The Grace Girls (49 page)

She followed Claire out into the magnolia-painted hallway with a high decorative ceiling and as she shook hands with the sophisticated Irishwoman at the front door, Muriel reckoned that the old granite house
must be one of the most expensive in the location.

After she’d seen the middle-aged secretary off in the taxi, Claire came quickly back up the steps and into the house. She lifted a good-sized footstool, which was covered in the same paisley-pattern velvet as the sofa, and plonked it down on the floor beside her niece.

‘You’re a very sensible girl,’ she told Heather, pushing the sleeves of her jumper up to her elbows. ‘You were right to come out here rather than travelling all the way home on your own.’

‘I’m really sorry . . .’ Heather said in a low, cheerless voice. ‘Causing all this fuss at the office . . . and then disturbing you.’

‘Of course you’re not disturbing me!’ Claire said in a warm reassuring voice. ‘I was doing nothing apart from raking up a few leaves and tidying around in the garden. I’m really sorry you’re not well, but I’m delighted to have you as a visitor.’ She smiled now and patted Heather’s arm. ‘Didn’t we talk about you and Kirsty coming out after Christmas anyway?’

Heather nodded and managed a little smile. ‘It would have been far nicer if I wasn’t sick . . . I feel a bit stupid. Imagine fainting in my boss’s office . . .’ She closed her eyes and shook her head.

‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Claire told her. ‘I’m sure plenty of people have fainted in offices over the years.’ There was a little pause. ‘Now, you’re welcome to stay here on the sofa,’ she said, patting the quilt, ‘or we can take you through to one of the spare bedrooms. The beds are all made up so it’s absolutely no trouble. It’s your decision.’

‘I still feel a wee bit dizzy,’ Heather said, ‘so maybe I’d be best staying here for a while.’

‘Grand,’ Claire said. ‘I think a sleep would probably do you the world of good – you look very tired.’ She paused. ‘Did you feel sick before you went to work this morning?’

‘I felt funny,’ Heather admitted. ‘And I’ve not really slept much the last few nights . . .’

Claire looked at her now as though she was going to say something, but then thought better of it. ‘Have a wee sleep now, we can chat later.’

While Heather slept, Claire went out into the hallway to the phone. She dialled Directory Enquiries and got the number of the parish priest in Rowanhill. It was the last place she wanted to phone, but apart from phoning the police or the doctor, she didn’t know anyone in Rowanhill who actually had a phone. She would just pretend to herself that she was making a call from an office and this was just a stranger on the other end of the phone. She dialled the number and then took a deep breath. After a few rings a man’s voice came on the line.

It was the parish priest, Father Finlay – the priest that Mona worked for.

Very politely and precisely, Claire explained the situation to the priest and asked if it were possible that a message could be relayed to Sophie and Fintan that Heather was safe and being looked after at her Aunt Claire’s house.

‘Could I ask asking who’s calling?’ the priest asked.

‘Claire . . . Claire McPherson.’

There was a pause. ‘Would that originally have been Claire Grace?’

Claire’s heart started to beat quicker. She might have known she wouldn’t get away with things that easily. ‘Yes, Father – I was Claire Grace,’ she replied, ‘and now I’m Claire McPherson.’

There was a longer pause. ‘The Chapel House isn’t a telephone service,’ he said in a curt voice, ‘but given the circumstances . . . we’ll try to do our best.’ His voice rose now, to the familiar one used in the pulpit. ‘The Catholic Church try to look after their own, and the other members of the Grace family have always followed the correct religious path.’ He stopped again. ‘Mona Grace should be in here shortly, I’ll pass the message on to her.’

‘Could I just give you the house number, please?’ Claire asked, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘So they can speak to Heather themselves.’

‘Go on,’ the priest said curtly.

Claire recited the number and as soon as she came to the last figure the line clicked off.

