Putting Out the Stars (41 page)

‘Hello?’

Breffni listened to the silence in the hall, then Cian again: ‘Hello?’ Another silence, then she heard him hanging up.

‘Must have been a wrong number. I hate when they just hang up like that; they could have the manners to say something.’ He sat back down on the couch and picked up his paper. She
bent her head, pretending to be engrossed in her book. A few minutes later, the phone rang again. She jumped up.

‘I’ll go this time.’

Her hand shook as she reached out for the phone. ‘Hello?’ She prayed her voice would sound normal to Cian.

‘Breffni, what’s wrong? Why –’

‘Sorry, wrong number.’ She hung up quickly and took a deep breath before removing it from the hook. Then she wiped her palms on her jeans and opened the kitchen door.

‘Same again. I’ve taken it off the hook for a while. I’m just going up for a bath.’ She barely managed to keep the tears from falling until she’d closed the
bathroom door softly.

And in Frank’s house, the phone began to ring and he stood up to answer it. As he spoke, and listened, and shook his head briefly, his placid expression changed to mild
bewilderment, before his whole body stiffened with shock, and he put one unsteady hand to his mouth. After a few minutes, no more, he nodded once, picked up a pen from the table, scribbled on the
notebook beside it. Then he replaced the receiver gently and stood leaning heavily against the wall, hands over his face, shoulders slumped.

‘Only me.’

Breffni dropped the tea towel onto the worktop and turned to face the kitchen door. ‘In here.’

Cian appeared, went over to kiss her. ‘Hi, babe.’ He dropped his briefcase and looked around the kitchen. ‘Where’s Poll?’

‘Mary took her; she’ll bring her back later.’ Breffni’s heart was thumping; she picked up the tea towel again and wiped her damp palms. ‘Want a drink?’

‘I’ll get it. You?’ Cian opened the fridge and took out a beer can, waving it in Breffni’s direction.

She shook her head, indicated the worktop. ‘I have wine.’ Her second big glass; she needed a buzz for this. She picked up the glass and took a big swallow.

‘You OK?’ He walked over and put a hand on her shoulder.

She nodded, then shook her head. ‘Sit down, will you? There’s something I need to tell you.’

He felt his heart sink to the floor as his daughter’s face flashed into his head.

Frank looked at the house, checked his piece of paper.
This one.
He opened the gate and walked up the drive, conscious of the noise his footsteps were making. They
sounded so firm, as if the person taking them knew exactly where he was going.

No indication that he was more nervous than he ever remembered being in his life.

He reached the door, pressed the bell quickly, before he had a chance to change his mind and walk away from God knew what was waiting for him inside.

When the door opened, his first thought was
but I know her.
Reddish brown hair, attractive – they’d already met somewhere, quite recently. But Don hadn’t been there.
And she looked too young, surely, to be married to Frank’s son, whose forty-fourth birthday Frank had remembered last year, like he remembered every birthday since Don had stormed out. Had
this all been a terrible mistake then?

But his date of birth had matched. And the mole behind his right knee, and the fact that he was left-handed, and allergic to penicillin. Which all left precious little room for mistakes.

‘Frank?’ Her hand came towards him and he took it automatically. Her voice was low and pleasant. ‘But I know you; we met at Ruth’s.’ So she’d already spoken
to Donal’s father, and never known. Had imagined him to be a feeble old man in his eighties, when this man standing in front of her could hardly be more than mid-sixties.

It came back to Frank abruptly, the meeting in the kitchen. ‘And you’re Cecily’s daughter.’ And Ruth was married to Laura’s brother, so she must know Don too. Why
did the word ‘spaghetti’ pop into his head? He shook her hand, and couldn’t think what to say next. What on earth did you say to a daughter-in-law you hadn’t known existed
an hour ago?

They stood facing each other for a few moments, and then she stepped aside, pulled the door open wider. ‘Sorry – please come in.’ He realised that she was as apprehensive as he
was – just as much in dread of what this new, unnerving development might bring. As Frank stepped into the hall, Laura added quickly, ‘He’s not here, he’s at work. He
won’t be back for another hour, at least.’

In the kitchen she offered him coffee, and he asked if it would be very ill-mannered of him to look for tea instead, and she said of course not, sorry, she should have given him the choice. They
were both carefully, nervously polite.

As she filled the kettle, she spoke with her back to him. ‘So you never lived in Australia.’ There was something heartbreaking in the flatness of her voice, as if she was trying hard
not to care that her husband had lied to her. As if she wasn’t terrified at what Frank might be about to reveal to her.

Frank shook his head, wanting to spare her any pain this conversation might cause – would surely cause – but what could he do? She’d waited long enough for the truth.
‘No. We lived in Sligo all our lives.’

