My Mother's Secret (40 page)

If nothing else, she thought, Liam had made her rethink the contents of her fridge for ever. And weaning her off frozen crispy pancakes was as dramatic a change in her life as everything else that had happened since the day of the anniversary party. It was the one good thing sandwiched between the awfulness of the party and the even greater awfulness of the day after she got home.

She shuddered as she remembered. It had been the ringing of her mobile phone plugged in beside her bed that had woken her from more a coma than sleep that morning. She’d lain beneath the duvet, not wanting to be awake and not wanting to feel the pain of remembering. Not only the events of the party, but also the pain she’d felt when Liam had walked out of her house, clearly untroubled by the fact that she seemed to have someone else in her life. In fact, she’d thought bleakly as she curled up in the bed, possibly even relieved that Steve was there so that he wouldn’t have to extricate himself from a relationship he didn’t really want. Men are different, she’d mused. Having sex isn’t the same to them as making love. They can walk away and not care. And then she’d reminded herself that she too had wanted to walk away and not care. But the problem was, she did. It didn’t matter how stupid it was to think there was something between her and Liam Kinsella after just one night. It didn’t matter that she told herself it was the circumstances of the storm and the power cut that had drawn them together. That it was a temporary thing. A one-off. It made no difference that she’d told Alivia she’d be fine. When Liam had walked out of her house, she’d felt as if a part of her had left with him. And it had been awful sitting beside Steve, knowing that she’d already distanced herself from him but not wanting him to think it was because of Liam, because she didn’t want to make him feel bad. And then thinking that he wouldn’t feel bad anyway. And worrying about that too.

In the end, after he’d finished the pizza and before he’d had the chance to open another bottle of beer, she’d told him that he couldn’t stay with her that night. He’d looked at her in complete astonishment.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really appreciate that you came here, Steve. But it’s not going to work.’

‘What’s not going to work?’ he asked.

‘You and me.’

He stared at her and an expression of disgust crossed his face.

‘Don’t tell me it’s because of restaurant van man. That you went behind my back and—’

‘It’s not because of Liam.’ She knew she was on shaky ground but she was comforting herself with the fact that she’d planned to break it off with Steve long before she’d hopped happily into bed with Liam. All the same, she thought, I clearly take after my mother in the cheating department. I deserve everything that’s happened to me.

‘Oh come on.’ He snorted. ‘I saw the way he was looking at you.’

‘What way?’ Even as she asked the question, she wanted to think that Liam cared, even a little bit.

‘He wanted you,’ said Steve. ‘Anyone could see that.’

Steffie tried to keep her face as expressionless as possible. Liam might have wanted her. He’d already had her. Three times. And he’d still walked away.

‘It’s nothing to do with him,’ she said. ‘It’s about loads of stuff, Steve. It’s not you. It’s me.’

‘For crying out loud.’ He stood up. ‘You’re parroting those stupid women’s magazines. “It’s not you. It’s me.” What a load of horseshit.’

‘But it is!’ she cried. ‘Steve, all sorts of things happened at the party. Family things. I don’t want to talk about them again, but—’

‘Again?’ he said. ‘You didn’t talk about them at all to me. All I got was a litany of how annoying your sister was and how mad some of your relations were. Is it any wonder I didn’t want to go to the party in the first place? And now you’re blaming me for not being there and using something I don’t even know about as an excuse for breaking up with me. Well if that’s how you feel, that’s fine. I don’t need to be messed around. I’m out of here.’

And she’d watched as another man she’d slept with walked out of her house.

That was when she’d started on the wine. It had done the job. When she eventually went up to her bedroom, she’d passed out, but not before remembering to plug in her phone. When it had buzzed insistently the following morning, she’d ignored it and the ping of a voicemail being left. It was nearly two hours later before she crawled from beneath the duvet and looked at the number of the missed call. When she realised that it was from the company to which she’d submitted her branding and logo proposal, her heart started to beat faster even as the pounding in her head increased. She pressed the dial button and then disconnected. It would be better to listen to the voicemail first.

‘Hi, Steffie, this in Gerald Morton,’ she heard. ‘I’m ringing to say that the management group really liked your proposals. They were very fresh and interesting. But on this occasion we’ve decided to go with a different company. Thanks for all your hard work.’

