ONCE IN A LIFETIME

Cathy Kelly


#1 international bestselling author Cathy Kelly weaves a captivatingtale about love, friendship, and a web of secrets running through a bustling Irish town.
You never have to go very far...Kenny's Department Store isn't just a place to shop; it's the heart of Ardagh, Ireland. Behind its stately Edwardian facade
is an up-to-date store featuring unusual boutique products in an elegant setting. Here lives intersect...and secrets hide. TV reporter Ingrid Fitzgerald
has watched her husband, David Kenny, pour his heart and soul into the family store -- the "other woman" in her marriage -- for years. Now, as their children
fly the nest, Ingrid discovers something that will shake her world to its foundation. ...to see that you aren't alone.
Charlie Fallon is a dedicated Kenny's
employee who adores her husband and son, but her selfish, dominating mother seems determined to ruin everything. Free spirit Star Bluestone, who sells
her beautifully crafted tapestries at Kenny's, has her own secrets and wisdom to share. But when unexpected tragedy shocks everyone at Kenny's and threatens its future, the women of Ardagh find that secrets have a way of always coming out -- with repercussions that lead them to rely on one another more than ever before.


Cathy Kelly is a number 1 international bestselling author. She
worked as a journalist before becoming a novelist, and has
published ten previous novels. She is an Ambassador for
UNICEF Ireland. She is also a patron of Chernobyl Children's
Project International (CCPI). She lives in Wicklow with her
partner and their twin sons.
For more information on Cathy's charities, UNICEF and
CCPI, please turn to the back page of this book.

Please visit www.cathykelly.com for more information on Cathy Kelly.



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
Past Secrets
Lessons in Heartbreak
CATHY KELLY

Once in a Lifetime

HarperCollinsPublishers

HarperCollinsPublishers
77-85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009
3
Copyright © Cathy Kelly 2009

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: 978 0 00 724042 5

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.

Set in Sabon by Palimpsest Book Production Limited
Grangemouth, Stirlingshire

Printed 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 Dylan, Murray and John, with all my love
Prologue


Star Bluestone had talked to bees all her life. She talked to
her flowers too, murmuring to the rare yellow poppies she'd
nurtured from seeds gathered in the old Italianate garden
thirty miles away across the Wicklow hills. She and the young
Kiwi gardener there had such great chats, he walking her
through the orchard and reaching up to cradle a baby apple
bud the way another man might touch a woman.

He understood that people who loved the soil talked to
their plants and to the bees whose careful industry made their
flowers bloom. Even though he was only thirty to Star's sixty
years, he didn't think she was an eccentric old lady. Rather,
he was impressed by Star's encyclopaedic knowledge of plant
life. His earnest, handsome face became animated when they
talked.

When she watched this kind boy, Star always remembered
fondly that good gardeners make good lovers. Nobody
capable of the tenderness required to separate delicate fronds
of fern for replanting would ever be heavy-handed with
another person's body.

It had been a few years since Star had lain in a man's arms. She'd had many lovers, but the one she would remember for the rest of her life, the one whose memory was imprintedupon her skin, hadn't been a gardener. He'd been a poet,
although that wasn't how most people knew him. To the
world, he was a conventional man, handsome, certainly, with
beautiful manners and an important job waiting for him. To
her, he was the man who sat with her under the stars and
recited poetry as he traced his fingers along her face and talked
about their future.

That had been over thirty-five years ago. Star talked to
flowers and her beloved bees in their white hives back then
too.

When she'd been growing up, her school friends hadn't
understood why Star did this, but they didn't question it. After
all, Star was different in most things. So was her mother. Their
mothers didn't grow herbs with such skill or know how to
brew potions of feverfew and camomile to soothe menstrual
cramps, nor did they stand gazing up at the Midsummer moon.

Eliza Bluestone did, and that it picked her out from all the
other mothers in the small town of Ardagh was both a blessing
and a curse to Star. The blessing was the knowledge her mother
gave her. The curse was that knowing so much made her
separate from all her friends.

Eliza mightn't have told her daughter all the wisdom in her
huge, midnight-dark eyes, but that knowledge somehow transferred
itself to Star anyhow.

When she was a lithe young girl of twenty, and wanted to
dance with her friends and flirt with young men, being wise
was an impediment. She just knew that few people would be
lucky enough to meet their soul mate in a pub ten miles from
their home. Finding the right man to be her husband was
going to be hard because the Bluestone family - which meant
Star and her mother - were hardly conventional and it would
take a strong man to love them. In the same way, she knew
that her friends would not all have the joy and happiness they
expected in their lives, because not everybody could. It was
obvious. To imagine anything else was folly.
Though, Star, like her mother, couldn't actually predict what
would happen in the world, she had enough wisdom to understand
the rules of the universe. While her friends threw themselves
blindly into everything and were surprised when the
man they'd met at the club hadn't called, or shocked that
other people could be bitchy, Star was never surprised by
anything.

As she grew older, Star's ability with her flowers and her
garden grew. Talking to her plants wasn't the whole trick:
caring for them with reverence was and Star did that, plucking
weeds from around the orange-petalled Fire Dragon so it could
breathe again, moving the old redcurrant bush away from the
dry soil beside the shed, pausing occasionally in her labours
to listen. For Star loved music. She never grew tired of hearing
the distant singing of the church choir, even though she had
never set foot in the building - this was another thing that
set her apart from her friends. Star's church was the trees and
the mountains and the mighty roar of the sea. And although
she loved church music, she loved the music of nature better.
The song of the bees was, her mother had taught her, the
Earth's song. Melodic and magnetic, with the bees moving to
some ancient dance they'd moved to long before man came
calling. And was there anything more uplifting than the sound
of pigeons under the eaves, skittering about and squabbling
as they sheltered from the rain?

It was raining now. As Star lay in bed, she could hear the
raindrops bouncing off the window panes. As usual, she had
woken at six a.m.; in summer, she would have risen immediately
to make the most of the golden sunrise, but on this cold
February morning, dawn was at least two hours away - and
it promised to be a murky one.

Danu and Bridget, her two cats, stretched on the bed beside
her, making their morning noises. Bridget was a showy white
ball of fluff, her magnificent fur requiring lots of brushing.
Danu, the smaller of the two, was a rescued tabby who'd
been given to Star the year before, the moment exactly right
because Moppy, Bridget's sister, had just died. Life had an
odd way of doing that, Star knew: giving you what you needed
when you needed it. Not wanted - your want didn't come
into it. Want and need were very different things.

Star lay in bed for a while, stroking the two cats, and
staring out of her window at the dark shapes of the trees and
shrubs in her garden. She could see the red maple tree she'd
planted when she was twenty and lost in love.

'Plant something to remind you of this,' her mother had
said, and Star had been surprised.

'I'll always remember,' she'd said simply.

Everyone said she was at the peak of her beauty then, lush
like her mother's precious peonies, full-lipped, and with hair
of spun gold - the Bluestone women always had golden hair,
no matter what their fathers looked like - that fell about her
slender waist. She'd secretly picked out her wedding dress
with her best friend, Trish, and she knew that Danny and she
would be so happy if they rented the house on the hill road.
From there they could see the town and the sea, and he could
be at his father's garage, where he was one of the mechanics,
in five minutes.

Still, she had liked the idea of a tree for them both and
planted the red maple.

But, 'I'm too young to settle down,' Danny had told her
not long after the tree was planted, when its roots had barely
had time to unfurl into the earth and Star was still patting it
each morning with joy at all it represented.

'That's not what you said before,' Star replied, knowing in
a painful instant that the wedding dress, a jewel she'd mistakenly
thought was meant for her, would remain on the rail in
Brenda's Boutique.

'It's my mother,' Danny said reluctantly. 'It's about the business,
too. She said '

'She said you needed a better wife if you want to expand
-the garage. She said she didn't want you marrying one of those atheist Bluestone women with their strange herbs and their unnatural hair.'
Star wasn't bitter towards Danny. It wasn't his fault. She should have known that he wasn't a strong enough man to turn the tide of public opinion. Even in the mid seventies, when the rest of the Western world seemed to be enjoying free love and the Pill, the more conservative parts of Ardagh ate fish on Fridays, blessed themselves when they passed the church and remained unsure of the Bluestones.
Old Father Hely, the parish priest, and Sister Anne, headmistress
of the Immaculate Mother of God Convent, had both been remarkably understanding about Eliza's preference for her daughter not to practise the Catholic traditions. Learn them, yes. Eliza was all for learning and tolerance. She was fascinated by all religions: Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism, everything out there. But not practise. Eliza saw the central truth in the world around her, a world that had been there longer than any man-made religion.
'We'll take care of Star in school,' Sister Anne said firmly. 'You might not come to our church, but you understand Christianity,
Eliza. I know how kind you are to those who need it. There are plenty here in town who trot along to Mass every day and still don't love their neighbour,' she added grimly.
'Indeed, you're right, Sister Anne. Nobody in this parish will ever hear me say a word against you,' agreed Father Hely, who'd studied too much Christian history, from the Crusades to the Inquisition, to be doctrinaire when it came to unusual Eliza Bluestone with her earthly wisdom and her homemade elderflower wine.
However, not everyone in Ardagh agreed with Father Hely and Sister Anne, and many of the people who went to Sunday Mass and hung holy water fonts inside their front doors disliked the Bluestones because they were different. And
clearly Danny's mother fell into this category. Star hadn't
realised before quite how strong this dislike was. She herself
didn't care what or whom anyone worshipped and was astonished
that other people could object to her views.
'You'll always have your tree,' Eliza told Star the night
Danny broke the news there would be no wedding. Mother
and daughter sat in the hand-hewn walnut love-seat in their
garden that overlooked the sea, and sipped rosehip tea.
Star gazed gloomily at the tree. And then looked around at
all the other trees in the five-acre plot. The house, a higgledypiggledy
concoction of white clapboard with slanting roofs
and an oriel window, was surrounded by trees: smooth
skinned, tall ashes, swooping willows, a graceful plane tree, a
crowd of copper beeches by the vegetable garden, and another
sharp-leafed maple that turned blood red in the autumn.
'We have lots of trees,' she said, suddenly understanding.
She got up to touch the other maple. 'You once said this was
my dad's tree?'
Star's father had been the sort of man who preferred travelling
to settling down. India was his favourite place in the
whole world, especially the beaches of Goa, where a man
could lie in the sun and not have to think about anything
except what the human race was for and other philosophical
questions.
'I loved your father,' Eliza said.
'But he left?'
'I planted the tree when we were in love,' Eliza answered.
'Then he left.' Star got it. 'What about the other trees?' she
asked, wondering how they'd never discussed this before. But
then, her mother was a gentle and slow teacher: the lesson
came when the lesson came, it would never be forced.
'Two more I planted, both before you were born, before I
met your father.'
Three loves.
'And all these other trees?' Star gestured.
'My mother's, her mother's, all the Bluestone women have
planted trees for as long as we've lived here.'
Star laughed then and ran around the garden, touching her
hands to the bark of each of the precious trees. She loved this
link with her female ancestors. It was like holding hands with
all of them, listening to them laugh and talk, strong women
who'd seen so much.
The trees, plants and flowers of her wild garden that gave
such comfort to Star eventually provided the raw material for
her livelihood. She designed and made tapestries embroidered
and appliqued with wools and silks hand-dyed from natural
dyes. Star's eye for nature meant her pictures were landscapes
of hills and woodland glades, sometimes with a brightly
plumaged bird peering out from the undergrowth, or a blossoming
creamy magnolia positioned against a backdrop of
verdant green, even the misty shape of a unicorn in the
distance. For many years, she had sold her work in a tiny
craft shop on the outskirts of Wicklow town and just about
made a living out of it. Then someone had brought one of
her tapestries to the attention of a buyer in Kenny's department
store in Ardagh.
Kenny's were always on the lookout for new talent, the
woman said, and Star's exquisite artisan works would complement
their homes department perfectly. The store didn't deal
in paintings: too complicated and time-consuming, but the
Bluestone Tapestries were exactly what they were looking for.
Within six months, Star's tiny business had become a thriving
cottage industry. That was five years ago. She had three
employees now and they'd been working flat-out to complete
their latest order for Kenny's, which was where Star was
bound that morning.
There were twenty hangings of all sizes ready in their moss
green tissue paper. She was dying to see what Lena, the buyer
and one of the store's directors, .would think of her new departure,
a large mermaid tapestry. Star hadn't worked on manysea pictures before: the pigments were hard to make. It was
easy to mix up rich loden greens and dusty ochres, but the
pure blues and aquas for sea pictures had been more difficult.
When she'd got into sea tapestries, she'd finally begun
using hand-made dyes bought from artisans, although she still
used the heads of pure blue hydrangeas to make rich blues,
and her blackberries summoned up an inky purple that spoke
of the ocean depths. Star had been in two minds about selling
the mermaid tapestry at all. It would have looked so perfect
on the wall in the kitchen, under the rail where the copper
pots hung. But she'd hardened her heart and packed it up.
The Bluestone Mermaid, with her foamy sea-green eyes and
skeins of pale hair, needed to be out spinning her magic on
someone else's wall.

Star fed the cats, then made herself breakfast of fruit and
yogurt, and stewed a cup of mint tea which she drank in the
tiny conservatory. Breakfast over, she dressed. Her toilette
never took long: she would shower, brush hair that was still
as blonde as it ever had been, albeit with many strands of
white, and apply a little kohl on her dark eyes. It was an
unusual combination: pale hair, olive skin and dark eyes. Her
old friend Trish, whom she sometimes bumped into in the
supermarket, had grown round, and always wanted to know
how Star remained as slim as ever.

'It's nothing I'm doing,' Star would say. 'My mother was
the same, you remember.'

Trish nodded, remembering. And Star could almost read
Trish's next thought, which was that three children made a
person put on weight, and Star, after all, had no children, and
no grandchildren, and what was the point of being slim and
sixty if you hadn't the pleasure of a family?

Star would have loved to have children: the feel of a small,
trusting hand in hers, a little girl of her own to sit with in the walnut love-seat and teach to plant trees. But that hadn't
been her path. She'd been given the gift of creating works off
beauty, and the gift of making plants grow. Once, it might
not have been enough. Now it was.
Besides, the women she'd helped in her life were almost
like children to her. Star's talent for collecting lost souls had
given her mothering instinct a powerful outlet.
She dressed with speed, her clothes the colours of the garden
she loved: pastels in spring, warm rosy hues in summer, golds
when the leaves were turning in autumn, and the cool shades
of a snowy landscape in winter. Today, it being February, she
dressed in a cream woollen dress with a grey fitted coat and
black high boots. She swept her hair up off her face and
fastened it in a low knot at the base of her neck. Her everyday
uniform was very different, loose skirts or jeans and Tshirts,
but today, she needed to appear the smart businesswoman.
Kenny's department store was an institution. The word had
become a cliche, but Kenny's truly was one. Established in
1924, when Europe was recovering from the Great War and
Ireland was emerging on to the world stage, after the ravages
of the Civil War, Kenny's became the local byword for style.
It was the place where all were welcomed, the moneyed classes
and those who hoped one day to belong to the moneyed
classes. Old Mr Kenny's dictum was that every customer was
to be treated with courtesy, working man and titled lady alike.
Its combination of elegance and egalitarianism contributed to
its success.
Over the years, so much of Ardagh had changed: entire
streets had been transformed as old family businesses made
way for high street chains and big conglomerates. The Classic
Cinema, where Star and her friends had eaten popcorn and
screamed their way through Jaws, was now a car park, and
the Soda Pop where they'd drunk cheap coffee and occasionally
had enough money to indulge in the house speciality - a
banana split - had been demolished and a supermarket built
in its place.
But Kenny's never changed. It had been updated, with plenty
of money spent, but the place looked and felt essentially the
same: a graceful old-style Edwardian shop front that took up
an entire block, with glossy small-paned windows and swing
doors ornamented with shining brass fittings. A curlicued sign
hung over every door: Kenny's - Established 1924.

Star left her car in the car park behind Kenny's, walked
around to the delivery door at the back and pressed the bell.
It was over an hour to opening, and most of the staff wouldn't
have arrived yet, but Lena had promised to be at the delivery
door at eight. The door buzzed and Star pushed it open, pulling
the small wheelie trolley, with its precious cargo of tapestries,
behind her. The place was dark and there was nobody visible,
so Star wasn't sure who'd buzzed her in, but she began to
walk in the direction of the back stairs to the offices, looking
around for signs of life. The doors to the stairs were locked
when she tried them. The only bit of light was coming from
the double doors that led on to the shop floor. Perhaps that's
where Lena was.

Star pushed open the doors and breathed in the magical
scent of Kenny's.

After the gloom of the delivery area, it was like entering a
beautifully lit jewel box. In the distance, she could hear the
faint drone of a vacuum cleaner. The lights were on in the
shop and the scents of perfume mingled with the smell of
furniture polish and a faint hint of warm pastries wafting
down from the cafe upstairs. She left her trolley against a
wall and began to walk through this paradise, enjoying the
sensation of being there all on her own.

Lena often chatted about the various departments. How
David Kenny, the current owner, had said he wanted a very
distinctive jewellery area, with unusual pieces from local
craftsmen and women as well as the big brands. It was the
same in the fashion department: there was a small section
where young, just-out-of-college designers could display their
clothes. The perfume and cosmetics halls, the most valuable


space per square metre in any department store, were filled
with all the usual brands, but pride of place went to Organic
Belle, a range of skin products made entirely in a small village
in West Cork.
'David has a great eye for the next big thing,' Lena confided.
'Nobody had heard of Organic Belle when he brought them
in two years ago; now they're big in Los Angeles and some
famous hotel chain wants the range in all their spas. They're
going to be huge. You should try the products. We've a lovely
woman who works there, Charlie Fallon. She could help you.'
Star sensed that Lena thought she was the epitome of an
eccentric artist, partly because she lived in such a remote spot,
and partly because Star had said she rarely visited Kenny's.
Lena, who lived and breathed the store, and didn't see how
anyone else could fail to adore the place, was shocked.
'You mean, you don't shop there?'
'I was there twice last year,' Star pointed out.
'But that was to see me,' Lena said.
Consequently, she did her best to sell the notion of Kenny's
to Star, highlighting bits she thought Star might like, which
included anything vaguely natural.
Passing the Organic Belle counters, Star inhaled the subtle
scent of the brand's best-selling balm: an instantly relaxing
combination of lemongrass and lavender.
Star had seen Charlie, the woman Lena had spoken of, on
one of her earlier visits. Although she didn't exactly resemble
her mother, Star was pretty sure that Charlie was the younger
daughter of Kitty Nelson, a stalwart of the women's feminist
movement in the seventies and someone Star had known many
years ago. It was the eyes: ever so slightly cat-shaped. But
while Kitty's eyes had been feline in every respect, particularly
when it came to men, Charlie's were soft and gentle. She
would be a very different sort of woman to her feisty, femme
fatale mother, Star instinctively felt.
Beyond the Organic Belle counters, lay the entrance to the

food hall, and even though all the boxes of sweets and cookies
were packed away, the lingering aroma of caramel and butter
filled the air.
'I love the food hall,' Lena had explained, determined to
make Star into a Kenny's fan. 'We sell proper food there.
David realised there was a vast market for ready-to-eat
gourmet food and since we've started selling the locally
produced "I Made It Myself, Honest" range, sales have been
enormous.' People loved the food, Lena went on: simple
produce expertly cooked with zero additives.
On her previous visits, Star had been into the homes department,
which sold Irish pottery and glass. Star could never resist
pottery, but she hadn't been into the lingerie department,
despite Lena explaining about their biggest seller: a range made
by a former home economics teacher from Dublin who was
fed up with trying to get comfortable suck-it-all-in underwear
for women over size 18, and had designed her own range.
'Fabulous idea,' said Lena. 'She made it all on her sewing
machine, but when she went round the shops trying to get
business, David was the only one to bite. And now look at
it. We can't keep it on the shelves and all the big stores in
London want it too. What other man would see that there
was a need for that?' Lena asked.
Star smiled. Lena would have died with embarrassment if
she'd thought she was implying that slender Star needed
control pants.
'And it's not as if he has any experience with a wife at
home looking for control pants every time she needs to dress
up,' Lena went on. 'He's married to Ingrid Fitzgerald, for
heaven's sake - she's only a size 12. Has an incredible figure.
So it's pure business sense on his part. You have to admire
that, don't you?'
Star rarely watched television. She had one, but it was ancient and she really only turned on for the news. Even so,
she knew who Ingrid Fitzgerald was. In a world where many,

political television interviewers were male, Ingrid stood out
as the best of them all: highly intelligent, poised and adept at
getting answers to the hard questions. And beautiful, too. Not
the fleeting type of beauty that came from fluffed-up hair and
a carapace of make-up, but a real, deep-down kind - lovely
bone structure, intelligent eyes and an expressive, warm face.
And the thing was, Ingrid looked as if she was as lovely
inside as she was out. Star had always been a very good judge
of that. They were similar in age too, although Ingrid might
be younger, Star thought. In another world, they might have
been friends. Ingrid had two children, grown-up now, and her
daughter, Molly, shared a flat with a girl Star had known
when she was just a baby. Natalie was twenty-three now: Star
kept count.
Natalie had nearly been born in Star's house, and Star
would never forget the frantic dash to hospital with Des, while Dara lay on the backseat howling in pain. Star had been one of the first people to hold the tiny baby with the head of curly
dark hair and she'd felt what she always felt when she held
a newborn - that they knew all the wisdom of the world.
Star had been part of Natalie's world for little more than
three years before Dara had died. Star, like everyone else in Dara's circle of friends, had sworn to abide by Dara's rules
about her little daughter.
'Let me go, don't try to hold on to the past,' Dara had
insisted, fearing that the memory of her dead mother would
darken Natalie's future.
'She deserves to know who you are,' Star had pleaded. 'Were,' she amended sadly. Dara had shaken her head fiercely. 'It's better this way,' she
said. The past could destroy people, and she didn't want that for Natalie. What she wanted for her daughter was a new
We with her father. 'Des is wonderful, he'll bring her up so
well. Perhaps he'll marry again, and they'll be much happier
without me like a spectre in the background.'

And so everyone who loved Dara had promised her that
they wouldn't be a part of little Natalie's world, telling her
how like her mother she was or recounting tales of the days
before she was born. Though Star had only known Dara a
few years - since that rainy day she'd found her lying in utter
despair on the coast road - she was one of the few people
who'd heard the heartbreaking story of Dara's earlier life.

'The past hurts,' said Dara, determined to spare her beloved
daughter the pain.

'But knowing can bring about healing,' Star replied. 'You
can transcend the misery: you have.'

But Dara was firm. For Star, who lived on instinct, staying
out of Natalie's life as she grew up had been one of the hardest
vows she'd ever kept.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the double
doors on to the street swinging shut.' A blast of icy February
air whirled in, along with a man in a long grey overcoat, the
collar turned up. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and he
walked at speed, as if there wasn't enough time to do all he
wanted in life.

From her position beside a display of jewelled clips and
silk-flower hairclips, Star watched David Kenny pass though
his department store. He didn't survey his surroundings the
way she imagined he normally did, those clever eyes noting
every detail and marking it down in his memory if something
needed to be changed. His eyes were focused on something
else entirely, something inward. The closer he got, the more
she could see the tension in his face. His hair was greying,
salt and pepper around the temples. Distinguished, Star
thought; that was the word for it. He reached the stationary
escalator in the centre of the store and instead of climbing
up, showing how fit he undoubtedly was, he jabbed a red
button. The escalator hummed to life and he stood in perfect
stillness as it bore him up to the next floor.

Star had heard that David Kenny, like his father before


him, made a practice of walking through his beloved store
every day, making sure all was well. All might have been well
in the store this morning, but watching him now, Star was
certain that all was not well with David Kenny.
Most people wouldn't have noticed. Only someone who
knew him well could detect the strain on his carefully
composed face. Once, she'd known David Kenny better than she'd known any other human being. Now, the closest she
got to him was when she reached a hand out in her garden
and touched his tree, a rowan that had grown tall and strong
in the thirty-five years since she'd planted it. She hadn't talked
to him since then, though she was sure he was well aware
that she was Bluestone Tapestries. Lena's initial attempt to
arrange an introduction had been gently brushed away, with
Star explaining that she 'didn't do corporate stuff.
'Oh, but David meets everyone,'' Lena said.
'Not me,' Star replied, smiling to show that she was happier
that way. And she was grateful that David appeared to accept
this, for he had made no attempt to meet her.
It wasn't that she was angry with David. No. It hadn't
ended that way at all. It just wasn't meant to be for her and the passionate young poet who'd written verses to her beauty,
and made love to her as if he'd found his life's meaning when
their bodies were together. No, she wasn't angry with him.
Her life had worked out in its own way. Until now, she'd
imagined David's had too.
But seeing how tense he looked, she wasn't so sure.
An old saying of her mother's came to mind: 'What's meant
for you will find you.' Many people took that to mean good
things, but Star was enough of a student of the universe to
know that it could mean bad things too.
Whatever terrible sadness was touching David, Star hoped
he was able to deal with it.

One

Be kind to other women. It really works - most of the time.
And even on the days when it doesn't, it'll make you feel better inside.


That night, Ingrid sat at the beautifully laid dinner table in a grand old house, with her husband David and eleven other elegantly dressed couples, and wished with all her heart that she wasn't there. The scent of the freesias in the crystal bowl in the centre of the table fought valiantly with the women's perfumes, which were predominantly musky with the odd note of sharp florals. Ingrid loved scent, but she hated the heavy, cloying perfumes so many women wore at night, as if they were using pheromones to attract a caveman rather than attending a civilised dinner party with their husbands.
She reached across the snowy white tablecloth and pulled the bowl closer to her, leaning forward to smell the pure, clean flowers. Instantly, she was transported to her terrace on a late spring day, where she would sit revelling in the seclusion as she read the morning papers. Pity she wasn't there now. Stop, she told herself. The evening wasn't going to grow magically shorter by wishing it was over.
The problem was that these people were David's friends.
Odd how a couple could be married for thirty years and still
have such disparate friends. They shared some, people they'd
known all their married life, but their careers had brought
them a collection of acquaintances from two completely
different worlds.

Tonight was a night for David's people, in particular their
host, the owner of a large transport company, useful to Kenny's.
Three other businessmen whom David knew were also present:
wealthy men with glamorous wives; women with beautiful hair
and nails and wearing diamonds of every possible cut.

Looking around the table, Ingrid decided that the dinner
party was entirely made up of successful men and their wives.
There were no business women; Ingrid could spot them from
fifty paces, for no matter how successful they were, they were
never quite as polished as the wives of alpha men. Years interviewing
the great and the good on Politics Tonight had taught
her that it was rare for an alpha man to form a lasting relationship
with a woman who had as much power as he did.
People were probably amazed that she and David had stuck
together; most men would have been uncomfortable sharing
the limelight with a woman who made her living grilling politicians
on live TV. But then, David wasn't most men. He was,
Ingrid thought, smiling across the table at him, special.

He caught her eye and smiled back, and she thought how
well he looked in his grey suit and pale pink shirt. She knew
he was tired because of the lines around his eyes, but nobody
else would pick up on that. They'd see the usual handsome,
charming David Kenny, the man who'd inherited the family
firm and taken it on to a whole new level. In the same way,
nobody looking at Ingrid would see a woman with a mild
headache who didn't want to be here. They'd see what she
wanted them to see: a woman who'd pulled out all the stops
with hair and make-up, yet remained modest in the diamond
department. Ingrid felt that knuckle-duster rings were like
push-up bras: you either liked them or you didn't.


The only interesting thing about nights out schmoozing
David's business acquaintances was that Ingrid ceased to be
Ingrid Fitzgerald, the television personality who'd kept her
maiden name from her days as a radio producer; she was
Ingrid Kenny, David's wife. And sometimes, just sometimes,
that made her deliciously invisible. Like now.

The man seated on her left turned to talk to her.

'You're Mrs Kenny, aren't you?' he said. He was sixty something,
balding, with a weathered complexion that spoke of
many hours spent outdoors, probably on the sea, Ingrid
decided. His outfit, a blue blazer with gold buttons, had a
hint of 'Commodore of the Yacht Club' about it.

'Yes,' said Ingrid gently, sensing that he had no idea who
she was professionally. 'I'm Ingrid, David's wife.'

'Marvellous business,' the Commodore said, grabbing his
glass of red wine. 'Kenny's - what a store. I don't suppose
you have time to be involved yourself, do you? I know what
you ladies are like; so many other things to do, charities,
committees . . .' He smiled at her benignly. 'My wife, Elizabeth
- that's her over there in the red - she's on four committees.
I don't know where she finds the time.'

Elizabeth was a steely-eyed brunette, who was expertly
made-up and wore an exotic beaded creation. She was
watching Ingrid and her husband with interest. Ingrid reckoned
that Elizabeth recognised her from the television and
was just as sure that Elizabeth knew the poor old Commodore
wouldn't.

'Well, I am involved in some charities,' Ingrid said to her
neighbour. She was a patron of an AIDS charity, on the board
of a domestic abuse, and regularly hosted charity balls. 'But
I don't have that much time, because I work too.'

'Oh, really,' said her neighbour airily, as if the notion of a
woman working was highly eccentric and would never catch
on. 'And what is it you do?'

It was moments like these that Ingrid stored up to tell her


friend, Marcella, whenever Marcella claimed that everyone
and their lawyer knew who Ingrid was.
'You've such a recognisable face,' Marcella insisted.
'It doesn't work that way,' Ingrid replied. 'Famous is for
film stars and singers, not people like me. People recognise me, they just don't know where from. They think they must
have seen me in the supermarket or something.'
The downside of her being on television a lot was going
into Marks & Spencer's and nipping up to the underwear
department to find several people watching her with fascination
as she searched among the briefs, trying to find a five
pack of knickers that suited her.
Anyway, here was this sweet man who clearly had no idea
who she was and it was quite nice, although difficult to explain
what she did without making it sound as if she was bigheaded
about it. She knew that some people in her position might
have fixed him with a grim glare and told him she was one
of the highest paid broadcasters in the State and could make
politicians whimper for their mummies. But Ingrid preferred
a low-key approach.
'I work in television,' she said simply.
'Oh really! Interesting. My daughter worked in television
for a while, researching stuff. It was a terrible job, awful pay
and, goodness, there was no hope of really climbing the ladder.
Only a few seem to make it,' he went on.
'Yes,' echoed Ingrid, 'only a few do seem to make it.'
Ingrid thought of her years climbing the television ladder.
It had been challenging at times, but she hadn't had to stiletto
anyone in the groin to make it to the top - a fact that many
people, interviewing her these days for newspaper profiles,
found incredible.
'It must be so much tougher for a woman,' they said, eager
to hear about glass ceilings, male-dominated power structures
and male broadcasters bitching about her as they got subtly
patted with Mac Face & Body in makeup.

'The media - this part of it, anyway - is one of the few
areas where women can do well easily,' Ingrid would explain.
But nobody appeared to believe that her own calm self
confidence and native intelligence had made it work.

'What about you,' she said politely to the Commodore,
'what do you do?'

It was all the encouragement the Commodore needed. He
was soon explaining the difference between a yacht and a boat, and Ingrid let her attention wander. Across the table,
her husband seemed to be enjoying himself talking to a lovely
woman who'd been introduced to her earlier as Laura.

She liked watching David. He was charming to everyone,
not in a false way but in a way that said he was interested
in other people. His father had been the same: always ready
to talk to everyone in the store, from the cleaners to the
general manager.

OK? David mouthed at her across the table.

Ingrid nodded imperceptibly. She was fine.

'Sorry, you got stuck with Erskine,' he said three hours later in the back of the taxi on their way home. He put his
hand in hers and held it tightly, as they both sat back after
what had turned out to be an incredibly heavy meal. Double
cream with everything. Ingrid's insides yearned for PeptoBismol.
'Oh, don't worry,' Ingrid said. 'He was quite nice really,
but I'm now an expert on boats and if I ever need to interview
anyone on the subject, Erskine is the man I will ask.'

David laughed. He had a great laugh, rich and deep, the
sort that made everyone else want to join in. Out of the corner
of her eye, Ingrid could see the taxi driver grin as well. They
were undoubtedly the sort of customers the driver liked: polite,
sedate, middle-aged people being picked up from one beautiful
suburban house and whisked off to another, with no
chance of anyone throwing up in the back of the cab or not
having the money to pay him.


'Erskine probably didn't have a clue who you were, did
he?' David asked perceptively.
'Not the foggiest,' Ingrid said. 'I may have left him with
the impression that I made the tea in the television studios.'
'Oh, you shouldn't have done that!' David laughed. 'That's
cruel. I bet his wife knew, all right. She's probably telling him
the truth right now.'
'No, it's not cruel,' Ingrid said. 'He was terribly sweet and
everything, but you know, he does live on this planet, he should be interested in politics.'
'I'm quite sure he is interested in politics, darling,' David
replied mildly, 'but not everyone watches television.'
It was an idea that Ingrid had heard many times before,
but one that she could never quite grasp. She was of the
opinion that people should know what was going on in the
world, and television news and debate was an inherent part
of that.
'I'd say old Erskine sits at home reading copies of Yachting
Man and books about naval battles from three hundred years
ago,' said David. 'Happy in his own world. And why not?'
Ingrid shrugged. She and David would never agree on this
one. He was able to forgive people for not wanting to read
four newspapers a day, she wasn't.
'You were lucky,' she said now, 'sitting beside that gorgeous
Laura person.'
'She was a sweetheart,' David said. 'Although she did spend
a fair proportion of the evening telling me about her daughter,
who'd love to get some experience in the store and has lots
of marvellous ideas for fashion design.'
'God no,' groaned Ingrid, 'not another one of those.'
When she went to media parties, she was forever being
cornered by people desperately pitching their CVs or their
sons' or daughters' CVs in the hope of breaking into television
via a personal introduction from the powerful and famous
Ingrid Fitzgerald. When David went to parties, people told

him about sons and daughters who were clothes designers or
who had created a range of pottery that Kenny's couldn't
afford to be without.
'Did she sound OK?' Ingrid asked.
'She sounded very promising,' David said. 'I told her to
send the CV to Stacey.'
Stacey O'Shaughnessy was his executive assistant. A
wonderfully kind person who ran his office life as expertly
as Ingrid ran his home life.
'You're a terrible old softie, do you know that, David
Kenny?' Ingrid said.
'Right back at you,' he said. 'You could have flattened poor
old Erskine by telling him exactly who you were, but you
didn't, did you?'
'No,' Ingrid said. 'I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I
was mean to the Erskines of this world, even though I disapprove
of their ignorance.'
'I'll tell that to the Minister for Defence,' murmured David.
'Erskine is an old duffer who obviously inherited money
and never had to do more than put on an old school tie to
get on in the world. The Minister for Defence is a highly paid
public representative who should know better than to write
character references for a man on trial for rape, just because
the accused's parents happen to live in his constituency. There's
a difference,' Ingrid said. She could feel herself getting heated
again, the way she had before the programme in question.
Ingrid never lost it on the show: then, she was coolness personified.
She used her passion for her preparation, when she
worked out how to phrase her questions in such a way her
subject couldn't avoid answering.
'True. You were right to nail him,' David said. 'He deserved
it.'
'Yes, he did,' Ingrid sighed, the flare of anger gone. At least
David understood why she did what she did. She couldn't
bear injustice. The idea that a government minister's character

reference could hinder the conviction of a rapist incensed
her. David knew her so well, he understood her crusading
spirit.
'Just here is fine, beside those big gates,' David said to the taxi driver.
They got out and Ingrid found her keys in her handbag
while David paid the driver. She was delighted to be home
on the early side. It wasn't even twelve yet. With luck, she'd
be asleep before one and get up late the following morning; maybe the two of them could sitting in the conservatory with
some coffee, reading the Saturday papers. She had just keyed
the security number into the side gate when David joined her.
'Lie-in tomorrow?' she said, as they walked up the path to
the house.
'Sorry, afraid not,' he said. 'I'm going to have to go into
the office for a couple of hours. I've an absolute ton of work
on.'
'Oh, David,' she said, 'you live in the bloody place.' The
words were out before she could stop them. Ingrid hated
sounding whingey. Her own job could be all-consuming at
times and if anyone understood how work could claim a
person, she did.
'Just for a few hours,' he said, 'all right? I'll be back by
two; three at the latest.'
'OK,' she said and squeezed his hand. 'Sunday morning lie
in?'
'Promise,' he replied.
'I'm holding you to that. I have my needs, you know,' she
added in a teasing voice.
'I know all your needs, Ingrid Kenny,' he said, 'and wouldn't
the public love to, too!' His voice trailed off mischievously.
The dogs greeted them as they opened the front door. While
David went to switch off the alarm, Ingrid got down on her
knees to pet them. 'Hello, darlings,' she said, 'sorry we were
out, but we're back now.'

Somewhere in the back of her mind was the awareness that
David hadn't reacted in the way he normally did to her flirtatious
reference to needs: once, he'd have grabbed her by the
hand and taken her upstairs to bed. Instead, he'd made a joke
about it.

He was tired, she told herself. She was too. She was so
used to reading nuance into every sentence for work: it wasn't
fair to do it to poor David.

The duty dinner done, the weekend stretched ahead of her.
She had no work, no functions to attend, no charity events,
it would be one long, glorious rest and she was looking forward to it. Molly, their daughter, was coming for lunch on
Sunday, which would be wonderful. If only Ethan was coming
too . . . Ingrid felt the magnetic pull of her laptop in the study.
She could just nip in and see if Ethan had emailed her from
Vietnam, which was where he and the gang were now. But if
he hadn't emailed, that would make it four days since his last
contact, and Ingrid found that, after three days, she went into
a kind of slow panic if she hadn't heard anything. No, she'd
go to bed. If he hadn't emailed, she wouldn't sleep for
worrying. Though even if he hadn't emailed, it didn't mean
anything bad had happened, did it?


Ingrid woke alone the following morning, star-fished in their
huge bed. Her hands reached over to David's pillow and found
nothing. He must have gone to the store, she thought drowsily,
and wriggled further under the covers to doze again. The
sheets felt warm, the bed was soft. She felt in the bed, her
limbs a part of it. If she kept her eyes closed and allowed her
mind to drift, she'd be asleep again.

After about five minutes, she knew that wasn't going to
happen. Her mental database had started up. Ingrid often
wished there was some system whereby she could plug a USB
cable into her head and connect it directly to the computer,
so that all the stuff that rattled around in her mind could be


magically transferred to her laptop hard drive instead. She
could compose entire emails in her head, write letters, draft
speeches, imagine exactly what she'd say to the opposition
health spokesperson on the programme that night, all while
lying in bed at five o'clock in the morning. Some of her best
work was done in that perfect stillness of the pre-dawn. She'd once been asked to take part in a feature for a magazine about career women's hints for success. She'd said the normal stuff
everyone else did: about making lists and trying to be organised,
doing grocery shopping on-line, catching up on phone
calls on her phone headset in traffic . . . She did all those
things, but she'd never mentioned the early-morning mental
download. It sounded too manic, as if she was constantly
switched on. But then, she was - her mind racing, scanning
ideas, deleting them, speeding on to the next one. Like now.
Fighting it never worked. It was better to go with the flow.
She needed to take the cream dress with the caramel beading
on it to the dry cleaners, because she was going to need it
for the Domestic Abuse Association's dinner at which she was
the guest speaker on Thursday night. It was a good dress,
always worked; it didn't matter whether she had put on a
few pounds or not. Which reminded her, she hadn't been to
the gym all week and she needed two workouts and a swim
to keep that awful middle-aged spread at bay. Ethan might
have emailed. She sent a silent prayer that he had. Please God,
please keep him safe.
She had to reply to the latest batch of emails from people
looking for a start in the TV industry. She loved helping
people, but sometimes she got so many emails that it was
impossible to deal with them all. She liked to answer those
ones herself, they weren't something she could hand over to
her personal assistant, Gloria. Gloria was wonderfully efficient,
handled Ingrid's diary and organised all the reams of
research she needed for her job, but Ingrid preferred writing
a lot of her letters herself. No journalist could let someone

else write for them. Hell, that was another thing, she'd been
asked to be a patron of a journalism course.
Ingrid had never attended a journalism course. She had
come into the business by a rather circuitous route: after her
politics degree she got her start in radio, working behind the
scenes as a researcher, and then producing, before moving
into television news and from there, taking the totally unexpected
giant leap into presenting. She approved of journalism
courses and approved of helping people, but there really
wasn't enough time. Her schedule was always hectic, too hectic
for all the causes she wanted to support. And even though
the children were grown up, she still needed to make time for
her family.
Tomorrow, Molly was coming for Sunday dinner. As she
lay in bed with her eyes closed, Ingrid smiled. Her darling
daughter was the reason the beautiful cream dress needed a
trip to the cleaners. Molly had borrowed it for a formal event
two months before.
'Mom, I'm really sorry, I meant to get it dry cleaned, only I
knew I'd forget about it and it'd get left there, so I thought
I better drop it back to you first and .. .' she'd said.
'It's fine,' Ingrid interrupted. 'Honestly.'
And she meant it. Kind, wonderful Molly was twenty-three
and hopeless at things like dry cleaning and having milk in
the fridge, but she was a one-woman powerhouse when it
came to campaigns to help other human beings. Molly's ethical
work made Ingrid feel like a capitalist pig. Molly was involved
in so many causes that it was a miracle she found time to do
anything. By day, she was press officer for Fight Poverty, an
organisation that worked with disadvantaged children. At
night and at weekends, she rattled tins for an animal shelter,
and donated her services to a charity that funded a small
school in Kenya and hoped to fund two more. She cared about
her carbon footprint, cycled everywhere and owned two rescue
cats. She didn't care much about ironing her clothes or eating

food before its best-before date. Her mother was endlessly
grateful that Molly lived with Natalie, her best friend and a
person with organisational skills to rival Madonna's, otherwise
both Molly and the cats would be in their respective
hospitals with food poisoning.
If only Ethan, twenty-one and currently on a year-long trip
around the world with a group of friends, had one person in
his entourage to match Natalie, then Ingrid would sleep so
much better at night.
Ethan was usually quite good at emailing home, although
most of the time his missives were frustratingly short.

Hi Ma and Pa, having a brilliant time, weather not great but
the people are. Don't worry, we're all fine. Love Ethan.


Ingrid, who looked at everything in the paper and had the
news on practically twenty-four hours a day, could hardly
bear to look at any story about twenty-something world travellers
any more. When she came across stories about Vietnam
and Thailand, she was terrified that she might see something
that would spell impending disaster for Ethan. He was travelling
with five friends, all big, strong lads, and clever with
it, but that didn't stop her worrying. At twenty-one, they were
innocents abroad; a bunch of friendly Irishmen who thought
the best of people, and had a smile for anyone. All it would
take was for them to turn up in the wrong place at the wrong
time, and who knew what might happen. No matter how
hard she had tried to teach her children a little of her own
cynicism, it hadn't worked. Ingrid could imagine Ethan smilingly helping some sweet girl get on the plane, holding her
rucksack to be kind - and he'd be the one caught with whatever
drugs she was trying to smuggle. Nobody would believe
Ingrid if she told them that her son didn't do drugs, that he
was a good kid, that he'd clearly been duped. She'd be like
every other mother who protested her son's innocence. And

they'd say: 'Of course she believes him, but we know he's
guilty.'
She couldn't bear it. She had to get up and stop thinking
like this.
Even if David had been there, Ingrid wouldn't have told him about the anxiety. David simply didn't seem to understand
it.
'Ethan will be fine, you know,' he'd say, when she let herself
go with a stream-of-consciousness rant against what could
happen to six hopelessly naive young guys. No, even worse,
what was it David had said the last time?
'You have to let him go, Ingrid. He's an adult, not a little
boy.'
She felt the rip of rage inside her again, the combination
of anger and helplessness at knowing that she couldn't give
her son a quick hug, just for five minutes. That's all she
wanted: to jump on a plane to see him, to touch him, for five
minutes, then she'd get back on the plane happy, because
she'd know he was OK.
'I have let him go,' she hissed at David. 'But he's my son,
I love him and he'll always be a part of me, so I'm frightened.'
Then
the analytical Ingrid Fitzgerald had taken over, the
woman who had interviewed thousands of spin doctors and
psychologists over the years, who knew how to skewer an
interviewee but who never normally brought her interviewing
skills home. 'Letting go is not what I'm talking about,' she
said coolly. 'You can let somebody go and still worry about
them. I need to be able to share that with you, because if I
can't. . . well, we shouldn't be together, should we?'
David had sat up straight then. He'd been lolling on the
couch with an after-dinner brandy, idling through one of
the many newspapers they had delivered to the house every
morning. The sharpness of her words had hit him hard. Something
flickered in his eyes: fear, Ingrid thought and she was

glad she'd hurt him, glad she'd given him a kick to remind
him that he had to work at this relationship too. Then,
she'd done something she almost never did: she walked out of
the room, because she didn't want to talk to him any more.
She loved David, absolutely. After thirty years of marriage, she
still loved him, but she adored her kids. Children were the
third point in the eternal love triangle. It's a pity David didn't
understand that.
He'd apologised and she'd forgiven him, almost. Ingrid didn't
believe in nursing grievances or in letting old arguments take root, but it had been very hard to accept David's apology
without screaming at him that he didn't understand her at all.
Molly and Ethan might be grown up, but they would always
be her children, and when it came to protecting them she
would kill with her bare hands if it came to that.
She turned the shower off, wrapped herself in a towel and
faced herself in the mirror. She looked tired today, every inch
of her fifty-seven years. It took longer in the make-up chair at
the studio now to make her look like Ingrid Fitzgerald, longer
to make those shrewd grey eyes appear open and alert, especially
with that drooping skin above her eyelids. She'd had her
skin lasered to reduce fine lines but the next step was an eye
lift, something she was putting off. She'd seen too many women
who were preternaturally young, and while photographic
retouching could make surgery look good in photographs of
movie stars, in real life, women could appear strangely wrong,
as though their faces were denying the wisdom of the lines
they'd earned. Only the best surgeons were able to make people
look like themselves but better. Ingrid knew such a surgeon,
but she was still scared. Regular Botox was an occupational
hazard. She was fundamentally opposed to the very notion of
that, too. But she was also a realist who liked her job. Youth
had such power. She was lucky - and yes, she knew there was
some luck in there - that current affairs was a medium where
age was less important than in other television arenas. If her


job had been presenting a chat show, she'd have been fired
when she turned forty-three. But in her field, age and gravitas
were valued among men and women. Yet who knew when that
might change? Ingrid accepted the fact that one day, her face
would be judged too old for television. All it would take was
some focus group led by a twenty-one-year-old hotshot
pronouncing that young viewers switched off in droves at the
sight of a post-menopausal woman, and that would be it. Ingrid
Fitzgerald's television career would be summarily over, except
for voice-overs on history compilations or an occasional documentary.
She was far too shrewd not to know that one day
this would happen.
Still, there was nobody here to see her or her wrinkles
today. God knew when David would be back. Off with his
mistress, she thought, with a hint of bitterness: the store.
Down below, the dogs began to howl. They weren't allowed
upstairs, but when they sensed someone was up and wasn't
rushing down to play with them, they began to whine pitifully.
'Be
down in a minute,' roared Ingrid. It was nearly ten, so it had been a lie in after all.
When she was ready, she hurried down and sat on the
bottom step as the dogs nuzzled into her with frantic delight.
'Don't pretend that David didn't let you out earlier, you little
scamp,' she said affectionately as Lucinda, a golden cocker
spaniel, started her desperate-for-a-pee dance. Then Sybil, a
black-and-white bitza they'd got from Molly's dog shelter,
began to do the dance too.
Ingrid opened the kitchen's double doors into the garden
and both dogs barely made it out before they sank to their
haunches in prolonged peeing sessions.
Ingrid stared, puzzled. They clearly hadn't been out. The
only explanation was that David, up at the crack of dawn,
had left without going into the kitchen for breakfast and the
dogs hadn't heard him. Occasionally, if Ingrid woke early, she

found the dogs snoring peacefully in their baskets and had
the pleasure of seeing them wake and sleepily wag their tails.
They were both old and their hearing wasn't as good as it had once been, rendering them pretty hopeless as guard dogs.
What was David doing, racing off so early on a Saturday that he hadn't even had time for a coffee or to let the dogs out?
A flutter of disquiet beat in her heart. True, he'd always been obsessed with the store, even more so in the past five
years since the expansion.
'When you borrow that much money, you need to spend
more time at work,' David told her in the months after the
store re-opened following its twelve-million-euro revamp, and
he was there morning, noon and night. 'Nobody else can do
it but me, Ingrid. I have to be there. You know that.'
Ingrid, who normally felt a certain relief that David was
the main shareholder of Kenny's because she knew of other
family-run businesses where there were constant arguments
over each mug bought out of petty cash, wished for the first
time that he had brothers or sisters to help him.
Money wasn't the issue. She got a good salary; without a
penny of David's money, they'd have been able to live comfortably. Ingrid had no desire for massive wealth. Lord only knew,
most of the people with vast sums of money seemed to have
doubled their problems with every year. For every rich person
donating money to AIDS research, there were fifty more with
kids who refused to work and wanted to do nothing more
energetic every day than take cocaine and wrap their
Lamborghinis round lamp posts.
Who needed huge wealth? They didn't.
Surely they were at the point in their life when they could
slow down a little, take more time out. She was doing less
work these days, why couldn't David be the same?
With the same disquiet, Ingrid let the dogs back in, fed them their breakfast and took out the coffee to make hers.

She felt like phoning David and asking him what was so
bloody important that he'd had to rush off at dawn. But that
type of conversation never worked. Being a skilled interviewer
had taught her that there was never going to be a civil answer
to a question couched in such terms.
'What do you mean, what was so bloody important. . .'
he'd respond, and they'd be off arguing.
No, far better to say nothing until later and remark kindly
that he must be tired after getting up so early, and they could
postpone their dinner out that night so he could go to bed
early. And then, he'd explain why he'd been up early, and
they'd be having a conversation instead of a hostile interrogation.
If there was a problem, he'd tell her then. And Ingrid
had the strangest feeling in her gut that there was a problem.
She had breakfast watching satellite news, the dogs at her
feet hoping for scraps of wholemeal toast and honey.
'I promise we'll go for a walk soon,' she told them.
She normally loved Saturdays when she had no specific
place to be; the luxury of knowing that her time was
completely her own thrilled her. But today, she felt unsettled
and couldn't put her finger on exactly why. Keeping herself
busy, that was the trick. When she'd walked the dogs, she
tidied the kitchen with her usual energy, then went into her
small study to make a list of emails and letters she had to
write. Nothing from Ethan. She did her best to calm the
anxiety she felt at no word from him. She worked methodically
for an hour, then powered down the computer, ran
upstairs and collected everything that needed to be dry
cleaned. Finding a jacket of David's, she sat down for a
moment, thinking about him. Between him and Ethan, all she
did was worry. No, she must be positive. Ethan was probably
having the time of his life. And as for David . . . Marcella
- that was it, she'd ring her best friend, Marcella.
She went down to the hall phone, the one with the preprogrammed
numbers on it, and brought up Marcella's.

It was an unlikely friendship - Ingrid Fitzgerald, whose
interviewing technique exposed the inadequacies of the great
and the good, and Marcella Schmidt, image guru, whose job
was keeping those inadequacies from the public view. Marcella
ran her own spin-doctoring company and taught politicians
and captains of industry how to talk to the media. If a formerly
babbling, foot-in-mouth minister showed up talking sense and
wearing a decent suit instead of a shiny one, odds on he'd
been given the Schmidt Treatment. And if a big company boss
found himself on an industry think tank that covered him
with glory, and made people forget that he'd been caught
coming out of a lap-dancing club three sheets to the wind
with his arms round two lithe dancers, he'd been Schmidted
too. Marcella was brilliant at her job and she loved it. That's
why the two women had hit it off, Ingrid knew: shared
passion. So what if Ingrid's job was to find the cracks in the
politicians Marcella had Teflon-coated, they worked in the same
lions' den.
Ingrid knew that if she was photographed in flagrante in
a hotel room with some glamorous captain of industry,
Marcella would be the one she'd turn to. Not that such a
thing would ever happen, but still. If shit ever hit Ingrid's fan,
she'd speed-dial Marcella Schmidt.
'Hi, Marcella, it's Ingrid,' she said now when her friend
picked up the phone. 'How's the luscious Ken Devlin?' It was
their running joke. Latin-looking god Devlin was television's
hottest young talk show host and one of Marcella's big
successes.
'Can't get enough of me.' Marcella sighed as if she was worn out from his amorous attentions.
'Still?'
'Still. Wants to have wild sex with me into the middle of
next week.'
'Only next week? What about the week after?'
'He doesn't have the stamina for the week after,' Marcella

said with a grin in her voice. 'Young men - can't keep up
with older women. That would be an interesting opinion piece
for the papers: When your sexual peak and his don't match.'
'Only if you want to be humiliated forever for being a forty
something woman writing about having sex with a younger
man,' said Ingrid. She saw that Marcella was kidding. 'You
know the rules: male silver fox and younger woman? Totally
acceptable, and man gets slapped on the back by all his envious
friends. Female silver fox and young man? Collective yeuch
and everyone thinks either she's paying him or he has an
Oedipus complex.'
'Pity,' sighed Marcella. 'I need an op ed idea for the Courier
Mail:
'Personal never works,' Ingrid said. 'You should know: you
tell people that often enough. Anyway when did you bonk a
much younger man? How did that slip past my radar?'
'Nothing slips past your radar,' Marcella retorted. 'Oh, it
was years ago. Technically, it probably doesn't count as I was
only thirty-seven and he was thirty-one, and the age issue
only counts when you hit forty. Before forty, you have a permit
to screw anything you like. After forty, it needs an act of
parliament. Besides, it was before I knew you. Just after I
divorced Harry.'
The big difference in their lives was personal: Marcella had
been married twice in her youth and divorced. The first was
rarely mentioned, but she was still friends with her second.
Harry was often around: funny, kind, handsome in a rumpled
professor sort of way. Ingrid adored him and was curious as
to why he and her best friend had divorced, but because it
had all happened before she'd met Marcella, it had never been
discussed on a forensic level. Marcella merely talked about
how she and Harry were too similar for comfortable living
conditions. Clever, opinionated men who were used to being
in control were great as friends but very annoying as actual
husbands.

When Ingrid saw the two of them together at a party,
arguing happily over everything from politics to the merits of
the latest movies, she wondered if it would have been different
if they'd had children together. Kids rubbed off rough edges
very quickly. But that had never happened. After Harry, a
suitable settling-down man had never come along. Marcella
had looked for him, that was for sure. She'd gone to parties,
met men at friends' dinner parties, taken scuba-diving holidays
with a lone-travellers group, trekked Peru and made
fabulous friends with two men - a gay couple who ran a
successful restaurant in Donegal. But the man of her dreams
eluded her. Without him, there were no babies with Marcella's
laughing dark eyes and sallow skin. At forty-nine, Marcella
fitted so seamlessly into the role of aunt-by-proxy that nobody
would ever guess she'd longed for her own children.
Occasionally, the subject came up. Like the time a journalist
phoned Marcella with a blithe request for an interview
on a piece called 'childless by choice'.
'Childless by choice?' Marcella had hissed that night when
she sat in Ingrid's kitchen and sank a glass of Stellenbosch
red, even though it was a weeknight. 'Who is childless by
choice? Very-bloody-few people, that's who. And if they are,
good luck to them. Let them talk to journalists about their
decision and how they prefer not to add to the world's population
or how they know parenting's not for them and decided
to be grown up about it. Good luck to them.' She was hoarse
with anger. 'But most of us aren't childless by choice. We're
childless by mistake, childless by never finding the right bloody
man, and if we do, he's leaving being a father till he's made
his money and he's not interested now, honey, and let's just
have fun! Have you thought about Capri for a holiday?'
'She's totally insensitive, that reporter,' Ingrid said, trying
to lessen the blow. 'When we were doing the general election
programme, she did an interview with me and asked me
was it depressing at my age to work in an industry where

women in their fifties were sidelined because their looks had
disappeared.'

David, who was cooking at the stove, exploded with
laughter.

'What did you tell her?' he asked his wife.

'I gave her my very intense interviewing stare,' Ingrid replied
with a grin, 'and said it was sad that women were still judged
on their appearance, and that the glory of being older and
wiser was not worrying so much about the outward face but
rather about the person inside.'

Marcella looked up miserably from her glass of wine. 'So
you didn't tell her we spend ages discussing plastic surgery
and that we'd be having facelifts like a shot if only we weren't
so photographed that people would instantly know we'd gone
under the knife?'

David laughed uproariously again.

Ingrid joined in, then sighed. 'I get so sad thinking that I
have to have a facelift,' she said. 'Botox is one thing.' Her hand
stroked her smooth forehead. 'But a facelift is so radical and
yes, I know I work in television, but it goes against all the
things we believe in, Marcella: that women are brilliant and a
few lines on your face shouldn't make you any less brilliant.'

'I don't know what I believe in any more,' Marcella sighed.
'I used to believe there was someone out there for me and
there isn't. Just me, my job and people asking me how it feels
to be a sour old spinster who's childless by choice.'

'Believe in that wine,' David said, refilling her glass.

'You're such a lovely man,' Marcella said. 'Why don't you
have a brother for me, David? Why didn't I ever find someone
as nice as you?'

Ingrid and David exchanged a worried look. Marcella didn't
get down very often, but when she did, her emotional elevator
went down to the basement at warp speed.

'I'm not as lovely as you think, Marcella,' David said kindly.
'I'd drive you mad, wouldn't I, Ingrid?'


'Stone mad!' Ingrid had agreed.
Ingrid wondered now what Marcella would say if she
blurted out her concerns about David, that he'd rushed off
to work at first light on a Saturday morning leaving her with
the feeling that something was wrong, that David was keeping
something from her.
Marcella was lightning quick. 'Is there trouble with the
store?' she'd ask, which was exactly the question rippling
through Ingrid's mind. She decided not to mention her anxiety to her friend. If there was something wrong, David would tell
her. It was disloyal to mention her fears before she had
anything concrete to be worried about. Perhaps tonight they'd
have a chance to talk.
'What are you up to today?' Marcella asked.
'I was about to ask you that,' Ingrid replied lightly. 'I'm
here on my lonesome as David has rushed off to Kenny's to
make sure it doesn't all blow up in his absence.'
Then, huh?' Marcella laughed. 'Can't live with them, can't
run them over with a truck.'
Ingrid relaxed. Her lightness had worked. Normally, Marcella
was so attuned to people's tone of voice that she could gauge
any mental state from a five-second conversation.
'Do you want to have lunch with me?' Ingrid asked. 'I keep
hearing about this new brasserie in Dun Laoghaire near the
pier. Want to try it?'
'Beside the fish place? Tonio's or Tomasio's or something?
Count me in. Meet you in Dun Laoghaire at one?' Marcella
said.
'Perfect.'
She dropped off the dry cleaning and arrived at the restaurant
at exactly the same time as Marcella. Lunch was hugely
enjoyable. They generally tried not to talk too much shop. It
would have been wrong to discuss which client Marcella was
working with because chances were, sooner or later, he or she
would end up on one of the navy-blue leather chairs on Ingrid's

set with Ingrid as high inquisitor. They talked politics, policy,
and about people.

It wasn't gossip, Marcella always pointed out. Gossip
implied a nastiness about the discussions and there was never
nastiness in their talks. They were interested in human nature,
that was all. And they met all human life in their work. In
the middle of all the policy talks, business meetings and sound
bites, were people who worked hard, got passionate about
their jobs, made mistakes, made deals, fell in and out of love.

Marcella and Ingrid were fascinated by the people behind
the public facades: who had to make a speech in the Dail
chamber after being up all night with a colicky baby but
would never mention it, and who'd use every nugget from
their personal life for their own gain while not really caring
about their family at all. It was no surprise that they both
loved The West Wing, but wonderfully, they also both loved
Neil Diamond, dancing and clothes.

Marcella had the knack of wearing layers well. Expensive
layers. It never worked when they were cheap layers, Marcella
explained, because two cheap T-shirts and a little top worn
at the same time looked bulky on anybody. Only the flimsiest
fine layers that cost the earth and looked as if they'd
been boiled for years in a washing machine, hung with the
right sort of casual elegance.

Ingrid, who had a more formal style for television and was
used to fitted suits for work and elegantly cut jeans and jackets
for weekends, envied Marcella's exquisite wardrobe.

'It all looks like you just threw it on effortlessly and yet
you look fabulous,' she said in exasperation.

'Effortless is very hard,' Marcella responded, looking down
at her layered vest-tops, wrap top, and long, slender skirt in
varying shades of silver grey. 'And expensive. Have you any
idea how much these little vest-top things cost? I could buy
a Fendi handbag with the cash I spent on this outfit.'

'That's obscenely expensive,' said Ingrid, shocked.


Marcella laughed. 'You sound just like Molly when she was
going through her second-hand stage,' she said.
'She still is. Mind you, it's better than spending millions on
clothes.'
'You old Leftie! You've only yourself to blame. You and
David gave her a social conscience so she wouldn't be another
spoiled brat celebrity child. It's nice that she prefers to give
money to developing countries than to spend it on clothes.'
'You're right,' Ingrid said proudly. 'There aren't many
people as kind as Molly out there. Although I'd love her to
come round to the idea that you can feed the world and wear nice things. Still, she borrowed a dress of mine for a
wedding, so perhaps she's moving out of the all-secondhand
stage.'
'There must be a man on the scene.'
'No.' Ingrid was thoughtful. She rather wished there was.
Not that she desired her daughter married off for any reasons
of propriety, but because she wanted to think Molly was
happy being loved the way Ingrid and David loved each other.
Love and honest partnership with someone you cared for and
respected: what a joy that was.
It was Ingrid and David's thirty-year anniversary later that
year and they'd talked, idly, about a party and a cruise in the
Indian Ocean. They were so lucky, Ingrid thought every time
she heard of another marriage going belly-up. And luck was
involved, no doubt about it. They worked at their marriage
for sure, but it had been luck that had brought them together
in the first place, two people so instantly compatible.
Lots of break-ups came as no surprise to Ingrid. As a person
wildly interested in human behaviour, she couldn't be shocked
when Laurence and Gillian, old friends of hers from college
and married twenty-seven years, separated abruptly. The only
surprise was that they'd stuck with each other for so long.
Laurence was at his happiest sitting in his garden doing the
crossword and planning, some day, to mow the lawn. Gillian

played badminton competitively, worked full time and was
never home.

She and David, on the other hand, were very different in
many ways but they complemented each other. She felt a rush
of love for him and wished he'd confide in her over whatever
was wrong. He might not understand the fierce, feral
passion of a mother's love, but then, could any man? And
she loved him with all her heart, no doubt about it.


When she got home at three o'clock David was back and with
a small gift: a tub of goose fat from Kenny's exquisite food
hall.

'For me?' she asked in amusement, turning it over in her
hands. 'Am I supposed to rub myself in it. . .?'

'It's for the potatoes tomorrow,' David said, planting a kiss
on her cheek. 'I know, a tub of bath oil would be better, but
Molly's coming for Sunday lunch and you know what she's
like about roast spuds. This is a present for all of us, not just
you. Although,' he was smiling, 'you can rub yourself with
it if you'd like to . . .'

He seemed in such good humour that Ingrid knew she
must have been entirely mistaken to worry about him earlier.
She put her present down, grinning. Many women would
have thrown the tub at him, but Ingrid had always been realistic
about romance. David, despite working in a store overflowing
with feminine gifts, had never been the sort of man
who came home every week with perfume and flowers. And
Ingrid could cope with that: if she wanted flowers, she bought
them herself.

'There's nothing like goose fat for proper roast potatoes,'
he went on, opening the fridge and poking in it for a snack.

'Did you not have lunch?' Ingrid asked.

'I had brunch,' he said from the depths of the fridge. 'I
woke up very early and thought I might as well go into work
and get it over with, and then Stanley came in with a BLT


and it smelled so good, we all had them. From O'Brien's Deli
- the place is booming since they got that new cook.'
Ingrid relaxed some more. She knew there was an explanation
for his early start. She was right not to have said anything
to Marcella.
'You must be tired, darling,' she said now. 'We can skip
dinner out tonight if you want.'
They'd planned a pizza out, just the two of them in the
place down the road.
'Well. . .' he said and he looked a bit shamefaced. 'We
can't. Jim Fitzgibbon is over from London, he was on to me
this morning, and I'd forgotten I'd promised him dinner next
time, and he insists it was tonight we set it up for dinner with Jim and Fiona?' Ingrid gulped. Fiona was a
sweetheart but Jim, one of David's oldest friends, was a property-obsessed
bore.
'Not Fiona, no,' said David reluctantly. 'He and Fiona are
going through a bad patch. It's someone else.'
'Someone else? Are they getting divorced?'
'I think that might be on the cards. They've separated. He's
very cut up about it. Sorry, love, I know it'll be a pain for
you, but I can't let him down. You don't have to come if you
don't want to. I can say you're not well or . . .'
'I'll come.'
Solidarity was another vital ingredient in a marriage, Ingrid
thought. Women's magazines from years ago used to go on
about how romantic gestures were the be all and end all of a
relationship, but Ingrid, recipient of a lovely tub of goose
grease, knew there was a lot more to it than that. If David
wanted to comfort his old friend about the breakdown of his
marriage, she'd be there too. She made a mental note to contact
Fiona on Monday. There were few things Ingrid hated more
than people who cut off one half of a couple after a split.
'Who's this woman he's bringing tonight?' she asked David
in the car on the way to the restaurant.

'Don't know,' he said simply.
'You're desperate,' she said in exasperation. 'That's the sort
of thing I like to know.'
'Ah, that's only people like you and Marcella,' David
replied, 'people who are obsessed with the world's private
business. The rest of us are quite happy to meander along.'
'Are we obsessed?'
'Totally,' he replied.
Ingrid was wary of what was waiting for them in the restaurant.
Jim was bad enough with the lovely Fiona to offset his
awfulness, but God alone knew what sort of woman he'd
come up with now. Fiona dated back to the time before he
had loads of money.
Ingrid loved eating out. She always reckoned that the people
who ran restaurants were the people who really knew what
was happening in a city. Renaldo's was one of the country's
premier spots with a Michelin star to its name and a twenty
year reputation for fabulous food and wonderful service.
But tonight she wasn't in the mood. Two nights with people
she didn't know was two nights too many. At least Molly was
coming to lunch the next day, something to keep her sane.
The dinner was interminable. Jim, florid in a red striped
shirt and cream jacket, was in show-off mode and Ingrid
didn't know whether he was showing off to his new amour
or just showing off in general.
He was back in Dublin for the opening of an apartment
complex and within the first ten minutes the entire restaurant
must have heard how they'd 'cleaned up, totally cleaned up.
Cost us fifteen million yoyos, and now we're on the pig's
back. Sold fifty apartments off the plans. On the pig's back,
David, I tell you!! Yeah, you! We're ready to order the wine.
Let's have some of that Cloudy Bay, the '99, I think, and a
bottle of Dom Perignon to start. That'll get the party going!'
Jim's new woman was a showy brunette named Carmel,
an unusually normal name for someone who looked as if she'd

prefer to be called something exotic like Kiki or Scheherazade.
Carmel was in her late thirties, had clearly been Botoxed and
Restalyned to within an inch of her life if her relentlessly
smooth forehead and big lips were anything to go by, and
was heavily spray-tanned from the roots of her sculpted dark
hair down to her pedicured designer-sandal-clad feet. She wore
vinyl-red lip-gloss, a very expensive dress and spoke in a faux
low voice about herself all night.
'I'd love to work in television,' she said.
Ingrid tried to smile. Those words had been the death knell
for many an evening.
'I'm very intuitive, you see,' insisted Carmel before
embarking on a monologue that showed her to be far too
fascinated by herself to even ask a single question about
anyone else.
Ingrid, who was forever finding herself seated alongside
dinner guests with narcissistic tendencies, zoned out and
merely nodded or murmured yes from time to time. Experience
had taught her that it was fatal to attempt any real
conversation. People who liked talking about themselves never
had any. Easier by far to smile and acquiesce.
Carmel also made several trips to the ladies' and returned
slightly more animated each time, which convinced Ingrid that
her other interest - apart from newly separated millionaires
and being intuitive - was cocaine.
Hell wasn't other people: it was coked-up other people.
By eleven, they'd just finished the cheese and Jim was
waving his arm in the air to urge the waiter with the liqueurs
trolley to take another turn in their direction. Ingrid thought
she might get up and stab Jim with her knife. Or even a spoon. It would be possible, she was sure, if she used enough
force. She looked longingly at her husband, but he was
avoiding her anguished gaze.
What was wrong with David? He'd been talking in a low voice to Jim all night. Even though he knew she was being

bored rigid by Carmel, he hadn't tried to include the two
women in their conversation or even to drop the 'we can't stay
late because we have to go home and let the dogs out,' excuse.

Ingrid tried to kick him under the table as she was too far
away to grab him with a clawed hand and scratch 'help' on
his thigh. But she couldn't reach to kick. She glared at him.
He knew her signals by now.

'Another cognac, David? Ah, you will. Sure, it's Sunday
tomorrow. You don't have to get up or anything. Herself can
bring you the breakfast in bed.' This was accompanied by a
nudge and a wink.

Ingrid folded her napkin and put it firmly on the table.
'Jim, Carmel, what a lovely evening,' she said crisply, reaching
down for her small clutch bag. 'But we'll have to pass on
another drink. I'm exhausted and I know David is too. Thank
you so much.' She got to her feet, slipped her wrap from the
back of the chair and put it round her shoulders.

Jim and Carmel stared up at her, but David, who'd seen
Ingrid utilise her emergency departure trick before, merely
smiled and got to his feet too. Action was important, a
legendary Irish actress had once told Ingrid.

'If they're bores, they're going to want to continue to be
bores and no matter how much champagne you drink, that
won't improve. Get up gracefully, move back from your chair,
gather your things and say goodbye firmly. There's no way
back from that.'

'Might they not think you're rude?' Ingrid wondered.

'You do it with style and speed,' the actress went on. 'Imbue
yourself with the glamour and power you've worked for, my
dear. You're a star and, though you might not like to turn it
on, you can when you need it. Flick that switch, become the
TV star, and state that it's time for you to go. Never fails.'

It didn't fail now either.

Jim blustered a little bit.

'You don't have to go yet -' he began.


'Thank you for a lovely evening,' Ingrid repeated. Really,
there were things in her fridge that were smarter than Jim.
'Goodnight, Carmel.' Ingrid held out her hand. She couldn't
face the hypocrisy of kissing this woman goodbye.
They didn't speak in the taxi on the way home. If David
had wanted to ensure they didn't have any civil conversation
that night, he'd done a good job, Ingrid thought as she lay
in bed, too annoyed by the whole evening to sleep.
He was dozing already and Ingrid sighed and picked up
her book.

Ingrid enjoyed Sundays: they were family days and she prided
herself on cooking Sunday lunch. She liked cooking. Nothing
fussy, just good simple food with no pretensions. Everyone
had their favourite. Molly adored grilled fish, salad and roast
potatoes followed by Ingrid's home-made caramel meringue.
Ethan loved roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and something
sinful in the chocolate department for dessert. David's
favourite was garlicky chicken with stuffing and smelly cheese
to follow.
Ingrid's own favourite was nothing to do with food: it was
having them all there.
Today, she had the radio set to her favourite Sunday news
chat show, the double doors into the garden were ajar to let
a little air in, and the dogs were arranged bonelessly on the
tiled floor, worn out after a fast four-mile walk. Ingrid had
woken early again and found she couldn't sleep, except this
time, David was fast asleep beside her, looking grey with tiredness.
She'd slipped out of bed quietly, and taken the dogs out for their walk before buying the papers and sitting down to read them with a pot of coffee beside her. He'd finally emerged
at nearly one, unshaven and unshowered.
Coffee?' Ingrid had asked. It was unlike him to sleep so late and now he looked wretched. 'You look terrible, David,' she added. 'Didn't you sleep?'

No,' he said and it was almost a growl of exhaustion. 'I'm
overtired.' He sank into one of the kitchen chairs.

'You don't have any pain in your arm or anything?' she
asked, trying to stay calm but feeling terrified because he was
looked so unwell. He could be having a heart attack and he
mightn't know it. It would be just like him to sit there and
say, 'Yes, darling, phone for an ambulance if you have a
moment.'

'Don't fuss, Ingrid,' he said sharply. 'I'm fine, really. I've a
pain in my head, not my arm and coffee would be great.
Please,' he added after a pause.

She nodded, feeling weak with shock. And then anger.
There was no need to speak to her like that. She'd only been
asking
'Surprise!'
said a voice.

'Molly!'

Their daughter stood in the kitchen, arms full of bags.
'You're all getting deaf,' she said, putting down her stuff and
then petting the dogs. 'I yelled hello when I came in.'

Ingrid shot her daughter a look which Molly could interpret
easily after twenty-three years. It was the 'don't bother
your dad' look.

Molly nodded imperceptibly and hugged her father gently.
Ingrid watched him and could see his face relax.

'How are you, Pumpkin?'

'Fine, Dad.' Molly planted a kiss on his forehead. 'Late
night?'

'A bit,' David admitted ruefully. 'Jim Fitzgibbon was
pouring wine into me.'

Molly chuckled, and left her father to give her mother a
hello kiss. 'Since when has anyone had to pour wine into you,
Dad?' she teased, and just like that, the tension went out of
the room.

'Are you calling me a boozer, you brat?'

Both women laughed.


'If the cap fits . . .' said Molly. 'Only kidding. Where were
you, anyway?'
'Renaldo's,' said Ingrid, getting out another cup for her
daughter. She poured more coffee and sat down at the table
beside her family.
'How's Fiona?' asked Molly.
'That's the problem,' Ingrid sighed. 'Jim and Fiona have
split up, so we had to meet his new woman. I don't think she
was your cup of tea, either, love?'
Ingrid smiled at her husband, a peacemaking smile to say
she was sorry she'd been so angry about having to endure
the evening, and could he be sorry for being such a grouch?
'No,' David agreed. 'Sorry about that. On the phone, Jim
made her sound like a cross between Mother Teresa and
Angelina Jolie.'
Molly's eyes widened. 'And was she?'
David's smile to Ingrid reached his eyes. 'Not really. She
looked fine '
'- a bit obvious,' Ingrid interrupted. 'A spray-on Gucci
mini-dress and pole-dancing sandals isn't exactly the right
outfit for a first-time dinner with your new partner's oldest
friend.'
'It was the conversation that was the problem,' David went
on. 'She wants to be in television.'
'You were listening?'
He grinned. 'Sorry, I know you thought I wasn't rescuing
you. Despite all his boasting, Jim's business is in trouble and
he wanted to bend my ear about it. I couldn't interrupt him,
but I heard the bit about television.'
'One of those.' Molly groaned.
'How's Natalie? When's Lizzie's wedding?'
'The fourteenth. Apparently Lizzie's always had a thing
about being married on Valentine's Day. The hen night's next
weekend and the flat's full of mad stuff: pink fluffy ears and
things.'

Ingrid smiled. Her pre-wedding party had been a very sedate
affair compared to the ones girls had now.

'Are you going to the hen night?'

'Not so far. Natalie wants me to, but I'm trying to get out
of it. Lizzie's great, but I'm not one of her long-time friends
and everyone else on the hen night is. She's known them for
years.'

Ingrid nodded but she felt the catch in her throat she so
often felt about her older child. Molly had always been shy,
although she hid it well enough. She was friendly and
charming, well brought up enough to be polite, so few people
would know how shy she was. She'd never been one of those
children comfortable in the middle of a group; for the first
year of school, she'd cried every single morning when Ingrid
left her.

'Oh, hen parties are all a bit mad now,' Ingrid said nonchalantly.
'It'll probably be wild,' she added, wishing inwardly
that, for once, Molly would want to join in. Ingrid knew that
you couldn't make a person behave in a certain way, but how
could two such outgoing people as herself and David have a
daughter who was the opposite?

At school, there had never been any special friend, never
any one little girl Molly adored and brought home to play.
Molly was at her happiest in her own company, reading or
talking to the pets - back then, the family had a mad collie
with one ear, and a minxy cat who collected small cuddly
toys and brought them into her bed at night.

Molly loved to curl up on her bed and read, with one or
both of the animals snuggled beside her. Accepting that her
daughter was a solitary little person had been one of the
toughest lessons Ingrid had ever had to learn.

Ingrid was thrilled that her darling Molly shared a flat with Natalie. They'd met at college and for the first time in her
life, Molly had found a close friend.

Both were serious in their own way: Molly with her charity


work and Natalie with her absolute dedication to jewellery
design. She'd put herself through college and was working
part-time in the cafe in Kenny's to raise funds to set up her
own business. She had lots of drive and ambition, and yet
there was a vulnerable side to her, Ingrid felt.
Trust Molly to have held out until she found a friend with
integrity.

When Molly had gone, Ingrid walked around tidying up. She
loved their house. Guests were surprised to see that it was
the antithesis of Kenny's Edwardian charm. Instead, Ingrid
and David's home was coolly modern, with large open-plan
spaces and swathes of pale wall. The floors were bleached
wood, except in the kitchen, where the restaurant-style stainless
steel was offset by polished poured-concrete slabs. Ingrid's
love of white was reflected in couches and chairs upholstered
in warm white loose covers, with colour coming from the
artwork on their walls, including many works by the emerging
artists that David loved to support. The large burst of colour
in the hall came from a giant tapestry from Kenny's, one of
the unusual Bluestone Tapestries. It depicted a wooden house
nestled in a glade of trees, all of which was partly obscured
by banks of peonies in the foreground.
The nine o'clock news began and David was already
yawning. Ingrid watched him affectionately and thought of
the joke when they were younger about being 'in bed before
the news'. Of course, back then, they went to bed to make
love. These days, that happened somewhat less. Tiredness,
Ingrid knew, was a major reason. And although it was a
subject they were careful to talk about, it took longer for both
of them to get in the mood than it had when they were
younger. The wham, bam, thank you, mam days were over.
Ingrid had never liked speedy sex anyway, even though it was
flattering to think that David couldn't wait for her, needed to
be inside her. But she rarely orgasmed that way: she needed

time and gentleness, and now their love-making took time. It
suited her, working up to heat instead of exploding into a
fireball straight off.
'Let's go to bed,' she said softly.
David looked up from the news, his clever grey eyes intense
as they stared at her. Unreadable, she would have said, had
it been anyone else. But she knew him and all his moods. She
could see desire there.
He flicked off the television with the remote control,
stretched long legs out slowly, then got to his feet. He held
out his hand: 'Come on,' he said.
Their bedroom was one of the only carpeted rooms in the
house and as soon as they reached it, Ingrid took off her shoes
and let her bare feet luxuriate in the soft wool. She switched
on the lamps, letting light warm the room, creating a
burnished glow on the expanse of bed covered by a king-sized
silk throw in a muted jade colour.
'Are you too tired?' she asked David as she sat on the edge
of the bed and began unbuttoning her crisp white shirt.
He shook his head, then joined her.
Ingrid hadn't been a virgin when she'd met David. She'd
had three lovers, which, she knew, was quite average. He'd
had more and they'd promised never to become jealous of people long gone in the way some couples did.
All Ingrid knew was that her other lovers had never been
able to make her feel as if this was the only way to make
love, as if now was the most perfect moment. She had no
idea how many times they'd gone to bed together over the
course of their marriage, but as soon as David's hand wound
its way around her to pull her closer so he could kiss her, she
felt that familiar stirring inside.
Tonight, there was an urgency in his kisses and he cradled
her skull in both hands as their mouths merged. When he
gently pulled her shirt away from her body and curved his
fingers over her breasts, it was like he'd never done it before.

Ingrid let herself melt into this fresh passion. This was his
apology, she knew. He was saying sorry for his distance in
the only way he could: by making love to her.
When he finally entered her, his familiar face above hers,
Ingrid felt a surge of pure happiness. This was love, she
I thought, raising her head to nuzzle his shoulder. Sharing everything with another human being. She knew his body as well as she knew her own, knew when he was close to orgasm, I knew that if she concentrated on the fierce heat and if his fingers reached into her wetness, that she'd explode at the same time as him. And then it came: fireworks inside her, a
single explosion searing into thousands of exquisite ripples
that made her cry out.
He fell on to his side of the bed with a groan afterwards,
and Ingrid kept the contact between them by reaching one
bare leg out over his. She lay there quietly and happily,
listening to his breathing slow until she was sure he was asleep. 'Goodnight, darling David,' she murmured, kissing him.
In reply, he muttered something she didn't quite hear.
With one last gentle pat, she drew the sheet up around his
waist, then got out of bed to go through her night-time routine.
Cleanse, moisturise and brush teeth. As she stood in the bathroom
and carefully creamed her skin with body lotion, she
reflected again on how no cosmetic could make a person feel
beautiful the way being loved did.

Two

Be true to yourself. Sounds mad, doesn't it? I mean what's true? But you'll know when you get there, trust me on this.


The following Saturday night Natalie Flynn sat on a barstool
in Club Laguna, letting the music and the noise flow around
her, and thought idly of her word for the day. Lodestone. A
person or a thing regarded as a focus. Lodestone. Natalie
rolled it around in her mouth. She looked up a new word in
her dictionary every day. People with dyslexia were liable to
have diminished vocabularies and Natalie knew she was one
of them, so she'd bought a dictionary when she left school.
Each day, she closed her eyes, opened a page and pointed.
When she was a kid, a boy in her school named Ben had
dyspraxia. Natalie asked him what it meant.
'I fall over things. Clumsy, they say.'
'You're not clumsy, you're just a big person and the world
is too small for you,' she'd said. Ben was massive, with hands
like giant hams. 'They said I was stupid. Not my family, other
people did. And it turned out I'm not; I'm dyslexic, that's all.'
'All the "dy" words are bad,' Ben said gloomily. At the
time, they were sitting outside Miss Evans's room. Miss Evans

took Special Education classes. People who didn't have to go
to Special Ed made Hunchback of Notre Dame faces and
mouthed 'special' as if they had speech defects at people who
did. Ben and Natalie were used to it. Natalie sometimes stuck
her tongue out at the people involved, but not all the time.

She'd finally worked out that the people who teased about
special education were the very ones in need of it themselves.

Ben and Natalie considered the dy words.

Dyspraxia - called clumsy by stupid people.

Dyslexia - word blindness was how Natalie liked to describe
it.

'Dysfunctional,' added Joanne, who was in her final year
in school, and who went to Special Ed because she kept
missing school. Joanne's father was unreliable, which Natalie
realised was some sort of adult code for crazy. During his
unreliable periods, Joanne didn't turn up for school much,
which meant she would not be doing her Leaving Cert exams
with everyone else in her class.

Natalie sometimes wondered what Joanne was doing now.
Joanne had seemed so grown up then, yet she'd only been
four years older than Natalie. She'd be twenty-seven now.

Yesterday's word had been opaque. Natalie had loved that.
It was a word you could touch. Back on the farm in the small
shed that she used as a studio, she had sifted the semiprecious
stones through her fingers, working out which ones were opaque.
Some tiger's eye, lots of the misty smoky quartzes. Lodestone
was a good word, too. She wondered how she'd never heard it
before. That's what she did as a jeweller: work with metals and
stones to make talismans that hung around people's necks or
on their wrists, stones that meant something to them.

