With All My Love (36 page)

‘You sorted her out, though,’ Lizzie laughed. ‘And you don’t have to live in the village. You might get a house on the outskirts. See what sort of a house you get before you decide.’

‘There’s one down past the railway station, a two-bed with big sash windows – I love them – and it has sea views. It’s for rent. We had a look at it last weekend when Jeff was down playing a match. It’s got a big garden with a swing in it, and a fireplace as well as central heating, and a small pantry, and a room that was used as a nursery with an old-fashioned rocking horse-’

‘Oh, Valerie, grab it! I know the one you’re talking about. It’s perfect, and not on top of Tessa, or Terence, for that matter. It’s just far enough away but not too far.’

‘We both liked it a lot.’ Valerie felt a tingle of excitement. Lizzie’s descriptions of the rural beauty had brought back some very happy memories. Briony too could have such memories if they came back to the country to live.

‘Go for it then.’

‘I think I will,’ Valerie said slowly. Talking to Lizzie had helped sort her head . . . as it always did.

‘Poor Mrs M will be devastated, though,’ Lizzie said.

‘I know. She’s a bit shaky lately. She went on a bit of a binge recently and had to go into hospital. I think her daughter wants her niece to come and live with her, so if we were gone she could have the upstairs flat.’

‘Maybe it’s just as well to start thinking of moving. The poor old dear can’t go on for ever,’ Lizzie reflected. ‘And I’d better move on or my beloved husband will have a fit when the phone bill comes. I love ya, Val. Kiss my godchild for me,’ she instructed, and then she was gone, and Valerie, as usual, couldn’t believe that twenty minutes had passed so quickly.

‘So are we moving back then?’ Jeff asked eagerly when she told him about her conversation with Lizzie.

‘Sure, we can give it a try and see how it works out,’ she said slowly. Jeff swung her off her feet in a bear hug and she laughed happily and wrapped her arms around him.

‘You know my dad will be giving out because we’re living together in sin. That’s what he’ll say,’ she said that night as they cuddled up in bed after making love. It was an opportunity to see whether marriage was on his radar.

‘Let’s take one thing at a time, move home and settle in,’ he said sleepily, and moments later he was snoring.

The trouble was she didn’t want to have to issue an ultimatum. She didn’t want him to feel he
had
to marry her. She wanted Jeff to
want
to marry her. She wanted the romantic proposal and the engagement ring that he would want her to have. If it were to make her happy and mean anything it had to come from him without her prompting or she’d never be at ease about it. But Jeff was the sort who was happy to drift along without much forward planning. She knew him of old and knew that for the next six months at least much of his focus would be on his new job. He wouldn’t want to be sidetracked by any talks of an engagement or a wedding. She might as well face it, for the foreseeable future she would not be Mrs Jeffery Harris.

Pragmatic as ever, Valerie decided she could live with that for the time being, and she would try not to get too stressed about it, otherwise she would be a basket case and their home would be far from happy. It was the only way she could deal with it.

They had moved to Rockland’s just before Briony’s second birthday, waved off by a tearful Mrs M, who had told Jeff that if things didn’t work out he was to ‘bring my gels straight back to me, deah’. Valerie had wept most of the journey home, but a couple of weeks later, when they had held Briony’s birthday party and the April sun had streamed in through the big windows, and laughter and chat had echoed through the house, and Carmel had cut the fresh cream sponge she had baked, and after Briony had blown out her candles with squeals of delight, Valerie knew she had done the right thing.

Now, all those years later, remembering what a happy early childhood her daughter had had, waves of guilt washed over Valerie as she finally had to face up to the consequences of her cutting the Egans out of their lives.

‘Don’t think about it now,’ she muttered.

She closed the photo album and switched off the light. She was terribly tired. Surely sleep would come soon. Thinking about that happy time in Rockland’s made her feel even sadder. Because the worst thing that had ever happened to her had happened there. The thing that formed her for the rest of her life and made her who she was and act the way she did. The instance in her life that had caused her unbearable grief was raising its ugly head again to cause her yet more grief. Grief she didn’t think she could endure. That dark, dark Sunday that had blighted her life for ever. She couldn’t bear even now to think of it.

