Always and Forever (34 page)

‘I wasn’t going to go because your Aunt Imogen thought she wasn’t wel enough but she is, so we’re off. Brendan from next door is going to go in and check the post. See you when I get back. Hope al ’s wel . Cheerio.’

Ensconced in her den on the couch with the duvet wrapped around herself and the crumbs of a bar of chocolate on the lamp table beside her, Daisy stared sorrowful y at the phone. Cheerio? What kind of a thing was that for a mother to say to her daughter? No ‘I love you, sweetheart, and wil miss you’. But then how could Nan Farrel miss her daughter when they rarely saw each other?

Daisy had planned to raise her baby with more warmth and love. None of that children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard rubbish her mother’s family liked. Daisy’s child wouldn’t have been sent off to the nursery to have tea away from her parents or shipped off to boarding school. That was what had turned her mother into the person she was.

Daisy’s children would have been adored and cuddled.

They’d have snuggled up on the couch with her and giggled their way through Monsters, Inc.

There was an emergency bar of caramel stil in the cupboard. Daisy went to get it. Then she turned the TV up very loud. That way, she couldn’t hear herself think.

After a week at home, in which there were strangely no cal s from her and Alex’s col ective friends, Daisy emerged into the real world half a stone heavier and with a break-out of spots. She would have stayed in her cocoon for ever, but knew she couldn’t. She had to go back to work and, who knew, it might feel less painful to be with other people? But how was she going to tel anyone?

In the end, she didn’t have to say anything. When Daisy arrived at Georgia’s Tiara at ten in the morning, Mary took one look at her and knew that whatever had kept Daisy out of work, it hadn’t been flu.

‘What happened?’ Mary had been marking up the stock list with a biro. She put them down and came rushing over.

‘Alex’s in love with Louise and she’s pregnant,’ whispered Daisy. It was like tel ing her mother should have been.

‘Louise?’

‘His assistant in work. Is my life a cliche or what?’ Neither of them laughed.

‘I don’t know what to say, Daisy,’ said Mary. ‘No, I do. Let’s close the shop and go to Mo’s for a late breakfast.’ ‘Not al of us. I don’t want to tel Paula,’ begged Daisy, thinking that she couldn’t possibly bear having Paula pity her. ‘We’l say nothing,’ Mary said. ‘Tel her we’re off for a chat and I don’t want to leave her taking care of the shop on her own in her last week of work.’

‘I’d forgotten she was going on maternity leave,’ said Daisy dul y. This week they’d planned to have a baby shower in Mary’s house with al Paula’s friends coming. Daisy didn’t dare ask if it was stil going ahead. She’d bought the present already: two exquisitely soft babygros, one in white and one in yel ow velour. She’d ask Mary to give the gift to Paula. There was no way she could cope with going now.

Mary put an arm round her. ‘I saw a book recently on how to put a hex on an ex-boyfriend. Should we buy it and give it a go? I’m convinced that Zara in Mystical Fires has white witch paraphernalia at the back of the shop. She’s bound to be able to put a hex on Alex.’

Daisy laughed in spite of herself, although she wasn’t sure if it was at the thought of sweet Zara putting a hex on anyone, or at the image of Alex suffering. ‘Why don’t I cut out the middle man and simply go round and shoot him myself?’

Mo’s Diner was only a decade old, yet seemed always to have been part of Carrickwel . The look was ‘fifties American diner, with mini jukeboxes on the Formica tables, cherry-red banquettes in the booths and scores of pictures of Elvis, Mo’s

icon, on the wal s. The waiters and waitresses dressed as if for an amateur dramatic version of Grease, with the girls in swirling skirts, ponytails and bobby socks, and the guys in drainpipes and shirts with sleeves careful y rol ed up to bicep level like James Dean.

Mo himself was al -American, despite coming from County Clare and, after half a lifetime in Memphis, had come back to Ireland with a bit of Tennessee with him. His diner served grits, coffee, burgers and ice-cream sodas, and people had been known to fight over his blueberry muffins. A job in Mo’s was prized and many a Carrickwel student had supplemented col ege by waiting tables at weekends.

The early morning breakfasters were gone and there was a lul at Mo’s when Mary and Daisy slid into a booth at the back. ‘Love Me Tender’ was playing soulful y in the background. Mary didn’t say ‘spil ’ the way she normal y did when there was a bit of gossip to be heard. She waited until they’d ordered before placing both hands on the table and leaning forward, waiting for Daisy to start.

