Stand by Me (64 page)
Dominique hadn’t interrupted him. Now she handed him a paper napkin and he blew his nose.
‘When I discovered she was pregnant, I nearly died,’ he said. ‘I thought, at first, that it was my baby. But she told me it wasn’t. And I realised I’d been arrogant again in thinking that. And that I’d completely blocked out of my head the fact that she had another life. Not only was I a sinful, useless priest, but I was unwanted by the person I’d sinned with too.’
‘Oh, Gabriel ...’
‘She was right, of course. She’d only wanted me to see what I’d be like, and I disappointed her. So she went back home.’
‘Would you have left the priesthood for her?’ asked Dominique. ‘If she’d wanted you to?’
‘I knew then that I was going to leave,’ Gabriel said. ‘I didn’t love her, but I wanted to sleep with her again. And at the same time I was supposed to be supporting her while her mother was sick. I was a mess. And then I suppose I came to my senses. When I saw her and she was pregnant ...’ He sighed. ‘She didn’t love me either, Domino. She just wanted to sleep with me.’
‘Emma could never get over the fact that you weren’t interested in her,’ said Dominique. ‘You became a challenge. But she did have feelings for you, I know that. It was what worried me about the two of you all along.’
‘Does she love Greg?’
Dominique took a sip of her coffee and then replaced the cup carefully on its saucer. ‘Greg is a good man. He’s very caring and loving. Maybe she thought that was what she needed. I know that he desperately wanted someone to love him too. Maybe that’s what we all want. Will you find someone, Gabe?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe one day. I’m not really equipped yet for emotional attachments. But I’ll get there eventually.’
‘I hope so,’ said Dominique gently. ‘You deserve it.’
‘At least you have someone,’ said Gabriel.
‘Huh?’
‘Brendan does love you. He said it over and over again in Panama. He meant it.’
‘Funny way of showing it.’ Dominique sighed.
‘He was lost,’ said Gabriel. ‘He didn’t know where to turn.’
‘He should’ve turned to me.’
‘He was afraid of letting you down.’
‘He did that anyway,’ said Dominique.
‘Do you forgive him?’
‘Do you want me to?’
‘It’s important,’ Gabriel told her.
‘Oh, I know.’
‘You’ve been fantastic so far.’
‘I know that too.’
‘But he worries about the future.’
‘So do I.’
‘He needs you.’
‘Does he?’
‘You can work it out,’ said Gabriel.
‘Maybe,’ was all Dominique said in return.
She went for her walk after the coffee. She walked along the seafront and sat on one of the public benches, staring out at the sea, which was being whipped into a froth by the coastal wind. Gabriel wanted everything to be simple, she thought. Right and wrong. Black and white. But there were shades of grey. There always would be.
She just didn’t know what her shade of grey actually was.
Chapter 34
The invitation, when it arrived, was a surprise. It was addressed to Brendan and Dominique Delahaye, and because she was home before him, Dominique opened it. It was to a reception in Cork to mark the opening of a new sporting facility in the city. Although Brendan had been involved in the initial planning stages for the centre and she herself had helped with a fund-raising event for it, Dominique nevertheless wondered if the invitation had been sent by mistake. She couldn’t imagine that the organisers would really want either of them to attend the opening ceremony, even though the media fuss around the court case had died down. Or maybe, she thought cynically, they’d been invited precisely because of the media fuss, in the hopes that it would create more publicity for the centre. It was so hard to know whether people wanted them for themselves or for what they could bring. The last bit of fuss about them had been Brendan’s return to the workforce, which, much to her surprise, had been reported on the news.
She’d been pleased when he got the job so quickly, not starting out again as a brickie as he’d suggested, but working as an adviser to a small construction company on planned future projects. He’d called the managing director, a man he’d met a couple of times previously, and set up a meeting with him, after which he’d come back to the house and told her that they were putting a contract in place. Dominique couldn’t believe it had been so easy, and she admired the way he’d simply picked up the phone and made the call, not worrying about what Pat Donnelly thought of him.
There were so many things she could admire him for. And so many things to blame him for. But what was the point in spending your time resenting someone’s actions? Brendan had admitted his mistakes, got over his reaction to them, picked himself up and started to move on again. She was proud of him for that. And she was still being as supportive as possible. She knew how important it was to have support when you’d gone through a tough time. She knew how easy it was, even when things seemed to be going your way and you were feeling better about life, to allow despair to creep back into your heart. So she had allowed time to drift by and they were still living together in the house in Fairview and had become, in everyone eyes, Mr and Mrs Delahaye again. Not the Dazzling Delahayes this time. No glitz and glamour and high-profile social occasions. But already there had been murmurings that Brendan Delahaye was doing great work for Keystone Construction, and now they were being invited to a reception along with politicians, councillors, local businessmen and sportspeople. They were being included in the fold once more.
She turned the invitation over in her hand. If they accepted, they would be making a very public statement. About themselves and about their future together. They hadn’t yet had a serious conversation about their future, though she knew that it was something they had to do.
