The Grace Girls (50 page)

Heather nodded.

‘Keep the ring and say nothing.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘What’s the point in hurting them any more? Let them think what they want to. Let them think you were going to get engaged if it gives them any little bit of comfort.’ She took both Heather’s hands in her own and squeezed them. ‘That poor, poor woman has lost her son . . . her heart will be broken. You and I will never know how that feels.’

‘I feel so sorry for her,’ Heather said, dabbing the hanky to her eyes. ‘They’re a very nice family, that’s why I felt they deserved to know the truth.’

‘Look, Heather,’ Claire said gently, ‘you’ve done your best to tell the truth about the break-up and it sounds as if the poor woman doesn’t want to hear that. She just wants to feel that everything was fine in her son’s life right up until the minute he died.’

‘And I want her to feel that too,’ Heather said. ‘I don’t want her to know that Gerry went a bit weird because I know it would just make the whole tragedy worse.’

‘If you feel well enough tomorrow, do the dignified thing and just go to the funeral,’ Claire told her now. ‘If you don’t, you’ll regret it when it’s all over . . . and there won’t be a single thing you can do about it then.’

There were some minutes of tension when Fintan entered his sister’s house for the very first time. All the awkwardness and difficulties that had caused the family estrangement seemed to suddenly swim in between them, demanding some sort of acknowledgement.

‘I’m grateful to you for looking after Heather today, and I’m delighted to be out visiting your home at long last,’ Fintan said as he embraced her. Kirsty had already greeted her aunt and had gone on into the sitting-room to see her sister, leaving them to talk in private.

Claire was immediately on the defensive. ‘I’m glad I was able to help Heather, but I wish that you’d come to visit me just for the sake of it. I wish it hadn’t been a duty call for you.’

‘Now, Claire,’ he said, taking his young sister’s hand, ‘things aren’t that simple . . . and shouldn’t we be grateful things have moved forward?’

‘Why did we have to wait until this happened for you to see me or until Lily was in hospital?’ she asked, hurt staring out of her piercing green eyes. ‘You had no excuse not to come to my house, Fintan. You were always invited – you and the rest of the family.’

Fintan bowed his head. Like all the Grace men he hated these kinds of family confrontations and avoided them at a
ll costs. It was only when there was a fear of any harm coming to his own girls that he was forced to come down with a heavy hand. ‘I don’t want to row with you, Claire . . .
’ he said in a low voice. ‘There was no deliberate decision not to come to your house . . . it was just the way things happened with the wedding.’

‘Andy’s a good man,’ she said, a tremble now evident in her voice. ‘He’s never done anybody any harm in his life . .
. it wasn’t his fault that we weren’t able to get married in the Catholic Church.’

‘It’s all in the past and forgotten,’ Fintan told her. ‘We don’t need to go over it all now.’

‘But it’s
not
in the past,’ she insisted, ‘and it won’t be forgotten until we sort this out properly.’

Fintan sighed now. This had not been the best of days. ‘I’m heart sorry about the way this all happened . . . but all families have their difficulties over things like religion. It would eventually have changed one way or another and we would have sorted it out.’ He shook his head. ‘There wasn’t a day that went by that we didn’t miss you . . .’

Claire cleared her throat. ‘Well, it’s nice to hear you saying it . . . but I might not have known it if it hadn’t been for Heather taking sick at work.’

‘Well, maybe we can all learn from the situation,’ Fintan said, ‘and try to make sure these things don’t happen again.’

‘She’s welcome to stay the night – or stay for as long as she likes,’ Claire said, bringing in a tray with cheese and cold-meat sandwiches and warm sausage rolls. She went back into the kitchen and came back the second time with homemade apple tart and slices of cherry cake.

‘What do you think?’ she asked her brother, putting the plates down. ‘Do you feel she’s well enough to travel home with you tonight?’

Fintan looked across at his pale-faced daughter, his brow furrowed. ‘It’s up to you, Heather – whether you feel up to it or not.’

‘I’m a lot better,’ Heather decided, ‘and I do need to go to
the funeral in the morning. Whatever happens, I could
n’t miss it.’