Lodestone. It could mean a person who was the focus of attention too, not just a thing. Sitting quietly on her barstool,
a little apart from the other girls at Lizzie's hen night, Natalie
gazed around her and tried to apply her new word to her
surroundings.


When they were alone or uncomfortable, other people read
magazines or texted their friends. Because of her dyslexia,
Natalie did neither. She hated text-speak; the strange jumble of letters seemed utterly wrong to her even when the predictive
text gizmo claimed it was right.
'You're like my mother,' said Molly, her flatmate. 'She hates
texting.'
Natalie smiled at the thought of being compared to the
erudite Ingrid Fitzgerald, who'd probably read the entire
dictionary cover to cover and committed it to memory. Molly's
mother was the sort of person who should have made her
feel insecure, yet she didn't. Ingrid wore her intelligence lightly,
treating everyone with the same level of respect. Natalie never
felt like an idiot in her presence.
'Your mother only hates texting because it stops people being able to spell properly. I've never been able to spell in
the first place.'
'You spell just fine. You're clever where it counts,' Molly
said. 'Look at all the people we know who have degrees
coming out their ears and are still clueless.'
They'd met at college while Natalie had been painfully trying
to negotiate the written part of the foundation art course. Give
her clay to mould, and she could spin poetry. But hand her a
pen, and she was like a small child wielding a crayon and
trying to work out the difference between the number six and
the number nine. It was why she'd hated school.
She wished Molly was here tonight for the hen-night extravaganza
but her flatmate, not being much of a party person, had elected to stay at home with the cats. Hopeless at small
talk with humans, Molly talked to her beloved Bambi and
Loopy as though they were her babies, all three of them curled
up together on the couch watching TV. The cats liked
programmes with fish in them best.
'I love them too, but an hour of National Geographic just
for them?' Natalie had said before she left the house, complete

with a sports bag jammed with hen-night paraphernalia, the
piece de resistance being fake zebra-skin cowboy hats.
'We're only watching till the end of this show,' Molly said
seriously, 'and then we're turning over to the salsa programme.'
Natalie nodded. 'When the men with the white coats arrive,
will I make them tea or coffee?'
Molly beamed a wide smile that lit up her small, round
face and made her eyes dance. Apart from her eyes, she looked
nothing like her famous mother. Short and adolescently skinny,
she had reddish-brown curly hair that she liked to wear in a
ponytail. Even when dressed for work and presiding over
weighty reports on poverty, she looked about sixteen instead
of twenty-three.
'The men in the white coats had tea the last time,' she said.
'They might have coffee this. I know I'm mad, but I like the
fish programmes too,' she added. 'Fish are very soothing. And
there's nothing else on TV tonight. I'm fed up with forensic
science shows, they give me nightmares. There's a good film
on later.'
Something romantic, Natalie guessed fondly. Molly might
work at the sharp end of society, but for relaxation, she devoured
romantic novels and movies. The only thing that might get her
off the couch was a real-life Johnny-Depp type in Regency
costume with the desire to crush Molly to his manly bosom.
'I got you a hat, just in case you wanted to come . . .'
Natalie plonked a zebra-skin cowboy hat on her friend's head.
'I love it!' Molly sat up to adjust the hat, then wriggled
back down into the couch. 'I'm happier here, Nat, honestly.
I'm no good at that party thing. I'd prefer watching it to being
in the middle of it, but if you watch, everyone thinks you're
a weirdo. Besides, we haven't organised a cat-sitter.'
'See you later, crazy lady,' said Natalie, leaving.
Lizzie always said that Natalie and Molly were bad for
each other because they liked being home so much. Her idea
of a good time didn't involve cats, the TV or books. But then

Lizzie didn't appreciate that Natalie stayed in at night slaving away on her designs because she was determined to succeed as a jewellery designer. She couldn't do that and be in clubs and pubs every night of the week like Lizzie. Natalie enjoyed going out when the mood took her. Though tonight, strangely, she wasn't in the mood. Instead she was worried.
There had been such an emotional build-up to the hen night and Lizzie was so fiercely determined to have a good time, determined to have one last wild party before she tied the knot, that Natalie feared the evening wouldn't end well.
Club Laguna itself was opaque, from the all subdued lighting that made you think you were wearing your sunglasses indoors. Even the mirrors behind the bar added to the effect: opaque glass and the lodestone was . . . Lizzie. Which was only fair; it was Lizzie's hen night, after all.
Ten women from Lizzie's life had been hauled together for this momentous party: Natalie and Anna from school, her two mad cousins from Donegal who'd rolled up looking like off-duty supermodels, a couple of girls from college and three from Lizzie's office. The party had started three hours before in Lizzie's flat and Lizzie clearly wanted it to go on all night. As the person charged with organising the whole thing, Natalie would have to stay to the bitter end. But she was tired. Working in the cafe in Kenny's by day and designing her jewellery by night meant she had very little energy. Certainly not the energy Lizzie and the other hens seemed to have, energy for squealing as they admired dresses, shoes and passing men. Wearing their zebra cowboy hats - 'Nat, you genius! I love them!' - the hens were attracting plenty of attention from several predatory men. So far, all boarders had been repelled, although one guy - in a denim shirt that displayed his fabulous muscles and with a tiny skull-and-crossbones earring in one ear that showed off how cool he was - was watching from the sidelines, clearly pretty keen on Lizzie. He'd get bored, Natalie hoped.
She watched the barman diligently mix the cocktails. Swirl


some crimson liquid into the shaker, do a little smooth move
to impress the ladies, add something clear from a modern
frosted glass bottle, crash in some ice, then shake.
The women clustered round the art deco glass bar
murmured approval.
'More vodka,' shrieked Lizzie, a tousled brunette who was
kneeling on the barstool so she could see all the action, though
she'd definitely had enough vodka already. Four vodka tonics
and a white wine spritzer, and now she'd ordered the bar's
speciality: the Laguna Beach, a concoction that came complete
with a voucher for the Betty Ford Clinic. She'd already decided she wasn't wearing enough make-up and had clumsily added
another layer of eyeliner in the dark gloom of the ladies' where you needed a torch to find the flush button on the loo.
The dark and the drink combined had not resulted in a classy
make-up look.
Natalie thought there was a business opening for anyone
who patented a range of make-up bags with breathalyser
gadgets fitted to their zips: once you were drunk, you couldn't
open the bag and start applying drag-queen levels of cosmetics.
She'd done it herself and had the photos to prove it. Marilyn
Manson meets Picasso with a side order of vampire chic thrown
in. It wasn't a good look, given that she could pass for Gothic
heroine easily enough anyway. Depending on what she wore,
Natalie's look could go either way: young and interesting or
consumptively strange. She was pale-skinned, prone to purple
shadows under her heliotrope eyes and with long ebony hair
that never looked entirely brushed. In jeans and a T-shirt, her
lean legginess and youthful skin gave her the look of a student,
even though she was twenty-three and out of college. In
tonight's party outfit of sapphire-blue slip dress, she was
working the girl-next-door-with-a-hint-of-edginess look.
'Hot and sexy,' Molly had decreed earlier when Natalie
was getting ready. 'But in control; not "I'm available, big boy"
sexy, more "You can look, but don't touch" sexy.'

Part of their routine was outfit-grading before they left the
flat. Despite her own charity-shop look, Molly was brilliant
at gauging outfits and their suitability for events. Natalie could
do it with jewellery, but when it came to clothes, it was so
easy to get it wrong.
'That's good. Don't want to be too hot and sexy,' Natalie
said, pulling the slip dress down, wishing it was longer so it
covered more leg. 'It'll be mad enough tonight as it is.'
'More juice!' she heard Anna yell to the Club Laguna barman,
who winked at her as he wielded his shaker. Anna wasn't much
of a drinker. 'I can't stand feeling woozy,' she said.
That statement was like a red rag to most men. In the many
years the three girls had been friends - a bonding of five-year
olds in the school yard - Natalie had lost count of the number
of guys who'd tried to get Anna to lose control, hoping that
a few more sips of Chardonnay would make her unfurl her
sweetly prim manner like a secretary in a cheesy movie letting
down her hair. Lizzie, who was permanently unfurled and
smiled at men like an eager puppy, was ignored in the rush
to Anna.
'It's not fair,' Lizzie used to say without bitterness. She
adored Anna, even if her friend was a man magnet while she
appeared to repel them.
'It's the hair,' Anna said apologetically. 'There's some evolutionary
thing about natural redheads; men love the hair.
They're programmed to want to mate with it. It's nothing to
do with me.'
'It's more than the hair,' Lizzie would sigh. Anna was so
perfect: tiny, perfectly proportioned and with those dancing
pale blue eyes. Men loved how big she made them feel. She
wore size three shoes and her wrists were as delicate as a
porcelain doll's.
And then Steve had come along. Without giving Anna a
second look, he'd been instantly besotted with Lizzie.
Natalie wondered how Steve's stag night was going. There

had been talk of the men going to a lap-dancing club with
Steve's old college friend over from San Diego, but Lizzie had
been outraged.
'It's supposed to be your last night out before marrying the
girl you love, not an excuse to drool over naked women with
figures like Barbie!'
It wasn't the latent sexuality she had a problem with,
Natalie knew: more that Lizzie wished she was a Barbie lookalike
herself. The pre-wedding diet hadn't been as successful
as had been hoped. She was still eight pounds off her target
weight and complained of appearing heifer-like.
'I'll look huge in the photos standing between you two,'
Lizzie had grumbled earlier as they changed into their party
gear. She was wearing a silky slip dress with long trailing skirts
and a tiny camisole bodice which was doing a mediocre job of
holding her breasts in. She was not wearing a bra. Neither was
Natalie, but then she was a 32A and Lizzie was a healthy 36D.
'Oh, Lizzie, get down off the cross,' muttered Natalie.
'Somebody else needs the wood. We have three different looks,
that's all,' she added, relenting. Lizzie's figure anxiety was a
barometer of her mood. In times of stress, it became more
pronounced and she needed more reassurance. 'Anna works
the cute look, you do curvy and hot.' Lizzie grinned despite
herself. 'And I'm the lanky one. I wish I had curves like yours.'
A lie, but a white one to make Lizzie feel better. Natalie's
stepmother, Bess, was a seamstress who made a lot of wedding
dresses and Natalie had grown up hearing about bridal anxiety.
'No you don't,' Lizzie replied, but she was smiling as she
tried on her hen-night regalia.
As part of her preparations for the evening Natalie had
dutifully bought pink fluffy horns, T-shirts emblazoned with Bride on Tour and had booked a booth in Laguna, a happening
club where the karaoke machine got turned on at eleven and
poles were put up on stage for anyone wanting to try pole
dancing and willing to sign the insurance waiver first.

It was ten to eleven now. Lizzie knew there was a still long
night ahead.

She was thrilled her friend was happy. Steve was such a nice
guy: kind, polite, decent. But Natalie couldn't help recalling how,
when they were younger, the three of them had had such dreams
about conquering the world. And now they were twenty-three
and suddenly it seemed as if the world had shrunk. Anna was
dating a guy who was perfect on paper but slightly dull in real
life. Gavin worked in the bank, owned his own flat, played
rugby with his old school friends at the weekend and wore rugby
jerseys with the collars turned up. Give him another ten years
and he'd have golf club membership and a rowing machine with
clothes thrown over it in the bedroom. They used to laugh at
guys like him, the safe guys, and now Anna was enraptured.

Lizzie was getting married in a week to the sweet and kind
Steve - and she wouldn't be wearing bright red, the way she'd
always promised: 'I'll never go down the aisle in white: the
roof of the church would fall in!!'

Instead, her dress was creamy lace with a bustier top to make
the most of her assets; her dark curls would be covered by a
demure veil, and the guest list included all the various horrors
of relations that she'd sworn blind would never get invited.

'You have to ask them,' she'd said when Natalie dropped
by and found her fretting over the seating plan. Great Aunt
Mona couldn't sit with Uncle Tom or they'd kill one another.
They hadn't met without rowing in fifty years and it was
unlikely they were about to stop now.

'Why do you have to ask them?'

'Because, that's why.'

'You never see any of them, except at other people's
weddings and funerals. I thought this day was supposed to
be about you and Steve, not the usual outdated cliche of a
wedding with ninety awful second-cousins-once-removed.'

Lizzie grimaced at having her words quoted back at her.

'My mother would die if we didn't have a big wedding,'


she said. 'You- know what she's like, Natalie. Anyway . . .'
Lizzie paused. 'I know it sounds strange, but I like the idea
of having them there. It makes it real when all the cousins
and aunties show up. Like we wouldn't be properly married
if we did it on a beach somewhere without them all clucking
over the waste of money spent on the flowers or giving out
about the bones in the fish.'
Natalie laughed. 'Point taken. But when they're all squabbling
because you've sat them too far from the top table, don't
say I didn't warn you.'
'Mum will sort them out,' laughed Lizzie.
Once, thinking of Lizzie's mum might have upset Natalie.
When she was a child, she'd felt different because she didn't
have a mum. She wasn't the only kid in her class to have an
unusual family set-up. There were two kids whose dads lived
elsewhere, and one boy who had two families: his mother and
stepfather, and his dad and stepmother, plus assorted brothers
and sisters. And there was Eileen, a quiet mouse of a girl with
long strawberry blonde hair she wore like a curtain hiding
her eyes. She lived on her own with her mother and went
mute whenever any event came up that involved dads.
Eileen might not have had a dad, but she had a mother.
Even when Natalie was seven and her mind was gently
exploring such things, even when Eileen was by far the
strangest kid in the class, even then Natalie knew that Eileen
had something she didn't: a real mother.
Dads sometimes got involved in other things or worked all
hours, but mums didn't. Mums were there. Except for Natalie Flynn's. Her mum was dead. She had Bess instead, her
stepmum, who was wonderful, and so kind, but still wasn't
her real mum. She'd said Natalie didn't have to call her 'Mum',
so Natalie hadn't; and that simple thing, that name, had
strangely made all the difference. Other kids had mums and
dads: Natalie had Dad and Bess. And Bess, no matter how
wonderful, wasn't Mum.

Natalie forgot loads of things: the sheer pain of writing her
thesis had burned off so many brain cells, but she'd never
forget the first time she was asked:
'What's it like not to have a mum?'
Toby - now grown up and cute, and always friendly whenever
she went to the garage he ran - had been a teacher's
nightmare at the age of seven: hyperactive and overfond of the word 'why?'
Why does the sun go down at night?
Why are the people on the television so small?
Why do we have to go to school?
Why did your mum die? Are you still sad about her being dead?
Natalie could see her seven-year-old self: a skinny little thing, with those matchstick legs poking out of the grey-and-white school uniform and her dark hair tangled and coming out of its ponytail no matter how carefully Bess did it before she went to school.
'I'm not sad,' she'd said defiantly. Toby obviously wanted her
to say she was sad, so it was important to say she wasn't. Toby said girls couldn't climb trees and she'd shown him he was wrong.
She'd skinned her knees in the process, but she'd shown him.
'I'm never sad.'
Had she stuck her tongue out at him then? That she couldn't
remember. Probably. Sticking out your tongue was a vital way
of winning arguments when she was seven, akin to pulling wimpy
girls' hair and jumping on to any bit of wall to dance along it.
She'd gone home and told Dad and Bess what Toby had
said, and they'd exchanged that look that grown-ups did when
they didn't want to answer the question.
She had no memory of what her father had said, although
she could remember subsequent conversations: God takes
people sometimes, we don't know why.
God's responsibility had shifted vastly when the ten-year
old Natalie had said: 'I hate God.'

Bess hadn't missed a beat. 'We don't always understand
what God does. We just have to accept it.'
Natalie had never accepted it.
There were so many pluses in her life: a lovely family
with Bess as the centrepoint, Dad being sweet and just a
little bit not-of-this-planet, her half-brothers Ted and Joe,
and good friends like Molly. She had so much, particularly
when she looked at the disadvantaged kids whom Molly
worked with. Compared to them, she was rich in every way.
Yet Natalie felt as if there was a part of her missing.
Lizzie and Anna seemed to think that any missing bit could
be fixed with the right man. Natalie felt it was more than
that. But what exactly?
'Hi, beautiful, can I buy you a drink?' she heard the guy
with the skull-and-crossbones earring ask Lizzie.
Natalie could see him reflected in the bar mirror. He was
tall, and good-looking enough for one of Lizzie's model
cousins to be giving him a hard, appreciative stare. Natalie
took in the tousled fair hair and the honed body. She also
saw Lizzie's lustful look.
'No thanks,' Natalie broke in as politely as she could. 'It's
a hen night. No men allowed.'
'Spoilsport,' murmured Lizzie, leaning on Natalie and
smiling up at the guy.
'No, really, no guys allowed,' Anna said firmly, hauling
Lizzie away.
He shrugged and walked off.
'He was cute,' Lizzie sighed. 'I could take him for a test
drive . . .?'
Anna and Natalie exchanged a look. It was indeed going
to be a long night.

It was nearly two when Anna and Natalie realised that Lizzie
was missing. The group had been dancing non-stop, so each
time Natalie came back to their booth and didn't see Lizzie,

she assumed her friend was dancing with the other girls.
'I thought the same,' said Anna, shouting so they could hear
each other over the music.
Nobody else had seen her for an hour.
Natalie found Lizzie first. At the very back of the club, in a
dimly lit spot beside the fire exit, she was perched on a man's
lap with her arms wrapped around his body and her mouth
clamped to his as if they were giving each other mouth-to
mouth resuscitation. One of his hands was tangled up in Lizzie's
dark hair, the other was burrowing up under her flirty dress,
so her thigh was totally bared.
Natalie's first thought was that her friend must be comatose
to be behaving like this, but then she looked again. Lizzie was
as ardent as the guy: she was writhing around on his lap,
plunging her tongue into his mouth. It was the same guy who'd
made a move on Lizzie earlier, the one with the denim shirt
and the skull-and-crossbones earring. Lizzie had wanted this,
Natalie realised: she was a willing partner.
'Lizzie!' shouted Natalie, trying to be heard over the throbbing
bass notes of the music. 'Lizzie!'
She shook her friend's arm and Lizzie turned round, the
crimson lipstick almost gone from her lips, leaving nothing but
a giant red Munch-like scream smeared around her mouth from
kissing. She smiled lazily at her friend, snuggled close to the
man's chest. Her eyes glittered with raw excitement.
It was the smile that hurt Natalie the most: a knowing, satisfied,
mocking smile.
'Lizzie, we've got to go,' Natalie said, trying to stay calm in
the face of this unrecognisable Lizzie.
'Not yet,' said Lizzie, still with that smile plastered across
her face. She nuzzled into the man's neck. 'We're having
fun.'
Natalie decided that she'd have to try another approach.
'This is her hen night,' Natalie explained to the guy. 'She's
getting married in a week. Her fiance's a cop. He's on the drugs

squad.' This was, of course, entirely untrue, but she guessed it
might be a deal-breaker.
Sure enough, alarm flickered in the guy's face and he got up
at speed, letting Lizzie fall unceremoniously to the floor.
'Ouch!' she roared.
Natalie and the guy ignored her.
'For real?' he asked. He meant about the drugs squad.
Natalie nodded grimly. 'For real.'
Without a backward glance, the guy shoved the bar of the
emergency exit and opened it. Cold wind and a gush of rain
blasted in as he vanished out into the dark. Natalie shivered.
She glanced at Lizzie on the floor. Lizzie looked sulky now. She
had a big tear on one side of the bodice of her dress where her
admirer had been trying over-enthusiastically to access her boobs.
'Home,' Natalie said.
'You ruined it all, Natalie!' shrieked Lizzie.
'Yes,' Natalie agreed, 'I ruined it all. Come on, let's go.
Where's your stuff?'
When Natalie hauled her back to their booth, there was no
sign of her bag or coat there.
'Is she OK?' asked Anna.
'Oh, fine,' Natalie said brightly. No point in telling Anna
what Lizzie had really been doing. 'She's tired and emotional.' The too,' sighed Anna. 'And I'm exhausted. Can we go home
now?'
'Sure. I need to find Lizzie's things.'
Lizzie's coat was found in a heap on the floor under the
table, but her bag was nowhere to be seen.
Lizzie was too out of it to be the slightest bit worried about
this.
'Cheap bag!' she kept saying loudly. 'Cheap bag.'
'What's inside it is what counts,' Natalie said: 'your wallet,
keys and phone.'
'Cheap, cheap '
Finally, Natalie gave up looking. The club was heaving by

now and she was tired. 'Home,' she said to Lizzie, then realised
she couldn't send Lizzie back to the flat she shared with Steve
in that condition. 'You'd better come with me.'


The next morning, Lizzie woke first and ran to the bathroom.
Natalie could hear retching, and the bedroom reeked of stale
alcohol. Even the bed smelled of boozy sweat. Natalie got up
and began stripping off the sheets. She couldn't wait to wash
them, to get rid of the memory of last night. There had been
something disturbing about seeing her friend in such a terrible
state. Lizzie had been more than drunk, she was out of control.
The pillowcase from her side of the bed was striped with
make-up. Skin-cleansing hadn't been high on the agenda when
Natalie had finally got her back to the flat. She'd had enough
trouble getting Lizzie into bed in the first place. It had taken
a lot of cajoling. And then, in bed, Lizzie had shouted that
nobody understood her and how horrible Natalie was being,
when all she wanted was to have some fun. Then, suddenly,
she'd lain down on the bed and fallen asleep in an instant.

'Don't do the bed,' moaned Lizzie, staggering back into the
bedroom looking like a representative of the undead. 'I need
to lie down, pleeese.'

'You can lie down on the couch,' Natalie said shortly. 'This
place stinks and I need to wash the sheets.'

'Oh nooo.' Lizzie lay down on the pile of dirty sheets and
curled up into a ball. 'I can lie here. I'll wash them later.'

'Later, if you remember,' Natalie reminded her tartly, 'you're
meeting Steve's friend from San Diego. The one who went
with them on the stag night - the wild one, remember? The
one you were scared was going to take Steve to all manner
of unsuitable clubs to meet unsuitable women.'

Lizzie was chalk white as it was, but at the mention of her
fiance, her face began to look even more ghostly. 'Shit.'

'You can say that again,' Natalie said.

'Don't, please don't,' begged Lizzie.


'Don't what?. Remind you about last night?' Natalie thought
of how she'd hauled Lizzie out of the club after giving up on
the handbag, and of the people Lizzie had drunkenly bumped
into on the way, threatening to start a fight over it, even
though she was the one who'd bumped into them. Lizzie!
Funny, normally gentle Lizzie.
It had been a nightmare. And then the guy, the guy Lizzie
had been with, poor Steve totally forgotten. That was the worst.
'What do you remember?' Natalie demanded.
Lizzie covered her eyes with her hands. 'Lots of it. Too
much. I had far too much to drink '
'That's not what I'm talking about.'
'The guy at the bar, I kissed him '
'Kissed him! I thought you were going to devour him, Lizzie.
You were glued to him and I had to practically drag you off.
If anyone else had seen you and told Steve, can you imagine
that?' Natalie shook her head in disgust. 'There's drunk,
Lizzie, and there's crazy - and you were crazy.'
'I know,' Lizzie said brokenly. 'It's awful, I'm awful. And
I promised I'd never, not after the last time -' she stopped abruptly.
Startled, Natalie stared at her. 'What last time?'
Lizzie hesitated before whispering: 'The Christmas party at
work. It was work people only, no partners, and there was
this big joint being passed around and - Oh, Natalie, you
don't want to know.'
'You slept with someone else?' Natalie knew she sounded
like the mother superior of a convent, but she couldn't help it.
Lizzie didn't reply and that made Natalie absolutely furious.
'You did! You actually slept with someone because you
were stoned, Lizzie, and that didn't shock you enough, so you
still went out on your hen night and got absolutely plastered.
If I hadn't found you, where would you be now? I'll tell you:
you'd be waking up in that guy's bed - I doubt if you even
know his name - and we'd have phoned the police because

we thought you were in trouble, and everyone, including your fiance, would be searching for you now, while you'd be holed up in bed with a hangover with a bloody stranger. That would wreck the Valentine's Day wedding, for sure. Why would you do that? You don't need to sleep around with strangers, you've got a man who loves you.'
'Oh, shut up! I hate myself enough, I don't need you hating me too!' Lizzie screamed. She clambered to her feet, still bleary-eyed, clutching the sheets to her. 'Why are you so bloody judgemental, anyway? It's none of your business; I didn't kiss your bloody boyfriend, did I? It's only my life I'm fucking up!'
Suddenly, Natalie felt sorry for what she'd said. Lizzie was right; she was being judgemental and she didn't know why, because lots of people went out and got terribly drunk on their hen nights. It was almost a rite of passage, wasn't it? But this had been something worse. Natalie had never seen anyone she loved change so much under the influence of alcohol. Her father barely drank, Bess was the same, and even the boys didn't drink to the extent that Lizzie had, although she knew many guys their age who did.
It had been part of the family ethos when they'd been growing up: treat alcohol with respect.
But it seemed that Lizzie's family hadn't given her the same message. Last night, Lizzie had been like another person: someone Natalie didn't know and certainly didn't like.
'Sorry,' Natalie said now, and sat down on the mattress. She felt weary after so few hours in bed. 'I am your friend, Lizzie, but I wouldn't be a proper friend if I pretended last night was normal or good. I'm not trying to take the moral high ground. You can sleep with who you like, but I can't stand by and be your bridesmaid if you really don't want to marry Steve. Why marry him if you want to sleep with other men?'
'I do want to marry him!' protested Lizzie. 'I was drunk, it was a blip. Really.'

'But '

'But nothing. I love Steve. Last night was stupid, that's all.
And he doesn't need to know, does he?'

'I suppose not.' Natalie opened the drawer where she kept
clean sheets. She couldn't believe she was having this conversation
with Lizzie. It was like discovering a totally different
side to one of her oldest friends. She'd had no idea that Lizzie
was capable of a one-night stand before her wedding, and
then convincing herself it was all fine, as long as nobody
found out. Natalie had found Lizzie's drunken aggression
frightening, but her cool 'it doesn't matter as long as nobody
knows' theory was even worse. Lizzie would be devastated if
Steve slept with another woman. It wasn't right not to care
that she'd done the same.

'Where's my handbag?' asked Lizzie, looking around the
room.

'You lost it,' Natalie reminded her. 'We looked everywhere,
but couldn't find it. You should cancel your credit card, actually.'
'Oh
shit, that's my phone, my cards, everything? wailed
Lizzie. 'What am I going to tell Steve?'

Natalie stared blankly at her clean sheets. She liked the
violet-sprigged ones best, and her fingers ran absently over
the smooth percale. 'I'm not sure what you should tell him,'
she said slowly.

'I know.' Lizzie sounded confident. 'We'll say you and I got
totally plastered, we came back here and, even though I'd
meant to go home in a taxi, I decided to stay because it was
so late. OK?'

No, not OK at all, Natalie thought. But then, it wasn't her
job to fix Lizzie's relationship or be her moral guardian. 'OK,'
she said. But her insides felt like lead.


Three

Learn how to say no. Practice. Say it at least once every day and you know what? You'll get better at it.



Charlie sat down with a sigh and eased off her shoes. Blissful cool air enveloped her toes and she wriggled them. The
Hatbox Cafe on Kenny's second floor wasn't too busy. The
lunchtime rush was over and the afternoon tea people hadn't
yet started wandering in looking for the cafe's speciality: pink
fairycakes with quirky shoe designs in multi-coloured icing.
The Hatbox had retained its traditional appearance. Old
Mr Kenny, who set the store up all those years ago, would
have been right at home here. The fittings were still cherry
wood and brass, the wallpaper a riot of bosomy Belle Epoque
girls spilling out of Grecian gowns, and the chairs were still
upholstered in ruby velvet. But the staff no longer wore black
and white with frilled caps, having long since moved into chic
navy trousers and tops with waiter's white aprons. The menu
was similarly up-to-date.
Charlie's lunch was a bottle of water and a brown bread
sandwich. She'd brought a magazine she'd borrowed from the
staff room. The magazine was cover. Once she realised nobody
wanted to join her for lunch and that she'd have privacy, she

took out her little notebook and pen and furtively began to
write.

My mother's a travel agent for guilt trips.
You think that's a joke? Wrong.
She phoned me at ten to eight in the morning.
'Charlie, I'm in bed with the flu. Can you pick up my
dry cleaning on your way to work? I left my good jackets
in, the tweed ones, and my baby-blue coat, and I need
them.'
You wouldn't think that two fake Chanel jackets and
a baby-blue woollen coat circa 1963 could make a grown
woman want to kill someone with their bare hands, but
they can. Dry cleaning can be a powerful tool in the hands
of a master.
I don't really have the time. I'm leaving in a few
minutes and I have to drop Mikey at school. Can't you
phone Iseult and ask her to do it?'
Pause. The phrase 'red rag to a bull' comes to mind. I
knew I shouldn't have said no, but I had to. I mean, I'm
the supervisor of the Organic Belle department in Kenny's,
which is not the sort of place where you can be late. Plus,
I have a thirteen-year-old son who views arriving a moment
late to school with the horror of a Japanese train scheduler
facing a leaf-on-the-line crisis, so we don't have time for
either morning phone calls or emergency dry-cleaning stops.
The pause ended abruptly.
'No, that's fine,' snapped my mother. Think Lady
Bracknell on crystal meth. 'I'll do it myself. I couldn't
sleep last night, you know. My cough's worse. I don't
know if I'll last the winter . . .'
This is where I think that if only she gave up her
bloody thirty-a-day smoking habit, the cough wouldn't
get worse, but I don't say it. There's only so much reckless
abandon I can manage of a morning.

'I'll pick up your dry cleaning,' I say.
'No, you're too busy. I'll do it '
'Really, I'll fit it in.'
'No, I can look after myself, thank you very much.
Nobody needs to fit me into their life.'
Sound of phone slamming down. My mother has broken
many phones in her life and refuses to have a portable
one because there's no satisfying slamming down involved.
Not having a portable means she often doesn't get to
the phone in time when I ring and I then panic, imagining
her unconscious at the bottom of the stairs or falling
asleep in the bath thanks to an enormous martini (triple
measure of gin and the vermouth bottle sort of waved
about in the vicinity), and I have to keep redialling until
she answers with an inevitable growl: 'What is it? Can't
a girl go to the bathroom in peace?'
My mother likes describing herself as a girl. She waxes
lyrical about how she and her friends from the sixties and
seventies fought the tyranny of State and Church to bring
the Pill and women's rights into Ireland, all the time referring
to 'this wonderful girl' or 'that darling girl' who
faced furious right wingers waving crucifixes. And that's
all wonderful, really. My mother was part of something
incredibly important at a time when women couldn't
control their fertility and were prevented from achieving
all that they should, and so on and so forth, but - I can't
believe I'm admitting this finally, even if it is only on
paper - I find it insanely irritating. I HATE IT! Because
'girl' implies sweetness, innocence and a hint of gentleness.
My mother is about as girlish as a Hell's Angel.
She is tough - had to be tough. So stop with the 'girls'
thing, please. Let everyone else see the gritty person
underneath and stop saving it just for me.
She can do the girlish thing, all right. This involves
smiling at people (mainly men) and fluttering her

eyelashes - she was never one of the bra-burning feminists.
She's the more modern variety, the kind who want red lipstick and push-up bosoms to go with their financial
equality in the workplace.
With me, Number Two Daughter, she gives the smiling
and fluttering a miss. I get instructions on where I'm going
wrong in life: not wearing my hair the correct way, having
middle-aged spread ('So ageing, Charlotte,' she murmurs),
and doing what she considers a menial job are chief on
the list. Ideally, I should be ruthlessly running my own
company instead of standing at a counter in a department
store selling hope in pretty bottles to women. The ideal
me would also credit my mother with all my success, along
the lines of 'She taught me everything I know.'
Iseult, my older sister and Number One Daughter, who
is beautiful, clever and successful, does not get instructions
on where she's going wrong. She gets compliments and her
newspaper clippings kept. Iseult is a playwright. She's
written three plays, two of which were wonderfully received,
and there's talk of one of them going to Broadway. Iseult's
plays are her work-in-progress. My mother considers Iseult
to be her best work and has a folder of Iseult's triumphs
since her first play was performed: her favourite is the article
in a Galway paper where a famous person and their mother
talk about their relationship and Iseult said, along with the
obligatory 'my mother taught me everything I know', that
our mother was always so glamorous that our boyfriends
fancied her more than either of us.
I can't quite remember this myself, but my mother has
taken the story and run with it. Not only was she personally
responsible for female emancipation in our historically
embattled country, she sees herself as a dead ringer
for Mrs Robinson in The Graduate.
Now that sounds like carping. It's not poor Iseult's fault,'
don't get me wrong, God, no. It's just the way things are

in our family, and families are weird, aren't they? Ours is
no weirder than anybody else's probably: I'm just bad at
dealing with it all. I should know better at my age. I'm
nearly forty, have a wonderful son, wonderful husband,
can't complain about any of that. It's just my mother: she
drives me nuts. And that's not normal, is it?

Charlie had never kept a diary before, she'd simply never
had the inclination. Iseult was the writer in the family and
Charlie liked keeping her own thoughts to herself. But a gratitude
journal: now that was a different proposition. She'd
heard a woman on the radio talking about a gratitude journal,
where you wrote down all the things you were grateful for.
Eventually, some alchemy was supposed to take place and the
act of writing about being grateful somehow made you actually
grateful. That's how she'd started out at Christmas.

I'm grateful for today when I watched Mikey at football
practice and he was so happy, joyful. . .
. . . Brendan took me to dinner last night in the Chinese
place on the hill and it was wonderful. There was no
special occasion; he just thought it would be nice to do
something on the spur of the moment. It was. It's silly
how something that simple makes me happy, but it does.
. . . Sales are up and David Kenny, the big boss, came
down to congratulate us and we had champagne Laurent
Perrier, no cheap muck for David - and a bit
of a party. Shotsy and I sat in a corner and decided the
bonuses would be up, too, which is brilliant because
Brendan and I are still paying for the garage conversion
and Shotsy has her eye on a little red MG.

Two days before Christmas and a week into pure gratitude,
the day came when she was so irritated with her mother that
attempting gratitude was a waste of time.

Mother is NOT coming to us for Christmas, even
though it was our year to have her and we'd had to say
no to going to Wales with Brendan's family. No, she's
just blithely told me she's going to Biarritz with Iseult,
and who cares if I've spent a week getting the place
ready for her to stay and buying her favourite food! We
can't go to Wales because Brendan's sister is now going
and there won't be room for us. And we'd love to have
gone, loved it. I am so angry I could scream.

Bizarrely, it had worked. Charlie, who hadn't written an
essay since she left college many years before, filled seven pages.
Instead of burning rage at the rant against her mother, she
felt an unusual sense of calm when she was finished. The
anger was no longer in her head: it was on paper. Writing
words down had a magical quality. It was absolutely alchemy.
Anger in her head throbbed relentlessly, but anger on paper
was flat and had no power over her. The diary itself still made
her feel guilty - treasonous, even. Writing down things that
annoyed her was one thing, but the person who annoyed her
constantly was her mother and that couldn't be right.
Everyone else adored her mother.
'She's fabulous, such a raconteur,' everyone said.
'She must have been so beautiful when she was younger.'
Charlie always hoped Kitty never heard that one: the implication
was that the beauty was very much a thing of the past,
and Kitty Nelson didn't care to be an ex-beauty. She wanted
to be a still-beautiful-for-her-age.

I wish I handled her better, she wrote now. That she
didn't make me so angry all the time. Or, like Brendan
says, that I could learn not to get upset. But she has that
knack of saying exactly the thing to upset me.
'The reason your mother can push all your buttons is
because she installed them,' he says to me.

I think he read it on a postcard. Isn't it annoying
that postcards nowadays all come with the wisdom of
Nietzsche?
'Detach with love' is what Shotsy says to me. If she
explains what that means, I'd like to try it, but I have
absolutely no idea . . .

'Charlie?'
Charlie jumped and her pen leapt across the page with an
inky scrawl and fell to the cafe floor. She actually felt guilty
every time she took the notebook out of its hiding place in
the ripped bit of lining of her black handbag. No matter how
good it felt to write down her feelings, she'd die if anyone
actually saw any of it.
'You writing love letters?' said a teasing voice.
Dolores, who'd worked in Kenny's since she was in her
teens and was now nearing retirement, plonked a tray on to
the table beside Charlie's untouched sandwich.
'No,' answered Charlie cheerily, closing the notebook and
stuffing it into her handbag. 'Lists, you know,' she added vaguely.
She loved lists. The trick, according to the experts, was not
to have too many items. Then, you could realistically achieve
them.
'I hate lists,' Dolores said, stirring sugar into her coffee. 'I
found one the other day and it was years old, from my fortieth,
and it was all the stuff I wanted in my life by the time I turned
forty-one.'
'Like what?'
'A new car - not a second-hand one, but new. To have lost
two stone. To have found the man of my dreams . . .' She
sighed and began unwrapping salad dressing. 'None of it has
happened: so much for bloody cosmic ordering.'
'Does it work like that?' Charlie was instantly terribly sorry
she'd asked. Dolores' ill-fated love life had taken up many a
lunchtime among the Kenny's staff, and while Charlie wished

her love, happiness and a double portion of George Clooney
with cream on top, she wasn't emotionally up to another
session about how There Were No Decent Men Left.
'Clearly not,' Delores said gloomily. 'Unless it's cumulative,
like compound interest. If you do enough lists, eventually you
get some of what you asked for. Perhaps the fact that you
stuck at the whole thing counts for something.'
'Stuck at what? Marriage? Life? Working here?' Shotsy,
birdlike, brown as a walnut and with a whirl of platinum
blonde hair, placed a cup on the table. Charlie didn't have to
look to see what was in it: a treble espresso. Shotsy ran the
handbag and accessories department, lived for fashion, and
was only ever seen putting two things in her mouth: strong cigarettes and black coffee.
'Here's not so bad,' said Charlie, smiling at Shotsy.
'Speak for yourself,' muttered Dolores, going to get more
milk for her coffee.
'Have news for you,' Shotsy said in a whisper to Charlie.
'What?' Charlie could tell from Shotsy's frown that it wasn't
good news.
'Later,' mouthed Shotsy.
Shotsy waited until Dolores - not known for discretion had
gone before spilling the beans.
'Don't tell anyone,' Shotsy whispered, 'but I've heard that
David met Stanley DeVere last week.'
Charlie gasped out loud. 'You sure?' she said.
DeVere's was the country's premier department store, a high
end chain with branches in five Irish cities and three of the
biggest shopping centres. They stood for money. Big money.
Stanley DeVere was the complete opposite of David Kenny: a
wearer of loud stripey suits, he thought that waving an unlit
cigar around somehow enhanced his image as a bon viveur.
Charlie had only ever seen him on television and she'd disliked
him on sight. It was no secret that DeVere's would love another
store on the high-density east coast of the country, and buying

out Kenny's, with its fabulous location and its reputation as the country's only bijou department store, would be a real coup for them. It was also no secret that David disliked Stanley DeVere and had vowed that he would never sell Kenny's.
Meeting Stanley undermined that vow.
'Why? I thought Kenny's was doing well?' Charlie said.
'Margins, I expect,' said Shotsy sadly. 'It's all about margins. We can't compete with the likes of DeVere's on price. They're buying ten times as much stock as we are, so they get much better deals from retailers. And the supermarkets, the big chemist chains and home-furnishing outlets are hurting us too. We can't match anyone on price any more. Our saving grace is that we're a niche store. Take Organic Belle, for example. They're after exclusivity, it helps them with their brand, but one day some huge conglomerate like L'Oreal will buy them out, and then they'll go global - world domination in every store. When that happens, we're in trouble. So, we're not doing well and the global turndown hasn't helped. Who has money for luxury nowadays?'
'This is awful,' said Charlie.
'At least we heard about it. Forewarned is forearmed,' Shotsy said grimly. 'DeVere's have their own handbag buyers and they won't want to hire me. Too many cooks and all that.'
'You're brilliant at what you do, Shotsy,' protested Charlie.
'Brilliant means nothing. This is hostile takeover time and no matter what sort of flannel they'll give us about merging the two companies and how the staff will join up seamlessly, it won't happen, not when DeVere's and Kenny's have such different cultures. People like me will be made redundant. End of story, kaput. I wish we could still smoke inside.'
Charlie stood up, got two empty take-away cups and put one in front of Shotsy. 'Decant your coffee and come out on to the roof. You can smoke and we can talk.'
'Thought your mother had put you off nicotine for life?' said Shotsy, pouring her espresso into the take-away cup.Shotsy was one of the few people who seemed to understand
that Charlie's mother wasn't quite the loveable revolutionary
glamourpuss she pretended to be.

'Tough growing up with a mother like that,' she'd said
shrewdly on their first meeting, an event in the shop. 'She has
very strong opinions on everything, your mother.'

Charlie sent her a grateful look. Shotsy wasn't a member
of the Kitty Nelson fan club, won over by the purred 'dahling's
and the war cry that she'd let her daughters live their lives
their own way because it was wrong to inflict archaic moral
codes upon them.

'I can't stand the smell of smoke,' said Charlie now, 'but I
need to hear everything and you need cigarettes to get your
brain working.'

The roof terrace was far less glamorous than it sounded a
flat area of the store's roof, surrounded on all sides by
slanting mountains of tile. To get there, the women had to
climb the back stairs that led past accounts and credit control.

Finally, Charlie pushed the old metal door open and they
emerged, panting, into the cool February sunlight. Charlie
shivered without a jacket but still waited until Shotsy had a
couple of decent drags on her cigarette inside her before
asking: 'What do we do?'

'Keep our eyes and ears open, and wait,' said Shotsy.

'That's it: wait?'

'Nothing else we can do. We're just the worker bees.'

Charlie wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the
cold. 'If DeVere's buy us, they mightn't make radical changes,'
she said hopefully. 'If it's not broken, don't fix it, right?' She
thought how much she loved her job; and she was good at it,
too. Shotsy was brilliant as an accessories buyer; she understood
that women who could never afford to dress head-to-toe
in designer clothes still loved having the designer glamour that
went with an expensive handbag or a pair of designer sunglasses.
How could DeVere's belittle what the Kenny's staff had to offer?


'It mightn't be broken,' Shotsy said, stabbing out her cigarette,
'but they'll still want to fix it so that Kenny's isn't Kenny's
any more. It will become DeVere's. Branding,' she added in a
low voice, 'that's what it's all about now. People like me are
part of the Kenny's brand, and we just wouldn't fit the DeVere's
brand. There's no reason they won't keep you, though, Charlie.'
'Except for one thing,' Charlie pointed out. A horrible idea
had just occurred to her. 'DeVere's don't stock Organic Belle.
It's like what you said a moment ago: Organic Belle wanted
to keep their brand exclusive, so Kenny's is the only stockist
on the east coast. There's us and Pathologie in Galway, and
then the three Organic Belle shops in Cork and Kerry. And
now Harrods. That's it. I'm sure DeVere's were furious they
couldn't get it. What if they decide not to stock it out of
pique, just to make a point? Or if the Organic Belle people
pulled out? What then? I'm out of a job.'
'There's making a point and there's doing business,' Shotsy
said. 'They're not stupid.'
'Getting rid of you would be stupid, but you're sure they'd
do it,' Charlie retorted.
'Let's hold off worrying until we know what's happening.'
Shotsy rearranged her platinum hair and opened the door to
the fifth floor. 'Just keep your eyes and ears peeled. After all,
David's a good man. He wouldn't sell out without looking
after all of us, would he?'
She didn't say it with conviction, Charlie thought. David
Kenny was a good man and he did look after his staff. But
if he needed to sell the department store for some reason,
perhaps he mightn't be able to look after them quite as well
as he had in the past.

The rest of the afternoon on the cosmetics floor was mercifully
busy so Charlie didn't have a moment to brood. There
were three women who worked in the Organic Belle department
and Charlie was always the most popular both with


newcomers to the range and with long-standing customers
coming back for more. She had a kind of empathy that allowed
her to understand how someone could feel nervous walking
into an elegant department store and facing the beautifully
made-up women behind the counters.
Part of her attraction was that she didn't fit the traditional vision of stunning beauty usually found manning the counters
in cosmetics departments. Yes, her subtle make-up was
beautifully applied, thanks to the courses she'd taken when
she signed up with Organic Belle in the first place, but she
chose never to look too glamorous or inaccessible.
Charlie was petite with a curvy figure, shiny chestnut hair
that she wore in a groomed ponytail, a round, smiling face
with neat features, and slightly cat-shaped eyes inherited from
her mother. However, she didn't have her mother's fine-boned
face or the fabulous lips that Kitty Nelson painted various
shades of red: pillar box, fire engine, crimson. And she'd
missed out on the long, elegant legs her mother and sister
liked to show off with their high heels, sheer stockings and
lashings of attitude.
What she did have was a friendliness that drew people to her.
Her husband was constantly trying to make her understand
how important that was, and how long legs, sultry lips and
a hand-span waist couldn't hold a candle to innate kindness.
'You light up a room when you smile, do you know that?'
he would say to her.
'Stop it, Brendan!' Charlie would laugh, and kiss him. But
she loved him saying it. She hadn't known such kindness since
her father left.
Growing up with her mother and sister, two fiercely strong
personalities, Charlie had often felt like a plump little mouse
who'd snuck into the lions' cage. The lions ensnared people
with their glamour and ferocity, and nobody could quite
believe that Charlie, who listened far more than she talked,
could possibly be related to Kitty and Iseult.

Her champion had been her father, who was just as capable of being the egotistical big cat as his wife and older daughter, but who adored his little Charlotte.
And then one terrible day, when Charlie was fifteen and Iseult was eighteen, he'd packed his bags and left.
'I'm not leaving you, Charlotte,' Anthony Nelson told her, extracting tissue after tissue from the box to wipe away Charlie's tears. 'I love you, remember that.'
'But you are leaving,' Charlie had sobbed.
'I can't live with your mother any more, that's all, Charlotte. I can't. Lord knows, I've tried but she's destroying me -' He collected himself. 'Grown-ups sometimes leave each other, but
that doesn't mean they leave their children. I love you and
Iseult. That will never change.'
'Can I come with you?' He looked shocked. 'Kids don't live with their fathers, Charlotte.
They live with their mothers, you know that.'
'Do they have to?' she whispered. If her mother heard,
she'd explode with anger. The volume of screaming in the
house had already been dangerously high for the past hour.
It was only quiet now because Kitty had slammed the door
to the sitting room and was in there with 'It's Too Late' playing
over and over on the stereo, almost drowning out the clinking
of the gin bottle. But if she'd crept out and was secretly
listening to what Charlie had said, she'd be furious . . .
'I will never say anything bad about your mother to you,
Charlotte,' her father said urgently, holding her hands in his. 'She loves you both and, Lord knows, your mother has enough
passion in her, so when she loves, she really loves. I hate men
who try to discredit their wives when they split up. Your
mother is an amazing woman; look at all she's done, look at what she does for you.'
Charlie thought of her friend Suzy, whose mum would sit
on her bed at night and ask about her day, then she would
tell Suzy how much she loved her and how proud she was of

her. Charlie would have liked that, but it wasn't the sort of
thing Mum did. Plus, Mum despised Suzy's mother.
'The woman's a nightmare! I don't know why you have
to pal up with Suzy. She's such a milk-and-water child. Oh,
I give in. Go to her house, if you must - but when I come
to pick you up, be waiting at the gate for me. I refuse to be
subjected to her drivel about how fabulous Suzy is and how
they're all going camping or something ghastly for their holidays.
Who the hell goes camping? Well, we girls camped that
time in Paris - but that was different. We were part of the
Women and Power demo, and we were broke.' There
followed a litany of fun had at the time, including a night
in Montmartre with a man who chain-smoked Gauloises and
said he was going to sculpt her in his version of Marianne, because she was the Celtic Marianne. And oh, there was a
fabulous dress shop in a backstreet in the Marais where Kitty
had bought a second-hand Schiaparelli dress that everyone
just adored. Men dropped like flies when they saw it. Simply dropped.
'Your mother sacrificed a lot for you girls,' Dad continued.
'Don't forget that. She'd be devastated if she didn't have you.
I wouldn't dream of doing that to her.'
He seemed lost in thought for a moment, and Charlie could
tell he was thinking how ungrateful she was. He was right,
her mother must be wonderful, really. Children didn't leave
their mothers. That was a sin. Being a mother was hard, and
if a mother screamed sometimes, it was because she had kids
who drove her to it. So Charlie was a bad person for even thinking of leaving her mother.
She looked at her father and saw his eyes were wet. Just
then, she felt a bit of her curl up and die. She'd revealed something
bad to her darling dad and he was upset with her. She
felt so ashamed.
'I love you, Charlotte,' he said as he left.
Charlie had nodded and said nothing. She daren't, in case

she started to cry. Telling the truth couldn't be good when
what you felt inside was so bad.
When she was twenty-four, she'd met Brendan and he'd
changed everything. He'd made her feel treasured and special.
From their first meeting, she'd known he was the love of her
life. Accustomed to her mercurial home where tension ratcheted
up and down at speed, spending time with Brendan made her see that people could be calm and kind to each other. Nobody
in Brendan's home screamed at anyone else because they were
randomly in a bad mood.
Six months after meeting, they moved in together. A year
later, they were married.
'You're throwing yourself away,' her mother had said furiously.
'He's only a bank clerk. He'll never amount to anything.'
But it's not his job to amount to something on my behalf, Charlie had thought but never said. Surely that was the very
tenet of her mother's much-vaunted campaigning: there was
no use pretending to be Cinderella and waiting for the prince
to arrive. You had to be your own prince.
She had a good job in the phone company. Together, she
and Brendan had enough money to put a deposit on a house.
Together they could do it. Now her mother was saying that
together wasn't the key: Brendan had to be able to support
the pair of them all on his own for it to count.
She'd given up work when Mikey was born, another bombshell.
'You
can't give up work now! What's wrong with using a
creche?' demanded Kitty.
'It's expensive. I'd be going to work purely to pay for the
creche, and paying the creche so I could work. It's a vicious
circle. We've decided that I'll stay at home until Mikey goes
to school, that's all.'
'Your career will be ruined! Have I taught you nothing!'
As it turned out, Charlie's career hadn't been ruined, though
when Mikey had started going to school, she'd looked for work

with more than a little trepidation. After all, who would want
to employ her? When the phone company told her they had
no vacancies, it seemed her mother had been right. But Organic
Belle, a fledgling company, was willing to take her on. It transpired
that Charlie had a gift when it came to selling cosmetics.
She had done so well that a year ago they'd appointed her
supervisor for the Organic Belle range, which meant more
money and more responsibility. Charlie loved her new role.
Brendan, too, had moved up the promotion ladder, but the
bank had yet to make him a manager, which was about the
only job his mother-in-law would have respected.
Mikey was the centre of their lives. As he grew, Charlie grew
too, realising that while she wasn't precisely the high-performing
career woman her mother desperately wanted her to be, she
was the most special person in the world for one little boy and
for his father, and actually, that was all that mattered.
Motherhood taught her to trust her instincts. And it taught her another lesson she'd quite like not to have learned: that there were many ways to be a mother and that letting children
feel their mother had sacrificed her fabulous life for them was probably not top of the list. That thought simmered away in the recesses of her brain. A person could be wonderful at one thing, say campaigning for women's rights, and yet be hopeless at another, like being a kind and caring mother. There was no law to say a person had to be both. One was enough. But understanding one's own abilities in these areas
was a vital part of life. Charlie had been raised to the independent
woman ideal but had found that parenting was the
career that fulfilled her most. What hurt was having her mother
treat this important part of Charlie's life with such disdain.

When there was a lull in business, Charlie took a moment to
ask Karen, the woman she was training, how she was getting
on. Charlie enjoyed working with trainees: there was a buzz
from being with someone learning about Organic Belle,

particularly when they were doing as she'd done and rejoining
the workforce after having children.

Karen was forty and still very anxious about her new job,
even though she'd worked as a personal assistant to a high
powered businessman before she'd left to have children.

'That was then, this is now,' she said to Charlie. 'Ten years
is a long time to be out of the workforce. I feel like I'm
masquerading as a person with a job. I half expect customers
to tell me to get out from behind the counter and fetch a real
salesperson to help them.'

'You're great at this,' Charlie said. 'You're good with people
too. I felt the same when I started; I was just as nervous.'

'That's very kind of you, Charlie, but you're only saying
that,' said Karen, still anxious. 'There's no way you were
nervous. Look at you: you're so calm and professional about
this. I'll never be like you.'

'Trust me,' Charlie said, 'I was just as nervous. If you don't
believe yourself, Karen, believe me, and I'm telling you that
you're well able to do this.'

When Karen had gone to serve a customer, it struck Charlie
as strange that the people who worked with her thought she
was calm and professional, while her mother thought she was
dithery and unambitious. It was the family box syndrome:
your family put you in a certain compartment when you were
small and, once you were in it, you weren't supposed to leave
- not in their minds, anyhow.

Charlie had been stuck in the quiet, will never make anything
of herself box, and that's where she was supposed to stay.

Well, now she'd decided she wasn't staying in any box, for
anyone.

Today was her late shift at work, which meant Brendan
would pick Mikey up from his friend's house at six and together
they'd make dinner. Brendan was teaching Mikey to cook and
they were slowly working their way through a Jamie Oliver
book. In fact, Mikey showed great flair for cooking and was


improving at such speed, he'd soon be better than his dad.
'Dad, like this -' Mikey had said the night before, taking
one of the sharp knives and cutting a courgette slowly but
expertly. 'You do them all sideways. They're supposed to be
straight, all the same.' Mikey was dark like his father, with
big hazel eyes and spiky hair that fell over his forehead as he
worked. His tongue stuck out a little as he concentrated on
slicing the courgettes, and that, combined with the intensity
on his young freckled face, made Charlie's heart contract. He
was growing up so fast.
'When you get your restaurant, we'll go there every night,'
Brendan said proudly.
'If you do,' replied Mikey, still busy chopping, 'you'll have I to pay like everyone else. I have to make money!'
'Right then, we'll join the huge queues waiting to get in,' Charlie suggested.
Mikey considered this. 'No, it's all right, you can skip the
queue.'
'Why?' demanded Charlie, ruffling his hair. 'Because we'll
be too old and wrinkly and will ruin the look of the place?'
Mikey giggled, a big smile creasing up his face and making
his eyes dance. 'No. OK, you can eat for free.'
'Same deal as here, then,' his mother laughed. 'Everyone
eats for free.'
They were making a beef stew tonight and Charlie was
looking forward to it. To add to the whole thing, she'd bought
some apple struedel in the food hall and there was cream in
the fridge. No matter how enormous the main course, Brendan
and Mikey were always like wolves for dessert. Mikey had
shot up in the past year, was nearly as tall as his father, and
could eat to Olympic standard and still remain lanky.
It was after seven when she reached her car, a battered
Citroen she was passionately attached to despite its decrepitude.
Throwing her bag in, she switched on the heater to take
the February chill from the air, and then phoned home.

'Hi, love,' she said as Brendan answered. 'How was your
day?'
'Hello, Charlie. Oh, you know: the usual. It's over, that's
the thing. How was yours?'
Charlie thought of the news Shotsy had imparted. She usually
told Brendan everything - well, almost everything. She lied by
omission sometimes when it came to her mother because
Brendan wouldn't stand for some of the things Kitty said. But
tonight, she didn't want to ruin their evening telling him about
DeVere's. She'd tell him tomorrow or at the weekend, perhaps.
'Fine,' she replied. 'Has Chef started?'
'Braising beef as we speak.'
'He's amazing,' she said in wonder. She knew so many
people with teenage sons who talked about them as if they
were juvenile delinquents-in-waiting, and here she and
Brendan had this wonderful son who cooked them dinner
once a week. Sure, he grumbled sometimes, and left smelly
socks and cycling kit all over his room and was totally deaf
when he was at his PlayStation, but he never shouted that
nobody understood him or told his parents he hated them,
which was apparently the norm. Charlie felt so lucky when
she thought about her beloved Mikey. 'I didn't know how to
braise beef when I was thirteen,' Brendan said.
'Nor me,' Charlie agreed. Hardly a surprise, she thought,
given that cooking wasn't at a premium in the Nelson household.
'And I may never have to again, now that Mikey's doing
it all the time.'
'He's better at cooking than both of us,' Brendan added
ruefully. 'Did you get anything for dessert?'
'You only love me because I work beside Kenny's food hall,'
Charlie teased.
'Is that a yes?'
'Yes, greedy guts. I love you.'
'Love you too. You're on your way?'
'Yes, just leaving.'

'Drive carefully.'
Charlie hung up and then deleted the missed call symbol on
her phone. Her mother had phoned twice. Once at five minutes
to three and again half an hour later. Staff on the floor at
Kenny's weren't supposed to have their mobile phones on their
person during working hours unless there was a specific reason
for it. So Charlie, along with most people, left hers in her
locker with her bag. Brendan, Mikey, and Mikey's school all
had the direct line into the Organic Belle department, and could
reach her in any emergency. The only person, therefore, who
left urgent messages on her mobile was her mother.
'I'm at the doctor's surgery, in the waiting room. I felt faint
and I got a taxi to take me. There's a long queue, mind you.
But I'm sure Dr Flannery will see me quickly. He knows my
heart's not good, and that's more serious than what's wrong
with most of the people here. Call me when you have time.
I may need a lift home.'
Charlie felt the familiar tightening of her temples that foretold
a massive tension headache and wondered if she had any
ibuprofen in her handbag. Only her mother could leave such
a message, dismissing everyone else's ailments as nothing
compared to hers, with the entire surgery waiting room
listening.
The second message was more succinct:
Dr Flannery wants to do cholesterol tests on me. He's
worried. So am I. I knew this morning that something wasn't
right. I'll be at home if you can spare the time to phone.
Charlie clicked off, then switched the phone off totally. Was
that what Shotsy meant when she said 'detach with love'?
Charlie wasn't sure. Between the news about DeVere's and
her mother's double volley at both ends of the day, Charlie
felt wrung out. She wanted to go home, eat dinner with her
darling family and not talk to anyone else. What she didn't
want was to be at the beck and call of her mother. Was that
too much to ask?

Four

When you're annoyed, don't speak from that place inside yourself that nurtures all past hurts. That will just make it worse.


Friday was Valentine's Day. Passing a man carrying a big
bouquet of red roses on her way to work, Ingrid thought
of her daughter getting ready to go to Lizzie's wedding. At
the television studios, the security guard on reception was
hauling a big bag of fan mail with red envelopes spilling
out of the top, through the inner security doors to the
offices.

'Valentines for Ken Devlin?' she asked.

'Don't know what they see in him,' muttered the guard,
panting. 'He's got a face like a robber's dog. And he's a midget,
you know. Five foot two is all. A midget. Looks taller on television,
of course.'

Ingrid nodded noncommittally, thinking of Marcella. One
person's midget might be another person's love god.

It seemed there was no escaping St Valentine, even in the
office. The Politics Tonight team was divided into two camps:
those who thought Valentine's Day was a ruthless marketing
ploy by flower shops and card-makers, and those who saw


it as an expression of pure romance to have love declared in
public with the gift of flowers or chocolates.
Ingrid found that where people stood on the matter largely
depended on their current experience with the opposite sex.
Martin, one of the producers, was in the throes of a vicious
divorce and was muttering grimly about having been nearly
knocked off his racing bike on his way into work by a fleet
of flower delivery vans.
'Waste of time and money,' he was heard to snap. 'It's not
as if it even makes any difference. Buy her flowers, cut your
wrists, whatever! Like the bitches actually care.'
Ingrid had enormous sympathy for Martin because reliable
rumour had it that his wife had hired one of the country's
top divorce lawyers, a woman whose motto was 'Take him
for everything he's got.' It wasn't a snappy motto, but it
worked. Outraged ex-wives were queuing up to hire her.
Meanwhile, Jeri, the show's production assistant, was
deeply in love with a new man she'd met on a blind date a
teacher, who was '. . . kind, funny, has a dog and does
triathlons!' She was walking around in the glorious haze that
only came from receiving a public display of affection that
showed the people she worked with that she was Someone's
Special Person.
'Twenty-four red roses,' whispered Gloria, Ingrid's personal
assistant, 'and a teddy bear holding a red satin heart that says
I Heart U.'
'Gorgeous,' said Ingrid with pleasure. She hoped it would
last. Jeri was a sweet girl and deserved someone nice.
'Wait till you see your bouquet,' Gloria added.
Ingrid was surprised. David didn't normally go in for the
whole red roses schtick.
'Unless it's your secret lover,' Gloria went on, seeing the
surprise on her boss's face. 'I just assumed they were from
David '
Ingrid burst out laughing. 'Secret lover, indeed! Where

would I find the time, Gloria? And can you imagine the fun
the political parties would have if I did have a man hidden
away somewhere? They'd never answer a question of mine
again - they'd be too busy smirking at me on-air, ready to
say "Don't ask me anything, Ms Fitzgerald, until you tell
viewers where you were last Saturday . . ."'
Gloria giggled.

Ingrid's first thought on seeing the arrangement of creamy
Vendella roses was that only a secret lover with exquisite taste
and pots of money would send flowers so beautiful. Displayed
in a cut-glass vase, with pale pink crepe tissue and a hand
tied satin bow around them, they were lovely.

She surprised herself at how touched she felt as she read
the card: Happy Valentine's Day, love David.

She hadn't got him anything; they rarely exchanged cards
or gifts today. David wasn't prone to romantic gestures, and,
anyway, romance shouldn't be confined to one day in the
calendar, Ingrid felt, a theme she'd elaborated upon many
times. And yet here she was, feeling as moony as a teenager
at the sight of her beautiful bouquet.

David was amazing. He could still surprise her after all
these years.

She wished she could meet him for lunch to say thank you,
but she was seeing her sisters today. They met up every month
for lunch and she couldn't let them down.

But she could make a special dinner tonight, perhaps ask Mrs
Hendron, their housekeeper who came twice a week, to buy some fish so that Ingrid could make her special fish pie, which
David adored but which she rarely made any more because it
took so long and was so fiddly. She phoned David's direct line
in Kenny's and Stacey, her husband's assistant, answered.

'Hello, Stacey,' Ingrid said, surprised. David's personal line
was sacrosanct. It was unusual for anyone else to answer

'Heiio, Ingrid,' Stacey trilled. 'Mr Kenny's at a meeting. He
won't be long now, I'll tell him you rang as soon as he gets back.'


'Oh, not to worry,' Ingrid replied. 'I just wanted to thank
him for the flowers.'
She felt that shivery thrill again, and it was a lovely feeling.
The man in her life had sent her flowers. Was she finally
turning into a girlie-girl in middle age?
'Did you like them?' Stacey asked eagerly. 'They're part of
the new range in the last-minute gift department, came in last
week and I hear they're flying off the shelves today. It was
all Claudia's idea. That girl is a marvel. She's only been with
us a few months and she's smashing, worth her weight in
gold. She insisted all the men send the flowers to their wives,'
Stacey went on guilelessly.
Ingrid recovered in an instant. 'Yes, they're lovely,' she said
automatically. 'What a marvellous idea of Claudia's.'
'She's so young and so sparky, and she never stops,' Stacey
went on. 'Here till all hours at night, working on new stuff.
I don't know what Mr Kenny would do without her.'
'No, me neither,' Ingrid replied.

She found it hard to concentrate on work that morning. At
the pre-production meeting for the next night's show, a special
weekend broadcast because of the by-election, all the talk was
about what the wrong result would mean for the government.
Old surveys and political swing sheets were reprinted, and
comparisons were made with the last time the government
had lost a by-election. Ingrid found her mind drifting aimlessly,
running back over David's strange mood and the flowers sent,
ostensibly, by Claudia. Something felt not quite right, but she
couldn't put her finger on it.
David loved her, she knew that, but he was anxious about
something and not sharing it. He wasn't the sort of person
to cheat on her with someone else. She'd bet her life on that.
But there was something.
It was tied up with the store and he was keeping it to himself.
She knew business had been tough over the past year. She was

a director of the company, albeit not an active one, so she'd
seen the profit and loss accounts. But if there had been a serious
problem, David would have called a directors' meeting and
she'd have been invited, along with Tim, the company's chief
financial officer, and Lena, marketing director. And he hadn't.
Men!' she muttered.
'Ingrid?'
Everyone around the coffee-ringed meeting table was
staring at her.
'Just remembered that the computer repair man is due at
my house today,' she improvised.
Everyone nodded. Repair men and their cosmic black-hole
schedules: they all understood.
Ed, the director, put in his own story about the dishwasher
repair man who needed wooing to get him to come at all.
'That's what you get when you have a fancy dishwasher
with two separate compartments,' teased Jeri.
Finally, the meeting ended.
Ingrid had plenty of work to do, but she couldn't imagine
doing it while her mind was elsewhere.
She dumped her stuff on her desk and picked up her bag. 'Gloria, I'm going to lunch early.'
'With your sisters?' Gloria had met Flora and Sigrid many
times. They were nothing like Ingrid, of course: she was unique.
But they were lovely women, with enough of the Fitzgerald
eccentricity for Gloria to see where it had come from.
'Yes, I might be late back.' Ingrid had a plan: she'd drop
into Kenny's after lunch. There was nothing urgent she had
to do, nothing that couldn't wait till tomorrow, broadcast
day. And this was . . . well, it felt like an emergency.
All the way down to Ardagh, Ingrid kept the radio turned
up loud to a talk show because she couldn't quite bear to be
alone with her thoughts. But they invaded her mind anyway.
It was that niggling feeling she'd had for weeks now that
something was wrong with David.

Ingrid never acted on impulse: she was thoughtful, careful,
considered. But not today.

She knew about Claudia. David never kept anything about
Kenny's from her. Claudia was second-in-command to the
unflappable Lena, who ran the company development office.
Lena's job was to come up with new marketing strategies for
the business and to protect their core brand. If anyone had
an idea, they went to Lena and she made sure it passed the
Kenny's branding test.

Claudia had been hired to strengthen Lena's team. Ingrid
could recall the recruitment process, with David poring over
CVs in their living room. Ingrid loved reading curriculum
vitaes: to her, they were glorious pictures of people and their
lives.

'I didn't know anyone still listed "hang-gliding" in their
Interests section,' she'd said, leafing through them, fascinated.
There had been a time when everyone professed to like skydiving,
deep-sea diving and reading out-of-print French novels
in the hope it would make them sound more interesting. But
now the interests tended to be more realistic, and if someone
put 'travelling round India on a bike', chances were, they'd
actually done it. Unlike the mythical skydiving.

'Show me.' David peered through his glasses at the CV in
question. 'No,' he said, 'I didn't like him. Too cocky. Didn't
say thanks to Stacey when she brought in the coffee.'

Ingrid laughed. If only the guy had been trained by
Marcella, he'd have known that how he treated the people
who weren't theoretically important was a very useful tool in
grading candidates. Being rude to the person serving tea was
fatal. She'd never hire someone like that.

'Now she was good,' David went on, finding another CV
and passing it to Ingrid.

Claudia Mills was twenty-eight, with a masters in marketing
and another in business development. She'd worked in the
States for a year and was keen to move back home.


'Pretty,' Ingrid said, admiring a professional colour photograph
of a dark-eyed girl with a knowing expression, a glossy
brown bob and shiny lips. 'Sexy too.'

'You'd have to ask Lena that,' David said without pausing.
'She notices if they're cute-looking, I just watch out for who
can do the job.'

David had never cheated on her in his life. She'd never
worried for even a moment on that score. But the notion that
the newest member of staff had insisted that everyone,
including the boss, send their wives flowers on Valentine's
Day, set Ingrid's sensors on full alert. Only someone flirtatious
or very sure of her position in the company would do
such a thing. What's more, it was a calculated insult to the
women involved: like saying, 'Your husband wouldn't think
of doing it himself, but I asked him to send flowers to you.'
A very subtle insult, but an insult all the same.


Ingrid's sisters, Sigrid and Flora, were ten and twelve years
older respectively. She'd been the baby of the family, an adored
'accident' who'd grown up feeling loved and surrounded by
kindness.

Flora's passion in life was music. She taught piano and lived
in blissful happiness in a cottage in Wexford with Brid, a
violin teacher. Flora had been married, had three grownup
children, and had stunned them all when she'd left her
bemused husband, Paul, for Brid.

She was fifty-five then; now, on the final approach towards
seventy, apart from a dodgy back, she said she'd never been
happier. The children came to visit with their children, her
grandchildren, Paul came round every Tuesday for dinner, and
Brid and Flora were planning to accompany a group of adult
music students to Rome in April. Life was good, she said.

'We're going to a special Mass in the Vatican, too,' she
said. 'I can't wait.' Brid's cousin, who was a priest at the Irish
College in Rome, had organised it. Neither Flora nor Brid


seemed to find it any way odd that two women living very
much outside the rules of the Church should visit the Holy
See, for all its vehement disapproval of lesbian relationships.
But then, Ingrid knew that nobody was likely to throw
them out of the Vatican since they looked for all the world
like two genteel music teachers whose idea of a good time
was a bit of Mozart followed by a mug of cocoa.
She was careful not to say this in Flora's hearing, for anyone
who leapt to such conclusions would be told in no uncertain
terms that Flora and Brid enjoyed a perfectly healthy sexual relationship, thank you very much: 'Why do young people
think that they invented sex?' she once protested over dinner.
'It's like playing the piano, you get better with practice and
though you mightn't have as much stretch in your fingers as
you get older, you've got the technique to make up for it.'
David had choked on his soup the night Flora had said
that.
'Do you think they're still at it?' he'd asked Ingrid later.
'Why not?' she replied. 'We are, aren't we?'
Sigrid had the family dodgy back too, but she refused Flora's
litany of fabulous new osteopaths and kept supple with yoga.
Yogalates was her latest fad, although she had to travel to
Dublin once a week for classes and all that driving was playing
havoc with her sacroiliac joint.
Sigrid's only complaint was that TJ, her husband, had no
interest in keeping supple and was going to fuse to his old
armchair one day from sitting in it and listening to horse
racing on the radio.
'If I were to drop dead tomorrow, he'd have to look at the Racing Post to see what time he could bury me between races,'
she said, but it was a joke. Both Flora and Ingrid knew that
if anything happened to Sigrid, TJ would follow her into the
grave within the week. They might mutter and moan at each
other, but they were practically joined at the hip.
The sisters sat in the Speckled Trout pub at a corner table

beside a roaring fire, and looked at the menu in between
catching up on the gossip of the past month.
'Brid and I named stars after each other for Valentine's
Day,' Flora said proudly, when the waiter had left.
'How gorgeous!' said Sigrid, delighted. 'I should get TJ to
name a horse for me! You can do that, you know, name horses
- you just have to put up some money for the training. Not that we could, or anything, but still '
'That's lovely, Flora,' Ingrid said, conscious of that whiplash
of anxiety again.
Her nearly-seventy-year-old sister was getting better Valentine's
Day gifts from her lesbian lover than she was, and the
comparison was making her sad. But why? She had no time
for Valentine's Day commercialism. Never had. But thinking
she'd been given something wildly romantic had stirred up
the desire in her for such gifts. If David was going to send
her flowers, he should have done it off his own bat.
When lunch was over, she drove to Kenny's and parked in
the store's public car park instead of using the staff one.
Without quite knowing why, she wanted to see David at work
without him knowing she was coming.
She entered the shop through the front entrance and let the
whole Kenny's experience flow over her.
'Red is gorgeous on you'.' she heard a woman, in a flowery
shirt sigh to her friend as they stood in front of one of the
cosmetics counters. The friend was wearing a slash of shiny red
on her lips and was looking aghast at her face in a small mirror.
'No, it's desperate!' She began wiping it off at high speed.
'Bright red is hard to wear,' came the gentle voice of the
woman behind the counter. 'This beigey pink would be nice
with your skin tones, and not so dramatic'
Snippets of conversation floated around her.
'Where's the food hall?'
'I'm looking for those suck-it-all-in knickers? What floor
they are on?'

The scent of Kenyan coffee mingled with all kinds of perfume,
and from every corner of the store, Ingrid could hear chatter,
laughter and murmured thank yous as people were handed back
their credit cards and the store's subtle cream paper bags with
the gold font that spelled Kenny's in elegant Art Deco lettering.
She hadn't been here for ages, she realised. It had become
David's work, the same way the television studios were her
'work'. A place where they spent huge chunks of their lives
separately. She felt guilty at that. No wonder he wasn't talking
to her about the store: she'd removed herself from it and he
probably felt he couldn't talk to her about it.
Quietly, she entered the back part of the store and made
her way upstairs to David's suite of offices.
The door to Stacey's office was open, as was David's. No
sign of illicit meetings there.
'Ingrid,' said Stacey delightedly. 'How lovely to see you. I
was just making coffee for David, would you like some?'
'No thanks,' said Ingrid, smiling and walking into her
husband's office. He was at the big table where he sometimes
had meetings and there were lots of papers spread out on the
polished walnut.
'Ingrid,' he said, pleased, 'what brings you here? Isn't it
your day for lunch with Flora and Sigrid?'
He put out his arms to give her a kiss, and Ingrid felt some
of her apprehension melt.
'Yes,' she said, 'I thought I'd drop in on the way back. I
haven't been here in ages.'
'Stacey's making coffee,' he added, going back to his papers.
'I wanted to thank you for the flowers,' Ingrid went on.
'The roses. I've heard the flowers were Claudia's idea,' she
said evenly.
'Were they nice?' David asked absently, head still bent over
his paperwork.
Ingrid would have growled if she'd been able to, so she
said nothing. The silence worked.

David's head shot up and he looked at her inquisitively. 'You
all right?'

'No,' she snapped, keeping her voice low, conscious of the
open door. 'I am not all right. I am your wife and today you
sent flowers to my office at the behest of your sparky little girl
Friday, Claudia. So no, I am not all right. I am very much not
all right.'

Nobody could ever call David stupid. He got it instantly.

'This is about Claudia?' he asked. 'Claudia who works here?'

His look of absolute astonishment was all the evidence Ingrid
needed. Nobody could fake astonishment with such utter truth.
And Ingrid had seen plenty of people try it in her years as an
interviewer. The faintest gleam of bemusement appeared on his
face.

'You're worried about Claudia,' he said and she could have
sworn he looked relieved, as if there was something else she
should be worried about.

The frisson of fear inside her diminished and she felt guilty
at having wronged him. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I got the wrong
end of the stick.'

'You did,' he agreed, but he didn't laugh with her or even
hug her for thinking such a thing. 'Claudia and Lena are so
thrilled with the whole "last-minute gift" idea and yesterday
Claudia came up with this plan to share how wonderfully it
was going, that's all.'

'They were lovely flowers,' Ingrid conceded.

Something was still wrong. David hadn't said 'How could
you think such a thing?' or hugged her.

'What's wrong? Is it the business? Please tell me, David. Tell
me what's wrong.'

He shook his head. 'Nothing's wrong, Ingrid. Please don't interrogate me, I don't need that.'

She never interrogated him.

'But you're worried, I can tell. Don't lock me out.'

He rubbed his eyes as if getting grit out of them. 'Money's


always a problem, especially in the credit crunch, but we'll
manage, we always do. Now, I need to finish this quickly, love. We can go to the cafe and have coffee then, if you'd like? I just
I need another half an hour.' Ingrid shook her head. 'I have to go back to work. I was going to make us fish pie this evening?'
His face lit up. 'Great.'
Ingrid wandered round the store for half an hour before she left. She still felt guilty for not having been there lately, and she
couldn't help but want to set eyes on Claudia, just to see.
Kenny's was a real jewel, she realised, walking through the
", home department with its carefully chosen pieces. The shop couldn't compete with the big department stores in the area, so
they'd specialised in things you simply couldn't get elsewhere.
There was unusual china, the gorgeous pottery with indigo
', glazes, wooden lamps with bases of carved flowers, Tiffany
lamps held up by brass fairies, and the Bluestone Tapestries that
Ingrid adored, even though they were worlds away from the
sort of decor she normally liked.
A woman with a baby in a buggy stood in front of the tapestries,
fingering a large mermaid one with longing. Ingrid could
remember when Molly and Ethan had been babies, and she'd
had so little time to meander around shops. She felt a strange
yearning to have that time back again, and she'd do it differently.
Make more time to meander, like this woman with her
baby.
But she'd always been so busy, trying to fit work and housework
into a day that was still only twenty-four hours long.
The woman with the baby turned and caught Ingrid's eye.
'It's lovely, isn't it?' she sighed, meaning the tapestry. 'But a
bit expensive for me.'
'I love them too,' Ingrid agreed. 'I've actually got one in my
hall.'
'Lucky you,' said the woman.
Yes, thought Ingrid, lucky me.

Five

Life is what happens when you're making other plans.

Lizzie's wedding morning was bitterly cold. Unusually low
temperatures for the time of year, the radio weather forecaster
said chirpily as Natalie and Molly sat beside the range in
Natalie's parents' farmhouse.
Natalie was waiting for her stepmother's porridge, which
was slowly cooking on the range and tasted very different
from anything she ever heated in a microwave in her flat.
Molly was foolishly having toasted home-made bread:
foolish because a trio of dogs sat at her feet, making hungry,
abandoned expressions and drooling.
'I did tell you,' Natalie said. 'They think it's their toast, not
yours.'
'They're sweet,' said Molly, who was a sucker for big brown
eyes.
The back door opened and both girls could feel icy cold
rush into the kitchen.
It was Des, Natalie's dad, and even he was rubbing his
hands together with cold.
'This cold would take the balls off a brass monkey. I hope

Lizzie's wearing a blanket today,' he said, going to the range
and holding his hands over it.
'Dad, you know how stubborn Lizzie is,' Natalie said. 'This
is her Valentine's fairytale and she's refused all suggestions
about wraps and fake-fur throws. She's going to look like a
princess, no matter how cold.'
'Being covered in goosepimples isn't going to look very nice
in the photos,' pointed out Molly mildly. She was wearing a
vintage woollen dress, a coat and a pashmina to the church,
and was already wondering if that was enough.
'You try telling Lizzie that,' Natalie said.
'A bit of a mule, is our Lizzie,' grinned Des, winking at
Molly to show he agreed with her.
Molly loved Natalie's dad, and she loved going to visit
Natalie's home.
Part of the charm was that it was so very different from
her parents' elegant house with its perfectly designed garden
maintained by a gardener who came once a week.
Any grass around Woodenbridge Farm was nibbled low by
a pet ram called Sydney who maintained decent lawn standards
and ran to greet visitors when they got out of their
cars. Sydney had been hand-reared indoors with milk from a
bottle with a baby's teat on it, until he got too big. As a result
he thought he was a dog.
The house itself was a small and sturdy stone farmhouse,
Natalie's father's family home for generations. It was heated
solely by open fires and the giant range in the kitchen, with
a few gas heaters here and there for people prone to cold.
Staying overnight in winter had made Molly finally realise
why Natalie never turned the gas heating on in their flat.
Natalie was used to the cold.
'Here, you put clothes on to go to bed,' explained Natalie
cheerfully. 'When it's really cold, you have to bring two hot
water bottles with you, or else let the dogs lie on the bed. always feel that people who don't like dogs on the bed have
never lived somewhere without central heating.'

All the floors were stone or wood and nobody minded
when the three dogs, four cats and the odd chicken wandered
in and out, leaving fur or feathers in their wake. The two old
couches and faded threadbare rug in the snug living room
were originals and not expensive copies trying to give off a
country vibe. This was a working farm, with a small herd or"
beef cattle grown for the Italian market, and no money for
any luxuries.

The family ate their own vegetables and the eggs that their
hens laid.

The relaxed atmosphere was very beguiling. Bess, Natalie's
stepmum, presided over the house with the easygoing charm
of a den mother minding a campful of scouts. She even looked
like a den mother: a trim figure always dressed in jeans and
long hand-knitted sweaters, her greying hair cut sensibly short
as if any messing around with hairdryers or curling tongs was
a nuisance she didn't have time for.

There was always home-made soup or some cold pie in the
fridge for hungry people. Bess made scones first thing every
morning, and yet she never pushed her food on anyone. She
prepared it, then she went off doing things; if people wanted
food, they could help themselves to it. As long as they tidied
up afterwards, all was well. There was no money for a housekeeper
here: Bess did most of the housework and she worked
part-time too as a seamstress.

Natalie's brothers, Ted and Joe - a strapping pair of 'Irish
twins', so called because they were born less than a year apart
- clearly thrived in this atmosphere. Unlike most lads of
eighteen and nineteen, they could both cook and were good
at ironing. Molly knew her mother would approve. Ingrid hated men who looked helplessly at saucepans when they
could reach level ten on Temple of Doom.

When the two girls had arrived the night before, the family


had shared a lively dinner. This morning, Natalie had to head
off to Lizzie's house for bridesmaid's duties. Molly was looking
forward to spending the morning going for a long walk around
the farm, and perhaps up into the surrounding hills, with
some of the Flynns' tribe of dogs. Sparkles, a wire-haired
skinny dog with a limp, had taken a shine to Molly and had
been following her around the house adoringly. Despite not
being the prettiest dog ever, Sparkles had the most beautiful
eyes: soft toffee orbs that stared up at Molly beseechingly
until she hauled him on to her lap for a cuddle.

They were all due at the church at three and although Molly
wasn't generally a fan of weddings - they seemed to go on for ever - she didn't mind this one because she was going to
be sitting with the rest of Natalie's family.

'Right, I'm off,' said Natalie, hugging her father goodbye.
'Off to the O'Sheas' to see if they've all killed each other yet.'

'Is that one of the rituals of modern weddings?' her father
teased.

'It will be in Lizzie's house,' Natalie said.

She found a parking space in the cul-de-sac where Lizzie's
family lived, and by the time she'd been let into the semidetached
house, she knew she'd been on the money about the
fight. As predicted, the O'Shea household was in crisis. There
were no teabags or milk, and none of the neighbours squashed
into the tiny kitchen for a pre-wedding party seemed inclined
to leave the cosiness to buy any. The hairdresser had started
work an hour ago and was still only putting the finishing
touches to Lizzie's mother's hair, which meant she was seriously
behind schedule. And the make-up artist hadn't arrived
yet.

'Will you phone her?' gasped Lizzie when Natalie came in.
Still wearing her fluffy dressing gown, with her hair wet and
her face bare, she looked very unlike a fairytale bride.

The make-up lady's phone went unanswered and Natalie
left a polite message.


