Foreign Affairs (30 page)

William wrote out his list in his neat precise writing. It was time to get some routine back into his life. Theresa had gone to her just reward. He and Rachel would have to get
on with it. There were only the two of them now. Ronan had made his choice and deserted his family. Theresa had been far too soft with their son, allowing him to go and live in Dublin had been a
big mistake. Now William was suffering the consequences.

He sighed deeply. Theresa had grown so stubborn in her later years. It must have been the medication. When he’d married her, she had been a docile gentle girl, content to bow to his
greater knowledge. Well he might have failed with his son, but he still had a chance to mould his daughter. She too had taken advantage of her mother’s soft nature and William had not been
able to prevent it, for fear of causing Theresa to collapse. Theresa was gone now. It was his responsibility to pull in the reins. He would not shirk his duty, no matter how Rachel resented it. She
was seeing far too much of that Armstrong layabout. He was a bad influence. Ronan was the proof of that. Well Harry Armstrong wasn’t going to ruin his daughter’s life by putting notions
in her head, William would make sure of that. She would thank him in the end. Someday, when she had children of her own, she would understand how hard it was to be a parent and she’d thank
him. He looked forward to that day. With a self-righteous sniff, William replaced the top on his fountain pen and went to make himself a cup of tea.

Rachel knelt at her mother’s grave, picking out the dead flowers and rearranging the wreaths more tidily. She felt deeply unhappy. Why had she treated Harry so badly? It
almost seemed as if she was blaming him for her mother’s death. It wasn’t his fault. But why couldn’t he just give her a little peace? He wanted her to decide what she was doing
for the summer. When she couldn’t even think straight. What was it about men? Ronan had taken off. He hadn’t thought that she could have done with his company for a while to help her
cope with the loss of their mother. Her father . . . well he was a selfish bastard anyway, she thought bitterly. Maybe Harry and Ronan were right. Maybe she should leave home.

‘What should I do, Mam, what should I do?’ People said going to the grave gave comfort. It only made her feel worse, she thought as she sobbed quietly. A light drizzle started.
Rachel stood up, wishing that she didn’t have to go home to the house that was so empty and cold without her mother. ‘I’d better go,’ she said. She stood very still, willing
Theresa to send some miraculous message to her. They said those who were dead took care of the living, and that you could always sense the presence of someone you’d been very close to. Rachel
couldn’t sense anything, she thought despairingly. She didn’t feel comforted or protected or reassured. She just felt completely and utterly alone.

Her father was sitting at the kitchen table when she went in. ‘Ah, Rachel,’ he greeted her. ‘How did your exam go?’

‘I think it went all right,’ she said flatly.

‘I’m sure the examiners will take into consideration that you’ve been bereaved,’ he responded. ‘Now,’ he said, handing her a list. ‘We’ve got to
get back into a routine. Your mother wouldn’t want us to fall to pieces without her. Now that you’re finished for the summer, I’ve made out a list of the dinners we could have on
a weekly basis. Roast on Sunday, cold cuts on Monday. Pork chops on Thursday and so on. I’d prefer you to grill rather than fry. We’ll naturally have fish on Fridays.’ Rachel
studied the list silently. He took her silence for assent.

‘By the way,’ he said stiffly, ‘that Armstrong bloke rang looking for you. I told him I’d prefer it if he didn’t get in touch again. I consider him to be an
extremely bad influence and not the type of person you should consort with. I don’t want you to see him again.’

‘You had no business—’

‘That’s enough, Rachel, I don’t want any back cheek,’ William said sternly, pointing his finger at her, his eyes like two chips of ice. ‘I won’t allow you to
treat me with disrespect as long as you are living under my roof. If that doesn’t suit you, go, like your brother.’

Rachel stared at him. Her father was giving her an ultimatum. Stay under his thumb, or leave home and stand on her own two feet. Both choices filled her with dread. Wordlessly, she left the
kitchen and walked upstairs to her mother’s room. She sat in the rocking-chair where Theresa had spent many hours. The room was as it had always been, with all her mother’s belongings
dotted around. The silver-backed brush, comb and hand-mirror lay neatly on the dressing-table. The two little candlestick holders with the painted cherubs stood on the mantelpiece guarding the
statue of the Sacred Heart. The scent of Theresa’s rosewater lingered. Rachel put her head in her hands and rocked backwards and forwards. She had a choice to make. Whatever choice she made
was going to have a big effect on her whole future, she thought in apprehension. It looked as if she was going to have to decide between Harry and her father.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Rachel hadn’t long to wait for the showdown. Two hours later she heard the doorbell ring, she knew it was Harry. William’s edict that Harry was not to contact
Rachel would have been like a red rag to a bull to her boyfriend. Harry loathed her father because of the way he treated her and Ronan.

