Homecoming (36 page)

They’d gone on to a small café and sat outside so they could smoke. Rob had his arm around her and was kissing her, telling her how much he loved the look of her new bracelet, when they heard the click of a camera.

With his lifetime experience of the press, Rob didn’t jerk up. He’d straightened his back slightly, which made him look longer and leaner in the photo.

It was Megan who’d leapt to her feet and dragged him with her back to the hotel.

‘What’s going to happen?’ she said, frightened. ‘What will Katharine think? You have to tell her what’s happened. And Charles…’

‘Relax. I’ll get the photo killed.’ Rob sounded so cool about the whole thing. ‘It happens all the time. I’ll do an exclusive interview for the newspaper, buy the snapper off. It’ll be fine. Charles is good at this kind of thing.’

This kind of thing.

Megan stared at him. ‘What kind of thing?’ she asked, feeling a coldness flow through her body.

‘Photos I don’t want out there,’ Rob replied. ‘Come on, you know how this business works.’

‘Not like this, I don’t,’ she stammered.

‘It’s simple. If you’re powerful enough, you can stop the bad news leaking out.’ Rob seemed to be enjoying this, this evidence of his great power. ‘I’ll phone Charles.’

While he phoned, Megan packed her bag, her hands shaking. She thought of phoning Carole, her agent, but didn’t quite know what to say: ‘Hi, I’ve just had an affair with Rob Hartnell and, while I thought it was love, I don’t think that any more. He’s changed.’

‘Where are you going?’ Rob demanded when he saw her with the bag.

‘I don’t know. Home.’

He went over to her and stroked her face, looking at her with those amazing eyes. ‘You don’t have to go. You’re special, Megan.’

‘You’ve done this before,’ she said, knowing suddenly. ‘You told me you hadn’t.’

‘Come on, Megan, that’s what all men say.’

‘I wouldn’t have come here with you if I’d thought that,’ she said. ‘I believed what you said, that it was special, that you’d never cheated on your wife before.’

He shrugged and moved away from her. His eyes weren’t so warm any more. ‘We all believe what we want to believe. There’s no need to go. We could have fun together.’

Megan shook her head. She desperately wanted it to go back to the way it had been before, but she knew it couldn’t. There was no way of unknowing what she knew now.

She picked up her bag and walked towards the suite door. By the time she closed it gently behind her, Rob was already on the phone.

‘Charles couldn’t do his magic,’ Megan told Eleanor. ‘Not this time. When I got to Heathrow, the story was out. I hid in my flat for a while, and finally I came here. They’re never going to stop talking about this. I’ll be Mantrapper Megan forever.’

‘No, you won’t,’ said Eleanor. ‘The world does move on. This year’s cause célèbre is next year’s ancient history. It will all be forgotten.’

‘I wish that was the case,’ sighed Megan. ‘I’ll never forget it, anyway. Maybe I shouldn’t have run away. I should have faced the music, then and there.’

Eleanor said nothing to that.

Megan was right. It was what Eleanor had done too.

Feeling unsettled, Eleanor stared at the girl in her apartment. She’d become so unused to company. During her stay in Golden Square, the most time she’d spent with other people had been a few hours here and there. And now Megan had burst into her life, bringing with her great drama, and her emotional pain.

Something in Eleanor recognised the pain in Megan: it was reflected in herself.

While Megan had been here, Eleanor hadn’t thought of herself really, apart from the moment of recognition in realising that she, too, had run away.

Perhaps distraction was what she needed. Here was a chance to help someone else. Here was a chance to escape her own pain and perhaps heal someone else’s.

The words were out of her mouth before she could edit herself.

‘Megan, would you like to stay with me? You’re welcome to. It would be so nice to have you here.’

The smile Megan gave her was of such sweetness that Eleanor smiled back with the sort of true smile she hadn’t been capable of for a long time. It was the effect Megan must have had on many people, Eleanor thought. Her face really did light up the room.

‘If you’re sure, I’d love that, thank you,’ Megan said.

‘Wonderful,’ said Eleanor briskly. ‘That’s settled.’

19
The Wake

There are many different traditions for a wake. A woman I met on the boat to New York told me about a whole week of a wake in the Dingle Peninsula and how the dead man’s family thought it was a fitting tribute to the man himself, a musician and farmer.

