Things We Never Say (6 page)

She continued to listen as he began talking again, but was suddenly distracted by the heavy cream-coloured piece of paper she saw poking out from the folder on the table in front of him. Half the page was hidden, but on the visible half she could see the letters ‘… ament’ in bold scripted type. Lisette instantly knew what it was. Another version of Fred’s last will and testament.

She felt her body tense. That bloody will! Fred was forever changing it and then dropping hints to his sons about what decisions he’d made about his legacy. Lisette had told him ages ago that the best thing to do was to divide it up equally between his three children (even though she wasn’t convinced that Suzanne, who couldn’t be bothered to visit and never enquired about her father, deserved anything). Fred, however, always tapped the side of his nose and said he knew what he was doing, which infuriated both Gareth, her husband, and Donald, who believed that he had a special place in his father’s heart since he was the one who’d gone into business with him. But
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hadn’t provided a male heir, Lisette thought, which to an old-fashioned man like Fred was still important. Lisette knew that Fred liked the idea of someone carrying on the Fitzpatrick name, and right now the only person who could do that was her son, Jerome. This surely meant, she thought, that Fred would favour them when he was drawing up his will.

She said this once to Gareth, who agreed with her in principle, but also reckoned Fred was simply toying with them whenever he talked about it. Her husband was probably right, thought Lisette. Making wills was a common enough pastime among the older generation. Her own grandmother had updated hers every six months until she died at the age of 102 (having outlived two daughters who’d long hoped to get their hands on her extensive jewellery collection). She hoped that Fred wouldn’t live that long. The truth was, no matter how her father-in-law was dividing up his estate, both she and Gareth could do right now with whatever assets he might be leaving them.

Fred probably knew that too. Every so often he would make remarks to her about the plummeting value of their property portfolio, and murmur that she and Gareth might have been better off concentrating on teaching. Lisette never said that it was thanks to Fred himself that they’d got involved in property, and never wished out loud (though she often did in private) that they’d had more sense. As well as their beautiful home, Thorngrove, at the bottom of the hill, their investment properties (a house in Artane and an apartment in Swords) and Papillon, their house in France, were currently a noose around their necks. But that noose would certainly be loosened as soon as Fred’s house and money were available.

Whenever thoughts of Fred’s net worth entered her head, she found them difficult to dislodge. Her eyes kept being drawn towards the folder containing the will, even though Fred was still talking about his life as a young boy.

‘Of course it wasn’t always idyllic back then.’ He put his mug down on the table with a thump, startling her. ‘There were some bad times. Some terrible things, right up to very recent days.’

Lisette looked at him enquiringly. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘Abuse,’ said Fred. ‘Exploitation of vulnerable young girls. The Magdalene laundries, for example.’

‘What?’ This time she was astonished. Although the stories of the unmarried pregnant girls who ended up in the so-called laundries, kept away from their families and treated disgracefully, had made headline news and created a national scandal, Lisette didn’t think it was something that would have interested Fred very much. Her father-in-law was a typical unreconstructed man.

‘There was another programme on about it last night,’ said Fred. ‘It was terrible what happened to them.’

‘I didn’t see the programme,’ Lisette told him. ‘But you’re right, of course, it was dreadful.’

‘They deserved better,’ Fred said. ‘Better than what they got from the state back then and better than the so-called compensation that some of them received afterwards. Not that most of them got anything.’

‘It’s a disgrace,’ she agreed, thinking that Fred had got a bee in his bonnet about the subject. That was typical of him, though. There was always something. Traffic jams, greedy politicians, reality TV shows, poor infrastructure – all of these things made him hot under the collar from time to time. However, he rarely cared about any issues relating to women.

‘I suppose times have changed for the better,’ said Fred. ‘But, you know, there’s still stuff going on. Abuse of kiddies, for example. Violence in the family. Women having to run away and not having anywhere to run to.’

‘Indeed,’ said Lisette.

‘And this government doesn’t give them enough help,’ continued Fred. ‘They’ve cut funding to lots of very worthwhile projects.’

Lisette found it hard to believe that the old man had suddenly unearthed a social conscience. As far as she could remember, this was the first time he’d ever expressed outrage about anything other than high taxes and poor services.

