The Grace Girls (65 page)

‘My father’s been terrible,’ Kirsty said now. ‘We’ve hard
ly spoken all week. He’s still convinced that you deliberately organised us to be in the hotel for the night together, and he won’t believe that nothing happened in your flat when we were there together.’

Larry gave a big sigh. ‘I wish you’d agree to me coming out to see him and explain the whole situation properly to him – man to man.’

‘He won’t listen, Larry. He wouldn’t let you in the door.’

‘But he needs to know that we were telling the truth about that night in the hotel. He needs to know that nothing
did
happen – and I would never have let it.’

‘Well, it was me who wanted to go further,’ Kirsty said.

‘And you’ll never know how much I wanted to make love to you,’ Larry told her, his voice hoarse with emotion. ‘But the fact is we
didn’t
. But it was very unfortunate the way it all looked. I can actually see why your father is angry, and I would never have put us in that position if I’d known how it would turn out.’ He halted. ‘I was just trying to give us a bit of time on our own to make sure you really knew what you were getting into. I wanted you to know all about my background – I didn’t want you to be under any illusions about me. I didn’t want you to think I was somebody I wasn’t.’

‘After these few months together,’ Kirsty told him, ‘I know everything I need to know about you. I know enough to know I don’t want anybody else.’

‘Good,’ he said in a low, gentle voice. ‘That’s all that matters.’ The line was silent again for a few moments. ‘Don’t worry about anything, Kirsty,’ he told her. ‘It’s all going to be sorted soon.’

‘But how?’ she asked. ‘How can this be sorted?’

‘I’ll find a way . . . I promise.’

Chapter 66

Heather had really enjoyed her weekend out at the McPhersons’ house. Claire had planned everything down to the last minute, and it had taken her mind off all the things that had recently happened back in Rowanhill.

She loved everything about her aunt’s house. She’d loved sleeping in the comfortable big double bed with the electric blanket, she loved all the vases with the fresh flowers and the fancy little ornaments and she loved all the unusual meals that Claire had cooked for her. She’d really enjoyed the meal they had out in the hotel on the Friday night, and then all the different but interesting things they’d done over the weekend.

On the Saturday morning after a breakfast of crispy rolls and bacon, they’d driven into Glasgow around eleven o’clock and spent the rest of the day shopping. They went into Lewis’s department store where there were still loads of things left in the January sales. Claire had been very generous and bought Heather a lovely grey tweed skirt with a matching grey sweater and made her pick a similar outfit in blue for Kirsty. Claire had brushed away Heather’s offer of paying for them herself. ‘They’re less than half-price,’ Claire had said, ‘and anyway, I owe you and Kirsty a few presents for all those times I didn’t see you.’

Later, when they were in the tea-room having a hot drink and a cake, Claire came back to the same subject. ‘I feel I’ll be trying to make it up to you and Kirsty for the next few years.’ She stretched across the small table and rubbed Heather’s arm affectionately. ‘I’m really glad your father and Pat had the sense to forget all the differences we had, and I wish Mona would do the same thing.’

‘She’s always been awkward,’ Heather said, lifting her teacup. ‘She never seems happy unless she’s something to s
nipe and moan about.’ She gave a little giggle. ‘My mamm
y says she’s well named –
Moan-a.
’

Her aunt nodded but didn’t smile. The wound between herself and Mona was too deep for that. ‘I’ll never forgive her if she stops me seeing Lily again,’ she stated. ‘Because that wee girl will grow up thinking I didn’t care about her, when I think the world of her.’ She sighed. ‘And this is all because I married an older man who was a different religion. Surely people should realise that we can’t choose who we fall in love with? And what does it matter what a grown adult chooses to do if it’s not actually hurting anybody else?’

She looked straight at Heather now, her green eyes piercing and direct. ‘Mona Grace is no angel, you know. She’s not always followed the rules of the Catholic Church. In fact, she’s the last one who should be throwing stones at anybody – but people are too afraid of her to speak out.’

