Three Women (24 page)

She was sitting in a small cove sketching a seal basking on
the
rocks, trying to capture the changing colour of sealskin as the water lapped around it and the light reflected on the sea. She sat there for two – no, three – hours, sensing that the seal was watching her as much as she was watching it. Eventually satisfied with what she had drawn, she walked back up to Oyster Cottage – and recognized Tom’s large Jeep in the driveway.

She felt suddenly awkward seeing him. She had no idea what to say.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine – really fine.’

‘This work is amazing! Nina, I haven’t seen you work like this for years!’

She laughed. In the kitchen there was paper everywhere, covered in sketches and pen-and-ink drawings and paintings at various stages; it was the same in the sitting room, and she even had done four rough sketches of the view from the bedroom window at different times of the day and colour-washed them.

‘It’s been great. I’ve just been able to concentrate on what I’m doing. No distractions.’

‘Do you mean I shouldn’t have come?’

She shook her head. She was glad that Tom had made the effort.

‘Here, let me clear a bit of space so you can at least sit down.’ She made him a coffee. He looked tired – exhausted even.

They skirted around each other, making smalltalk about the kids and the dog and the family. If that was the way he wanted it, well that was okay with her. They went for a long walk together and barely said a word. Then while Tom dozed in the armchair she made them dinner – fresh hake bought
early
this morning down at the fish market on the harbour and new baby potatoes with salad and scallions.

‘Wow, I missed you throwing a meal together,’ he complimented as he tucked in.

After dinner she worked again while he went down and checked out the small cove where he often fished in the little dinghy they kept in the shed. Finishing up a few hours later, she realized that he had already gone to bed and was fast asleep. She didn’t know whether to be angry with him or relieved. Undressing quietly, she slipped in beside him and within minutes the familiar, regular sound of his breathing sent her to sleep.

Next morning Tom had breakfast without her and, realizing he was gone down to the cove with the dog, she followed him. He was sitting there lost in thought, staring out at the water.

‘You should put on your baseball cap,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t want you to get sunburnt.’

For a second, as she took in his hunched figure, she thought that he seemed to shudder.

‘What’s happening with us?’ she found herself saying aloud as she sat down on the rocks near him.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Nina.’

‘I mean are we going the way of Vonnie and Simon?’

‘What have they got to do with us?’

‘Is there someone else?’ she burst out. ‘Are you seeing someone else, Tom? I’d far prefer that you tell me instead of pretending.’

‘Someone else – how can you even think that!’ he protested fiercely. ‘You know there’s no one else, Nina!’

‘That’s it – I don’t know!’ she retorted, facing him down.
‘There’s
a woman called Caroline. You are off all over the place. You’re on business, you’re working late, you have to meet someone … You are down playing golf with Frank, when Frank is having dinner with Brenda in Dun Laoghaire. Excuses all the time and I have no idea where you are or who you are with. Then there’s the fancy new suit and haircut—’

‘But I wanted to tell you—’

‘It’s still need-to-know as far as you’re concerned,’ she accused, trying to control her emotions, ‘even though I’m your wife.’

He said nothing and she could see how nervous he was.

‘There is something we need to talk about,’ he said finally, almost shuddering. ‘You’re right – but it’s about the business. The business is gone. Literally collapsed.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Looking at him, Nina was suddenly scared.

‘Harris Engineering is no more,’ he said, pulling himself up straight. ‘I have been doing everything in my power to try and stave it off, dealing with the banks, trying to get some new investors on board – but it’s too late. The business is going to be put into receivership.’

‘Oh God, Tom, don’t say that! We must be able to do something, to try to rescue it—’

‘That’s what I have been doing. Bill put some money in and I’ve been trying to see if we can sell it as a going concern, keep the jobs, pay our creditors …’

Nina sat absolutely stunned. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘You were dealing with that whole thing with Erin and her mother. I didn’t feel you would be able to take the stress of this too, and besides, I was sure that I could somehow get it sorted.’