She heard her father answer the door. Heard a sharp exchange of voices.

‘Rachel,’ she heard Harry call, ‘Rachel?’ She was too weary to feel anger, or dismay, or any other strong emotion. She walked slowly downstairs to where Harry stood on
the doorstep.

‘Get your bags, Rachel,’ Harry ordered. ‘You’re coming with me.’

‘She’s doing no such thing, you good-for-nothing pup.’ William was puce with rage. ‘The . . . the unmitigated cheek of you to come and stand on my doorstep and
back-answer me, after I expressly told you on the phone to stay away from Rachel. I’ve a good mind to have the law on you.’

‘Are you going to stand there and let him talk to me like that, Rachel?’ Harry said furiously. ‘Are you going to stand there and let this selfish ignorant bastard threaten
me?’

‘By God, son, you go too far.’ William’s voice rose an octave to a high-pitched squeak. ‘Get off my doorstep and never darken my door again.’

‘Are you coming, Rachel? This is your last chance to make a decent life for yourself. Come to France with me for the summer, or go over to Ronan in America. Or do you want to stay here in
Rathbarry and be nothing, and do nothing except dance to your father’s tune?’ Harry glared at her.

She looked at them, her father purple with fury, Harry pale with anger. Rachel saw two men engaged in a mighty power struggle. And she was the pawn in their game. Much as she loved Harry, Rachel
saw, with a sudden shock of recognition, that he was as much a control freak as her father. He enjoyed telling her what to do. He expected her to do what he said. They rarely argued because Harry
went into a huff if he didn’t get his own way and she hated to see him annoyed. Harry was a kind, caring, protective young man. From the moment he’d rescued her from Patrick McKeown all
those years ago he’d been her Prince Charming. But looking at him now, head to head in battle with her father, demanding that she leave with him, Rachel knew that if she left with Harry she
would end up hating him. Harry would always see her as someone to be rescued, someone to be looked after, someone to be told what to do. She’d had enough of that to last her a lifetime. If
she left Rathbarry, she was going to have to do it on her own.

‘Leave me alone, the two of you. Stop ordering me around. I’m sick of it,’ Rachel said tiredly.

‘If you don’t come with me, now, it’s over between us,’ Harry warned.

‘You’re as bad as he is for issuing ultimatums,’ Rachel declared angrily. ‘You’re as much a bully as he is.’ She pointed a finger at William, whose
Adam’s apple was doing a marathon. ‘I’m not going to be bullied any more, by anyone,’ she said quietly, more to herself than to the two men standing in front of her.

She walked back upstairs to her own bedroom and closed the door behind her. She was too drained to think. Her mother’s death had used up every ounce of emotion she had. She was too numb to
feel anything. She undressed and got into bed, though it was still bright outside. She heard the front door close and Harry’s footsteps echo down the garden path but she felt nothing. Harry
had behaved as badly as her father. When she heard her father knocking on her door and asking her if she wanted supper, she ignored him. She would finish her teacher training and get a job, and
never, ever, feel dependent on any man again. She would use her father for her own purposes. Let him pay for her education and then someday, when he least expected it, she would turn around and
tell him to sod off. She’d buy her own house in Dublin, she’d come and go as she pleased. And she would never set foot in her father’s house again. Her independence would be her
greatest victory over all of them. Independence made you invincible, she thought as her eyelids drooped. Rachel lay in a half-stupor, banishing the world and all its worries from her mind, as she
planned her great future, just as she’d done as a child.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

‘Well how did your first day at the new school go?’ Helen ran downstairs to give her niece a hug.

‘Helen, it was great. I know I’m going to love it here in Dublin.’ Paula dumped her schoolbag under the stairs and followed her aunt into the bright airy modern fitted kitchen
which was a far cry from the old-fashioned cramped kitchen they had at home. ‘I’ll make you a cup of coffee,’ she offered.

