The Hollow Heart (The Heartfelt Series) (41 page)

Suffering a major grump, she pinged off an email outlining
the problem relating to the deeds, requesting names of legal contacts and other
assistance she could call upon to help resolve it. She copied in the whole
Board, the same team who had managed the ‘Bridge Too Far’ campaign.

Then, finally slamming shut the lid of her laptop, took
herself off to bed, far too bad-tempered to concentrate on the novel she was
reading.

Bridget was unusually fractious the following morning.
Monty, too, seemed below par, only giving the sea grass in the garden a cursory
sniff before returning to the cottage to sit moodily in his basket.

Marianne prepared breakfast in silence, not even switching
on the morning radio programme she loved to argue with. Monty growled,
indicating a visitor approaching, when Padar poked his head through the top
half of the kitchen door. It made her jump. The toast fell to the floor,
butter-side down. Her mouth dropped open. She could not believe he had the gall
to show his face after all that had happened.

Padar was pink and flustered. Marianne continued to glare at
him. Bridget, spotting her father, started to squirm in her high chair,
reaching out and gurgling a welcome. Monty, sensing trouble, just looked cagily
from one to the other. Marianne bent down, picked up the toast and threw it in
the sink.

“What the hell do you want?”

“To apologise,” Padar said quietly, “for everything.”

“Go away, Padar.” Marianne busied herself making fresh
toast. She could feel a burning rash of anger at her throat. Frustrated at not
being picked up by her father, Bridget started to grizzle. Monty was pacing
around the table; he hated it when Bridget was upset.

Padar stood at the door like a statue.

“I have to talk to you, Marianne. I’ve been awake all night.
I can’t bear it if you leave me too, if I can’t call you a friend.”

“Ha! I called you a friend, and look what you were doing to
me. Us. All of us.” She rescued the burning bread from under the grill. Bridget
had started to howl. Monty was joining in. “For God’s sake, Padar, come in and
pick the child up.”

He flew through the door, took Bridget in his arms, burying
his head in her fluffy, pink romper suit, and started to sob. Marianne sighed
loudly but, turning from the sink, felt her heart break as she watched him
weeping into his daughter’s downy hair.

“Pull yourself together, Padar. Come on now,” she said
coldly, but her eyes were soft. He sniffed.

“It all got a bit out of control.” He turned bloodshot eyes
on her. “I really didn’t mean to make trouble for you and Ryan. At first I
thought it would just be a bit of harmless fun. I’d get paid, pay a few debts
and that would be it. But they wouldn’t let me stop. They kept demanding more
and when they found out how ill Oonagh was, they threatened to tell her
everything if I didn’t keep the photos coming.”

“Ah, Padar,” Marianne said dismissively, looking down so he
could not see the pity in her eyes.

“I’m sorry I made everything so bad for you, really, really
sorry.”

Marianne closed the top of the kitchen door. The breeze off
the sea was fresh. There was a chill in the air. Padar took a deep breath.

 “You probably don’t like me anymore, and I don’t blame
you,” he stuttered, “but if we could put this behind us, and if you could just
be civil to me, if nothing else for Bridget’s sake. I dunno.” His eyes filled
with tears again. He pushed an envelope across the table towards her.

“More photos?” she asked, and opened it. She gasped. It was
a picture taken at Bridget’s christening. They were all in a disorganised row.
Padar with Monty in his arms, smiling next to Ryan. Ryan with his arm around
Oonagh, his hand on Marianne’s shoulder as she held Bridget grinning into the
camera, the baby looking up at her. It was a picture of everyone she loved in
the world, a picture of happiness, heart-breaking happiness.

She slumped into a chair and put the photo on the table
before her. She pushed her hair back. She was tired, she had hardly slept, and
when she finally woke she had come to the conclusion that, like so many people
in her life, Padar had been doing all the wrong things for what he thought were
the right reasons.

She beckoned him to sit down.

“Tell me this is an end to it and the source of all this
inane and hurtful drivel has well and truly dried up?”

“I’m finished with all of that, I promise you.”

She turned to face him, arms folded.

