Like One of the Family (41 page)

‘I've got to go or I'll miss my flight.'

She reached her arms to embrace him but he brushed past her and rushed away down the path without looking back at her, Jane sank down weeping on the bench and her shuddering sobs tore painfully at her newly healed ribs. Antonio was appalled to find her in this state when he came moments later into the garden.

Terry climbed the hill behind the apartment, his breath coming in jerky gasps. He had walked at top speed back from the hospital and stopped only briefly at the apartment before going out again and climbing to the promontory overlooking the sea. He was breathing hard when he got to the summit.

He threw himself down on the grassy knoll and stared down at the waves licking the rocks below, his thoughts thundering in his head. He was aware of a searing pain over one eye. All the events of his childhood, every family holiday appeared in a different guise in searchlight of this terrible new revelation. Seemingly innocent gestures took on hideous connotations and half-remembered phrases and scraps of overheard conversations became impregnated with new sinister meaning.

Terry rolled on to his stomach and buried his burning face in the cool grass. Now the meaning of Hugh's suicide became clear. A seemingly demented deed was a carefully carried out execution. With new respect for his dead brother, he saluted his unflinching courage. Poor Hugh. He had loved Claire too and defended her in the only way he could.

Terry rested his head on his arm and gave way to his grief. He cried for a long time: for his brother, his father and himself, and although he did not quite realise it, for lost innocence. When he finally shuddered to a stop it had grown late and the light had faded in the sky. Down below shadowy figures dragged a boat high on the sand.

Terry got to his feet, brushed grass from his uniform and, conscious of the passing time, made his way quickly down the hillside. Across the street from the apartment block was a line of taxis. He approached the first one in the rank bearing the sign ‘
libre
' and climbed into the back.

‘El aeropuerto, por favor...rápido
!'

As they careered along, Terry, his face strained and white, felt as though he had aged by one hundred years in the space of a single afternoon.

It was three days before Terry got an overnight pass and went home. They were, without a doubt, three of the grimmest days and nights he had ever spent. Not even the grief and horror of Con's death had had the devastating effect of his mother's revelation.

‘Off gallivanting again,' Dinny said good-humouredly as he signed Terry's pass. ‘Isn't it great to be young, I suppose it wouldn't have anything to do with that charming young lady you introduced to me last week?'

Terry forced himself to return Dinny's roguish grin but any mention of Claire these days was like acid on an open wound. As he drove towards the city his thoughts were gloomy. He longed to have it out with Claire and, at the same time, felt terribly afraid. What could she tell him that would ease the sick ache of disillusion? As the miles fell away under his wheels his spirits sank even lower and he was tempted to go back to the barracks and continue to uselessly sweat it out. Yet he had to hear it from her own lips.

Sheena and Ruthie were delighted to see him. They urged him to tell them everything about his trip but Terry could only think of Jane's face when she had revealed what she knew about Claire and his father, and he returned sparse answers to their questions.

‘You are in a mood,' Sheena said at last. ‘Claire is at a lecture and won't be home until late.'

‘Didn't you hear what I said?' she demanded, a moment later. ‘Claire's not here.'

‘Okay, so you've told me,' Terry went to turn on the television.

Sheena stared after him. ‘Have you two quarrelled?' she asked curiously.

Terry said nothing, just sat frowning and grimly flicking through the channels.

‘Honestly, Terry. I sometimes wonder about you,' Sheena exploded. ‘Claire could get anyone and here she is hanging about every night waiting for you, and when you do show you don't even want to know where she is.'

‘So she's eager to see you,' an unpleasant inner voice said. ‘Going to get a hell of a shock then, isn't she?'

He was standing in his mother's surgery looking out the window, long before he saw her turning in the gate. Then he went out to the hall with a grim expression and waited for her.

The key turned in the lock and Claire hurried in, her face glowing. ‘Terry! Terry!' she cried. ‘I saw the car. Oh if only I'd known! To think I've wasted the whole evening at a stupid old lecture.'

