Happy Ever After Read online

  ‘Did you know your mother was going to the villa?’ Ken boomed down the phone to Aimee.

  ‘What? Dad, it’s seven a.m.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’re up planning tea parties, or whatever it is you do,’ Ken said tetchily. ‘The point is, I’ve had a text from your mother to say she is on the plane to Malaga, and she never said a word to me that she was going. There’s nothing in the fridge, there are no dinners in the freezer and there’s a load of dirty washing in the linen basket, so you better get over here and give me a hand to get organized. It’s not the housekeeper’s day today, and I’m already late for my rounds and will be late for my clinic as a result.’ Her father was clearly up to ninety.

  ‘I didn’t know Mum was going to Spain,’ Aimee said icily, stung by his ‘tea-party’ barb and his arrogant assumption that she could just drop everything and go over to his house to cook his dinners and do his laundry. ‘And I’m afraid I’m up to my eyes. I’m just arriving at my office, so I suggest you eat out or buy ready-prepared meals and get your housekeeper to bring your laundry to a launderette.’

  Aimee reversed into her designated parking space, noting that Ian, her boss and owner of the company, had already arrived at work.

  ‘Well, that’s not very helpful,’ blustered her father. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you women. Your mother hasn’t spoken to me since that bloody art thing – in fact, she’s been extremely rude and vulgar,’ he raged, remembering the ‘skidmarks’ taunt.

  ‘She was hurt you didn’t support her. She’s always supported you, so I’m not surprised she’s gone away,’ Aimee said tartly.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Missy. Who pays for her lovely lifestyle, with all the perks, including a villa in Spain and all that entails? Who pays her credit-card bills? Don’t give me nonsense about not “supporting” her.’ Ken almost spat the word down the phone.

  ‘Fine, whatever you say. I have to go, bye.’ Aimee hung up, determined not to get into an argument with her father, which would end up reducing her to the level of a seven-year-old. She was in her late thirties, married with a teenager, and he still thought he could call her ‘Missy’ and talk down to her like a child. It was just as well he had clinics and wasn’t operating. God help any patient under his care today, she thought nastily, as she hurried into the offices of Chez Moi and took the lift to her floor. So her mother had gone to Spain without telling him. ‘Well done, Juliet,’ she applauded, delighted that her mother was showing some flicker of independence. It was time she stood up for herself and stepped out from under Ken’s shadow after all these years. She stopped for a moment and scrolled through the messages on her phone. She hadn’t bothered to look earlier. Yes, there it was, one from her errant parent.

  Hello, Dear. Am on plane. Going 2 villa, don’t know how long I’m going to stay. Didn’t tell your father. Expect fireworks ha ha! Love Mum xx

  Aimee grinned. Fireworks wasn’t the word for it. Ken was outraged. This was a real challenge to his authority, and he never reacted well to that, as she knew through bitter experience. Her face darkened, as childhood memories flooded back. One in particular had never gone away. She’d back-cheeked Ken on the way into the children’s library when she was about seven, and he’d chastised her as loudly as he could, so that everyone in the library could hear. The customary silence of the premises had been broken only by his strident tones as he’d told her she was an impertinent child, and did she think she was being smart by giving him cheek? He was in his element, the centre of attention. She remembered the nettle stings of mortification as she’d stood, head bowed, listening to his tirade, before he’d allowed her to join the queue at the desk, where everyone was looking at her. She was bright pink with humiliation, and on the brink of tears, but she wouldn’t let her father see her cry. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. The girl at the desk had taken her books and given her a little wink, and she’d taken some small comfort in knowing that she had an ally.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Aimee muttered irritably to herself. What was she doing thinking about something that had happened all those years ago when she had an important meeting which could decide her whole future coming up. She slid her phone into her bag and headed for her office.

  Ian motioned to her to come into his office as she strode along, and she groaned silently. He was like a great big spider in there, watching everything through the glass panels.

