Just Between Us (37 page)

Rose, who had envisioned the following day as more a meander through old memories, nodded.

‘Night, Freddie.’

She prepared for bed in the small, deep blue bathroom and used some of Freddie’s carrot moisturiser because she’d mysteriously forgotten her own. An old glass-fronted cabinet hung on the bathroom wall and inside were all sorts of interesting mementoes, including some pretty silver cigarette cases, a tiny enamelled medal and a very old, empty bottle of Chanel No 5. Rose wondered who had given it to Freddie and why it was so precious that it had been kept when the scent had long since vanished. Had it been a gift from the married lover fifty years before?

In her bedroom, she changed into a nightie and slipped between the cool cotton sheets. The bed was as hard as the hob of hell and Rose felt like the Princess and the Pea as she tried to get comfortable. But suddenly sleep came and despite the hard boards beneath the mattress, she slept deeply and dreamlessly.

‘Tea,’ announced Freddie, arriving in the room the next morning with her retinue of dogs making a tap-dancing racket as their claws clicked on the tiled floor.

Rose sat up in bed, unsure of where she was until Freddie opened the curtains and sunlight streamed into the room, illuminating the floral mural on the wall opposite the bed.

‘Did you sleep?’

‘Really well, actually.’ Rose took the mug of tea and sat back against the pillows, revelling in the luxury of being brought tea in bed. Freddie’s tea was the colour of peanut butter or ‘strong enough for a duck to trot across,’ as she said herself. But today, it was revivingly sweet and familiar. Rose remembered her mother loving strong tea too, real tea, not tea bags.

‘What time is it?’ she asked.

‘Half six. Tater than I usually get up. On Sundays, I bring the girls for a bit of a jaunt round the Sally Woods, then go for breakfast in O’Malley’s and then on to help with the meals on wheels dinner.’

Rose, who was many years younger, wondered how her aunt managed this punishing schedule. Her idea of a relaxing Sunday involved breakfast, Mass in the cathedral, and home to peruse the newspapers at her leisure.

‘Are you on for a walk?’ Freddie looked very keen.

‘Yes,’ said Rose decisively. In for a penny, in for a pound.

The bit of a jaunt round the Sally Woods turned out to be an energetic three-mile hike up a tiny road, then up a very steep hill to a beautiful glade of willow trees and back. The dogs bounced around delightedly, burying their noses in tufts of grass and running into streams before dancing
out again and shaking their fur. Rose’s mental clock kept tuning in to Kinvarra time. Now, she and Hugh would be sitting in the kitchen, listening to the Sunday morning news and eating breakfast: toast for Rose, porridge for Hugh.

A cluster of wild bluebells made her think how lovely they’d look on the kitchen table, before she remembered she wasn’t in Kinvarra.

‘Let it go, Rose,’ advised Freddie gently, seeing Rose’s face cloaked in the pain of remembering. ‘Enjoy your time here. You haven’t burned your bridges yet, you can still go back. So relax.’

Rose, unable to speak, nodded. She would do that, she would. She’d do her best to forget about the pain of the past twenty-four hours. This was to be her healing time and she wanted to enjoy it.

‘Some bluebells would look nice in the bathroom,’ she said, bending to pick a few of the fragile stems.

Freddie grinned. ‘Yes, they would.’

For once, Holly didn’t cook. Instead, she made a big pot of coffee and put it in front of Stella and Tara with a packet of chocolate biscuits in case anyone was hungry. Stella, who tended to comfort eat when she was upset, took two biscuits. Tara took a cup of black coffee without sugar. She wouldn’t be able to force a biscuit down.

Unusually, neither of them noticed the newest addition to Holly’s apartment: a foot-high stone angel that Tom had brought her from a building he was working on. The angel was cracked and would be of no use to an architectural salvage company, but Tom had known that Holly would love it.

‘It’s beautiful. How did you guess I liked angels?’ she gasped with delight when he’d carried it into the flat. She ran her fingers over the angel’s radiant upturned little face and through the carefully carved curls, loving the feeling of the smooth stone. One wing was very chipped but Holly didn’t care. It was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever given her.

‘Lucky guess,’ said Tom, beaming.

