Lessons in Heartbreak (36 page)

‘What did you say? You want to give me what?’ Izzie asked, confused.

‘I want to be with you.’

She blinked. ‘No, you cannot be doing this, Joe. Don’t play me. I’m not some idiot you can fob off with words and then, ten years down the line, I’m sitting here in the girlfriend seat and nothing has changed.’

‘I’m not doing that,’ he said. ‘I’m saying I want to leave Elizabeth. Tell her we can’t mess around with this separation thing any more, that it can’t be on and off all the time. I’m ready to make the break.’

He reached out and held her hands. And in that startling instant, Izzie believed him because of the gesture. Her mind couldn’t compute what he was saying because it was so unbelievable, but taking her hand
in this restaurant
, a restaurant frequented by people he knew, where a person couldn’t step in the direction of the restrooms without fifteen people noticing them – taking her hand here meant something. It was a declaration.

I’m with this woman
, he was saying, loud and clear.

‘Joe, I don’t know what to say.’

‘Say yes,’ he said calmly. ‘That’s all you have to do. Say you want to be with me.’

A month ago, she’d have burst into tears on hearing him say those words, because they were everything she wanted to hear. But now, after everything that had happened…

She hesitated. He’d let her down so badly when she’d needed him. Inside her still was the memory of flying home to Ireland,
heartsick and lonely without his support. She could remember the misery she’d felt going to her grandmother’s bedside after having heard the man she loved telling her he couldn’t be with her.

Her grandmother’s bedside had felt like church: Izzie had gone there to be absolved of her sins, to feel Gran’s love, but there had been no blessed relief. Gran hadn’t woken up, and Joe had abandoned her.

His betrayal had left a wound so deep that, even with fresh scar tissue on top, it was still raw underneath.

‘Joe, I don’t know if I can do this,’ she said. ‘I think it’s too late.’

To his credit he didn’t gasp in surprise.

‘I didn’t think it would be easy for you,’ he said, ‘after I let you down before.’

She nodded and then smiled slowly.

‘Is that why you brought me here – to back me into a corner, so that we’d be all over the gossip columns tomorrow and there’d be no way for either of us to back out?’

Joe grinned and his eyes lit with that sexy sparkle she still adored. She felt the magnetic pull of him and how easy it would be to say yes.

Joe Hansen wanted her. He wanted to leave home to be with her. And yet, to do that, he’d have to tell Elizabeth, tell their children, pack a bag and walk out the door and leave his key on the hall table, or whatever passed for a hall table in his mansion on the Upper East Side. Perhaps he’d told Elizabeth already? No, she thought, he wouldn’t do that, he’d wait to see. Joe was pragmatic. Wait to see if Izzie said yes; and if she said no, no harm done.

‘Tell me,’ she asked, holding the stem of her water glass, ‘have you told Elizabeth you’re leaving?’

‘This is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?’ Joe answered. ‘No, I haven’t. I was waiting to see what happened today. That
doesn’t mean that she and I are going to stay together if you say no, because it’s over between us and there’s no point in dragging it out any longer. This separation thing has gone on for years, on and off.’

‘You say all the right things,’ she said. She could recall having said that to him before. He really did say all the right things. It was like he could see into her mind and work out precisely what she needed to hear. Except, once upon a time he hadn’t said the right thing, and that’s what she couldn’t forget. She wasn’t going to be a fool the second time round. She had to know everything.

‘So, tell me, this really being together: are there rules?’

‘Rules?’

‘Second family rules,’ she said.

He still looked blank.

‘Rules like you want to be with me but no wedding rings, no kids…’ Her voice trailed off; it was almost too painful to talk about. Children. Babies. Her baby. Damn, but the biological clock was powerful. Not so much a clock as a time-bomb. Babies kept popping into her head, and now they’d popped into this conversation too.

She and Joe had never discussed children. Well, how could they? It hadn’t been a relationship where they’d had the chance to talk about such things. Like a sports car, they’d gone from 0 to 60 too fast for that type of discussion. She glanced up at his face and saw the surprise still written there.

