Woman to Woman (15 page)

“When Michael met you, you were virtually running the entire motor department, not to mention studying for your Insurance Institute exams at night. You did all that when you were just twenty-two and you’re trying to tell me that you couldn’t do it now, when you’re older and more experienced?”

“It’s because I’m older that it seems impossible,” said Aisling weakly.

“We thought we could do anything when we were!

twenty-two, for God’s sake. It’s all totally different now, Jo.

You don’t understand!”.

“Understand what?”

“Just because you’ve a brilliant job at the magazine and’ buckets of confidence, doesn’t mean that everyone else is the same. Look at you,” Aisling cried.

“You’re a successful journalist, you’ve got your own car, your own apartment, your own bank account and independence.

“Maybe you think that’s nothing because most of your friends are journalists. But not everyone is talented and clever and able to walk into any job anywhere. I’m not afraid to work, Jo, but I’m afraid of looking for work and being told I’m too old or unskilled or useless.” She stopped miserably.

“Ash, when we met, what is it… fourteen, no, fifteen years ago, you were the one who was going to make something of her life,” said Jo passionately.

“I was absolutely terrified of being in Dublin, of going to college, of

having no one to go home to at night and talk about what went wrong that day. It was awful, you know what I was like.” She gulped down some more coffee.

“You gave me the confidence to stick it out in college when I really wanted to run home to my mother, and you kept me from falling for every asshole who asked me out. You were so strong Jo added gently.

“You still are. It’s just that you’ve forgotten.”

Had she forgotten, or was Jo just being kind, Aisling wondered? Had she ever been sure of herself, ready to stick her neck out because she knew she could do anything?

For a moment she remembered sitting in the kitchen at home, all dressed up in clothes from her first proper pay packet and telling a fascinated Sorcha what the department head had said to her that evening. Mum had been cooking dinner, eyes on the soup she was stirring on the spotless cooker but listening to every word about the motor department and how Margaret Synnott thought Aisling should start studying for the Insurance Institute exams as soon as possible.

“She said loads of people say they’re going to do them, but most of them don’t actually bother. But you get a bonus for each part of the exams you pass and she said if I want to get on, it would be worth it,” Aisling said, basking in Sorcha’s admiration of her new black leather boots.

“I know I said I was never going to study again in my whole life after the Leaving, but I don’t mind this. What do you think, Mum?”

Her mother stopped stirring and turned around, a warm smile on her face. Eithne Maguire had never been to a beauty parlour in her life, she got her hair inexpertly cut at the tiny hairdressing salon over the butcher’s shop and never spent money on her wardrobe when she could buy something for her children. But when she smiled, her whole face lit up and her blue eyes shone.

“I’m so proud of you, Aisling. I’ve always known you could do anything you put your mind to. Where did I get such a bright daughter she said fondly, hugging her firstborn.

“We’re all so proud of you. “This wasn’t strictly true and they both knew it. Nothing Aisling could do would ever be enough for her father but, for a few hours, that didn’t matter. Her mother, the one who’d always protected her from her strict and puritanical father and from his mother’s constant sniping, was proud of her daughter. That was enough.

There were tears in Aisling’s eyes as she leaned over and hugged Jo, but they weren’t sad tears.

Thank you. Nobody but Mum has said anything like that to me in years.”

“Well they should have,” replied Jo, forking up another mouthful of food.

“Since your bloody control freak of a father ripped every shred of confidence out of you when you were a kid, I’m not surprised that you still feel that way. Michael ought to have given you a pep talk every day to make sure you didn’t sink back into the mire of insecurity, but she shrugged expressively, ‘he’s a man, so why would he bother?

Ash, you can do it without him, I know you can.”

“I’m still hungry,” she added, scooping up the last bits of chicken off her plate.

“Here.” Aisling pushed her untouched sandwich over to her friend and waved to the waiter.

Another coffee and another bottle of wine,” she said sharply. She wasn’t going to waste her time smiling at him this time. Career women didn’t have time to worry about rude waiters.

