told him Edinburgh isn't known for men
wearing pink velvet or kissing each other wildly
on Princes Street, but he says he looks so much
better in winter clothes that Edinburgh's got to be
the place.'
They both pondered the workings of Ross's
mind.
'The end of a love affair does strange things to
a person,' Shona went on. 'I said I couldn't bear
to lose him too. What will I do if both you and
Ross are gone?'
'He'd never leave Nureyev,' Maggie pointed out. 'Can rabbits get a pet passport?'
'That's the only sticking point, but if Nureyev
can't go, Paul and I are going to adopt him.'
'We will be hearing the patter of tiny feet around
your apartment!' teased Maggie.
Shona didn't respond to the joke. 'Tiny feet, get it?' said Maggie. 'Mmm, funny,' muttered Shona.
'Have I put my foot in it?' Maggie asked quickly,
alarm bells ringing. The day Shona didn't laugh
like a drain at even the feeblest joke, you knew
there was something wrong.
The phone and emails were great for keeping
in touch but there were some things that you had
to be present to feel - what if Shona had received
bad news about the possibility of her having children?
'I
didn't mean to upset you,' Maggie said
earnestly.
'You didn't, you big nelly,' said Shona. 'I was
waiting to get you sitting down in Delaney's to
tell you. I'm pregnant. Paul and I are going to be
parents! A baby and possibly a rabbit too! We're
thrilled.'
'That's wonderful,' Maggie said, giving her
friend another hug, then pulling away anxiously
in case she squashed Shona's belly.
They both looked down there.
'It's still flat,' Shona said, patting her waistband. 'I've been into a maternity clothes shop
where they have a cushion you stick up your
jumper to envisage being five months pregnant so
you can buy your clothes in advance. Actually, I
keep going in. I can't afford to buy the clothes
but the cushion is so realistically baby-like, I
genuinely look pregnant with it and I love looking
at it under my jumper. They're sick of the sight
of me there.'
'Let's go there!' insisted Maggie. 'I want to see
what you look like five months pregnant too.'
She held Shona's hand as they went down the
last flight of stairs and out on to the street.
'I didn't know how to tell you though,' Shona
admitted. 'You know, it's like we're so happy and
Paul is nearly doing a dance of joy, while Grey is
up for bastard of the year award and I feel so bad
for you.'
'Bastard of the year award? I love the sound of
that,' Maggie said. 'Really, I don't know if anyone
will approve, but I think it adds something to
college life.'
'You're not upset, though?' Shona asked as they
crossed the street and arrived at Delaney's cafe. 'Shona, I am thrilled for you both. This is the
most incredible bit of news ever. Why would it
upset me?'
'Well . . .' Shona paused, while they waved hi
to the waitress and squashed on to a little table
to one side of the door. 'You were going through
so much. I felt so sorry for you and I didn't want
to land my joy on top of you. You know, when
you're feeling bad, it can be hard to take other
people getting everything they ever wanted.'
Maggie digested this bit of information. In all
the years she'd known Shona, Shona had never
implied that she wanted kids or even thought about
it; in fact, Shona and Paul seemed like two kids
themselves, happy to lurch along in their lovable
way, having fun, throwing parties, buying
rollerblades, going to Euro Disney on their own.
'I'm thrilled,' she repeated. 'Absolutely thrilled.
How could you ever think I'd be otherwise? Just
don't feng shui me out of your life when junior
comes along. I'm your friend and I want to keep
on being your friend. I've done plenty of babysitting
in my time. I can be a good auntie.'
'Thank you,' said Shona tearfully. 'I am so
happy. Paul is so happy. It was a surprise, I can
tell you. We weren't trying, we don't know how
it happened.' Maggie opened her mouth to explain
but Shona got there first. 'No, well, we know how
it happened but, you know, really happened.
'Then I felt guilty because Paul said he'd love
us to have a baby and I kept thinking of you and
Grey, how you never seemed to think about kids
either and I thought my being pregnant would
remind you of that.'
Maggie shook her head.
'Stop feeling guilty,' she said. The issue of children
was one of those great unmentioned subjects
between her and Grey and surely if you loved
someone and they were the one, you'd have the
conversation, wouldn't you? But there had been
times as she'd neared thirty that she'd begun to
think about children.
'Grey and I never talked about it,' she said,
bluntly.
'I didn't think so,' Shona said sadly, 'so I never
talked to you about kids or even the thought of
having them because it might ...'
She stopped.
Maggie filled in the rest of the sentence.
'... Because it might make me realise the difference
between you and Paul and me and Grey. You
thought he was wrong for me when we were going
out, didn't you?' she said, not wanting to hear that
Shona, whom she felt so close to, had thought he
was the wrong person for Maggie.
'Hey, I loved Grey,' Shona insisted. 'Honestly.
He's sexy, funny and charming, what's not to like?
Paul, well, he was never really into him. I just told
him to shut up. You were our friend and we
couldn't hurt you.'
Maggie thought of all the nights they had spent
together as a foursome and cringed.
'It's not that he's wise after the event and realised
that Grey was a two-timer under all the gloss,'
Shona went on quickly. 'They just didn't gel. Paul
thought that Grey was a bit, you know, pompous,
intellectual, trying to prove how smart he was and
you know Paul hates that sort of stuff. He thinks
Simone de Beauvoir was a French singer and
Nietzsche was an astronaut.'
Maggie burst out laughing. 'It's good to be back,'
she said. 'Let's cut to the chase, Shona, and order
something full of cream.'
The next morning, Maggie left Shona and Paul's
apartment a little after nine and walked a couple
of blocks to the bookshop-cum-coffee shop where
Grey liked to sit reading the paper and enjoying
his breakfast of double espresso. During term time,
it was a favoured hang-out of the political students
and would-be intellectuals, a spot where many an
admiring student had sidled up to Grey and Maggie
as they enjoyed coffee and said a shy 'hi' to Dr
Stanley.
She hadn't wanted to visit him in their apartment
and neither had she wanted to phone him.
She didn't want him prepared for this meeting with
ready arguments all laid out. Instead, she had an
armful of legal documents from her newly hired
lawyer relating to selling their jointly owned apartment.
She
pushed open the door of the bookshop and
made her way upstairs to the tiny coffee shop. He
was there, lounging elegantly on a chair, coffee
cup held in long artistic fingers, gazing at the paper
earnestly.
'Hello, Grey,' said Maggie.
He looked up from his newspaper and she could
see that he was astonished. 'Maggie!' he said,
delight in his voice. 'How wonderful to see you.'
The way his eyes roamed over her made her
sure he was pleased to see her. She had made an
enormous effort with what she was wearing, and
had abandoned her jeans for a long cotton skirt
with slits up the side that showed off her legs and
a soft aqua shirt that tied neatly around her slim
stomach. She looked good, better than good, she
looked great.
The morning affirmations and the book of selfconfidence
- which she'd read for a third time were working. After all, there was no point in
being the only person who thought she looked like
Quasimodo's younger sister.
'Can I sit down?' she said.
'Please do,' Grey said suavely, taking the rest of
his morning pile of papers off the other chair.
Maggie sat, feeling strangely relaxed, but Grey
didn't look relaxed at all. He glanced nervously at
his watch as if he was worried about the time.