Chapter 52

Sophie and Fintan sat on either side of the kitchen table.
‘I think we should go out to Glasgow and collect her,’ Fintan said in a quiet but definite tone. When Mona had come down from the Chapel House with the message, young Patrick had been quickly dispatched to get him at the school boiler house. The children weren’t due back in sc
hool until next week, but the boilers still had to be che
cked regularly. ‘We can’t have Andy McPherson coming in from work at seven o’clock and then doing a double journey out to here . . .’

Sophie nodded her head. ‘But what about the chapel?’ she asked. ‘The body’s being brought to the chapel tonight.’

‘Oh, Jesus, I forgot,’ Fintan said, clasping his broad hand o
ver his mouth in thought. The business with Heather had taken over everything else. ‘Look, you go to the chapel tonight, and when Kirsty comes in from work her and me can go into Glasgow then. I’d rather have her with me to sit in the back with Heather when we’re coming home, just in case she’s not feeling too good. We can all go to the funeral in the morning then, depending on how she’s feeling. If it’s only a faint, she could be as right as rain in the morning.’

‘I’m not sure Heather is fit enough for the funeral, whatever she says,’ Sophie said in a low voice. ‘I’m worried about her . . . I didn’t want her to go into work this morning but she insisted.’ She sighed. ‘When Mona came rushing down here I knew there was something wrong . . . I felt it all
day.’ She pressed a finger and thumb on the bridge of her nose now, trying to ease the tension that was building up.

‘Well, you spoke to her, and she sounded fine,’ Fintan said, coming around to where Sophie sat to put his arms around her. He kissed the top of her head. ‘Didn’t you say she sounded fine?’

‘I suppose so . . .’ Sophie agreed in a half-hearted way. ‘Claire wanted her to stay the night, but Heather’s insisting that she needs to be home for the funeral.’ She looked up at Fintan. ‘She does need to go to the funeral, doesn’t she?’

‘I think so,’ Fintan said. ‘It would look awful bad if she didn’t.’

Kirsty sat in the front seat reading out the directions to her father, as it was the first time he’d ever driven into a strange part of Glasgow in the dark and he didn’t want to get lost – especially on a foggy, frosty night. It was a long drive into Glasgow from Rowanhill and over to Bellshill, then they followed the long road out towards Calderpark Zoo and then straight into the city.

Claire had given clear and precise directions and Fintan was relieved when he saw the signs for Giffnock coming up.

‘You’ve been a good navigator,’ he told his younger daughter. ‘I wouldn’t have managed as well without you.’

‘Och, it was easy enough,’ Kirsty said, ‘and doing a journey like this has given me a feel for driving myself.’

‘You?’ Fintan said, glancing over at her. ‘You’re think
ing of learning to drive?’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, for a start it’s an expensive business, and you’re very young.’

‘Michael Grace is driving,’ Kirsty told him, ‘and he’s younger than me.’

‘But he’s a lad,’ Fintan said, laughing at the idea now, ‘and he’s training to be a mechanic. There’s not many young girls your age learning to drive and nobody I know in Rowanhill.’

‘Maybe I could be the first,’ Kirsty said quickly. ‘I want to be more independent, and I don’t like Larry having to pick me up all the time.’

Fintan negotiated a corner. ‘How could you pay for driving lessons and afford to run a car?’

‘I’ve got quite a bit saved up in the Post Office,’ Kirsty reminded him, ‘and I’m going to be earning quite a bit more at the weekends now. The hotels I’m booked into pay over double what I was getting with the band.’

‘True enough,’ Fintan said, ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ There were far worse things she could do with her money, he thought.

‘I was wonderin’ if you might take me out for a few lessons . . .’

‘I might have guessed there would be a job in it for me,’ he laughed.

They came into a very quiet, residential area now.

‘I think we’re nearly there,’ Fintan said. ‘It must be one of these roads here or hereabouts.’

He drove on for another little while then eventually pulled up in front of the granite house. ‘Well,’ he said giving a little sigh of relief at having eventually reached the right destination, ‘it looks like this big mansion thing is Claire’s house.’

Kirsty thought her father’s voice sounded as though he was proud of his sister having the house mixed with a tinge of apprehension. ‘Do you feel nervous going in here,’ Kirsty asked quietly, ‘seeing as it’s the first time?’