It was nearly half one by the time they’d walked back to the Ilac Centre and said goodbye beside the lifts to the car park.

Jo wanted to go home via the office and pick up some work she had to finish before Monday, Aisling needed to get some groceries before the boys got home from football at three. She only needed bread and milk and she could get that at the news agent

She’d spent her last tenner on lunch so she walked back towards the Ilac’s cash dispenser and slid her card in. She was just punching in her PIN number when a thought struck her how much money did they have

in the cash save account? Michael topped up their current account with his salary, but he put anything left over in the cash save account.

“If we put everything in the current account, we’ll just keep writing cheques,” he said.

“We’ve got to save something. You never know when you’re going to need a lump sum, Aisling.”

Aisling never pointed out that she was anything but reckless when it came to money. Years of listening to her grandmother drone on about wasting money had instilled in her a sense of economy. When they were first married, she bought her fruit and vegetables from a tiny greengrocer, bought meat cheaply from a small, family-run butcher and wouldn’t have dreamed of buying bread when she could bake it herself.

Now that Michael was earning a good salary, she’d stopped the time-consuming trekking around buying cheap fruit and vegetables and bought everything in the supermarket. But she still carefully cut out money-off coupons, turned her old Tshirts into dusters and made her own soup, bread and marmalade. Nobody could accuse her of frittering away the family’s money.

She pressed the ‘account inquiry’ button, chose the cash save account and waited. There’d been at least three thousand pounds in there the last time she’d looked. Michael kept saying he was going to transfer it into the building society account, their ‘holiday’ fund.

But when she’d asked him about taking a holiday the previous month, Michael had been very vague about when he could take time off. The supplement had changed everything, he muttered, he couldn’t just leave the country a month after getting it off the ground.

No wonder he hadn’t been keen to look at the brochures she’d picked up from the travel agency, Aisling thought grimly. Three weeks camping in France with the family obviously paled beside the thought of a scorching week in the sun rubbing Ambre Solaire into that bitch!

She scowled as she looked at the small green numbers on the cash dispenser screen. Jesus. What was wrong? Three hundred and thirty

pounds was all that was left in the cash save account. Aisling stared at the figures intently. That couldn’t be right.

She was sure he hadn’t moved the money, or maybe he had and just hadn’t told her? Flustered, she pushed the button to check the current account. They were nearly two hundred pounds overdrawn. Aisling looked at the little ‘dr’ beside the total and felt weak. What the hell was going on? Why were they overdrawn? She hadn’t spent very much lately, apart from the dress she’d bought yesterday.

“Do you want more time?” demanded the little green letters on the screen. Just more money, thought Aisling, feeling the faint stirrings of temper. She quickly withdrew two hundred pounds, as much as she could take out in one day. Snatching her money from the machine, she stuffed it into her purse and turned round rapidly, cannoning into a young man waiting behind her.

“Watch out, missus!” he said to her departing back. Aisling didn’t even hear him. She was already halfway to the lifts, her growing rage giving her a fierce, angry energy. All the lifts were on the upper floors and a small crowd of shoppers waited for them, idling away the time examining their shopping bags and chatting.

Normally, Aisling would have waited for the lift, not keen on panting up endless flights of stairs. Today, she ran up the stairs, her heart pumping and her temper boiling. How dare he take everything out of the account! How dare he!

What sort of a bastard was he to leave her and the boys, and then take all their bloody money into the bargain!

What the hell were she and the twins supposed to live on?

How were they going to pay the mortgage or buy food without any money? What a bastard! She could kill him, would kill him.

Wait until I get my hands on you, Michael Moran, she growled under her breath as she marched towards her car.

You’ll be sorry you ever heard of bloody Jennifer Carroll, I’ll see to that! Aisling dragged open the car door and threw her handbag in. I

never thought he’d stoop so low as to take money from his kids’ mouths, she thought, grinding that gearshift into first.

She’d never driven out of the city centre so fast. Barely noticing amber lights, she wove in and out of different lanes, gritting her teeth and swearing at other drivers.