Nina couldn’t believe it. Why had Tom hidden it from her?

‘We could have talked about it.’

‘Nina, I’m sixty-four years old and trying to rescue a company I set up almost thirty years ago. I had to buy a suit – do you know what it’s like going in to meet bankers and lenders almost half my age? I needed to look right … younger … shave a few years off this old fogey’s face and look smart. Caroline is the girl who cuts my hair,’ he said slowly. ‘Old Peter in the barber’s shop retired and Caroline took it over. She not only revamped the place but I think decided to do a bit of a revamp on a lot of Peter’s old customers, including myself.

‘Do you have any idea of how hard it is out there when you are my age? I’ve been all over the place trying to chase up payments on contract work and get some new business in, well enough to tide us over. Frank was great. He let me use his place in Mount Juliet to bring three guys over to play golf and try to set up some financing with them. It worked, and in fact Larry Maxwell and his team will hopefully be the ones who will take over the firm if the bank agrees it. I’ve been buying equipment off Larry for years, so it’s a good fit. They have no engineering presence and plan to implement some of the things I advise, but naturally they want to develop their own strategy and have promised to try and keep the jobs – well, most of them.’

‘What about your job?’

‘Bosses don’t keep their job when there is virtual takeover of the company,’ he said. ‘With the receivers’ backing they will take it over, pay off the debts we owe and then start over again doing what Harris Engineering does best.’

‘Tom, I’m so sorry!’ Nina threw her arms around him. ‘I just cannot believe this is happening, but I’m so relieved!’

‘Relieved?’

‘I thought that you were having an affair.’

Tom laughed. ‘I must have looked really good in that suit!’

‘I’m sorry for being so bloody unsupportive at a time you really needed me,’ she apologized. ‘How could I have not seen it?’

‘There isn’t anything you can do, Nina. You didn’t cause the Irish economy to collapse and for the recession to strike all over the world. We just have to live with it.’

‘What will you do?’ She couldn’t imagine Tom not being a part of the company he had set up and developed.

‘I’ll work as an adviser for the short term, then God knows what else. I want to clear any money I owe. Pay off any creditors. I’m not one of those people who try to shaft my suppliers, so that’s got to be sorted. I want to try to stay on good terms with Morten and Baz in Sweden. I feel I’ve let them down; Larry and the guys have their own supplier of solar-heating panels and won’t use them.’

‘What about money?’ she ventured.

‘That’s the million-dollar question. My investments have crashed like everyone else’s, and even my pension is half what it should be. So, Nina, I’m afraid that there is a possibility we may have to sell the house to raise some capital to live on.’

‘Sell the house?’ She couldn’t help herself getting upset. She loved their house and had hoped that they would live there like Darby and Joan till they were much older. ‘It’s our home!’

‘I know. The property market has crashed and I expect that we won’t even get a half of what we could have got four or five years ago, but we haven’t a mortgage on it. We bought the house over twenty-three years ago for what we thought was a huge amount but was in fact a song, so we would definitely make money.’

‘That is if we can sell it,’ she reminded him. ‘O’Malleys have
had
their house up for sale for the past eighteen months and have had no proper offers.’

‘Our house is a much nicer house than theirs.’

‘But where would we live?’

‘We’d downsize and move to something smaller, more manageable. You know we hardly ever use the big dining room any more, and even only use the sitting room for big family get-togethers at Christmas and a few other times in the year. You and I are rattling around the place.’

Nina didn’t know what to say. Tom had obviously been working it all out in his head for the past few months without confiding in her. She should be angry and annoyed with him, but she could see he was heartbroken about the company and the possibility of them losing their beautiful old house.

They walked and talked for hours, then, both exhausted, they slept for a while. There were sausages made from the locally bred black pigs with all kinds of herbs in the fridge and they had them for dinner with some fried-up slices of leftover potato. Tom opened a bottle of wine and Nina pulled on her pale-green woollen wrap as they sat outside on the wooden bench.