‘What – you had me down as a tough cookie career girl who’d prefer a Fendi bag to a baby?’ she asked, somehow managing to hold back the hurt.

He laughed. ‘No, not exactly. But I didn’t think you were the maternal type.’

‘Not the maternal type,’ she repeated dully.

‘I didn’t mean –’

‘No, that’s fine,’ she said quickly. Too quickly.

He saw his mistake. ‘You never said anything about kids,’ he pointed out. ‘How could I know?’

‘Did Elizabeth talk to you about kids before you got married?’ she asked.

He thought about it. ‘Well, no –’

‘But it was a given, right? She was going to be the mother of your children?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s my point, Joe. We never had that talk, but you didn’t even rate it as a possibility. What does that say about us and our future?’

‘I don’t really want more children,’ he said helplessly. ‘I have to be honest. Children complicate things. If you had them, you’d understand. And it would make the break-up even harder for my boys if you and I had more children. Added pressure. I’d hate them to think they weren’t the most important people in my life.’

She nodded. She was getting very good at this nodding at important moments when she felt as if her heart was breaking.

‘But, we can talk about it,’ he said. ‘I mean, I never thought – I don’t mean we can’t have any, it’s just…’

‘I think we’ve got a deal-breaker,’ Izzie said tightly. ‘I don’t want to walk into a relationship where the boundaries are mapped out because you’ve already been there, done that. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t go, Izzie,’ he begged. ‘We can talk about this,’ he said.

‘Later,’ she said. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek quickly, not lingering, in case he grabbed her and then she’d really be lost, because Joe Hansen wanted her and when he wanted something, he went after it. She wouldn’t put it past him to grab her and to kiss her passionately in the restaurant, with everyone watching. So she moved away quickly.

‘As they say in all the best business circles, “leave it with me”,’ she said, and got to her feet gracefully. ‘I’ll call you.’ And with that, she turned and walked out of the restaurant, conscious that a lot more eyes were on her as she left than had been on her when she entered. She looked straight ahead as if she was already thinking of her next appointment but instead, only one thought was going through her mind: what was she going to do now?

There was only one option: phone Carla. She sat in the back of a cab, hoped the driver didn’t speak English because she didn’t particularly want to share her pain, and dialled.

Her friend was between calls, between coffees and sounded irritable.

‘When are you back in the office, Izzie?’ she said. ‘It’s crazy here today and the espresso machine’s broken down.’

‘He’s going to leave her.’

‘What?’ said Carla.

‘I said,’ repeated Izzie, ‘he’s going to leave her. Joe is going to leave his wife.’

‘Well paint me pink and mail me to Guam,’ Carla retorted. ‘I didn’t see that one coming. Thought you were meeting him today to finish it in style.’

‘I was,’ Izzie said. ‘I was. I had it all planned and then I was half-way through my spiel and he said he wanted to be with me.’

‘Honestly, straight-up wants to be with you, or just semi wants to be with you?’ demanded Carla cynically. ‘Like, he plans to stay married to his wife and give you a better class of present to keep you happy?’

‘No,’ Izzie sighed. ‘He never gave me presents in the first place. It wasn’t that sort of relationship, you know that.’

‘Hmm, yeah,’ said Carla. ‘I’d have understood that better. Mercenary relationships have rules and I like rules. Well, if
he’s going to leave her, wonderful. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? But you don’t sound very happy. Why not?’

‘He doesn’t want kids, my kids,’ Izzie said flatly.

‘Ah.’

‘Exactly. Ah.’

‘He said that?’

‘More or less. More kids would hurt his sons, and he pointed out that kids change everything and if I had them, I’d know that.’

‘Cute,’ Carla commented. ‘Cute to say that to a woman who doesn’t have any. Tactful.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘What are you going to do?’

Izzie rubbed her eyes. She had no idea what she was going to do. ‘Think about it, I suppose.’

Think about what it would mean to go back to him: think about her aunt Anneliese too. Her thoughts ran to Anneliese often: how she was doing now, without Edward.

