Foreign Affairs (2 page)

Don’t think about it now! She banished the memory and bit her lip to stop it from trembling. She had to think positive and get on with life. This holiday was a positive step, there was no
looking back.

Rachel had never been so excited in her life. This was all totally new to her. She was fascinated watching the huge jets landing and taking off. Soon she’d be on one of
them. It gave her butterflies to think of it. Rachel didn’t mind a bit being delayed, it added to the sense of anticipation. She was having a ball! She’d spent a fortune in the
duty-free, spurred on by the others, and she’d treated herself to three blockbuster novels.

Rachel lifted her wrist to her nose and inhaled the fragrant scent of
White Linen
. It was a beautiful perfume. It was the first expensive perfume she’d ever bought herself.
Normally she just used Limara body sprays. Well not any more, Rachel thought happily as she took out the bottle of perfume she’d bought only twenty minutes ago and sprayed another little bit
on her neck. She was a new woman with a new image and this was only the beginning. She was going to live life to the full from now on. She caught sight of the packet of condoms nestling in the
small side pocket of her bag. Even now, Rachel was surprised by her own daring. Her father would call her a lost soul if he knew, but let him, she didn’t care any more, Rachel thought
defiantly. She was being sensible. If there was the slightest chance of her having a foreign affair at least she’d taken care of her own protection. That was a very Nineties thing to do,
Rachel thought approvingly. For the first time in her life, she was standing on her own two feet, making her own decisions. It was a heady experience.

She was dying to get to Corfu. The thought of blue skies, sparkling seas and golden beaches was heaven after the winter of gales and rain they’d endured. Rachel gave a little giggle. She
was a bit tiddly. It was a nice feeling. She stood up and addressed her three companions.

‘I don’t know about you lot, but I’m going to have another brandy,’ Rachel announced happily. ‘To celebrate the start of the holiday of a lifetime.’ She
giggled again and headed for the bar, much to the amusement of Paula, Brenda and Jennifer.

Chapter One

‘I’m afraid, Mr Stapleton, your wife has had a very difficult labour and it was touch and go for a while at the birth. However she has been safely delivered of a
baby girl and both will survive. There can be no more children.’ Doctor Ward was quietly emphatic.

William Stapleton drew a deep breath, the nostrils of his aquiline nose turning white. ‘I see,’ he said stiffly.

‘Her heart won’t take it and I’ve told her of the danger. You understand?’ Doctor Ward’s piercing blue eyes, not dimmed by age, stared into the eyes of the younger
man. It was a hard thing to do, to tell a young man of thirty-three that his sex life was to be curtailed and two children was his limit. Normally he would have felt pity for any unfortunate in
that position. But Doctor Ward just couldn’t take to William Stapleton. He had a way of looking at you as if he thought he was far above you and he treated his young wife like one of his
pupils from the village school. The doctor gave William a stern look. There was no doubt in his mind that another child would kill Theresa, it was up to William to see that that never happened.

‘I don’t want to see Theresa in my surgery telling me she thinks she’s pregnant. I’ve told this to Theresa and I’m telling you now. Another child would kill her.
And I won’t have that on my conscience. Now I’ve done my duty you must do yours,’ the doctor said gruffly. What that lovely young girl had married that dry old stick for, he could
not imagine.

Theresa Stapleton was a quiet, gentle, shy young woman, ten years younger than her husband. Thoroughly dominated by him, and unable to assert herself, she was smothered by her husband’s
authoritarianism and felt herself inferior to him in every way. Her husband encouraged this belief. Doctor Ward, who was a shrewd judge of character, was quite aware of this. ‘You understand,
Mr Stapleton?’ he repeated sternly.

‘Yes, Doctor, I do,’ William said coldly. ‘Thank you for all your help.’

‘I’ll be back tomorrow and every day for the rest of the week. Your wife is in a very weakened condition, she must have complete bed rest for at least a fortnight. You have someone
to look after the little lad?’

‘My mother,’ William replied. God help us all, thought Doctor Ward as he slipped into his tweed overcoat. Bertha Stapleton was as bad, if not worse than, her son. God help that poor
unfortunate up in the bed, with the pair of them.

‘Goodnight then.’

