Divided Loyalties (20 page)

Carrie sighed as she went into the kitchen to prepare the dinner. The same unfortunately could not be said for Noel and Bobby. Since that disastrous Christmas three years ago, there had been no
contact between father and son. Bobby had not been home since.

It saddened and worried her. What if they never reconciled their differences? What a terrible burden for Bobby to have to carry when their father died.

‘It’s none of our business, Carrie. It’s between Bobby and your father. They’re grown-ups and they have to sort it themselves,’ Dan told her matter-of-factly when
she fretted about it. She knew he wasn’t being offhand. He was looking at it from a detached, mature point of view whereas she was deeply involved. ‘Stop being their mother all the
time. You’re not their mother. That’s not your role, so stop taking it on,’ he’d said to her once and she’d been furious with him. It was rare for her to be angry with
Dan, but she hadn’t spoken to him for a day until an old saying of her father’s, ‘The truth often hurts’, came to mind. She had to admit that her husband was right whether
she liked it or not.

What made her want to mother them all? she wondered as she peeled the potatoes at the sink, looking out at the daffodils and snowdrops being battered by an easterly gale. Was it because she was
the eldest? If Shauna had been the eldest, would she have taken on that role? Carrie gave a wry grin. Somehow she didn’t think so. Shauna had a great way of drawing her boundaries and she
didn’t let family matters encroach upon her freedom. Her attitude to Bobby and Noel’s estrangement was one of indifference. She completely understood Bobby’s point of view and
didn’t feel a rapprochement was going to make any difference one way or the other.

She was too much of a worrier, that’s what her problem was, Carrie told herself crossly as she diced carrots and turnips. She was going to take a leaf out of Shauna’s and
Della’s books and forget about family problems and concentrate on
herself
and have the holiday of a lifetime.

She heard her daughter call from the bedroom and a smile lighted her face. Hannah was awake after her nap. She hurried down the hall into the small bedroom that had been decorated in warm
yellows and terracotta to complement the Winnie-the-Pooh curtains and quilt cover.

‘Hello, my precious?’ She leaned down and lifted her daughter into her arms.

‘Mamee.’ Hannah snuggled in to her, her head of copper curls tangled and delightfully awry after her sleep. What joy this child had brought them, she thought gratefully, pushing
aside all thoughts of family feuds as she tickled her daughter, who squealed with glee and begged for more.

Shauna had cried when she’d held her for the first time and Carrie had felt a pang of pity for her younger sister. So far there was no sign of her getting pregnant and it was a huge source
of grief and angst to her. Greg was being totally selfish as far as Carrie was concerned and she was losing any respect and affection she had had for him. What was it about the Cassidy siblings?
Their self-centredness was incredible. She’d often felt sorry for Greg having a sister like Della, but as far as she could see he was getting as bad as she was.

‘Don’t tell me it’s not our business, I know it’s not. I’m just saying it to you,’ she’d told Dan. ‘I need to get it off my chest. I think
he’s being a bit of a bollox,’ she’d burst out after the Cassidys had gone back to Abu Dhabi at the end of the previous summer.

‘You won’t get any argument from me there,’ Dan had said quietly and she’d felt relieved that she wasn’t alone in her thinking.

She was really looking forward to seeing Shauna and Chloe, Greg she could take or leave. According to Shauna he’d turned into an even bigger workaholic than he’d been at home so she
probably wouldn’t see that much of him, which would suit her fine.

‘Filomena, will you take these videos back to Spinneys and bring Chloe with you while I’m having my coffee morning? You can take her to the Pizza Hut for a treat.
Will you set out the coffee cups and plates before you go? I still have a box of florentines; I’ll serve them with the biscuits.’ Shauna peeled and sliced a couple of juicy mangoes and
put them in a dish for Chloe. She had just come from her early morning workout and she needed to change and get herself organized fast.

‘Don’t want to go for a walk with Filomena,’ Chloe said sulkily. ‘I want to stay here.’

‘Don’t you want to go to the Pizza Hut? You can have Diet Coke if you’re very, very good.’

‘Why don’t you come, Mom? You said you’d come,’ Chloe entreated.

‘Not today, darling. I have to have my Newcomers’ Coffee Morning,’ she explained patiently. ‘How about tomorrow afternoon you and I go to the beach with Jenna and
Carly?’