Half an hour late, not good but not fatal yet.
'I'll nip down to the shop to get milk and tea,' Natalie
said.
'Jesus, no!' shrieked Lizzie. 'Get the hairdresser away from
my mother. She's hogging her. It's my day, not hers. I need to
be done now. They can do without bloody tea. There's a giant
bottle of Bailey's in the kitchen, they can have that in coffee
and feck the milk.'
Nearly an hour later, the hairdresser was nailing giant
heated rollers into Lizzie's hair to moans of 'Ouch, that hurt!'
Anna, who was bridesmaid number two, had turned up
and she and Natalie had been tag-phoning the make-up lady
every ten minutes. The woman hadn't replied to either
messages or texts.
'She's obviously not coming,' Anna said. 'We'll never get
anyone at such short notice. What'll we do?'
'Don't look at me. You know I'm hopeless with makeup,'
Natalie said.
'I can do mine, but I've never done anyone else's,' said
Anna.
'Baileys and coffee anyone?' roared the mother of the bride
from downstairs.
Natalie had a brainwave.
'Charlie from Kenny's - she runs the Organic Belle department
- she might be able to lend us someone for an hour.
She's lovely, she'd help out, I know.'
Charlie recognised an emergency when she heard one.
'It's quiet enough this morning,' she said. 'I can't lend you
anyone, but if I take an early lunch, I'll pop round and do it
myself. Will an hour and a half be long enough?'
'You're an angel!' said Natalie gratefully. An hour and a
half would get Lizzie and her mother done. Everyone else
could fend for themselves.
She went into the bedroom to tell Lizzie the good news
and was waylaid by bridesmaid number three, Steve's sister,

Shazza, who'd insisted on being a bridesmaid, and having got
her wish had been doing her level best to take over. 'I think
we should all put our hair up,' she said.

'What?' Natalie asked, bewildered.

'Up, it's more flattering,' said Shazza, holding her own
blonde hair up to demonstrate.

Shazza had gone against Lizzie's dictat that spray tans
would look ridiculous at a February wedding and was the
rich brown colour of an Italian handbag. Everyone else's skin
was pure Irish blue.

One hand holding up her hair, Shazza did a twirl in front
of Lizzie. 'See? Much nicer with the dresses.'

The bridesmaids' dresses were pale baby pink, a colour that
did precisely nothing for Natalie but suited Shazza perfectly.

'I hate my hair up,' Natalie said. 'And we agreed that we'd
have soft curls . . .'

'No, you're right, Shaz,' said Lizzie traitorously. 'Up would
be fabulous. Much more fairytale. Mum,' she called out.
'Could I have another Bailey's? I'm parched.'

'She's only trying to keep the peace,' Anna whispered to
Natalie, seeing her friend's furious face. 'If she doesn't agree
with Shaz, she'll rush round to Steve and whine about how
his bride-to-be is being mean to her.'

'But we're her best friends since we were five,' hissed Natalie
back.

Anna responded with a shrug of the shoulders and her
weddings-are-hell look.


Natalie was shaking with cold and her skull ached from having
her hair screwed on to her head with a million hair clips by
the time she finally met up with her family and Molly again.
The official pictures after the wedding ceremony had taken
forever and most of them had been staged outside in the spectacular
and scenic gardens of the elegant Mount Ardagh Hotel, which actually meant a bit of grass behind the hotel. Here



there was a peeling pergola with flowers twirling round it and
a small pond that was no longer viable for actual fish and
home to lots of ferny-type things that looked good in photos but were remarkably smelly in real life.
'I promise,' whispered Molly, 'that if I ever get married,
it'll be in the summer and I will let you pick your own dress.'
'Never get married,' Natalie whispered back, shivering.
'Please get me something hot to drink. I am frozen.'
Bess handed her a woollen wrap in a dark crimson that
immediately lifted Natalie's complexion.
'Lizzie should have let you each wear a colour that suited
you,' Bess said, and Natalie felt guilty at silently agreeing with her Even
her little brother Joe, who didn't notice female attire
unless it was on a girl he fancied, nodded in sympathy at
Natalie's outfit.
'The hair is brutal,' he said. 'Looks like it hurts.'
'It does,' Natalie informed him. 'But I've got to keep it up
for ages.'
'Joe only likes long, flowing hair,' Ted smirked.
Joe thumped him.
'Whose long, flowing hair would that be?' asked their father,
grinning.
'Nobody.' Joe thumped Ted again for luck.
'Joe'll be getting married next,' Ted said, getting out of his
brother's reach. 'You'll have to do bridesmaid again, Nat.'
Everyone smiled and Bess ruffled Joe's gelled hair affectionately.
'Before
I buy the mother-of-the-bride outfit, can you tell us
who this future member of the family is?' she asked.
Natalie felt a stab of envy. Why? She couldn't understand
what would make her feel that way. It was like waking up
after a dream and trying to catch the memory of it again,
feeling it flitting away. Something to do with Joe and Bess
and her little brother getting married one day.

'Nobody,' said-Joe crossly. 'Bigmouth here ought to watch
it, or he'll get another belt.'

Sitting at the top table was like being an international peacekeeper,
Natalie thought. To cope with the combined masses
of the O'Shea and Devine clans, the arrangement had turned
into a long table with two big round tables stuck on at each
end to appease the various great aunts, grannys and uncles
who'd have been aggrieved to be seated somewhere less important.
Sitting on the cusp of the long table and one of the round
ones, Natalie found she was surrounded by people with a stack
of freshly remembered resentments waiting to be aired.
The salmon was not as nice as the salmon at a previous
wedding, one great uncle muttered.
'I wouldn't know, I wasn't asked to that wedding,' flashed
back a gimlet-eyed cousin.
'Who are your people?' demanded Natalie's neighbour, a
misleadingly sweet-faced little old lady, who'd come all the
way from Kinsale for today and had taken against the hotel
because there was no kettle or tea-making facilities in her room.
Natalie had heard the whole story twice already.
'They're over there,' she said now, looking wistfully at a
distant table where her family and Molly appeared to be
having fun.
The Kinsale lady peered at them. 'Who's that girl wearing
the strange outfit with the fandangle on the shoulder?'
Natalie hid a smile. Molly was very proud of her vintage
dress, a grey woollen 1950s creation with a flared skirt which
she'd accessorised with a patent belt and a large white corsage
a la Carrie in Sex and the City, undoubtedly the fandangle
Mrs Kinsale was referring to.
'One of my best friends,' she replied.
'I thought Lizzie was your best friend?'
Natalie's smile was forced this time. 'Oh, she's one of them
too.'

The introduction of bottles of cava for the speeches cheered
up most of the grumpier people and Natalie relaxed.
Even the crossness emanating from the tables of relatives
hadn't dimmed Steve's love for Lizzie, and Natalie found
herself sighing at his speech, when he called Lizzie 'my best,
my always.'
'Lovely,' said Mrs Kinsale, taking a good gulp of her cava
before holding her glass up for a refill.
Natalie wasn't listening, she was watching Lizzie and her
mother embracing, all the morning with its arguments about
who got the longer go of the hairdresser forgotten. That was
the dream she hadn't been able to touch, Natalie realised.
Bess and Joe, mother and son. Lizzie and her mother. The
strongest bond in the world.
'Don't worry, pet, it'll be you getting married one day,' said
Mrs Kinsale, mistaking the gleam in Natalie's eye for tears
over her unmarried state. 'But I'd do something different with
your hair, pet. That doesn't suit you.'

While the hotel staff were rearranging the tables for the
dancing that evening, Natalie went to the ladies to take down
her hair. Damn Shazza and her bloody idea. Painstakingly,
she took out all the little hair clips until her head was metal
free and she was able to shake her dark hair loose again. She
looked better already. With Bess's wrap around her shoulders,
she felt like herself and not the horrible fake bridesmaid
version.
Despite the cold, she thought she'd venture outside to breathe
some fresh air. The smokers had annexed a little outside bar
area with heaters and seats, and she went the other direction
to stand on the terrace and look out at the coast where the
flicker of the lighthouse lamp broke up the darkness of the sea.
'I was wondering what you'd look like with your hair
down,' said a man's voice.
'Whatever it looks like, it certainly feels better,' said Natalie,

turning towards the voice. 'I have just taken twenty-seven
pins from my head.'
'Twenty-seven?'
'I counted every one.'
He had a nice grin. Was nice all over, really, with an open,
intelligent face and kind eyes. He was probably her own age
or a bit older, and even in a very elegant navy suit and grey
silk tie, looked like he was designed for bashing down doors
and had ended up in a tie by mistake.
'I don't do much with my own hair,' he added, and put a
hand unselfconsciously up to his head, which was shaped like
a bullet on top of huge shoulders and totally shaved.
Natalie laughed out loud.
'Sorry,' she said instantly, afraid she'd offended him.
'It started to fall out,' he said, 'and I didn't want to be one
of those guys who have three long hairs and hairspray them
into place: one to the left, one to the right, and one tossed.'
'No, not a good look,' she agreed.
'I got rid of the lot.'
It suits you,' she said.
'Does it?' he said, sounding as if he'd never really considered
such a thing.
Natalie felt a sudden liking for this big, friendly man.
'It's handy,' he shrugged.
'Whose side are you on?' she asked.
'The groom's side. I'm Rory Canavan,' he said, and offered
her a giant hand to shake.
'I'm Natalie Flynn, bridesmaid number one and school
friend of the bride,' she said.
'I know,' he admitted. 'I asked.'
'There are men who have to score the bridesmaid at
weddings, you know,' Natalie said.
'I have heard that,' he said. 'Not the most noble of aims,
is it?'
'No. I wonder, do they have a points system? Three points

for the chief bridesmaid, four if she's married and is matron
of honour, and ten points and a bonus prize if you score the
bride?'
'That is so cynical,' he said, but he was laughing.
'You're not trying to score three points?'
He shook his head. 'I followed you out here because I saw
you earlier and I wanted to meet you but you seemed very
interested in the people at your table.'
'If only you knew,' Natalie said with feeling. 'You could
have rescued me earlier.'
Rory looked pleased. 'Am I rescuing you now?'
'You would be if you sat with me at my table,' she said
thoughtfully.

Mrs Kinsale asked all the questions Natalie couldn't.
'What do you do?' she asked, fixing Rory with her most
adorable smile and giving him a poke in his substantial chest.
The sparkling wine had been round her side of the table many
times and she had almost forgotten her grudge with the hotel
over the in-room facilities.
'I'm a vet,' he replied.
'Ooh, a vet! A professional man,' she said, and gave Natalie
a delighted poke this time.
'Where exactly?'
'About ten miles outside Ardagh,' he said, speaking loudly
to the little old lady. Natalie could have told him that Mrs
Kinsale was so sharp, she'd have heard a pin drop from the
other side of the room. 'It's a big animal practice.'
'Big practice or big animals?' asked Natalie, grinning,
although she knew very well what he meant.
'Big animals,' he said. 'Cattle and horses, and some dogs
and cats.'
'I had a Yorkshire terrier, but she died,' said Mrs Kinsale,
getting maudlin. 'She was like a child to me, that dog. I loved
her like a child.'

'Did you get another dog?' asked Rory.
The old lady shook her head. 'I wouldn't be able for it and
who'd mind her if I died?'
'You know, if you get her from a good vet, they could
promise to do their best to look after your pet if you couldn't
take care of her any more,' Rory said kindly. 'It's a worry for
lots of people and the veterinary community understand that.
And a sprightly thing like yourself would be dancing for many
years yet,' he added. The band were striking up 'When I Fall
in Love'. 'I don't suppose you can waltz? I'm very bad at it.'
Mrs Kinsale beamed at him.
They made an odd couple on the dance floor: the giant of
a man supporting the frail lady, and Natalie saw she wasn't
the only person looking at them fondly.
Lizzie, who hated slow dancing, wandered over hauling her
dress behind her. The skirt was speckled with something dark
and reddish. Red wine, Natalie guessed.
'I'm wrecked,' Lizzie said, sitting tiredly in Rory's chair.
She picked up a full glass of sparkling wine and drained it.
'I see you've met Rory,' she added.
'He's nice,' said Natalie, which was actually an understatement.
She'd never gone for those big, Gaelic football-playing
type of fellows before, but she could see the charm. You'd
feel totally safe with Rory by your side, safe in every sense
of the word. There was a decency about him, a sense that
he'd protect you from all harm.
'Sure, if you like that type of thing,' said Lizzie shortly.
Lizzie had always liked sophisticated men. Steve, with his
narrow hips and well-cut hair, could have stepped out of a
modelling catalogue. 'You can't dress him up, though. He
looks ridiculous in a suit.'
'Since when do we judge people by dressing them up?'
Natalie asked, hurt but hiding it. She hadn't liked a guy for
ages and now she was liking one she'd met at Lizzie's wedding
and Lizzie seemed put out by the whole idea.

Besides, Rory looked lovely in his suit. Sexy and rumpled,
somehow. She wondered what he'd be like to kiss
'He's
a bit of a caveman,' said Lizzie dismissively. 'And
there isn't an artistic bone in his body. You hate men like
that. Remember how much you hated dopey Alan at school?'

'I didn't hate him,' Natalie said. 'I just didn't fancy him,
that's all.' Alan was a strapping farmer's son who'd adored
Natalie for years, but her constant refusal to go out with him
had eventually upset him to the point that he'd called her a
'stuck-up cow'.
'That was years ago, Lizzie. It's ancient history.'

'Just reminding you.'

It was as if, Natalie thought, Lizzie wanted their past laminated
and untouched so she could visit it from time to time.
Lizzie hadn't seen how much everyone else had changed, but
then, perhaps she hadn't changed that much herself.

When Rory came back with Mrs Kinsale, he asked Natalie
up to dance.

The tempo had changed and the band, who'd been warned
to mix old and new, were tentatively trying out a version of
'Wonderwall'.

'I love this song,' said Rory as they found a place on the
heaving dance floor.

'By Oasis, though?' asked Natalie mischievously.

'This version has its good points,' Rory replied, not taking
his eyes off her.

'You mean the lead singer's only a teeny bit off key?'

'No, I mean the company,' he said, and Natalie's heart
skipped a beat.

He could dance. Not many big men could. Natalie had
known many who'd lurched around like fridges on wheels,
looking ungainly. But Rory had rhythm. He was fit too. By
the time 'Wonderwall' was over and the entire fast Elvis canon
had been gone through, Natalie was sweaty and exhausted.

'Let's slow it down,' crooned the lead singer and the


drummer went at his drums with the brushes as the band
launched into a slow set.
Natalie laughed at the corniness of it all and had been
about to walk back to her seat, when Rory caught her hand
and pulled her to him.
'Shall we dance?'
His body was hard and muscular up close, and she felt
light as thistledown in his arms, but the effect was ruined by
the fact that she was sweating profusely. She'd bet the damn
pale pink dress was stained under the armpits and her hair
was wet at the roots from dancing. Impossible to feel romantic
under the circumstances.
And yet she did feel romantic. Natalie was tall and even
so, her nose was about level with his chin. There was something
beguiling about being with a man who made you feel
like a fairy straight out of a children's film.
'I wanted to ask you something, but is it fair to ask without
the lady at your table here?' he said. 'She's so interested, it
doesn't seem right to continue the whole thing without her.'
Natalie laughed. 'You can ask me anything,' she said.
'Can I see you again?'
The pleasurable feeling Natalie felt from being pressed up
close to Rory increased. 'I'd like that,' she said.
'Great.' He stopped dancing long enough to wave over to
Mrs Kinsale. 'She said yes,' he roared.

Six

Its never too late to stop and change the way you are going. Never.


Marcella Schmidt's mother had always told her she was too
picky. If Marcella had been given two choices, she wanted a
third, just to be absolutely sure. Back then, she'd been
Marcella Doyle, a name she couldn't wait to change. Doyle
was fine on its own, the same as Marcella was: but together,
the two sounded ridiculous. The exotic Marcella teamed with
the utterly non-exotic Doyle. Her mother, Jane, had defended
her choice in children's names.
'Marcella is a name you'd notice,' said Mrs Doyle, who'd
hated being plain Jane all her life. There might have been
some Janes who lived exciting lives with thrilling things
happening to them, but she wasn't one of them. Her children
wouldn't be saddled with the same problem. Nobody could
forget girls called Marcella, Regina and Concepta. And if their
surname was quite ordinary, it didn't entirely matter. Their
given names were the ones people remembered.
Marcella's Confirmation outfit had been the source of much
drama in the Doyle household. Her mother had wanted

Marcella to wear the same cream lace dress her older sisters
had worn. Marcella had balked at that.
Regina, who'd left their small farm in Mayo to work in an
office in Dublin, had promised to send a dress from Arnotts'
children's department. 'A little dress, something in velvet?
You'd look very smart.'
Marcella didn't see herself looking smart in either cream
lace or velvet. She'd spotted a very nice coral-pink shift dress
and matching jacket, a la Jackie O, in a boutique in Ballina.
It wasn't a child's outfit, but she was tall for her twelve years,
and it would fit her.
Concepta, who was three years older but shorter, thought
it totally unfair that her little sister might look glamorous on
her Confirmation Day, when she'd looked like a child in that
ridiculous cream dress with babyish white ankle socks and
white patent shoes. Marcella was growing up far too fast.
'Regina's going to send you a dress from Dublin,' she
wailed. 'Isn't that enough for you?'
'Regina still thinks I'm a child,' Marcella said calmly. 'I'm
not.'
'She has great taste; she'll send you something lovely,' Jane
Doyle soothed. 'And you can't parade down the church in a
grown-up's dress, Marcella. You're only twelve. Besides, where
are we going to get the money for it?'
'If Regina's going to pay for a dress from Dublin, she can
pay for this instead,' Marcella said. She'd thought it all out.
'I want to look just right, Mam.'
'You're too picky, love,' her mother had sighed. 'It doesn't
pay to be picky.'
Marcella disagreed. On her Confirmation Day, everyone
had said she looked marvellous in her coral pink. The adult
effect of the dress meant the grown-ups didn't talk to her like
she was a child, and the older boys she fancied - brothers of
the lads in her class in school - clearly fancied her back.

'You always get what you want,' said Concepta crossly, as
if it was a bad thing.
'What's wrong with that?' Marcella asked, stung. She
wanted her sister to approve of her.
'You're a tonic,' said their father, smiling at his youngest
daughter proudly.
Marcella forgot about Concepta's remarks and basked in
her father's praise. She adored her dad. He didn't think she
was picky: he thought she was right.
Thirty-seven years on, Marcella was no longer sure about
the benefits of being picky - or discriminating, as she liked
to call it now.
It worked in business: Marcella's company was one of the
top three in the country and could pick and choose clients.
It worked in finance: her portfolio of shares was doing better
than most, despite the horrific stock market downfall. And it
worked in clothes: Marcella loved shopping and wore a clever
mix of investment clothes alongside High Street stuff so that
nobody could tell the difference.
But pickiness simply didn't work when it came to men.
With men, pickiness meant that you ended up alone.
It wasn't that she'd made a deal with the Devil and opted
for work success over home and hearth. Marcella had wanted
both and would have sacrificed some workplace success if it
had been necessary; if she'd met a man who'd wanted less
spin doctor and more of a wife. The sisterhood who sang her
praises as a feminist might have been shocked to discover this,
but it was true. The end justified the means.
But the right man hadn't asked her - either subtly or in an
outright fashion - to compromise her career, and she wondered
now if it had been her fault because her criteria for the perfect
man was too stringent? Marcella didn't want someone who
would 'do'. She wanted it to be perfect or she didn't want it
at all.
So many people seemed to think she had it all, particularly

women friends who'd split from their husbands and found
themselves back in the world of dating again. Marcella, they
seemed to imply, had everything sussed, knew how the system
worked. She went out to dinners and parties, got her picture
in the society pages, had a lovely life for herself and never
sat at home moping with a bottle of wine and a DVD. She
could guide them, the friends said, happy to have compatriots
in their new single life.
Adept at appearing utterly content and in control, Marcella
never allowed herself to shriek that of course she didn't have
it all sussed: if she had, she'd be sharing a bottle of wine and
a DVD with her own man instead of schlepping around town
with newly-liberated girlfriends.
Ingrid was one of the few people with whom she could be
honest. How ironic that her confidante on the subject of loneliness
was a woman with the perfect marriage.
'It's not all about a man, Ingrid,' she explained. 'I have so
much and I'm lucky. I have the best job in the world; but at
night, the job's not much comfort. I keep thinking that it's a
lonely life, that I wanted more all those years ago, that I still
want it. Not sex, really, but companionship.'
The running joke about the telly star, Ken Devlin, was a
part of that: a game she and Ingrid played to pretend that
men were just playthings and a woman like Marcella didn't
have time for them. But she did. And when friends like Ingrid
spoke about their husbands, idly mentioning that they were
going out for a pizza together or taking a spur-of-the-moment
weekend away thanks to a cheap flight, Marcella felt horrendously
lonely. There was nobody to do those things with her.
Nobody to hold her hand during turbulence on a plane,
nobody to buy her flu medicine when she wasn't well, nobody
to put the dustbins out on rubbish day. It wasn't wild hot sex
Marcella craved: it was another body to come home to and somebody to share her life.
'Marcella, I've got Connor on line two. He says it's urgent.'

Daniel, Marcella's personal assistant, had a mellow voice that
was very calming to listen to. He'd been with her for three
years and no matter how frenzied the message he was delivering
- and with the nature of their business, he sometimes
had to deliver very urgent messages indeed - Daniel made it
sound as if they had all the time in the world to sort the
problem out.
'Thanks, Daniel,' said Marcella, flicking over to line two.
Connor Davitt was her partner in SD International, which
stood for Schmidt-Davitt, and occasionally acted as a fire
blanket to be thrown over disasters. Today, Connor was out
on the road with one of their big corporate clients who were
running a golf fundraiser and had been blessed with decent
weather for it. It was part event management, part smiling and
making sure all the right people met all the other right people.
Connor could do it in his sleep. Unless someone had hit the
nineteenth hole too early in the day and was now running
amok with a nine iron and a bottle of scotch, Marcella knew that the problem was likely to be unrelated to today's event.
'Connor, what's up?' she asked.
'It's what's down that's the problem,' he said. 'Trousers.'
'For Chrissake, not again. Who?'
'Mickey Roche, on a fact-finding jolly in the Bahamas. And
the problem, among others, is a woman who says she hadn't
been paid and he owes her four hundred dollars.'
'Fact-finding jolly in the Bahamas? Why do they persist in
sending people like Mickey Roche to the Bahamas?' she asked
wearily.
'Fact-finding is less fun in wet cities than it is in tropical
paradises,' Connor answered.
Marcella hated these fire-blanket jobs. Because people
read about them, they assumed it was all a company like
SD International did. It wasn't; as Marcella frequently said,
their job was making people achieve the best possible version
of themselves.

'Has he been arrested?'

'No. They were on the balcony of his hotel smoking a joint
and he thought it might be fun to sunbathe in the nude, as
you do.'

'As you do,' agreed Marcella, thinking with distaste of
Mickey Roche, a councillor who would never be entered in
a Mr Universe contest unless the judging criteria changed to
allow swollen beer bellies, forty per cent body fat and lascivious
eyes. He was also an idiot. He'd spent a week on an
intensive SD International media-training course and had
promptly gone out to do a radio interview where he'd
managed to insult the interviewer by implying that big bosoms
had got her the job. Bizarrely, the public liked him. Mickey
tells it like it is, they said proudly.
There was, Marcella thought, no accounting for taste.
Connor continued the story: 'He took umbrage when the
hotel staff told him to put his clothes on.'
'Naturally.'

'And then, he shut the door on the lady in question,
throwing her clothes off the balcony into the swimming pool
area, but neglecting to throw down any of the four hundred
dollars he'd promised her. They're sending him home with all
the other councillors, who are embarrassed and '

'- determined to shift any blame from themselves by letting
everyone know what Mickey was up to, distancing themselves
from the scandal.'

'Precisely. Statements are expected by tonight. Only one of them was clued in enough to phone party headquarters to
mention what had happened.'

Marcella knew it had been a slow news week. Mickey's
fun-packed jaunt had all the makings of a fabulous news story,
offering the papers any number of angles, from the waste of
tax-payers' money onwards. Worst was the fun the tabloids
would have with a story that involved public nudity and a
man named Mickey.


'Please tell me nobody's got photographs?' she said.
'Can't tell you that,' Connor replied. 'You'll have to make
some calls. I'm a bit stuck here.'
'No problem,' she said. 'Talk later.'
Marcella swung into action. First, she needed to find out what the fourth estate knew about the problem. She phoned a journalist friend of hers.
'Donald, it's Marcella Schmidt. Can you talk?'
'Private talk?'
'Yes.'
'Hold on. I'll take this in the office.'
Marcella waited. She'd been in the Courier Mail often and knew that real privacy was almost impossible in a place where knowing other people's business was the life blood of most of the inhabitants. As news editor, Donald had a glass-walled
office, but the door was permanently open and, if he shut it,
every reporter's eyes would be on it, knowing that something
interesting was happening. A few clever souls had learned to
lip-read purely for moments such as these.
Donald and Marcella went way back. Many moons ago,
they'd had a fling on a press trip to Brussels and, for whatever
glorious reason, there had never been any awkwardness
between them since. They'd both been between relationships
at the time, and the following morning they'd lain in Donald's
giant bed in the hotel and enjoyed talking to each other just
as much as they'd enjoyed making rather tipsy love the night
before.
It would never have worked for them to be together properly,
Marcella was sure of that. Donald was more married to
his job than he could ever be to any woman. Committed journalists
were a nightmare: always obsessed with stories, never
able to let go of the job. But they'd remained friends and,
sometimes, they tipped each other off on news the other should
know.
'I'm in the dog box,' Donald said. 'Talk.'

'OK, I hate asking this, but I have a wayward councillor who's in a bit of bother.. . '
'Mickey Roche,' he said before she'd even finished. 'The
chief sub-editor fancies "Taking the Mickey".' The Courier
Mail was a broadsheet so would never print such a headline,
but the office's unofficial bookie, a sports writer named
Chuck, ran a highly profitable book on possible headlines
for stories in the tabloids. 'My money's on "Mickey's
Mouse".'
'You've got a picture,' Marcella groaned. Only with photographic
evidence could such a headline be imaginable. How
else would they report that Mickey's mickey was mouse-sized?
Donald laughed. 'No,' he said, 'I don't think there are any
pics, but you can't be sure. We haven't got them, anyhow.
How are you going to play this?' he asked.
'Don't know,' Marcella replied. 'Not a lot of damage limitation
available for a toked-up councillor strutting his naked
stuff on a Bahamian hotel balcony.'
This time, Donald laughed so much he snorted. 'You should
be in the office book for headlines,' he said. 'You have a flair
for it. We'll be going soft on Mickey, no puns intended. There's
bound to be a reaction in Leinster House, so we'll use that
rather than speculate.' Leinster House was the Irish parliamentary
chamber and while Mickey, as a local county councillor,
wasn't based there, his party would come in for a few
slingshots over their wayward party member. 'Are you around
this week for a drink?'
Marcella ran through her diary in her head. 'Should be,'
she said. 'Friday maybe? I'll phone you tomorrow.'
'Great. Now, you've got the inside track with Ingrid
Fitzgerald and David Kenny,' he went on. 'Any truth to the
rumour that there are cash-flow problems with Kenny's
department store and that DeVere's are going to buy them
out in a fire sale?'
For a moment, Marcella's legendary cool deserted her. A

fire sale only occurred when financial problems meant everything
had to go. 'What?' she said.

'I'll take that as a "no" then,' Donald replied. 'Just a very
small rumour, Ingrid. I heard it last week and there's been
nothing else, so I wondered if there was any truth in it. We
don't have the staff or the money to run on every tip-off.'

'I hadn't heard any such thing,' Marcella said firmly, recovering.
She cared about Donald, but Ingrid and David were
among her closest friends. Her protective instinct went into
overdrive. 'It's unlikely, very unlikely,' she added. 'David's a
very canny businessman and, from what I hear, things are
doing brilliantly.'

'Right.' Donald was thoughtful. 'Sour grapes from DeVere's
perhaps?'

'Could be. Stranger things have happened,' Marcella said
lightly. 'I'll call you back about Friday. Thanks, Donald.'

She got off the phone, the fate of Mickey Roche completely
gone from her mind. She needed to talk to David soon.


Seven

What doesn't destroy you makes you stronger. I just hope you don't have to go through that process in the firstplace. But if you do, its true. Trust me.


Two days later, David walked through the front entrance of
Kenny's department store. He often went to the office that
way, pushing open the big brown-and-gold swinging doors,
the way the customers did, instead of slipping in through the
back entrance that led into the offices. It was a way of
connecting with the store, reminding him of what he did.
Even early on a Wednesday morning, the store was buzzing.
The cosmetics hall was a flurry of activity, with scent wafting
in the air and the hum of people chatting. The music in the
store was always discreetly low, Vivaldi today. David hated
piped pop, and insisted on proper, classical music. Occasionally
even opera came from the speakers. He walked through
cosmetics and into jewellery, which was quiet. The jewellery
hall was elegant, with exquisite costume jewellery displayed
alongside a limited amount of the real stuff. He had recently
taken the work of a new designer, a young man from Poland,
who was extremely good. David looked in one of the cabinets
at Pavel Zaborsky's work, noting with approval how

well it looked. Modern, rounded pieces, cufflinks and rings,
with round cabochon semi-precious jewels in each. It wasn't
expensive, but it looked incredibly expensive, that was the
trick. David had been hooked immediately. It wasn't the sort
of thing that Ingrid liked. She was the epitome of the modern
woman, and yet her taste in jewellery ran to Art Deco pieces,
marcasite brooches and delicate little watches and earrings
that looked like they might fall off the hand of some etiolated
Viennese countess from the twenties. No, Ingrid wouldn't
like Pavel's jewellery, but there were plenty who did.
His daughter, Molly, had told him that her flatmate Natalie
had nearly finished her first collection.
He liked Natalie, admired her fierce dedication to her work
and how she was prepared to work hard in the store's cafe,
never expecting anything from being best friends with the
owner's daughter. But then, David thought with pride, Molly
wouldn't actually be friends with anyone who thought like
that. Even at school, she'd hated the clique of what she called
'the children of. These were teenagers with famous, wealthy
parents who somehow believed that because Mummy or
Daddy worked in big business or appeared on the telly it
made them special by association. As Molly used to say: 'Not!'
Ethan had been different. David sighed. Ethan was showing
no glimmer of interest in either the family business or getting
a job. Ingrid pandered to him and had worried incessantly
about him flying off to Thailand. When David had been his
son's age, he'd been working in the store: morning till night,
doing all the horrible jobs so he wouldn't get too big for his
boots, as his father used to say.
'Good morning, Mr Kenny,' said the assistant behind the
jewellery counter.
'Good morning, Laura,' he said instantly. 'Peaceful in here
so far?'
'Yes, it is,' she said, 'but you know early mornings aren't
good jewellery times. It'll pick up a bit later.'

'I know, of course,' he said, and smiled.

She'd been a little anxious when she talked to him, but
only slightly. David never ruled by fear, a lesson he'd learned
from his father. 'Kenny's is a family business and family businesses
do better when the sense of family values stretches to
the management as well,' Andrew Kenny had said.

That notion had been vital in the old days, when he'd
started the business. In 1924, nobody would have thought
that a department store would work outside a big city, and
now look at it.

David walked out of jewellery, thinking again about Molly's
friend, Natalie.

'She's got a lovely collection,' Dad,' Molly had said. 'I can't
describe it, but it's all brave and strong.'

'Get her to show it to me,' he'd said.

'Well. . .' Molly paused. 'It's tricky.'

'Why?'

'Natalie's very independent. She's got a thing about doing
this the right way, going through Paul.' Paul ran jewellery.
'She doesn't want to use you or the fact that she knows me
to get her foot in the door.'

David considered this. 'That's either very commendable or
very stupid. I don't know which.'

'Natalie's anything but stupid,' Molly pointed out. 'If so
many jewellers hadn't gone out of business over the past year,
she'd have got a job with one of them and a platform for her
stuff. She's done brilliantly setting herself up, and she wants to
do it all properly. She's like me, she hates all that "It's not what
you know, it's who you know" cronyism,' Molly almost spat.

'I just said she could show it to me,' David pointed out
mildly. 'I didn't say I'd buy it from her just because she's your
friend. Business is business. Another old cliche.' He grinned.

Directly in front of him, the vast wooden staircase stretched
upwards, gleaming goddesses in the Old Celtic style at the
front of each banister, like the figureheads of ships.


One was Morrigan, the warrior goddess, carved from oak
with a jutting chin, trailing hair and a sword held firmly in
one strong hand. The other hand held a shield decorated with
the goddess's symbol, a crow. The second goddess was Brighid,
healer and keeper of the druidic fire. Her gown was carved
with flames, and in her calmly crossed hands she carried one
of the woven crosses that bore her name.
In David's father's time, the goddesses had been Egyptian,
painted gold, black and azure. A trip down the Nile in the
1930s had entranced Andrew Kenny, and he'd spent a lifetime
reading about Egypt and taking holidays there, staying
in the Old Cataract Hotel and photographing the temples.
But when his father's beloved Egyptian women had begun
to chip and fall apart, David decided to commission these
ancient Irish goddesses, in memory of a time when he'd loved
a woman who knew all about the old Celtic religion.
Ingrid, who had no interest in magical imagery, had never
even noticed the symbolism of these statues. He'd never told
her about Star, either. Women found it hard to reconcile themselves
to other great loves in a man's life: something else his
father had told him.
David ignored the stairs in favour of the escalator, but as
he rose above the floors, the usual glow of pride wasn't there.
It was just as well his father couldn't see what was happening,
David thought, no longer seduced by the beauty of the department
store he'd worked for all his life. If his father hadn't
been dead already, it would have killed him.

Just after half twelve, in her small office on the fifth floor of
Kenny's, Stacey O'Shaughnessy felt a cool breeze coming from
somewhere. Instinctively, she turned around to see if David
had opened the window in her office while she'd been down
on the second floor getting coffee, but it was shut. More
draughts then, that had to be it. Despite all the money that
had been pumped into Kenny's, it was still a very old building,

full of architectural oddities and quirks that modern, well
insulated places didn't have.
She set David's cafe latte on the tray, added the half a spoon
of sugar that he liked, and opened the cellophane on his sandwich.
Ham and salad on rye bread. Not that David would notice
what he was eating, to be frank. Not these days. Stacey had
worked for David Kenny for fifteen years and previously he'd
always loved his food. When she used to bake for her children,
she'd sometimes take some muffins or homemade scones into
the office for elevenses and he loved them. Of course, Stacey's
children were grown up now and she didn't bake that often, just
cakes for birthdays and such. Except, she doubted whether David
would want any, even if she'd arrived with some of his favourite
soda bread scones and gooseberry jam. He'd changed, eating his
lunchtime sandwich without appearing to taste anything.
She took a sip of her own cappuccino before carrying the
tray over to his door and knocking.
'David,' she said in her clear voice. 'Lunch.'
There was no answer. He wasn't there, must have slipped
out when she was in the cafe.
Balancing the tray in one hand, Stacey opened the door.
David Kenny was there, sitting in his seat and facing the
open window. That's the source of the breeze, Stacey thought
briefly, before realising that her boss wasn't looking, as he
sometimes did, across the town spires to the curve of the
coastline and the white-capped waves of the Irish Sea. His
head hung down on his chest.
'David!' Stacey let the tray drop to the floor and rushed
forward. But before she even touched him, she could tell it
was too late. There was a grey tinge to his normally tanned
face, a whitening around the lips and a slackness to his jaw.
David Kenny was dead.

On the second floor of the TV studios, Ingrid was doing one
of the things she loved most: research. Every few weeks, she

conducted an in-depth interview with a public figure where
she got to break the mould. Instead of a straight Q&A where
the subject got to spout their views on specific headline
making topics like crime or unemployment, Ingrid talked to
them for hours about what had driven them into politics in
the first place or what still motivated them.
She loved it because it allowed her to do what she was
born to do: analyse people.
'You're a failed psychologist,' the producer told her when
he'd looked in and found Ingrid, dark-rimmed reading glasses
on and a cup of cooling tea at her elbow, unconsciously smiling
to herself as she made notes.
Ingrid peered at Carlos over the top of her glasses. 'You
mean because of this lot?' She gestured to the pages spread
over the desk: newspaper and magazine clippings, and articles
printed off the internet. 'Probably,' she agreed. 'Does that
make me a total nerd?'
He laughed. 'If being one of the highest-paid broadcasters
in the State means you're a nerd, then yes, you're a nerd.'
'You ought to print new T-shirts for the show, then: Nerd
Tonight or something,' she said, smiling. 'What can I do you
for?'
'Nothing,' he said, but came in and sat down on the chair
opposite her desk.
Producing could burn people out easily and Ingrid liked
working with young producers because they brought an
energy to the job. She herself was probably the oldest person
working on the show, which was both marvellous and scary
in equal measure.
'Is everything all right?' she asked Carlos now.
No, it's all brilliant,' Carlos said. 'You're brilliant,' he added
fervently. 'Just came in to chat.' He picked up a newspaper
from her desk and sat scanning it.
Ingrid smiled. Carlos was brilliant too, but quite mad with
his wandering around at high speed.

It was flattering that he admired her professionally, too. She'd never felt that she was an impostor, that one day, she'd
be recognised as such and fired. Lots of women did, she knew,
millions of them, unsure of their own abilities and convinced that they were in high-paying jobs by mistake and that one
day, the mistake would be realised.
Finding out what made people tick was like a drug. Some
people got a buzz from sex or drugs: Ingrid got it from finally
putting a piece of a mental jigsaw in place, like Archimedes
shouting 'Eureka!' Earlier, she'd been in one of the endless
programme meetings discussing the rest of the week's output
and looking at footage for that night's show. But this, research
into a real person, was what she loved best.
Her mobile phone rang.
She picked it up and saw that it was David's office number.
'Hello, love,' she said cheerfully, expecting to hear that he
wouldn't be home for dinner. She'd asked Mrs Hendron to
defrost a free-range chicken and put it in the oven with the
timer set to start cooking at six.
'Ingrid -' It wasn't David, it was Stacey, his right-hand
woman.
'Sorry, Stacey, I thought it was the man himself,' Ingrid said
easily. 'How are things? Did he forget to tell me he's due in
Ulan Bator tonight and won't be home?'
Stacey didn't pick up on the joke. There was no laughter,
only silence. With an instinct Ingrid hadn't known she'd
possessed, she understood then that there was something very
wrong.
'What is it, Stacey, what's wrong?' she begged.
'Oh, Ingrid, I don't know how to tell you this but, I came
in and he was at the window and '
'- and?' Ingrid urged in panic.
'- He's dead, Ingrid. I've called the ambulance. Dolores is
our first-aid specialist in the store, but she says there's nothing
anyone can do. David's dead.'

Ingrid dropped the phone on to the desk where it banged
loudly.
'What is it?' Carlos reached over the desk and grabbed her
because it looked as if she might faint.
'David,' she said blankly. 'Stacey says he's dead.'
'Fuck.'
Carlos helped her into her chair, ran into the corridor and
called for help, then went back and picked up the phone she'd
dropped.
'This is Carlos Monroe,' he said, 'a colleague of Ingrid's.
To whom am I speaking?'
Ingrid was vaguely aware of Carlos talking and of someone else coming in and hugging her, and leaving to get a cup of
very strong, sweet tea.
'Brandy would be better,' said a voice.
'Brandy gives you heart attacks,' said someone else. 'Tea's
the best thing, with sugar.'
'Whiskey, maybe?'
'Now's not the time to be dispensing drinks. Her husband's
just died.' They sounded exasperated. 'We should get a doctor,
she's in shock.'
'Should we drive her to Kenny's?'
'No, I don't think so. She doesn't need to see his body, not yet.'
His body.
'Why the hell did you phone her? Why not phone one of
us so we could break it to her gently?' Carlos was demanding
on the phone.
Ingrid was conscious of all this conversation and yet she
couldn't have joined in any more than she could lift the cup
of tea beside her. She felt other worldly, like she was floating
on the ceiling looking down. There but not there. Everything
was so unreal. David couldn't be dead, not her David. She
must be having one of those fearful waking dreams; perhaps
if she was very quiet, she'd slip back into proper sleep again


and then wake up to a new day, a day where David was lying
beside her in the bed.

He couldn't be taken away from her. He was so much of
her life, the man she loved. She couldn't go on without him.
Didn't they know that?

'Ingrid, look at me, please.'

She managed to focus enough to see her assistant Gloria
kneeling in front of her. Gloria was so efficient, she'd sort all
this out. David wasn't dead. That was a crazy idea. Nobody
who was as full of life as David could possibly be dead.

'You'll phone him, won't you?' she asked Gloria. 'Deal with
this mess. I don't know what's wrong with Stacey, you see.'

Gloria was not one of life's touchy-feely people. She didn't
hug people hello or kiss their cheeks twice or three times. But
now, she took Ingrid's hands in hers and held on tightly,
comfortingly. 'Ingrid, there's no mess, no mistake. We've
spoken to Stacey. The ambulance men are there now and
there's nothing they can do. They don't know what happened,
probably a heart attack.'

It was like letting a glass drop on her kitchen floor: instantly,
it would shatter noisily sending shards everywhere. Gloria's
words made it past the hope that Ingrid had constructed in
her mind. It was going to be fine, David couldn't be gone .. .
That hope smashed.

David was not coming back. She would never see him again.

Ingrid held on to Gloria's hands for comfort, but there was
none. She couldn't cry. Instead, she closed her eyes and swayed
rhythmically back and forth, keening silently. Nobody in
Ingrid's office said a word. There was nothing they could say.

When Gloria had cleared everyone out, she pushed another
cup of tea over to Ingrid.

'Please drink some of this one,' she said. 'You're in shock.'

Obediently, Ingrid picked it up and drank. She usually liked
sweet tea but this tasted metallic and strange. She grimaced.

'Keep drinking,' Gloria said.


'It's awful.'
'Shock,' Gloria replied.
'Shock makes tea taste horrible?'
'Shock makes everything horrible. Ingrid, we have a few
things to do. What do you want to do first? I mean, we have
to tell the children '
The organising part of Ingrid's mind flexed into motion,
like a well-exercised muscle that had been honed over years
of work. It was a relief to feel it, a relief to move away from
the absolute pain of knowing that David was dead. 'The children,
I have to tell them. And David's aunt, and my sisters.
The children ... I can reach Molly so easily, but Ethan, it's
going to be harder to find him.'
It was as if her mind was protecting her by making her
think of other people: if she had to focus on her beloved children
and what their father's death meant to them, then she
didn't need to focus on how awful it was for her.
'I'll phone Molly, then, shall I?' Gloria was ready to do it.
'Or do you want to tell one of her friends first, so there's
someone with her?'
Ingrid wanted to hold up her hand to halt it all, because
if Gloria made that call, then it would be true.
'No, she needs to know now, she'd want that,' Ingrid said
bleakly. 'I should tell her in person.'
The idea of telling Molly was shattering. Ingrid buried her
face in her hands for a few moments, trying to calm herself.
'Ingrid, you're not in any state to go to Molly's office.
Phone her,' said Gloria. 'Perhaps there's someone there you
can tell first, who can bring her here . . .?'
Ingrid shook her head. 'It has to be Natalie - Molly's best
friend. She works in Kenny's, in the cafe.'
If Ingrid herself couldn't be with Molly, then Natalie would
be the next best thing.
'Should I phone her first?'
'No. Molly first.'

She let Gloria scroll down through her numbers to find
Molly's and click 'dial'.

She took the phone from Gloria and thought of all the
things only a parent was supposed to do. Take your child to
their first day at school, comfort them when they were teased,
hug them when they had their hearts broken. Telling them
their father was dead shouldn't be on the list.

'Hi, Mum, how are you?' Molly's voice was happy and
Ingrid winced.

'Molly, love -' she began.

'Mum. What's wrong? You sound strange.'

'It's your dad,' Ingrid said. 'We think it was a heart attack.'

'What - How is he?'

Ingrid covered her eyes with her hand. 'He's dead, my love.
I'm so sorry.'


Natalie had burned herself on the coffee machine's milk
frother again.

'Bloody machine,' she said, reaching up into the first-aid
cabinet to get the burn spray. She'd done exactly the same
thing last week and steam burns were so painful.

'I think that thing doesn't like you,' said Hugh, the cafe
manager, who'd rushed up to see if everything was all right.
'I could hit it next time I pass.'

Natalie grinned at him. Hugh, according to everyone else
in the cafe, fancied her and was always hovering around her,
big hang-dog eyes staring with longing. Natalie didn't believe
a word of it. Hugh was interested in films and so was she:
that was all. And his big love was sci-fi television shows. He'd
been to three conventions in the past year already and was
booked for a whole week for the Science Fest in Killarney in
April. He swore he didn't dress up, but Natalie didn't entirely
believe him. Hugh reminded her of the kids she used to go
to Special Education with: sweet, vulnerable, and used to being
laughed at.


'Will I spray the sore bit for you?' Hugh asked solicitously.
Natalie's grin faltered a little. 'Er, no, thanks,' she said. 'It's
best to do it yourself, don't you think?'
'Natalie!' roared Siobhain. 'Phone call for you in the office.'
Natalie sprayed another blast of burn spray on her hand
before looking at Hugh to see his expression. He didn't look
irritated at this interruption into the working day, the way he
might if another member of staff had a phone call. In fact,
he still looked slightly dopey as he gazed at her. Natalie shoved
the first-aid kit away, smiled and rushed off to the office.
Everyone was right: Hugh did fancy her. She had a sudden
mental vision of Hugh in a Star Trek outfit and shuddered.
She needed to mention that she had a date coming up with
a gorgeous man named Rory. It was best to let him down
gently, because he was sweet.
'Hello?'
'Is that Natalie?'
'Yes, who's this?' Natalie examined the steam burn. She was
tired, that was why she'd burned herself. She'd been up late
working and even though Michelle, chief barista, was of the
opinion that any muppet could operate the coffee machines,
Natalie knew that staring into space with exhaustion while
you made cappuccino was a sure-fire way to disaster.
'. . . Molly's father . . . Ingrid would love you to go to her.
Talk to someone in the director's office, they'll organise a cab
for you . . .'
'What?' Natalie hadn't been paying attention.
'Molly's father, David Kenny, is dead, Natalie. I work for
her mother and she wondered if you could go to Molly. She's
very upset.'
'Oh my God,' said Natalie. 'I don't believe it.'
'None of us do, but unfortunately it's true.'

Shock made people confused, Ingrid knew this. She'd read about
the physical effects on the body and how the stress hormone,

cortisol, flooded the nervous system and had an instant impact,
raising the heart rate and blood pressure. Like so many things
she knew, Ingrid had read about it in a dispassionate, removed
way for a piece on the negative effects of stress on human beings.
She remembered interviewing a politician who'd been
widowed a year previously when his wife died after a long
battle with cancer. At the time, Ingrid had agonised over her
questions, wanting to ask the right ones, wanting to understand
his pain without making it worse for the sake of her interview. She'd thought she'd done it.
'You must miss her a great deal,' she'd said, half-question,
half-statement. Enough of a question for a professional politician
to answer. That, coupled with Ingrid's own empathy and charisma as she leaned towards him, had the desired effect.
No offence had been taken, no frisson that she'd gone too
, far into a private grief.
'I do,' the politician had said quietly. 'She was with me all
my adult life and now she's gone. It's fine when I'm out of the house, but when I step back inside my own front door. . .' Ingrid had let the pause last, waiting him out. In television, the pauses were often what made the best moments.
'- it's like she's only just gone. I can almost believe she's going to come out of the kitchen to greet me.'
The memory of that electric television moment was like a
slap in the face as Ingrid stood behind Gloria in the hall and
heard the dogs scrabbling around behind the kitchen door,
trying to get to her.
Ingrid had thought she'd been as gentle as possible with that man on her show but now, in her own cold hall with
her own husband dead, she felt the politician's naked pain again and wanted to phone him and apologise.
'I know now, she'd have said. I understand. I didn't before, but I do now. I'm sorry I asked you all that.
He'd been in absolute agony and she hadn't understood. It was as if the world was divided into two camps: those

in pain and those not, and the ones in pain could recognise
it in each other's hollow-eyed and numb faces. In the right
camp, you knew the people there understood. But among the
untouched, the ones who hadn't lost everything, then you
were utterly isolated. If she rang that politician up, he'd understand
and he might tell her what to do next.
'Right,' said Gloria, dropping Ingrid's keys on to the hall
table.
Once you were widowed, you weren't allowed to open your
own door. Gloria had taken her house keys and opened the
door for her, as well as turning off the alarm.
'Right,' Gloria said again. 'Tea - we could make tea. A
nice cup would help.'
Decision made, she walked towards the kitchen, opened
the door and unleashed two delighted dogs who at once began
leaping up with excitement.
Seeing their eager dogginess made Ingrid want to weep. She'd
left them this morning and everything had been fine, normal.
She was married to David, she was happy. Now she was a
widow. David was gone for ever. How had it all happened so
quickly?
'Are you all right?' asked Gloria, putting a hand on Ingrid's
shoulder. 'Sorry,' she said, self-editing. 'Stupid question. Of
course you're not all right, how could you be?'
Ingrid managed to think about the question. All right? She'd
never be all right again.

Molly hadn't cried at all when Natalie arrived to pick her up.
She was just sitting, frozen, at her desk with an untouched
cup of tea in front of her. One colleague sat with her and
Natalie could see the woman's relief when she arrived.
'She's not taking it well, poor love,' the woman said. 'It's
terrible when it's a sudden death. No chance to say goodbye.'
Out of the corner of her eye, Natalie could see Molly's face
crumple at these words.


'Absolutely,' she said, and dragged Molly and her bag out
the door and into the waiting taxi. By the time they'd cleared
the next set of traffic lights, Molly was crying so hard she
was shaking.
'If only I'd known, Natalie,' she sobbed, 'I'd have phoned
him and told him I loved him. But you know what? I can't
remember the last time I said it. How bad is that? He's gone
and I can't even remember the last time I said I loved him.
What if he was thinking about that? You know he worried
about me. And I'd told him I never wanted to work in the
store again, Natalie. It upset him, I know it did. Ethan has no
interest and Dad would have loved it if I was interested, but
I couldn't fake it, you know. And all the chances are gone now
to tell him I'd have done it for him, that I loved him . . .'
Natalie hugged her and let the words pour out. She could
say nothing that would help but her heart ached for her friend.
And in the midst of the sympathy, there was one glimmer
of a thought in her head, a thought so selfish that she felt bad
for even thinking it: David was a wonderful father and it was
a tragedy she'd lost him, but at least Molly had known her
father. Natalie had never known her mother. Was that worse
than sudden death, the not-knowing? Or was it easier that
way? You couldn't miss what you hadn't known. Could you?

Some staff felt that the store should close for the rest of the
day.
'As a tribute.'
'David wouldn't want Kenny's shut!' said someone else. 'He
lived and breathed this place. He'd want the doors open and
the customers piling in.'
'Poor Ingrid,' said another voice.
Everyone nodded. They all liked Ingrid, although some of the
younger staff didn't know her that well. She'd been around more
when the kids were younger, taking them in to see their dad.
'God help Molly and Ethan,' sobbed Lena, who was almost

inconsolable. 'I can't believe he's gone, so what must they be
feeling?'

Charlie sat on the roof with Shotsy while Shotsy smoked
and cried. She'd known David far longer than Charlie. He'd
hired her when she was young and, along with Lena, he had
been a mentor for her.

'It's wrong that someone like David can die, just like that,
no warning,' Shotsy said, stubbing out one cigarette and
reaching for another.

Charlie agreed. There was something strangely shocking
about David Kenny dying. As if he was so vital and alive
that he couldn't be subject to the same illnesses as ordinary
people.

He was a stalwart in life: the boss, the person who calmly
ran everything, their father-figure. His death opened up a great
black hole of doubt: if David could die, then anybody could
die.

'It makes you think about your own parents,' said Shotsy,
who had a ninety-year-old mother who lived alone and put
the heart crossways in the whole family when she talked
blithely about going out the garden on icy mornings to feed
the birds. 'Family is so precious. It's only when they're gone
that you realise what you had.'

'I know,' said Charlie automatically.

But David's death hadn't made her think of her mother or
father, the way it made Shotsy think of her mother. It made
Charlie think of Brendan and Mikey. If anything happened
to them, she'd want to die herself. There would be no point
to the rest of her life.

If, on the other hand, her mother died . . . the thought reeled
off.

She'd cope. Was it unnatural for a daughter to think that
way?

Yes, it was wrong not to feel more. She was wrong, bad.
Charlie wished she adored her mother the way Iseult did, but


there was a special bond between them, as if they shared some
great secret. Charlie felt that if she shared the secret, perhaps
she too could share that love.

And then a horrible thought occurred to her - what if that
lack of feeling was genetic, what if Mikey came to feel exactly
the same about her when she was old?


'Thank you,' Ingrid said to Natalie that night. The taxi was waiting outside the house, one from the Kenny's account. It
had orders to drop Natalie home.

'And feed those damn cats,' Ingrid added.

They both smiled, the only levity in the whole day. Molly
had stopped crying just long enough to fret about her beloved
babies and how they'd be distressed because neither she nor
Natalie were home.

'You've been so kind to us both, I don't know what we'd
have done without you,' Ingrid went on.

Natalie's mind flashed back to the time she'd first met
Molly's famous mother and had felt so terribly nervous.

Mrs Kenny had been so genuinely friendly - 'You must call
me Ingrid' - and nothing like the idea Natalie had of a TV
celebrity.

'I wish I could do more,' Natalie said. Ingrid looked so
utterly destroyed that Natalie wanted to hug her. But if felt
like too much of an intrusion.

'You were there when it counted,' Ingrid said. 'That's
enough, thank you.'

Natalie walked down the path of the beautiful house and
was glad she was leaving it. The pain and the grief made it
too hard to be there.


Gloria was the last to go and before she left, she handed
Ingrid a small plastic pharmacy bag with a tinfoil bubble of
tablets inside it.

'Xanax,' she said. 'My emergency stash. I had them when


Freddie was having his by-pass surgery. I know you're not a
tablet person, but they might help you to sleep, and you need
to sleep.'
Ingrid, who rarely took so much as a headache tablet, reached for the plastic bag. 'Thank you,' she said quietly.
When Molly's breath was even and slow, Ingrid covered
her with the duvet and slid over to her own side of the bed.
It was a big bed, big enough for four people, almost. David
had wanted a big bed because he liked room to sprawl without
squashing her.
It was a nightmare getting sheets to fit it. Kenny's stocked
lovely brands of bed linen, but even they had to order in the
giant sheets and duvet covers for David and Ingrid's bed. And
they always came in subtly luxurious muted colours: taupes
and creams. Ingrid, who loved muted colours for her own
clothes, adored bright flowery things for her bed. But she
couldn't have them. She and David lay on an expanse of mushroom
or taupe most of the time.
Would another man's body ever lie beside hers? How odd
to think of sex at such a time, and yet Ingrid suddenly longed
for the feeling of David's naked body on hers and the touch
of his hands on her skin. She would never have that again,
that love and tenderness. Another loss. Who would hold her
in the morning and talk about the day ahead, who would
lean over her shoulder when she was brushing her teeth and
kiss her neck softly? Nobody.
The void left by David was so vast she could barely contemplate
it.
Gone, he was gone.
The abyss of pain roared before her. Ingrid breathed deeply
and willed it away. No, not yet.
The little pharmacy bag lay on her nightstand, beside the
book she'd been reading that morning - was it really only
that morning? It felt like years ago. Ingrid ripped the bag
open, popped a tinfoil bubble and dry-swallowed a tablet.

I She lay back against the pillows, refusing to close her eyes.
If she closed them, all the agony would emerge. Only by lying
open-eyed in the soft light could she hold back the horror of
the day and pretend it hadn't happened. She wasn't ready to
deal with it, she couldn't. If she let the tears really come,
they'd never stop, because she was broken inside and, once
she let go, a flood of pain, tears and hopelessness would come
rushing out. Ingrid couldn't bear that. So she held on tight,
forcing her breathing to remain calm, pushing back the
screams inside, waiting for the tablet to do its work.

Ingrid's first confused thought when she woke the next
morning was that this was going to be a busy day for her.
She had a big interview tonight, a tricky one. She stretched
and raised herself on an elbow to look at her alarm clock,
and then she remembered. She hadn't set the clock the night before. There was no need, no need for them to wake at seven, rush to have showers, eat breakfast, greet the day. A sheet of rain slammed itself against the bedroom windows. Ingrid had loved being inside when it was raining,
loved the sense of cosy warmth and security. Outside: rain.
Inside: safe. Except it wasn't true. She'd never be safe again. David was dead. Safety and security were an illusion.
She'd thought that the worst thing she had to fear was
something happening to one of the children, and she'd been
sure that she'd never be able to deal with that. It was why
she'd been so scared of Ethan going abroad.
Ingrid had known loss before. Her parents had died,
although both had been ill for many years, her mother with
cancer, her father with a lung disease. They'd both known
they were going to die and it had been gentle, expected. They'd
been prepared, and death had almost been a release after all
the pain and suffering. But this? She wasn't prepared for this.
Beside her, Molly moaned in her sleep and turned over to

burrow further under the duvet. For now, she was safe in the
world of sleep. And Ethan, he was safe too in that he didn't
know anything yet. Gloria had been on to the Department of
Foreign Affairs and they were trying to reach him via the
consulate in Vietnam, but they hadn't made contact yet.

Ingrid was responsible for nobody except herself. There
was nobody to stare mutely at her as she let go.

She closed her eyes and let it happen. And then the tears
came, flowing at such speed that tissues were soaked in an
instant. She stopped using tissues, just pulled the top sheet
up and held it against her swollen face, burying her head
between her knees. Rocking herself as she sobbed, keening:
David, oh David, my love.


Ingrid felt the flash almost before she saw it. The sharp
piercing light fizzed over her retinas and then, belatedly, she
realised what it was. A press photographer taking pictures of
her waiting for Ethan at the airport.

Ethan's plane had landed, he'd texted her to say he was
waiting at the luggage belts, and she knew that it would be
only moments until he was with her. She'd longed to hug him
for so long and now that the moment was almost upon her,
all she could think of was that she'd do anything to turn back
the clock. A few days ago she'd simply been worrying about
him being away; now she was worrying about how devastated
he'd be, and living in hell herself.

And here was a paparazzo, intruding on their private grief.
For what? Some picture that nobody needed to see.

Ingrid knew there would be press at David's funeral, partly
because he was one of the country's success stories in business,
partly because he was married to her. But what paper
would have the disregard for other people's pain to want to
run this picture: her, puffy-eyed with pain, meeting their son
for the first time since his father had died.

This wasn't a human interest story, this was her life.


She swivelled to the photographer and walked towards him,
her face set grimly. He gave her a half-smile and began to
walk away, but Ingrid called him.
'Please,' she said, 'wait.'
He stopped, reluctantly.
'This is a private moment,' she said, using her voice the
way she did when she had to be particularly authoritative on
television. 'My son is a private individual and, while I may
be fair game in your eyes, he has a lawful right to expect
privacy at this time.'
The man blinked at her warily, unaccustomed to subjects
who had such a grasp of the legalities of invasion of privacy.
'I'd like you to leave us to grieve in peace.' She delivered
the last sentence in the measured, hard tones that made interviewees
twist uncomfortably in their chairs and suddenly feel
that their top buttons were choking them. It always worked.
It worked here too.
'OK,' the photographer said, admitting defeat.
She watched him go, her jaw still set with anger. There
were no guarantees he wouldn't come back, but Ingrid would
sue anyone who printed a photograph of this moment. When
had she ceased to be one of them, one of the press, and become
one of the hunted?
'Mum?'
Wild animals knew their young by their cries, Ingrid had
once read, and as she whirled round to see Ethan coming
towards her amid the throng emerging from the security gates,
she knew it was true. Even in the noise of the arrivals hall,
she'd picked out his voice.
He seemed taller than before, but perhaps that was just the
tan and the leanness: he was verging on thin, his broad shoulders
looking bony under the weight of the massive rucksack.
And Ingrid felt the tears coursing down her face.
She hadn't cried since the morning after David had died,
hadn't even cried when she'd talked on the phone to Ethan

and he'd sobbed his heart out. Tears weren't enough to signify
how bereft and empty she felt. There needed to be something
else to show devastation, she thought. Like blood coming out
of your eyes or something. She could see how the ancient
Indian practice of suttee worked, the widow hurling herself
on her husband's funeral pyre to burn with him and accompany
him to the next life, leaving behind hennaed fingerprints
on the walls lining the route to the funeral. That had struck
her as simply a waste of a life before. But now, feeling like
half a person, it made perfect sense.
'Mum.' He was beside her, holding on to her and they were both sobbing. 'I never got to say goodbye, Mum,' he was
saying.
Ingrid felt the tenor of her tears change. She had to mother
her son now and her own grief must take a back seat. She
wanted to tell him that she'd never had a chance to say
goodbye either, that David had left that morning and the
heavens had given no sign that it would be the last time she'd
say goodbye to him.
But now was not the time to dwell on that. Ingrid let her
mothering instinct take over.
'Your father adored you, Ethan,' she said fiercely. 'He died
knowing you loved him and he loved you - never ever forget
that.'

Eight

Sometimes, you can't fix it. You just have to let go.


Three days after David's death, Star sat on her verandah
wrapped in the elderly cream woollen rug that had comforted
the previous two generations of Bluestone women, clutching a
tiny china cup of steaming rosehip tea to her breastbone. She
loved the verandah, with its pale blue painted wooden slats,
the gently creaking hanging seat she was curled up on, and the
trailing honeysuckle and wisteria vines that clung around the
wooden pillars like lovers. Two feet away, a curtain of rain
lashed the garden, drenching the earth and flattening her herbs.
The night before, it had been a full moon and for the first
time she could remember, Star hadn't felt relief at the sight
of the fertile, rounded moon in the sky. All her life, the moon
had calmed her. It had such power over the earth, her mother
used to say, regulating tides and women's menstrual cycles.
Even seedlings planted in the run-up to a full moon thrived
in a way they didn't at other times of the month.
Inside the cottage, hanging on the wall above Granny Petra's
spinning wheel, was a very old pen and watercolour sketch of
the twelve astrological signs. A many-pointed sun, like the one
made famous by France's Sun King, glowed crocus yellow. But

it was the moon that had always been the focal point for her.
It had been painted in some different medium; it seemed to
shimmer like a base metal, appearing different from every
angle. To Star's eye, it was the most vibrant part of the picture.

'Perhaps I should have named you Moon instead,' Eliza
Bluestone would say when she caught her daughter tracing
small fingers across the gleaming moon in the picture.

'I like being Star,' Star said. 'I might marry a man with
Moon in his surname, then I could be Star Moon.'

Her mother hadn't replied. Until she lost Danny, Star hadn't
realised that Bluestone women didn't marry. There was no law
to say this; no writing across the doorway to the wooden house
on the headland, but it was true all the same. They didn't marry.

They might, though, fall in love forever.

Star sighed and drank her tea. She needed to get ready for
the funeral. Since she'd heard about David Kenny, when Lena
phoned in tears telling her the news, Star had felt an ache inside her the like of which she'd never known.

Vibrant, poetic David Kenny - dead? How could that be?

When she'd hung up the phone, she'd gone outside and put
her arms around the rowan tree she'd planted when David
had left her life.

'Are you happy?' she murmured, her face close to the bark,
breathing in the scent of the living wood.

She wanted her gifts of understanding to help her find him
wherever he was, to communicate that he was at peace. But
she felt no peace, just the roughness of bark against her cheek
and a whisper of sadness.

Her magic was no help to her now. People had such a
confused notion of magic: that it was a piece of trickery that
could produce rabbits out of hats and kill men stone dead
with a single look. Nonsense. The magic Star and her mother
before her knew was a harnessing of what was already out
there, a tapping into the energy of this glorious planet.

When Star had been tiny, her mother had done her best to


put it into words: 'There's a life force rushing round this
world, swirling between every blade of grass and raindrop,
and what we do is allow ourselves to close our eyes.'
Star, aged five, had closed her eyes obediently.
'- to understand the world.'
'Is it just us, Mama?' Star wanted to know.
'No, there used to be many more people who could do it.
Not so many now. If they turned off their wirelesses and sat
listening to the earth around them, then they could. Of course,
they'd have to open their minds, too.'
Star's eyes shot open. Open mind and close eyes at the same
timer' Confusing.
'Some people call it the sixth sense,' her mother went on.
'There's no word for that in the old Irish language, but my
mother used to call it feth, the magic lore. It's about getting
in touch with what all people once had. That sixth sense we're
born able to do it.'
There was huge joy and comfort in being a true part of the
earth, in sensing that a terrible storm was going to lash the
coast before it came, or waking up into a golden September
morning with a feeling that it was going to be a glorious Indian
summer day where nothing would go wrong. But it could be
horrible too. Star remembered the times women would creep
to their door, pleading for help, and just by taking their hand
to lead them to her mother, Star would instantly know there
was a good-for-nothing wife-beater at home. Eliza Bluestone
would do what she could, going to Sergeant Maguire or Father
Hely and telling them something needed to be done soon before
the husband ended up killing the woman. Sometimes the wife
would come running back down the path a few days later,
furious that the police had hauled her beloved away when
really all he needed was someone to understand him.
When they'd gone, Eliza would sit on the verandah
murmuring about responsibilities coming with gifts and how
it was easier to be good at sewing or cooking - anything,

rather than this. But she'd apologise afterwards, sorry lest her
words had upset Star.

'It's a great gift,' she'd say, 'a great gift. We're blessed to
have it.'

Their abilities in the realms of magic were different - Star's
was a pure gift of touch; when she took somebody's hand, it
came to her in a rush. Sometimes she saw high-speed footage
of their lives, crammed into two seconds; other times, it was
just one thing, one bright, shining pinpoint in their life: the
birth of a child, or touching the cheek of a loved one. And
then there were moments when she touched a hand and sensed
darkness, as if somebody had pulled the shutters down,
plunging her into gloom. Those feelings were the worst. She
could see the hurt of the other person and, as it passed through
her, she felt it too - her whole body aching as the other
person's pain bounced out of their soul into hers.

Eliza's gift had been less immediate; she could read the lines
of someone's hand the way other people read a map, seeing
lessons learned and lessons to be learned in every tiny crevice.
She could read tea leaves too, although she only did that for
fun, with friends who she knew could take it.

According to Eliza, Star's gift of seeing by touch was the
most intense any Bluestone woman had had in the three hundred
years they had lived on this bit of coast. Passing on tales of
these gifts was part of the legacy; each woman revealing to her
daughters and granddaughters the special abilities of all the
Bluestone ancestors. Bluestone Cottage was a part of it, too: a
creaking, living wooden receptacle of all the knowledge and
wisdom of those who'd lived and loved there over the years.

Unfortunately, their magic could be somewhat blurry
around the edges when it came their own lives. Or else Star
would never have fallen in love with Danny or even with
David, and she'd have been spared a broken heart.

'Your heart has to break before it can open up properly,'
her mother told her.


It sounded so wise in speech but it hurt so much in reality.
Now, thirty-five years after David had gone from her life,
Star wanted to feel something of him, to touch his spirit where
ever he was, and she couldn't.
His death had left its mark on her.
The day after she heard the news, she'd looked in the bathroom
mirror and discovered that her blonde hair had turned
entirely white. Without any lightening golden threads, the
I effect was stark. Her face looked very pale, too, as if the frost
, of old age had crept up on her in the night.
For years she'd lived without David Kenny, at peace knowing that he was happy, and content with her own life. People might think she was eccentric, yes, but her life suited her: the almost monastic seclusion of her home, the solitude of her work, the silence that came from living alone. She'd loved it. And now, she didn't. She felt uneasy, unsettled. And she didn't know why.

Charlie woke at dawn on the morning of David Kenny's funeral, jolted awake by a hideous dream where Brendan and Mikey were being swept away from her in a raging river. She was in a tiny boat, screaming their names, reaching for them,
I but the torrents were carrying them further away every second, she was losing them . . . She sat bolt upright in the bed, heart pounding, covered in a film of cold sweat.
The room was still murky in the morning dark and Brendan
I was a duvet-covered lump beside her. With relief, she reached I out and touched him, barely resting her hand on his body in case she woke him up. It had been a nightmare, that was all. But it had felt so real.
I Knowing it was crazy but needing to do it anyway, she
I slipped out of bed and tiptoed into Mikey's room. The normal musky, old-sock smell of teenage boy was like perfume to her, and she felt the ripple of relief again as she saw her son sprawled

in his bed, his marine camouflage duvet barely covering him. Gently, she fixed it, making sure he was warm, for it was a cold morning and the heating hadn't come on yet.
Asleep, he looked even more like Brendan, the same gentleness in his face, the same freckles, the same dark hair that stuck up at all angles no matter how it was brushed.
She wondered what he looked like to other people, because to her, he was so infinitely precious that she could only see beauty. Everything about him was right, perfect. He was so gentle, so kind. Even the teachers said so.
That appalling nightmare she'd just had . . . Charlie shivered, as much from the cold on her damp skin as from her dream. It must have been brought on by the thought of today,
David's funeral.
Charlie, along with everyone else in Kenny's, had talked of nothing else since his death a few days before.
How devastated Ingrid must be. At least she still had her
children, but still. . .
With the empathy that Brendan loved in her, Charlie found herself trying to imagine the pain Ingrid was feeling: not in a voyeuristic way, but as if by doing so she could somehow send love and light Ingrid's way.
Kitty Nelson had laughed like a drain when, as a teenager, Charlie had tried to explain her theory about empathy and
human beings.
'Empathy,' said Charlie, 'is like coils of smoke reaching blue tendrils into the air. If they're let go, they can fly wherever they want, reach people, touch them and help. It's a type of global love: the great unconscious doing good.'
Kitty had arched an eyebrow, shaded to perfection with her Dior pencil - Only Dior, darling, nothing else will do.
'Global love?' she'd enunciated, as though Charlie had been talking about cockroach love. 'What a load of utter twaddle. The only global love I've heard of involved lots of drink, drugs and very loud Jimi Hendrix music. Where do you get



your ideas from, Charlotte? That is the most awful nonsense
I've ever heard.' I Charlie had been careful to keep her notions about love
and earthly frequencies to herself after that. She would have
gone on to explain that being kind had a ripple effect, with one act of kindness creating another, and another, until there
were waves and waves of them. But she said nothing.
Another unbearable thing about David's funeral was that Kitty was determined to come. She'd known David, she said, from years back.
Charlie had been hearing this since she'd started working at Kenny's, and had lived in fear that her mother might march into work one day and demand to see her old friend, David. It was just the sort of thing she would do, but luckily it had
never happened. Today, though, she was convinced that the world should see she'd been a friend of David's, even though
she hadn't seen him for years.
'I knew his old girlfriend too - Star. Very full of herself,'
Kitty sniffed.
Charlie took this to mean that the unknown Star hadn't
been a fan of Kitty's, and made no comment.

Purple would work: one of those full-length shearling coats
that screamed the owner was filthy rich and oblivious to
funeral etiquette.
Or pink, Schiaparelli pink, making her look wildly glamorous
amid the dowdy hens in their black.
Once, Kitty Nelson would have painted her lips pink to
match, but those days were gone.
It wasn't so much that her lips had shrunk - although, to
be honest, they had. It was the furrows around her mouth
that made vibrant-pink-wearing a no-no.
Cigarette lines or life?
Kitty had met David in the early seventies, when he was still
going out with that Bluestone girl. They'd moved in different

social circles: David and Star had hung around with artists and
poets, while Kitty was pals with the feminists of the day. But
sometimes the two circles overlapped. David had been considered
a catch then, heir to Kenny's, for all that he seemed to be
turning his back on the family firm to be with Star.
Kitty had never taken to Star: she looked through you,
Kitty felt. As if she could see exactly what you were thinking,
particularly when it wasn't a nice thought. Star had given
Kitty one of those serene, knowing looks when Kitty had been
flirting with David. Not that he'd responded, the idiot.
Few men resisted her in those days.
But David had taken Kitty's purred, 'You could buy me a
drink some day, on our own,' and gently batted it back to her:
'That's kind of you, Kitty, but no thanks.'
Kitty had been furious, but she'd got over it. Men were
strange, there was no doubt about it.
She reached for her cigarettes, extracted one from the pack
and lit it in a single fluid movement. Sitting at her dressing
table, ignoring the film of dust illuminated by the February
sun, she admired the way she looked in the mirror as she
smoked. Who cared what all the bloody medics said? Smoking
was sexy. What could be more erotic than a mouth circling
a smooth column, inhaling, and then blowing out a wisp of
smoky promise at the man in front of you?
What man could resist that?
Few of them, that's who. Except for David, and only because
he'd been in thrall to Star at the time. Oh, and Anthony. Bloody
Anthony. Always her mind ran back to her ex-husband.
Kitty stopped admiring herself in her triple mirror and took
a long pull on her Dunhill, wanting her beloved nicotine to
wipe him out of her mind.
Yes, it if had been his damn funeral, she'd be wearing pink
or purple, or even pillar-box red with a fur collar for sheer
extravagance. Anything to show the world that she was still
there even if he wasn't.

I'm still here.
She could picture how shocked Charlie would be if she
knew what her mother was thinking.
'Mum!' she'd say, dragging one syllable into three.
Charlie was so naive, really.
Iseult, her older daughter, would say nothing. Very little
got Iseult going. She was well able for the world and its pain.
Like herself.
Poor Charlie, alas, wasn't. Hadn't a clue, Charlie. Not a
clue. No idea whatsoever how it had been for Kitty. Didn't
understand, never would.
Had it been Anthony's funeral instead of David Kenny's,
Kitty would be throwing a massive party afterwards with
unending booze, jazz musicians and food only available at
breakfast for the hardy souls who'd lasted the course.
The house would have been perfect for a wake. Her house,
that is. The house that went in the divorce settlement and left
her living in this box.
Though it hadn't been a particularly big house, it was
detached, with a conservatory. Perfect for parties.
A hint of heat in her hand made her realise her cigarette
had burned right down.
'Shit!' She let the tendril of ash fall into the crystal ashtray
and automatically reached for a fresh cigarette.
The momentary sexiness she'd felt admiring herself had
gone. That brunette bombshell who made a moue with her
full lips had been gone some twenty years. Low-angled
sunshine lit up the room and cast a harsh light on her face.
Kitty knew that with the right lighting - candles, preferably
- and when she'd had her skin freshly lasered and her fillers
in, she could pass for late fifties. Today, in the dark burgundy
suit she'd dragged from her closet for the funeral, with her
hair still dark against the paleness of her skull, she looked
every inch her sixty-nine years.
Suitably deathly for a funeral, she grinned at herself. At


least she still had her sense of humour. If you could laugh at
life, you had one weapon left. This morning was going to be
short on laughs, so Kitty wanted to get them when she could.
Charlie would be weeping beside her and Kitty hated crying.
She'd tried hard to teach her daughters that crying got you
nowhere. Anger, determination and feral hunger for survival:
now those worked. Nobody taught you that in college.
'It's going to be such an awful funeral,' Charlie had said.
'He wasn't even sixty, Mum. Poor Ingrid. And the children
are in shock. OK, they're grown up, but still, he's their dad.
Everyone says Ingrid is very strong, but I don't know how
she's going to cope.'
'She'll cope just fine.'
Kitty picked up a coral lip pencil and began to draw her
mouth on. Men leave. Better get it over with now rather than
later. Better to have your husband drop dead of a heart attack
and be able to mourn him, than to have him run off because
he 'isn't happy'. Isn't happy? In some ways, Kitty would have
preferred it if he'd run off with some little madam twenty
years younger. At least she'd have been able to bitch about
young trollops out to steal other women's husbands. But for
a man to leave without there being someone else, for a man
to leave because he simply couldn't live with you! The humiliation
had been epic. Try mourning that.
'You're better off without him, Kitty,' all her friends had
said at the time.
'At least you have your career.'
'You're gorgeous, you'll meet someone else like a shot.'
Wrong! Wrong on all counts.
Red, Kitty decided: she'd wear red for Anthony's funeral.
Red lips and nails; and she'd get more fillers done around her
mouth and nose. Pity she couldn't afford another eye lift. Still,
one of her old red suits - the vintage ones from the 1950s,
when corsetry could give any woman a siren's figure, regardless
of middle-aged spread. All his old girlfriends would be

there. Not that he'd had many, and mousy creatures the lot
of them. None like herself. And he'd not married any of them.
So she'd be the prominent one at his funeral; the ex-wife
commanded respect, no matter what had gone before. She'd
be the one people would offer their sympathies to. And she'd
smile graciously and never let on that she was glad he was
dead. Serve him right, the coward!
Kitty layered on the second coat of lipstick. The great thing
about funerals, she thought, was that they gave her a chance
to show people that she was still here. No matter what had
happened in her life, Kitty Nelson was still here and still
fighting. That had to count for something, didn't it?

Star sat down the back of the church and looked around her
with interest. She'd been in so few churches in her life and
she adored them: the exquisite architecture and the beauty
of the images around. There was such a sense of holiness
here, and she respected the faith she'd grown up alongside.
Her best friends had worshipped in churches like this one,
and Star had often been shocked when they spoke disrespectfully
about their religion yet remained a part of it all. If you
couldn't give yourself totally, you were being a hypocrite, she
felt.
But still, it wasn't her place to comment.
Goodness and kindness were paramount in her faith: being
good to humankind and being grateful for what you had were
the main tenets. Not much different from what was preached
here.
Only the words and the rules were different, she decided.
Religions run by men were always very keen on lots of rules.
Rules about behaviour in church, behaviour out of church,
rules about sex - what was it about sex that fascinated them
so? Surely the main thrust of any religion should be about
kindness and spirituality, not about what people did in the
privacy of their own beds?

She watched the congregation file into the church, some
sombre in black and others clearly making a statement about
celebrating David's life by wearing bright colours. Star
approved of that. She herself had worn white; the only splash
of colour a red silk corsage pinned to her breast. It was a
subtle tribute to her long-lost love.

A tall woman with glossy dark hair and a dramatic black
coat swept into the church on the arm of an older man who
seemed to be holding on to her in a bid to calm her down.
The woman's eyes were red and her face was drawn. Obviously
somebody close to David. A friend of Ingrid's, too, Star
decided. Good, Ingrid would need friends now. Star closed
her eyes and sent healing and light towards the tall woman.


As she stalked up the aisle with Harry by her side, Marcella
ran an expert eye over the funeral guests. Under normal
circumstances, she'd have been able to gauge what they were
like by their demeanour and their dress. Today, she felt too
shocked by the fact that it was dear David's funeral to be
professionally distant about it all. He was her friend, he was
darling Ingrid's husband. Today, it was personal, and she
glared at anyone who didn't look suitably devastated.

Her usual rule of thumb was that people in perfect makeup,
exquisite tailoring and shades were either members of the
family determined to put the best side forward despite their
pain, or media-savvy types who liked the sight of themselves
in the inevitable newspaper photographs of the funeral.

There were some of that latter tribe present, sunglasses on
and not a hint of a tear ruining their faces, chattering happily
as if they were at a cocktail party where most of the people
just happened to be clad in black. Marcella scowled at them.

'Settle,' murmured Harry, who was at her side and knew
without being told what was upsetting her.

'That bitch has never had a good word to say about Ingrid
or David,' hissed Marcella, gesturing to a woman in a leather


ensemble with a hint of an Hermes scarf peeping out from
her collar and just-blow-dried hair tumbling about her shoulders.
'She shouldn't even be here. Why are people so hypocritical
that they'll turn up at the funeral of a person they
had no time for in life?'
'Look at all the people who are crying,' Harry whispered.
'David was loved, and Ingrid still is loved. There are plenty
here for the right reasons.'
Marcella tried to stifle her rage. The church was filling up
with people who looked genuinely devastated; many eyes met
hers across the pews with sad resignation, and many people
hugged her in lieu of hugging Ingrid. They knew that Marcella
Schmidt was one of David and Ingrid's closest friends.
'I just can't bear any hypocrisy today,' Marcella sobbed,
burying her face in her ex-husband's solid shoulder. 'Not
today, not for David. I want it to be real.'
'It's real, all right,' Harry said, gazing across at the empty
pew at the front of the church where Ingrid, Ethan and Molly
would sit.

Star felt Natalie's presence before she saw her: the tiny hairs
on her arms stood on end and the back of her neck prickled,
and then a slender girl with a waterfall of dark wavy hair
walked past, all bundled up in a grey woollen coat with a
striped scarf twined around her neck, half hiding her face. It
was like stepping back in time and seeing Dara's profile, the
same fine-boned nose and cheeks, the same determined chin,
the dark sweep of eyebrows winging back over huge dark
eyes. All of Star's composure left her and a lump swelled up
in her throat. This was Dara's child and she'd grown into this
beautiful young woman without Star witnessing any of it. She
thought of the promise Dara had made them all swear, and
she felt again how totally wrong it was. People had a right
to know where they came from. The past couldn't be wiped
out like chalk on a blackboard. Not knowing who you were

could rip a person apart just as surely as remembering a' painful past could. Maybe the time would come when Natalie would want to find out for herself. She really hoped so.
Funeral limousines were like coffins, Ingrid decided: bigger and with windows to the outside world, but still coffin-like. I Once you were in one, you were totally isolated. People could see you, but they didn't want to look, as if looking might award them a seat beside you and your pain. The funeral home had sent their most luxurious limousine and she sat in the back with Molly on one side, Ethan in the seat facing, and David's great aunt Babe on her other side.
Ingrid could barely cope with looking at her children's faces because of the devastation she saw there. Ethan was pale with grief under his tan, and Molly's eyes were a blur of red from crying. Ingrid wasn't sure how she looked - she'd made herself up carefully as a tribute to her beloved David, even though she'd wanted to hurl the cosmetics from the window at the futility of ever trying to look normal again, now that he was gone. She knew her hair was clean because she'd numbly gone through the motions of washing it earlier, and she knew the black Jaeger coat and soft felt hat were suitable, but beyond that, she didn't care how she looked. It shouldn't matter today, it might never matter again.
Her sisters, Flora and Sigrid, were in the limousine behind. 'Would you like to come in our car?' Ingrid had asked.
'No,' Flora had said, 'it should be just you and the children, Ingrid love. You in the first car, us in the second. That's how it's done.'
Ingrid didn't want to follow any ludicrous funeral etiquette today. She didn't want it to be just her and the children. It felt so lonely, so isolating, which was why Babe's being there was a blessing. Ninety-two and still going strong-spirited, Babe was physically frail, with a cloud of white hair and pink glasses with wings, not unlike those on the back of a Buick.She missed nothing and could be counted upon to speak her
most private thoughts out loud.
The family knew that Babe's eccentricity wasn't connected
to her age in any way. As David was fond of telling them,
she'd always been mad.
'The world has to take Aunt Babe on her own terms,' David
would laugh, describing how Babe had driven his grandmother crazy when they were young because she was forever misbehaving
at the tennis club and had a string of unsuitable
suitors and a motorbike by the time she was nineteen.
'She's as sharp as a tack,' David added. 'That charmingly
mad thing is part of her schtick, don't get taken in by it. She's
I had some life, I can tell you. If only we could get her to write I it down - but she's adamant that a lady never kisses and tells.'
I Today, Ingrid was simply grateful for Babe's presence, even I if she was wearing a floor-length astrakhan coat that smelled as if it hadn't been out of the wardrobe since its heyday in 1938. Because Babe was there, Molly and Ethan were trying hard to take care of her, and she was making them smile with
? endless stories of their father when he was young.
Babe was well used to funerals and had long since learned I that remembering the dead person's happier moments made the day pass more bearably.
I 'Ingrid, do you remember that time David and his friends pushed a bed all the way from Earlscourt Terrace out to Malahide for a bet?' asked Babe.
Ingrid shook her head. 'Before my time, Babe,' she said
softly.
'Oh, but he must have told you,' Babe went on merrily,
patting Ingrid's hand. 'It was him and his nice friend, Jonny
- you must remember Jonny, he had a bad leg and practically
no hair. Bald as a coot by the time he was twenty. Women
loved him, you know. No accounting for taste.'
The three mourners grinned.
Babe was the one who should have been on television, not

her, Ingrid thought. The old lady was doing a marvellous job
of making them remember better times, and all so subtly that
neither Ethan nor Molly appeared to realise they were being
distracted. Ingrid looked down at Babe's fragile, blue-veined
hand clasped in hers and thought that perhaps the old lady
had had the right idea after all. If you never tied yourself to
one man, you could never feel your heart break when that
man died.
But then you wouldn't have had the joy of having children
with that same man, and the children were the only thing
keeping Ingrid upright. Without them, she wasn't sure she
could have done this whole funeral thing. It all seemed so
horrendously pointless, so ... nothing. David was gone and,
no matter what anyone said to her, Ingrid couldn't escape
that.
She felt a frail hand on hers. Babe was looking at her, those
shrewd old eyes wet with tears. 'Chin up, my love,' she said.
'Although you'll hear it a million times from people who
didn't really know David, I can tell you: it's what he would
have wanted.'