‘Goodnight, Doctor.’ William closed the door, not even waiting for Doctor Ward to get into his ancient Morris Minor. Stupid old codger, he thought sourly. What would he know, he was
only an old country quack. Millions of women had children like peas popping from a pod, why did he have to marry a woman who made a production out of it?

Slowly he walked up the stairs of the fine two-storey house he had installed his wife in when he married her three years ago. She had done well for herself, had Theresa Nolan. Married the
schoolmaster. Lived in a house half the women in the village would give their eye-teeth for. Lacked for nothing. Had a fine healthy one-year-old son, and now a daughter. And what did he have?
William thought irritably. Just responsibilities and burdens and now not even the comfort of the marriage bed to look forward to. He might as well be bloody single, he reflected as he opened the
door to their bedroom. Still, he was not a man to shirk his duty. And his duty was to provide for his wife. She would not find reproach in his eyes when he looked at her.

Theresa lay in the wide brass bed, her face the colour of faded yellow parchment. Two big bruised brown eyes turned in his direction as he entered the room. Curls of chestnut hair lay damply
against her forehead and he could see the sheen of perspiration on her upper lip. In her arms she held a small swaddled bundle.

‘I’ll just go and make you a cup of tea, pet, while you show your husband the little dote.’ Nancy McDonnell, the village midwife, smiled as she gathered together her bits and
pieces.

‘Thanks, Mrs McDonnell,’ Theresa murmured weakly, staring at her husband.

‘Rest yourself now, Theresa, like a good girl. Don’t talk too much. Your husband won’t mind, he’ll be too busy looking at his little beauty.’ Nancy beamed as she
fluffed up the pillows before leaving them alone.

‘How are you feeling?’ William said gruffly.

‘Tired, sore.’ She hesitated. ‘Did you talk to the doctor?’

‘I did.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘I’ll move into the spare room,’ William said coldly. ‘I’ll not be accused of being irresponsible by Doctor Ward or any other.’

‘I’m sorry, William,’ Theresa said quietly. Although if she was completely honest, she felt a great relief at his words. Theresa was a dutiful wife but she did not love her
husband. She had only married him to obey her parents’ wishes. Marrying the schoolmaster was considered almost as good as marrying a doctor or the like. Theresa’s mother had been
terrified that her daughter would end up on the shelf and she had encouraged the match strongly. Marriage was not for pleasure, her mother had told her often enough. Marriage was a duty and Theresa
had been brought up to be a good attentive wife. Able to run a house and when the time came, have and take care of the children God would bless her with. She was lucky, her mother informed her over
and over again, that a man of William Stapleton’s calibre was taking an interest in her. The day of her wedding had been one of the happiest days of her mother’s life. Theresa had felt
utterly and completely trapped.

Only today, when Doctor Ward had told her no more children and William had informed her that he was moving into the spare room, had she felt the slightest glimmer of hope. A little fluttering of
freedom. She would make this bedroom a haven, a peaceful place, Theresa decided. Here she would read and sew and look out at the hustle and bustle of village life. It would be her refuge from her
husband. Happiness flickered briefly.

‘What will we call her?’ Theresa asked her stern-looking husband as she tucked the shawl closer around her baby.

‘Call her what you like,’ William answered with hardly a glance at his new-born child.

Theresa’s hold tightened on the sleeping baby in her arms. So that was going to be the way of it, she thought. God help the poor child, William would hold this against her. Well she would
do her best to make her feel happy and loved, after all, her arrival had given Theresa a freedom of sorts and for that she would always be in her daughter’s debt. Almost to herself she
murmured, ‘Rachel, that’s what I want to call her. I’m going to call her Rachel.’

Chapter Two

Rachel Stapleton wished with all her might that the school bell would ring. They were starting their summer holidays today and she could hardly wait. They were supposed to be
having a little party but Miss O’Connor was out sick and her father had set them a whole blackboard of sums to keep them quiet, while he took care of his own class. Everybody was giving out
about it and some of her classmates were even glaring at her as if it was all her fault. It was very difficult being the headmaster’s daughter.

