The Better Woman
Authors: Ber Carroll
Ber Carroll was born in Blarney, County Cork, and moved to Australia in 1995. She worked as a finance director in the IT industry until the release of her first novel,
Executive Affair
. Ber lives in Sydney's northern beaches with her husband and two children, and has been published in five countries, including Ireland. Occasionally, in search of inspiration, she dons a business suit and power shoes and returns to the world of finance.
If you would like to know more about Ber, you can visit her website at
www.bercarroll.com
Â
Â
Also by Ber Carroll
Executive Affair
Just Business
High Potential
Ber Carroll
Pan Macmillan Australia
First published 2009 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney
Copyright © Ber Carroll 2009
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Carroll, Ber, 1971-
The better woman/Ber Carroll
ISBN 978 1 4050 3908 6
A823.4
This story is entirely fictional and no character described in this book is based upon or bears any resemblance to any real person, whether living or deceased, and any similarity is purely coincidental.
Typeset in 12.5/15.5 pt Granjon Roman by Post Pre-press Group
Printed by McPherson's Printing Group
Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
Â
These electronic editions published in 2009 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
Â
The Better Woman
Ber Carroll
Â
Adobe eReader format | Â Â Â Â 978-1-74198-455-2 |
EPub format | Â Â Â Â 978-1-74198-482-8 |
Mobipocket format | Â Â Â Â 978-1-74198-509-2 |
Online format | Â Â Â Â 978-1-74198-536-8 |
Macmillan Digital Australia
www.macmillandigital.com.au
Visit
www.panmacmillan.com.au
to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.
This book is dedicated to my sisters, Catherine, Deirdre and Angie.
This book began its life in Caroline Ross's front room, born over many hot chocolates and glasses of wine. Thank you, Caroline, for sharing your fascinating, funny anecdotes about New York, and for ensuring that I did not go thirsty while I listened!
Thank you to Bernadette Balkus for describing your life as a concert pianist and for those lovely cups of peppermint tea and glasses of wine (mmm . . . there's a worrying pattern here!).
Thank you to the awe-inspiring Victoria Havryliv for educating me on the intricate world of criminal law, and for reading over my drafts and correcting my mistakes. If I ever end up on the wrong side of the law, I know who to call!
Thank you to Catherine Hammond, Karen Penning, Trish Thorpe, Angie Glavin, Deirdre O'Mahony and Amanda Long-more for your feedback and recommendations. Thanks to Kylie Alexander and Stuart Folkard for answering all my questions on what it's like to live and work in London. Thanks to Cate Paterson at Pan Macmillan for your enthusiastic response to the first draft of this book, and for your amazing commitment since.
Thank you to Julia Stiles for your wonderful editing, to Trisha Jackson, for your excellent notes and suggestions, and to Jane Novak, Jane Hayes, Louise Bourke and everyone else at Pan Macmillan.
Thanks to the usual suspects: my agent, Brian Cook, and my husband, Rob, for many, many reasons . . .
Finally, I pause to remember my remarkable grand-aunt, Hannie Burke, who spent ninety-nine years of her life in a village not dissimilar to Carrickmore. May she rest in peace.
Chapter 1
Cork, 1980
Sarah's breathing sounded sharp and shallow in her ears. She regulated it with deep intakes of cold air. Ignoring the burning in her lungs, she pushed herself harder, faster. Wild grass tickled her shins. Mud squelched beneath her new sneakers. Nan would not be happy.
âYou've ruined them!' she would cry. âFifteen pounds, they were!'
Sarah would bite on her lip. There was no point in retorting that sneakers were for running and, as they lived out in the middle of the countryside, an hour's drive from Cork city, she had nowhere else to run but across the fields.
Sarah trained for at least thirty minutes every day. She wasn't training for anything in particular: Carrickmore was too small for an athletics club and her school's sports day wasn't for another six months. She ran because she loved the sensation of creating distance with her feet; because the exertion tingled every part of
her body, even the inside, which often felt a little empty; because her father had been a runner too and it made her feel connected with him.