‘No.’ She shook her head too – of course not. She’d known, as soon as she spoke to Frank on the phone, as soon as she’d been sure that he was Donal’s –
Don’s – father, that Australia had been a lie. She made herself open presses, take out cups, saucers, sugar bowl, reach into the fridge for milk.

And when everything was assembled, when the tea was made, when she had run out of reasons not to sit at the table, she sat. Took the spoon from her saucer and held it tightly.

Outside it began to rain heavily, in one of those sudden downpours – more like a tipping up and emptying out of the clouds than a normal shower. Laura turned quickly towards the window,
still so nervous that Frank wanted more than anything to say something to reassure her. But there was nothing he could say.

Finally, she looked back at him, gave a brittle smile. Picked up the teapot and poured tea into both their cups. Frank thought of Cecily – his son’s mother-in-law, he realised with a
fresh shock – drinking tea so daintily at the book-club meetings. Dabbing her lips after every sip. She knew Don too. All these people knew him, lived with him every day.

‘Well.’ Laura had no idea what to say next. What did you ask, how could you possibly find a question that didn’t sound ridiculous?
Tell me about my husband. Explain why he
kept you hidden for years. Make sense of this for me; give me a plausible reason for his lie – and for the lies I don’t know about yet.

Because, of course, there were more. Oh God, she didn’t want to hear more. But she had to hear more.

‘I’m assuming you don’t know the reason for our . . . separation.’ Frank’s voice was gentle. When Laura didn’t respond, just picked up her spoon again, he
interlaced his fingers, looked thoughtfully at them.

‘When Don was fifteen, his sister died.’ He heard Laura’s sharp intake of breath, looked up at her white face. ‘You didn’t know about Catherine.’ It
wasn’t a question.

Laura shook her head quickly. ‘He told me he was an only child. He said that you and his mother were older when you met . . .’ Her voice was barely audible. Outside, the rain still
fell heavily. Neither of them touched the tea, added milk, or sugar.

‘I was twenty-four when Don was born. My wife was twenty-six.’ Frank hated what his son was forcing him to do. Hated the empty look in Laura’s white face. Forced himself to
continue; all he could do to help her now was to tell her everything.

‘Catherine was born three years later. When she was twelve, she contracted leukaemia, was dead within six months.’ Always, whenever he said the words out loud, they caused an anguish
so sharp, still, after all these years. He paused, swallowed. Added milk to his tea, took a sip.

Laura sat there, stunned. Afraid to take her eyes off Frank, afraid to open her mouth . . . and what would she say anyway? Beg him to stop, when she knew she had to hear whatever there was?
Donal had a sister . . . he’d lied to her about his dead sister.

Frank was speaking again; she listened dumbly. ‘After that, Don went off the rails a bit . . . started hanging around with a different crowd . . . Angela and I weren’t too aware of
what was happening, to be honest. We were still in shock, I suppose . . .’ Frank stopped, took another sip of his tea. Laura watched his hands on the cup; they had the same shaped hands,
Donal and his father. Outside, they both heard a distant peal of thunder. Both ignored it.

‘They’d been very close, the children. Don took Catherine’s death very hard . . . and we weren’t able to help him. We let him down.’ Laura watched his hands, lying
one on top of the other on the table now, afraid to look up at his face.

Frank’s voice was steady; he raised it slightly to be heard above the rain, lashing now against the window. ‘We had warnings, I suppose. A call from the school, wondering why he
hadn’t been in for almost a week. A neighbour letting us know that he’d seen Don with a few lads in the park, drinking. We had rows, plenty of rows . . . but we didn’t do anything
really, to help him.’ He shook his head, picked up his cup again. ‘We saw it coming, and did nothing to stop it.’

As he drank, Laura waited.
Here it comes, the reason for all the lies.
She looked towards the window, needing something real, something ordinary. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it
had begun; in the late-afternoon light the garden looked freshly washed, everything clean again. A bird flew across the garden, landed briefly on an arm of the clothesline. She wanted to be out
there among the sodden shrubs, walking on the drenched grass, anywhere but here.

Frank put a hand out and covered Laura’s. She felt the warmth of it, bit her lip, kept looking determinedly out the window.

‘One day, Don left the house with a bottle of vodka. He stole a car in town, after he’d finished the bottle, and crashed it into another car. The driver of the other car was eight
months pregnant; they were both killed.’ His hand squeezed Laura’s gently.

Her head turned slowly from side to side, still watching the garden. No, he was wrong there; that didn’t make any sense at all. They couldn’t both have been killed – Donal was
still alive. Then Laura realised what Frank meant, and her hand flew out from under his and up to cover her mouth. The baby – the tiny, almost-born baby. A drawer full of
liquorice-allsorts-coloured clothes slid into her head. A tear rolled down her cheek, bumped into her hand, still pressed against her mouth. Donal had killed a baby.