Never Too Late (33 page)

Oh dear, thought Maggie, more oil needed for troubled waters. Why did everything have to happen at once? Was the seemingly smooth path of her family’s life before the accident really all illusion?

“I’ll phone Angela,” Maggie said. “Perhaps we could all have a barbecue here on Sunday if the weather holds.”

“Er, no, Mum, not this weekend.” He hugged Keela. “We have other things to attend to.”

Maggie’s hands flew to her face. “Oh, I’m so sorry! For the moment I’d entirely forgotten.”

“Easily done. It’s been a rather hectic day. I think an early night for all of us would be a good idea. Are you coming up, love?” he asked Keela.

She agreed and they went up, hand in hand.

Maggie looked at Deefor. “Come on, my darling boy. A last stroll in the garden and then bed for us too I think.”

She went out into the velvety late twilight and watched the stars appearing one by one to join the beacon of Venus, while Deefor did his last rounds. Would Iain already be asleep, she wondered?

When she got to their bedroom she paused in the doorway. Iain was in bed and his breathing was slow and steady. She went very quietly to their en suite bathroom, signalling Deefor to his bed in the corner and shutting the door before turning on the light so as not to disturb Iain. A few minutes later she emerged, barefoot and silent on the thick carpet. She went to the chair by the window that she used for her clothing. Iain hadn’t closed the curtains and the moonlight streaming through gave her ample light while she undressed. She picked up her nightdress and was about to slip it on when Iain spoke.

“Please,” he said softly, “just let me look at you a moment.”

She froze for a second, then let her hands fall and slowly turned to face him.

“My God, Maggie, you are so beautiful,” he breathed. “You look like a silver nymph, ethereal, exquisite, more, much more, than I deserve.”

She went slowly to their bed and climbed in beside him. She pulled the sheet up protectively and sat looking at him.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I wouldn’t have missed that sight for the world.” He held out his arms, inviting her to snuggle in. “I badly want to make love to you, but I just don’t have the strength left today. May I just hold you, just touch you and smell you?”

She slid down into bed and moved over towards him. Her fears about touching him so intimately again, her naked skin against his, melted away as their bodies fitted together once more. It felt natural and right for her to be there with him. She stroked the side of his face and felt wetness there. Raising herself on one elbow she saw the moonlight-silvered tear drops coursing down his face.

“Iain?” She gently brushed the tears off with her thumb.

Abruptly he sat up in bed and drew his knees up, resting his elbows on them while he scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. Racking sobs tore through him and Maggie put her arm around his shoulders, drawing him to her breast. She rocked him and held his head to her until the sobs subsided.

First Keela, now Iain... Perhaps we all need mothering now and then. But who will mother me?

“Maggie,” he said, his voice rough from the extreme of his emotion. “I am so, so sorry. Truly I am. Please forgive me. Please let me spend the rest of my life with you. It really is all I want from life.”

“Sssshhhh now. It’s OK. Everything will be OK, I promise.”

“Do you forgive me? Absolutely?”

“I forgive you, Iain.”

Please, Lord, give me the strength I need to keep my promise and to forgive. Let me one day be able to say I forgive him absolutely.

Eventually she fell asleep in his arms, while he kissed her hair and lovingly stroked her back. He had a long battle ahead of him, he knew that, but he had started it with the most important thing, her love and forgiveness.

*

The next day Maggie left Iain at his drawing board. He normally used CAD software, but still enjoyed the feel of the ‘old way’. Today he was determined to test out his draughtsmanship, to push back any limitations after his head injury. Maggie gave strict instructions not to do more than an hour and he had promised to comply. She set a kitchen timer to ring and remind him to switch to his prescribed physical exercises.

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” she told him, “but I really must get into town today.” She had considered telling Iain who she was seeing and why but had decided against it. She would take any necessary decisions with Richard. Iain would just have to live with it - this project was out of his hands now.

