“Are you having an affair, Mom?”
“That’s right, Tom. Didn’t I tell you? Me and George Clooney, we’re eloping.”
The thought that her children could think she was having an affair, just because she was going away and staying overnight, it was laughable. Other women – her colleagues, regularly went for weekends away with the girls. Charlotte didn’t. She was afraid to leave the children. And now she was being accused of a having an affair. Even Mark had looked at her surprised when she announced she was going to Adare again.
“Is there something you’re not telling me? Is Richard up to something?”
He was going to find out sooner or later. “I’ll tell you, Mark, if you promise me you won’t go crazy?”
“There’ll be blood on the walls if you don’t tell me, Charlie,” he said, brandishing the egg whisk at her.
“Give me that thing, you idiot – you’ll get egg everywhere.”
Charlotte stood there in the kitchen as she filled him in.
“Sounds dodgy to me, Charlie,” said Mark, concerned. “This guy could be a total whacko. I don’t know about you meeting him.”
“I know that,” Charlotte agreed. “But Ruth is flying into Shannon from Heathrow as we speak and Kathy’s coming from Dublin tomorrow. It’ll be okay. Richard’s going to be with us and another detective as well – the one in charge of the case now.”
Mark respected Richard and valued his opinion. Assured that Richard would be present at all times, Mark begrudgingly let her go. Not that Charlotte needed his permission. She would go, no matter what Mark thought. The following morning as Mark stood at the front door, his face speckled with toilet paper where he’d cut himself, he waved her off.
Now, some hours later, Charlotte found herself driving, Kathy chatting beside her, just like in their student days as if the silent years had never been. Yet, both women were sharply conscious of why they were together. The impending meeting with Nathan Queally loomed over them.
“This Queally guy, he’s not staying in the hotel is he?” asked Kathy, sounding worried.
“God, no, Kath. I checked that out with Richard. This guy lives in Limerick. He’s coming out to Adare tomorrow morning.”
“So he’s been working as an odd-job guy, since he got kicked out of the army?”
“It seems so,” said Charlotte, “but he’s retired now, I think.”
“What else do you know about him, Charlie?”
“Nothing much,” said Charlotte. “The fact that he was in the army and dishonorably discharged only came to light recently. The police never picked up on that at the time of the original investigation. I’m not sure exactly how much collaboration there is between the army and the police.”
“Maybe the police messed up again, Charlie. Like the suitcase. Remember how the police never wore gloves when they were retrieving it? How Mrs Nugent went crazy when she heard – police fingerprints all over the suitcase, all the evidence contaminated.”
“Maybe…”
Kathy had a point there. Charlotte herself had wondered long and hard at the initial investigation. How was it possible that the police had never found Sarah?
Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte caught Kathy trying to tug her skirt, trying to cover her thighs. Boy, that skirt was short.
“I don’t know what you thought,” Kathy continued, “but it was pretty obvious that Mrs Nugent thought the police were a bunch of incompetents as time went on.”
Charlotte bristled.
“Oh, not that…” Kathy paused, flustered. “… not that I mean Richard… not at all. You mustn’t think I’m including Richard in that… I mean I’m not saying that he –”
“Of course, you’re not,” said Charlotte quickly. “Richard’s always been assiduous in his work. And at long last it looks like he’s going to be promoted.” She was pleased with an opportunity to impart Richard’s good news at last.
“Well, that’s great news, Charlie. Good. Good for Richard,” Kathy said, relieved. “I can see that you two still look out for one another. That’s so lovely…”
Charlotte guessed that Kathy was thinking of her own brother Lawrence, dead a long time now.
“Yep, me and Richard, we’re a team,” Charlotte said, jokingly pumping a fist in the air. She tried to lighten the mood. “Oh, by the way, Kathy – don’t tell Richard I told you about the promotion. He’d kill me. It isn’t in the bag just yet.”
“My lips are sealed,” said Kathy.
Charlotte sighed and glanced at Kathy. “It would have happened years ago, you know,” she said. “If only Richard had been a little more political. He should have done the golf thing. That’s where all these decisions are made, you know, on the golf course. You’ve got to play the game, stay in with the right people. But Richard’s never been like that. He’s too straightforward.”
“Richard’s just an all-round nice guy. You can’t blame him for that,” said Kathy. “But tell me more about this handyman.”
“Okay then,” Charlotte said taking a deep gulp of air. “Well, he has a stutter. There’s damage to his hand from the assault in Egypt, oh – and I think his wife died a few months back.”
“The bastard was married?” exclaimed Kathy.