‘If you just make it to the chapel for the Mass,’ Kirsty said, ‘that will be all you need to do. You can go home and go to bed after that.’

Heather closed her eyes and nodded, unable to bear even the thought of it. She made herself eat a quarter of a ham sandwich and a small piece of the fruit cake even though she still had no appetite. If she fainted again, at least she would know it wasn’t through her own stupidity of not eating.

After they had finished eating and drinking a second cup of tea, Claire took them all on a guided tour of the house before it was time to leave.

‘It’s beautiful!’ Kirsty breathed, taking in the double spare room with the white furniture and the matching coloured glass lamps at either side of the satin-covered bed. The other spare room was a twin with similar furnishings. ‘It’s like a hotel – a really lovely hotel.’

Claire laughed embarrassedly but looked delighted at the compliments.

‘I’m very lucky to have all this,’ she said as they walked back downstairs to the sitting-room. ‘And I suppose that’s one advantage of marrying an older man. They have things like houses and cars organised by the time you come on the scene.’ She waved her hand around the hallway. ‘I only had to pick the colours for the decorating and add a few more womanly items in the sitting-room and bedrooms. Most of the things were already there.’ She looked at the girls now. ‘I have to say that the spare bedrooms were decorated with you two in mind . . . I kept hoping some day that you might start coming out to stay the odd weekend.’

Kirsty and Heather both nodded in agreement.

‘Now we know our way out here, you won’t be able to get rid of us,’ Kirsty laughed.

Just as they went to sit down again for a last few minutes, Andy McPherson came rushing through the front door in a smart pin-striped suit and carrying a dark overcoat and a leather briefcase. He beamed with delight to see his wife’s relatives.

‘I got held up at the office and I thought I might have missed you all,’ he said, shaking hands with Fintan and smiling warmly at the two girls. ‘And how’s the patient?’ he asked. ‘Feeling a wee bit better, I hope?’

‘A lot better, thanks,’ Heather said, feeling herself blushing. The whole situation of her fainting and causing all this fuss was now becoming very embarrassing and she knew more of it lay ahead when she got home to Rowanhill. There would be her mother all worried and telling her that she shouldn’t have gone to work in the first place and then there would be Mona, dying to know every detail about what happened. That’s, of course, if she was still speaking to Heather for having gone out to Claire’s house.

‘A drink, Andy – Fintan?’ Claire asked the men.

‘A gin and tonic would be lovely,’ Andy said. He turne
d to Fintan. ‘There’s whiskey and brandy or there’s a few bottles of beer there.’

‘I’m opening a bottle of sparkling wine,’ Claire stated, ‘so if anyone else fancies a glass?’

Fintan thought for a minute. One wee drink would do no harm driving and it just might help them all to relax. ‘A glass of beer would be lovely, thanks.’

‘What about the girls?’ Claire said, looking straight at Fintan. ‘Are they allowed a glass of the wine? It’s not very strong.’

Fintan shrugged then smiled. He only worried about them getting into situations that they couldn’t handle because of drink – but he knew they couldn’t be in safer hands at the moment. ‘Och, I suppose a wee glass won’t do them any harm . . .’

Kirsty got to her feet, delighted that her father hadn’t shown them up. ‘I’ll give you a hand to carry the drinks in,’ she told her aunt, trying to suppress a childish, delighted smile.

After a few moments, Heather followed the two females
in, feeling a bit self-conscious at being left with the two men.

‘The glasses are in the cupboard over there if you don’t mind getting them,’ Claire told Kirsty, then she went into the fridge to get the wine. ‘Will you have a glass of wine?’ she asked Heather when she appeared at the door.

‘Maybe just a small one, thanks,’ Heather said. She looked around the bright, modern kitchen. ‘You’ve everythi
ng in this house, haven’t you?’

Claire paused, the wine bottle in her hand, peeling the crinkly gold paper off the top of it. ‘I suppose we have a lot of nice things . . . but Andy works very hard.’

‘You don’t work now, do you, Claire?’ Kirsty asked, putting three wine glasses on the worktop.

