Stand by Me (35 page)

Authors: Sheila O'Flanagan

Tags: #Fiction, #General

BOOK: Stand by Me

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‘Our mother’s going ballistic,’ Alicia told Kelly as she broke a piece off a cinnamon muffin and popped it into her mouth. ‘She totally blames your dad for everything.’

‘So do I,’ said Kelly tightly.

‘Yeah, but Mum blames Aunt Domino too,’ Joanna added. ‘She says there’s no way she couldn’t have known what Uncle Brendan was up to and she should’ve stopped him. But that she egged him on because it meant more clothes and jewellery and stuff.’

Kelly gritted her teeth. ‘You know my mum’s not like that,’ she told her cousin. ‘And she wouldn’t have had a clue about what Dad was doing.’

‘Yeah.’ Joanna nodded. ‘But our mum says you can’t live cheek by jowl with someone and not have an inkling of what’s going on.’

‘Well your dad worked with him!’ cried Kelly. ‘He probably spent more time with him than Mum. So he should’ve known too.’

‘It wasn’t my dad’s job to know.’

‘It wasn’t my mum’s either!’

‘Hey, girls.’ Alicia held up a hand in warning. ‘There’s no need for us to argue among ourselves. Certainly not in public.’

‘Right, Miss Goody Two-Shoes,’ said Joanna.

‘C’mon.’ Alicia brushed her soft blond hair out of her eyes and looked at her cousin and her sister pleadingly. ‘We’re all in this together.’

‘What exactly are you in?’ asked Kelly. ‘I mean, I know the shit that I’m in. Mum is meeting this lawyer guy again that Uncle Gabriel has set her up with and she’s totally stressed over the money part of things as well as everything else, but I can’t see what your problem is.’

‘It’s the second time Dad’s ended up without a job,’ said Alicia. ‘He’s not getting any younger and his employment prospects aren’t great. We don’t have as much saved as we should have either. His investments aren’t doing well and Mum is giving him terrible grief. He can’t cope with it, I know he can’t.’

‘Yeah, well, me and Mum could be out of our house, and how are we supposed to cope with that?’ Kelly felt her eyes sting with sudden tears. ‘That’s what they’re meeting to talk about. We could lose Atlantic View.’

Her two cousins looked at her with sudden, silent sympathy. Whatever else, they knew that they still had a home and both their parents. It was looking increasingly likely that Kelly would end up with one parent and nowhere to live.

Dominique was sitting in the office of Colin Pearson, her new solicitor. The offices were in one of the stately old buildings along the Mall in Cork city, and the dark blue carpets and cream walls were vaguely comforting. Gabriel’s legal friend, who worked in Dublin, had recommended Colin as the absolute best person in Cork to help her. He was younger than her, with a shock of dark brown hair and a square face that was immediately sympathetic, though it could also mould itself into an intense hardness when he was making a point. He had already simplified things for her so that she knew where she stood.

‘As far as I can gather, there is no evidence at this point that your husband has actually defrauded anyone,’ said Colin calmly. ‘Just because they haven’t found where the Barbados money is invested doesn’t mean that Brendan simply took it, although the lack of clarity is, of course, worrying. The collapse of the company - which is a private company, so there are no outside investors - is a commercial matter. But the problem for you is that many of the company’s borrowings were secured on personal guarantees from your husband.’

‘What about our home?’ Dominique looked at him anxiously. ‘Our home is OK, isn’t it?’

Colin’s response wasn’t as reassuring as she’d hoped. Brendan had recently remortgaged the house, and Dominique was also liable for the repayments.

‘Don’t you remember signing the documents?’ asked Colin.

‘Sure I do. But I didn’t realise what was going on. Brendan often got me to sign things.’ Dominique rubbed her forehead. ‘You’re looking at me and thinking that I’m a very stupid, gullible, trusting woman, aren’t you?’

‘Hey, you were married to the guy for twenty-odd years,’ said Colin. ‘Of course you trusted him.’

Dominique felt her eyes flood with tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said hastily as she pulled a tissue out of her bag. ‘I can cry at the drop of a hat right now.’ She blew her nose. ‘You’re right, we were married for a long time and I totally trusted him.’

‘I’m sure you had no reason not to.’

‘I behaved like a stupid, silly trophy wife!’ cried Dominique. ‘Everything was going fine and I never asked any questions, no matter what Brendan was doing. I’m a fool.’

‘Of course you’re not,’ said Colin.

‘I feel terrible, too, because if it’s all down to the business problems, he was going through all this on his own and he didn’t feel he could tell me.’

‘Do you think there’s more to it than business worries?’

Dominique thought about the newspaper stories, which were getting more lurid and fantastical by the day, and sighed. One had implied that Brendan, knowing his business empire was in trouble, had fled to the Caribbean with a mystery millionairess. She’d felt nauseated when she read it.

Colin was looking at her sympathetically.

‘Who knows,’ she replied. ‘What I can’t understand is why he just walked out without saying anything and left us to face the music. And the bloody neighbours. And the damn reporters, who think it’s perfectly all right to camp on my doorstep and shove microphones into my face or Kelly’s. It’s not right. It’s not. And they think that we’re happily living a great life, but we could lose our home! Brendan was supposed to protect us. That was his job. Not getting caught up in all sorts of mad borrowings and dodgy deals. Just keeping us safe. That’s all we wanted.’ She choked back another sob.