“Yes. Yes, he was.”
“What kind of women marry men like that, Charlotte? I mean good God, what kind of world is it?”
Charlotte could see Kathy joining the dots making exactly the same connections she herself had made when presented with the sketchy description of the guy who’d been up at the Blue Pool that day. This guy they wouldn’t charge.
“That’s everything you know?” asked Kathy.
“Until tomorrow, yes.”
“Roll on tomorrow,” said Kathy, pulling a face.
As they drove through the countryside, Kathy continued to talk. Mainly about her daughter, Emma. She spoke at length about the hazards of kids drinking from plastic water bottles. Was Charlotte aware that they released toxic substances when reused? Kathy didn’t wait for a reply to any of her queries. Charlotte found she couldn’t squeeze a word in edgeways. Some things never changed.
On first glance, Kathy looked in reasonable shape. The clothes were a bit on the raunchy side. Charlotte admired Kathy’s spirit. And she seemed to dote on her daughter. Of course life had taken its toll. The episode in Berlin had probably been the worst. When she’d been hospitalised with a full-blown nervous breakdown. It had been shortly after that that Charlotte had lost contact with Kathy. There may have been one or two Christmas cards but nothing more.
Abruptly, Kathy changed the subject.
“Do you ever hear from Tomas Walsh?” she asked.
It was the second time in a week Charlotte had heard that name.
“Tomas Walsh – that blast from the past,” she said.
“You two were good together,” said Kathy. “You know of all the university relationships, I thought you two would make it. I thought you’d live in an old rambling house in the country with the country doctor, or emigrate to Australia and live in the outback. Tomas, a flying doctor, both of you surrounded by a bunch of kids. I was pretty stunned when you two broke up.”
Charlotte flinched, surprised at how Kathy’s ramblings could open up old wounds. It hurt even now. In her mind’s eye, he hadn’t changed, Tomas Walsh – clever, funny, and oh so very handsome.
“Yeah…,” Charlotte said after a bit. “I was crazy about Tomas. But you know how it was, Kath. There was so much bad feeling after Sarah. So much suspicion. Believe it or not, it got even worse after you left university. Ruth and I had a pretty rough time, I can tell you. The fact that no one ever came forward… And we three were the last people to see her alive. You know what they say…” Charlotte didn’t finish. As she clenched the steering wheel, the memories came rushing back.
“None of the reporting was supportive,” Charlotte said after a lull. “God knows what Angela Nugent had said about us to the press. So, I guess it wasn’t that surprising that Tomas dropped me like a hot potato. I hadn’t expected it, you know. I was really cut up…”
Charlotte hadn’t foreseen it, never anticipated such a consequence. “So, to answer your question, Kath – no, I’ve never heard from Tomas Walsh. I have no idea where he even is. I haven’t set eyes on Tomas Walsh in years.”
Charlotte’s emotional outburst silenced Kathy. “We lost a lot, didn’t we?” she said after a while. “Much more than just a friend.”
“We sure did,” Charlotte agreed.
“So, your husband Mark, what’s he like then?” Kathy said breezily. “Anything at all like Tomas?”
The bluntness of the question surprised Charlotte. No one had ever asked her to compare the two men before. Few people knew Charlotte’s history well enough to even pose such a question.
“Oh, Mark’s a great guy,” she said, “great with the kids. He’s fairly easy-going except where Tom our eldest is concerned.” Charlotte slowed to check a road sign. “He’s a hard worker and he’s sweet.”
“Sounds like a find,” said Kathy, staring straight ahead.
But Charlotte could tell her friend was unimpressed. It was not surprising. Charlotte had painted a flat, unremarkable, portrait of a man who’d kept her company for the last twenty years. How could Mark ever compare to the memory of the handsome med student that had amused them all in university, a lifetime ago now?
“You’d like Mark if you met him, I know you would,” Charlotte added, flicking away a tiny fly that danced on the windscreen. “That’s something I’ll have to organise. When all of this is over.”
Should Charlotte now enquire about the state of Kathy’s marriage? Hell, Kathy had asked Charlotte enough blunt questions. She’d go for it.
“I take it that life isn’t a bed of roses with your own marriage?”
“Oh, me? I married a prize ass,” Kathy laughed scornfully. “You know, the fucker tried to divorce me on the grounds that I’m unstable and unsuitable for marriage.”
“No way! Surely not?”
“Yes, way. Not content to sue for divorce like a normal person, he wants to put the boot in, and go for a catholic annulment as well. He isn’t even religious. The bastard will probably get his way too, dazzling everyone with his weasel words.”
