Cathy Kelly 3-book Bundle (123 page)

Veronica lowered Jasmine and Rae managed to brush her lips against Jasmine’s cheek but there was no real kiss.

Instantly, the nun whisked her away.

‘No!’ shrieked Rae.

But the door slammed and Jasmine was gone. Rae was left in the bed with a strange woman holding her down.

Jasmine had been taken away. It hurt, it hurt somewhere so deep in Rae that she couldn’t find words for it.

When Sister Martin came in with a small yellow tablet and a glass of water, Rae took it numbly.

She didn’t want to even look at Sister Veronica when she came in the next day. Rae was crying silently on the chair beside
the bed, holding the little stained vest Jasmine had worn that first, that only, night.

‘It’s the best way, Rae my love.’

‘Don’t call me
love
,’ hissed Rae. ‘You let us all think you’re caring for us and you’re not. We’re a baby factory.’

‘Giving your baby up was for her own good, Rae. It’s for your own good too.’

‘Don’t talk about her,’ said Rae. She couldn’t bear to think about Jasmine. About the softness of her skin, the baby scent of her, how her little face instinctively turned to the sound of Rae’s voice. And she’d never see her again. She’d given her up for the right reasons, all the reasons Sister Veronica said now, but oh God it hurt, it hurt so much.

She fell to the floor from the chair and held on to her belly. The pain was there; where Jasmine had lain for nine long months. If only she hadn’t griped about the difficult bits of pregnancy and had rejoiced in them, because then Jasmine was a part of her, nobody could take her then. They were together. What she wouldn’t give to have that time back.

Sister Veronica tried to help her to her feet but Rae pushed her away.

‘No,’ she cried, ‘don’t touch me.’

All she wanted was to lie in her bed with Jasmine wrapped close to her, but she’d given up on that forever. It was the right thing, wasn’t it? All these people said it was the right thing for Jasmine and they must know, mustn’t they?

Sister Veronica left her alone in the lonely single room. Too late Rae understood why she’d been moved there. She’d heard crying coming from there when she’d first arrived, but she hadn’t thought about what it meant. She’d thought it was one of the nuns perhaps. Why hadn’t she asked? If so, she might have run away from this place where they pretended to help when really they were just preaching doctrinaire Catholicism and separating single women from their babies. It messed with
their morality, their sense of the world. But they were wrong with their rules and their notions of morality. Her parents had been allowed to raise her because they were married and yet they shouldn’t have been allowed to raise so much as a scaldy hen. Marriage meant nothing, just that you’d followed their stupid rules. What was wrong with a woman raising a child on her own?

Rae would never play by their rules again. They’d made her lose everything.

She packed her stuff up. She was never coming back here again, never to see her family again. If they’d been any sort of family, she might have been able to keep Jasmine.

After she’d finished telling Will, he sat in silence for a long while.

‘Do you hate me now?’ Rae looked at her husband intently. She was afraid of his answer, afraid he’d say ‘Yes.’

Eventually he turned to look at her and she saw the pain and shock in his eyes. Rae didn’t think she’d ever seen Will look like that and she wished with all her heart that it had been different all those years ago, that she’d told him.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I really am, my love. Please believe me.’

He studied her for a moment, then he reached out his hand and took hers. ‘How could I ever hate you?’ he said softly. ‘I love you. I’ll always love you.’

‘Oh, Will,’ Rae said with a sob.

She leaned against him, feeling the solidity of his body with great relief. She was almost afraid to breathe in case she upset this moment.
Keep loving me
, she willed him.
Keep forgiving me. I love you.
His hands stroked her back as she leaned against him, and she closed her eyes at the gesture. Let him not change his mind.

‘Remember when Anton was sixteen,’ he continued, ‘and he went camping with his friends, and it rained – they got
waterlogged, and they phoned us in the middle of the night to get them.’

Rae nodded.

‘They were kids, weren’t they, him and all his friends. They all thought they were big men, but when it rained, they got scared and they wanted their parents.’ Will put his arms around her. ‘You were the same age as Anton when you had a baby. I don’t care how grown up you felt, you were a child.’

Rae didn’t dare think he might forgive her. How could he? But he was holding her closely, he still loved her. She hugged him back.

‘I should have kept her,’ she breathed. ‘I should have told you about her. All these years, I felt as if I was denying her by not telling you, but when I didn’t tell you in the beginning, how could I tell you then? When could I do it? On our wedding day, when Anton was born – when?’ She was hoarse from talking, hoarse from the emotion.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Will soothed.

For the first time, she pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. There was hurt there and pain, but still love.