Think of something different, something nice, something good and uplifting, she urged herself in desperation, frantically searching through her memories for one that would chase the black thoughts that loomed so threateningly.

‘
Sailor, stop your roaming
. . .’ The words of one of Petula Clark’s biggest hits drifted into her mind. A favourite song of Jeff’s. On his birthday she had cooked a special meal, the one he liked best – steak, fried onions and chips – to celebrate. She’d had a Chianti bottle with a red candle lit in it in the middle of the table, and a tape of his favourite songs that she’d compiled for him.

‘Dance with me,’ she’d said when Petula’s husky tones filled their homely kitchen, the flames of the fire throwing flickering shadows on the walls.

He’d rested his cheek against hers, and she’d caressed the back of his head, running her fingers through his springy thick hair.

Sailor, stop your roaming

Sailor, leave the sea.

Sailor, when the tide turns

Come home safe to me.

As you sail across the sea

All my love is there beside you

From Capri or Amsterdam,

Honolulu or Siam

To the harbour of my heart

I will send my love to guide you

As l call across the sea

Come home to me.

She’d sung along against his cheek and he’d held her tight. She’d felt an overpowering love for him as they’d swayed to the music in the flickering candlelight.

‘I love coming home to you and Briony,’ he murmured into her hair, and Valerie felt a moment of pure, exquisite happiness.

It was the last time they’d danced together. A week later, Jeff was dead.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-T
HREE

‘I’m not thinking about it. No! No! No! I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t want to,’ Valerie moaned, burying her head in her pillow, muffling her sobs at the memory of the last loving special occasion she’d ever had with Jeff. Why were these recollections so real, so vivid? Had she not let them go all those years ago? It was all Tessa’s fault, Tessa and that damn letter. The woman who had ruined her life once before was back haunting her with a vengeance. She would not think about that terrible day Jeff died, and the vicious row that followed. She could not go back to the days of dark despair. It would destroy her.

But like a storm that would not be halted, the crucifying memories crept inexorably back, back to that warm early September Sunday afternoon when Jeff had been playing a football match and she and Briony had been picking she’lls on the beach.

‘Oohh, look, Mommy. Look, a merrymaid shell!’ Briony exclaimed excitedly, picking up a pearly hued conch as the water swirled around their feet and the sand sucked them down into warm squelchy puddles. A faint haze tempered the sun. Seagulls glided high, dipping and diving, and a lazy lethargy permeated the air. They were the only ones on the small golden curve of strand that was just a few minutes’ walk from the house, the beach on the far side of the harbour being the more popular one for tourists.

‘Valerie, Valerieeee!’ She looked up to the top of the sand dunes and saw her mother calling her. Why was Carmel looking for her? Had she, on impulse, brought a picnic to share with them? A sudden fear swept over Valerie as she saw her mother’s agitation and the way she was waving and skittering down the dunes. Something was wrong! She could not tell how or why she knew, she just knew.

She left Briony filling her bucket with water, slipped into her espadrilles and raced to where Carmel was slogging down through the soft sand. ‘What’s the matter? What’s wrong?’ She was feeling sick with apprehension.

‘Jeff took some sort of a turn when he was playing his match and an ambulance has taken him to the hospital. Your father’s in the car over the dunes, ready to take you there. I’ll mind Briony.’ Carmel was pale and panting.

‘What happened? What sort of a turn? Did he break his ankle, his arm?’ Valerie was bewildered at her mother’s agitation. A broken limb often came with the territory when playing football.

‘No, I don’t think so, I think he just collapsed.’ Carmel’s lip was trembling.

‘Jesus, Mam, you’re frightening me. Is he OK?’ Valerie was faint with anxiety.

‘Just go quickly with your da so you can be with him.’ Carmel gave her a shove up the dunes. ‘Go on,’ she urged. ‘Briony will be fine with me. I have your spare key.’ She watched as her daughter went ghost white and took off across the beach, her hair flying behind her.