  ‘So how’s La Davenport this fine morning? We’re getting tremendous feedback from the O’Leary wedding. Gallagher, Simpson want us to organize their twenty-five years in business celebration, and you, I suspect, are just the woman for the job. Edward Gallagher was at the wedding, and he was mega-impressed. He specifically requested that you take charge. Take another bow. ’

  Unctuous little toad, Aimee derided silently, unimpressed with his smarmy sweet talk. ‘Ian, I can’t stop to talk now, I’ve a breakfast meeting with Roger O’Leary in the Shelbourne, and I need to collect some files for another meeting at nine thirty. I’ll catch you later,’ she said crisply from the doorway.

  ‘Oh! OK!’ He was a tad miffed. Today, her boss was wearing his pink shirt, blue jeans and a big Gucci belt. Mutton dressed as lamb wasn’t in it, or even mutton dressed as mutton! Although in his late forties, he dressed much younger, and had his hair dyed blacker than black. Aimee was convinced he was gay but in denial. Unmarried, Ian always had a blonde on his arm at functions. He lived in a tastefully decorated but sterile apartment in Blackrock that was all glass and chrome and John Rocha. He was such a self-important little diva, with his bumptious emails telling her to take a well-earned bow after the success of the O’Leary wedding. She could just visualize herself standing in front of the mirror, bowing to herself indeed, she thought crossly as she logged on to her computer. Would he yet rue the success of that particular wedding if she set up a business in opposition to him?

  Aimee suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She hadn’t lied to Ian when she’d said she was having a breakfast meeting with Roger O’Leary. She’d set it up after the revelation of her pregnancy the previous Saturday. She had to know one way or another what his reaction would be to her news. Would he pull out of the proposal, or would he still be keen to go ahead? She couldn’t bring herself just to take the position and say nothing. It would lead to a lack of trust, and bad feeling further down the line, and she was realistic enough to acknowledge that if the new company was to work, she needed Roger onside.

  At least she hadn’t handed in her letter of resignation to Ian. If the new job offer went belly up, she still had the option of negotiating a substantial pay rise commensurate with her new, elevated status. She’d show him what La Davenport was made of, she thought with grim humour, glancing at her new emails.

  She thought of her mother on her flight to Spain and suddenly wished she were going too. How nice it would be to lie in the sun for a few days and forget all the stresses and strains of her life in Dublin. Melissa had arrived home on Saturday afternoon with a request to spend Saturday night and Sunday with a friend who had just come back from three weeks in the south of France and was dying to tell Sarah and Melissa all about it. Seemingly, there was a big romance with ‘a real tasty guy’, as her daughter had put it enviously. Melissa had been so anxious to go it seemed unkind to refuse and, besides, Aimee was fed up being the baddie all the time. Barry was the one who let their daughter do what she wanted, and she was the one constantly saying no, and it just wasn’t fair. ‘Go on,’ she’d said. ‘But no drinking, or you’ll be grounded for the rest of the summer.’

  ‘Thanks, Mom, you’re the best,’ her daughter had exclaimed, racing off to her bedroom to pack, having first removed her wedges with a sigh of relief. Silence had descended yet again upon the penthouse after she’d left with fifty euro in her purse to tide her over. Barry hadn’t come home until late that evening, and he’d gone out on the balcony with a book and stayed reading until long after the sun had set.

  She’d been working at an event
at the races on Sunday and hadn’t arrived home until after ten that night, much to their mutual relief. He’d tried to engage her in conversation, but she’d just said savagely, ‘Don’t talk to me, Barry. I’ve nothing to say to you, you selfish bastard. You’re every bit as bad as my father.’ He’d walked away, taken aback at the ferocity of her onslaught.

  Now that the cards were on the table between them, hostility and resentment were the order of the day. She was consumed with impotent fury. She hadn’t felt so out of control of her own destiny since her school days, when her father had insisted that she choose science subjects over art and home economics, and then made her do another year at school and repeat her science exams when she failed them.

