The Heart Whisperer (47 page)

He'd thought about telling her that day, after the Leaving Cert, when they got drunk on tequila and she told him about the accident. And every year, on her birthday, he thought about telling her again. Maybe this year, he thought, she'll be ready for the truth. But how could he tell her? Claire had built her whole life around the idea that her mother was perfect and it was so precious that he couldn't bear to take it away from her.

‘Kelly, I love everything about it!' Pauline looked up from the CAD drawing on the computer screen and then around her shabby kitchen.

‘That's a little play stove,' Kelly pointed out, ‘for the boys. It slides in beneath the breakfast bar.'

‘Wow!' Pauline nibbled her lip. ‘I just don't see how you can do all this for seven and a half grand. That's our absolute limit.'

‘It's tight but it can be done.' Kelly opened up a spreadsheet.

She'd stayed at her desk all day after Ray had left, working through her hangover on mood boards and plans, then she'd gotten on the phone and pulled in every favour she could to bring the renovation in for a third of cost price.

The kitchen was an ex-display model from a German showroom that was closing down. The tiles were from an extension that had been planned and then cancelled. Kelly was getting them free, along with the windows, as long as she collected them herself. The builder was knocking down the wall and putting in the window for a fraction of his daily fee because he had a crush on her. The carpenter was doing the shelves and the wooden floors as a trade-off for a bathroom revamp.

‘I don't see a fee here for you?' Pauline was scanning the column of figures.

‘I get a percentage as a kickback from the contractors,' Kelly lied. ‘It doesn't show up in the budget.'

‘You are an absolute life-saver.' We were planning to have moved to a bigger place by now but we're in so much negative equity that I think the only way we'll ever get out of here is in a box! What about you? How's the Clomid going?'

Kelly closed her laptop. ‘I've put that on hold for the moment.'

‘You'll get pregnant,' Pauline smiled, ‘when the time is right. It'll work out.'

Kelly bent her head. ‘I was pregnant before,' she said quietly, ‘when I was seventeen.'

She and Jennifer had both had a crush on the same guy. The lead singer of a Vancouver band. They crossed the border to see them every time they played. One night, when they were going crazy at the front, he had pulled Kelly up on stage and they'd gone back to his hotel. And six weeks later, her period still hadn't come.

‘What happened?' Pauline asked softly.

‘He never even knew. It was just a one-night thing. And I wanted to keep the baby. I wanted it so badly but I was in my senior year and my parents said it would ruin my life so I had a termination and they sent me to a detox place in Denver. And they were right. It did ruin my life.'

Kelly remembered the small bare room she had shared with a Goth girl whose name she had forgotten. The acres of snow outside the window. The group meetings where everyone was supposed to talk about their problems, but all she could talk about was how angry she was with her mom and dad for forcing her to have a termination.

‘I got rid of my baby,' she said quietly. ‘I think that damaged me in some way and now I'll never have another chance.'

Pauline pulled a tissue out of her sleeve and she took it. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fall apart. I've never told anyone about this. Not even my husband.'

‘You'll have another chance,' Pauline said kindly. ‘And if you don't, you'll make one. You'll get IVF or an egg donation or you'll adopt. You'll find a way.'

‘Paging Doctor Fraud!' the girl behind the counter said.

‘Sorry?' Nick was trying to find the laundry ticket in his wallet.

She folded her arms across her chest. ‘You're that bastard who tried to break up the Clancys' marriage. We don't want your business.'

‘You already have it. I dropped my laundry in here last week.'

A man in the queue behind Nick snapped a picture with his phone.

‘You're barred,' the girl said. ‘Next?'

Nick was getting into his car when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned around. A woman in her thirties with limp blonde hair was hurrying after him. ‘What do you want to say?' he sighed. ‘Come on, let's get it over with.'

‘Thank you,' she smiled.

‘What?'

‘It's me, Roisin, I met you last summer at a salsa class, remember?'

‘I didn't mean to snap at you like that. You must think I'm very rude.'

‘You're a bloody saint for putting up with that abuse,' she said. ‘It meant a lot to me when you gave me your card. I told my husband that I'd had an affair. I was honest with him, like you said.'

