Stand by Me (37 page)
‘Do you miss him?’
‘I was married to him for twenty-odd years,’ said Dominique. ‘What the hell do you think?’
It was written up as an exclusive in the paper.
‘The End of the Domino Effect. Dazzling Domino Delahaye reveals that she was Unlucky Charm for Missing Husband.’
She read it the following afternoon with Kelly.
‘Did you really say that stuff?’ asked her daughter.
‘Yes. Though not exactly in the way they’ve printed it.’
‘Oh, Mum. You should’ve had more sense than to talk to a reporter!’ Kelly cried. ‘You know it never turns out the way you think. Even I struggled on the radio, and I’m experienced.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Dominique, who was unexpectedly amused by the fact that Kelly thought of herself as an experienced newshound. ‘I didn’t realise at first, and then, when I thought about it, I just didn’t care.’
‘“The elegant Mrs Delahaye is looking older”,’ read Kelly out loud. ‘“Her eyes are tired and the pain of her ordeal is clearly etched on her face.”’
‘Actually, the ordeal is having to drive past that guy every day.’
‘“But she is still as beautiful as ever, and thoughtful, as evidenced by her concern for my well-being.”’
‘I didn’t want him to dehydrate outside my front gate,’ said Dominique. ‘Things are bad enough without having reporters flake out in front of the house. They’d blame me for that too.’
Kelly couldn’t help smiling.
‘Oh, Kelly.’ Dominique suddenly started to laugh desperately. ‘It’s just so mad, isn’t it? It’s like we’ve stepped through a door into a weird parallel universe and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or how I’m supposed to behave.’
‘You’re doing great,’ said Kelly.
‘I wish,’ said Dominique. She hugged her daughter. ‘I’m glad I have you.’
It was early evening when Kelly came downstairs, a card in her hand. Her face was pale, and when Dominique saw her she jumped up instantly.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘I found this.’ Kelly’s voice was just above a whisper. ‘It was in the middle of the book I’d been reading. I’d left the book in my tote bag and I hadn’t bothered to open it since ... since everything started.’ She handed the card to her mother. It was a twenty-first birthday card, covered in pink flowers and sliver glitter.
Dominique opened it slowly.
Hi, Kelly
, Brendan had written.
I’d planned on stuff for your 21st but it hasn’t worked out like that. I’m going to try to fix things. If I’m not there for your birthday, I hope you have a wonderful day. Love always, Dad.
, Brendan had written.
I’d planned on stuff for your 21st but it hasn’t worked out like that. I’m going to try to fix things. If I’m not there for your birthday, I hope you have a wonderful day. Love always, Dad.
When she’d finished reading it, Dominique looked at her daughter.
‘That’s it?’ she said. ‘He didn’t leave anything for me?’
Kelly handed her the book.
‘Huh?’ Dominique’s expression was puzzled.
‘Flick through it,’ said Kelly.
Dominique did as her daughter instructed. Between each page was a crisp new fifty-euro note. She gasped.
‘How much is in there?’ asked Kelly.
It took some time to extract all the notes and then count them, but when she’d finished, there was a stack worth five thousand euros.
‘Oh.’ Kelly’s eyes were wide.
‘He always had some cash,’ said Dominique slowly. ‘That’s how things were when we were starting out. He paid for everything in cash and he got paid in cash.’
‘This helps,’ said Kelly. ‘We can pay the bills, Mum.’
Dominique didn’t tell her that, as a household, they had easily spent that much - and often more - in a month. It was a relief, though, to see actual cash in front of them. Although this money was clearly for Kelly. From her father. For her birthday.
‘He says he hopes to be back,’ said Kelly.
‘I know.’
‘So maybe he’ll fix things.’
‘Maybe.’
‘But maybe leaving the money means he won’t ever be back. Maybe . . . maybe he decided that it was all too much and ...’ Kelly swallowed hard, and her eyes flooded with tears.
‘Oh, honey!’ Dominique put her arm around her. ‘Don’t think like that.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Your dad wouldn’t have taken all his clothes if he’d planned anything . . . fatal.’
‘I guess not.’ Kelly’s voice trembled. ‘Do you think he misses us?’
Dominique was staring at the card again as though she could see more than the printed words.
‘I’m sure he does.’
‘I know he’s done a terrible thing, Mum. I know that people blame him for everything. But I want him to be all right.’
‘So do I,’ said Dominique softly as she dropped the card on the table and put both arms around Kelly. ‘So do I.’
But as she looked at the pretty pink card lying in front of them, all Dominique wanted to do was to kill him for making their daughter cry.
Greg called by the house on his way home from work. For the first time in her life, Dominique didn’t really want to see him. Emma’s words were still too raw in her mind. She recalled all the times that Emma had made amused comments about her and Greg and how well they got on with each other. Had she thought then that Dominique was trying to steal her husband from her?
It was hard for Dominique to explain to anyone, least of all Emma, the connection she had with Greg. As far as she knew, Emma still didn’t know about his bout of depression and the reasons behind it. Dominique hadn’t told her, because it wasn’t up to her to say anything. But it wasn’t something that Greg should have kept from her. Dominique shouldn’t know one of his secrets when Emma didn’t.