In the weeks since Brendan’s return, he had lived with her in the house in Fairview but she hadn’t allowed him to share the bedroom with her. She hadn’t been able to allow him close to her. She didn’t know whether it was because she was still, deep down, angry with him for leaving them, or whether it was because she was afraid that if she allowed him into her bed, he’d take back a level of control over her life that, during the months of his disappearance, she’d reclaimed for herself. She didn’t say this to Brendan; she simply told him that she wasn’t ready to sleep with him, and he’d replied that he understood her feelings and that he would wait until he’d proved himself to her, which made her feel as though she was being harsh and unreasonable, especially as he seemed to have put his foot on the ladder of success again.
Maeve told her that she wasn’t being harsh and unreasonable at all, that he’d left her to deal with his pile of shit and that he’d had a damn cheek turning up on her doorstep again in the first place. He’d abandoned her, Maeve pointed out. She shouldn’t just take him back. But Dominique had replied that she owed it to him to support him now and that she couldn’t tell him to leave. Unless that was what Maeve wanted. Which made Maeve shake her head and say that of course he could stay, even though it was clear to Dominique that she’d prefer it if he went.
Evelyn had also discussed the situation with her. It was on one of Dominique’s days off, when she made her fortnightly trip to Drimnagh to see her parents, that Evelyn had, as she put it herself, felt obliged to speak her mind.
‘I didn’t like him at the start,’ she told Dominique. ‘After all, he got you pregnant and ...’ She held up her hand as Dominique tried to interrupt her. ‘I know that things are different now, but it was how it was back then. All the same, he did the right thing and married you and he stood by you. I know you loved him, Dominique. I could see it every time you spoke about him. And I know it was hard for you after Kelly was born, and I understand how hard it must have been for him too. And for all this I think he was a good man and a good husband. He tried to provide a good home for you too. I always thought he got involved in too many things, and I never liked all of this newspaper stuff and you becoming some kind of Barbie doll, but that’s the way things turned out and you seemed to be happy in your life. But when he left you . . . I didn’t believe the bad things that people said about him, but he still did some bad things, didn’t he? He cheated people.’
‘He didn’t mean to,’ said Dominique. ‘Like he said, it all spun out of control.’
‘Oh, I know all that,’ said Evelyn. ‘I talked to Lily about it. She’s delighted he’s home and has a job, and so am I. But I’m worried about you, because you’re looking after him and yourself and you always look so tired.’
Dominique smiled at her. ‘I’m tired because I’m working hard, but I truly do like the job. And I’m not supporting Brendan financially either, now that he’s working again.’
‘But how are you both?’ asked Evelyn. ‘That’s the thing. Are you happy?’
‘Even if I wasn’t, wouldn’t you say that I’d made my bed and I had to lie in it?’ asked Dominique, although her tone held a hint of humour.
‘Maybe I would’ve once,’ agreed Evelyn. ‘But now I think that you should be happy. And I don’t know if you are.’
Dominique said nothing.
‘When you were first going out with him, I thought that you loved him more than he loved you.’
Dominique looked at her in astonishment.
‘You were so taken by him,’ said Evelyn. ‘You would have done anything for him.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘But now you’re a different person. You’re an adult. You’ve done things for yourself.’
‘I know.’
‘And it’s not that I didn’t think you deserved all the money or anything, but happiness is more important.’
‘Oh, I know that.’ Dominique smiled at her. ‘It’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, isn’t it?’
‘If it’s right for you, then it’s right,’ Evelyn told her. ‘But if it’s not . . . Well, I wouldn’t blame you, Domino.’
Dominique looked at her mother in complete amazement. Was she seriously suggesting that she wouldn’t flip at the idea of her leaving Brendan now that he was back in Ireland? Did she genuinely think, after so many years of believing the opposite, that happiness was more important than staying together? And had she really just called her Domino for the first time in her life?
‘We’re going to go,’ said Brendan firmly as he looked at the invitation.
‘Is it a good idea?’ asked Dominique. ‘You know the papers will be there, as well as people that perhaps you don’t want to see.’
‘I can deal with that,’ said Brendan. ‘Most people haven’t lost too much money – a damn sight less than me, anyway! And they know it too, thanks to the report in the
Examiner
last week.’
Examiner
last week.’
Brendan had given an interview to one of the newspaper’s most experienced journalists. It had been a wide-ranging discussion, in which he’d confessed to having been utterly devastated when the company had run into trouble. He told the journalist that he thought perhaps he’d had a kind of breakdown when it happened. He hadn’t been able to function normally.
‘Yet you left the country and your family and all the people who depended on you,’ the journalist commented.
‘And that was the worst mistake of my life,’ Brendan admitted. ‘I hope I get the chance to make up for it.’
The piece had been sympathetically written and presented, and it was clear that the journalist believed that Brendan had been unfairly treated over the collapse of Delahaye Developments. After all, he noted, the industry had gone into a downturn, and Brendan’s wasn’t the only company that had run into trouble. It was the manner of his dealing with it and his already public profile that had turned it into such a major news story. The reporter had also commented on the support that had been given to him by Dominique, and how her refusal to say anything bad about him had made people look again at what had happened to the company. He’d called it the Domino Effect Mark 2.
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