‘Alex said we needed time apart just before I went to Diisseldorf,’ Daisy began.

‘Time apart, pah!’ hissed Mary. ‘What was his excuse?

Something lame, I’m sure.’

Daisy sighed. ‘We’d had an appointment with a fertility clinic and he said he needed time to think about it.’

‘Oh …’ Mary looked astonished. ‘I had no idea,’ she said, stunned.

‘I couldn’t tel you, Mary. It was too painful to talk about. You have kids and Paula’s pregnant, I didn’t think you’d understand what I was feeling. I thought you’d say I was being overdramatic or ‘

‘I hope I wouldn’t have said anything so hurtful,’ Mary said fervently. ‘Having children doesn’t mean I can’t empathise with anyone who longs for them. Having my kids is the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me,’ she added simply. ‘If I hadn’t been able to have them, it would have been agony. I’ve always wanted children, so, no, I wouldn’t have thought you were being overdramatic. I’m sorry you couldn’t tel me what you were going through. I feel as if I’ve let you down.’ Daisy shrugged. ‘You didn’t let me down. My ovaries have or something else has. Who knows what?

We’ve been trying to have a baby since I turned thirty - wel , I’ve been trying since I turned thirty - and I decided to do something about it instead of simply buying pregnancy testing kits and crying when I wasn’t pregnant. So I rang a few infertility clinics, made an appointment with one and when I told Alex, he wasn’t keen - I knew he wasn’t keen.’

Mary reached across and squeezed Daisy’s hand.

‘I thought it was simply that it was al too fast and he was scared,’ Daisy went on. ‘It is your basic male nightmare after al : masturbating into a cup, having someone analyse your sperm count - who wouldn’t be scared? But we could have had a baby at the end of it and I’d have done anything for that.’ A very young waiter with embryonic sideburns delivered their coffee and muffins.

‘And then?’ prompted Mary when he was gone.

Daisy broke up her muffin with her fingers but didn’t eat any of it. ‘He said we needed a break.’

‘And you said, why?’

‘And I said why,’ agreed Daisy. ‘He needed time out or something, he said.’

‘Liar.’ Mary aimed a sugar lump at her coffee and lobbed it in.

‘I believed him.’

‘Why didn’t you tel me? You went to Diisseldorf knowing this. Jesus, Daisy, you should have said. We could have cancel ed Diisseldorf. How did you go and work with al this misery hanging over you?’

‘If I hadn’t gone,’ pointed out Daisy, ‘I wouldn’t have rushed home from the airport to his office ready to tel him we didn’t

need to have a baby and that our love was enough and then I wouldn’t have found out the truth.’

Mary winced.

Daisy kept breaking her muffin into smal er and smal er crumbs. ‘Going away was the catalyst. I had this flash of inspiration in Germany that the whole infertility issue was worrying Alex and we should forget about it. What was a child compared to our love, right? A baby would ruin everything. Imagine Alex and the perfect apartment with baby sick and toddler toys everywhere! So I rushed to the bank to tel him this, literal y straight from the plane, and he was there outside the bank with Louise. I mean, I could tel something was wrong straight away because she ran away and he looked so shocked to see me. And then he told me.

He does want children after al , except not with me. With Louise. I feel so stupid not to have known. It’s official: I am an idiot.’

Mary ignored this. ‘How long has it been going on?’

‘Months - almost a year. I don’t know which bit is worst: that he’s gone or that he’s with another woman who’s having his child.’ Daisy looked up. ‘I think I’m stil in shock, to be honest. It doesn’t feel …’ she touched her chest at heart level, ‘… real. I can’t believe that it’s happened, like it’s happening to someone else and I’m hearing about it and empathising, but it’s not me, not me and Alex.’

‘He’s happy about the baby with Louise, is he? It wasn’t a fling? He’s not staying with her because he feels he should? Because he can raise his child and be with you at the same time, you know. You’d have to learn to forgive him but you might be able to,’ Mary said doubtful y.

‘Oh, he’s happy about it al right,’ said Daisy in a low voice.

‘I wasn’t “the one”, you see. Nobody who meets up in col ege stays together, apparently. We were always looking over our shoulders for the right one.’

Mary looked mystified.

‘That’s what Alex told me,’ explained Daisy bitterly. ‘I was looking for “the one” too, wasn’t I? We were biding time.

