Things We Never Say (2 page)

‘Still vain, I see.’ Now the voice was scornful. ‘A bit late for that, don’t you think?’

That was a difficult question to answer. Dilly didn’t think she was vain, but she was perfectly aware that she was beautiful. People said it to her all the time, although not in a way that was designed to make her feel good about it. Usually they were pointing out that looks like hers were bound to get her into trouble one day. There weren’t that many golden-haired, blue-eyed girls in the Midlands. Certainly not many who had a slender body on top of endlessly long, elegant legs. Edel Mullins, her best friend, said that she was just like Marilyn Monroe. She was wrong about that; Dilly didn’t have Marilyn’s curves. But she did have a way of walking, and a way of peeping from beneath her hair, that was as sensual and voluptuous as anything Marilyn could manage. She wondered if Marilyn’s looks ever got her into trouble. Because they’d been right about that.

‘I’d like to say I’m disappointed in you, but then I didn’t hold out great hopes from the start.’

Dilly maintained her silence.

‘Being lenient with you was a mistake.’

Lenient? She nearly laughed out loud.

‘You need to be taught a lesson.’

Dilly’s eyes widened in alarm.

‘Yes, you do.’ The woman reached out and took her by the arm. ‘It’s time for you to find out once and for all that you’re nobody special around here.’

‘Please.’ The word escaped from her involuntarily. She didn’t want to plead. Pleading only made things worse.

‘Too late for that.’

No. This time she didn’t speak out loud but she thought it anyway as she realised that the older woman was unbuckling the thick leather belt around her waist. No.

The white cheeks were pink now. Flushed with anticipation. Dilly caught her breath as the faintest flicker of a smile touched the woman’s lips.

‘You bitch.’ A spark of resistance suddenly flamed within Dilly as she found her voice properly. ‘You spiteful, evil, dried-out old bitch.’

She heard the gasp as she turned and ran as fast as she could. But it wasn’t fast enough. She was only halfway along the corridor when she felt the
thwack
of the belt across her shoulders and she fell to the ground.

It wasn’t fair, thought Fred, as he stood beside the priest, the cool easterly wind tugging at the few remaining strands of his grey hair. It simply wasn’t. After all the hard years he’d put in, all the tough times that had gone before, he’d thought that he and Ros had deserved to take it easy together. He’d made the money, after all, from the sale of the company, and he’d made plans for it. Plans for them. He’d spent a long time deciding on new places to go, new things to see.

In his seventy-one years he and Ros had only been abroad a handful of times, mostly to Spain or the Canary Islands because she liked lying on the beach and he liked cheap drink, and both of them enjoyed the buzz of the resorts where everyone spoke English and there was always a fry-up for breakfast. The holiday he’d been planning until recently was a round-the-world cruise. He’d reckoned it would be a way of experiencing new things without any risk. He didn’t mind risk. But not the kind of risks you could run in foreign countries where you didn’t know the customs or the language, and where you’d be clearly marked out as a tourist and therefore fair game to be ripped off.

Fred didn’t like being ripped off. He’d based his whole life on being shrewd and careful. As a result, after more than forty years of building his business from a yard at their home in East Wall to a thriving enterprise with locations around the city, the offer to buy him out had finally come. Fred dealt in security systems – mainly car and household alarms – and the ambitious company that had taken over CallRite had paid a high price for his loyal customer base. Old enough for a pension, and with Ros’s pleas for him to give up control in favour of their eldest son, Donald, ringing in his ears, Fred had finally decided to cash in and live the good life. He’d been anxious about retiring because despite Donald’s belief in his own entrepreneurial skills, Fred didn’t rate him that highly and he didn’t want to see the company he’d built up sink beneath the weight of his son’s lack of smarts. But the buyout meant that he didn’t have to worry. Donald was carrying on the family tradition by remaining as sales director, while the new company’s management would build on what Fred’s hard graft had accomplished.

The first thing he did after his retirement was to buy a spacious split-level seventies-style home in a spectacular location at the summit of Howth Hill. Growing up, he’d seen split-level houses on American TV shows and they’d always seemed the height of glamour to him. He’d never dreamed that he’d be able to afford one in one of Dublin’s most exclusive suburbs.