‘And?'

‘Things were very rocky for a while but we're getting there. Can I give
you
some advice?'

Nick nodded, trying not to wince. Here it came.

‘If you really did have an affair with Oonagh Clancy, be honest with your wife about it.'

‘I didn't.'

‘Then tell her that.'

Nick hit a speed bump fast on the Rathmines Road, his CD ejected and Dom Daly's laugh burst into the car.

‘Just had an email from a guy in a launderette in Blackrock. Apparently, Doc Nick has just been barred from the premises. Seems like it really is a bad idea to air your dirty laundry in public.'

Nick pulled into the car park of an abandoned office block. He punched the number of Fish FM on his phone and asked to be put through to Tara. ‘I want to talk to Dom!' he demanded.

‘Are you sure?' Tara sounded amused. ‘Some guy just texted in a picture of you. You look kind of crazed.'

‘Whatever you're doing,' Dom said, ‘drop it because we have
the dodgy doc himself live on the line. Hello, Doc Nick. What have you got to confess to the people of Ireland?'

‘Firstly, Dom,' Nick said, ‘I'm not a doctor. I never said I was. That was something that started on the
OO
show. I should have cleared it up at the time. I was stupid not to.'

‘Let's talk about what happened behind the scenes at the
OO
show!' Dom began.

‘Secondly,' Nick cut across him, ‘I did not try to break up the Clancys' marriage.'

‘So what were you doing snogging her on the street?'

‘That was a set-up. A trap arranged between Oonagh and a photographer called Brian Coakley.'

‘Well, why is Oonagh saying—'

‘You'll have to ask her about that. Thirdly …' Nick was on shakier ground now and he knew it. His anger had burned away, taking the adrenalin with it.
Do one thing that scares you every day
. ‘I'd like to apologise to you, Dom, and to all your listeners. I'm sorry if I misled anyone.'

‘We don't want your “sorries!” ‘ Dom chuckled. ‘We all want to know why you told so many porky pies about your own marriage.'

Nick stared out at the half-built office block. Buttercups were blooming among the nettles in the cracks in the tarmac outside the marble and glass foyer. He remembered his mother holding a buttercup under his chin to see if he liked butter.

‘My wife wanted a baby and I …' He sighed. ‘… went along with it, but I was scared.'

‘If you ever stop feeling scared,' Dom snorted, ‘come around to my place and change my six-year-old's sheets three times in one night.'

‘I used to do that for my sister when she was that age.'

‘Your younger sister? You looked after her when your mother died, right? Is that what put you off having kids?' Dom was sharp.

Nick frowned. This was a good question. ‘I felt overwhelmed by it. I wanted to make everything OK for her but I couldn't. That was hard. I think the reason I didn't want to have a baby was that I was afraid that if Kelly got pregnant,' Nick said, ‘she'd change.'

‘I wish my missus would change,' Dom snorted. ‘She's been
living in a tracksuit since the kids arrived. Not exactly an aphrodisiac, the trackie.'

‘You need to tell your wife how much you love seeing her in flattering clothes. There's a great exercise called Complimentition that—'

‘What about your wife, Nick?' Dom interrupted. ‘What do you want to tell
her
?'

‘Are you coaching me?'

‘Yeah, I think I might be.'

‘It doesn't really matter what I want to tell her. She won't talk to me.'

‘Maybe she's listening now?'

Kelly was trying to compose an email to Nick. She needed to get it all down. From the night Maurice DeVeau had pulled her out of the audience in Rogers Arena in Vancouver to the first day of their honeymoon when she'd thrown away her contraceptive pills, to the night she'd nearly slept with Ray Devine. She was on her fifth attempt when the text came though.

‘Turn on Fish FM now! Niamh x.'

‘… I want you to know that I didn't have an affair,' Nick was saying. ‘There's never been anyone else. Not from the moment I saw you. I love you and if you'll let me come back, I'll do whatever it takes—'

‘Stop!' Dom Daly sniffed. ‘Enough! If you're listening, Mrs Nick, I'm not surprised you want to have his babies. I think I might have them myself.'

‘Thanks.' Claire opened the front door just as Nick was lifting his key on the yellow key ring.

