The Heart Whisperer (44 page)

There was nothing left in the freezer except the turkey that Kelly had frozen at Thanksgiving. She wasn't hungry but she had to eat something because if she didn't she might damage her body and that would be a waste of the Clomid she'd taken. Her precious second to last cycle. So she pulled her lank hair into a ponytail, found her purse and drove to the petrol station. She filled a basket with pasta, eggs, butter and milk. The guy at the till slipped one of the tabloids into her bag.

‘It's free if you spend ten euros.' He pointed at a sign. ‘Something for nothing. Sure, you can't argue with that.'

She made herself scrambled eggs and stood at the window while she ate. She hadn't cleared up after the storm. Litter was still caught in the branches of the tree, the magnolia was lying on its side with its roots exposed and shards of the broken pot were scattered on the patio. The kitchen looked even worse. The bin was overflowing. Dirty plates were piled up in the sink. A full washing basket was standing by the washing machine, the clothes that wouldn't fit in heaped on the floor beside it.

Nick wouldn't recognise the house if he saw it. For a moment, she let herself imagine the sound of his key in the lock. If he walked in right now, she would bring it all out into the open. Tell him what she'd done at the bath showroom, show him the baby clothes in the bedroom, explain what had happened when she was seventeen. Then he would understand why having a baby wasn't a choice for her but a necessity.

She finished her toast and flipped open the paper. Today was day fifteen. She'd been carefully keeping count of the days of her cycle but she'd lost track of the actual date and when she saw it
she realised that it was Nick's birthday. She piled her dish and her cup on top of the paper and carried them to the sink, pushing the other birthdays out of her mind. The year she'd surprised him with a weekend in 10 Fitch in Auburn. The year she'd taken him to dinner at Casa La Femme on Charles Street. The year they got married, when they'd spent the whole day in a single bed in a B&B on Inish Mor. As she tried to stuff the paper into the overflowing bin, a magazine called Hot Gossip slid out on to the floor. Jennifer Aniston was smirking on the cover. Below her was a smaller photograph of Nick kissing Oonagh Clancy.

‘OO's That Girl?' the caption read, and beneath it, in smaller type: ‘Chat Show Blonde Caught in Steamy Clinch with Couples Coach
'.

Kelly stared at the picture. Now she knew why Nick had been so half hearted about having a baby, why he'd been so desperate to get the Channel 5 job. He had been screwing Oonagh Clancy all the time. She forced the magazine deep into the bin. He isn't going to walk in the door today or ever, she told herself, he doesn't want you, he wants Oonagh Clancy, a woman who already has three kids and won't want to have any more.

She went upstairs calmly and ran the shower. It was day fifteen. It was time to stop waiting for her husband to come back and take things into her own hands.

Nick watched a familiar figure with frosted blonde hair retreat down the driveway. There was a magazine lying on the carpet in front of the letterbox. As he bent to pick it up, he froze. The picture had to be a fake, didn't it? But even as he bent down he recognised the window of Pasta Tosca and the tight red dress that Oonagh was wearing. He ripped through the glossy pages until he found the article.

‘The Hunky Doctor Who I Turned to for Help Nearly Cost Me My Marriage!
'

There was another photograph of Oonagh in a leopard-skin dress holding a baby.

‘ “
The animal attraction between Nick Dillon (36) and me was sizzling from day one,” admits curvaceous TV star Oonagh Clancy (35)
.

‘ “On-screen, Nick and I were helping couples to have happier marriages, but off-screen, I was struggling to save my own. In desperation, I turned to him and begged him to help me to salvage my relationship with my husband. But soon our secret coaching sessions were tearing both our marriages apart. Owen and I were sharing the same house but we were living separate lives while Nick split up from his gorgeous wife.”

‘The chat show star is too coy to reveal the steamy details of her fling with the cheating couples coach. “All I can say is that I knew it had to stop before I lost my husband and my family. It almost killed Owen to hear the truth but he has taken me back with open arms and we have renewed our love for one another.” The celebrity couple also hope to renew their contract for their popular TV show, OO in the Afternoon, in September.'

