My Mother's Secret (19 page)

‘Dad! Are you OK? Is Mum?’ asked Steffie.

‘More to the point, are we OK?’ said Roisin.

‘We’re sorry,’ said Pascal. ‘We should’ve told you before now.’

‘It’s no big deal, Dad,’ Davey said. ‘It’s a shock all right, but I guess we can live with it.’

‘There was no need to keep it a secret from us,’ Steffie added. ‘It’s not like we wouldn’t have understood.’

Roisin said nothing. She didn’t meet her father’s eye but stared out into the sodden garden while she sipped her tea.

‘We were wrong,’ said Pascal. ‘We know that.’

‘So when is Jenny going to come downstairs and explain herself?’ asked Sarah.

‘Before she does, she wants to talk to Steffie.’ Pascal turned to her. ‘D’you mind going up to her?’

‘Me?’ Steffie was taken aback. ‘Why me?’

‘Why her?’ asked Roisin. ‘Honestly, Dad, I think it’s me who—’

‘It’s Steffie she needs to speak with,’ he said.

Roisin clamped her mouth shut.

‘Actually it’s me and Lucinda she should be explaining herself to,’ said Sarah. ‘We bore the brunt of her lies. Your lies too, Pascal.’

‘We didn’t keep on lying.’ Pascal kept his voice mild. ‘We just didn’t correct your assumptions.’

‘Hardly a feckin’ assumption when you had your so-called marriage certificate framed on the wall!’ Lucinda snorted. ‘We believed what we were told. I was fifteen, for heaven’s sake. How was I to know it was all a crock of shit?’

‘Steffie, will you go to your mum now?’ Pascal ignored Lucinda’s outburst.

‘All right,’ said Steffie. She gave a bewildered glance at her brother and sister before going into the kitchen, where she took the last bottle of the sparkling rosé out of the fridge. Then she collected a couple of glasses from the table and began to climb the stairs.

Chapter 17

Steffie hesitated for a moment before tapping on the bedroom door. She was surprised that her mother wanted to talk to her and not Roisin, but at the same time she knew that she was closer to Jenny in many ways than her older sister. She’d spent a lot of time as the only child at home, when both Roisin and Davey had left to pursue their own lives. Although she’d missed her brother and sister, she’d revelled in the extra attention she was suddenly receiving from Jenny, and she had some very treasured memories of the two of them sitting curled up in an armchair together watching movies on TV after she’d come home from school. The movies were an occasional treat; most of the time Jenny would tell her to get on with her homework, but it was the fact that every so often she was allowed to forget about it till later that thrilled Steffie so much. That, and her mum’s arm wrapped around her as they sat engrossed in the classic melodramas and mystery thrillers that Jenny loved.

She turned the handle slowly and walked into the bedroom. Jenny was sitting in the small wing-backed chair near the window.

‘Are you OK, Mum?’ asked Steffie.

‘I’m not the one who’s had a surprise,’ said Jenny. ‘I knew we weren’t married.’

‘You certainly made it a surprise party with a difference,’ Steffie said. ‘But hey, it’s kind of cool in an offbeat sort of way.’

‘We should have told you before now,’ said Jenny. ‘It was wrong of us not to.’

‘I guess,’ said Steffie. ‘But in the end the important thing is that you guys have still been together for forty years. Whether you were married or not during that time is pretty irrelevant.’

‘Nevertheless, it makes the ruby wedding anniversary a little premature.’

‘We were wondering,’ said Steffie, ‘why you didn’t get married. I mean, you could’ve nipped into a registry office any time.’

‘I know,’ said Jenny. ‘That’s what we planned to do. At first we were going to do it before Roisin was born, but you have to give notice and I was afraid someone I knew would see me and wonder what on earth was going on.’

‘They probably would’ve thought you were going to someone else’s wedding,’ Steffie pointed out.

‘I was afraid to take the chance. If your grandmother had had any inkling … well, she would’ve been furious with me. Both for being unmarried and pregnant and for having lied to her. Besides,’ she looked a little shamefaced, ‘back then the registry office was a horrible place, not a bit personal or elegant or anything. It was as though you were a second-class citizen if you chose not to get married in church.’

‘So you wanted to wait and get married in a church?’ asked Steffie. ‘And you with a fake apostolic benediction already!’

‘The church part didn’t bother me,’ admitted Jenny. ‘All I wanted was somewhere nice. Which shows you how shallow I am.’