‘I’ll be meeting with the bank’s solicitors as soon as possible to see if we can come up with a settlement,’ said Colin. ‘I’ll call you when I can.’

Dominique nodded and blew her nose again. All she wanted was to go home, get into bed and pull the cover over her head. She wanted to block out everything that had happened and was going to happen. She wanted to retreat into a place where no one could find her.

‘Mrs Delahaye?’

She blinked as she realised that Colin had spoken.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said after a moment. ‘Yes. I’m . . . I’m fine. I was just ...’ She sniffed. ‘Sorry. Thank you, Colin, for everything you’re doing.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he said as he offered her a tissue from the box on his desk.

Emma called Greg at work.

‘Any news for Domino?’ was the first thing he said.

‘I’m not phoning about bloody Domino!’ she cried. ‘There are other priorities in our life, Greg. I phoned to say I was dropping over to Lily later and I might be late home. But not to panic, I’m not running away without a word. I won’t leave you and Domino to sob on each other’s shoulders.’

There was silence on the line.

‘Greg?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean it to appear as if Brendan and Domino were the only people on my mind. It’s just that they’re at the forefront of it just now.’

‘She is, certainly.’

‘Emma, I’m just trying to help her.’

‘I know.’

‘There’s no need to get upset with me. I’m not getting upset with you, am I?’

Emma thought before she spoke. ‘You’ve no reason to be upset with me,’ she said finally.

‘Oh, good.’ Greg’s voice was grim. ‘That’s very nice to know.’

Emma could feel the start of a headache niggling behind her right eye as she got out of the car in front of Lily’s house. She didn’t know whether it was due to her conversation with Greg earlier, or because these days it was stressful visiting Lily. Her mother-in-law had been drained by Brendan’s disappearance. It seemed as if she’d shrunk before their very eyes, losing her normal positive and cheerful outlook on everything, and suddenly looking her age.

But she seemed a bit better today, thought Emma when Lily opened the door. There was some colour in her cheeks and the circles around her eyes weren’t quite as black as before.

‘We’re in the kitchen,’ said Lily.

‘We?’ Emma looked at her enquiringly. ‘Who’s we?’

‘Gabriel called,’ Lily told her. ‘He came to offer some non-priestly advice and comfort. Which was nice of him.’

Emma felt her heart skip a beat. ‘Good advice, I hope.’

‘Ah, well, he might not be a priest any more but he’s still big into forgiveness.’ Lily sighed. ‘As though I wouldn’t forgive my own son! It’s just ...’ she pushed open the kitchen door, ‘it’s hard to feel anything but worry right now.’

Gabriel was sitting at the table. He looked at Emma in surprise. She was wearing a plain white top and a short red skirt that made the most of her long and still shapely legs.

‘Hello,’ she said, pulling out a chair and sitting at the opposite end of the table. ‘I didn’t expect to meet you here.’

‘I thought it would be nice to see Lily,’ said Gabriel. ‘And Domino is supposed to be dropping by, so I was waiting for her too.’

‘It seems funny to hear you call her that,’ said Emma.

‘I like it. It suits her.’

‘She used to call you Gorgeous Gabe,’ Emma remembered. ‘We all did. But never to your face.’

‘Would you like tea?’ asked Lily.

‘I’ll make it.’ Emma stood up again. Her niggling headache was still pinned behind her eye. Tea might help, she thought.

‘No, no.’ Lily sounded almost like her old self. ‘I’ll do it. Why don’t you and Gabriel sit in the garden? It’s a shame to be inside on a lovely day like today, and there haven’t been any of those awful photographers around lately.’

‘Photographers?’ asked Gabriel.

‘Trying to catch Brendan coming back to the house. I can’t enjoy my own garden for them, the feckers.’

‘They snoop around Briarwood too,’ said Emma.

‘It’s ridiculous.’ Lily grunted as she filled the kettle. ‘Why can’t they leave us alone?’

‘Well,’ said Emma, ‘shall we?’ She pushed open the door and went out to the garden. Gabriel followed her. Emma glanced around before they sat down at the old wooden garden table with its equally old chairs.

‘Brendan wanted to buy her a fancy granite set,’ Emma remarked. ‘Like the one at his house. But she preferred this.’

‘It’s grand,’ said Gabriel. ‘I prefer it too.’

‘This is awkward,’ said Emma after they’d sat in silence for over a minute. ‘It’s the first time we’ve been alone together in a long, long time.’

‘The past is the past.’ Gabriel’s voice was quiet.

‘Do you always talk like that?’ Emma was irritated. ‘In clichés, and sounding like you’re speaking to someone who doesn’t understand English?’

‘Of course not.’

‘No.’ She laughed shortly. ‘Of course you don’t. And I suppose that since you’re now an ordinary member of the public and not blessed by God or anything, you don’t really get the opportunities to lecture people any more either.’

‘I never lectured people,’ said Gabriel.

‘You lectured me.’ She looked at him through her long dark lashes. ‘About what clothes I should wear. About how I should behave. About temptation.’

‘Years ago,’ said Gabriel. ‘And I was wrong about that.’

‘Not entirely,’ said Emma. ‘You were wrong about a lot of other things, though.’

‘How are you and Greg doing?’ Gabriel changed the subject.

‘Do you really want to talk about me and Greg?’ she asked.

‘How is this thing with Brendan affecting you?’ said Gabriel.