Her stomach plummeted and she thought she was going to be sick with disappointment. She’d tried and tried ever since she’d submitted the proposal not to get too excited about it. But she hadn’t been able to help thinking about what it would mean to get the job. She hadn’t been able to push out of her mind images of her logo on their corporate website, on their headed paper, on everything they did. She’d told herself not to get carried away, but she’d really believed in her design. And now they were telling her it wasn’t good enough. That
she
wasn’t good enough.

Why? When Roisin was so damn capable, when even laid-back Davey was now settled in a good job and engaged to the gorgeous Camilla, why was she still the utterly hopeless one in the family? She didn’t get it from her mother. Jenny wasn’t hopeless. She’d managed to work things out in her favour even when she’d totally messed up. So was it the fault of the nude sheep farmer? Had he been utterly hopeless too? But no matter what, he couldn’t have been as hopeless as her. She’d messed up with two men in as many days. She hadn’t landed the contract. She couldn’t go to her parents for support any more. She was on her own and useless with it.

She’d thrown the phone, with its already cracked screen, across the room, then pulled the covers back over her head. Some days simply weren’t worth getting up for. At that moment, she didn’t feel like ever getting up again.

‘It’s snowing, Mum!’ Dougie squealed with delight as he looked out of the window.

Roisin turned from the cooker where she was preparing breakfast. It was a full Irish – sausage, bacon, eggs, potato cakes and beans. Roisin was proud of her cooked breakfasts, which always went down well with both Paul and the children. But she knew that everything, even food, paled into insignificance for Dougie in comparison to snow.

‘It’s not much,’ said Paul, who was looking out of the window too. ‘And it’s not sticking. It won’t be a problem.’

‘I want to build a snowman!’ cried Dougie.

‘I don’t think we’ll get enough for that, pal,’ his dad told him. ‘But if we do, then you and I will definitely build one.’

‘I’m crossing my fingers.’

‘Please don’t,’ begged Roisin. ‘We can’t have snow today. Can you imagine if we don’t make it to Aranbeg? We can’t miss the wedding. That would be a nightmare.’

‘I don’t want snow either,’ said Daisy. ‘I’m looking forward to wearing my dress and my shoes and everything. And doing my make-up.’ She peeped at her mother from beneath her sweeping black lashes, but Roisin was busy turning sausages and didn’t reply.

‘Ooh, we might get stuck at Gran and Gramps’. Like in the summer.’ Poppy was thrilled at the prospect.

‘I sincerely hope not.’ Roisin began to load the plates with food. ‘Getting trapped at Aranbeg again is something I don’t want to repeat.’

‘But it was fun,’ said Poppy.

‘Y’see.’ Paul walked away from the patio doors and slid his arms around his wife’s waist. ‘Our children look back on that day with pleasure.’ He nibbled the back of Roisin’s neck.

‘I don’t.’ She relaxed into the warmth of his body instead of wriggling free as she’d first intended. ‘However, I appreciate that I might have been a teeny bit stressed at the time.’

‘No need for you to be stressed today, though.’

‘Not at all.’

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

‘It’s just that given that the weather is bad, I think we should set off earlier than we originally planned,’ she told him.

He groaned and released her from his arms. ‘I don’t want to be faffing around in that draughty old castle for ages.’

‘You won’t be,’ she promised. ‘We’ll get there half an hour or so before the ceremony, no more than that.’

‘Aren’t we going to Gran and Gramps’ first?’ asked Daisy.

‘No,’ said Roisin as she put the plates on the table. ‘We’re going to go straight to the castle. Which won’t be a bit draughty.’ She shot an exasperated look at Paul.

‘It’s very exciting, isn’t it?’ Poppy rubbed her hands together. ‘This will be my first wedding. It’s good practice for me.’

‘Practice?’ Paul looked at his daughter enquiringly.

‘For my own,’ said Poppy. ‘I need to check out dresses and stuff.’

‘I thought you didn’t like dresses.’

‘Oh Dad. You’re so lame. Of course I do.’

‘Right.’ Paul scratched his head, then turned his attention to his breakfast. The female mind continued to mystify him. Up until the end of the summer Poppy had been a complete tomboy who only wore dresses when she was forced into them by Roisin. Now she was planning her wedding. And, he suddenly realised, she’d become a lot more girlie over the last few weeks. She didn’t slide down the banisters any more. He recalled her having an argument with Daisy over nail varnish. Thank God for Dougie, he said to himself. Otherwise I’d be completely outnumbered by the female psyche.

