Forgive and Forget Read online

  ‘Just one more, I’m working tomorrow. I don’t want to be on the wards with a hangover, that’s all I’d need.’

  ‘What are you moaning about? I’ve to write a report and do a Sunday lunch for two sets of grandparents as well as my gang. I invited them ages ago in a moment of madness. I’m telling you, Connie, don’t be too quick to give up your peaceful life. There’s a lot to be said for it,’ declared Karen as she topped up their glasses again.

  She had a point, Connie admitted. She was feeling better already. Whatever miasma had overcome her earlier was drifting away on the kindness of friendship. Sitting companionably beside Karen in the balmy evening breeze as the sun sank between the trees in a last glorious display, the loneliness that had seemed so all-encompassing earlier lessened, and her angst was almost manageable.

  Her sister-in-law’s common-sense reassurances eased her worries. She was getting herself into a heap about things she had no control over and there was no point in that. Perhaps tomorrow she might have one last attempt to try and smooth things over with Barry and Debbie. If she could get them sorted she’d feel a huge sense of achievement.

  And she’d go into a health store on Monday and buy some supplements and fish-oil tablets in an effort to ward off the worst symptoms of the menopausal tidal wave that was beginning to envelop her whether she liked it or not. She’d start her diet on Monday, she decided as she helped herself to more smoked salmon. This was her last fling. The last supper, so to speak. She might as well enjoy it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Judith lay in the bath, immersed in bubbles, soaping herself with the small bar of hotel soap. It was after seven and she was ravenously hungry. She had slept until the afternoon and woken up, dazed and disorientated, not having a clue where she was.

  Slowly, as she gazed around the hotel bedroom, it all came back to her and she groaned. She still felt sick and her head was pounding, but it was nothing in comparison to the way she’d felt earlier.

  She’d struggled off the bed and made herself a cup of tea and eaten a biscuit, and that had helped settle her tummy. Rooting in her bag she’d found a packet of Solpadeine, taken two of them, and had another cup of tea.

  She knew she was going to have to go home, but it was comforting to lie on the bed drinking tea, flicking the TV stations aimlessly. Her eyes started to close again and she undressed and got into bed properly and had fallen asleep again. She’d woken around five and lain in her little cocoon, unwilling to get up. Flicking channels again, she found an episode of Stargate. Judith lay looking at the ruggedly handsome Colonel Jack O’Neill and felt horny and lonely. Jack O’Neill was her type of man – lean, rangy, strong, with a good heart behind his sardonic exterior. She wouldn’t mind a one-night stand with the likes of him.

  What was she like? Imagine having sex with a stranger, like she’d done last night. And what was even worse, having sex and having no memory of it. She hoped she’d enjoyed it, because she could remember nothing of it. From what she’d seen of her sleeping partner, he’d been nothing much to look at. Stocky, bearded and balding. A far cry from the ruggedly handsome colonel on the TV.

  It was two years since she’d had anything like a similar episode, although that night she hadn’t been so hammered out of her skull that she couldn’t remember any of it. It had been on the night of her forty-seventh birthday. She’d been at a reception for a work do and had bumped into an old colleague from a previous workplace who was at a conference in the same hotel. He was one of the systems analysts, a skinny, lanky guy with lemonade-bottle shoulders and greasy hair. He hadn’t changed much, just gone grey and puffy-faced, but he’d been pleased to see her and she’d always got on well with him.

  She knew she was looking good, in a black velvet cocktail dress that showed off her figure to its optimum. They’d gone into one of the bars and had a drink and she’d caught up with all the gossip. Another couple of drinks had led to the offer of supper, and when he’d suggested going up to his room she hadn’t demurred. She knew that he was married and felt a niggle of guilt, but the longing for male contact and intimacy, for however fleeting a moment, had overcome her scruples and she’d been as eager as he was. In the cold light of day she’d felt dismayed at her weakness and disappointed in herself. But when he’d phoned her at work a week later and asked her out for a drink she’d agreed. They’d booked into a room in Jury’s Inn on Christchurch Place, but he’d left her at three a.m. with a promise to phone her the following week and she’d lain awake listening to the sounds of the city outside and never felt lonelier.