She dropped her books on the floor and ran to him laughing, but he held her off. She faltered and hung back.

‘Let's go upstairs where we can be private.' In silence, Terry led the way up to his room. But although the questions which had been troubling him since his return still remained to be answered he found that as soon as he was alone with Claire and the door closed behind them, he could only stare dumbly at her, not knowing where to begin.

‘What is it, Terry?' Claire whispered, frightened by his silence.

‘The older man,' Terry said, without preamble. ‘Who was he?'

Claire trembled. During the week she had gone over their last conversation many times in her head and only wished she had been braver and more honest with him, yet she still attempted to stave off the moment.

‘You said you wouldn't ask his name,' she said forlornly.

‘I need to be sure.'

He knew. Somehow he knew
.
Her heart felt like a piece of heavy lead. ‘How can you be so cruel as to ask,' she cried pitifully, ‘when you already know the answer.'

‘So it's true.' Terry gripped her arms and shook her. ‘You and my father...Oh but it's sick, really sick. A man more than three times your age.' Terry looked pretty sick himself.

‘I... I was only thirteen,' Claire gabbled. ‘I didn't know what I was doing,'

‘Go on,' he grimly prompted.

‘In the beginning I was drawn to him,' Claire admitted with painful honesty. ‘I couldn't seem to help myself. It was a kind of hero worship. I hung about hoping he'd notice me and when he did it quickly became physical. Later when I tried to get free of him he always came after me.' She swallowed with difficulty and continued bleakly, ‘Maybe if I'd been older I might have had some defence against him but I was lonely and he was nice to me.'

Terry seemed to be gathering himself for some great effort. ‘Are you saying you did with him what we do together?' He spoke slowly and painfully, ‘Not just let him kiss and fondle you... but the whole shebang?'

Claire nodded miserably. He had moved as far away from her as was possible in the small bed.

‘How could you, Claire?'' Terry said in a dazed voice. Disgust and horror blended in equal proportions. Claire began to tremble. How could she have thought he would ever accept it in the same light as his confession about Grainne.

‘How long?' he asked harshly. ‘How long did it go on for?'

‘Almost a year,' Claire whispered.

‘How did it end?' His voice shook. She could almost feel sorry for him if she did not already feel so desperately sorry for herself.

‘I became ill...' her voice tailed away. This was something that she had not allowed enter into her mind until now.

‘You didn't have a baby... you couldn't have. You were never away in those years except you came away with us.'

So he knew about that too. ‘I was... I had...' She couldn't say the word but she saw from his face that he was appalled.

‘Oh God!' Terry buried his face in his arm and groaned aloud. When he raised his head and looked at her she saw despair there and something else she was convinced was contempt. She put out a hand and touched his face gently, moved close to take him in her arms.

‘Try and forget,' Claire pleaded. ‘What's past is done with. Make love to me. I've missed you so.'

Terry allowed her to hold him and even kissed her a few times, but when he tried to make love to her, he couldn't. ‘It's no good.' He turned miserably away from her. ‘I can't do it.' He removed the condom nd flung it from him in disgust.

‘Do it without the condom,' she begged. She felt desperate to have him love her with his body, racked by a terrible dread that otherwise he would never do so again. She couldn't explain to him how she felt or her certainty that she would never get pregnant. That the things done to her had left her sterile.

‘No,' he said shortly. Not since that first unguarded night had he done it unprotected. ‘It's too dangerous.' He looked down at her moodily. ‘Anyway that's not it... My own father,' he said, unable to let it alone. ‘For God's sake, Claire, why didn't you tell me yourself instead of letting me hear it the way I did.'

‘You told me you didn't need to know his name,' she reminded him brokenly. Only one person could have told him. She was shocked to think that all along Jane had known about herself and Eddie. Oh but how could she have betrayed me? Claire thought in anguish, remembering all the older woman's protestations of affection.

