Emma allowed herself to be led out of the room. Dominique watched them leave. Then she turned to face her husband. Kelly was still standing beside him, and Charlie was now holding her hand. Brendan hadn’t moved from the centre of the room. He was looking at Dominique anxiously.
‘Say something,’ he said at last. ‘Say you forgive me.’
‘Hey, Dad, we need to know a lot more about everything before we can do that.’ Kelly’s voice was suddenly hard, and she moved away from him, allowing Charlie to put his arm around her. ‘We love you and we’re glad you’re back and you’re OK, but you can’t just waltz back into our lives and ask forgiveness when you haven’t told us exactly why you left in the first place.’
‘I left to protect you,’ said Brendan.
‘You should have
stayed
to protect us,’ Kelly said.
‘I couldn’t,’ said Brendan. ‘It was better for you that I was away.’
Dominique caught her breath but still said nothing.
‘It was a decision I had to make,’ said Brendan.
‘It was a bad decision to go away without saying anything.’ It was Kelly who spoke again, while Dominique continued to stand silently, her hands balled into fists at her sides.
‘I didn’t have time. When things go wrong they go wrong very quickly. I had to get out of the country before I got caught up in all sorts of complicated investigations and God knows what else.’
‘You mean before you were arrested?’ Dominique’s voice, when she finally spoke, was faint and shaky.
‘People can be very quick to judge. And they can make mistakes. When it comes to money, they want to find someone to blame, and I was an easy target. I could only help myself by being away.’
‘That didn’t help us,’ said Dominique.
‘Believe me, it did,’ Brendan told her.
‘So why are you home now? And why didn’t you call me yesterday?’
‘We arrived late last night into Shannon. I didn’t want to call you then. We only got up to Dublin this evening. Gabriel went to see your parents and I left my stuff at a B&B. Then I went to see my solicitor.’
‘Before calling me.’
‘I didn’t want to
call
you. I wanted to see you.’
Dominique looked at the clock on the wall. ‘You left it late.’
‘I heard about the party.’
‘So you decided to gatecrash at this hour? You’re my husband, Brendan. You should have come to me before anyone.’
‘Gabriel said—’
‘I’m sure he said a lot of things, but right now I only care about what you’re saying. And why you’ve come here.’
‘I had to come home.’
‘And did Gabriel persuade you that everything would be all right when you did?’
‘No,’ said Brendan. ‘I know that I’ve caused a lot of trouble and that I can’t fix everything. I know I’ve let down a lot of people. I can’t rescue the company. But I can do my best to fix some things and restore our good name. And we can start again, Domino. You and me and Kelly.’
‘What kind of fantasy land are you living in?’ Dominique’s voice trembled. ‘Because of you we
have
no good name. Nothing you do can change what we’ve gone through over the last year. Nothing! It blew the family apart. It nearly killed your parents. Kelly and I ...’ She swallowed hard. ‘You left us on our own, without a word, with no money . . . well, nothing worth speaking of.’ He’d left the five grand, she remembered. Pocket money as far as he was concerned.
‘I planned to get money to you,’ he said. ‘But it all got too complicated. I couldn’t transfer it into our account because I was afraid that there’d be a court order to freeze it. I was hoping that I could sort everything out really quickly. Access cash I had abroad. But it turned out to be harder than I thought.’
‘And in the meantime our house was repossessed and sold!’
‘I didn’t think that would happen,’ said Brendan. ‘I thought you’d get legal advice and that you’d be able to stall the banks.’
‘How could I?’ she demanded. ‘They were breathing down my neck for money.’
‘You could’ve cut a deal,’ said Brendan.
‘No I couldn’t!’ cried Dominique. ‘I couldn’t keep my house when everyone else had lost their savings or, even worse, their jobs.’
‘I was shocked when I read about the house,’ said Brendan.
‘But you didn’t phone. You didn’t email. You didn’t care.’
‘Of course I cared! I was desperate to get in touch. You don’t know how desperate. But I was afraid that if I called you I’d be traced and I’d be dragged back before I could get my hands on the money . . . Look, Domino, it was all very complicated and it needs a lot of explaining. I can’t expect you to understand—’
‘I understand that you left me to face the music,’ said Dominique. ‘I understand that perfectly well.’
‘I didn’t think it would be as tough as it was.’
‘Well what the hell did you think would happen?’ demanded Dominique. ‘That everyone would just say, “Oh, it’s fine, it doesn’t matter”? We had an awful time. We took the flak for you.’
‘And I feel terrible about it,’ said Brendan, ‘but the important thing—’
‘Is that you left us,’ Dominique told him. ‘You walked out on us. We meant nothing to you.’
She turned away from him and left the room.
‘That’s not true.’ Brendan’s voice followed her as she went up the stairs. ‘You’re my family. You and Kelly. Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve done for you.’
Maeve, Emma, Kevin and Paddy had walked to Fairview Strand to hail a couple of taxis. Maeve, Kevin and Paddy were all travelling northwards; Maeve and Kevin to their house in Clontarf and Paddy to the Glenmallon Hotel, where he was staying the night. Emma was going to Rathfarnham, to her brother’s house, and so in the opposite direction.
‘We’ll wait until you get a cab,’ said Kevin as they stopped at the rank. ‘I’m sure there’ll be one any minute, but we don’t want to leave you here on your own.’
