Stand by Me (53 page)
But it hadn’t happened. He still couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t because he’d had any qualms about getting into bed with her, but at the precise moment when Domino slipped her blouse from her shoulders, he hadn’t wanted to make love to her at all. She had been, he realised, his fantasy woman. Perhaps his revenge woman too. Maybe she felt the same way because she hadn’t wanted to make love to him either. The decision had somehow surprised both of them.
But not making love to Domino wasn’t what made him still miss Emma. He had missed his wife from the moment she’d left him. He knew that he was as much to blame as her, because he’d pushed her into leaving. He’d made it almost impossible for her to stay, what with his jealousy and his sense of martyrdom and all the things that he felt made him an especially sensitive person but didn’t really. He wanted to blame Emma and Gabriel for what had happened to his marriage, but the truth was he could just as easily blame himself.
He shook his head. He’d always believed that one day he’d become a mature and responsible adult who knew exactly what he wanted from life and worked hard to achieve it. He thought he’d be like his own father. But he was a mess, really. He hadn’t succeeded at anything.
‘Dad?’
Greg had been gazing back at the land as he tried to bring order to the thoughts that competed for space in his head. But now he turned his attention to the dinghy and to his son, who was sitting watching him, an impatient expression on his face. And when Greg looked at Lugh, he knew that he was wrong about one thing. He had succeeded at least in having a great kid.
‘Sorry, what?’ he asked.
‘You’re not listening to me.’
‘I know. I should’ve been. What’s up?’
‘Can we go a bit faster?’
‘Faster?’ Greg grinned at him.
‘Yeah, Dad. When I go out with Uncle Roy, we zip around the place.’
‘You mean your Uncle Roy is a better sailor than me?’
‘He’s the captain of a ship,’ said Lugh solemnly.
‘True,’ Greg acknowledged. ‘I’m only a pale imitation.’
‘Ah, you’re all right,’ said Lugh.
Greg laughed and adjusted the trim so that they were skimming across the water. Whatever happens with Emma, he thought, I always have Lugh. And that’s a good thing.
He loved his son. He loved being a father - even if he was now a part-time fixture in Lugh’s life. That was one of the main issues in his divorce negotiations with Emma. He wanted to spend as much time as possible with his son. Emma was currently being difficult about it. He knew that it was just a ploy, but it was wrong that time with their child had become a negotiating tool.
He’d been happy when Emma said that she was going to Domino’s party and that she’d be leaving him to look after their son. He’d also had to admit to being slightly miffed that Domino had asked Emma and not him. But the important thing was that he now had time to be with Lugh, and he was determined to make the most of it.
And so, after sailing together, they went for a burger and chips in Lugh’s favourite burger place, and then to the shops, where Greg bought him a new waterproof jacket and Lugh hugged him and told him that he loved him, which made Greg feel calmer than he had in ages. They went home happy and contented together, Lugh almost asleep from the exertions of the day. Greg had agreed to look after him at the family home rather than at his apartment in the city centre, and although it was difficult, at first, to go inside and remember that this had once been his home too, he felt warm and secure sitting in the familiar living room with his boy.
It had been a good day, he thought, after Lugh had eventually gone to bed (much later, Greg knew, than normal; his son had got his second wind once he stepped inside the door) and he’d sat down in front of the TV to watch the news. He and Emma needed to get together and resolve their differences in a less aggressive way then they were doing now. He knew that their solicitors were just doing their best and earning their money, but the truth was that no matter how things had turned out, he and Emma both cared for Lugh. They’d managed to arrange this weekend without having a major fight, so surely they could sort out the rest of their lives the same way?
Probably being a bit optimistic, he told himself as he opened a beer. But you never knew.
His phone rang. He saw Emma’s name and sighed. Checking up on me, he thought. Doesn’t trust me. Typical Emma.
‘Hi,’ he said as he answered it. ‘Everything’s fine. Lugh’s in bed, we had a great day.’
‘I’m glad,’ she said.
‘Good party?’ he asked.
‘Until the end,’ said Emma. ‘Because that’s when Brendan showed up.’
There was silence for several moments.
‘Greg?’ said Emma.
‘You’re not serious!’
‘Very serious,’ said Emma. ‘And I suppose that now he’s back, there’s more shit heading in the direction of the fan. Particularly when they hear about it in Cork. So I think you’d better be prepared.’
Emma closed her phone, then opened it again. This time, when she scrolled through the Gs, she selected Gabriel Brady’s number.
Chapter 28
Kelly and Charlie were in the back yard again. Despite the fact that the night air was warm, Kelly had pulled on a black jumper with overlong arms and was hugging it tightly around her body. Charlie’s arm was around her too, keeping her close to him.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked after they’d sat in silence for over a quarter of an hour.
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure?’
She pulled the jumper even tighter around her and nodded.
‘Because I know this has been a shock for you.’
