Unfaithful (66 page)

More and more lately, she'd had the peculiar feeling that she was waiting for something. She didn't know what exactly, but she felt it in her bones, like something huge was going to happen just around the corner, if she could hold on long enough. She'd only ever loved one man her whole life, and that man was Mark. She wondered what it would be like to be with someone else. Would she ever fall in love again? Maybe she should go out and play the field, get it out of her system
.

Brianna had encouraged her to try dating, joining groups, socialising and meeting new people, but she couldn't summon the energy. Some mornings, the very idea of getting out of bed was exhausting. She didn't know what she'd do if she didn't have Ethan to care for. He dragged her out of best whether she liked it or not! She and Mark had belonged together. She was his and he wa
s hers. There were supposed to be together forever. How could she let herself fall in love with anyone again? If she'd known then what she knew now she'd never have given her heart away, certainly not to Mark McNamara.

Chapter 19

Mark drove along the road towards the coast. His head was addled so he did what he always did whenever he was stressed and headed to the coast. There was nothing like the fresh, bracing wind from the Irish Sea to clear the cobwebs and calm the mind. It was an unseasonably bright, sunny day and the incessant rain had finally abated. People were out walking their dogs, jogging and spending time with their families.

It felt strange in a way to be free again. His time was his own and it seemed that he had too much of it on his hands; too much time to think and ponder, to plot and fester. It didn't really matter what he did anymore. There was nobody left to care. He'd lost everything, which in its own way was oddly liberating. He could do anything he wanted. There was nothing or nobody to hold him back. What was the worst that could happen? There was nothing left for him to fear. He was on his own, completely alone in the world. One thing kept him going; and that was to find out who had framed him.

He missed Rebecca and the boys, more than he'd expected. Time had played heavily on him in prison and he'd thought about Rebecca and their life together a lot. He wished he could take back everything he'd done, take back the hurt and pain he'd caused. He hadn’t realised or appreciated the truly important moments in life until it had been too late.

He parked the car and began to walk, burrowing deep into his coat against the biting wind. He walked along the path, lost in his own world, remembering the many times he'd walked the same path with Rebecca. He missed her very much, but there was no going back. The only way was forward. He walked for miles, hardly noticing the distance, his long strides eating up the miles. His feet took him outside the village and up along the winding, twisting path between the tall oak trees.

Soon he arrived at the familiar spot in the road which offered his first glimpse of Cois Farraige. His heart skipped a bit, like it always did, whenever he saw the house for the first time after a long absence. It was his pride and joy, symbolising everything he had achieved and now everything that he'd lost. He leaned against one of the oak trees for a while and closed his eyes, his head full of the past.

He remembered the first time Rebecca had taken him to the house, the house that would eventually be theirs. She was wearing her chocolate brown suede jacket, her dark hair falling in soft waves around her shoulders, and she was smiling up at him, her face full of love and joy. Nobody had ever looked at him like that before or since.

“I hope this place will be ours one day,” she said shyly, hopefully.

The place was mesmerising. He'd never seen anything like it. He wanted to say something clever but didn't know quite how to respond.

“It's lonely here,” he said finally, shivering slightly. It had been a chilly afternoon when he'd first seen Cois Farraige, rather like today.

“It's beautiful,” she said, holding his hand tighter in hers. “Not like this. Obviously, we'd have to renovate, but this site is perfect. Follow me.” She led him through the trees. “Look at the view. We can see the entire harbour if we clear away some trees. It's hard to believe there's a whole city below us but we can't see it because of the way our house is set high up on the hill. I'll plant flowers and vegetables over here and maybe we could have a few hens for fresh eggs every day.”

“It sounds like a dream,” he said, listening to her with her bright eyes and glowing cheeks, her whole face lit up with excitement. “You make the whole place come alive.”

“I want to live here, just the two of us, a place of our very own, away from overbearing parents and people always telling me what to do, what to wear, how to look, and who I should date. I'm tired of people trying to control me.” She stopped suddenly, seeming to have run out of steam. An air of sadness descended upon her.

He'd cupped his hand under her chin and kissed her then, their first kiss under the trees, standing on the edge of their future. It seemed like so much more than a kiss, it was an unspoken promise too.

From then on their lives together seemed to be on fast forward. There was no embarrassment or holding back between them. He'd felt no need for game-playing or pretending to be someone else, someone better. For the first time in his life he knew he could be himself and that he was loved and accepted just the way he was. It was effortless with Rebecca. She delighted in his stories and listened intently to him as he talked about himself.

“Aren't you bored by my endless prattling?” he asked her one day.

“I'm not bored, I'm fascinated. We're very different.”

He looked at her quizzically then, wondering if she was mocking him. “Different in a good way, I hope?”

“Of course! Your life has been carefree and easy. You could do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. Your parents allowed you to be who you wanted to be.” She went on to tell him about her childhood and how her parents expected certain things from her; she had to be the best student, and had to have an approved circle of friends. Her mother was obsessed with appearances and although she appreciated the comforts of her lifestyle, being the only child of rich parents was stifling. She was expected to behave a certain way and mingle with other rich children who mostly seemed spoilt and one-dimensional. She couldn't wait to move away and live her own life, far from their watchful, judgemental gaze.

He began to see himself through her eyes and the childhood he'd had seemed carefree and fun. His parents had been fairly strict but they’d allowed him to choose his own friends and enjoy their camaraderie. Rebecca's life seemed controlled and staid by comparison. 

She didn't tell her parents about him for many months.

“Are you ashamed of me?” he asked.