Was he waiting for another woman maybe? Maggie
tested to see how much that would hurt, Grey
waiting for another woman. She bounced the idea
around in her head and found that she didn't care.
It hadn't been that long, she knew, since they had
split up, but so much had happened. She'd got
over him, she thought. She'd tried so hard to keep
him by being what he wanted that she wondered
if the real Maggie had loved him at all or he her.
'I didn't expect to see you here,' Grey said. 'I
didn't think you were coming back to Galway.' 'And how was I going to move the rest of my
stuff out of the apartment then?' Maggie asked
calmly.
'I thought maybe Shona would do it.'
'You mean you thought I couldn't face coming
back,' she said.
'That too,' he said. 'I'm sorry, Maggie,' he began. 'Let's stop all this "I'm sorry", Grey. We've gone
through it so often it's becoming boring. It's over
between us, it was over the first time you lied to
me, except I don't know exactly when that was.'
'The only thing Shona wasn't able to find out,'
he said, bitterly. 'That woman should work for
Interpol, she's so good at ferreting around for information.'
'It's
called keeping an eye out for your friends,'
Maggie said evenly. 'Shona understands that I
wouldn't want to be married to a man who could
cheat on me, and lie about it. We might have had
some chance if you'd been honest but ...' She
thought about it. 'Actually, no,' she said. 'Strike
that. We wouldn't have had a chance whether
you'd told me about the other women or not, Grey.
I'd never trust you again. And I couldn't respect
a man who'd make love to me, and still manage
to screw other women without feeling in the
slightest bit guilty. So no, it wouldn't have worked
out. But I'd have appreciated the honesty, I'd have
respected you more.'
'There's no going back, then?'
She shook her head.
'Are you coming back to Galway to live?'
'I don't think so, I've made a new life for myself,
I'm busy.'
'I noticed. I saw you in the paper, you and your
mother, the heroines of Summer Street.'
Maggie grinned, where once she would have
been embarrassed at the thought of such publicity. 'They used that picture of us on the steps of
the pavilion because you're gorgeous and I'm not
too bad for an old bird!' her mother had said
proudly at the time and Maggie had stared at her
in astonishment. Her mother was saying she was gorgeous. Maggie didn't remember anyone saying
that when she was growing up, but maybe they
had and she just hadn't noticed. Her own insecurities
and the emotional pain of the bullying had
stopped her hearing the words. She'd been loved
and adored; of course they would have told her
she was beautiful.
'There was a stunning photo of the pair of you on the steps of that old building,' Grey went on. 'My mother loves that picture - she says we're
gorgeous in it,' Maggie said proudly. She was able
to say such a thing without wincing and was almost
beginning to believe it. Men didn't look at her in
the street because she had her jeans on backwards
or her hair was stuck to her head, they looked at
her because they thought she was attractive.
'Beauty sells,' agreed Grey morosely, staring at
her. 'Are you going out with anybody?' he asked. 'It's just you seem happier, happier than you were
with me.'
'I am, as a matter of fact,' Maggie said, unable
to hide the broad smile that lit up her face at the
thought of Ivan. 'He's a good man. Kind, handsome,
very sexy.' She couldn't resist adding that,
just to show Grey that he wasn't the only one
who could hook up with members of the opposite
sex. 'And he's older than me, by a few years,'
she added.
'Not a twenty-year-old student, you mean,' Grey
snapped.
'Exactly.'
'He makes you happy?' He looked as if he would
prefer to hear that this man didn't make Maggie
happy.
'He makes me very happy,' she said softly. 'I
can be myself with him.'
'You were yourself with me,' Grey insisted. 'No, I wasn't,' Maggie said, determined to say
what had to be said. 'I was what I thought you
wanted me to be. We did things you wanted to
do, because I wanted you to be happy. Not things
I wanted to do. Not that it was all your fault, I
had my own issues,' she said, 'but you didn't help.
You wanted a certain type of person as your girlfriend
and I was pliable enough to fit perfectly
into the role.'
'I loved you,' Grey said defensively.
'Loved me enough to have four affairs while we
were together?' Maggie asked sharply. 'That's not
love, Grey. That's selfishness masquerading as love.
If you'd really loved me, you wouldn't have needed
anyone else.'
'What a cliche,' he said in irritation. 'I don't
know why women buy into all that romantic bullshit.
All the same, all wanting fairytale marriages
and white dresses and happy-ever-after. Life isn't
like that.'
'It can be,' Maggie stated. 'It can be if you want
it to be, and I want it to be. And if the man I'm
with is unfaithful to me, then I'll leave him too.
Do you understand?' she said. 'I don't want happy ever after
romance. I want real love and respect and I'd prefer to be on my own than be with
someone and without it.'
Grey wasn't listening. He was staring, like a
goldfish, at someone approaching from behind her.
Maggie turned to see a slender young blonde
girl, mid-twenties at the most, standing awkwardly
a few metres away from their table.
'Er ... well .. stammered Grey, no doubt
anticipating seeing the remains of his coffee landing
on his clothes.
'Relax,' Maggie said. 'You're a free agent, Grey.
See who you like.'
She got to her feet, handed him the sheaf of
papers and held out her hand for him to shake it. 'Let's sort this out as soon as possible,' she said.
He took her hand and shook it.
Then she turned to face the blonde woman. 'Hi,' Maggie said. 'I'm just leaving. He's all
yours.'
Then she walked down the bookshop stairs,
head held high.
For old times' sake, she took the bus out to Salthill
and walked along the beach. The vastness of the Atlantic always awed her. She'd loved walking here
when she'd first come to Galway, loved the knowledge
that centuries of women had walked along
here, thinking about their lives and loves when there
were no amusement arcades in the background, just
the stretch of the bay encircling them.
She'd like to share this place with Ivan. But
perhaps not just yet.
As she walked, Maggie realised that she didn't
want to make any big decisions yet about her and
Ivan. She'd tried to get other people to fix what
was wrong with her. And it hadn't worked; it
couldn't. Only she had been able to fix herself.
She didn't want to make that mistake with Ivan.
If they ended up together, it would be for all
the right reasons, she promised herself that.
Smiling, she turned and headed back along the
beach.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The office looked exactly the same as when Faye had left it. The 'Flipper Does Dallas' painting still
dominating the reception area, the arrangements
of flowers on the tables in reception looking
unchanged, and Grace's stilettos still crackling as
she ran across the reception floor.
In a stunning cream suit with a nipped-in waist
and buttons like golden golfballs, she was the
epitome of the corporate madam.
'Welcome back!' Grace said delightedly. 'I love
your hair!'
Faye laughed and kissed Grace on the cheek. 'I've been away for a month, I've gone through
all sorts of torments and the first thing you mention
to me is my hair?' she demanded in mock disgust.
It was very different. The brown ponytail was
gone, to be replaced by a jaw-length feathery bob
which really suited her.
'It's only a haircut, Grace,' she added, although
she knew it was more than that. Asking for a new
look hadn't just been chopping off a lot of hair.
It was making an effort, albeit a small effort, to
step back into the world.
'It's fabulous though,' said Grace, giving Faye's
hair a professional once-over. 'All you need is for
Ellen to come in and maybe do something about
your clothes.'
'Grace!' warned Faye as they stepped into the
lift. 'I like my clothes and it's only because you're
an old friend that I allow you even to mention
them and my lack of interest in them without killing
you.'