She shook her head and smiled. ‘Not since I got married. I keep busy around the house and the garden and I meet up with girlfriends in the city a couple of afternoons, and then we have people out at the weekends or we visit them.’

‘Oh, it sounds really glamorous,’ Kirsty sighed. ‘It’s just the kind of life I would like.’

Claire smiled. ‘From what I hear, I think you have a very exciting life already, Kirsty. Heather was telling me all about your singing career – you’ve done very well for a young girl so far.’ She turned to the side now to carefully pop the cork from the wine, and then she quickly poured some into each of the three glasses and let the first bubbles settle down before filling them up to the top.

‘Oh, would you get a bottle of beer from the fridge please, Kirsty?’ she asked now, reaching into the cupboard for a beer glass and a tall chunky glass for Andy’s drink. She went into another cupboard for the gin and a small glass bottle of tonic. She mixed the drink then added ice cubes and slices of lemon which were already cut and wrapped in the fridge.

‘If you girls would put the drinks on a tray from the bottom cupboard,’ she said, ‘I’ll just sort a few bowls of crisps and nuts for us to have with them. Some evenings Andy enjoys relaxing with this then we have our dinner a bit later.’ She laughed. ‘He particularly likes it when we’ve got pleasant company like this.’ She halted, an anxious look coming over her face. ‘You will come back out to see us again, won’t you?’

Chapter 53

The village of Rowanhill poured into the church on the first Thursday in January to pay their last respects to Gerry Stewart. Heather had been up since eight o’clock although the Mass didn’t start until eleven. She’d sat up talking to her mother and Kirsty about the Gerry situation again until eleven o’clock the night before, and then she went to bed feeling exhausted. She’d slept fitfully, but had definitely had more sleep than she’d had the last few nights. The long chat she’d had with Claire had somehow made her feel a little bit better, and she knew that if she could just get through the next few hours things might start to get back to normal.

Kirsty had had to go into work in the chemist’s, but they said she could have the time off for the funeral and go back in after lunch, which was decent of them. She said she would leave half an hour before the Mass to give her time to get changed into her best black clothes and walk down to church with the rest of the family.

Around nine o’clock Mona appeared at the door with her arms folded high over her chest and her jaw set in stone.

‘I thought I’d call round to see how you were feelin’ af
ter yesterday,’ she said when Heather answered the door
. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d still be in your sick bed.’

‘I’m a bit better, thanks,’ Heather said as they walked into the kitchen. ‘I’m still a wee bit shaky but I’m a lot better than yesterday.’

‘So what exactly happened?’ Mona asked, although there
was more of an agitated angry edge to her voice than concern.

Sophie, hearing the voices, came downstairs in her dressing-gown. She knew that Heather wouldn’t be up to dealing with her aunt’s awkwardness this morning. She’d hoped to be up and in her funeral clothes before her sister-in-law came round, but Mona’s disapproval about her state of undress was the last thing on her mind this morning. Sophie had also had a bad night, going over all the things the girls had told her last night about Gerry and his carry-on. She’d had no idea what Heather had been putting up with, and how Christmas and New Year had been wasted for her with the strain of worrying when he would turn up and in what state.

‘Why on earth didn’t you tell your daddy?’ she’d asked Heather in a shocked voice. ‘He’d have gone up to see him and sorted it all out.’ She paused, thinking. ‘Maybe none of this would have happened if you’d –’ And then she stopped, seeing the pained look on Heather’s face.

‘It wasn’t my fault . . . I tried everything I could,’ Heather whispered.

‘I know, I know,’ Sophie said. ‘I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Anyway, a lot of these things are down to fate . . . and an accident is an accident.’

Heather looked at Mona now, and tried not to feel all defensive. ‘I just wasn’t feeling well – I was all dizzy and weak and then I fainted in the office.’

‘So it was really just a
faint?
’ Mona said, her eyebrows raised in surprise. They were all standing in the kitchen now, as though they were somehow afraid to sit in the chairs as they usually did. ‘I thought it was somethin’ far more serious, with the emergency phone call and all of that.’