Stepping over the threshold of Furze Hill was a validation of everything he’d ever done. He knew that his children had been shocked by its purchase at his age. But Fred didn’t care. He could afford it now and it was better late than never to have a crack at living the dream. Besides, being in your seventies wasn’t old any more. And Ros was only sixty, with plenty of spring in her step. They were entitled to know that the home they now owned had a lounge which was bigger than the entire downstairs floor space of their East Wall house. Fred loved sitting in it and seeing (almost literally, because of its panoramic views) how far he’d come.

He took out a large white hanky and blew his nose. He could feel the eyes of his children turn towards him. They wouldn’t think he was crying, of course, because they knew that Fred wasn’t a man for crying, even at the funeral of his wife, when it was practically mandatory.

It was hard for Fred to believe that she’d gone. She’d always been a strong person. She’d been the one to keep things going in the bad times, when money was scarce, when Fred was struggling to find customers. She was the one who’d held it together for the children, making sure that when they went to school they had all the right books and the right uniforms, even though it had been a struggle. She was the one who’d put food on the table, kept the house warm, remembered birthdays and anniversaries. She’d picked him up when he was down, forgiven him when he’d strayed and comforted him when he’d had tests for chest pains a few years back which had scared the living daylights out of him.

And yet it was Ros who – at a time when she should have been enjoying life – was being buried that morning. Ros had been an almost daily Mass-goer, but Fred couldn’t help thinking that whatever God she prayed to had pulled a damn sneaky trick in taking her before she’d ever had the opportunity to sit at the captain’s table on the
Seascape Splendour
and know that she deserved to be there as much as anyone else.

The priest had finished praying and was looking at Fred. He hesitated for a moment, and then picked up a handful of dry clay to throw on to the coffin, which had been lowered into the open grave. He followed the clay with a red rose. He’d felt it was expected of him to have the flower, even though roses hadn’t been his wife’s favourites. But tulips were out of season, and besides, chucking one into the grave probably would’ve looked silly.

‘Come on, Dad.’ His daughter-in-law, Deirdre, took him by the arm and he winced. He never liked being called Dad by her. He wasn’t her father. In fairness, he didn’t know how he’d prefer her to address him, but Dad wasn’t the right word. He hadn’t been a particularly good father to his children, he knew, so it seemed wrong that someone else would want to use the title for him.

However, he said nothing to Deirdre and allowed her to lead him across the graveyard to the black Daimler that was waiting. A nice car, thought Fred professionally. Great suspension. Very smooth. He got inside. A few minutes later his two sons and his daughter got in beside them. Nobody said a word as the car pulled away out of the cemetery. They’d never been good at communication, and today, Fred knew, wasn’t the day that things would suddenly change.

The mourners had been asked back to Donald and Deirdre’s house in Clontarf, where she’d arranged to have soup and sandwiches waiting for them. Fred had been happy to allow her to organise the refreshments because he hadn’t wanted anyone back at Furze Hill. Not without Ros. He sat on a chair in the corner and listened while people talked about his late wife and said how wonderful she’d been. They were right, of course. She had been wonderful, and Fred suddenly wished that he’d bothered to tell her when she was alive how much he’d appreciated her and loved her. She’d probably known anyway. He comforted himself with the thought. Ros had understood him. She’d married him for the man he was, not the man he should have been.

His three children were standing in a group. It was the first time they’d been together in almost ten years, because it was the first time Suzanne had been home in that long. Ros had blamed Fred for that, but he didn’t blame himself. Suzanne had always been, and still was, difficult. The youngest of his three children, she’d caused far more trouble than Donald and Gareth. She was headstrong and opinionated, wouldn’t listen to him, wouldn’t live within the rules he laid down. Fred was a great believer in having rules and regulations, but Suzanne used to scoff at him as she broke them. Although in many ways she reminded him of himself, her stubbornness was a constant source of anger to him. He watched as she said something to Donald, who gestured dismissively. He wondered what they were talking about, what catching-up they felt they had to do. Perhaps they were sharing stories about Ros. They’d all loved their mother, he was pretty sure about that. And equally sure that they’d loved her more than they loved him. She’d always been there for them. He hadn’t.