‘Do you love him enough to have him without the kid thing?’ Carla asked.

‘That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?’ Izzie wished she had a crystal ball so she could find the answer. Did she love Joe enough to be with him knowing that she was giving up the chance to have children? He’d said they could talk about it, but she knew he’d been speaking from the heart when he said he didn’t want more children. Who would want to have a baby with someone who didn’t want a child with them?

‘Well?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Izzie said. ‘You know, Carla, every time I think I have all the answers, they change the freaking questions.’

‘I don’t know what to say, Izzie,’ Carla said. ‘Except, come on in. I don’t have the answers either, but hey, you’ll be among friends. What do you say?’

‘See you in five,’ Izzie answered dully.

When she got home that evening, the message light was lit on her answering machine. For a moment, she thought it might be Joe telling her he’d changed his mind, he loved her and would love to father her babies.

Eagerly, she pushed ‘Play’.

‘Hello, Izzie love.’ It was her father and he sounded very tired and old. ‘Sorry to be giving you more bad news over the phone –’

Izzie’s hand flew to her mouth. Gran?

‘– but your aunt Anneliese tried to kill herself today. Drown herself, I should say. Somebody pulled her out of the sea in time. She’s in hospital. Edward and I were just with her.’ She could hear the shock in his voice. ‘Phone me when you get this. Love you, bye.’

Izzie shuddered. Her poor darling Anneliese. Only today, Izzie had been thinking about her and how she was surviving without her husband. Izzie had tried not to think about that because she didn’t want to compare Anneliese with her own story. She didn’t want to cast Anneliese and Elizabeth in the same role. She couldn’t bear to do that. There was nothing about her and Joe that mirrored Nell and Edward, was there?

The day after Anneliese Kennedy tried to drown herself, Jodi bought herself a pregnancy testing kit and when Dan had gone to school, she went into the bathroom and used it. She would never have thought of such a thing had it not been for her mother saying that she’d had a shock, and instead of doing any sightseeing the next day, wouldn’t it be a good idea if the three of them did something relaxing, like taking spa treatments in the hotel.

‘Sounds great, Mum,’ Jodi had said. ‘I’ll go along to reception and book.’

They’d been having coffee in the lounge and trying to plan their day when an acquaintance of Dan and Jodi’s had walked by, and told her the news.

‘Trying to kill yourself is not the answer to anything,’ had been her aunt Lesley’s sniffy comment about it. ‘Just as well we never met her. I don’t like being around negative people.’

At which point Jodi’s mum had finally told Aunt Lesley she was being rude and why didn’t she leave them alone if she wasn’t going to be supportive.

Lesley, unused to her sister standing up to her, had stomped off furiously, leaving Jodi and her mother to talk.

Finally, Karen had suggested the spa treatments. ‘You need something lovely to help you chill out,’ she said. ‘I love those aromatherapy massages, they really take the strain out of your whole body. Lesley would hate that, though. She’s more of a manicure person.’

At the reception desk, Jodi had been put on the phone to the spa where she’d talked to a friendly therapist who’d listed their treatments.

‘We’ve got a lovely mum-to-be special on this week,’ she added, ‘if that applies to anyone in your party.’

Jodi had been about to say no, it wasn’t suitable, when a thought occurred to her. She had a very clear memory of sitting in Dorota’s with Anneliese and having to rush to the loo because her period had come. The cramps which always followed at high speed had made her feel so awful, she’d had to go home, and Anneliese had gone to the chemist to get some painkillers for her.

That had been six weeks ago – one and a half menstrual cycles. Two plus two equalled baby. She felt the same wild burst of excitement she’d had the last time, but she felt fear too. The last time, she’d miscarried. She couldn’t bear to go through that again.

‘On second thoughts, could I book treatments for two instead of three?’ she said to the therapist. ‘A facial, mani and pedi for my aunt, Lesley Barker, who’s staying in the hotel, and an aromatherapy massage and facial for my mum. Eleven o’clock for both? Great.’