“Okay, we can talk and I’ll be civil, but I’ll have to work
on the forgiveness and it could take a while.”

He breathed a sigh of relief, placing a now smiling Bridget
back in her high chair. Monty emerged from his basket, wagging his tail.
Marianne picked him up so he was level with Bridget, who immediately fed him her
toast.

“We’d better go back to our original arrangement or Bridget
will have him the size of a house,” Padar suggested meekly.

Marianne was just about to agree, when Miss MacReady
appeared, black PVC raincoat flapping in the wind, collar turned up and an
overlarge sou’wester pulled down over her ears against the October squall. Her
earrings jangled as she clattered onto the tiles, her bare feet filthy in
daisy-adorned flip-flops. She took in the scene in the kitchen with one sweep
of her birdlike eyes and declined to comment.

“Well, what do you think?” She poured coffee from the pot,
lifting the rim of her hat to drink.

“I think we’ll be grand.”

“No, not you, Padar. The news, Marie. What do you think of
the news?”

Marianne shrugged.

“Did you not hear?” Miss MacReady glanced at the radio.
“Last night, on the live chat show, Ryan announced he’s jacked it in, resigned,
stepped down, given it up. There, live on the telly in front of the whole
nation.”

“Given what up?”

“The role, the job, the super-hero spy fella. It’s all over
the radio this morning, be in all the papers tomorrow. They could sue him for
breach of contract – he’s supposed to do three films – but he said he’s not
bothered about that, so there you are.” She took a mouthful of her drink, while
Marianne and Monty watched, bemused. “And what’s more, the divorce. That’s
next. He’s filed for divorce and is going for custody of the child.”

Marianne put Monty down. As usual, Miss MacReady knew far
more than what might have been said during a television interview.

“He’ll get it too,” Padar surmised. “There’s loads more men
are getting custody of their kids these days, particularly when the mother is a
druggie.”

“Substance dependent, Padar. It’s not the same,” explained
Miss MacReady.

“It is so.” Padar was adamant.

“Well, anyway, he finished by saying he is coming to live in
the West of Ireland to pursue a career as a scriptwriter. It’s what he’s always
wanted to do. Well, what he actually said was, ‘revisit my one true love’ and
then explained he meant scriptwriting. Isn’t it great news altogether?”

Marianne raised her eyebrows. “For whom?”

“Everyone. He’ll be back now, surely.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Marianne said, although deep down
inside, her breath had been on hold for some time. “Anyway, I have bigger and
better things to worry about, there is a problem with the deeds for the
children’s retreat. A company in England has a charge on the property. It’s
complicated, and I’ll need a hand sorting it out. English and Irish law can be
far from compatible. Now, Padar, off you go and open the pub, and if you don’t
mind, Miss MacReady, I’m very busy and I’m sure you are too,” she said, taking
Miss MacReady’s mug off her and shooing them both out the door.

A few days later, word came from
Snelgrove and Marshall; they could untangle the charge on the property; it
would cost twenty-five thousand pounds to pay off the charge and about three
thousand pounds in legal fees. There was enough in the bank account to do this
but the lawyers needed proof of identity to be satisfied the sale was
legitimate and there was no risk of money laundering. Once all this was in
order, the whole thing could be completed in a matter of weeks.

Marianne was relieved, the same legal team had handled George’s
legacy, the sale of the house in Oakwood Avenue and the purchase of
Weathervane. She knew she could trust them. She and Sinead were keen to get the
holiday retreat up and running as quickly as possible. They had already planned
a packed schedule for the children they hoped would arrive in the summer via
the new bridge, if everything went according to plan.

But time had a habit of flashing by, and as with all her
projects, Marianne became totally immersed in every tiny detail, driving things
forward with her usual obsessive ambitiousness. Still refusing to admit, even
to herself, that this was the way she always dealt with any prolonged
loneliness or grief, obstinately pushing Miss MacReady’s revelations about Ryan
to the back of her mind and, ignoring the fact that despite his momentous
change of plan, he had still not been in touch.