‘OK,’ Chloe muttered and Shauna bit her lip. She had her rug appreciation group this afternoon and tonight she and Greg were invited to an art exhibition in the Cultural Centre. Greg
was anxious to go as he had spent the last year working on designs for a chain of new hotels across the UAE. The one in Dubai was almost completed and he and the manager were looking for just the
right piece of artwork to hang in the foyer. He wanted something different, something out of the ordinary. He was hoping he might find something that would suit tonight.

Chloe always got very cross when Shauna was busy with her activities. It would be good for her to start school in September. This summer, she was going to devote all her time to her daughter,
Shauna promised herself as she hurried down the marble-floored hall to her bedroom. Filomena had made the bed and cleaned the en suite. Shauna had showered in the gym but her hair was damp and she
plugged in the hair dryer and began to dry it, sitting on the edge of the huge bed that dominated the bedroom.

Della had nearly got lockjaw when she’d seen the bedroom, Shauna remembered with a grin. It
was
luxurious. An emperor-size bed dominated the room. Dressed in oyster and cream,
with big plump cushions and pillows, it was sumptuous. Cool swathes of cream muslin and slatted cream blinds shaded the room from the brilliant sunlight. Cream and gold pieces of furniture –
drawers, dressing table and bedside lockers – were attractive as well as functional. Richly woven rugs lent warmth to the cool marble floor. A huge painting of a red-gold poppy decorated the
wall facing the floor-to-ceiling sliding doors that led out onto a wide, terracotta-tiled balcony. A walk-in wardrobe and a tiled en suite completed the room.

Her bedroom at home always seemed so small after this room, she mused as she dried her highlighted blond hair. Greg loved this room. He loved the apartment and he loved living in the Gulf. Their
lifestyle was the envy of many, she was well aware of that, but deep down she harboured a resentment that was hard to ignore sometimes. She still wasn’t pregnant despite several very
upsetting rows.

He’d asked her to give him time to settle into the job and get established and she had tried to explain that time was passing. She was thirty-six next birthday, and even if they did have a
baby it would be no company for Chloe, who was five now and would soon be going to school.

‘Soon,’ he kept saying. ‘Soon.’ She’d noticed that whenever she started getting on to him about it he’d stay later and later in the office, or else go off on
inspection trips to Bahrain, Dubai and Doha, but once she let the subject drop and played the dutiful wife he was cheerful and exuberant and full of the joys of life. The life and soul of the
party.

And there were plenty of parties and functions to attend. Life in the Gulf was one hectic social whirl and while she enjoyed it and had plenty of friends, she enjoyed going home in the summer to
escape from the intense heat and humidity, to recharge her batteries and flop for the weeks until Greg came home. Once he was home, they entertained for most of the time and her lazy days of
lounging out on Carrie’s deck while the kids played together were over.

She made up her face carefully. She’d bought some expensive Sisley make-up the day before and she enjoyed trying out the new green and brown shades that she’d selected. They brought
out the gold flecks in her blue eyes and she expertly applied some liquid eyeliner to emphasize them even more.

She strolled into her walk-in closet and flicked through the rails of clothes before selecting an ice pink pair of beautifully tailored Capri pants and a white broderie anglaise off-the-shoulder
top. That would do fine for her coffee morning. The top was a little too revealing to be out and about in. She’d wear a dress to her rug appreciation group.

Filomena had laid out the coffee cups in the lounge, on the large low coffee table that stood in front of the cream leather sofas. The lounge too was decorated in cool cream and gold, modern
luxurious sofas mixing with antique pieces that she’d picked up here and there. Her favourite piece was a sideboard carved out of highly polished wood with delicate filigree work and tiny
little drawers. She’d seen it in the souk in Oman and bought it and some hand-carved wooden bowls on a shopping trip that a crowd of them had taken.

A silk triptych in golds, reds and yellows adorned one of the magnolia walls. It drew the eye with its large bright splashes of colour, in contrast to the muted pastel shades that were
predominant in the big room. Sliding doors led to the balcony and the curtains rippled in the light, warm breeze that whispered in off the sea. Shauna stood looking out at the sparkling aquamarine
waters of the Arabian Gulf, which dazzled the newly arrived expatriate or visitor but sometimes left her longing for the turbulent, grey, choppy whitecap waves of the Irish Sea.

