Читать книгу Best of Friends - Cathy Kelly - Страница 15

Greg and Erin Kennedy were not the sort of people to let life pass them by – not when they could go out and grab it firmly with both hands.

When Greg’s mum developed really bad flu and the planned Kennedy family reunion scheduled for Dunmore had to be put off for a few weeks, Greg and Erin decided to take advantage of the day’s holiday Greg had taken.

They quickly booked a small hotel in Glengarriff, packed their walking gear in the suitcase along with some glad rags, and set off for a weekend of sightseeing and climbing mountains.

It was two years since they’d last done any climbing. Greg pointed out that a week’s hiking along the Appalachian Trail didn’t count. ‘That wasn’t a trek, that was an amble through the woods!’ he said. The long weekend in the Rockies was their last serious trek, in his opinion.

Erin remembered the ache in her muscles after the trip to the Rockies and she hadn’t expected the same level of sheer exhaustion in the beautiful Kerry mountains. But, somehow, she felt worn out before they’d even begun.

On Saturday morning, by the time Greg decided it was OK to stop for a break, Erin felt tired enough to lie down and sleep.

‘Come on, slowcoach. You’re nearly there. Just another few yards. I’ve got the chocolate opened…’

‘If you eat it all, I’ll kill you,’ panted Erin as she hauled herself up the steep excuse for a path, side-stepping sheep droppings shaped bizarrely like tiny bunches of grapes, to arrive at the rocks where Greg was laying out their picnic.

‘I am so wrecked. How high did you say this mountain was?’

She slumped down onto a small rock, stretching out her legs and leaning against a bigger rock, with her rucksack as a cushion for her back. This was ridiculous; she couldn’t believe how exhausted she felt. Where was the athletic woman who used to daydream about the pair of them tackling something serious, like Everest?

Greg handed her a square of chocolate and then poured out a plastic cup of coffee from the Thermos.

‘High enough to work off all this food on the way down,’ he said, unwrapping the hefty cheese and ham sandwiches the landlady of the Mountain Arms Hotel had given them that morning before they’d set off. ‘Just look at the view. Isn’t it fantastic?’

Erin sighed with pleasure. They weren’t at the top yet, but already acres of steep slope stretched out beneath them, covered with waves of pinky purple azaleas that flowered amid the gorse and bracken. To the right were the brooding shapes of more of the Kerry mountains, splayed haphazardly northwards towards Kenmare. The landscape below looked beautiful, untamed and desolate. Only the telephone poles and the odd house tucked away in the valley among the trees spoke of civilisation.

Far below lay the road where they’d parked the car – a rackety grey road just wide enough for two vehicles to pass, but from this great height, it looked nothing more than a winding dark line on a child’s picture.

Despite the early April sunshine, which made everyone in Glengarriff insist it was ‘a fabulous day for the time of year’, it was cold on the mountain and Erin was glad of the steaming hot coffee. She was wearing a heavily padded skiing jacket, lined hiking trousers, thick socks with her walking boots, and a hat that was squashing her ponytailed hair, but she could still feel the chilly wind.

When they’d eaten everything in his rucksack, Greg sat beside Erin on her rock and put his arm round her. He hadn’t bothered to shave that morning and when he rubbed his cheek against hers, she felt the spiky beard rough against her face.

The combination of designer stubble, a soft grey hat pulled down over his hair and the pale sun glinting against his sunglasses gave him the look of some glamorous French skier who’d just come down a black run.

‘Wasn’t this a great idea to come away for the weekend?’ he said.

Erin kissed him on the cheek. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘We really needed the break. I’m sorry about your poor mum, but it’s nice to get away all the same, isn’t it? And we can have the big family reunion soon.’

‘Erin,’ began Greg, ‘we’ve been here nearly a month…’ He paused.

Erin stilled. She knew what was coming. Greg didn’t disappoint.

‘Don’t you think it’s time to visit your family or at least make contact?’

She said nothing but dug out another chocolate bar from the side pocket of her rucksack. Did he really think she could just phone up after nine years and think everyone would be thrilled to hear her voice?

‘OK, OK, forget I said anything,’ Greg apologised. ‘I don’t want to ruin the day.’

‘No, don’t,’ begged Erin. ‘We’re here for the weekend to forget about everything: the pressures of your job, the non-pressures of my non-existent job and the horrible rented house. And I know you’re on the rental agency’s case and they’re going to find us a mansion soon, but it is horrible.’

‘Right, we’re here to forget,’ he agreed, and took a big slab of chocolate. ‘I think we’ve been sitting here too long. I’m getting cold and stiff.’

