EPILOGUE
Judith felt a singular sense of wellbeing as she lay in a candle-lit room filled with the perfume of burning incense and the sound of Enya playing softly in the background. Her body felt completely relaxed after an Indian head massage and a reflexology session. Jillian had booked the treatments for her as a surprise. It was the first time she’d ever had either, and the sense of relaxation that followed them was a whole new experience, one she hoped she’d be having again. She was going to start giving herself little treats every so often. She deserved them, she decided. Jillian was in the room next door having a hot-stone massage; Judith was going to try that, too, in the not-too-distant future.
She was feeling so much better in every way, Judith thought drowsily as she lay under a snug quilt and tried not to fall asleep. She had spent a week at home with Lily before taking the train west to stay with Jillian.
It had been strange at home with her mother. The whole energy of the house was different. And it wasn’t just the excellent painting job that freshened everywhere up. It was Lily who had changed so much. She was in charge again. Her house was her own, and Judith found it a novel experience to have her mother making decisions about what they’d eat and when, or even to be watching TV with her mother in her sitting room, something she’d rarely done before her accident, preferring to go up to her bedroom and watch it there. Lily was now a member of the library, and the two of them had walked the short distance to it on Judith’s second day home. Lily had had to slow down to accommodate her daughter’s pace. What a turnaround, Judith thought, following her mother through the big heavy doors and hearing her greet the girl at the desk with a cheerful, ‘Hello, Aileen.’
At home, Judith’s room gleamed like a new pin and smelt delightful, the scent of the sage and lavender Lily had placed on the windowsill to counteract the smell of new paint perfuming the room. It had been wonderful to sleep in her own bed again, but even her room seemed different, as though it was no longer hers. She was being fanciful, Judith knew; she was now named on the deeds of her mother’s house, but it was as if the house she’d lived in, unwillingly, for so long was saying goodbye to her. It was time for her to go and be free. When she got back to Dublin, she was going to buy a new car and start looking for a home of her own.
Lily had waved her off in the taxi urging her to have a great time with Jillian, a sight Judith had never ever expected to see. Truly, Lily had come into her own, she reflected, stretching luxuriously. She wondered what her mother was doing. She’d ring her when she got home to Jillian’s.
Judith’s eyelids drooped and she floated off to sleep, more relaxed than she’d been in a long, long time.
Lily’s heart was thumping. Her palms were sweating. She swallowed hard. She was half afraid she might take a turn.
‘Two fat ladies, 88’ came the call, and she nearly fainted with excitement.
‘It’s me,’ she squawked. ‘I’ve got all the numbers.’
‘Well done, Lily,’ Moira Meadows declared, delighted. ‘Full house. Now didn’t I tell you you’d enjoy yourself at bingo?’
‘Beginner’s luck, Moira,’ Lily beamed. They were now on first-name terms.
‘Not at all,’ said Moira’s friend, Joan, ‘I think you’re going to be a lucky player.’
‘Do you think so?’ Lily said delightedly. She hadn’t had such fun in years. It was very exciting. And Moira had been so kind to her, encouraging her and showing her the ropes. And she liked Joan, a small, plump woman with tight, grey wire-brush-permed hair and apple-red cheeks, too. Joan was also a widow.
‘I do,’ Joan affirmed. ‘I think you’ve a long bingo career ahead of you.’
‘Will you come back for a cup of tea?’ Lily invited as they left the crowded hall an hour later.
‘Well thank you, Lily, I’d be delighted,’ Moira said.
‘I would, too, if it’s no trouble,’ Joan agreed, tying a red headscarf with two galloping horses and horseshoes on each corner under her chin to protect her perm from the damp evening air. It was her lucky headscarf, she’d told Lily. She always wore it to bingo.
‘No trouble at all,’ Lily declared firmly.
She was making the tea when the phone rang. It was Judith.
‘Hello, Ma, how are you? How are things?’ her daughter asked with a cheerful lilt to her voice.
