Things We Never Say (39 page)

What I think doesn’t matter. It’s what Don thinks that counts.

Can’t you work on him?

Perhaps if she’d come back and suggested 250K I might have been able to persuade him. But not half. He thinks it’s way too much.

What if Deirdre had a word with him?

Are you mad? He hates the bitch.

She’s not that bad.

Oh, please,
typed Zoey.
She feeds off him. And so do those leechy kids of his. He gives the girls money so that they’ll like him, you know.

They love him because he’s their father. Not because of money.

I’m not so sure about that,
returned Zoey.
You should hear their demands sometimes.

What are we going to do?
Lisette could feel despair seeping through her fingers.

Let’s meet.
Zoey was typing quickly because she could hear Donald in the hallway outside their room and she didn’t want him to see what she was doing.
How about at Fred’s. Tomorrow afternoon?

I’ve classes until 4 p.m. Does 5 work?

Perfect,
typed Zoey.
See you then.

The exhibition hall that was holding the nail art competition that Abbey had entered was buzzing with excited participants and their models. The women wore their newly adorned nails with glamour and confidence and Abbey couldn’t help thinking that she’d been far too conservative in the work she’d done. The theme for the competition was Seasons, and most of the other competitors had gone all out to make the nails of their models as bright and as colourful as possible. The girls in the 3D division had pulled out all the stops – Abbey had seen one of the models wearing nail extensions depicting branches on trees with tiny leaves dangling from the ends. It was amazing to look at, although obviously impractical on a day-to-day basis as the wearer wouldn’t have been able to use her hands for anything. But still, she thought, the work was so brilliant it deserved a prize. Selina, who’d been surprised and pleased when Abbey told her she was entering the competition, had immediately offered to be her model, and now she was holding her carefully painted nails in front of her, showing them off to their best advantage even though Abbey wasn’t at all hopeful that her depiction of the changing seasons across Selina’s nails was good enough.

‘I thought you’d have to be able to use your hands afterwards,’ she remarked as another model with impossibly long nails walked by. ‘Neither hers nor the Fall Tree set are at all practical.’

‘It’s art,’ Selina pointed out. ‘Art doesn’t have to be practical.’

Abbey nodded, realising that the competition was about the skills you could use as a nail technician, not what your model could do afterwards. It’s like high fashion, she thought. Bizarre but brilliant.

In the end another technician won the overall prize (she’d chosen spring as her theme, and her model’s nails represented budding flowers), but Abbey did take the top prize in the art division, which meant a bear hug from Selina to go with her prize of product samples.

‘The thing is,’ Selina told her, ‘if you start making a name for yourself, people might want you to endorse their products. You could even do a line of your own!’

Abbey could feel the salon owner’s enthusiasm. And she was already thinking about how she could improve her designs and what she might do to make them stand out more. At the very least, she told herself later that night when she was curled up in front of the TV watching
CSI: LA
, she should do some 3D work as that seemed to get most of the attention. And she should come up with more art templates of her own. Old Masters, she thought suddenly. They’d be good. People would like to wear the
Mona Lisa
on their fingertips.

The following day Selina put up a huge poster in the window of the salon, advertising that the award-winning Abbey Andersen worked there and offering personal consultations with her. Abbey, who thought it was a bit OTT, was nevertheless astonished when the number of people making appointments for manicures and nail art doubled.

‘You see,’ said Selina. ‘These things matter. I told you. Get yourself out there, girl. Put your name in lights.’

Abbey entered another competition a couple of weeks later. This time she was the overall winner for her 3D
Mona Lisa
, which everyone agreed was amazing. Selina put her trophies in the window and her client list grew again.

Claudia, who’d never come to the salon before, made an appointment to have her nails done before attending a business dinner with Pete. She brought a friend with her, a tall, stylish woman named Tina, who worked in a private investment company.

‘Abbey is thinking of developing her own line of products,’ Claudia told Tina. ‘Might be a worthwhile investment for you.’

Abbey looked at Claudia, speechless. It was true that she’d mentioned it to Pete the last time they’d talked, but it was part of a casual conversation in which she’d said that when her money from Fred’s estate finally came through (and obviously that was still a long way away), she might invest some of it in her own range of nail colours and art templates.

‘There are plenty of products on the market already,’ said Tina. ‘Why would yours be any different?’

