22

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FROM HER VANTAGE POINT facing southeast, Rosa watched the sliver of moon making its way inexorably westwards. That will soon be me. The thought popped into her head and she tried to gauge her own body’s reaction. There was only minimal response. She drew on her cigarette and expelled the smoke from her lungs in the direction of the patio heater. Its warmth was comforting in the cold November night, and she was tempted to close her eyes and see if she could take a nap in the fresh air. Diane had other ideas.

‘You had a miscarriage,’ she suddenly spoke into the quiet. ‘Did it have anything to do with my dad and his evil schemes?’

Rosa hesitated for a moment before answering. Then she mentally shrugged off her doubts. The girl had been lied to almost her entire life and was entitled to the truth now, no matter how much it might hurt.

She said, ‘It happened a few hours after I got to the Molly that day. I didn’t even know I was pregnant until the medics examined me. I thought my cycle was all over the shop because of the Pipe Incident and the Kinsella Sting. I had one hour to process the fact I was pregnant before I lost the baby.’

‘Holy shit,’ Diane grimaced sympathetically. ‘Was that the longest or shortest hour of your life?’

‘The shortest,’ Rosa lowered the cigarette and surveyed the girl’s face. She opened her mouth to say more on the subject, but abruptly closed it again with a snap.

‘Did you decide you didn’t want to keep it?’ Diane enquired timidly.

‘That’s not exactly what happened,’ Rosa replied slowly. ‘It wasn’t so much that I took the decision to get shot of the little mite, it was more to do with the baby-daddy.’

‘Benedict Lawlor is a catch by any woman’s standards,’ Diane ventured. ‘It was his baby.’

‘Correct,’ was the crisp response. Rosa stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another one. Diane watched her inhaling deeply then blowing the smoke skywards. In the light provided by the candles and stars, Rosa’s black eyes held a faraway look. Diane felt a frisson of frustration run through her. If her mother was here she would know what the other woman was thinking, of that she was certain.

It’s a shame I can’t do the alien probe thing Mum does. It’s a very handy skill to have at moments like these. She put the cigarette to her lips and scrutinised Rosa as she inhaled the carcinogens into her lungs. I don’t even know where to begin. Do you try to read the other person’s mind or what?

‘Why do you look so strange?’ Rosa enquired curiously.

‘I was wishing I could read minds the way Mum does,’ Diane spoke in a rush. ‘I don’t have a notion how she does it, and it would be very handy skill to have right now, because I haven’t a clue what’s going on inside your head and it’s driving me nuts.’

‘Why is it so important?’ Rosa raised an eyebrow at the younger woman.

‘I’ve just survived the strangest and hopefully the worst week of my life,’ Diane shrugged. ‘Something tells me yours hasn’t exactly been a bed of roses either, and I’d sort of like to compare notes. If you don’t mind, that is. I know I must seem like a kid to a woman like you.’

Rosa snorted through her Grecian nose. ‘You’re may be just a kid, but you’re the bravest one I’ve ever had the honour of knowing,’ she gripped the cigarette between her lips and with her free hand managed a fair approximation of a salute. Then she took hold of the smoke again and said, ‘I’ve seen the Tin doing that to your mom plenty of times. You’re a survivor like her, kid. Kudos.’

‘Everyone is telling me how wonderful and brave I am,’ Diane’s voice was hollow. ‘But I don’t feel either of those things. All I feel is shock and confusion and a sort of weird anger that isn’t really anger.’

‘That’s grief,’ Rosa pointed the cigarette at her. ‘You’re grieving for the parent you always assumed you had, but who never existed in the first place. He called you his princess but that’s not how he thought of you. To Declan O’Keefe, you were never anything other than a means of inflicting pain upon your mother. I’ve been reading up on psychopathy all week, and I seriously doubt he ever thought of you as a human being in your own right. Yet here you sit alive and well, looking all cute and very much alive, while the gee-bag lies rotting in an oak box. I say again, kudos to you, kid.’

‘Wow,’ Diane looked startled. ‘It’s like I’ve never fully appreciated my own greatness until now.’

Rosa chuckled and Diane joined in. The door opened and Marco’s head appeared. ‘Everything okay?’ he asked in an upbeat way.

‘Sling your hook,’ Rosa said conversationally, ‘and don’t even think about earwigging at that door.’

He withdrew in good order and Rosa took a large swig of her drink before returning to the comfort of her nicotine.

