The Hollow Heart (The Heartfelt Series) (40 page)

Searching out Father Gregory, she found herself in one of
his Confessionals.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” He smiled through the
grille.

“Funny, that’s not the Act of Contrition I remember.”

“You’ve never struck me as particularly contrite.”

“Ouch!”

“I meant it as a compliment. You always seem pretty
comfortable in your own skin. What’s up?”

She explained that the former doctor’s surgery was on the
market and a bit of an idea was germinating in her brain.

“More fundraising, Marie. I think we’re all a bit
battle-weary on that front, don’t you?”

“I have a benefactor in mind but the most important thing
would be reclaiming the house for the island, putting it back to good work.
What do you think?”

“They always say there’s none as evangelical as a convert.
That must go for island converts too. When did the ‘we’ come into it?”

“Gregory, you’ve too much about you just to go round
hunting, shooting, fishing and throwing Holy Water at people.”

He laughed, blessed her in Latin, and closed his side of the
grille.

“No penance, then?” she shouted through the shutter.

“Your projects are your penance,” he shouted back.

Miss MacReady was
enthralled. She sat on a bar stool, legs crossed in fishnet tights, red
stilettos on her feet, horn-rimmed spectacles on the end of her nose as she
poured over the architectural drawings.

“It doesn’t need a lot doing to it,” Marianne explained, “It
was beautifully restored and here, you can see this would make a playroom; this
could be a club room for the older children.”

“With computers, DVDs, games consoles and the like,” Miss
MacReady sipped her Singapore Sling; she did so like to get down with the kids.
“But who’d run it?”

“A board of Governors, like a school, with someone qualified
doing the day-to-day stuff.”

“Someone like Sinead.” Father Gregory made a note.

“I’ve already mooted the idea. She seemed quite interested,
said she might be looking for a new challenge.” Marianne folded the plans away.
Miss MacReady nodded, she had heard Sinead and Phileas were going through
another bad patch. Sinead was thinking of moving back to Cork. Island life was
not proving to be the idyll she had hoped.

 The ubiquitous Sean pulled his coat off the back of his
stool.

“Great! A shower of rag-arses down from Dublin for the
summer to vandalise and rob us. Great plan. Yet another outsider sticking her
nose in and knowing what’s best for us, and all she does is bring scandal and
disgrace on the place.”

“Hey now.” Father Gregory stopped him in his tracks. Sean
pushed past him.

“Go to hell, Father. Sure we probably all will.”

The priest smiled at Marianne.

“Bound to be a winner then if Sean’s against it. Hasn’t that
always been the case?” Miss MacReady agreed wholeheartedly, volunteering to
sound Sinead out at the earliest opportunity.

Not two days later, the three women were examining the plans
over the kitchen table in Weathervane. Sinead was all for the project and loved
the ideas for the house, which they discovered was called Ophiuchus.

“I’ve researched the name,” exclaimed Miss MacReady, who was
wildly enthusiastic about the whole thing. “It’s the thirteenth constellation
in the solar system. The ancient astronomers called it ‘the sign of the wounded
healer’. Most appropriate for its new lease of life.”

 Marianne’s original concept was for the house to be turned
into a summer retreat for underprivileged children, a special holiday home for
kids who did not have holidays; the sort of kids where each day merged into the
next because of family circumstances. Sinead took it to the next stage,
suggesting the project be specifically for those children who were carers,
looking after sick or elderly family members, taking care of the disabled or
terminally ill. Everyone considered this an excellent idea, as Marianne set to
work pulling together the plan for the purchase of the property, whilst setting
the publicity machine in motion.

“I’m pretty well-known these days,” she told her contact at
the radio station. “Might as well put some of this infamy to good use.” The
radio interview which followed gave the new campaign a kick-start.

To buy the property quickly and get the project moving,
Marianne invested a generous slice of her own funds. When she told Padar she
wanted to call it the Oonagh Quinn Foundation, he begrudgingly agreed, handing
over a donation following the sale of the yacht he could no longer bring
himself to board, let alone sail.