‘Mum, I’ve booked you both in but you know, I forgot that I’m going to see this lady in the nursing home tomorrow – it’s part of my research for the Rathnaree story.’ This wasn’t precisely true. Jodi had been meaning to see Vivi Whelan for days but hadn’t got round to it. Still, the trip would give her an excuse to get away from Aunt Lesley. Right now, between the possibility of her being pregnant and the sadness over
poor Anneliese, she needed to be as far away from her aunt as was humanly possible. If she was pregnant, she didn’t want her baby raised by someone else because she was in jail for manslaughter.

In her bathroom, she sat on the side of the tub with her eyes closed and then opened them to look at the little window. Two fat blue lines sat side by side. Two lines meant pregnant. Pregnant. Jodi sat with her hands clasped to her mouth and rolled the idea around in her mind. If only she could be given a guarantee that this time everything would be all right, then she might allow herself to feel happy. But nobody could give her that.

The meetings with the miscarriage support group had shown her that some people endured many miscarriages before carrying a baby to term. She didn’t think she’d be strong enough to cope with the pain a second time round.

‘Don’t panic,’ she told herself, and put the kit carefully away in her knicker drawer. ‘Don’t panic. Keep yourself busy and don’t panic’.

She gathered up her notebook and tape recorder. Seeing Vivi Whelan would be a good way of letting everything percolate in her brain.

Laurel Gardens was a long, two-storey building surrounded by beautifully kept gardens. Anneliese went there every few days to visit Lily, Jodi knew.

‘I came to visit Mrs Vivi Whelan?’ Jodi said at the front desk, wondering if there was a security system in place to protect the people in the home, and ready with an explanation about why she was there.

‘Great. She loves visitors,’ said the woman behind the desk cheerily. ‘Go on in, take the first left down the stairs to the garden room and buzz there. They’ll let you in.’

‘Er, OK,’ said Jodi, surprised at the lack of vetting. Anneliese had said it was a lovely place, but she hadn’t mentioned this laid-back approach to visitors.

On the inside, Laurel Gardens was the sort of place a person might rest in very happily. Decorated in soothing shades of apple green, soft classical music drifted out of a radio somewhere, the smell of baking permeated the air and there was no roaring or screaming from discontented people. Instead, the doors were open to a large garden and residents sat inside on armchairs or outside under the shade of parasols. The staff wore white but they weren’t bustling round like they might in a hospital: here, they sat beside their patients, talking, smiling, patting an arm here and holding a cup up for someone there.

‘I’m looking for Mrs Whelan,’ she asked one of the nurses.

‘She’s over there, sitting at the last table in the sun.’

Vivi Whelan was a rounded lady with little wisps of white hair curling round her face and a beaming smile which she presented to the world. A nurse was feeding her a bowl of cut fruit and as soon as Jodi sat down beside her, Mrs Whelan said, ‘Sarah! Lovely!’ and smiled at her with the distant benevolence of one who had long since lost touch with reality.

The lack of vetting at the desk suddenly made sense to Jodi: she’d had to be buzzed inside the garden room area and the garden itself was surrounded by a high fence. There was no way the residents could get out and it soon became apparent that not that many people came in. The garden room was carefully locked because most of the people there were living in their own world.

Jodi felt sorry she’d never been to visit Lily now: she hadn’t wanted to be intrusive, but now she realised that visitors were important in a place like this, proof that the people weren’t forgotten.

‘No, it’s not Sarah,’ said the nurse gently. ‘Sarah was her sister,’ she explained to Jodi.

‘Hello, Mrs Whelan, I’m Jodi Beckett,’ Jodi said gently. ‘I came to talk to you because Dr McGarry said you might be able to help me.’

Mrs Whelan nodded happily.

‘I don’t want to be here under false pretences,’ Jodi said, directing her conversation to the nurse. ‘I’m trying to write a history of Rathnaree House. Dr McGarry – old Dr McGarry, that is – said I should come to see Mrs Whelan because she knows all the history of Tamarin, but if it’s not appropriate, then I’ll go.’