‘It does matter,’ she said. ‘It reached a point where I didn’t know how to tell you. I loved you and I was afraid you’d stop loving me if I told you. I didn’t trust your love enough, I didn’t know enough about love to trust it. I am so sorry for that, Will.’

His reply was one hand stroking her face and she leaned her cheek down to his cradling hand.

‘It’s all right, Rae,’ he said. ‘Go on, open the letter.’

Her hands were shaking so much that Will had to slit the envelope with a knife and then he handed it back to Rae.

My name is Tricia O’Reilly and I think I am your daughter. I am forty-one years old, am married to a good man and am expecting my first child. I was born in the Blessed Helena Home in Limerick on 27 August
1969. I do not know what time I was born.

I am not sure what to write. I have wanted to write to you for so long and now I am doing it, I do not know what to say.

I have been trying to find you for many years to understand why. It took me a long time to find you and I have put off doing this. I can’t put it off any longer.

I don’t want to frighten you and I know that nobody in your life now might know about me. It’s a puzzle and I need to understand it all.

Please, please answer my letter. You do not know what it would mean to me.

Tricia O’Reilly.

Rae’s hands covered her mouth.

‘I have a daughter named Tricia,’ she said to Will, her eyes shining. ‘And a grandchild coming. Oh, Will, we have to tell Anton.’

Herb lore was an important part of our family for many years, but it was lost by the time I was born, Eleanor. My great-grandmother was said to have the Sight, and she spent her whole life working as a midwife. My mother told me her grandmother, Morrigan, knew which herbs would help a woman with a difficult labour, how to help a woman who could not bear children, how to ease the pain of people dying and how to tame a dangerous fever.

It was a combination of old magic and a woman’s wisdom with God’s herbs, and most of it is lost. People then didn’t write their wisdom down. They relied on the seanachai to tell the story aloud, and Morrigan’s knowledge wasn’t the sort a storyteller should know.

But I remember that my mother used to draw a circle round our house with a hazel twig once a year, and I overheard her once whisper that if a woman has difficulty carrying a child to full term, then she should eat a whole lobster, wash the shell, crush it, and wear it next to her in a small muslin bag as protection for her baby.

When I was a child, our herbs were thyme, lavender and great stalks of rosemary that grew in woody bushes outside the house. Lavender like fat lilac pillows covered the old stone wall on one side of the house. There was French lavender that Agnes had brought from the big house, and a tiny but sweeter lavender that the bees loved.

The scent of lavender and a tang of lemon thyme will always take me home.

Connie was exasperated because the fifth years had lost the will to work. Even grave discussions on the forthcoming exams couldn’t dent their sheer joy at the long summer holidays awaiting them in two months’ time.

‘My cousin lives in Wales and she only gets six weeks off in the summer. Six weeks!’ announced one girl.

‘Cruelty to teenagers,’ murmured everyone.

‘About the exams…’ said Connie, who stood at the top of the class and wondered if it was a waste of her time, or indeed a strain on her adrenal glands, to bother attempting to teach today.

‘Miss O’Callaghan, the exams don’t matter for us,’ said one girl kindly. ‘Now for the sixth years, it’s different –’

Everyone sighed sympathetically. The sixth years were on the run up to the most important thing in their young lives: the Leaving Certificate. State exams on a par with the G20 Summit at least.

Connie had often wondered if the educational system was right to gear itself so totally towards one set of exams. For the girls of St Matilda’s, it was as if their whole lives depended on those three weeks at the start of June. Everything was predicated towards it.

‘You’ve got to think about your Leaving Cert…’ was the gloomy start to many sentences.

Which was why the fifth years had happily idled away the
whole year. When they were sixth years, they could panic, they told her. But for now…whatever.

Connie gave it one last try: ‘The summer exams will determine if you can stay in honours history or pass next year,’ she said loudly.

Again, nobody was too pushed. That was in September, months away. Who knew what would have happened by then. They might have been spotted by Robert Pattinson across a crowded street and been whisked away to a life of movie-star excitement…

‘There’s a fair chance that an essay question on the signing of the Declaration of Independence will come up in the exam,’ Connie said. Seeing as how she’d set the exam, she should know. ‘It might be worth everyone’s while to sit and revise that section.’

Pay dirt. The history exam was on Wednesday. Too close for comfort. Robert Pattinson wasn’t due in Dublin any time soon. The fifth years sat down and pulled out their books.

‘The whole of chapter twenty-four is important,’ Connie went on in a slightly cajoling tone. She sometimes wondered if she’d chosen wrongly when she plumped for being the sort of friendly-not-shouty teacher. The ones who instilled fear in the students certainly could make people sit in their seats at will, but it must be so exhausting keeping the level of tension up. No, Connie decided, she’d never be able to be one of the tough teachers. Being likeable and friendly was who she was.