The sun shone in through the high windows of the classroom. She could see the sky outside, so blue and clear, it was like a picture postcard. Rachel wished she was down playing by the stream. It
was her favourite place. She liked throwing in leaves and bits of sticks or paper and watching them swirl away out of sight. Were they going to the sea, what foreign shores would they land on?
Rachel loved imagining their journeys. Sometimes her brother Ronan let her play with him. Ronan, at nine, was a year older than her and very brave. He wasn’t afraid to swing across from the
old oak tree to the other side of the stream. He was a special agent for UNCLE, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin depended on him. She knew he was only pretending but sometimes it got very exciting,
especially when they had to crawl through Murphy’s hedge and run through the field where the bull was.

Rachel was terrified of the bull, but Ronan wasn’t a bit scared. He wasn’t scared of anything. Not even of their father. A little frown creased Rachel’s forehead. She was
scared of her father. He was very cross sometimes, especially if she made a mistake in her homework. He always checked it for her and woe betide her if there was a mistake in it.

‘Do you want Miss O’Connor to think we’ve a dunce in the family?’ he’d say. ‘It would match you better, Miss, if you’d learn your spellings instead of
playing with those dolls of yours. Dolls will be no use to you when you’re doing your Leaving Cert.’ The thing was, she knew her spellings but when her father made her stand in front of
him while he stood with his hands behind his back, waiting for her to rattle them off, butterflies would start dancing up and down her stomach and she’d get nervous and make mistakes.

Why, she often wondered longingly, couldn’t she have had a farmer for a father, like Martina Brown. Martina and her brothers and sisters were allowed to stay up really late in the summer
to help get the hay in. They were allowed to play in the haystacks and in the barns and camp in the paddock behind their house, and their father
never
made them say their spellings to him
at night.

Even better was to have a shopkeeper for a father. Mr Morrissey owned the sweet shop and newsagents in the village and it was open until ten o’clock at night. Hilda Morrissey was allowed
to stay up late during the summer to help her father in the shop and she was even allowed to work the cash-register. How Rachel would have loved a cash-register. When she grew up and had loads of
money she was going to buy a real one. Santa had brought her one last Christmas and although she had great fun playing shop she would still give anything to have a go of Morrissey’s real
one.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a stinging sensation to her ear. A marble rolled down the front of her jumper. Rachel’s stomach twisted into knots. Patrick McKeown was flicking marbles at
her again. Her ear hurt so much she wanted to cry, but they’d all call her a cry-baby. Patrick McKeown was the meanest, slyest, biggest bully in the class. He was always picking on her
because he knew she’d never ever tell her father. If she told her father, the whole class would call her a tattle-tale and to be a tattle-tale was the worst thing. She pretended nothing had
happened and kept her head down, staring at her copy book. Another missile reached its mark. This time on the back of her neck. A few of the other children sniggered. Rachel swallowed hard and bit
her lip. She mustn’t cry in front of them. Why did Miss O’Connor have to be out today of all days? Rachel was petrified her father would come in and catch Patrick McKeown flicking
marbles at her. Then he’d be punished and she’d really be in for it. He would wait for his chance, some day when she was on her own, and stuff worms or slugs down her dress. That was
his favourite punishment. Rachel never knew when it was going to happen and consequently she always had to be on the look-out. She couldn’t tell anybody about what was going on because if she
did, Patrick swore that he would murder her and bury her body in Doyle’s woods and no-one would ever find her. She woke up in bed at night her heart thumping in terror at the thought of
it.

‘Have you got the answers to those sums, Swotty Stapleton?’ Patrick McKeown demanded, one eye on her, and one eye on the door. Rachel’s fingers shook as she passed back her
copy book. Patrick grabbed it and swiftly copied down her answers. Then, slowly, deliberately, he ripped the page out of her copy book and scrunched it up in a tight hard little ball, flicking it
at her with his ruler. ‘Do them neater,’ the hated bullying voice ordered. The rest of the class looked on approvingly as he threw her copy book back up towards her. Getting at Rachel
Stapleton was almost as good as getting at the Master. With the eyes of the class upon her and to jeers of ‘Swotty’ from Patrick McKeown, Rachel stood up and walked down the passageway
to retrieve her copy. Just at that moment her father walked through the door.