Just Between Us (48 page)

‘Hugh hurt me, he should regret it and be sorry for it!’

‘You’re not a plaster saint, Rose Riordain,’ said Freddie
sternly. ‘Haven’t you ever done anything you regretted, that you felt sorry for?’

Freddie was the grand inquisitor now. ‘Holly.’ Even to her own ears, Rose’s voice was faint. ‘I let Holly down.’

‘How?’

‘I went through post-natal depression when she was a baby and it took me a long time to come out of it – years maybe.’ Rose closed her eyes against the pain of remembering. ‘I could barely manage to look at her and then, she grew up and she knew. I know she knew. She wasn’t like the other girls. Stella and Tara couldn’t wait to see me, to hug me and tell me everything but Holly was so self-contained, so distant, as if she knew I hadn’t loved her properly when she was a baby and couldn’t forgive me.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying so, that’s ridiculous,’ said Freddie briskly. ‘She didn’t know, she just sensed that you were different towards her. Children aren’t stupid. You were different to her and she reacted to that. She’s still reacting, I daresay. She was always the quiet one, watchful and silent. Gauging the world.’

‘It’s still my fault,’ said Rose, crying now.

‘Well, all you have to do is make it up to her. It’s up to you to go back and make amends.’

‘How?’

‘Tell her about it, be honest.’

‘I nearly told someone about it a few months ago,’ Rose said slowly. ‘A friend of mine, Minnie, she’s obviously depressed and I tried to get help for her but I wouldn’t let myself do the one thing that might have really helped. I couldn’t tell her I’d gone through crippling depression and that it was possible to come out the other side.’

‘How is she now?’ asked Freddie.

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Rose. ‘I haven’t phoned her since I’ve been here.’ Suddenly, she grinned. ‘You know, Freddie, all that’s left is for you to tell me I’m the Weakest Link.’

Freddie looked puzzled.

‘Never mind,’ said Rose. ‘It means that I’m suitably chastened.’

‘That wasn’t my intention,’ Freddie said honestly. ‘I love you, Rose, and I want you to be happy.’

‘I know.’ Rose leaned over and patted her aunt’s arm. ‘I suppose I have to walk these three hounds before dinner.’

At the word ‘walk’, Mildred, Prinny and Pig looked up expectantly.

‘Come on, girls,’ said Rose. She changed her shoes and headed out into the evening. She was looking forward to some time on her own. She had a lot to think about. So much of what Freddie had said had the painful ring of truth to it. She was right about meeting Hugh. Rose had to face him. As she hiked up the hill behind the house, with the dogs rushing delightedly in front of her, she made a decision: she’d stay with Freddie until her ankle was fully healed. Then, Rose would go home.

Tara negotiated the heavy traffic on the M50 roundabout with her mind only half on the job. At least she didn’t have the radio to contend with. Since Finn had left, she hadn’t been able to listen to the radio. Every song seemed to be about love and heartbreak, and Tara couldn’t cope with any of it. Even the funkiest dance tracks reminded her of some night out with Finn.

She realised she was in the wrong lane and tried to move over, receiving an irate blast on the horn from another driver.

‘Sorry,’ she waved a hand apologetically. Sorry for everything, sorry for living.

In her early days as a scriptwriter, Tara had written a script about someone who’d disappeared into thin air. Not vanished like a magician, but vanished in every other sense. At the time, Tara had thought it was a stupid storyline. People just didn’t disappear, she’d pointed out to Isadora.

Now, she knew that they could and did. To all intents and purposes, Finn had vanished on Monday night. It was now Thursday afternoon, nearly three terrifying days since she’d seen him. He hadn’t been in work, a fact which was clearly infuriating Derry, his boss, when Tara had humiliated herself by phoning the office.

And he hadn’t gone home to Four Winds and his parents, which Tara had discovered by clandestine means. She’d phoned the Jeffersons’ several times until Desmond answered instead of Gloria, then casually asked if she and Finn could take Desmond and Gloria out to dinner at the weekend.