‘If I tell you the most bizarre thought I had this week, will you tell me yours?’ Diane watched her diffidently.

‘Okey dokey. Shoot.’

‘You promise?’

‘Word of a New Yorker. Go ahead.’

‘When I woke up in the hospital and Josh told me everything that happened, I wished it had been the other way around. I wished Dad wanted to kill him and keep me alive so he could control me. That would have been easier for Josh to handle. It’s as if Dad thought of me as the stronger twin. He emasculated Josh by planning to keep him alive, and I think that might be the real reason he turned Shelly down. If Dad had tried to kill him, it would have sent a message he wanted him out of the way so Josh wouldn’t have my back. Nobody cares if you’re a pushover when you’re a girl. It’s half-expected. So I wished it had been the other way around, and he didn’t have to live with the pain.’

Rosa’s black eyes were piercing as she examined the girl’s face. Her words were unexpected. ‘I wish I had a sister like you. I’ll never understand why my parents didn’t get pregnant again when I was six months old. Would it have killed them to at least try for a second ankle biter? Selfish feckers.’

‘I expect they had their reasons,’ Diane spoke hesitantly, unsure of how to respond to the other woman’s rare criticism of her parents.

‘My beauty queen of a mother didn’t want her figure spoiled by another pregnancy, and the ole man wanted to hang on to his trophy wife as long as possible,’ was the bitter reply. ‘To this day, the guy’s obsessed by her looks.’

‘Gosh,’ Diane heard the way she sounded like Trixie. ‘Will you be staying with them when you go home, or will you get your own place?’

‘I guess I’ll stay with them in the short-term,’ Rosa shrugged. ‘We get on well most of the time, although that doesn’t mean they don’t annoy the heck out of me sometimes. Mom can be so fecking superficial, and Dad’s like an Amish guy where I’m concerned. He screwed anything in a skirt during his youth, but he’d be delighted if he thought I was still a virgin. The double standard thing drives me nuts.’

‘I’ve heard it’s better to be Amish than Mormon,’ Diane replied slyly.

Rosa snorted and took a slug of her drink.

‘Now might be an opportune moment to share the strangest thought you had this week,’ Diane sensed she was close to hearing something important.

‘I guess it would at that,’ Rosa tipped the glass back and drained it before replacing it on the table. ‘When the doctor told me I was pregnant...’

‘Don’t stop,’ Diane urged. ‘You’ll feel better for saying the words.’

‘When the doctor told me I was pregnant,’ Rosa repeated, ‘I wished with all my heart the baby was Keith’s and not Benedict’s.’

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ Diane leaned forward in her chair so she could reach her glass. She tilted her head and demolished half the contents. ‘And I thought my love life was complicated. You’ve just refused an offer of marriage from the man you love.’

‘The man I love is dating a British chick called Juliet Livingstone,’ Rosa was suddenly furious. ‘Furthermore, he has behaved in a most highhanded fashion this week. You would not believe the things that fecker has been up to.’

Diane groaned and polished off the contents of her glass. ‘He’s such a sweetie,’ she moaned. ‘I’m sure the two of you can sort it out. After all, Rose, you’ve been seeing Benedict since September, yet Keith didn’t allow that little factoid to get in the way of a proposal. He’s probably not serious about Juliet.’

‘Crap,’ Rosa snarled. ‘He’s totally serious about her. The guys are convinced they’ll be engaged by Christmas, and their radar is seldom wrong. And FYI, I dumped Ben last weekend. I don’t want Keith finding out I’m single, so keep it under your hat. If anybody asks, just say he’s working in the Middle East and he’s meeting me in New York for Thanksgiving.’

‘Roger that,’ Diane replied in a voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘I didn’t believe Mum when she said romance doesn’t get any less complicated as you get older, but now I totally get where she’s coming from. Why don’t you tell the guy to get shot of Juliet and marry him?’

‘Because I am seriously pissed with the dude,’ Rosa narrowed her eyes menacingly. ‘Besides, why should I marry the big bossy fecker with his rough hands and colour blindness? He has the guys behaving in all sorts of inappropriate ways. They’ll end up bringing SBA into disrepute. We’ll lose our licence and that will be the end of the business. Some husband.’

‘He proposed to you in front of a roomful of homos and kissed your feet,’ Diane pointed out. ‘He must love you a lot to do that.’