‘Me too,’ admitted Erin. ‘Can we phone mountain rescue and get them to helicopter us back?’

Greg pretended to think about this. ‘I think they prefer to be called out in genuine emergencies and not to airlift lazy, fat tourists down to their cars so they can head back to their hotels for more Irish coffees.’

‘Who are you calling fat?’ Erin ripped the last piece of chocolate from Greg’s hand and shoved it in her mouth with a wicked smirk.

‘Oh, not you! But since you’ve eaten everything, we’d better go.’ Greg got to his feet and put out a hand to haul Erin up. ‘I’m afraid we’ve a bit further up to go before we’re on the way down.’

They walked in silence, Erin reserving her energy for the hike rather than wasting her breath talking. As she climbed steadily, she couldn’t help her mind slipping off the path in front of her and back to her estranged family in Dublin.

Greg didn’t understand her reluctance to go home. He was a black-and-white sort of person. Families loved each other and no stupid argument, no matter how bitter, should stop people from being there for each other.

But a long time had passed since she’d left. Erin knew she’d changed beyond all recognition. She was a different person from the angry eighteen-year-old who’d packed her suitcase and stormed out of her home one evening. What really scared her was what if everything else had changed too in the years she’d been away? What if her grandparents had died? Erin wouldn’t let herself think about that.

Kerry was eleven years older, so she’d be thirty-eight now, maybe married with kids, or maybe not. Kerry’s love life had never run smoothly. She looked a lot like Erin, without the red hair but with the same long nose. Dad used to joke that Kerry, who had mousy hair dyed blonde, had got the red hair temperament. He’d been right. However the rest of the family reacted, Kerry would find it hard to forgive Erin.

The landlady of the Mountain Arms Hotel was attractive and middle-aged, with a genial manner and shrewd eyes. Meg Boylan had come to the Mountain Arms thirty years before when she’d married the proprietor’s son, Teddy. Then, the hotel had been a family concern with just ten rooms and a small clientele who hadn’t minded the shabby décor or the fact that the rooms were often cold. Thanks to Meg’s hard work and drive, the Mountain Arms was now a thriving business with thirty rooms, a spacious, high-ceilinged room for weddings, a cosy bar named The Devil’s Elbow and a small but elegant dining room called The Haven. Teddy, God bless him, was no help at all when it came to running the hotel, although it had taken Meg several years to discover this after his parents retired.

Nowadays, Teddy made an enjoyable daily circuit between the bookies and a small corner of The Devil’s Elbow where he liked to peruse the racing pages and sip a couple of small ones.

‘I like to make sure everything’s run all right in the bar,’ he told people cheerily when they enquired about his part in keeping the hotel running smoothly.

This left Meg free to run her empire, keeping a careful eye on the kitchens, not to mention overseeing the hotel’s staff. She enjoyed being on the front desk and had long since realised that valued customers felt even more valued if they got a welcome from the proprietor herself.

She’d been on the desk when the young couple from Dunmore had arrived and found there was something refreshing about the way they’d laughed when she’d asked if they were newlyweds.

‘We’re married four years,’ grinned the husband.

‘And we can’t afford the bridal suite this time, I’m afraid. The budget won’t allow it,’ added his wife. ‘Not that that’s going to affect our enjoyment.’ She patted her husband’s arm affectionately.

They had that glow of the just-married about them, Meg thought. And she admired them for their candour in admitting that they weren’t in funds.

‘Let’s see what we’ve got for you,’ she said, checking the hotel’s computer, a machine she adored, even though Teddy wouldn’t go within an ass’s roar of it. The hotel had a bridal suite, which was the biggest room, with a pretty sitting room that looked out over the bay, and a four-poster bed draped with crimson and gold brocade decorated with medieval bower scenes, including maidens, unicorns and woodland glades. It wasn’t booked until the following week when the Gerrard/O’Shea wedding party would take over the entire hotel.

Marriage to Teddy had long since drummed the romance out of Meg but the Kennedys had touched her heart.

‘I have just the room for you,’ she said. ‘It’s an upgrade but it’s the same price as we originally agreed upon.’

The Kennedys grinned at each other. ‘Thank you,’ they said.

Meg’s face softened as she smiled back at them. Wait till they saw the room.

Greg and Erin adored their luxurious suite, and when they got back from their hike they wanted to do nothing more than throw themselves onto the voluptuously soft bed, but they were both mud-splattered. In the bathroom, they stripped off their dirty clothes and Erin began to run a bath.

