Foreign Affairs (94 page)

Brenda sauntered over to the side of the pool.

‘Morning,’ she said airily. ‘Where’s Rachel? How did her date go?’

‘She’s not up yet,’ Jennifer said curtly. Resentment surged. ‘And I’d appreciate it if you and that Greek wouldn’t make so much noise at night.’

‘Did we keep you awake?’ Brenda drawled.

Jennifer was furious. ‘Yes you bloody well did,’ she snapped.

‘Dear, oh dear,’ Brenda said sarcastically.

Paula rolled onto her back and sat up. Her eyes were like flints. ‘Cut it out, Brenda,’ she said coldly.

‘You mind your own business.’

‘It is my business, Brenda. I’m the one whose name is on the contract for this villa. So who comes and goes is my responsibility. And to be frank I think we’d all prefer if you
went to Yiannis’s place in future for your . . . trysts.’

‘I suppose there’d be no problem if you wanted to bring someone back. It’s just because it’s me,’ Brenda said angrily.

‘I don’t have affairs on holidays,’ Paula said mildly as she lay back against her cushions and pulled her sunglasses down from the top of her head.

‘Oh listen to the born-again virgin,’ Brenda sneered, not believing a word of it.

‘I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of AIDS, Brenda, but I find the whole idea of it very scary if you don’t,’ Paula retorted.

‘Aren’t you even afraid you’ll get pregnant?’ Jennifer couldn’t contain herself.

Brenda got up from the side of the pool, where she’d been dangling her feet. She stood looking down at her sister with the strangest expression on her face.

‘Well aren’t you?’

‘Oh for God’s sake, Jenny! I
am
pregnant. And I hate it. I feel so trapped and afraid. And I know you want to be pregnant and you’ll probably hate me even more than
you do now, but I can’t pretend to be happy about it. Just when I’d got some bit of a life for myself. Now I’m back to square one. It’s not fair. You want a baby. I
don’t want this one. But what difference does it make what we want? We just have to put up with it, don’t we?’ Brenda burst into tears and ran back up towards her room leaving
Jennifer and Paula staring after her in dismay.

Chapter Ninety-Six

‘Why, Paula?
Why
?’ Jennifer paced up and down the terrace. ‘I would give an arm and a leg to be still pregnant with my baby. Why couldn’t I
have been left with my baby? Why can’t poor Brenda get on with her life?’

‘I don’t know.’ Paula shook her head. ‘I’m sorry now I let fly at Brenda. No wonder she was so moody.’

‘You didn’t say half the things I said to her,’ Jennifer said glumly.

‘Well she deserved some of them even if your timing wasn’t exactly the best,’ Paula said gently.

‘I’d better go up to her,’ Jennifer said.

Brenda was lying on her bed sobbing her eyes out. Jennifer went over and sat beside her and rubbed her back lightly. She pitied her sister from the bottom of her heart. Jennifer knew how
delighted Brenda had been to get her part-time job and to have the children settled in school. She’d have to give up work now. It would be almost another five years before she’d have
any sort of freedom again. It was a long time.

‘I’m sorry, Jenny. I know it must be very painful for you,’ Brenda wept.

‘It’s all right,’ Jennifer soothed. ‘I understand what you’re going through. It must be an awful shock for you. Are you sure you’re pregnant? Have you had it
confirmed?’

‘I know, Jenny,’ Brenda hiccuped. ‘I always know even before I go to the doctor. I get dizzy almost straight away. And boy, have I been dizzy!’

‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Jennifer asked. ‘At least we’d have known why you were . . . at least we’d have known,’ she finished lamely.

‘How could I tell you and you after losing your baby? I couldn’t do that to you. I didn’t even mean to blurt it out now.’ Brenda rubbed her eyes.

‘I’m glad I know,’ Jennifer said firmly. ‘You’re my sister. I want to help. You should tell me when you’re miserable.’

‘That’s pretty much always.’ Brenda sniffed.

‘It’s not that bad, is it?’ Jennifer said. ‘Aren’t you at all happy?’

Brenda sighed. ‘I suppose I am. I love my kids and Shay, whatever you might think,’ she added defensively. ‘It’s just my life seems so mundane and boring. When I look at
you and Paula, especially Paula, I feel dull and uninteresting.’

‘But you always wanted to get married.’

‘I know. I thought it was the ultimate goal. I thought to be left on the shelf was the greatest disaster that could happen to a girl. And I look at Paula and Rachel, even, and wonder how I
could have been so stupid.’

‘But you didn’t like working. You hated Bugs Bunny.’