‘I’d better go back tomorrow, try to tie things up more,’ he said, holding her hand.

‘I’ll come back with you,’ she offered. ‘We’ll face it together.’

‘I’m over with Larry for two days at the end of the week. Why don’t you stay here and try to finish what you are working on?’ he encouraged her.

Tom loved her drawings and the fact that, for the first time ever, she was taking a well-known legend and telling it in her own words.

She hesitated. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I’ll come down here again when I get back and let you know what’s happening.’

‘What about Erin and Jack? They need to know.’

‘I’ll have a better idea of things next week. Can we tell them then?’ he asked.

Nina knew that the kids would be devastated when they heard about Tom losing the company, but losing their childhood home was even worse.

They sat up as the skies darkened, watching the sun set and the moon come up before eventually going to bed.

Next morning, still in her pyjamas, Nina made him breakfast before he set off on the long journey back to Dublin.

‘I love you, Tom,’ she said, kissing him.

‘And I love you too,’ he said, holding her tight to him. ‘And that will never change.’

IT WAS ONLY
after tom had gone that the full impact of what he had told her really hit her. Harris Engineering closed down or owned by somebody else! What would Tom do? How would he survive such a drastic change in his life?

Like most men, his business and work had been the main focus of his life and the plan had always been for him to work for as long as he could in a business he really enjoyed until he was ready to retire. Now everything had been catapulted into an economic maelstrom and they had no idea how they were going to come out of it. She had always assumed that they would live comfortably as they got older and had never worried about it, but now that safety-net of ignorance was gone and Nina felt a very genuine fear of what the outcome would be.

She loved Clifton, their old three-storey house, and had always imagined living there for the rest of her life, with Erin and Jack and their children always having the house to come home to. But if Tom felt that, financially, they had no other option but to sell it, then they would have to move. It was unbearable, but she had to be realistic; their marriage and financial security
were
far more important than a big house. If they had to they would start over, just like they did when they were young and first married, living in their little terraced house in Harold’s Cross. As a couple they had worked together and built a strong marriage, and now it was even more important that they strive together to find some sort of solution to this calamity. They were both strong and in good health and had years of life ahead of them. She still loved Tom as much as ever, despite him being so absurdly stupid trying to protect her from what was happening to the business. They were a pair and would face up to things together, and, if needs be, begin again.

Alone in the cottage in West Cork, she sought refuge in her painting. She worked from breakfast time till late in the evening, covering the pages with blue washes and lines and strokes of colours as the story took shape. The illustrations flew from her hand like magic, each picture more fluid and beautiful, as if the enormous stress she was under was actually making her retreat into work and lose herself in it totally.

At night Tom called her from his hotel and they spent hours on the phone as he told her everything that was going on. She felt for him; she could sense the pressure and desperation he was experiencing as he and Larry Maxwell and the bank began to draw up the agreements for the sale of the company. She phoned Erin and Jack and briefly told them the situation, both of them appalled by what was going on. She had been so annoyed with Tom for keeping her in the dark about things; she wasn’t prepared to do the same with their children.

‘Poor Dad!’ said Erin, shocked to discover what was happening. ‘Is there anything we can do to help?’

‘There doesn’t seem to be much anyone can do, but at least we can stick together as a family,’ said Nina firmly.

Jack had been so quiet when she told him that she thought at first he hadn’t heard her.

‘That explains a lot,’ he said, almost tearful. ‘I’ve been worried that Dad was sick or something. We haven’t gone out in the boat for weeks. I asked him if he wanted to go fishing and he just snapped at me and said he was far too busy.’

Nina packed up her art gear, her collection of illustrations for the story almost done, and, after a final walk with Bailey, closed up Oyster Cottage and decided to head back to Dublin. Bill, who was a part-owner of the cottage, and Charles were coming down to stay for a few days next week.