Rosa snorted and remained silent. She glared at her empty glass and Diane was quick to take the hint. ‘I’ll pop to the loo and bring fresh drinks back with me,’ she said quietly, as she eased herself off the lounger. ‘Try not to think too harshly of Keith while I’m gone.’

She disappeared indoors and Rosa busied herself lighting yet another cigarette. It was growing colder, although she was determined to remain outdoors for as long as possible. She had been cooped up for days, and had a serious case of cabin fever. The twinkling stars seemed to mock her in the indigo sky and she flipped them off with her free hand.

‘He’s probably screwing Juliet as we speak,’ she told them in scornful accents. ‘Coming over here making up to me, then going home to her, no doubt pretending to be the perfect lover. Who does that fecker think he is?’

She spent another couple of minutes fuming over Keith’s perfidy, but had run out of steam by the time Diane returned with the drinks.

The girl handed one to Rosa and then made herself comfortable under the duvet again, clutching her hot water bottle to her chest for comfort.

‘The guys are playing a totally gross game with a banana,’ she reported. ‘We’re much better off out here, even if it is super-freezing. If we were commandos, we’d be wearing our special Arctic fatigues.’

Rosa chuckled at this then asked, ‘Is the rest of the house quiet?’

‘There seem to be lots of different voices downstairs,’ Diane looked troubled. ‘I didn’t hang around or go down to investigate. If the Kirwan-Taylors are back, I hope they stay chatting to DG. I love Trixie, but I’d rather see as little as possible of Nelson before he leaves. I think that’s for the best. It’s bad enough we all sit down together at meal times like something from an old movie about pioneers.’

‘Do you think you’ll ever forgive him for being so dishonest with you?’ Rosa inspected the girl’s face as she asked the question.

‘I’ve already forgiven him,’ Diane looked surprised. ‘I understand why he did what he did, although that doesn’t mean I’m ready to pick up where we left off. I don’t know how much he’s changed in the past couple of years, but I’m certainly not the girl who fell madly in love with the next- door neighbour.’

‘Do you remember the exact moment you knew you loved him?’ Rosa prodded.

‘Of course,’ Diane looked surprised again, as if it was unthinkable not to recall such a momentous occasion. ‘It was a few months before my eighteenth birthday. A baby bird fell out of his nest and lay stunned on the grass. Horace put some straw and leaves in the bottom of a shoe box and put him inside. He thought if we left him for a while, the bird might come around and be able to fly again.’

‘And did the baby bird recover?’ Rosa looked intrigued.

‘He did. About twenty minutes later, he suddenly perked up and flew away. Horace was delighted. He laughed his head off and applauded. That was the moment it dawned on me. I felt as if the hammer of Thor had hit me right between the eyes. I made some excuse and ran home in case he realised something was wrong. I couldn’t sleep that night because my mind was full of Horace Johnson. I decided the best thing to do was watch him closely and see if there were any hints he might feel the same way.’

‘Hold your horses,’ Rosa sat up straighter. ‘Was this before or after you started dating that Matthew guy?’

‘This was before,’ Diane replied patiently. ‘I invited Matthew to our eighteenth birthday party. We’d known each other for years and I used to have a crush on him when I was younger. I liked him well enough, although I wasn’t in love with him. I could see he fancied me and assumed he hadn’t really noticed me when I was younger. I was a bit annoyed by that.

‘He ignored me for years when I liked him, yet when I fell in love with another man he suddenly decided he was interested. When he asked me out, I agreed, and the perfect decoy was created. Not one person ever suspected I didn’t give a shit about the guy. We never even had sex until the night of the Debs, which was over a year later. I kept telling him I was abstaining for religious reasons and the sap believed me. If I do say so myself, it was one of my better plans.’

‘You devious minx,’ Rosa was clearly impressed. ‘But why did you go to such lengths? Did you want to make Horace jealous?’

‘Lord no,’ Diane laughed. ‘I made sure Horace knew I wasn’t sleeping with Matthew so he wouldn’t be hurt by the relationship.’

‘You told Horace you weren’t having sex with your boyfriend?’ Rosa sounded disbelieving.

‘I’m not explaining this very well,’ Diane smiled apologetically. ‘I’ve known Horace since I was eleven years old. He’s been around for all the milestones in my life. He was the one I was with on the day I got my first period.’