Jesus. Poor Kathy – she knew how to pick them.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be reciprocating with any social occasion for you to meet my soon-to-be-ex-husband,” Kathy said, sounding grim.
“There’s a pool in the hotel,” Charlotte said, changing the subject.
“Nice,” said Kathy.
“Yeah, Ruth said she’d go for a swim while I came to get you.”
“And what does she make of this guy wanting to meet us?” asked Kathy. “Ruth has an opinion on everything. To tell the truth, I’m a bit nervous of meeting her after all this time.”
“Don’t be daft. You’ll be fine,” Charlotte said. “Ruth thinks the same as us really. That it’s creepy and it’s weird. That apart from the mention of some kind of St Christopher’s medal that’s supposed to be significant somehow, we don’t have much to go on.”
“You mentioned the medal to Ruth? What did she say about that?”
“I don’t recall. She’s as nervous as we are about tomorrow.”
“She didn’t think the medal thing was weird?” Kathy asked.
Kathy was getting weird herself. Obsessing again.
“Yes. Of course she thinks it’s weird, Kath. This whole business is nothing if not weird.”
“Too right.”
Out of the corner of Charlotte’s eye, she could see Kathy chewing her nails. The love-hate relationship between Ruth and Kathy had always fascinated her. In university, Kathy had always allowed Ruth to take over, to provide advice – wanted and otherwise, to drag her out of whatever crap she found herself in. In a way, there was a strange bond between the two that Charlotte felt was not entirely healthy.
All along, Charlotte suspected that something else had happened near the Blue Pool that day. Something that only Ruth and Kathy knew about. But nothing was going to bring Sarah back, so what did it matter?
“What a lovely hotel!” Kathy exclaimed. They’d parked the car and were entering the ochre colored building. “It’s got real charm.”
“The whole village is like this,” said Charlotte. “You should see Richard’s cottage,” she said proudly. “I think this hotel used to be an old shooting lodge.”
“I guess I check in here.” Kathy was making her way to the desk. Charlotte looked at her watch. “See you in the dining room at seven thirty then, Kath? That’s the arrangement I made with Ruth. Is that okay with you?”
“Perfect,” said Kathy. “Time to freshen up and gather my thoughts.”
“I could do with that myself,” said Charlotte, hoping she betrayed none of the pity she felt for this emotionally fragile woman whose forty-plus years had seen her weather more storms than most.
“Richard joining us?”
“No, Richard’s working tonight. He’ll be here in the morning at eleven,” Charlotte replied. “See you so at seven thirty? You know what a stickler Ruth is for time. I hardly think that’s changed.”
“I get the picture,” Kathy said, throwing her eyes to heaven.
An hour later, three old friends sat by a window in the dining room with crisply starched table linen and a bottle of chilled white wine. The starters were on their way.
“Not quite Lydon’s, is it?” Ruth said smiling, recalling the days when Richard would take them out for chicken Maryland and black forest gateau at university.
“We’ve come a ways since then,” said Charlotte, grinning. “But I know we all appreciated Richard’s kindness at the time.”
“I think Lydon’s is gone now. There’s something else there now,” said Kathy.
“Really? I hate to think of things closing or changing hands. It make me feel I’m getting old.” Ruth fingered the black tassels on her evening bag.
“We’re all heading that way, whether we like it or not. Everything’s going south,” Charlotte made a pretence of hoisting up her breasts.
The other two laughed.
“What would you give to roll the clock back?” Kathy asked suddenly. She perched her chin in her hand, looking from Ruth to Charlotte. “Just to roll it back to the end of our first year in university, before all this happened, before Lawrence, before all that?”
“We’d all like to be able to roll the clock back,” Ruth answered immediately. She looked out the window.
A coach load of American tourists had pulled up outside.
“I thought I’d put all of this behind me for good. I thought it was well and truly over. How wrong I was,” Ruth said, looking from Charlotte to Kathy. “I’ve had to relive the whole sorry saga over the last twenty-four hours. I don’t know about you two, but I’d never told my husband, you see. Last night I had to sit down with Colin and I had to tell him everything that happened for the first time.”
Ruth stopped fiddling with the threads of her bag and sat quite still. “Colin said something then that I’ve known for years,” She paused. “So now, I’ve got something to tell you that I should have told you years ago. It’s not something I’m proud of. But I’ve lived with the shame for too long now, and all I hope is that you won’t think too badly of me. But I’m afraid you probably will.”
Charlotte stared at Ruth. She’d been right all along.
Ruth did know something.