Page 8 of One Day and Forever
‘And you never heard from her again?’
Alice put the crusts of her toast down on her plate, and as always, Val reached over and took them, with a mutter of, ‘This is why I’m two stones heavier than you.’
‘A couple of postcards at first, then nothing. You know how it was back then. Phone calls were expensive and there was no internet or texts. When people moved away, that was it, unless they came back to visit, and as far as I know, Morag never did. I guess she just got consumed by her new life. I was already with Larry at that point, completely wrapped up in him and madly in love…’
An involuntary shudder punctuated that comment. Even now, she felt for her twenty-five-year-old self, who couldn’t possibly have imagined that the suave, successful bar owner she’d met back then would become a cruel, controlling nightmare of a man, a notoriously corrupt politician who would trap her in an unhappy marriage until his very public downfall three decades later. It wasn’t even a year since she’d escaped him and she still felt a moment of anxiety when she woke up every morning, until she remembered that he was out of her life.
‘Anyway, I’ve always regretted losing touch with her, so I’d love to catch up with her now, and it feels like there’s something significant in the timing, with it being my last day in Glasgow. If Audrey had passed away next week, I wouldn’t have seen the notice or been able to go to the funeral. Almost feels like I was meant to be there. Does that sound mad?’
‘Absolutely. But I’d probably do the same, so I’m not judging.’
‘You don’t have to come with me, though.’
Val let her last gulp of tea go down. ‘I know, but I don’t want you going off on your own, in case there’s no one you know there. Besides, I’ve been to so many funerals in the last few years, I know the words to all the hymns, so I’m great with the singing.’
The twinkle in Val’s eye made it obvious she was joking. Alice had learned pretty quickly that dark humour got this woman through everything.
‘And anyway,’ Val went on. ‘It’s your last day, and I’ve told my people to clear my hectic, highbrow schedule so I can spend it with you. And let me tell you, Alice Brookes…’ Alice had dropped Larry’s surname the day she left him and hearing her maiden name still gave her a thrill. ‘You’d better not vanish off the face of the earth or I’ll be on the first flight to London to track you down. Rory and Sophie will have to barricade the front door to stop me.’
‘I’m sure Rory and Sophie would put the welcome mat out for you,’ Alice countered. ‘They both adore you.’
‘Aye, that goes both ways. I’ll miss you though, pal.’ Val reached over and took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
‘I’ll miss you too. More than I can say. But you know it’s the best thing. A fresh start, far from the stigma of being Larry McLenn’s ex-wife. I’ll never be able to escape that in Glasgow.’
‘I know, ma love, and you’re right.’ Val sniffed, then took her hand away to dry her eyes with the sleeve of her dressing gown. ‘Agh, no bloody wonder I’ve got wrinkles,’ she said, with another loud sniff, before pushing herself up and reaching for both their plates. ‘Right, well, let’s get a start on then. It’s going to take time to turn this dried-up husk of a face into a thing of beauty this morning.’
Emotional moment passed, Alice nodded gratefully. She’d miss this woman beyond words, but it was time for a new chapter.
Today was the day she would finally cut ties with the past and embrace her new future. For almost thirty years, her life had been held hostage by Larry McLenn. But there was nothing that he could do to hurt her now.
4
ZAC CORLAN
This was the first time all week that the kitchen had been empty of people and Zac knew it wouldn’t last long, so, coffee in hand, he opened his Aunt Audrey’s back door and let the freezing-cold air shock him awake. Hislateaunt. He kept forgetting that bit. She was still in every inch of this house, from the large ceramic chicken that sat on the counter storing fresh eggs, to the giant sunburst clock that hung on the far wall. Aunt Audrey had been a character. One who, if she were still here, would have been yelling at him to get the door closed because ‘the cold out there would make your bits fall off.’
At 8a.m. on any other weekday, he’d be in his office in Dublin, contemplating the pile of broken promises that came with the caseload of files in his in-tray. Being a lawyer who specialised in divorce definitely wasn’t a job for the faint-hearted and January was always his busiest month. But instead of being at work, he was in a house in Glasgow, preparing to bury the aunt that he’d visited with his mum and dad at least twice a year for his entire life.
Aunt Audrey had passed away suddenly, suffering a heart attack on Christmas Eve, almost a year after his mum, Morag,had succumbed to the cancer she’d lived with for years. Mum had died on the first weekend in January. The two women in his life, both gone in the space of twelve months.
‘Christ, would you shut that door? The cold out there would make your bits fall off.’
That came from his cousin, Jill, Audrey’s daughter and her absolute double, right down to the freckles, the ginger hair, her raucous laugh and her favourite sayings. Jill and her twin, Hamish, were a few years older than Zac, the elder brother and sister that he’d never had.
‘You sound just like Aunt Audrey,’ he told her, with an affectionate smile, that was returned, despite the pale mask of exhaustion and grief that Jill had been wearing since he got here last week. The irony was, that his and his dad’s flights to Glasgow had already been booked for Boxing Day, because even though his mum was no longer with him, he’d still felt the need to come here for the New Year celebrations as he’d always done. Back in November, when he’d organised the trip, it hadn’t been a popular decision with Camilla, his colleague and girlfriend of the previous six months. She’d been thinking more along the lines of St Lucia. Maybe Barbados.
When he’d dug his heels in and insisted that this year, the first without his mum, it was even more important than ever that he came with his dad to spend New Year with his aunt and family in Glasgow, she had lost all patience, especially when he broke it to her that she wasn’t invited. He wasn’t being difficult, but he figured the last thing Aunt Audrey needed was a stranger in her home at what was sure to be a tough time for her.
Camilla had called off their relationship and cleared out the drawer where she used to keep some essentials when she slept over. Last he heard, she’d consoled herself by taking three girlfriends on that Christmas and New Year trip to Barbados.
He hadn’t admitted it to a soul, but the truth was that he’d been relieved, glad that he was free to spend Christmas with his dad in his childhood home in Dublin, then fly here with Dad to spend New Year with Aunt Audrey and the rest of the family. His mum had grown up in this house, and Audrey had moved back in to take care of their ailing parents many years ago. There was something special about it. It felt like his mum was in every room. In every picture. In every memory they had here. There was nowhere else he’d wanted to spend New Year. But, of course, they’d all been blindsided when, instead of coming here to share the turn of the year with Aunt Audrey, it turned out that they were actually coming for her funeral. He’d been stunned when he’d received the phone call late on Christmas Eve to say she was gone and even now, it still didn’t seem real.
‘Your dad still sleeping?’ Jill asked him. She was holding a shoebox, which she put down on the kitchen table as she took the coffee he’d just poured her from the pot he’d already made. The coffee machine had been his Christmas gift to Aunt Audrey a few years back and she’d been chuffed to bits. Audrey and his mum would fire it up every morning they were here, and then the two of them would chat for the next hour while sipping their caffeine hits.
‘Yeah. He’s taken this pretty hard, especially with it being so soon after losing Mum. You know he adored Aunt Audrey too.’
Jill nodded, a sad smile crossing her lips. ‘And it went both ways. They were legends, all of them, weren’t they?’
