Please Forgive Me (31 page)

‘Leonie, I like, really need a favour.’

‘Sure Suzanne, what’s up?’

It was Saturday evening and Leonie was about to suggest to Adam’s daughter that they order a takeaway. She’d cooked for them up until then, but tonight she fancied something different. The takeaway she and Adam used did a great Phad Thai and as she knew Suzanne liked oriental food (albeit the vegetarian variety) the idea should go down well.

‘I need to go home.’

Leonie frowned. ‘Home – to Wicklow you mean? Why?’

‘I left something behind, something important.’ The girl didn’t elaborate and knowing Suzanne, Leonie thought, she didn’t intend to.

‘Something important,’ she repeated levelly.

The teenager nodded.

‘Well, is it really that urgent? You’re going home tomorrow after all.’

‘Please, I really,
really
need this.’

Leonie was taken aback at how genuinely worried the girl seemed to be; this time there was a complete absence of the usual whining and belligerence that so characterised her. Then again, perhaps she’d finally realised that such behaviour held no tack with her future stepmother. Even so, a drive all the way to Wicklow and back in pre-Christmas traffic …
 

‘I don’t know Suzanne,’ she exhaled apologetically. ‘It’s late, and the N11 is always so busy at this time of year …’

‘It’s my Pill,’ the girl interjected, and Leonie’s head snapped up.

Suzanne was staring at the floor, awkwardly clasping her hands together. ‘I’m supposed to start on the new pack today after the seven day break from the last one, but I forgot to bring it with me...’

Leonie stared at her, flabbergasted. The girl was barely fifteen years old! OK, so she’d always looked and behaved older than her years, but Leonie had (rather naively she thought now) always considered this to be a bit of a front. And despite her somewhat revealing clothes and wilful behaviour, she hadn’t considered for a second that Suzanne would up to…that. But clearly if she was so worried about missing a pill, she must be! Did Adam know about this?

‘Dad doesn’t know,’ Suzanne said, as if reading her mind. ‘Please don’t tell him Leonie, he’d kill me.’ Her pleading sounded so immature and childlike, it made the whole situation even more disturbing.

‘It’s not up to me to tell him, but I must admit I’m a little taken aback,’ she told her gently. ‘I suppose it’s good that you’re being responsible and everything, but at the same time, you’re still very young to be …’ she looked at her. ‘I take it you
are
… doing… that, seeing as continuing on the full course is so important to you?’

Bloody hell, this really was one very awkward conversation!

Suzanne wouldn’t meet her gaze. ‘Can we just go and get it?’ she said, avoiding the questions and Leonie supposed she couldn’t blame her. She wasn’t her mother and had no right to be questioning her like this. But thinking of which…

‘Does your mother know about this?’ she asked. ‘About you being on the pill, I mean.’

Suzanne nodded emphatically. ‘Yes, but she doesn’t want Dad knowing either. He’d go ballistic.’

Leonie couldn’t understand why Andrea would approve of this, but then again she hadn’t a clue what raising a teenager was like, had she? ‘OK then, we’ll drive down to get it later. But let’s get something to eat first, OK?’

‘Thanks Leonie, I really appreciate this.’ The less belligerent Suzanne behaved, the younger she seemed.

While waiting for their food to be delivered, the two sat side by side on the sofa watching TV, Leonie trying her best to come to terms about what she’d just heard.

Now that she knew about this she couldn’t help but view Suzanne differently.

God, was she some kind of oul prude for being shocked by this? Well, no matter what she might think, Leonie wasn’t going to be responsible for Suzanne missing her pill and getting into even greater strife because of it.

When they’d finished eating, they got in the car and headed off to Wicklow.

Suzanne didn’t say too much on the way and Leonie was just as happy to drive in silence, lost in her own thoughts.

She felt that Adam should really be party to this, but at the same time, it really wasn’t any of her business, and certainly wasn’t up to her to tell him. Should she have a word with Andrea maybe, express her concerns? She could imagine the other woman’s reaction, and in fairness Andrea would be right to tell her to go and get stuffed.