‘That would be wonderful but I’ll have to check with the War Office,’ joked Desmond in his usual gentle way.

On the other end of the phone, Tara had gone white. Obviously Finn wasn’t with his parents, so where was he?

‘Desmond, I haven’t been telling you the truth. Finn and I have argued and he’s left me – I don’t know where he is. I thought he might be with you and Gloria.’

‘Oh Tara,’ was all Desmond could say sorrowfully.

That had been yesterday. Today, she was driving out to Four Winds to talk to her father-in-law to find out if there was anywhere else Finn might be. Gloria would be out and Tara fervently hoped that Desmond hadn’t mentioned this to her. She couldn’t ask, naturally. It was Desmond’s business what he told his wife.

Nobody at
National Hospital
knew what had happened either. Not even Isadora. Distraught, Tara had gone in to work as usual on Tuesday but looked so wild-eyed and white-faced that everyone assumed she was ill.

‘Don’t come in here if you’ve got the flu,’ said Tommy in horror as he met a ghostly Tara in the script room for the early morning meeting. ‘We don’t all want to catch it.’

‘You look terrible,’ Aaron agreed. ‘You should go home.’

Tara had taken the chance and left before she could bump into Isadora. Her closest friend would know that whatever ailed Tara, it wasn’t flu. Since then, she’d called in sick every day and sat numbly at home, waiting by the phone in between trying Finn’s mobile. She could no longer leave messages for him. The message service told her crisply that his message box was full. Was it full because he wasn’t listening to and deleting her tearful pleadings for him to come back? Or was it full because he hadn’t heard any of his messages, and was lying in the crumpled wreck of his car, injured and unable to phone for help? These were the thoughts that raced through Tara’s mind endlessly.

Seeing Four Winds basking in the afternoon sunlight made the pain in her heart more intense. She’d never driven here without Finn beside her, laughing and joking, trying to cheer
her up before seeing his mother. She’d give anything to turn the clock back so he could be beside her again. How differently she’d do things then.

Desmond came out to meet her. He looked so like Finn that Tara had to force herself not to cry. They embraced.

‘I’ve been in the shed working on some cuttings,’ Desmond said. ‘Would you like to see them?’

Tara had never been in her father-in-law’s inner sanctum before, so she said yes. Once inside, she could see why he preferred working in the shed to spending time in Gloria’s frosty domain. There was a worn old armchair with lots of springs sticking out of the back, and a big workbench with pots, plants and all manner of garden equipment. To Tara’s inexperienced eyes, it didn’t look as if Desmond had been doing much in the gardening department. She moved that day’s newspaper crossword from a stool and sat down.

‘No, please take the armchair,’ insisted Desmond gallantly.

‘I’m fine,’ Tara said. She waited for him to ask her what this was all about but he didn’t, and it occurred to Tara that there were many similarities between her husband and his father. Finn never wanted to discuss problems either. Or at least he hadn’t, until that last awful night.

‘Finn and I rowed on Monday night and it was bad. He said he was leaving me.’ Tara felt deeply ashamed to be saying this to Finn’s father. ‘We’d been having problems but this was my fault,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t heard from him since. He hasn’t been in to work, his mobile is turned off. Even Derry doesn’t know where he is, and I know that for a fact because Derry’s furious with Finn for missing some important meeting. I just thought you’d know where he’d go,’ she finished lamely.

‘I wish I could help, Tara,’ said Desmond. ‘But I can’t.’

His expression was one of sympathy rather than condemnation, which made Tara feel even guiltier. She didn’t deserve Desmond’s kindness. She’d cheated on his son, she deserved his disgust.

‘There must be somewhere he’d go, somewhere from childhood, some place I don’t know about,’ she said, desperate for any help. ‘I’ve tried all his friends, everyone, and nobody has a clue. Would he tell Gloria where he was going?’