‘No! I’ll make you one,’ Helen declared. ‘Sit down there and we’ll have a natter. You tell me all about it and then we’ll have dinner around six. How does
that sound?’

Paula gave her the thumbs-up. ‘Sounds good to me, Aunt!’

‘Oh stop calling me Aunt, for heaven’s sake!’ Helen laughed. ‘It makes me feel like a geriatric.’

‘Thirty-five’s practically geriatric,’ Paula teased. It was nice to see her aunt in good humour. When Anthony left her to go and live with his secretary she had been deeply
upset. Paula was stunned to hear that her uncle had left Helen and that he’d been having an affair. Helen had covered it up and kept it to herself. She gave Paula the bare outline of facts.
Tears welling in her eyes as she spoke. Paula hadn’t pressed her. Now that she was living with her aunt, there’d be plenty of time for Helen to talk about it, if she wanted to. Paula
was trying to be as kind as she could to Helen. She knew that her company had helped to ease the loneliness of Helen’s separation.

Actually, Paula didn’t miss her uncle at all. It was nice that there were just the two of them in the house. She could waltz around in her nightdress in the mornings and spend as long as
she liked in the bathroom. Anthony was always nice to her but he was a bit dry and pompous. Helen, once she got over him, should go and find herself a man who enjoyed a laugh and a good time. She
was much too young to bury herself at home pining. Paula intended to see that she didn’t.

‘Did you meet anyone nice at school?’ Helen interrupted her reverie. She placed a mug of milky coffee and a plate of jam doughnuts in front of her. Paula took an eager bite out of
her doughnut. This would be a treat at home. Here in Helen’s it was commonplace. ‘I met a very nice girl called Jennifer Myles. I’m sitting beside her because her best friend,
Beth, had a very serious accident and she’s got to have lots of operations and things. She won’t be back at school for ages,’ Paula explained. ‘We came home on the bus
together. She lives in Wadelai.’

‘That’s not too far from here. If you want to invite her to the house anytime, or any friends you make, you’re welcome to do that, darling.’

‘I’ve joined the basketball team. I’m having a try-out tomorrow. Jenny introduced me to everyone. So I’ll be late coming home from school,’ Paula explained as she
licked her fingers to get the last bit of jam and sugar.

‘Here, have another one.’ Helen pushed the plate towards her. Paula didn’t know the meaning of the word diet, and didn’t need to know it either. She took one
enthusiastically.

That night she sat at the neat desk Helen had bought for her in her lovely cream and yellow bedroom. She was writing a letter to her mother and father. Paula had promised that she would write
each week and let them know how she was getting on. Her parents were particularly anxious to know how she liked her new school. Paula sighed. She couldn’t honestly say she was missing home,
because she wasn’t. But her mother would have been hurt if she knew that.

Paula loved being in Dublin and being with Helen. It was like a permanent holiday. She
did
miss her parents and her sisters and brothers. But she wasn’t dreadfully homesick. Far
from it. She didn’t miss St Margaret’s Bay one whit. She wondered if she was a bit odd. When her sister Rebecca heard that Paula was going to live with Helen and go to school in Dublin,
she told Paula that she’d hate to leave home and her family and friends to go to a big city and have to start at a new school where everyone was a stranger. And Rebecca was older than she
was! Paula didn’t see it like that. A new school held no fears for her. It was all a great adventure.

Paula felt that it was fated that she should come to live with Helen. That night when she’d had the brainwave, when she’d suggested it to her aunt, it had felt so
right
somehow. Her parents had been surprised, and a bit dismayed. But Paula pleaded with them. Wheedled and begged as only she knew how. She grimaced as she remembered the arguments and how terrified
she’d been that her parents would refuse to let her go.

‘You can’t just go and land in on top of Helen like that. It’s not fair on her,’ Maura argued.

‘Don’t let that stop her coming, Maura,’ Helen said quickly. She thought it was a wonderful idea. ‘I’d love her to come and live with me. It’s very lonely up
there on my own. I’d love Paula’s company and I’d take good care of her. But it’s a very big decision to make and I think you and she should talk it over. I’ll stay
down here for a few days and see what you decide,’ Helen suggested.