‘I’ll seize up if I don’t soak,’ she said, adding some of the hotel’s lavender bath oil.

‘Can I join you?’ begged Greg.

Erin took a look at the bath. Greg was such a giant that most tubs were too snug a fit on him, and as for sharing a bath…forget it. But this elderly claw-footed creation was obviously built for large people who liked a bit of space to move around. It could have accommodated three at a push.

‘We might go through the ceiling underneath,’ Erin teased, as she tested the water with a toe, ‘but why not?’

They lay back, luxuriating in the hot, scented water, feeling stiff muscles unknot.

‘Is that your foot?’ demanded Erin as she felt something prodding her ribs. ‘No tickling.’

‘Spoilsport.’ Greg sank deeper into the water and Erin could feel his toes wriggling under her armpit, insistent and ticklish.

‘We’ve got the bridal suite – we’ve got to do things like this,’ he pointed out, still burrowing.

‘Like this, you mean,’ Erin retorted, sliding under the water, making him jerk upright when her big toe made contact with his groin. Laughing, her hair clinging to her like a water nymph, she sat up and shook the water from her head.

‘You wanna play, missy?’ Greg said, grabbing her ankles and hauling her through the water onto his lap.

‘Is the periscope up?’ Erin murmured into his neck.

‘Nearly. Why don’t we try dry land?’ Greg said, his fingers finding the slippery nubs of her nipples.

Erin clambered out of the bath and wrapped a bath sheet around her, drying herself carefully. No point in drowning the bed too. Out of the bath, the steaming hot water began to have its narcoleptic effect. The bed, when they pulled off the coverlet, looking so inviting and so soft. Erin had suddenly never felt so tired and warm and soothed in her life.

‘What a bed. Can we buy one like this?’ Erin moaned as she lay down.

‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful?’ yawned Greg, bashing his pillow a bit to get it right. ‘It’s so comfortable. I slept like a log last night.’

They curled up beside each other, bodies entwined, Greg’s right hand gently stroking the curve of Erin’s back.

‘We could have a little snooze,’ Greg muttered, his stroking slowing down, ‘to get our strength back.’

‘A little snooze,’ agreed Erin sleepily. ‘Ten minutes.’ She somehow raised her head to look at her watch on the bedside table. ‘Ten to four. We’ll snooze until four.’

‘Or ten past…’ Greg said.

The room was dark when Erin woke up and for a few scary seconds she couldn’t remember where she was. Then she heard Greg’s steady breathing beside her and she remembered. She still felt tired after their climb but mentally alert. Lying in the dark, she let the forbidden memories fill her mind.

It had all happened because Erin wanted money for her eighteenth birthday. She wanted money because she yearned to travel, to see the world, and if she got enough cash together to buy a round-the-world ticket, she could work her way across the globe.

Mum was anxious about giving Erin cold cash as a gift. ‘I wish you wanted a proper present and not money,’ she said sadly. ‘With Kerry and Shan—’ She stopped herself just in time. She’d been about to say Shannon, who was Erin’s older sister – not that Erin really knew her, and Mum found it difficult to talk about her.

Shannon had left home to live abroad when Erin had been a baby and there was nothing but the odd postcard home to remind people she was still alive. Erin hated Shannon for what she’d done to Mum. Kerry said Shannon was a selfish bitch who’d never cared who she’d hurt and that she’d turned Mum’s hair grey overnight.

‘What did you get Kerry when she was eighteen?’ Erin asked brightly, determined to get her mother over the pain of thinking of Shannon.

‘Earrings, those gold and opal ones she wears for good. Your father and I would have liked to get you something you could have for ever,’ Mum said. ‘Money is soon forgotten, Erin.’

‘I know, Mum,’ Erin hugged her mother, ‘but I want to build up memories I can have for ever, and if everyone gives me cash, I can. There are so many places I want to see – the Far East, Australia, America…’ There was a far-off look in her amber eyes and her mother sighed because she knew that wanderlust was in Erin’s blood, just as it had been in Shannon’s.

The family had held a small party in an upstairs room of a local pub and it had been a huge success. Toasts had been made, many pints had been consumed and Erin had drunk her first legal vodka and tonic.

She did get cash for her birthday – not enough for a round-the-world ticket, but enough to book a trip abroad. She didn’t know where she wanted to go, just somewhere. She’d never been abroad and the family visit to a caravan park every other year had been fun but not what you’d call exotic. No, abroad, with all its exciting connotations, was what she wanted. Australia was too far and would cost a fortune, but India…Erin was fascinated by India and could just see herself there, backpacking and sleeping in shabby hostels, being one of the people. And she wouldn’t get sick, no way. She had the constitution of an ox, as Mum used to say.