‘You are shitting me,’ Rosa almost came off the lounger, making Diane giggle.

‘I was feeling a bit strange and Mum didn’t want me to go to school, but she had a really important meeting at the office she couldn’t miss, so she asked Horace to keep an eye on me. The weather was still fairly okay so I sat out the back of our house and watched him working in the garden. Next thing you know I felt something warm and sticky and there I was with my first period.’

‘What did he do? Did he freak out?’ Rosa was intrigued.

‘Horace rarely freaks out over anything. He suggested I take a shower and while I was doing that, he rummaged through Mum’s supplies of protection. Then he made sure I knew what to do and told me to put on my most comfortable clothes. When I was clean and dressed he made me a cup of hot chocolate and a hot water bottle. We spent the rest of the day crashed out on the sofa watching chick flicks. That was eight years ago. After that, I got into the habit of confiding in him about stuff. He’s been my friend for a long time.’

‘Okay, so let me get this straight,’ Rosa frowned. ‘You and Horace were close for years until one day you realised you were madly in love with him. A few months later you started dating a hot guy called Matthew, but made sure Horace knew you weren’t sleeping with him, although presumably you allowed other folks to assume you were.’

‘Correct,’ Diane raised her glass.

‘Why did you go out of your way to tell Horace you weren’t sleeping with Matthew?’ Rosa sounded deeply perplexed.

‘I must be the worst explainer of things on the planet,’ Diane sounded peeved. ‘I knew Horace loved me as much as I loved him, and I didn’t want him to be hurt. Matthew was never about trying to make him jealous, he was my decoy. I wanted everyone else to believe I was a normal girl with a normal life, which is exactly what happened. I needed time to work things out between me and Horace. I knew everyone would freak out when we announced our engagement, so it was important we plan things properly.’

‘For feck sake don’t stop,’ Rosa urged. ‘What happened next?’

‘The plan was for Horace and I to keep our relationship secret until I was twenty and had finished my first year at college. In the meantime, I was going to hang on to Matthew for as long as I could and if he dumped me, I was going to date a few college guys so nobody would get suspicious. I had it all worked out beautifully. A month before my nineteenth birthday, I decided to broach the subject with Horace. I felt it was time we laid our cards on the table and got down to some serious planning.

‘Plus, I was getting fed up with the lack of physical affection and I could see he was as well. I thought he’d be thrilled to finally get me into his bed and start the life we were always meant to have. I chose his birthday because it seemed apt and sort of romantic. His birthday would always be a twofold celebration for us, because it would be the anniversary of the day our relationship began properly, albeit in secret. I poured drinks for us. I asked Horace to sit down and I laid my cards on the table, truly believing he was expecting it. That’s when years of planning went tits up.’

‘How the fuck did you know he loved you if you never discussed it?’ there was a frantic look in Rosa’s eye now. ‘I am utterly baffled right now, Diane O’Keefe.’

‘I don’t know,’ the girl sighed gustily. ‘It was as if I could hear him speaking the words even when he never uttered a sound. There’s a big church in the heart of Shankill, and we often used to take Trotsky up there on a Saturday. We used to sit on the wall across the road and wait for the bride and groom to appear. Every time the newlyweds walked outside with big grins plastered across their faces, Horace would smile.

‘I knew he was picturing the day he would marry me, and how we would walk out of that church with Mum and Granny following us crying like babies. There were lots of occasions like that. I knew Horace loved me as surely as I know you’re sitting in that lounger with yet another cigarette in your mouth. What I didn’t realise back then was that he wasn’t sure of my feelings for him. He thought he was alone in the madness and he was the only one who was going to be hurt by the situation.’

‘Even when you told him you weren’t sleeping with Matthew, he never copped it was because of him,’ Rosa was looking horrified now. ‘He just assumed you were waiting until you were a little older. He never had a clue about your long-term plan until you suddenly sprang it on him the night of his birthday. Poor guy. Poor fecking blind eejit. Is it any wonder he freaked out? He probably thought your mom would accuse him of taking advantage of you.’

‘It never crossed my mind he didn’t understand the plan,’ Diane replied sadly. ‘I thought he was waiting for me to give him the sign. Turns out, he’s just a regular guy who can’t read minds very well.’

‘So he flipped out and was non-committal about the future,’ Rosa lay back and began to piece the sequence of events together in her own mind. ‘He made no attempt to get you into bed even though you were totally up for it. You went away thinking he just needed time to process. You assumed by the next day he’d have come around and be ready to get the party started.’

