All Because of You (Lakeview #2) (41 page)

As promised, Natalie had organised and paid for flights to get Liz and Tara home late on the Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday evening as had been arranged.  It was a relief really, Liz thought, as she didn’t think poor Tara could cope with having to try and keep up a brave face for her sake. Liz knew that if she was in Tara’s position, she’d just want to lock herself away from everyone and have a good cry, but true to form Tara was trying to keep up a steady stream of chat on the way home in the plane. 

And when they reached Dublin airport close to six pm, Tara insisted on driving Liz to
Lakeview.

“No, you head home,” Liz said, dismissing the offer. “I’ll give Eric a call. The traffic will be light this time on a Saturday evening, and he’ll be here in no time.”

But Tara wouldn’t hear of it and so, earlier than expected, Liz arrived back from her weekend away, tired but thankful she didn’t have Tara’s worries to deal with.

Waving her friend goodbye from the gate, and thanking her profusely for the lift home, Liz walked round back to take a quick check on the dogs before letting herself in the back door.

There was no sign of life in the kitchen, so she threw her bags on the kitchen table, and went to look for Toby and Eric in the living room.

Expecting to see a cosy tableau of her husband and young son sitting in front of the TV with perhaps the dogs at their feet, Liz couldn’t believe what she was seeing instead.

“What the hell is
she
doing here?” she shouted from the living-room doorway, as a shocked Eric, a delighted Toby and a brazen Emma turned around to face her. 

There the cow was sitting cosily in Liz’s living room with her husband and son and behaving as if she belonged there all her life!

“Liz – what are you doing here?” Eric asked, all the colour draining from his face.

“What am I doing here? I
live
here!” Liz raged. “And I asked you a question! What is 
she
doing here? Eric do what you like behind my back, but how dare you, how
dare
you bring this floozy into my house and flaunt her in front of my son. How dare you!”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “Wow, and here I was th
inking you were the mousey type. Shows how much I know.”

“You keep your mouth shut, you little tramp!” Liz said. She couldn’t help it, something inside her had snapped seeing that girl there, knowing that she had the power to break up her life, mess up her family, in fact had probably done so already.  So what was the point in hiding from it anymore? She had no respect for Eric, and certainly none for that rap Emma, but she owed it to her son at least to show some backbone, in the same way that Tara had for hers.

“Liz! What the hell is wrong with you?” Eric cried. “Don’t use language like that, especially not in front of Toby.”

As if on cue, the baby started to cry and Liz immediately marched into the room, brushed past a shocked Eric and took him in her arms. “It’s all right, honey, Mummy’s here, now.” She kissed her son gently on the head, swearing blindly that Eric could do what he liked but he would never, ever hurt this child. She turned to Emma and Eric. “Get the hell out of my sight, the two of you, and carry on with whatever you were doing somewhere else.”

“Liz – ”

“I don’t want to hear your pathetic excuses, Eric. Be man enough for once in your life to tell the truth.”

“Wow, I
definitely
had you pegged wrong,” Emma said, and Eric silenced her with a look.

“Emma, I think you’d better go,” he said softly to her.

For Liz, the gentle way he spoke to the other girl was like a red rag to a bull.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” she cried. “I want both of you
out of my sight
!  This instant!  I don’t care where you go or what you’re doing – to be honest, I really couldn’t give a …” she caught herself just in time, “a damn about what’s going on between you. So you,” she pointed at Eric, “can take your tramp and get away from me.”

“Liz! What are you – ?”

“I don’t want to hear it Eric,” she raged. “Just leave me alone, both of you!” And with that she turned on her heel and marched into the kitchen. 

Then, hands still shaking with anger, she put Toby on her lap, and her head in her hands and cried.

In the living room Eric and Emma stared at one another, unsure what to say.

“I think you’d better leave,” Eric said finally, as Emma got to her feet.

“Well, it seems you’re most definitely in the doghouse now,” she told him resignedly.

“Emma, please, just go – I need to sort this out.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

“I think I have to,” Eric replied levelly, as he met her worried gaze. “I have to tell her something – especially now that it’s all come to a head. But I really had no idea she’d come back early today and –”

“Look do what you have to do,” she said, sighing deeply. She picked up her bag and headed for the door. “I think everything has to come out now anyway. It was bad luck my being here, wasn’t it?” 

“Yes,” Eric replied firmly. “Yes, it was.”

“Liz, listen to me,”

“I don’t want to hear it, Eric, I really don’t. How dare you bring that floozy into our home!”

When Emma had left and Eric had followed her into the kitchen, evidently wanting to talk, Liz had put on a Disney video for Toby who was now watching it happily in the living-room, and Liz thought, hopefully oblivious to his parents’ ‘discussion’.

“Why are you behaving like this, Liz? And as for calling Emma a floozy? What’s all that about?”

“Oh, believe me I could think of plenty other names to call her,” Liz said, lifting her chin, “but I’m not going to – not with our son in the next room.”

“Liz, I don’t understand, what’s brought all of this on?”

“What?” She whirled around to face him, amazed at his brazenness. “What’s brought all of this on? I come home early from a weekend away, away from worrying about our marriage, to find you, your pregnant girlfriend and my son happily ensconced in my front living room –
that’s
what’s brought all of this on! How did you expect me to react, Eric? Did you think that I would come in, pull up a table for Emma to put her feet on and offer her a cup of coffee or something? How can you be so callous, bringing her here, flaunting her in front of everyone and, worse, in front of Toby? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Liz – ”-

“ I said I don’t want to hear it, Eric! I’ve seen and heard enough already. All I want now is for you to just get out of my sight – just pack your stuff and leave. Get out of the house. I’d go myself only I don’t feel as though I should have to. This is my home, after all, my dream house, our dream house. Except it didn’t turn out exactly like that, did it?” She bit her lip, willing the tears to stay away.