There was lots to plan for her trip, but the first thing was to get a passport. She’d collected a form, but the paperwork was interminable. She had to get photos signed by the police and an official copy of her birth certificate – not a photocopy, but a real one. She’d asked Mum for that and there she ran into a problem. Mum, who kept all the family documents in a shabby accordion file in her and Dad’s room, said she’d look and then came back and said she couldn’t find it.

Undaunted, Erin sent off for it.

A couple of weeks after her party, the certificate arrived. Erin shuffled downstairs in her Snoopy T-shirt and knickers and picked the post off the hall carpet. She had the house to herself, as Dad and Kerry were at work and Mum had gone shopping, popping in to Erin’s room on the way to remind her that she couldn’t lie in bed like a big slug all day.

In the kitchen, Erin slopped cornflakes into a bowl and looked at the post. None of it was ever for her but today was an exception. ‘Ms Erin Flynn’ was typed at the top of an official-looking envelope. She ripped it open and for a minute thought they’d sent the wrong certificate. The name was hers all right but the rest of it made no sense. Under ‘Mother’ was written ‘Shannon Flynn’, and that couldn’t be right, and under ‘Father’ was the word ‘Unknown’. The date was fine and everything, but the civil service people had clearly mixed it up. Absently, Erin ate some more cornflakes, still staring at this confusing bit of paper. And then the truth clicked in her head, like those magic eye puzzles she’d always found mystifying until one day she learned how to ‘see’ them. The form wasn’t wrong. Shannon, whom she’d always thought was her mysteriously absent sister, was actually her mother. Kerry wasn’t her sister but her aunt, and Mum and Dad weren’t her parents. They were her mother’s parents. Her grandparents. Granny and Granddad not Mum and Dad. It was all such a shock.

But as she sat there, dumbfounded, she realised that by far the most disturbing part was the fact that Mum had lied to her. Mum was the most trustworthy person in Erin’s world. The first time Erin’s heart had been broken by a boy from her class, Mum had held her close and promised that it would feel better soon. And Erin had believed her, even though her heart was breaking, because her mother had never lied to her. Until now. Her spoon clattered onto the linoleum but Erin didn’t bother to pick it up. No, she’d been lying before now. Mum had been lying to her for all Erin’s life.

She ran upstairs and found the suitcase on the top of her parents’ big 1930s wardrobe. It was heavy, and dust bunnies danced off the top as she hauled it down. Inside were old clothes, including a huge brown coat she remembered her father wearing for years, and a couple of old shirt boxes, their former bright blue faded with age. The first contained cards and mementoes belonging to Mum. Erin couldn’t bring herself to look through them in case she found her own childish home-made cards, painstakingly painted and glittered in school.

The second box held a few documents of the sort that were usually kept in the big accordion file. There was the original of the birth certificate Erin had just been sent, much-folded, and a few letters with photos lying in between the pages. Shannon, who’d been so absent in the family album, was the star here. Now Erin could see the resemblance between her and her mother. Both had the same sheet of coppery hair and the same smile, although Shannon’s eyes looked blue like Kerry’s and Mum’s. Erin must have got her eyes from her father, whoever he was. The sense of outrage at not knowing her mother or her father hit her forcibly. How could Mum have never told her the truth about her birth? Did Kerry know too? Erin sat among the photos and letters from her real mother and brooded on lies and deceit. Then she gathered together her papers and her newly acquired cheque book and left the house.

By the late afternoon, when Erin returned, Kerry was home from work and Mum was in the kitchen mashing potatoes for shepherd’s pie.

‘Hello, love. Where have you been all day?’ called Mum when she heard Erin’s familiar tread on the stairs.

Erin didn’t answer. She didn’t trust herself to speak. In her room, she threw down the papers she’d picked up from the au pair agency, along with the plane ticket to Amsterdam. The flight was in three days but Erin didn’t plan on waiting at 78 Carnsfort Terrace until then. She’d pick up her passport at the passport office the following day, a privilege that came from having pleaded an emergency situation and showing the official her plane ticket, and she’d asked her friend Mo, who’d just moved into a cramped flat in Smithfield with two other girls, if she could bunk down with her until it was time to leave the country. Packing wouldn’t take long. All she had to do now was confront her mother and Kerry about why they’d never told her the truth.