‘I know,’ Brenda agreed.

‘Brenda, you’ve got to stop looking at other people and comparing your life to theirs . . . It doesn’t work like that. You’ll never be happy,’ Jennifer insisted.
‘You look at Paula and think she has a wonderful life. On the surface it looks like that but, believe me, Paula has suffered a great deal, especially recently, over something very personal.
Her emotional life is a shambles.’

‘Is it?’ Brenda was astonished.

‘Yes, Bren, it is. Everyone has their own private problems. Don’t ever envy anyone. You don’t know what they’ve suffered. None of the three of us knew you were in bits,
did we?’ Jennifer arched an eyebrow. ‘You put on a brave front just as Paula does, and I do, and Rachel does. So don’t compare. It only makes you dissatisfied.’

‘I suppose Paula thinks I’m an out-and-out bitch, Brenda said sheepishly.

‘No, she doesn’t. She’s feeling sorry for you at the moment,’ Jennifer said reassuringly.

‘I suppose I’d better go down and apologize.’

‘We all said things in the heat of the moment.’ Jennifer grinned. ‘A jumped-up little scrubber and a born-again virgin were two of your better ones, I have to say.’

Brenda laughed in spite of herself. ‘Mam told me I had a sharp tongue, and she was right,’ she said ruefully. ‘Will Paula talk to me again, do you think?’

‘Of course she will. Come on,’ she urged. ‘We’ve only three days left. Let’s enjoy them, have a bit of a laugh.’ They walked down the stairs together.

Paula stood up when she saw them coming. ‘I’m sorry Brenda. I didn’t realize you were under pressure,’ she said immediately.

‘I’m sorry too,’ Brenda said. Her lip trembled and her voice was wobbly.

‘Aw, come on.’ Paula gave her a hug. ‘Let’s forget it all and make the most of our last few days. Come on, lie down on the lounger and put on some high factor cream.
I’ll bring you out a nice cold drink and a slice of watermelon. Tonight the four of us will go and have a girls’ night out in Corfu. What do you say to that?’

‘It sounds great.’ Brenda gave a shaky grin.

‘What sounds great?’ Rachel appeared, looking bright-eyed and bubbly.

‘We’ll tell you when you’ve told us all about your date,’ Paula teased.

Rachel blushed.

‘Did you see that?’ Jennifer grinned. ‘Bring us all a drink, Paula, and we’ll sit down and hear all about it.’

Five minutes later Paula appeared with four frosted glasses on a tray and a packet of Club Milks.

‘I just put a little drop of Malibu in yours,’ she said to Brenda. ‘Now Madame,’ she handed Rachel her glass, ‘begin from the beginning.’

‘I have to meet him for lunch at one-thirty,’ Rachel protested. ‘I’d better go and get ready.’

‘You’ll be ready,’ Paula said.

‘He’s coming to visit me in Dublin if I get a place of my own. He told me he’d do all my carpentry work.’ Rachel smiled.

‘
When
you get a place in Dublin,’ Jennifer interjected.

‘I’ve been thinking about that.’ Paula eyed Rachel as she sipped her drink. ‘I’m going to be doing a lot of travelling soon. Because, although he doesn’t know
it yet, Kieran Donnelly is going to expand Holiday Villa to the Caribbean and the West Indies. I’ll be telling him so when I get back.’ She smiled at Jennifer, who gave her the
thumbs-up sign. ‘The thing is, my apartment will be empty for a lot of the time. So why don’t you use it as a base when you get a job in Dublin, until you’ve found a place of your
own? It will give you time to look around. You won’t be under pressure to buy the first place you see,’ she suggested.

Rachel stared at her. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ She was flabbergasted.

‘Say yes,’ Paula said briskly.

‘Yes! Yes!
Yes!
’ Rachel was ecstatic. She knew beyond any doubt, now, that she was going to leave Bray and find a job in Dublin. How could she not after an offer like
that?

Paula turned to Brenda. ‘You worked on computers, didn’t you, Brenda?’ she said casually.

‘Yeah.’ Brenda nodded.

‘Well it’s just a thought,’ she said airily. ‘Kieran’s getting a crèche organized at work and if Holiday Villa expands to the Caribbean and the West Indies,
I’m going to need more staff. I could take on part-timers and job-sharers and see how it works out. If you could bear to put up with me as a boss, we might be able to work something out.
You’d get travel perks too.’

Brenda was speechless.

‘I wouldn’t be in the office most of the time. It’s very much a team thing in TransCon, isn’t it, Jenny? We don’t go in for bosses much nowadays. Compared to the
days of Jolly Johnson.’ She grinned at Jennifer.