The magazine slipped through Nick's hands. He remembered the bald guy he'd seen that day they met in Pasta Tosca. It was the photographer who used to lurk out in the garden. He was Oonagh's Plan B. She had set him up and sold the story to a tabloid to salvage her career. He pulled out his phone. Kelly's number went straight to voicemail.

‘Listen,' he said. ‘I know you don't read the tabloids but in case you see something about me and Oonagh Clancy, I want you to know that none of it is true.'

The flat was all wrong without Dog. Claire kept expecting to hear his claws on the floorboards in the hall or to see him lurking at the kitchen door, his shaggy head low, the tip of his long tail swinging slowly as if he was keeping time to a jazz track that only he could hear. His water bowl was still half full and there was something squashed in at the back of his favourite spot by the fridge. She knelt down and pulled it out. It was one of the brown leather gloves she had given Richard for Christmas. There were tiny puncture holes all along the thumb and that made her smile. ‘Good Dog,' she whispered.

The doorbell rang and she hurried down the path in her bare feet to answer it, hoping it was Shane, but Eilish was standing in the laneway. ‘I thought you were still in Kerry.' Claire let her in.

‘We wrapped a day early and I have good news.' She followed
Claire into the house and put a stack of Tupperware boxes on the table. ‘Seventy per cent chocolate brownies with white chocolate chips. I know! Dogs aren't supposed to eat chocolate but, at this stage, I thought they couldn't do him any real harm.'

Claire shook her head. ‘I'm sure he would have loved them but—'

Eilish's eyes went from the empty rug under the table to the empty collar on the mantelpiece. ‘Oh,' she said.

Claire swallowed hard and turned to fill the kettle. ‘I had to call Shane to come and put him to sleep.'

Eilish came over and put her arms around her. ‘That's awful. You should have called me after he'd left.'

‘He didn't.'

Eilish took a step back and her eyes widened. ‘And you … ?'

Claire nodded.

‘And it was …'

Claire nodded again.

‘I know people are always falling into bed at funerals but I didn't realise it happened with dogs.' Eilish stared at Claire. ‘But that's good, right? You really like Shane …'

‘Yes. But no, it isn't good. He's just started seeing his wife again. They're trying to make things work.'

Eilish sighed, opened the lid of a Tupperware box, took out two brownies and handed one to Claire. ‘Here!' she said. ‘Everything is always a bit better after you've eaten.'

Claire broke off a corner. ‘You said you had good news?'

‘You'd better sit down,' Eilish looked rueful. Claire slid into one of the folding chairs. ‘Pete's asked me to be his partner.'

‘Business partner?' Claire stared at her. ‘Or?'

‘Both! It was the shoes that made me do it, Claire, the “love” shoes I bought in Deja Vus. They were supposed to work on you and Richard but they worked on me and Pete! All that “liebe” and “zamilowanie” went to my head.'

Claire grinned. ‘I always knew he had a thing for you! “Nigella Lawson's younger, sexier sister”!' Her phone rang. ‘I have to take this,' she said. ‘Dad.'

He didn't say anything for a long time after she told him about Dog, then he cleared his throat. ‘He would have been gone
months ago if it wasn't for you.' There was another long-drawn-out silence then he said, ‘Nicholas is in a bad way. There's a horrible thing in one of the papers saying he was carrying on with that Clancy woman.'

‘What?' Claire didn't believe this for a second. Nick would never do that to Kelly.

‘And it's his birthday today.'

Claire had completely forgotten. The twenty-fifth of March. Nick was thirty-eight.

‘I thought,' her dad began, nervously, ‘that maybe we'd have a little party to take his mind off things.'

‘A party?!?' Claire wondered if Dog's death had unhinged him completely.

‘Nothing fancy. Just some wine and nibbles. You can bring someone.' Her father never nibbled anything except omelettes and biscuits and this was the first time that he'd shown any interest in her personal life.

‘I don't have a someone to bring.'

‘I'm someone,' Eilish hissed. ‘You can bring me.'

‘Dad, are you sure this is a good idea?' Claire said, carefully. ‘We're not really,' she thought of all the unmarked birthdays over the years, ‘party people.'