‘Not really,’ Fintan said, turning off the car lights. ‘Maybe just a wee bit awkward . . . the way things have been.’

‘Are you happy to see Claire again? D’you feel you’ve missed her?’

‘Of course I’ve missed her,’ Fintan said in a low, slightly hoarse voice. ‘She’s my young sister . . . how else could I feel?’

‘Well, I’m looking forward to seeing her again, because it’s been over two years since I last did,’ Kirsty stated, ‘although I suppose I’m just a wee bit nervous about meeting her husband.’

‘Well, don’t be,’ Fintan said, opening the car door. ‘He’s a very nice man – he’s a real gentleman.’

They both got out of the car.

Kirsty looked at her father in the half-light of the yellow street lamp. ‘He’s a good bit older than her, isn’t he?’

‘I suppose he is,’ Fintan said, nodding his head.

‘Does that bother you?’ Kirsty asked.

He thought for a moment. ‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘He’s a nice fellow, so I don’t think the age makes a whole lot of difference – it was the religion that caused all the trouble.’

Then father and daughter walked up the steps to the house, both wrapped up in their own private thoughts.

Heather was sitting up in the corner of the sofa, tired and pale-looking but feeling much better than she had earlier in the day. After a two-hour sleep she’d wakened to find Claire sitting in an armchair opposite quietly reading. When she woke properly they sat and talked for a little while, then Claire went into the kitchen and brought her back a tray holding a bowl of home-made chicken soup and two slices of thick, crusty bread.

‘Eat it all,’ Claire told her. ‘You’ll feel much better when you’ve got something inside you.’

When she started eating, Heather felt surprisingly hungry. Both the soup and the bread were lovely, and she sat quietly eating until it was all finished. Claire indicated that she should just put the tray down on the low coffee-table in front of the sofa.

‘Well done,’ her aunt said, smiling at the empty bowl. ‘That will do you good.’ She looked up at Heather now. ‘What’s happened? I’ve got a feeling that you’re upset about something. When you came out of the taxi this afternoon you looked as though you’d maybe had a bit of a shock . . . as if something had happened.’

Heather looked back at her aunt and suddenly her eyes filled up with tears. ‘Everything’s gone wrong,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘And I think a lot of it’s my fault.’ Then, she laid her arms down on the side of the sofa and put her head on top of them and started to cry in earnest.

‘Nothing can be that bad,’ Claire said, coming over to comfort her. ‘I’m sure it will all get sorted out.’

‘But it can’t be sorted out,’ Heather sobbed, taking the clean handkerchief that her aunt had retrieved from her jeans pocket. ‘You can’t sort things out when somebody is dead.’ The torrent of tears came again until finally she had exhausted them.

For the next two hours Heather sat and talked and talked, while Claire sat beside her on the sofa and listened – offering the odd word of comfort here and there where it was appropriate.

‘You’ve had a tough time,’ Claire told her when she had finished the whole story. ‘But it’s not your fault.’

‘I feel in some way it is,’ Heather insisted. ‘I feel as if I could have handled it better, tried to get through to him in a way that would have left him feeling all right about it.’

Claire squeezed her hand. ‘You did everything exactly right, and you need to believe that. It’s not your fault if an ex-boyfriend became obsessed about you – it’s entirely
his
fault. And it’s certainly not your fault if he got drunk and wandered out in the road in the middle of traffic.’

For a moment Heather thought she should perhaps remind Claire that Rowanhill didn’t have enough vehicles on the road to be worthy of the term
traffic
. That it was quite an unbelievable coincidence that a taxi should appear as Gerry Stewart was in the middle of the road – but she decided against it. Claire was obviously so used to city traffic that she just presumed if you walked out in the middle of the road a car would eventually hit you.

‘I feel so bad about Gerry’s family,’ Heather whispered now. ‘About the ring and how they were hoping we’d get engaged . . .’

Claire had looked her square in the face. ‘Do you want my advice?’