‘Things are fine, Judith, but if you don’t mind, I don’t have time to talk at the moment. I’m just back from bingo, and I’m making a pot of tea for my friends,’ Lily explained. ‘I’ll ring you back . . . and Judith, you’ll never guess – I won. Isn’t it great? You’ll have to come some time. Bye bye, dear.’ Lily hung up, glad that her daughter sounded so well. The trip to the west would do her all the good in the world, she reflected, arranging slices of lemon cake and a selection of chocolate rolls on her best china plate to serve to her new friends.
Debbie stood back and admired her handiwork, wiping her hands on a rag tucked into her jeans pocket. What a warm, rich colour the claret was compared to the cold blue that had decorated their bedroom. She was painting the wall behind their bed claret and the rest of the room a rich cream. She’d been dying to change the colour since they’d moved into the house. Now at last she was making the room their own.
Bryan was going to help her later. He was just having a quick drink after work. She was sure he’d like what she’d done so far. It was great to be doing up the house at last. The difference a lick of paint and new colours made. She could get a cream duvet set and dress it with a rich burgundy throw and a couple of burgundy pillows to accessorize. She’d get them in the sales. Simple but effective.
She hummed to herself as she resumed her work. She felt much less stressed than she’d been when they’d come back from their honeymoon. Things were settling down again, and she loved being a married woman with her own home, she thought happily, dipping her brush in the paint and covering another patch of the detested blue.
Bryan inhaled the second line of coke and waited for the rush to hit. ‘Hello, old friend,’ he muttered as the drug took effect and he felt his old exuberance return. He was supposed to be at home painting, but one of the girls was leaving and an impromptu party had broken out in the office, and they were all going to go to the Harbour Master’s for a couple of drinks. One of the lads had sold him some coke, and he’d slipped into the loo to get reacquainted with his drug of choice. He’d send Debbie a text and tell her he’d be home later. She’d be pissed at him he knew, but he needed a night off for good behaviour, he’d bloody earned it. A night on the tiles was a far more inviting option than painting bedroom walls as far as he was concerned.
‘Come on, you guys, let’s party,’ Bryan urged as he stepped back into the office to celebrate the weekend with his workmates.
‘I think this will do very nicely,’ Juliet said to the estate agent as she walked around the bright, airy, ground-floor, two-bedroom apartment in Blackrock. It was her second viewing, ‘I’ll take it.’
It had a lovely private terrace overlooking the well-maintained grounds, facing south-west, so she’d get the afternoon and evening sun. It was just a short stroll to the shops and the Dart. It was a station away from Aimee on the train and just up the road in the car. It was perfect.
Ken had agreed to sell the villa in Spain, which would more than cover the cost of the apartment, so he wasn’t being too financially stretched, even though he was moaning that he wouldn’t get the optimum price. He would still get a lot more than what they’d paid for it, Juliet had pointed out. Once he’d seen that she was very serious about leaving him, he’d become quite subdued, like a balloon that had fizzled out of air. He’d bounce back, she told herself, once he’d got over the shock of her going, but going she was, and the sooner the better. It was as though she’d been released from a cage. Mid-sixties was still a relatively young age, and she had lots of things that she wanted to do.
Juliet felt ridiculously happy as she wandered about looking out through the windows and letting the place wrap itself around her. She felt very much at home.
Ken sat flicking TV channels but not seeing or absorbing anything that flickered past his eyes. He was tired. And he’d come home to no dinner. A note from Juliet had said she’d gone to look at an apartment, and that there was cold cuts and salad in the fridge if he wanted them.
She’d seen a few places and hadn’t bought any of them; no doubt this one would be the same. It was just a notion she had, and he had to appease her, he supposed as he wandered out to the kitchen and opened the door of the fridge. She wouldn’t really leave all the comforts of a big detached house to go and live on her own in a poky apartment, Ken assured himself, pulling out a cold chicken leg and munching it while he put the kettle on to make himself a pot of tea.