No matter how terrible the previous day had been, no matter how devastated she’d felt when Michael told her he didn’t love her, she’d had one consolation. The boys. If Michael wanted some high-flying career woman with legs up to her armpits and a wardrobe full of basques and suspender belts, then he could have her.

But Aisling would always have the boys, their beloved boys.

And if Michael ever got bored with Ms Carroll, he could always come home for Phillip and Paul’s sakes. And for hers.

She wouldn’t turn him away, couldn’t turn him away. She loved him, despite everything. a That thought had consoled her, knowing that Michael would find it hard to be apart from his children and that he’d have to come home. Eventually.

Or so she’d thought. Obviously, she’d been wrong. If he could callously strip their bank account, knowing that Aisling had no other means to support the twins, then he’d gone too far. He could discard her, but not Phillip and Paul. Damn him, but she’d fight him tooth and nail for every penny the boys needed!

What sort of man would get up early the morning after leaving his wife, and drain their bank account? Suddenly it all made sense. Aisling, you fool! If you could only withdraw two hundred pounds with your bank card in one day, that’s all he could take out too. Which meant that he hadn’t just grabbed the money this morning, he’d been siphoning it out for a few weeks! What a pig!

She’d never forgive him. If he thought she was going to be a pushover, crying every time she saw him and begging him to come back, he was wrong. She was going to be as hard as nails and every bit as cunning as he had been to protect her children. Watch out you bastard, she

hissed. When she opened the front door, she immediately knew he’d been there. Flyers for a pizza company were thrown casually on the hall table, the way only Michael left them. That always drove her mad. Why couldn’t he bring them into the kitchen and either stick them in the basket where she put the bills or put them in the bin? Because tidying up was her job, of course.

She didn’t even bother to pick up the flyers, but ran upstairs to their bedroom. His side of the wardrobe was open, a couple of metal hangers lay on the bottom shelf where Michael usually kept his shoes.

He’d taken everything, suits, trousers, and the shirts she ironed so carefully, leaving nothing but a forgotten belt hanging forlornly from the tie rack inside the door. She checked the drawers and their en suite bathroom. Everything of Michael’s was gone. Only a damp ring remained beside the sink as proof that his aftershave had stood there, the big bottle of Eternity for Men she’d bought him for Christmas, thinking that forty quid a bottle was a bit pricey.

He’d even remembered to take his shower gel, the tangy lemon-scented one he preferred to her coconut version.

He’d remembered everything, she thought bitterly. He’d never managed to do that during their twelve years of marriage. Packing for holidays had always been a nightmare, as she had to remember everything Michael and the boys needed. If she didn’t stick his shaving kit in the suitcase, he was quite likely to forget it. Not so today. This time Michael wasn’t coming back after two weeks.

Good. She didn’t want him back. But she damn well wanted to know where their money was. In the bedroom, she picked up the phone and dialled the News.

The deputy editor’s office,” she snapped.

“Hello.” His voice sounded the same as it had the night before. Calm and relaxed. She was going to knock that out of him, that was for sure.

“What the hell have you done with the money from the cash save

account?” she demanded. “Aisling?”

“No, it’s Cindy-bloody-Crawford. Of course it’s me, your poor bewildered wife, the one who never noticed you taking all our money from our joint account. How did you do it, huh? Take out two hundred with your card every day in anticipation of dumping me?”

“Stop screaming down the phone, Aisling,” he said coldly.

“And stop making wild accusations. I didn’t steal anything.”

“Where’s the money then?”

“In a separate account, your account.”

“What account?” she demanded.

“Didn’t you read my note?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“It’s on the bed, on your side.”

It was all her side now.

“Listen,” Michael said wearily, “I opened an account for you last month. I knew this would all come to a head and I wanted to sort out things financially. I’m not going to let the kids starve just because we’ve split up, so I talked to a solicitor about the best way to handle things, and he advised me to open an account for you.”

Aisling was dumbstruck. He’d talked to a solicitor over a month ago. He must have been planning this for months.