“Liz, you have things totally wrong!” Eric cried, white-faced. “I don’t know why you think there’s something going on between me and Emma – she just calle
d over this afternoon to say hi. I didn’t know she was coming, and I certainly didn’t think it would be –”

“Oh for goodness sake, why can’t you just come right out and admit it! All those secret meetings with her that you think I didn’t know about, the texts and phone conversations, all the sneaking around behind my back. How long did you think it would be before I found out? This is a small town, Eric – as you should well know.”

Eric blanched. “You seriously think I was having an affair with Emma?”

“Why not? She’s the famous ex-girlfriend, isn’t she? The one who supposedly broke your heart for some unexplained reason all those years ago. The one I’ve had to try and live up to ever since we moved to this godforsaken place.”

“Liz – ”

“So, you go and do what you like now – go ahead, you’re free. Free of me and Toby and the drudgery of married life. Although, seeing as she’ll be ready to give birth in a few months, it won’t be long before you’re back in the same mindless boring existence you’re in now.”

“Mindless boring existence … what the hell are you talking about? I love you and Toby, but you’re too wrapped up in him to notice or care!”

“Don’t make this about me, Eric, don’t you dare make it about me or blame me! You and Toby were all I ever wanted, a happy family is all I ever wanted, you know that.”

“I do know that, which is why I’ve always done everything in my power to make that happen! I do know how much it means to you, and it means everything to me too.  But I did something stupid, Liz, I did something that could destroy all that and I couldn’t tell you.”

“Getting another girl pregnant was a funny way of keeping our family together, Eric,” she said bitterly.

“Liz, for heaven’s sake, will you listen to me! I did
not
get Emma pregnant. I am not having an affair with her!”

Something deep inside Liz began to flutter awake, but she didn’t dare believe him, not just yet. “What about all those secret meetings? The texts … the sneaking around?”

Eric sat down alongside her at the kitchen table. “It wasn’t like that. As you know, Emma and I used to be friends and –”

“I think that’s a bit of an understatement, don’t you?”

“Liz, you have to understand that Emma and also Tara to a certain extent understood what I was going through, growing up here in this town. My family weren’t liked, because of my dad’s drinking – I wasn’t liked …” He shook his head. “But she and Tara were good friends to me back then. And when I moved back to Lakeview –”

“You remembered how good you were together, and decided to take up where you left off all those years ago?”

“That’s not it. When we first moved here, things were going great. You said you’d never been so happy as in this house, with Toby and being able to run the kennels. I knew it was up to me to keep that going. I wanted you to be happy – for us to be happy. But recently it’s seemed that Toby and the dogs are what’s keeping you happy, not me.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Eric, spare me the ‘my wife doesn’t understand me so I was forced into another woman’s arms’ bit. It’s a bit clichéd, don’t you think?”

“It wasn’t that.  I felt a bit … isolated from it all. And it was weird, because it had been my idea to move here and make a new life for ourselves in Lakeview, so I could hardly turn around and tell you that I wasn’t enjoying it as much as you were.”

“But you were commuting to the city! You weren’t
here often enough to enjoy it.  You were too busy enjoying yourself in pubs in Dublin.”

Eric looked right at her. “I wasn’t enjoying myself in Dublin pubs. Liz, I was working in them.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Liz, I got laid off from Securitex a couple of months ago, not long before Tara went on holiday. I couldn’t tell you because you were so excited about living here and about getting the house sorted properly, and I didn’t want you to feel as though you had to succeed with the kennels right away to keep us going. I didn’t want to put you under any pressure.”

“But how could you not tell me you got laid off?” Liz gasped, stunned.

“I thought I’d find something soon enough, and again, I tried a couple of places in
Lakeview. But Liz, as you know, nobody needs security guards in a tiny place like this, I couldn’t find anything different, and it wasn’t easy getting in somewhere in Dublin either. So I went back to bar work. I was doing days in a hotel in Leeson Street, and some nights – the nights I told you I was working overtime at Securitex, in a place in Temple Bar. That’s why it worked out so well this weekend and I ‘supposedly’ had the time off while you went away. Anyway, one night, Emma happened to walk into the place I was working, and I was rumbled. So I had to tell her what had happened.”

“You told
her
– but you couldn’t tell me?”

“I couldn’t tell you, Liz. I knew you’d be devastated.”

“And you didn’t think I’d be devastated even more to think that you were the father of Emma Harrington’s child?”

“Liz, never in a million years did I imagine you’d think something like that! Why would you?”

“Because of all those secret meetings and texts, which I’m still not convinced were innocent by the way. What was going on? What else were you hiding from me? Because there had to be something else, Eric – losing your job is no big deal in the scheme of things. You’ll easily get something else – and I’m sure if you sat it out long enough you’d get something here.”

“You see, this is why I didn’t want to tell you! I knew you’d try t
o convince me to get a job here. And when I didn’t find anything – when I was sitting at home twiddling my thumbs while my wife had to look after other people’s dogs to keep things going, then everyone would say that they’d been right all along, that I was Pat McGrath’s son after all – a waster and a drunk.”

Liz was amazed at the pain in his voice. She’d never really understood why Eric felt he had to prove something to the people in the village. Tara had mentioned that his father had been troublesome and that she’d been afraid Eric would turn out the same, but because his father had been dead for years, Liz hadn’t really known what she meant by this.