'Sorry,' said Grace unsubdued. 'It's just, you
have had that suit quite a long time and there is
a sale on in Debenhams.'
'Point taken.'
'Fine.' Grace put up her hands in resignation. 'It's lovely to have you back, even if ...' She
stopped herself.
'Even if Amber isn't with me?' Faye said. 'Sorry, I don't know what to say. I wish I knew
how to console you but I suppose there is no
making it better. At least you found her and talked
to her.' Grace wasn't entirely sure if Amber had
any plans to come back because she hadn't wanted
to ask Faye such a tough question, but whatever
had gone on in California between the two of
them, Faye was actually looking better than she
had for years. It wasn't just the hair. That was
only a surface thing, Grace knew.
But Faye genuinely looked different - not content exactly, because Grace knew that Faye
could never be content when Amber was away
from her - but strangely more comfortable, less
uptight, as if a weight had been lifted from her
shoulders.
'The whole office has missed you.' Grace
changed the subject. 'Personally and professionally.
Little Island can't cope when you're gone. You
better not have any holidays again,' she said,
teasing.
'No, not ever again,' agreed Faye. 'Although
I'm thinking of taking a month in September to
visit Amber.'
She hadn't discussed this with Amber, not sure
how her daughter would react to the news that
her mother was going to fly out to LA to spend
a month there. Faye realised that if Mohammed
wouldn't go to the mountain, then the mountain
would have to go to Mohammed.
'The month of September, that's fine,' Grace
said evenly. 'Are you free for lunch? We've a lot
to talk about. Neil has been driving me mad,
driving Philippa mad too. You know what he's like
when he gets involved in the business.'
Faye did know. Grace's husband, Neil, was not
one of life's instinctive people managers. He could
start an argument in an empty room.
'Of course I'm free for lunch,' she said.
When Grace had gone, Faye had sat down and
glanced around at her office, thinking it was odd
to find it looking the same as ever when so much
had changed within herself. Her desk looked
exactly as she always left it, with the phone and
the stapler precisely at right angles to the top of
the desk; even the cleaners knew to leave it that
way, because Mrs Reid insisted upon everything
just so.
God, she was anal, Faye realised ruefully. She
reached over and moved the phone, the stapler
and the lamp. There, just a little bit of chaos, a
smidgen of unpredictability. It was probably better
that way. She didn't know what she was going to
do next with her life - that was unpredictable, too,
but as she mulled this over she decided it could
be rather exciting. She'd muted herself for so long
in order to be the perfect mother and, instead, had
turned into a controlling person who'd lost sight
of the real Faye.
Now it was time to work out who the real Faye
was and to enjoy life again. She'd punished herself
enough for the past.
Amber looked around her new home, a tiny studio
apartment in west Hollywood, and grimaced.
Compared to the hotel - where she'd been staying
in one of the cheapest rooms after moving out of
Karl's suite - it was nothing much to look at and
definitely needed some serious cleaning products.
Her mother's weak bleach solution might do the
trick. Still, it was furnished, in a reasonably safe
building with security doors, an intercom system and
she was on the second floor rather than the ground. Number 2F contained a kitchenette, a tray-sized
balcony overlooking the apartment block next
door's pool and a minute shower room. It hadn't
taken her long to move in. All she had were a lot
of clothes, some nice hotel toiletries and that was
it. She made a list of all the stuff she needed, like
groceries, cleaning products, washing powder,
some plants to brighten the place up, and headed
off to find a shop.
It was Syd who had helped her find her new
home when she'd told him she was leaving Karl.
'You can't.'
'Leave?' said Amber. 'Syd, you know I have
to. I can't hang on to Karl's coat-tails for ever, not
when he doesn't want me. I have some pride, you
know.'
'I know,' he'd replied.
So Syd had talked to Michael Levin about Amber
and asked for his help in getting her a job and a
place to live.
Karl, on the other hand, had done nothing.
He'd barely spoken to her since the day after
her mum left.
He'd come home in the morning as usual to
find Amber packing up her stuff.
'You're going,' he said flatly.
'There's nothing for me to stay for.' Amber
shrugged, still packing.
'What will you do?'
'There's a street corner on Sunset Boulevard
for me,' she replied sarcastically. 'Since you've
been treating me like little more than a prostitute,
I might as well go the whole hog and make
money from it. Hopefully, Richard Gere will see
this Pretty Woman and rescue her, although I forgot you already rescued me from my boring
life. Nobody would be so lucky to have it happen
to them twice.'
'Amber, don't talk that way,' Karl said. 'It wasn't
meant to happen like this, but it sorta did. I've
got to think of the band ...'
'You're thinking of Karl,' Amber shot back,
'as usual. Number one. Nobody else gets in the
way. I was useful when I was your muse but as
soon as another muse came along, I was history.
I hope somebody tells Venetia that you run
through girlfriends pretty quickly. Although
she'll probably last longer than me. She's more
useful.'
'It's not like that,' he said. 'Don't be bitter,
Amber. You had a blast. Nobody forced you to
come.'
She glared at him. 'You did.'
'Did I hold a gun to your head and make you
get on the plane at Dublin airport? No. So don't
go all "you made me, Karl"! Right?' There was no point talking to him.
'You're right, Karl. It was all my fault. I should
have known better. I will in future,' she said.
She was quickly running through the money her
mother had given her, and for the past few days
had been working as a receptionist in a hairdressing
salon close to the Beverly Center, although she
guessed that her entire wages were less than the
tips some of the stylists got from their wealthy
clients. Because she was working illegally, she'd
been lucky to find such a job. Most illegals ended
up chambermaiding and cleaning but Amber's Irish
accent had touched a chord with the salon owner
and he'd hired her on the spot.
The salon staff were friendly and Syd seemed
determined to keep in touch every day, inviting
her to parties and gigs so that she felt as if she
had some social life in LA. He'd also given her
some more money.
'I can't take this!' she said. 'It's the band's
money.'
'You were a part of the band, Amber,' Syd said
sadly. 'I feel bad about the way Karl's treated you.
I've known him a long time, I should have warned
you. I thought it was different with you because
you're not his usual type, you're smart.'
'That's something.' She grinned.
'I told him not to make you leave Ireland in
such a hurry, but you know Karl, once he sets his
mind on something, he does it.'
'You said that to him?' she asked.
'It's important to think things through,' Syd
muttered.
'I wish you'd said it to me,' Amber replied. 'But
I wouldn't have listened, would I?'
She thought about home a lot: her mother, Ella,
Gran, the life she'd left behind. The longer she
was away from home, the more she wanted to go
back.
But after the way she'd run off, nobody would
want her there, would they?
And then Saul came back into her life.
He'd simply turned up at the salon one day as
they were closing, and said, 'Hello, Amber.'
She stared at him in shock, remembering that
it was at his beautiful house, at his party, that
she'd finally realised Karl didn't love her after
all.
'We're closing, sorry,' she said. 'Do you want
to make an appointment?' Pen poised like the
professional she was, she smiled at him.
'I don't want an appointment. I wanted to talk
to you, Amber. Syd told me you were here,' Saul
said. 'I've a proposition for you.'
It took ten minutes before Saul managed to
convince Amber that he wasn't a sleazy guy trying
to take advantage of her now that she was penniless
and alone. They sat in a health food cafe
nursing smoothies while Saul explained.