‘Vivi loves talking about the past,’ the nurse said. ‘She doesn’t have that many visitors, just her immediate family, so it’s nice for her to have a new face and a chance to talk. You’re not doing her any harm. The past is another place for her, somewhere she’s comfortable. The present and the recent past are her problems. But if you want information, her daughter, Gloria, might be able to help. I’ll give you her phone number.’

Gloria sounded so bad-humoured on the phone that, at first, Jodi assumed the other woman was irritated by Jodi going near Laurel Gardens and her elderly mother in the first place.

But it soon became apparent that irritation was her normal state.

‘We’ve lots of papers of my mother’s, all her bits and bobs. I’m fed up with dragging them around with us. You see, we’ve moved three times in the past five years,’ Gloria informed her testily. ‘My husband’s job. When we got back to Waterford last autumn, I told him if he needed to up sticks again, then he was on his own.’

‘Perhaps I could drop in and talk to you sometime,’ Jodi said hesitantly.

‘I don’t know much,’ Gloria went on, ‘but I could give you a look at Mother’s things. I’m at home now.’

‘Now?’ Waterford was a forty-minute drive away.

‘I’m a busy woman.’

‘Give me your address and I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ Jodi said. In for a penny and all that. And she needed to keep her
mind off the two blue lines on the pregnancy kit. Driving miles to Waterford would certainly fit the bill.

By the time she got to Gloria’s house, Jodi was sorry she’d started. Despite her best efforts, all she could think about in the car was her baby and the miscarriage. She’d been mad to think of doing this right now. The trail to Rathnaree was bare and the flicker of excitement she’d felt at the start was waning. There had to be stories behind that wonderful old house, stories surrounding the people in the faded sepia photograph. But they were going to remain hidden.

Gloria’s home was a semi-detached house on a busy road near the bishop’s palace, and Jodi’s sense of irritation with the whole project heightened when she had to circle the area three times to find parking, and then walk ages to find a ticket machine to pay the parking fee.

‘I must be mad,’ she thought as she finally pushed open the gate to the house. When Gloria opened the door and seemed pleased to see her, Jodi was a little surprised.

‘You won’t believe what I’m after finding,’ Gloria announced, ushering Jodi in.

‘What?’ asked Jodi, not convinced that it would be anything to do with her search. Already Gloria struck her as a bit of a fruitcake.

‘I knew we had papers and stuff, but it’s mainly old doctor’s bills and X-rays and things. Mother’s health was never good. But look at this: a box of old letters and all sorts of things. There’s nothing valuable in there, mind. I looked. I was hoping for a diamond necklace!’ She squawked with delight at her own joke. ‘Take care of it all.’

‘Oh, I will,’ Jodi said, her heart leaping as she looked at the box of papers and documents. Suddenly, the surge of excitement about uncovering the past came back to her.

‘But I want it all back, mind. And if you do a book, will you say that you got all the stuff from me?’

‘Of course,’ said Jodi, who’d have offered her own left leg at that precise moment, just so that she could get her hands on the precious bits of paper.

‘This is fabulous,’ she said, picking up an old newspaper clipping gently. Gloria had pulled it all out on the floor and Jodi quickly came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to put it all away, take it home and sit down and sift through it all carefully. She felt like Carter, closing up King Tut’s tomb and saying he’d come back later when he had more time.

‘I promise I’ll write you a detailed list of everything I find in the box,’ she said, ‘and I can photocopy stuff and take photographs of it and then you can have all the originals back.’ She knew the right way to document archaeological finds.

‘It might be a load of old rubbish,’ Gloria said ‘but it’s the sort of thing you were looking for, isn’t it?’

‘Exactly what I was looking for,’ Jodi agreed.

At home, Jodi had turned the second bedroom into her office and she carefully took out every piece of paper, listed them and tried to organise them into chronological order. There were letters in a tiny, neat hand on filmy notepaper – letters from Lily Kennedy to her best friend, Vivi McGuire.

Jodi made herself comfortable on the office chair and began to read.