‘What do you mean?’ Heather asked, intrigued now. Surely her sanctimonious Auntie Mona had nothing to hide?

‘Look,’ Claire said, putting her empty cup back into her saucer, ‘if I were to start gossiping about Mona for the sake of it, it would make me just as bad as her. If people would just get on with their own lives and let others get on with theirs, we wouldn’t have all this animosity.’

Heather felt a real pang of guilt when her aunt made the statement, because she knew she had caused some of the animosity in her own family. She had been horrible to Kirsty about Larry Delaney, and she knew her sister was right. She hadn’t got to know him. She hadn’t even given him a chance.

When they came back from the shops Claire made a lovely meal with quiche and salad and chips and a glass of cold white wine, and then they had a homemade chocolate pudding to follow. They spent the rest of the evening watching television and reading fashion magazines and drinking coffee, and then Claire went into the kitchen to start preparing beef goulash for dinner the following day.

When she was on her own, Heather found her mind kept flitting back to Kirsty, and she wished they had a phone in the house, because she would have felt better if she could have phoned her and checked how she was.

Sunday was equally nice. They got up around nine o’clock and had a lovely cooked breakfast of bacon, sausages, black puddings and fried eggs, while still wearing their pyjamas and dressing-gowns. Heather wished that Mona could have seen them so easy and relaxed, sitting at the kitchen table, chatting and at times singing along with the radio. Heather felt every bit as relaxed as she would have done in her own house, and there was no way that anyone could have accused Claire of acting uppity or over-formal.

‘Since you cooked all this, it’s only fair that I should w
ash the dishes,’ Heather offered as she gathered the plate
s and cups.

Claire checked her watch. ‘We’re not going to get time to get showered and dressed and do the dishes before we go out. Let’s just stack them in the sink and leave them until we come back.’

‘Where are we going?’ Heather asked, collecting the knives and forks.

‘Mass at the Cathedral – I thought you might like to go there for a change.’

‘I didn’t realise you went to Mass,’ Heather said, suddenl
y feeling herself start to blush. She had already talked with her mother about the situation of Mass when she was at Claire’s, and Sophie had said not to mention it as it might make Claire feel awkward. She said quietly, and out of Fin
tan’s earshot, that missing church for one week wouldn
’t be the end of the world.

‘I go most Sundays,’ Claire said smiling. ‘And Andy often comes with me as well.’ She lifted the butter dish to put back in the fridge. ‘We’ve met a nice priest who’s sympathetic to mixed marriages and we’re hoping to have our marriage blessed some time.’

Heather’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I didn’t realise . . . I thought you’d completely left the Church.’

‘I may have left the church in Rowanhill,’ Claire said, ‘but I never left the Church completely. It was just the way things happened when Andy and I wanted to get married. None of the Catholic churches around were prepared to do the service for us, so we went ahead and got married in a register office.’

‘I don’t think my daddy or anybody knows that,’ Heather
said, ‘and I’m sure Mona doesn’t think that.’

‘Nobody asked,’ Claire told her. ‘The minute they heard
that Andy wasn’t a Catholic they just turned their back on me – they weren’t interested in the details.’

‘Will you tell them when you get the blessing?’

Claire shrugged and gave a wry little smile. ‘I don’t know . . . if they couldn’t accept me marrying him before, I don’t know if I want them to accept him now just because the Church recognises our marriage and he attends Sunday Mass with me. Andy McPherson is the same man now as he was when they first met him.’

After Mass they drove out to a huge art gallery on the outskirts of Glasgow where they spent a few hours, and then they came back in time for Claire to finish preparing an evening meal for Andy’s return.

The phone was ringing as they came in the door and Claire rushed to answer it. She chatted for a few moments then came back into the kitchen where Heather had started the washing-up.

‘That was Andy,’ she said, her face beaming. ‘He’s just leaving Edinburgh now and he said we have an extra two for dinner. He’s bringing two men out who are staying the night in Glasgow. Apparently the company have booked them into a hotel and it doesn’t do an evening meal.’