The kitchen smelled familiar: the scent of good food mixed with the comforting tang of the lemon cleaner Mum used diligently. Kerry was sitting at the kitchen table, shoes off and her feet up on a chair as she read the evening paper. Mum had laid the table for dinner and was now relaxing in her chair with a cup of tea, sorting out the receipts in her purse.

‘Hello, lazy bones. What did you do today while I was working my fingers to the bone?’ asked Kerry, not raising her eyes from an article about celebrity diets.

In reply, Erin dropped her passport office receipt onto the table.

‘What’s that?’ asked Kerry, scanning the document. ‘You applied for your passport?’

She didn’t get it, Erin realised. But Mum did. Her mother’s eyes locked with Erin’s and anxiety was written all over her face.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Erin asked quietly.

‘Tell you what?’ demanded Kerry, finally looking up.

‘Tell me that Shannon was my mother.’

‘Oh.’ Kerry swung her feet to the floor. So she did know, Erin realised, and that realisation made her even angrier. Kerry knew but she, the person it most affected, didn’t.

‘I had to send away for my birth certificate.’ Erin was caustic. ‘You said it was lost,’ she said accusingly to her mother. ‘You knew I’d find out, so why couldn’t you tell me the truth?’

‘Erin, stop making it such a big deal,’ said Kerry, going to the fridge and peering in to see if there was anything there to stave off the hunger pangs until dinner.

‘Stop making it such a big deal?’ said Erin incredulously. ‘It’s not big, it’s huge. It’s the biggest secret of my life and you all knew. Have you nothing to say about it?’ she asked Mum, who’d stayed silent.

Mum shook her head wordlessly.

‘It’s not her fault,’ snapped Kerry, temper rising. ‘Your bloody mother created all the hassle in the first place by screwing around and getting pregnant –’

‘Don’t blame her!’ shrieked Erin. ‘Don’t you bloody dare. You could have told me and I’d have found her. I was her child and you all kept if from me. How fucking dare you? What gave you all the right to act as God and only tell me what you wanted?’

Her grandmother sat quietly at the table, holding her head in her hands as if to fend off the hurtful words.

‘Talk to me, Mum,’ yelled Erin. ‘Why won’t you talk to me?’

Her grandmother looked up at Erin’s fiery, hurt face. ‘I don’t know what to say, love. I’m so sorry we hurt you but there never seemed to be a right time to tell you when you were small, and then you grew up so fast and the chance had passed.’ She reached out a tired, work-worn hand and beckoned for Erin to take it. But Erin stared stonily at her, refusing the gesture of reconciliation.

‘That’s rubbish. You knew I’d find out one day.’

Her grandmother’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I knew you would but I hoped you’d be able to understand…’

‘Understand what? That you lied to me about the most important thing in my life?’

Her grandmother had started crying then and Kerry had lost her temper, yelling that everyone assumed Erin knew, and how the hell could she blame anyone else for her stupidity. Still Mum cried and Erin couldn’t bear her tears but couldn’t comfort her either. She felt so betrayed that she had no comfort left in her for anyone else.

She’d packed up and left, taking only her clothes and a few photos. Everything else – her gold bracelet she’d been given by Mum and Dad for her Confirmation, the precious earrings Kerry had given her years before when her sister got her first full-time job – she left on the dusty dressing table.

For three days, she stayed with Mo, half hoping someone from the family would find her, half hoping they wouldn’t. Then she got on a plane. After six months travelling the world, working her way through bars and restaurants, she ended up working as an au pair to an American family in Greece when their own au pair left suddenly. When they went home to Boston, she went too.

A gentle knocking at the door woke Greg. ‘What the…?’ He sat up, his eyes sleep-filled, his cropped dark hair flattened against his skull from where his head had lain on the pillow.

The door opened a fraction and a pair of blue eyes peeked in. ‘Do you want your bed turned down?’ said a voice.

‘No, thanks,’ said Greg. He couldn’t see anything except the light coming in through the slightly opened door. ‘What time is it?’

‘Ten to seven.’ The door shut quietly and Greg fumbled for the bedside light.

‘We’ve booked a table for seven,’ he said, climbing out of bed. ‘We should get ready.’

Erin sat up in the bed, her hair in the same through-a-bush-backwards condition as Greg’s. She felt tired now and had no inclination to get up and dress for dinner. She lay down again and felt the old familiar misery envelop her. She and Greg should have stayed in Chicago. When she was there, she didn’t think about her family in the same way. Well, she thought about them, but she could deal with the pain because of the distance. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe the difference was in her – because she certainly felt unlike her usual self here. She didn’t want to be here any more. She wanted to be home. But then, where was home?