Kitty Nelson - well, there was a sight for sore eyes! Star
thought with a grin. She hadn't seen Kitty for what felt like
a million years and yet she seemed virtually unchanged, still
walking with that sexy little sashay, still shoe-horned into a
figure-hugging outfit more suitable for lying on a piano in
Vegas than a funeral in Ardagh. Star watched with fascination
as Kitty tip-tapped her way up the centre of the church,
looking imperiously into pews to determine whether she'd
deign to sit there or not. She had a fox-fur around her shoulders
and one hand was toying with the fox's shrunken head,
flicking it this way and that as she progressed. Hurrying along
behind her was one of her daughters, Charlie, the one who
worked in Kenny's. The older one, Iseult, was a famous writer
and the image of her mother, so if she'd been here, there

would have been two women sashaying up the church in
improbably high heels, deciding where to sit. Once, after she'd
split from David, Star had been out with some friends and
seen Kitty with her daughters. Kitty hadn't noticed Star: of
course, if David had been with Star, Kitty would have noticed
her then.
Charlie had come across as a sweet little girl, gentle and
tentative and absolutely the wrong sort of child for a household
like Kitty's. In the battle between the sexes, Kitty had been
made in the Valkyrie mode: entirely at home in warrior breastplate
with a horned helmet, putting the fear of God into hapless
men. A thoughtful, anxious child would have curled up into a
ball with such a mother. Star's mother used to say that unborn
babies picked their parents for a reason. They chose the families
they went to because they had a lesson to learn in life. It
would be a tough lesson to learn with Kitty. Perhaps that was
why Charlie had those soft, hurt eyes Star had noticed when
she'd recognised her in Kenny's cosmetics hall.
She watched now as Charlie spotted some friends of hers
in the church and had the temerity to grab her mother and
steer her back to a pew Kitty had already rejected. Despite
the sadness of the occasion, Star grinned. Good for Charlie.

Charlie was crying: she always cried at funerals, no matter
who the deceased was. The combination of the sad music,
the sense of the assembled people wishing they could help
and knowing that they couldn't - it all touched her in such
a way that she wanted to weep.
Beside her, a jaunty black velvet hat atop her platinum whirl
of hair, Shotsy's whole body shook as she sniffled into another
tissue.
Shotsy was convinced that stress over having to sell to
DeVere's was what had killed David.
'Those bastards!' she'd said to Charlie. 'Look what they've
done to him!'

She felt guilty about having doubted his loyalty to his staff
too. 'I was bitching about him and he died, and after all he's
done for us.'
Charlie reached into her bag and plucked another tissue
from the packs she'd brought with her. The plus side of her
crying was that she always came prepared.
'What's wrong with her?' demanded an irritated voice on
Charlie's other side.
Charlie wished her mother hadn't accompanied her, but
Kitty wasn't about to be dissuaded.
'Of course I'm coming,' Kitty had snapped when Charlie
tentatively mentioned that the funeral would be attended by
close friends of the family and Kenny's employees, so Kitty
didn't need to come. 'You can drive me. But not in your old
wreck of a car. Borrow Brendan's. Better still, we'll get Iseult's
car.'
Charlie had driven Brendan's car. Iseult was uncontactable.
'Busy, busy,' muttered her mother approvingly.
Charlie had had to turn to her anti-gratitude diary for
consolation.

Iseult is busy when my mother can't reach her - I'm
being difficult when I don't return any phone call within
twenty minutes. Why?

'What's she so upset about?' Kitty asked loudly, gesturing
in Shotsy's direction. She lowered her voice a hint. 'Was she involved with him?'
Charlie closed her eyes and prayed for a thunderbolt to
take her mother. Please let nobody have heard. Her mother
had always been a nightmare, but at least she used to be a
semi-discreet nightmare. Clearly that was no longer the case.
'No,' she hissed. 'David wasn't like that, Mother. He was
a good man. Shotsy's upset because she cared about him. We
all did.'

'I was only asking,' Kitty sniffed, unperturbed. She leaned
forward for a good look, as if trying to work out whether
Shotsy might have what it took to be an important man's bit
on the side. 'You're probably right, Charlotte,' she added
thoughtfully. 'Too thin.'
Luckily, Shotsy only got the last bit.
'Who's too thin?' she asked.
Charlie shook her head to imply that it didn't matter.
She wished she could order her mother to leave the church
if she wasn't going to behave in an appropriate manner, but
since her mother had never behaved in an appropriate manner
in her entire life it was unlikely she could start now.

'It seems wrong to talk about it, but what happens to us
now?' asked Dolores as they filed slowly out of the church.
'Suppose it's down to Ingrid and the kids.'
The Kenny's staff all approved of Ethan and Molly. Both
had done lots of summer work experience in the store and it
was clear that they hadn't been brought up with silver spoons
anywhere near their mouths. Molly had worked with Shotsy
for two summers running, at the end of which Shotsy had
sighed and said there was nothing she could do with the poor
girl, for Molly had no interest in shoes, bags or clothes. 'Criminal,'
Shotsy had sighed. 'She could be pretty if she made a
bit of an effort, but she doesn't. I think she likes that unmade
up look. And as for second-hand clothes - well, that's fine if
it's all you can afford, but I don't think you can ever get the
smell of sweat off them.'
'I can't believe he's gone,' sobbed Lena beside them. Claudia
was holding on to her and trying to comfort her, but it was
no use. 'He was so kind,' Lena went on. 'Talked to me like
we were friends, real friends.'
Everyone looked sadly at her. They knew what she meant.
David Kenny had been special, there was no doubt about it.

Natalie could remember hearing a snippet of a radio programme
about country funerals in the old days. Everyone had gone to
'see the corpse', as it was called. Young or old, they all went
to offer sympathies and drink tea with the bereaved. The person
on the radio had talked about having to lean into the coffin
and kiss the forehead of the dead person, at which point Natalie
had groaned and switched channels. How horrible!

Molly's father's funeral would be her first. Or rather, the
first she could remember. Apart from that one snippet of radio,
all she knew about the procedure came from the TV or films.
Graveyards were the preserve of horror movies in which some
gang of stupid kids always ended up in the graveyard five
minutes before a curse made lots of desiccated hands claw
their way up from the earth beneath.

The church service had been sad but uplifting, with a choir
singing hymns she didn't recognise, and some lovely Russian
sounding peasant music that a man beside her had murmured
was John Taverner. The event had been so triumphant and
moving that everyone was smiling, even the people halfway
down the church who were crying as they remembered David
Kenny.

Outside in the bitter cold of the mountainside graveyard, it was a different matter. The wind raged around the mourners,
whipping up skirts and flattening hair. The ground around the
freshly dug grave was laid with sheets of fake grass, and Natalie
winced at how stupidly false it looked, as if a few bits of pretend
grass could fool everyone into thinking this was a soft green
bed, rather than a dark hole burrowing into the earth where
the coffin would lie before being covered with heavy black soil.

Even the things the priest was saying sounded wrong.

He was talking about eternal life and a journey to God's side.
Natalie loved the gentleness of Mass and the familiar words
she'd heard a hundred times before but here, in this churchyard
with Molly shuddering with tears, clinging to her mother and
brother, all of them looking as if their lives had been utterly


destroyed, this talk of life felt as wrong as the astro-turf beneath
their feet. David was gone. Did it matter that he was somewhere
else looking down? Who knew that for sure? They needed
him here, now, and he was gone. That was the reality.
As Natalie stood at the grave, it came to her: a memory
from some locked-off part of her mind. She had been to a
funeral before. And on that occasion too the wind had played
around the trees in the graveyard and the cold had cloaked
her. She'd been in her father's arms, clinging to him and not
looking down. She hadn't wanted to stand because she was
tired, and she could feel rather than see herself wearing a dark
green tweedy coat with a soft collar. Velvet, perhaps? And
there was a smell too, some perfume like musk and amber
mixed, warm and comforting. Her mother's perfume. Her
mother would kiss Natalie when she was wearing the coat,
and her perfume had sunk into it.
Natalie thought again about how not having a real mother
made her feel. It set her apart, even though Bess had been
such a rock all her life: steady, kind, loving and never, ever
claiming, 'I'm your mother.' No, Bess had judged that fine
line to perfection, something Natalie was old enough to see
now. It must be difficult to parent your husband's previous
wife's child and love them like your own.
Because Bess had got it right, there had never been a
moment in her teenage years when Natalie had screamed: You
can't tell me what to do, you're not my mother!
Now, as the wind made the stately poplars in the country
graveyard groan and bend, with the smell of actual earth
rising up from the ground, a powerful reminder of where the
body was ultimately going to lie, Natalie thought of another
grave with her real mother inside it.
The woman she'd never really known, the woman whose
memory was confined to a few photos in a frame in her childhood
bedroom, and whose perfume she could suddenly
remember after forgetting it for twenty years.

Her real mother had lived, breathed and danced, had given her life, and Natalie knew precisely nothing about her.
A deep shame rose up inside her at the thought. She knew
nothing about her mother, had never stood at her grave and
cried or prayed. Somewhere her real mother lay unmourned
and unloved while she, the person who should have mourned
her and loved her, had gone on with her life.
Natalie had never fainted before, so nobody was more
surprised than she when she began to tremble and pitched
forward on to the astroturf.
She was hardly aware of the woman caught who caught her,
a tall slender woman with pure white hair who wore a white
coat with a silk red corsage on her breast like a splash of blood.
Despite her age, the woman was surprisingly strong, and
she laid Natalie down to the ground gently, all the while
saying: 'It's all right, Natalie, my dear, you're safe.'
Natalie did feel safe, strangely, although she could still smell
the powerful scent of the earth, and know what it was like
to be her childlike self and cry at another grave. But from the
white-haired woman emanated an aura of calmness so strong
that it dowsed the pain.
Other people rushed to Natalie's side, so that the white-haired
woman moved away, not wanting to draw attention to herself.
The red silk flower had become unpinned and had fallen on to ;
Natalie's dark coat. Star Bluestone didn't want to pick it up. Let Natalie keep it. Star had probably worn it twenty years ago I
when she'd known Natalie's mother. Natalie looked so like her, the same wild, earthy beauty, the same air of vulnerability about her. On this awful day so redolent with pain and memories of what might have been, Star didn't want to look back any further. If only she hadn't made that vow to Dara, Star could have felt some peace. Now Dara's death and David's were tied up together
in a strange unsettled way. She hurried away with an overwhelming feeling of unfinished business about both deaths.

Charlie felt a murmur of shock run through the crowd at the
graveside. Someone had fainted. Beside her, reeking of smoke
and at least half a bottle of Shalimar, her mother wobbled
and had to grab Charlie for support. Charlie looked down at
her mother's ridiculously high heels, patent leather with ankle
straps and stilettos slender as masonry nails. Stupid footwear
for a funeral. No wonder she was wobbling.
The funeral party was so large that people were squashed
together in the graveyard, some standing on the low, stone
surrounds of other graves. Standing on actual graves was considered
positively blasphemous, but the little walls were fair game.
In order to see everything, Kitty had positioned herself on one
such wall and was peering over the sea of heads with interest.
Charlie thought that accidents were supposed to happen in
slow motion, but her mother falling over the gravestone
happened with such speed that Charlie thought she must have
imagined it. One moment, Kitty was standing beside her, long
painted fingernails playing with the sad, shrunken little head
on that awful fox-fur she'd worn; the next, she was on the
ground.
'Curse of the fox?' suggested Shotsy, before Kitty let off a
wail that left nobody in any doubt as to whether she'd been
injured.
'That sounds serious, actually,' Shotsy added.
Charlie nodded and girded her loins for helping her mother
up.
But there was no helping Kitty Nelson up.
'I've broken something, you stupid girl!' she shrieked at the
top of her voice. 'The pain!!! Get an ambulance.'

The doctor in casualty was pale-faced with tiredness. Under
normal circumstances, Charlie knew, her mother would be
advising YSL Touche ficlat for the bluey-purple shadows under
the woman's eyes. Kitty was good on make-up hints, wanted
or not. But it wasn't a make-up hint day.

'It's my bloody hip, you moron,' she roared, making the
poor doctor go even paler.
Charlie knew they were probably used to abusive drunks
in A&E, but not necessarily perfectly lipsticked older women
with genuine fox-fur collars swearing like navvies.
'Is your mother on any medication?' the doctor asked.
'I'm not an idiot!' shrieked Kitty, getting crosser by the
minute. 'You can talk to me, you know!'
Charlie could see exhaustion and anger flit across the
doctor's face, and anger won.
'We won't treat you if you're abusive,' she said firmly,
standing up straight. Behind her waited two nurses who had
already been on the receiving end of some of Kitty's treatment. None of them looked as if they recognised the stalwart
of the feminist movement, a woman who'd often grumbled
that she'd be Dame Kitty if she lived in a country where
honours were given for services to the State.
'I'm in pain,' Kitty whimpered. 'It's so bad -' She began to
cry.
The nurses relented. 'Pain makes us all angry,' one of them said gently.
Kitty nodded and grabbed Charlie's hand, an act so rare I
that Charlie nearly jerked her hand away with the shock. 'Stay with me,' she moaned, 'please.'
'I'm not going anywhere,' Charlie said.
She thought of Shotsy's fear of losing her mother. Charlie hadn't felt like that, and now she was being punished for it. Not loving your mother was an unnatural crime. Being there for Kitty was her penance.


Nine

Be kind to yourself. Love yourself. Nobody else is going to be able to if you don't first. Its a hard lesson, that one.


Six weeks later

The scent of disinfectant was making her eyes water and
Natalie was glad she hadn't bothered putting on mascara or
more than a little smudge of eyeshadow. The operating room
was clean, though, and she was proud she'd finished the job
so quickly.
Ts this your idea of a romantic date, Rory?' she demanded,
putting down the scrubbing brush and wiping the sweat off
her forehead with her arm.
'No,' said Rory, faking shock, 'this is more of a preamble.
On the real date, we're going to look at a few horse Xrays
and,' he lowered his tone to a gravelly whisper, 'I'll show you
the thing we use for removing cows' teeth. Romantic, huh?'
Natalie grimaced. 'No, don't. Please,' she begged. 'Let's
clean the place again first, - anything but cow dentistry!'
'Thanks for helping,' he added.
'You're not bad with a bucket and scrubbing brush,' Natalie

said, 'but you still don't have the female ability to clean at
speed and talk at the same time. I don't mean that women
are better at cleaning, by the way,' she added, 'just that you can multi-task. I know,' Rory said good humouredly.
'It's not an ideal date, but it's the best I can do.' They'd been
on several dates already and tonight, they had planned to go
to a movie and then on for dinner. Then Rory's partner had
been delayed on an emergency call to a valuable mare who was having trouble foaling and, at the last minute, Rory had had to cancel their date to fill in for him with some routine operations.
'Unless, you'd like to come and wait for me at the practice,' he'd said.
'I'd love it,' Natalie said truthfully. 'Can I come earlier and watch?'
As a farmer's daughter, she had seen many vets at work but had never watched one operate.
It was simple, Rory said: three sterilisation operations,
including one on a Jack Russell terrier who sat nervously in
her cage, her little pointed face peering up at Natalie. Natalie
reached in through the bars and stroked the dog's velvety ears.
It was fascinating to be inside the operating theatre,
watching Rory expertly inject sedative.
'Anybody can operate on humans,' he explained as he
waited for the anaesthetic to take effect, 'but only a vet is
legally allowed to operate on animals. Did you know that?'
Natalie watched as he carefully swabbed down the little
dog's pink belly with disinfectant before slicing through the
layer of skin and fat. She marvelled that his big hands could
be so gentle and nimble. Kind hands.
The operation was quick, as Rory swiftly found the dog's
uterus, a pearlescent pink organ, like a marble hidden in silky
folds, then clamped it off at both ends.
'I'd have loved to have been a vet,' she said wistfully.
'What stopped you?' he asked.

'I wasn't good enough at school. I'm dyslexic'
'There's a genetic link with that,' Rory remarked, expertly
sewing up the dog's belly. 'Do your parents have it, or your
brothers?'
'My dad doesn't, and Bess isn't my real mother,' she said.
'I mean, she's like my mum, but she's not, not biologically.' Rory took his eyes off his furry patient for the first time.
'What happened to your real mother?' he asked.
'She died when I was little.'
'That must have been hard,' he said.
Natalie nodded. She hadn't told him how she'd fainted at
Molly's father's funeral, coming to sitting in Lena's car, with
a nurse who'd been at the funeral checking her pulse and
recommending that she go to her GP to get a full checkup.
She'd ignored the advice. It had been a disturbing day, that
was all. Everyone was upset. She hadn't told anyone about
the thoughts she'd had just before she'd fainted.
It all sounded so mad - they'd have locked her up. No,
there was no point worrying people.
She reached out and stroked the anaesthetised dog's ears.
Her pink tongue lolled out the side of her mouth. Rory had
explained that tongue colour was a good sign of the patient's
stability. If a pink canine tongue went grey, you were in
trouble.
'Was your mother dyslexic?'
'I don't know,' said Natalie, and felt the shame again, the
shame she'd felt at the funeral when she realised she knew
nothing about her birth mother. She could almost smell the
earthy smell of the grave . . .
'You could ask someone if she was dyslexic - or would
that not be a good idea?' Rory said.
Natalie met his gaze. Rory had instinctively grasped that
there was more to this story.
'My dad has never told me about her,' she admitted, still
holding on to the dog's silky ears as if clutching a talisman.

'I didn't really ask, either. I knew it was somehow a taboo
subject.'

There, it was out in the open.

'And you don't know your mother's parents or any other
relatives you could ask?'

'My mother's father is dead and her only brother lives in
Australia. I've never met him, don't even know if I have
cousins on that side,' Natalie said. 'Dad's got brothers and
so does Bess - we've lots of family, and that always seemed
enough . . . I'm ashamed to say I didn't really ask about my
mum's side. Not that I didn't think about her, my real mother,
but you know, when you're a kid, you think people tell you
what you need to know. Nobody talked about her '

It was strange. Saying it out loud made it obvious. But Dad
and Bess had been such wonderful parents. Bess could have
won a Stepmum of the Year award. Natalie always hated watching Disney stories about wicked stepmothers, because
it was such a cliche. Hers was wonderful. Bess adored Natalie,
Joe and Ted equally. She'd treated all three of them exactly
the same, as if Natalie was as much her own as the two boys.
She wasn't the sort of woman to want her husband's first wife
consigned to the ether because she couldn't cope with the
competition. And Dad - he was one of the best men in the
world. He wouldn't have let Natalie's real mum disappear
without reason, would he?

'What was her name?' asked Rory.

'Dara,' said Natalie, smiling. She loved the name. 'I have
a couple of old pictures of her. She looked a lot like me.'

'So you do know something about your mum,' Rory said.

When he'd operated on the other two dogs, he began to
clean up and Natalie offered to help.

'No,' he said, 'really, you sit there and I'll do it.'

'Get me a mop,' Natalie commanded. 'If I want to have
the whole vet experience, I must do it properly.'

When they'd cleaned up both the theatre and themselves,


Natalie felt pleasantly tired and happy. Content, that was the
word. That was what she felt when she was with Rory.
'Will we give the cinema a miss and just have dinner?' she
said.
'I could cook at my place,' Rory offered.
Natalie smiled. 'I'd love that.'

The following evening being Friday, she had arranged to meet
up with Lizzie and the gang in town. Rory was on late call,
which meant he couldn't come and Natalie was almost
pleased. Not because she didn't want to see him; strangely,
she wanted to see him all the time, which had never really
happened to her before. No, she was pleased he wouldn't be
there because Lizzie behaved so oddly around him. It wasn't
that she didn't like him - nobody could not like Rory, Natalie
thought proudly. But Lizzie seemed to have a notion in her
head that Natalie could do better. And that made it uncomfortable
on the occasions when Rory joined them.
When Steve and Lizzie got married, Anna had predicted
that would put an end to them hanging out as a group.
'Married couples do different stuff,' Anna said with a certain
longing, which implied that when and if she and Dennis got
married, they wouldn't be sharing pepperonis with old friends,
they'd be doing married-coupley things like looking at houses
or poring over the Ikea catalogue or sitting at home watching
DVDs so they could save up for a deposit on a house.
But despite the wedding, Steve and Lizzie were not at home
in their flat discussing the merits of one type of mortgage over
another. They were gung-ho for nights out with their friends,
even though they seemed to be permanently broke.
Anna and Dennis weren't out with the gang because they
were both broke; not something that appeared to faze Lizzie.
'I've got thirty-five yoyos to last me until payday,' said
Lizzie, lifting her head from a detailed analysis of the contents
of her wallet.

'When's payday?' asked Mark, one of Steve's friends.

'An entire week away,' Natalie replied.

Mark grimaced.

'It's fine,' Lizzie said happily, 'my husband can lend me
some cash. What's mine is his and vice versa. Isn't that right,
Husband?'

Steve liked the 'husband' stuff and smiled affectionately at
her.

'That's right, Wife,' he said. 'I've got a hundred quid.'

'Yahoo. Where are we going?' Lizzie said enthusiastically.

'We're broke,' Natalie pointed out.

'Spoilsport,' said Lizzie. 'You'll be as bad as Molly soon.

Since Molly's father had died, she'd been staying with her
mother. Both Natalie and the cats missed her. The flat was
hardly enormous: two bedrooms, one bathroom with a decent
shower, and a living-room-cum-kitchen that had a claim to
the word cosy. But without anyone to share it with, the place
felt cavernous and lonely. The cats mewed piteously all the
time and had gone off their food, refusing to use their clever
timed feeding dish. They wanted a real live person at their
beck and call, opening packets of the most expensive cat food
and personally spooning it into their bowls. A few days ago
Molly had finally moved back, but she didn't want to go out
at all. Natalie had invited her to join them tonight for a
drink, but she didn't think there was much hope of her
showing up.

'The pair of you are turning into bloody nuns,' went on
Lizzie.

Natalie clenched her jaw. 'That's offending three groups of
people, Lizzie,' she said. The, Molly and nuns.'

'What do you care about nuns?' Lizzie was mutinous.

'I was taught by some very nice nuns, now that you come
to mention it, and so were you. And there's nothing wrong
with wanting to stay home on a Friday night, either. And
don't forget, Molly's father's just died.'


'Take it easy, will you - I didn't mean it like that,' said Lizzie. 'It's just, you know, you're no fun any more.'
'You're the expert on fun, now, is that it?' Natalie's eyes glittered dangerously. 'As it happens, I was out last night, with Rory.'
She didn't talk on the phone to Lizzie as much as she used to, so Lizzie didn't know how often she'd been seeing Rory.
'Where did you go?' asked Lizzie suspiciously, as if wanting to confirm that the date had been suitable.
'His place, for dinner,' said Natalie, feeling herself get angry. 'I stayed the night.'
Lizzie's mouth was a perfect oval. It was the first time Natalie had ever stayed with a man and not shared it instantly the next day with Lizzie.
'Hello.'
They looked up. It was Molly.
'You came, wonderful!' said Natalie.
'Hi,' said Lizzie brusquely. 'I'm going to the bar,' she added,
getting up.
Molly sat down beside Natalie, who squeezed her arm in
support. 'I can't believe you came!'
It was the first time Molly had been out since her dad had died. Natalie knew that six weeks of not going anywhere had
to be bad.
'I'm only coming out for a little while,' Molly said. 'I don't like leaving the cats, they're not used to it. They were so traumatised when I was away living with Mum. Sorry, I didn't mean that you haven't been looking after them.'
'No,' said Natalie. That's OK, I understand - they're your
babies.'
She noticed that Molly's fingernails were bitten down and the brown print dress that she wore now looked too big for
her.
'We're thinking of having something to eat,' Natalie said. 'Chicken and chips? Sausages in a basket? Maybe we should



go the whole cordon bleu hog and have burgers . . .' She was
trying to joke Molly into enjoying herself.
'Yeah, that'd be OK,' Molly said. 'It's noisy in here tonight.'
It was. The music had reached migraine-inducing levels and
there was a drinks promotion on in the pub. Stunning-looking
girls wearing lots of make-up, short skirts and Mexican hats
were rambling around trying to get people to try the booze.
'Do you want some?' Natalie asked.
'No,' said Molly, predictably. 'Not in the mood really.'
Mark, who was one of Steve's best friends, began talking
to Molly and Natalie, discussing a movie they all wanted to
see. Finally Natalie was able to sit back and relax, leaving
Mark to talk to her friend. It was like minding a child, she
thought, trying to take care of them until they were happy
enough to let go of your hand. Poor Molly, there was no
getting over her dad's death. It was the suddenness that hurt.
Bess, Natalie's stepmother, had said dying quickly was a
blessing for the person who died, but horrible for everyone
left behind. 'Nobody gets to say goodbye,' she said.
That's not the only way nobody gets to say goodbye, Natalie
thought. Watching Molly grieving for her father kept making
Natalie think about the mother she'd never known. She tried
to forget the day in the graveyard. It had been so embarrassing,
falling over like that at a funeral, as if she was trying
to draw attention to herself, when that was the last thing
she'd wanted. She didn't even know why she'd found the
funeral so upsetting. It wasn't as if she'd been bereaved
recently.
She tried not to think about it, except it came into her head
at night, particularly the nights when Molly went to bed early;
even though she closed the door of her room, Natalie could
hear her sobbing.
At the same time as she worried about her friend, Natalie's
mind kept going back to her own grief. She'd never cried for
her mother, had she?

'If you want to talk, I'm here.'
'No,' said Molly. 'I'm OK, really, thanks.'
Did talking work? Natalie didn't think so. It was like having
cups of tea when you were shocked, or a lie down - all
rubbish. None of it helped. Talking wasn't going to bring
Molly's father back. But Natalie wondered whether talking
might help bring her mother to life a little?
Molly and Mark seemed to be getting on well together. For
the first time in ages, Molly was actually smiling, and when
a waitress cruised by and handed out menus, she'd taken one.
Brilliant, thought Natalie, she might stay for food and then
she'll have had a night out, a night where she didn't sit at
home with the cats and stare blankly at the television, not
seeing anything. Natalie felt the weight of guilt lift from her
shoulders. These days, she felt guilty whenever she went out
with Rory or her friends because she hated to think of Molly
back in the flat alone, with only the cats to talk to.
'Oh my God, that new drink is amazing!' Lizzie threw
herself down on two bar stools opposite Mark, Molly and
Natalie. Her eyes were glittering and she was positively fizzing
with enjoyment and drunkenness. 'It goes straight to your
head - fabulous!' she giggled. She put her feet up on a third
bar stool. 'This is so comfortable, I could stay here all night.
No!' she roared, as someone else tried to take a stool off her.
'You cannot sit down here, I need the three of them.'
Natalie could see Mark and Molly looking at Lizzie with
distaste. It was something she hadn't noticed until the hen
night, when she'd tried to haul Lizzie out of the club and had
seen people move out of the way, looking disgusted at the
sight of this young woman absolutely out of her mind on
booze. It was horrible seeing that expression, on Mark's face
in particular. There was something not nice about having your
husband's best friend look at you in that way, Natalie thought.
Not that Lizzie was noticing.

As for the way Molly was regarding Lizzie with pity . . .
well, Molly and Lizzie had never entirely seen eye-to-eye.
'Move out of the way there,' said Steve, shoving Lizzie's
legs aside. He sat down on the last stool in the triumvirate
and she promptly put her legs across his lap. 'Cheap night
out,' he said, referring to the drinks promotion.
'Yeah,' said Mark uncertainly.
Steve didn't look drunk, Natalie noticed. He leaned down
and put a hand on his wife's forehead, as if taking her
temperature.
'How are you doing down there, mad woman?' he said.
'Fine,' she roared. 'Absolutely fine. Get me a couple more
of those drinks, Husband, I'm not done yet.'
'I think you're well done,' Steve said, laughing.
'No, I'm not,' said Lizzie. 'I want another one - no, make
that two more. Get her quick before she goes! Don't forget
we're saving - it's much better to get free drink.'
Steve dutifully got up to go in search of one of the Mexican
hatted women for more booze.
'You've had enough, you know,' Molly said coolly.
Lizzie propped herself up on her elbow and said, 'Don't be
daft! Besides,' her face grew grimmer, 'it's none of your business,
is it?'
Natalie cringed inwardly; Molly had been doing so well,
and now bloody Lizzie had upset her. But then Molly surprised
her, sitting up a little straighter and speaking in a voice that
reminded Natalie, strangely, of Molly's mother.
'Actually, it is my business because you're in my company
and I don't really want to be out for the night with someone
whose main aim is to open her mouth and have alcohol poured
into it. Why don't you just stay home with a bottle of vodka
and a central line?'
'Fuck off!' snarled Lizzie, and Natalie winced. 'I'll do what
I want.'
She began to get up and her face looked angry and

aggressive. Oh no, thought Natalie, she's going to try and
start a fight. But suddenly, Lizzie's balance went and she fell
off her low barstools on to the ground with a clatter. Mark
got up to help her and Molly turned to Natalie. 'You know,'
she said, 'it's quite nice to be out, but I just don't want to be
out with her. Do you think we can go somewhere else?'
Natalie looked down at where Lizzie was sprawled on the
floor, cursing and giving out and refusing to let kind old Mark
help her up.
'Go way, I'll do it myself. Stupid cow, none of her business
I can drink what I want.'
Her diatribe was aimed at everybody and nobody. She didn't
know what she was saying; she wasn't the person Natalie
knew and loved, she was somebody else.
Natalie grabbed her coat and her bag. 'You're right, Molly,'
she said. 'Let's go somewhere else.'
'Don't walk away from me!' shrieked Lizzie as they left.
'Hey, what's happening?' said Steve, on his way back from
the promotion girls with a tray of booze.
'Lizzie's not much fun tonight,' Natalie told him. 'We're
going somewhere else. Sorry, Steve.' She gave him a hug and
they left. Let Steve deal with it. Natalie wasn't taking responsibility
for her friend any more.

Lizzie phoned the next day, full of hangover and remorse.
'I'm really sorry, Natalie,' she said. 'Steve said I was an
absolute cow, to you and to Molly. I'm so sorry, I don't know
what got into me.'
'Well, that's funny,' said Natalie, 'because I know what got
into you - half a bucket of cheap drink, that's what.'
'Oh, for God's sake,' Lizzie said, remorse vanishing at high
speed. 'I've already had Steve going on at me all morning.
What's wrong with everyone? I was just having some fun.'
'Well, what's fun for you isn't fun for everyone else,' said
Natalie coldly. 'And I don't see why your brand of fun has

to always mean booze. There is no other fun with you these
days. You go out and get absolutely plastered. Show me the
fun in that for the rest of us? Clearly it's lots of fun for you,
but not for your friends.'
'It's harmless,' said Lizzie, sounding taken aback at the
harshness in Natalie's tone.
'It's not harmless. There's nothing harmless about it. You
behaved like a total bitch to Molly. That was her first night
out since her father died. We had to go off on our own because
we couldn't hang around with you lot. We might as well have
stayed at home.'
'Oh yes, staying at home,' sneered Lizzie. 'You're just like
a couple of crazy old lesbians in that flat with your cats.'
For a moment, Natalie thought of telling Lizzie that in
fact Molly's aunt was a lesbian and lived with her lesbian
partner, without the cats though. Then she realised, it wasn't
safe to tell Lizzie things like that. Molly had to be very careful
whom she spoke to about her family because of who her
mother was. The old Lizzie might have kept the information
secret. The new Lizzie, the one who wanted to get drunk
every night and couldn't remember who she was talking to,
wouldn't.
'Call me back when you're in a better mood or when you
really want to apologise,' Natalie said shortly, and slammed
the phone down.
Actually, she reflected, it wasn't as if there was a new Lizzie
all of a sudden. This Lizzie had been taking over her friend
for a long time, creeping in, bit by bit. This Lizzie was the
one who had been drunk at their Debs Ball, the big party
when they'd left school. This Lizzie was the one who had
snuck into Fresher's Week in college with Anna and Natalie
and got completely trolleyed on cheap wine made by the
microbiology department. This wasn't a new Lizzie, this was
the old Lizzie sliding slowly down.

Molly was in a -good mood when she woke up. 'Last night
did me good,' she said. 'Sort of nice to get out, not sit at
home with the box.'

'Lizzie phoned and sort of apologised,' Natalie said.

Molly shrugged as she put the kettle on to boil. 'It's not
her fault,' she said. 'She's an alcoholic'

'What!' Natalie nearly dropped the bowl of cereal she was
holding. 'She's not!'
'I'm sorry,' said Molly. 'I thought you knew.'

'No, she's my friend, she's just my age.' Natalie didn't know
what to say. Alcoholics were supposed to be old men in grubby
raincoats, who hung around outside early-opening pubs,
looking all grizzled and wrecked, dying for a drink in case
they started to see pink elephants marching down the street.
Not her beautiful friend.

'You can't work in the poverty sector and not see a lot of
that,' Molly said, matter-of-factly. 'Has anyone tried to get
her help?'

Natalie's mind was reeling. 'Get her help?'

'You know, get her into rehab or anything like that?'

'I don't know,' Natalie said. 'I never have.'

'Google alcoholism,' Molly said. 'See what you think then.
But just as a stranger's viewpoint, and remembering the state
of her when she woke up after her hen night, I'd say it's a
pretty good bet.'


Charlie had found that routine helped. Intense routines that
kept her from making fists with her hands and wanting to
punch all the cushions in the house. The morning routine
involved getting up earlier than usual and having a cup of
coffee on her own in the kitchen as she wrote a bit in her
gratitude diary. It was the only time in the day when she was
totally alone, and she was doing her best to relish it.

The' time was very important, so everybody told her. Apparently,
the key to me time was to be able to do your own thing


and have nobody making demands on you. Since this was
impossible in the average day, Charlie found that six in the
morning would have to be her me-time. Necessity was the
mother of invention.
She listened to music on the radio - on low since, if it was
noisy, it woke her mother - sipped her coffee and wrote:

Iseult is driving me mad, even madder than my mother. Yes, shock, horror - I know, I never say a bad word about her, but I swear, I will kill her if she doesn't stop
being such a cow and helps me.
I mean, how DARE she talk to me like that? I haven't
got time for this, Charlie, I'm busy. This is make-or
break time for me. I know you don't understand, but
you'll just have to manage on your own.'
How dare she? In six weeks, I have done absolutely
everything for Mother and Iseult has done precisely
nothing, except come into the hospital and make a big
fuss - as if Mother wasn't making a big enough fuss
already - and annoy the hell out of the staff, so that
everyone glared at ME for the whole time Mother was
in there. Fine, the hospital wasn't the Ritz-Carlton but
what hospital is? And the nurses were brilliant. OK, the
hip man talked to us like we were a bunch of three-year
olds, but still, they were doing their best. All that talk
of helicoptering her to somewhere else and about how
Iseult had a friend in the private hospital up the road,
and how fabulous that was, did nothing but get people's
backs up. And it was all rubbish anyway - if Iseult was
going to helicopter her somewhere else, why the hell
didn't she? Because it was just talk, that's why. That's
all Iseult does, talk about stuff. There's no followthrough.
And now Mother is much better, but she's still using
the crutch and there's no plan for her to go home yet

because she's so weak. So we're stuck with her, and I
may kill her.

Hip breaks, the consultant had explained when it was established
exactly what had happened, were more likely when the
patient got older and had less bone density. Smoking was a
prime factor. He'd looked sternly at Kitty as he said this, but
Kitty had looked back at him with an insouciance Charlie
knew too well.
The doctor was short, balding and generally ordinary
looking. Had he been a Dr Kildare lookalike, Kitty would have
been batting her eyelashes and murmuring, 'Yes, Doctor,' in
breathy tones and implying that she only smoked occasionally.
'After sex,' she might add meaningfully.
Charlie was grateful that they'd at least been spared that
particular scene.
There had been nobody to flirt with in the hospital, which
meant her mother was even more irritable than usual. Flirting
suspended normal behaviour and if the flirtee reciprocated,
Kitty would remain in a post-flirtal happy mood for quite a
while.
But flirty men were thin on the ground. There was the
Polish cleaner who spoke little English and looked alarmed
when the woman painting her lips red began to make eyes at
him and murmur about getting her pillows plumped up. There
were male patients in the next ward, but they all looked as
if they were on their last legs and Kitty stared at them with
disgust when they shuffled past her ward, slippers flopping
on the lino.
There was one male nurse, but according to Kitty there
was something emasculating about a man being a nurse.
Then are doctors,' she said, 'not nurses.'
'That's sexist,' Charlie pointed out. 'You fought against
sexism and the glass ceiling.'
'That was for women,' her mother retorted crossly.


''That's even more sexist,' dared Charlie, and it was a
measure of how tired her mother was that she didn't instantly
contradict her.
There were herds of young male doctors roaming around,
but they were all too exhausted and busy to notice freshly
applied red lipstick or batting eyelashes, and when they stood
at the end of Kitty's bed and discussed her case, they focused
on medicine instead of the person.
The only other man on the premises was the priest, a spindly
man named Father Farrar, who was thinness personified and
had a saintly expression on his face.
Priests were among the small minority of men for whom
Kitty had no time. They weren't supposed to flirt, so what
was the point of them?
The third time Father Farrar made an attempt to give Kitty
Holy Communion, she threw her magazine at him.
'I'm not interested in being converted to your man-god,'
she screeched. 'Come back to me when He lets women into
the club!'
Charlie paled. Father Farrar took a few steps backwards,
and a nurse came in and hauled the curtains around Kitty's
cubicle at high speed.
'Now, Mrs Nelson, we've talked about this,' the nurse said.
'It's not fair to Father Farrar or to the other patients. If you
don't want him near you, that's fine. But no shouting.'
'I did tell him not to come near me again,' Kitty said, shrugging.
'He's the one you should be telling off, not me.'
Visitors made her worse, bringing out the more flamboyant
side of Kitty's personality.
Hospitals in the old days let patients have fun, Kitty
muttered, with little parties and a blind eye turned to bottles
of Scotch being smuggled in with the grapes.
Gwen, an old campaigning friend who arrived with another,
quieter lady called Fiona, had a cache of stories from the past.
She turned up in the hospital bearing library books, a

trailing ivy with dusty leaves, and a bottle of something the
colour of pee that was clearly home-made, alcoholic and probably
dangerous.
'Gwen!' shrieked Kitty with a delight she'd never shown
when Charlie arrived with grapes, chocolate biscuits and a
new talking book for her mother's CD player.
'Kitty, my love!' Gwen threw herself and her belongings on
to the narrow hospital bed and had it not been for Charlie
making a grab for the bottle, it would have smashed into
pieces on the floor. 'Look at you! What have they done with
you?'
Gwen had been on the 1970s contraception marches, at a
few French riots, and had even lived in a commune in West
Cork for a few years until someone nearly died of listeria
from home-made cheese and an absence of refrigeration, and
social services had become involved. Gwen was fond of crumpled
linen clothes, henna in her hair and perfume that managed
to combine the scents of a Moroccan souk with full-strength
YSL Poison.
'I hope they're giving you decent drugs.' Gwen poked
around on the small side table looking for jars with skulls
and crossbones on them.
'Nothing decent at all,' said Kitty. 'Painkillers that wouldn't
knock out a mouse. Now come and sit on the bed, Fiona,'
she said to the quieter lady. 'Charlotte will get us coffee or
tea.'
Not Please could you get us coffee or tea.
'Of course,' Charlie said automatically. She felt a brief stab
of pain at being pushed to the sidelines again. If Iseult were
here, her mother would have embarked on the litany of Iseult's
latest triumphs. Charlie was ordered about like a waitress.
She spent ages getting drinks and when she came back, her
mother was telling Gwen and Fiona a dirty joke.
'And then he said, "Madam, that's not where I was going
to put the thermometer!"'

The three women cackled. Together, they were like the
witches in Macbeth, only scarier.

When Kitty came home from hospital, things had got worse.
At least in hospital, Charlie had been able to leave the premises.
Not so any more. She was a prisoner with a very bad
tempered jailer. As there was no need for Kitty to put on
make-up in the morning and nobody to be bright and chatty
with, she lapsed into irritation twenty-four seven. Charlie,
who'd taken leave from work to look after her, bore the brunt
of it.
Without her make-up, Kitty looked her age and then some.
The fall hadn't shocked her, but being confined to bed and
being unable to get around had. Charlie realised how accustomed
she was to seeing her mother in full war paint.
Six weeks on, Kitty was supposed to be much more mobile,
but she wasn't improving as quickly as she should be - partly
because she hated physiotherapy and often refused to go.
'Charlotte,' she roared now, breaking into Charlie's precious
early-morning me time.
Charlie sighed and got to her feet. Hello day.
'I want my tablets,' Kitty said when Charlie entered her
bedroom. 'Then I need my hair washed. It's dreadful. In fact,
I need it set. That place on Shop Street might be capable of
doing it,' she added.
Kitty hated Ardagh. She said it was a provincial town with
pretentions just because it had a department store like Kenny's
there.
The city, now that's where it was at. People could be themselves
in a city, could live wild, vibrant lives and not be
shackled by other people's perceptions.
Since when were you shackled by other people's perceptions? Charlie would have liked to ask, but didn't. She couldn't
face the inevitable fallout.
'Chloe's, that's the hair place on Shop Street,' Charlie said.

She loved Chloe's. It wasn't as elegant as the tiny salon on
the third floor of Kenny's, but it was great fun. The owner
was a fabulous man named Gordon, whom people thought
was gay because he wore a brooch and made camp hand
movements. Gordon had told Charlie he was heterosexual but
women preferred gay hairdressers. 'The business took off
when I changed the name and put the picture of the kitten
with eyelashes and a feather boa on the sign,' he said. 'Camp
is comforting, and that's what beauty's all about, isn't it?
Comfort.'
Charlie still wasn't entirely convinced. Gordon was so good at being camp. There was no sense he was putting it on, just
a feeling that he was totally at home wearing vintage brooches
in the shape of salamanders, with a red spotted scarf sticking
out from under the collar of his shirt.
'Chloe's - yes, that's it. Stupid name for a hairdresser's. I
suppose I don't need an appointment?' Kitty assumed that
any establishment catering to the yokels of Ardagh would
hardly require advance booking.
Charlie had half a mind to let her mother trail in only to
be sent packing, but then she knew that would only mean
she'd have to trek downtown again when they'd made an
actual appointment. 'You have to book,' she said evenly. 'I'll
phone later.'
'Phone now,' demanded her mother.
Charlie counted to ten. 'It's half six, Mother,' she said. 'I'll
phone at nine.'
Chloe's had an appointment available at ten that morning
and at twenty to, Charlie duly drove her mother to the door.
She would have liked to sit at a mirror and have Gordon
fuss over her, clucking at the state of her hair, ordering a treatment
on the house, drinking latte with caramel syrup spirited
over from Kool Koffee next door.
But having her mother beside her would take the gloss off
the experience. It was bad enough to have Kitty in Chloe's in

the first place, annoying people with her negative energy,
peering down her nose at the place like a cardinal who'd been
teleported into a whorehouse.
'Mum's a bit - miserable,' she said tactfully to Gordon.
'She broke her hip and, even though she's mobile now, she's
in a lot of pain. Don't mind her if she's grumpy.'
'Fine, love, no problem. We'll look after her,' Gordon said.
He was wearing a spider brooch today, modelled on one the
Duke of Windsor had purchased for the Duchess from Carrier.
His fine-knit sweater was lemon yellow and his shoes looked
suspiciously like ballet pumps, half-implying that he might
pirouette across the salon at any moment. 'Sure you don't
want to wait, have something done?'
Charlie smiled and shook her head. 'I don't have a moment
to myself, Gordon,' she said. 'This is the only chance I'll get
to run some errands.'
She did the grocery shopping, dropped off some dry
cleaning, took one of her mother's handbags to the repair
shop, and paid a few bills in the post office, before racing
back to Chloe's with a fine sheen of sweat on her skin.
She was expecting her mother to be in the inevitable mood,
but when she walked in, a newly happy Kitty beamed back
at her.
'Isn't Gordon a marvel!' she trilled, twisting her head to
admire the Medusa curls that clustered delicately around her face, framing it. Gordon had applied colour, too: a softening chestnut with paler hints in it to flatter Kitty's skin.
'Lighter strands around your hairline, that's the answer,' Gordon was saying, tweaking a curl here and there.
Charlie was shocked at how angry she felt. How dare her I
mother come in and annex Gordon! She had no right, he was
Charlie's friend.
At home, Kitty went off to her room to admire herself and
Charlie phoned work to see what was happening.
Since she'd had to take so much time off, Charlie felt she


was missing out-on the events in Kenny's. In the first weeks
after David's death, everything had continued as normal, apart
from the fact that David himself wasn't there. Everyone said
that the systems he'd put in place operated seamlessly and
the store ran itself. Tom, the store manager, had stepped into
David's shoes with Lena as his second-in-command.
'It can't last,' Shotsy explained on the phone. 'Sales are
definitely down, like pretty much everywhere else in the luxury
market. They're going to have to sell, but Ingrid hasn't been
in to talk to anyone yet.'
Both women were silent at the thought. Ingrid had phoned
Tom and Stacey, but she'd been too grief-stricken to actually
venture in.
'Tom's going to see her, though, to talk.'
'How horrible.' Charlie shuddered. 'Coping with your
husband's death and his business being in trouble at the same
time . . .'
'I hope we still have jobs at the end of it all,' Shotsy added.
'I know, but it seems awful to be thinking that way,' Charlie
said. 'We can find other jobs, but Ingrid can't find another
David, can she?'
At lunchtime, Iseult arrived and Kitty's mood improved
even more.
'Hello, girls,' Iseult said, dumping a bag from the delicatessen
on to the table, along with an orchid in a china pot,
and a stack of magazines.
Nobody could ever call Iseult anything but generous.
She hugged Charlie warmly, before picking up the orchid
and giving it to Kitty.
'Flowers for a flower,' she said, and Kitty smiled a smile
that made her look lit up from the inside.
Charlie stared at her mother, wondering how on earth Iseult
did that. Was it the things she said, or the way she said them?
Or was it simply that Iseult had a better relationship with
their mother than Charlie could ever achieve?

'Your hair is fabulous, Mother,' Iseult went on.
'I know, it's lovely,' Kitty said, preening. 'Had it done in a
little place here. I can't believe what a good job they did.
From the outside, it looks like a bit of a dump, but they can
do hair.'
Charlie stifled anger on behalf of both Chloe's and Gordon.
'You look marvellous, too, love,' Kitty said to her elder
daughter.
Iseult was tall, leggy and had long hair bleached to Scandinavian
goddess standard. Tumbling blonde curls were her
trademark, involving much time with heated rollers. She was
also, like their mother under normal circumstances, heavily
into grooming and never appeared without nail lacquer,
mascara and shaped eyebrows tamed with a hint of wax.
'Thanks, sweetie. I'm parched,' Iseult said, opening the
fridge and looking inside. 'I could kill a cup of tea. Or even
a drink. Have you any wine open?'
'In this house?' Kitty was scathing. 'Divil a bit. There's a
decent red in that cupboard by the back door.'
Which Brendan bought ages ago and which we were saving,
Charlie thought with annoyance, but said nothing.
The wine was opened, tea was made, a packet of handmade
delicatessen cheese biscuits unwrapped, along with lots
of delicious antipasti. And all the while, Iseult entertained
them with stories about her new play.
The backers weren't theatre people at all, but what was
known as theatre angels - rich do-gooders, brought in to keep
a production going. They hadn't a clue what it was all about.
They thought being involved in the theatre meant wall-to
wall fun and late nights at the Trocadero trading stories about
great plays. In reality, it meant mixing with anxious, jumpy
actors who worried over their lines, their roles and their direction,
and needed lavish amounts of ego-boosting.
There was some fun, Iseult added, explaining how Edwin,
the director, had a passion for the female lead's understudy,

which was making the lead very cross. And then some screw
up with wardrobe resulted in five corseted gowns needing to
be remade from scratch.
'They're raw silk, they cost a fortune, and they're all tiny.
None of them would fit a child, even with the laces fully
extended. Jennifer, that's the leading lady, tried hers on just
to see, and of course her tits burst out over the top. Then,
Iarlath, who plays her son in the play and who is a nightmare when it comes to women, says he's going to rouge her
nipples. He grabs a stick of greasepaint and goes for it. We
all laughed like drains, but the costume woman's new and
she was white as a sheet watching Iarlath drooling as he tried
to rub the greasepaint on, and all the stage hands crowded
round like a shot, and someone had a camera phone, so
Jennifer's screeching that she turned down photoshoots in the
lads' magazines and she's not going into them with red tits
on some dodgy camera-phone picture. Leo, who's playing her
husband, and who can't stand Jennifer, says the magazines
would need to be paid to feature Jennifer's tits, and then
Edwin, the director, has to take her off to the pub to console
her and tell her she's fabulous, wonderful, etc, etc. And it all
delayed rehearsals by another two hours.'
'I wish I'd acted,' sighed Kitty dreamily.
'You'd have been great, Mother,' Iseult obliged.
'I'd have loved the costumes.'
'And the red nipples,' said Iseult, laughing.
'God, yes!' roared Kitty, and the pair of them were off,
giggling with delight.
When lunch was over, Charlie tidied up around them and
felt a certain relief when her mother went outside with her
wine glass and an ashtray for a post-prandial cigarette.
Iseult patted the chair beside her and motioned for Charlie
to sit down.
'Are you doing OK?' she asked gently.
'Yes,' Charlie fibbed. Then, 'No, not well at all, actually.

Mother is not going to win any patient of the year awards
and she's '
Iseult interrupted. She did it all the time, too eager to say
her piece to let others finish theirs. 'Yes, but she's still in pain,
Charlie, and think how hard it must be for her to have her routine broken. This is a vision of mortality, too, don't forget that. Imagine falling and having bones break: the vision of
the future it presents is simply terrifying.' She drew breath,
but before Charlie could intervene, she was off again. 'It's
fascinating, don't you think? It's a story that has to be told,
of old age and all it represents. I'm working on a screenplay
on that precise subject. Well, it's very rough right now, but
the germ of the idea is there. Crash! Your life changes, you
start to recognise the prospect of ageing, the familiar routines of your life are ripped asunder . . .' Iseult was no longer seeing
her sister. Her eyes were shining, focused on a distant point
in her imagination.
'Iseult,' interrupted Charlie, 'I know all that. I am being
totally understanding, but my routines are being ripped asunder
too. It's hard for us all. It would be great if Mother could stay
with you for a while. I can't take any more time off work.'
'Well, I certainly can't. It's out of the question. I'm so manically
busy,' said Iseult. Suddenly, for Charlie, it was like being
a child again.
Three years wasn't a big difference when you were a grownup, but to a child, it was for ever. Iseult had given up playing
with baby dolls and dolly nappies and pretend feeding bottles
by the time Charlie got into them.
'That's for kids,' Iseult would sniff, wrapping a bit of a
skirt around a svelte Sindy doll with long legs, a waspie waist
and plastic breasts moulded like smooth mountain peaks.
When Charlie eventually inherited Sindy, Barbie and their
by-now tattered wardrobes, Iseult was only interested in her
own wardrobe and what to wear to impress the boys in
her class.

Whatever Iseult was doing took precedence over everything else. Iseult's first State exams plunged the Nelson household
into a quiver of anxiety. When Charlie was doing the same
exams, her mother told her: 'Exams aren't everything, for
heaven's sake. You're only fifteen, Charlotte. It hardly matters
at this stage.'
Now they were adults and nothing had changed.
Iseult could be very entertaining, and she was at least interested
in Charlie, Brendan and Mikey in a way that their
mother never could be. Yet there was always a slight undercurrent
that her life and her exploits were far more important.
Charlie always felt that Iseult's interest was a benign
fascination with those less blessed than herself in both the
brains and the success department.
There was no way Iseult could take their mother in; Charlie
must do it - that was her role.
It was hard to hold in the anger and the hurt, but Charlie
managed bravely. What was the point in fighting with either
Iseult or her mother? They didn't count her or her life as
important. It would take an earthquake in their lives to change
that.
Late that night, when everyone was asleep, Charlie sat up
in bed and wrote some more in her gratitude diary.

I want it to matter to my mother and my sister that
I have a husband I adore who adores me, and a son who
lights up my world. That's something precious and I need
them to understand.

Charlie stopped writing. This stupid journal suddenly
seemed so hopeless because nothing had changed since she'd
started it.
Perhaps her mother and Iseult would never understand.
Never, ever. It wasn't as though Charlie could beat it into
their heads. It was impossible to change what other people

thought. The only thing she could alter was herself and how
she dealt with them. Forget about changing other people: you
can't. You can only change yourself.

My mother is right: I am stupid. I've spent years
thinking I could change her, and I can't. How dumb is
that? I'm going to stop now. Stop writing and stop
hoping. She is who she is. If she doesn't like me - even
writing it felt strange, prickly - then she doesn't like me.
I can't do anything about that. There's no law that says
your mother has to love or even like you, is there?
Iseult's the same. To her, the only important life is
hers. That's always been the way it is. How do I change
forty-something years of conditioning? The answer is: I
can't.

There was something very freeing about writing this. As if
giving up trying to fix the problem was the only answer. Let
it go, as Shotsy might have said. Charlie decided to give it a
try.

Ten

Live for now. Not for tomorrow or yesterday. Now. You don't know what will happen tomorrow, and yesterday is gone, so all you have is this moment. Enjoy it.

Marcella hated Mondays: waking up early after luxuriating
in bed at the weekend, having to rush through all the little
pleasures like having her morning tea staring out at the sea
from her top-floor apartment with its vast picture windows.
The traffic on the way to work was always hell, full of men
in slower cars who felt their masculinity threatened by a
woman in a seal-like grey metallic BMW. They cut her off at
the lights and glared at her with irritation. A motorbike courier
gave her a two-fingered salute when she got stuck on a yellow
traffic box and he had to manoeuvre illegally to get past her.
'Right back at you, asshole,' Marcella growled.
There was so much negative energy about Mondays. She
was willing to bet that none of the world's greatest minds
had ever done anything brilliant on a Monday. Nobody ever
mentioned when Einstein had put the finishing touches to his
Theory of Relativity, or when Marie Curie discovered radium.
But it definitely wasn't on the first day of the week.
The mood didn't improve in the offices of SD International.

When she opened the door of the normally immaculate foyer
of the Georgian building, she saw a disaster zone. The soft
blue rug - a murderously expensive hand-made thing with
the company logo of a maple leaf - was crumpled up by the
wall, dripping wet, and the wooden floor itself was a shallow
pond with soggy newspapers floating like lilypads. Marcella
absently hoped they weren't today's papers, then reality
asserted itself.
Julie, the usually beautifully turned out receptionist, was on
her Wolford-clad knees with a towel, fruitlessly trying to stem
the deluge. The water was at least three inches deep. Julie's
stockings and the bottom half of her skirt were sopping wet.
'What happened?' asked Marcella, standing just outside the
door to avoid the water.
'Something burst - a pipe, I don't know,' wailed Julie, stopping
her mopping. 'I came in at eight as usual to find this. I
don't know where it's coming from.'
'Did you phone the maintenance company?'
'Yes, they say they can't be here until after eleven.'
More negative energy zoomed around the room. Marcella
growled for the second time that day, rolled up her charcoal
grey trousers to mid-calf, removed her spindly heeled boots
and socks, and walked into the wet. It reached her ankles and
was like stepping into a freezing puddle.
Reaching the reception desk, she checked to see if the water
had got as high as the plug sockets. It hadn't. That was one
blessing.
She found the directory, flicked through it to find the maintenance
company's number and got through in an instant.
The man at the other end of the phone didn't sound too
worried about it all.
'Arra sure, we'll be there at eleven and we'll have it sorted
out. It's the age of the building, you see. Old pipes and
whatnot. You'd have had to rip it all out and start from
scratch to make sure this type of thing didn't happen.'

Marcella had a mental vision of him sitting back in a
chair, scratching his belly, enjoying giving the usual lecture
on old buildings and plumbing that he reserved for female
callers. She wouldn't have been surprised if part of it included
the phrase: 'Don't worry your pretty little head about that,
love.'
'We did rip it out and start from scratch,' said Marcella in
an icy-cold voice. 'Three years ago. I know, because I wrote the cheque. I write the cheques for your company too, the retainer that says you get someone here immediately in an emergency situation. The water will reach the electricity sockets soon and when somebody is electrocuted, I'll be the one suing your company for failing to respond as per your contract. What do you think the insurance company will pay out for a dead person?'
'.. . er, well. . .'
'It's eight thirty. I expect someone here within the hour,' ' Marcella finished, and hung up.
'You'll have to teach me how to do that,' Julie said from
the floor.
'That wasn't a very good demonstration,' Marcella sighed.
'I slightly lost my temper, and you lose any moral high ground
if you do that.'
'But still -' said Julie. 'I'm sending my boyfriend over to you later so you can tell him that survey about how working
women still do all the housework.'
'Can't use the vacuum cleaner?' Marcella said, making her
way to the stairs.
'I'm not sure he knows we have one.'
'Two options, Julie . . .' Marcella sat on the third step and began putting back on her boots. 'You can tell him to pack
his bags, but it's better to work with him on the issue of
cleaning the house and sharing it a bit more. Explain that it's
important to you and reach some sort of compromise.'
'You mean I shouldn't sit him down and give him the

ultimatum?' Julie looked surprised. Her favourite magazines
were very keen on dumping the wrong guy instead of wasting
time on him. Dump Mr Wrong and find Mr Right.
'Ultimatums never work. Compromise does.' Marcella
zipped up her second boot. 'If you love him and he loves you,
you'll work it out. But you may have to live with it. I don't
know if you can really change anybody. You have to decide
whether it's worth it to stay with them and their faults, or to
be without them.'
As she made it to the sanctity of her office, she wished that
someone had said that to her when she was Julie's age.
Compromise was a dirty word back then. Arguments were
all about standing up for your rights and reading the riot act
to any man who dared to argue. Poor Harry, her ex-husband,
had felt the brunt of her Alexis Colby impersonation many
times. Her life might have been different if a wise older woman
had explained the true facts of life to her years ago. It was
too late for her now.
She sat down at her desk and made her daily phone call
to Ingrid.
'Hello, what are you up to?' she said cheerily, much as she
did every day.
She'd learned early on that the cliched 'How are you
feeling?' was a disaster; after all, how could Ingrid be feeling?
'I feel terrible!' Ingrid had shrieked at her one day and
Marcella didn't know what was the more shocking: to hear
her friend cry out in such obvious pain or the fact that Ingrid
hadn't managed the careful bereaved person's lie: 'Yes, I'm
fine.' She wanted Ingrid to be honest with her and yet it was
still hard to hear such honesty.
'What am I up to? Not much,' said Ingrid dully.
Nobody hearing her on the phone would recognise her as
the country's bright, intelligent top broadcaster any more.
'Tom, David's second-in-command, is coming over,' she
added. 'I can't bear to have to deal with it, but I've got to.'

'OK,' said Marcella, stuck for words, an almost unheard
of occurrence, as Harry would say.
'Would you like me to come by later?'
'No.' Ingrid's tones were still lifeless. 'I'm fine. Better off
on my own. Besides, if I'm up to it, I'm going into the store
in the afternoon, and then and Sigrid insists on taking myself
and the kids out tonight before Ethan goes away, which I'm
not really in the mood for, so I'd be no company, to be frank.'
Marcella hung up, feeling a powerful relief that she'd never
loved anybody the way Ingrid had loved David. To witness
such naked grief was like standing beside someone with their
skin blistering and burning, and yet feeling no pain apart from
mild heat at being close by. If that was love for you, then it
was better that she was on her own. Better that it was too
late for her to fall in love.

On Sky News that morning, there had been footage of a storm
in the Pacific. Shots of exotic trees bent double by the wind,
and houses tumbled into debris. Those poor people, Ingrid
said out loud, and then realised she'd said it automatically.
She didn't feel it. She didn't really feel sorry for them because
she was too numb from her own sorrow.
And still, life was going on for other people. They got up
every morning, laughed as they listened to the radio, kissed
their loved ones goodbye, bought chocolate at lunch and said
to hell with the diet, went out with friends, talked loudly,
drank red wine, curled up safely in their beds.
While Ingrid's life had stopped with a crash as if she'd hit
a brick wall.
Just as the human mind struggled to assimilate the notion
of infinity, Ingrid knew she couldn't cope with the idea of a
world without David. His absence was too huge.
What would she do for the rest of her life without him?
It would have been different if the children were still
small: then, she'd have had a reason for getting up every day.

Mothering, being the lioness guarding her cubs, she could
have done that.
Being the mother of adult children was different. Her children
were able to get on with their own lives and come to
terms with their grief on their own. Ethan had dealt with it
the way he'd dealt with all emotional crises since he was a
child - he rushed into the rest of his life to fill up the space
where his father used to be.
He went to parties, gigs, out to clubs with friends. He spent
hours on the computer in his room or playing with his Wii,
with only the rumble of music from his bedroom as a sign
that he was there.
For a while Molly had moved back into her old room at
home, leaving Natalie minding the cats. She'd kept order in
the house because Ingrid was no longer able to.
When Ingrid couldn't sleep at night, a common occurrence,
she sat up and watched Sky News and CNN, searching for
worse and worse stories because only then could she rationalise
her own suffering.
Other people lost loved ones, in bombs or storms or
famines. They had to cope, so she must too.
Only when dawn crept into the sky was Ingrid finally able
to sleep, which meant she didn't come downstairs till noon,
bleary-eyed and exhausted.
Molly had taken compassionate leave, and when that was
over, she used some of her holidays so she wasn't at work all
the time.
'I'm going in for half a day,' she'd said one day at noon,
when Ingrid was standing in the kitchen in her dressing gown,
stuck halfway between the coffee maker and the fridge,
wondering what she needed to do next. Even making coffee
presented too much choice.
'Is Ethan about?' Ingrid asked. She'd heard the deep rumble
of his voice in the kitchen, just before she came downstairs.
But now there was no sign of him.

'He's gone out,.' Molly said quickly.
Ethan was avoiding her, Ingrid realised.
'He's keeping out of my way,' she said tearfully on the
phone to her sister, Flora. 'It's as if he thinks it's my fault
somehow, that I should have looked after David better, or
realised he was ill. . .'
'Ethan loves you, Ingrid,' said Flora gently. 'He doesn't
blame you in the slightest, I know that. You know that really.
I think the problem is that he can only cope with his pain
and not yours too.'
Ingrid had been stunned. It was true, she realised. Her grief
was so overwhelming, people backed off from it. Only the
staunchest friends were able to go the distance, and Ethan
simply wasn't experienced enough to do it.
That was when she realised why Molly had moved home:
not for comfort from her mother, but so she could give comfort
to her mother.
The ultimate role reversal.
Despite being grateful for dear Molly's love, Ingrid felt
another weight settle painfully on her shoulders. She wasn't
the feisty mother lioness any more, she'd become a burden
to her cubs, needing their protection.
She told Ethan and Molly she wanted to talk to them over
dinner one night, and roused herself enough to cook properly
instead of heating yet another microwave dinner and
leaving it half-eaten.
She made roast chicken, stuffing and roast potatoes, and
when she cried as she was making it, she turned the news on
loudly so she could dose herself with more there-are-otherpeople-worse-off
therapy.
She opened a bottle of wine, put out her favourite red
napkins, and rearranged the position of the table in the
kitchen, pushing one end against the wall, so that the empty
space where David used to sit was not so obvious. This is
our new family unit, she was trying to say without using

words. She didn't accept it herself, but it was time to do a little mothering and help her children believe it.

'You need to go back to your apartment,' she told her
daughter firmly. 'We have to move on, Molly.'

Ingrid hated it when people said that to her - move on.
Like David's dying was a little blip in her life instead of the
biggest agony she'd ever lived through. Move on from the
man she'd loved for over half her life? What an insult.

But those words could be useful. 'I'm fine, Molly - well, as fine as I can be,' Ingrid amended.

'I like being here, Mum,' Molly protested.

'I like having you here, my love, but you've put your life on
hold and you know Dad, he'd have hated that. He was so
proud of you in every way and he'd want you to go on living,
not staying here trying to keep me on the straight and narrow.'

Molly half laughed, half cried. She nodded.

'And Ethan, I think you should go back to your travelling.
The rest of the gang are in Australia now and, if you leave
soon, you'll still have at least three months with them.'

Ethan fiddled with his fork. 'I'd love to, but it seems
wrong . . .'

'It's not wrong,' said his mother briskly. 'You can't give up
your dreams for me. Dad would have been so upset. You
know how he used to tease me for worrying about you,
wishing you'd email more often.'

They all smiled fondly, and Ingrid felt her heart ache. What
she wouldn't give to return to that time when they were still
a family, when worrying about what might happen to Ethan
was her main anxiety. She hadn't appreciated that properly.
Why was happiness only obvious when it was gone?

'You'll have to email more, that's my only stipulation,'
Ingrid went on, wondering where she was getting the strength
to play this tough-but-happy-mother person.

'I promise,' said Ethan eagerly.


Ingrid made herself look at the storm on Sky News for a little
longer and then she switched it off. When Molly phoned, she
was looking into the wardrobe and thinking about getting
dressed.
'I can cancel going to the launch, Mum,' Molly said. 'If
you're going into the store for the first time today, you need someone with you. There's no problem with me cancelling,
they'll understand '
'No, don't cancel anything,' her mother replied. She'd
picked today precisely because it was a hectic and unmissable
day in Molly's office: the delivery of an important report to
the media. She wanted Molly to slip back into her own life
and not feel that she had to be Ingrid's shadow.
'I'll be fine, honestly. Besides, Tom is coming round early
and we might go together.'
She didn't say that it was unlikely she'd travel into the store
with Tom. David's old second-in-command was a sweet man,
but without a shred of charisma. Tom had wanted to visit for
ages now but she'd kept putting him off.
He said he'd understood if she preferred not to meet in
Kenny's: 'too many reminders,' as he'd put it.
But he was coming here today and there were just as many
reminders, maybe more, in the house she'd shared with David.
Every little thing told her he was gone.
She'd cried the first night she'd remembered to put out the
bins. That had been David's job. There was nobody to read a
bit out of the paper to, nobody to drink the second cup of coffee
in the percolator. The unconscious things were almost worse.
She felt helpless at night when she didn't know when to go to
bed, when to switch off the TV and end the day. They'd done
that together. Now it was her choice and hers alone.

She had just dressed when the doorbell rang at half past nine.
Ingrid thought it was Tom arriving early, but it was Carlos,
her producer from work.

'You're not returning my calls, so I thought I'd surprise
you,' he said, giving her a hug.

'Coffee?' she asked, flustered at this intrusion into her den.

'Yeah,' he said, putting a patisserie bag with some cakes
on the table.

As usual, Carlos got straight to the point.

'Do you think you'd like to come back soon?'

He walked around the kitchen as he talked, the same way
he used to do it in the office. Perpetual motion, that was
Carlos. He'd walk around picking up pictures, looking at
them, putting them down, sweeping a bit of dust off a shelf,
craning his head to look at the spines of books he'd looked
at just the other day. Some people found it disconcerting, but
not Ingrid. She understood that high-energy thing. Today, his
energy was jarring. It reminded her of the life she used to
have. She wanted to avoid that reminder. The comparison
was too painful.

'I don't know,' she said, in answer to his question. 'I don't
know if I'm able to come back yet.' It was, Ingrid knew, the
wrong answer. The right answer was, Yes, I'm desperate to
leap back into the saddle again and be the current affairs
queen of the flagship TV show, but her heart wasn't in it.
She'd read the books on grief - well, she'd flicked through
them and thrown them down on to the big pile of reading
matter by her bed. But the bits she'd read said that getting
back into the real world was an important part of recovering
your life. Your beloved might have died but you're still alive,
was the general theme and Ingrid understood it perfectly - in
theory. In reality it was different. She simply didn't care.

Unbelievably, she didn't watch the show she'd once lived
and breathed for. She scanned the newspapers because they
were still delivered to the house, but she looked at the headlines
with little interest. Political scheming, by-elections disastrously
lost, earthquakes, coups - she didn't care. She didn't
even get the papers on Sunday, the one day they didn't have


them delivered. It had been part of the routine, to go to the
shop and get them, to pick up croissants for breakfast. Why
bother? Ingrid had decided that, quite frankly, the world could
carry on without her.

'I just wanted you to know that they're grooming Joan to
take over,' Carlos went on.

'Oh,' said Ingrid. 'Joan . . . she probably won't be bad at
it. She needs to work on her 's's though; too much sibilance
when she talks.'

'God, I know,' he said. 'Nobody's that keen on Joan, and
you know she'll want a wardrobe allowance.'

Ingrid laughed, the sort of laugh she did now, a hollow
one. She could count on one hand the number of times she
had really laughed since David had died.

'Wardrobe allowance? She should be so lucky,' she said.

Ingrid had had a tiny wardrobe allowance. Even someone
who had to appear on screen twice a week and look grave
and intelligent and deliver major news stories had to pay for
pretty much all her own clothes.

'She's thirty-seven,' Carlos added.

Once, that would have been the clincher for Ingrid. Not
any more.

'Pretty, too,' Ingrid commented. She wasn't that keen on
Joan herself. Not a team player; she appeared to have no
understanding that the show came out twice a week because
of the hard work of a lot of other people. Ingrid had always
been aware that, while she was the public face of the show,
there was a whole team behind it.

'I thought you'd be more upset,' Carlos said.

Ingrid faced him and he thought how dreadful she looked,
almost unrecognisable as the famous Ingrid Fitzgerald he'd
loved working with for all those years. It wasn't just that she
was thinner, her face verging on gaunt; more a deadness in
her eyes, a lack of expression. There was no spark of animation
about Ingrid now.


'So did I,' she said. 'I'm sorry, Carlos.'

'They're going to make a decision by the end of next week.
So, if you still want the job, you need to come back. You
need to phone in, talk to someone, talk to the Director
General,' Carlos said. 'I hate seeing you like this, Ingrid.'

'Yeah, me too,' she said bitterly. 'Thanks, you're a good
friend. Shut the door on your way out, will you?'

Next to ring the bell was Tom from Kenny's, who arrived
about half an hour after Carlos had left. On the way to open
the door, she caught sight of herself in the hall mirror. Not a
good look, she thought, realising, although not caring, why
Carlos had seemed so shocked at her appearance.

Her hair was sort of brushed, but she hadn't been to the
hairdressers since before David had died and her roots were
that streaky silvery brown that suited nobody, certainly not
herself. She wore no make-up and her face gleamed with the
excess moisturiser she'd slathered on in an attempt to make
her skin feel less taut. Ingrid couldn't be bothered with dressing
well either. Today, she wore black track-suit bottoms and a
sweatshirt of the sort of pale pink Marcella called 'nursing
home chic'.

'Throw it out,' Marcella had said one day, a long time ago,
when she'd seen Ingrid wearing it.

'I like it, it's comfortable,' Ingrid had said.

'It makes you look like you're on your way to get a blood transfusion,' Marcella had replied. 'Throw it out!'

Perversely, Ingrid had kept it, and today it seemed like the
right thing to wear. She might not need a blood transfusion,
but if they could give her a life transfusion, a David transfusion,
then maybe she'd be OK.

Tim was all business and clearly had absolutely no idea
what to say to her.

'Ingrid, my dear.' He tried a brief hug, which felt extremely
strange because Tim wasn't a hugger.

He refused tea or coffee and sat at the dining-room table


opposite her. Ingrid steeled herself to cope with it. All mention
of the business reminded her too much of David; she'd had
to force herself to visit the solicitor's office to talk about
David's will, and only went through with it because she was
the executor.
The company auditors were desperately keen to talk to her,
but she couldn't face them yet. Perhaps when probate was
sorted out, she thought miserably. Then she could look at the
company and consider how she was to run it, given that
David's will had give her the controlling interest.
Tom started off with pages of figures about where the
company stood in the quarterly report and Ingrid, who had
always had a good head for numbers, found that she couldn't
concentrate on any of it. The numbers looked bad, though.
Surely that couldn't be right? Kenny's was doing well, that's
what David had told her. Was that why the auditors had been
phoning so often, to give her this appalling news? She didn't
want Tom beside her telling her bad news, she wanted David
saying it was all going to be fine.
Finally, she'd had enough. 'I can't concentrate today, Tom,'
she said. 'What's the bottom line?'
'Well,' he said cautiously. Then, he appeared to make up
his mind and it was like watching someone leap over a cliff.
'I'm so sorry to have to tell you, Ingrid, but the company
is in financial trouble. It's nothing that David was doing wrong.
It's just that Kenny's is a luxury department store, after all,
and people have less money at the moment. We're all being
squeezed. No matter how many brilliant ideas we can come
up with to market luxury goods to people, ultimately, they
have to have the money to buy them in the first place.'
Ingrid managed not to gasp. Kenny's in trouble. And David
hadn't breathed a word to her.
'Right,' she said, as if she'd known all along. 'What was
David's plan? You know, the finer details of what he thought
would work?'

She would not admit that she knew nothing about any of
this.

'I don't know,' Tom said. 'To be frank, I didn't know things
were this bad, or how hard the banks were squeezing us, until
David told me that he'd had lunch with Stanley DeVere. I
knew that meant something.'

'Right,' said Ingrid again, trying not to betray her shock.
David had disliked Stanley DeVere and the whole DeVere
ethos. In fact, dislike was too mild a word.

'And did he tell you how that went?' she asked. 'From a
business perspective.'

'No,' Tom said, 'it was more of a "feeling their way". You
know how David was: he liked to keep his cards close to his
chest.'

Ingrid bit back the word evidently.

'Yes,' she said. 'I know.'

She hadn't known, but she was learning fast.

'I'm sorry I haven't been up to coming into the store, Tom,
and that I'm not up to speed on what's happening, but what
would you do in my shoes?' she asked, letting her defences
down for a moment.

'Sell,' he said bluntly. 'Let's face it, running Kenny's is a
massive full-time job. It was getting too much for David.'

'But it was his baby,' Ingrid said wistfully. 'He loved the
store. It was in his blood. He was like his father, for him there
was a story attached to every part of it, every door, every
window, every floor . . .'

'But that's being sentimental, Ingrid,' Tom said, 'and in the
current economic climate, we can't afford to be sentimental.
This is a very valuable business, if you sell it now. If you put
your heart and soul into it over the next couple of years and
still run it into the ground, it won't be so viable. I'm sorry,'
he went on, seeing her stunned expression, 'I know that's
probably the wrong thing to say to you, given the way you
must be feeling, but I would be doing David a disservice if I


told you anything else. He was a brilliant sales man, a brilliant
ideas man and it was hard even for him. Ingrid, this isn't
your forte, and I don't think the children want to run the
store either.'
'True,' she said.
Once he'd broached the tough news, Tom was all set to
chat, but Ingrid gently got him to leave. Two visitors with
bad news was more than she could cope with in one day.
Besides, she needed to be alone to think. If David had been
contemplating selling his beloved department store and hadn't
told her, what did that say about them, their relationship?
That he was trying to protect her, or that he couldn't share
things with her? She didn't know.
She let the dogs out for a final pee, pulled a coat on over
her blood-transfusion sweatshirt, and left to drive to Ardagh. She didn't want to go to Kenny's and face it without David,
but it had to be done.

'Can I get you anything?' Stacey hovered behind Ingrid. She'd
been hovering ever since Ingrid arrived at Kenny's. Ingrid felt
sorry for her in a dispassionate sort of way. There was no
etiquette for dealing with the first occasion your dead boss's
wife came to the office after his death.
'No, I'm fine, thank you,' said Ingrid, and then thought
she was anything but fine. But somehow, despite all the parts
of her that had been destroyed by David's death, there was
still some compulsion inside her saying, You must be nice to
other people, not let them see your pain. They couldn't see
it anyway, even if you laid it out in front of them.
She remembered the neighbours who'd dropped into the
house to give her Mass cards, funereal flowers and lasagnes,
all saying sorry and that David was wonderful and wasn't it
tragic and awful and can we do anything? If she tried to talk
to them about him, they backed off or changed the subject.
They simply couldn't cope with it. The rituals of death were

a glorious part of tradition, but God forbid that anybody
should have to engage with the actuality of death once the
person was buried.

No, best to move on, find a new life and some peace: that
was the trick they expected of the bereaved. Ingrid didn't
know how to make a new life for herself. She'd been happy
with the life she had.

'I could get a cappuccino from the cafe or tea or maybe
water?' went on Stacey.

'Thank you, Stacey,' said Ingrid, 'I'm fine, really. Just give
me a few minutes here.'

'Of course,' said Stacey quickly and scurried back to her
desk.

Ingrid stood in the doorway of David's office and looked
around. It was odd to be here without him; she felt she was
an interloper in his private space. It was all so unchanged.
Exactly the same as he'd left it. How? How could it remain
the same when the person who created it all was dead and
buried? There should be a scientific disintegration of people's
things when they were dead, a physical manifestation that
mirrored the loss of the person. Their papers should crumble
at the edges, their special cup develop deep cracks. It was
wrong that physical things remained intact when the people
who loved the dead person were falling apart inside.

The desk still shone and the faint scent of polish was in
the air. The old-fashioned blotter he liked still sat perfectly
square on the desk, his mouse mat to the left of it, the
computer sleekly white beside it.

There was nothing for it. Ingrid walked into David's office
and shut the door behind her. This was his space, where he'd
spent so much of his time when he wasn't at home with her.
There were pictures of her, Molly and Ethan in beautiful
wooden frames, paintings and a couple of old framed maps.
He loved those old maps when the boundaries of countries
had been so different. The sort of maps great explorers had


used to trek to the Poles. David had always fancied himself
as part of an expedition with sleighs and huskies and clothes
that could withstand Polar temperatures. 'I'm too old now,'
he'd said, the last time he'd dreamed about it. 'No you're
not,' said Ingrid. 'You're never too old; age is in people's
heads.' She smiled now at the thought of it. Then the smile
disappeared. Age might be in people's heads, but bodies, they
gave in when they aged. Your mind might be twenty, but your
heart, now that could be old.
Most of the filing cabinets were in Stacey's office, but David
had kept some beautiful walnut cabinets in his. They had been
locked, Stacey said, but she had the keys to most of them and
today she'd left them open. Ingrid pulled out the drawers one
by one, thinking of the last person who had opened them.
David. She slammed them shut and went to sit on the chair,
where he'd died. She wouldn't cry, this wasn't what his life
was about, this chair. He wouldn't have had time to realise,
her GP had said. With such a massive heart attack, it would
have been very quick. No sitting in the chair, thinking of
everything he was going to lose, thinking in pain of her and
the children.
She sat back and closed her eyes, wishing to be close to
him; but there was nothing. That hurt, feeling the emptiness
where he used to be. The priest had talked about another
world and God and love, and yet she sat here in this room
where David had spent so much time, where he'd died, and
there was nothing. She would never see him again; he was
gone from her for ever.
Her sister Flora had such great faith and had come many
times over the past weeks, sitting quietly with Ingrid, listening
to her talk, hugging her while she cried, and telling her it
would get better. She often held Ingrid's hand, occasionally
patting it gently. Ingrid wanted to feel comforted, but she
couldn't. Nothing comforted her now.
'You have to have faith,' Flora would say. 'We don't know

God's will or what He wants from us. This is a way of testing
your faith, Ingrid '

Ingrid couldn't listen to any more. She removed her hand.

'I know you're trying to help, Flora,' she said, 'but it's not helping. How am I supposed to have faith now? I'm not like
you; I wish I was. If something happened to Brid, you'd be
able to cope with it and make sense of it all. You'd see her
in heaven - what did they say at the funeral about God's
house having many rooms? Well, that'd work for you, but it
doesn't for me. I don't have your belief. Having faith in God
when your husband has been snatched away doesn't make
sense to me.'

In her grief, Ingrid thought about God and His plans all
the time. The priest at David's funeral had talked about how
believing in God would take her through this and how David
was with God.

But David wouldn't want to be with God: he'd want to be
with them.

After the funeral, when the mourning party had retired to
a hotel in Ardagh for coffee and sandwiches, the priest came
round again and sat beside her on a stool, almost like a
schoolboy ready for a grilling from a teacher, Ingrid thought.

He was young, perhaps thirty, and at any other time, Ingrid
would have liked him. Flora had whispered that he'd worked
in South America for three years, and before he'd come to
their parish he'd been employed in a maximum-security
prison.

'Do you know for sure that David's happy?' she said. 'I can't
feel it. I can only feel that he's gone from me, and that absence
is huge, huge and total. He's not coming back. I am never going to see him again.' She put her hands over her face and took a
deep breath. 'You say I will, but how do you know?'

'We don't know, that's what faith is: trust in the Almighty.'

'How can I trust the person who took my husband from
me?' Ingrid demanded.


The priest was clearly used to this type of discussion post
funeral and took it in his stride. He talked of love, belief and
the Holy Spirit guiding the bereaved.
He had no answers, either, Ingrid decided.
Now she pulled at the drawers on David's desk, looking
for something, something she could touch that would bring
him back to her. The first two drawers contained stationery,
but the third drawer was locked. Presumably Stacey hadn't
found the key. She dragged at it, it wouldn't open. This was
too much, too painful, she shouldn't have come in today. She
got up off the chair and left the office, shutting the door
quietly behind her. She wasn't going to cry, not in front of
anyone.
'Stacey, I feel a little weary, I think I'll go home now,' she
said.
She slipped out of one of the side entrances. She didn't
want to walk through the administrative offices and talk to
everyone, have them hold her hand a touch longer than
normal, have them look at her with sad eyes, thinking, Poor
Ingrid, how is she coping? That made it worse. Not the kindness
- that was wonderful and people were so terribly kind.
But the pity, people looking at her and seeing her empty life
ahead of her; that hurt. She knew because she'd done it herself
to men and women who'd had loved ones ripped away from
them before their time; she'd looked at them with the same
eyes, thinking, Poor you, I'm glad it's not me. Ingrid wasn't
ready for that today.
On the main street of Ardagh she breathed in the cool,
fresh air. It was a beautiful day, still cold, but the sun was
shining. She walked down the street, past a glitzy hair salon
called Chloe's, where the nylon scent of hair spray filled the
air, and into a small florist's, where she bought a large bunch
of freesias.
'Are they a present?' asked the girl in the shop, as she
expertly wrapped them in cellophane.