‘There should be more funds for people who help those women,’ said Fred. ‘It’s something we should all think about.’

Lisette caught her breath. Fred couldn’t possibly be referring to himself, could he? Was he thinking of leaving money to some kind of women’s organisation? Or – an even worse thought suddenly struck her – he couldn’t want them to turn Furze Hill into some kind of refuge? The thought horrified her.

‘Not that I’ll have to worry about what goes on for much longer,’ said Fred as he took another Jaffa Cake. ‘I don’t have many years left.’

‘Of course you have,’ said Lisette, hoping that he had enough to get rid of any madcap ideas that were swilling around in his brain. ‘You’re as fit as a fiddle. I know you’re probably upset about your wrist, but it will be better in no time.’

‘I hope so,’ said Fred. ‘But you’ve got to remember I’ve had a heart bypass, and I’m getting on …’

Lisette looked at him curiously. Up to a few minutes ago, he’d been saying that he was perfectly able to manage even with a sprained wrist; now he was worrying about getting old. Concerns about his age were uncharacteristic of Fred, who still seemed to think that he was capable of doing things he’d done in his prime.

‘We’re all getting on,’ said Lisette.

‘True,’ he agreed. ‘Though you’re luckier than most of us, because you’ve always looked a bit on the older side.’

Lisette said nothing. From the moment they’d first met, Fred had teased her (not always kindly) about being his younger son’s granny girlfriend. This had nothing to do with their respective ages – in fact she was three years younger than Gareth – but was because of the colour of her hair, which was completely grey, and had been ever since her early twenties. When she’d seen the first silver strand appear, shortly after her twenty-second birthday, her heart had sunk. But she’d been lucky to ultimately turn the almost white-grey of her mother and grandmother, which, in the neat bobbed style she wore, looked sophisticated rather than ageing and which suited her pale skin. She hadn’t succumbed to the tyranny of colouring it, and when she met Gareth Fitzpatrick, he told her that she had the loveliest hair he’d ever seen. But Gareth’s father had asked her if she wasn’t baby-snatching, despite the fact that he knew she was younger than his son.

‘Are you coming to Zoey’s birthday party?’ Lisette wasn’t in the mood for Fred’s sniping today.

‘There’s someone who’ll always look younger than her age,’ he said.

‘Indeed.’

‘Of course she married Donald for money, more fool her,’ added Fred. ‘I don’t see how any girl can possibly imagine that a divorced man of fifty would have lots of spare cash lying around.’

‘Donald’s still a good catch,’ said Lisette.

Fred snorted. ‘Not half as good as he thinks he is. As I’m sure she’ll find out.’

Lisette wondered what Fred meant by that. Not half as clever? Or not half as well-off? She took a deep breath and released it slowly. Seeing the damn will had made her think of things she didn’t want to think about right now.

‘Anyway, are you coming to the party?’ she asked again.

‘I don’t know,’ said Fred. ‘I’m a bit long in the tooth for thirtieth birthdays, don’t you think? But then so’s Donald!’ He laughed, and the laugh turned into a cough. Lisette watched him anxiously until he regained his breath. ‘I should give up the aul’ fags,’ said Fred. ‘But when you’re eighty-one, there isn’t a great deal of point, is there?’

‘Possibly not,’ agreed Lisette. She stood up. ‘I’d better get going.’

‘Thanks for dropping by,’ said Fred. ‘Though I suppose it’s in your interests, isn’t it? Keeping an eye on me?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Lisette.

‘Come on, now.’ He winked at her. ‘I won’t be around for ever, will I?’

‘Fred, you gave money to the lads when you sold the business. I don’t think any of them are expecting much when you … when …’

He gave her a twisted smile as he coughed again. ‘Don’t play games with me,’ he said. ‘I know what my boys are like. I know how they think. I know how you all think.’

‘You’re being silly.’ Lisette hoped that she wasn’t blushing. ‘They love you. So do I. So does Suzanne.’

‘Huh.’ At the mention of his daughter’s name, a shadow crossed Fred’s face. ‘She never loved me. She never will.’

Lisette didn’t argue with him. She’d only spoken to Suzanne on a handful of occasions and she had a feeling that Fred might be right about that.

‘Go on away with you.’ He looked at her crankily. ‘I’ve things to be doing this afternoon.’