Holly touched her angel for luck before she sat down on the small couch and faced her sisters. It was a Miller sister council meeting to discuss what they were going to do with their parents.

It was Tuesday evening, three days after the cataclysmic events of the ruby wedding anniversary. In those three days, the sisters had spoken to their mother several times by phone.

She’d sounded calm and convinced she’d done the right thing. She’d also said she was enjoying the relative calm of Castletown.

‘Freddie’s always on the go and there are people dropping in to the cottage at all hours, but, because they’re not here to see me, it’s strangely relaxing,’ Rose said.

Their father was another matter.

He had gone to pieces. Alastair Devon was on the phone every day telling Stella that Hugh was a broken man and begging one of the girls to move back to Kinvarra and take care of him. Stella, torn between loyalty to her mother and concern for her father, and not sure how she’d manage to put her life on hold to return to Kinvarra, had mentioned this to Hugh. He’d said he wouldn’t dream of it.

‘It’s my bed,’ he said in a faint voice that seemed a pale comparison of his usual booming tones. ‘I have to lie on it. I’m just so sorry for all the hurt.’

‘We’ve got to make them see sense,’ Stella said now, taking another chocolate biscuit. Of the three of them, she was the most shocked by their parents’ split. In one fell swoop, Hugh and Rose’s supposedly deliriously happy marriage had been proved to be a sham. At night, Stella found herself going back over events in her childhood, trying to remember if she’d just imagined the happiness. Every seemingly ‘perfect’ moment was suspect and her blind acceptance of this happy family image made her even doubt her own judgement. How could she not have seen what was going on?

‘What I don’t understand,’ said Tara, putting down her empty cup and refilling it, ‘is how we never knew. Well, me and Stella, anyway.’

‘You should have told us, Holly,’ said Stella for what seemed to Holly like the millionth time. On Saturday night, the three girls had sat up and talked for hours. Holly had given Stella and Tara the second shock of the day when she revealed that she’d known about their father’s dalliances, or rather, about one of them.

‘I knew years ago,’ she’d said, almost apologetically. She hated telling them.

The others gasped. ‘You knew?’ said Tara, astonished.

Holly shrugged.

‘But why didn’t you tell us or Mum?’

There was no easy way for Holly to answer that question. Her loyalties were slightly different from Stella and Tara’s. She’d always adored her father. Hearing him murmuring endearments on the phone to a woman clearly not her mother had shocked her sixteen-year-old soul, but she still loved him. She didn’t want him to split up with her mother, which was what happened when people went off and had affairs. So Holly had kept the secret to herself. She’d never had any evidence of any other affairs, but even so, she’d always known that she hadn’t been mistaken in what she’d heard.

‘How could I tell you?’ Holly demanded now, taking a chocolate biscuit herself. ‘
By the way, guys, Mum and Dad aren’t happily married after all
. You wouldn’t have believed me. And when I was older, I assumed you’d known all along; that it was only me who didn’t. You’re both closer to Mum. I thought I was the only one who wasn’t in on the secret.’

‘Why didn’t she tell us?’ Tara was maudlin. ‘We could have talked to Dad and made him see sense. We still can…’

‘Maybe if Dad stopped being defeatist and went to Aunt Freddie’s to see Mum,’ added Stella hopefully.

Holly stared at her sisters in exasperation. ‘We can’t fix it, it’s not ours to fix,’ she said fiercely. ‘To think everyone tells me
I’m
the naive one.’

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ admitted Tara.

Tara felt this great weariness that everything in her life was falling apart. Finn hadn’t apologised for what he’d said in Kinvarra. He hadn’t been drinking since, although the atmosphere was as tense as if he was sinking a bottle of brandy a night. She felt powerless to say anything. Her ability to deal with life had vanished along with her conviction
that her parents adored each other. Everything felt upside down. She knew that as a grown-up, she should be able to deal with this because after all, lots of people’s parents split up. But it just wasn’t that easy.

Stella finished the biscuit and promised herself she wouldn’t have another one. Holly was right. They couldn’t fix Hugh and Rose’s marriage any more, she thought wryly, than Jenna could make Wendy and Nick Cavaletto love each other. At least she was one step closer to understanding her stepdaughter. When the chips were down, she and Jenna had reacted in exactly the same way: clinging blindly to the belief that they could make it all better.