  She’d refused to meet him again. Being alone was easier to live with than having sordid encounters in hotel rooms with a married, middle-aged man who was really only looking for available sex, no matter what way it was dressed up.

  Well, she’d really surpassed herself this time, Judith thought grimly, as she watched her hero dive athletically through the stargate and wished she were going with him, away from this nightmare of a life living with her neurotic mother, working in a dead-end job, going on alcohol binges and having sex with strangers.

  She’d watched the news, and then hunger had forced her out of bed. A club sandwich was the snack that appealed to her most on the room-service menu, but she knew she had to have a bath before she ordered.

  She stank to high heaven and she had no robe; she couldn’t face getting back into her clothes until she’d washed. Her mother was going to have a hissy fit, but she’d stayed out this long – another couple of hours wouldn’t make any difference to the ear-bashing she was inevitably going to have to endure.

  The need to eat drove her out of the bath and, wrapped in a skimpy towel, she rang room service to order her meal. She’d hung her blouse and jacket on the shower rail, hoping that the steam of the bath would help shake out the creases and reduce the smell of smoke and BO.

  It hadn’t made that much difference and she wished she had a robe so that she could eat in comfort. Those clothes were such a reminder of her night of shame. At least she was clean and her hair smelled nice again, she comforted herself as she towelled it to remove the excess water. She was dressed and had her hair blow-dried by the time the young Eastern European waiter knocked on the door. She tipped him and fell on her food, glad that she’d ordered chips on the side.

  She ate her dessert, a gooey gateau concoction, and poured her coffee. In a strange way, she’d grown fond of her room; it offered her shelter from her life, and she didn’t want to leave. She felt as if she were in a bubble, detached from real life. Once she closed the door behind her, she would be back to its harsh realities. And the first harsh reality she had to face was getting a taxi across town to collect her car from the car park.

  Eventually, she could put off the moment no longer, and with a deep sigh of regret she picked up her bag and reluctantly walked out of the room.

  Lily Baxter’s stomach was churning. It was after seven thirty in the evening and she had heard no word from Judith since her short, sharp phone call that morning, and her phone was turned off. Maybe she’d had an accident somewhere, Lily fretted, but surely the guards would have contacted her if that were the case. They’d be able to get her address from her reg. plate.

  She wondered should she ring her son or daughter and tell them. But if Judith came home and found out that she’d phoned the other two wondering what to do, she’d be as mad as hell and there’d be a row.

  Lily twisted her wedding band around her finger. ‘Oh Ted, Ted, where are you when I need you? What did you leave me for?’ she asked in her oft-repeated refrain. She was too tense to eat; she’d managed a few crackers around four thirty but hadn’t bothered to cook a dinner.

  Maybe Judith was looking at a flat with her friend. Maybe she’d had enough and was going to move out. Lily’s heart started to race in panic. ‘Don’t get into a fluster,’ she whispered, rooting around in her paper rack for her Oxendale’s catalogue. She liked flicking through it. It was a lifesaver for her. She could buy all her clothes wit
hout having to step foot outside the door.

  She turned the pages, but she found it hard to concentrate and her gaze kept swivelling between the clock on the mantelpiece and the road outside. Every time she’d hear a car her heart would leap, only to sink in disappointment when it wasn’t Judith’s.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin when the phone rang. A wave of relief swept through her when she heard her daughter’s voice. ‘I’m on my way home. Have you eaten?’ Judith asked, as if everything were normal.

  ‘Of course I haven’t,’ snapped Lily. If Judith was pretending everything was normal, so would she. ‘I was waiting for you to come home to see what you wanted.’

  ‘I’ve eaten. Would you like a snack box or Chinese?’ came the curt response.

  ‘A snack box, please, and get a litre of milk while you’re at it, we’re running low.’

  ‘Right.’ The phone went dead, and Lily’s mouth thinned. Not a word of explanation. The cheek of her, putting her mother through such a torment of a day. Well, she’d get a fine lecture for herself, Lily decided as she hurried out to the kitchen to set a place at the table and to warm her plate in the oven.

