My Mother's Secret (23 page)

‘I hope she knows what she’s doing,’ muttered Roisin.

‘She’s competent enough.’ But Sarah didn’t sound entirely convinced.

Chapter 22

The exit had already been partly flooded when Steffie had driven out thirty minutes earlier, and for a moment she’d thought that her grand gesture of storming out of the house would be followed by a pathetic return after abandoning the Citroën at the gate, but she’d made her way through and, keeping in mind what had been said about the lower road being almost impassable, had turned up the hill.

That was as far as her clear-headedness went, because once she’d got on to the road, she wasn’t able to think at all. She drove randomly, with no idea of where she was going and what she planned to do when she got there. The only thought going round and round her head was that the foundations of everything she’d believed about her family and about herself had been totally shattered because her parents had systematically lied to her for her whole life.

Whatever their reasons had been for keeping their fake wedding a secret, not telling her about her real father was unforgivable. And that was something she could blame Pascal for too, because he could and should have insisted that Jenny tell her. It would have been a shock, of course, but a damn sight less of a shock than finding out at their surprise ruby wedding anniversary party. If nothing else, thought Steffie as she wiped her eyes with a tissue from the box on the dashboard, it proves that I’m right about surprise parties. They’re always a bad idea. Maybe Roisin will listen to me about things like this in future, not that we’ll be organising any more anniversary parties for Mum and Dad, given that they don’t have an anniversary to celebrate.

Dad, she thought. I shouldn’t call him Dad, because my biological father is a New Zealand sheep farmer and part-time nude model. Well, hopefully not a nude model any more, she acknowledged; he had to be in his fifties at least. She couldn’t see fifty-year-old models being all that popular on the painting circuit. She shuddered. Anyway, whatever he’s doing now, he doesn’t even know I exist. Mum never told him. She never even tried to tell him, which was the one part of this sorry debacle Steffie really understood.

She shook her head. Her mother had been totally in the wrong, and despite the fact that she hadn’t tried to make excuses, Steffie wanted neither to understand nor forgive her. No matter how hard she tried not to, she couldn’t help visualising the man Jenny had described to her. Tall and blond and attractive, with his ripped abs and desirable body. Someone her mother hadn’t been able to resist. Someone she’d been passionate about. Passionate about enough to cheat on her husband with. Steffie felt her stomach sink. Her parents had been so solid. And yet that had been nothing more than an illusion. She stifled a sob. Nothing was real. Least of all who she was.

She felt as though she was crumbling inside, that the layers of the person who’d been Steffie Sheehan were peeling away from her and leaving someone else behind. Someone who was different to everyone else in her family. Someone who was a permanent reminder to both Jenny herself and Pascal that Jenny had betrayed him. How can Pascal even look at me without feeling angry? Steffie asked herself. And how can my mother look at me without thinking about sneaking away to have sex with a stranger? How can I be a proper part of the family when I’m nothing more than the cuckoo in the nest?

Tears leaked down her face, blurring her vision even more than the rain beating against the windscreen. It was becoming increasingly difficult to see, even with the wipers on full. Part of her was beginning to regret having driven off, but how could she have stayed, knowing that everyone would be looking at her and realising her cinnamon-blond hair was a legacy from the unknown sheep farmer and not, as she’d always thought, the product of having a fair-haired mother and a dark-haired father.

And is that why Roisin and I are so different too? She sniffed and wiped her eyes with her balled-up tissue. After all, Roisin is organised and capable, like Dad. And Davey has become that way. But the sheep farmer sounds like someone who drifted around, shagging whatever woman came his way. Perhaps that’s why I keep hooking up with the wrong men. Perhaps my legacy is not caring enough about the people I’m with. So I’ve got that from him and from Jenny – well, Jenny was totally selfish. And Roisin often says I’m selfish too. So clearly I’m more like my mother than I realised. I’m destined to live down to people’s expectations.

And what are they thinking about me now? she wondered. No doubt they’ve been told that I’m not who they thought I was. Roisin is probably deciding that it’s because I’m not Dad’s daughter that I’m not the person she wants me to be. The rest of them – maybe they’re feeling sorry for me. Maybe they’re thinking that I never properly fitted in at all. I’m not as much a part of the family as I believed. I’m an outsider.