‘Colours.’ Abbey surprised herself by how quickly she answered. ‘There’s scope for creating a different type of palette and colours that give more special effects.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes.’ Now that she’d expressed aloud to a stranger what she’d been thinking about for the last couple of weeks, Abbey grew more animated. ‘There are designs I’d love to do but the colour schemes aren’t quite right.’

‘Here’s my card.’ Tina handed it to her. ‘Let’s talk sometime.’

As they left, both delighted with their high-gloss finishes, Claudia turned to Abbey and kissed her on the cheek.

‘I always knew you had talent,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to see it blossom.’

Abbey was so astonished that she almost didn’t notice the size of the tip that the two women had left her.

She had a fifteen-minute break at midday and so she popped out to buy a sandwich, still deep in thought about the potential for a business of her own. It seemed a huge step and one that she was ill-equipped to take, but now that the idea was taking hold in her mind, she couldn’t help giving it more and more space. It seemed to her that this was totally doing what Pete had said about developing her talents, and that Ellen would be proud of her too. Clearly Tina had thought that both she and her idea had potential or she wouldn’t have passed over her card, and as for Claudia – Abbey had always felt Claudia simply tolerated her, but there had been real affection in the other woman’s words. Abbey felt her heart beat faster as she thought more and more about it. Abbey’s Art, she thought. Or Fab Fingers. Or – even better – Nailed!

She was smiling to herself, lost in her thoughts and not noticing the people around her, when she heard a familiar voice call her name. She looked up, startled, and saw Cobey Missen standing in front of her, wearing jeans, sneakers and a grey Giants fleece. His trademark Ray-Bans were pushed on to his head.

‘How’re you doing, Abbey?’ he asked.

At first she couldn’t speak. She realised that she was trembling. Shock, she told herself, at seeing him so unexpectedly. Anger at the way he’d left her. And … and – what? A sudden inexplicable desire for him to realise that he was still in love with her.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked finally. ‘I thought you were cruising the Caribbean or something.’

‘I was,’ he said. ‘But I discovered it wasn’t my kind of thing. The damn ship was too claustrophobic.’

‘I suppose it’s hard to walk out on someone when you’re in the middle of the ocean together,’ said Abbey tartly.

‘Don’t be like that, babes,’ said Cobey. ‘I’m sorry. You know I am.’

‘You left without a word.’ Her voice was clipped and angry. ‘You borrowed money and you didn’t pay me back. You owed rental even though I’d given it to you. You’re a fraud, Cobey Missen.’

‘Hey, I know. And I’m embarrassed about that.’ There was contrition in both his eyes and his voice. ‘I made a big mistake.’

‘You could have told me,’ said Abbey. ‘I thought we were a couple. But we weren’t.’

‘I panicked,’ Cobey said. ‘I’ll admit it. I was spending more than I was earning. The tour company was going through a slump and my wages were cut. I didn’t want to tell you because I was ashamed.’

‘I thought you loved me,’ she said. ‘I thought I loved you. People who love each other share things no matter what.’

‘I could still love you and be ashamed to say anything,’ protested Cobey. ‘And that was the case. I needed to get away, clear my head, pay my debts.’

‘So you signed up for a cruise?’

‘I was working on the ship, not holidaying.’ Cobey smiled ruefully at her and she felt her heart skip a beat. He’d always had a disarming smile. ‘But it wasn’t the great opportunity I thought it was going to be. It was damn hard work, let me tell you. Let me tell you,’ he repeated, ‘over a drink tonight.’

‘I’m busy,’ she said.

‘Come on, Abbs. One little drink. I’ll explain everything and maybe you can find it in your heart to forgive me.’

‘No,’ repeated Abbey, even though she was thinking that perhaps Ellen would like her to show forgiveness.

‘One,’ said Cobey again. ‘I’ll meet you at Cantina and buy you a cocktail.’

‘I don’t think …’

‘Please,’ he said. ‘I want to apologise properly. I know I let you down. Hell, I let myself down.’

He looked so forlorn standing there in front of her that her resolve weakened. And she said yes.

In Dublin, the only topic of conversation was the challenge to Fred’s will. Despite the fact that Lisette had urged Gareth to accept Abbey Andersen’s offer (how much better do you want it to be? she’d demanded), Donald had persuaded him that he’d do better by contesting the will.