‘Ah, no. I understand.’ Steffie smiled at her. ‘You wouldn’t have wanted the real day to be less glamorous than the fake day.’

‘Actually, nothing in Ireland could’ve compared to Rome,’ said Jenny. ‘Perhaps that’s why we didn’t do it. And then of course I got pregnant with Davey, so that kind of took our eye off the ball for a while because we had our hands full.’

Steffie nodded. ‘But after Davey there was a big gap before I came along. You could’ve gone to Rome then.’

‘We didn’t have the money,’ Jenny told her. ‘Our win on the prize bonds helped with the purchase of Aranbeg, but after that, every spare penny went into renovation. Besides, we were happy enough with the way we were.’

‘And after Aranbeg was finished?’

‘It took years,’ Jenny said. ‘Really and truly. Years.’

‘But after that? Or after I was born? Why not then?’

‘We had other things to worry about,’ said Jenny.

‘What other things?’

‘Something else I should have told you before now,’ Jenny said. She picked up the bottle of rosé that Steffie had left on the dressing table and filled the two glasses. She handed one to her daughter and took a deep breath.

‘I still can’t believe she didn’t tell us before now,’ Lucinda said to Sarah. The sisters were standing together at the rail of the veranda, looking out into the garden, which was now sodden by the drumming rain. ‘I won’t forgive her, you know,’ she added. ‘All our lives she let me think I was the one who’d cocked it up by being unmarried and pregnant. She could have supported me. But she didn’t.’

‘She couldn’t have supported you without telling everyone.’ Sarah took a pull from her electronic cigarette. It wasn’t as satisfying as the real thing, but at least it gave her the illusion of calmness that she’d experienced as a smoker.

‘So she should’ve told everyone,’ said Lucinda. ‘All this pretending. Ridiculous.’

‘I agree.’ Sarah nodded. ‘And when I was going through the divorce from James – she could’ve said something to me too. But no, she had to be the golden girl with her perfect marriage and her perfect children. Living the perfect lie.’ She took a deep drag and then put the e-cigarette back into her bag. ‘When all the time she was an unmarried mother living with her baby’s father. That was fairly monumental back then. She should’ve come clean. It would’ve made things easier for both of us. When I told Mum that James and I were separating, I went through hell with her saying that I could work on it a bit more. She used to tell me that Jenny worked on it with Pascal, that they hadn’t begun things well but that they were an example to everyone.’

‘They’re an example of a couple who’ve stayed together without a marriage certificate,’ remarked Lucinda. ‘Maybe that’s even better.’

‘Oh don’t you start!’ Sarah snorted. ‘Make me feel like a total loser, why don’t you!’

‘I didn’t mean that,’ said Lucinda. ‘Honestly I didn’t. I know you tried with James and I don’t blame you for splitting up with him.’

‘I married him because I thought it would be a grown-up thing to do,’ said Sarah. ‘And because I thought that having a massive wedding would be …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘Would be one in the eye for Jenny?’ suggested Lucinda.

‘Partly,’ conceded Sarah. ‘I wanted to show her how it should have been done. But ultimately it was rubbish, because James and I weren’t suited at all.’

‘Oh well. We can’t all be as lucky as Jenny and Pascal. Even if he didn’t actually put a ring on it.’

‘Haven’t you ever found anyone, Lou?’ asked Sarah suddenly. ‘You’re a good-looking woman. No reason for you not to have a man in your life.’

‘Until recently I wouldn’t have trusted anyone not to leave if I got pregnant,’ said Lucinda. ‘Now, of course, thanks to the arrival of hot flushes, that’s sort of irrelevant. But still – George was such a shit, he put me off the whole idea of men.’

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Yeah, but you don’t forget,’ Lucinda said. ‘You don’t forget the look in someone’s eyes and realising that the only thought in their head is getting away from you and away from the trouble you represent.’

Sarah put her arm around Lucinda and hugged her.

‘You know what worries me most?’ she asked as they stepped away from each other again.

‘What?’

‘That because of me marrying James for the wrong reasons, I’ve messed up my kids too.’

‘What are you talking about? They’re fine,’ said Lucinda.

‘Um, excuse me? John and Eoin both emigrated. And Colette and Carl have my heart scalded, the pair of them.’

‘What’s wrong with Colette?’ asked Lucinda.

‘What’s right with her! Until the summer James and I split, she was a really easy child. When she came home, she went all goth on me. And she’s gone through mad phases ever since. Pink hair, blue hair, gold hair and drama-queen make-up … plus three goddam fiancés! She’s a freak.’