  Twenty minutes later she heard Judith’s key in the door, and the smell of chips wafted into the kitchen. She composed her features in a stern expression, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. If Judith thought she’d got away with this carry-on she’d do it again, and Lily’s nerves just wouldn’t stand it.

  ‘Well, you’re a fine one.’ Lily launched into her attack immediately, taking the brown bag and the milk from her daughter and glaring at her. ‘What sort of a way is this to treat me? Ringing me in the morning after staying out all night, telling me you’d be home later and then not arriving until this hour of the evening? You should be ashamed of yourself. Ill-considerate and ill-mannered was not the way you were reared.’

  ‘Mother, eat your chicken and chips and don’t annoy me. I’m not feeling well, I’m going to bed,’ Judith growled and marched out of the kitchen, leaving Lily with her mouth open.

  What was wrong with her? She looked very pale. And what was she wearing her sunglasses for at that hour of the evening? Maybe she had a migraine. That must be it. Sometimes, three or four times a year, Judith would get a headache that would force her to stay in bed it would be so sickening.

  Lily hoped that was it. But she wasn’t sure. She was uneasy. She gazed out at their small back garden. Clematis tumbled riotously along the back wall that divided their garden from their neighbours’. A marmalade tabby sat staring at her with half-slitted eyes. She hated cats. Sneaky creatures slinking around.

  ‘Get out of it.’ She shook her fist angrily, but the cat ignored her and began to wash his face. More disrespect, came the irrational thought. Was there no respite for her? Lily thought wearily as she ate her dinner alone at the kitchen table.

  That hadn’t been too difficult, Judith decided as she undressed and rolled the clothes she’d been wearing into a bundle. She’d never wear them again. She didn’t want to be reminded of the lowest point yet she’d sunk to in her miserable failure of a life.

  She sat on her bed and rubbed her temples. The headache was still there, dull and aching. She’d tell her mother she’d had one of her migraines and couldn’t drive. She’d seen the pinched look of worry and apprehension in her mother’s face and eyes. It had been cruel, she supposed, to leave her worrying all day. But she wasn’t a ten-year-old. She was a grown woman. She should be able to come and go as she pleased, she thought resentfully, feeling the bars of her prison closing in on her again.

  The evening light had softened and the last rays of the sun slanted in through the top left-hand corner of the window. She had the back room and it faced west so she always got the evening sun. It was a soothing room, papered and painted in shades of ochre and buttery cream. Her wardrobe, chest of drawers and dressing table were cream and nothing was out of place. She had no ornaments or trinkets on view, just a jewellery box on the dressing table and a small TV on the chest of drawers, where she could escape from her mother’s interminable soaps and quizzes.

  One thing Judith could not stand was clutter. Her mother drove her mad with all the knick-knacks and bits and bobs she surrounded herself with. Her bedroom and sitting room had no surface uncovered, no order or clean lines, just disorder, untidiness and confusion. They were so different in taste and personality. Judith was more like her father. The strong dependable type, she thought gloomily, wishing that she’d been born feckless and irresponsible.

  The rays began to diminish and fade as she lay against the pillows, worn out and disheartened. When she was a child she’d always liked watching the sun’s progress around her room in the evening, seeing the beams on the wall opposite the window get smaller and smaller as the shadows of dusk encroached.

  Today’s dimming sunset was a metaphor for her life the way it was now, she supposed. Middle age was encroaching rapidly, and what had she to show for her life before old age diminished her completely? Very little. She didn’t even own her own house. She felt so restless and stifled and tied down. A prisoner to her mother’s neurosis. If only she’d had the guts to walk away all those years ago. Her mother would have had to learn to cope and it probably would have been a greater kindness to her. Bitterness rose in her. Her sister and brother had abandoned her to her fate with little concern or kindness. They were practically strangers to her now, apart from their occasional visits. They never rang her and she never rang them. She wasn’t close to her nieces and nephews. She didn’t buy gifts for them at Christmas and birthdays, nor they for her. She was quite alone really, when she thought about it. Her chance to have children and a family life of her own was gone; she was past her sell-by date for sure in that department. And what man would ever want her now? He’d be taking on her mother as well, and no man was ever going to be interested enough in her to do that. If it hadn’t happened in her late thirties – early forties, she may as well stop daydreaming about it. She had as much chance of getting a man as she had of Col. Jack O’Neill knocking on her front door. She was on her own and that was the be all and end all of the matter.

