Better Together (13 page)

Sheridan’s eyes widened as she read. She tried googling Paudie O’Malley+wife+murder, but there were no links that specifically accused him of pushing Elva out of the window. Nevertheless, it was an intriguing thought. What if his marriage had been totally miserable and he’d decided to end it; not by divorcing his wife (Sheridan frowned, thinking that sixteen years previously he wouldn’t have been able to anyway), but by finding a more permanent solution. After all, she thought, if a man believed – as Paudie did – that people were generally unreliable, perhaps getting rid of his wife for good was a better option for him than separating from her and knowing she was in the background all the time. It wouldn’t be out of character for someone with his ruthless reputation. Would it?

She exhaled slowly as she closed the laptop and told herself that she was probably letting her imagination run away with her. After all, there had been a proper garda investigation and Paudie hadn’t been charged with anything. But what if it hadn’t been as thorough as it could’ve been? What if there was another story there? What if Paudie, at the start of his business success, had somehow managed to influence the gardai? Finding out could be the opportunity she’d been looking for. It would give her the chance to submit something radically different to the editors who’d already told her that
they didn’t need sports journalists. She could make a name for herself as a fearless investigator instead. And she’d show Mr Slash-and-Burn that, whatever else she was, she certainly wasn’t dead wood!

The investigative task would be a lot easier if she was based in Ardbawn, a mole in his nearly freebie newspaper.

She picked up the phone and dialled DJ Hart’s number.

Nina tried to maintain a determined front when Sean left, even though she was no longer determined inside. She told herself that this wasn’t the time to forgive and forget, and that she’d behaved like a strong, independent woman. The only problem was that she didn’t feel strong at all.

She felt even less strong when the children called, as they did regularly, although she tried to sound positive and upbeat for their sakes. Chrissie had considered putting off her backpacking trip to be with her, but Nina had insisted on her not changing her plans, promising that she’d be perfectly fine on her own. So she absolutely had to sound cheerful whenever her daughter called. When she’d told Alan about it, her son had muttered something about punching his father’s lights out. Nina reminded him that he was on a peacekeeping mission and that he shouldn’t be thinking about reacting with violence. Alan retorted that sometimes violence was a solution, no matter what people thought.

Nina was comforted by the fact that her children were supportive, even though she didn’t want them to feel that they had to take sides. It was probably a good thing that both of them were out of the country for an extended period.
She didn’t think she could cope with listening to their opinions as well as spending nights debating with herself.

Sean’s affair with Lulu Adams was a hot topic of conversation in Ardbawn too. Although most people believed that Nina had been right to show him the door, there were a certain number who thought that the affair had been almost inevitable and that Nina should have accepted it for what it was, forgiven him and moved on. As it was, though, speculation continued about whether Sean and Lulu were still an item. They hadn’t been seen in any further paparazzi-style photos, but they were together on
Chandler’s Park
every single night. The programme’s ratings were higher than ever, and a current subplot was indicating that Sean’s character, Christopher, wasn’t actually Fiona’s natural uncle at all – that he’d been taken in as a child by the family, who’d kept his origins secret. The lack of a genetic bond between them (only in a bloody soap, thought Nina despairingly) meant that the way would be cleared for a sizzling affair, if that was what the producers thought would keep the ratings high. All the indications so far were that it would. Such an affair would be par for the course for Fiona anyhow, most people said. Sure, there was no one in Chandler’s Park that she hadn’t gone to bed with.

The blurring of the characters and the real people hurt Nina more than she could have imagined. She would open the paper and see a story about the soap talking about the searing chemistry between Fiona and Christopher, and she would think about the relationship between Lulu and Sean and wonder where it was heading. Her initial response of anger and betrayal was now being replaced by sadness and nagging worry that she was handling things the wrong way.
She’d made a decision to ignore his phone calls and delete his emails without opening them, even though it was very hard. She knew that he was able to manipulate her and she didn’t want it to happen this time. But as time went on and the phone calls and emails stopped, she felt alone and adrift and uncertain about her future.