“You’re not keen on the children’s project are you, Padar?”
she asked as he cleared away the dishes following one of their regular weekend
meals together in the pub. Bridget slumbered on the sofa with one arm flung
across Monty’s curled up frame.

“Not really. You’ve enough to be doing.” He nodded towards
the little one. “And I’m of the same opinion as Sean. I don’t want a shower of
roughnecks from the towns here. They’d be a bad influence.”

Marianne was disappointed.

 “It shouldn’t be like that, and Bridget is a very lucky
little girl, she has you and all of us who love her. It would do her good to
mix with kids less fortunate.”

“You mean, put her own situation into perspective.”

“In a way.” She stood to help.

He put the dishcloth down and was standing beside her, very
close. He took her by the shoulders. She could feel his breath, hot on her
cheek.

“Padar?”

His eyes were boring into her face, full of longing and
desire. He pressed himself up against her. She felt a blush rise from her chest
and then a flutter of fear.

“Oh, Marie, say you’ll have me. I’m dying for you. We can be
a family, that’s all we need.”

He tried to kiss her, gripping her shoulders tightly. She
pushed him away.

“Padar, stop. Stop it!”

Instantly, Monty was at his heels, barking and snarling
furiously. Marianne struggled to break free. Monty, now frantic, leapt up and
nipped Padar on the wrist. He released her immediately and took a step back,
confused. Then he seemed to snap out of it.

“Oh God, Marie, I’m sorry, so sorry.” Flustered, he fled the
kitchen, dishes abandoned. Shocked, Marianne stood fixed to the spot.

Much later, putting Bridget to bed in her cot adjacent the
boudoir the infant had shared with her mother, Marianne could hear Padar
weeping softly. She pushed the door ajar. He was standing in a corner, facing
the wall, his head in his hands. The room was full of boxes, bearing the logos
and slogans of vintners and brewers. The boxes were packed to bursting with
Oonagh’s possessions, clothes, shoes, handbags, all her worldly belongings. He
turned when he heard her at the door, eyes wild with despair.

“I’d have given you a hand with all of this,” Marianne said.

“It’s a mess.” Padar looked away.

“It’ll be okay. It’s just a bit early Padar, a bit soon.”

“I know, Marie. I’m just so lost without her.”

She moved to put her arms around him, all his lust gone.

“I know. I’m a bit lost too,” she told him.

She scanned the clutter.

“It might help if you didn’t have to face this lot whenever
you came into your bedroom,” she said, checking under the bed to see if she
could store anything there, out of the way. She burrowed beneath Oonagh’s
flamboyant valance, caught hold of what felt like a metal box and dragged it
out. She instantly recognised a professional camera case and flicked the clasps
to reveal the latest camera, complete with telephoto lens.

“I didn’t think you were interested in photo…” She stopped,
holding the camera away from her as if it were a snake. “Oh my God, Padar, it’s
you! You’re the one feeding the media with pictures. You’re the bastard working
for the paparazzi.”

Padar snatched the camera from her.

“It’s none of your business!”

“None of my business? How dare you? You’ve made our
business, everyone’s business. You absolute bastard. I bet Paul Osborne put you
on the payroll the very first day he came here. I thought it was Sean, but
there was so much other stuff Sean couldn’t have been party to. Now it all
makes sense, except the latest bit, the bit about the boat and foul play, that
wasn’t you, was it?”

He shook his head, the colour had drained from his face.

“I told Paul I’d had enough when we knew Oonagh wouldn’t get
better. He said he understood, he was thinking of changing direction anyway.
But he warned me the publishers wouldn’t be very happy. He said they’d try to
make it worth my while to stay on, that they might turn nasty. Guess that’s why
they made up the story about Oonagh and the orgy on the boat, getting their own
back.”

“How low can they sink? And you, look what it’s done to you,
turned you into a snide, spying on your friends and using us. Why, Padar, why?”

“How on earth was I supposed to pay for the renovations
after the storm? We’d no insurance, sure the pub is hardly worth a light,
especially with no tourist trade.”

“Did Oonagh know?”

“Of course she didn’t know. Oonagh knew more about Hollywood
than Innishmahon and then later, she was out of it most of the time on
painkillers; living in la-la land; buying anything she wanted off the internet
for her and the baby on the credit card. What could I do?”