‘Our Lady, Mother of Mothers, who watched your son die, comfort and protect my poor daughter through this trial of pain and grief,’ Carmel prayed, tears streaming down her face as she walked towards the water’s edge to her grandchild, knowing what was awaiting Valerie.

Valerie cursed as the soft sand slowed her down. What the hell was going on? Jeff must have fainted or something. He was never sick, though, and he was as fit as a fiddle. All his training and the hard physical work on the boat meant he was toned and strong and vigorous. But something bad must be going on if her da was taking her to the hospital.

She was red-faced and out of breath when she made it to where the car was parked on the small narrow lane behind the dunes.

Terence had the car door open and the engine running. ‘Put your seat belt on,’ was all he said as she got into the car.

‘What’s wrong with Jeff?’ Her fingers were trembling as she tried to fix the clasp into the lock.

‘He took a turn playing his match and the ambulance was called for him. Seanie Reilly said you should come. The Egans have been told too.’ Terence revved the engine and the wheels spun in the dirt track before getting traction.

‘But he’s going to be OK, isn’t he?’ she demanded anxiously.

‘Look, just stay calm and see what the story is when we get there,’ Terence said in a kindly tone that she had not heard from him since she was a child. That more than anything frightened the living daylights out of her and she sat beside him as he sped towards the hospital, her hands clenched tightly in her lap, wondering was this all a bad dream and would she wake up from of it and feel utter relief.

She knew it was no nightmare when she saw Tessa and Lorcan’s faces as they stood shell-shocked and distraught in a hospital corridor outside a room where she and Terence had been directed.

‘Valerie,’ Lorcan said, holding his arms out to her. She felt very frightened. Something bad had happened and she didn’t want to hear about it. She grasped Lorcan’s hand. ‘I want to see him. I want to talk to him. What’s wrong with Jeff? Where is he?’ she asked on a rising note of hysteria.

‘Jeff’s dead,’ Tessa said slowly as if she were testing out the words. ‘Jeff’s dead.’

‘What?’ Valerie couldn’t comprehend what the older woman was saying.

‘Jeff’s dead,’ repeated Tessa, dazed.

‘Noooooo!’ wailed Valerie in a low strangled howl. ‘No! No! No!’ She put her hands over her ears. This wasn’t happening. If she couldn’t hear the words they weren’t real.

Lorcan took her hands in his and lowered them. She could see his lips moving, could hear him speak as though from some great distance.

‘Valerie, do you want to see him or do you want to remember him how he was when he was alive and have those images to comfort you? You have to decide and you must do what’s right for you.’ His face sagged with grief.

A nurse came out of the room. ‘You can go in now,’ she said gently.

Valerie pulled away from Lorcan and raced past the nurse. There had to be some mistake. This wasn’t real. ‘Jeff, Jeff,’ she called, frantically hurrying into the room and coming to a halt when she saw the pale, waxy figure lying on a bed, a crisp white sheet pulled neatly up to his shoulders.

‘Jeff,’ she whispered, perplexed, ‘talk to me.’ He lay with a half-smile on his face, as though he were asleep, his hair mussed against the pillow, but pale, so pale and white. She reached out and touched him, expecting to feel his warm skin beneath her hand. Then, and only then, when she felt the marble coldness of him, did the awful realization hit. Tessa, sobbing, came to stand at the other side of the bed.

‘Jeff, my darling, darling son,’ she wept. ‘God, I will never forgive you for taking him from me. Oh, darling, darling, darling child, why have you left me, you who had your whole life ahead of you, who had so much living to do? Why, Jeff, why?’

‘No,’ cried Valerie frantically. ‘Stop saying that. He’s not dead. He’s not. Jeff, sit up, sit up now and talk to me. Stop messing!’ She grabbed him by the shoulder and tried to shake him.

‘For God’s sake, Valerie, stop it! Stop it!’ Tessa exclaimed, horrified.

‘I won’t. He isn’t dead,’ Valerie cried hysterically, trying to lift Jeff up from the pillow.

Tessa hurried to the other side of the bed and took her by the arm. ‘Come outside if you can’t control yourself, shaking him like that. What are thinking of? He’s not messing, you stupid girl, he’s
dead
!’ She bustled her out of the door.