Homecoming (21 page)

‘Get it,’ she said to Davie. ‘I need a drink.’

They stood at the back of the hall and, hidden behind the people who lined the edge of the dance floor, they shared the bottle. Davie drank it from the bottle but Rae couldn’t.

‘Get me something to mix with it,’ she gasped after the first sharp bite of whiskey.

Davie came back with red lemonade in a glass. He poured a little in. Rae took the bottle and filled the tumbler to the brim.

‘You’re going wild tonight, girl!’ he said, pleased.

Kissing him wasn’t so bad after all the whiskey. They danced the slow dances, Davie holding her tighter than anyone had ever held Rae before. Bobby Goldsboro was singing ‘Honey’ and it felt nice to be held, nice to be dancing with this warmth inside her.

She giggled as they made their way down Main Street. Davie was intent on taking her somewhere. In the back of his uncle’s butcher’s shop, he said. He worked there at weekends, he had a key.

‘Oh yeah,’ she said sleepily. Now all she wanted to do was lie down and sleep.

‘Come on,’ Davie said, hauling her along. ‘You were the one who wanted to go wild.’

He had keys to the back of the shop and they crept in. Inside, it was freezing. Rae began to wake up and shivered.

‘Cold rooms for the meat,’ said Davie.

‘Is there music?’ she asked.

There was a small transistor radio in the shop itself. Davie brought it into the back office and its crackling filled the air.

He searched the drawers of a filing cabinet and came up with another bottle, this time of clear liquid. Rae had never drunk the clear, illegal whiskey. Some kids were given spoonfuls of poteen mixed with cloves, hot water and sugar when they were sick. But not Rae. Paudge Hennessey liked poteen and would never have wasted it on his daughter.

This time, there was no red lemonade to mix with it.

Rae drank. She didn’t like the taste, but she wasn’t being herself tonight. She was being the other Rae, the true Hennessey.

When Davie began to kiss her and his hands fumbled with her top, pulling it up to reveal her white bra, she didn’t stop him.

‘You’re a beauty, Rae,’ he mumbled heavily, kissing her.

Even Davie, with his clumsy caresses, was kinder than her parents.

When it was all over, Davie leaned against the wall and smiled. ‘That was amazing,’ he said, breathing heavily. ‘Did you enjoy it?’

Rae patted his cheek fondly. Had she been supposed to enjoy it? At least Davie cared about her. Nobody else seemed to.

There was a small toilet at the back of the storeroom and Rae went inside and threw up, the whiskey burning as much on the way up as it had on the way down. Then she sat weakly on the toilet itself and wiped away the stickiness of Davie, and her own blood.

She wondered why people got so excited about sex. She’d read bits of dirty books that Coral, her cousin, had lent her, and in books, sex was exciting. In books, women screamed loudly and panted, and men told them they adored them and would kill to possess them. In real life, Davie had done the panting, not Rae, and it had been quick, so quick. It had hurt too, the feeling of something alien in her body, in
there.

There hadn’t been pleasure, just nothingness, the same nothingness she’d felt since that afternoon at home.

She flushed the toilet and sat down on the lid. The tiredness was gone. In its place was an ancient weariness.

Lies came back to haunt you, Rae realised. Lies were like cracks in a foundation wall. If they were there, they would make themselves seen eventually. No matter how well the wall was plastered or painted or whether expensive wallpapers were hung, one day, the crack would work its way out to the surface. And then, the only question would be why you hadn’t dealt with the crack in the first place, why you’d hidden it.

She heard the back door open slowly. Will called her name.

‘Rae, hello love, sorry I was so long. I was on the phone.’

Rae quickly folded up the official letter until it was a small square, then she stuffed it with the envelope into her pocket.

‘The rice is nearly ready, I think,’ she said, and somehow, her voice was steady.

There had been times early on when Rae could have told Will. But she’d never found the courage. Then it was too late. She met his family and after that she feared to lose him.

‘I had lunch with my mother today,’ Will said, sitting down at the table with a sigh.

‘Really?’ said Rae, trying to calm herself down.

Will met his mother twice a month for lunch alone; it was easier that way. For years, Rae had gone along too and she’d felt an enormous relief when she convinced Will that his mother liked to have him to herself.