  Judith started to cry, great gulping sobs that she hastily stifled in her pillow in case her mother heard.

  ‘You’re very late getting home, miss,’ Aimee snapped as Melissa sauntered through the door.

  ‘It’s only nine o’clock and it’s Saturday night. All my friends are allowed stay out until eleven,’ her daughter retorted sulkily.

  ‘And don’t back-cheek me either, we had enough of that at lunch today. That was a fine performance you put on in front of Debbie and Connie. I was mortified. Your father and I didn’t raise you to be bad-mannered.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Mom, give me a break. I was only texting, not belching or farting. Get real! You’re doing my head in.’ Melissa glowered at her mother, stung by her criticism.

  ‘Go to your room.’ Aimee’s eyes flashed with anger as she pointed an elegant, manicured finger towards the door.

  ‘Well, I’d prefer to be there on my own than here with you,’ Melissa said rudely, stalking off.

  Aimee was furious. That young madam was getting her pocket money docked for her attitude, she decided as she walked out to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine. She took it out on to the balcony and sat on her lounger. Dusk was settling, and in the distance the lights of Howth and Dublin Bay began to twinkle and shimmer.

  She wrapped a pashmina around her arms and shoulders. The night air had cooled and, even though it was still balmy, she didn’t want to catch a chill. She needed to be at her peak for the next few weeks. She had a very important wedding coming up. The crème de la crème of Irish society was going to be there, and both she and the wedding planner were in constant contact. She was seeing more of him than her own family lately. She smiled at the irony of it. The wedding she was catering for was of far more concern to her than her step-daughter’s, if only Barry knew it. A ship sailing out to sea from Dublin glided serenely acros
s the flat, calm sea, and for a moment she wished she were on it.

  She felt far from serene as she sipped the chilled wine. Melissa was beginning to get terribly cheeky ever since she’d started secondary school, and Aimee didn’t like it one bit. This summer coming was worrying her. A childminder had taken care of their daughter until she had left primary school, picking her up from school and bringing her to her house until either she or Barry had collected her. This year Melissa had begged them to let her stay at home on her own for the summer holidays. She was thirteen, she was old enough, she’d assured them but, nevertheless, Aimee felt apprehensive.

  Barry had agreed after much pleading and begging but, then, their daughter was able to wrap him around her little finger, and he could rarely say no to her. That was all very well, but it usually meant that it was Aimee who had to lay down the law and then suffer the backlash of resentment. They had set strict rules. Only Sarah and her other friend, Clara, were allowed to visit the apartment. One misdemeanour would be one too many and they would be reviewing the position, she’d been warned.

  Aimee’s mobile rang and she groaned as she recognized the number. It was Gwen Larkin, a friend of hers whom she hadn’t been in touch with for ages. She kept meaning to ring her, but she was so busy these days, she had to prioritize. Gwen was very good for keeping in touch. If it had been left to Aimee, the friendship would have fizzled out long ago, she thought guiltily.

  ‘Hi.’ She put on her bright, breezy voice. ‘I’ve been meaning to ring for ages. I’m just up to my eyes, you know how it is?’

  ‘I’d probably faint if I got a phone call from you,’ the other woman retorted, but Aimee knew she was smiling.

  ‘So! What’s happening?’ She settled back on her lounger, ready for a chat; she’d nothing better to do so it would be nice to gossip and catch up.

  ‘This is a quickie, actually,’ her friend informed her, and Aimee felt a little put out. ‘Ellie is home from Australia for a couple of weeks and a few of the girls were planning a farewell lunch on Tuesday. We wondered if you’d be able to come.’