Never Too Late (23 page)

to the bed, have Evie stroke her hair the way she had years

ago, and tell her everything. About Owen and what he’d

said, about how he’d made her feel: trapped, scared and

totally vulnerable. About how terrifying it had been when

he’d started to drag her clothes off and how he hadn’t

listened to her crying ‘no’.

But Cara couldn’t say the words. Lost in shock and the

terrifying newness of the situation, she was silent.

It was like swimming out of her depth, desperately

treading water and trying to grab a foothold but the

bottom was so far away she couldn’t roach it. Even talking about what had happened was beyond her.

‘I hope you don’t think you’re going to wander in here

every night smelling like a brewery,’ said Evie crossly, tired

after an evening that had included helping a fractious

eleven-year-old Rosie with her sums and trying to fit in

some envelope-stuffing overtime in between finishing off

the ironing. ‘It’s not on, you know, Cara. I expect you to

behave like an adult not some wild student type. Dad

expects me to look after you but I’m not going to if you’re

going to start drinking heavily.’

Cara stood silently, like a deer startled by a lorry’s

headlights, every nerve in her body poised to throw herself

into Evie’s arms and be comforted. She wanted to say that

she’d hated the taste of the Scotch, had hated the way it

burned her throat, and had hated the way it had tasted on

Owen’s breath when he’d forced his mouth against hers,

stubble grinding into her skin like a cheese grater. But she

couldn’t think about that now.

‘I’m going to bed, Evie,’ was all she said. ‘Sorry I’m late.’

She’d never told her sister about Owen Theal. She’d

wanted to but the guilt had stopped her. It was all her own

fault, she knew. Her fault for not knowing better. Zoe had

known better, but Cara had stupidly been so convinced she

was this clever, mature woman that she’d blundered into a

scary part of the grownup world and there was nobody

else to blame for it but herself

She couldn’t bear to have her sister blame her; she

wanted Evie to comfort her. She wanted Evie to know

instinctively that something had happened. Which was

madness. Evie never knew and, irrationally, Cara had not

been able to forgive her sister, her surrogate mother, for

not knowing. She’d never quite got over it and she never

forgot. Owen Theal haunted her as if he slept in her bed

every night as she went over it endlessly in her mind.

She wondered what would have happened if she’d

handled it differently. If she’d thrown his Scotch all over

him and told him he could shove his ‘you’re so talented’

speech where the sun didn’t shine. It way a bit like wanting

to turn back time after witnessing some awful accident.

Standing numbly by the road and thinking if only the van

driver had been looking properly, he’d have seen the cyclist

coming towards him. And if only the cyclist hadn’t

swerved to avoid that pothole, he wouldn’t be lying on the

road in a crumpled heap, limbs at odd angles …

If only. She thought that all the time. A mixture of if

only and why the bloody hell was she such a moron as to

fall for his patter, why hadn’t she given in to her instinct

and run, why had she let him get away with it? Zoe had

faced exactly the same scenario and she’d come through it

with flying colours. Caustic as ever, she’d told Theal what

she’d do to him if he ever laid a hand on her again.

And she’d even told him he’d better not think about

messing around with her grades as punishment. ‘I’ve

always got straight As in History of Art before,’ she’d

hissed. ‘I don’t want to find myself getting Ds because you

want your revenge, understand?’

A week afterwards, Zoe had asked Cara what was

wrong.

‘You’re totally different, you never wear your red lipstick

anymore. What’s the beef?’ she demanded.

Eventually, she’d wangled the story out of her and it was

only because Cara had begged her not to that she didn’t

run to the college head’s office immediately.

That bastard deserves to lose his job and end up in the

nick,’ she’d howled. ‘Please let me tell, Cara? He’ll only do

it to some other poor kid if you don’t.’

Terrified of having to explain what happened, she

refused.

The upshot was that they’d become best friends. They’d

laughed together, shopped together, got drunk together

and gone on holiday together, although they’d never shared

a flat because they both knew that Cara’s messy style of

living would have driven the precise and very tidy Zoe

stone mad. She was the only person who knew why Cara

was a disaster area when it came to men. Phoebe knew

something had happened in her flatmate’s dark past but

she didn’t know exactly what. Which was why she never

nagged her to get a date, and why Zoe did.

Her teeth brushed, Cara flicked off the bathroom light

and went back into her room. She pulled off her clothes,

slipped on a fresh T-shirt and climbed into bed. Zoe was

probably right - she ought to stop ending up in bed with

people like Eric and concentrate on having a real relationship.

It wasn’t that easy, though.

To have a relationship, you had to let the other person

into your heart and Cara was wary of such closeness.

Closeness meant you got hurt; closeness meant letting

down your defences and letting people see the tender skin

under the carapace. After years of building up the sort of

defences that a tank would be proud of) Cara was nervous

of letting them down.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Bugger! I’ve lost my glasses again. I must have left them in

that monstrosity of a shop without the lift. You’ll have to

find them for me,’ said the imperious voice. Then, ‘No,

wait, maybe they’re in here.’

Sybil de Were hauled her ancient brown leather handbag

up by the strap from the floor of Bewley’s Oriental

Tearooms and started rummaging inside it with nicotine

stained fingers.

Olivia and Evie exchanged weary glances over the coffee

pot before Olivia reached over to stop the higgledypiggledy

detritus of her mother’s handbag spilling off the

table as Sybil lost patience and emptied the whole thing on

top of a half-eaten cream bun.

Squashed up cigarette packets with flakes of tobacco

clinging to them fell on to the plate, joined by bits of

paper, pen tops, lipsticked tissues, what looked suspiciously

like cat worming tablets and a baby bottle of

Power’s.