Pages shuffled as everyone settled to read chapter twenty-four and peace reigned. Connie was able to sit back and think.

All she could think about were Ella and Steve. Now that the widower and his ten-year-old daughter were in her life, she couldn’t get them out of her head. When she read her romances, she imagined she was the heroine and Steve was the man wrapping his muscular arms around her, saving her from pirates/highwaymen/whatever. Flicking through magazines, she kept finding articles about stepfamilies.

Normally, she’d have turned those pages at high speed, but now she read avidly.

What to do when your children and his have to get on as one big family?
Nope. Not an issue. All Ella would have to get on with were Connie’s things. Still, she scanned that paragraph in case it was useful.

The only absolutely relevant article was a case history of a woman who’d married a man with two young daughters.
Don’t
was her message. Connie read on glumly.

Rows, plenty of screaming fits ending with
‘you’re not my mother
!’ and a painful break-up ensued. ‘I’d never get involved with a man with children again!’ said the woman.

Connie stared blankly down at the mostly silent students in front of her and tried to imagine what it must be like for a child in Ella’s situation to suddenly have someone interested in her father. Up till now, apart from the predatory Daniellas of this world, Ella had had him to herself. And Steve didn’t appear too interested in getting involved again.

What was she thinking of, anyway? Steve liked her purely because she was kind to Ella, that was all. He’d never once looked at her in a romantic way or brushed against her accidentally. And now she knew that she longed for him to.

It was five when she got home and she did her best to peer unobtrusively into Steve and Ella’s basement apartment before she took the steps up to her one. It didn’t look as if anyone was home.

Her own apartment felt lonely now, especially knowing that Eleanor was away with Megan. She’d loved having Megan staying upstairs with Eleanor: it had given her a reason to pop round in the evening, bringing shopping for them or checking up to see that they were both OK.

Perhaps it was time to get that cat, Connie thought morosely as she wandered around, not able to settle at anything. She
had no homework to correct: it wasn’t fair to give the girls homework when they were meant to be revising. She made herself tea and somehow ended up perched by the front window with a book when Steve Calman’s pick-up truck arrived. Moments later, a sky-blue sports car drew up and Danielle, Petal’s mother, got out, cute as a button in purple velour this time. She seemed to have had Ella quite a lot after school recently. And didn’t seem to mind bringing the girl all the way home. In the past week, Connie had seen a lot of the distinctive sky-blue sports car as Danielle dropped Ella home every evening. Danielle always looked so
perky
, Connie thought with unaccustomed venom. Petal and Ella struggled to get out of the back seat themselves. Danielle was too busy chatting with Steve to bother moving the seat for them.

Flicking her blonde ponytail at him was one thing, but not even bothering to get poor Ella out of the car: now
that
was totally unacceptable. Connie stopped thinking rationally. She stormed downstairs and out of the front door, only just grabbing her keys on the way, and marched out on to the street.

‘Connie!’ Ella called from the car. ‘You’re home! Can I come and play?’

‘Of course,’ said Connie, helping her out. ‘Is that OK, Steve?’

Steve looked pleased to see her but Connie noted that Danielle did not. Tough bananas, Connie thought. You can have Steve if you want, but don’t be mean to Ella.

‘Can I come too!’ asked Petal plaintively, sliding out after Ella.

‘Yes, go on,’ said Danielle, not even looking.

Connie wasn’t sure why she felt she’d won the lottery when she went back upstairs with the two little girls chattering with her.

‘And Connie’s got a bedroom like a princess and profiteroles,’ Ella explained excitedly to Petal.

‘My mummy says profiteroles make you fat. Cream is bad for you,’ Petal informed them.

‘Really?’ Connie let them into her flat. She could just imagine Danielle crossly telling Petal that in a flurry of irritation after Connie had left with Ella that first day. There was no doubt about it: Danielle was mad for Steve Calman. Connie knew she couldn’t compete with someone like Danielle. Connie wouldn’t get one leg into Danielle’s cutesy little velour track pants and even if she trained for hours in front of the mirror, she’d never be able to do that ponytail-flicking thing. She simply wasn’t the seductress type.

No, she was the funny friend person. And she was a person that darling Ella loved being with. That was enough for Connie; more than enough.

At least half an hour went by before her doorbell rang.

‘It’s Steve,’ he said into the intercom, sounding a little strained. ‘Danielle has to drop Petal with her gran because she has to go to pilates.’

Bet she does, Connie thought. Stomach muscles don’t get that taut just from avoiding profiteroles. ‘On my way down,’ she called cheerily.

