Secrets and Lies (9 page)

“Thanks so much!”

“You were the epitome of teenage angst,” Maura declared decisively.

“I felt like I was going crazy at times! I didn't know what I wanted or who I was. Everything was so exaggerated and intense and I couldn't articulate what I was feeling or what I wanted. I was very confused. You got off lightly, sis.”

“I think I took it in my stride. I was delighted when my boobs finally arrived. You were fully developed at the age of twelve and I was still flat as a pancake at fifteen! I got such a teasing for it,” Maura said.

“Teenage girls can be very cruel,” Kerry mused. “I remember how we were bullied and taunted because we were living with our aunt and uncle and they didn't have much money when we were growing up.”

“Well, we were rich in love,” Maura interjected.

“We certainly had a very blessed childhood,” Kerry agreed. “I'll never be able to thank Aunt Aisling and Uncle Sean for everything they did for us and especially for their understanding of my anorexia. Uncle Sean had to work even harder to be able to afford to send me to the clinic which helped to get me back on track.”

“They're wonderful people,” Maura smiled. “So what are we going to do about Saoirse?”

“I'll keep a close eye on her. I won't inflict the Spanish Inquisition on her just yet,” Kerry said thoughtfully.

“I'm not working tonight so you can send her around to me after school and I'll sort her hair out if you like,” Maura offered. “Maybe she and I could have a girls' night in with a takeaway and a chick-flick.”

“I'm sure she'd love it! If you're certain you don't mind?”

“Of course I don't mind. It would be my pleasure. It's been a while since she and I have hung out properly together and I don't have any plans for this evening. I'd love to spend some time with my favourite niece.”

“You can't say that!” Kerry protested.

“Yes I can,” Maura laughed at her sister's shocked face. “We both know that I love them equally but it can be our little secret that Saoirse is my favourite.”

Kerry rolled her eyes and put the coffee cups in the dishwasher.

Hope Kennedy
had always dreamed of being married by the time she was thirty years old and just weeks before her thirtieth birthday, her wish came true when she married part-time actor and wannabe priest, Sebastian Myers-Smith. The couple had met only six months previously at The Church of the Sacred Heart in Cork City.

Hope was a very spiritual person. She was raised a strict Catholic but she was no longer a religious person in the strict sense and meaning of the word. She believed that religion was a very personal and individual choice for everyone and never liked the strict and inhibiting et
hos of the Catholic Church. She prayed regularly in her own way, and still enjoyed occasionally attending church and singing hymns. She firmly believed that her prayers were being heard and resolutely believed in God, often getting into quite heated debates with her atheist friends about His existence.

“How could you possibly not believe in God?” she would ask incredulously. “Take a look at the mountains and oceans and the stars in the night sky, He's all around us every minute of every hour of every day!”

She was so passionate in her opinion that few dared to maintain their arguments against her for long. Most of her friends were quite cool and hip and trendy, too “modern” in their own minds to believe in God, but Hope was not afraid to express her beliefs. It was quite a refreshing and remarkable attitude to find in someone like her, when church was no longer considered to be hip or cool, that she was not shy in admitting that she still attended.

Hope started attending her local church much more regularly after she quit alcohol and drugs, mostly because she was inspired by the priest who was non-judgmental of her past and helpful in his attitude towards her. She firmly believed that it was her underlying faith that helped get her through some of the most difficult times in her life, especially in her battle to stay clean.

Sadly, her whirlwind marriage to Sebastian only lasted a short six months. Hope blamed herself for a big part of their marriage breakdown. She would freely admit that she was a curious mixture of massive ego and equally huge insecurity. She had many unresolved sharing issues during her marriage to Sebastian, which she saw as one of the major reasons for their relationship breakdown. They were both madly in love with each other, but they each had too many personal issues to overcome which prevented their romance from working out. They tried desperately to fix their problems, but after many emotional heart-to-hearts and one too many screaming matches, they both decided that it was best if they went their separate ways.

Needless to say Hope was in the doldrums at the end of her marriage. She truly loved Sebastian and knew that he loved her. They both felt so at ease in each other's company most of the time, but their relationship ultimately floundered over their battle of egos; neither one of them wanted to compromise or meet each other even half-way. The loss of her marriage was like the end of a dream to Hope; something that she
had once believed had massive potential and was suddenly over, almost as quickly as it had begun.

Even after her marriage to Sebastian ended she knew that she still wanted to marry again in the future. She believed in the fairytale and the happy ever after. She was madly romantic and idealistic and never gave up hope that one day she would meet her true prince.

Shortly after the end of her marriage to Sebastian, Hope was offered the opportunity of presenting her own prime-time television show, which came as a welcome distraction to her recent heartbreak. “Wanna Date” had the potential to be either a very big hit or an abysmal miss, but thanks to Hope's vivacious personality it turned out to be an unexpected hit.

The show involved Hope travelling all over Ireland to find dates for some of the country's many singletons where she would basically ambush completely random strangers on the street and enquire about their relationship status! Once the dates were set up, television cameras would follow the new lovebirds as they prepared for their date
s and, more importantly, how the dates progressed and ended. Audiences loved the show and it wasn't long until “Wanna Date” was top of the prime-time Sunday evening ratings.