‘If we’re all agreed that it’s not up to us to get them back together, we should take it in turns to see Mum and Dad, so they know we love them and we aren’t taking sides,’ said Holly decisively. ‘And to make sure that Dad’s all right. Somebody’s got to show him how to use the washing machine.’

Tara and Stella looked at their little sister in admiration. This was a new side to Holly they’d never seen before. She was taking the initiative and doing the right thing. Both Tara and Stella were aware that their initial instincts hadn’t been anywhere near as clear-headed as Holly’s.

‘I’ll take Saturday off and go to Dad’s on Friday night,’ Holly said decisively. Both of her sisters flinched at the use of the word ‘Dad’s.’ It was as if Kinvarra wasn’t their family home any more, but was part of some complicated separated family set up. The magic that had surrounded Meadow Lodge in their minds had disappeared.

‘I suppose you’re right,’ Stella said. ‘That’s all we can do: wait, be supportive and hope they come to their senses.’

When Stella and Tara had gone, Holly didn’t bother tidying the cups away. Instead, she put a much-loved Ella Fitzgerald CD on and lay on the couch. As Ella’s soft voice warmed her heart, Holly thought about her sisters’ reaction to their parents’ split. Both Tara and Stella wanted to do something. Holly had never entertained such an idea. Was
she being realistic or was she a bad daughter for not moving heaven and earth to get them back together?

Joan stuck her head round the door. ‘Council of war over?’ she asked.

Holly grinned, glad of the distraction. ‘Yeah. Come on in.’

‘Oh, biscuits,’ said Joan joyfully, swooping on the unfinished pack on the coffee table. She wolfed two in thirty seconds, and took a third for good measure.

Joan was working hard on her final year collection and working all night was par for the course. She was also consuming lots of coffee and high-energy snacks, neither of which were doing anything for her skin. She was pale and a fat spot lurked miserably under the skin on her forehead, waiting to appear at the most inconvenient moment possible.

‘Will I make you a fruit smoothie?’ asked Holly kindly.

‘Go on,’ sighed Joan. ‘Anything to stop me eating chocolate biscuits.’

While Holly chopped up fruit and whizzed it around in her blender with some orange juice, Joan lay back on the couch with her eyes closed.

‘Here you are.’ Holly sat on the edge of the couch and handed Joan the smoothie. She really must make a pot of chicken soup for Joan to heat up when she worked all night. Chicken soup cured all ills. ‘How’s the collection going?’ she asked tentatively.

Joan rubbed her eyes before she took a sip of the pulped fruit drink. ‘Not bad but I’ve got two weeks of work to do and only one week to do it in.’

‘If you want any help, ask,’ said Holly. ‘You know I don’t mind and I know I’m not as good as you, but…’

‘You’re miles better than me,’ interrupted Joan. ‘If I could appliqué and embroider as well as you, I’d be much faster. Actually, I’ve got a vest top that needs beading and it would be great if you could do it for me. I’ve traced the design on with tailor’s chalk, it’s a sunflower thing, really simple.’

‘No problem,’ said Holly, happy to be able to help. ‘I’ll start now. There’s never anything good on the box on Tuesday evenings, I’d love something to do.’

‘Whoa, girl, you’re not doing it tonight,’ said Joan enigmatically. She finished the drink. ‘We’re going out. There’s a great gig on in the Olympia. You know Fiona from my year? Well, her brother is the guitarist in the support band and we’re going to watch them. You on for that?’

‘I thought Fiona’s brother was in a metal band?’ said Holly suspiciously, preferring the idea of a quiet evening in with some beading to a night of eardrum-bashing metal in the company of hundreds of head-bangers.

‘I’ve got earplugs for both of us,’ Joan smiled winningly. ‘Say you’ll come. There’s going to be a crowd from college, Kenny and Tom are going to come too.’

‘Count me in,’ said Holly quickly.