Neither Danielle nor Steve looked as happy as two people who’d just been afforded some privacy should. Steve’s face was pale under his tan and it looked as if he’d been tugging on his tie to stop it being so close to his throat; either that, or Danielle had been pulling at it, but Connie didn’t like to dwell on that. It was one thing to know Danielle was more Steve’s type than she was, another entirely to think about the logistics of it all.

‘Come on, Petal,’ snapped Danielle. ‘Oh, thank you, Connie.’

‘Bye, Petal,’ said Connie. ‘See you, Danielle.’

The ponytail didn’t twitch.

Danielle shoved the passenger seat down at high speed, this time to let her daughter in, and then drove off with a squeal of rubber.

Connie bent to give Ella a hug. ‘See you soon,’ she said.

‘When?’ demanded Ella.

Connie was lost. ‘How about Saturday night?’ she said. ‘I can make dinner. Or if you’re going out, I can babysit Ella,’ she added to Steve.

‘I owe you dinner after your helping us out,’ he remarked. He was beginning to look more like his normal self now. Unconsciously, he reached a hand up and loosened the knot on his tie, pulling it off completely. Then he swiftly opened the top two buttons. ‘That’s better,’ he said.

Yeah, much better, thought Connie with a gulp, looking away. Drooling always looked bad.

‘Oh, Dad, let’s go to Connie’s, pleeease,’ begged Ella. ‘You’re always cooking, it’s boring eating your food. I like Connie’s food. Like Indian.’

‘We won’t try that again,’ Connie said. ‘You didn’t eat any of it. I’ll cook,’ she added rashly. Cooking and taking care of children sort of went together.

‘That’s too much trouble,’ said Steve.

‘Nonsense,’ declared Connie, not looking at him. ‘I love cooking! Saturday evening then, at six?’

‘It’s in our diary,’ said Ella gravely, and both adults laughed.

Feeling as if she was floating on air, Connie went home.

‘Gaynor, what’s a simple thing to cook for a dinner party where the guests are a neighbour and his little girl?’

In the excitement of the whole event, Connie had neglected to think about the actual food until the wee small hours of Friday night.

‘I’m fine thank you, Connie, and no you didn’t wake me
early on a Saturday morning, and how are you?’ asked Gaynor.

‘I don’t have time for that! I’m desperate. Besides, you’re always telling me you’re up at the crack of dawn on Saturdays,’ Connie added. ‘Football, ballet, hockey…’

‘Touché,’ said Gaynor. ‘When is this grand and important dinner party?’

‘Tonight.’

Connie waited till Gaynor had stopped laughing hysterically. ‘That’s why I always phone you when I’m in trouble,’ she said. ‘You’re so sympathetic, so kind.’

‘You can’t cook.’

‘And this is news? I know I can’t cook, but you can and you’re going to help me.’

‘I can’t, not today. Any other day, of course I would, but it’s my niece’s wedding today and we have to be out of the house by ten. Go to Marks and Spencer’s and buy something to heat up. That’s what everyone else does.’

‘I want to cook something myself,’ Connie wailed.

‘
Now
she decides she wants to cook!’ groaned Gaynor. ‘Right, do a chicken casserole. Chicken with mushrooms and a little white wine, it never fails. You have some recipe books?’

‘What would I want with recipe books? Wait till I get a pen,’ said Connie.

At six that evening, there was a delicious smell coming from the oven, a very restaurant-y smell, in Connie’s opinion. Cooking wasn’t anywhere near as hard as people made out. Honestly, you just threw chicken, cream, wine, mushrooms and herbs in a pot and let it get on with itself. Simple.

She’d made two casseroles: a big one for her and Steve with wine, and a small one for Ella without wine.

‘I can’t put wine in hers,’ Connie had said to Gaynor on the phone.

‘The wine cooks off,’ Gaynor explained. ‘But you could do a smaller version for her with no wine. I do that all the time.’

‘Oooh yummy smells,’ said Ella when they arrived. She gave Connie a huge hug, dumped her cardigan on the floor and ran off to investigate what they were going to have for dessert.

‘You got profiteroles!’ she roared with delight when she’d scanned the fridge fully. ‘And 7UP too!’

‘I hope that’s all right,’ Connie said to Steve.

He grinned.

He was wearing the sort of fine-knit sweater that Freddie might wear, but on Freddie, a sweater always looked a bit too big, like he’d borrowed it from a larger person. On Steve, the grey knit fitted perfectly and showed off shoulders that could have graced any of the covers of Connie’s romantic novels. She had a sudden vision of him ripping the sweater off and hauling her close, and she had to follow Ella into the kitchen to hide her red face in case he noticed.