My Mother's Secret (18 page)

‘No, it doesn’t matter,’ agreed Roisin.

‘So they’re not in trouble, are they? Or are you angry with them because we’ve had a party but it’s sort of false pretences?’

‘Of course they’re not in trouble and of course I’m not angry,’ Roisin assured her, although inside she was seething. All her effort, all that planning! And in the end her mother had made a fool of her. She shook hands with the last of the guests, Eleanor Sherratt, who was a member of Jenny’s art group, and said she hoped that she’d enjoyed herself.

‘Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ said Eleanor. ‘Great fun. And nobody cares that Pascal and Jenny aren’t married, you know that, don’t you?’

‘I … yes,’ said Roisin. ‘We need to talk about it, that’s all.’

She closed the front door. Then she and Daisy walked back into the kitchen, where the remainder of the family, including Bernice and Summer, were still gathered. She wanted to say that they should all leave, but she was afraid of causing more upset, even though she didn’t think that anyone other than herself, Steffie and Davey should be here.

‘Where are Mum and Dad?’ she asked.

‘Aunt Jenny went upstairs while you were seeing people out,’ said Alivia. ‘I think she needed a moment.’

‘Dad went after her,’ added Davey.

Roisin rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers and smudged her mascara.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Steffie.

‘Why on earth didn’t they say something to us before now?’ demanded Roisin. ‘Why would they let us think … They must have been laughing at me all day.’

‘I’m sure they weren’t laughing at you,’ said Colette. ‘Actually, Uncle Pascal seemed to be having a great time.’

‘They should have told us,’ said Roisin. ‘We deserved to know. I mean basically, right now, the three of us are … Well, we’re the kids of unmarried parents.’

‘That’s no big deal,’ said Steffie.

‘At least your parents are still together,’ Alivia added.

‘I could kill her,’ said Roisin. ‘And him.’

Steffie and Davey exchanged glances. Both were wondering whether Roisin was more annoyed at learning of their parents’ deception, or at the fact that her carefully planned party had been ruined.

‘Somebody should go up and get her,’ said Roisin. ‘We need to hear an explanation.’

‘She’s already explained,’ said Steffie.

‘No she bloody hasn’t. She hasn’t given us any good reason for keeping quiet about it or for not getting married afterwards.’ It was Sarah who spoke, and she sounded angry. ‘She allowed our mother to make this huge fuss of her when she had her baby and the truth was it was illegitimate.’

Everybody heard Roisin’s sharp intake of breath.

‘Sorry, Roisin.’ Sarah looked at her apologetically. ‘I didn’t mean to call you an it. Or illegitimate.’

‘Although clearly that’s how everyone now thinks of me,’ said Roisin.

‘We’re all in the same boat,’ remarked Davey. ‘Although illegitimacy isn’t relevant these days, is it? Haven’t they done away with it as a legal situation?’

‘So what,’ said Roisin. ‘Mum and Dad should have got married and sorted it out properly, for our sakes as much as theirs, and the fact that they didn’t … well, why didn’t they? Do they not love each other enough? Is their entire relationship a sham?’

‘Of course they love each other,’ said Steffie. ‘They’ve still been together forty years, after all. You wouldn’t do that if it was a sham.’

‘I do not think this is something that is important.’ From her position leaning against the wall, Camilla’s clipped tones drew everyone’s attention. ‘Lots of people don’t get married. It shouldn’t matter.’

‘What matters is they pretended,’ said Roisin. ‘They lied. For forty years!’

‘It was probably for Gran and Grandad,’ said Steffie. ‘And after they died, it was too difficult to tell the truth.’

‘Bit of a shock, though, the way it’s happened,’ commented Bernice.

‘It wouldn’t have been as much of one if Jenny hadn’t blurted it out when she did,’ observed Alivia.

‘How about I put the kettle on,’ suggested Sarah. ‘A cup of tea will help.’

‘Why do grown-ups always have cups of tea when there’s trouble?’ asked Daisy.

‘It is a social ritual,’ said Camilla. ‘Social rituals are good at difficult times. Do you want me to help?’

Sarah looked at her without speaking. Then she nodded and they went into the kitchen together while everyone else moved to the veranda. Even though the rain was continuing to fall heavily, the outdoors area was still dry and warm.

I can’t believe this has happened, thought Roisin as she stared out into the garden, which was becoming more sodden by the minute. Why on earth couldn’t she have kept her mouth shut and not ruined my party? She managed it for forty years. Another few hours shouldn’t have been too much trouble!