Kelly inhaled deeply and then exhaled again. ‘No more than the shock of him leaving in the first place,’ she said. ‘No more than the shock of learning that the company had gone bust. No more than the shock of having to sell our house. I’m used to shocks by now, Charlie. It’s just a shame that it’s always my dad giving them to me.’
He squeezed her shoulders sympathetically.
‘I love him,’ said Kelly. ‘But I’d quite happily kill him.’
‘Your mum probably has first dibs on that,’ said Charlie.
‘She loves him too.’ There was resignation in Kelly’s voice. ‘She’ll forgive him. She always has before.’
Domino sat on the end of the double bed while Brendan stood near the window. She felt it was somehow inappropriate for him to be in her bedroom, yet she didn’t want to talk to him downstairs, not while Kelly and Charlie were still there. So she hadn’t asked him to leave, and he seemed to dominate the small room - she’d forgotten how big and how strong he was. Handsome too, although his much greyer hair was disconcerting.
‘Explain it to me properly,’ she said.
‘I made a mistake,’ he told her.
‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ she said. ‘They don’t run away because of them. And if you’d stayed - well, maybe things wouldn’t have worked out too badly. It’s been a tough time for a lot of businesses, you know.’
‘I’m not in the too-big-to-fail category,’ said Brendan. ‘I would have got roasted. And it wasn’t just a question of falling prices.’ He explained that as various parts of his businesses had come under pressure he’d moved money around them even though all he was doing was robbing Peter to pay Paul. And that some of the cash hadn’t been properly accounted for. Like the Barbados money which hadn’t all gone into the development project there.
‘OK, OK, I agree it’s complicated!’ cried Dominique. ‘And you didn’t feel able to stick it out.’
‘I couldn’t bear it,’ he confessed. ‘It was like my whole life was being destroyed in front of me. I was worried about us, our future. I didn’t know what to do. I had money overseas but not easily accessible. I knew that the guards would get called in and I was afraid that if they started poking around I’d have even more problems with the overseas money. So I left. To protect our assets and to protect you.’
‘You mean, you sneaked home in the middle of the night, took your stuff and went. Like the proverbial thief in the night. And left us totally unprotected.’
‘Domino . . .’
‘You’d planned it for a while,’ she continued. ‘Because all your things were gone and there was no way that you’d just decided what to do that day.’
‘I knew it was getting dicey. I wanted to be prepared.’
‘And you didn’t think for one second to confide in me? To tell me what was going on?’
‘I intended to,’ he said. ‘Originally, I planned . . . well, I planned for us all to go away together until I could sort things out. You and me and Kelly.’
She stared at him, her eyes wide open.
‘Away? Where?’
‘I thought we could go to the apartment in France. You two could live quietly while I tried to liquidate my investments. ’
Dominique shook her head slowly. ‘People thought you were in the Maldives,’ she said. ‘They thought we were going to join you there. There was stuff in the papers about your champagne lifestyle. Oh, and some of them thought there was another woman too.’
‘You should know better than to believe that,’ said Brendan.
‘I don’t know what to believe any more,’ she said tiredly. ‘The guards came to our house with a search warrant. They might still arrest you.’ Her brown eyes creased with worry.
‘That’s what I’m hoping to avoid,’ he told her.
She rubbed her forehead. ‘Did you know what was happening to us when you left?’
‘Not at first. Then I was able to Google it and I saw the news reports.’
‘Right. So you read what people were saying.’
‘I knew it wasn’t true.’
‘They suspected me and Kelly of being in cahoots with you. Of planning to run away and live an exotic life of luxury based on money you’d stolen. It all sounded quite glamorous, actually. There was nothing about hiding out in France while you tried to find the money you’d stolen.’
‘I didn’t steal it.’ Brendan was suddenly angry. ‘I made a mistake and it went wrong.’
‘You took it from one company and put it into another and you shouldn’t have.’
‘But I didn’t do it for myself!’ he cried. ‘Can’t you understand that? All I wanted was to make a profit for everyone. And when it was going wrong, I needed to protect our interests. That’s why I went to Panama. That’s where I’d invested most of our personal savings.’
‘Why in God’s name did you put it in Panama?’ she asked. ‘Why not closer to home?’
‘Well ...’ He looked guilty.
‘What?’
‘It was from our early days,’ he told her. ‘When I was still mainly doing small work. Taxes in this country were scandalously high, and I wanted to . . . to hide a bit of money.’
‘Oh, Brendan!’
‘Everyone was doing it,’ he protested. ‘You know that. All I did was do some work for cash. Off the books.’
‘You never did that when
I
was keeping the books,’ she said.
I
was keeping the books,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘You wouldn’t have done it if I’d stayed keeping the books.’
‘It was practically obligatory back then,’ he told her. ‘I never would have made any money otherwise. And don’t get on some kind of moral high horse with me, Domino. You liked the life we had.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Everyone was doing it,’ he repeated. ‘They still bloody are - you see it all the time, whether it’s politicians or business-people, working the system, making some money.’
She sighed. He was right. She remembered the days of the black economy, where more work was done outside the system than inside. She just hadn’t realised that she was part of it.
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