She worried, too, about having interrupted Emma and Gabriel together. There seemed to have been an unspoken communication between the two of them, an unexpected tenderness in the way that Gabriel was holding Emma’s hands. It made Dominique feel profoundly uncomfortable.
‘. . . money of your own?’
Greg’s question pushed thoughts of Emma and Gabriel out of her head. She’d filled him in on her solicitor’s visit and said that by the end of the week she expected to know where she stood in relation to the house. Then he’d started talking, but she hadn’t really been listening.
‘Sorry?’ she said.
‘I should’ve asked before,’ Greg repeated, ‘but do you actually have money of your own?’
Dominique thought about Kelly’s five thousand euros, now in the safe in Brendan’s office, along with the pieces of expensive jewellery that he’d bought her over the years.
‘We have a bit of money,’ she told him hesitantly. ‘We’ll be fine for a short time, and I can also sell my diamonds and stuff. Thank God he bought me lots of fancy jewellery.’
‘I guess. But it’s a shame to have to sell it.’
‘What chance will I have of ever wearing it again?’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Colin seems really competent, so I’m hoping that I’ll have a clearer picture of how we’re fixed by the end of the week.’
‘Right.’
‘I also gave him the money that we raised from my last charity do to give to the hospital. After all the hassle I got from Stephanie Clooney, I was really anxious to get rid of it, but I didn’t want to go to the bank myself. I had a nice phone call from the director of the hospital saying that she knew I was under pressure and that I could send in the money when I had time, but I also got a call from someone who was at the event saying that she would be contacting the hospital to ensure that they got the money, because otherwise she was going to sue me for raising money under false pretences.’
‘No!’
‘I can see her point,’ said Dominique. ‘We raised a few thousand. I guess she’s thinking that could keep me in expensive tights for a few weeks.’
‘Domino!’
‘Maybe I’d think the same,’ she said ruefully. ‘If I was her.’
‘You’re being very nonchalant about it all of a sudden.’
‘Totally not,’ she said, suddenly serious again. ‘But oh, Greg, I can’t bear the weight of misery all the time. I have to find something . . .’
Greg nodded.
‘Brendan left a card.’ Dominique had to tell him that much.
‘A card?’
‘For Kelly’s twenty-first.’ She ran upstairs to Kelly’s bedroom and fetched the card.
‘Perhaps you should show this to the gardai,’ he said when he’d read it.
‘I thought that,’ said Dominique. ‘But it’s a personal card to Kelly. I can’t bear the thought of that detective reading it and quizzing her about it. Besides, they searched the house and they missed it. It wasn’t our fault it was in Kelly’s bag.’
Greg nodded again.
‘D’you think he’s abroad somewhere?’ asked Dominique.
Greg shrugged. ‘Probably.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Trying to raise money, I suppose. Trying to find a way out.’
‘He can’t come back here still owing money. He’d be lynched.’
‘I know.’ She thought again about mentioning the five thousand euros, but it was better that Greg didn’t know. In the great scheme of things it wasn’t that much, but maybe he’d feel obliged to tell the liquidator or something, and the thing was that she and Kelly needed that money. She wished fervently that she’d kept her own personal account instead of putting everything into their joint account. Brendan had told her that it was simpler for them to have just one account. And as he was the one paying the bills, she’d agreed.
‘Why won’t he talk to me!’ she cried suddenly. ‘Why won’t he answer his bloody phone?’
Gabriel had been staying with her at Atlantic View, but when he arrived back that night (he said that he’d gone into the city and had something to eat and taken in a movie), he told her that it was time he left.
‘I think you’ll worry about me if I stay,’ he said. ‘And you don’t need more worry right now.’
‘I shouldn’t have to worry about you,’ she said. ‘Or Emma.’
‘I know. And there’s no need.’
‘Gabe, you know Emma always fancied you. It’s not a good idea for you to be around her.’
‘Don’t you trust her?’ asked Gabriel.
‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’ Dominique sighed. ‘Oh, Gabe, I don’t know who to trust any more. And I can’t bear to think that something else might go wrong because you’re here.’
‘I promise you, nothing will.’
‘You can’t promise that,’ said Dominique. ‘Nobody can.’
He left the following day. He went back to Dublin to spend a couple of days with their parents, and then he returned to Paraguay. As far as Dominique knew, he didn’t see or talk to Emma before he went.
Colin Pearson came to Atlantic View after his meeting with the bank’s solicitors. Kelly was there too. Dominique said that they both needed to know where they stood for the future, no matter how bleak it was. Colin talked for a while about the companies and the mortgages and the loans and the missing money, and Dominique felt herself grow more and more tense as she realised just how badly Brendan had miscalculated in the running of his business. She couldn’t help thinking that the lure of making big money had always led him towards getting involved in more and more elaborate schemes, when perhaps it might have been better to let one or two of them go.
‘He should have told me,’ she said miserably when she saw that some of his biggest losses had happened the previous year, at a time when they’d gone to the Maldives on holiday. ‘We didn’t have to go away. Not that saving money on the holiday would’ve helped much,’ she added with grim humour. ‘But still.’
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