'You know I'm an art collector and I think you
have great talent,' he said. 'I'd like to invest in
your talent. No strings attached,' he'd added for
what had to be the tenth time. 'You know I'm a
collector: you saw the paintings in my house. I'm
interested in your talent as an artist. If you spent
a year out here or in New Mexico, just think of
the work you'd produce. I've still got the picture
you drew in my house. You left it behind that night. It's only a sketch but it's more vital and
alive than a lot of the work that's going for thousands
of dollars in local galleries. So, what do you
think?'
Amber was speechless.
'You still want to paint, right?' Saul asked. 'You
don't have to go to art college to do that. You
could make a damn good living right now.'
Still, she said nothing.
'You could go home and do the art college thing
too, and then come back,' Saul went on. 'We'd
have to hire a lawyer to sort out your immigration
status first, though. There's nothing stopping
you from making it. You've certainly got the
talent.'
In her head, Amber repeated his words 'there's
nothing stopping you'.
There was nothing stopping her - except her
pride and fear of facing the people she'd hurt.
What she really wanted to do was go home, be
with the people she loved and go to art college.
And she could do that. All she needed was her
plane ticket.
'Thank you for the vote of confidence,' said
Amber earnestly, 'but I'm going to learn my trade
first. You need to learn how to paint an apple
straight before you can paint it abstract. I want
to go home. Then, I'll be able to paint.'
James had been gone over a week and Christie,
who'd often thought that her beloved dogs were
the best companions in the world, found that Tilly
and Rocket's adoration didn't mean quite as much
when James wasn't around.
She tried hard to be her old self, but it was
almost impossible. Her hands shook sometimes for
no reason, as if her body was trying to express
the shock she was desperately trying to suppress.
She felt exhausted every evening and fell into bed
early, drifting into a heavy sleep and then waking
in panic in the middle of the night. She could never
go back to sleep and lay alone in the big bed she
and James had shared for so long, her whole chest
aching with sadness as the dawn rose. She couldn't
even cry. Tears weren't enough to express what
she felt.
During their married life they had spent so little
time apart.
James had gone off on a few fishing trips and
she'd gone away on school trips a couple of times,
but all added up together, it wouldn't account for
more than a few months apart, over thirty-five
years. She told nobody what had happened, she
felt too ashamed and embarrassed.
Shane and Ethan still knew nothing, for which
she was eternally grateful. At least James hadn't
decided to destroy her totally by telling their sons
how she'd cheated on him with another man. But
Christie knew that if James never came home, the
boys would have to learn someday. Which was the
scariest thought - James never coming home or
Ethan and Shane learning about Carey Wolensky?
Ana had dropped in unexpectedly one day,
smiling as usual, full of chat about what she and
Rick were up to.
Christie hugged her longer than was necessary,
feeling the familiar remorse at how she'd betrayed
her sister. If Ana ever found out ... Christie paled
at the thought of that. She'd lost her husband,
please let her not lose her sister too.
Citing James's working too hard and ignoring
her was not a valid excuse for what she'd done to
Ana. She hoped she would never have to tell her.
Living with the guilt of it was punishment enough.
'Rick says we should downsize,' Ana was saying
as they walked up to the Summer Street Cafe. Ana
was mad on the new lemon muffins there. 'The
house is big and so's the garden, but it's got character.
Not as much as your house, but still, I don't
fancy moving into something characterless, even
if we made money on the move.'
Christie ordered coffee and cake, although her
mouth was so dry she might as well have been
eating ashes.
'Did you ever go ahead with seeing Carey
Wolensky?' she asked finally.
Ana gave the irrepressible grin that reminded
Christie of what she'd been like as a child, with
her fair hair tied in pigtails, a dimple on either
cheek.
'No,' admitted Ana. 'It was wishful thinking
really. It's not as if we ever had anything to say
to each other when we were going out, so what
would we say now, twenty-five years down the
line? And I saw a photo of him in the papers. He
looks about a hundred now, you know. I suppose
you always have a thing for the ones who dumped
you.' Ana took another bite of her muffin and
looked thoughtful. 'And he gave me a great bit of
advice.'
'What did he say?' asked Christie lightly. 'That I should stop going out with men like my
father, tough, controlling ones, and find a decent,
nice man who'd appreciate me.' Ana beamed. 'He
hit the nail on the head there - that's what you
used to say to me too. But you were both right.
So I went off and before long I met Rick, who
turned out to be the love of my life and still is.
And there aren't many people my age who can say
that, now, are there? Well,' Ana added, 'apart from
you and James, obviously.'

With an absence of anyone to talk to and with no
work, now that school was closed for the summer,
Christie did the only thing she could do under the
circumstances. She set up her easel on the terrace
where the pergola gave her shade and began to
paint. She'd planned to do one of her botanical
pictures, the detailed representations of irises and
orchids she had always loved to draw, but found
she couldn't concentrate on them. Perhaps she
could only work on them when she was happy.
So she gave up and began painting a portrait
instead.
For her, painting was like therapy: as she
painted, she thought of the mistakes that had
brought her to this point.
She and Carey had had two days of a love affair.
Two days of pure, joyful pleasure when they made
love on the day bed, and curled up afterwards
talking, Carey smoking the unfiltered cigarettes he
adored, the ones Christie hated.
It was like being in a dream, one where none
of her actions could hurt either herself or anyone
else. A lovely dream from which she would awaken
with a pleasurable memory and no guilt.
'If I were your husband, I would wonder where
you were every day,' Carey murmured in the late
afternoon of that second, glorious day.
'My husband hasn't even noticed I'm not at
home every day,' Christie said bitterly. 'It's as if I
don't exist for him. Right now, he's only interested
in his work. I'm just someone to look after his
children and cook dinner each night.'
'Is that why you did this? To get back at him?'
Carey asked, like a scientist probing a rat in an
experiment.
'No,' said Christie. 'That's not why. He never
notices me these days, but you do. That's why I
wanted to be with you . . .' Saying it out loud
make the words sound feeble. Her husband was
busy so she'd betrayed him.
It was more than that, wasn't it?
'We need to talk,' Carey said. 'I am going to
London next month. I have an important commission,
it could make me rich. Christie, leave, come
with me. Bring your little boys. I can love them
too. I love their mother.'
It was talking of the future that made Christie's
daydream crumble. The future. Life without James,
life ferrying her beloved children back and forth
between them. Anger, hurt, betrayal. Ana hating
her. James hating her more.
The dream shattered and she felt the iron grasp
of guilt around her soul. What had she done? She
must have been mad.
'No, Carey,' she said, getting up. She was naked,
and she found her clothes where he'd thrown them
on the floor after ripping them from her in the
heat of desire.
'I can't. This was a mistake. I have to go. I can't
see you again, sorry, but it has to be that way.'
Shoes, where were her shoes? She couldn't see
them for tears.
'You don't mean this?' he demanded, uncurling
his body from the day bed and grabbing her by
both arms. 'You have to come with me. We were
meant for each other, you know that. This is not
tawdry sex between an artist and his model, this
is real love, true passion. I've never felt this way
about a woman before,' he said, almost in wonderment. 'You can't go.'
'I can,' said Christie wildly. 'I've got to. I'd lose
so much, I'd lose all the people I love if I go with
you. I'm sorry.'