She arrived at the office just as Richard was spreading out the site plans.

“Maggie, good to see you.” He went over, kissed her cheek and scratched Deefor’s ears. “You and your shadow! You’ve certainly got a sparkle back in this boy’s eyes. How’s it going at home with your other boy?”

Maggie laughed and put her bag down. “It started off with more melodrama than I expected but we’re getting there.”

She gave him a brief run-down of the day’s events while he sorted out coffee for both of them. His secretary, Linda, brought in a tray that included a biscuit tin.

“Great,” he said gleefully, “I bag the chocolate ones.”

“No way!” Linda told him sternly. “I’m under strict instructions from Joanna that you’re on a diet.”

She put the tin on the floor and much to his disappointment he saw it contained water for Deefor.

“Oh well,” he sighed. “Can’t win ’em all.”

Maggie and Richard started studying the site plans and she told him about her meeting with the protesters, indicating where they were located and what area they were most concerned about. He confirmed what they had said about the legal situation and his concerns that the temporary injunction against further work had an even chance of becoming permanent unless a solution could be found.

“When do you think Iain will be ready to take over the reins again?”

“Certainly not until long after this project. Who knows, maybe never. It’s down to us for now, Richard, so shall I show you my alternative plan?”

Maggie took a pencil and scribbled over the wood. “That remains untouched entirely.” She drew a line parallel to the far side of the river. “We’ll need expert advice but I would estimate a minimum 100 yard corridor will be needed to ensure maintenance of the river ecosystem. There are protected newts there so we won’t have a choice about it anyway. Let’s turn it to our advantage and make the first move to protect it. That will hopefully get the tree sitters and the lawyers on our side, so we’ll be able to get the injunction lifted and start development on that side of the site more quickly. At the moment there are just empty fields on that side of the valley. Yes, we’ll still be building on green belt land, and yes, we’ll be grubbing up hedgerow, but provided we leave the wood standing I think they’ll agree to compromise. What do you think?”

Richard went to a cabinet and took out the business projections. “Let’s do some quick maths here.” He sat down at his PC and pulled up the files. “If we don’t build at all on this side of the river, just the planned 500 homes that side, it will affect not just income but expenditure. With a hundred yard corridor to take into account we’d lose another twenty houses, these fronting the river, but without building on the other side of the river I could easily up the quality, and price, of these ones here. Most people would be prepared to pay a great deal extra for uninterrupted views of a river and woods, knowing they’ll never be built on. I’d need to cost out a new access road that side of the valley as all our plant, and later the residents, will need to go that route instead.”

He typed as he talked, trying out various scenarios. After half an hour of juggling with figures and projections he turned to Maggie. “I think you may have hit on a way we can at least break even on this. I’ll need to discuss this option with our project partners, but I’m sure they want an end to court cases and completion of the project as much as we do. Are you happy for me to take full control from this point?”

“Richard, you have my full support. I trust you as a very dear friend. I may not know much about business but I know Iain has a very high regard for your abilities. You’re the most important employee this company has. I’m sure the whole thing would have collapsed by now without you.”

Richard looked at her tentatively, not sure if now was a good moment to mention it.

“What is it, Richard?” she prompted him. “You have that look on your face that tells me there’s another agenda here somewhere.”

“Maggie, if, by any chance, Iain decided not to return, I’d be very interested in buying this side of the company. I don’t want to seem grasping, but the current financial balance has reduced its value to the point where I can afford it.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” she told him. “Even before the accident I wanted him to ease up on the workload. Now could be the right time for all of us.”

They agreed that Maggie should speak to Mia. She would tell her what her connection with company was and explain the new proposed plans. She would let Richard know as soon as possible if the protestors would find it an acceptable compromise, and he promised to have more concrete news about the company’s financial position with such a reduced scale build by the end of the day. Richard would then set up the meetings to confirm the new plan, and would let Maggie know as soon as the work on the ground began.