Geraldine Kerrigan adored her son and there was no room for a third party in the relationship. Rae had long since decided that it was easier to get out of her mother-in-law’s way.

‘The good news,’ Will went on, ‘is that she met the surgeon this week and he’s going to replace her hip. He’s got a cancellation on Monday and he’s going to do it then.’

Rae kept spooning out the casserole. She’d seen many people confined to barracks due to hip replacements or hip breakages. Anything to do with hips meant a lot of inactivity, pain and other people looking after you.

‘When?’

The week after next. The thing is, Rae–’

‘– she’ll need looking after,’ Rae said, interrupting. ‘Is she going to a nursing home? To Leonora’s house?’ Leonora was Will’s older sister, an identikit version of her mother. Similar in so many ways, the two women had a testy relationship at best.

‘She
can’t
go to Leonora’s,’ Will said.

Why can’t she? Rae wanted to ask. It’s not my fault your mother and your sister are at each other’s throats.

‘I know she can’t go to Leonora’s,’ was what she actually said. Despite being in a state of shock about the letter, she knew what had to be done. Geraldine would come to them. Rae would have to continue to pretend everything was all right and that her long-lost baby hadn’t reached out a hand from the past.

The only plus of the letter about Jasmine was that it had blunted the effect of Will’s news. Normally, Rae would have felt dizzy at the idea of Geraldine coming to stay. She tried to engage with practicalities.

‘When is she coming? Where is she going to sleep?’

Geraldine would have to be on the ground floor, but where? How would they manage?

‘I was thinking that perhaps we could set up a bedroom in the living room,’ Will said. ‘That way, she can use the little bathroom in the hall.’

Many years before, they’d installed a shower and loo under the stairs in the hall.

It was small and not what Geraldine was used to.

The idea of Geraldine living in their home for three, perhaps four weeks, suddenly made Rae quail.

But not for one second could she let dear Will know this.

‘That’s a great idea about the living room,’ Rae said evenly. ‘We ought to start sorting it all out tonight.’

‘Thank you, love,’ said Will, and it was almost worth it for the smile on his face as he looked at her. Almost.

10
Feasts

Use your best china for a feast – that’s my advice. You want to welcome guests into your home and what could make them feel more welcome than the sight of a beautifully laid table with flowers, candles and the nicest china? Your best doesn’t have to be fancy, either. The first time I had Christmas dinner in my home, we were poorer than church mice and, out of ten plates, only two matched. We hadn’t a penny. Eleanor, your cradle was the bottom drawer of the chest, although it was prettier than any shop-bought cradle once I’d lined it with a hand-sewn quilt and your woollen blankets edged with satin ribbon. But nobody thought we were poor once they saw the table. I’d worked all winter on that tablecloth with scraps of embroidery silks. I had a lot of reds, so there were poppies on it – not like any poppies Joe said he’d ever seen, but I laughed at that, gave him a swift slap with my dishcloth, and said they were my version of poppies. Joe’s mama had crocheted lace for the edging of the tablecloth with the fine white thread that came from the linen bags of flour.

Joe had won me two big tumblers of carnival glass
at the fair in Galway, so I picked a big handful of ivy and made up the tumblers with the ivy trailing down the sides. I love carnival glass, the swirly orange colour lit up the table with the ivory candles perched in the middle. I stuck a bit of rowan in the sides too, in honour of the fairy folk. My mam went to Mass every morning but she was raised knowing about the fairies.

Our china was a mish-mash, but there was a sprig of holly berries on each plate, and when the goose was laid in the middle, Joe said the Grace, and we all said Amen. I looked down that table, at all of them, the family we’d started collecting, and I knew there was no better way to celebrate than to cook good food for them. The food is only a bit of it, you see. It’s the heart of the person who’s doing the cooking. The intention. That’s what makes it a real feast.

Sometimes you have to conjure a feast out of thin air. I remember when Joe’s uncle died and there was nobody left in his homeplace to have the wake. I got a big piece of bacon. You can’t beat a good piece of bacon when you have to come up with a feast in a hurry…

Megan watched the man in the airport with the camera around his neck. He wasn’t a tourist, not with that sleek, black Canon and state-of-the-art telephoto lens. If the Hubble Telescope went offline, the man’s lens could probably stand in and magnify Mars.