She found her shoes, put them on, flung her
coat over her shoulder and went to the door. She
made herself take one last look at him standing
there, looking bewildered and hurt, and so devastatingly
attractive. 'I'm sorry,' she said again.
'You'll be back,' he snapped. 'I won't,' she said.
When she'd emptied her head of all the tumbling
thoughts, Christie painted quickly and furiously.
The next day, she was outside, standing putting
the finishing touches to her painting when she
heard footsteps in the hall, moving into the kitchen.
The dogs, who'd never been much good in the
watchdog department, leaped to their feet, yapping
happily and ran into the house. She could hear a
man's voice, James's.
She could imagine him bending down, petting
Tilly's ears, rubbing Rocket's soft belly. But Christie
stayed where she was. He mightn't want to see
her, he might have just come to pick up more
things.
'Christie?' came his voice.
'I'm in the garden,' she called, not knowing what
to expect. She put her brush down and sat down
on the chair. She thought she might need to be
sitting for this. James walked over towards her,
then hesitated. The easel stood between them.
'How are you?' she said tremulously, her eyes
glued to his face. He looked tired, pale.
James gazed back at her steadily, and Christie
wished she knew what was in his heart. Please,
she prayed, please.
'I've been thinking,' he said. The too,' she answered quickly.
'Thinking about our lives then. How hard I was
working, how hard you were working. It must
have been difficult, with me so busy and you coping
with the children and work and everything at
home. We had no time together, no time at all. I
wasn't the best husband ever at that point.'
Christie held her breath. He hadn't said, Goodbye, I've come to pick up my stuff. There
was some hope.
'I don't know if I can ever forget what happened
between you and him.'
Again, he didn't say Carey's name and Christie
felt her spirits sink at his words.
'But,' James went on, 'I could try.'
'You could try?' Christie asked. 'Try to forget?
Try again?'
He nodded. 'I love you, Christie. You're my
whole life, you always have been, ever since I met
you. That's what hurts, to think that there was a
time when I wasn't your whole life, to think that
we've been living a lie.'
'But we weren't,' Christie pleaded. 'It only
happened for a short time, it was stupid, and then
it was over. It didn't rewrite our history, it doesn't
negate everything we had, our love, our children,
our life together.'
'I know that,' James said. 'Doesn't make it any easier to handle, though. I kept imagining you and
him -' He stopped. 'I can't bear to think of that,
Christie. And then, when you left the pictures for
me to see, I was so angry and hurt. All I could
think was you were trying to show me how much
he loved you, because he'd been able to paint you.
I don't understand art, that's your world and I was
never a part of it. But I felt bad because I'd never
tried to be a part of it and, at the same time,
furious with you for having him, having that other
life.'
He was being so honest and it was so heartbreaking
that Christie wanted nothing more than
to get up and to put her arms around him. But
she couldn't. She had to let him speak his piece.
That was his right. She'd done what she thought
was right, now it was his turn.
'When you showed me the pictures,' he went
on, 'I thought you'd done it for a reason: that
you wanted to be with him again. When you said
it wasn't that, that he was dying and that he
wanted to see you one last time, I don't think I
believed you. I still thought you must be trying
to hurt me.'
'I'd never hurt you, not intentionally,' she said. 'Although I have hurt you, I didn't mean to.'
'I didn't go fishing,' he said. 'I took some time
off to think. I stayed in the B & B beside the lake,
but I just walked and walked every day. I couldn't
bring myself to actually fish,' he said ruefully. 'And
I realised I couldn't let the past destroy us. We're
stronger than that. You're an honest person and
that's why you told me, I know that now. You
could have left me in the dark and I would never
have known and some day, a hundred years from
now, someone would put two and two together.
You'd be named as the dark lady and I'd be the
fool, the cuckold, the man who never knew. I don't
want to be the man who never knew, that's not
what I married you for. I can't say I'm glad you
told me, but now that you have, it's not going to
end our marriage.'
'Oh, James,' said Christie and she ran to him.
He held out his arms and pulled her into his
embrace.
'Thank you,' she sobbed, 'thank you. I couldn't
ring you or try to get in touch with you, I knew
you had to do this on your own. I never meant
to hurt you, not twenty-five years ago, not last
week, not ever, you know that. I just don't want
there to be any more secrets. I've lived my life
frightened that this would come out and destroy
what we had. I just couldn't live with that any
more.'
He held her close, saying nothing, stroking her
hair, her head burrowed into his shoulder.
'I missed you,' he said. 'That's what made me
come back. Thinking of a life without you, what
it would be like to live on my own. We'd sell this
place, split the money and both of us live out lives
of quiet misery because of my pride, because of
something that happened twenty-five years ago.
And no, I didn't want to do that,' he said. 'Carey
Wolensky nearly took so much away from me, he
wasn't going to take you away again.'
And Christie stood in his embrace and prayed
thank you to whoever was watching over them.
They stood there for a while, until the dogs got
tired of sniffing around their feet and lay down
and fell asleep. It was nice just to stand there and
be held by the man she loved most in the whole
world.
'What are you painting?' asked James, eventually.
Christie
moved back and wiped her eyes with
her hand.
'I started doing one of my flower pictures,' she
said with a sniffle, reaching into her cardigan
pocket for a tissue. She wiped her eyes and blew
her nose. 'But I couldn't concentrate on it,
couldn't concentrate on anything really, I was just
waiting for you. And then, I found this old photo
and it came to me that's what I should be
painting.' She led James around the other side of
the easel and stood while he stared at the picture.
In her own style, she'd copied an old family
photograph of when the boys were young. Shane
and Ethan sat on a couch and behind them,
leaning over the back of the couch, smiling, arms
around each other, were James and Christie. It
was a beautiful family shot, hidden in an album
for far too long, and she'd captured the joy on
their faces perfectly.
'It's a family portrait,' James said.
'Because my family is what's important to me,'
Christie said. 'You're what's important to me.'
He put an arm around her waist and squeezed. 'I know,' he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Autumn on Summer Street came very slowly. The
gently curved road was a sheltered place and, by
September, the leaves of the maples that lined the
pavements were only tinged with the most delicate
hint of gold. The Japanese maple in Una
Maguire's front garden, however, had turned a startling
dark crimson attracting admiring glances from
passers-by. Christie Devlin's soft white blousy roses
were losing their petals daily, except for the creamy
climbing rose that crept up over the wall and
wrapped tendrils around the ever-open gate. That
still bloomed, sending a heady rose scent on to the
breeze and making people talk of an Indian
summer.
But in spite of the good weather, the summer
indolence of barbecues and sitting out sunbathing
on front steps was over.
There was a sense of business about the whole
street, the feeling of a new start. Holidays were
over and the new school term had arrived.
At the Summer Street Cafe, Henry took in all
but two of the little tables that stood on the pavement.
His customers were drifting indoors now,
preferring their coffees looking out over Summer
Street. He liked autumn with its sense of renewal;
it reminded him of being a kid going back to school
with a bagful of clean new copy books, ready to
be filled with wisdom.
'I think you were always a wise man,' teased Xu. She'd really come out of her shell, Henry
thought proudly, feeling a certain responsibility for
that. He and Jane had done their best to welcome
her warmly, and her growing friendship with
Maggie Maguire had helped integrate her into their
community too.'
