“Universitas Hiberniae Nationalis Testantur hae literae gradum Baccalaureatus…” Ruth read from the framed certificate in the study. Her Commerce degree. Honours in the end. It was in the shaded part of the room but it looked aged and yellowed next to Michael and Claire’s music certificates. The scarlet wall was covered with awards and photographs charting the course of Ruth and Colin’s life for the last twenty years.
When they’d moved in together, she’d refused to live in Cricklewood or Kilburn or in any of the traditional Irish communities. Many of Colin’s business interests were in these areas but Colin knew better than to argue. Ruth had left Ireland behind and what she craved was a version of herself that she could live with.
“Heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed, avoiding a slip on a golf ball. Gone was the song in her Kerry voice. Over the years, her accent became more neutral, its origin hard to discern.
The sight of the dimpled white ball made her queasy. She’d been careful at the club. Careful not to align herself with any particular group or to form allegiances until she’d figured out the club dynamics. Careful not to make any connections that she couldn’t withdraw from if need be.
Ruth had been cautiously welcomed, and she made herself as obliging as she could. She regularly conceded putts to her opponents. She’d suggest allowing other players to play through if her four-ball was too slow. And she’d help to organise sponsorship for charity tournaments. As co-director of their firm Colin Kennefick Architects, Ruth provided sponsorship for club events.
The members were a conservative lot and not inclined to be influenced by new money. And so she regarded it as a huge personal coup to find that they were seriously considering her, Ruth Kennefick, as a contender for incoming Ladies Captain.
She wasn’t a particularly proficient golfer, more what was disparagingly known as an enthusiastic golfer. But that didn’t cause Ruth too much bother. What concerned her more was being accepted. To be part of a community that didn’t look at her with fear and suspicion. To be part of something wholesome. Being Ladiesy Captain would not be about the honor, but more about what the nomination represented.
She was regarded as responsible, honest, a team-player and trustworthy. Above all, she was regarded as trustworthy. It felt like she’d been laundered.
As she stood there she became aware that she was grinding her teeth. The phone call wasn’t going to change things. She wouldn’t let it. No one in her new life knew about Sarah Nugent.
“Heaven’s sake!” she said again, snatching a glance at the clock.
It was her turn to pick up the kids – Helen’s kids too. Helen lived at the other end of their gated enclave. The two women operated a rota, not that Helen ever managed a pick-up in person. The nanny did that. Helen spent even more time on the golf course than Ruth.
Ruth thought back to events in Ireland. There was little that she could do. She’d have to wait it out see how things unfolded. It seemed ironic, laughable even, that a specialised detective team had struggled for years to discover what had happened and now that klutz, Richard Moran, was able to shed some light on the case now. The others had thought him funny and attractive but Ruth had always thought him a bit of a twit. A kind enough guy. But still a twit.
“Another one,” muttered Ruth, plucking a grey hair she’d spied in the mirror. Her thick reddish hair was beginning to dull. She’d see if she could get a hair appointment tomorrow. She had intended going to the cinema but that could wait. It wasn’t as if she’d be letting anyone down. She preferred to go alone. Pulling up the collar of her cotton shirt and tightening the buckle on her jeans, she straightened up. She was not a tall woman. The kids were at her eye level now.
“Stop it, Bailey!” she scolded the dog as he slavered drool all over the terrace window. “Come on, time to go.” She ushered the quivering animal into the back of the jeep.
The four by four had been Colin’s idea. She’d been happy with the station wagon. This big vehicle reminded her uncomfortably of driving one of her father’s delivery trucks back home, but she couldn’t offend Colin by saying so. The car had been a birthday gift.
Their firm was doing well again. With her guidance they’d managed to weather the downturns. Ruth was grateful as the children would be going to expensive schools next year. As she waited for the iron gates to open, she thought back to the previous evening when she and Colin had talked things over.
“We’ll have to make a final decision on which school soon, Colin.”
Colin was mucking about with the latest FIFA game on play-station even though Michael had long since gone to bed.
“Yeah? Is that the royal ‘We’?
“Seriously, Colin. I do have a preference, but you’ve got be involved as well. It’s not all down to me.”
Ruth had thought she sounded gracious. It was true, she did want Colin to feel included. And if she happened to steer him in the direction of the school she’d already chosen, then all the better.
“Mmm…” Colin twiddled with the controls. “So, it’s not a fait accompli, as usual?” He was staring intently at the players on the screen.
“Of course not.”
“Okay then, for what it’s worth, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the local comprehensive. Why not send them there?”
“Good Lord!” Ruth had exploded. She knew he was trying to bait her but she couldn’t suppress her rising hackles. “You can’t be serious. Have you seen that lot? A bunch of delinquents. You can’t in all sincerity really want that for Michael and Claire, now can you?”
Her outrage had amused him and he let rip a great big belly-laugh. Colin Kennefick was a big man.
“Jesus, Ruth. It’s easy to rile you.”
He leaned forward to adjust a setting on the screen, his trousers slipping to expose the cleavage of his buttocks. Ruth winced.
“I know you’ve got this all sorted anyway.” He sighed and settled himself back in position. “I’m not stupid enough to think I’m part of any joint decision here. I didn’t come down in the last shower you know.”