A sudden increase in the volume of rain beating against the windscreen made her gasp and pushed all thoughts of people and their personalities out of her head. Driving in these conditions was scary. She couldn’t keep going for much longer. But she couldn’t turn back either.

The Citroën’s headlights cut through the grey gloom of the evening. Normally, in August, it would simply be dusky at this time, but it was practically dark by now and the shadows of the surrounding trees and hedgerows danced in front of the headlights, while the rain continued to sluice down from the sky. The occasional roll of thunder in the distance made her jump each time she heard it, and she turned on the radio to drown it out.

The station was playing a mournful love song, full of broken hearts and hopeless longing. The plaintive music suited her mood. She suddenly felt like a character in a horror movie – the stupid girl alone in her car not knowing that there are ghouls and vampires and potential murderers on the loose. OK, so she didn’t believe in ghouls or vampires, but it was kind of creepy being out here by herself. She wished someone was with her. She wished she didn’t feel so completely alone.

Colette turned right out of the gates and towards the lower road. She didn’t mind driving in difficult conditions – in fact she enjoyed the challenge – but there was no doubt that this was the most violent rainstorm she’d ever experienced. Nevertheless, she felt secure in the Santa Fe and comforted by the fact that Davey was in the passenger seat beside her.

She glanced at him but he was looking away from her, out of the window. His profile was sharp and defined and his dark hair curled over the collar of his shirt, damp from the brief run from the house to the car. He hadn’t changed at all, thought Colette. He was still one of the best-looking men she’d ever known. Better-looking than any of her three fiancés. Better-looking than the most recent guy she’d broken up with, long before there was any talk of commitment or engagements. She wondered how it was that her cousin had managed to evade the clutches of a woman for so long. She thought about the very beautiful Camilla Rasmussen and sighed. She’d realised a long time ago that she didn’t have the kind of looks that girls like Camilla had. Her face was simply average, with a nose that was slightly too big and eyes that were a little too narrow. During her goth period she’d festooned her conk with piercings and nose rings and used masses of kohl on her eyes. She still had the marks of the piercings and she still used kohl, although not as extravagantly. Being a goth had worked for her for a few years but she’d grown tired of the entire subculture and hating the world. She’d added pinks and blues to her hair and then eventually had left the whole monochrome look behind. Now she’d gone with rockabilly, which allowed her to embrace her curves and her love of high heels. But nobody would ever call her glamorous or elegant. Not ever. In comparison to his girlfriend, she thought, Davey must think of me as an elephant.

She shot him a glance, anxious that he might be able to somehow read her thoughts. But of course Davey Sheehan had never read her thoughts. Because if he had, he’d have known that ever since the summer she and her brothers had stayed at Aranbeg, she’d been in love with him. Miserable though her unrequited affection had made her, it had been the only saving grace of an even more miserable summer. She’d known there was something wrong between her parents. She’d been convinced that she and the boys had been shipped away to give them time to fight in private. Because it was all they seemed to do those days. Sarah would do something and James would pick a fight over it, and vice versa. It was exhausting and she hated it. But she hated even more being away from them and not knowing what was happening. Aunt Jenny and Uncle Pascal had been kind to them all, but Colette hadn’t wanted to be there. And she was driven demented by Steffie, much younger than her and nothing more than a child, who’d wanted to be friends and who questioned her incessantly about everything she did and poked around her room wanting to inspect her clothes, her books and her portable CD player.

That was what had led to the incident in the apple tree, when she’d pushed Steffie and she had tumbled from the branches on to the grass below. Colette had nearly died of fright when she’d seen her fall but at the same time she’d been furious with the younger girl, who’d somehow managed to get hold of her diary. Colette’s big fear was that she’d read it. And read what she’d written about Davey.

You are the one
, she’d scrawled in her big, looping hand.
You’re the one who lights up a room every time you walk into it. You’re the one who makes my day better. You’re the one who understands me. Because nobody else does
.