‘All right then. If there’s anything you need, give me a call.’

‘I don’t need anything,’ said Fred. ‘Just to be left alone.’

Lisette sighed. There were days when she wondered why she bothered. The old man was an ungrateful sod. In reality, she didn’t blame Suzanne for not wanting to come home.

The drive to her own house, in its less prestigious location at the bottom of Howth Hill, took about five minutes, time she used to worry that Fred might be drawing up a new will while he was in pain from his wrist and clearly under the influence of whatever TV programme he’d seen. She desperately hoped that he wasn’t going to do something stupid, like leave it all to charity. That wasn’t anything she’d worried about before, because Fred was the last man in the world to give money to random charities. Or so she’d always thought. His musings on the past treatment of unmarried mothers was an unusual and unwelcome departure from his normal views that social welfare only encouraged scroungers and that people should look after themselves and not expect the state to do it for them. Lisette wouldn’t have been surprised if Fred’s view on the whole Magdalene laundry situation was that the girls had got themselves into a mess by getting pregnant in the first place and that it wasn’t up to anyone else to look after them. She found it hard to believe that he’d actually been moved by the TV documentary, regardless of what he said.

He’ll probably have forgotten it all by next week, she told herself as she opened the gates to her driveway with the remote control. That was one of the small mercies of his age. New pet hates and new enthusiasms alike were short-lived.

Gareth was nowhere to be seen as she walked through the house and out to the sunny back garden, although their children, Jerome and Fleur, were outside, playing with the family’s cocker spaniel, Chien.

‘Where’s your father?’ asked Lisette, automatically picking up abandoned toys and putting them into the large plastic container that was in the garden specifically to keep it neat and tidy.

‘He’s upstairs working.’ Fleur didn’t look up from the game she was playing. ‘He told us to stay out of his hair.’

‘I see,’ said Lisette. ‘I’ll go and talk to him.’

‘He’ll want you to stay out of his hair too,’ Fleur told her. ‘He said he was very busy.’

‘It’s OK,’ said Lisette.

She went back indoors and climbed the stairs to the smallest of the five bedrooms, which had been allocated to Gareth as a study. Not that he needed a study any more than she did, but he liked to have it. Whereas she corrected her students’ homework at the kitchen table in the afternoons, Gareth preferred to retreat upstairs. He said it was because it was easier to look at the boys’ projects there than in the kitchen, but Lisette knew the real reason was because he wanted to have a place of his own in the house. It made him feel important. And she knew that, of the three Fitzpatrick siblings, Gareth was the one who most needed to feel important.

‘Hello.’ She poked her head around the door.

Gareth looked up from the computer and, seeing her, immediately minimised the screen he’d been looking at. He pushed his slightly too long hair out of his eyes.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How’s Dad?’

‘Not doing too badly. Insisted he could’ve gone shopping himself.’

Gareth gave her a look of disbelief.

‘Yes, well, you know what he’s like. Anyhow, I put everything away and left a ready-meal for him for tonight.’ She made a face. ‘You know how I feel about them, but he insisted he wanted a steak and kidney pie, so I bought one for him.’

‘My heroine,’ said Gareth.

‘So why are you closeted away up here?’ Lisette sat on the edge of his desk and crossed her legs. (Her legs were the thing about herself that she liked the most. They were slim and graceful, almost as good as they’d been when she’d first met her husband.)

‘Things to do.’

‘I thought you were going to cut the grass.’

‘I will,’ said Gareth. ‘The forecast for tomorrow is good too.’

Lisette got up from the desk and walked behind him. Because he’d minimised the browser, the only thing she could see on the computer screen was the desktop picture. It had been taken a few weeks earlier, in their garden in La Rochelle. She was standing in the middle of the lawn, the children either side of her. They were all beaming at the camera.

Her legs were very visible in that photo too, because she’d been wearing a cropped top and shorts. Not something she would have worn outside the confines of their house – Lisette had very firm views about women over the age of forty baring too much flesh – but she noted with satisfaction that she looked good. Her body was trim, her face almost without wrinkles, thanks to the scrupulous regime of skincare she adhered to. Looking at the photo, she could almost have been mistaken for an older sister, except for the grey hair.