Jennifer laughed. ‘True,’ she admitted. ‘I end up ordering Kieran about rather than the other way around.’ She could have hugged Paula for her kindness.

‘But, Paula, after all the things I said to you. How can you turn around and offer me a job? We’ve never got on.’ Brenda couldn’t figure it out.

Paula laughed. ‘There’s a first time for everything, Brenda. Besides, your hormones are awry at the moment. Let’s just say I like a challenge.’ She glanced at Jennifer.
‘Or so your sister tells me. What a challenge it would be for us to get on. And for you to feel you were achieving something. It could all end in tears, of course. We won’t know until
we try, will we? We can always do a trial period.’

‘When do I start?’ Brenda asked.

‘It’s going to take me a good while to get organized, that’s if Kieran agrees to this, but I think he will,’ Paula said confidently. ‘We certainly won’t be
selling holidays until next year. You can wait until after the baby’s born, if you like.’

‘I’d like to be in on it from the beginning, if possible. I’d like to be involved.’ Brenda sat up straight and stared at Paula. ‘I’d like to help you make a
go of it. I can work mornings.’

Paula stared back at the woman who had always been so prickly with her and so jealous of her friendship with Jenny. It could end in tears, but somehow she had a feeling it wouldn’t.
‘I’d like to help you make a go of it,’ Brenda had said. That was good enough for her.

‘As soon as I can get the go-ahead from Kieran I’ll be knocking on your door,’ Paula said firmly.

‘Right,’ Brenda said. ‘You’re on. Pass me the Club Milks, please.’

‘Are you expecting a baby, Brenda?’ Rachel asked in surprise.

‘Yes, I am.’ Brenda nodded.

‘Congratulations and the best of luck,’ Rachel said warmly.

‘Thanks, Rachel,’ Brenda said, catching Jennifer’s eye.

Jennifer gave her a little smile and a wink. ‘If Kieran’s organizing this crèche, I’d better get Ronan on the job when I get home. It would be nice to have two little
cousins in it together,’ she said lightly.

‘Good thinking,’ Paula approved. ‘Rachel, I think your lunch date has arrived.’

Rachel gave a little shriek. ‘Look at the state of me, I haven’t a bit of lipstick on or anything.’

‘You look great,’ Jennifer declared.

‘Go get him.’ Paula grinned.

‘Enjoy yourself but don’t eat too much. We’re having a girls’ night out tonight,’ Brenda told her.

‘I won’t. See you later,’ Rachel called back as she started to walk across the olive grove to meet Ken.

The rest of the day passed lazily by. The housekeeper gave them a delicious lunch of
Avgato
, a Greek omelette, which she served with a feta cheese salad.

Paula phoned Helen, who was delighted to hear from her, and was anxious to hear how the holiday was going and wanted to know when she would be back. Brenda phoned Yiannis to tell him that she
was going out that night, and the rest of the nights, with the girls. She would not be seeing him any more, she told him regretfully. He was not pleased. Brenda wouldn’t have minded seeing
him again. The sex had been very satisfying. But after the events of the day, she felt it might not be the wisest thing.

They swam and read and chatted lazily by the pool. Rachel arrived home around four bearing a beautiful carved wooden horse. A gift from Ken. She was thrilled with herself and had his name and
address and telephone number safely tucked away in her bag.

There was a great air of jollity around the villa that evening, as the four of them prepared for their night out. All the tensions and undercurrents were gone. Enjoyment was the order of the
day. Brenda drove, as she’d decided not to drink any more, because of her pregnancy. They shopped for presents. Brenda bought Shay a beautiful leather belt and tie. Jennifer did the same for
Ronan. And, after some consideration, Paula did the same for Kieran. He deserved it. Rachel bought more crockery, amid much teasing. Starving after their spending spree, they trooped into a
restaurant called Mezadakia, that served the most mouth-watering array of ‘mezes’ dishes, which left them stuffed to the gills. They lingered over coffee and indulged in a truly
satisfying gossip. Then they went to a night club and danced and flirted and had great fun.

When they got home, Jennifer made more coffee and they all sat on the terrace laughing and chatting until the early hours. A day that had started off so disastrously had ended up delightfully.
The four of them went to bed feeling much happier than at any time during the past week.

‘Why did you do that for Brenda?’ Jennifer asked as they got undressed.

‘It was a bit impulsive, to be honest.’ Paula grinned. ‘I don’t know if it will work out. It was just that she looked so miserable when she told you she was pregnant. In
spite of everything I felt sorry for her. All we can do is give it a try.’