‘I thought it was some guy in his twenties,' Terry said sullenly, ‘some crud that didn't matter... that I needn't...'

Claire pulled herself away from his side, shaken the shock of sudden revelation.

‘You're jealous of him. Jealous of your own father,' she cried. ‘You don't love me at all. You are just using all this as an excuse not to make love to me... to make me feel guilty.' Her voice broke on a sob. ‘Oh...I never want to see you again.' She had turned and run from the room before he realised her intention. He heard the muffled sound of her bare feet thudding on the carpet and the sharp click of her bedroom door closing after her.

Terry lifted his hand and rubbed it slowly across his eyes. It was true. He was jealous of his father, jealous as hell. Jealous of a corpse, he thought bitterly. He sat down on the edge of the bed and dressed himself with careful concentration, shoved a change of underwear and socks into his kitbag, and went downstairs and let himself quietly out of the house.

When the headlamps of the Rover swept the front wall of the house, he thought he glimpsed a pale blur at the upper window. Then he was scorching down the road in the direction of Baldonnel.

Claire turned from the window with a stricken look. He was gone. He hadn't even waited until morning to try and make things right with her. She climbed blindly into bed beside Ruthie and her eyes brimmed and overflowed in hot sorrow. It was the first time that she and Terry had slept apart since they had become lovers and she felt as bereft as any widow after a lifetime of sharing.

She got out of the bed again and, shaking with suppressed grief, crept along the landing to Terry's room. She gently closed over the door and slipped between the still warm sheets. With the scent of him all about her, her control finally broke and she let her sorrow take her and carry her. She lay half-buried beneath his pillow and sobbed with such terrible abandon.

Jane came home the following weekend. Terry met her at the airport and drove her to the house where the others were waiting. Claire stayed long enough to greet her and then slipped quietly back to her own house. She did not speak to Terry more than to nod hello, and though he stared at her as she turned away, he did not come after her.

Claire felt battered and dejected, her spirit bruised beyond healing. Now beyond tears, she felt as though every drop of moisture had been squeezed out of her. How could Jane have done what she did? She felt she could never trust another human being again. If Jane had set out to do it she could not have more effectively blighted her hopes of happiness. In all the years of her association with the McArdles, Claire had never blamed them for any of the misfortunes that befell her. Now for the first time she felt sorrowing resentment.

Claire kept herself busy. She had more than enough work to get through for her June exams. She was aiming for a first-class honour in English, but because of the extra reading her migraine had returned. She was eventually forced to cross the street and ask Jane to renew her prescription. In her present state begging favours from Terry's mother was the last thing she wished.

‘Of course, Claire. Nothing simpler,' Jane smiled at her earnest request. ‘But where have you been hiding all these weeks. I really wanted to thank you for staying here while I was away. You'll never know how much it meant to me.'

‘I was glad to,' Claire said woodenly. ‘You were always good to me.' Until you betrayed me. Oh how could you, how could you? Jane had been closer to her than her own mother.

‘Are you all right?' Jane's concerned voice reached Claire through the fog of misery surrounding her.

Claire nodded, unable to speak.

‘Oh you poor thing. Let me get you something.' She gently drew Claire towards her surgery. Claire wanted to throw off the encircling arm and at the same time, cling to the comfort it offered. All the misery she had felt on the night that she and Terry had broken up, returned to swamp her and she had difficulty keeping back the treacherous sobs gathering in her chest.

‘You are in a bad way, aren't you?' Jane said gently, and sat down with relief behind her desk to write the prescription. ‘This bandage I'm wearing makes me walk like a robot,' she joked. Claire tried to smile but failed miserably. She wished she hadn't come.

‘I suppose now is as good a time as any to talk about our plans for the summer,' Jane said, when she had handed Claire the slip of paper. ‘I can't get away to Spain until August but when I explained my dilemma to my cousin Anne she kindly agreed to go with you all. So there's really no reason why I shouldn't book the tickets now and then you and the others can head off the minute the exams end.'