‘We’re going now, ma’am,’ Filomena called from the hallway. Shauna walked out to say goodbye. Her au pair, round-faced and cuddly, with a head of black curls and eyes as
dark as melting chocolate, stood in the hall with her hand in Chloe’s. Filomena was twenty-five and from the Philippines. She was a hard worker, conscientious and extremely trustworthy.
Shauna knew that she was very lucky with her.

She also knew that Filomena was equally lucky with her and Greg. Some maids were treated like dirt and worked to the bone. Shauna made sure that her employee had good time off and was paid a
decent wage. Filomena was very good with Chloe, although sometimes Shauna felt she gave in to her too much. Chloe was in danger of being spoilt and Shauna tried her best to guard against it.

There had been more than a few rows with her cousins at Christmas. Shauna hid a grin, remembering Chloe stomping off to her bedroom shouting ‘I don’t care if caring is sharing,
I’m not sharing with Ashley. He’s breaking all my toys!’ The holiday had been fraught, to say the least, especially as the weather had been uncharacteristically bad and
they’d been stuck in a lot.

‘See you later, darling.’ She bent down to kiss Chloe who turned her head away, her gorgeous little mouth pursed in a thin line. ‘Why are you being cross with me?’ Shauna
knelt down. ‘Isn’t Filomena going to bring you to Pizza Hut as a treat?’

‘I want to go with you.’

‘Oh, poor Filomena. That’s not nice,’ Shauna chided. ‘I have to meet some ladies who are new out here and have no friends, not like me and you who have loads of friends.
Come on, give me a kiss and a hug.’

Reluctantly her daughter planted a kiss on her cheek and took her nanny’s hand. ‘’Bye,’ she said glumly and marched stoically out the door.

Shauna sighed deeply. This lifestyle was hard on kids, she acknowledged. Chloe saw little of her father. Greg was gone at the crack of dawn and often home after she’d gone to bed.
She’d make friends and then they’d be gone, their parents moving to another position in the peripatetic life of the permanent expat. She was lucky she’d had Filomena since they
had come to Abu Dhabi. Some of her friends changed nannies every couple of months and seemed to have no continuity in their childcare.

It would be wonderful to have Carrie and Dan and the kids out for Easter. That would give Chloe a sense of family. And then it would be no time until the summer and they’d be home
again.

The doorbell rang and the first of her guests announced their arrival at the intercom. Taking a deep breath, Shauna prepared to greet two newcomers to Abu Dhabi, just as three years ago she too
had been welcomed into the expat community and made to feel at home.

‘You’re
all
going to visit Shauna. At Easter! Oh!’ Noel couldn’t hide his dismay at Carrie’s news. ‘I suppose I’ll have to
fend for myself so.’

‘I’ll cook dinners and put them in the freezer for you; you won’t have to fend for yourself. You know we haven’t been out at all to see Shauna and she’s there three
years, Dad. In fact we haven’t been on a holiday together for a long time and it’s good timing for the kids. They won’t miss much school at all, just a day or two,’ Carrie
explained patiently.

‘So I’ll have nobody here in case anything goes wrong?’ he exclaimed mournfully.

‘What’s going to go wrong?’ She tried to hide her exasperation.

‘Well I’m hardly over this dose. It could come back. It could even develop into pneumonia or pleurisy.’ Her father sank down onto his chair at the kitchen table.

‘You’re not going to get pneumonia or pleurisy. Sure your cough is gone.’

‘Ah it kept me awake a bit last night.’ He scowled. ‘And I’ll have nobody to come to the Easter ceremonies with me either. It will be a lonely Easter for me.’

‘Do you think that you could make me feel any worse, Dad?’ Carrie snapped. ‘I haven’t had a decent holiday in years. Dan has worked all the hours God sends. We’re
going away for two bloody weeks, not a lifetime, and you’re taking all the good out of it. I’ve asked the nurse to keep an eye on you and Mrs O’Neill is next door if you’re
stuck, and if anything awful happens you can ring Bobby.’ She was so angry she didn’t care what she said.

‘As if I’d ring
him
,’ Noel was affronted. ‘After the way he spoke to me.’

‘Well that’s your problem, not mine. And you’d want to sort it. I’m disgusted that you’ve taken all the good out of my holiday. That was really, really selfish,
Dad. I’m going. I’ll see you with your dinner tomorrow.’ She grabbed her coat and burst into tears.