Paparazzi, definitely. Probably there to photograph some celebrity that his news desk knew was flying in, but any photographer worth his salt would realise that photos of someone like Megan would make a fortune, so if he spotted her, she’d be in trouble.

Megan pulled her grey bobble hat down around her ears and felt glad for the safety of baggy boyfriend jeans and a hooded sweatshirt that was three sizes too big. She’d been in Ireland for six weeks and, so far, nobody had spotted her.

She found a seat in Arrivals as far away from the photographer as possible and sank down into the collar of her sweatshirt, trying to look like a bored teenager. It was entirely possible to disappear in public, despite what many famous people claimed. Megan and Rob had managed to hide very well in Prague at first.

‘Are we crazy?’ she’d asked Rob, as they took the lift up to their suite in the Hotel Sebastien, both of them in dark glasses and baseball hats, trying to look like tourists. It was a flip question, but Megan was serious.

This was their last chance to step back from the brink, and even though she wanted to be in bed with Rob Hartnell more than she wanted anything in the world, an inner voice was urging caution.

‘Why are you asking that?’ Rob said, linking his fingers with hers.

Megan shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Anxiety, I guess. Something’s making me nervous.’

‘Don’t be.’

The lift shuddered to a halt and the doors slid open.

‘We’re meant to be together,’ he whispered, as he ushered her into his rooms.

In the huge suite with its over-sized furniture and formal sitting room, Megan felt a strange combination of anxiety and excitement overwhelm her. This was even more stunning than she’d imagined. The hotel’s dark beauty was like a backdrop for a play. Through open double doors, she could see a big bed with a carved headboard and filigree gold-painted lamps hanging on the walls at each side.

Rob wandered into the bedroom while Megan stood in the middle of the sitting room and imagined a steely matriarch onstage, sitting on one of the velvety couches, delivering her lines. She shook her head to get rid of the image. This wasn’t a play, it was her life.

Rob returned and took her hand. He was smiling. ‘Never mind all this,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’

His big hand was warm and gave her comfort. ‘Now,’ he said, with satisfaction. ‘I’d heard about these baths…’

The bathroom was perfect in its 1900s glory. The old goldhued silk wallpaper was torn in places, and the giant marble sinks were worn, but a claw-footed bath big enough for four people sat in state in the centre of a sea of Siena marble. A big old-fashioned jar of pale blue bath salts with a navy satin ribbon stood on a pile of snowy white towels.

‘I think we need a bath after our trip,’ he said huskily, his mouth close to her ear.

In that instant, it didn’t matter that Megan was anxious. Rob reached over and unbuttoned her coat. He pulled her baseball hat off and released her hair from its ponytail. She didn’t move, merely leaned her back against him, eyes closed, and let him touch her.

Then he turned her round and bent down to kiss her, his mouth fierce on hers. She sank into him, letting his body support hers as they melded together.

Every day on set, Megan had watched this man surreptitiously. Many other people had too. People couldn’t help staring at Rob Hartnell. It wasn’t the fame. Her co-star, Seth, was also world famous and sexy, not to mention much younger, yet he didn’t have the magnetism of Rob.

Once Rob was on set, people’s eyes were drawn to him. If he laughed, they laughed too. When he gave them
that
smile, they were like besotted parents staring at their first born, smitten.

‘Star quality,’ was what Megan’s agent, Carole, called it. ‘It’s utterly inexplicable, you can’t explain it to anybody, but it’s real. Only a few people have it and boy, is it a powerful force.’

After weeks of dreaming about Rob, and of snatching kisses and caresses in hidden moments, Megan was finally with him properly.

She reached up to run her fingers over the breadth of his shoulders, feeling his muscles flex as he held her. His face was moving down her neck now, his hands exploring, sliding her coat from her body, his fingers slipping inside her shirt to trace the lines of her collarbone. He’d done this on the set with the entire crew watching. Now, he did it for real and she could allow herself to moan softly in response. His lips cruised the bones of her chest and moved to nuzzle the swell of her breast.