Leonie turned off the N11 at the Ashford exit and headed in the direction of the house. When they pulled up outside the door, she was surprised to see a car parked outside. It was an old, battered Volkswagen that looked to have seen better days.

‘Whose car is that?’ she asked Suzanne.

‘Billy’s,’ the younger girl replied easily, getting out of the car.

Ah, Leonie mused, so she was right in thinking that Andrea had gone away with her boyfriend. Clearly the other woman preferred to travel in her own classier looking Audi rather than that clapped-out banger of a thing. She was surprised; for a supposed devotee of the finer things in life, Leonie found it hard to reconcile Adam’s ex going for a man who drove a car like that. Then again, maybe it was just some run-around the guy used and, like that joke bumper sticker, his other car actually
was
a Mercedes?

‘Do you want to come in?’ Suzanne asked then. ‘I won’t be long, but like, seeing as you drove me all the way down here…’

Leonie nodded. ‘I suppose I might as well stretch the legs.’

Suzanne used her key to open the front door and as they went inside, they were both struck by the sounds of a TV on somewhere in the house.

The two exchanged looks. ‘Sounds like someone’s here.’

Suzanne shrugged and headed in the direction of the sound. ‘Maybe Mum’s home early,’ she said, opening the living room door.

Leonie followed her with some considerable reluctance; the last thing she wanted was a face-to-face meeting with Andrea. But when she entered the room, she came face-to-face with someone completely different.

Sprawled on the sofa in the front of the TV watching football and surrounded by beer cans, pizza boxes and the deitrus of whatever he’d had for breakfast, was a tall, lithe, and from what Leonie could see of him, attractive man. Although he looked to be about the same age as Leonie, he was dressed in worn, faded denims, a cut-off T-shirt and sported a longish, grungy hairstyle which gave him a much more youthful, look. He was so enthralled by the game that he didn’t seem to have noticed them come in.

‘Billy!’ Suzanne exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’

Ah, so this was the famous Billy, Leonie thought, with interest.

‘Had to make the most of havin’ the place to myself, didn’t I?’ he said, in a thick Dublin accent.

‘But where’s Mum, I thought you were going away with her.’

‘To one of those bloody spa places? You’ve got to be kiddin’.’

‘Oh right.’ Suzanne seemed confused but at the same time not particularly bothered about the situation. Clearly, Billy making himself at home in this house was a regular thing. ‘This is Leonie by the way,’ she said, introducing her companion.

‘Cheers Leonie,’ Billy replied, holding up a beer-can in half-hearted salute, his eyes never leaving the screen.

But Leonie didn’t return his greeting; she couldn’t return it. As it was she’d barely heard it over the loud thumping of her heart, couldn’t quite process it through the noisy ringing in her brain.

And as the room began to sway and the ground suddenly felt spongy beneath her feet, she couldn’t do anything else but just stare at Billy; the full implications of his appearance almost too great for her to contemplate.
  

Following some savvy legal work from Doug, Seth and Alex’s dispute about the Mustang was eventually resolved in her favour, which meant that three long weeks later, Alex was once again free to lodge a fresh no-fault divorce petition against Seth.

She expected some other form of protest or dramatics when he was due to be served, and pleaded with him beforehand to be at home when the process server called. But to her amazement, her errant husband had allowed himself to be served, which meant that she and her lawyer were at least someway further along in submitting the petition to the courts.

Soon, she would finally be free of Seth, free of all the drawbacks of being married to him and most importantly, free to start her life all over again with Jon.

Well, at least she would be in a few months time once the completed documents winged their way through the courts.

‘It shouldn’t take too long,’ Doug assured her. ‘He’s given up contesting and assuming there are no more disputes …’

Again, Alex almost expected something to go wrong at the last minute and for Seth to come up with some crazy excuse for a delay. But no, for once in his life he was being adult about something and had finally managed to see sense.

‘Aren’t you a bit sad though?’ Leonie asked when she learned that Seth had finally agreed to go along with Alex’s wishes.

‘Are you crazy?’ she retorted, although in truth it did feel a bit strange. Especially when Seth was back living here in San Francisco. When he was away it was pretty much a case of out of sight out of mind.