Chapter 16

Sarah and Camilla made the tea in total silence. Camilla could see that the other woman didn’t want to talk, while Sarah was trying to keep a lid on the anger that was bubbling inside her.

She couldn’t believe that her sister and brother-in-law (although he wasn’t, was he; they weren’t related in law at all!) had managed to keep the secret for so long. And it didn’t matter that they might as well have been married, that they lived their lives as though they were. What was important was that they had let everybody believe in something that simply wasn’t true. They’d played them all for fools. Sarah had sent them a card every year on their anniversary. Sometimes she’d sent flowers too. And they’d never once told her not to bother, it was all a joke.

What was more, they weren’t sorry for the deception. Jenny seemed to think it was OK to have conned them all. She’d dropped her bombshell and gone upstairs so that she didn’t have to answer legitimate questions about her treachery. Yet they were entitled to question her. They were entitled to know what the hell she thought she’d been doing all these years. They were entitled to know why she’d lied.

And even more than the blatant continuous lies, Sarah thought, as she heated the catering-size teapot that Roisin had acquired for the day, more than that, in pretending to have come home from Rome as a married woman, Jenny had laid out a road map for how she and Lucinda were meant to behave and forced them to follow it. Her actions had coloured everybody’s future from the moment she’d walked in the door with her fake ring on her finger, and not in a good way, especially as far as Sarah was concerned. After the initial furore, and when Jenny and Pascal had left the house for his flat, Kay had asked Sarah to put the kettle on for some tea. Then they’d all sat in the small living room while her parents tried to make sense of the situation.

‘She should have said what they were going to do before she went,’ Kay repeated over and over. ‘We would have been able to tell everyone about the wedding.’

‘She’s pregnant,’ Sarah said. ‘She was pregnant before they got married. No wonder she kept her mouth shut.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Terry told her. ‘She’s done the right thing now. He’s done right by her. We’re fine. There won’t be any trouble.’

‘Well they went a very underhand way about avoiding trouble.’ Sarah replaced her cup on its saucer with a bang and splashed tea over the carpet.

‘Would you look at what you’ve done, missy!’ exclaimed Kay. ‘The good carpet. Get a cloth and clean that up right away.’

Sarah had been stung by the anger in her mother’s voice. She knew that most of it was indirectly meant for Jenny, but it wasn’t fair that she was experiencing it all the same. She went into the kitchen and returned with some kitchen towel.

‘Why are you using that?’ demanded Kay. ‘There’s a perfectly good cloth you can rinse out.’

‘What’s the point in us having kitchen paper if we don’t use it?’ retorted Sarah. ‘For God’s sake, Mam, wake up and smell the coffee.’

‘Don’t you talk to me like that,’ said Kay. ‘You’re still living under my roof and you’ll treat me with respect.’

‘But it’s all right for Jenny not to respect you, is it?’ asked Sarah. ‘Because she’s left?’

‘It’s not all right at all,’ growled Terry. ‘But there isn’t much we can do about it now, and her with her apostolic benediction and everything. I doubt she’d have got that if the Holy Father had known she was in the family way.’

‘We might be able to pretend,’ said Kay.

‘Depends on when the baby is born,’ Terry said.

‘So what you’re going to do is cover it all up!’ cried Sarah. ‘You’re going to say that she’s married and having a baby and everything is all right.’

‘It is,’ said Terry.

‘That’s so damn hypocritical.’ Sarah was incensed. ‘Not that I think bad things should happen to girls who get pregnant, of course they shouldn’t. But you’re saying one thing and doing something else.’

‘We’re not saying one thing,’ said Kay. ‘We’re saying that it’s all right to be married and having a baby.’

‘You’re unbelievable!’ Sarah stormed out of the living room, slamming the door behind her.

As well as being annoyed at her parents’ hypocrisy, she was equally mad with Jenny because she knew her older sister’s actions would have repercussions. And they did. From that day on, whenever Sarah went out, she was quizzed about who she was with and what time she’d be home. From time to time, Kay even phoned the houses of people she said she was with, ostensibly to ask her to pick up something from the shops on the way home, but in reality, Sarah knew, to check that she was where she’d said she’d be. As for boyfriends – they were all vetted carefully, and questions were asked about them as soon as it was clear that there was any kind of relationship at all. Things calmed down to a certain degree for Lucinda, of course. And then Lucinda had gone and got pregnant anyway!