Heather looked startled. ‘Do you mind? Will you have time to get it all ready?’

‘It’s fine,’ Claire said, ‘and it’s already half-made. I usually cook enough meat to last us two days, so the two men can have Monday’s dinner. I don’t like wasting time
cooking when Andy’s just arrived home so I do it i
n advance. I like to be able to sit down and have a drink and a chat with him when he gets in, so’s we can catch up on what we’ve both been up to.’ She went over to a large casserole dish on top of the cooker. ‘The beef is cooked from last night, so I just have to make the sauce and do the vegetables.’

‘Do you want me to help with anything?’ Heather asked.

Claire thought for a minute. ‘You could cut me up some fresh fruit if you don’t mind, and then I’ll get you to beat me up some egg whites to make up meringues. We’ll put them all together with fresh cream and it’ll make a nice dessert.’ She pursed her lips together, thinking. ‘Oh, I’ve got a fresh apple tart in the cupboard as well, so I think we’ve got plenty of everything.’

Two hours later the dining-table at the end of the long sitting-room was all set with the best cutlery and china, and Heather had put linen napkins at each place along with Claire’s best crystal wine glasses. The casserole and vegetables were keeping hot in the oven, and there was a bottle of Italian red wine in the middle of the table and a chilled bottle of German white. Heather stood back to admire her handiwork, thinking with some satisfaction that she would now know how to set a table properly, and she would be able to make a beef casserole and a fancy meringue dessert if she ever had to host a meal. Not that she could imagine those skills being called for in the foreseeable future. Claire looked at her watch, checking how much time they had before Andy and the others arrived. ‘I think we can treat ourselves to a glass of wine now, after all that hard work,’ she said, taking the bottle of wine they had opened last night out of the fridge. ‘And it might just help us to think of some scintillating conversation when we have Andy’s two work colleagues.’

Heather laughed. ‘I don’t think you’d ever get stuck for conversation, Claire. I think you could talk to anybody. You’re the most confident person I’ve ever met.’

‘They always say the Irish have the gift of the gab,’ Claire said, pouring wine into two of her more ordinary wine glasses. ‘But the confidence is something I’ve learned over the years – and there are still plenty of occasions where I look more confident than I actually feel.’ She handed Heather a glass, lifted her own and said ‘cheers’, and then took a sip of the delicious cold wine.

‘How do you do it?’ Heather asked in amazement. ‘I’d love to always look confident at work and in all different kinds of situations . . . but I’m useless at pretending. How I feel is usually stamped all over my embarrassed face.’ She sipped at her wine, finding she was getting used to the taste and was enjoying it more.

‘The trick is to just keep calm and smile,’ Claire told her, jokily demonstrating a sophisticated little smile. ‘And
to say absolutely nothing until you’re sure of your ground.’

‘When I get embarrassed,’ Heather said, ‘I just end up saying the first stupid thing that comes into my head . . .’

‘Well, next time it happens,’ Claire told her, ‘just make sure you keep calm and smile!’

Then they both shouted out together ‘and say nothing!’ Then they both went into giggles of laughter.

‘There’s another little tip I should tell you,’ Claire said, as they stood chatting. ‘Always take the time to put on a little bit of mascara and some lipstick if you’re going to be in a situation where people might be looking at you. It helps you to feel more confident, and it just gives you that little edge.’ She shook her head. ‘It would amaze you the number of women who don’t make the effort to look their best, when a few minutes makes all the difference.’

Heather took a drink of her wine. ‘Well, I’m going to take your advice right now,’ she said, ‘and put on a little bit of make-up, because I’m absolutely terrified at the thought of having dinner with Andy and the other two businessmen.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly!’ Claire said. ‘I was talking about when you were in a work situation or something like that – you look lovely as you are already. I wasn’t suggesting that you needed to do anything to improve yourself now.’