‘For what?'

‘Telling the entire country that I used to wet the bed live on air.'

‘Sorry about that.' Nick ran a shaking hand over his hair. ‘I was disinhibited.'

‘We all heard you. Me, Dad, Kelly—'

‘Kelly?'

‘She's been trying to call you.'

Nick pulled his phone out. There were five missed calls.

The physiotherapist wheeled her bike into the driveway and took off her helmet. ‘You walked the walk!' she smiled at Nick. ‘About bloody time. Are you coming or going?'

‘He's going,' Claire said.

‘I am?'

She nodded. ‘You're going home.'

‘Who's going to look after Dad?'

‘I'll stay. I need somewhere to live for a while.'

She watched him reversing, too fast, out on to the road, feeling, for the first time, like an older sister instead of a younger one.

Mrs Cunningham looked over her wall. ‘That's dangerous driving, you know. I've a good mind to report that to the Gardaí.'

‘Oh get a life, you nosy cow!' Claire snapped.

‘Claire Dillon.' Mrs Cunningham pursed her thin lips. ‘You sound just like your mother!'

‘Thank you,' Claire grinned, then she closed the door.

There were thousands of euros' worth of recording equipment in Ray's living room but, for some reason, he could write better downstairs in Claire's tiny kitchen. And since his heart had been trampled into what felt like several million pieces, he'd been writing songs non-stop.

He was sitting on the lumpy sofa with his acoustic guitar in his lap and his notebook open when the doorbell rang.

There was a tall bloke with curly brown hair standing in the lane. He was holding a green cardboard tube with a photograph of trees on it.

‘Sorry.' Ray began to close the door, hurriedly. ‘I don't want to buy it.'

The guy frowned. ‘What?'

Ray nodded at the tube. ‘The calendar? The poster of the rainforest? Whatever you've got there.'

‘I'm looking for Claire.'

‘She's not here.' Ray took a proper look at him. Wasn't he that guy Claire had been talking to outside Johnny Foxes the day he'd found out about Willow?

‘Can you give her this?' The guy handed over the tube. ‘And a message from me. Hang on.' He pulled a piece of paper out of his
pocket, rested it against his leg and scribbled something. Then he folded it up and handed it to Ray.

‘What's in here?' Ray shook the cardboard tube.

‘It's ashes.'

Ray was confused. ‘You know Ash?'

The guy folded his arms. ‘The ashes from Claire's dog.'

Ray held the tube at arm's length. ‘Are you serious?'

‘Yeah.' The guy squared his shoulders and looked at him in a loaded way. ‘I am.'

Ray wondered if he was going to be punched again. He half wanted it to happen. A bit of physical pain would be a nice little holiday from the state of permanent misery he'd been in since he'd lost Willow and Claire. But the guy just turned away and got into a rusty old Land Rover and drove away. When he was gone, Ray unfolded the note and read it.

‘Things aren't complicated any more. I'd love to see you again. Call me, S. PS: This is Dog's number. You already have mine.'

Ray turned the piece of paper over. There was a number on the back. ‘Five hundred and sixty-eight.'

What did that mean? A snatch of song came into his head. He took the lid off the tube, stuffed the note inside so it didn't get lost and hurried back into the house before he forgot it.

‘What are we going to do with you?' Claire's dad patted the lid of the long green tube. Dog's ashes had been on the table in the flat when she went back to pack up her things. Shane must have dropped them over. She'd retrieved them and they'd now been sitting on her dad's mantelpiece for weeks.

‘Maybe I'll get a nice Dicentra and put Dog's ashes under it when we plant it. We could drive to the garden centre, some time, when you're not busy.'

‘I'm not busy now.' Claire closed her book and acted as if going to a garden centre was the kind of thing her dad did every day, and not something he'd last done in 1982. ‘I'll just go and start the car.'

Mossy was back on the road again, moss free, rust free, with a reconditioned gearbox, a new floorpan and wipers on the outside that worked. Claire's head had told her she was crazy, that she should hold on to her money for a deposit for a flat and the first few months' rent, but her heart had told her that she wasn't ready to let her mum's car go just yet. Something would come up.