Debbie was sizzling as she washed the paint out of her brushes and flung them into a bucket. It was just after ten and, despite several messages and texts to Bryan’s mobile, he hadn’t got back to her. He’d gone on the piss. She knew it. Why could she never depend on him? He’d promised her he’d be home to help her paint. He’d been with her when they’d bought the paint, and he’d been enthusiastic about the colours. She’d felt he was finally starting to take more of an interest in doing up their home. Now, she felt like crying.
Her phone rang, and she grabbed it off the kitchen table. She let it ring for a while, not wanting to seem too eager when she saw his number flash up. ‘Hello,’ she said coldly. She’d see what he had to say before she launched into a rant.
‘Debbie, it’s Stuart. Bryan’s taken a bad hit, he’s been taken to the Mater. You better get over there.’
‘What!’ she exclaimed, aghast, recognizing the voice of one of Bryan’s workmates.
‘Look, we were just walking up the quays to Kev’s gaff, and he took some sort of a convulsion and we called an ambulance. I’m just telling you, you should get over there. I have his phone and wallet.’
‘Right, right,’ she muttered, stunned. She grabbed her bag and the keys of the car off the top of the phone table in the hall and raced out the front door. She thought she was going to puke with apprehension. How could Bryan have been so stupid, she fretted as she drove like a maniac towards the East Link, mentally plotting her route past the Five Lamps and up the NCR to the Mater. The traffic was light, but it seemed as though every set of traffic lights was red. She parked on a sidestreet off Dorset Street, ran into the grounds of A&E and up the ramp into the entrance, which was manned by security guards. A prisoner from the nearby jail, handcuffed to a warder, limped ahead of her, slowing her progress. She managed to sidestep him and slip into the A&E as someone on the other side of the door buzzed to open it and let themself out.
It was controlled chaos – old people in chairs and patients on trolleys along the sides of the big central desk; ambulancemen waiting for their patients to be admitted so they could reclaim their stretchers before their ambulances were once more equipped to race off into the night to bring back another human cargo. Cubicles, some with curtains drawn, others open, all full. She was about to ask for Bryan when she saw him, spread-eagled on a trolley, his clothes stained with puke. He was conscious. ‘Hey, babe, sorry about this. Took a bad one,’ he slurred. ‘Had my stomach pumped. I’ve to stay for a couple of hours just to make sure. Glad you’re here, babe. I don’t want to be here on my own.’ He lifted his hand to take hers.
Debbie stared down at him. Anxiety turned to ice-cold fury. ‘I’m not staying. You can get a taxi home or get one of your druggie friends to drive you. And then you can go to hell,’ she exploded, turning on her heel. She made her way past a cluster of relatives surrounding an elderly man in a wheelchair, grey-faced as he took great gasps of oxygen. How dare her good-for-nothing husband take up a trolley when someone who was really sick needed it? How dare he expect her to stay in that hellhole with him, holding his hand and probably his head after leaving her in the lurch for the evening? How dare he treat her like a doormat?
‘No more,’ Debbie muttered as she hurried back to the car. She had a good mind to keep driving until she got to Greystones and spend the night and even the weekend at her mother’s. But Connie would want to know why, and Debbie had no intention of telling her about Bryan’s shameful episode.
She couldn’t go running to her mother every time something bad happened. She wasn’t a child any more. She’d married Bryan in spite of Connie’s misgivings. She was going to have to deal with her own problems. And if Bryan thought he was going to treat her like dirt, he was in for a rude awakening. From now on, he was on probation. One more stunt like that and he was out, Debbie vowed, and she got into the car and drove home.
Bryan blinked rapidly and tried to focus. Was he hallucinating? Had Debbie just told him to go to hell? He felt weird; it was a really bad trip. Surely his wife was concerned about him? He could die; people had died from dodgy drugs. She couldn’t have walked out on him and left him alone in this dreadful, noisy, stuffy place. The bright, fluorescent lights hurt his eyes and were giving him a headache. He closed his eyes and immediately felt dizzy. Nausea washed over him and he groaned as his stomach heaved and he began to barf. Debbie had abandoned him in his hour of need. So much for better or worse. Some wife she was.