It was true. Davey had been lovely to her that summer. Despite being five years older and practically a grown-up, he’d treated her as an equal. He’d sat and talked to her about friends and family, school and holidays, cars and movies. He was easy to talk to. He didn’t patronise her like her brothers. He didn’t sound perpetually annoyed with her like her mother. And despite their age difference, she’d fallen in love with him and thought that he might have fallen in love with her too. She’d hoped that he’d wait for her until she was the right age for him. She’d almost convinced herself until the day Dervla Murphy had shown up and Davey had told Colette he couldn’t go into town with her because he was spending the day with Dervla instead.

Dervla was an elegant brunette who lived in one of the neighbouring houses. Her family had been to the Canaries for three weeks. Now they were back and Colette realised that Davey had been kind and friendly to her, but that he was in love with (or at least fancied) Dervla Murphy. When Davey and Dervla were together, there was a completeness about them that wasn’t there when she was with him. She could see it. And it mortified her to think that she had, even for a moment, believed that her cousin could possibly be in love with her. She knew nothing about love. She was an idiot.

And I never really learned, she thought as she slowed down at the flood water. I managed to think I’d found it three times, but I hadn’t. Because nobody has ever lived up to Davey Sheehan. Nobody ever will, and the worst part of it all is that he’ll never know that.

‘Oh my God, she couldn’t have got through this.’ Davey was staring out of the windscreen at the flooded road.

‘If she came this way she must have,’ said Colette. ‘Otherwise her car would be stuck here.’

‘That’s true,’ he conceded. ‘I was being stupid. Thank God you’re logical.’

Maybe that had been the problem, thought Colette. She’d treated Davey like a friend. She hadn’t batted her eyes or said silly things or looked adoringly at him like Dervla had done. And so he’d never seen her as someone he could love, only someone he could talk to. He saw her as a logical person, not an emotional one. Not that it should matter now. She was, of course, long over him. It was just … there were some things you couldn’t put behind you completely. And for her, Davey was one of them.

Back at the house, the family had divided up into various groups. Sarah, Jenny and Lucinda were sitting together in the living room. Paul, Pascal and Carl were in the kitchen. Poppy and Dougie were in the small annexe to the living room, watching a Disney movie. Roisin and Daisy, together with Alivia, Camilla and Bernice, were on the veranda. Summer was also on the veranda but she was standing apart from the others, engrossed in her mobile phone.

‘D’you think Aunt Steffie is OK?’ Daisy asked her mother.

‘Of course I do,’ said Roisin, who was trying to work out how on earth she could fix everything that had gone wrong today but not coming up with any kind of sensible plan.

‘Because Poppy said that you all nearly drowned coming back from the hospital. What if Aunt Steffie nearly drowns too?’

‘Poppy was exaggerating. And Aunt Steffie can look after herself,’ Roisin said.

‘But her car isn’t as good as Bernice’s,’ said Daisy.

‘She was silly to go out in the rain but there’s no need to worry.’

‘Your Aunt Steffie will be perfectly all right.’ Bernice’s words were calm and gentle.

‘She should’ve taken her phone,’ Daisy said. ‘I never go anywhere without mine. Mum won’t let me. She says it’s so she can keep track of me. I don’t like her always keeping track but it would be a good idea for Aunt Steffie right now.’ She looked defiantly at her mother.

‘It would,’ agreed Roisin. ‘But Aunt Steffie is a grown-up. She’ll be fine.’

If it was me out there, that’d be true, thought Roisin. Because I can cope. That’s what I do. But Steffie – she’s hopeless. And I’m not sure she’ll be fine at all.

‘She’ll be fine.’ Sarah echoed Roisin’s words as she patted Jenny on the shoulder. ‘She’s a sensible girl.’

‘No she’s not,’ said Jenny. ‘She’s a dreamy and impulsive girl. She’s got her head in the clouds half the time. She does daft things and she’s not thinking straight right now.’

‘At least you know she gets all that from you and not the nude model.’ Lucinda couldn’t help herself.

‘Oh shut up, Luce,’ said Jenny tiredly.

‘You should’ve told us the truth about you and Pascal,’ said Sarah. ‘It would’ve made such a difference.’

‘How?’ asked Jenny.