‘I know, but Nicholas is upset. You've just been through a terrible shock finding out about your mother. We've lost Dog. I think we all need a bit of cheering up.'

It was the desperation in his voice that did it. ‘OK.'

‘Would you see if you can get Kelly to come?'

‘I'll try.' Claire stared at Eilish after he'd hung up. ‘Is there something in these brownies or did my dad just ask me to come to a party for my brother?'

‘Seventy-five per cent Valrhona and my body weight in butter. Do I have time to go home and change? I'd invite Pete but he's gone up to Belfast to check out a new van.'

‘Eilish, my family doesn't do parties. We barely do conversations. Don't even think about coming.'

Ray had called Ash every day for nearly two weeks until she had finally given in and agreed to bring Willow over the afternoon
before she took her back to London. ‘No big scenes,' she warned him. ‘I want this to be a normal day.'

When they arrived, Willow wouldn't look at Ray's face. He squatted down until they were eye to eye. ‘You see this tiny little cut?' He pointed at the scar on the bridge of his nose. ‘This is where all that blood came from that day you got scared.'

Willow hung on to Ash's hand and leaned over to peer at it. ‘It's not a very big hole. Does it hurt?'

‘Not any more.'

She nodded. ‘Why did that man hit you?'

‘I stole something belonging to him,' Ray said.

‘Stealing is wrong.' Willow started to take off her rabbit backpack. ‘Can we watch a DVD?'

Ten minutes into
Shrek
, she scooted across the sofa to look at the scar again, then she put her arms around him and gave him a hug. He pretended he had something in his eye. ‘I'll just go and get it out,' he said hoarsely.

‘Pull yourself together,' he hissed at himself in the bathroom mirror. ‘Take off that stupid beanie.' He had to go out there and act as if everything was normal even though it wasn't. Ash was right. He had to do what was right for Willow. He couldn't just rock up every couple of months and expect that to work. She already had a dad. She didn't need him at the edges of her life complicating things.

As he opened the door he heard her laughing at the DVD. A high, sweet ripple of sound that set him off again. He closed the door and called Claire.

‘I'm sorry. I know we're not really speaking but this is an emergency. I'm stuck in the bathroom.'

‘Call a locksmith.'

‘It's me that's the problem. Ash is taking Willow back to London tomorrow. I only have her for a few more hours and I didn't realise it would be this hard. I don't want her to know I'm upset. Can I bring her down to see Dog just to distract her till I get hold of myself?'

‘He's gone.'

‘Back to your dad's?'

‘I had to have him put him down the day before yesterday.'

‘No! I liked him. I thought he looked a bit like Keith Richards.'

‘Speaking of Richards,' Claire sighed. ‘Your creepdar turned out to be fairly accurate. Richard let Dog out on purpose. He was trying to get rid of him. We broke up.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You did me a favour.'

‘Anytime.'

Claire remembered her mother's anniversary, last year, when Ray had dropped everything to spend the day with her. ‘If you're really stuck, you and Willow can come to a party in my dad's house.'

‘A
party
at your
dad's
? Are we playing oxymorons? Because if we are, I give up, you win.'

The curtains were drawn and nobody answered the door so Claire wrote a note on a petrol receipt in eye pencil. She was posting it through the letterbox when she saw a shadow in the hall.

‘Kelly!' She peered in through the sandblasted glass. ‘Are you in there?'

Her sister-in-law opened the door reluctantly. She was wearing a dressing gown and a lot of make-up. She looked terrible. The floor behind her was littered with junk mail and there was an open carton of milk on the gilt hall table beside a dead orchid.

‘Claire. What a surprise.'

‘I was wondering if you knew what day it is?'

‘It's Thursday,' Kelly folded her arms, ‘right?'

‘It's Nick's birthday.'

‘And?' What was Nick's sister doing on her doorstep? They barely knew one another.

Claire fiddled with her locket. ‘Look, I know you and Nick have been having a rough time and I don't know what's been going on—'

‘Well, if you want to catch up, you should pick up a copy of
Hot Gossip
, it's got all the juicy details.'

‘Nick wouldn't have an affair. I've known him all my—'

‘How's that? You've seen him, what, a dozen times in the last twenty years?'