‘Sarah!’

‘It’s true. She’s thirty-two; she’s not a stupid teenager any more, so she shouldn’t go out looking like one. Look at her get-up today, for heaven’s sake. No wonder she can’t hold on to a man!’

‘Isn’t
she
the one who keeps dumping
them
?’

‘That’s what she says, but who knows? And then, of course, Carl, bringing that Summer woman with him today! Did you ever see anyone more inappropriate for him? And poor Bernice turns up looking so beautiful and elegant.
And
she had to take on her angel-of-mercy role with Poppy while Carl and your wan snuggle up on the veranda. I’m mortified by it, completely mortified.’

‘It’s Carl who should be mortified,’ said Lucinda. ‘Everyone else is getting a good laugh out of it.’

‘Between him and Colette, though, I’m a laughing stock. I’m not a good mother,’ added Sarah. ‘And it’s all Jenny’s fault.’

‘You’re a normal mother and you can’t blame any of your imagined shortcomings on Jenny.’

‘See, that’s the thing,’ said Sarah. ‘She had experiences she kept to herself, and if she hadn’t – well, everything might have been different for both of us.’

‘Her experience was dramatically different from mine, though,’ conceded Lucinda. ‘There wasn’t much she could’ve done for me. Pascal stepped up to the plate. George legged it.’

‘All the more bizarre that she hasn’t married him since.’

‘Maybe there’s a reason,’ Lucinda said. ‘Maybe he’s married already.’

‘I think we would have known.’

‘Hey, what’s one more secret?’

‘Don’t even go there.’

‘Perhaps it was hard to do,’ said Lucinda. ‘You know how it is with a lie. You get tangled up in it and somehow it seems easier to go along with it than admit the truth.’

Sarah knew what Lucinda meant. But it didn’t mean that she still wasn’t angry with her eldest sister.

Chapter 18

‘So this isn’t going to be easy,’ Jenny told Steffie.

‘Harder than admitting you and Dad never got married?’ asked Steffie.

‘Yes.’

Steffie was unsettled by the sudden seriousness in her mother’s voice.

‘Why are you telling me? Why not everyone?’

‘Because it concerns you most of all,’ said Jenny.

Steffie looked at her in puzzlement.

‘How?’ she asked.

Jenny took a deep breath.

By the time they’d been together a few years, Jenny and Pascal didn’t talk about getting married any more. They were too busy with two children and two homes to give much thought to something that had become vaguely irrelevant to them. Jenny thought that perhaps Pascal had forgotten that the apostolic benediction wasn’t real and the rings they wore on their wedding fingers were the cheap ones they’d bought in a shop in Rome. In many ways it was how she thought of it herself. After all, they lived their lives as though they
were
married. What difference would a piece of paper actually make? So she allowed the subject to fade into the background while she busied herself with Roisin and Davey and spent her free time doing charcoal sketches of the children and turning Aranbeg into the place that one day, far into the future, they’d retire to.

Pascal was equally committed to Aranbeg, but he was also doing extremely well at work. Jenny celebrated with him each time he was promoted, and was thrilled when he was chosen to be Ireland’s representative at a month-long symposium and study group in Brussels. She brought the children to the airport to wave him goodbye and then decamped with them to Aranbeg, not caring that they were missing the last two days of the school year. Roisin and Davey were delighted to be back in Wexford, while Jenny decided to enrol in an art class to improve her technique. Even though Pascal had insisted they frame some of her sketches, she didn’t think they were good enough to be on the walls of the house. Her plan was to have mastered portraits by the time he came home.

It had been a long time since she had done anything solely for herself, and she was excited when she arrived for her first lesson. She listened intently as the teacher, Johnny Macken, talked about the intricacies of the human form, and what they’d be working on during the course. It was only as he described what they’d be doing that she realised they’d be drawing nudes. She was annoyed with herself for feeling slightly embarrassed, and dismissed her thoughts by wondering how difficult it would actually be to draw a naked person.

And then the model arrived and she gasped. Because, fully clothed, he was the most attractive man she’d ever seen in her life. A blond, blue-eyed demigod, in a white T-shirt and ripped jeans. He went behind a screen and emerged wearing nothing more than a small towel around his waist. Jenny knew she wasn’t the only one who was stunned by him. She could feel the tension crackling around the room as she studied the lean body and washboard abs so taut they made the Calvin Klein jeans man look flabby and unfit. When she glanced around the room she could see that everyone’s eyes were fixed on the model. She wasn’t surprised.