Almost.

But she was glad now for Jon’s sake that her status was finally clarified. Not that he was angling for them to get married or anything, but just in case…

Anyway, Alex wasn’t about to jump into marriage again so soon, not when she’d made such a mess of it the first time round. Although admittedly, it had been great right up until Seth messed up. But had she really expected anything different? She could never see her ex being a serious candidate for marriage – real marriage – with all the normal stresses and strains and ups and downs of everyday life. He didn’t have the emotional intelligence for that; his recent behaviour towards her and Jon being a case in point!

Alex thought back now to one particular memory, an afternoon she and Seth had spent down at the Golden Gate Park a couple of summers back.

It was the fortieth anniversary of the famous Summer of Love in ’67 and a massive reunion festival was taking place. Hippies filled the park in their thousands, gathering in the grass in front of a huge stage area where folk singers rehashed all the old sixties favourites.

The air was ripe with the smell of pot and barbecued food, and Alex and Seth were having lunch on a grass verge overlooking the main concert area, having picked up some food at one of the nearby outdoor food stalls.

As Alex waited to order Louisiana gumbo at the Cajun stall, while Seth chose something else, she got into conversation with one of the hippies, who like many of the others were wearing T-shirts adorned with the usual ‘Peace & Love’ slogans.

‘See that guy?’ he said to Alex, pointing at an old black and white photograph printed on the back of his T-shirt. A long-haired youth was pictured in a crowd atop someone else’s shoulders. ‘That’s me here forty years ago,’ he told her proudly.

Alex peered at the photograph. ‘You haven’t aged a day,’ she joked, thinking that the man in front of her could easily be mistaken for a high-powered businessman or banker, albeit without the tie-dye bandana.

‘Those were good times – no,
great
times,’ he said wistfully and she had to smile. It must have been quite something to be a part of a movement that was a real catalyst for social change back then. Although in San Francisco, hippies had always been part of the culture, Alex didn’t know too much about the height of the movement in the sixties other than what her folks had told her. But her mom and dad had only flirted with the lifestyle and the politics, not like some of the guys here.

And while her folks had eventually moved on to a more conventional life, she could tell that most of the people here today still embraced the same philosophy that so appealed forty years before. There was a great sense of belonging and a spirited carefree approach that appealed to Alex – although she really didn’t think she could get used to all that pot.

‘Look at that,’ Seth said, pointing out an elderly couple strolling by hand-in–hand. Both had long grey hair tied back in a ponytail and were dressed in baggy, brightly coloured clothes. Alex had to look twice to confirm that the small animal they were walking on a lead alongside them really was a cat.

She chuckled. ‘Yes, I can see how that whole free love concept would suit you,’ she teased.

‘That’s not what I meant. I meant
that
,’ he clarified, pointing to how the old couple were holding hands. ‘That’ll be you and me one day.’

Alex laughed. ‘Minus the cat I hope!’

She remembered being touched by that; his easy belief that that they’d still be together holding hands in their old age. But she should have realised that this was nothing but naivety on Seth’s part, in the same way that he’d once commented on a father and child playing ball together and talked about having a son so he could do the very same. What Seth didn’t realise was that all of those things took commitment, maturity and a lot of hard work.

And in the end, she thought sadly, he was incapable of all three.

***

The phone was ringing when Leonie let herself into the apartment after work.

‘Hello, could I speak to Leonie Hayes please?’ a male voice asked.

‘This is Leonie speaking,’ she said pleasantly.

‘How do you do? I’m Gene Forrest, the owner of your apartment and I believe you wanted to speak with me.’

‘That’s right yes, thank you for phoning me back.’ Leonie was amazed that the rental agency had actually passed on the request for the landlord to contact her. It was such a long time ago that she’d almost forgotten about it.

‘I’m sorry it took so long for me to call. I’ve been out of town for a while and am only catching up on messages now. So how can I help?’

‘Well, I’m not sure if you can really …’ Leonie went on to explain about the letters she’d found. ‘I just wondered if Helena Abbott might have left you a forwarding address when she moved?’