Marianne slammed closed the lid and kicked the case back
under the bed.

“You could have chosen not to let her spend money like
water. You could have stayed loyal to us, all of us, instead of using us to
earn a fast buck. The anguish you’ve caused, the irreparable damage and pain.”
Her eyes filled with angry tears. “You made something beautiful, sordid and
dirty, something for all the world to laugh at and deride. I can’t believe it
was you all along, Padar. You make me sick to my stomach. I’m going home now
and I’m taking Bridget with me. I can’t leave the child here with you…with a
traitor.” She slammed the door as she left.

In her usual infuriating
way, Miss MacReady did not seem surprised when Marianne, still ashen with rage,
told her over coffee that Padar Quinn had been Paul Osborne’s undercover
photographer.

“I thought maybe it was Padar. Too much cash and credit
readily available.”

“Not Sean? I thought Sean when he got the flat screen TV and
everything.”

“Ah, he could have been in on it alright, in the beginning,
spying and such. But no, it needed someone a bit more switched on to take the
photos. Padar does fit the bill.”

“And you’re not horrified?” Marianne asked. “Mortified he
betrayed us? All of us?”

“I don’t think he bargained for the last lot, the made-up
reports about Oonagh and the orgy on the yacht. That went too far.” Miss
MacReady put her cup down, smiling indulgently at Bridget who was conducting
one of her many diatribes with Monty. “I don’t see it quite like you, though.
Oh, it was sneaky alright. It was wrong, no doubt, but everything happens for a
reason. We’d not have had the support for the bridge, or the new project
without the fascination the media has with yourself and Ryan, hyped up by Padar
and his pictures. A double-edged sword, as they say.”

Marianne blinked. The postmistress had a point.

“And all the lovely things Oonagh and the baby enjoyed
before she died, the fabulous christening and the boat and all. It wasn’t all
bad. It might end well, after all.”

“What on earth do you mean?” Marianne was incredulous.

“Well your fella is on the telly tonight doing the chat show
again and a little birdie tells me he has some news of his own to impart.”

Marianne was intrigued. Miss MacReady always seemed to know
everyone’s business, even people thousands of miles away, on another continent.

“Have you anything else to tell me?” Marianne held Miss
MacReady’s gaze.

“Well, I did overhear Padar confessing to Ryan about being
the secret photographer and I got the distinct impression Ryan wasn’t bothered,
not bothered at all. As if he’d gone beyond all that, as if it didn’t really
matter one jot in the overall scheme of things.”

Marianne clattered the mugs into the sink.

“By overhear, I take it you mean on the telephone?”

“Of course on the telephone, how else am I to keep track of
everybody and their comings and goings? It’s my job.”

Miss MacReady suddenly decided she needed to be somewhere
else, obviously aware she had revealed too much. Irked, Marianne forced herself
to completely ignore the fact Ryan was on television that evening. She had never
succumbed to a TV in the cottage. Weathervane was her haven. If she did want to
watch the box, Maguire’s had the latest satellite paraphernalia only a few
strides from her door. So after walking Monty along the cove, with Bridget
firmly strapped into the baby sling, all three of them devoured a delicious
supper of lamb stew and creamed rice pudding and settled down for the night.

Unsurprisingly, Marianne was restless and unable to sleep.
She went to her desk to dig out the problematic paperwork relating to the
purchase of Ophiuchus; the house she intended to transform into a holiday
retreat.

There was a complication relating to the deeds of the
property. The merchant banker who owned it had fallen on hard times and had
re-mortgaged the property, but no-one knew who with. The new mortgage had never
been cleared and it could prove an expensive legal wrangle if not dealt with.
Just the sort of mind-numbing distraction she needed to fuddle her brain and
prevent her from dwelling on things like self-obsessed celebrities spouting off
to millions of viewers on national TV.

Marianne rang Father Gregory. No answer. She tried Miss
MacReady. No response there either. She growled to herself, she supposed they
were all in the pub watching, mesmerised, as Ryan blathered on about this or
that exotic location. Good God, had they not all heard enough of his bullshit
over the past couple of years?