It wasn’t the same in Kilmoney. Two days were long enough to wake any corpse. When the children were small and there was a death in the house, the corpse would be in one bedroom and all the children would sleep in another. The people closest to the corpse would sit all night beside it, holding its hand, so to speak, and telling stories of the good times in the past.

Joe’s mother would make gur cake for funerals. She’d had it in Dublin once, and she loved it, for all that it was cake made out of the leftover cake or currant bread of the day before. She was long gone, God bless her soul, by the time Joe died.

It was a mercy: she had loved him with all her heart and it would have broken that same heart if she’d had to look at him cold in the coffin.

I made gur cake for his wake. Doing it helped me somehow and I used his mother’s recipe. Brew strong
tea and soak the leftover bread or cake in the tea overnight, with mixed spice and chopped apple. The next day, mix in butter and egg, put the mixture between two layers of pastry, and bake.

You were so little, I know you don’t remember him well. If Joe hadn’t died, we’d never have left Connemara, that’s for sure. Your father loved the land and the sea. It was in his soul. But with him gone, we couldn’t survive.

Many people told me we should stay, that Joe would have wanted it that way.

I told them he’d have wanted us all to be happy and fed. When I said goodbye to his grave, I knew I’d never be back. He was with me in my heart, all the same. The grave was a piece of earth with mortal remains. Joe is always with me.

During the week she stayed with Eleanor, Megan worked her way through the books in Eleanor’s spare room. The people who owned the apartment were very into crime and there were many Agatha Christies, some Dashiell Hammett and a couple of Carl Hiaasens. There was nothing else she could do. There was only one television in the apartment, it wasn’t connected to cable and Eleanor only turned it on for the news. There was also no way Megan could go outside, what with the photographers who appeared to have set up camp close to Nora’s clinic since the story had broken.

What was lovely was that Eleanor had proved to be a marvellous hostess. Not in the making-meals sense, but in the leaving Megan to her own devices sense. Eleanor was very unlike Megan’s aunt Nora in that she didn’t organise breakfasts or dinner for them, but enquired would Megan like a bit of an omelette, perhaps?

Or what did Megan think about listening to some swing music?

It was a very relaxing way to live.

Nora had been in a few times with groceries.

‘You’ve been so good to us,’ Nora said to Eleanor each time, and Megan was greatly touched by the use of the term ‘us’. It meant that, despite everything, Nora still saw Megan as family rather than as a particularly irritating black sheep.

Connie dropped in most days, often wearing mad hats as disguise – more for fun than anything else.

She kept the two women filled in on what was happening.

‘Kev has been in the
Sun
twice now,’ she said. ‘All the photographers think he must be your new boyfriend, so they photograph him all the time. But his real girlfriend, someone he met scuba diving, marched out yesterday to tell them that
she
was his girlfriend, thank you very much, and she’d take an injunction out against them if they said otherwise again.’

‘Is she a lawyer?’ asked Eleanor.

‘No. She does triathalons. Kev sighs romantically and says she’s tough as old boots. I think it’s love. I really think Kev needs a strong woman, don’t you?’ Connie asked Megan, in an attempt to divert her.

Megan was not diverted. ‘Poor Kev,’ she said. ‘It’s all my fault, this whole media circus.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Connie briskly. ‘Besides, not everyone’s complaining. Prudence Maguire is in her element. She spends her day talking out of the side of her mouth to the reporters, telling them about dodgy planning deals, why the council must be bent, and that the people in the top-floor flat at No. 71 are operating a drug den.’

‘That nice young couple with the pug?’ asked Eleanor.

‘He has dreadlocks,’ Connie explained. ‘In Prudence’s mind, it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from dreadlocks to drug dealer. Any word from your agent?’ she enquired gently. She’d finally tracked down Carole Baird the day the photographer had caught Megan. Finding her had involved a call to Pippa in Wales, who’d been upset at the news but had explained to Connie that there was no way she could leave her children to comfort Megan.

‘Tell her I’ll phone her on her mobile,’ Pippa said.

‘Of course,’ said Connie neutrally, thinking that Megan was too upset to talk to anyone right now.

Carole had been much more matter of fact. She’d said it was inevitable someone would find Megan.