Desmond’s smile was wry and more than a little bitter. ‘She’s the last person he’d tell,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d know that.’

Well, no,’ said Tara. ‘I don’t really know anything about Finn’s relationship with his mother at all. I just know that she loves him…’

‘Oh she loves him, all right. Too much,’ said Desmond. He got up and began fiddling round with some of the black pots on his workbench. ‘Gloria’s always been intensely involved in everything surrounding Finn but she’s like that, you know. She gets worked up about things. Finn and I are old hands at defusing her and keeping the peace when she gets wound up but it’s not always easy. It’s been harder since he married you,’ Desmond added, almost apologetically. ‘I know you can’t have failed to notice that she resents you.’

There was silence for a few moments as Tara digested this information.

‘I’d always thought that Finn got on well with his mother, that he handled her…intensity well.’

Desmond sighed. ‘I don’t think so, dear. He blanks it out really, that’s how he handles it. And since Fay went, it’s been worse.’ He turned around suddenly, cheered up as if he’d just cracked a particularly difficult cryptic clue in his crossword. ‘That’s it. Talk to Fay. She might know. He tells her things.’

Tara felt unbelievably sad to think that her husband told things to his sister, who lived thousands of miles and many time zones away, and said so little to her, the woman who’d shared his bed and his life. Why had she never probed him for details of his relationship with Gloria? It was clear that Gloria adored her son with an obsessive zeal that went over
and above normal mother-son relationships. Tara, with all her expertise at human relationships thanks to her work as a soap writer, had completely failed to see that this might affect Finn. She’d blithely accepted his cheery remarks that people ‘got used to’ Gloria. She remembered Christmas, before she’d realised that his drinking was out of hand, when he’d deliberately kept himself in a state of comfortable drunkenness to cope with the holiday. She should have known then. How had she missed all the signs? Was she so in love with the physical aspect of Finn that she’d failed to look any deeper?

‘You don’t want Gloria to know that Finn has disappeared, I presume,’ said Tara.

‘Hell no.’ Desmond looked alarmed. ‘Finn will be fine. He’s resilient. He obviously needs time on his own. When he was a kid, before we moved here, he used to hide in the attic. It wasn’t easy to get up there and he’d have to climb up onto the tank in the airing cupboard to get up where the water pipes ran into the attic, but he’d manage it. He liked peace.’

‘So you could say he’s run away before?’ Tara was clutching at straws.

‘Ask Fay.’ Desmond tore a piece of paper from the bottom of the newspaper and wrote an e-mail address on it. ‘You’ll like Fay,’ he said. ‘She’s a great girl.’ He looked dreamy-eyed and Tara felt overcome with pity for this lovely man who’d seen his daughter flee to the other side of the world, all because of his bitter, jealous wife.

Tara kissed Desmond on the cheek. She wanted to be long gone before Gloria came home on her broomstick.

Dear Fay,

You don’t know me but hopefully, you’ve heard of me. I’m Tara Miller, Finn’s wife. I know you’re probably wondering why I’m writing to you for the first time but I’m desperate. Finn and I have rowed and he’s left me. That was three days ago and I have heard nothing
since, which is so unlike your brother. He doesn’t hold grudges.

He hasn’t been to work and he’s not with your parents. (Your father knows what’s happened – he gave me your e-mail address – but your mother doesn’t.) Please, if you can think of any place Finn might have gone to, tell me. Or if he’s been in touch with you.

I am so scared. I don’t know what could have happened to him and I keep imagining the worst. I’ve rung all the hospitals and even the police, but because he walked out on me and because he’s an adult, they don’t consider it a missing person case.

Sorry for bothering you but I am desperate.

Tara Miller.

Tara reread the e-mail. It was not up to her usual standard, but who cared? She pressed ‘send’. All she had to do now was wait.