‘Thanks,’ said Emma.
The four of them stood in silence. At last Paddy remarked, with studied casualness, that Brendan’s return had been very dramatic.
‘Typical Brendan,’ Emma said. ‘He always had a touch of the theatrical about him. That’s why the media loved him.’
‘And Domino?’ asked Paddy. ‘Was that why she loved him too?’
‘No,’ said Emma shortly. ‘She loved him because he married her when she was pregnant and rescued her from her religious maniac parents.’
Paddy looked startled and Emma shrugged, while Maeve shifted uncomfortably beside Kevin.
They were all relieved when a cab drew up at the rank. ‘See you again, Emma?’ asked Maeve as her old friend got into it.
‘You never know.’ Emma smiled suddenly, and Maeve remembered her then as the girl she’d once been, the prettiest girl in the class, and the most confident. ‘Another old school reunion might be fun. Though not quite so exciting in the end.’
‘Where to, love?’ asked the cabbie.
Emma gave him the address. Then, sitting back in the rear seat, she opened her mobile phone. She scrolled through the list of names in her address book and stopped at G.
Then she pressed the dial key.
Greg Delahaye had spent the morning sailing. He’d sailed a lot when he was younger; he and Roy, his younger brother, had been members of the local sailing club. Brendan had never been interested in the water. Greg had enjoyed sailing, though he’d grown away from it even as Roy had made it his career. Now, since his separation from Emma, he was spending more time in boats again. Being out on the water calmed him. In the last few weeks he’d managed to douse the flames of anger and resentment that had been part of his life ever since the day that Brendan had disappeared (though that wasn’t entirely accurate; he’d been full of anger and resentment ever since his teens, ever since the whole episode of his lost baby). He’d found that spending time on the sea was the best way to think things through. His brother’s desertion had impacted on him in ways he hadn’t expected. First of all there had been the shock at discovering he was missing. And then the shock of learning about the business. Then - and this was what Greg had struggled with so much - there was the sudden realisation that Domino was on her own. And that she was depending on him.
Greg knew that he had always been a little bit in love with Domino. He’d fallen for her the first time he’d seen her, getting off the train with Brendan, her pose confident but her eyes scared. She’d reminded him, if he ever needed reminding, of his teenage sweetheart, but she’d been a stronger, more determined person than Maria. He’d been attracted to her but he had never, back then, thought about her in any way other than as his brother’s fiancée. It had been when she’d fallen into her depression that he’d been scared for her, wanting more than anything to help her. He’d been pleased and proud that he’d been able to help and that she knew it. And even though, at that stage, he was married to Emma, he liked to think that another woman depended on him too.
What is it in me, he wondered, that makes me want to feel needed all the time? Why do I look for unhappy women and try to fix whatever’s wrong? Because that was what I did with Emma, too.
He’d asked Emma out because Domino’s brother Gabriel was a priest. Greg didn’t have time for priests, never had. Especially after what had happened with Maria. A priest had been to their home after she lost the baby. He’d spoken to Maria and somehow made her believe that what had happened had happened because she’d sinned with him. She’d hated Greg for it. And he’d hated the priest. So putting one over on Gabriel by asking out the girl who fancied him was a good thing as far as he was concerned.
Having a long-term relationship with her hadn’t been part of his plan. But he had discovered that he liked being with her. She was fun and sparkly and quite unlike any girl he’d ever known before. The sense of sadness he’d got from her at the wedding, which he’d assumed was because of Gabriel, simply wasn’t there. She’d dismissed what she’d said about Gabriel before, told him that she’d been silly, and then kissed him in a way that made him think she was telling him the truth. And he’d started to fall in love with her because she was a beautiful, fun girl and it was about time he started seeing beautiful, fun girls instead of having unsatisfactory one-night stands, which was how his love life had been up till then.
The relationship with Emma hadn’t always gone smoothly. There were times when she was sweet and lovely and easy to be with and other times when she was impatient, prickly and difficult to talk to. When she was unhappy, he didn’t seem to be able to cheer her up in the way that he was always able to cheer up Domino. He felt guilty about that, because he should surely be able to make his wife smile. Yet in some ways she was a more complicated person than his sister-in-law. Domino was easy to please. Emma was definitely a more high-maintenance woman. But he loved her.
He’d been delighted when she finally got pregnant, but what should have been an exciting time for them had coincided with her mother’s illness and with her getting in touch once again with Gabriel Brady. For spiritual comfort, she’d told Greg at the time, not that he’d ever believed that, not even for an instant. He’d asked her about her feelings for Gabriel, and she’d smiled at him.
‘My feelings for Gabriel,’ she replied calmly, ‘are the same as yours for Domino.’
Which always bothered him.
He’d never really thought very much about his feelings for Domino. Never put them into context. Never wondered how Emma saw them. If she ever asked him, he always used to say that he felt a bit sorry for her, rushed into marriage to Brendan, having the baby, everything being so difficult, and then, suddenly, thrust into the spotlight, which he didn’t think she liked very much. (Emma would snort at that and say that he was wrong. Domino was an exhibitionist, she always had been.)
When he’d gone to Domino’s house in Fairview, it had been with the intention of making love to her. He’d been sure that she would want it too. He’d thought that he was entitled to sleep with her. Emma had left him, after all. Brendan had left Domino. It seemed to him that they themselves were the one constant in a changing world.