Aimee yawned as she stood at the baggage carousel with Barry and Melissa, waiting for her luggage. She’d enjoyed her holiday and the feel of the sun on her limbs. It had been a relief to get out of wet and windy Ireland. And now they were back to miserable weather again. It had been cold walking down the jetway to the terminal, and it was cloudy and raining outside.
She’d done the family-holiday thing now, she thought with relief. She and Barry had even had sex one night, and she’d enjoyed it, because she hadn’t had it for ages. But now she wanted to get back to work. She wanted to have as much done as she possibly could before the baby was born. Hibernian Dreams would be up and running in the next couple of months as far as she was concerned.
She smiled at Melissa. Her daughter had a good tan, which took away that dreadful pallor she’d had before they came away. ‘Good holiday, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah, it was great, Mom. Have to go to the loo, I’m bursting,’ she said. ‘Don’t forget: my case has a pink ribbon on it, if it comes before I get back.’
‘I know it,’ Aimee assured her.
‘Where’s she off to?’ Barry shouldered his way through the group waiting for their luggage to join her. He’d gone off to get a trolley.
‘The loo,’ Aimee said, peering along the carousel as the cases started arriving.
‘You don’t think she’s being sick, do you?’ Barry frowned.
‘No,’ Aimee said. ‘I thought she did fine on holidays.’
‘It’s hard to know. We’ll bring her to the doctor anyway. We need to be vigilant.’
‘OK,’ Aimee agreed, spotting her Louis Vuitton.
‘And you’ll have to go for your scan too,’ he reminded her.
‘For God’s sake, Barry, I know,’ she said irritably. ‘I’ll sort it next week. Let’s get out of the airport first.’
Could he just not leave her alone? Going for scans and hospital visits was a bloody nuisance; she wanted to leave it as long as she could. Did her husband not realize just how busy she was going to be? She scowled as she hauled her case off the carousel and dumped it on to the trolley with a lot more force than was necessary.
Melissa made herself quietly sick in the small cubicle. There was so much noise with hand-dryers and flushing loos, no one would hear her, she assured herself as she got rid of the unwelcome food. She was sure she had put on a ton of weight when she was away. It was time to get serious about getting it off again.
She emerged into the crowds milling around the toilets and made her way to the sink. It had been a good holiday, she reflected as she washed her hands and held them under a dryer. Her mom and dad had been like their old selves, and they’d even hugged one day. They’d been very watchful of what she ate, and she’d seen them looking at each other when she protested about eating dessert and starters. It was bad enough eating a main course.
A thought struck her: it was clear they were concerned about her, and it was as if they had joined forces again. If she kept them concerned about her weight, they’d be so focused on her they wouldn’t end up fighting and talk of divorce would fade away. That would be excellent, Melissa decided. It was a win-win situation. By controlling her weight she’d be keeping the family together. She couldn’t think of anything better. It was a challenge she would embrace eagerly, she decided, as she noticed with dismay how round and fat her cheeks had become the week she’d been away. The first thing she was going to do when she got home was weigh herself.
Barry’s phone beeped, and his brow furrowed as he looked at the message.
Can’t contact the bastard. Hasn’t been seen around the club in the last few weeks. Not looking good. Derek.
Bloody hell, thought Barry, a dark, turbulent tide of anxiety washing through his veins. SecureCo shares had plunged, there was talk of the company going under and Jeremy Farrell had gone to ground. Derek Holmes had sent him a text wondering if Barry knew of his whereabouts and explaining the reason why he and several club members were anxious to contact the elusive stockbroker. Barry hadn’t heard a peep from him. What a welcome home from his holidays.