She checked her horoscope on a regular basis to see if it could give her any pointers. She felt that the astrologer, Phaedra, was talking directly to her, because almost every week forgiveness and understanding were mentioned. Yet she didn’t want to forgive Sean, no matter how much she understood him. However, with every passing day her anger was abating and her loneliness was increasing, and she became more and more unsure of herself and the decisions she’d made.

It seemed to Nina that her life was a succession of choices, none of which were necessarily working out the way she’d expected. She kept asking herself how things would have turned out if she’d made different choices in the past. Would she still be in Ardbawn now? Would her life with Sean have taken a very different path? Would she still be happy with him? Or would she be much, much happier without him? Would he have ended up on a TV show anyway? Or would his life have been just as humdrum as he apparently thought it was?

And then she got the solicitor’s letter and almost fell to pieces.

Sean wanted a reconciliation. He wanted to meet her to work things out, either at home or at a neutral venue. He was prepared, according to the letter, to consider counselling. But if Nina refused what was a perfectly reasonable request and continued to bar him from the family home, then he
would have no option but to consider a formal separation and divorce. In that case they would have to look at their joint assets, the biggest of which was the guesthouse. The solicitor’s letter reminded Nina of how much work Sean had put in to bring it up to its present level of business. And how it was his livelihood as much as hers. His time on
Chandler’s Park
was limited. He had reasonable expectations that his role in the guesthouse would have been for life. The entire letter seemed like blackmail to Nina, whose hands shook as she read it. If she didn’t take Sean back, he’d take her home from her. She realised that he had rights too, but the way she looked at it, he was the one who’d messed things up. She didn’t see why she should have to suffer for it. Especially when she was suffering already.

She was completely wiped out by the letter. She felt that she’d used up all of her emotional strength in telling Sean to leave and she didn’t know how to cope with reconciliation talks. She knew she missed him more than she’d ever imagined and she couldn’t help thinking that if she saw him she’d simply cave in and take him back, but if she did that, she’d lose the outer shell she was building up around herself. He’d be able to hurt her again. And she couldn’t cope with being hurt. Not any more. But, she would tell herself as she tossed and turned and tried to figure out what was best, she wasn’t coping very well being without him either. He was part of the fabric of her life. They were bound together more tightly than anyone else she knew. Maybe that was why he wanted to come home. Maybe that was why, deep down, she wanted him home too.

She was disgusted by her own neediness. She reminded herself of the promises he’d made, the ones he’d now broken.
He’d known what would happen. He’d walked into it with his eyes wide open. And her problem, she thought, was that she’d kept her own eyes shut. She’d ignored the signs. She was good at that. She always had been.

She didn’t know what to do. She wished someone else could tell her. That someone else would make the decision for her. These days she was finding it hard to decide on whether to wear a black or a white T-shirt under her jumper each day. So how could she possibly be clear about what she wanted for the rest of her life?

Despite the teeming rain outside the window, she needed to go for a walk. Walking had always helped to clear her mind and order her thoughts. Being out in the elements, she thought, as she pulled on a coat and her practical but very unstylish wellington boots, was exhilarating. She would walk as far as Ardbawn and back, and perhaps by then she would know how to react to Sean’s letter. It was better not to rush into anything stupid; she should reflect on what she wanted, on what was important to her. She’d made decisions in the past on impulse, with a desire to protect herself and her family, and now she wondered how right they’d been. For sure, she murmured to herself as she opened her umbrella and set off down the road, her life would have turned out differently. She certainly wouldn’t have been walking in the Ardbawn rain, worrying about Sean.

That was the thing, though. You made decisions you hoped were the right ones and you had to live with the consequences. But sometimes it wasn’t until a very long time afterwards that you realised what those consequences actually were.