Xu was a lot different from the shy woman
who'd come to work for them at the start of the
year. She was a big part of Summer Street.
Xu herself was excited that her mother was
coming from China to visit her.
Henry and Jane had insisted that Xu's mother
stay in their spare room.
'You've only got a tiny bedsit,' Jane pointed
out. 'There won't be room to swing a cat there.' 'She doesn't have a cat,' Xu said gravely, then
laughed. She loved being able to make jokes in
English now. Everyone assumed her to be so sober
and serious that they didn't expect her to make
jokes.
'We've taught you too well,' smiled Jane. 'You'll
be as bad as Henry soon with the jokes.'
'I told you the Irish and Chinese were similar,'
said Xu. 'We have the same sense of humour,
except it's more hidden in my people.'
'It's not hidden now,' said Jane cheerfully. 'Come
on, you pair, let's get those chairs in or the
customers will be tripping over them.'
At number 34, Christie Devlin was getting ready
for another teaching year, her last, she'd decided.
'Are you sure you want to do this?' James said
to her the night before school started. 'Don't do
it just because of me.'
'I'm ready to retire,' said Christie. 'Think of all
the places we can go then, the things we can do
together.'
Although James could stay another two years
before retirement, he'd decided to go early. He'd
stop working when Christie did the following
summer. They had already amassed a collection of
brochures about long holidays abroad for the
adventuresome spirit. Christie particularly liked the
sound of the trip around India, although Ethan
and Shane had been a bit anxious when they had
seen the brochure.
'A month?' said Shane, the brochure opened to
the fares page. 'For this price, you're hardly going
to be staying in old maharajahs' palaces,' he said
doubtfully. 'And what about the food, what if one
of you gets sick?'
James and Christie looked at each other and
laughed.
'If we get sick, we get sick!' James said cheerily. 'We'll bring plenty of medicine to bung us up from
each end. We're grown-ups, you know,' he added, 'we're not ready for the nursing home yet.'
'That's not what I meant,' Shane explained. 'I know, I know,' said his father.
'But why now?' said Ethan. 'Why did you never
go on these sorts of holidays years ago? You could
have taken the time off.'
Christie and James exchanged another look, a
private look.
'This is time for us now,' she said. 'You're all
settled, you've got your own lives, your own families,
it's time for us to be selfish.'
'Yeah, but what if we need you, with the baby
and everything?' Shane said, sounding briefly like
a child and not like an adult with a wife and a
first child on the way.
'The baby will be fine,' Christie said, and she
knew he would be.
She'd seen a healthy little boy in the future, to
be followed, hopefully, by two more. She and James
had given Shane and Janet some money for their
new arrival and to help them buy a house.
'We promise we'll do double babysitting duties
when we get back,' she added. 'You can always
email us, we have a hotmail account.'
'I don't know,' joked Ethan, 'parents these days:
they're crazy and want to travel the world and
don't care about anyone else.'
The whole family laughed at this.
'You're right,' James said. 'It's like we're in our
second childhoods.'
At number 48, Una Maguire was back on her feet
and had taken up yoga.
'Flexibility is the key to taking care of yourself,'
she told everyone who'd listen. 'If I'd done yoga
years ago, who knows, I mightn't have broken my
leg after all. Your father and I have a bet on about
the lotus position. I said I'll be in it by Christmas
and he says never. I'm going to win that tenner
from you, Dennis.'
Maggie laughed at her mother. It was brilliant
to see her on such good form. Una Maguire was
one of life's strong people. No matter what life
threw at her, she threw it right back with her own
peculiar topspin. Maggie had stopped obsessing
about how she'd turned out so different from her
mother and had begun to appreciate her differences.
She
was a bit more like her dad really. Quiet
and shy, but with enough of her mother's strength
and fire, if required. The developers involved in
trying to destroy the Summer Street pavilion had
certainly learned that to their cost.
The holiday season had meant that both the
plan to knock down the pavilion and the campaign
to save it were at a standstill. But the fact that no
bulldozer had entered the park in the dead of night
and ripped the pavilion to pieces was down to
Maggie's work. She'd given so many interviews
with newspapers and radio stations about the
pavilion that she could recite her points in her
sleep. And it seemed newspapers liked using her
picture too.
'The pavilion may be crumbling and need a
fortune to restore it, but it's a beautiful building,'
Ivan said, looking at the picture everyone liked
best, the full-colour one of Maggie and her mum
sitting on the pavilion steps: two radiant redheads,
smiling at the cameras with the Save Our Pavilion
posters in the background. 'But having two beautiful
women in the picture certainly helps,' Ivan
went on.
'That's the type of thing Shona would say,'
Maggie teased him, but she didn't contradict him
either.
He said she was beautiful ten times a day, and
he meant it. What was more, Maggie was beginning
to appreciate her own worth. When there was
nobody else around, she'd examined her photo in
the paper, trying to be objective about her own
face, and realised that people hadn't been lying to
her when they said she was beautiful.
She didn't think she would ever totally see it
herself. There'd always be that core of self-doubting
somewhere, the doubt that made Maggie so lovable
and vulnerable. But she was growing stronger and
more confident every day. She had become slightly
more adventurous when it came to clothes and
had just purchased several new bikinis for the
holiday she and Ivan were going on in November.
They planned to tour Croatia and then spend one
week in Dubrovnik mixing culture and the seaside
all in one glorious package.
Going on holiday with Ivan wasn't the only
momentous event in Maggie's life. He'd asked her
to move in with him. Actually, he'd asked her to
marry him, but she'd said it was too soon to think
of all that.
'It's a wonderful idea and I'm honoured you've
asked me,' she said, sitting on his lap, her arms
around his neck. 'I just don't want to rush into
anything, Ivan.'
'It wouldn't be rushing,' he said. 'But OK, I
understand. I won't push you.'
'Thank you for that,' she said. 'You know I'm
crazy about you.'
'How crazy?' he asked.
'Oh, this crazy,' she said, leaning forward and
hungrily catching his mouth with hers.
At number 18, Faye Reid had decided that there
was no point letting her savings sit miserably in
the bank for ever and had employed a landscape
gardener to transform her back garden.
'I love sitting in yours so much,' she'd said to
Christie. 'It's so peaceful and lovely with the
pergola and the scent of all those roses, and I
thought why am I killing myself trying to make
my little square of grass look attractive? I don't
know anything about plants and, without professional
help, it'll always be a disaster of a bit of
lawn, loads of weeds and a few hardy shrubs that
can survive my hopeless horticultural skills.'
'Brilliant idea,' Christie said. 'You need a little
haven.'
With Christie's help, Faye had come up with
the template for her own garden and although the
flowers and plants would need a good year to
settle in properly, it was a different place already.
Now, down the bottom of the garden, she had a
new shed which would take her gardening equipment.
'You
have to actually do some gardening now,'
Christie teased. 'But I promise to help.'
In front of the shed was a bed filled with large
rambling plants that screened the shed, then a
path that curved in an S shape around the tiny
lawn, a lawn that was now sinuously rounded
at the edges with beds of flowers cut into it.
There were plants clustered amid rocks, beautiful
grasses lazing in a raised bed filled with
gravel and a cluster of pots with herbs brimming
out over the top. Closer to the house was a trellised wall and a pergola, with honeysuckle and
fledgling roses planted at the base waiting to
spread. Finally, there was a small terracotta paved
terrace graced by the new garden furniture she'd
bought.