'Yes,' Ingrid said. They were a present, they were for David.

On the headland, where the church and its graveyard were
situated, it was still a beautiful day, but windy. She could hear
the sea crashing against the dangerous rocky crags below,
known as the Twelve Apostles, deadly to swimmers and boats
alike. The church was called the Black Abbey by the local
people because it was made of dark stones and looked as if
it had been cut right out of the earth; the colour of wet slate,
its thin, pointed spires reached up to the sky.

Discussing where they wanted to be buried hadn't been
high on Ingrid's list of topics for enjoyable evening conversation,
but they had talked about it once and David had said
that this was the place for him. It wasn't the church so much,
he'd explained, it was the graveyard. It was beautiful, Ingrid
had to admit, if any graveyard could be called beautiful.
Spread out along the hill as if the church was the centrepiece
and the graveyard a cloak spread beneath it, it clung to the
side of the hill. It contained many beautiful examples of Victorian
memorials. There were stone angels with lichen clinging
to their soaring wings and giant tombs that hadn't been opened
in a hundred years, all Gothic and beautiful and wild. Ingrid
could see why David would want to be buried here and she
would be too, she thought, with a shock. She'd bought a plot
for two. One day, she'd lie here with him, and that was frightening
because even though she wanted to be with him again,
she didn't want to He in this cold ground.

She pulled her camel-hair coat tighter around her and
walked down to the grave. It still had the signs of new grief
about it. Amid the remains of the funeral flowers and the big
bunch of daffodils she'd brought the week before, there was
a tiny arrangement of red roses, placed as if they were lying
on David's heart, if such a thing could be imagined. Ingrid
stared at them. There was no card, nothing to say whom these
flowers had come from, and she looked at them for a long
time. Who had left red roses for David?


She closed her eyes to pray but couldn't concentrate.
Abruptly, she picked up the red roses and hurled them far off
over the cemetery wall where they could bounce down into
the sea. She was the person who got to leave red roses for
David, nobody else.

That evening at dinner in a small restaurant on the far side
of Ardagh, Flora was talking about a programme she'd heard
on the radio about bats. 'Absolutely fascinating,' she said. 'It
turns out they aren't as blind as scientists originally thought.'
'Really, Flora,' said Sigrid, 'we're eating our dinner. I don't
want to think about bats.'
'Well, I'm interested,' said Flora.
Ingrid could almost hear David's voice saying, 'She is a bit
bats, perhaps that's why she likes them so much,' and she
had to try not to laugh.
'I love this place,' Molly said, looking around her. She gave her aunt a hug, diffusing the bat row. 'Thanks, Aunt Flora.'
'I decided we shouldn't avoid places where we went with
David,' she said firmly. 'We're not going to do the "avoiding"
thing, we're going to do the "celebrating the life" thing.
'Fine,' said Ingrid; it was better not to argue with Flora
when she was in that sort of mood.
'I think Aunt Flora's right, Mum,' said Molly. 'We should
be celebrating Dad's life in every way.'
'Yes.' Ingrid thought of her meeting with Tom and the
discussion about selling Kenny's. Her husband had had a
meeting with the head of DeVere's and he'd never told her.
'Yes,' she agreed, 'we should celebrate his life.'
She tried to smile at her family, patting Ethan's hand where
he sat beside her, smiling across the candles at Molly. They
were all so good, but she felt too empty to enjoy it.
Ingrid couldn't taste the food. It looked beautiful, even
smelled nice. They were having Wicklow lamb with a herb
crust and fresh vegetables, and it all tasted like cardboard animal

feed marinated in brackish water. She went through the motions
of eating and trying to smile because she didn't want to be the
spectre at the feast. Everyone was trying so hard for her.

Ethan's eyes had been suspiciously red when Flora had
handed him the wine list and said 'You choose, darling. Your
dad taught you all about wine, go on, you pick.'

David hadn't really taught him all about wine, Ingrid knew.
They weren't big wine drinkers, definitely not wine snobs, and
Ethan's knowledge was about on a par with her own: pick
something mid-range in the list and you couldn't go too far
wrong. She'd seen, though, how he was grateful to Flora for
saying that, making him feel in some way his father's successor.

At the beginning of the meal, Molly had been doing what
she used to do as a small child when she was nervous, twirling
her hair endlessly in her right hand, twirl, twirl, but as the
evening wore on she stopped doing it. Everyone was able to
relax except for Ingrid. What would they feel if she just got
up to go and said, 'I'm really sorry, this is kind of you, but
I can't do this. I'm not ready yet.'

There were flowers on the table, carnations. She hated
carnations and their peppery scent. On the next table was a
yellow orchid, much nicer, and further along at a big table
for ten, there were red roses. Something sparked in her mind.
Red roses . . . what was it? She remembered the red roses on
David's grave. Nobody else would leave red roses except somebody's
wife, somebody's lover, and yet there they were, a little
bouquet, beautifully tied.

'I went to David's grave today,' she said, and they all looked
up, sad at the image she conjured up. The widow with no
life beyond her husband's grave. 'There were lovely red flowers
there, but the card had blown away. Were they from you,
Sigrid?' she asked.

'No, sorry,' Sigrid said. 'I've some plants I thought we could
put at the head of the grave, but I haven't brought them yet.'

'Not me,' said Molly.


'Sorry,' said Ethan guiltily. 'I meant to buy something today.
Can we go to the grave before I fly off?'
Nobody here, none of the people closest to him, had left
roses for David.
He'd had secrets from her: she'd found that out this morning
from Tom. And there was a locked drawer in his office desk
for which Stacey didn't have the key. Something was being
hidden from her.
Ingrid thought she might be sick. She shoved her chair back
from the table. 'I'm sorry,' she said and she moved off, napkin
spilling on the floor, everyone looking at her. 'Headache.'
'I'll come with you, Mum,' said Molly, leaping to her feet.
Ingrid controlled herself long enough to say, 'No, love, you
stay here. Please.'
Somehow, she managed to get out of the restaurant and
into her car. It would take five minutes to drive to the store, that was all.
The Kenny's security man, Abel, clearly thought she was under the influence of something.
'There is nobody in, Mrs Kenny,' he kept saying gently, as
though he were speaking to a small child.
'I know,' Ingrid hissed, doing her best to maintain her calm public persona. 'There's something I need to check.'
'They'll all be here in the morning -' he said.
'Now - I want to check it now,' Ingrid snapped.
'Of course, madam.' Abel's professional mask went up. He was polite, a tall, immaculately turned out man from Sierra Leone. David used to say he had the intelligence and gravitas of a judge. What might he have done with his life if circum stances
hadn't brought him and his large family to Ardagh where he had to work the shifts that nobody else wanted?
She wondered whether David had come here late at night and
had Abel been accustomed to letting him in with someone
else clinging to his coat, laughing at their daring . . . No, she
wasn't going to think that way. Not until she was sure.

Her mobile phone rang as she was inserting the key in
David's suite of offices. Probably Flora, checking she'd got
home all right. Flora was unlikely to be comforted by a
message that read: Not home yet, decided to go to dead
husband's office to see if my instinct that he was hiding something
from me was correct.

It would probably be padded-cell-and-soft-focus-drug-time
if Flora got that message.

She checked her phone.

The text was from Molly, seeing if she was all right. Whatever
was going on, Ingrid didn't want Molly involved.

Nearly home, sorry for rushing, headache bad, talk in
morning. Love Mum. She sent the text.

Lying was actually an OK thing to do when your husband
had just died. If you told people the truth about how you
felt, they'd have you locked up.

Ingrid flicked on all the lights, swept through Stacey's office,
then found the correct key for David's. The Lucite lamp on
his desk lit up jewel-green when she pressed the switches on
the wall. Clever. Like everything David did, it was all perfectly
organised: no fiddling around with desk-lamp buttons. Just
flick two switches and everything worked. Attention to detail
was David's trademark.

Which was why the red roses on his grave and the locked
drawer sounded a duff note in Ingrid's head.

The drawer was still locked. Ingrid pulled it again to make
doubly sure. No, still firm. She looked around the office for
something to pry it open, but there was nothing obvious lying
around.

She wrenched open the drawers on the other side of his desk.
They contained paper, files, pencils, even, ominously enough,
one of the big suction corkscrews, but nothing useful. Next, she
tried Stacey's desk and hit paydirt: a lethal-looking letter opener.

'Perfect,' Ingrid said grimly.

It took about ten minutes, much longer than it took thieves


in burglar movies. But then they always had delicate lock
picks and she was hammering away at the keyhole with the
tip of a letter opener. Finally, the lock broke. She threw the
blunted letter opener down. Stacey would wonder what
happened to it. Not Ingrid's problem.
For a couple of seconds, the opened drawer looked like
any other drawer in David's desk: an innocent space with neat
piles of stationery. She'd been picturing something awful. Grief
did terrible things to people. Made them imagine all sorts of
wrongs.
She poked through the paper with a forensic eye.
And there they were: a neat pile of handwritten letters. She
lifted them out.
The goddess of cliches was kind today. The letters weren't
tied up in ribbon or - she sniffed them - scented with perfume.
But they were love letters just the same, written on decent
stock writing paper in a looping, feminine hand:

Darling, I dreamed about you last night. I woke up and
thought you here with me. I hate it when that happens.
America seems such a long way away and I want you
beside me, making love to me. Love and kisses, Me.

David's wastepaper bin was made of metal, which was just
as well because Ingrid had to throw up into something and
she didn't want to ruin the carpet. This thoughtfulness seemed
odd under the circumstances. Her heart was destroyed, why
not the carpet?
Once she'd got rid of the beautiful dinner which had tasted
like sawdust, she sat back against the wall holding weakly on
to the bin, her legs spread out in front of her, eyes closed.
She didn't want to move because, if she moved, she might
feel sick again. She had so many feelings inside her, all jostling
for recognition, that she couldn't cope with any more.
After a while, she felt strong enough to put the bin down.

She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her grey cashmere
cardigan and for a moment she thought how incongruous the
scene would have appeared to an onlooker: Ingrid Fitzgerald
sprawled on the ground, a wastepaper bin of vomit beside
her, a smear of sick on her cardigan. She hauled herself on
to the desk chair.

She laid the pile of letters to one side. David had kept them
together with big paperclips. No red ribbons. He'd never been
a romantic, had he? There was a modicum of pleasure in the
fact that his lack of romance stretched to both of his women.
She'd look at them later, when she felt able.

There was something else in the drawer - credit-card bills
that told the story of the affair. Lunches at beautiful restaurants
on the outskirts of Dublin, nights at exquisite hotels
where nobody ever went for business meetings, a three-day
stay at the George Cinq in Paris. That stung, despite the barrier
Ingrid had created around herself. Paris, their city, where
they'd gone when the children were small, and again for their
first adult-only holiday after Ethan and Molly left home.

They'd had coffee in the George Cinq but never slept there.
Instead, they'd stayed in the Crillon, where they'd lain in an
antique French bed made up with endless pillows and snowy
sheets, enjoying room-service champagne and the hotel's
famous breakfasts.

They'd visited Paris many times since, and Ingrid's favourite
shop was the beautiful Anne Fontaine shirt shop where elegant
sales ladies had sat David in an armchair, plied him with coffee
and he Monde, and generally patted him in an understanding
Gallic way, so he was happy while she tried on exquisite blouses
that fitted as though made for her.

'If we go bankrupt because you like that shop so much,
we'll be able to say: "We'll always have Paris,"' David said
once and laughed heartily at his own joke.

'We won't go bankrupt with you working such long hours,'
she'd joked back.


Not so funny now.
Ingrid stared at all the receipts, some with faded printing,
through the small reading glasses she never wore on air
because she felt they made her look old. She felt that if she
tried hard enough to distance herself, it would be like reading
the research compiled on a cheating politician.
She would be at her desk with Gloria bringing in the details
and everyone in the office would wonder about the ethics of
using such evidence. Was the moral life of a politician open
for public consumption?
But this evidence wasn't about a politician for whom she
cared nothing. It wasn't about a poor maligned politician's
wife, waiting patiently at home while even the dogs in the
street knew her husband spent more time than was necessary
with a colleague. Ingrid always felt so sorry for the women
who kept the home fires burning, hauled children to and from
school, answered phone calls from irritated constituents while
the man himself was wined and dined in Dublin and Brussels,
making it all look so easy. It was easy because of his
wife, and he was cheating on her.
Now Ingrid was in exactly the same position. It hurt so much.
What really surprised her was the anger, pure and sharp,
that roared through her. How could David have done this to
her? She had never nagged him the moment he got home, irritated
by his life, bored by her own. She was a career woman,
damn it. She dealt with big issues every day, wasn't afraid of
responsibility.
If he wasn't happy, he could have left, but this - having
someone else who wrote him adoring letters and missed him
so much in a needy way - this was sheer betrayal.
Ingrid would have fallen to pieces privately if he'd asked
her for a divorce, but if David had said, 'I'm in love with
another woman,' she'd have given him his divorce. Only a
fool or a masochist would try to repair the cracks in a marriage
after that.

Except he'd never said it. He'd gone on playing happy families.
He'd died letting her believe he was true. She'd stood at
his grave and sobbed her heart out for a man who loved
someone else.
If David hadn't been dead, Ingrid could have killed him
with her bare hands.

She bent and threw up again, bile this time. There was nothing
else left in her stomach. She closed her eyes until the nausea
passed, then got up and went to the small fridge in Stacey's
office. There were cans of fizzy lemonade and she drank one.

Slowly, Ingrid felt her energy return, along with a little bit
of herself.

Stacey would wonder what had happened if she saw the
bin, the ruined paper opener, the drawer. There would be no
hiding her presence in the store - Abel, the security man,
would have to report anyone who'd come into the building.
Ingrid knew she had to handle this carefully. She emptied out
the drawer and closed it neatly, then took the bin to the bathroom
and washed it. When the place looked more or less as
she'd found it, she wrote a note for Stacey:


Stacey, David had some letters of mine and I knew they
were in his desk. I came to get them last night. They
were so personal, I just wanted to have them. Ingrid.


Not a bad excuse, she thought grimly. Men may come and
go but the ability to lie lasts forever.

She roamed the fifth floor until she found an empty cardboard
box. As she piled in the evidence of David's betrayal,
she had a sudden thought. The only drawers she'd tried were
in his desk. What if there was more for someone else to find?
She opened the elegant wooden cupboards that hid filing cabinets
where he kept his personal records and tested the drawers.
Among all the innocently open ones, there was one that was
locked.


'More shit,' she muttered as she wielded the letter opener
again. This lock broke easily. There were more credit-card
statements going back further. Ingrid scanned the first sheet,
then scooped the whole lot out and into her box. She closed
the drawer and pulled the door across. Hopefully, the note
would satisfy Stacey's curiosity. But then, perhaps she'd been
in on it with David.
'Tell my wife I'm in a meeting - I've got another secret date
with my girlfriend,' David might say, and Stacey would wink
at him in time-honoured personal assistant style, knowing it
was her job to keep everything a secret.
Or perhaps the other woman was Stacey. 'Let's lock the
door, nobody will know . . .'
Damn David! She had to know who it was or else she'd
go mad suspecting every woman in his life. But she had to
be subtle about it. The media would love to hear that a television
star like Ingrid had been betrayed by her supposedly
loving husband. It would destroy the children if they were to
learn of the affair. Ingrid would do everything she could to
hide this other woman's existence from Ethan and Molly. But
first, she needed to find out who she was.
There was only one person she would trust with this pain
and that was Marcella. Among her many talents, Marcella
knew how to lock a secret into her mental strongbox and
keep it there forever.

Marcella sat curled up on her couch picking hard skin off
her feet and watching an episode of Sex and the City. She'd
seen this particular episode many times before and owned
the box set, but deciding to watch a show from your own
DVD collection was somehow never as enjoyable as finding
it randomly on television. In the ad break, she ran out to the
kitchen and made herself another cup of decaf tea. She'd
drunk pints of tea every waking hour of the day, until her
acupuncturist told her that caffeine late at night was fatal

for sleep and, as someone with sleep issues, she needed all
the help she could get.

The doorbell buzzed loudly.

Instinctively, Marcella looked at her watch. A quarter past
eleven. Nobody called without warning at that hour. Either
it was some emergency - surely they'd phone instead? - or it
was a crazy person selling religion or junkies armed with
syringes wanting to break into her house. They'd picked the
wrong woman. She grabbed her alarm remote and her mobile
phone, dialling in 999 just to be ready. Then, she peered out
of the window beside the door and saw, to her utter astonishment,
Ingrid standing there.

'Ingrid!' Marcella wrenched open the door and stared at
her friend in alarm. Carrying a large cardboard box, and with
her face a strange grey colour, Ingrid looked as if she hadn't
slept in a hundred years. 'Come in. What's wrong?'

Ingrid didn't speak as she carried the box indoors and set
it on the giant glass coffee table. Marcella noticed that all the
scaly bits of dry skin she'd picked off her feet were on the
table beside the box, waiting to be binned. Normally, that
would have horrified someone as house-proud as she, but she
simply swept it all on to the floor. From the look on Ingrid's
face, it was clear that bits of skin were hardly important in
the grand scheme of things.

'What's wrong?' she repeated.

'This,' said Ingrid in a monotone, gesturing to the box.
'There were red roses on David's grave earlier today and a
locked drawer in his desk. I knew something was wrong.'

Marcella sank bonelessly on to one of her armchairs.
'Roses?'

'Red roses; not from me, and without any card saying who'd
sent them,' Ingrid said, opening the folds of the box with
great calmness. She began taking sheaves of paper out and
placing them in neat piles on the table. 'I was out at dinner
tonight with my sisters and the kids,' she went on, 'and the


memory of those red roses kept coming into my head. That
and the locked drawer I discovered when I went to David's
office today.'
Marcella reached forward to put a comforting hand on her friend's arm, knowing how hard it must have been, and how
Ingrid had been putting off the visit to Kenny's.
Ingrid flicked her a brief, wry smile. 'I thought I was being
brave too,' she said. 'I went in today because I knew Molly
couldn't come and I didn't want her to have to be with me
when I went through his things. I didn't want to make her
into a little handmaiden of death, to be with me all the time,
worrying about me. Her father died, that's enough to deal
with. She shouldn't have to deal with my feelings too. Do you
understand?'
Marcella nodded, although she didn't understand. She had
imagined that having children would help Ingrid get over
David's death, because there would always be three of them
who'd lost him. But she still couldn't quite touch what that
would feel like, being a mother. She stuffed that ache away
in her mind.
'I'm glad Molly wasn't with me,' Ingrid went on, and
resumed emptying the box. ''She'd have noticed a locked
drawer.'
'Where was the key?'
'I didn't have the key,' Ingrid replied. 'Stacey hadn't found
it. The whole thing kept nagging at me through dinner. I
decided I had to know for sure. I drove to Kenny's and broke
open the damn drawer with a letter opener. Every office should
have one,' she added with fake brightness. 'This is what I
found '
'In one drawer?' Marcella looked at her coffee table, which
was now obscured by papers.
'There was a drawer in a locked filing cabinet too. I haven't
gone through the stuff I found in there.' For the first time,
Ingrid's brittleness appeared to crack. 'I read one letter from

his desk drawer. He was away in America and she missed
him. There's a date on it, last June.'
'They might be someone else's letters,' said Marcella,
clutching at straws. She looked through the piles for the handwritten
stuff.
'David was in the US last June,' Ingrid said flatly. 'And why
would he hide someone else's letters? No, they're his.'
She sank back into the couch and stared at the television.
She liked this show, it was fun and thoughtful. Samantha,
Charlotte, Carrie and Miranda were having brunch in their
Sunday-morning restaurant. Whatever panic they were going
through, it was over. It had been made up. Ingrid felt a bit
made up herself. Her life hadn't been real at all. What she
thought was real wasn't.
'I can't believe it,' Marcella said, searching. She found the
letters and held them carefully in her lap, Exhibit A, Your
Honour.

The flowers you gave me are nearly dead. I'm not going
to throw them out until the very end. It was such a lovely
weekend, wasn't it? When I'm with you, I feel safe and
protected.
When I was little, I used to press flowers and I'm
going to press the roses . . .

'What's this rubbish?' Marcella said, furious. 'All this little
girl stuff: "I used to press flowers." I used to have a bloody
Barbie, I don't go on about it now.'
'I told you, I only read a bit of one of them,' Ingrid said.
'I brought them here so you could do it for me.'
Marcella took a deep breath. 'Red wine?'
'If I drink anything at all, I'll cry, and I don't want to cry,
not yet.'
'Good point.'
Marcella left the room and returned five minutes later with


a pot of coffee and biscuits. 'We're going to be up all night
anyway, so we may as well imbibe.'
She put on some music: Tina Turner, because no woman
could fall to pieces with Tina singing 'What's Love Got to
Do with It' in the background, and began looking through
the letters. It was a mammoth task: the unravelling of the
myth of David and Ingrid. Like a fairy story in reverse. Like Sleeping Beauty. Except, in this case, the prince hadn't woken
Ingrid from a hundred-year-sleep - he'd made her age one
hundred years in a moment.
Ingrid poured herself a coffee, sat back on the couch and
let her mind roam.
She thought back to all the times she'd smiled indulgently
at David at parties when women flirted with him. They might
have thought they were being discreet: smiling, twirling their
hair, touching him when they spoke, but she saw it all. And
smiled at it. She trusted him. Believed he'd never betray her,
that it was their private joke: all the women in the world
could throw themselves at him and he'd do nothing, because
he loved Ingrid and true love beat all other comers.
And all the time this.
She felt bleak, there was no other word for it. As if all the
light had been leached out of her life, out of her. All the time
she'd thought it would be her career that would fall out of
love with her when she got old. Not her husband.
As Marcella read, Ingrid's exhausted mind drifted back to
an episode from a year ago.

Television was cruel, people said. David himself said it.
The first time a woman she knew had been subtly moved
sideways in a television show, she'd been shocked, even though
she'd seen it coming.
Grace Reynolds was a forty-something former model, who'd
moved into television and charmed people with her sense of
fun and intelligence. She'd co-hosted the breakfast programme

for five years, patting the hands of reality TV victims who'd
come on to present their side of the story, smiling comfortingly
at people raising funds to fight diseases that had killed
their loved ones. She'd mothered people and viewers had loved
it. Except the show's producer felt the need for younger blood,
a child-bride co-presenter for the male host - the craggy Jeff
- who was at least fifteen years older than Grace.

The new presenter he found was twenty-three, fresh out of
college with the looks of a Victoria's Secrets model, all honey
blonde skin and honey-blonde hair with a flawless complexion
and glossed bee-stung lips that some in the TV station uncharitably
suggested had already been clamped around certain
parts of the producer's anatomy. She started immediately and
Grace, displaying the same characteristics as her name, bowed
out, obediently following the script: She was tired of the early
mornings and wanted to spend more time with her children
and her husband.

That had infuriated Ingrid more than anything else: like
making a hit-and-run victim admit that it was all their own
fault, that they'd wanted to be smashed by a car, honestly.

'You should leave,' David had said furiously when he'd
heard. 'They'll do the same to you, Ingrid, and you can't give
them the satisfaction.'

She'd felt a rush of love for him, her man, who didn't
want her hurt. It was true that she feared the axe falling and
the shame of being shunted into the background for a crime
that was pinned only on the female of the species, but she
didn't want David to know her fear. He'd worry more and
she didn't want that.

He had enough to worry about as it was, running the store.

'Darling, I'm a lot stronger than Grace, it wouldn't be so
easy to get rid of me,' she said. 'Besides, I've made my peace
with it all. I don't want to go on working forever. I've got all
those book ideas to work on, like the one about the cult of
feminism in pre-Christian Ireland. I can't do it now, not with


the show, but when the time comes and they decide they don't
need me and are ready to pay me a stonking great disappearance
fee, well, I'll be gone like a flash. No point hanging around
telling the world I didn't like working nights any more. I refuse
to get pushed out of the way like poor darling Grace did.'
'You sure?' He still looked worried and Ingrid burned with
anger at the idea of anybody in TV-land having the power to
make her family sad or worried. They would NOT fire her
the way they'd fired Grace, by the stealthy guerrilla attack.
That only worked on employees compliant enough to smile
bravely and go quietly. Ingrid wouldn't go quietly, and the
powers in the organisation damn well knew it.
"Course I'm sure. TV's a young person's game. If I retired,
we could travel more. Perhaps do that tour of Australia we've
always talked about.'
It worked, David relaxed.
'You're some woman,' he said, shaking his head. 'I thought
you'd be angry over it all.'
'I'm furious - for Grace. But not worried, love. It won't be
like that for me, promise.'
But, 'What if it is like that for me?' she asked Marcella on the phone later. 'What if they force me out and bring in some
kid to do my job?'
'They won't do that to you,' Marcella counselled. 'Grace
is a sweetheart, far too nice for television, to be honest. She
should have come to me and I'd have shown her how to
handle it.
'Does that mean I'm not nice?' Ingrid laughed.
'You're a total bitch - didn't you read the editorial the Irish
Times ran on the subject?'
They both laughed this time.
'No, you're a professional, that's all. Grace wasn't. She
was a lovely, gifted amateur, and you cannot get on in this
job and be an amateur. You need the armadillo-plating of a
professional.'

'She wasn't fired for being an amateur,' Ingrid reminded
her friend. 'She was fired for committing the cardinal sin of
getting older. And remember, she didn't even age like a normal
person. She aged like a model. You could grate cheese on her
beautiful high cheekbones and her skin is fabulous.'

'How Grace looked was at least fifty per cent of why she
was hired,' Marcella pointed out. 'For all that you're on the
"Fabulously Hot at Fifty" list in Woman's Way magazine,
you weren't hired for your looks.'

'True. So why could I be fired for those same looks getting
older?'

'Beats me, Aged Wise One,' Marcella replied.

Marcella read on. If Ingrid hadn't been there, albeit in a
strangely calm state staring into space, Marcella would have
allowed herself to curse as she made her way through the pile
of handwritten love letters.

Of course, they could have been sent by a crazy stalker
lady who had yet to move on to boiling rabbits and kidnapping
Molly and Ethan, but Marcella didn't think so. She might
not have had the corresponding letters from David to this
mystery woman, but from every detail, it was obvious that
she was David's lover.

It hurt her to think of David doing this. What must it be
like for Ingrid?

None of the letters was signed by name and she wasn't sure
if that was because the writer wanted to specifically maintain
anonymity or merely part of some game.


Darling David, thank you for the most wonderful evening
ever. I wish it wasn't over. I wish you hadn't had to go
back to her. . .


Marcella couldn't bear to think of Ingrid reading this
one.


. . . I know it's complicated, I know it can't be sorted
out in a minute, but I wish things were different. My
darling, why does she get to have you and I don't? It
just seems unfair - she has everything. I'm sorry, David,
I didn't mean to write that. It's just I'm upset. Perhaps
I should blame all that champagne. But I feel so lonely,
sitting here on my own, wearing the gorgeous negligee
you bought me, wishing you were here to see it. . .

Marcella scanned it quickly. She'd been wrong; this would
kill Ingrid if she had to read it. Negligees, and talk of 'she',
clearly meaning Ingrid. Appalling stuff. There were dozens of
letters. They said thank you for meals, nights out, lovemaking
- together they represented everything David had stolen from
Ingrid.
'Well?' asked Ingrid, after what seemed to Marcella like
forever but was actually only an hour.
'Well, we should go to bed,' Marcella said. 'This will all
be here in the morning, but we'll look like two mad old hags
if we don't get some sleep.' As soon as the words were out
of her mouth, she regretted them.
The woman who wrote the love letters had never given
away her age, but Marcella would bet a year's salary that she
was much younger than Ingrid.
Ingrid, however, merely smiled at her friend and said. 'More
of this coffee in the morning will soon sort us out.'
'I'm your woman for that,' said Marcella, smiling back.

At a few minutes after seven, Ingrid woke up and felt instantly
alert. And rested. She'd only had five hours' sleep and yet
she'd slept more deeply than any night since David's death.
Strange. Death and betrayal after death scored differently on
the interrupted sleep scale. She must tell David that. . .
It happened a lot, thinking of how she'd like to tell him
something and then remembering he wasn't there to be told.

Most of the time, the bleakness washed over her and she
wondered if this pain of loss would ever go.

But today, the realisation was different. Today, there was
tremendous anger in the mix. Being angry with David was so
much easier than mourning him.

In the bedroom's en suite bathroom she washed the sleep
from her face. She hadn't taken off her make-up the night
before, despite Marcella's offer of toiletries. She'd scrupulously
washed make-up from her face all her life and she'd had
enough of it. It was all a camouflage, a cover to deflect from
ageing and betrayal. All the unguents and creams in the world
couldn't change this.

She found an elastic hair-band in the cupboard under the
sink, scraped her hair back with her fingers and tied it up. It
didn't suit her face scraped back so. She looked like a mediaeval
dowager, banished to a convent.

But today this suited her mood. She had been playing the
wrong role for too long. She'd believed she was a vibrant
woman with the best years ahead of her; she'd actually looked
forward to a time when she could go on long holidays with
her still-adoring husband. It was clear now that she should
have been playing the crone all along.

One desire consumed her. To find the identity of David's
lover. But unless Marcella struck gold in the reams of papers,
she didn't know where to start. She felt lost. Lost and alone.


Eleven

Fight for who you are. It takes a long time to find who you are, but when you do, take care of that person. She's one of the most precious friends you'll ever have.



People who came to Star's front door were always surprised
to see the two red Chinese Fu dogs guarding her door. The
house, with its pale clapboard facade and wisteria-covered
verandah, seemed an odd setting for the exotic lion-dog faces
that stared out at the pathway. Once visitors entered the house,
they understood a little more. It was a cornucopia of
wonderful and unusual things from all over the globe.
Star's house was anything but ordinary. Walking in, the
first thing a guest noticed was the scent: a combination of
cinnamon, ambergris and frankincense cut through with the
sharp tangy aroma of lemongrass. Then they would walk
across the beautiful Persian rug that was older than Star could
ever tell anyone, and hear the whitewashed floorboards creak
beneath their feet. The third and seventh floorboards in the
hall were the creaky ones, which Star would say was lucky.
Then a guest would admire all the treasures the Bluestone
women had collected over the years.
On the hall console table was an old sextant from a

seventeenth-century Dutch sailing ship alongside a wooden
model of a boat that had sailed from Plymouth Rock. On the
walls were Star's tapestries, their vibrant colour contrasting
perfectly with sepia photographs of other Bluestone women
with strong faces and long blonde hair, taken in Morocco and
Africa, Scandinavia and Alaska.

Shelves in an alcove held an exquisite Tiffany lamp and a
wooden bowl, carved hundreds of years before by French
monks.

In the long sitting room that stretched along the entire
back of the house there were even more treasures: massive
couches, tightly packed bookshelves, watercolours of rare
flowers, and a collection of unusual teacups in translucent
bone china with rich, gilded colours. Pride of place went to
Star's great-grandmother's wooden rocking chair, still with
its original lace cushions, and the 1940s gramophone that
played Count John McCormack records beautifully, but
refused to play anything else.

Lena had been to Star's house many times before to discuss
the tapestries and Kenny's plans for the range, and she loved
everything about the place: the flowerbeds in bloom beneath
the windows, the beautiful orchids in the tiny conservatory
with its cast-iron chairs from another era and the floral cushions
that a person could sink into. She loved the rag rugs and
the old chintz armchairs, the copper pots that hung over the
huge stove in the kitchen. Today, she was showing this
gorgeous home to her colleague, Claudia.

'If I lived here, I'd never want to leave,' Lena said to Claudia
when Star showed them into the hall and they were immediately enveloped in the golden sense of comfort that was Bluestone
Cottage.

'It's so beautiful,' said Claudia, looking around in wonder.
'And the smell is . . .'

'Oh, just some things I've been making,' Star said. 'Special
coffee and cinnamon muffins - does that sound good?'


'Lovely,' said her guests.
'This is Claudia,' said Lena suddenly. 'Sorry, didn't introduce
you properly.'
Claudia blushed 'Sorry,' she said too, and held out her
hand.
Sometimes people thought that Star was stand-offish. When
she met people on the street she didn't rush to hug them or
kiss their cheek or take their hand. She stood back a little, a
trait that many over the years had assumed to be a sign of
reserve. That wasn't the case. Touch was so important to Star.
Touching a person could help you see into their soul, or at
least that's what she had found, ever since she was a tiny
child. Now she carefully took Claudia's proffered hand and
held it in both of hers.
'Lovely to meet you, Claudia,' she said, and drew a deep
breath. The feelings she experienced were subtle, at first.
From Claudia, young, pretty and smiling, there came just
a soft warmth, happiness, contentment. Suddenly, in her mind,
Star could picture a young man who loved Claudia and had
asked to marry her, had given her a ring, a tiny square-cut
something; not a diamond, but some special older jewel.
She sensed all this, but 'Lovely to meet you Claudia,' was
all she said.
She wouldn't say anything about what she'd seen. Claudia
probably wanted it kept a secret. Star had learned at an early
age that not everybody appreciated the Bluestone women's
gifts.
Granny Star, for whom Star was named, had been able to
sense the light in what she called 'found' objects, things that
were special. If a person handed her a watch or an item of
clothing belonging to a loved one, she could feel their energy,
know where they were, what was wrong with them. It was
a powerful gift, especially at a time when the magic most
rural people looked for was 'the cure' for various ailments.
When a travelling woman named Madeline had come to

Ardagh selling pots and pans, people had flocked to her as
word spread that she could cure bad backs. Nobody quite
knew how she did it, but once they had been to see her, whatever
back problem they had was gone. It was a simple, crude
magic, but it worked. Granny Star told her little granddaughter
how she and Madeline, recognising the sixth sense
in one another, had talked about the way their powers set
them apart.

'People fear what they don't understand,' Madeline said.
'They want it, and yet they fear it.'

'Is it easier when you're moving from place to place all the
time?' Granny Star wondered.

'It is and it isn't,' Madeline said. 'Travelling is all I know.
People welcome you when they need you, but when they are
better, they want you gone. When that happens, it's horrible
to feel they don't like having you around.'

'I understand,' Granny Star had said. Her gift had been
brought into the open many years before, when she'd used it
to find a missing woman. Since then, many people had come
to her, but afterwards they would hurry away, eyes shifty,
afraid someone might see them. They needed her help, but
they didn't want anyone to know they'd turned to a Bluestone
woman rather than falling to their knees in church.

Star's own experience had taught her that this was as true
today as it was then, and so she was careful about letting
people know what was revealed to her when she touched
them.

Holding lovely Claudia's hand, Star stiffened suddenly.
Something came to her like a pulse of electrical current, something
to do with a woman and David - her David. She tried
to work it out, but it was hazy, the way things were blurred
when the person didn't know what was going on. Whatever
it was involved David and a woman close to Claudia, but
Claudia was innocent of it all. Suddenly Claudia took her
hand away.


'It's a beautiful house,' she was saying. 'I love those old
maps, and those teapots are just adorable.' Everyone admired
Star's teapots. She'd been collecting them since she was a small
child and there were scores of them: blue-and-white willow
pattern ones, a colourful hand-painted one from Greece, a
couple decorated with delicate Chinoiserie that she'd acquired
on her travels. Most precious of all to her was a tiny handcrafted
pottery one with a slightly uneven spout and a willow
handle. It was very old and had been her great-great
grandmother's. Tea drunk from that pot could give the drinker
a vision of their destiny. Star had only used it a few times in
her life. It should not be abused, her mother had said.
'Star has an amazing collection,' Lena agreed. 'Is this a new
one?' she asked, running a finger over a fat rose-coloured
teapot with a chipped handle.
'I bought it in the antique shop,' Star said blankly. Her
mind wasn't on teapots. It was on Claudia's hands and what
she'd seen, a flicker of another woman who was close to
David. The woman hadn't been Lena or someone who worked
closely with David; it was a different kind of closeness, something
to do with love - but that didn't make sense because
the woman was linked to Claudia, and how could David be
in love with a woman linked to Claudia?
She felt the urge to touch Claudia's hand again, but it
mightn't work a second time. Her magic was strange like that:
it delivered its gifts when it felt like it, not on request, and
especially not when her need to know was so strong.
Star felt shaken and clumsy, which was unlike her. She
spilled the tea leaves when she was making the tea and then
knocked the jug over so that milk flooded the wooden kitchen
table, almost reaching one of the tapestries she'd laid out for
the visitors to see.
'Sorry, sorry,' she said, quickly grabbing a tea towel to mop
it up.
When they were all seated, enjoying tea and some of Star's

muffins - though Star, in her troubled mood, barely noticed
their taste - they talked briefly about David.

'It's such a cliche, but I can't believe he's gone, I just can't,'
said Lena mournfully. 'It was so sudden. One minute he was
here and the next he was gone.'

'I know.' Claudia put down her muffin as if her appetite
had vanished.

Star watched her. There was something strange going on,
she could sense it. No, not strange so much as sad. Sad and
full of pain. For someone.


In the cool of the barn-cum-studio beside the farmhouse,
Natalie hammered away at copper coils, bending them into
shape with the tiny jewellery hammer. It was satisfying work
normally, pounding away with purpose. Today, it was painful.
Her hands hurt, from the tendons in her wrists down to every
flexor in her fingers. The dull ache seemed to come from the
inside and was like nothing she'd ever felt before.

It had been the same all week: she'd feel normal in the
morning, then at intervals during the day as she worked in
Kenny's cafe the pain would return, throbbing, pulsing into every sinew. Night-time was the worst. No matter how tired
she was, she'd wake at least once every night from the awful
ache, and it would be worse than it ever was during the day.

Kneading her hands, stretching them, doing odd bending
exercises: nothing helped. She wondered whether this was
what it felt like to go slowly mad: feeling something strange
that you couldn't explain to anyone else, but which was
constantly haunting you?

'How's it going?'

Her father stood in the doorway, clad in his usual work
uniform of worn corduroys, Wellington boots, an ancient
sweater and a rain jacket. He brought the smell of the barn
with him: a mixture of the scent of animals and silage. Natalie
loved the smell. It was the smell of her childhood and somehow


infinitely more precious than any other aroma, although, if
pushed, she'd say that Bess's apple-and-blackberry crumble
came a close second.
'Not too bad.' She laid down her hammer.
'Bess said you were in bad form,' Des said.
Natalie allowed herself a small smile. Her father never beat
around the bush.
'I am a bit, I suppose,' she said.
'Why? Is it Rory?'
Bess and her father had met Rory, and pronounced him
very agreeable. Even better, the family dogs - wise barometers
of human beings - had adored him at first sight, and
the ram had gone berserk outside the kitchen door wanting
to join in the fun.
'Dr Dolittle,' her father had said cheerfully. Coming from
him, it had been a compliment. From Lizzie's mouth - 'You're
not seeing Dr Dolittle again, are you?' - it had been a slur.
'No, it's not Rory, he's great.'
He was great too. Kind, sexy, funny, generous: he ticked
all the boxes. But despite that, Natalie hadn't allowed herself
to fall totally in love with him.
It was, she thought wryly, the perfect example of it's not
you, it's me. It was her. He was lovely. She was the one who
wasn't sure, although she had no idea why. She simply didn't
feel like herself these days.
What with not sleeping well, she felt jumpy and achingly
sad. She couldn't bear to hear the news on the car radio on
the way to or from work, and she hadn't been able to look
at the latest batch of leaflets for Molly's anti-poverty organisation
either. The main picture was a black-and-white shot
of a small child curled up in a corner of a bare room, looking
lonely and scared.
Natalie felt tears well up in her eyes the first time she saw it.
'You're sure it's not Rory?' her father went on. 'We all
think he's a great fellow, but if he's misbehaving, I can rush

round to the surgery and pretend to knock all his teeth out.
He'd win, you know, but I'd go through the motions for you.'

'No, honestly,' Natalie said, laughing.

'Right, so,' said her father, serious again.

Natalie wished she could summon up the courage to say, Actually, Dad, could you tell me about my mum, she's been
on my mind a bit
But
she didn't know how to begin. How did you start a
conversation you'd been waiting your whole life to have?

'I'm not trying to pry. If you don't want to talk, don't. But
I'm here if you need me,' he said.

She couldn't do it.

'It's Lizzie,' she said. Well, it was partly true; Lizzie's behaviour
was upsetting. But since Natalie had been keeping out
of her way, she hadn't witnessed any other drunken nights.
Still, let Lizzie take some blame now to get Dad off the scent.

'What's she done?' he asked.

'It's hard to explain. She's my friend and I don't want to
be disloyal '

'I promise not a word will go further than this room.' Her
father sat down on the scarred wooden bench that had sat in
the farm's kitchen for many years before being relegated out
here. In the olden days, he'd told Natalie, they called it a
'firm'.

She thought of all the things he'd taught her over the years.
He'd been a wonderful dad, but there were things he had kept
from her, things she needed to know.

'What's Lizzie done?' her father repeated.

'Molly says she's an alcoholic,' Natalie said, and even to
her ears, it sounded shocking. 'I don't know, Dad, I can't get
my head around it. She does drink a lot. But she has a job
and everything, and she's not living in a cardboard box. It's
not as though she drinks every day. I've seen her keep to soft
drinks when she's the designated driver '

'It's not always easy to see it,' her father said, and Natalie


had the feeling that she'd said something to upset him. 'You
know, I think I left the light on in the garage,' he said, getting
to his feet quickly. 'I'd best turn it off while I remember.' He laid a hand on her arm. 'Look, Lizzie's a nice girl, but you
don't know what goes on in people's lives. Don't let it mess
you up, love.' And then he was gone. Natalie was hurt at his
abruptness.
No longer in the mood for work, she tidied up then headed
to her bedroom to get changed. Her precious photos of her
mother were in the bedside bureau, and she took them out
and looked at them. There were three photos of her mother,
two with Natalie when she was clearly only a baby, and
another when Natalie was perhaps two and a half. Her mother
looked just like her, the same lanky body, the same long dark
hair and eyes that looked black in old photos. Her smile burst
out of the pictures, though, and she looked as if holding the
baby Natalie was the greatest joy in the world.
Natalie ran her thumb over her mother's face, as if touching
it would somehow impart knowledge of her.
'Mum,' she tried. 'Mum.'
This woman was her mother. And she knew nothing about
her.
'Hey, Nat.' Joe wandered in. Her youngest brother never
waited to be invited in, just sort of threw himself against the
door in a half entrance, half knock at the same time. Natalie
shoved the pictures under her pillow quickly.
Joe's hair was all gelled up and he was wearing an awful
lot of aftershave.
'You going out?' she said.
'Yeah. What do you think of this look?'
He was wearing an old rock band T-shirt and the hoodie
she'd given him for Christmas. It was Diesel, very cool, he
loved it.
'Fabulous. You'll knock their socks off. Or her socks off
.. Is it a date?' she asked.

'Yeah,' he said, still in full-on cool mode. He admired
himself in her dressing-table mirror, posing, putting his hands
in his pockets and striking a moody look.

'What's her name?' Natalie asked.

'Sarah,' he said. 'She's really different, not like Kylie at all.'

Kylie had been his last girlfriend, a major mistake in
Natalie's opinion. A blip on Joe's previous record, Kylie measured
worth in terms of Louis Vuitton handbags and was
scouting around for somebody to keep her in the style to
which she wished to become accustomed. Natalie had disliked
her on sight, and the feeling had been mutual.

'What's Sarah like?'

'She's sort of pretty, has long hair and . . . you know. She's
into music. She's sound,' he added.

Natalie grinned: a man of few words, was her brother. She
loved him, even if he didn't have that much to say. She'd go
out and kill Sarah with her bare hands if she wasn't nice to
him. Actually, she owed Kylie a bit of thumping too, now
that she thought about it. Anyone who dared upset her little
brothers would have her to contend with.

'You look great,' she said, 'but I'd wash off a bit of the
aftershave, just a small bit, you know.'

'Too much?' he said anxiously, a little boy again.

'Sort of.'

'OK, Sis - bye,' he said.

When he was gone, and his overpowering miasma with
him, Natalie looked at her photos again briefly, before putting
them back in the bureau. There were no more answers there.

But after closing the drawer she had second thoughts.
She opened it again, took out the smallest photo and put it
in her handbag It would be comforting to carry it around
with her.


The next morning, Natalie was on the early shift in Kenny's.
Although the store didn't open until nine, the cafe itself opened


to staff at half past eight for breakfast. The first person in
that morning was Charlie.
'How lovely to see you,' said Natalie, smiling. She hadn't
seen Charlie for an age, although someone had said her mother
had had an accident and she'd taken time off to take care of
her. The place wasn't the same without Charlie around. There
was something so friendly about her smiling face and shining
eyes. And she'd been a life-saver at Lizzie's wedding when the
make-up artist hadn't turned up.
'Hello, Natalie. Can I have a large cappuccino and -' She
scanned the pastries on the countertop - 'I fancy one of those
maple-syrup muffins, even though I shouldn't.' Her hand
patted her stomach. 'But I haven't had one in weeks.'
Natalie plated one up and began to make the cappuccino.
'Your mum was sick?' she said with her back to Charlie.
'Yes, I was taking care of her and today is my first day back.'
'Welcome back. Very worrying, was it?'
'You could say that,' Charlie said slowly. 'Perhaps I'm not
cut out to be a nurse. It's hard taking care of someone, and
my mother's not the most patient patient in the world.'
'It must have been tough for both of you,' said Natalie
automatically.
'Yes, it was,' Charlie said, following the approved script.
She sighed and abandoned the script. 'It was a nightmare,
actually. I thought I'd never get back to work. My mother
and I don't really get on that well. Throw a broken hip into
the mix and it's a recipe for disaster.'
There, it was out. She'd said it.
They both stopped what they were doing - Charlie fiddling
in her purse for coins and Natalie wiping the bottom of the
cup with a piece of disposable towel - and stared at each
other, Charlie's honest words still hanging in the air.
'Sorry,' she said suddenly. Why did I say that?
'No,' Natalie said, 'don't say sorry. If that's the truth, that's
the truth.'

'I shouldn't have said it,' fretted Charlie. 'There must be
something wrong with me. Nobody else talks about their
mother that way, do they?'

'I don't know - my mother died when I was little,' said
Natalie.

'God! I've made it worse,' Charlie groaned. 'I'm really
sorry '

'No, stop.' Natalie placed the cup on Charlie's tray. 'I'm
glad you said it. I've spent my life thinking I was intrinsically
different from the rest of the world because I don't have this
classic mother person. I mean, I have Bess, my stepmother,
and she's wonderful, but I don't call her "Mum". Everyone
and their granny seems to have a marvellous relationship with
their real mother, so it's nice to hear someone say they don't
get on with theirs.'

'Is it?' said Charlie doubtfully.

'Of course. It makes me feel less out of place. If all you've
ever heard about mothers is that they're wonderful, then you
feel even more left out. People tell you the good stuff and
that's what you see mostly. And even when they do have their
quarrels, everyone says: No matter what happens, your mother
loves you.'

They both considered this.

'It's not easy being a mother,' said Charlie. 'You're afraid
of getting it wrong all the time. Whenever I get angry with
my mother. I look at my son and wonder if, when he's my
age, I'll be driving him nuts and he'll want to murder me.
Like it's a cycle and, no matter what you do, your kids'll end
up groaning about the mistakes you made. Do you mind me
asking, what happened to your mother?'

'She died when I was three. I don't really know the first
thing about her,' Natalie said.

Charlie recognised that Natalie was about to cry.

'Sit down with me,' she urged.

'I can't '


'You can. If anyone else comes in, you can hop up and
serve them, but sit now.'
Charlie went behind the counter and poured another cup
of coffee for Natalie, then carried the whole lot over to a
table.
'Go on,' urged Charlie, sitting down.
It was strange. Natalie thought of all the people she could
have talked to about this, yet Charlie was just the right
person. And here, in the cosiness of the cafe, knowing that
only people from Kenny's would come in, was the right
place.
'David's funeral really upset me,' she said, 'and I began to
think about her. I did some research on the internet about
being motherless, and some things began to make sense. Like
everything that was hard when I was growing up, stuff I didn't
understand at the time. I remember when my friend, Lizzie she's
my best friend, sort of - had long talks with her mum
about periods, and her mum gave her a book. I borrowed the
book and then, when I started my periods six months later,
I didn't even ask Bess about it. It was like this was something
mums were supposed to do and it was safer to hold it all
inside than ask. Does that make sense?'
Charlie nodded.
'This website talked about the defining moments in your
life and how they're hard when you've lost a parent. And in
my house, nobody talked about my mother.'
'So you feel you can't ask your dad about her?' Charlie
prompted.
'Exactly. He's never spoken about her to me. He gave me
photographs when I was small, but that's it. I don't want to
dredge up painful memories.'
'You have to ask him,' Charlie said.
'I should,' Natalie said unconvincingly.
'Listen, I spent years not getting on with my mother and
feeling guilty because of that. I didn't learn to deal with it

until I started writing down how I felt in a journal. It really helped. Keeping it in your head makes it worse. I did something
and you need to do something. You have to find out
as much as you can about her. She's your mum, you're entitled
to know. It's unfinished business otherwise.'

'I've got a picture of her with me,' Natalie said.

She ran to her locker in the kitchen, found the photo of
her mother she'd popped into her bag that morning and came
back.

'She looks so like you,' Charlie said, staring at the beautiful
woman with the long dark hair and wide smile, holding
her precious baby close to her heart. 'Maybe your dad doesn't
talk because it's too painful rather than because of anything
he wants to hide.'

'If you were my stepmum, would you be upset if I wanted
to know about my real mum?'

Charlie shook her head. 'Of course not. You said Bess is a
wonderful person and she loves you. She and your dad have
probably been waiting for you to ask. It's like people who
adopt children: they know that one day the child will want
to know about their birth parents. Just ask them.'

Natalie nodded tremulously. 'I will,' she said. 'Soon. What
about you and your mum?'

'Don't think there's anything I can do,' Charlie said wryly.
'"Detach with love" is what Shotsy says to me.'

'Is it that you fight a lot?'

'Not really. More that she disapproves of me. I didn't
become what she wanted, although my older sister did.'

'What did she want you to be?'

'Somebody important.'

'Must be difficult.'

Charlie sighed. 'Yes, it is. Maybe one day I'll find out what
makes my mother tick, and then I'll work it all out. Wouldn't
that be good?'


The rest of that day, Natalie thought how simple Charlie had
made it sound: Just ask. She would, tonight, she decided.
As it turned out, it was the perfect night to discuss things
with her father. When Natalie phoned during the afternoon,
Bess said the boys would be out and she had to visit a client
for a fitting for a wedding dress.
'I hate missing you,' said Bess. 'Tell you what, I'll ask if I
can see the girl earlier and then '
'No,' said Natalie quickly, hating herself for not being
truthful with dear, kind Bess. She felt that her father would
find it hard to talk about her mother with Bess present. 'I
was only dropping in for coffee on my way home from work.
Just a five-minute thing. Don't rearrange your fitting.'

When she walked into the kitchen her father looked up from
eating shepherd's pie. Natalie thought how brilliant a wife
Bess was: even when she was going to be out late, she fixed
dinner so her husband could sit down after a hard day's work
and eat the sort of food that he liked, with the paper on one
side of him and the dogs clustered around at his feet.
Natalie wondered if she'd ever have this sort of relationship
with Rory. Would they settle down to the point that she'd
cook in advance for him, so that, when she was out, he could
eat something she'd prepared? It was strange to think about
that. But she found herself imagining living with him, waking
up beside him, sitting on the couch with him at night, taking
calls for him when he was out with a sick animal. . .
'Natalie!' said her father, surprised. 'I didn't know you were
coming. Bess never said anything.'
'Just thought I'd drop in,' she said. Now that she was here,
she didn't know how to start this. Anything she said would
sound like a criticism of her father and Bess, which wasn't
what she wanted.
'Sit down - have you eaten? This is delicious,' he said,
waving his fork towards the shepherd's pie. 'I'll have to cut

back, though,' he added. 'My cholesterol was up last time I
went to the doctor.

'Was it?' Natalie asked, slightly alarmed, thinking of David
Kenny.

'Ah no, only a little bit,' her father said. 'Nothing to worry
about, love. Sit down, have some.'

'No, I'm not hungry,' Natalie said. She busied herself
making a cup of tea she didn't really want and then finally
sat down opposite him.

'How's Rory?' he asked, then grinned. 'Bess reckons it's
serious. Is he it - the One? I have to say, I'm fond of him
myself. He's a decent lad.'

Natalie smiled, thinking of other conversations about
boyfriends over the years. He'd never been the interfering sort
of father, the sort who'd stand over visiting lads with a grim
face and a threatening look in his eyes.

'Rory's great,' Natalie said.
'But you're here to talk to me about something?' her father
said, still eating. He knew her so well.

'Yes,' she said.

'What's wrong, Natalie?' he asked. 'There's something
wrong, I can tell.'

'No, there's nothing wrong,' she said quickly. 'Not exactly.'

'Well, what is it?'

Now that the moment was here, Natalie toyed with the
idea of fibbing about being broke (though that was true), or
something else; anything to put off the conversation. But no,
she'd waited too long.

'It's about my mother,' she blurted out. 'I just need to know
a little about her -' She broke off when she saw how stricken
her father looked. It was there, in his eyes: an expression that
wasn't fear, but something else. Sadness?

'I'm sorry, Dad. I don't mean to hurt you or Bess, but. . .'

'No,' he said. 'It's my fault.' He put his knife and fork
together and pushed the plate away.


'Don't stop eating,' Natalie said.
'I've had enough,' he murmured. 'I'm really sorry, Natalie,
I should have spoken to you before, but there was never a
right time.'
'That's it exactly,' Natalie said, grasping the opportunity.
'There's never been a right time, Dad. I've wondered so often
over the years what she was like. I don't really know anything
and I've so few pictures and you don't talk about her and ...'
'And you felt it would be disloyal to Bess and me to ask,'
he finished for her.
'Exactly, but I need to know. I need to know why we never
talk about her. Was it so awful, her dying? Or did you just
want to put it all behind you and start again? I need to understand,
Dad.'
Now that she'd started, she couldn't stop.
'Molly's father dying has made me think about my mother.
The day at David's funeral, when I fainted, I think -' She
broke off; it sounded crazy to say it out loud. 'I think I was
remembering my mother's funeral.' She barely dared look at
her father, thinking how painful this must be for him.
'My darling Natalie, I'm so sorry,' he said, and reached
across the table to take her hands. 'It was never meant to be
like this.'
'But you understand, don't you, Dad? And Bess will understand?
It's not that I don't love the two of you, I just need
to know about my real mum.'
It felt weird to even be saying mum.
She'd always thought of her mother as her real mother, but
not Mum. That was what you called someone you saw every
day, hugged and kissed.
'I knew that Molly's father's death had affected you,' her
father said quietly. 'It's the same graveyard, you see. When
you told me you'd fainted, I wondered if you'd remembered
something.'
'The same graveyard?' Natalie was stunned.

'I can show you. I can take you to see the grave.'

Natalie's hand flew to her mouth. She hadn't been going
crazy - those had been real memories of her mother's burial.

'I was there when she was buried?'

He nodded. 'Natalie, it wasn't my idea not to tell you all
this,' her father was saying.

'Was it Bess?' she asked cautiously. It would be so unlike
her stepmother to want to wipe out Natalie's mother from
everyone's memory and yet, it could have been. Maybe Bess
had found it too hard to live with the memory of her predecessor.
'No,
it wasn't Bess. She thought it was the dumbest idea
she'd ever heard. She was against it when she found out. It
wasn't right, she said, to keep your mother a mystery from
you. No, it wasn't Bess; it was what your mother wanted,
Natalie.'

'My mother?'

'Your mother,' he said. 'She was an amazing woman. God,
I loved her. Her dying was just about the worst thing that
ever happened to me, but she didn't want you to be . . .' He
was clearly trying to find the right words. 'Sorry, love, if you
knew how often I've had this conversation with you in my
mind. I had it word-perfect when you were little, but it's one thing telling a small child this stuff, it's another entirely telling
a grown-up. Your mother had a hard life and she worked
very hard trying to escape that. She wanted you to escape it
too. That was the plan, she didn't want the past to destroy
you.'

Natalie looked at her father in bewilderment. 'She didn't
want the past to destroy me?' she repeated. 'What past?'

'I'll try and explain, love.'


Twelve



The Past

Dara

Dara Murphy loved watching television. Her favourite shows
were The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie programmes
about families where, no matter what disaster
occurred, they were there for each other at the end of the
day.
Her friend, Ruth, had read the Little House on the Prairie
books and she said they were a lot different from the television
series.
'More stuff happens in the books and it's about setting up
home in tough places, sometimes with no school or not a lot
of food. There's no Nellie Olesen in the books, well, not that
I saw.'
Dara didn't read much; had never found reading easy. She
occasionally took books from the library, but books didn't
fare well in her house. They went missing or had food spilt
on them.
Her father hated books: 'Bloody priests,' he used to say
every time he saw one.

In his mind, the written word was linked with education,
which was linked to the Christian Brothers who'd taught him
in school. These educationalists were infamous for their love
of corporal punishment, and there were many former pupils
who had no time the Christian Brothers and their messianic
fondness for the leather. Dara's father, as usual, took this
dislike to the nth degree. If they were on the bus and passed
by his old school, he'd spit out the window. Greg, Dara's
brother, used to laugh. 'It's not funny,' Dara said.
'You might as well laugh,' said Greg.
He was better at laughing than Dara was.
'I'd like to live in a world like Little House on the Prairie,' Dara said to Ruth. 'Imagine a place where everyone cares
about everyone else. On the TV show, if somebody's being
horrible, everyone in the whole town knows by the end of
the episode.'
'It's only television,' Ruth said. 'Real life isn't like that.'
'Yeah, I know,' said Dara, 'I was just saying.'
The two friends talked about most things but there were
some topics that were untouchable. Like what happened to
make a boy's mickey get inside you if it was all floppy
normally, or why Eric, who lived beside Ruth, did drugs when
he was so clever and could have gone to college and everything. Dara's dad was another topic in this forbidden area.
Sometimes, Dara talked about what would have happened
if her mother hadn't been killed in a car crash when Dara
was six. This was fantasyland, where Dara, her mum and
Greg lived in a big house with lots of dogs - Dara loved dogs
- and had a big telly and heating that worked.
'If you live in the big house, what about us?' Ruth would
demand when Dara dreamily went into fantasyland.
'I'm only kidding,' Dara would say. 'Wouldn't I go mad if
I didn't have you!'
Ruth lived across from Dara's, in a sprawling Dublin estate
where the blocks of houses were arranged around small

playing greens. The streets had beautiful names, like Snowdrop
View and Daffodil Avenue, obviously thought up by
someone with a supreme sense either of irony or optimism. Ruth and Dara's houses on Snowdrop Park looked exactly
the same on the outside: small, two-storey redbrick houses
with a post-it-sized piece of garden at the front and a yard
at the back. Ruth's dad had racing pigeons in his yard and
her mother used to give out about them all the time.
'Those damn birds - the smell and the noise of them,' she
would mutter.
She didn't mind them really. Complaining about the pigeons
was part of the tradition of the whole sport, Ruth's dad liked
to say. If women couldn't give out about their husbands'
hobbies, what else would they have to occupy their time? One
of the pigeons was called Lulu because Ruth's dad reckoned
it sounded the way Lulu did when she screamed the first
syllable of the song 'Shout'.
'I swear he loves those pigeons more than he loves the rest
of us,' said Ruth's mum.
She was only kidding, though.
Ruth's mum and dad and two older brothers filled the house
with good-humoured squabbling. Ruth's mum was a terrible
cook, but nobody minded. Dara loved eating there because
she felt welcome.
Inside, the houses were as different as chalk from cheese.
If houses could be colours, then Ruth's home was a deep
rose pink, full of warmth. Dara's house was grey, a cold grey
like endless rain. Her favourite room was the dining room
because her father rarely went in there. He preferred the living
room with its fire and the big chairs where he and his cronies
could sit for hours drinking. Dara always knew when they
were there: she'd come home from school and the atmosphere
in the house would be so tense and threatening it scared her.
On those days, she'd sometimes run over to Ruth's house and
stay there for the afternoon. But she didn't like to impose

herself too often. Ruth had her own life. Dara didn't want to
rely on her friends too much, it wasn't fair.
Most grown-ups were no use either.
'What happened to your homework?' Miss Daniels would
say, examining the empty copybook.
'Dunno, Miss,' Dara would say, looking as blank as the
pages. She spent a lot of time looking blank. And nobody
picked up on it. No teacher came to their house asking why
she never did her homework or why she was so tired in class,
or even why her lunch consisted of a packet of crisps. Teachers
didn't notice much, or if they did notice, Dara decided, they
didn't want to get involved.

Her brother Greg fancied Ruth. Dara wasn't sure how it
happened. They saw each other often, living across the green
from each other as they did, and sometimes Greg travelled to
school with Dara -- something that was almost unheard of
in Greg's school, St Dominic's. Big brothers didn't usually
walk with little sisters. But Greg and Dara were different;
they were very close: they had to be. They didn't have anyone
else, just their dad and no mum. On those walks to school, Ruth and Greg somehow fell for each other. Greg was tall
and good-looking, Dara could see that. And Ruth was pretty,
even though she didn't have good clothes or much money for
make-up. She had a glow and a beauty that came from the
inside.
Dara wasn't jealous, she loved them both. But she didn't
want Ruth to know everything, especially when it came to
what really went on in their house. She'd never told her. It
was too shaming. And now if Greg was going out with Ruth,
he'd tell her everything.
'You won't, will you, please?' she asked him.
'Don't be daft, Dara,' he said. 'What am I going to say?'
'I don't know,' she said quietly.
'She is your best friend,' Greg went on.

'I just don't want her to know,' Dara said, 'that's all.'
'Don't worry, I won't tell her.'
At night, when all the kids in the neighbourhood played
football on the green or sprawled on the grass, Greg and Ruth
sat on the low wall near the swings and talked. Sitting on the
wall was like taking out an ad in the newspaper: We're going
out, it proclaimed. It was the couples' wall, dotted with people
sitting beside each other, not always touching, but close. There
was never too much open affection between the couples on
the wall. They might be laughed at. The boys playing five-aside
would jeer, rude jokes would be made. They might roar
lustily that the girl needed an aspirin for contraception.
'Keep it between your knees,' they'd shout. 'If it falls out,
you're fucked!'
Dara went in early the first evening Ruth and Greg sat
together on the wall. Not that Dad cared what time she went
home. She could come home at three in the morning with the
Rolling Stones trailing behind and he wouldn't mind. The
more the merrier, especially if they brought booze.

When Dara left school she went to work in the bank. She
both loved and hated the bank. It was her first proper job working
Saturdays in the supermarket near home didn't count.
She loved the fact that people weren't allowed to shout at
you no matter what happened, but she hated the groaning
inevitability of it. The long, slow slog of the week would be
followed by a veritable titbit of a weekend, like a teeny taste
of chocolate cake and you'd barely have enough before the week was back, dull and tiring.
Work itself was a disappointment to Dara. Everyone wanted
a job in the bank. Pensionable and safe in a time of uncertainty,
the bank was a dream job - according to everyone else.
But they didn't have to put up with being a junior in the
Inchicore branch of Harp Bank, and spending their days sorting
the reams of post into piles according to the eight-digit account

numbers and then matching each item with a piece of microfiche
- a four-inch by six-inch piece of see-through plastic that
could be viewed through a magnifier - on to which eight sheets
of paper could be copied. The letters were then taken to the
microfiche department for transferring on to the tiny plastic
sheets. Once copied, the letters were delivered to their destinations
within the bank and Dara had to file the microfiche in
the correct filing cabinet. This process had to happen within
one day. It was tortuous work and searching through boxes
of microfiche hurt like hell when the hard plastic scratched
against her fingers. Worse was trying to decipher people's
writing on their letters. Possible account numbers had to be
checked against their microfiche matches in order to find out
whether a number was supposed to be a 6 instead of a 0.
'Why can't people write clearly?' complained Dara's friend
Elaine. 'How hard can it be to write their account numbers
legibly? Monkeys would write better than most of these idiots.'
'Hey, some of my best friends are monkeys,' joked Dara.
Then she moved on to their favourite subject: 'What are we
going to do for lunch?'
Elaine stopped filing for a minute and looked thoughtful.
Sometimes, the whole staff piled into cars and went up to
Kitty O'Shea's, which was always fun. The problem was getting
the last customers out of the bank before it closed at 1.25 p.m.
On Kitty O'Shea mass exodus days, there was always some
mad old bat who came in at precisely 1.24 p.m. with sack
loads of ha'pennies to be weighed.
The counter staff would then have to stay at their posts,
smiling and trying to look as if they didn't mind the stench
of dirty coppers when what they really wanted to be smelling
was vegetable soup and a ham sandwich.
And the people without cars, like Dara and Elaine, had to
hop from foot to foot, waiting for their lifts.
'We're broke,' Elaine reminded Dara now. 'We brought in
sandwiches, remember?'

'Cheese on its own, because I've no butter,' said Dara with
a certain gloom at the memory. 'I hate my own sandwiches.
They always taste horrible. The same thing in a pub is delicious.
Why is that?'
'Because you can't cook?'
'You don't cook sandwiches.'
'OK then, because you can't have a lager with your sandwich
if you eat it here,' Elaine pointed out.
'Yeah, that's it. Magic ingredient in sandwiches is lager.'
The uniform didn't help. Harp Bank's uniform was Kelly
green, with an ill-fitting A-line skirt clearly designed by
someone who'd never seen a skirt before, a cream polyester
blouse with little green harps scattered over it, and a jaunty
little green scarf tied like a bow in the collar. In summer, the
polyester made the wearer smell of perspiration, and in winter
it made them shiver with cold. The plus of the uniform was
that it transformed the most unbanklike person into a demure
office worker because it was simply impossible to look either
cool or uninterested when wearing Kelly green harps. The
colour went well with dark hair like Dara's, and Elaine
believed that the bank hired more brunettes than any other
hair colour because of this.
'You'd be fired long ago if you were a blonde,' she said
sometimes.
'If I was a blonde, I'd be sitting on the manager's lap all
afternoon - and nobody who does that ever gets fired,' replied Dara. The bank manager had never even so much as flirted
with her, for which she was profoundly grateful. She didn't
know what she'd do if he did. Her defence was a bold, slightly
confrontational stare and a slash of dusty purple shadow
blazed above her brown eyes. Don't mess with me was the
message from both the stare and the cosmetics.
'Where should we start tonight?' Jean asked Dara and
Elaine.
It was Friday, the cue for major partying. Dara had been

astonished and thrilled to find that people who worked in
banks were mental. Once the clock hit the magic number five,
the whole place cleared out.
'Dunno,' said Dara.
Jean was new and was not entirely allowed into Dara and
Elaine's little gang of two, but she was nearly there.
'Captain Americas?' said Elaine.
'Ace,' said Dara, relenting. 'I love that place.'
'I'll phone Jason,' Elaine said. 'It's only a quarter past, he'll
still be at his desk.' Jason was Elaine's sort-of boyfriend, He
worked in a bank in town with lots of people who also loved
to party.
When Elaine had mustered up a crowd, they took turns
in the small women's toilet, changing clothes and applying
makeup.
Dara owned one fabulous going-out coat: a long, velvet,
frock-coat. The sort of thing Siouxsie Sioux might wear. With
her crochet fingerless gloves, plenty of eyeliner and her fishnets, Dara felt she could do Siouxsie better than Siouxsie
herself. Her hair wasn't the right colour and her eyes weren't
as feline despite the eyeliner, but still.
Jean, who had forgotten to bring black tights to replace
her work American tan ones, almost spat with jealousy at the
sight of Dara in her finery.
'You look cool! I look like a dork.'
'You look fine,' Dara said. 'You could buy black tights
when we're out.'
Jean grimaced. She was saving up to buy a moped. She had
her eye on a lilac one. She'd be mobile, no more waiting at
bus stops. 'It's a waste when I've so many black ones at home.' Dara shrugged. Saving was an alien concept to her. She never
had a penny to her name. As soon as she got paid, the money
was tied up: on rent, on paying people she owed, on going out.
When she was dressed, she went back to her desk to collect
the rest of her stuff.

'Where are you and your little peachy friends going?' said
James. James was three levels above her in bank hierarchy,
and therefore couldn't be cheeked. He perched on the edge
of Dara's desk, leaning ominously over her. Dara's radar fizzed
when he was near, she couldn't quite get a reading on him.
Was he harmless and interesting, or dangerous? It was impossible
to tell.
'Out,' she said crisply. Less was more with the likes of James.
'Out. Interesting,' murmured James, leaning closer so that
she could smell his breath.
She felt a momentary flash of fear at his closeness, the sense that he was a feral beast and the normal rules of human
behaviour wouldn't apply to him. But she cast it off. Fear
was deadly. If you let them know you were afraid, then they'd
won, they'd take what they wanted.
Dara grabbed her stuff. 'Yes, out,' she said, and gave him
the benefit of her Siouxsie glare. Go away, it said.

Jason's friend, Felippe, held her arm and they stood by the side
of the road on Stephen's Green, one of the busiest thoroughfares
in the city, even at half past midnight. Dara tried hard to
concentrate, but it was too difficult. Her vision was cloudy and
no matter which eye she closed, she still couldn't see properly.
'Gotta get a taxi,' she managed to say. 'It's furry late.'
'Sure,' Felippe said.
Together, they weaved their way into the middle of the road
and started hailing cars. As if they were stones in a river, cars
swerved to avoid them.
'They're not taxis!' shouted someone else from the footpath.
'They're ordinary cars.'
This was unbearably funny and Dara collapsed on to the
road laughing, trying to haul Felippe down with her. 'Not
taxis!' she giggled. 'Ordinary cars!'
'You're soo funny,' Felippe said. 'Ooh look, I think the
Green's open.' He unhooked his arm from hers and wobbled

over to the other side of the street where he began to rattle
the Stephen's Green park gate in the manner of a person trying
to get out of jail.
'Get off the road, Dara,' shouted someone. 'You're going
to be run over.'
Offended, Dara got unsteadily to her feet. 'No, I'm not,'
she claimed. 'Look. Up. Not run over.'
A car came perilously close to her, skidding in a flash of
steel to avoid her. 'Oops,' she said, and that was very funny
too, so she had to sit down again for a minute.
'You'll be killed, you stupid cow.'
Somebody sounded angry, and whoever it was had grabbed
her and was pulling her back across the road to the safety of
the pavement. It was Lawrence, another friend of Jason's, a
very boring straight person who didn't know how to enjoy
himself. But cute, Dara thought. Hard to tell because he was
so wobbly in front of her but she thought he might be cute.
Nice shirt, striped and with purple in it. She liked purple.
He'd got her a cab and was holding the door open and trying
to shove her in.
Charming.
'- please take her, she won't get sick in the car.' 'I won't,' Dara said loudly. 'I'm not drunk, you know. Not
even a little bit. I could drink much more, but I have to get
up for work in the morning.'
'Tomorrow's Saturday, you moron. Shut up, Dara, will
you?'
She was facing Lawrence and she had a nice idea of how
to say goodbye to him, a memento of the evening. Swiftly, she
pulled up his purple-striped shirt, found his nipple and bit it.
'Goodnight,' she said, and let herself slump into the back seat
of the taxi. 'Home, driver, and don't spare the horses.'

Morning slammed into her consciousness. No gentle opening
of the eyes but a rapid sit-up-in-the-bed moment as her pulse

thumped drumbeats in her body. Where was she? What time
was it? What. . .?
Her own bed and in her own clothes, which was good. She
felt carefully and found she was still totally dressed, everything
on. No items of clothing gone - that was always scary.
But fully dressed. In her own bed and she was - she looked
around with anxiety - alone. No sign of another person with
her and since she was still clothed, it was unlikely she'd
brought anyone home. People home, men, meant she'd have
taken some of her clothes off and even if she couldn't
remember anything actually happening, it was always there,
the possibility. On those days, she'd shower for ages, scrubbing
with the loofah she'd bought in the Body Shop until her
flesh was raw. Like monks from the olden days, scrubbing away their sin. Today though, she was dressed. No man, no
body snoring beside her.
Which was one good thing, but instantly she began the roll
call of possible bad things, piecing together the night before.
Where she'd gone, what she'd done there. Sometimes, the
receipts in her handbag were the only clues, clues that added
up to lots of her salary. Being broke never upset her when
she was drinking. Then, she was rich as J.R. Ewing, ready to
order wine no matter how expensive or how awful it was.
She'd done it again. She'd only meant to have one drink,
just the one, and what had happened? Millions of drinks,
shots and tequilas and you name it pumped into her.
The wave of shame that rose up in her was physical. Shame
could be physical. If flirtation made a person blush with a
rosy hue, then shame was a fire of pain.

Rhona had been in the bank longer than Dara and had moved
on from microfiche filing to answering telephone calls about
deposit accounts.
'You don't drink like the rest of us,' Rhona said. Dara felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

'Whaddya mean?' she blurted out. Stupid, that sounded
wrong, like she was worried about it, which was the wrong
impression to give. 'I mean, how does everyone else drink?'
she added, managing to sound a bit blase.
Rhona kept her unwavering gaze upon Dara. Rhona wasn't
one of Dara's favourite people: she was too sharp, too ready
to say what she thought - a very annoying habit. 'Like we're going to drink the bar dry.'
'I don't do that,' Dara said and she laughed. Convincing,
no?
'If you say so.' Rhona shrugged.
When she was gone, Dara thought about the stupidity of
the whole conversation. Wasn't that the point of drinking, to
drink the whole bar dry? Dara scanned her mind for that
moment in the pub when the alcohol was sinking into her and she was sinking into it, when she'd stare at the jewel
coloured bottles racked up behind the bar and want to finish
every single one of them. Surely everyone felt the same, didn't
they?

Dara lived in a bedsit near the bank. It was small but reasonably
clean and it was her own. That was the best thing about
it.
Des Flynn lived near her. Dara liked Des; not that he was
her type. He was always in the company of a gang of other
lads, equally strapping, all muscled sporty types with big bags
that held soccer jerseys and runners, and probably damp
towels that housed billions of bacteria and hadn't been washed
since the year dot. Friendly blokes who drank a couple of
pints of beer on a night out and danced badly to Dexy's
Midnight Runners. Not the type who knew how to roll a
joint or where you could get a bottle of absinthe, therefore
not her type.
She'd watched him sometimes as he went out with his pals.
Sitting with the window open all the way down, so her legs


fe.
hung out in the sun, with a glass of wine beside her and her
skin tanning, she could see all the way down the street. She
could see the little old man who came slowly out of his house
every afternoon, shuffling up in the direction of the bookies
and perhaps for a pint in Horgan's once Holy Hour, when
all the pubs closed, was over. She could watch the young
mother with two small kids come shouting and panting out
of her front door, one child holding reluctantly on to her, the
other crammed into a pushchair, face screwed up and crying.
The park, Dara decided, they were going to the park, and the
mother would stop screaming and they'd all sit on the grass
by the swings and the children would smile at the dogs rushing
around, sniffing everything, in the sun. She didn't know if all
this really happened, but she liked imagining people's lives.
And the boys, she watched Des and his mates.
'How's it going?' Des called up to her.
'Fine,' Dara said. She wanted to say something else but
couldn't think what to add, so she gave him a little wave.
That looked stupid, she decided.

They were in the pub again after work. It was a Thursday,
so nobody wanted to be out late. Well, not that late.
'Tequila slammer,' she said.
'Wayhay!' yelled Stanno. 'Atta girl, Dara. Let's all do
tequila.'
'You're so boring when you don't drink,' agreed Mark,
who worked on the counter and charmed all the good-looking
mummy types who came in to pay off the husbands' credit
cards.
'I hate boring people,' sighed Michaela. 'The salon was full
of them today.'
Everyone smiled indulgently. Michaela owned a nearby
hairdresser's and was often to be found in the pub because
she hated the smell of perming lotion and needed little drinkies
to cope with having ten staff and annoying clients.

She was older than the rest of them, mid-forties at least,
and had curly hair the colour of blackberries. There were
three shot glasses lined up in front of her. Peach schnapps. It
was her latest favourite, discovered when she drank a Vestal
Virgin, of which schnapps was the major ingredient. Nobody
was too sure what the others were but it was mind-blowing.
The tequila arrived, dumped on the table by a waitress who
was too busy for niceties.
'Just one lemonade,' said Dara quickly. No point paying
for lots of mixers when they only wanted to spend cash on
booze.
The waitress silently took the extra lemonades away and
collected an assortment of coins from them.
Dara grabbed the lemonade first, splashed a bit into her
tequila, held her hand over the glass to shake it, then slammed
the glass on to the table. The drink obediently fizzed up and
she knocked it back in one.
The bite of the tequila rasped her tastebuds. It was hideous
stuff, but oh, the effect. Her eyes closed, she waited. The
warmth spread from the depths of her belly into her limbs
and, most importantly, into her head. Lapping at the anxiety
and fear like a soft lake gently drowning her. She opened her
eyes and smiled at her friends with relief. She felt safe and
loved.
'Haven't you guys started yet? I'm ready for another.'

James and a few of the other older guys from the bank had
been sitting on their own having grown-uppy conversations,
but as the evening wore on and the fair-weather drinkers left,
they joined Dara, Elaine and the young gang.
James made a bee-line for Dara as usual and, for once, she
didn't mind. He was harmless enough, she decided from the
delicious safety of several tequila slammers.
'Having fun?' said James, sliding on to a barstool beside
her and waving a hand at the barman at the same time.

'Yes,' said Dara happily.
'And on a school night, too,' James added. 'You are a wild
child.'
Dara grinned at that. Wild child: she liked that. She liked to
think of herself as untameable. Nobody tried to capture or hurt
wild things. He obviously understood that much about her.
'Another drink?'
Dara considered another slammer. They hurt her stomach
after a while. She'd had a couple of chips when one of the
lads got sausages and chips in a basket, but she never ate
much when she was drinking. Soaking up the booze was such
a waste of good alcohol.
'Have something else,' urged James, seeing indecision in
her eyes. 'I'm having brandy.'
That was the smell around him, she realised. A rich, fiery
smell. She liked it.
'OK,' she said. 'I'll try one.'
Slammers made her feel high but brandy made her buzz.
Her pulse raced and she felt full of energy, wanting to dance
when someone put Salt 'n' Pepa on the jukebox, but they
weren't allowed to dance in here and she had to content herself
with standing at the bar, moving her hips in time to the music. Dara focused on her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
She loved how she looked when she was drunk, it was the
only time she did. Otherwise, she felt ugly and, no matter
how often people like Elaine or Ruth told her otherwise, she
felt fat.
'You're a size ten,' Elaine would shriek. 'If you're fat, what
does that make me, you idiot?' Elaine was a size fourteen.
'But you're taller than me,' Dara would reply. Elaine was
gorgeous, there was no comparison. She could be twenty stone
and she'd still be gorgeous. It wasn't about weight, not for
other people. Only her. She was wrong no matter what. Ruth and Elaine never gave up, though. 'You have to say I'm a beautiful woman and I have a secret,' said Ruth, who

was much taken with a new fad about how to walk into a
room and look in control and mysteriously gorgeous at the
same time.
Dara had pretended to do it, but she didn't believe it for
a moment. They were just words. She wasn't beautiful,
although she had plenty of secrets.
Right now, she was feeling a little bit not-so-ugly, which
was not even in the same time zone as being beautiful. The
lighting was dim and in the mirror, Dara saw a small face
with big dark eyes and lashes so long they looked false. Her
skin was a warm tone and she had a dusting of freckles across
the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Any lipstick had long been
smeared off, so she rubbed Body Shop strawberry lip balm
on her lips. Sexy, that's what she looked, with her large dark
pupils and the trails of long, thick, espresso-coloured hair
curling around her shoulders.
James met her in the hallway as she emerged from the
ladies'. 'I just had a thought,' he said. 'This place is boring.
Let's go somewhere else. Closer to town, more fun.' Dara wavered. She wanted to stay with Elaine, not go off
with James. She didn't really like him, despite the brandy.
'I've got your stuff,' he said, holding up her handbag and
coat. 'Come on.'
He gripped her hand and led her outside, whereupon he
began to run, pulling her along behind. His car was a red
MG. Dara had never been in such a car.
James fired it up, did a U-turn in the middle of the street
and began to drive in the opposite direction to the city.
'This isn't the right way,' Dara said.
'We're going the back route. Don't want to get caught by
the cops.'
Briefly, Dara wondered if it was a good idea to drive after
so many drinks. How many could you have and still drive?
She didn't know; she didn't have a car and there was no limit
on drinking and taking the bus home.

James put on a cassette and turned the music up to full
blast. 'Pink Floyd,' he said.
After a few minutes they pulled into a small heavily graffitied
car park with lots of cans and broken bottles scattered
around and got out. The pub was a solid redbrick square
with blocked-up windows that had bars on them.
'This is a great joint,' he said.
It didn't look it, but Dara followed him in. The pub was
busy. Every other customer was male. They stared at Dara
with her velvet coat and heavily kohled eyes. She shuddered.
This was the sort of place where her father would be right
at home, bursting with men full of bitterness and whiskey,
angry with life and everyone that looked crossways at them.
James seemed to know the barman and he sat comfortably
at the bar and ordered double brandies. 'Get that down you,'
he said when the drinks arrived. There were no rounded
brandy balloons here, just plain glasses that looked dirty. Dara
drank but the brandy didn't make the fear go away.
'I don't like this place,' she whispered to James.
'Don't you, honey?' he asked, putting a proprietorial hand
on her leg.
She shifted uncomfortably but James moved his hand higher. 'Drink up, then, chickie, and we'll go.'
'I'd like to go home,' Dara said when they were in the car.
'Sure,' he said vaguely. 'I'll go the back way again.'
'No,' she said, panic coming from somewhere, 'drop me at
a taxi rank. I'll get a taxi.'
'No, no way,' he said. 'You wouldn't be safe.'
The brandy and Pink Floyd were giving her a headache, it
was like being on a magical mystery ride in the middle of
nowhere. James drove down strange streets along the docks,
past big empty buildings and boarded-up blocks. Then he
turned the car rapidly and drove into a small cul-de-sac in a
warren of dockland buildings. James stopped the car and
grabbed her, shoving his face into hers.

