‘It’s bound to have affected the children, hasn’t it?’
‘Well, naturally, but the children are fine, really. They’ve grown up with you not living at home. It’s all they’ve ever known, in Lewis’ case anyway. In that respect they’re much luckier than other kids of divorced parents.’
‘Still,’ he said, steering her gently back to the topic that had lately come to preoccupy his thoughts. ‘Wouldn’t it be so much better for them if their parents were together?’
She lifted her shoulders and looked away. ‘Well, yes, in theory that’s what everyone wants for their children.’ Her shoulders dropped and the corners of her mouth turned down. ‘But life doesn’t always deliver dreams.’
‘Why did you never marry again?’
Colour rose to her cheeks once more and his heart leapt in his chest. He’d thought long and hard about it and he’d come to the conclusion that she must still have feelings for him. ‘You do care for me, Sarah, don’t you?’
She frowned, her expression deeply troubled. ‘I’m fond of you, Ian, of course. But you’re married to Raquel.’
He broke eye contact then and looked at the floor. Raquel. The thorn in his side. And then, as if on cue, the phone rang and Sarah jumped to her feet. ‘I’d better get it, in case it’s the nursing home.’
Ian stood up and pulled his mobile out of his pocket. The battery was dead. Damn! What if the staff had been trying to contact him? His mother was asleep when he’d left, but what if she’d taken a turn for the worse?
Sarah snatched up the phone, listened for a moment and frowned. ‘Yes, he’s here,’ she said rather coolly, then thrust the receiver into his hand.
He took the phone from her hand, as cold dread settled in his stomach.
‘What are you doing over there?’ said a sharp, ill-tempered woman’s voice and, while the dread evaporated instantly, his heart sank. Why did Raquel have to ring now when he and Sarah were having the most important conversation of the last eight years?
‘Raquel,’ he said, and sat down abruptly on the nearest chair. ‘Thank God it’s you. I thought it was the nursing home.’
‘I’ve been home for over half an hour. I tried calling you on your mobile.’
‘You got my message?’ he said, watching Sarah wipe splashes of tomato sauce off the cream tiles behind the cooker. Tiles he’d spent an entire weekend putting up. He’d done a good job and Sarah had been so thrilled.
‘Yes, but you didn’t say where you were going. What are you doing over at Sarah’s?’
‘I’ll explain when I get home.’
‘It had better be good,’ she said meanly and hung up.
Ian sighed. ‘Sorry ’bout that,’ he said apologetically. He put the phone in its cradle and Sarah yawned.
‘Tired?’
She nodded. ‘Late night last night. Work thing.’
‘Well,’ he said, fumbling in his jacket pocket for the car keys. ‘I guess I’d better go. I’ll just pop into the lounge and say goodbye to the kids. Give me five minutes.’
He sat between them on the sofa, an arm round each of them, marvelling at how big they’d grown, how two unpromising scraps of life had turned into the most beautiful children he’d ever seen. Molly placed her head on his shoulder and Lewis cuddled up in the crook of his arm. Oh, what he would give to be back here, on this sofa every night, with his children in his arms.
His hand was on the front door latch when Sarah called his name. He turned and she padded noiselessly up the hall, the now empty wine glass pressed to her chest, her hair fallen from the ponytail. ‘Between us, we’ll take care of her, Ian. And everything’s going to be all right. Try not to worry.’
Her blonde hair, back-lit by the lamp on the hall table, was like a halo. Goodness shone from her, pure and bright. Why hadn’t he fought harder to save his marriage?
When the children were in bed and the house was finally quiet for the night, Sarah threw together a stiff gin with out-of-date tonic she’d found lurking in the bottom of the fridge. Standing over the kitchen sink she swallowed the bitter drink in one, grimaced, and waited for the alcohol to slow her racing pulse and unscramble the thoughts inside her head. Bisto rubbed his back against her leg and meowed.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Bisto. I’ve forgotten to feed you, haven’t I?’ He meowed again as if he understood. She spooned half a tin of cat food into his bowl and he gobbled it down appreciatively.
She’d got home late last night from the Europa Hotel and then lain in bed for hours, tossing and turning, unable to sleep, replaying over and over her meeting with Cahal.
She remembered every little detail of his changed appearance; the smattering of grey hairs in his dark sideburns; the deep zig-zag crease across his brow; the slight slackness of the skin on the back of his tanned hands. She’d noticed too the things that hadn’t changed like the barely visible, half-moon- shaped scar on his cheekbone, a war wound from a long-ago hurling match. Lying in the darkness staring at the digital clock display, as the minutes and hours ticked by, sorrow and anger welled up like twin demons. She tortured herself with scenarios of what might have been. The life they might have had. All the old regrets came rushing back and with them came anger. She had been a fool to believe in him. For all his talk of love, his promises had been empty. He should not have come back. He should not be here, invading her space and making her question the life she had so painstakingly constructed.
After a restless night, she’d been exhausted all day at work, on edge the entire time, expecting him to walk through the door at any minute. Yawning, she rinsed out the glass and decided on an early night.
Upstairs, in the bedroom where she’d slept alone these past eight years, she changed into her pyjamas and opened the heavy bottom drawer of a mahogany chest – one of many items that Ian, in his haste to shed his old life like a skin, had left behind. Under a pile of lycra gym wear she’d bought after the divorce and never worn, she found the old shoebox that was home to her special things. She sat down on the bed with her legs crossed and took off the lid.
Under the black-and-white photographs she found the small, hand-carved green-and-blue lacquered box that she’d owned for so long she could no longer remember how she’d come to possess it.
She opened the hinged lid that didn’t quite fit properly. Inside was a magpie assortment of tarnished trinkets collected in her youth, which she could not bring herself to throw away. Pieces of insubstantial jewellery from old boyfriends; a thin silver bracelet she’d bought with her first pay packet from her Saturday job in the hairdressers; a silver alloy and marcasite bracelet with a broken clasp that had belonged to her maternal grandmother.
Finally she found what she was looking for. Her fingers closed around a twist of tissue paper, yellowed and crisp with age. She set the box on the bed, unravelled the paper and a delicate necklace and a ring, both dirty with neglect, fell onto the dove grey satin bedspread. She picked