She smiled begrudgingly. “You know I’ve got the children’s interest at heart don’t you, Colin?” she said softly. “I want them to have decent friends. Friends who are achievers. It’s important you know. To be with people who have ambition. To have friends who look out for one another.”
“I don’t want the kids under pressure, Ruth,” Colin said looking up from his game. “Our kids are nice the way they are. And as for life-long friends, it’s not like you’ve kept in touch with any friends from Ireland yourself.”
Ruth was caught off-guard.
“Bloody hell, Colin, stop playing with that stupid thing! You’re a grown man for goodness’ sake, not some adolescent,” Ruth had barked and stomped from the room.
Almost immediately she felt regret. She hadn’t meant to snap. It wasn’t Colin’s fault. And it wasn’t the first time that Colin was left wondering why a mention of old friends aroused such ire and irritation.
“I admit to being lost on this one, Ruth.” He’d followed her into the kitchen. “Sometimes, I just can’t figure you out.” He was looking at her the way Bailey did when she scolded him.
“What do you mean?”
“The kids are well-adjusted, and yet you keep banging on about the importance of friends with ambition. They’re eleven and twelve for God’s sake. At that age, friends come and go. Look at yourself – if I’m not mistaken all your friends are the ones you made here. I may be mistaken, but over the years, I don’t think I’ve met any of your school or college friends.”
Ruth didn’t want to have this conversation. She’d have to divert him. “I suppose so.” She tried to sound conciliatory.
She wished she’d never brought it up. Colin was right. Most of her friends were English or American. She’d just struck up a friendship with a Russian woman who’d moved into a house further down the avenue. But what Colin didn’t know was that this was by design and not by accident. It was true there were no old confidantes from her early life in Ireland. And Ruth didn’t have a single Irish friend in England. She’d been careful. She’d severed as many ties as she could.
Colin was not given to long periods of introspection and Ruth was grateful when he moved on. She didn’t like being probed. Having pondered the mystery that was his wife, Colin poured himself a large glass of milk and happily returned to the sitting room and to his game of FIFA.
“I’m off to bed,” she said, poking her head around the door one last time.
She wanted to finish reading that thriller tonight. Take her mind off things. However unlikely, she could still try.
“Ok. I’ll be up in a bit.” He didn’t look round.
Most of the time, she and Colin rubbed along fine together. Ruth had never had any success with men until she’d met him. She couldn’t flirt. She wasn’t any good at it. And the whole business of being aloof and enigmatic seemed an utterly pointless charade to her, a ridiculous waste of time. She’d attempted being coy once or twice and ended up feeling a complete fool.
Colin had warmed to her forthright nature. He liked her direct approach. He was the only man who had ever made her feel attractive. She was grateful to him for that. He also was the only man that had ever pursued her. Ruth liked the version of herself that he reflected back to her. Confident, capable, and attractive. Inside, she didn’t feel like that. She had nice clothes, expensive shoes, she had jewelry, but she lacked that inner poise possessed by people of genuine beauty. Good people.
She felt no sexual attraction for Colin. None whatsoever. Not one shred. It wasn’t as if time had dulled their passion. There had never been any to start with – not for Ruth at least. And yet their partnership worked. She’d tried to pretend. But her heart had never really skipped a beat or ever fluttered. There’d been no lustful feelings, no great ache to feel his flesh on hers. She and Colin had reached a plateau in their relationship – it was something deeper than affection certainly, and she’d often hoped it might blossom into something more, something greater. But that had never happened.
Colin had given her something more valuable than a fragile romance or fleeting sexual desire. He’d given her something she prized more than that. He’d made her feel worthy of love, something she’d doubted for years. For a long time after Sarah, she’d wondered if anyone could love her. She would always be indebted to Colin for making her feel human again. Despite all of this, despite their solid relationship, she’d never told Colin about Sarah. She couldn’t take the risk.
She joined Colin Kennefick Architects as a junior accountant. If there was one thing Colin admired, it was her business acumen. It was part of her and yet her father had been disappointed that she’d never wanted to be part of his supermarket chain in Ireland. “Morning Noon and Night” stretched to five late night supermarkets from Listowel to Ballybunion. Like her fellow students in recession-hit Ireland, Ruth had always assumed she’d go to London or the States. Recession or not, Ireland was too limited, too small, too stifling. And much more claustrophobic after what happened. Unbearable, in fact.
Her last year in university had been torture. The accusing looks, the sidelong glances in the college bar, the hushed conversations in the canteen, the lecture theatres that fell silent. The weight of guilt had almost crushed her. Like a chronic illness it held her in a vice-like grip for years.
Ruth made her escape. She got the ferry to England. While other graduates moaned about cramped bedsits and squats, Ruth found her freedom. She found she was free to breathe again in this country with its millions of people. She adored the anonymity, the bigness of it all.
Staying in a hostel in her first few weeks in London, she’d felt safe. No one knew who she was. No one cared. Ruth could start over again. And she had. All she had to do now was hold on tight to the woman she had become. To the woman that Colin loved and had married. The old Ruth was gone forever. Left behind in Ireland.
Driving along the leafy road, it occurred to her that everyone has their regrets, small lapses in judgement and behaviour that didn’t make them proud. And in such rare moments as these, when she allowed herself to think about that day, she thought about her rotten luck. Appalling luck.
Who could possibly have known that one unfortunate decision could turn out in the way it did?