'James, no!' she yelled, pushing furiously.
'Yes,' he murmured, forcing his tongue into her mouth at
the same time as his hands were wrenching her coat away
and pawing over her blouse. 'God, you're something else,' he
said, ignoring her struggles.
'No,' she shrieked, pushing him as hard as she could.
He was on top of her now, having somehow pushed her
seat down and shifted himself over the gearstick to pin her
down.
'You want this,' he said hoarsely, 'you know you do.'
'Not like this,' she said desperately, hoping to stop him
with subterfuge. Maybe she could get him to come to her flat
and then she'd scream, then people would hear her.
But it wasn't working; James was at her breasts now, his
breath hot on her bared flesh.
'I'm the wild child, you can't do this,' she begged, trying
to shock him out of his frenzy.
'Wild child, yes,' he groaned, and then he was holding her
down even more forcefully. Dara hadn't known he was so
strong, or that she was so much weaker than she thought.
Her strength was nothing to his, he could break her with one
hand.
'Of course you want this,' he groaned. 'Why else did you
stand beside me, dancing to that music, waggling your ass in
my face, asking for it?'
'No!' she roared, but he put a hand over her mouth, pushing
so hard she felt she might black out. 'You want this.'
The weight of his body on top of hers, the force and the
fear, brought her back to the bedroom in Snowdrop Park
when she was small. Another man, another heavy body on
her little one. 'No,' she breathed inside her head.
'No!' she tried to scream, but James's hand muffled the
noise.
There was only one thing left to do: Dara went inside herself.
Lockdown time. It was about more than closing her eyes. She

closed her heart and her soul; this was a shell of a thing being
raped, not her. And the shell could cope with anything.

'You all right?' asked Mrs Davis who lived in the bottom flat.
Her front door was in the hall, right beside the phone, and
she'd opened her door to take her dog for his morning walk. Dara had her eiderdown pulled around her, and she was
as white as snow, except for the raw redness around her eyes
from crying all night.
'Fine,' muttered Dara, huddling close to the phone. She
hadn't the coins to drop in, so she was tapping out the number
on the little receiver buttons at the top of the phone. It didn't
always work, but sometimes it did and you could make a call
without paying.
Mrs Davis sniffed and went to the front door with her dog. Dara leaned against the wall, clutching the phone close to her
skull.
Elaine answered.
'Good morning, Harp Bank, Inchicore branch,' she said
cheerily.
Dara didn't have to fake a hoarse, sick-sounding voice. She
could barely speak, whether it was from the trauma of trying
to shout or just plain trauma. 'Elaine,' she rasped, 'it's me, Dara, I'm sick, a bug or something.'
'Yeah, right,' said Elaine. 'Brandy, that's the something. Did
you sneak off with James?'
Dara had to hold on to the wall to steady herself. 'No, I
went home, I felt sick then, just had to go.'
'Oh.' Elaine sounded a little more convinced.
'Tell them I won't be in,' Dara said, and hung up.
There was no hot water for a bath this time, although she'd
had a scalding hot one last night when James had dropped
her home, smiling as if they'd had the date of the century,
seemingly oblivious to Dara sitting mutely beside him, her
hands shaking as she held her ripped blouse together. She'd

half fallen out of the car and her shoes were in there somewhere,
shoved off. She didn't care; she'd stumbled barefoot
up the steps of her building, holding her handbag and herself
together until she was safe.
She lay in the cool bath, not wanting to look down at the
paleness of her skin in the water. Her legs were bruised, and
she had a bite mark on one breast. Her neck hurt from the
force of being pushed back and her spine ached where James
had shoved her round the car, lying on her, forcing her down
on to the gearstick once.
She knew what she had to do next.
The doctor in the women's clinic was a woman, for which Dara was grateful. She couldn't have coped with being alone
with a man.
Dara sat in the chair and looked at her knees as she asked
for the morning-after pill. The nurse had all her details, her
blood pressure had been taken, now it was down to the doctor.
'You may feel nauseous,' the doctor said matteroffactly
when she'd scanned the blood-pressure results and the alleged
reason for needing the pills. Getting confused about the safe
period. It was the excuse Elaine had used when she'd taken
the morning-after pill and it had stuck in Dara's head, to be
remembered today when her head was blank.
Dara nodded. 'I know.'
'It's not a form of contraception to be used every month,'
the doctor went on. 'It's for emergencies only, you should
remember that.'
Dara still didn't look up.
The doctor handed over some pink and some white pills.
'The white ones are for nausea,' she added.
'Thank you.'
'Is there anything else you want to talk about?' There was
a slight softening in the medic's voice. Maybe she'd seen the
scrapes on her knuckles, Dara thought as she reached the
door. No, nobody could help her. Not here.

'No thanks,' she said and was gone.
The white tablets didn't kill the nausea caused by the pink
ones. Dara knelt on the floor of the bathroom and retched
dry heaves. When each session was over, she lay with her
cheek on the tiles and she could see all the dust and dirt that
had accumulated in the corners. Bits of cotton wool, burnt
matches, a glitter of a piece of broken glass from one time
she'd been having wine in the bath and dropped the tumbler.
When she'd got out of the bath, she'd cut her foot on a sliver
of glass and even then, she'd laughed. Hopping around the
flat, leaving bloody drops everywhere, it had been funny
because she was drunk. Only the next day, when she was
sober, had she realised how sore it was.
Drinking had brought her here. Drinking had led her to
James, too much brandy and being raped in his car. Drinking
meant she was as culpable as he was. Nobody would let her
cry rape when she'd had so much alcohol inside her.
She was pissed, Your Honour, they'd say in court and
everyone would look at her with disgust, the drunken floozy
who had danced in the pub with the accused, had drunk
brandy with him, had gone off happily in his car. Nobody
had forced her, nobody had put her in a headlock and said,
You must go with this man. You must drink this brandy.
What can this young woman's word be worth, Your
Honour? Nothing at all. She cannot be trusted.

Niall, one of the guys in the house, was having a party on
Saturday. Mrs Davis was away and she was the only one who
told the landlord about parties. Everyone else in the house
would come and have fun.
'You've got to come down, Dara,' he said, leaning in her
door and looking curiously at her, still wrapped in her eiderdown.
Niall
was friendly, and he had the maddest hair: bright red
and it stood up like a brush.

She shook her head at him.
'Ah, go on,' he said. 'You'll be over your bug by tonight,
and we need some fun people to liven it up.'
By nine that night, Dara had barely eaten anything and the
thirst for something alcoholic was vicious. She had not one
single thing to drink in the flat. Nothing.
Pulling on jeans and a big woolly jumper, despite the
warmth of the evening, she went downstairs to the party. She
needed a drink, just the one. A single drink couldn't do her
any harm, surely? Just enough to damp down the fear and
then she'd be fine.
By midnight, the party had spread out into the back garden
of the house. Dara was in a happy place now, warmed by
vodka punch. She was smoking a cigarette and holding a can
of beer as she stood beside the wooden shed that the house
owner kept spare furniture in. There was a ladder leaning
against the shed. Looking at it made Dara think about flying.
She could fly, she was sure of it. She did it all the time in
her dreams: just launched herself and slid her arms and legs
out, a bit like swimming.
Sometimes when she woke up, she was so sure she could
fly that it was a shock to realise that she couldn't.
Earthbound was horrible, no freedom to it. But tonight,
she could fly for sure. She was invincible. Running her hand
along the smooth skin of her arm, she could feel the muscles
beneath, sleekly ready to propel her above the ground, and
then she'd be able to skim along on hot currents of air, like
a bird, free. She could launch herself off the shed.
It was a marvellous plan.
She began to climb the ladder.
'Whaddya doin'?' said someone. Niall. He looked funny, Dara thought. His hair was weirder than usual.
'Hair?' she said. She'd sort of meant to say Your hair, but
the words weren't coming out right. She tried again but still
no joy. Words were bound up in her mouth, clumsy. She hated

feeling clumsy and shook her head to clear it, as though shaking
might realign everything, but still the clumsiness remained.
Niall was holding on to her now.
'Stop,' she mumbled.
'Whaddya doin', Dara?' he said again. 'Don't do anything
crazy, or we'll all be out on the streets.'
At least, she thought that's what he was saying.
'Not crazy,' she replied and got him off her by the simple
motion of slapping him on top of the head.
'Ouch, that hurt!' he cried.
Dara giggled and kept climbing the ladder. She'd say sorry
properly when she was flying.
She felt as if she was dancing now. On top of the shed was
a bucket of dirty water. The roof itself was coarse wood. Dara barely noticed. Her skin felt so alive that she didn't
care about earthly things like pain; she was above all that.
From below, she could hear shouting. She smiled indulgently,
they didn't understand. At the edge of the shed roof,
she looked down.
'Dara - Jesus, Dara, what are you doing up there? Get
down,' roared Niall.
'OhmiGod!'
Dara felt the rasp of the wooden roof as she slid one foot
forward. They'd understand when they saw her flying. She
leaped, waiting for the whoosh of the currents of air under
her body, the glorious lift of becoming airborne.
It never came. There was a sudden screech of fear and a
stomach-whooping sensation like being in a rollercoaster, and
then nothing but darkness.

'It's hard to know what she's taken . . .'
The words drifted into Dara's consciousness.
'Drinking, all of them '
'Never seen anything like them . . . police are here. No, she
did it herself. . . told them she could fly. I have no idea how

nothing's broken. Badly sprained ankle, though. She fell on
the bin bags, else she'd be in bits.'
The words receded as pain hit Dara like a hail of bullets.
Sharp, stinging, aching, unbearable. At least it took her mind
away from the other pain, the one in her heart. Physical pain
was easier to deal with. You knew where you were with it.

The small front room smelled of a wood fire and stale sweat.
When Dara had lived in Snowdrop Park, she'd never realised
how dirty and drab the house was, with wallpaper that had
been the same all her life. The paper in the front room might
once have been small blue flowers on a cream background.
She pictured her mother choosing it and urging Dad to wallpaper
the room. Now it was yellow, with the flowers faded
into nothingness, more yellow at the top from years of smoke,
and with large strips of paper torn off the chimney breast,
the result of an argument some night.
'So you're back.' Dara's father sat in his old chair beside
the fire, his cigarette-making paraphernalia beside him on the
stained card table, and the ever-present glass in his hand. Clear
liquid sat in the glass, therefore Dara knew he'd got poteen
from somewhere. The illegal Irish spirit was very strong, beautifully
sweet and mellow if made properly. Made incorrectly,
it could make a person go blind. But Dad wouldn't care about
that. He was with Machiavelli on that one: the end justified
the means. Good or bad, if it made you drunk, it worked.
All the rest was immaterial.
'I'm back,' she echoed, although she didn't want to say
anything. It was bad enough to have to move home. She
didn't want to have to talk to her father. She and Greg had
discussed it.
'He's not so bad these days,' Greg said. 'He doesn't drink
at home so much, he goes out a,lot. Makes it easier.'
'Make it easier if he'd drop dead,' Dara growled at her
brother.

'It would make it easier if you hadn't got thrown out of
your bedsit,' Greg said flatly. 'You going to tell me about
that?'
'No, it was a misunderstanding about rent,' she lied. How
could she tell him the landlord had asked her to leave after
the last crazy party? She'd have found another place if only
he had given her the deposit back, but of course he hadn't.
'You crazy or something?' he'd shouted at her, gesticulating
with his hands. 'You want your deposit back after all the
trouble you've caused me? I've had the police round and next
it'll be the taxman. Get out of here and don't come back.'
With no money and nowhere else to go - she'd asked some
of the girls if she could bunk with them, but they'd all said
no - Dara was left with no option but to go home to Snowdrop
Park.
She'd thought she'd never fit all her possessions back into
her own bedroom, but strangely she seemed to have less stuff
than she'd thought. She'd unpacked one of the bin liners and
had begun to put things away into the dusty wardrobe, but
she'd felt too dispirited to finish it. Instead, she'd shoved the
bin liners into one corner and gone downstairs.
'Want a drink?' Her father pointed to a bottle on the floor.
There were no glasses, only a couple of dirty cups on the
mantelpiece.
'Hospitality the Murphy way,' she said cynically.
He gave her the thousand-yard stare she'd grown up with,
the dangerous stare.
At a certain stage of drunkenness, the stare would go from
angry to pure rage in a millisecond, and he'd move across the
room to slam his hand into her face. Incredible how a man
so unfit could move at speed when he really wanted to.
Other times, he'd just glare at her coolly and tell her to
fuck off.
Once, Dara had known the precise difference between those
two stares. She'd worked it out, as if it were a mathematical

formula studied at CERN: x + y = disaster/mild indifference,
with a variant of k.

But she couldn't be bothered to analyse his mood today.

Let him hit her.

He couldn't touch her on the inside any more, nobody
could. What was another fist in the face from her father? She
was used to it. After the first ten years, you became nicely
numb. Dara had never hit back before. She didn't know why.
Your dad was supposed to protect you. Was that it? Was it
some race memory of what was expected of a relationship
between parent and child that had rendered her too shocked
to respond?

Either way, she'd always let him hit her.

But that wouldn't happen any more. Her old room in the
house might be the same, but Dara had changed. She would
fight back, and with the animal instinct he'd always had, he
knew it.

'Suits me,' he said, shrugging. 'More for me if you don't
drink.'

The mention of the word made her thirsty in a flash. Thirsty
for the cosy warmth inside her, the warmth that nobody could
take away.

'I've changed my mind,' she snarled.

She grabbed the bottle from the floor, unscrewed the top
and drank from it. It was good stuff, all right: soft and sweet,
like mellow Japanese rice wine only cold.

'Jesus, I didn't say take it all,' he said, watching the bottle
upend further.

The poteen hit the spot, many times. Dara was so tired,
she sat on the armchair staring blankly at the television as
her father watched a football match, and thought about
getting the energy to climb the stairs to bed.

'I'll help you,' he said abruptly when she got up and swayed
on her way to the door.

Somehow, they made it up the narrow stairs. In her


bedroom, her father hauled her over to the bed and Dara
slumped on to it, toppling black plastic sacks to the floor.
'I'll sort you out,' he was murmuring, putting her feet on
the bed and pulling off her boots. He shoved the covers back
and nudged her further into the single bed, so there was more
room. 'There's my girl,' he said.
Dara's eyes sprang open. She felt a blast of sobriety come
with fear. He was drunker than she was, she could tell. He
drank so much that it happened faster now. From nought to
sixty in a few glasses. That was what forty years of heavy
drinking did to you.
'That's my girl'
He had his hand on her neck, curled around it and the
fingers sliding down to the curve of her breast in the cheap
acrylic polo-neck she wore.
The memories crashed back.
'Get off me!' she roared. 'Get off me!'
'Jeez, I was only -' he muttered.
Dara kicked him as hard as she could and he fell off the
bed.
'Out!!'
He scrambled off the floor and lurched out of the door. The shaking began and Dara slid off the bed, searching
frantically in her possessions for the bottle of vodka. She could
remember it all and she hated remembering.

'Let's have a bath and get you nice and clean.'
'OK, Daddy.'
The bath was too hot for her, but he pulled her in anyway.
'You're a great little girl, d'ya know that?'
There were no bubbles, just water, so she could see his
spindly legs and the boniness of his body. Only his belly, soft
from beer, was fat, a white mass resting on the flaccid penis.
Boys in school made jokes about willies. Padraig, who was
nearly ten and therefore older than the rest of them in third

class, had drawn one and the teacher had thrown him out of
the class. Dara had said nothing. She could have drawn one
too.

'It's dirty, so Daddy can't touch it. Wash it for Daddy, there's a good girl.'

She'd done it before. She'd done worse. What happened
in her bed when he was really drunk was worse, wasn't it?
Although he said it was their special time. Special time hurt
Dara. She used to close her eyes for it, go into that place in
her head where nobody could reach her. That was a safe
place.


Dara found the vodka bottle hiding in her box of albums.
She drank half of it, not even feeling it touching the side of
her throat as it rushed, fiery, down. It would take a while to
work. It always did now. The instant-hit days were over. It
took more and more vodka to send her into the warm, safe
place. But she had to get out of here now. She couldn't stay.
She stuffed some clothes back into one of the black plastic
sacks, got her handbag and rucksack, and went downstairs.
The keys to his crappy car were thrown at the bottom of the
stairs. She scooped them up. She didn't know where she was
going, but she had to get away, out of town.

By the time the city had disappeared, Dara was lost. She'd
found herself on an old road in the middle of nowhere, with
a grass bit in the middle of the road and the sea ahead of
her. The car was making a strange noise. There was a problem
with the clutch, she knew. Piece of crap. Typical of anything
her father owned. She swerved and the car launched itself at
the grass-covered ditch, and made a jarring crunching noise.

'Fuuck,' she hissed, banging the steering wheel. It took ages
to open the door because she couldn't find the lever. When
she did, she half-fell on to the. roadway. Eventually, she got
herself the right way up. Planes had the same problem, didn't
they? Working out where the horizon was and which way


was up. Being a plane hadn't worked for her, though. Oops.
No flying for Dara.
She focused on her surroundings. She'd almost got to the
headland that jutted out over the sea. Another bit of a drive
maybe, and she'd be there. The road narrowed to a sliver and
it ended abruptly, with a few metres of scrub grass and then
nothing but the sea and the rocks below. There was a wooden
fence at the point, she remembered, and if you picked your
way carefully past that, you could walk a little further along
the scrubby grass until you came to the absolute edge where
you could stare down at the frothing water and imagine yourself
landing there, impaled on the jutting rocks, homes of a
million barnacles.
There must be a house near her, because there was a sign
with a postbox that said Bluestone in script writing.
Was that a name or a description? Dara wondered, and
then stumbled and fell against the hedge opposite her car. The
hedge was surprisingly soft, with fragrant moss damp from
the rain earlier that day. She let herself sink into it. She'd close
her eyes and have a little rest.
When she woke, she was stiff and cold. Daylight had
leached from the sky and an evening mist was rising from
the ground. Dara moved her head and groaned. The buzz
had worn off and she was in that place she hated most:
where she loathed herself in every way. There was almost
no point in moving because why would she move? Where
had she to go? Nobody wanted her, and besides, she wanted
nobody.
Eventually, she had to move because she needed to have a
pee, but when she hauled herself to her feet, she could feel
the leg of her jeans was wetter than the rest of her damp
clothes. Her head thumping, she reached down to check and
smell. Urine. She'd peed on herself already. Revulsion swept
over her, another headier dose this time.
She crouched beside the car to relieve herself and grimaced

as she pulled up her wet jeans. She was disgusting, nobody
had to tell her that.
The car disgusted her too. She'd taken his car. How could
she do that? How could she have moved back in with him
after everything?
After what he'd done to her.
And James, she'd never forget what he'd done. Dara had
told nobody; after all, who'd believe her? Who would take
her side or have sympathy for her? She had none for herself.
She began to cry, a soundless sobbing that hefted great
lumps out of her soul. And eventually, she stumbled in the
direction of the ditch again and lay there on the moss, lost
and alone in her misery.
She didn't hear footsteps coming from the driveway of the
house labelled Bluestone and it was a moment before she
became aware that somebody was watching her. It was a
woman, tall and slender, with a long woollen cardigan whipping
against her in the wind. She had long skeins of silvery
blonde hair flying about her face, and her expression was
strangely concerned. Why was that? Dara wondered. There
was only her around, and who could worry about her, when
she'd done it all to herself? There could be no sympathy for
someone who'd brought all their misfortune on themselves.
'Can I help you,' the woman said. Not a question exactly.
An offer of help.
Dara shook her head and felt more water fill her eyes.
The woman crouched down and edged nearer, the way a
person might approach a feral cat injured on the road.
'What's wrong?' she asked.
'I want to die,' said Dara. And she did. Right now. She
might as well be dead, it would be easier, less painful. There
was nobody who would really miss her. All right, Greg would,
and she loved him so much, but they'd been there for each
other as children and he was an adult now, he'd found someone
else to love him - Ruth. He'd be safe. He wasn't like her.


'You could get better,' the woman said. Again, it was an
odd thing to say, Dara realised.
'Could I?' Dara asked, wondering.
The woman tilted her silvery blonde head to one side, like
a bird, and Dara saw that she had the most unusual eyes: long
rather than round, and slanting up at the edges as if her ancestry
held a hint of Asia. And they were the most amazing shade
of green: not a smudgy colour but the true green of peridots
with a strong dark line around the irises that defined them.
The woman took Dara's hand almost before Dara realised.
Two things happened: the woman closed her eyes and sighed,
and Dara felt a surge of heat through her palm as if her hand
was lying on a stove. Heat burned through her, up her arm
and into - and here, it was getting very strange - her heart.
That's what it felt like. Still holding on, she struggled to sit
up and touch her chest with her other hand. Yes, there was
this feeling of heat where her heart was supposed to be.
Normally, she felt nothing there, just deadness. Or sometimes,
dull pain. But now there was this warmth and it was lifting
her-
'You've been hurt so much, you poor child, but you could
get better,' the woman said, letting go.
Dara gasped but the beautiful, comforting heat inside her
remained. She stared down at her hand but it looked the same
as ever.
'I'm Star Bluestone,' the woman said. 'I was making supper.
Would you like to come in and have some with me?'

Two years later

Sofie, Lorelei and Dara walked out of the meeting, calling
goodbye to all the smokers who'd lingered to light up.
'We're going to my place for coffee,' Lorelei said to the
smokers.

'We'll be there in a mo,' one of them replied.

The three women walked down the lane from the community
hall and came upon a bunch of young fellas kicking a
ball against a wall.

'What's going on in there?' roared one of the lads. 'Youse
are always there on a Monday night. What's it about?'

Dara eyeballed him. 'We're a right-wing Christian group,'
she said. 'Ordinary People Against the Devil. Look . . .' she
poked around in her handbag. 'I have leaflets. You could have
some. You only have to do ninety prayers a night, and promise
not to lose your virginity until you're twenty-one, it's really
easy.'

The young fellas were looking at her with horror.

'But you have to give up smoking, drinking and girls. Oh she gestured to the ball which had now stopped - 'and football.
Football is particularly the work of the devil. I mean, come
on - Arsenal? It's obvious.'

She produced some papers from her bag - really brochures
on aerobics classes from the new gym that had opened up
down the road. 'Here are the leaflets. You'd love it.'

'Bunch of weirdoes,' muttered the lads, running off with
their ball.

The three women burst into laughter.

'We could show them work of the devil,' Lorelei laughed.

'And then some,' sighed Sofie, who was three years sober
and still shivered when she thought of what she'd been like
out there. 'If only they knew.'

Lorelei's home was a five-minute walk away, a two-up,
two-down she lived in alone. Dara had spent many evenings
there since she started going to the Alcoholics Anonymous
meeting in Inchicore.

It was all thanks to Star Bluestone, she knew. If Star hadn't
taken her in, comforted her during the hellish alcohol withdrawal
phase, and driven her to AA meetings, she wouldn't
be here at all. Dara could never thank Star enough.


'You did it yourself,' Star replied every time Dara said this.
'I couldn't have done it without you,' Dara protested.
'Without someone to believe in me.'
'You want biscuits?' asked Lorelei now as she boiled the
kettle.
'No,' said Sofie. 'I'm trying to diet. I'm on the FPlan.'
'I've given up on dieting,' Lorelei said cheerfully. 'I take
too much sugar in my tea to bother dieting.'
Lorelei had stopped drinking twelve years ago. It had been
her AA birthday a month before and she'd thrown a party
for the Inchicore group, which was her home group. AA birthdays
were precious, more so than belly-button birthdays.
When you stopped drinking, Lorelei said, it was like being
reborn.
She was the polar opposite of what Dara, years ago, would
have considered an 'alcoholic'. For a start, she came from a
wealthy, privileged background. Her husband was a well
known surgeon, like her father and brothers, and she'd had
a wonderful career in physiotherapy herself until she'd
destroyed it with drink.
Nobody looking at the discreetly dressed grey-haired
woman now could imagine Lorelei out of her mind on vodka,
hammering on her own front door and screaming at her
husband to let her into the house because she had to mind
the children, a performance that had been re-enacted every
night for a month after he'd thrown her out. His mother had
taken on care of the children and Lorelei had been drinking
at least a litre of vodka a day to wipe that fact out of her
mind. Once it was satisfactorily wiped out, she would go to
the house and begin hammering.
'That was me,' Lorelei had said told Dara when they first
met. 'I had no home and I was living on the streets. I hit my
rock bottom with a good, solid bang.'
Looks shouldn't be important, but Dara knew that she
judged people by them: that person with the nice car and the

gentle manner couldn't possibly have been addicted to heroin.
That lady with the manicure and beautifully coiffed hair
couldn't once have been the sort of person to piss herself in
the middle of the road, and roar abuse at passing strangers
until she was picked up and taken home by the police. But
this was how these people had been. Looks meant nothing.
What counted was the inside.

'How are you getting on with Des?'

Dara was caught off-guard.

'You're blushing!' said Sofie.

'Stop it!' said Dara, blushing some more.

'It must be love.'

'Oh, pee off,' Dara replied, but she smiled. 'OK, it's love.
Happy now?'

Half an hour of talk later, Dara finished her coffee. 'I'm
going home,' she said, and slipped out from her place at Lorelei's
kitchen table. She opened the door to leave, then whispered
back at Lorelei and Sofie: 'to spend time with my lover!'

'How was your meeting?' asked Des when she got home.

He was cooking. He was a marvellous chef but a terrible
clearer-upper. He and Dara had worked out a system whereby
he cooked - she had no experience whatsoever, having been
raised on a diet of tinned spaghetti, beans and sausages, and
white bread - and she cleared up afterwards.

'Very good.' She put her arms around him from behind and
spooned herself into the hardness of his back. 'What's that?'
she sniffed.

'Cod in a lemon sauce.' Des had got his hands on a secondhand
copy of one of the Galloping Gourmet's books and was
working his way through it.

Dara sniffed again. 'You're sure that fish isn't off?' she
asked.

'Fresh off the boat,' Des said indignantly. 'I got it in McKee's
this morning.'

'Sorry, it smells funny.'


They both put their heads down to the pan and inhaled
deeply-
Dara reeled backwards. 'Think I'm going to pass out,' she
muttered, before Des caught her.
'What happened?' she tried to sit up, but her head still felt
woolly.
She was in their bed and Des was sitting beside her, his
face a mask of worry.
'You fainted.'
He was almost accusatory.
'I've never fainted in my life,' she snapped back.
'Dara, now's not the time to prove how tough you are!'
Des growled. 'You fainted, take it from me.'
'Why would I faint?'
'I don't know.'
They glared at each other.
'Sorry.' Des lay down on the bed with her and hugged her
so tightly she felt her ribs crunch. 'I'm worried about you.'
'I'm fine.'
'You're not. You're going to the doctor.'
Next morning as they sat in the surgery waiting room, Des
worried about Dara fainting, while Dara worried about paying
for the doctor. They were broke, how could they afford this?
They were only just managing to live and pay the rent as it
was.
'We should just go home, darling,' she said. 'I feel fine now.'
'No,' he said firmly. 'You're going to see the doctor, you're
sick.'
In the surgery, Des sat on a chair and looked anxious, while
the doctor calmly checked Dara's blood pressure, asked her
questions, dipped a couple of sticks in her urine sample, and
prodded the glands in her neck.
After a while, she held up a skinny white tube.
'It's not a urinary tract infection or a kidney infection, but
I think I know what it is.'

'What?' Des looked as if he was expecting the worst.
'You're pregnant,' the doctor smiled.
'Jesus!' said Des.
'Pregnant?' Dara repeated in wonderment, and then said
again in her mind: pregnant, her? Then she felt a wonderful!
joy seeping up from her toes to the top of her head. Pregnant,
They were going to have a baby, how absolutely incredible.
Des grabbed her and kissed her on the lips fiercely.
'I'd tell you two to get a room,' joked the doctor, 'but it's
clear you've already gone past that bit.'

The day her brother Greg was marrying Ruth she woke to a
beautiful April morning. The wedding had been arranged with
some haste because Greg had got a contract to move to Sydney
with his company, and who knew when he and Ruth would
be home again to marry with all their family and friends
present.
'Are you ready?' Des called up the stairs to Dara.
They'd found a small house in Ashbourne and even though
it was a long way from Des's work, it had a garden and plenty
of other families with young children around. Perfect for when
the baby was born.
'Ready as I'll ever be,' Dara said. Her hair shone, her cheeks
glowed with a rosy quality that was just her, not powder or
cream blusher, and even if her voluminous black cotton dress
and flat sandals were hardly high fashion, she knew she looked
as well as she ever had in her life. Like a goddess, ripe with
power and love.
Because of you, she murmured to the baby inside her belly. Because of you.
Without her child, she didn't know how she'd be able to
cope with this day.
She could smell her father's breath as soon as he opened
the back door of Des's car: the sweet, honeyed smell of an
early-morning drink mixed in with the heady aroma of

yesterday's booze soaking out of his pores. Dara said nothing
as he got into the back seat, just smiled hello and kept her
hands closed over the swell of her belly. There was something
diseased about the smell of old alcohol. They told pregnant
women not to breathe in other people's smoke. There should
be a similar warning about smelling a hard day's drinking on
somebody.
'Never thought I'd see this day,' her father said happily.
He was always happy when he'd had a few early morning
scoops, Dara thought with anger. Happy when there was a
party where he could play hail-fellow-well-met to all and be
the life and soul. No wonder so few people had ever realised
that Bernard Murphy had a serious drinking problem. All
they saw was charm personified at parties, followed up by
a little slurring of words and a fondness for sitting at the
piano and singing Percy French songs. Where was the harm
in that?
They didn't see the anger that surfaced when the party was over, or the damage he could do when there was no admiring
audience to watch him, just the unwilling audience of two:
his son and daughter.
The car jerked at a red light.
'Sorry,' said Des apologetically.
She gave him a small smile. He was as nervous as she was
about the day, only because he wanted it to be right for her.
Dara could feel her heart racing with anger. It was bad for
the baby. She forced herself to breathe deeply and let the rage
evaporate. No, she wouldn't let anything bother her today,
she vowed. Today was Greg's day, and for him, and her
beloved Ruth, she'd go to the wedding, smile as if they were indeed a normal family where the only son was getting
married, and even dance with her father when the time came.
She'd do it for Greg and Ruth.
The actual wedding part didn't trouble her. It wasn't the
church where she and Greg had gone as children - that would

have been hard, sitting in a pew looking at the same stations
of the cross on the walls and falling back into that dark place
of childhood where there was always fear and tension. Thankfully,
Greg and Ruth had chosen a church near the hotel where
the reception was being held. It was comfortingly unfamiliar,
with a choir of schoolgirls who sang at weddings and played
the guitar as accompaniment. It held no memories.
The hotel itself was pretty, ivy-covered and managed by
a charming couple who must have had a new bridal party
every weekend, but carried on with delight as if the Murphy/Keogh wedding was the highlight of their hotel's entire
calendar.
Nothing was too much trouble. They dragged an armchair
out for Dara, with a footstool and an armload of cushions
during the sherry reception in the small bar so she could sit
in comfort. Most people were standing, so Dara was at a
lower level to them all, giving her the opportunity to sit back
and watch. She saw her new sister-in-law swirling around the
guests in her pretty cream silk gown, the baby roses in her
hair drooping prettily in her fair curls. She watched Des talking
kindly to Ruth's elderly great aunt who'd been anxious about
not knowing anybody outside of the wedding party, 'and
they'll all be too busy to have time for me.'
She watched Greg's eyes following Ruth round the room,
and saw how he'd held a glass of beer at the start, but put
it down without drinking more than a sip. And she saw her
father talking to Ruth's dad, standing beside the bar with
pints in front of them. Bernard had one foot balanced on the
rail at the base of the bar, a position he adopted so frequently
that Dara wondered whether the muscles in one leg were
shorter than the other. One pint became two, followed by
whiskey chasers. She couldn't hear from where she was sitting,
but she knew the script.
'Ah sure, it'll be a long time till the dinner and the wine.
Let's have a couple of short ones to keep us going.'

She and Des drank mushroom soup, ate wild Irish salmon,
devoured a beautiful meringue confection topped with raspberries,
and occasionally held each other's gaze during the
speeches. As father of the groom, Bernard Murphy wasn't due
to give one, but that had never stopped him before.
Yet he sat happily beside Ruth's mother, without any visible
sign that he'd drunk enough to flatten any normal human being.
'It's been a beautiful day, hasn't it?' Ruth's father said to
her, as they sat at the side of the room while the tables were
reorganised for dancing. 'We were lucky with the weather,
although I'm sure you would have been happy if it hadn't
been so warm.'
Dara smiled at him. 'We were lucky in every way,' she said.
In the end, it was the dancing that got to her. The band
played cover music and the first dance was Ruth's favourite
song: Billy Joel's 'Just the Way You Are'. The singer had a
good voice, Dara thought absently, as she watched her big
brother holding on to his beautiful bride and moving gently
around the dance floor.
Ruth's mother and Dara's father began to shuffle round the
floor and then everybody else was up too, and all the formal
bits of the wedding were finally over. The band wove the end
of one song into another and Louis Armstrong's 'What a
Wonderful World' began.
'Come on, pet, let's shake a rug.'
Dara refocused to see her father standing beside her. 'I'm
not dancing, Da,' she said. 'Ruth's dad asked me if I wanted
to give the whole family dance a miss, and I said yes. I'm too
pregnant.'
'Nonsense.'
He had a firm grip on her arm and pulled her to her feet.
Strange how he could look so gentle and yet be so strong.
Deceitful. 'A little dance will do you good.'
He put one arm around her and held her other hand in his,
looking down to concentrate on his waltz. He always prided

himself on his dancing: he could even do the foxtrot, he said,
although Dara had never seen a sober rendition of it.

She set her face and let him manhandle her round the floor.
She refused to let him see how it hurt.

'You'll come and see me when the baby's born, won't you,
pet?' her father said.

He stumbled a little but she was holding him, so she kept
them both upright. He was still a tall man, although the
muscles he'd once had were run to fat and his belly was as
swollen as hers from years of drinking beer after beer.
Followed by whiskey chasers, of course.

Dara wanted to say, Of course, we'll visit you, but she
couldn't. She couldn't lie, not now, not with her baby inside
listening. There had been enough lies in the Murphy household
and there would be no more.

'It's a great day,' he went on, 'a great day indeed. Not many
a man can see his son and daughter married within a year of
each other and think he did it all himself. I wasn't a bad old
father, now, was I?'

He was waiting for her to agree. Waiting for her to say, Yes, Da, you were the best. You never screamed at us till we
bid, or threatened us with the strap, or drank your wages till
we had no food and had to run to Ruth's mother for sugar
sandwiches or. . . She stumbled on the 'or'. It was so big,
bigger than ever now that she was pregnant.

'Wasn't I, Dara?'

Dara could no longer bear it.

She realised she had been waiting for something, some
connection that would make the past a safe place again, some
moment when her father would transform into the mythical
Daddy he'd never been. Like a distant dream when she woke
up, she could almost touch the vision of this past. She reached
out and it was beyond her grasp.

Nothing could change the past, not her wishing with all
her heart, and not this day of happiness where she watched


a really happy family together, seeing them smile at each other
and not set their faces into the tight masks of people doing
their best not to remember.

Dara was sitting in Star's conservatory watching Star sort out
skeins of dyed silk when the contractions started.
'Oh,' she said in shock, hands rushing to hold her belly as
the pain ripped through her.
'Is it the baby?' asked Star, concerned.
Through the pain, Dara nodded. When it had receded, she
leaned back in her chair gasping.
'Ouch!' she said, and laughed with relief. 'It must be
Braxton Hicks contractions,' she added.
She and Des had spent hours poring over their pregnancy
guidebook.
Star didn't look convinced. 'That's not the feeling I'm getting.'
'No, really, your waters need to break first,' Dara began,
and stopped as a flush of liquid spilled out of her. 'Then again
- Sorry about the floor.'
It was Star's turn to laugh. 'This floor has seen plenty of
waters breaking, I can tell you. My mother delivered eight
babies in her time.'
'And you?'
'None - yet.'
Des was at his uncle's farm down the road, and came
speeding over to Star's house.
'Relax, the contractions are twenty minutes apart,' said
Dara, who was now lying on a couch in a sea of cushions.
'We've ages to go, and remember what they told us in the
antenatal classes? If we come in early, we'll just be sent home
again. Better to stay here where we're comfortable.'
'OK,' Des said dubiously.
An hour later, Dara suddenly howled in absolute pain.
'Des, it's more than a contraction, don't know what it is,
but help. Help '

'Let's get her to hospital, quickly,' said Star. 'I'll drive.'
Dara's labour was long and intense, and the midwife
suggested pethidine.
'No,' gasped Dara. 'No drugs.' She squeezed Des's hand even tighter. No drugs, not now.
And then there was Natalie, with her head of silky dark hair and her outraged screaming at having been hauled out into this freezing, very bright world.
'Send me back inside!' she's saying,' crooned Des, as he held her, screaming, in his arms.
And Natalie, worn out and yet full up with joy, smiled at
them both.
Star had cried when she held little Natalie in her arms.
Dara didn't think she'd ever seen Star cry before.
'Sorry,' wept Star. 'It's just that she's so beautiful, so precious.'
Her father came to the hospital the day after Natalie was
born. Des had been with her almost all day and now he'd
gone; visiting time was nearly over and along came her father.
He was drunk. Dara didn't care. She was happy, insulated in
a bubble of happiness. Her father was never aggressive or abusive when there were other people around and here, in
the six-bed hospital ward, with Natalie snug in her little crib
beside the bed and other mothers on either side and nurses
and doctors walking up and down, Dara knew she was
perfectly safe from him. Besides, he couldn't touch her in any
way, not physically, not psychologically, any more.
'Look at the baby,' he said, clumsily banging into the crib,
reaching in as if to pick Natalie up.
'No,' said Dara quickly, 'you can't - she's asleep.'
Miraculously, Natalie stayed asleep, even though her grandfather
had made so much noise and barged into her cot.
Perhaps she knew her mother was willing her to keep her eyes
closed, so that her grandfather would not pick her up and
hold her to his drunken face. She slept deeply, those long
lashes dark and heavenly on her soft cheeks.

'Ah, she's beautiful,' said Bernard. 'A beautiful baby. I had a few with the lads, just to wet the baby's head.'
'Yeah,' Dara said. Any excuse: drinking to wet the baby's
head, drinking because somebody had died, drinking because
the sun had shone, drinking because the sun hadn't shone.
She understood it, all right. Her father stayed at the end of
the bed, as if he could sense the armour-plating Dara had put
around herself and the baby.
'I meant to bring you flowers or something, but I forgot,'
he said.
'That's fine,' Dara said calmly. She had the gifts she wanted,
a card and roses from Des. She'd told him he shouldn't have
bought her anything, they needed to keep the money for the
mortgage, and then he'd come in with beautiful white roses,
twelve of them, and she'd loved him for it.
Bernard sat on the end of the bed and Dara instantly pulled
her feet away. Even though she had stitches and it was uncomfortable,
she sat up straight; she wanted to be formal with
him, move away from him, not lie there and relax. Worse,
Natalie would wake up soon and need to be fed, and there
was absolutely no way Dara was going to breast-feed her
baby with her father watching.
'She's the image of your mother,' Bernard went on, peering
mistily at the baby in the little crib. 'The image of her. And
what a great head of hair she has. It'll be lovely to have a
baby around the house again.'
Dara felt a wave of absolute revulsion hit her. It would be
lovely to have a baby around the house. A baby who would
grow into a child, a little girl, to be touched and used in the
same way she'd been used? Was he crazy? Did he not
remember what he'd done to her? Had he managed to put it
out of his mind so easily, or had alcohol sodden his memory
so much that it was as if the abuse never happened?
A bell rang, the warning that only fifteen minutes of visiting
time remained.

'That's it, Da,' she said. 'You'd better head off, they're very
firm here.'

He didn't need any more urging. 'I said I'd go back to the
pub and meet the lads - they want to buy me a few rounds
for the baby. What are you going to call her, anyway?'

'I haven't decided,' Dara said, which was a lie, but giving
her father the baby's name was like giving him a bit of her
soul, and she didn't want to do that, not just yet. He lurched
forward for a kiss and Dara felt her stomach curdle. She
moved her head so his unshaven cheek cracked against hers.
'Bye,' she said and he staggered off, no doubt happy with
himself. Everything was fine in Bernard's world.

Her grandfather had no sooner gone than Natalie woke up
with an adorable mewling noise, like a kitten, waking and
stretching.

'How are you, my darling?' Dara said, picking her up,
wincing only slightly at the pain from her stitches. Natalie's
rosebud mouth settled around her mother's nipple and she
began to suck. Breast-feeding was incredible, Dara thought;
nobody had told her it would be like this. She knew it could
be difficult and that some people couldn't manage it and that
other people shuddered at the thought, thinking their boobs
would end up around their knees. She'd been lucky: Natalie
had latched on instantly and even though her breasts could
be sore and the baby's little gums hurt sometimes as she
squirmed around trying to get a good hold, there was something
primeval and amazing about it. It was like this was
what her body was made for. This sense of an animal minding
her young was the most powerful, intense feeling she'd ever
had in her whole life. She cradled Natalie's dark head, closed
her eyes and let the sense of Tightness ripple through her body.
But her father's visit kept rattling back into her brain. He had
to come in, he had to come and ruin every feeling of goodness
and happiness.

No matter what she did, he'd always be there. She hated


him sometimes. Even though she was supposed to let go of
the past, not blame anyone, she did blame him. She couldn't
put the light of forgiveness around him because what he'd
done to her was so appalling. When you had a child, it was
your duty to love them and protect them. That was her instinct
with her beautiful little Natalie in her arms. Her father had
betrayed all that parental love and had done the most unparental
thing there was. How could he come in here and
talk about how wonderful it was to have a baby around the
place again and not remember what he'd done to his baby
when she'd grown up to be a little girl?

Dara stroked Natalie and vowed that she'd never let that happen to her darling baby. She'd never forgive her father for
what he'd done.


Natalie was the most amazing baby in the whole world; Des
and Dara told everyone so. She slept through the night at five
months and moved on to solids with absolutely no problem.
Pureed carrots were her favourite and she squealed with
delight when she got the first spoonful of pureed apple.

She was crawling around the room at high speed about a
month before the books said she'd be and both her parents
hovered protectively as she crawled, making sure she didn't
bang into things or hurt her head on something. The only slow
bit of her development was the fact that she loved sleeping in
her parents' bed and refused to move into her own cot.

'We should have been tougher when she was little,' Des
said ruefully, when yet another attempt to get Natalie to sleep
in her cot was met with outraged screams.

'But she's so little,' said Dara, who felt almost physically
sick when her baby cried. 'She'll learn, she will.'

'You're making a rod for your own back, letting that child
sleep with you,' said Mrs McGuinness, who lived in the flat
downstairs and whom they often met in the morning when
they went out for a walk. Mrs McGuinness was an Expert


on Everything; the government, taxi drivers, the price of food,
those noisy lads who lived next door and had wild parties
. . . Des and Dara had discovered that asking her opinion on
anything was a mistake as she would usually respond with a
PhD-length lecture.

'I know,' said Dara hastily. 'It's just she's so happy when
she's in with us and she goes back to sleep, and at least we get to go to sleep. If we put her back in the cot she screams
for ages. Just like her dad, I say,' Dara laughed, smiling down
at her adorable daughter and tickling her under the chin.
'When she decides she wants to do something, that's it.'

Mrs McGuinness looked sagely at Dara. 'I'd say she
takes after her mother as well,' she said. 'Something tells me
that when you make up your mind, Dara, you don't like to
change it.'

'I used to be like that,' Dara said softly. 'But not any more.'

Saturday mornings were the best, when Des didn't have to
get up early for work and the two of them could lie snug in
the double bed, with Natalie between them, squirming and
wriggling, happy being adored by her parents.

When Natalie was seven months old, Dara's breast milk
dried up and she decided to get a tattoo. When she checked
with the GP that it would be safe, the GP had said, amused:

'What are you getting? A butterfly?'

'Something like that,' Dara agreed.

It was a tiny tattoo, at the inside of her wrist, and was
actually made up of three dates written in a spiral. They were
three of the most important dates in Dara's life: the day she'd
stopped drinking, the day she'd met Des properly, and the
day Natalie had been born. Natalie was fascinated by the
tattoo and rolled her fingers around the delicate tracery of
the writing on her mother's narrow wrist.

'Where would I be without you, darling?' Dara murmured
to her daughter, stroking her, touching Natalie's soft cheeks,
holding her fat little hands, watching the light in her


beautiful eyes. 'You're everything to me, my love, you and
your dad.'
They were so happy, the three of them, it was a golden
time. Dara had never known so much happiness.

Des hated working in the furniture shop. Dara knew he'd like
nothing more than a bit of land somewhere, for he was never
happier than when he was mucking around in the fields in
Pinewood, the farm his uncle owned in Wicklow.
Whenever he visited Uncle Phillip, Dara brought Natalie
to visit Star.
Natalie loved crawling around on the floor, reaching up to
grab all the fascinating objects in Star's house. Dara followed
her anxiously, worried things would break.
'Stop worrying,' Star would say. 'It's all replaceable.'
Dara laughed. 'Nothing in this house is replaceable; it's all
so special or old or priceless.'
They sat on the verandah, let Natalie sit on the grass and
wriggle her bare feet, and talked.
Dara wanted Star's opinion on how to convince Des to
move to Wicklow.
'He loves it here, but he says he knows I'm a city girl. I
don't care where I live, Star,' she added. 'As long as I'm with
Des and Natalie, I could happily live in a box on the
motorway.' She rushed down to pick a fat juicy worm from
Natalie's grasp. Natalie, who'd been considering eating the worm, squealed with temper.
Star laughed. 'Tell him that,' she said.

Two short years later, Star knew there was somebody in the
house before she unlocked the door. Everything looked the
same, but she just knew.
She walked quietly into the kitchen and out on to the
verandah before she found her visitor. It was Dara, sitting on the swing seat, wrapped in the old cream woollen blanket,

holding a cup of tea loosely in one hand. A small teapot was
on the table beside her.

In one glance, Star knew everything was very, very wrong.

She sat down on the other side of the seat and looked into
Dara's face. She was deathly pale, her lips bloodless.

'What's wrong?'

Dara shook her head. 'Can't talk,' she whispered. 'Can't.'

'Tell me.'

Dara's eyes flickered to the teapot. It was the oldest teapot
in the house, one that had been passed down from Bluestone
woman to Bluestone woman for over three hundred years.
Dara knew what it was, for Star had told her. Tea drunk from
it could tell you your future, if you knew how to ask it
correctly.

'Why did you use it?' asked Star.

'The mark on my arm, the funny black spot,' Dara said.
'Remember it? The tattoo guy said I should get it looked at,
but I didn't get round to it until I was in with Natalie over
that little cough she had and the GP said he'd best remove
it. He did, and he phoned me, said it's skin cancer, a malignant
melanoma. It's been there for so long ... I didn't know,
Star. I didn't know it could be dangerous '

'How dangerous?'

Star daren't touch her yet in case something terrible sprang
from Dara's soul into Star's mind, something that meant bad
news.

'I went to the hospital for a scan. It's everywhere. I have
spots on my liver. Des doesn't know yet, I couldn't tell him.
The doctors want me to come back with him so they can talk
to us . . .' Dara bent her head. 'I kept thinking it was something
to do with my drinking and I couldn't tell him. Like I'd
done it to myself, like it was my fault. I thought if I came
out here, you'd be able to tell -me it was going to be all right. Then I could tell him, because I knew the ending.'

Star knew what she'd say next.


'You weren't here and I was desperate to know.'

'You used the teapot.'
'I used it. I don't have six months, Star. They said I might,
but I don't, not even that. It's cold at the funeral, you see. I
saw it and everyone's in winter coats.
'I can't leave Natalie. I love her so much. I've a pain in my
heart now,' Dara said quietly. 'It's like an ache, a dull, huge
ache that spreads from my throat down.'
'There must be treatment,' Star said, and even as she said
it, she knew it wasn't true. The magic of the Bluestone teapot
didn't lie. What Dara had seen was the truth.
But Dara shook her head. 'It's not cancer pain,' she said.
'My heart is broken. That's what the pain is. Natalie will
grow up and I'll never know her. All I can think is that I'm
damaged, dangerous. All I bring to people is pain - pain to
poor Des and now pain to Natalie. Perhaps, if I'm gone, the
pain will be gone from my family, it will all be wiped out
and Des and Natalie can start again.'
'How can they start again without you?'
'They can move on, forget me and find a new life,' said
Dara fiercely.
Star took her hands then and she could see that Dara meant
it.
'I want her to be happy, and my history never made anyone
happy. She deserves a fresh start, with good parents. With
Des and somebody else. Not me with my darkness. What sort
of a dead mother would I be? A crazy one that no child would
want to be like. Who was your mother, Natalie? Oh, an alcoholic,
the daughter of an alcoholic, who was abused, raped
and tried to self-destruct? That's no role model for a person.
No, better she has a fresh life without me.'
'But you got better.'
'I tried,' Dara said quietly. 'I did my best, but it's still in
me, the darkness, why else would this happen to me? I love
them both so much, my love will always be there for her,

whether she knows about it or not. I'll be with them in spirit,
somehow.' She half-laughed. 'You'll feel me, Star, although
nobody else will.'
'Natalie has a right to know about her past.'
Dara shook her head. 'Some pasts are best left buried.'

Thirteen

Only one person can change your life, and that's you. Don't wait for anyone else to do it, prince charming or otherwise. Be your own prince.



Morning rain had lashed Ardagh with floods of water, but
now, as evening light turned the sky opalescent pink, it was mercifully dry. The rosy rays of the dying sun looked for all
the world like a medieval painting and Natalie reflected that
all the scene needed was the figure of an angel hovering over
the coast for the look to be complete.
She was silent as her father drove his old pick-up truck out
past Ardagh on the road to the Black Abbey. He might have
thought she was locked up in darkness and confusion, yet it
was merely that she felt unnerved and other-worldly. After all
this time, she knew something about her beloved mother,
Dara. What a story it had been, even if that was just a short
version of it.
'Star will tell you more,' Dad said.
He'd told her how much he loved her mother, how devastated
they'd both been when they found out she was going
to die. But there was a lot of darkness in her mother's life,
things, he said, that even he didn't know.

'Dara went through a lot of awful stuff when she was a
child, and she didn't want me to know everything,' he said.
'Kind of like how she felt it would be better if you didn't
know about her because she said being the daughter of a dead
alcoholic from a dysfunctional family wasn't any legacy to
talk about.'

Natalie had just nodded; she felt too emotional to speak.
This woman from the photograph had become a flesh-and
blood person to her, a person who'd travelled a hard path.

And now she was going to see her grave.

The car rounded a bend and the dark shape of the church
and its surrounding graveyard were visible in the distance,
under a threatening dark blue cloud bearing rain. To the right
was a narrow road that led further down the headland. When
she'd been a teenager, Natalie, Lizzie and Anna sometimes
went there with boys, scrambling down the stony outcropping
to reach the rocks below, where they'd sit, dangle their feet in
the water and flirt. It was very beautiful and wild, and there
was a thrilling, dangerous feeling that if you weren't careful,
you could slip into the frothing waves and never be seen again.

Her mother had spent a lot of time with Star; had she
wandered around these rocks too?

As the Black Abbey got nearer, Natalie could barely see it
because her eyes were blurred with tears.

'She didn't want me to know about her pain . . . because
she loved me?' she asked, when they'd parked and he'd
switched off the engine.

'She adored you, Natalie,' he said, his voice cracking. 'I
could talk forever and I'd never be able to get across how
much she loved you. That's the only reason why she didn't
want you to know about the past, because it might hurt you,
and she wanted to protect you from all that.'

Natalie's father held her hand as they made their way across
the grass and gravel of the graveyard, out past the carefully
tended newer graves - one of them David's - to the wilder


part at the back. Here, they were closer to the sea and the ground was strewn with rocks, as if the sea was slowly claiming
it back.
Natalie's eyes darted to and fro, wanting the satisfaction of identifying the right grave before her father told her.
'It's this one,' he said, stopping beside a small mound with
a plinth and a white marble stone angel. The angel's beautiful
carved head was bowed in prayer, and the white eyelids
were closed. Her hair was a plait tied around her head and
everywhere she was slender, from the nape of her neck to her
folded hands.
There were pretty plants in containers sitting neatly under
the angel, and Natalie wished she'd brought something to lay
at the grave. It must be Star who kept it tended.
Above the flowers, on the plinth, was the inscription:

Dara Flynn died aged 28. Deeply beloved wife of
Desmond and adoring mother of Natalie. Mourned by
family and a large community of friends.

Natalie's hands flew to her mouth. It was written here,
everything she'd ever wanted to know or feel.
'She only wanted a simple headstone,' Des said hoarsely.
'Nothing fancy. But I saw the angel in the stonemason's and
I knew it was right for her grave. She was an angel, you see.
My angel.'
Natalie knelt down at the base of the grave and began to
pray. She wasn't a frequent Mass-goer, but right now, she felt
the holiness of both the church and the graveyard flowing
through her.
For the first time in her life, she allowed herself to talk to
her mother.
Mum, I'm so sorry this is my first time here. I should have
asked sooner. I thought it was easier to say nothing, let life
go on, but now I know different. I want to know you.

There was no sign that anyone was listening. The wind
made the vast trees in the graveyard shudder and large drops
of rain began to fall.

'Come on, we'll be wet through,' said Des, hauling her to
her feet.

They made it back to the pick-up just before the rain came
down properly, huge raindrops bouncing against the roof and
windows.

'Let's go to see Star,' he said.


Star's house smelled deliciously of seafood chowder. She'd
woken up that morning with an intense longing for the dish
and had gone to the quays in Ardagh to see what the fishermen
had brought in.

'I haven't seen you down here for a while,' said old Liam,
as he worked on the wet quay beside his boat, the Lady Anne, named after his wife.

Anne and Star had gone to school together and enjoyed a
comfortable friendship.

Years before, when the Lady Anne had gone missing one
evening after a storm, it was to Star that Anne had run,
needing to know whether Liam and his crew were safe.

'I woke up with the notion of fish soup in my head,' Star
told Liam now.

'I wake up like that every day,' said Liam. 'What would
you like?'

Star went home with some mackerel, pollock and a small
sack of mussels. She spent an enjoyable half an hour scrubbing
the mussels, and then cooked her mother's special seafood
chowder. She never knew why she got random urges to do
things like this, but when the urge came, she acted upon it.
There was a reason for everything.

She was reheating the chowder on the stove now, and had
turned on the table lamps and lit the fire in the living room,
enveloping the room in a golden light. It was a nice contrast


to the thundery rain lashing down outside. Star liked rain
sometimes, but tonight it seemed intrusive.
Instead, she felt in the mood for music. She flicked a switch
on the CD player and let the pure clear music of Delibes fill
the room.
Lena from Kenny's had been surprised to see Star's high
tech CD player.
'We used to have a wind-up gramophone,' Star had teased
her, 'but I got tired of winding it.'
'No, it's just that everything here is green, organic and - and very old. Myself included.' Star laughed. 'I love old
things, but not exclusively. When a modern piece of equipment
makes sense, I'm first in the queue.'
She'd applied that principle to the conservatory where she
worked. It had been a very old structure, made of metal with
green chipped paint, and when the wind blew, the panes of
glass rattled.
With the money she'd made in the first three years' trading
with Kenny's, Star had finally been able to renovate the conservatory
with modern materials so that she didn't have to wear
layers of clothes. Now Delibes followed her from room to
room, melting into the very beams of the house.
It was a strange evening, rain pelting down outside and
dark purple clouds rising ominously in the background,
while over to the right the sun shone through the clouds
into the conservatory, bathing Star's precious orchids in
light. She loved orchids. Lady Slippers were her favourites.
So delicate, with their silken membranes and the delicate
colours. As the chowder finished heating, she wandered
around the conservatory, checking the soil for dryness,
watering here, spritzing mist there. Her beautiful Victorian
terrarium sat in state in one corner with another orchid
inside. Star gave it a little pat as she walked by. The chowder
must be nearly ready, she could smell it. Then she heard
the crunch of a car's tyres on the drive - that was the great

thing about the pebbled drive, you could hear anybody
coming a mile away.

She peered out the kitchen window and saw a man get out
of a car, a tall, lanky man, and then a young woman.

'Dara!' Star collapsed against the window. She had to grip
the sill so she wouldn't sink to the ground. No, it wasn't
Dara, it was Natalie, darling Natalie and Des.

Des looked so much older - didn't they all?, Star thought
wryly. She hadn't seen him in over twenty years. Her heart
swelled at the thought that Natalie was finally here. Star had
never tried to look into the future, but somewhere deep inside,
in the most magic part of her, Star had known that Natalie
would come here one day.

No matter that Dara had tried to wipe the effects of her
painful past from Natalie's life, the truth would make its way
out, like the tendril of a plant through dark soil. People
deserved to know their histories; that was what made them
what they were.


'I'm a bit anxious, Dad,' said Natalie, grabbing her father's
hand as they walked to the front door.

'Don't be, love,' he said calmly. 'You're going to love Star,
she's wonderful. She always was wonderful. I'm sorry I haven't
seen her for so long.'

The door flew open and Star stood there, smiling at them,
her arms held out wide.

'It's you - you helped me at Mr Kenny's funeral,' said
Natalie, startled, recognising the woman with the long bright
hair who'd held her when she'd fainted that day. 'And you
knew my name then, you called me Natalie.'

'I nearly called you Dara,' admitted Star. 'You look so like
your mother.'

'Do I?'

'Oh, you're the image of her, it's almost scary.' Star reached
forward and put her arms around Natalie. 'This was sort of


your mother's other home, so welcome home, Natalie.' She
included Des in the hug.
Natalie closed her eyes and let herself cry. Why did this
feel so good when she'd just experienced something so utterly
sad: her mother's grave? She remembered the little plants that
grew there and how she had known instinctively that Star
had left them. It was wonderful to think that Star had tended
the grave.
'She's never been forgotten or unloved,' Star said.
Natalie jerked away, shocked. 'You knew what I was
thinking. How?'
'I don't really. I was holding your hand and I can see things
that way,' Star said. 'It's my gift, my magic'
'Magic?' Natalie stood with her arms wrapped around
herself, watching Star warily. 'If you had this magic, why
didn't you come to me all the times when I wanted to know
about my mother, when I cried myself to sleep - where was
the magic then?'
She didn't see her father hang his head, looking heartbroken.
Star
put a hand out to pat him on the shoulder. 'It's not
that sort of magic, Natalie,' she said.
She reached out with her other hand to Natalie. 'Please
come inside.'
At Star's touch, Natalie felt the energy run through from
her body to Star's: it wasn't frightening, just a pleasant ripple
that seemed to come from deep within her, calming her. 'What
are you doing?' she asked.
'Very few people have any idea I'm doing it,' Star
commented. 'Your mother did too. Knew instantly, that first
night I met her crying here out on the road.'
'She was on the road crying?' Natalie echoed. Her father
hadn't told her that. He'd said Dara had lived with Star in
those early days when she'd given up drinking. And it hurt
in an almost physical way to think of her mother's suffering.

How could she have gone through so much and Natalie not
know any of it?
'You can't tell a life story in an hour,' Natalie's father
pointed out.
'I know. It's simply that I feel. . . cheated,' Natalie said.
'Angry almost, that you all knew and I didn't.'
It's complicated,' said Star. 'Let's go slowly and I'll tell you
what an amazing woman she was and how much she loved
you,' Star went on. 'There was a lot of pain in your mother's
life, Natalie, but you can hear that after I tell you how she
turned it around, changed it utterly, and how she adored you
and your dad. That's what you need to learn first about her.
The other stuff, the childhood stuff, the things she wanted
wiped out, you can hear about them when you find what sort
of person she really was.'
'Was her childhood really awful, then?'
'The worst,' Star said calmly, leading Natalie into the kitchen.
'Unloved and betrayed. What happens when you're a child
shapes you as an adult, and if you're scarred as a child, you
carry those scars always. Dara overcame her childhood experiences,
but when she found out she was dying, she was afraid
that all you'd know of her was the bad parts of her past.'
Star and Des exchanged a look.
'Perhaps she was right. A small child can't understand a
grown-up's pain and shouldn't have to. She wanted the best
for you, a happy family, no shadowy past, nothing but
normality. But I knew you'd come one day.' It was Star's turn
to feel her eyes brim with tears.
The chowder on the stove began to bubble ferociously and
Star was glad of the chance to turn away and see to it.
'I don't suppose you like seafood chowder, Natalie?' she
added. 'I had a sudden impulse to make it this morning, it
was your mother's favourite.'
'That's uncanny,' said Natalie. 'I love seafood chowder, it's
one of my favourites, too. How did you know?'

'I didn't.' Star took three earthenware bowls from the
dresser. 'My magic is a law unto itself. I woke up with a
longing for seafood chowder, so a deep part of me knew you'd
be coming tonight. There are times when I'm just the conduit.'
As they drank their soup and dipped buttered bread into
the steaming bowls, Star and Des talked about Dara.
Natalie listened, wide-eyed, as she heard about Dara's
pleasure in motherhood, how she'd adored Natalie and Des,
and wanted to do everything for them. She heard too about
her mother's upbringing in the sprawling council estate with
her brother, Greg, and their alcoholic father. Star skimmed
over the years when alcohol possessed Dara, but Natalie could
read between the lines to the misery therein.
'Dad, that's why you were upset when I told you about
Lizzie,' she burst out. 'Lizzie's my friend, used to be my best
friend,' she explained to Star. 'But she's drinking too much
and I can't cope with it, it's so upsetting.'
'You were so angry with Lizzie and all I could think of was
your mother and when I knew her first, and fancied her, but
she was locked in that prison too. Just like Lizzie, maybe
worse. I thought of how disgusted you were about Lizzie, and
wondered how the hell you knew to loathe the idea of alcoholism.
Race memory?' said Des.
'Or some older and wiser instinct?' suggested Star. 'Your
mother and I talked about alcoholism being in the blood, but
she could never allow herself that, felt it was a cop-out. She
said if anyone should not want to drink, it should have been
her.'
'But there's a genetic link, for sure,' Natalie said. 'My flatmate,
Molly, told me to go online to investigate what I should
do or say to Lizzie, and it's a genetic disease. Everyone in
Lizzie's house drinks like fishes.'
'I hope it's passed you by,' Des said gravely. 'You've no
idea how closely Bess and I watched you when you were a
teenager, Natalie, in case you went out with your pals and

got terribly drunk. It's a dreadful legacy. That was partly what
your mother wanted to protect you from.'
'But what about my granddad and my uncle?'
Again, Des and Star caught each other's eyes.
'Your uncle lives in Australia. Greg is a lovely man. Leaving
Ireland was a bit of an escape for him too,' Des said. 'I'm
sure he'd love to meet you one day and introduce you to your
cousins. Your granddad is dead, I think.'
'You know, Natalie, Dara grew up without a mother, and
that was a tremendous loss in her life. She wanted more for
you and she thought that Des would marry again, make a
new life and you'd have a mother.'
'I love Bess, but she wasn't my real mother, I always knew
that,' Natalie said, grabbing her father's hand and squeezing
it to show she meant no offence to Bess.
'You were nearly five when Bess came along,' Des said.
'You knew she wasn't your real mother.'
'I have a lot of Dara's things in the attic,' Star said, 'all
waiting for you.'
'Mum's things,' breathed Natalie.
'There's a lot of stuff up there, Natalie,' Star warned. 'Lots
of people have given me secrets to keep. It will take me time
to find your mum's, I can't do it tonight.'
'OK,' said Natalie, downcast. Now that she was here, she
wanted to know it all right away.
'Let's sit and talk about Dara,' Star suggested. There was
another reason she was in no rush to show Natalie all the
things Dara had given her: Natalie needed time for the information
to sink in. Better to learn it all gently and slowly.
'I love your house,' Natalie said, looking around. 'It's so
beautiful. I feel at home here.'
'You were nearly born on this floor,' Des said, smiling.
'Let me tell you all about that,' Star said, and she began
to recount the story.

Fourteen


Trust your instincts. I didn't trust any part of me, so I discounted my instincts too. But when I thought about it, nine times out of ten, my original instinct had been right. I just hadn't paid attention to it.

Grief took many paths. Ingrid had flicked through a book
that told her about the Kubler-Ross method of defining loss.
This tracked various stages of suffering, including anger, and ending up, hopefully, with acceptance.
Abra, the kind psychologist Ingrid had gone to, explained
that there was no set time-frame for this.
'Grief is a journey through a changing landscape and it
takes everybody a different amount of time to travel,' Abra
explained. She was older than Ingrid, the perfect Woody Allen
vision of a shrink, with serious glasses, a wise face with shrewd
dark eyes, and a wardrobe of simple but unremarkable clothes
that said she was at home with her internal vision of herself
and didn't need the fashion industry to define who she was.
They'd started out with Ingrid sitting in a chair opposite
her and then, one day, Abra had mentioned that Ingrid might
like to try lying on the couch with Abra seated behind her.
And Ingrid, who'd been used to people looking at her all

her professional life, found it very freeing to lie and stare out
the window and talk, knowing she was being heard but not
having to make eye contact.
It was a relief not to have to look at Abra the day she told
her about David's infidelity. She trusted Abra and her wisdom,
but it was almost more than she could bear to have to let
another person hear this awful story. Marcella was different,
almost like a sister. She took Ingrid's battles as her own. In
fact, Ingrid hadn't even told her real sisters, Flora or Sigrid.
She wasn't sure why. Perhaps she couldn't face the pity, or
perhaps she couldn't face them hating David.
She wanted to understand how she felt about him before
she told anyone else. If she told anyone else.
'I can't mourn him properly because I'm so angry,' she
explained to Abra. 'He lied to me about everything, because
to live another life like that, you have to lie about everything.
Every thought, every feeling. Every time we made love, it was
a lie.'
The idea of David making love to her and to another woman
didn't hurt as much as it had that first night. It wasn't the
thought of sexual cheating that pained her, it was all the other
sorts of cheating. The subtle lies about where he was, how
he felt: those lies that fuelled their day-to-day lives; that was
pure agony.
Why hadn't he just told her about the other woman? Why
keep on living with her, yet deny her a chance to face this
threat to their marriage? Was he in love with her or with the
other woman? Was indecision the reason he'd never made a
clean breast of it?
Now she would never know.
'I might write a book to follow the Kubler-Ross ones,'
Ingrid told Abra. 'When Grief Isn't Enough - When Only
Screaming Will Do. It could be a unique reference book, when
someone doesn't fit the standard grief model.'
Abra didn't smile much. But she was smiling now, Ingrid

could tell from her voice: 'Yes, that sounds like a good idea.
You're certainly doing the master's course in it.'
Ingrid felt a sense of pleasure at making a joke. Was she
getting better? She hoped so.
She'd made progress in other areas of her life, too. She'd
met the auditors to talk about the store, had been to a board
meeting where she and the two other directors discussed
interim plans to run Kenny's until probate had been issued when
Ingrid, Molly and Ethan, who'd also inherited shares,
would be able to plan what to do in the future.
It was a bleak future from the store's point of view. Kenny's
was just about profitable.
'If it goes on like this, we won't be trading next year,' Tim
said gloomily.
Ingrid had felt a little of the old fire in her belly. 'Kenny's
isn't finished yet,' she said.

Ingrid and the two dogs waited for a break in the traffic. It
was the last leg of their four-mile walk and they were all tired.
It was also the part of the walk that she liked the least, because
they had to cross a couple of busy roads and she preferred
walking along nice quiet suburban streets.
Today, she was too tired to hurry across the road.
A girl with long legs, a mini skirt worn over black tights and
a cute black knitted hat perched jauntily on top of her blonde
hair stood a few yards away, also waiting to cross. Despite the
cool of the morning, she didn't wear a coat. She was maybe
Molly's age, an age Ingrid thought when girls were impervious
to cold and went out at night to parties wearing teeny little
dresses and no jackets. This girl looked so happy, so young and
fresh, her skin glistening in the morning sunshine, and Ingrid
noticed that the cars slowed down a minuscule amount to look
at her until, finally, a lorry flashed its lights, urging the girl to
go. She gave a grateful wave and skipped across, leaving Ingrid
and the dogs standing there, watching her.

Invisible, Ingrid decided: that was what she had become.
She had some hope when her hair was fluffed up and her
make-up was done and she was wearing her good work
clothes, but now, her face grey and bare of make-up and her
hair a tousled mess, she almost didn't exist. To the lorry drivers
and the motorists she was just some crazy old lady walking
her dogs, possibly going back home to sit in front of a fire
and grumble bitterly about the world and young people in
particular. That's what people thought of her now. She'd crossed a line that made her invisible.
When she got home, she slammed the front door behind
her and the dogs jumped with shock.
'Sorry, doggies,' she said. 'Didn't mean to frighten you, but
I've got to do something.'
She phoned Marcella.
'I want to go back to work,' she said as soon as Marcella
answered.
'Hallelujah When?'
'Tomorrow?'
There was a pause. 'You'll need your hair done. Beg your
hairdresser to fit you in today. And I'll get a make-up artist
to the house in the morning. You need to look amazing.'
'Does she do surgery too?' quipped Ingrid.
'Good point,' Marcella said. 'How are the lines? Do you
need Botox?'
Ingrid could quite happily have lived the rest of her life
without ever getting another syringe in her forehead, but she
understood where Marcella was coming from.
'I'm still fine,' she said. 'My forehead's smooth, it's the rest
of me that looks crap.'
'See you at nine,' Marcella said. 'Ingrid,' her friend paused,
'I am so pleased you're doing this.'
'I know,' murmured Ingrid.
By ten the next morning, she looked a lot more like her
old self. First, the blonde was back in her hair. Newly streaked

and blown out with a tonne of volumiser on it, she decided
she looked like an American television anchor.
Marcella had convinced her to wear her charcoal-grey
Armani skirt suit. It was now too big for her because she'd
lost weight, but Armani cleverly hid this.
The make-up artist that Marcella had sent to the house had
managed the impossible. Ingrid's face looked dewy, shiny and
alert, like she'd had some magic potion to drink.
'God, you're brilliant,' Ingrid told the young woman when
she'd seen herself in the mirror. 'You're a miracle worker.'
'I can be when I have a lovely canvas to work on,' the
woman said.
Ingrid had been about to make another joke about the
wrinkles in the canvas, but she decided against it. There was
self-deprecating and there was self-destructive.
Driving through the gates of the television studios, Ingrid
felt anxious and shaky, that same jittery feeling she'd had
when she'd gone back to work after the children were born.
It was the same she supposed: death, birth, they were all
linked. Great events that rocked your world and left it changed
utterly. She wasn't sure if she had the mental strength to go
in and say 'hello' to everyone cheerily, as if she'd just been
away on a two-week holiday instead of for three awful
months. Yet it was important that she did just that. If Ingrid
was going to come back, everyone needed to know. As
Marcella had told her - although Ingrid knew it damn well
herself - perception was everything in their business.
Three months off with Joan filling in for her, strictly on a
temporary basis, was just about reasonable. Any longer, and
it might be considered career suicide.
The office even smelled the same, she realised, as she quietly
walked in. It smelled of coffee, croissants, a myriad of
perfumes, and that elusive but unmistakable scent of people
rushing around. Not sweat but energy. She'd missed it.
'Oh my God, Ingrid!'

There were screams of delight, and then people's voices
dropped a little, as if they were remembering why she hadn't
been there.

'Oh, Ingrid,' people said sadly.

'We missed you,' said Jeri, the production assistant, and
hugged her.

Ingrid thought of Jeri receiving all those red roses on Valentine's
Day, the last day of Ingrid's old life. She hoped the
romance was still working, for Jeri's sake.

'Great to see you back,' said Martin. She wondered how
his difficult divorce was going.

'You too, Martin.'

She went around desks, talking, smiling, and not lying when
people said, 'How are you doing?'

There was no point beaming and saying, 'Oh wonderful,'
which was what some people certainly seemed to expect after
three months' grieving.

Instead, she said, 'I'm doing OK,' and all the while she
thought, If only they knew . . .

And then standing in front of her was Gloria, who was in
on her plan.

'Ingrid, wonderful to have you back at last. We missed
you,' said Gloria, and everyone nodded in agreement.

'It's wonderful to be back,' Ingrid said, and walked into
her office as if she had never been away.

'I mean it, it really is terrific to have you back,' Gloria said
when the door was shut. 'The place was half-dead without
you.'

Ingrid's office looked different. It had been painted and the
desk had been moved; it now faced in a different direction.

'I hope you don't mind, but I thought it would be difficult
to come back and see everything exactly the same as you'd
left it,' Gloria began. 'It would be like it had been before '

It looked almost like a different office. A new place for a
fresh start. Ingrid loved it.


'Thank you.' She grabbed Gloria's hand in thanks. 'It's
wonderful.'
'Phew, I wasn't sure,' Gloria said. 'We could put it all back
the way it was before, it would only take an hour . . .' 'I don't want it the way it was before,' Ingrid said quickly.
Nothing would ever be the same.

'Ingrid, how wonderful to see you!'
Jack, the head of current affairs, got to his feet and came
around from behind his desk to shake her hand gravely. Ingrid
turned her star quality on full blast and gave him her most
glittering professional smile. 'It's lovely to see you, Jack.'
'You look fabulous,' he said.
Ingrid was aware that the look she presented was more
artifice than anything else, but she was happy with that. She
wanted a little piece of her life back, just a sliver. Most of it
was gone; it had died with David and his locked drawers, but
there was still one part that she could access and pretend that
nothing had happened, in a way she couldn't with Ethan and
Molly. Here, in the television studios, she could pretend it
was all the same and for now that would have to be enough.
'Thank you, Jack.' Ingrid kept smiling. She'd never liked Jack and she was entirely sure that he returned the favour,
but they had worked together quite well. Joan, who was ready
to hop into her shoes, would be much more his type of news
presenter: young, malleable and willing to go along to his
parties, like a pet, tamed and ready to be on show. Ingrid had
never been that person. She wasn't going to be now, either,
but she was prepared to give a little to get what she wanted.
'You look good too, Jack,' she said. 'How's the handicap,
still in single figures?'
This approach always worked; Jack was a golf fanatic and
he liked talking about his game.
'Oh, you know, I don't get much chance to play these days,'
he said.

Liar, thought Ingrid, who knew damn well, via Gloria, that
Jack played three times a week: the working week. One rule
for the boys and one rule for the girls. She wondered how
many female executives got to skive off three times a week.

'You've been so kind with compassionate leave,' she added.
'It was wonderful, I really needed it. But I'm ready now.'
Another lie.

'You're sure you want to come back?' said Jack.

Ingrid gave him the megawatt smile she saved for television
and said: 'Of course, Jack, that's what I'm here to talk
about.'


'How was it?' asked Gloria, when Ingrid had made it safely
back to her own office and shut the door.

'OK,' said Ingrid tightly.

'Just OK?'

'I hope I haven't left it too late.'

'Don't be silly,' said Gloria. 'Of course you haven't, Ingrid.
You are the show. Every week we're getting hundreds of emails
and letters wondering when you're coming back. I've not been
able to deal with them all.'

'The people who write the emails don't run current affairs,'
Ingrid said, 'That's what this is about. It's also about the fact
that Joan has an agent, an agent who's very friendly with
Jack.'

Ingrid had never had an agent, mainly because when she
started out on her television career the talent didn't have
agents, but now everybody did. She had stuck to managing
her own career with a little help from David when it came
to the numbers. He was always able to draw up a fantastic
proposal for salaries. But just what had he been thinking when
he was drawing up those proposals, she wondered bleakly.
His betrayal still hurt so much. Most of the time she tried
not to let the pain in, tried just to think that David was gone
and that she had to cope without him. But sometimes it got


past her, the absolute torment that not only was he gone but
he'd betrayed her too and she was never going to be able to
find out why.
'What's the plan now?' Gloria asked.
'Well, I'm going to ease myself in gently,' Ingrid told her
assistant. 'That's the way I put it to Jack. I didn't want to
make it sound like I was taking over the planet, so I said I'd
come in, see how everything is, and start working properly
next week.
'Carlos wants you to come along to today's editorial
meeting,' Gloria said.
Ingrid nodded. In for a penny . . .

It was like she'd never been away, except for the presence of
Joan, who was more groomed than Ingrid remembered. Her
hair was blonder, sleeker, and her clothes were sharper. She
sat at the exact other end of the boardroom table and watched
Ingrid the way Wile E. Coyote watched Road Runner.
When did I become the enemy! Ingrid stored it up to talk
about to Marcella later. She could remember mentoring Joan
a few years ago, when Joan had come into the show after
being at the coalface as the station's court reporter. Joan had
been eager then, fond of wearing anoraks to fend off the cold
of live outside broadcasts, and admiring of Ingrid. Not any
more. She wanted Ingrid's job.
The queen is dead, long live the queen, Ingrid thought to
herself. Well this queen was very much alive. And would kick
if necessary.
The first story was about the energy crisis, although Martin,
who'd clearly had a going-over from his wife's divorce lawyer,
had a solution to the problem: 'The venomous soon-to-be-ex
wife power supply,' he said balefully. 'Who needs nuclear
energy when you have first wives going nuclear all on their
own. It's an endless supply of rage. Could power a whole
country.'

'Martin, enough,' groaned Jeri.

'You wait,' he snapped, 'until Mr Perfect Triathlon person
says he made a mistake, that you probably shouldn't have
ever got together, but at least you'd never had kids and could
you possibly be civilised about the break-up . . . and then,
you'll lose it.'

'Martin!' Carlos rarely raised his voice, but when he did,
people listened.

'Sorry.' Martin got up and left the room.

Ingrid stared at his departing back. Did all spurned wives
turn into nuclear power stations of fury? Would she have
done the same if David had given her the option and left
instead of dying?

She'd have hated to become that kind of person.

The meeting ended with a discussion about a forthcoming
interview with the Minister for Finance. Without a word being
said, everyone turned to Ingrid as they spoke about this. She
knew it was because she had the most experience interviewing
him, she'd done it many times. She could just about see Joan's
face, cold with anger. Ingrid was back and had slipped effortlessly
into her old role without anybody saying, 'But what
about Joan?'

Once, Ingrid might have gone to Joan afterwards to discuss
this. But she had no energy left in her for such things. If Joan
stuck around long enough, she would have the job one day.
Ingrid herself knew she didn't have forever. But right now,
she needed it more than Joan did.

'It's yourself!'

The mailroom man saw her as she crossed reception on her
way out.

'We've got a pile of post for you in the mailroom. Bags of
it.' He suddenly appeared to remember what the post was
likely to say. 'I'm sorry for your loss, Ingrid,' he added. 'You've
been missed around here.'

'Thank you,' she said and she meant it.


Today, she was able to be grateful for even the small things.
She'd come back to work, she had a big interview to do next
week, and people had missed her. It wasn't everything she
wanted, but it was enough for today.

Fifteen

Life seems so long when you're in the middle of it, but when you know its going to end soon, you realise how little time we have on earth. Don't waste it.

Kitty, Brendan and Charlie sat in a box in the theatre, waiting
for the curtain to come up. It was the first night of Iseult's new
play, Dancing With Their Lives, the theatre was groaning at
the seams and Iseult had arranged for an enormous bottle of
champagne in an ice bucket to be delivered to the box, a bottle
which Kitty had made Brendan open as soon as they'd arrived.
However, Iseult, the guest of honour, wasn't with them. She
was backstage talking to the cast and the director. Kitty was
quite cross that she'd only been allowed backstage for five
minutes before being gently, but nonetheless firmly, ushered
out by Iseult. Charlie had been surprised to see her mother
return so quickly.
'You weren't long,' she said, taking in her mother's flushed
cheeks that matched the burgundy raw-silk dress she was
wearing.
Her mother looked great, she had to hand it to her. Nobody
would have guessed that a few weeks ago, Kitty had been

hobbling around after breaking her hip, devoid of makeup
and despondent.
Tonight, her hair was a triumph of the hairdresser's art,
with lots of little Medusa curls clustered around her face. Her
make-up looked amazing and Charlie figured her mother had
definitely had some cosmetic work done, although she would
undoubtedly deny it if she asked.
'Good genes, taking care of myself,' she liked to say if
anyone asked.
Whatever, the effect of Botox or fillers was now slightly
ruined by the irritated look on her mother's face.
'There's sort of palaver going on back stage,' Kitty said
crossly, settling herself in the box like the Queen Mother at
a command performance 'They don't want outsiders there.
As if I'm an outsider!'
Behind her, Charlie and Brendan exchanged a grin. Charlie
reached out and took his hand. It was lovely being here with
Brendan. He calmed her so much. She had been dreading
tonight. It wasn't that she wasn't looking forward to seeing
the play itself. Iseult was so talented and the play was bound
to be fascinating. No, it was more that she knew her mother
would be in I'm-the-playwright's-mother mode, with attendant
airs, graces and tantrums.
Kitty had been delirious with joy earlier in the week when
a profile of Iseult was printed in the Irish Times. In it Iseult
was quoted uttering the immortal words: My mother has been
such an inspiration.
When Charlie and Brendan picked Kitty up from her house
to take her to the theatre, the cutting was stuck to the fridge
with sellotape. She'd probably frame it, Charlie thought
crossly, and then was angry with herself for sounding all bitter
and resentful.
Detach with love. She had to let go. Her mother's relationship
with Iseult was their business and if it was strong, lucky

for them. Neither of them had what she had, which was a
wonderful marriage and a wonderful son.

Her new mantra was that you can't change how people
carry on or think, you can only change how you react to
them.

Well, that was the theory. No matter how often she tried
to tell herself these things, in reality it was different.

'Relax,' Brendan mouthed to her across the box.

She stuck her tongue out at him good-humouredly and he did the same back. What was it about being in Kitty's presence
that made them feel so juvenile? Charlie could think of
no other circumstance where she'd dream of sticking her
tongue out.

It was the Kitty effect, for sure. Brendan was amazing. He
tolerated her so well, given that he had nothing in his past
to help him understand someone like that. His family were
totally normal.

At the weekend, they'd been at his parents' house for
Sunday lunch and it had been so relaxing. Jenny and Stephen
were retired school teachers. Stephen was a quiet man who
said little and smiled often, like Brendan himself. Jenny was
a lovely, strong woman who'd reared six children and gone
out to work, which hadn't been easy. She was a stalwart of
the local church, a fabulous cook and was very involved in
her children and grandchildren's lives, but never in an overbearing
way.

Needless to say, Kitty hated her.

'She's very pious, isn't she?' Kitty would say. 'And the hair.
You'd think she could do something with her hair!'

Jenny's hair was short and wispy and never saw the inside
of a hairdresser's salon.

Kitty's dislike of Jenny had upset Charlie for years but not
any more. The gratitude journal must be working, Charlie
decided. Reading back over things she'd written helped her understand them. She now understood, for example, that her


mother's dislike of Jenny was more to do with jealousy than
anything else. Kitty was always going on about women's rights
and the importance of work, yet she hadn't worked outside
the home after getting married.
Jenny had raised her family while succeeding at a full-time
career that saw her ultimately become vice-principal of a
national school. It wasn't superiority that made Kitty dislike
her, Charlie thought, it was a sense of inferiority.
'Is this damned play ever going to start!' snapped Kitty now.
Yes, Charlie decided, it was merely that her mother was
upset at having been sent away from the backstage excitement.
She was like a child denied fun. Understanding did
help.
By the end of Act Two, Charlie had forgotten her mother's
temper and was riveted to the stage. The central character of
the play was a dying woman who was looking back over a
life that took in one world war, and many deaths, marriages
and love affairs, through a series of flashbacks. Her family
were at her bedside and through each of their eyes, Iseult's
play examined their relationship with their mother. The play
had such depth and the actors were so marvellous that Charlie
found it hard to remember the funny stories about rehearsals
that Iseult had told them. All those things were forgotten as
she stared at the stage and watched this amazing story unfold
in front of her.
One strand of the play that absolutely fascinated her was
the story of the youngest daughter, the person who sobbed
most at her dying mother's bedside. Slowly it became clear
that she didn't share the same father as the other children.
Her father was the mother's true love. A man she had to
love in secret but adored more than anyone else, even her
other children. That, Iseult seemed to be saying, was why
there was this special bond between mother and child.
'Oh, I see,' breathed Charlie out loud, although nobody
could hear her because everyone was watching the stage.