'This is a perfect place to relax,' Christie said
when she saw the finished product. She sat down
with a glass of wine to admire the handiwork.
'Who needs to go on holiday to get the sun?' added Maggie, sitting back on a lounger with her
eyes closed and a glass of wine in one hand.
The evening sun filled the terraced corner.
'I love it,' said Faye proudly. 'I don't know why
I didn't do it years ago, but I was always saving
money for Amber.'
She talked about Amber all the time now with
Maggie and Christie. At first she'd found it hard
to mention her daughter's name to others in case
she cried. Amber hadn't come home. And although
the lines of communication were firmly open and
Amber - who had her own US cell phone now rang frequently but only ever briefly, there was
always a sense of sadness and failure in Faye's
heart. But she had to move on. Sitting still waiting
for Amber was not how she was going to live her
life.
It wasn't fair to herself and it wasn't fair to
Amber, because one day if, God willing, Amber
did come home, she wouldn't want it to be to a
mother who sat anxiously watching her every
move, balancing her own hopes on Amber's slender
shoulders, expecting Amber to be everything to
her. That was wrong. The realisation that this was
what she'd done before had shocked her.
She was determined to be different. And she'd
phoned Grace's makeover friend, Ellen, for that
reason. She knew that Ellen didn't want to transform
her with red lipstick, blonde streaks and high
heels - she hoped she'd gain some of Ellen's wisdom
about life and about not being invisible any more.
It was time to trade in the Faye Reid who'd hidden
herself for eighteen years.
'Amber would love this,' Faye said now to
Christie and Maggie, looking out over the beautiful
garden. 'She always used to wonder why I
wouldn't spend money on things and I told her
we were broke, that work didn't pay me that much
and, in fact, I was just saving it for her future.
Crazy really, obsessively saving so that she'd have
everything and I didn't see that wasn't what she
wanted.'
Christie reached over and held Faye's hand
gently.
'She'll come home one day, Faye: I'm sure of
it.

'I hope so,' Faye said sadly. 'I hope so.'
A mile away, Amber sat in a small traffic jam and
half listened to the taxi driver telling her all the
news since she'd been away. He was very informative
and clearly listened to talk radio at length,
because once she'd mentioned that she'd been away
from Ireland for over three months, he went into
great detail to fill her in on the goings-on in the
corridors of power.
'That's terrible,' Amber muttered at intervals,
glad of his conversation because at least then she
didn't need to think about reaching Summer Street
and what sort of reception she'd get.
It was all she could think of since she'd decided
to come home. Would her mother hug her the way she'd hugged her that day in the hotel in LA? Or
would she feel that Amber had pushed her too far
by staying away so long, and that by so doing,
had sliced a division between them that could never
be healed?
If that was the case, she'd say she had come
home because American immigration was very
efficient and she could easily be deported. But if
her mum hugged her, then Amber would admit
the truth: she missed her mother more than she
could say.
It was all very well being wild and carefree when
you had one special person to share that dream
with. But when that person turned out to be
nothing like you'd imagined, then the dream turned
sour pretty quickly. She was working illegally in
the US, relying on her tips, while the so-called love
of her life was with another woman.
Amber thought back to the day she and Saul
had sat in the health food cafe and talked about
her career as an artist.
She remembered that feeling of freedom she'd
experienced when she'd realised that the only thing
stopping her going home was herself.
She could go home if she wanted to.
'If you want to go back to Ireland, that's great,'
Saul said. 'But keep in touch, right? I still want to
invest in your talent.'
He'd been about to leave and had casually
said that he thought her family must be proud
of her.
After spending so long pretending that everything
was fine, all the pent-up misery had come
tumbling out and Amber had burst into tears.
'My mum and my gran are my family and they
were proud of me, and I threw it back in their
faces,' she sobbed. 'I didn't understand how much
Mum loved me, I just hated the fact that she
expected so much of me.'
'That's parents for you,' Saul pointed out. He
sat back down at the table and gazed at her seriously. 'Only they don't stop being proud of you.'
'You think so?' Amber asked. The tears kept
pouring out. She'd suppressed her sadness for so
long. She couldn't be miserable or tearful at work:
the glossy LA women came to the salon for
pampering, not to stare at the red eyes of a young
receptionist who had life problems. Glossy LA
women didn't do problems.
'Hey, Amber, get real here. It could have all
turned really bad for you,' Saul said. 'Your ex is
no prince, that's a fact, and this isn't a city where
you want to be broke and alone. But it didn't turn
out bad because you're a strong woman, and clever
enough to walk away at the right time. You could
have hung on with Karl and you didn't. I admire
that.'
Amber nodded and dried her eyes with her
sleeve.
'I don't know your mom, but I'd say she taught
you well and I'd also say she'd be proud of you
if she knew.'
Amber thought about it all. 'You're right,' she
said, suddenly pleased with herself. 'I am a strong
woman. And my mum did teach me well. I'm just
like her, in fact.'
The taxi driver dropped Amber and her bags
outside number 18 Summer Street.
'Thanks,' he said, when she paid him and gave
him a decent tip.
At least she had money now, Amber reflected.
She hadn't spent much of her earnings and she
had refilled the envelope of cash her mother had
given her. Mum was getting that back. The rest
could go towards household expenses. If she was
going to repeat her final year in school to do her
exams, then she was going to be a paying member
of the household.
She took a minute to fluff up her hair - even
more tawny blonde now thanks to free mesh highlights
at work - fix the collar on her sleeveless
shirt, and adjust the tiger's-eye pendant around her
neck. Her hand stilled around it, caressing the
smooth stone. How many times had she touched
this and thought of her mother? How many times
had it felt like a talisman of her past life?
And now it was going to be part of her future,
she decided, shaking back her mane of hair.
Dragging her bags to the front door and stood
listening. There were sounds of music and laughter
coming from around the back of the house. As the
end of the terrace, number 18 had a tiny side
passage, and Amber left her bags and walked curiously
along it, pushing open the gate at the end
and walking into a garden she definitely didn't
recognise.
It was so pretty, full of plants and curves and.
. .
there was a terrace with sun loungers and sitting
on them were her mum, Mrs Devlin and a beautiful
red-haired woman that Amber thought might
be Mrs Maguire's daughter.
Nobody noticed her approach. They were too
busy talking and laughing, and the music - Mum's
adored Billie Holiday - was playing loudly. Mum's hair was different too - short and flicky, lovely. She looked so happy, so content.
Amber felt tears well up. Everything was
different. What if her mum didn't want her back,
what if she'd found other people she wanted to
be with?
'Amber?' Faye stood up. She couldn't quite
believe it. It had to be a mirage, but it wasn't: it
really was her beloved Amber standing awkwardly
at one side of the garden, watching.
'Amber!' she roared.
Christie and Maggie watched the two women
embrace so hard it must have crushed their bones. 'Mum!'
'Amber!'
They were both sobbing and hugging, and saying
sorry at the same time.
Christie got to her feet. 'I think I'll go home,'
she whispered to Maggie.
The too,' agreed Maggie.
They both slipped out of the side gate, leaving
mother and daughter in their own little world.