Even with her satnav, Sheridan nearly missed the turn-off for Ardbawn because of the relentless rain beating against the windscreen of her car and defeating the frantic swishing of the Beetle’s windscreen wipers. It was only as she was at the turn itself that she saw it, and spun the steering wheel so sharply that she almost ended up in a ditch. Which would be a great start to my rural life, she muttered to herself, as she proceeded slowly along the secondary road, keeping an eye out for waterlogged potholes. If I have a potential rural life at all.

Much to her dismay, DJ Hart hadn’t sounded all that enthusiastic about interviewing her. When she told him she’d worked on the
City Scope
, he’d asked why on earth she’d want to come to a place like Ardbawn.

‘It would be a challenge,’ she told him, given that the whole idea of moving out of the city
was
a major challenge as far as she was concerned, and that unearthing the truth about Paudie O’Malley would probably be an even greater one.

‘It wouldn’t be what you’re used to,’ he said.

‘I’d like to discuss it with you all the same.’

‘Oh, all right. Thursday at twelve.’

His lack of enthusiasm was off-putting, but Sheridan felt better than she had in weeks. She was finally going to an interview. And she was very definitely regarding it as an opportunity and not as a chance to languish in total boredom for the next few months.

The road ahead of her widened suddenly and she realised she’d reached the town. She drove slowly past the stone-clad church into a diamond-shaped plaza paved with granite stones and dotted with flower planters, although the flowers were now battered thanks to the incessant pounding of the rain. The wooden benches in the plaza were, naturally, empty.

There was a traffic jam on the main street, which Sheridan supposed was a result of the weather. The crawl through the town allowed her to see that the façades of the various shops and businesses were traditionally styled and painted in pretty pastel colours that looked cheerful even on such a wet day. When she reached the narrow bridge that crossed the river, she realised that it was this, and not the rain, that was the main cause of the slow traffic. After the bridge the road widened out again, and she started looking for the offices of the newspaper.

In the new commercial centre, DJ had told her. She’d been wondering about that, because despite its obviously recently renovated plaza, Ardbawn didn’t seem to be a hotbed of commerce, but as she rounded another bend the satnav told her she’d reached her destination, and she saw a two-storey yellow-painted building to her left with a sign announcing that it was the Ardbawn Commercial Centre.

She pulled into the only available space in its small car park and turned off the engine. Commercial Centre was far
too grand a name for it, she thought. The ground floor consisted of a deli, an estate agent and a veterinary practice. As she looked through the rain-spattered windscreen, she could see the offices of a dentist and a solicitor as well as those of the
Central News
on the first floor. Further along the road, on the opposite side, she spotted the distinctive blue and yellow sign of a Lidl supermarket.

What the hell am I doing? she asked herself as she got out of the car and grabbed her laptop bag. This is so not me.

She pressed the button marked ‘Central News’ on the red door in front of her. She was beginning to think that she’d got the wrong day or time when eventually a disembodied voice said, ‘First floor,’ and it buzzed open.

The internal door for the
Central News
was immediately in front of her at the top of the stairs. There was no bell, so she rapped on it, and after another pause it was eventually opened by a giant of a man wearing faded denims and a check shirt open at the neck. (Open at the neck because it would be impossible to close, thought Sheridan, as she looked at him. He was bigger and more powerful than many of the rugby players she’d met in her life. She reckoned he was anywhere between thirty-five and fifty.)

‘Sheridan Gray.’

‘How’re ya? DJ Hart. Editor,
Central News
.’ He took her extended hand and almost crushed it in his own.

‘Thanks for seeing me,’ she said.

‘No bother.’ He waved her towards a white melamine desk covered with papers, filing trays and the remnants of an early lunch, which had clearly been a burger and chips. (She’d noticed a takeaway burger bar as she’d rounded the bend.)

There were two more desks in the room. One was occupied
by a tall, thin man in a black T-shirt and jeans, who didn’t look up from the computer monitor in front of him. The other was vacant, although, like DJ’s, it was covered in papers and files.