Perhaps much of the appeal for Hope and “Wanna Date” was the fact that she simply loved matchmaking, and this translated effortlessly on screen. Hope described herself as a chronic matchmaker and few things made her happier than when two of her matches hit it off. She was a very engaging television host; chatty, smart and honest, often painfully so and there was a vulnerability about her that she could never quite hide.

She came across on television like a best friend and big sister and although she admitted to being an incorrigible flirt she was still the type of woman who could be trusted by other women. Men loved her because she seemed feisty and fun and equally at home in the pub or with her feet up in front of the television. It was her genuine honesty and openness which won her a place in the hearts of the public and made “Wanna Date” such a runaway success.

Hope revelled in her role as television presenter and soaked up the limelight. Sometimes, her colleagues would ask her how she had managed to do so well in such a short period of time, but deep down she knew it was down to sheer hard work and determination, with quite a large sprinkling of good luck and being in the right place at the right time.

“Wanna Date” differed slightly from other dating shows in that there was a segment on dating advice at the end of every episode. Hope realised that some people might consider her to be an odd character to give anyone dating advice, especially considering her chequered dating history, after all she'd had a string of interesting, exciting and sometimes disastrous relationships, including one failed marriage. She was fascinated by relationships which led to many heated debates in studio. Why do some relationships work while others fail miserably? Why is it that some of the most successful, gorgeous and charismatic women in the world can't find a man? Why is it that some of the loveliest men are still single?

Hope was delighted to seize the opportunity to share some of her far-flung ideas on how to be a go-getter on the dating front. “Wanna Date” was one of those fun shows with an occasionally underlying serious tone. Hope's basic advice about how to meet your next potential date was fairly simple; gyms are good, blind dates can be disastrous but sometimes worth the risk and dog-walking is excellent for developing relationships; something which she would soon discover for herself. Little did she know that when “Wanna Date” first aired that it wouldn't be long
until she would finally find her own answer to true love.

Hope had learned a lot about relationships since her first disastrous marriage. This time, with her marriage to Niall, she didn't think that it mattered that she'd married a
man who could understand her. It was more important to her to have married a man that she understood implicitly. His emotions and his feelings were of paramount importance to her. She had learned, after much introspection, that her first marriage had failed because of an inflated sense of her own self-importance and she had truly believed back then that the world revolved around her. Hope loved Niall to such a degree that he was the most important person in their relationship as far as she was concerned.

They had so many interests in common, especially their shared passion for dangerous outdoor pursuits. Hope loved few things more than scaring herself half to death with her latest dare-devil stunt. One of the most terrifying stunts they'd ever tried was a seven hundred feet bungee jump out of a helicopter over Arizona's Grand Canyon! First she watched Niall jump successfully and then it was her turn.

“This will be fun, this will be fun,” she kept chanting in her head.

It was like she had been
possessed by a mixture of total terror and an overriding drive to just do it! She was laughing and crying at the same time and trying desperately not to look out the window at the sheer drop below her. She assumed the position that they'd been taught on the ground. Then the trainer stared into her eyes and unwrapped the safety belt as he began to count down to her jump; five, four, three, two, one and then she jumped!

Hope felt herself falling and gliding through the air; an odd peace and acceptance engulfed her. It was like having an out of body experience and it ended all too soon. She felt so exhilarated afterwards that she was begging to jump again! It was simultaneously the best and worst thing that she'd ever done in her life. She would wake up in the mornings after the jump and go to sleep at night with nothing but that jump on her mind. It had been electrifying and horrifying at the same time and she was addicted to the thrill of it.

Hope's mother, Chantale, flew from Paris especially for her daughter's wedding to Niall.

Chantale's presence at the wedding opened a Pandora's box of secrets that had long since been locked shut. The week before her wedding, Hope decided that it was time that she put the long-buried demons of her childhood to bed for once and for all.

Hope could not help focusing on those demons that had returned to haunt and torment her just one week before her wedding. Her mind was racing with all sorts of different thoughts when perhaps she should have been focused on her impending Big Day. She wanted to talk to her mother and ask her the many questions that she'd never been brave enough to ask or face, so she bravely took the first step and telephoned Chantale. It wasn't easy for Hope to make that phone
call as she hadn't seen or spoken to her mother in several years. She simply announced to her mother that it was time for a meeting and invited her to the wedding.

There was a small part of Hope that couldn't hel
p blaming her mother for her string of addictions and now she wanted to finally lay the unresolved issues with Chantale to rest. She was exhausted from the anger and sadness that she carried around deep inside her every day. She wanted answers from her mother and she truly wanted to forgive her so that both of them could move on with their lives and hopefully come to a new understanding in their relationship.

Chantale had been fighting her own battle with alcohol
for many years and she admitted that it was her daughter's love and concern that had brought her back from the brink of death after too many years of binge-drinking.

Hope knew that the timing of her confrontation with her mother couldn't be more radically off, especially with her wedding just a week away, but she knew that
the right moment would never arrive, no matter how long she waited. She'd procrastinated for long enough and this was the moment. She knew that there was never a good time to discuss, whether it be with a family, a friend or a work colleague, the heartfelt matters that everyone must confront at some point in their lives. There are time's in most people's lives when suddenly things seem to go inexplicably wrong and life just gets on top of us and it is at those crucial moments that the best solution is to confront our difficulties head-on, which was exactly what Hope was prepared to do. She wanted her wedding to Niall to be a fresh start in every way and hoped to leave the baggage of her past behind her for once and for all.