And it just so happened that he found his one before I found mine.’ That was one of the most painful things about the whole mess, she realised. That she’d been utterly in love with Alex and he had felt differently. His words made a mockery of their love over the past years.

‘Course you weren’t looking for anyone else.’

‘That’s what I said, but he insisted I was wrong. Didn’t I see what he was trying to tel me al along? Not getting married was the biggest hint you could give a person and he couldn’t understand how I was so trusting and didn’t cop on.

If he’d wanted to be with me, he’d have married me. So I should have worked it al out and not been so shocked when he fel in love

with Louise.’

‘It’s your fault, then? For not realising you were just biding your time with each other?’

‘That sums it up, yes,’ said Daisy. She tried a bit of squashed muffin. Delicious. Could muffins be the cure to a broken heart? ‘Of al the low, lying scumbags I’ve heard of, Alex Kenny has got to be the worst,’ Mary said furiously. ‘At least Bart had the bal s to say he was no longer in love with me, not deny he was ever in love with me in the first place!’

It was a smal comfort that Mary sounded so shocked at Alex’s cal ousness.

‘What do you want to do?’

Daisy knew exactly what she wanted: Alex back. Mary wouldn’t approve. ‘I want it al the way it was before,’ she said. ‘It would never be the way it was before. Never. You could never forget what he’s done and what he’s said.

Strike what I said earlier about taking him back: he doesn’t deserve to be taken back.’

‘But I would if he came back.’

‘No you wouldn’t. I know that I’m breaking the unbreakable rule of friendship by dissing your man,’ Mary said, ‘but Alex is a two-timing shit and he doesn’t deserve you.’

‘That doesn’t stop me loving him,’ Daisy said.

‘Has he been in touch since?’

Daisy shook her head.

‘He wil , you know.’

A surge of hope lifted Daisy’s heart. If only she could see Alex again, she could make it al right, couldn’t she? ‘He’l try and make it al up to you so he can sleep at night,’ Mary said. ‘You can’t throw fourteen years down the plughole in one move. He’l want to fix it so he can tel al of your friends that you broke up amicably, that you were like brother and sister, real y. That it’s al fine, you’l always care for each other and be in each other’s life, blah, blah, blah.’

Even though she knew she shouldn’t, Daisy had held on to that thought tightly. Friends. If they could be friends, then she’d stil have Alex and he’d be there sometimes, and it might be al right. The boulder crushing her heart would lighten if she knew he was stil in her life. She could understand how women shared men, knowing about another woman and putting up with it because the man in question was worth it. Daisy would share Alex if that’s what it took.

Because otherwise, he wouldn’t be there, and his not being there would be like his being dead, only worse because he’d have chosen to be on the planet and not anywhere near her, ever.

‘The world and his wife knows that staying friends isn’t an option,’ Mary advised quickly. ‘If you want to get closure, you need a total break, and pretending it was al for the best is just avoiding painful issues.’

Since Mary had been going to therapy to get over her divorce, she was ful of psycho-speak. ‘Closure’ was her favourite word, and she was keen to see everybody’s side of the story. Apart from Alex’s.

‘Mary, I don’t want it to be over,’ Daisy said. ‘I want to close my eyes and have it al back the way it was.’

‘No you don’t.’ Mary was brisk. ‘You want to go to his new home, hide prawns in the hems of Louise’s curtains, and then have a torrid and very public romance with some twenty-four-year-old guy with a washboard stomach. And in the meantime,

I’ve got some books to lend you. Women Who Love Bastards is bril iant. You’l love it.’

Mary was right, though it was another six weeks before Alex came back. Daisy saw him before he saw her. Hands ful with her handbag, groceries and a bookshop bag with two more books on how to live through the pain but get better, she spotted him sitting in his car in one of the visitors’ parking spaces outside their apartment. It was stil their apartment to her, even six weeks after he’d left. Six weeks of no phone cal s, no nothing. Six weeks in which Daisy had gone to hel and back.

And she’d come through it, sort of. By stumbling through every day and hoping that it would be better tomorrow. Alex had come alone.

There was no sign of Louise in the passenger seat, so maybe this wasn’t the visit where Alex suggested that they al try to

be friends.

He final y saw Daisy as she stepped onto the tiled path that led up to the main front door.

‘Hi, Daisy.’ He stood behind her as she keyed the numbers into the security lock. She could smel his aftershave, some new cologne that wafted sexily around him, and she wanted to lean back into his embrace the way she would have before.