‘Why won’t they leave her alone?’ Connie had asked.

‘That’s not how it works, dearie,’ snapped Carole. ‘The game isn’t over until someone gets Megan’s confession of why, what, where and how sorry she is. Plus photographs, preferably with a rescue dog or orphans in a far-flung orphanage. Sudan might be good.’ Carole sounded thoughtful. ‘They haven’t sorted Sudan out yet, have they?’

‘Should she wear combat fatigues for the pictures or would that be thoughtless in a war zone?’ Connie demanded with an acidity she hadn’t known she possessed.

‘No, plain army green is better,’ Carole said. ‘More
Private Benjamin.
Is her hair still blonde? She said she’d got it dyed – it was hard to tell in the photos…’

Connie ignored this. ‘Megan is in shock, Carole. She doesn’t want to talk about it or pose with poor orphaned dogs. I need to know what she should do now. Is there a plan?’

‘This is fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants stuff,’ Carole replied. ‘There’s no plan. She’ll have to come out of hiding sometime, no matter how bruised she is. Listen, if you sign on for fame, you sign on for all that goes with it.’

‘No plan, then. We can do what we like?’

‘If she wants to hide, hide her. If she wants to tell the story, phone me ASAP. I know Megan. She’s a fighter. She’ll get bored and want some limelight soon enough. I’ll call her.’

Carole had subsequently called every day.

‘Your friend thinks I’m a heartless bitch,’ she said. ‘I could tell she didn’t like my damage-limitation stories.’

Megan felt offended on Connie’s behalf. ‘Not everyone thinks it’s OK to use other people’s misfortune as a get-out-of-jail-free card,’ she said.

‘It’s not like that,’ Carole said, unconcerned. ‘Everyone profits from it. The dog people profit from it and so does the star.’

‘It’s the African orphan idea she didn’t like,’ Megan said.

‘Oh, that was never really a runner,’ sighed Carole. ‘Now that so many big Hollywood people are into the whole refugee thing, it’s not easy to get your foot in the door there. No, rescue dogs are where it’s at. Or inner-city drug addicts. When you’re ready, Megan.’

‘We’ve been offered half a million for my side of the story,’ Megan informed Connie and Eleanor later.

‘Is that good?’ asked Connie.

‘Carole said we shouldn’t accept lower than one million.’

‘Except you don’t plan to sell your story,’ Eleanor said quietly.

‘Exactly,’ said Megan, and thought that, just months earlier, she’d treated everything Carole Baird said as if it were gospel. What Carole said went – or at least it had, before the Rob Hartnell affair. And now, after Rob and all the media reports, Megan wasn’t sure if she even liked the world she’d got into.

Acting, she loved. It was all the stuff that went with it that she didn’t like. Posing with rescue dogs to save her image. She hated the very idea of it. Why couldn’t she simply act and not do any of the other stuff?

A little voice inside her told her why – she wouldn’t be the darling ‘it’ girl if she didn’t look for media attention and have Carole tip off photographers when she was going to the shop for a cappuccino. She’d chosen that route. There was no point being shocked about the manipulation of the media – the way Rob had planned it – when she was guilty of manipulating it herself.

Megan was leaning out the fire escape, having an after-dinner cigarette, and Connie was loading the dishwasher when Eleanor mentioned the trip to Connemara.

‘I know you said you’d come with me,’ she said to Megan, ‘but we’ve never talked about it since, and I thought you’d probably forgotten about it.’

Megan coloured. She had forgotten all about it.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly.

‘No, that’s fine. I never mentioned it to you again, but I actually booked a B&B, a car and a tour guide who specialises in helping people who want to find places where their families lived. I’d planned to go next month, but seeing as you’re in hiding, how about we go now? If the guide is free, we could go for three days or four and, at the end of it, you might have an idea what you want to do. Your agent is right about one thing: you can’t hide forever.’

‘What if someone recognises me?’

‘We’ll get you a nice baseball hat and I’ll find a couple of my oversized shirts and nobody will have a clue who you are,’ said Connie. ‘If they think for even one moment that you look a bit like an actress from the telly, they’ll decide they must be wrong. People from the telly wouldn’t be seen dead in an outfit like that.’