The theatre seemed to recede and she thought suddenly of
the first time she'd had an ultrasound when she'd been pregnant
with Mikey.
Brendan had been beside her, holding her hand, the two of
them watching the screen as the sonographer traced the shape
of the baby inside Charlie's womb. On the screen, the picture
looked like lots of random speckled dots, and Charlie,
although she was desperate to see what her baby looked like,
couldn't work it out.
'Now, there, that's the head. See?' said the sonographer,
reaching out and touching the screen.
Instantly, it had all made sense. Charlie could see her baby's
fragile face, then one little hand stretched out with tiny stubby
fingers, and the legs, all curled up.
Charlie had got the picture. Like now. Iseult might have
claimed, as she had in the Irish Times interview, that she was
writing about a fictional family, but there was something at the
core of this play that was very dear to her. She might convince
everyone else that it was fiction. In fact, she might believe that
herself. But even though there was no other character and no
other scenario in the play that bore any resemblance to Iseult's
real life, Charlie was quite sure that her sister's heroine was
really Iseult herself. Which meant she and Charlie weren't both
Anthony Nelson's children.

The producers had taken a suite in the Merrion Hotel for the
after-show party, but before the cast, director and playwright
even got there, drink flowed in the stars' dressing rooms.
Charlie hadn't wanted to go to the dressing rooms, she was
still reeling from what she'd seen on stage. Was that what
Iseult and her mother had been hiding from her for all these
years? Was that the simple, crude answer to why she had no
loving relationship with her mother? Had Iseult's father meant
more to Kitty than Charlie's had? When had Iseult found out
and why hadn't she shared it with Charlie? Charlie burned

with anger and impotent fury. To think of all the years she'd
spent worrying about pleasing her mother, trying to be the
perfect daughter, and it had all been in vain. There had been
nothing she could have done to be Kitty's favourite: that role
had been assigned by the simple, unchangeable circumstances
of their births.
'I don't feel well, I've got a headache. I'm going home,' she
told her mother as they left their box. She couldn't face looking
at Kitty for the rest of the night.
'Nonsense!' said Kitty, refusing to brook any opposition.
'I've got some painkillers in my bag, you'll be fine - come
on,' and she dragged Charlie along behind her, with Brendan
following.
Charlie looked back at Brendan helplessly.
'Are you all right?' he said, looking worried. Charlie was
so pale.
'No,' Charlie mouthed at him. 'I'm not.'
She wanted to sit down and cry in the middle of the theatre,
but there was no hope of that because Kitty had her in her
grasp, a surprisingly strong grasp for somebody who not that
long ago had been very frail. Kitty battled their path backstage
where the triumphant sound of champagne corks
popping mingled with shrieks of excited relief after a successful
first night.
'They loved it, loved it!' roared somebody.
'They loved us!' echoed somebody else.
'You were fabulous!'
'No, you were fabulous!'
'Was I really, darling?'
Charlie had never resented Iseult's success for a moment.
Still didn't. But tonight, she didn't have the heart to cheer this
particular play. She felt shocked because an important secret
of her life had been revealed to her in front of hundreds of
other people. If only Iseult had told her about it beforehand,
if only Kitty had.

As soon as Kitty spotted Iseult's tall figure, her blonde
Valkyrie head visible above so many other people, she was
off over to her, shrieking 'Darling, it was breathtaking.'

And Charlie watched them embrace, feeling angry and
excluded.

'Mrs Nelson, you must be so proud,' said a woman with
a notebook in her hand and a photographer beside her. The
notebook was pressed close to Kitty's face, as if it was a microphone.
'Yes,
I am,' Kitty began. 'It's nights like this that you
remember the hardship of bringing up a child alone.'

Even Iseult looked a bit stunned at this. Their mother had
hardly reared them alone. Iseult had been eighteen when
Anthony moved out. And why 'child' and not 'children'? It
was as though Charlie didn't exist. She felt angry tears prickle.

'I am so very, very proud of my daughter,' Kitty went on,
flicking back a bit of hair so she could elongate her neck for
the photographer. It was too easy to look pudgy in close-up.

'Proud of both your daughters, obviously,' said the reporter
smoothly, catching sight of Charlie.

Kitty blinked as the flash went off.

'Well, yes, of course, both,' she said, entirely wrong-footed.
She flicked a mascara-lidded gaze over at Charlie, who turned
and stalked off.

'Mother!' hissed Iseult. Kitty kept a fixed smile glued on
her face.

'Yes, darling?' she said.

Teeth only slightly gritted with the long practice of many
years talking to journalists, Iseult managed to steer her mother
out from under the newspaper woman's nose. 'Excuse us,' she
said, still smiling her glued-on smile.

'Mother!' Iseult said when they'd reached a nook where
nobody could hear them. 'What did you say that for? Look
at poor Charlie; you know it must be hard for her when
everyone is congratulating me. You can't say that you're proud


of me and talk as though you only have one daughter with
her standing beside you!'
'Don't be ridiculous,' Kitty said. 'She didn't mind.' But she
wasn't so sure. Charlie had looked very upset.
Iseult suddenly saw someone she needed to talk to and
moved off, leaving Kitty feeling something quite alien to her:
guilt.
She didn't do guilt. It was a complete waste of time. She
and Mairead used to talk about it all the time, usually over
Kitty's favourite vodka martinis.
'Why do guilt?' Mairead would say, waggling her glass for
a re-fill. 'Only women are supposed to feel guilt.'
The reason they could talk about guilt so successfully was
that they both rarely felt it.
But now Kitty did. Charlie had looked stricken. Kitty hadn't
meant that she was only proud of Iseult; of course she was
proud of both of her daughters. But Iseult's success was so
much more obvious, people could see it. That did make it
extra special, slightly more wonderful. Besides, Charlie was
probably just going to get headache tablets and she'd be back
in a moment to drive Kitty to the party. It would all be fine,
Kitty knew it.

Charlie didn't come back. Kitty had to hitch a ride with Iseult,
who hadn't brought her own car and was being ferried around
with the producers in a big black limousine, that surprisingly
barely had room for Kitty to squash in. She'd felt quite
affronted, particularly as, just before they'd got into the car,
the journalist she'd been talking to earlier had tried to corner
her to talk about her feminist days, and Iseult had shuffled
her along going, 'Not now, Mother, you've done enough
damage!'
'What do you mean "damage"?' Kitty demanded, when
they were packed side by side in the big black limo.
'That woman writes a gossip column and anything you say

will be twisted,' Iseult snapped. 'This evening is supposed to
be about the play, not real-life warring families. It's been bad
enough you implying that you're only proud of one daughter.'

'Why didn't you warn me about her?' said Kitty crossly.
'It's not as if I haven't talked to the press before, I know what
to say.'

'Oh, Mother,' sighed Iseult. 'The only time you talked to
the press was when you were a cog in the feminist wheel.
You were hardly the President. That was then, this is now!'

At the party, Kitty felt adrift. It would have been nicer to
have been there with Charlie. Brendan and Charlie wouldn't
have known anyone either, they were hardly fashionable
people. But Kitty could have hung about with them and started
conversations with people who caught her eye. It was always
easier to join conversations when you were already with
people; it looked lonely and sad if you arrived on your own.

In addition, she was disappointed because people didn't
seem to recognise her. They should know her, her face had
been quite famous in the seventies. True, she hadn't been one
of the leaders of the feminist movement, but she'd been so
glamorous and the papers had always liked to take her picture
when they'd been doing features on women's liberation. 'You
make a change from all the ugly auld women's libbers who
want to burn their bras,' one photographer had said winningly.
She had been important, she was somebody. But no one here
seemed to know it.

She looked around the party in disgust. Who did she know,
apart from Iseult - who had long gone off chatting, smiling,
flirting, doing all the sort of things Kitty herself would have
done in the same position. For the first time in a long while,
Kitty felt her age. No, she felt more than her age. She felt
decrepit and unloved.

She made it over to the bar where one of the members of
the cast was camping it up happily, doling out drinks and
banter.


'Vodka martini,' snarled Kitty, leaning on the bar.
'You'll have to give me a kiss first,' he growled.
Kitty glared at him. 'Consider yourself kissed,' she said.
'No, change that. Consider yourself fucked. Now give me a
bloody martini!'
He gulped. 'Coming right up.'
Kitty stood at the bar and drank her martini. She wanted
a cigarette, but smoking indoors was now forbidden by the
health and safety fascists, and she felt too tired to go out on
to the terrace. Why did she feel so tired all the time? It wasn't
fair. In her mind, she was still eighteen and raring to go, adept
at throwing come-hither glances at any man who passed her
way.
If someone had asked the eighteen-year-old Kitty what she'd
be doing when she was in her sixties, she'd probably have
shrieked with horror.
She'd be dead by then, she'd have said breezily. Forty was
ancient, sixty-plus was a hideous thought. Sixty was ancient
Aunt Tilda with her mothy old mink, the hint of thermal
underwear visible from under her blouses and a reddened
complexion from being outdoors in all weathers deadheading
flowers and separating the irises.
Tilda was mouthy, bossy and to be avoided at all times.
The second martini - super strength because the idiot at the
bar had finally copped on - made it all clearer to Kitty.
Normally, vodka didn't make her maudlin, but tonight it did.
Kitty wondered if she had turned into Tilda. She wasn't the
sexy dame of her youth: she was the irritable woman who'd
managed to upset both her daughters. Well, one far more than
the other.
Bloody guilt. It wouldn't go away. Kitty found her cigarettes
and lit up inside. Let someone try throwing her out for
smoking in the hotel. Anyone foolish enough to try clearly
didn't know Kitty Nelson very well.

Sixteen


The Past


KITTY


When Kitty was young, men were said to be after only one
thing. If you gave it to them, you were entirely ruined and
only foolish women did so. Even in the slightly rarefied and
unconventional atmosphere of Cardinal Martinez House, the
boarding school which Kitty attended, everyone believed this
to be the case. Go the whole way with a man at your peril.

Kitty was reasonably aware of how animals procreated.
After all, someone who came from a farm and had older
brothers could hardly be ignorant of the fact. So she knew
what this was all about. But what she couldn't understand
was the power the sexual act appeared to give men. They
were in charge of it all, not women.

'Why is it that men are always supposed to be looking for
sex?' she said to her friend, Dervla. 'It's like we're cattle,
stupid things who don't know how to say no. Or . . .' she
paused because this was a very shocking idea to even consider,
'is it all a ploy to stop women considering that we might
enjoy it ourselves?'


Dervla and Kitty were friends partly because they were on
the same wavelength, but also because they were considered
by the school staff to be the biggest troublemakers in their
class and therefore spent a lot of time together, sitting outside
classroom doors, having broken some rule or another.
'You never hear anything about anyone enjoying it,' Dervla
said thoughtfully.
'That's part of the conspiracy,' Kitty said, with spirit. Dervla
was on her side. 'They tell us it's supposed to be no fun at
all, like they say about having a drink or a cigarette. No fun
at all. But what if it's great fun?'
Kitty knew of a girl from home who'd gone the whole way
and actually had a baby. She'd never met the girl, because
Kitty was the daughter of a wealthy farmer and the girl was
from the cottages down by the railway where, Kitty's mother
remarked with disdain, 'they breed like rabbits'. There didn't
seem to be much sign of anyone enjoying sex there, despite
the obvious evidence of it going on. When Kitty went past
the cottages, there was an air of squalor and poverty about
many of them. Not like most of the rest of the town where
people took pride in their homes and gardens.
Kitty saw the girl with her baby and, for one moment, she
thought of going up to her and saying hello or 'well done'.
Kitty couldn't imagine the hell at home if she became pregnant.
But
the girl looked bone tired, with untidy fair hair and
shabby clothes, and the baby was crying loudly, a noise that
gave Kitty a headache. She gave a half-smile and walked away.
There was no sign from the girl that an important step for
women had been made either in having sex or having a baby
outside the marriage department. Kitty overheard a friend of
her mother's saying that the parish priest had been down at
the girl's door, hammering on it and demanding that her
parents cast her out or else they'd be in on the sin. Incredibly,
they'd refused. Kitty knew without a shadow of a doubt

that if the priest had hammered on her parents' door, they'd
have shoved her and her pregnant belly out the door like a
shot.

When Kitty was nineteen, she got a job in the office typing
pool of her father's accountant in Dublin. There had been
war when she said she wanted to leave home, particularly
after the trouble she'd got into in France the year before. She'd visited Bordeaux on the exchange programme and had
begun a lifelong love affair with all things French. A few girls
from school had gone too, but it didn't seem as if they had
any fun at all; too prim and proper, they'd been. All determined
to be indoors whenever Madame said they had to be.
Blind obedience to rules held no interest for Kitty. Rules were
made to be broken.
Madame had thrown her out when she discovered that Kitty
had seduced her 'sweet and innocent' seventeen-year-old son,
Charles. Charles wasn't the slightest bit sweet or innocent,
but his mother thought he was, and that was what counted.
'Out!' she shrieked, shoving Kitty and all her belongings
out the door. 'You 'ave to leave, we never want to see you
again.'
Charles, the coward, had looked miserably out from an
upstairs window as Kitty had trailed down the drive, carrying
her suitcase. His papa was peering out another window,
looking equally miserable.
Kitty had had high hopes for Papa too. She fancied the
idea of an older man, but it was not to be.
It was then that Kitty went to Paris for the first time. Paris
in 1959 was where it was at. There was no provincial carryon
like at home in Ireland, where people you barely knew would comment on your behaviour in the street because they
were 'older and better' and hence perfectly entitled to tell you
off for smoking or wearing red lipstick. In Paris you could
smoke, wear red lipstick, kiss whomever you wanted, where

ever you wanted, and nobody took the slightest bit of notice.
Kitty fell instantly in love with the city. She was also broke
and, after two weeks, ended up at home, with her wings
clipped by her mother.
'You're a little tramp!' her mother had hissed. Mother had
received a letter from Madame about Kitty, leaving her in no
doubt as to what had gone on. 'Did you have relations with
that boy?'
Kitty considered lying but decided against it. Truth was
important. 'So what if I did?' she said. 'We were careful.'
Charles had been more than careful, he'd been wonderful.
Kitty wrote Dervla a letter telling her what they'd suspected
all those years ago: 'Sex is fantastic!!!'
When Kitty made it plain that she was going to Dublin to
work with or without her parents' help, they relented and her
father found her both the job and a room in a house where
other nicely behaved young girls lived with a widowed ex
teacher who had strict rules and permitted no carrying on.
Nora Slattery foresaw trouble with Kitty, but it was hard to
pin anything on her. Kitty always appeared to be home at
curfew and she was always off to work on time in the mornings,
hair perfect and wearing a nice, if a little too tight, twin
set.
But there was something there, Nora knew.
At work, Kitty engaged in mild, girlish flirtation with the
senior partner, but she reserved her serious seduction skills
for the junior partner, the very handsome and very married
Mr Lynch. With Mr Lynch's admiring eyes upon her, Kitty's
skirts got shorter, her sweaters got tighter and her lipstick got
redder. She didn't bother too much with the work itself, much
to the chagrin of the dignified spinster who ran the typing
pool. Miss Roche never lost her temper when Kitty arrived
late back from lunch. Miss Roche had seen it all. Young girls
came and they went. Once they got married, they left for
good.

'It's not fair that we have to stop working just because we
get married,' Kitty pointed out. 'Most of the men in the office
are married and they keep working.'
'Married women have to look after their husbands,' said
Miss Roche, who'd never had the chance to get married herself
and therefore enjoyed the one area of 1960s society where
not being married was a positive.
'Why can't men look after themselves?' said Kitty crossly.
'That's women's work,' Miss Roche said.
'Rubbish,' snorted Kitty. 'As if a man can't cook if he puts
his mind to it.'
Kitty's favourite reading at the time was a battered copy
of Married Love, which explained the mysteries of the female
menstrual cycle and when it was safe to make love without
getting pregnant. Unfortunately, Mr Lynch's favourite reading
was Fanny Hill, the eighteenth-century erotic masterpiece,
which meant they failed to pay proper attention to the advice
Kitty was getting in Married Love.
With Mr Lynch's car parked down by the beach and the
car light on, they sipped whiskey from the bottle and read
passages of Fanny Hill to each other. Kitty felt that she was
finally reaching the glory of her time in Paris again. This was
what life should be about: being wild and free, avant garde,
enjoying fabulous love-making with a fabulous man. Who
cared if he was married? Such strictures were for the old
guard, and Kitty was one of the new, modern people.
'I'll pull out in time,' gasped Mr Lynch. Kitty didn't care
what he did, as long as that glorious rippling feeling continued
arching through her.
When her period failed to come and her breasts swelled up
painfully, Kitty cursed Fanny Hill, the beach and Married
Love's so called 'safe period'.
'Are you insane? I'm not having a baby with you,' hissed
Mr Lynch, looking less like an Adonis and more like a man
on the verge of apoplexy. 'Get yourself sorted out. London's

the place. You can get it,' he paused and gave her the gimlet
stare she'd only ever seen him give a very rude client, 'fixed over there.'
'Fixed?' Kitty demanded. 'That's your baby you're talking
about.'
'How do I know who else you were sleeping with?'
Kitty stared him down. 'Nobody, you bastard,' she hissed.
'You're the one with the bastard, not me,' he snapped.
'What about that green young college bloke you go out with?
It could be his?'
She'd told him that she'd never slept with Anthony Nelson.
Anthony had been raised to respect women, he treated his
elder sister like a lady. He would have passed out with shock
if Kitty had laid a hand on his knee, never mind any higher.
'You talk about this, and I'll tell everyone you're a little
tart and you've been after me for months. Who do you think
they'll believe?' he taunted her.
Kitty didn't see the point in answering back. It seemed he
wasn't a modern person after all. Kitty thought of her parents
and the shame they'd feel if she arrived home pregnant.
It was time to phone Anthony. They might go on a date,
a long one that ended up on the beach.

Kitty's little girl Iseult, and Lisette's little girl, Saffron, went
to the same nursery school and Kitty, Lisette and some of the
other mothers got into the habit of having coffee together in
the mornings after they dropped the kids off.
It was Kitty's turn to play hostess, and she'd left Betty
Friedan's The Feminine Mystique open on the coffee table so
that perhaps they could all talk about the ideas in it. Betty
was right, women weren't the only ones who could iron and
cook. Women had so much power in them, but the patriarchal
society had kept them in chains. It wasn't fair. Women like Kitty had so much promise, yet here she was, stuck at
home with nothing to do but buy luncheon meat for Anthony's

sandwiches and keep the house clean. She adored Iseult, who
was funny, clever and the image of Kitty herself, but there
had to be more to life, hadn't there?

Lisette didn't want to talk about books but had no problem
talking about patriarchy.

She was married with three children and a husband who
felt he deserved a medal if he occasionally made a pot of tea.

'"There you go," he says whenever he does anything, anything. And if he puts a cup away, or puts his plate on the
drainer, he expects me to thank him.'

'You think that's bad?' snarled Phyllis, a one-time teacher
who'd had to resign because of the State decree that female
civil servants had to give up their jobs when they married:
the so-called marriage bar - yeah, called that because it drives
you to the bar for a drink, she used to say. 'Seamus told me
that if I budgeted the housekeeping money better, I'd be able
to buy myself a few fripperies. All because I said I was fed
up with having nothing nice to wear, ever, and that I'd be the
only one at the office party in the same dress for the fourth
year in a row.'

Kitty was conscious that Anthony wasn't in this band of
smug husbands who thought their contribution to married
life stopped at earning money. He often cooked, saying it
relaxed him, and he was good about tidying up afterwards,
because he knew he used four times more saucepans than she
would. Kitty wasn't a fan of cooking and she was fond of
the dinner-in-a-pot where you threw a bit of cheap meat,
vegetables and stock in together and cooked it slowly. The Thrifty Housewife book said it should turn out tender and
delicious. Kitty found that cheap meat still tasted like leather,
no matter what she did with it, but it only used one pot and
that was the whole point.

But still, Anthony was a man, responsible for slowing down
her progress in the world. Without him, she'd have achieved
something big, like Simone de Beauvoir or somebody.


The women talked about another mother who was pregnant
with her fifth child.

'Poor cow,' said Phyllis. Phyllis had two kids and felt that
was enough, but neither the Church nor Seamus agreed with
her.

Seamus had come from a long line of devout Catholics and
thought interfering with fertility was like dancing with the
devil. Phyllis had tried to get the contraceptive pill from her
doctor on the grounds of regulating her cycle but he, too, had
turned out to be of the doctrinaire variety.

'Mrs Maguire, children are God's gifts to us. It is against
God's law to tamper with procreation. I'm surprised at you '

Phyllis had retreated before he got going properly.

'We should get it abroad. London, that's the place for it,'
said Kitty. She was scared at the thought of getting pregnant
for the second time. She hadn't messed up on the safe period
again, but it was tricky.

'Isn't the pill bad for you?' wondered a new woman in the
group.

The others glared at her.

'What's bad for you is dropping a baby every year,' snapped
Kitty. 'One's enough for me, thank you very much.'


1983


Kitty called the conservatory her space. It wasn't much of
a conservatory, more of a lean-to with pretensions, but it
had a glass roof and plants, and it was where she kept her
books - the Female Eunuch and some of her Virago Modern
Classics. She'd read them all but hadn't found anything new she wanted for ages. One of the mothers had made the
fatal mistake of giving her a bodice-ripping historical
romance to read and Kitty had been spitting at the next
coffee morning.


'It's a fairy story, for God's sake,' she'd shrieked. 'That's
what's wrong with women today; we were all raised on fairytales
and most of those are totally misogynistic. The men are
always in charge of things in these books. Ludicrous, that's
what it is!'

Things had never been quite the same at the regular coffee
mornings since the great orgasm talk, when the speaker that
Lisette and Kitty organised, a woman named Pandora,
concluded her presentation by passing around small mirrors
and inviting people to find a quiet corner or, if they were
totally comfortable with their femininity, 'just do it in the
middle of the room', and examine their female beauty.

'You mean, look up my you-know-what with a mirror?'
squawked a girl called Rita.

'Naming your body correctly gives it dignity,' intoned
Pandora, clearly used to such interruptions. 'Embrace your
womanhood, admire your labia, your vulva and your vagina.'

'Thought a vulva was a car,' sniggered someone else, who'd
drunk too much to even hold on to the little mirror and kept
dropping it on the floor.

Even Kitty, four martinis and a cigar along - mere coffee
wasn't enough for this morning - wasn't entirely sure about
the self-examination bit. It wasn't that she hadn't seen
herself; she had. During one of her early love affairs she had
studied herself using a cheval mirror, and really she considered
what she saw with the thought of the man in question
looking at it later. But that was different, in the heat of lust.
She was no prude, she'd had lovers and she knew it was all
in working order in that department, but she still felt that Georgia O'Keeffe's painted flower versions of female sex
organs were prettier than the real thing. Men's bodies, now
they were beautiful.


Kitty was bored, she realised. Bored with her life and bored
with not having a job. But, as her friend Mairead bluntly


pointed out to her one day, she wasn't really qualified to do
anything.
Only Mairead would get away with saying such a thing,
Kitty reflected.
Mairead was not the sort of woman to attend a ladies'
coffee morning. She worked in an architect's office, kept all
the architects doing what they were supposed to be doing,
and knew she was generally considered a bit of a bitch.
'Women are called bitches if they're strong and powerful,'
she remarked. Then are just ambitious. Talk about double
standards!'
The conversation about Kitty's boredom and lack of practical
work skills was now over. Anyway, Kitty consoled herself,
Anthony earned enough that she didn't have to work. As per
her feminist beliefs, they had a joint bank account and there
was never any talk of Anthony 'giving' her money for the
housekeeping.
Kitty had once tallied up how much a housekeeper/laundress would cost to keep their house running and shocked
Anthony with the amount.
'That's what I should be paid,' she said proudly.
Anthony hadn't argued at all.
'Unlike most men, he clearly recognises your worth,' said
Mairead.
But Kitty wasn't so sure. Still, the Nelson family had enough
money to get by and, now that the children were older, she
might go to college as a mature student and get herself a
degree. That would be exciting.

She was better off without him.
She'd find somebody much better.
The words echoed in Kitty's ears as she sat alone and miserable
in her kitchen. They were what her friends said when
Anthony packed his bags and left.
'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle!' That

was from Gwen, who loved slogans and was going through
a phase of displaying words on her T-shirts that most people
were shocked to read, never mind say out loud.

'Kitty, you're fabulous, you were tied to him for far too
long.' That was from Mairead, who thought that marriage
was a form of legal slavery and couldn't understand why
women would put themselves through it in the first place.

Kitty blocked out the fact that, mere months before,
Mairead had been delighted with Anthony for not behaving
like the average chauvinist pig and appreciating Kitty's worth.

What was wrong with living in sin? demanded Mairead. Sin
was entirely fabulous - at least it was fabulous the way Mairead
explained it. Kitty always felt it was a little disloyal to think
it, but Mairead and her boyfriend, Timmy, didn't look like
wild free souls who were at it like knives every night, dancing
around their semi-detached house in the nude, having rampant
sex so loud so that the neighbours called the police in alarm.

Still, if Mairead reckoned that living in sin was where it
was at, maybe she was right. Maybe Kitty had made a huge
error in marrying Anthony all those years ago when she'd
been pregnant with Iseult. But Anthony had had a good job,
he'd offered a solution. Kitty had always been pragmatic.

'Find yourself a decent man who understands who you are
and doesn't want to live his life in the confines of a patriarchal
society,' Mairead counselled. 'He'll need to be the sort
of fella who'll take on the kids as well.'

This, Mairead added, could be the big stumbling block.

Mairead wasn't that keen on children herself. She never
went on with any of that Timmy and I weren't blessed with
children malarkey. She saw it more of a benefit to be without
them. You couldn't parcel up a small baby and take it along
to a rock festival, could you? Precisely.

Because of that, she didn't quite understand what Kitty was
going through. Mairead might proclaim that Kitty should get
herself another man now that Anthony had upped and left


her, but who was going to take on a woman with two children?
Nobody, that's who.
Iseult was eighteen and Charlotte was fifteen, nearly grown
up, but still they carried on like children. Kitty thought back,
mistily, to when she was eighteen. God, the things she'd done!
Her mother hadn't had a clue.
'Mum,' a timid voice broke into her remembering. It was
Charlotte. If there was one thing Kitty hated above all others,
it was timidity and Charlotte was very timid. Kitty was always
trying to knock it out of her. Charlotte took after her father.
Not that he'd been timid when it was time to leave, stupid
bastard.
'Don't squeak, Charlotte!' she roared. 'You're not a mouse.'
'I'm sorry, Mum,' said Charlotte, sounding even more terrified.
'I just wondered about dinner, and I have to get you to
sign my homework notebook.'
'Sign your homework notebook? What have you done?'
demanded Kitty. This was a turn-up for the books. Charlotte
never normally put a foot out of place and the signing of
homework notebooks was usually a device to alert the parents
some misdemeanour.
'Oh, it's just to say that you got the letters about the Inter
Cert mock exam,' Charlotte said.
I should have known, thought Kitty. Now Iseult, there was
a girl who was always putting a foot wrong, bless her. She'd
been suspended in her final year for giving cheek in English
class. Well, she'd been perfectly right to do so, in Kitty's
opinion. That mad old bat who taught the class hadn't a clue.
It was important that Iseult could put her point of view about
what they were studying, and an honest argument, well, that
was hardly rude, was it? But the school had been very upset
and so, typically, had been Anthony.
'She's got a bit of fire in her belly, that's all. Takes after
me. What's wrong with that?' Kitty had demanded. 'Nothing,'
Anthony had said dully.

She should have known then that he was going to leave
her, should have seen the signs. God knows why the coward
didn't do it earlier.

The day he left, she'd been on the verge of telling Anthony
that Iseult wasn't his child after all. God, she'd have loved to
have done it, but a moment of sanity prevailed. All right,
Anthony was an old fuddy-duddy and as he'd believed Iseult
was his daughter all these years, he'd undoubtedly stand by
her. Probably stoically say fatherhood was about more than
biology. But it would be messy if she told him, messy and
involving questions about why she'd married him in the first
place. And it might affect his ability to put his hand in his
pocket and maintain them all.

'You won't suffer financially,' he'd said as he left.

Damn right she wouldn't.

Well, she'd show him, she'd get another man. Mairead was
right, that's what she needed - another man and a bit of wild
sex. That would show bloody dried-up old Anthony that he
should never have left her.


Rex was perfect. Sexy and a bit wild despite the suit and old
school tie. He was also a wonderful lover. They used to meet
when Rex could escape from the office at lunchtime while
Charlie was at school. Kitty had briefly wondered if the neighbours
thought it was odd that the handsome man dropped
into her house so often in the afternoons, staying for an hour
or so, but then she stopped wondering. Let other people with
their dull lives think what they liked.

It went wrong, though. One day, they lay in the bed where
Anthony used to lie - Kitty liked that, it made her feel better.
The sex had been fantastic. She liked this bit too, this lying
nude and talking.

Kitty lifted one leg up high like a ballerina testing her
pointes, and admired it. Rex admired it too.

'I love your body,' he murmured, and ran a hand down the


bare leg till he reached the apex of her thighs where she was
still damp for sex. 'You're always ready for it, aren't you?'
Kitty's leg lowered a little.
'I hate those women who don't like sex - stupid cows.
You're a real woman.'
Kitty stretched her calf again, luxuriating in his praise. Rex
was the most amazing lover and praise from him was praise
indeed.
'You're almost like a man, do you know that? I think that's
what makes you special.'
The ballerina leg dropped.
'What do you mean?' she demanded.
'You're tough, you're like me, that's a compliment,' Rex
said. 'You're not one of those women who whine that they
want to be loved or taken care of - do they have any idea
how off-putting that is? That neediness?' He was warming to
his theme and he sat up and reached for his cigarettes. 'Want
one?'
Kitty sat up too, pulled the sheet over her bare breasts and
took a cigarette. She felt she needed one.
The nicotine hit the spot.
'What's all that about anyway, that "I need to know what
you think" rubbish?' he went on.
Kitty normally didn't feel out of her depth either talking
with men or in bed with them, but she was beginning to feel
this scene was leaving her grasp.
'What does who mean when they say that?' she asked.
'Oh, this other woman I'm seeing. Well, a girl,' he said.
Kitty made a mouselike squeak and pulled the sheet closer.
'Girl?' she muttered.
'Don't worry, lover, she's not like you, nothing to you,' he
added, patting her fondly. 'Just a little romance I have going
- a man has to settle down sometime. But she's not in your
league, Kitty, my love. Doesn't do sex,' he said, and smiled
wolfishly. 'Her mother would kill her and she'd never be able

to go to Holy Communion again. For the love of God, what's
her mother got to do with it? Or the Church. It's not like I
asked her to screw me on the back pew!'

He seemed to find this hysterically funny. Normally, Kitty
liked hearing him laugh. He was a great big bear of a man
and his laughter was like a bass drum roll but now, Kitty felt
bleakness wash over her. She was his bed person, someone
he had sex with, she saw this only too clearly. In his eyes,
because she didn't ask any of the usual female questions, that
meant she wasn't so much a woman as an honorary man.

Her enjoying sex on the same level as a man meant he
didn't need to treat her with any emotional kindness. Enjoying
unencumbered sex, which she thought of as striking a blow
for her own feminism, made Rex think she wasn't interested
in love. She was fine for sex but nothing more.

It was a horrifying thought. Where was the equality legislation
now?


Seventeen

Get down on your knees every day and say thank you, even if you don't feel grateful all the time, practice it, and one day you'll appreciate all the good things. And that's one of the greatest gifts of all.


The morning following Iseult's triumphant first night, Charlie
used her skill in the make-up department to hide her exhausted
face and red-rimmed eyes.
When they'd got home the previous night, she'd sobbed
her heart out to Brendan and told him about the implications
of the play.
He'd held her tight while she cried. 'Your mother really is
the limit, she's a crazy woman sometimes,' he said, which was
shocking coming from Brendan.
'You've never said anything like that before,' Charlie sniffled.
'It's tricky with families,' Brendan murmured, kissing the
top of her head. 'If I moaned about your mother, I'd never
be able to take it back. It would always be there. So I don't.
But she is a bitch sometimes. I know you want her to be
proud of you, Charlie, but you don't need it. You're a much
better mother than she's ever been, for a start.'
'Am I?'

He held her at arm's length, astonished. 'Of course. You're
a brilliant mother. You know the way she has a thing about
my mother, because she worked and reared all of us at the
same time?'
'Yes,' said Charlie slowly. They'd never actually talked
about this and she'd nurtured a vain hope that Brendan had
never overheard Kitty's rude mutterings about Jenny.
'I reckon it's the same with you. You show her up because
you're such a good mother and she wasn't, despite all her talk
of how she gave you and Iseult the chance to be who you
wanted to be. That's all crap. She wasn't cut out to have kids,
she's far too selfish. But you are, and it kills her to have anyone
do anything better than she did.'
'Is that what you think?'
Brendan nodded. 'Mikey adores you, so do I. I know that
might not be enough '
She stopped him by putting her finger up to his mouth. 'It
is enough,' she said. 'Absolutely enough for me.'
'And the only way you're going to know the truth behind
Iseult's play is to ask one of them.'
Charlie would have to pluck up the courage.
She'd barely slept at all that night, lying in the dark in a
burning rage as she thought of all the things she wanted to
say to her mother and Iseult, and never had.
She'd drifted off to sleep at half five, and when Brendan
woke her at seven, he brought her a cup of tea and toast and
marmalade.
'I love you,' he said, sitting on the bed as she blearily stared
at the tray and tried to focus properly.
'I know, love, thank you.' She gave him a grateful smile.
What was wrong with her? She had a wonderful husband and
a wonderful son. It was about time she stopped hoping for
approval from her mother and sister. They were locked in
their own little world of two. Let them stay there.

The atmosphere in Kenny's that day was gloomy. Nobody
knew anything for sure, but there was a sense, a frisson that
all wasn't well. People from the fifth floor had been heard
murmuring the DeVere name. Long-time Kenny's staff shuddered
at the notion of their beloved department store
becoming a part of the DeVere empire.
Everyone had a story about something they'd heard from
someone on the fifth floor, and don't tell anyone else, but the
auditor's report was bleak. Kenny's was in serious trouble.
'Selling up to DeVere's is probably the only way we can
survive,' Shotsy said to Charlie as they shared an early
morning coffee in the Hat Box Cafe.
'Perhaps a total change is the answer,' said Charlie blithely.
'Sell it all, and start again.'
Shotsy blinked. 'What's got into you?'
Charlie was cutting her muffin for something to do. She
wasn't even hungry, didn't know why she'd ordered a muffin.
'No, let me guess,' Shotsy went on. 'It's your bloody mother
again, isn't it? What's she done now?'
Everybody, it seemed, had seen that morning's gossip column
where Iseult and her mother were photographed, looking at
each other adoringly. The columnist hadn't actually reported
Kitty's proclaiming how proud she was of one daughter, while
the other daughter stood beside her looking aghast. At least
she'd only hinted at a family row, didn't say it outright.
The Nelson family turned out in force for Thursday's first
night: Iseult, her mother, the redoubtable Kitty, and sister,
Charlie. One does wonder where the talented Iseult Nelson
gets her ideas for family squabbles, the article read.
'Probably thought you'd sue,' Shotsy said, when Charlie
filled her in on what might have got written. 'Pity you don't
sue your mother, old bag.'
Charlie had giggled. It felt good to laugh.
'What was the after-show party like, anyway?' Shotsy
asked.

'I was so angry with her, I didn't go. Said I had a headache
and went home.'

'Well done you!' said Shotsy approvingly. 'A bit more of
that is what your mother needs. Proud of one of her daughters, indeed.'

'It was horrendous, I felt about two inches tall,' Charlie
admitted.

'Iseult should have said something,' Shotsy went on crossly.
'She's almost worse, Charlie. Your mother's always been mad
as a bicycle, but you'd think Iseult would stand up for you
now and then.'

'It's not really Iseult's fault,' began Charlie.

'Has she been on the phone this morning, asking if you're
all right, then?'

'No.'

Iseult hadn't bothered to phone and find out how her sister
was feeling, seeing as she'd missed the after-show party.
According to the papers, the success of the play had directors
queuing up to work with her, and she was in talks about
a new play at London's Donmar Warehouse theatre. Too busy
to phone her sister and answer the questions Charlie dearly
wanted to ask: 'Is it true that you're not Dad's daughter? And
if so, when did you find out and why didn't you tell me?
Don't I deserve to know?'

'There's a pair of them in it,' Shotsy said. 'Kitty and Iseult.'

And you don't know the half of it, Charlie thought.

'Hiya, Shotsy and Charlie.'

Dolores put a tray down beside them, two chocolate brioche
buns on her tray. 'Might as well make use of the staff discount
while the store's still open,' she said.

'Don't be defeatist,' said Shotsy, shuddering at the sight of
the buns. She was having a triple espresso, as usual.

'It's not defeatist,' Dolores said. 'I overheard Lena speaking
to Tom about a meeting with the auditors, and she said something
about Ingrid having to make a decision soon. See?


They're not talking about whether to repaint the facade.
They're talking about selling - they have to be. It's been like
a ghost town since David died. If they close the place down
to revamp, we could all be out of a job.'
Charlie thought about this and found that, strangely, she didn't care all that much. She loved Kenny's, loved the family
atmosphere, but in the past week, since sitting through Iseult's
play and feeling her life shift on its axis, she realised that you
could survive change. Nothing stayed the same, after all. What
was important was how you managed the change. That, and
having the people you loved around you, was what mattered.

Charlie was due to work on Saturday, but woke up feeling
ill.
She lay listlessly in bed, unable even to sip the tea Brendan
took up to her.
'I'll phone and tell them you're sick,' he said decisively.
'No, I'll be better '
'No,' he said. 'You need to stay at home in bed. It's all
your bloody mother's fault,' he added.
Privately Charlie agreed with him.
Mikey had football that morning, and once the pair of them
had gone off, Charlie lay there with the remote control in her
hand and flicked through the channels. She was deep in Oprah when the phone rang. 'Hello, Charlotte,' said her mother. 'I've been phoning your
mobile, but it's off. I thought you worked on Saturdays. Are
you sick?'
'You missed your calling as a private investigator,' snapped
Charlie, and they were both a little surprised. Charlie never
spoke like that to Kitty.
'I need to talk to you.'
'Well, I don't need to talk to you,' Charlie said.
'I'm coming over,' Kitty went on.
God, she was a one-woman army, Charlie thought. She

decided to hang up, but it was too late: her mother had already
done so.

Charlie had, on occasion, put on make-up before her mother
arrived because she didn't like the inevitable 'You look shattered!'
expostulations when she didn't.

Today, she stayed in bed, wrapped in her dressing gown,
a bulky cream towelling creation that was very cosy but did
nothing for her face or figure.

When her mother's furious door-bell ringing started, she
went downstairs, opened the door, and marched back up to
bed.

'You're not well,' said Kitty in surprise when she followed
Charlie up.

'What are you here for, Mother?'

Again, Charlie surprised herself. Where had this tough
cookie character been hiding all her life? Or perhaps she'd
always been there but obscured because Charlie had thought
that being a chameleon was the way into her mother's heart.
She tried so hard to make her mother love her, trying to be
everything her mother wanted, blending to fit in with every
backdrop, and she'd always failed.

Now that she knew it was pure DNA that had altered the
picture, the please-everyone chameleon was gone. 'I thought
you were upset the other night,' Kitty said lamely, and sat on
the bed.

'I was upset for two reasons,' Charlie snapped. 'Can you
guess what they were?'

'I didn't mean to say it like it sounded to that reporter,'
Kitty began. 'Of course, I'm proud of you '

'Of course!'' roared Charlie, and suddenly she didn't feel ill
any more, she felt invigorated. 'What do you mean, "of
course"? You've never told me you felt proud of me, never.
It was always Iseult - and I love her, don't get me wrong, but
it's hard to always come second best. And now I know why.'

Under her usual layer of make-up, Kitty blanched.


'My father isn't Iseult's father, is he?'
It was like watching the energy go out of a prizefighter.
'I don't know why she put it in the play,' Kitty said.
'I doubt if she knew she had,' Charlie said. 'But it was
what made you love her more, wasn't it? Whoever he was,
you loved him more than my father, and you love her more
than you love me.'
'No I don't!' roared Kitty. 'I love you too.'
'You don't!'
'Yes I do!'
They glared at each other furiously.
'All right, I screwed up!' Kitty shouted. 'I was never Mrs
Perfect Bloody Mother. Iseult was easier because she was more
like me. Tougher. You were so gentle; I could see you watching
me with those big sad eyes when I did it wrong. Nobody else
needed to point out my failings in the mothering department,
just one look at your little face was enough. Motherhood is
supposed to be instinct, we're all supposed to be able to do
it. Bloody monkeys do it, why couldn't I?'
'Is that it?'
'That's enough!' Kitty said. 'You're not considered a woman
if you're a useless mother, never forget that. Well, you're good
at it. Mikey worships the ground you walk on.'
It wasn't a false compliment. Kitty meant it, Charlie
realised.
'He does, doesn't he?'
'I never had that, not with either of you.'
'What about Iseult's father?'
'I was pregnant when I married your father. He doesn't
know, never will.' She didn't plead. Kitty held her head high.
'I love you, Charlie, and I'm sorry about the other night.'
'How did Iseult find out?'
'I told her once when I was drunk, told her not to tell you.'
At least, Charlie realised, it solved the mystery of why Iseult
hadn't shared that information with her sister.

'Stupid mare for putting it in a play,' Kitty went on. 'Iseult
has no sense when it comes to some things. You'd never have
done that. You can keep a secret, at least.'

Charlie couldn't help herself: she burst out laughing. It was
as close to a rapprochement as anyone would get with her
mother.

Kitty laughed too, then took advantage of the change in
mood. 'Would you not get rid of that hideous dressing gown,
Charlie? I know Brendan's not the type to stray, but merciful
hour, no man would stay with a woman who wears that to
bed.'

Charlie looked down at the dressing gown. Brendan had
given it to her a few years ago for Christmas. She loved it.

'No, Mother,' she said cheerfully, 'it's like the rest of me:
take it or leave it.'


When her mother was gone, Charlie felt unaccountably better.
Lighter, almost. She showered, dressed and on impulse, picked
up her anti-gratitude diary and read it from the beginning. It
was strange to read her own words and yet time lent a dispassion
to her reading. From that distance, she could see glimpses
of the child who'd always wanted to please her mother and
had grown up not appreciating the value of pleasing herself.

Both her mother and Iseult said what they thought and did
what they wanted to, irrespective of who it hurt or affected.
Charlie ran every sentence and every action through her
mental filter first to see if it might hurt anyone else.

But since she'd been writing this gratitude diary, she'd seen
the patterns in her behaviour and learned, slowly, that she
really couldn't please all the people all the time.

She needed to start pleasing herself first.

The phone rang and she answered it automatically.

'Charlie?'

It was Iseult and she didn't sound like her usual, wildly
confident self.


'Hello,' Charlie said coolly. She might have felt better about
the whole thing but she wasn't letting Iseult get off scotfree.

'Mother just phoned me. Oh, Charlie, I never meant you
to find out this way. I didn't think anyone would realise . . .
well, I almost didn't realise it myself. I wasn't writing about
us but '

'Iseult,' interrupted Charlie, 'I'd rather not talk about this
over the phone. Can you come round?'

'Well, I'm busy and I have a stack of meetings this morning
because everyone's so excited about the play '

There was the pause where Charlie knew she was supposed
to say that of course Iseult was too busy, Charlie must have
been mad to even ask; after all, Iseult could see Charlie
anytime. But Charlie said none of these things. She merely
said 'oh,' and waited calmly.

Iseult, used to picking up inflections in people's voices,
grasped the extent of the 'oh'.

'I'll be round in half an hour, is that OK?' she said.

'I'll brew coffee,' Charlie said, smiling into the phone.


Marcella was feeling miserable and unsettled. Her entire view
of life had taken a battering. Up to now, the planet could
self-combust with bitterness every day over the price of oil
and budget cuts, and she could handle it, but there needed
to be a few constants in her life. Ingrid and David had been
that. Their existence proved that true love could exist; there
were nice, decent people out there; and good things came to
those who waited.

All entirely false, as it turned out.

Ingrid's life had been based on a lie and David, dear David
whom Marcella had simply adored, had been seeing someone
else.

What was worse was that there was nobody she could
discuss this with because Marcella simply had nobody else in
her life to trust with such sensitive information. If she'd had


a partner or a husband, she could have talked to them about
it.

Poor Ingrid, thank God we have each other. She imagined
lying with her beloved in bed holding hands, simply being
glad that they were together and weren't ripped apart by infidelity.
But
she didn't have that. No man to hold in bed and talk
quietly about how horrible it was for dear Ingrid.

No prospect of a man in her life, either. It wasn't that she
needed romance or rampant sex, just companionship. That
was all she craved. David's very existence had made her think
there were decent men out there and that perhaps one day
she might find one. Well, she'd found Harry, but she and
Harry had been too different and that had never really worked.
But another decent man. There was little hope of that now.


The plumbing system in the office had broken down
completely despite the speedy fix-up job when the reception
area had been flooded.

'The whole thing?' said Marcella when her business partner
Connor gave her the bad news.

'Heating, sanitation - the works. It'll cost thousands,'
Connor said grimly.

'We spent thousands getting it installed in the first place,'
Marcella said.

'We can sue,' said Paul, Connor's assistant, who was new
and hadn't yet been jaded by life.

Connor and Marcella exchanged a will-you-tell-him-or-will
I glance.

Marcella got the honour.

'We probably will sue,' she said, 'but suing is a little like
Dr Johnson's description of marriage - a triumph of hope
over experience. And we still have to sort out the problem
now.'

'In other words, we need a good plumber,' said Connor, in


a voice that implied Dr Johnson's remarks might have been
on the money when it came to plumbers too.
This, Paul could do. 'My cousin's a plumber. It's his own
company, he set it up and he's doing very well. No discounts
for cash or any dodgy business. He's your man. He's very
ambitious, wants to start his own empire, we all say.'
'Get the emperor to come in and give us a quote,' Marcella
said. 'I have to go out for a meeting. I'll be a couple of hours.'

Her meeting had gone on for ages and Marcella stormed up
the stairs of SD International, coat flying, thinking about the
cost of fixing the office plumbing. The expense would be
stratospheric. She'd kill those other incompetent muppets if
she got her hands on them.
One wrench of the door on to second floor and Marcella
walked headlong into Connor, Paul and another man deep in
a conversation.
Her handbag hit the floor, she cannoned off Connor and
stepped clumsily back into the third man, who grabbed her
arms to steady her.
She shot away from him as if she'd been scalded. She was
not in the mood to be grabbed, by anyone.
'This is my cousin, Lorcan McNamara,' said Paul in a
squeaky, surprised voice.
'Oh.' Marcella whirled round to glare at him. If he so much
as looked at her with an expression that said she didn't understand
plumbing, so help her God, she'd . . .
Her brain gave a little cavewoman throb of lust.
'Hello,' she said. This was Paul's cousin?
It had been a long time since Marcella was jolted by a man.
Longer than she could remember. But this man, he was something
else. It wasn't entirely his looks - although Marcella
could imagine Julie from reception muttering that she
wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating crisps, which was
high praise indeed and few men earned it. He was dark-haired,

that type of darkness that brought heavy eyebrows that could
beetle in a moment, and stubble that needed two shaves a
day to control it. His eyes were blue, glinting a smile at her,
and he was at least ten years younger than her, far too young
to be giving her such a knowing smile.

No, it wasn't any of that, even the lean perfection of him,
narrow hips encased in old denims, broad shoulders in a plaid
shirt. It was the air of absolute confidence and control, the
sense that he did things his way, and that if anybody didn't
like it, that was fine; unless he was in charge, in which case
it wasn't fine and the entire place would march to the beat
of his drum, no matter what, and he'd make it happen by
sheer force of will.

The bit of her brain still operating gave her cerebral cortex
a good shake.

'Pleased to meet you,' she said, with a stab at a normal
voice. 'So you're taking on the mammoth task. What's the
verdict?'

'It's an interesting job,' he said, eyes assessing her.

Even his voice was sexy.

'I'm beginning to think it may take longer than I initially
thought,' he added.

Marcella realised he was flirting with her, in such a subtle
way that nobody else noticed. She felt a rush of total lust that
made her whole body burn. Suddenly, she was far too hot
and her skin was misted in sweat and she felt sure everyone
could see it. But the training kicked in. Her own training.

People aren't looking at you all the time watching for imperfections.
You'd be surprised what they don't notice. If you
hiccup, sneeze or flush puce, they often don't notice, and if
you carry on as if you haven't noticed, then they will carry
on too . . .

Her own words mocked her as the heat increased. Satellites
in space could probably detect it.

'I'll leave you boys to it,' she said, and backed off into her


own office. Leave you boys to it? What did that sound like?
Not the independent career woman, that was for sure.
At her desk, she picked up her desk calendar and fanned
herself with it. Had that really happened? Had she just felt
herself fall head over heels in sheer lust with Paul's plumber
cousin? She was really losing it now. It was time to give up
work, move to a remote island, let her hair grow long and
pin it up in a bun with knitting needles.
She kept the door shut all morning and only ventured out at
lunchtime when there was no noise in the rest of the office. She
didn't know if Lorcan was starting work that day or when, but
the less she saw of him the better. She'd die of embarrassment
if she reacted like that again. Imagine if Connor had noticed.
Paul wouldn't, Paul was clueless, but no matter how clever she
was at hiding things, Connor would eventually cop on.
Hopefully, it would be a quick job and Lorcan would have
his team of people doing it, rather than him being around the
office looking broodingly handsome and flirty.
She made herself coffee, took a banana from the kitchen
fruit bowl and was on her way back to her office when Lorcan
appeared.
'I was looking for you,' he said.
'Oh?' Hanging on to her banana for dear life, Marcella
kept walking until she reached the safety of her office. He
followed her.
'Can I help you?' she asked. 'Connor seems to be out, but
if you want to wait until he's back -' She was hot again. She
couldn't fan herself, it would look like she was having a hot
flush, which was the kiss of death to a woman in her forties. 'I don't want to see Connor. I came up to ask you out,' he
said, staring at her with ferocious calm.
'To ask me '
'- out, yes,' he said. 'You're unattached. I asked. I'm unattached
and I find you incredibly gorgeous, so I'm asking you
out. Is there a problem with that?' He put his lovely dark

head to one side and Marcella had a vision of that head
nuzzling her throat, with her hands grasping his skull, his
mouth moving down further to suck her nipples.

The heat soaked through her white vest this time and she
hoped it wasn't making the fabric cling to her because this
bra was so see-through, entirely the sort of thing a woman
might wear to bed with the intention of having a man rip it
off her later, with his teeth, perhaps . . .

'What is it with you?' she demanded. 'You, you '

One eyebrow arched.

'Out where?' she asked abruptly.

'Dinner.'

'When?'

'Tonight?'

'I'm busy,' she snapped.

'Tomorrow night?'

'Fine. Where?'

'I'll pick you up,' he said.

Marcella shook her head. 'No, I'll meet you there.'

'I'll pick you up,' he said again. 'When I take you to dinner,
I take you. Eight o'clock? You tell me where.'

'Are you always this pushy?' she asked, as she wrote her
address on a piece of paper.

'Only when I really want something,' he murmured.

When he left, Marcella went to the window and wrenched
it open, standing with the breeze flowing over her skin until
she cooled down. She would get him out of her system. He
was probably as thick as four short planks. Nothing turned
her off a man like stupidity.


He wasn't thick. Quite the contrary. They ate at a small Italian
restaurant in the city, and Marcella found that she could listen
to him talking all night. Not that he did talk all night: he let
her talk, and he listened. But when he did talk, it was clear
that a serious brain was behind those sexy blue eyes.


He'd completed a degree in finance before turning to
plumbing when the investment bank he'd worked for went
through a rocky patch in the late nineties.
'But why plumbing?' Marcella asked.
'Why not plumbing?'
'With your education, you could do anything.'
'Do you think that what I did in college means I should
want something better than to be a plumber?' Lorcan said,
smearing brie on a cracker for her.
Marcella, realising that he was going to feed it to her and shocked at the fact that she liked the idea, blushed.
'If you don't hold it against me that I'm a plumber, I won't
hold it against you that you work in PR,' he said.
'I love my job,' Marcella said.
'I love mine and I'm proud of it.' He held the cracker delicately
to her lips, teasing her with it, allowing her little bites.
'I have a growing company, forty employees, and I won't tell
you my turnover because I don't know you well enough yet,
but I'm earning more money than I earned in finance. You're
not an intellectual snob, are you?'
Marcella blushed again.
'Intellectual snobbery is a real eighties thing,' he said. 'I'm
more of a nineties guy and I don't look down on anyone
because of their education or what they choose to do with it.
Ambition and success have nothing to do with that. Some of
the most successful entrepreneurs of the nineties didn't go to
college at all.'
'Don't rub it in that I went to college a million years before
you did. I'm old enough to be your mother,' she said anxiously,
taking a sip of wine.
'That's not possible, not unless my mother had me when she
was eleven,' he replied. They'd already had a conversation about
age, where Marcella had told Lorcan the truth, half expecting
him to run away at the news that she was forty-nine to his
thirty-eight. He'd said it didn't matter in the slightest.

'And I don't go out on romantic dates with my mother,'
he said now. 'Except when we're planning to appear on Jerry
Springer.'

Marcella laughed loudly, spraying wine everywhere.

'Sorry,' she said, reaching over with her napkin. She dabbed
his face and then his throat, and it felt as if they had both
stopped breathing.

'If you go any further down with the napkin, we'll never
be able to come to this restaurant again,' he murmured.

'I've had enough cheese,' she said.

The too.'

They both made gestures to the waiter to bring the bill,
but he won the battle to pay.

He drove slowly, not speaking, and Marcella felt the tingle
of anticipation grow inside her. At her house, he parked the
car and they sat in silence for a moment.

'Do you want to come in for a coffee?' she asked.

'Do you want me to come in?' The blue eyes bored into
hers. 'If I come in, I don't know if I'll be able to leave.'

Marcella wondered if she was stone mad, but she reached
up and touched his cheek where the five o' clock shadow was
breaking through. Like a cat, he moved his face so the line
of his jaw was cupped in her hand.

'You don't have to leave,' she said.


Marcella had never kept a secret from Ingrid in all the years
they had been friends. No matter what happened, they talked
about it. But Marcella couldn't tell Ingrid about this, this was
like breaking all the commandants of being a good friend:
enjoying yourself when your friend was devastated and betrayed.

Enjoying yourself with a younger man made it worse.

When she thought about the age gap in isolation, she felt
like Hugh Heffner with one of the Playboy girls. She thought
of how she and Ingrid had spoken of such men, the sort of
men who grew older and older, got covered in liver spots,


had frail bodies, wrinkly skin and eyes that still gleamed when
they saw nubile flesh.
'They're disgusting,' Marcella used to say. 'Why don't they
date women their own age or thereabouts? Why twenty-year
olds?'
'It's about power,' Ingrid used to say sagely. 'Having a young
girlfriend signals to the world that they have the money and
the power to attract such a woman. If they didn't have that,
they would just be an ordinary, much older guy.'
So doing it in reverse, dating a younger man, made Marcella
feel hypocritical and secretive.
But, oh, he was wonderful.
Lorcan. Marcella rolled his name around in her mouth.
Her younger lover. In the media world she belonged to,
that made her a cougar - a woman in her prime with a younger
lover.
When she was with Lorcan, laughing with him, making
love with him, they were just people.
Thinking of herself as a cougar changed that, it smacked
of some sort of desperation, for all that articles in magazines
always made being a cougar sound fabulous: have a younger
man as your lover, let him appreciate your inner beauty as
well as your experience.
But in reality, it felt different. A secret she needed to keep.
Nobody could know, not anyone at work, not even Ingrid.
If Lorcan had been less good looking, or even worked in
a different field, it would have been different. But there was
a Lady Chatterley's Lover quality to falling for the plumber.
She couldn't tell anyone that, truly, he was one of the
smartest men she'd ever met. Well-read, funny, clever. In the
world of media - a world where, ironically, people tended to
have a very blinkered view of reading and pored over little
else but media pages in the papers and articles written by
people they knew - a professional woman dating a plumber
was a little like a successful man dating a beauty queen.

Trading down.

None of them would believe Marcella was with him for
his mind. They'd disregard the brain cells and look at the
sculpted body, the handsome face and the powerful charisma
that emanated from him, and they'd think: Bingo!! Yeah,
you're with him for his mind, Marcella. Sure.


On the third date, he'd taken her home to meet his mother
and brothers.

That's what you did with someone you were serious about,
Lorcan said, and Marcella, who hadn't been taken home to
meet the mother of one of her boyfriends for at least twenty
years, had thought it was very sweet - until she got there.

Lorcan's family home was a sprawling semi-detached house
in a suburb where his mother, Antoinette, had raised her six
sons alone after her husband died. Immaculately presented
but comfortable, the house spoke of a warm family life. When
they arrived for dinner, three of Lorcan's brothers were there,
all nearly as gorgeous and charming, making Marcella think
they could fill half a calendar of hunks.

Then she'd met Antoinette, who'd come out of the kitchen
in an apron, drying her hands on a tea towel.

'Hello, Marcella,' Antoinette had said and Marcella had
felt her gut clench.

This was no little old lady with fluffy white hair. Lorcan's
mother didn't seem that much older than she was, although
miles apart in all obvious ways. Antoinette made Marcella think of what she'd have become if she'd stayed in her hometown
and married one of the boys who'd been after her all
those years ago. Antoinette had short hair - Marcella remembered
how her own mother had cut hers as soon as she'd hit
forty, saying that long hair was for younger women.

Antoinette wore a cream blouse' tucked into a sensible plaid
skirt and shoes that were undoubtedly comfortable but positively
anti-fashion.


Marcella had gone for her version of casual, which meant
a Ralph Lauren sweater with a white shirt underneath and
denims that looked ordinary but were actually expensive ones
cut by a former jeans model who understood the female body.
Her hair hung around her shoulders in glossy, dark waves.
Worse, one of Lorcan's brothers, Tony, had brought his
family with him, including his wife, Sarah, and their eighteen-month-old
baby, an apple-cheeked little girl named Lulu.
Antoinette was polite to all, but Marcella felt a frost every
time Lorcan's mother looked in her direction.
Tony, Sarah and Lulu were a proper family unit, was the
silent message. You, older woman taking my boy, are not.
Everyone wanted a go of Lulu, and when she landed on
Marcella's lap, Marcella felt the frisson of loss she always felt
when she held a small child.
No matter that she'd done her grieving for that, it still hurt
to have a perfect little creature staring up at her with pale
blue eyes and an inquiring face. She would never have this
now.
Marcella was good with children. She'd spent a lot of time
with her nieces and nephews, and was adept at amusing them.
It took two minutes of smiling, talking and tickling Lulu's
chubby little hand in 'Round and round the garden,' before
Lulu was hooked.
'Aren't you beautiful?' Marcella crooned, as a delighted
Lulu examined Marcella's necklace and gave a few exploratory
tugs on one of her earrings.
Lulu refused to be passed along and clung to Marcella.
'She likes you,' said Sarah happily, and began to relax
enough to eat her dinner.
In other circumstances, Marcella would have liked Antoinette,
but when Marcella was helping tidy up, Antoinette spoke to
her alone and destroyed any chance of happy families.
'I can't say I'm delighted you're going out with Lorcan,'
Antoinette said, 'but he's a man and he knows his own mind.

I don't tell him who to see. That said, I'd prefer if he was
with a woman his own age, to be frank. You're not going to
give him children, are you, no matter how good you look.
You're too old for that.'

Marcella, who'd faced down fleets of fierce alpha males in
the boardroom and chewed up bitchy female types for breakfast,
felt close to tears.

'No,' she managed to say.

She wouldn't say she didn't think she was able to have
them now even if she wanted to, no matter how clever Italian
fertility doctors were with women well beyond childbearing
years. Her grief over not having had babies was her own business,
not anyone else's, not even Lorcan's mother.

'You're quiet,' remarked Lorcan as they drove off.

Quiet? she thought. If only he knew how hard she'd tried
not to run out of the house and hail a taxi to take her away.

'I'm fine,' she said tightly, then regretted it. 'I'm fine' was
classic female hedgehog prickle-time, meaning I am anything
but fine and you better find out why that is, you moron.

'My mother likes you,' he added.

'She's very nice,' Marcella said. What was she like? Nice and fine. They were non-words, used to pad out a conversation
that was going nowhere.

'Actually, I don't think she liked me at all,' Marcella said,
unable to hold it in.

'Trust me, she did. You'd know if she didn't like you. She
made one girlfriend cry.' He was smiling ruefully at the
memory.

Marcella had to control the urge to beat him around the
head with her mobile phone. Typical bloody man: they were
all martyrs to their mothers, thinking they could do no wrong.
God knows what Antoinette had done to make one poor
woman cry. And she was suddenly jealous of this old flame.
Was she younger than Marcella? Or the same age, another
cougar in a line-up that made Lorcan's family shrug helplessly


and wait for the moment he came to his senses and dated
women who could give him children.
'I don't like feeling disapproved of,' Marcella blurted out.
Blast him, he had a strange effect on her and made her say
what she felt. No man had ever done that before, not even
Harry.
'It's not a good feeling,' he agreed. 'Sort of what you're
afraid of happening to me with your friends, right?'
Marcella gasped. Another thing about Lorcan: he made her
totally forget all her neat tricks about presentation. She reacted
with him, couldn't hold anything in. 'I am not afraid of my
friends disapproving of you,' she lied.
'Yes you are,' said Lorcan. 'I'm not, by the way. I'd like to meet them because they're important to you, but I'm not
afraid of what they think. That's up to them and we're up to
us. You can't live your life worrying about what other people
think.'
And with that, he was back concentrating on the road, the
conversation was over.
He was such a MAN.

Eighteen

Speak out of love and a desire to make things better.


Ingrid had never done nights out with the girls. She hadn't
avoided them on purpose; it was simply an aspect of popular
culture that had passed her by.
'It's because of who you are, I dare say,' Marcella said.
'You're too famous for normal people and if you went out
with a group of famous women, there would inevitably be
someone there with an iceberg-sized ego who would want the
conversation to be about them, their show, their publicist,
their fans.'
Ingrid found herself grinning. Marcella was right. She hated
to think of her fame as making her different, but it did. There
were people who didn't care how often your face was on the
television and treated you normally, but there were twice as
many who did the opposite, asking personal or rude questions
on the grounds that famous people had no right to
privacy.
Tonight, Marcella had organised an evening with Ingrid
and two other women friends, Carla and Nikki, women they
both knew and loved.
It wasn't exactly a wild night out with the girls, but Marcella

said that Ingrid needed to get out and do things that weren't
entirely work-related. Although work was going well and she
had slipped back into the driving seat much more easily than
she had expected, Ingrid had been avoiding all social events.
'Your hand will get welded to the Sky Box zapper if you
spend any more time at home in the evenings,' Marcella had
scolded. 'Let me organise something nice and quiet.'
Carla was a high court judge, who was married with three
adult children. Nikki was single and a successful clothes
designer who'd launched an international handbag line to
great success. They were lovely women, good friends, but as
she and Marcella sat waiting in the restaurant, sipping Kir
Royales, Ingrid felt deeply uncomfortable. It was her first
evening out, her first non-family, non-work evening since
David had died.
There was something scary about it. The safety blanket that
had been her marriage was gone. No, she corrected herself
mentally, the safety blanket that she'd thought was her
marriage was gone.
Marcella's BlackBerry beeped with the arrival of a message.
'Sorry,' she muttered, 'must reply to this.'
Marcella was distracted, Ingrid thought idly. It must be
work.
Ingrid sipped her drink and looked around the room.
An elegant older woman arrived, flicking an arrogant gaze
over Ingrid and Marcella as if to say a party of women was
beneath contempt.
Ingrid watched the woman with interest as she joined a
wealthy-looking elderly man at a nearby table. She was thin,
far too thin really; the thinness of savage self-control at every
meal for the past twenty years. Ingrid would have been fascinated
to see her bone-marrow density scans. The woman was
clad in a subtle shift dress with lots of detailing around the
arms to distract from the creping of her skin. She had to be
over sixty, yet her hair was a girlish blonde bouffant, combed

and fluffed high at the front over a surgically smooth high
forehead, with a rounded flicky-out curl all around.

The contrast between the Barbie hair and the rest of her
made Ingrid shiver. Was this what getting older was all about?
Fighting age with the weapons of girlhood?

Ingrid's hand went automatically to her own hair and she
had a sudden overwhelming desire to have it all cut off. Short,
sharp and sleek a la Judi Dench. That would be different.
Nobody could accuse her of trying to look younger than she
was then. Was that where she'd gone wrong in her marriage?
Had she assumed she and David would be together forever
when, in reality, she should have faced the fact that nothing
lasted forever. Had his mystery lover been younger? Of course.
Ingrid knew she must be
'Hello,
sorry we're late. Traffic was mental.'

Carla and Nikki arrived with a tall, grey-haired man beside
them.

'This is Eric Johannsen,' introduced Nikki. 'We met him in
the lobby.'

Marcella and Ingrid smiled hellos and shook hands with
Eric, whom Ingrid tried hard to place.

She'd definitely seen him before. On the business pages,
perhaps, a picture in the Financial Times . . .

He had the keen eyes of a successful businessman, for sure:
coolly assessing, analysing, working out where the next billion
was coming from.

'Good evening, pleased to meet you,' he said.

His accent was neutral with the perfect enunciation of the
multi-linguist. Ingrid was always fascinated by men like him,
ones who ran empires and could speak Japanese, Chinese and
Russian, and had secretaries in every major city, taking speedy
dictation.

He lingered only a minute before heading off to his own
table, where the inevitable group of men in suits awaited him
with bulbous burgundy glasses in front of them.


'If I wasn't married . . .' murmured Carla, sitting down.

'Hands off,' said Nikki. 'Let us free agents have a chance.'

Nikki had dated a property billionaire from Seattle for a
few years but he'd left her for his masseuse. Since then, she'd
sworn off men. 'Isn't he a dish?' she asked Marcella.

'Well, er - yes,' said Marcella.

Nikki whooped. 'Marcella Schmidt - you're seeing someone!
Tell all'

'I am not,' protested Marcella.

Ingrid could see that Carla and Nikki believed her. Marcella
was, after all, marvellous at fibbing. But Ingrid had seen her
blush slightly and knew better. Marcella must have a new
man in her life and she hadn't said anything. Ingrid felt a
pang of guilt. Dear Marcella felt she had to pussyfoot around
her, as if any good news would devastate Ingrid. That wasn't
true. Just because Ingrid's life had been shattered didn't mean
everyone had to suffer too.

'Where do I know that man from?' Ingrid asked, to take
the heat off Marcella.

'Another billionaire property/business/delete-where-applicable
magnate,' Carla said. 'I don't know where Nikki finds them. Is
there a dating club for lonely billionaires, Nikki?'

'I wish,' Nikki sighed. 'Money's not everything, anyway,
is it?'

The other three laughed.

'I'm never interested in men because they have money,'
Nikki claimed. And then she grinned, a wicked little grin.
'But they're nicer when they do.'

'Maybe not nicer, but the push-off-I'm-over-you gifts are
better when they're rich,' Marcella joked.

Nikki jangled her bracelet, a platinum-and-diamond confection
that Mr Seattle had bought her. 'Doesn't keep you warm
at night.'

'Eric might keep you warm at night,' suggested Carla.
'Where did you meet him?'


'Last year at a skiing party in Courchevel.'

'What is he in? Property, the space programme, buying
other nations . . .?'

More laughs.

'Just your general mega-rich bloke,' Nikki said. 'Very nice,
actually. Swedish, still has his company's main base in Stockholm.
Houses all over the place - you know the drill. I didn't
ask what he's in Dublin for. You know these guys, they hop
all around the world in private jets doing deals.'

The waiter appeared with menus.

'Food, I'm starving!' said Marcella. She was permanently
ravenous these days, something to do with being unable to
eat when she was with Lorcan. When she was away from
him, she ate like a horse.

The evening was very enjoyable, despite Ingrid's anxieties
over it, and as they left the restaurant, the four of them promised
to meet up again next month.

'Are you OK?' Marcella asked her quietly when the other
pair had gone off in taxis.

'I'm fine,' Ingrid said. 'Tonight was fun, like practising being
normal and happy. If I practise long enough, I might remember
how to do it.'

'You don't have to pretend to be normal and happy,'
Marcella said. 'It's all right to be sad.'

'Not every hour of every day,' Ingrid said. 'It's not good
for the soul. But tonight was fun, so thank you.'

Ingrid had been about to ask Marcella to tell her about her
new man, but thought better of it. Marcella would tell when
she was ready.


The dream woke Ingrid again that night. She was in the front
pew of the church, waiting for Molly to walk up the aisle,
and she looked across at the groom, seeing him properly for
the first time. He looked so like David: the same shoulders,
the same look on his face. The groom's mother, a vision in


pink who was infinitely younger than Ingrid but still blurry,
leaned forward in the pew on the other side, and hissed. Looks familiar?
Molly was marrying her half-brother, Ingrid realised, and she tried to shout it out, to tell her daughter to stop, but the
words wouldn't come.
It was at that moment that she always woke up, sweating
and distressed.
David couldn't have done that to her, could he? But perhaps
he had. Perhaps there was another Kenny child out there
somewhere.
Yet if there was, the child's mother would have come
forward to claim money from David's estate. Unless David
had already set her up with a trust fund or some other type
of financial parachute.
It was two a.m. Ingrid switched on her BlackBerry and sent
a quick email to Marcella. Need to find out who SHE is.
Have to. Priority. I xx
There was no backing out now.

Marcella didn't mind playing detective on occasion, but this
was different. She wanted to make sure that Ingrid knew
exactly what she might be letting herself in for.
'If anyone finds out what you're looking for, you're in deep
shit, Ingrid,' she warned. 'Imagine that splashed all over the
tabloids.'
'I know,' said Ingrid. 'Telly Ingrid's Love Triangle Tragedy.'
'Not a bad headline,' Marcella commented. 'Right, leave
this with me. I'll have to do some digging myself - this isn't
something I'd trust anyone else with. But Ingrid, are you sure. You're focusing entirely on finding out who this woman is.
What happens when you know? What are you going to do
with this information, assuming I can find out anything?'
'I don't know; look at her and wonder what she has that
I didn't have?' Ingrid replied.

'And that will be helpful how exactly?'

'It will give me closure.'

'You've always said you hate all the crap about "closure",'
Marcella snapped. 'You used to call it mumbo jumbo and
complain that the world's full of people seeking closure on
everything from a bad day at school when they were four to
a row with their kids.'

'That was before I understood what it meant,' Ingrid
snapped. 'This woman is holding me back. I'll never stop
wondering, Marcella; wondering if every woman in our circle
is her, or if he worked with her or if it's an old flame he went
back to. He never told me much about the women before
me,' she added thoughtfully.

'This is so unhealthy,' said Marcella. 'I can't believe we're
doing this.'

'We're doing it,' Ingrid said. 'I have to know.'


Ingrid sleepwalked through her life for the next two weeks.
She presented three shows on television and attended her first
public function, a lunch for a child-abuse charity where she
was the guest speaker.

'They'll understand if you can't do it,' Gloria said.

Ingrid shook her head. 'This is different,' she said. 'I said
I'd be there and I will be.'

In the mental tally of personal suffering, Ingrid felt that
what she was going through was nothing compared to the
pain of children who'd been sexually abused. She'd met victims
of abuse for a television series and would never forget the
sense of pain and betrayal the people lived with, even decades
later. She believed that one day she'd be able to close her eyes
and not think of David's death or disloyalty. People who'd
been abused as kids could never totally forget.

For the lunch, she wore a black lace shift and posed for
photographs with the charity's directors.

'You're so good to be here today,' murmured the chair

woman, an elegant brunette clad head to toe in what looked
like size-6 Lanvin.

'I wouldn't miss it for anything,' said Ingrid, and held the
chairwoman's hand briefly.

When the chairwoman had had three glasses of champagne
and lapsed into the inevitable toying with her lunch, she admitted
to Ingrid that this wasn't a pet charity she'd chosen by chance.

'Nobody knows why I do it except my husband. He knows
I want to help other kids not go through what I did.'

Ingrid had been shocked. This woman didn't look like
someone who'd been abused, but then, who did?

She went home that night and read the book Abra told her
to buy about life and gratitude.

It was like homework: read a few pages of the book and
see how she felt. Until now, Ingrid had been going through
the motions of reading it. After today, she felt humbled again.
Her pain was bad but there was worse. Much worse.

Gratitude, the book said, should be a part of every day of
your life.

Ingrid read it again. She closed her eyes and repeated it.
Ethan was safe, he'd emailed from Australia where he was
hanging out - his words - with his friends in Cairns. Molly
had gone on an actual date with a man named Mark, who
was a friend of Natalie's friend's husband. Very convoluted.
But it had been good. They'd gone to see a movie in the Irish
Film Centre and had had dinner afterwards.

Ingrid couldn't remember the last time Molly had gone on
a date, never mind a date which she'd enjoyed with a man
she wanted to see again.

Ingrid knew she had things to be grateful for. She would
say thanks for them. She would try to live her life again instead
of hiding in a shell.


After two weeks, Marcella had failed to find out anything
about David's mystery woman. Her scheme had been to meet


up with some of his closest friends on the pretext of discussing
how they felt Ingrid was coping and seeing what information
she could ferret out on the liaison.

It wasn't working at all. Marcella was marvellous at getting
information from people but she was convinced, she told
Ingrid, that none of them knew anything about David having
an affair.

'Obviously, I don't come out and ask, "Did David Kenny
confide in you about another woman?"' she said. 'But when
people discuss how sad it is and how you two loved each
other so much, it's easy enough for me to work out if they're
lying because they know a different story entirely.'

'Thank you,' said Ingrid miserably. She knew that Marcella
couldn't ask outright but she was becoming obsessed by
knowing more about David's affair. If only she knew something, anything, she'd be able to move on.

Part of what made her so good at her job was her interest
in what made people tick and yet here she was, knowing almost
nothing about a part of her husband's life, and it was driving
her crazy. Finally, she had a brainwave. She'd visit Great-Aunt
Babe, David's only surviving relative. David had often visited
Babe and perhaps, with her being so unconventional in her
ways and not at all judgemental of others, he might have
confided in her. It was a long shot, but Ingrid was desperate.

Sheltering Pines was less of a home for the elderly and more
of a retirement community for people who wanted to feel
safe, yet not have to live cheek-by-jowl with lots of other
people either. When Babe had first moved in, around fifteen
years ago, she'd occupied a little one-bedroomed unit in one
of the two-storey apartment blocks, with its own balcony and
a view of the sea. Now that she'd grown frailer, she'd moved
into the big house itself, which was laid out along hotel lines
with single- or double-bedroomed units with a living room
and kitchenette. Babe could choose to cook for herself or eat
in the dining room with her friends.


She was delighted when Ingrid phoned to ask her out to
dinner.
'Marvellous,' Babe said. 'I'd love that. Everyone will be so
jealous.'
When Ingrid arrived at Babe's door at seven that evening,
Babe was dressed as if for an evening at the opera. She wore
a long lilac silk skirt, matching jacket, a white furry collar
wrapped around her neck, and a mother-of-pearl brooch on
her breast.
'Too much?' said Babe, getting slowly to her feet, which
were clad in pink Chinese embroidered slippers.
'Lovely,' said Ingrid.
'I hate not getting the wear out of clothes,' Babe went on.
'It's such a waste. I bought this in Madame Nora's in, oh...'
she paused. 'I think it was 1973, and it's only been out of the
wardrobe a few times since then. Molly can have it when I'm
gone; she loves old clothes.'
Ingrid winced. 'Don't talk like that,' she begged.
'We talk like that here all the time,' said Babe calmly. 'This
isn't a health spa, Ingrid. It's where people go when they're
too old to live on their own. Next stop: the hereafter. Of
course, a lot depends on your vision of the hereafter. Beatrice,
who lives next door, has her money on heaven, and she's been
to Lourdes twice already this year to be in with a chance. She
says I've ruined it for myself because I have a dream-catcher
over my bed. Heathen things, apparently!' Babe went on, 'I'm
toast when it comes to the hereafter.'
Despite herself, Ingrid burst out laughing.
'See? I knew I'd cheer you up. Being sad never helped
anyone. At least if you try to smile, you're in charge of that
one thing.'
'How did you get to be so wise?' asked Ingrid, opening the
front door of Babe's room and gently helping her into the
corridor.
'The benefits of being nearly ninety,' Babe said serenely. 'If

there are any physical benefits, you're too old to take advantage
of them.'
'Hey, Babe, I like your friend. She's a hot tamale! Are you
going out to meet boys?' whooped one old man as they passed.
Ingrid had never thought she was ageist until that moment,
but she was stunned. He had to be a hundred if he was a
day. With his frail hairless skull he looked as fragile as a
museum exhibit, and he was joking about dates?
'Don't talk to my guests like that, Tom, you old rascal,'
roared Babe back. 'I don't date boys, I date men. And if I
was going out to meet a man, do you think I'd tell you, with
your telegraph mouth?
'He's a dirty old man, that one,' she whispered to Ingrid.
'I heard that!' roared Tom.
'Good!' said Babe spiritedly.
Apart from a brief hello to a little old lady shuffling along
on a walker, they made it to the lobby unmolested.
'You want to talk about David, don't you?' Babe said. 'I
can see it in your eyes. I thought people were better at doing
that nowadays. When I was younger, you had about six
months' grace to talk about them, and then you were supposed
to get on with it. Smile, look cheerful, start knitting hats for
small babies or volunteering for a charity. The dead were the
dead, except in November when it was time for the lists of
the dead. Always hated that phrase, it sounded so sad, like
there were legions of dead people waiting silently to be put
on the list and remembered.'
'I think that was the general idea,' Ingrid said.
'Sad, so sad. You'll have Masses said for me when I'm gone,
won't you?' For the first time, Babe's liveliness deserted her
and she looked anxious. Scared, even.
Babe had never been religious. Ingrid could remember sitting
beside her at a family wedding and hearing Babe muttering,
'As long as this getting married in a church makes them happy
. . . Can't see the need for structured religion myself.'

But despite her fighting talk about the hereafter, Babe was
frightened.
'Of course I will, Babe,' Ingrid said. 'Scores of them. I'll
get some from those missionary fathers who do whole books
of Masses and promise to say them for you for years, OK?'
'Silly of me,' Babe said, dabbing at one eye as she got carefully
into Ingrid's car. 'I'll probably be going down below,
anyway. I broke every single one of the rules, and I haven't
been to Holy Communion since 1949. It's like being on the
Church's Ten Most Wanted List. They haven't got round to
excommunicating me, but they have a place for me down there,
with fires, pain and twenty-four-hour sport on the television.'
'You don't have to joke,' Ingrid said quietly.
'Joking helps. David's dying must have set you thinking
about death,' said Babe.
Ingrid busied herself fixing Babe's seatbelt, then her own;
anything to keep from answering. 'Yes,' she said finally. She
was staring straight ahead as she started the car and she could
sense Babe looking at her.
'Because when people you love die, you can't think about
anything else, can you?' said Babe, and it seemed to Ingrid
that she wasn't talking about David either. 'I've probably never
told you this - well, it's ancient history now, and who wants
to hear an old lady talking about past loves. But there was a
man I loved, a very long time ago, and when he died I was
heartbroken, couldn't see the point of going on. My death,
everyone's death was inevitable: it was going to happen and
if I took charge, I could just die myself.'
'Babe, you poor pet,' said Ingrid.
'That's all I thought about for a very long time afterwards.
For years, in fact,' Babe went on. 'When would I do it and
how: pills or cutting my wrists in the bath? And finally, I
realised one day that I didn't want to die. To be honest, I was
terribly afraid that David's death would have the same effect
on you. You loved each other so much.'

'No, I never felt like that,' Ingrid said, and she felt the
misery wash over her again. If only she hadn't opened that
damned drawer. She wished she hadn't now; she didn't need
to know. She could have mourned David properly and not
gone through this wondering if everything had been a lie.
Babe's lover had died and she'd been so distraught she'd
wanted to join him. All Ingrid could think about was that
David was gone and she'd never know why he'd betrayed her
and who with.

She drove out of the front gate of Sheltering Pines far too
fast and had to brake suddenly as a truck came racing around
the corner towards her. 'Oh Jesus, Babe, sorry,' she said, her
hands racing to her mouth. 'I'm so sorry.'

'All right,' said Babe, 'it doesn't worry me.'

Ingrid half laughed, half shuddered. 'If Molly or Ethan had
been in the car they'd be telling me I was turning into a crazy
lady and wasn't safe to be out on the road on my own.'

'Nonsense,' soothed Babe. 'They'd never say that, they love
you too much. Now, what's really wrong?'

'What do you mean?' said Ingrid.

'Ingrid,' said Babe, with a shade of sternness in her voice,
'I've known you far too long to let you tell me there is nothing
wrong. What is it?'

'I can't talk while I'm driving, I'll bang into something else.'

'Fine,' said Babe. 'We'll wait till we get there.'

True to her word, Babe chatted merrily as they drove, telling
Ingrid about the Suduko league in Sheltering Pines and how
everyone was becoming wildly obsessive about it.

'It's addictive,' she said. 'Like that crash stuff people take.'

'Crack,' corrected Ingrid automatically.

'That's it, crack,' said Babe.

The old cook had gone to be replaced by somebody who
shouldn't be let near a kitchen, Babe went on. 'Sweet woman,
can only do two things with food: boil and boil.' Still, Babe didn't mind that much. 'I eat so little these days, anyway,',


she said. 'As long as I can get my soft mints, I'm fine. There's
this sweet young chappie on the second floor who does shop
runs for all of us.'

Young meant in his seventies, according to Babe.

They settled into the restaurant, a small family-run place
that David used to take Babe to, where she could get old Irish
speciality dishes like coddle and bacon and cabbage.

Babe ordered bacon, while Ingrid, who had little interest
in food these days, asked for grilled fish.

'Now.' Babe settled herself comfortably in the inside seat.
'Tell me what's bothering you.'

Ingrid hesitated, wanting to wait till there was nobody
around to hear any of it. But she looked at the clientele and
saw that no one was paying her the slightest bit of notice. It
was now or never. She took a deep breath and started with
the locked drawers and the flowers on the grave.

Babe didn't appear in the slightest bit shocked, merely sad.