*

Amelia arranged with James for him to go to the clinic an hour before Keela was due to be discharged. She wanted some time alone with him before speaking to both of them together. He sat nervously in her consulting room, not knowing quite what to expect as he had received only standard, non-committal replies each time he’d phoned during the past week. Amelia had explained to him that Keela would benefit from a complete separation from her present while they dealt with the disturbing elements of her past, but knowing that it helped her hadn’t made it any easier for him.

He looked up as the door opened and Amelia bustled in. “James, it’s good to see you again. No, no, don’t get up.” She sat down opposite him and placed her spectacles on top on Keela’s file. In just a week it had grown to quite a significant thickness. “I’m very pleased to report we have made some excellent progress. There’s still a way to go yet, but we know why there’s a problem, and therefore we’ve been able to start on the path of solving the problem.”

She opened the file to a summary sheet but did not need to consult it.

“We first made progress through learning what we could of her past from her family members. The second stage was regression therapy, which filled in some gaps in our knowledge and let Keela learn about herself. Since then, we have worked on building a healthier attitude towards herself. The last stage will be what you can accomplish together.

“Keela, as you know, was raised by her aunt Joan in Liverpool from the age of eleven. There was a very good reason for that, but the damage done to Keela’s psyche was partly down to what happened to her in Ireland and partly down to her removal to Liverpool.

“Let’s start with Ireland. Her mother, Niamh, is a very timid woman. When I spoke to her on the phone I could hardly get a word out of her, so I flew over to meet face to face. I also met her father, Declan.” Amelia shuddered at the memory. “It was obvious her father is an alcoholic who becomes a vicious bully when drunk. I believe he’d beaten and terrified Niamh into abject submission early on in their marriage. Physically she did everything a wife and mother should, but there was no spark of personality left in her by the time Keela was old enough to be aware of her situation. One after another child popped out year by year but I doubt any of them had many kisses or cuddles. Keela, as the eldest, bore the brunt of helping her mother look after the house and the younger ones. She was also the one who bore the brunt of her father’s attentions.

“Somehow, though, her mother did find enough spirit to get her eldest daughter to safety when it became apparent she was being sexually abused. Being a Catholic she couldn’t divorce Declan even if she wanted to. Having been mentally and physically abused by her husband for a decade she didn’t have the courage to throw him out. So she did the next best thing she could for Keela. She sent her to her sister in Liverpool.

“In Liverpool Keela found herself swamped by an even larger family than the one she had left. It was a decent family but no-one had much time, and certainly no privacy, to sit with Keela and help her make sense of what she had experienced. No doubt it would have been a very difficult issue for them to talk about anyway. They should have sought help at that stage but they didn’t. Anyway, that’s water under the bridge now.

“Keela could see from them what real family love is about, but maybe she never felt included in it. Sexual abuse makes a child feel very isolated. They don’t understand at that age exactly what has happened to them, they just know it’s bad and think it’s their fault. It makes them feel ashamed and embarrassed. They find it difficult to integrate into society without professional help. She remained a very confused little girl who grew up to be a young woman who didn’t know how most people give and receive love. A young woman with phobias and demons locked away deep inside her that grew in power while they lurked there. That locking away was the method she used to cope with normal daily life, but it wasn’t a long-term solution. The demons broke free when she wanted you as a husband and father of her children.

“You see, in Ireland the only person who had ever told Keela she was special, and loved, was her father. But he forced himself on her in the vilest ways while he spoke those words of love. She yearned for her mother’s love, but her mother never said she loved her, and ultimately banished her – she sent her away from her father, the person who did say he loved her. She has got it all totally mixed up in her head about what is love and what is unacceptable violence, because she only ever experienced the two together. She had had her childhood stolen from her. She had had precocious sexual knowledge forced on her. It’s no wonder it led her to reject sex in any form, but still, subconsciously, she thought that was the only proof someone loved her.