Sarah sometimes wished she’d gone off the rails herself. That she’d rebelled and lied to her parents and got her friends to cover for her. But she hadn’t. She’d submitted to all their questioning and all their demands of her and become the daughter they’d always wanted. Compliant and obedient. Never breaking the rules. Always there when they needed her. Yet it hadn’t been enough to turn her into their favourite. From the moment Roisin was born, Jenny was back in favour. Kay would sometimes tell Sarah that she’d be lucky to find someone like Pascal, someone who worked hard and cared so much for his wife and child.

‘I was angry with them at first,’ Kay told her, after Jenny had come home for a visit, during which everyone was convinced Roisin had said the word ‘grandma’. ‘I thought she’d made a mistake. But I was wrong and I’m glad to be wrong.’

Sarah thought that less than a year after the Roman wedding (as everyone referred to it) was a bit soon to make that call. But she could see that Jenny and Pascal seemed happy together and that both of them cared for Roisin very much.

When she met James Mullens, she knew that she’d found someone to equal Pascal. James was much better-looking than her brother-in-law and his job as an architect was far more prestigious than that of a mere civil servant. He had plans to build his own house in Blessington, an up-and-coming town about fifteen miles south-west of the city. The site for the house had views over the lakes and was in an immeasurably better location, as far as Sarah was concerned, than the house her sister and Pascal had moved into.

And so, because he was better than Pascal in so many ways, Sarah decided that she would marry James Mullens and that they would have a huge wedding to which they’d invite absolutely everyone. And that it would live in the memories of the entire family, who’d know that she’d outstripped her sister at last.

‘They all hate me.’ Jenny was sitting on the edge of the bed with Pascal beside her. ‘I could see it in their eyes. And the neighbours couldn’t wait to leave.’

‘Nobody hates you,’ said Pascal. ‘They’re in shock, that’s all. And you could hardly expect Breege and Lillian and the rest to stay when you’d dropped your bombshell.’

‘I didn’t think it would be quite such a big deal,’ said Jenny.

‘For crying out loud!’ Pascal looked at her in disbelief. ‘It’s our ruby wedding anniversary party, and you’re telling them we’re not married. Of course it’s a big deal. It’s huge.’

‘I thought … I thought that in this day and age they’d be OK with it.’

‘I’m sure they will be eventually,’ said Pascal. ‘But it’s a lot for them to take in all the same.’

‘I know.’ Jenny sighed. ‘And you were right, like you always are. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘It was hard to listen to all those speeches and know that we’d lied,’ admitted Pascal. ‘And Jenny, it’s been as much my fault as yours that we didn’t tell anyone. There were opportunities over the years and I didn’t make us take them, even though I know as well as you that you can’t keep secrets for ever.’

‘I suppose it’s astonishing that we weren’t found out before now,’ said Jenny. ‘And of course we still have to—’

‘Jen!’ He gave her a warning look. ‘We’ve done enough today.’

‘But—’

‘You can’t say anything else. You really can’t.’

She covered her eyes with her hands, and when she spoke, her words were muffled. ‘I can’t not.’

‘But not today.’

‘If not, when?’

‘Tomorrow,’ said Pascal. ‘When we have Davey and Roisin and Steffie to ourselves. We can talk about everything then. We’ll all sit down together, and you and I can explain.’

‘I can’t wait until tomorrow.’ Jenny took her hands away from her face. ‘Not after this. I can’t go to sleep with another secret. We have to talk to Steffie. Or at least I do.’

‘You’ve already gone rogue on me once today.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not a good idea to do it again.’

‘She deserves to know.’ Jenny spoke with a quiet determination. ‘I’ll do it here. Now. By myself. It’ll be easier if it’s just the two of us. And then she can decide what to do.’

Pascal took a deep breath and released it slowly.

‘If that’s what you want,’ he said. ‘Though honestly, I think you’re making a terrible mistake.’

‘Pascal …’

But he’d walked out of the room and closed the door gently behind him.

Daisy, Poppy and Dougie had decamped to the den, where they were watching
Pirates of the Caribbean
on TV while the adults continued to discuss recent events on the veranda. Daisy hadn’t wanted to leave the scene of the drama, but Roisin had insisted she look after her siblings. Daisy had opened her mouth to protest, then seen the expression on her mother’s face and headed off to the den with her brother and sister.