‘Tamarin will be here shortly to do our hair,’ Roisin told the girls. ‘So as soon as you’ve finished your brekkie, hop upstairs and have your showers. You can use my special shampoo if you like.’

‘That’s very nice of you, Mum,’ said Daisy. ‘But I have the one Summer gave me.’

‘So you do,’ said Roisin.

‘I’ll use your shampoo, Mum,’ said Poppy.

‘Me too.’ Dougie spoke through a mouthful of fried egg.

Roisin’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. Despite Paul’s assertion that there was no need for her to be stressed, she was tense anyway. But that was because today’s events were completely outside her control. The wedding invitation, while not unexpected, had come much sooner than she’d imagined. And when she’d asked if there was anything she could do to ensure that the day went as smoothly as possible, she’d been told that this was one day on which she would simply be a guest. That she was to enjoy herself without worrying. That everything was already in hand.

Maybe it was, she conceded as she rinsed plates under the tap before stacking them in the dishwasher. But it felt weird not to have any input into something as momentous as this when all her life she’d been the one in charge.

‘All you have to do is see that we’re suited and booted and ready to go at the right time.’ Paul put milk and butter in the fridge beside her. ‘Enjoy being one of the crowd for a change.’

‘How did you know what I was thinking?’ she asked.

‘We’ve been married fifteen years,’ he reminded her as he closed the fridge door. ‘And guess what – given that we can’t count Pascal and Jenny as a married couple, we’re the ones who’ve been married the longest in the family. We’re the ones with the most experience of marriage!’

She turned to look at him. ‘I’ve never thought about that before.’

‘I think about it a lot,’ he said.

‘You do?’

‘Yes. And you know what I think?’

‘What?’

‘That I was lucky the day I married you.’

‘Paul.’ She felt a lump in her throat. ‘That’s so … so …’

‘Unlike me?’

‘That too,’ she said. ‘But romantic is what I was going to say.’

‘I can manage romance from time to time,’ he whispered, and kissed her.

‘Oh, gross.’ Daisy got up from the table, followed by her brother and sister. But Roisin didn’t notice. She was caught up in the fact that she’d been lucky in love. Lucky with her choice of husband. And even though she sometimes felt that marriage was a damn sight harder than she’d ever thought it could be, she knew that she’d always love Paul. He was her soulmate. It was funny that it had taken today to remind her of that.

Chapter 36

Camilla laughed with delight when she saw the snow. Because Denmark was surrounded by sea, the snowfall there wasn’t usually as heavy as in other Nordic countries, and she always felt childishly excited by it. But, like everyone else, she was hoping that it wouldn’t come down any heavier and disrupt people’s travel plans. She and Davey had arrived the day before and driven down in crisp bright sunshine. Bright sunshine would probably be better than snow, she conceded, but it would be magical if it started to fall properly after everybody had arrived. She’d visited the castle when she and Davey had returned to Ireland a month after his parents’ party and she’d been enchanted by it, remarking that it was an ideal wedding location. Davey had looked enquiringly at her and they’d taken photos so that they could think about it when they got back to Denmark.

‘What’s so funny?’ Davey walked into the bedroom and she told him about the snow.

‘It’s more like sleet,’ he said. ‘Fortunately. Can you imagine if people were snowed in and couldn’t get here? After everything?’

Camilla told him about her desire for it to snow when they were all in the castle.

‘And then everyone would definitely get stuck here. We’re crap at snow,’ said Davey.

‘Would that be such a bad thing?’ she asked. ‘If we got stuck?’

‘Are you kidding me? After the last time?’

‘Maybe some things that were problems then could be resolved today.’

‘Ever the optimist.’

‘I can’t believe that Steffie and your parents haven’t spoken since,’ said Camilla.

‘According to Mum, they’ve exchanged the occasional email and text,’ Davey said. ‘But Steffie hasn’t been to Aranbeg and they haven’t come up to Dublin. Which is tough on Mum, because she used to meet Steffie whenever she came to town to do some shopping. Apparently Steffie doesn’t want to see her, and she doesn’t want to turn up uninvited for fear of making things worse.’