  In her eyes, Barry and her father had become one. Ken’s phone call this morning, his total lack of respect for her career and his presumptions that she would do his bidding, infuriated her. Barry’s authoritative demands that she keep her unwanted child, with no discussion of her needs or feelings, had stirred a hornets’ nest of emotions. Did men not realize that the era of the patriarchy was over? Or was it? she questioned dejectedly. Not if her life was anything to go by.

  Aimee sighed deeply. Barry couldn’t physically restrain her from going for a termination, she knew that, but she would feel his censure like a straitjacket around her for the rest of her life if she did, and she would live with the fear that Melissa would find out. That, more than anything, was what kept her from booking her flight to London and doing what she felt was right for her.

  Heavy-hearted, she finished her emails, left a page of instructions for her PA and set off to meet Roger and see what he would decide about her future. Would the day ever come when no man would have power over her? When she would be her own boss? What a wonderful notion that was, she thought wistfully, stepping out on to the traffic-jammed street. Aimee hailed a taxi and instructed the driver to bring her to the Shelbourne.

  ‘You really should take up that offer before the share prices jump even higher.’ Jeremy Farrell’s ingratiating tones filled the Merc as Barry drove to work along the Stillorgan dual carriageway, inching towards his right-hand turn at RTE.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got it all under control, will sort a bank draft for you and stick it in the post, Jeremy,’ Barry said firmly, wishing the other man would stop annoying him. He’d had numerous phone calls since their initial conversation in the clubhouse.

  ‘Just ring me when you have the draft, and I’ll send a courier over with all the paperwork,’ the older man said suavely.

  ‘Fine, Jeremy. I’ll be in touch. Cheers.’ Barry hit the off button, and the sound of Roy Orbison singing ‘She’s a Mystery to Me’ echoed from the speakers. Barry could identify with Bono’s emotive words. Aimee’s words had torn him apart. She’d called him a selfish bastard with such intensity he’d been shocked. She’d glared at him with a naked hatred that wounded him. Her rider, that he was as bad as her father, had hit home. Of course, she would think that, he had thought in dismay as he sat on the balcony afterwards, necking a cold beer. Ken was an authoritarian bully, from whom she’d struggled to obtain a modicum of respect. He had told her what to do, and laid down the law until she’d left college and started to work.

  Barry had taken the wrong approach to the whole issue of Aimee’s pregnancy. He’d got her back up. He’d been too heavy-handed, he thought ruefully. He’d come on too strong at the start. He should have known better, knowing her history and what pushed her buttons. But his going at it like a bull in a china shop had stemmed from his fear that she would ignore his wishes about their baby. As it was, he might never have known she was pregnant, only that fate had intervened. He was meant to know, he comforted himself. Nevertheless, it was a black-and-white choice, and only one of them was going to be happy with the result, and, consequently, their marriage was in tatters.

  He pushed all thoughts of his wife into the compartment labelled ‘Aimee’, and began to ponder his options about the share prospect. He had savings and investments, but the investments were long term and nothing he could get his hands on quickly. His best strategy was to borrow, he decided. Normally, he wouldn’t dream of borrowing for an investment, but this was such a hot prospect. He’d read up about SecureCo International Plus, and the financial pedigree of the backers couldn’t be argued with. Even with his limited knowledge of the financial world, he recognized the names, and their financial achievements were impressive.

  There was no point in discussing it with Aimee, with the mood she was in; and she certainly wouldn’t sign any papers to use their assets as collateral. She’d probably use the situation as a bargaining chip to secure his agreement to a termination. In her eyes, he had rendered her powerless; she would do the same to him if she got the chance. He remembered a quote that had stuck with him, from an article by the journalist Mary Kenny: ‘Much of wedlock consists of two persons in mortal emotional combat for dominance and power.’ ‘Welcome to my marriage, Ms Kenny,’ he muttered, slowing to a halt at the traffic lights at Vincent’s.