The four of them got a taxi and Kenny made them all laugh with a story of his latest fashion shoot where it had taken three hours to get everything right, including lighting, and then, just as the photographer was ready to start, the electricity had gone. His first shoots had gone so well that two photographers had passed on his name to fashion editors and Kenny was now working as a stylist at least twice a week.

‘You’re not going to be too busy to style my collection in the end of year show, are you?’ asked Joan.

Kenny adopted his outraged fashionista expression: eyebrows raised, lips pouting, wrist limp. ‘Darling, I’m up to my tonsils but I’ll try and squeeze you into my organiser,’ he lisped. ‘Seriously,’ he dropped the camp stylist act and grinned at his flatmate, ‘do you think I’d miss your show, you big dope? Course I’ll do the styling. You don’t have to ask.’

Outside the Olympia, Joan’s friends congregated, most of them clearly fashion mavens from their achingly trendy clothes. Kenny, who was one of them, was welcomed into the pack with open arms and even Holly, who was wearing
one of Joan’s graffiti-ed T-shirts over jeans, felt that for once, she fitted in.

The madly chattering group surged in the doors and Holly found herself at the back of the crowd beside Tom.

‘How’s Caroline?’ asked Holly. She found it was easier to talk about Caroline first, rather than to wait for Tom to mention her. Whenever he said her name, Holly felt that pinprick of pain in her heart, so she’d come to the conclusion that attack was the best form of defence. Consequently, she cheerily asked what Caroline was up to, how the job was going, when was she coming to Dublin next, all in a chatty, friendly voice that, she hoped, gave no hint of the ache behind the questions.

‘Fine, she’s working away like a demon,’ Tom responded. ‘She’s all fired up about buying a new car. She’s had a test drive in just about everything that moves and she’s got her eye on this BMW coupé.’

‘Wow,’ said Holly, imagining Caroline with her blonde hair flying in the breeze, attracting wildly envious glances from male drivers as she whizzed along. You couldn’t get the same effect with a double-decker bus, Holly knew, although her hair did fly sometimes when the bus driver let it rip on one of the bus corridors.

‘How are you?’ asked Tom. ‘I haven’t seen much of you, lately. How’s your angel?’

‘Lovely, thanks. She’s beautiful. I’ve just been busy, you know. I applied for a job in the interior department, I mean, I haven’t got it or anything, I just thought it would be nice for a change…’ Holly added lamely, thinking how hopeless she sounded. Tom’s girlfriend was a business woman with her own flat and a sports car in her sights, and she was telling him about her own tiny career leap from the basement in Lee’s to the third floor. Whoopee. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to drone on.’

‘You’re not droning on, I want to hear all about it,’ said Tom softly.

‘Holly!’ squealed a voice.

Joan appeared from the throng, dragging a tall guy by one arm. The guy was laughing but he wasn’t resisting too much.

‘Holly,’ said Joan triumphantly, ‘this is Fiona’s other brother, Vic, not the one in the band. He said he’d love to meet you.’

Holly smiled nervously.

‘Nice to meet you too,’ she said.

The guy moved easily beside her, conveniently ignoring Tom. He wasn’t as tall as Tom, Holly noticed. She’d found herself comparing all men to Tom these days, but Vic still managed to be attractive in an intense way. He didn’t look as if he could possibly be related to Fiona, because she was pale and freckled with features straight off a Discover Ireland poster, while he was sloe-eyed with slanting cheekbones, sallow skin and shaggy, uncombed dark hair.

‘Victor Dunne,’ he said, shaking her hand, ‘known to all and sundry as Vic.’

‘Holly Miller,’ she said, blushing. ‘And this is Tom Barry.’

‘Hi, Tom.’ Vic flashed a smile at Tom and turned back to Holly.

Taking the hint, Tom followed Joan, leaving Vic and Holly on their own.

‘Don’t go…’ began Holly, but Tom had disappeared down the foyer steps towards Kenny.

‘I saw you before, actually, in the Purple Mosquito a few weeks ago,’ Vic said. ‘You were talking to that guy, Tom. I thought he was your boyfriend.’

‘No, he’s a friend,’ Holly said quietly, still scanning the people ahead for Tom. He must have got his ticket and gone in. She felt embarrassed at how he’d rushed off. Why had he done that?