To be fair to Ryan, Marianne had been refusing to
acknowledge any correspondence from him for some time and was quite proud she
had managed to stick to her resolution.

Pulling out the chest where she kept her birth certificate
and adoption papers, Marianne could not recall the need for such rigorous proof
of identity when she had upped sticks and moved from England to this far-flung
western isle. Surmising that times do indeed change, rooting through the chest
she came upon a plethora of memorabilia she had not seen for years.

Scattering papers and photographs across the desk, she found
her old passport, stamped by the French Authorities, acknowledging her arriving
and leaving Paris. It was strange, as if it had happened to someone else. She
remembered speaking to Claude for the last time on the telephone to the
hospice, when he had asked her to forgive him. Forgive him for what? Breaking
her heart? She shrugged. There was plenty of tape
around her heart, at
this stage of the game, anyway.

She came upon a copy of George’s death certificate, folded
carefully in a velvet purse containing his signet ring and mother of pearl
cufflinks. A copy of the picture of them at the Awards Dinner fell onto the
desk. She blinked her tears away, smiling at George, who was grinning like a
Cheshire cat, then grinning to herself, she looked smug and a little bit
pissed.

She laughed out loud when she at the handwritten proposal
George had tied to Monty’s neck when he had presented the puppy just before
Christmas. The proposal and ribbon Monty had been wearing were wrapped around
his Kennel Club Certificate – George had been very proud of the fact he was the
offspring of a supreme champion, she remembered.

Then she found her own birth certificate. This had always
been a mystery. Handwritten in ink, it looked as if it had been deliberately
splashed with water. The mother’s name was indistinguishable, the father’s name
only slightly more legible, definitely beginning with a B, but her mother’s was
just a splodge with a y at the end.

Her place of birth had not been defaced, but it was just a
squiggle, so again, impossible to decipher, although she had been told she was
born in Galway, but where was the proof, she sometimes wondered.

By comparison, her Certificate of Adoption was pristine; the
Coltranes’ names clear and efficiently entered. Another thing that had always
fascinated her, attached to the certificate, was a picture of herself as a
baby, a tiny black and white photograph.

 Fascinating, because she had been a toddler when the
Coltranes had adopted her, although she could barely remember anything about
it. Yet her mother had treasured this picture of her as a tiny infant, as if
she had wanted to capture her earliest years and share them, as if she had
given birth to her, as if they had always been together.

Monty, snuffling through some of the papers she let slip to
the floor, brought her back to the task in hand. Quickly putting everything away,
she shoved the required paperwork in an envelope and, clipping him onto his
lead, walked up to town to make copies and discuss with Miss MacReady, the best
way to send off the original documents safely.

Miss MacReady was thrilled to see them. She was wearing one
of her favourite purple ensembles, a luxuriant velvet kimono, with bare feet,
toenails painted peacock blue.

“Come in, come in, let me get you a drink,” she called,
turning the closed sign on the door as they passed through. Marianne gave her a
broad grin to show the fractiousness of a couple of days ago was long
forgotten. Miss MacReady poured them each a large measure of whiskey.

Monty had his own dish on the floor of the postmistress’s
kitchen. She warmed some milk in the microwave for him and he lapped at it
leisurely, keeping an eye on Marianne, which Marianne knew was his way of
conveying he was not planning to stay. He needed to be clear about that.

Marianne explained the scenario to Miss MacReady.

“I saw from the email you sent round that we had a problem.
Will these fellows in England be able to sort it?” she asked.

“I hope so. It’s expensive but I don’t want the property to
go back on the market. We could lose the opportunity to turn this into
something useful for the island.”

“That’s not everyone’s opinion,” Miss MacReady conceded.

Marianne dismissed the notion.

“We have to make something good out of all that’s gone on
here; something we can all be proud of, something which will serve as a
memorial for Oonagh.”

Miss MacReady dropped ice into the whiskey. It cracked.

“We have Bridget, that’s our gift from Oonagh and our life’s
work too, we have to do right by the child. Have we not enough to be doing?”
Miss MacReady eyed Marianne closely, sipping her drink.