Cochrane did ring shortly afterwards and he rang three times more over the next week.
On each occasion, she found herself being soothed by the sound of his quiet voice, even though their conversations did not add up to much. Talking to him set her at ease and she did not feel vulnerable any more. Instead, she felt protected, as if he were watching over her.
During that time, she put Elizabeth in the picture but she said nothing of any of this to her parents.
Her father took her for lunch.
They drove out a country road near Hillsborough to a pub which described itself as a ‘casual gourmet diner’. The place had recently been refurbished in rustic style. She had something called a symphony of seafood, which was a kind of stew. Her father had seared salmon and stir-fried vegetables and a glass of white wine which came in its own miniature bottle. Meg stuck to her usual mineral water.
‘What would you say if I told you I was thinking of retiring?’
‘I’d say it was about time. You deserve it. You’ve had a hard couple of years – thanks partly to me, of course.’
He began to protest. ‘I don’t mean—’
She waved him silent. ‘It’s true, though, Dad. It’s taken an awful lot out of you. Bound to have. But if you retired, what would you do? You’ve always been so busy.’
‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘Dabble in a wee bit of property, maybe, to keep myself active.’
She pictured her own house and remembered her mother’s implication that its renovation had not been entirely philanthropic. She whisked the thought away.
‘I’ve bought a place on the west coast of Scotland,’ he said. ‘I like it there.’
‘I know,’ she said. He went to Scotland to stay with friends almost every Christmas.
Christmas. She wondered what she would do and she thought of Dan suddenly, alone in Ardglass. Or did he have someone? The fact was she just didn’t know.
‘I might go and live there,’ her father said.
‘What’s brought all this on?’ It was not just idle musing. He had never indulged in that. Everything he did was carefully thought out and had a purpose.
He looked around to make sure he would not be overheard then lowered his voice. ‘I think he’s going to sell Malone Group.’
‘Who?’
‘Sir Brian. Sir Brian Malone.’
‘Oh, right.’
She had no real interest in business matters. It did not mean a lot to her: buy-outs and takeovers and flotations and all that sort of thing. It had consumed her father all his life but it had just been a sort of background noise in hers. Yet she was acutely aware of how much she had benefited from his interests and the wealth it had made for him.
‘He doesn’t need the company,’ he said. ‘It’s small beer to him. There are a couple of possible bidders and if he sells, the value of the shares will rocket and then maybe that would be the time to take the money and run.’
‘And Seasons Construction?’
‘It’s not mine any more anyway. Time somebody younger was looking after things there.’
‘I need a job,’ she said. All she had told her parents was that for the time being she had shelved thoughts of resuming medicine.
‘If it’s money,’ he said, ‘you need never have to worry about
that.’
‘It’s not the money, it’s people. I need to be around people.’
‘You need to get yourself a man,’ he said.
She thought of Dan and wondered if she should say she had met someone but she hesitated. If she spoke about it, it would make it into more than it was.
‘Who would have me?’ she said. ‘In my condition.’
He smiled. ‘If I went to live in Scotland would you come and visit me?’
‘Absolutely not,’ she said. ‘I’d be glad to see the back of you.’ Then she gave him a big grin and leaned across the table to kiss him on the cheek.
She sent her mother a birthday card. She picked it in a greetings shop near the City Hall, avoiding anything that had a religious message or was too humorous.
Mother was out, too; those cards were covered in flowers and sentimental verse which she imagined being dreamed up by a team of bored hacks in a dingy office somewhere.
The card she selected in the end was dainty and relatively simple: a golden cake with candles on a plain background and the words Happy Birthday underneath. As she posted it, she realised to her shame that she had forgotten exactly how old her mother was. Fifty-nine, was it? Not sixty, surely?
On the day itself, she thought she would drop in and surprise her.
She drove to Carryduff with the present from the pottery, wrapped now in red and gold paper with a satin sheen. There were cars in the street outside. She saw Pastor Drew’s BMW among them. She paused for a second then she opened the kitchen door and walked in.
‘Anybody home?’ she called.
A kettle was coming to the boil and a woman she did not know was standing at the work surface taking a Sainsbury’s birthday cake out of a box and putting it on a large plate. She was in her fifties, stoutly built, dressed in a skirt and jumper that were expensive but plain. She stared at Meg.
‘I’m looking for my mother,’ Meg said. She could hear other voices now, coming from the living room beyond, one of them male, with a familiar resonance.
‘Yes, indeed,’ the woman said. ‘Gloria,’ she called. ‘Your daughter’s here.’
Meg put the parcel down on the kitchen table and walked past her gaze, feeling it trained on her like the sights of a gun. She pushed open the living-room door. There were other women in the room, clones of the one in the kitchen. Her mother and Pastor Drew got to their feet. The dog leaped from the settee and threw itself at her.
‘Margaret,’ her mother said. She looked flustered.
Everyone stopped talking and stared at Meg. She stooped and patted the dog, then she glanced up at her mother. ‘You didn’t think I wouldn’t come to see you on your birthday, now, did you?’
‘It’s very good to meet you again,’ Drew told her.
She smiled with civility but did not return the sentiment.
‘I’m afraid we caught your mother unawares,’ he explained. ‘And under false pretences. We have a Bible Week coming up and I persuaded Gloria to allow us to have a meeting of the organising committee here.’
‘Somehow they knew it was my birthday,’ her mother added.
And I walked in on the surprise,’ Meg said and she could see that her mother was having trouble with that. She had intruded into a world of which she was not a part.
She looked at the other women. Their beatific smiles were like a forcefield, a threat rather than a welcome.
Any one of them could have written the letters.
But in her mother’s eyes that would not be the problem.
She was the problem.
She had not come to heel when bidden. Instead, she had spurned Drew and the church, embarrassing her mother in the process, then she had gone on television and said those things. There would have been no anonymous letters if she had done so.
‘You’ll stay for a cup of tea?’ her mother asked, not wanting her to.
‘No, I can’t,’ Meg lied and saw the relief in Gloria’s eyes. ‘I’ve got to be somewhere. I just popped out with a present for you. I’ve left it in the kitchen.’
‘That’s kind,’ her mother said but made no effort to go and see what it was.
‘You can open it later.’ She turned towards the door. ‘Nice to meet you all.’ Her mother had not attempted to introduce her to any of them.
There was a chorus of goodbyes. ‘God bless you,’ Drew proclaimed.
‘I’ll see you out,’ Gloria said and they walked into the hall.
‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you,’ Meg said at the front door. She felt hurt and unwanted. From nowhere, a vision of her empty childhood came to her. There was a garden. She was alone, in a party frock, and little shoes with white frilly socks.
‘It’s not that,’ Gloria tried. ‘I just wasn’t expecting . . . you came at a bad time.’
There was something in Meg’s throat. She gave her mother a quick hug. ‘Happy birthday, Mum,’ she said.
She managed to get round the corner and out of sight before she had to stop the car to blow her nose and dry her eyes.