But perhaps Jeremy was on holidays, too, and that was why no one could contact him; it wasn’t beyond the bounds of reason. People went abroad on holidays, he reassured himself silently. All would be well. Jeremy was too wily a fox to back something that was going to fail, even in these rocky economic times.
Barry watched his wife dumping her case on the trolley and sighed. Back to normal, he thought gloomily. The holiday had been a truce of sorts, but the battle of real life had just re-engaged, and it was disheartening. The south of France had been a pleasure. They had lazed around the hotel and pool, gone to Nice and Monte Carlo, read and swam and totally relaxed after the exhaustion of Disneyworld and shopping in Paris on hot August days.
Aimee hadn’t been as relaxed for months. They’d even had some decent sex, which was totally unexpected. It was as though by unspoken consent they’d left their problems at home and cocooned themselves in their Riviera bubble. But the minute they’d touched down in Dublin, the BlackBerry was out and she was all business again.
He glanced at his watch and yawned. Gone eleven thirty. Another three-quarters of an hour to get home. An air-traffic controllers’ strike had delayed them a couple of hours. Flying was a nightmare these days. It would be nice to sleep in his own bed, and at least he didn’t have to get up for work the next day. Coming home on a Friday was a good idea always.
He thought of Connie and wondered how she was and what she was doing. No doubt she was on a date with that man. Don’t think about it, he told himself as Aimee pointed out Melissa’s case and he grabbed it. Maybe he’d send her a text to say they were home, he mused as he waited for his own case to come around. A text couldn’t harm anyone, and he wanted Connie to know that he was thinking of her. She’d appreciate it, he assured himself as he took out his phone.
‘Are you sure this is what you want?’
‘Couldn’t think of anything else I’d like better,’ Connie said as she led Drew up the stairs. They’d gone out for a meal in a local restaurant and she’d invited him back for a drink. She thought she heard her mobile phone beep, but she didn’t care. It was probably one of those messages to tell her her inbox was full. She was always forgetting to delete her messages. Debbie and Bryan were painting their bedroom; her daughter would hardly be ringing her at this hour of the night.
Hand in hand, she and Drew walked into her bedroom. She was longing for him to make love to her. Now, finally, her life could be all about her and this wonderful new man who’d arrived into it like a precious gift from the universe. The rain was lashing down on to the Velux window, adding to the cosy feel of the darkened room, and they turned to each other eager for what was to come.
They were hungry for each other, their hands fumbling at buttons and zips before, freed from the encumbrances of clothes, they pressed against each other, hands sliding, caressing over bare skin. How lovely it was to have a man’s arms around her again. Connie sighed with pleasure as she kissed Drew’s neck and throat before finding his mouth again. The first time was fast, frenzied, and both cried out when release came, burying their faces into each other’s necks and gasping for breath.
‘I love a horny man,’ Connie smiled in the dark, tracing her fingers down the long length of his spine.
‘And I love a horny woman,’ Drew laughed, leaning up on his elbow to look down at her. ‘Sorry about the rush. It’s been a while.’
‘Don’t be. It was deeply, deeply satisfying,’ she purred. ‘I couldn’t have waited myself, it’s been a while for me too.’ She smiled, staring into his eyes. ‘I have to tell you something, though,’ she confessed. ‘Barry and I did it once before Debbie’s wedding. It was a one-off. You know the way things happen . . .’ She trailed off. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Why should I, Connie? Of course I don’t, as long as you won’t be doing it again,’ he teased. ‘Then I might have to go and shag Marianna.’ She laughed against his shoulder.
He bent his head and kissed her tenderly. ‘This time we’ll do it slow,’ he promised, sliding his hand along the curve of her waist to cup her breast.
‘Whatever you say,’ Connie murmured as the delicious quivers began again, and kissed him back with enthusiasm.
Later, entwined in each other’s arms, drifting off to sleep, Drew said drowsily, ‘I’m falling for you, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Right back at ya,’ Connie said sleepily, kissing his cheek as his arms tightened around her before she fell fast asleep, snuggled in against him.