A drizzle started to fall and sprinkled Sarah's flushed face. At first she defied it and ran on. But it grew steadier. The grass became slippery, the earth even more soggy. Cold drips rolled down her forehead. Reluctantly, she turned back towards home. Nan thought that rain should be avoided at all costs: one drenching and you'd surely be struck down with the flu.
âJesus, Mary and Joseph!' Sarah could hear her say. âGet out of those damp clothes before you catch your death.'
It meant that Sarah would be in trouble on two counts: the state of her sneakers, and being caught in the rain.
Sarah climbed over the last gate and came out onto Whitfield Road. There was no traffic in sight and she sprinted down the centre of the unmarked road. Her grandmother's house, two storeys of white pebble-dash, stood as the finish line.
She was at full throttle when Mr O'Hara, holding a bottle of milk, came out of Nan's shop.
âJesus, Sarah, is it the devil that's after ya?'
Sarah overshot her imaginary finish line and came to a stop outside Delaney's pub. She bent over, hands on knees, to catch her breath.
âYou're a fine runner, Sarah,' said Mr O'Hara as he came alongside her. âJust like your father, God rest his soul.'
Sarah devoured casual mentions of her mother and father like a starved child scrounging for evidence that they had actually existed. She loved her grandmother and knew she was loved in return. But it wasn't the same as having a mum and dad, being part of a family unit, being normal.
Mr O'Hara pulled his cap down further on his head. âI know
you young ones don't feel the cold, Sarah. But this rain has a chill to it. I'd better be getting home.'
He walked briskly in the direction of his house. A sprightly old man, he'd once said to Sarah that keeping busy was the only answer he had to old age. For that reason, he had taken on the maintenance of the cemetery and the village park in his retirement.
âHe's a hard worker,' Sarah had heard her grandmother comment many a time. âThe graveyard is a credit to him. You wouldn't know it from the way it was before.'
As a result of Mr O'Hara's toil and sweat, the cemetery's gravelled pathways were weed-free and the hedging along the outer wall was trimmed in a neat line. He had even planted a new bed of flowers inside the main gate.
âSo I can put them on the graves of the poor souls who have no one,' he'd explained to Sarah.
Sarah saw a lot of Mr O'Hara because she was a regular visitor to the cemetery. She'd sit on the concrete kerb that outlined her father's grave and daydream about the man she couldn't remember.
âI'll make you proud of me,' she'd whisper to the mottled headstone. âWhen I grow up, I'm going to be someone very, very important.'
She didn't precisely know why she wanted to make her father proud. Maybe it was a sentiment that all daughters had towards their fathers. And mothers too, perhaps. All Sarah knew was that she felt very close to him when she sat by his grave. He had grown up in Carrickmore too, run across the same fields, and lived in Nan's pebble-dash house right up until the day he got married. His spirit was still here. He was watching over her. She was sure of it.
Sarah crossed the road to her grandmother's shop. It jutted out from the front of the house like an oversized porch. Colourful promotional posters, stuck to the large panes of glass, lent a little razzamatazz to the ordinariness of the building and the village around. Carrickmore was built on a single crossroads. Nan's shop presided over one corner. Delaney's pub, with its black and maroon signage, was situated diagonally across. The church and cemetery occupied the third corner. A park, with lush green grass and a magnificent oak tree as its centrepiece, was on the fourth.
âI'm back,' called Sarah as she opened the door of the shop.
âOh, hello, Mrs Burke.'
âYou've been running again,' smiled the kindly old woman, a regular customer and a close friend of Peggy's.
âYes, but I had to cut it short because of the rain.'
Sarah gave her feet a good wipe on the mat and didn't meet her grandmother's eyes.
âSure, it's in the genes,' said Mrs Burke. âSoon you'll be winning medals, just like your father, God rest him.'
Sarah saw a flicker of emotion across her grandmother's face. A tall, regal-looking woman, she wore her seventy years well. Her snowy white hair was pulled back into a neat bun and the skin on her narrow face was only lightly lined. She had sharp blue eyes and thin lips. She was proud of the fact that she didn't need glasses and her teeth were her own.
âIs that the lot?' Peggy Ryan asked her friend a little abruptly.
âYes, I think so.' Then Mrs Burke laughed. âWell, you're not far away should I have forgotten anything.'