‘In case I needed heating up,’ she said, whisking the

bottle away from her daughter and pouring it into her

coffee. The scent of whiskey rose into the air beguilingly

and Evie and Olivia exchanged yet another glance. Without

speaking, they both knew what the other was thinking:

‘I could do with a drink myself!’

After three hours dragging Olivia’s crotchety mother

around the streets of Dublin, looking for a suitable outfit

for Evie’s father’s wedding, both women could have done

with a quadruple vodka and tonic, if only to ward off the

memory of Sybil dropping a very nice crepe suit to the

floor in the changing room of Marks and Spencer’s and

rudely demanding to know what had happened to

Switzer’s.

‘It’s gone, Mother,’ hissed Olivia as she tried to smile

apologetically at the changing room assistant, a difficult

task when your face was set in a rictus of embarrassment. ‘It’s my favourite shop. Whaddya mean “gone”?’

demanded Sybil crossly, attempting to kick the suit out of

her way as she reached for a lavender polo-neck jumper

that had seen better days.

‘Gone, closed down, no more,’ snapped Evie, whose own

teeth were clenched with temper. ‘Let’s get out of here, I

need a tea break.’

While Olivia, puce with mortification over her mother’s

behaviour, apologised over and over again to the assistant,

Evie swung into action. She gathered up Sybil’s belongings

and helped her on with her mothball-scented fur coat.

Rosie had grinned that morning when she’d seen Sybil

arrive at their house in all her three-quarter-length mink

glory.

‘You’re brave wearing that, Auntie Sybil,’ she’d said.

‘Some animal liberation rights person might spill red paint

all over you.’

‘Then I’ll spill it right back over them,’ declared Sybil.

‘She would, too,’ Evie muttered.

Luckily, the shoppers on (Grafton Street were all too

busy wielding brollies and trying to avoid the lashing

early-February downpour to bother with a white-haired,

gin-mottled sexagenarian in a coat that looked more rat than mink after forty years of hard wear. So the threesome made it safely to Bewley’s where they sat with their coffee

and Evie wondered yet again why she’d agreed to accompany

Olivia and her mother on this shopping expedition.

Well, she knew really. Olivia’s begging had done it.

‘Please, please, come, Evie! ! can’t cope with her on my

own, you know.’

Realising that Olivia was more than a little depressed,

not up to hours of listening to her mother’s bitching, and

certainly not up to Sybil’s imperiously demanding lunch

plus copious amounts of wine at five past twelve, Evie had

said yes. Which meant she was spending the last Saturday

before the wedding looking for something for Sybil de

bloody Were to wear when she still hadn’t found anything

for herself.

She’d toyed with the idea of going in her best outfit, a

red and black suit she’d bought in the sales two years

previously. But everyone had seen her wearing it and she

didn’t want her father to think she hadn’t bothered. Now

that she was actually going to the wedding, she’d decided

to give it her best shot.

Evie didn’t approve but nobody was going to call her a

spoilt, selfish creature who couldn’t bear to see anyone

take her place. Well, nobody was ever going to call her that again. It had been painful enough the first time Cara had flung the accusation at her. She wasn’t going to give her

sister the opportunity a second time.

So Evie would dance at her father’s wedding, sip champagne

and smile for the photos, no matter what her

misgivings were. And if she bought something new, it

could double for her own going away outfit at her wedding

in September.

‘I hate that colour on you,’ Sybil was saying, glaring at

Olivia, immaculate and beautiful in a saffron satin shirt

that matched the pale gold strands of her hair and made

her look like a mermaid on a day out at the hairdresser’s.

‘You look washed out.’

Olivia, used to a lifetime of such catty comments, sipped

her coffee silently.

And no matter how had Vida was, Evie told herself, she

was nothing like poor Olivia’s nightmare of a mother.

Imagine growing up with that!

‘Stephen doesn’t like it either. He told me so, said you

looked nicer in grey,’ Sybil added triumphantly. ‘Yellow is

so tarty.’

God, she was such a bitch, Evie thought.

‘I think you look lovely,’ she told Olivia firmly.

Her friend smiled gratefully.

The conversation died after that and they sat in silence

for another few minutes while Evie wondered if they

should shop a bit more or just abandon the whole enterprise

and send Sybil to the wedding in one of her trademark

cat-pee-andmoth-ball-scented rig outs.

Sybil’s sense of smell was shot after years of smoking like

a trooper and she never appeared to realise she ponged

more of Eau de Moggy than Eau de Cologne.

‘Don’t know why we can’t go to a bar for a snifter,’ she

grumbled once she’d finished her whiskey-laced coffee.

‘Shopping’s easier with a couple of tots inside you.’

‘It’d be easier if we could stop at a couple of tots,’ Evie

said, steel in her voice. ‘But then ten or twelve is a couple for some people.’ She eyeballed Sybil icily until the older woman finally looked away.

Sybil recognised a foe worthy of her steel in Evie.

Olivia gave her friend another grateful grin. Nobody

could put her mother in her box like Evie. Nobody else dared.

For a few brief seconds, Evie considered their options.

She and Olivia could stuff Sybil in a taxi, give the poor

driver a tenner and a couple of aspirin for the headache

he’d inevitably have after three minutes, and send her to

the train station. Then they could meander along gratefully

to The Duke, have a revitalising drink and head back to the

shops to buy something for themselves.

Idyllic. But, sadly, not realistic. Evie sighed, got up from

her chair and marshalled the troops.

‘Right, we’ve got another hour to find you something,

Sybil, and I’ve just thought of the place we should go. It’s a

little shop that specialises in event clothes and they’ve got

beautiful wedding stuff. I saw an advert for it in Style magazine with photos of a couple of very flattering suits.’

‘Nothing insipid,’ Sibyl said with a bitchy glance