'You're sure it wasn't a little fling?' she asked finally.
'Sorry - terrible words; an affair is an affair whatever way
you put it.'

'It didn't seem like a little fling,' Ingrid said, 'Not from all
the bits of papers and the letters. It looks as if it had been
going on for some time, at least a year. I want to know who
she is though. My friend, Marcella, has been looking into it.'

'No,' said Babe, fiercely. 'No, you mustn't do that.'

'What do you mean?' said Ingrid.

'This is private,' Babe went on. 'The more people know,
the more chance it has of becoming public knowledge. You
don't want that.'

'But I need to find out,' Ingrid said. 'I'm beginning to feel
I didn't know David at all and I can't grieve properly because
of this. I don't know who it was, I don't know anything any
more.'

'I'm sorry,' Babe said. 'This must be agony for you, Ingrid,
but I don't believe that finding out more about this woman


will help you. Humans are complex beings; we can never
really know another person, not completely. There must have
been parts of you that David didn't understand?'

'I suppose,' said Ingrid, thinking of when Ethan had first
gone away travelling around the world and how David simply
hadn't grasped her pain at missing him, her anxiety, worrying
what was happening. She'd hated him for that, thinking that
if only he tried a little harder, he could understand. What
Babe was saying was that he couldn't, any more than she
could understand how he could stay with her and sleep with
another woman.

'Yes, but the fact he didn't always understand me didn't
mean I'd have an affair with someone else,' she said.

'He was a man, you're a woman. We're different,' Babe
shrugged. 'For us, love is a huge part of our lives; for them,
it's a segment. They have many segments. Think of it this
way: was there ever another man in your life who was a better
lover than David?' Babe said. The conversation was moving into wildly shocking waters, Ingrid thought in alarm.

'Em, Babe . . .' started Ingrid.

'No, bear with me,' said Babe. 'We've all loved someone
and thought perhaps that the previous fellow was a better
lover: hopeless in every other respect, maybe a terrible friend,
a terrible conversationalist, stupid, but good in bed.'

'And . . .' said Ingrid.

'And,' said Babe, 'you sit there and imagine, what if this
previous fellow had been like David, except better in bed . . .'
She stopped, seeing Ingrid's horrified face. 'I'm not talking
about David, but it's an idea I want you to consider.

'A woman, makes do with the package she has. But a man
wants that package plus the little bit extra that the previous

girl had.'

'He wants it all,' Ingrid said flatly. 'If he can't get it all
with you, he gets an extra helping from someone else, and then he has the whole package.'


'Precisely.'
'Do you talk about this sort of thing in Sheltering Pines?'
asked Ingrid.
'We talk about everything,' said Babe. 'Well, some of us
do. The rest talk about things like young people running wild
and driving too fast, and how grandchildren aren't the way
they used to be and how the money is running out. But some
of us do talk about things like this, and the consensus among
those still in possession of our marbles is that love is about
putting up with the package you've got.'
'Right.'
The waitress came with food and they both stared at it
silently.
'So, David wasn't happy with the sex part of our package?'
Ingrid said, once the waitress had left.
'I doubt that very much,' said Babe. 'That was just an
example. Perhaps another woman gave him one other thing
that you couldn't. But she still wasn't you, and that was why
he stayed with you.'
'But do you know this?' Ingrid asked. 'Did he talk to you
about it?'
'No, he'd never share anything like that with me,' said
Babe. 'He knew damn well how much I love you. I'd have
kicked his backside for him, don't think I wouldn't. Ingrid,
love, you'll torment yourself forever if you try and find out
why, because you can't find out. He's gone, you can't ask
him.'
'But if I knew who she was '
'If you knew who she was, you'd be even more tormented,
thinking that she was funnier, younger, better at making
muffins. Remember,' Babe said, as a thought came to her,
'having affairs was in his blood, you know. Blood will out.
His father, Andrew, wasn't a faithful man.'
'I always thought as much,' said Ingrid, 'but nobody ever
told me for sure.'

'Andrew was a decent man, there wasn't a bad bone in his
body, but he couldn't keep his hand out of the sweetie jar.
He approved of you,' Babe said, smiling, and Ingrid could see
she'd gone back in time. 'He thought you were marvellous.
There had been one other woman David was very involved
with - wonderful girl, I loved her, but she probably wasn't
right for David. He needed someone like you.'

'Kathryn, was it?' said Ingrid. She'd heard about Kathryn,
a sweet girl David had brought to many dances as a youngster.
He'd thought of marrying her, he'd said.

'Lord, no! Not Kathryn, the one after her - Star Bluestone.'

'I never heard him mention her,' said Ingrid.

'You'd have liked her,' Babe went on. 'Very wise, even
though she was young.'

'Do you think it could have been her?' Ingrid said, struck
by the thought. 'He was having an affair with her?'

'No,' said Babe firmly. 'But she was an interesting woman.
David's mother said she was a white witch, could see into the
future and such like. David used to get very upset when she
said that. We might be a long way from the Salem trials, but
the old magic still frightens the bejaysus out of most people.'

'Was she a witch?' asked Ingrid, fascinated. She couldn't
imagine David being involved with a woman like that. He
was straight as an arrow, never so much as read his horoscope,
thought Feng Shui was rubbish, and she could
remember him changing channels when a woman came on
the Late Late Show and talked about seeing angels.

'No, but she had that long white-blonde hair and she was
very into herbs and suchlike; that's enough for most people.'

'White-blonde hair?' repeated Ingrid. 'There was a woman
like that at his funeral. I saw her: Molly's friend Natalie
fainted, and the woman was beside her, all in white - very
bizarre for a funeral.'

'She did wear a lot of white,' Babe mused, then glanced up
at Ingrid, who looked bleak.


'I keep finding out more things about David that I never
knew,' Ingrid said sadly. 'What else will I find out?'
Babe shook her head. 'You knew the real David,' she said
briskly. 'People have secrets, that's all.'
'I don't have secrets,' Ingrid countered.
"Course you do! We all do,' Babe said. 'Just think how
boring we'd be if we didn't.'

Nineteen


The Past


DAVID


As soon as he heard her name - a name he hadn't heard
spoken for many years - the hairs stood up on the back of
David Kenny's neck.

'The woman who makes them is called Star Bluestone,' said
Lena, smoothing a tapestry out on the table in his office. 'She's
a fascinating person and the tapestries are just beautiful.'

Lena was telling him about her newest find, a craftswoman
who lived on the outskirts of Ardagh in a windswept cottage
on the coast, where she ran a small business producing exquisite
tapestries.

'She started off making the dyes herself,' Lena explained,
detailing the production process as she would for any new
line she was trying to sell to David. 'Like woad, for example.
Did you know it's not some mythical paint people put on
their faces in pre-Christian times, it's actually a dye made out
of this cabbage-like flower. She grows it in her garden - she
showed me. She's so knowledgeable, it's fascinating to hear
her talk about it all. As the range expanded, making all the


dyes became too difficult and time-consuming, so she buys
some from abroad now. But they're still hand-made,' went on
Lena, 'there is nothing synthetic in Bluestone tapestries, so
that's very good from a "green" point of view. As you can
see, the tapestries themselves are lovely. Sort of mystical, aren't
they? She's incredibly creative. What do you think? I've got
some more to show you, if you want to see them?' Lena said.
'That would be great,' David said, managing not to sound
even a little shocked at the mention of Star's name. He didn't
want anyone to know about their involvement in the past.
Keep yourself to yourself was a good motto; not one that his
father had taught him, but one that David had learned along
the way.
The tapestry Lena had unrolled on to the table was a
seascape, a rendition of the Twelve Apostles, the rocks that
jutted out of the sea near Star's home. David had seen them
many times and here, with her wonderful embroidery, Star
had made them look almost like sea creatures rising out of
the foam.
'I took a picture of the house and of her,' Lena went on.
'I was just thinking that we could do a brochure. You know:
make it a little bit different from the way they sold them in
the craft shop. It's very cute, the craft shop, actually,' she said.
'Lots of pottery, a few horrendous paintings, some nice watercolours,
but nothing else we could use, nothing like this. These
are the gems.'
David nodded and pretended to look at the second tapestry,
which showed a little house hidden in the woods, but all the
while his eyes were drawn to the pictures Lena had laid down
on the table. The pale blue shingle house he could remember
so well and the picture of Star herself shook him. She looked
as if she hadn't aged. There was still something very exotic
about her, even though she was dressed in faded jeans and
an old T-shirt - clearly what she'd happened to be wearing
when Lena had called in.

'She didn't want to pose, I can tell you that,' Lena said.
'But I begged her. I said that at Kenny's we believe art is about
the artist, too.'

'Absolutely,' David said. 'I like her work; I think it would
be good to stock these tapestries. Can you talk to her about
terms?'

'Don't you want to meet her yourself?' Lena asked,
surprised.

'There's no need,' David said. 'You're a director now, Lena.'
It was just after Lena had been appointed to the board, and
he made it sound as if this was part of her new brief, rather
than his trying to avoid meeting someone.

'Of course,' Lena said, pleased.

When Lena had gone, David still felt unsettled.

It had been well over thirty years since he'd seen Star. So
much had happened since. He'd taken over Kenny's, he'd
married Ingrid and had two beautiful children. Molly was in
her first year of college, Ethan was playing lots of sports at
school and not doing much else, and Ingrid - well, Ingrid was
one of the most recognised people in the country. So David
had done well for himself.

But buried inside him was a sense of shame about the past,
a feeling that he hadn't done the right thing by Star Bluestone.
He'd loved her, no doubt about that. Adored her. Back
then, he used to write poetry, inspired by her beauty, her
wisdom, her wild sexual energy.

But he'd known they were too young and too different.
Their sort of love wouldn't have coped with being poor and
struggling to pay a mortgage, waking in the night with a
colicky baby. He couldn't imagine Star doing anything so
mundane, even though she was pretty practical around the
house and grounds that she and her mother owned. That was
how he remembered her: hair flying as she helped her mother
in the garden, the pair of them digging away at some plant,


hatless no matter what the weather, laughing, rejoicing, even
if it rained. While everyone else David knew hurried indoors
as soon as the first drops began to fall, Star and her mother
enjoyed rain, the same as they enjoyed sun: as though it was
a gift, a gift they had no control over but enjoyed all the
same. Elemental, that was the word for them.
'She's a lovely girl, son, but she's different, isn't she?' his
father had said all those years ago.
Andrew Kenny had a way of speaking without raising his
voice or sounding angry yet leaving you understanding his
meaning just as strongly as if he'd yelled it from a megaphone.
Star was too different for their world. With Star, David
would stay writing poetry under the moonlight, and would
never be the man to take over Kenny's. Not that he wasn't
able, but Andrew Kenny had invested far too much of his life
in the store to let anyone take over the running of it if his
judgement wasn't true.
David understood the subtext of his father's remark:
Choose Star or choose Kenny's. You can't have both.
Thirty-five years ago, he'd chosen Kenny's, but at least once
a week for six months after he'd told Star it was over, he
found himself driving along the sea road towards her home
with the intention of telling her he'd made the wrong decision.
His father could keep the store.
But each time he had turned for home before the cottage
came into view.
It was a couple of years after the split with Star that he
met Ingrid. Nobody had said, This is the sort of girl you
should marry; she's clever, ambitious, ethical, strong and
passionate - all the things that Ingrid undoubtedly was. No,
he'd fallen in love with her all by himself. With her passion,
her energy, her beauty. It was a very different sort of beauty
to Star's rather wild attractions. Ingrid was classy, and now
that David was working in Kenny's there was a part of him
that appreciated her elegance, style and charm.

His mother, Sarah, who was delicate and highly strung, had
adored Ingrid from the start. She'd only met Star a few times
and she'd liked her - everyone liked Star, that innate kindness
meant you couldn't not like her - but David's mother
saw in Ingrid the sort of woman she would have liked to have
been.

Ingrid never flattered her or fawned, but nor did she
discount Sarah Kenny, which other people were prone to do.
Some women, knowing she was what was euphemistically
known at the time, as 'bad with her nerves', even flirted with
Andrew Kenny in her presence. David had seen it happen
many times.

He could remember Ingrid's outrage the first time she'd
witnessed this.

It had been a Christmas drinks party at the family's house
outside Ardagh and several women in gleaming cocktail gowns
were crowded round charismatic Andrew Kenny, as if poor
Sarah, standing helplessly by with a tray of canapes, didn't
exist.

'How dare they ignore her!' Ingrid said, outraged. 'What
sort of female solidarity is that?'

David had been startled by her reaction. He'd never really
thought about the way people treated his mother before. His
mother was his mother and he loved her, even though he'd
had to get used to her taking to her bed when the stress got
too much for her. Something that seemed to happen a lot.

'Well, you know, they're friends of Mum and Dad, it's
harmless,' David told Ingrid.

Ingrid had rounded on him: 'It's anything but harmless,'
she said. 'There is nothing harmless about flirting with another
man when his wife is right there beside him. How appalling
is that?'

It wasn't the first time David had seen this fiery side of
Ingrid's nature, but it was the first time it had been directed
at him.


'If you're not going to do anything about it,' Ingrid said
furiously, 'I will.'
She might have been only twenty-five, but she'd been vice
president of the students' union and her thesis was on 'Female
Equality'. Ingrid's hair had been longer then, more blonde,
and she'd swept over to where his father stood with two
women. They were giggling girlishly, hanging on his every
word. One kept touching his arm and he was clearly enjoying
the attention. David followed at a safe distance, fascinated
and slightly horrified at what was going to happen.
'Mr Kenny,' Ingrid said, in her most charming voice, 'Mrs
Kenny was just wondering if you'd speak to her a minute
about the party?'
She stared pointedly at the other two women. 'It's such
hard work organising a party like this, making sure everything
runs smoothly.'
'Yes, of course,' said Andrew Kenny, and moved off. If he
was surprised that his meek wife required his presence, he
didn't show it. Ingrid turned to the two women, both much
older than her, matrons, glittering with jewels.
'We haven't been introduced,' she said coolly; 'Ingrid
Fitzgerald. I think I've met both of your husbands, though.
Have you finished with them, ladies? I'm assuming you must
have, the way you're talking to Mr Kenny.' The women's jaws
dropped.
'I should just tell you,' Ingrid said, 'I'm working on a paper
on feminism and I'd love to interview people who are interested
in demolishing the archaic values of monogamy. For
instance, latching on to a new man while you're still married
someone else - it's an absolutely fascinating notion. I didn't
think it would catch on in Irish society, but I see it has.'
Under their heavy layers of foundation, the women went
pale.
'Excuse me, I don't know what you're talking about,'
snapped one.

Ingrid stared her down. 'I think you do,' she said. 'And if
you think it's good form to come into a woman's house and
flirt with her husband, I can assure you, it isn't.' And she
looked them both up and down, then swept away to where
David was watching, just as astonished as the two women.

'Was it a bit too much?' Ingrid murmured into his ear as
they walked away.

'Well, I don't know,' he said. 'I mean, their husbands are
very good friends of Dad's, and if they say anything . . .'

'And you really think they're going to go home and tell
their husbands about this encounter, do you?' demanded
Ingrid. 'God, David, I can see I have a lot to teach you about
people!' And she'd hugged him. 'I couldn't let those women
hurt your poor mum.'

He'd loved her so much at that moment for her absolute
fearlessness. There was nothing that would stop Ingrid fighting
for something that she believed in. It was a heady feeling. It
wasn't so easy when her fearlessness was trained on you,
though.

'Your wife is on the line,' said Stacey, dragging him back
to the present.

Star's tapestry was still on the table in his office. Lovely
Star. For a moment, he felt irritated by Ingrid. For all she
stood for: security, the right person, someone with ambition.
The sort of woman who made his father proud of him. He
loved her absolutely, but she was the exact opposite to Star.

He picked up the phone and she didn't say hello, just burst
into conversation: 'Sorry, David, but I'm delayed at work. An
emergency. The Department of Health is having a press conference
and I have to cover it in studio. I probably won't make
the dinner party, I'm really sorry.'

'Fine,' he said. 'Good luck, I'll see you later,' and hung up.
She was always too busy. Busy and fearless. Sometimes he
got tired of it.


A few days after Star had come circuitously back into his life,
Ingrid had to go to a ceremony to receive an award. The Irish
Tatler Inspiring Woman of the Year. She'd had quite a few
awards over the years, but she was very excited about this
one.
'I've never seen you like this before,' David remarked as
he lay in bed on Saturday morning watching Ingrid trawl
through her wardrobe looking for a suitable evening dress for
the event.
'What do you mean?' she said crossly.
Bloody menopause, he thought.
She hadn't gone for HRT tablets, had ventured down the
alternative route instead, using supplements like Black Cohosh
and Q10. David, too, had been made to take supplements
every day, until he rattled. He didn't mind really, though he
used to tease her about it in front of Marcella.
'She's trying to turn me into a young fellow, Marcella,' he'd
say plaintively, and Marcella would laugh.
'Too late,' she would say. 'You're too far gone for that.'
'You don't normally get this het-up about award ceremonies,
that's all,' David said mildly and Ingrid murmured,
'Don't I?' and went back to her trawling.
'This is a big one,' she said, after a moment. 'Sorry, I don't
know what's wrong with me. I've been feeling a little off the
last week.' Nobody was better than Ingrid when it came to
saying sorry. She readily admitted her faults. 'I tried on that
red beaded dress I love and it's too tight. I'm not eating any
more than usual, I'm still going to the gym, but despite all
that, I still look like I've got a big wad of packing around
my middle. It's so depressing,' she added, more to herself than
to him. 'I'm just fed up with the feeling that I'm falling apart.
When I deal with one problem, another bit of me falls apart.'
Her joints were giving her trouble, he knew that, and her
neck was sometimes painful because of a displaced cervical
disc. That had been bad lately, which always made her cranky.

'Everything bulges,' she said gloomily, and he saw her put her
hand up to her neck. 'And why is it that, without anything
I've done, the muscles in my neck are taut and the muscles in
my belly are flabby? I have a six pack in my neck where I
don't want it. Why can't you decide where you want the taut
bits and have them all nice and loose in your neck and taut
in your belly?'

David laughed then. 'Ingrid, stop,' he said. 'You're beautiful.'

She shot him a look filled with a regret that he'd never
seen on her face before.

'You know,' she said, 'I never thought I was beautiful. I
thought I was OK, ordinary; but when I look back at old
pictures of me now I see maybe I was a bit beautiful, and I
didn't appreciate it. I had no idea of my beauty or its importance,
and now, when its gone, I recognise that I was beautiful,
after all, but I was too busy worrying about my looks
to appreciate them.'

'Yeah,' he said with a sigh, and got out of bed. There was
no point trying to rest now.

Putting on his dressing gown he went downstairs and turned
on the sports channel. Moaning about bad backs was one
thing, but moaning about getting old was something he hated.
He feared ageing. Marcella used to joke that men didn't get
older, they aged well, like fine wine, but she was wrong. Men
got old too, and they hated it just as much as women did. If
Ingrid, solid, reliable, loyal, wonderful Ingrid, thought she
was getting old, then he was too. He didn't want to get old,
there was so much he wanted to do, so much.

That night, Ingrid didn't wear the red dress, she wore a
silvery one, some sort of silk taffeta thing with a bit of a fishtail
that made her look mermaidy. Her hair was all curled
tenderly around her neck. She looked as lovely as ever, he
thought.

The awards ceremony was being held in the Mansion House
and a car arrived to drive them there.


'Hello, Mrs Fitzgerald,' said the driver politely to Ingrid.
'And Mr Fitzgerald.'
David felt his jaw tighten. He wasn't Fitzgerald, he was
Kenny - Mr Kenny. He wasn't some appendage of Ingrid's.
'Relax.' In the car, he felt Ingrid's soft hand take his and
she whispered to him, 'Relax, Mr Fitzgerald.'
She thought it was funny? He stared out the window
moodily and wished he wasn't going.
At the ceremony, a beautiful girl from the magazine
welcomed them and led them to their table. There were place
names and they hadn't been put beside each other.
The woman to his left was the wife of a famous actor, as
famous for his amours as he was for his films. But the wife,
who had pretty, slightly glazed eyes, didn't seem to care. She
watched her stunning husband, who was sitting beside Ingrid,
flirt with other women at the table and yet seemed content.
Perhaps she didn't mind sharing him, didn't mind being
expected to walk three steps behind. David wouldn't really
have wanted Ingrid to be like that, but the idea was still
somehow appealing.
She perked up, mildly, when she heard that David owned
Kenny's. 'Oh, I love that place,' she said. 'The organic night
cream is fabulous. I love it. I'm truly into organic stuff. I was
thinking of starting my own line.'
'Really,' said David absently, watching Ingrid talking to the
famous actor as his equal, which was more than the actor's wife set herself up to be.
The placement of the people around the table said so much.
The guests of stellar importance were seated beside each other,
because they were part of a special club. Even if they didn't
know each other, they shared the experiences of being famous.
The same problems - having complete strangers come up to
them as if they knew them, having fans think they owned them.
Of course, the famous actor faced this all over the world, while
Ingrid was only known in Ireland, but still, it was similar. David

and the actor's wife, however, were demoted to the appendage
or consort department. Suddenly it rankled so badly that he
wanted to walk out, just to prove the point. He was an important
person in his own right, not Ingrid's significant other.

David had been to many events over the years with Ingrid
and he'd never felt like this before. Was this part of getting
old, too, this dissatisfaction with everything, knowing that
when he was gone all that would be left would be Kenny's?
When Ingrid was gone, her name would be on this award,
her face would be in photographs on the television station's
wall and all the places where she had made her mark. Her
job meant that she could leave some other sort of legacy,
whereas his name would more quickly be forgotten.

Ingrid smiled at him many times across the table, giving
him the Are you all right, darling, I'm so sorry we're sitting
apart from each other look he recognised after so many years
together. But he was angry with her. He knew it wasn't her
fault, that it was unreasonable, but he was still angry.

When she went up to accept her award, she spoke strongly
about women who had inspired her and talked about her
belief in the importance of women being kind to other women,
and mentoring them.

Then do it very successfully. So should we,' she said.

Everyone laughed and cheered, and then at the end, she
thanked her family and David, without whom none of this
would be possible.

And David, who should have felt happy and proud, still
felt bitterly angry. He wished she'd left him out of the speech
by mistake. He wanted to be angry with her for something.
He didn't know why, but everything felt wrong and he had
no idea what would make it right.


The following Monday morning, a girl on the perfume counter
smiled flirtatiously at David as he walked past. He smiled
back. It was a reflex; he smiled at all the staff. But there was


something about this girl, Rosemary. She didn't look like a
Rosemary, which seemed to him a gentle, old-fashioned type
of name. This girl was anything but old-fashioned. Hot stuff,
as his father might have said.
Andrew Kenny had liked hot stuff, the sort of girls who
were the opposite of his own wife. There had been a Brazilian
lady once, wife of a Latin American business associate. Chiara,
she was called. Up to then, David hadn't thought of married
women having affairs with their husband's tacit approval, but
Chiara changed that. She was free, easy, and her husband
must have known what she was doing.
David found this incredible. He had no point of reference
for it. His mother had never given his father a moment's
doubt, it wasn't the sort of thing she did. When he thought
about it, and that wasn't often, David was almost surprised
he'd been born. He couldn't imagine his mother in the throes
of passion.
Ingrid had certainly never given him a moment's doubt, for
all that she was beautiful and much admired. But Ingrid's
looks weren't the hot, flirtatious type that would lead a man
on. Besides, Ingrid was a deeply moral woman and utterly
loyal. She would die rather than be with another man, die
rather than betray their family.
It was different for women, David reasoned, most women
were driven by straightforward rules of trying to keep their
mate and protect their family. But men were driven by more
complex evolutionary needs, and those didn't have to interfere
with the family or the job of protecting the people they
loved, did they?
He slowed down and smiled over his shoulder again at
Rosemary. She was dark-haired, with a lovely tan. That was
what had reminded him of the long-ago Chiara, and even
wearing her black, beautician's outfit, Rosemary looked
amazing. The simple tunic top clung in all the right places.
Yes, his father would have approved.

'Hello, Mr Kenny,' she said breathlessly. 'Would you like
to try our new fragrance?'

David stopped and shook his head. 'No, thank you,' he
said. 'My wife might wonder if I came home smelling of . ..'
he looked at the bottle carefully, 'Honeyz.'

This time, he favoured Rosemary with a more paternalistic
smile. He could see her becoming flustered, as if she'd overstepped
some invisible line. Of course she hadn't really, but David knew better than to mess around on his own doorstep.

'Are you enjoying working here, Rosemary?' he asked.

'Oh, yes, Mr Kenny,' she said.

'Good. I like the staff to feel happy,' he said and walked
on.

No, his dad had taught him a lot of things about the business
and chief among them was never dally with anyone who
worked in Kenny's. Don't dally with anyone would have made
more sense, but that was impossible.

He'd been scared out of his mind the year before when
Ingrid, the whole office of Politics Tonight and, indeed, the
whole of the country had been agog over a murder case which
involved a married school headmaster and several teacher girlfriends.
The headmaster was the accused, the murder victim
was his alleged girlfriend, one of his staff, and his alibi centred
upon another female staff member. Ingrid, who wasn't easily
shocked, was horrified. Shocked on behalf of the dead woman
and shocked on behalf of the headmaster's bewildered wife,
who'd known nothing until the police came to arrest her
husband.

It was the sort of case Ingrid disliked working on because
she felt there was no way to report it except sensationally,
and she loathed sensationalism.

'How could she not have known?' she said to David one
evening as they sat at home over dinner. 'She must have
suspected, there had to be something. He'd need a motorbike
with a jet engine attached to get round to them all.'


She'd been so fired up about it, she put down her fork and
stared at David across the table.
'She must have known. I'd know,' she added, almost angrily,
glaring at him.
For several, terrible moments, David thought that she did know, and all the things he ought to say deserted him, leaving
only cliches there.
It wasn't anything, it didn't mean anything, Ingrid, it's you
I love.
All he could think was that, if only he could turn the clock
back, if only she didn't throw him out, he'd never do it again.
He loved her so much: loved her, loved the children, didn't
want to destroy their lives. Even if the headmaster was innocent
of murder, his whole life had been laid open, the whole
world could see his infidelities. David felt sick to the stomach
at the same thing happening to him; not that he'd murder
anyone, God, but imagine it all coming out. And stranger
things had happened. Ingrid was a public figure. Her picture
was in the papers if they went to a film premiere or award
ceremony.
'Sorry,' Ingrid muttered. 'I'm getting carried away. You poor
love, having to deal with me coming home at night, fired up
on other people's injustices. It's just this case is driving me
nuts. So, tell me about your day.'
And David let out a breath, gently, carefully, in case she
realised he'd been holding it in.
'Oh, nothing much to tell,' he said. Thank you, thank you,
thank you, he whispered inside his head. That's it, never again,
no quick flings on business trips abroad, nothing, ever. Look
at all you've got, look at all you could lose, don't do it.
'I love you, you know that,' he said to Ingrid.
'You're so sweet,' she said. 'I'm being the crazy, journalist
wife and you still love me. Thank you.'
He hadn't meant to after that, really hadn't. It was just the
opportunities had been there. A trip away, a hotel room, a

woman who smiled admiringly at him. He recalled an internet
joke he'd received about the differences between men and
women:

Why do women cheat, was followed by a litany of convoluted
reasons.

Why do men cheat? Because the opportunity presents itself
occasionally.

Then he met Steffi. And after Steffi, everything was different.


It was lunchtime in the Hat Box Cafe, and David, who sometimes
had an early sandwich there before the rush, was holding
his tray and his newspaper, looking for somewhere to sit.

In front of him, at a small table at the window, was Claudia.

'David, this is my sister, Steffi,' Claudia said, as David bent
to put his tray on the table next to hers. When he straightened
up, the girl sitting with Claudia put a hand forward to
shake his and he found himself staring into an exquisite little
face, with wide-spaced blue eyes, and a smile just as bright as
Claudia's. While Claudia was dark - he later found out that
she took after their father - Steffi was a true blonde like their
mother, with the most amazing hair, silky as the model's in a
Timotei commercial and just as long. She was older than
Claudia, probably mid twenties, but somehow looked younger.
Like a fairy from the Tinkerbell products they sold at the till
in the children's department, David thought admiringly.

'How lovely to meet you. I've heard so much about you.
Claudia never stops talking about how wonderful you are,'
she said guilelessly, and David, used to people being pleased
to see him because of some scheme they wanted to run by
him, felt himself melt.

'I haven't heard anything about you,' he said, and moved
his tray from the table next door to theirs. 'Which is a terrible
state of affairs,' he added. 'Where.have you been hiding her,
Claudia? Kenny's needs gorgeous creatures like Steffi around.'

Steffi laughed happily. She had a light melodious laugh, not


like Claudia's effervescent giggle. Definitely Tinkerbell, he
decided.
'Steffi dropped by to show me her new car,' Claudia said.
'She just got it yesterday.'
'It's ten years old and it's a lovely silvery blue,' said Steffi
excitedly. 'But it makes a very strange noise when you go up
hills. A sort of clanking. I don't know why. Do you think it's
all right, or should I go back to the man I got if from? I
haven't a clue about cars.'
'I'll have a look at it for you,' said David.
Steffi put her small hand on his arm and he felt a frisson
of excitement. 'That would be so kind of you,' she said.
And David, who'd been talking to a sombre accountant all
morning about cash-flow projections, felt ten feet tall.
He'd looked at the car that evening and somehow, because
Ingrid was going to be out late, it seemed natural to take
Claudia and Steffi for a dish of pasta afterwards, where they
all chatted and laughed, and it was all very innocent, David
told himself.
He had several glasses of wine and Steffi insisted on dropping
him home because he shouldn't drive.
'Just drop me at a taxi rank,' David said.
'Goodness no, you've been so kind to me, I'll take you right
home,' she said. 'You can tell me how I'm driving. It's ages
since I had a lesson, and I'm very bad on hill starts.'
If only Claudia hadn't said she needed to grab a few
groceries, so she'd meet Steffi later at the flat they shared, it
wouldn't have happened.
Sitting in her small car outside his house, a house he knew
was empty, David planted a kiss on Steffi's soft cheek and
suddenly found himself asking her out to dinner again, alone.
'I'd love that,' she said, eyes wide like a fawn's.

There was nothing overtly sexy about Steffi. With her innocent
blue eyes and curtain of blonde hair, she was the maiden

waiting for her champion to come, and David fell at her feet.
Steffi never demanded anything of him, never.

She simply wanted to be with him. It was heady, exciting
and hugely sexually thrilling. He'd found it took so much
longer to get aroused these days, and although he'd never said
anything about it to Ingrid, it upset him. But with Steffi, he
was ready in an instant.

It wasn't her youth, he told himself, particularly when he
had nightmares about Ingrid finding out. It was her gentle
compliance. She was naive and charming, and perfectly willing
to phone the flower shop where she worked and tell them
she couldn't come in when David had to go away on business
and asked her to accompany him.

When he was with her, he felt the power and energy he'd
had when he was a young man. But as soon as he left her,
the guilt would set in.

Ingrid would be devastated by his betrayal. His other
amours had been short-lived, but this wasn't. Six months
became a year became two years and counting. He knew that
no woman would want her husband to have an affair, but he
imagined trying to explain this one to Ingrid and knew that,
while he'd have had some hope of repairing their marriage
after a short, purely sexual fling, his relationship with Steffi
would mean the divorce courts. Two years with a very young
woman who was the polar opposite of Ingrid was indefensible.
It would destroy Ingrid and their marriage. Forever.


Twenty


Do what makes you happy. Tell the people you love that you love them. forget about waiting for a rainy day. do it.




Ingrid's new hairstyle caused ructions in the press.
First, it made headlines: Short sharp shock for Ireland's
queen of politics.
Next, came the feature pieces where women with long,
curling manes of hair were photographed - unflatteringly beside
women with coolly short styles like Ingrid.
Women who mean business, Tan the headline, followed by: how Ireland's movers and shakers are turning their backs on
girlie curls.
'You've started something with your new haircut,' said
Gloria to Ingrid, as they sat in Ingrid's office with the papers
spread out in front of them.
'That wasn't the plan,' said Ingrid, putting on her glasses
to peer more closely at one photo of herself with her new
hairstyle interviewing a politician.
Her hair was still blonde, but instead of flowing gently around
her shoulders, it was closely cropped to her head, so her bone
structure and intelligent eyes were what people noticed, not a

mass of hair. It suited her incredibly well, she had to admit,
although it worked better because of the weight she'd lost.

This had all come about after that night with Marcella,
Carla and Nikki, where seeing the older, skinny woman with
the facelift and the Barbie hair had made her shudder at the
thought of ageing badly.

Her hairdresser had refused to do it at first. 'You'll sue
me,' he said, clutching his scissors close to his chest.

'I won't,' said Ingrid, folding up the picture of Judi Dench
she'd brought in as inspiration. 'If you don't do it, I'll go home
and hack it off myself, and then come back for you to fix it.'

'You've lost it totally,' he groaned. 'C'mere. Let me at you
- but don't say I didn't warn you. You could go shorter by
degrees, not whack it all off in one go.'

'I like the idea of whacking it all off in one go,' she said.
'Zero tolerance for hair.'

'If this starts a trend, we're in trouble,' he went on gloomily.
'Just because you have decent bone structure, doesn't mean
everybody else has. The place will be jammed with moonfaced
women wanting Ingrid Fitzgerald haircuts and they'll
look like the Teletubbies when they get them.'

Despite herself, Ingrid laughed. 'I've never started a trend
in my life,' she said. 'And you're being very cruel to other
women. Who cares what they look like with short hair as
long as they like it themselves. Life isn't a catwalk and real
women aren't models.'

'So says you,' he replied.

Sure enough, a few days after Ingrid appeared on Politics
Tonight with her new haircut, the papers were predicting a
rush for short, sharp cuts.

'It's freeing,' Ingrid said to Gloria, rubbing her hands
through the sleek, spiky hair. 'No effort at all, just wash, dry
for five minutes, rub some wax .into the ends, and I'm ready.
Should have done it years ago.'

They'd just come out of a meeting about the next day's


programme. It was going to be an important show because
the Minister for Health, currently embroiled in a scandal about
cancer facilities, had finally agreed to come on the show.

The mood in the editorial meeting was jubilant, except
down Joan's end of the table when the producer said that
Joan would be doing a report on women who'd been misdiagnosed
with cancer, while Ingrid would be conducting the
studio interview with the minister.

Jeri, the production assistant, poked her head round Ingrid's
office door.

'Hate to tell you, but Joan is spitting she's not getting the
interview with the minister,' she warned Ingrid. 'She's just
marched into Jack's office.'

Ingrid felt tired in a way she hadn't all day. It was the sense
of Joan's fury towards her, an entirely wasted emotion, given
that Ingrid wasn't in competition with Joan. If only she would
understand that Ingrid worked for her own self-worth and
not solely to annoy Joan, then it would be so much easier.

But Joan didn't get that she and Ingrid could actually
support each other. They were the only women in elevated
positions in a male-dominated world. Men were the senior
players and men played them off against each other. Joan was
too busy fighting her perceived corner to understand this.

Six months ago, Ingrid would have let her be, but not any
more.

She waited until Joan emerged from the head of current
affairs' office, then intercepted her in the women's toilets.

'Clever about the new haircut,' Joan said sharply as Ingrid
walked in.

'Do you think I did this to be clever?' said Ingrid. 'I did it
to stop looking like I was trying to be girlish as I got older.'

Joan's blue eyes, beautifully made up with lashings of
mascara, widened at such honesty.

'You've made it clear that we're never going to be able to
work together well,' Ingrid went on. 'I must have been in


fantasyland to think otherwise. But we don't need to be
having catfights. That's what they want, you know, Jack and
his pals.'
Joan still looked wary.
'Why don't women work well together? Come on, Joan,
you've a politics degree, you can work it out, can't you?'
Ingrid asked. 'OK, I'll tell you: divide and conquer. They like
us to think we're a threat to one another. Usually, there aren't
enough women in the top levels for us to have worked out a
helping strategy. We're so rare, we tend to view each other
as adversaries rather than sisters in arms.'
Ingrid took out her lipstick and slicked some on. With her
hair short, she could wear bright red gloss. It looked sharp
and sexy; she loved it.
'How long do you think I've got in this job?' said Ingrid
calmly. 'Ten years? Not a hope, Joan. I've three at the most,
and then I'm out. You can learn from me in those three years,
or you can continue to treat me like the enemy.'
'I don't treat you like the enemy,' said Joan suddenly.
'No? You certainly seemed to when I came back after my
husband died.'
For the first time, the other woman's brittle exterior seemed
to crack. 'I thought you'd gone for good, I thought I had a
shot at being the chief presenter.'
'Joan, working here is what I know, what I am. I've been here for fifteen years,' Ingrid said. 'With my husband gone,
this was my solace. It might be your solace one day. This job
isn't kind to marriages or relationships, remember that.'
'I'm sorry about David.'
Ingrid cracked a polite acknowledging smile. 'Thank you.'
'I didn't mean to treat you like the enemy but '
'But Jack says that, when I'm gone, you'll be the number
one presenter?' Ingrid said intuitively. 'That's one of Jack's
favourite ploys. Divide and conquer works so well with female
employees because we're all so anxious and insecure.'

Joan was blushing under her discreet coating of Mac
foundation.
'Or else he said to wait until I have a bad day, then strike
and get me out? That's his other favourite plan. Maybe he
read it in The Art of War, although I doubt it; Sun Tzu was
probably smarter than that. But if you conspire to get rid of
everyone who might be a threat, then one day, the same thing
will be done to you.'
Ingrid was getting angry now. Anger at the world, anger
at David and his unknown lover was emerging as anger in
general. 'What exactly did I do to make you think I was your
enemy? I helped you in the early days, that's what I do to all
women who work here, and now, I'm simply trying to do my
job well. There's room for us all. Women don't need to nudge
each other off with their stilettos.'
'I'm sorry,' Joan said abruptly. 'You were so kind to me
when I started and I feel ashamed now '
'I'm glad you remember it but, tell me, have you mentored
anyone yet?'
Joan looked even more ashamed. She shook her head.
'There you go. Start paying it forward for other women.
We shouldn't be our own worst enemies in business. Mind
you, I clearly didn't do a very good job or you wouldn't be
working out how to elbow me out of my job. I took my eye
off the ball there.' Ingrid paused. 'Took my eye off a lot of
balls,' she murmured.
'I am sorry,' Joan grabbed Ingrid's hands. 'You always seem
so poised and in control, it makes me feel inadequate beside
you.'
'That's you projecting how you feel on to me,' said Ingrid.
'Another lesson women need to learn. Most of the time, it's
not about you. For the past few weeks, I've been trying to
hold myself together, not make you feel bad.'
She ran a hand through her hair.
'I'd love short hair,' said Joan ruefully, 'but if I got it

cut, everyone would say I was only doing it to look like
you.'

Ingrid grinned, a genuine grin. 'Screw them,' she said. 'Who
cares what everyone says? You only get one chance at life,
you may as well do it your way. Do you want the name of
my hairdresser?'


Marcella couldn't concentrate. The office plumbing system
was fixed, the noise and the workmen were gone, and the
office felt like a morgue. There was no chance of Lorcan dropping
in to check something, no need for him to sprint up the
back stairs and poke his head into her office to deliver a smile.

She'd felt devastated from love affairs ending before, but
nothing like this. What made it worse was that nobody knew.
She couldn't even sob on Ingrid's shoulder because she hadn't
told Ingrid about the relationship in the first place.

Everything reminded her of him.

A red dress in a shop window made her think of the red
dress she'd worn on their first date.

A pick-up truck made her think of his pick-up truck, with
its giant tyres and music blasting out from inside.

Her bed looked huge and lonely when she went into her
bedroom at night; it was the bed of someone who'd never
share with a lover ever again.

She would never feel his arms around her, his lips moving
slowly over her body - she'd told him it wouldn't work, that
his mother was right and he was too young for her. Despite
his protests, she'd said their relationship had to end. One day,
she told him, he'd be grateful.

'Grateful?' he'd snapped, and he'd looked so angry she'd
been taken aback. 'Don't make decisions on my behalf on the
grounds that one day I'll be grateful!'

They'd met for morning coffee in a cafe near her home.
Once Marcella had decided it had to end, she wanted to do
it instantly. Meeting him close to her office would be risky


in case people saw them. She'd known he wouldn't take it
well, but she hadn't expected him to be so furious. Guys like
him must have broken up with women a million times, surely?
'I've never met a woman so obsessed with age. My age,
your age, Uncle Tom Cobley's age. What does it matter?' he
demanded, so loudly that the two people behind the counter
making coffee looked around in alarm.
'It does matter,' Marcella said, getting quite cross herself
now. 'Your mother read me the riot act about being too old
for you '
'My mother reads everyone the riot act,' Lorcan said. 'She's
been doing it so long, she forgets we're all grown-ups and
can make our own decisions.'
'But she hates me,' said Marcella, anger vanishing to be
replaced by something close to tears. She hated feeling so
disapproved of. And what made it worse was that his mother
had hit the nail on the head: Marcella wouldn't be giving
Lorcan adorable babies just like him. Her biological clock
had ticked right down to zero. Even if she wanted ten little
Lorcans, it would be impossible without the application of
science.
'She's right, too. I can't give you babies.' The old lady at
the next table craned her head to listen, but Marcella didn't
care. 'I wish I could but I can't. So let's call it a day, Lorcan.
I'd love your babies, but it's not going to happen and I'll
spend the rest of my life if I stay with you, thinking about
that. Eventually, you would too. It'd destroy us. Good bye,
it was wonderful, but it's over.'
Before he could open his mouth to reply, she got up and
hurried out, and he let her. She so wanted him to run after
her, but when he didn't, she knew he understood. A man with
a big family like that would want children. He was right in
one way, the age difference didn't matter that much in most
respects, but when it came to women's fertility, it did.

That had been a week ago and she was still grieving over
him. She got herself a coffee and avoided the biscuits in the
office kitchen - incredibly, she was off her food, which was
great for her stomach but made her face look haggard - and
went into her office with the newspaper. She shut the door her
'keep out' signal - and flicked in a desultory manner
through the papers.

Finally, she read her horoscope, which was a sign of total
insanity, as she never read horoscopes.


Virgo. A problem shared is a problem halved. You've been
worrying over something and keeping it from those closest
to you. Stop right now. Share it and see what happens.


Marcella picked up the phone. Blast it. If she didn't tell
someone, she'd go insane.

Ingrid sounded remarkably upbeat when she answered her
mobile.

'You'll never believe it: I had a heart-to-heart with Joan
and I think we've sorted it out,' Ingrid whispered. 'Hold on,
I'll just close my office door. We were in the loo and I came
out and said it. . .'

Marcella listened. Being a friend meant you listened to the
other person. Finally, Ingrid finished.

'Ingrid, I have to tell you this,' blurted out Marcella. 'I've
met someone.'

'Now she gets round to telling me,' said Ingrid cheerfully,
sounding like her old self.

'You knew?'

'You sort of gave it away that night we were out with Nikki
and Carla, when you looked all moony and involved when
Nikki introduced us to that handsome financier guy.'
'But you never said anything.'

'I knew you'd tell me when you were ready. Besides, I felt
it was my fault in the first place,' Ingrid admitted. 'With all I


was going through, it was obvious you felt you couldn't tell
me.'

'Well, who wants to hear about someone else's sex life?'
sighed Marcella.

'Sex life? Spill,' commanded Ingrid.

Marcella spilled.

'He sounds wonderful,' Ingrid said at the end. 'Why did
you end it?'

'I've explained it to you,' Marcella said wearily. 'His age,
my age . . . you know.'

'I don't know,' Ingrid said. 'Don't you get it, Marcella? All
that doesn't matter. David and I looked like we had it all and
we didn't, it was just appearances. So stop worrying about
appearances, they can lie. If you care about this Lorcan guy,
go for it. You're the one who's sleeping with him, not all the
nay-sayers.'

'Wow, I never thought you'd say that.'

'I've changed,' Ingrid said. 'I loved David, loved him more
than anything, and you know what. . .?' She paused. 'I can't
stop thinking that if only I'd known about her at the time,
I'd have forgiven him and we'd have moved on with our lives.'

Marcella couldn't hide her gasp.

'Yes,' said Ingrid. 'Life is short, Marcella. David's death
showed me that we don't have that much time here, so we
ought to enjoy it with the people we love. Go get your Lorcan.
Who gives a damn about what anyone else thinks?'

'But you're missing one important point here, Ingrid babies.
Children, offspring. Lorcan is a very macho sort of
man and he's great with children. He's not going to want a
woman who's too old to have them.'

'Did you ask him?' asked Ingrid, as crisply as if she were
interviewing on camera.

'Well, no . . .' She had done all the talking on that point,
and no listening, she remembered now, guiltily.

'How about you ask him and then decide. Otherwise,' Ingrid


said, 'you'll always be wondering. And, as I know, that's not a nice way to be. Now,' she added, 'do you want to hear my
news? It's not as exciting as having a fabulous young man throwing himself at you, but it's pretty good all the same.'

On the other end of the phone, Marcella smiled. Ingrid
wasn't entirely back to her old self again, but she was getting
there. 'Tell me,' she said.

'I may have found a wonderful investor for Kenny's. Coincidentally,
that's another thing that came about after our
night out with the girls. It's Eric Johannsen.'

'Handsome Eric?'

'Marcella,' chided Ingrid, 'it'll be a long time, if ever, before
I'm in the market for a man '

'But he is rather gorgeous,' Marcella said gently.

'He's rather clever too. I can see why he's so successful. He
knew who I was, knew all about Kenny's and had clearly
heard we were in some sort of trouble. He phoned me two
days later to talk.'

'That's wonderful,' Marcella said. 'As we say in my business:
"I never met a billionaire I didn't like."'


His phone was off, so Marcella phoned Lorcan's office to see
where he was.

Josie, who handled all the calls and had come to know
Marcella, was delighted to hear from her.

'Thought you were off the scene,' Josie said with her usual
bluntness.

'I was a bit, but I'm back now,' Marcella replied.

'Good on ya, girl. He's been like a bear with a sore head
this past week. What can I do you for?'

'His phone is off. Where is he?'

'Down by the docks in the new apartment block,' Josie
said. 'Don't know why he's bothering his backside. With the
state of the economy, nobody'll buy them now, but you know
Lorcan: when he says he's finishing a job, he finishes it.'


Josie appeared to be right. Not only were there no people
viewing the beautiful apartments but there didn't appear to
be any builders or plumbers working on them either. Lorcan's
truck was the only one in the parking area. The door to the
apartment complex was locked. Marcella considered her
options for a moment, then stood beside his truck and gave
it a huge kick. Instantly, the alarm went off.
She counted to thirty before Lorcan appeared, running. He
stopped when he saw her, held out his key to flick the alarm
off, then opened the door to the building to let her inside.
'I take it you didn't come here to look at the apartments?'
'I came here to say sorry and ask you out to dinner,'
Marcella said.
Lorcan looked stony-faced for all of two seconds.
'I thought I was too young for you, you were too old for
me, and my mother was a major stumbling block?'
'You are, I am and she is,' Marcella said honestly. 'So we
need to talk, but I can't let you out of my life without
discussing the problems.'
'My mother isn't that much of a problem,' Lorcan said.
'She's tough, but she doesn't run my life.'
'That's not what I'm most anxious about.'
She looked around. There wasn't much to sit on, so she
went over to a low, dusty window sill and sat on that. He
joined her, close but not touching.
Marcella steeled herself. Being brutally honest in business
was a piece of cake; being brutally honest in relationships
was terrifying.
'I'd love to have your babies, I told you, but I can't. I'm
too old. When you hit forty-nine your time has run out in
the baby-making department'
The slight joke was her way of coping with the harsh words.
Lorcan reached over and took her hands in his.
'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I'd love you to have my babies too, but
I'd already figured out that wasn't on the menu. I'm not stupid.'

She grinned weakly.

'I know all that and I still want us to be together.'

'You already thought about it?'

'Yes, how could I not with my mother mentioning it to
me? But, like I told her, I want to be with you and I can live without kids if you can.'

'What if it's not enough?' Marcella asked anxiously. 'What if five years down the road, you change your mind and hate
me for being old and not being able to give you babies?'

'Marcella . . .' He knelt in front of her on the marble floor.
'Do you think anything in life has guarantees? It doesn't. We
love each other now and that has to be enough. You might want to dump me in five years to move on to a younger
model.'

'Cheeky!' she said, but she was smiling, even though she
was starting to cry. 'You really want to make a go of it?'

His answer was a kiss and she felt herself melt.

How could she have ever thrown this away?

Marcella leaned against the hardness of him and closed her
eyes. The sense of him holding her close, that was her home,
even in a half-finished apartment block.

'I've missed you, crazy woman,' he murmured into the cloud
of her hair.

'Missed you too,' she said.


The Mariner Pub was where the majority of the television
station employees went at lunchtime. Cheap sandwiches, large
portions of dessert and enough noise via the sound system to
drown all the plots and gossip, made it a honey-pot for staff.

It was big enough to be anonymous and better than the
station canteen because the higher-ups never went there. The
last person Ingrid expected to see in the Mariner was Jim
Fitzgibbon, David's old friend, the one she'd only ever endured
meeting.

'Ingrid - at last!' he said, as she stood in astonishment at


the till paying for her soup and sandwich. 'I went into the
television canteen looking for you,' he said, 'and they said a
load of youse from the Politics Tonight office had come here.'
So much for privacy, Ingrid thought. Any mad stalker would
be able to locate her within minutes.
You've a delivery of boiled bunny rabbit for Ms Fitzgerald?
No bother, she's just down the road.
'Hello, Jim,' she said, drawing on years of experience in
appearing mildly pleased to see people she disliked.
She didn't have the heart to ask him how poor Fiona was.
The last time she'd seen her was at David's funeral, and Fiona
had come over to offer her sympathies. Alone. The separation
was obviously final. Next up, divorce. Jim had shuffled
across from the other side of the church, with the hideous
Carmel - replete in floor-length mink - accompanying him.
In her wild grief, Ingrid had barely been able to look at
Carmel, thinking of the last time she'd seen her, when David
had been by her side, when life had been hers.
'I need to talk to you, Ingrid,' he said now.
He always sounded as if he wanted to off-load a shipment
of fake handbags. Ingrid had never been able to gauge what
David had seen in him; maybe it had just been a case of maintaining
links with people he'd known at school. But Jim would
never be her friend.
'What can I do for you, Jim?' she asked. He would want
something from her, not the other way round.
'Isn't there a quiet spot where we can talk?' Jim asked.
The place was emptying out after the lunchtime rush and
a small table in an alcove had just been vacated.
'Grab that one,' she told Jim.
He sat and waited while Ingrid cleared away the previous
occupants' empty cups and plates, and cleaned the table down
with a paper napkin. He was useless, she thought crossly, just
watching her working.
Eventually, she was able to sit down and began to eat. It

was mushroom soup, her favourite. If only Jim would ask for
whatever he wanted, and go, so she could read her paper and
eat in peace. Her social skills were rusty; she didn't want to
go through the motions of being polite.
'How have you been?' he asked.
'Fine,' said Ingrid. 'Coping.'
'Is probate sorted out?'
She eyed him suspiciously. Probate was a long, drawn-out
legal nightmare. 'What's this about, Jim?'
'Nothing,' he said, clearly uncomfortable.
He fiddled with the knot of his tie.
'I know what was worrying David,' he blurted out suddenly.
'I didn't have the courage to tell you before.' Ingrid instinctively looked around to see if anyone could
overhear them.
'The business,' she said with deliberate calm. 'I know, Jim.
As the person with a controlling interest in the store, the auditors
have me on speed-dial, I know the store is in trouble.
We've been doing everything to try to save it. Is that what
you wanted to tell me? That we should sell Kenny's if we've
any sense?'
'No.' He looked mightily affronted. 'Not at all, I wouldn't
wish that on you, Ingrid. Don't I know what Kenny's meant
to David, to you all.' His red face was very earnest and Ingrid
knew she'd offended him. 'It's worse than that. He was very
worried.'
Jim stopped looking at her and began to stare into her soup
bowl.
'I won't lie to you, Ingrid. He was terrified what would
happen if you found out. About her.'
Ingrid's hand began to shake and she had to put her spoon
down. She had been able to hold herself together in the editorial
meeting, and in her confrontation with Joan, but now,
with her husband's oldest friend telling her he knew about
David's darkest secret, she felt all her strength ebb away.

'As God is my judge, Ingrid, I can tell you he loved you.
Loved you more than anything. He wanted to end it, honestly,
no kidding.'

Jim chanced a look up at her face.

'I thought that if they did any of that, you know, forensic
accounting, they might come up with credit-card statements
and the like . . .'

'I found them,' she whispered.

'That can't have been a walk in the park, if I may say so.
But I tell you, it was in the past. He was ending it, Ingrid,
except these things take time. No offence.'

'None taken,' she murmured.

Jim's pudgy hand patted hers in comfort. He was kind, she
could see this for the first time. Behind all the bluster, Jim
was a kind man, and no matter how hard it had been to come
here today, he'd done it because his friend would have wanted
him to. Jim knew she'd find out about the other woman, and
he wanted to reassure her.

'How do you know he was ending it?' she begged, dignity
forgotten.

'He was trying to organise a job for her in London, away
from here.'

'Maybe he wanted to go with her?' Ingrid said, all manner
of scenarios springing up in her head. She wanted so much
to believe what Jim was telling her. She'd meant it when she
told Marcella that she would have forgiven David if only she'd
known.

'Oh no, he didn't. He wanted her gone, believe me. He
wanted her gone. He wanted me to give her a hand finding
a flat.'

'That's what you were talking about that night at dinner.'

'A little bit, that's all. He made a mistake, Ingrid, and he
knew that. David wasn't like me. He appreciated you, and
he told me I was an idiot for letting Fiona get away. He was
terrified you'd find out and leave him. Now that doesn't sound


like a man who was setting up shop with another woman in
London, does it?'

Ingrid shook her head.

'Oh and don't forget the anniversary trip,' he added,
delighted to have thought of it. 'You'd been talking about a
short cruise, but he wanted to take you on one of those roundtheworld
ones - three weeks! He was like a kid about it.
He'd hardly have been so excited if he wanted to head off
with a young wan to London, now, would he?'

Jim beamed at her, and Ingrid thought of her David and a
young wan, as Jim had put it. How young was young? And
who was it? She knew that Babe had said it didn't matter,
that the only important fact was that the woman wasn't
someone in Ingrid's life. Yet she wanted to know, yearned to
know. Who was she, what age was she, was she young and
beautiful, with unlined skin and a body that hadn't lived
through fifty-seven years?

'Who was it?' she asked.

'Nobody you knew, just a girl.'

'A girl?' Hateful words.

'Nobody you knew, a girl he had a fling with.' Jim was getting
loud now. 'He made a mistake, Ingrid. That's all you need to
know. She's gone, she was gone, really. He'd told her and he
was trying to be kind to her by helping her with the job.'

'Why did she need help with a job?'

Jim pulled at his tie again. 'She wasn't like you. She wasn't
clever or anything. I think it drove David mad, to be honest. There's only so much of that daft-girl thing a man can put
up with. You know, the sort of girl who doesn't know how
to change a tyre. Fiona could change a tyre,' he added wistfully.
'But she couldn't change me.'

'And David didn't like this girlish behaviour?'

'Ah, you know yourself, Ingrid, it's very wearing. She wasn't
you, that's all I know. That was enough for him. It was you
he loved. Men do stupid things,' he added.


Men do stupid things, Ingrid repeated to herself. Yes, they
did, and then they were sorry for them. David had been sorry.
She could feel it.
She wasn't sure why, but this conversation with Jim had
eased her in a way that nothing else had. Jim was incapable
of telling a successful lie, not one that would convince her,
anyway. He was telling the absolute truth. Whatever this
girl/woman had been to David, it had been over. She had to
believe that. It gave her hope and strength.
'Thank you, Jim,' she said, smiling at him warmly. 'Tell
me, what about you and Fiona?'
'I've burned my bridges there.' He shrugged.
Ingrid shook her head. 'If David had come to me and told
me the truth, I'd have given him a second chance,' she said,
matching his absolute truthfulness. 'You can't throw away a
good marriage over a combination of stupidity and what you
were brought up to do. Talk to Fiona. She may have moved
on, but you don't know. Give it a chance.'
'You think?'
Once, Ingrid had thought Jim's features porcine. Today,
they looked appealing, his warm little eyes eager in his face.
'I think.'
Ingrid got up. There was somewhere she had to go, someone
she had to see.
'You haven't finished your lunch '
'Not hungry.' She hugged him. 'Thank you, Jim. You've
given me great peace.'
Ingrid almost ran out of the restaurant and back to her car.
She had hope in her heart again. There was one more person
she needed to see: Star Bluestone.
She wasn't sure why, but when Babe had told her about
Star, Ingrid had known that Star had some of the missing
pieces of the puzzle. Perhaps David had confided in this
woman he'd known so many years before. Maybe they'd met
and talked often. If David could have hidden her existence

from Ingrid, innocent though it might have been, perhaps she
knew things about David that Ingrid didn't. The very idea
upset her, but she shoved that to one side: she wanted to see
Star and ask her.


Ingrid realised her knuckles were white. Driving while stressed
- was that an offence? She loosened her grip on the steering
wheel and tried to concentrate on what she'd say to Star Bluestone
when she got there.

Star. What a strange name. It was, Ingrid thought, the name
an ageing hippie might go by, and that was partly what she
was expecting: a hennaed former rock chick with trailing
skirts, hair like straw from decades of dye, and make-up from
the children's dressing-up box. All ghoulish eyeliner, smudges
and the scent of patchouli oil.

It was easier to think of Star that way. Easier, too, because
Ingrid had had Star's tapestry hanging in her hall for at least
three years and not once had David said: The artist was a
woman I loved many years ago.

It was wild and remote out in this part of the coast.

Ingrid didn't like remote places. Even on holidays. No, she'd
always preferred soignee hotels in cities with culture close by.
Museums, galleries, the whole nine yards. David had agreed.
Or perhaps he hadn't. Perhaps he'd been lying then, too.

Not that they hadn't gone on holiday in remote places, but
there had always been a bit of culture attached. The pyramids,
the Grand Canyon, the Great Wall, the Library at
Ephesus.

And Ingrid had liked it all, but there was a certain fear in
seeing places so huge, so ancient. Beside them, Ingrid had felt
that shiver of insignificance. No human could ever compete
with this grandness of scale. She'd always been glad to get
back to the hotel, to sit in a comfortable chair, sip tea from
a china cup, turn on the television news and banish the wildness
of the ancient world to the back of her mind.


Star's house was set in the sort of landscape that tourists
loved: wild, windswept, a jutting-out piece of land that seemed
to hang over the sea. Ingrid knew she couldn't have lived out
here, along a tiny track of a road, with no visible neighbours
and nothing but the roar of the sea and the sound of the wind
racing through the trees for company.
Beautiful, yes, she'd give Star that. But a person might go
mad out here.
Following Lena's instructions on where Star Bluestone lived
- Ingrid had had to pretend she wanted a special tapestry
commissioned when she'd phoned Lena - Ingrid turned right
after five miles, and followed an even more hopeless road, a
track that appeared to lead to the sea. On the right, she saw
a wooden sign swinging from a pole with Bluestone written
in cursive script.
Ingrid swung her car in past the sign and bumped along a
drive made entirely of sea pebbles. The house revealed itself
when she reached a curve in the drive. It wasn't the Begorrahstyle
Oirish cottage Ingrid had been expecting but a graceful
clapboard house that looked as if it had been built by a seafaring
captain in the seventeenth century in between bouts of
chasing pirates. Charming was the word to describe it, Ingrid
decided, and this unknown Star went up in her estimation.
She parked and got out warily.
Anything could come to welcome her or scare her off: these
crazy hippie types always had mad animals like ostriches,
yaks, or maybe a pet goat with jewelled collar. But no
menagerie came to greet her. Instead, a tall woman emerged
from one side of the house carrying a vegetable trug and a
trowel. Apart from her Wellington boots - ordinary green, no
zany flowery ones - she was dressed perfectly normally: jeans
and a grey fleecy sweatshirt.
Her long white hair was coiled up in a knot at the back
of her head, and her skin was the creamy, nourished consistency
of a model in a moisturiser ad.

If Ingrid hadn't known better, she'd have put this woman
in her late forties, but she knew that this was Star and that
Star must be older than she was.

'It's lovely to meet you finally,' said Star, as easily as if
Ingrid had phoned first instead of turning up uninvited. 'Come
on in.'

Saying nothing, Ingrid followed her into the house.

Inside, it was all beautiful and evoked in Ingrid a type of
envy. She'd have never been able to live in such elegant clutter.
There were pictures, books, ornaments, orchids being nursed
back to health, single flower heads sitting in teacups, floaty
muslin curtains that would be a nightmare for dust, and
although it was all pristine, not a speck of fluff anywhere, it
was so very easy to settle in here.

She could imagine David lying on the bigger of the couches,
the one upholstered in a smudgy olive velvet, could picture
him holding the model of a ship, admiring it as Star relayed
its history, his head supported by an old barrel-shaped
cushion.

This was beyond her ken, this exquisitely personal house
with its wonderful artefacts, like a living museum. Ingrid had
never had the gift for making a house beautiful. She'd paid
people to do it for her. Her home was the work of two
designers who'd argued together over flooring - 'American
oak is over. Walnut, wide boards, are where it's at' cupboards
and precisely what sort of taps to put on the cloakroom
basin: 'If you go for anything other than Starck, I will die!'

This house was clearly all Star's taste.

And beside the fire - a working fire, not a gas imitation
one - were two wooden sculptures that were the exact replica
of the figureheads beside the stairs in Kenny's.

Ingrid gasped. 'They're '

'Morrigan and Brighid,' said Star, following her gaze.

'I was going to say the statues David had made for the store.


I was surprised when I saw them,' Ingrid went on, suddenly
bitter that this woman had still had some link with David that
Ingrid hadn't known about. It kept getting worse and worse.
What other people had he known and talked to, people he'd
kept from his wife? 'Did you suggest he make them?'
'Oh no,' Star said, 'I hadn't met David in thirty-five years.'
Ingrid was astonished.
'But your tapestries are in the store.'
'More or less on the agreement that I didn't have to meet
him,' Star said.
Ingrid finally allowed herself to sit down. Sitting, all the
fire went out of her.
'Why not?'
'We'd parted too long ago for that. I don't hold with the
current belief that you can remain friends with people you've
once loved. Been lovers with, yes. Goodness, I have many
friends I've made love to. But actually loved, no. It doesn't
work. I didn't need that in my life.'
'Thank you,' muttered Ingrid, relieved. She knew somehow
that Star was being totally truthful. It was impossible to
imagine Star lying about anything, actually. Honesty seemed
to shine off her, the light of the truly good and kind.
'Babe told me about you, and I came because I thought
you'd had an affair with David,' she said quietly.
'You poor love,' Star said with infinite kindness.
'I want to find out who it was with, even though his friend
said it was over, he'd ended it and was terrified I'd find out.
That was probably what killed him, not worrying over the
store, for all that it's in trouble . . .' She knew she was babbling
but Star didn't look surprised. She seemed to be following
this strange narrative perfectly.
'Does it matter now who she is?' Star asked.
Ingrid knew the pure rage had burned off her, but she still
wanted to know.
'Yes, I think so '

'Well then, that's what you have to do.'
Unusual, Ingrid thought. Most people - well, people like
Marcella - would have a counter-attack to explain why it
wasn't a good idea, along the lines of But what good will it
do you? Star let you think for yourself.
'Just one more thing before I make us tea: did Babe tell
you about my gift?'
Ingrid shook her head.
'It's magic in my hands, let me try on you.'
She sat beside Ingrid and took Ingrid's cold, tense hands in
hers.
Star closed her eyes and let herself connect to Ingrid's heart
and soul. Images rushed past her and, through years of practice, she made herself slow them down so she could concentrate
on each frame. A younger Ingrid cradling a baby in her
arms, staring at the tiny being with such intensity and love
that they made a little cosmos all by themselves. Complete.
There was another child, and the cosmos was made of up
three heartbeats: Ingrid and her two children.
There was no sign of David yet. Star wasn't surprised. She'd
seen this many times in women's pasts, the women who were
completed by their children, and the ones who weren't, the
ones whose heartbeats were always twinned with their man.
There was Ingrid holding David in a tangle of sheets, and
Star was proud that she didn't feel jealousy at this. She had
made her peace with that past many years ago.
Sometimes she saw unusual objects in the images, and now
she saw a crescent moon, druidic symbol of female strength.
Ingrid was strong, strong enough to stand at her husband's graveside and know she had to keep going, strong enough to
keep going no matter what she'd learned. A man was in the
stream of pictures: short, grey-haired, with a clunky gold
watch he kept waving around on his animated hands, and
wearing a loud navy striped suit. He was important to Ingrid,
although Star couldn't see why. But he helped her. He held

Ingrid's hands and she was crying with relief, but they weren't
lovers, it was a strange, tenuous link, but important.
'Do you know a man who likes navy striped suits and has
a big gold watch; short, not much hair?' Star said, still holding
Ingrid's hands.
Ingrid's face showed instant recognition.
'That sounds like David's old friend, Jim Fitzgibbon. He's
the one who told me it was over with this girl.'
A woman came into view, young, with long fair hair and
the innocence of another age. The lover. She was in the picture
and then flitted out, far away. It was odd, but the woman appeared beside the girl Lena had brought out here, Claudia
. . . Star fitted the pieces of the puzzle together in an instant.
This was what she'd felt the day she took Claudia's hands.
Someone close to her, her sister perhaps, who was connected
to David. But it was only a weak connection, like a faint silk
thread that dissolved briefly.
Then David himself appeared and Star could almost feel
him sigh with relief.
David. She'd loved him so much and, since he'd died, she
hadn't felt any peace from his spirit. But she felt it now. Peace
and calm. He was looking into her eyes, his spirit connecting
with hers. In the vision, his hands were reaching to Ingrid's.
That's where he was happy, with Ingrid. The girl with the
pale hair wasn't the one he loved, she was like a willo'the
wisp who appeared and then disappeared.
Star tried to let that knowledge flow back into Ingrid.
Sorry, my love.
On the seat, Ingrid felt the oddest sensation in her body,
like a melting calm of acceptance.
Star let go.
'How did you do that?' said Ingrid, sitting back against the
cushions, exhausted.
'I let you access what's in you, Ingrid,' Star said. 'It's not
hocus pocus, it's what all people used to have. Our connection

with the spirituality of the earth, whatever you want that spirituality
to be. It's probably very strong in me today because of
my connection with David, my old connection.'
'I'm sorry I accused you of still seeing him,' Ingrid said.
'It's all right, I loved him. I'll always love him.'
Her words winded Ingrid.
'I don't say that to upset you, but it's how I've felt for
years.'
'But -' Ingrid couldn't get a handle on this. 'Why didn't
you do something about it?'
'David left me. He loved me too and still, he left me. You
don't choose who you love, otherwise we'd all be mad about
Nelson Mandela and nobody else.'
They both laughed.
'It's strange, but I felt him saying sorry,' Ingrid admitted.
Star thought about how to explain what she'd seen.
What would you say, Mama.' she silently asked Eliza.
That was more of the magic of Bluestone Cottage: the magic
of place. Both the druids and white witches understood the
power of sites or ruins where great knowledge had lived, and
in this cottage, where Bluestone women had used their wise,
gentle magic to help the local people for three hundred years,
there was huge, benevolent power.
Not the whole truth, Eliza Bluestone's spirit let Star know. Enough to help her because she needs to go away from here
with her strength recovered.
'I saw someone else,' Star said slowly. 'A woman, a young
woman, and she was in the distance in my mind. David was
beside you, holding on to you, telling you he loved you and
only you.'
Ingrid felt her eyes brimming with tears but none fell. She
wiped them with her sleeve.
'He's sorry?'
Star nodded. 'You felt it too. He loves you and he wanted
to say sorry.'

'This other woman -' Ingrid began. 'My friend is supposed
to be finding out who she is, because I want to know.'

'Seeing the woman won't bring you any more peace,' Star
stated. 'I know that. It will only hurt. Your curiosity will hurt
you far more. Leave it alone, he's at peace and you can be
too.'

Ingrid looked down at her hands, examining them. 'I know
you're right,' she said. 'I felt it, felt everything you described.
How did you do that?'

'I don't like to pontificate but modern religions take away
our power over ourselves. We are divine creatures and we
have our own power. I can harness it, that's all.'

Ingrid wanted to ask more but she had the feeling - a very
strange feeling for a woman who made her living by asking
the question 'why' - that she shouldn't ask any more. This
was about belief and now, after what had happened, she
believed.

Through some strange miracle, she'd felt David say sorry.
She couldn't tell anyone about this, nobody would believe it.
That Ingrid Fitzgerald, with her logical, precise mind, would
let another woman hold her hands and help her feel, in a
completely indescribable way, what had really happened in
the past with David. And yet that was just what had happened.

The Ingrid of a year ago would have shrugged and disbelieved.
Now, Ingrid felt grateful to Star for sharing her gift
with her.

'Shall I make us tea?' Star asked.

'I'd love that,' said Ingrid, getting to her feet. She began to
walk around the room, touching some of the beautiful objects.
'I want to know all about you and this place. There's such a
wonderful feel to this house.'

Star smiled. 'There's three hundred years' worth of women's
hearts beating here,' she said. 'That's the magic'


Epilogue


Ingrid walked through the store, breathing in the smells and
seeing the sights that made it so magical. It was Halloween
and, in honour of the day, orange and black decorations
covered the store, with bats and witches whirling up above,
and pumpkins sitting on many counters. Star would laugh
when she saw it all, Ingrid knew.

Halloween was really Oiche Samhain, according to Star, a
pre-Christian harvest festival where the veil between the
worlds lifted and spirits could roam as they pleased. Star often
talked to her about the pre-Christian traditions and Ingrid
found it fascinating. She'd told Star she ought to write a book
about what she knew.

'What I know has to be passed down person to person,'
Star said, and Ingrid had grown quiet.

She felt sad that Star had no beloved daughter to follow
her, although Natalie Flynn went to see her a lot, and seemed
to be like a daughter to her. But perhaps the magic only came
from a true genetic link.

Star had known Natalie's mother and she'd kept a lot of
her things: books, clothes, jewellery. Natalie seemed to love
going there and listening to stories about her mother. Molly
had visited Star, too, with Natalie.


'You won't tell her, will you?' Ingrid had said on the phone
when Molly mentioned she was visiting Star's house with her
friend.
'Of course not,' Star had said. 'That's yours to tell, if you
wish to.'
Ingrid had no desire to. It was the last issue she'd worried
over: whether to tell Molly or Ethan, who'd returned from
his travels now, about what had really gone on in their father's
last few months. She'd finally come to the conclusion that it
wouldn't help them in any way to know about it. Why tarnish
their image of David? It might be harder for them to forgive
him than it had been for her. And she had forgiven him.
The peace she'd felt at Star's house had stayed with her.
She didn't feel rage or anger, just a sadness that he'd died
without him ever telling her. Love wasn't the cliched never
having to say you were sorry: it was compromise and moving
on. She understood that now.
It was hard to believe that it was over six months since
David had died. In one way, it seemed longer. Yet in another,
he felt only a heartbeat away.
She'd said so to Marcella on the phone that morning.
'He would be so proud of what you've managed to do,'
Marcella said.
'I hope so,' Ingrid said. 'Now, you. How's Italy?'
Marcella and Lorcan were on honeymoon in Italy after a
small registry office wedding. The speed with which they'd
gone from getting back together to getting married had
stunned everyone, but Lorcan was firm that he wanted to be
married.
Ingrid thought he was gorgeous and exactly the sort of
strong character that a woman like Marcella really needed.
'Fabulous. I want to move here, but Lorcan says their
plumbing is totally different, so it's a no-go.'
'Are you ready?' said a voice behind Ingrid now.
It was Star, carrying a folded-up tapestry with her.

'I'm ready,' said Ingrid, hugging her. 'Is this it?'

'Yes.'

The two women took the escalator together up to the cafe
where Ingrid had arranged to talk to the entire staff of Kenny's
at ten past six, when the store was closed. It was six now,
just enough time to look at the tapestry.

Molly, Ethan and Natalie were already in the cafe, sitting
at a table having lattes.

Star laid the precious tapestry out on the table beside them.

Ingrid had commissioned it: a picture of the front of the
store with David just visible as a figure leaning out of his
office window. Made in the warm golds and ochres of the
shop front, it was a beautiful work of art.

'Fantastic,' said Molly admiringly.

'It's beautiful, Star,' said Ingrid. 'You are a genius.'

Charlie, walking by with Shotsy, who was carrying their
tray of coffee for her and tea for Charlie, stopped to admire
it too.

'How fabulous,' she cried. 'I love it.'

Star smiled at her. 'I know you, don't I? You're Charlotte,
Kitty Nelson's daughter.'

Star had never seen Charlotte up close, although she'd
recognised her with Kitty at David's funeral.

Charlie knew she had assumed the usual slightly wary look
she did when people mentioned Kitty to her. But she shook
it off. Things were different now. She wasn't Number Two
Daughter any more - not in Kitty's mind and, more importantly,
not in Charlie's mind. 'Yes,' she said, smiling. 'I'm
Charlie Fallon.'

'Star Bluestone,' said Star, and grasped Charlie's
outstretched hand.

Visions of sadness swept by in a rush to be replaced by
such love, love for a tall man and love for a skinny teenager.
And in the background, in Charlie's arms, was a baby girl
with a shock of bright auburn hair.


Her eyes instinctively went down to Charlie's flat stomach.
Charlie saw it happen and paled, shaking her head to show
that nobody knew. Nobody except Brendan, Mikey and the
doctor so far.
Star leaned forwards to whisper. 'Congratulations, my dear
Charlie,' she said. 'True motherhood is a great gift. One of
the best of all. You have that gift in abundance, lucky you.
Not everyone,' she paused meaningfully, 'has it. I haven't met
your mother for years,' she added. 'Give her my best.'
Charlie felt as if she was sleepwalking as she followed
Shotsy to a spare table. The woman had seen everything in
an instant. And then the glimmer of a smile began on her
face. She'd said Charlie had the gift of true motherhood. She
did. Charlie knew that she did. And she appreciated that gift
above all others.
'You're not going all healthy on me, are you?' asked Shotsy,
putting Charlie's tea in front of her. 'Drinking tea instead of
coffee?'
'If I tell you this, you're not to tell anyone, OK?' began
Charlie.

As the cafe filled up, Star stood beside Natalie.
'Do you want to come to me for dinner later?' she asked.
'No, I'm meeting Rory, he's coming to pick me up,' Natalie
said, and she glowed. 'We're going out with Anna and Dennis
to the pasta place down the road.'
'What about Lizzie?' asked Star, who remembered Natalie
telling her about her childhood friend.
She knew how distressed Natalie had felt over Lizzie's
obvious drinking problem - Des had been anxious that when
Natalie heard about her mother's alcoholism she'd have been
devastated. But Natalie had handled it well. 'Mum recovered,'
she said. 'That took huge courage.'
'Rory and I were at a party with her and the gang a week
ago,' Natalie said.

Lizzie had got terribly drunk at the party, and the next day,
Natalie had gone round to Steve and Lizzie's house, sat down
on an armchair - with Lizzie lying, groaning with a hangover
on the couch - and said: 'Lizzie, you're my dear friend and
it breaks my heart to see you like this. You must be going
through absolute hell, thinking nobody knows about your
drinking and hating yourself.'

Lizzie had gone white and Steve was bent over with his
head in his hands.

'She won't listen to me,' he said.

Lizzie had said nothing but just sobbed.

'I don't want to tell you how to live your life, Lizzie, but
I think you need help.' She got up and put all the alcoholism
and rehab literature she'd collected on the coffee table in front
of Lizzie. 'I'm going now, but if you ever want to talk about
it, I've got a story about someone really special who was just
like you, and recovered. My Mum. I'm so proud of her and
what she did; she showed you can leave rock bottom and find
happiness.' She bent down, kissed Lizzie and left.

Star beamed as Natalie told her the story. 'You sound just
like your mother, there,' she said proudly. 'Talking of which,
I found this. It was on the floor of the attic. I didn't open it.'

'This' was a dusty, yellowed notebook with an elastic band
holding it shut. She handed it to Natalie who took it reverently.
Natalie/:
advice/! was written on the outside.

Natalie stroked the notebook as if it was the Rosetta Stone.

'I just have to look at this,' she said to everyone, and rushed
off to find a quiet place. Ingrid was about to speak, but Natalie
needed to know what her mother had to say to her.


'It's been a tough six months for us all,' Ingrid said, looking
down at the sea of faces watching, her. 'We all miss David so
very much.'

Beside her, Ethan snuffled and Ingrid saw Molly put a


discreet arm-around him. He was like his father, she thought
fondly, hated anyone seeing him get upset. 'And we would
miss Kenny's if anything happened to it.'
The mood of the crowd changed subtly and Ingrid could
sense the tension.
'But we're not selling. I've brought you all here tonight to
tell you that Kenny's is here to stay. We have a new investor.'
At this, Eric Johannsen emerged from behind her, looking
every inch the urbane financier. 'Let me introduce you to Eric
Johannsen, who is now a shareholder in the company and
promises that Kenny's, far from being sold, will be the one
doing the buying out of other stores!'
The crowd roared. Ingrid had seen the crowd dynamic in
action before. It was like a wave, a wave that lifted the mood
until everyone was shouting with delight.
'Your store, your jobs are safe,' Ingrid said, when the sound
died down. 'I'll let Eric talk to you for a moment.'
She moved aside and while Eric spoke briefly about the
great plans for Kenny's, she went to stand behind Molly and
Ethan to kiss both their heads.
'David would be proud,' whispered Star.
'I think he would,' Ingrid murmured, smiling.
She looked at the store, her store, and felt huge pride in
it. Thanks to her, this place was still going, would still be a
haven for both the customers and the people who worked
there. David had created a big family and he'd left it to her
to take care of, and that, she could do.

In a small office on the fifth floor, Natalie found peace. She
slammed the door shut, sank on to a chair and carefully
opened the notebook.
Darling Natalie,
I'm not here for you and that's the worst thing ever. I would give up year of my life to be there for you, but i don't have any to give. it's scary the things you don't have any choice about. You get to pick hair colour or where your flat is and pointless things you think are important, and you have no choice in how long you live with your beloved baby and husband.
I havent always got it right. Understatement! Star will tell you, if shes still doing magic for beginners when youre old enough to come looking for me. But I screwed it up plenty. So dont do what I did, right? Shell tell you. Your dad doesnt really know it all because it might have broken his heart more than all this is currently breaking his heart.
OK, tears there. Im sad, but I am coping. I am saying this more for you than for me, actually. Star helped. She did this thing where she held me and I felt peace. I know i'm dying, but I felt this amazing sense of calm. It was like this love rushing all over me. Im not scared of dying. Really not scared. And, Natalie, I have been scared in my life, believe me! Its going to be OK. The only scary bit is leaving you. I dont know how i'm going to do that. Theyll have to pry you out of my arms when i'm gone. You are why I want to stay forever. You, darling, you.
But I wont be alone when I go, i'll live with my own mum.
Hell, tears again. I grew up without a mother and it was the last thing I wanted for you,. The difference is, you got a great Dad. Thats all Ill say.
If I was there Id be teaching you some of the stuff I learned along the way. Not that I learned it quickly Jesus, no. Nobody learned as slow as me. I mean, lettuce learns quicker. But when Ive learned it, it stays learned. Just as well, 'cos if you had to learn all I have twice, youd be dead…well, thats happening anyway.
I wish I could write it all down beautifully but I have to do it my way, the Dara way. So this is it, condensed?

*be true to yourself. Sounds mad, doesnt it? I mean, whats true? But youll know when you get there, trust me on this

*Trust your instincts. I didnt trust any part of me, I discounted my instincts too. But when I thought about it, nine times out of ten, my original instinct had been right. I just hadnt paid attention to it.

*Be kind to yourself. Love yourself. Nobody else is going to be able to if you dont first. Its a hard lesson, that one, but important. If you love yourself, you wont let anyone hurt you. Sounds so obvious, but youd be amazed how long it took me to get that.

Youre probably Ok. Honestly. Despite your eyebrows/short legs… (put in whatevers appropriate here.) Because you will have something that gives you great mental anguish about not being right and occasionally it will give your anxiety something to hold tightly on to that if it wasnt for the eyebrows/shortlegs/whatever., everything would be great. They have nothing to do with all whatsoever. People need something to worry about, like the 1950s needed communism and then it was the permissive society. And one day, you will look back at an old photo of you and wonder why you worried about your eyebrows when you had so much going for you… When you do the looking back at the old photo, by the way, youll probably be dying and the great truth of life will be hitting you over the head like a sledge-hammer that says the young and living dont appreciate it and that only and about-to-die do. Im trying to by-pass all that for you.

*Life is what happens when youre making other plans.

* Only one person can change your life, and thats you. Dont wait for anyone else to do it, Prince Charming or otherwise. Be your own prince.

*Fight for who you are. It takes a long time to find who you are, but when you do, take care of that person. Shes one of the most precious friends youll ever have.

*Learn how to tell men you like them but arent interested sexually. So important this one.

* Be kind to other women. It really works most of the time. And even on those days when it doesnt, itll make you feel better inside. And on the outside, actually! Because spite carves out things in your soul and it carves out things on your face too, the sort of lines that dermatologists say are from the sun or smoking, and are really from spite.

*when your annoyed, dont speak from that place inside yourself that nurtures all past hurts. That will just make it all worse. Speak out of love and a desire to make things better.
* learn how to say no. Practise. Say it at least once everyday and, you know what? Youll get better at it.

* Sometimes, you cant fix them. You just have to decide whether its worth hanging around until they fix themselves. Your choice over the hanging around, but when it comes to the fixing, you have no power. There's times when you just have to let go. Letting go works for a lot of life, actually.

*What doesnt destroy you makes you stronger. I just hope you dont have to go through that process in the first place. But if you do, its true. Trust me

*Life seems so long when youre in the middle of it, but when you know its going to end soon, you realise how little time we have on earth. Dont waste it. Live for now. Not for tomorrow or yesterday. Now. You dont know what will happen tomorrow, and yesterday is gone, so all you have is this moment. Enjoy it.

*Make your choices matter. Do what makes you happy. Tell the people you love that you love them. Forget about waiting for a rainy day. Do it now.

*Get down on your knees everyday and say thank you. Even if you dont feel grateful all the time, practise it, and one day you will appreciate all the good things. And thats one of the greatest gifts of all.

*Its never too late to stop and change the way youre going. Never. I did and look what I got you and your dad.
Talking of your Dad, when you find a love like that and its a once in a lifetime love, Hold on to him.

Im crying now, Natalie, I better stop. Star wants me downstairs because you need me. Did I tell you that? Youre downstairs with her and Im upstairs trying not to cry writing this. I cant write with your dad or he just breaks down. Hes a wonderful dad, but I guess you know that. I hope I finish this later but in case I dont get to it, I love you. Always have, always will.
Mum