‘Correct,’ Diane smiled mistily. ‘I was disappointed, but assumed he needed a few hours to process. He’s ten years older than me and back then he hadn’t tuppence to rub together. I thought it was those two things that were making him hesitate about taking things to the next level. He was right to be concerned because with him on the breadline and me only a student, it wouldn’t have been easy for us, although I knew we would find a way to circumvent the problems if we used teamwork. I wasn’t worried about him not dragging me into bed. Sex was the least of my worries back then. I knew he wanted me no matter how much he tried to hide it, although it crossed my mind he might have concerns about birth control.

‘When I went to sleep that night, I was looking forward to seeing him the next day so we could take up where we left off. The next morning, I forced myself to take things slowly. I studied for a few hours and then Emily came around and insisted I go out with her. I agreed because I decided the time had come to let her know what was going on. She was flabbergasted and we ended up staying out far longer than we intended. It took me ages to explain it all to her. When I got home, I was half-expecting Horace to be pacing up and down outside his cottage waiting impatiently for me. Instead I found Mum waiting for me with a very weird look on her face.’

‘You poor kid,’ Rosa said sympathetically. ‘She even called Simone to lay on an extra layer of hurt.’

‘Mum thought she was doing the right thing,’ Diane sighed heavily. ‘She genuinely believed Horace didn’t love me, and it was all a big misunderstanding. She was trying to save me from myself.’

‘He’s such a twat,’ Rosa said crossly. ‘Could the guy have handled things any worse?’

‘Nope,’ Diane smiled wearily. ‘But at least he realises that and he’s sorry. Sometimes I even wonder if it all worked out for the best. Maybe I wouldn’t have been happy as Mrs Horace Johnson of Old Hen Cottage, Shankill. It’s just...’

‘What?’ Rosa asked gently. ‘What was the biggest side-effect of the whole nightmare?’

‘I felt a physical pain when Horace was ripped away from me,’ Diane hung her head in shame. ‘He was a part of my life for years, and it was like having a phantom limb. But the worst part of it all was I stopped trusting myself after he rejected me. If I had been so wrong about him loving me, there was no reason to assume I was right about other things.’

‘Like what?’ Rosa prodded.

‘Last year, Josh and I were in London for a few days to celebrate Roger’s birthday. Dad wanted to take Josh and Roger paintballing, but made it clear he didn’t want me along. Lelia said it was because it can get a bit rough, and he was worried about me getting hurt. I told Dad I wasn’t in the least bit scared and really wanted to go. He was annoyed and just for a second the mask fell. He looked at me as if he truly hated me for spoiling his day. For a split second, I saw the man behind the facade and I knew for sure he didn’t love me.’

‘Holy shit,’ Rosa whistled, ‘but you told yourself it was all your imagination.’

‘That’s exactly what I did,’ Diane nodded. ‘I haven’t trusted myself since the day Horace turned twenty-nine. I convinced myself I had imagined it and put the incident out of my mind. If I had mentioned it to Mum at the time, she might have had the courage to tell me the truth. A similar thing happened when I started seeing Amir. I knew he was trouble because I could smell it off him. Part of me didn’t care because he was only the latest in a long line of boyfriends. The other part of me refused to acknowledge my doubts. What would a girl like you know about it? That’s what I told myself.’

‘How about now?’ Rosa enquired.

‘I’m going to have to work on it,’ Diane admitted. ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever regain my old confidence, but I’m going to give myself a chance, and stop dismissing the inner voice as Mum calls it.’

‘That’s an excellent plan, kid,’ Rosa smiled tenderly. ‘I can’t believe you’ve forgiven that fecker after everything he put your through. I don’t care if he is a lord or whatever.’

‘An Honourable,’ Diane smiled sadly. ‘The Honourable Nelson Kirwan-Taylor. If he loved me even half as much as I loved him, he’s already paid his penance. Now he’s about to be ripped away from his beloved cottage and thrust into the life he escaped so many years ago. The Lord only knows what the family have planned for him. By next January, he might even be decked out in a three-piece suit with a corner office next to his brother.’

Rosa nodded thoughtfully. ‘When you put it that way, I almost feel sorry for the guy. I’m not quite done discussing trust yet. Shall I see if the queers will rustle up a few more drinks for us?’