There was a lot of emphasis put on ‘being there’ these days. But the truth was you couldn’t be there every single time; sometimes you were too busy doing other things, important things, things that mattered. All this being there stuff was happy-clappy nonsense, Fred thought, not allowing his thoughts to travel that road. Lot of good his being there for them would have been if there hadn’t been a roof over their heads

Suzanne glanced in his direction and for a moment the two of them looked at each other. He couldn’t read her expression, but he was pretty sure there wasn’t any forgiveness in it. He admired that in her. He admired the fact that she’d gone away, hadn’t come back and still hated him. (Perhaps hate was too strong a word, but she certainly didn’t love him.) If he was being strictly honest with himself, he was probably prouder of Suzanne than he was of the boys. She’d never compromised. Not for a single moment.

‘I should probably talk to him.’ Suzanne turned away from her father and back to her brothers.

‘Be nice,’ said Gareth. ‘It was a shock for him.’

‘And it wasn’t for the rest of us?’

‘You don’t have to carry chips on both shoulders,’ said Donald.

‘It keeps me balanced.’ Suzanne made a face and Donald laughed. It was the first time any of them had laughed since Ros’s death.

‘I’ve learned to live with mine,’ said Gareth.

‘You have chips?’ Suzanne looked at him in surprise. ‘What on earth about?’

‘About how I was treated by him.’

‘Huh?’ As far as Suzanne remembered, the boys had got off far more lightly than her. Gareth surely had no reason to complain about how he’d been treated by Fred.

‘He always thought I was gay, you know.’

‘What?’ She smiled as she looked around the room and saw Gareth’s elegant French wife, Lisette, pregnant with their first child.

‘Because I didn’t like Gaelic football and pints of Guinness,’ said Gareth. ‘Because I chose to do a poncey degree – his term – instead of working with him. Because I read the broadsheets and not the tabloids.’

‘Noah’s Ark would’ve been way too socially inclusive for the likes of Dad,’ remarked Suzanne.

‘He does his best,’ said Donald.

‘So speaks the favourite,’ Suzanne said.

‘I’m not,’ protested Donald.

‘You did what he wanted and went into business with him. It would have been Fitzpatrick and Son if there’d been a family name on the company,’ said Gareth.

‘There were no other jobs at the time,’ Donald pointed out.

‘But you liked working for him, didn’t you?’ asked Suzanne.

‘Are you mad?’ Donald looked at her in disbelief. ‘He was a total slave-driver. Always criticising me, always wanting things done differently.’

‘Sounds familiar,’ agreed Suzanne. ‘But it must have worked out. Didn’t the new crowd keep you on as a director?’

‘Yes. But it’s very different from the old days. It’s all meetings and strategies and targets … the aul’ fella is well out of it.’

‘He did OK out of the sale, didn’t he?’ observed Suzanne. ‘It made him richer than I’m sure he ever thought possible.’

‘He blew a vast chunk on that bloody house.’ Donald made a face. ‘Such a waste.’

‘He’s entitled to spend it on himself if he wants,’ said Gareth. ‘It’s not like any of us need his money.’

‘How’s Dad’s own health?’ Suzanne ignored the sudden look her brothers had exchanged.

‘Do you care?’ asked Donald.

Her tone was impatient. ‘Of course I care.’

‘He seems well enough.’

‘All the same, without Mam, it’s hard to know how long he’ll keep going,’ said Gareth.

‘It is a mystery to me how well your father is.’ Lisette, who’d joined them in time to hear Gareth’s comment, made her own assessment of Fred’s health. ‘He eats all the wrong things, drinks too much and smokes.’

‘I suppose we all need some vices.’ Suzanne looked over at Fred, who was pouring a generous measure of Powers whiskey into a glass. ‘Though he has more than his fair share.’

‘He’s not that bad,’ said Donald.

Neither Suzanne nor Gareth responded, and Donald shrugged.

‘He’s getting on,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to make allowances.’

‘Maybe.’ Gareth didn’t sound convinced.

‘Hope he doesn’t drink himself to death,’ remarked Donald as Fred downed the whiskey in one gulp and poured himself another.

‘You can’t kill a bad thing,’ Suzanne told him. ‘Besides, he likes being a thorn in our sides.’ She glanced towards Fred again, and her father, catching her look, raised his glass to her, a mocking expression on his face.