‘You can’t back out now,’ he’d told his brother when Gareth suggested that perhaps Lisette was right and that they should take what they could get. ‘It’s not only about the money.’

‘For Lisette it is,’ said Gareth.

‘Of course. Because she’s not really family, is she? She married into the Fitzpatricks but she didn’t grow up with us. She doesn’t know what it was like to be a Fitzpatrick. Besides, she’s French. She has different views.’

‘She reckons that getting our hands on a definite amount now would be better than holding out for a potentially bigger sum in the future,’ said Gareth. ‘She’s a very practical woman.’

‘And I could agree with her if it wasn’t that accepting the will means we also accept Dad’s version of what happened with that Ita Dillon woman.’

‘I think what happened was fairly clear,’ said Gareth. ‘She got pregnant. He abandoned her. She died. He felt guilty.’

‘How could he even be sure the baby was his?’ demanded Donald. ‘She might have been a slapper sleeping with half the country, for all we know.’

‘I doubt Dad would have left money to complete strangers unless he thought she’d told him the truth,’ said Gareth. ‘He must have believed it, otherwise he wouldn’t have felt so guilty.’

‘We’re judging his actions then by the standards of today,’ said Donald. ‘So was he. He only did what anyone else would have done. He didn’t need to beat himself up over it. I do understand a certain measure of guilt, but it was over fifty years ago. It pisses me off how everyone today is meant to apologise for things that happened in the past. We need to move on. Get over it.’

‘You have a point.’

‘Anyway, the biggest point is this. Ellen Connolly was never part of this family. She knows nothing about us. She didn’t try to find out about us. She went off and became a nun. Allowing her and her daughter to have any part of our inheritance is an insult to what being a Fitzpatrick is all about.’

‘So it’s more about the family than the money?’ Gareth looked at his brother in confusion.

‘It’s both. Money puts a value on everything. Being a Fitzpatrick is the most important thing. Giving this woman and her daughter half of everything – well, it’s too much of an insult. Quite honestly, I believe that giving them anything at all is an insult to Mam.’

‘I agree as far as Mam’s memory is concerned,’ said Gareth. ‘Though financially—’

‘I know both of us have financial reasons for wanting this over quickly,’ Donald said. ‘But we have to put them to one side while we work for what’s right. It’ll be worth it in the end, I promise you.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Trust me,’ Donald told his brother. ‘I’m the eldest. I know what I’m doing.’

Gareth wanted to believe him. But he was still racked with doubts.

‘I know what Donald’s saying, but I don’t think the courts will take the same view of the whole family thing. All they’ll do is look at the money.’ Zoey Fitzpatrick was sitting in Fred’s kitchen with Lisette. The two of them had taken to meeting each other there on a regular basis and, much to their surprise, were enjoying the mutual moral support that talking about their situation gave. Neither of them mentioned the meetings to their husbands and naturally both kept secret the fact that they had dipped into Fred’s secret cash hoard on a further two occasions. Of the original thirty thousand, ten now remained.

Lisette had managed to put her guilt behind her about taking the money. She’d used the first chunk to clear all of their outstanding utility bills, buy some new shoes for the children, get the boiler and her car serviced, pay off her credit card and have a facial at the local beauty salon, something that she’d once loved but had stopped doing since money had got tight. She’d also bought a few jars of her favourite Clarins products, which she’d been substituting with supermarket alternatives. No matter how much some people insisted that cheaper creams were equally effective, Lisette yearned for the luxury of the ones she’d grown to love.

She hadn’t spent all of the cash, but knowing that it was safely tucked away in a pair of thick grey socks in the bottom drawer of her dresser gave her a sense of security. Fred’s money had given her back a little piece of herself, she thought, and even though she still broke out in a rash of guilt every time she thought about taking it, she managed to push it to one side. Gareth had noticed that the bills had been paid, and she’d explained it by saying that she was giving extra grinds to students most afternoons. He was so relieved at seeing some of their outstanding debts disappear that he didn’t question her any further, even though he should have known that she’d never have made enough giving private tuition to have paid off so many outstanding bills. This time his lack of financial savvy was working to her advantage. It was also fortunate that he wasn’t the kind of man ever to notice what beauty products she used, because otherwise he’d definitely ask questions she didn’t want to answer.