She couldn’t relax and logged onto her e-mail account every half hour to see if a message had come through. Finally, at half eleven, after an evening of flicking desultorily through the TV channels, she gave up. Fay could be away, out at work, anything. She might not want to respond to Tara; she might be fed up of family hassles. Wasn’t that why she’d emigrated in the first place?

In bed, Tara fell into an uneasy sleep where she dreamed of being on a sun-swept desert island. She was running through sand, trying to find Finn but he was always a few steps ahead of her, and her legs didn’t seem to work. She screamed Finn’s name but he didn’t turn round. ‘Finn!’

Tara’s own scream woke her up. Her heart was pounding and she was sunburn hot. Flicking on her bedside lamp to banish the demons of the night, she looked at the time. Half three. That was half six in the evening in California, or was it half seven? She logged on and there, winking at her, was a message from Fay Jefferson. It had been sent half an hour ago.

Hi, Tara,

Nice to meet you, Sister-in-law. Sorry it’s because of this. Do you mind me asking what you argued about? I don’t want to get into your personal lives but I think I can guess what part of the problem is. Finn and I have talked about it many times. By the way, Finn hasn’t been in touch with me but if he does, I will tell him to get in touch with you. I have to say that normally, he’s not the one to run away. That’s my job.

Adios,

Fay.

Still shaking from her dream, Tara typed rapidly.

Fay, are you still there? Can I phone you? Please?

Tara.

She didn’t disconnect the line and stayed near the computer, waiting. Seven minutes later, a single-line message arrived with a phone number.

‘Thank you, Fay, thank you,’ said Tara joyfully as she dialled.

Her sister-in-law answered on the third ring. ‘Hi, Tara, say it’s late for you, isn’t it?’ Fay’s Irish accent had mellowed into a soft Californian purr but Tara could still hear traces of Finn’s husky voice in there.

‘Hi,’ she said and burst into tears. ‘You sound like your brother.’

‘He’s done a lot of things but he doesn’t usually make women cry,’ Fay said gently.

‘No, that’s my fault,’ said Tara.

‘Why?’ asked Fay.

Tara told her, the real version, not the sanitised ‘we rowed and he left’ one. It never occurred to her not to tell the truth. She was desperate and this total stranger, Finn’s sister, was the only chance she had left.

‘That’s not what I expected,’ Fay said finally. ‘I guessed it was something to do with Finn’s alcoholism.’

Tara’s sharp intake of breath was audible. ‘His alcoholism?’ she said.

‘Ri-ight.’ Fay drew the word out into two syllables. ‘He hasn’t talked to you about it?’

‘Never, but I know. I’ve been so worried and every time we talk about it, he says he doesn’t have a problem but he does and oh, Fay, it’s been hell.’ Tara began to cry again, this time silently.

‘Tell me.’

Tara wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘When we first got married, I thought the problem was his job and all the schmoozing the sales team had to do,’ she said, her voice thick from crying. ‘It seemed as if Finn was always out late and home drunk. He was never bad tempered or anything when he drank, just different.’ She tried to find the right words to explain his distant state, the way he was still Finn but somehow different, as if he wanted to be miles away. ‘I began to hate him saying he had to entertain clients or anything with Derry.’

‘Oh, Derry, yeah.’ Fay laughed but there was no mirth in it. ‘I remember him.’

‘I hate Derry,’ Tara said tonelessly. ‘He’s a heavy drinker and even if Finn was going out for one pint of beer and he was with Derry, it ended up with them getting plastered. Then, Finn spent money from the bank account and we couldn’t pay the mortgage.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I confronted him. I was furious. He said it would be fine, he had this bonus coming, but it didn’t, and he kept drinking and I was so angry…’ Tara had been standing up and now she slumped onto the remaining armchair in the room. ‘That’s when I slept with this man I worked with. That’s not an excuse, Fay. Just because Finn drinks doesn’t mean I have to hop into bed with other guys.’