“No, I don't want them ruining our relationship with their judgements and disapproval. There'll be plenty of time to tell them everything later.”

They'd been seeing each other for almost a year and she'd never once suggested that he meet her family. He wondered sometimes if he should insist that he meet them but he decided to bide his time and wait. After all, she couldn't insist on meeting his parents which suited him perfectly. He didn't want her to see where he'd grown up; a plain, drab house, devoid of any beauty and he didn't want to introduce her to his parents. His mother would judge them with her watchful, accusing, reproaching eyes. Nothing he ever said or did was good enough for her. He never understood why he seemed to provoke such a reaction in her. Maybe it was because he was the image of his father and he had let her down so badly, maybe she expected the same of him.

His father was too much in love with drinking to feel or show much love for anyone else. Their once happy home had sunk into misery and despair the more his alcoholism had taken hold. His mother had finally thrown him out when Mark was a teenager and his father spent most of his days propping up the bar of the village pub. Rebecca didn't need to know any of this, not for as long as he could avoid it.

They talked about their hopes and dreams. Time seemed to rush by when they were together and stand still when they were apart. Their love for each other was overwhelming and all-encompassing. It felt like the biggest high, but for every high there was a low and Mark didn't know when or how or why their relationship had started to descend. He'd tried to recreate that feeling with other women, but nothing and nobody ever compared to those early years with Rebecca.

He'd never forget the day he'd asked her to marry him. He'd been a barrel of nerves for weeks beforehand, agonising about every detail, wanting everything to be perfect. Rebecca deserved the best and he wanted to give it to her. He'd gone to visit his mother, to tell her about his plans and to ask for his grandmother’s engagement ring.

“Hello Mark,” she greeted him in surprise when she opened her front door to him.

“Hello mother. How are you?” he asked, bending to kiss her cheek.

She looked exactly the same. The years didn't seem to age her. She was an attractive woman with a mop of Barbie blonde hair, cut in soft layers around her face. Her skin was porcelain pale with hardly a wrinkle, in spite of her sixty-odd years. She was small and petite and neatly dressed as always. She took care with her appearance, wearing makeup every day and never having even a centimetre of grey roots showing. She looked up at him, her faded blue eyes searching his face curiously. “What brings you home?” she asked, leading the way into the small living room, where a fire was roaring in the grate. The house was stiflingly warm.

“I wanted to see how you are,” he replied, warming his cold hands in front of the fire and keeping his back to her.

“I'm fine,” she said shortly, the air was heavy with the questions she wanted to ask him. “How have you been?”

“I'm terrific, mother, just terrific.” He turned and smiled at her then and she could see that he was happy.

“Good,” she said simply. “I'll make some tea.”

She pottered about in the kitchen for a while, leaving Mark alone in the living room with his thoughts. “Who is she?” she asked as they sat sipping their tea in silence.

He put his cup down and decided to tell her all about Rebecca.

“When am I going to meet this Rebecca?”

“Soon, mother, soon,” he gazed into the flames for a moment. “I'm going to ask her to marry me.”

“I see,” his mother said evenly. “I knew you seemed different. I suppose love can have that effect on a person.”

“Actually, mother, that's why I came to see you. I wondered if I could have grandmother's engagement ring. Remember you told me years ago that I could have it to give to the woman I love.”

His mother stared at him and frowned slightly. “You're serious about this woman?”

“More serious than I've ever been about anything or anyone.” She could see the determination and love in his eyes and her heart softened a little towards him.

“You can have the ring,” she said. She got up then and removed an old painting from the wall, behind which she kept a safe with her most treasured possessions. “It will need a proper cleaning,” she said, handing the ring to him. He took it reverentially from her. It was beautiful; a simple one carat diamond on a plain gold band. Her mother had willed the ring to her and she'd hoped to hand it down to her own daughter one day, but that wasn't meant to be. “She'll love it,” he
whispered. “Thank you, mother.”

“I hope I'll meet your Rebecca one day.”

“Soon, mother, soon,” he repeated.

The
Chez Pierre Bistro should illustrate December, Mark thought as he and Rebecca stepped over the threshold. It was like a postcard of the perfect winter scene. The restaurant was squirreled away in Clonegal, between the Derry River and the Jacobean atmospherics of Huntingdon Castle. The dining room’s glowing stove, twinkling glassware and sash windows encapsulated a deliciously appointed balance of cosiness and sophistication.

Outside, a plaque
told of Tony O’ Donoghue, a Young Irelander, who was born in the eighteenth century townhouse and went on to fight in the 1848 rebellion, before being exiled to Van Diemen’s Land and dying a pauper in Brooklyn, at the age of forty-four. It was a chilly, characterful detail.

Inside, by contrast, Rosanna Purcell, the beaming hostess welcomed them for Sunday lunch. Two hundred y
ears after he was born, it seemed O’ Donoghue’s birthplace had been transformed into a winter warmer whose flickering inglenook and gamey menu put a glow in their cheeks, even before they ordered their first bottle of wine.

An impressive wine rack was stashed away under the old staircase. A tiny cottage window peaked into the kitchen. The details were pin-sharp. The small dining room seated just twenty eight, giving the restaurant its feel of being stumbled-upon, right down to the lack of a website.

The hostess’ partner, Pierre Reverdeau, was the man behind the menu. His work made for hearty reading, with French flair complemented by lots of venison, veal and winter vegetables; but also some sparky treatments of tiger prawns, hake and scallops from Dunmore East. Mains came with thinly sliced roast potatoes and green beans, sprinkled with sesame seeds too.