It was a beautiful evening and the sun was low
in the sky now, with a hint of deep pink soaring
up from the horizon, bathing Summer Street in its
rosy glow. Across the road, children played in the
park, dog owners walked slowly as their pets
danced along happily, and a teenage boy and girl
sat on the pavilion steps talking quietly, their arms
around each other.
Christie walked home slowly, thanking all the
stars in heaven that she lived in such a special
place.
Thanks to Margaret for kindness and for cool
unflappability in every crisis; thanks to Marta
for being a warm, funny and inspirational
person; thanks to the kind and enviably longlegged
angel Brenda Doody without whom this
book wouldn't have been even started, and no,
do not buy me a KitKat, Brenda, my body is a
temple ... Oh well, OK. You go, girl! And huge
thanks to Liz for all your kindnesses.
Heartfelt thanks to Marian Keyes for being
there when it mattered; to Kate Thompson for
being one of those people who shine like a bright
light in your life; to Kate Holmquist for an
incredible friendship that was meant to be; to
Lisamarie Redmond for being the funniest
person I know; to Fiona O'Brien, a beautiful
kindred spirit with talent in abundance; to Cathy
Barry for endless encouragement; thanks to
Susan Zaidan and Barbara Stack, my fellow twin
mummies who agree that we're blessed,
To Tricia Scanlan who is an angel herself; to
Sheila 0' Flanagan, the sharpest, wittiest woman
in books. Thanks to my friend, the amazingly
wise Maureen Hassett (without whom this book
really wouldn't have been finished); to Beccy
Cameron for the incredible yoga advice when I
needed it; thanks to the gorgeous Amanda Cahill
for the fun on Wednesdays; thanks to
Suzy McMullan for hilarious emails; to Her
Kelleher-Nolan for great fun on nights out; to fellow writers Colette Caddle and Suzanne
Higgins for the laughs; and to Angela Velden
for being such an inspiration.
Enormous thanks and hugs to the marathonrunning
genius, the kind and lovely Jonathan
Lloyd at Curtis Brown. Huge thanks to all the
Curtis Brown team, especially the always kind
Camilla Goslett, Diana Mackay, Carol Jackson
and Sarah Thursby for the exquisite hand-knits
that will be family heirlooms. Thanks to Louise
Page for utter professionalism in every moment
of hilarious panic, and for her marvellous sense
of humour. And much thanks to lovely Deborah
Schneider for everything she does, all accomplished
with style and charm.
Thanks (and really, thanks begins to stop
sounding like a useful word and becomes hopeless
as it doesn't say enough) to my family at
HarperCollins. When I get into Fulham Palace
Road, I want hours to rush around, meet
everyone and hear all your news.
First, a huge thanks to the always exquisite
Lynne Drew who is simply a marvellous friend
and is as wise as she's wonderful; thanks to the
uber-talented writer and editor Rachel Hore who
has such vision that I can hear her voice in my
head when I'm doing something daft, and who's
taught me how to self-edit; an enormous thanks
to Amanda Ridout for being dynamic and making
it clear that us small women are a force to be
reckoned with. And I'm sure I'm taller .. .
Thanks to the elegant Victoria Barnsley; thanks
to Maxine Hitchcock for being an utter darling;
thanks to Alice Russell, Fiona McIntosh, Lee
Motley, Anne O'Brien, Damon Greeney, Wendy
Neale, Clive Kintoff, Lucy Vanderbilt, Katie
Espiner, the whole incredible sales and marketing
team, all the gang in Glasgow (never let me into
the book room again!), gorgeous Anita who
lights up the reception, and everyone else in the HE family.
Last but certainly not least, especial thanks to
the Irish superheroes: Moira Reilly and Tony
Purdue.
Thanks to HarperCollins Australia and New
Zealand, who make tours such a joy. (I say tours,
but really, we have fun and go to restaurants and
manage to shop. Can I live in Alannah Hill's
shop?) For all of that, thanks to supermom Mel
Caine, my dear friend Karen-Maree Griffiths,
Christine Farmer, Louisa Dear, Jim and Pandi
Demetriou, Lorraine Steele, Tony Fisk, Anne
Simpson and Chris Casey. Thanks also for the
welcome to Shaunagh O'Connor and Bron Sibree.
Thanks to my US family at Simon & Schuster:
the ever kind Lauren McKenna, Megan McKeever
and Anne Dowling (good luck, Anne).
Thanks to my fantastic worldwide family, particularly
Anna Bajars at Gummerus and all the lovely team there, and thanks to everyone at Random
House, Kontinents, gorgeous Empiria, Presses de
la cite, Sonia Draga, Eksmo and The House of
Books and forgive me if I leave anyone out.
Thanks to Mary 0' Reilly for sterling work
and telling me she was enjoying it as she went,
which matters a great deal; thanks to Carol
Flynn of Nanny Solutions for giving me information
on recruitment firms (naturally, my
fictional creations are entirely from my own
mind) and who will definitely be entrepreneur
of the year any moment now.
Thanks to Jenny Turner, boutique-owner extraordinaire
in Enniskerry, for giving me such
helpful advice for Always & Forever, not to
mention showing me lovely clothes to admire
when I drop down to the village for a litre of
milk ...
Thanks to Helen, Ming and Ethan Xu who
are so brave and clever and a wonderful inspiration
to me; thanks to Erin Estrich (beautiful
inside and out) who will always have a special
place in our hearts; thanks to Mary Walsh; to
Jill Ross; to Carmel Ruttle; to darling Camilla
Carruth; and thanks to one of the most spiritual
people I've ever met and who's an amazing
mum, Jana. I can't wait to see darling Lill.
Thanks to the lovely person in Dundrum Town
Centre who found my Sony digital tape recorder
and handed it in with all my notes in it.
A thanks that could go on forever to all the
wonderful readers who make sense of what I
do. Thanks for all your letters and emails:
without you guys, none of it would work.
Thanks to my lovely friends in the bookselling
world who are such fun to be with and love
book gossip just as much as I do and who are
the other vital part of what I do.
Finally, thank you to UNICEF Ireland for
giving me the chance to become part of their
team. I feel so privileged to be one of their
ambassadors and for the chance to go into the
field to meet wonderful people who, simply
because of where they're born, don't have
access to the same education, civil rights and
medical help we do. My first trip to
Mozambique was both humbling and lifechanging.
You can't see the work UNICEF do
in conjunction with local people and not be
changed for life. Remember: these people want
a hand up, not a hand out.
So thanks to the UNICEF team: Maura Quinn,
Thora Mackey, Grace Kelly, Julianne Savage,
Ann Marie Foran, everyone in the UNICEF
Ireland office and the incredibly hardworking
committee who all work so hard to make a difference.
Thanks also to Stephen Rea for being a
brilliant travelling companion.
For a television interview once, we worked out
how many children would have developed HIV
in the time the interview took. Julianne did the
maths for this book and the numbers are scary:
if it takes you four days to read this book, then
5,700 children will have died from AIDS in that
time and 7,014 children under 15 will have
become infected with HIV.
The overwhelming majority of these children
will have been infected through their mothers
at birth. It would have cost around $5 for drugs
to cut this infection rate by 50% but these
mothers, like so many women in impoverished
countries, wouldn't have access to either the
drugs or the information about them. That's
what UNICEF is about: changing lives for the
better.