  He’d just go ahead under his own steam with the share thing. He had a small cottage his grandmother had left him which he rented out; that would do fine as collateral, and he wouldn’t need his wife’s signature. He might need the extra finance this deal would make him if she went for a divorce. Barry swallowed hard, and tears pricked his eyelids. He would hate to go through another divorce. One was more than enough for any man in his lifetime, and he’d been lucky with his and Connie’s. Barry blinked rapidly, trying hard not to lose his composure. Maybe after a while Aimee would get used to the idea of a new baby and accept her pregnancy, and things would calm down. He could only hope.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘Bryan, the car tax has arrived,’ Debbie yelled up the stairs. ‘And so has the NTL.’

  ‘OK, leave it with me,’ he called down to her, and she placed them back on the hall table. ‘And the Holdens’ wedding invitation has arrived, it’s friggin’ black tie, and it’s in Wexford – that’s going to cost an arm and a leg.’

  ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ he shouted back.

  ‘See you tonight, then,’ she called and hurried off to get the Dart. Her mother would be on the plane to Spain, she thought enviously, glancing at her watch. If they were on time she’d be flying over the Pyrenees about now, experiencing the bumpy air pockets over the mountains that indicated they were only an hour away from their destination. Debbie and Jenna had spent a couple of mad holidays in her relative’s apartment, and Debbie wished she was with her aunt and mother, enjoying the anticipatory laughter and chat on the flight. She was back to work less than a full week and she was feeling overwhelmed already.

  How had they accumulated so much debt that the arrival of two household bills and a wedding invite caused her stomach to get tied up in knots? Bryan was going to have to get rid of the convertible, which, because it had depreciated so much from when he’d bought it, was now a loss maker. She noticed, as she did every morning, the For Sale sign on a house several doors down from theirs. It had been on the market for several months now without moving, and rumour had it that the young couple who owned it had dropped fifty thousand in the asking price and were desperate to sell because they couldn’t afford their mortgage due to the rise in interest rates and the cost of living. It scared the hell out of Debbie listening to tales like that, and she tried not to think about it. There was definitely a marked slowdown in the property market, and people in their circle were beginning to talk about negative equity a lot more.

  And now they had Sandra Holden’s wedding invitation to contend with. Debbie felt prickles of sweat at her hairline just thinking about it. Sandra was a friend of Jenna’s, but Debbie had hung around with her a lot and had invited her and her fiancé to her own wedding. Now the invite was being reciprocated, and it couldn’t have come at a more awkward time, financially.

  Jenna had told Debbie that Sandra was going all out to impress. She’d spent a fortune on the dress, a lavish, feathery, frilled cr
eation, and had been considering hiring a full orchestra rather than a band. That certainly was raising the bar, Debbie reflected, thinking how crazy it was to be getting into horrific debt just to impress their peers. If only Sandra realized what it was going to be like post-wedding, she’d run away and get hitched in Gretna Green!

  Going to the wedding would cost herself and Bryan a packet. The guts of a hundred for the black-tie palaver, a minimum of a hundred and fifty for a prezzie on the BT wedding list. No one wanted to be seen picking the cheapest present, so you really couldn’t spend less than a hundred. A hundred and fifty at least for overnight accommodation, and another couple of hundred for petrol, drinks, meals, etc. And that was without her buying anything new. She’d probably have to hire a hat, though, if it was black tie; she was damned if she was going to pay through the nose for something she wouldn’t wear again.

  Had she caused disquiet to any of her guests when they’d received their wedding invites, she wondered. It was hard to know. Everyone in their circle seemed to be doing fine, with plenty of money to socialize and entertain. Were she and Bryan the only couple up to their eyes in debt, or were their friends and acquaintances in hock just like they were? Could they get away with buying a present and not going to the wedding, she worried as she quickened her pace. Sandra wouldn’t be impressed, but so what? Sandra didn’t have mega financial woes yet! Another thought struck her – Sandra had invited her on her hen weekend. She’d forgotten all about that. Sandra was dithering between a trip to Latvia or a spa weekend in Galway. There was no way Debbie could go on either. She simply didn’t have the money. It had to stop somewhere. Today she was going to do what she’d been putting off for a long time, she was going to total the full amount of their outstanding loans. It was time to take action, and Bryan was going to have to take his head out of the sand and face up to the fact that they were pretty broke.