The Liberation of Brigid Dunne Read online

  “What? What do you mean, you’ve moved your stuff? And you’re going back to Ireland? When? For how long? What about New York? What about us? What the hell is going on here, Marie-Claire?” He was flabbergasted, staring at her as though she’d lost her marbles.

  Us? she wanted to shout, but she remembered her vow to herself not to play the victim. He would go to his end wondering why his “Irish colleen” had dumped him.

  “Hmmm, well, I’ve been thinking, especially with my rent coming up for renewal, that it was time to make a decision about what to do with my life. And while Canada’s been great, and being with you has been really good, it’s time for me to move on and try out something new, and—”

  “Marie-Claire, are you for real?” His face darkened. His voice had an angry edge. “We’ve made plans to build up the company in New York. You’ve a meeting there next week. I’m asking you to move in with me. What are you talking about, leaving Canada?”

  She noted sourly that his first priority was the meeting in New York.

  “I’m sorry about the meeting in New York, but it’s the same date as my great-aunt’s eightieth birthday party, and I’d really like to be there—”

  “Christ, Marie-Claire, you’d give up the chance of a lifetime to be at a damn birthday party? We’re going places, you and me. Get a grip.”

  “Yup, I’m going places—I’m going home,” she said mildly. “Look, Marc, I’m…” She struggled to find a word that would wound without being offensive. “I’m very, very fond”—that was so delightfully insipid, she thought proudly—“very, very fond, of you,” she repeated for good measure.

  “Fond! You’re fond of me?” He said it so loudly the diners at the next table stared over with undisguised curiosity. “You’re in love with me. We’re really good together. What is wrong with you? Why are you behaving like this?” He couldn’t grasp what she was saying. This had come as a bolt out of the blue.

  “It’s the Irish in me,” she said drily, remembering Amelia’s derisive slur. “Look, we had a blast, but I never made any promises to you. I kept my own apartment. I like my independence; you know that. I’m sorry you feel ready to take our relationship a step further and I don’t. But that’s life, chérie.”

  “But why?” He was utterly bemused.

  Marie-Claire smiled. Mission accomplished, she thought, proud of herself. He would never know the answer to that question. With exquisite timing, her phone tinkled. It was the driver of the cab she’d taken the precaution of ordering while she was in the loo.

  “Marc, my taxi has arrived. Please give me the keys to my apartment. I’ll be handing them in.” She held out her hand.

  “You ordered a taxi! You’re supposed to be coming home with me. We’re going to visit my parents tomorrow. We’re going skiing the day after!” He was totally flummoxed.

  “Sorry about that, sweetie. Please give your parents my apologies, but I don’t think it would be fair of me to take advantage of their kindness, or yours, now that we’re breaking up—”

  “Breaking up? Marie-Claire, are you on something? Did you—”

  “Marc, the keys—they’re on your key ring. I don’t want to keep the taxi waiting. My resignation letter is on your desk; the holidays I’m owed can be in lieu of notice. I know it’s all a bit sudden, and I apologise for that. But it’s time for me to move on.”

  “Please don’t be hasty. Think about it. Come home with me tonight, Marie-Claire,” he urged. “Let’s—”

  “Sorry, Marc, I don’t want to take advantage of you. I am going home. A clean break is best,” she said firmly, taking a wad of dollars out of her wallet. “Keys, please—and this is my share of the bill.”

  He fumbled with his key ring and reluctantly handed her back the silver keys. “I don’t know what’s got into you,” he muttered. “Is there someone else?”

  “No! I don’t two-time,” she said sharply, staring at him intently.

  Flustered, he lowered his gaze and took a swig of brandy.

  “Good night, Marc. Have a good Christmas. Best of luck with New York and the expansion plans. Thanks for the fun times.” Marie-Claire stood up, picked up her bag, and walked away leaving him speechless.

  She collected her cape, wrapped it around herself, and walked out of the restaurant into the glacial night, and out of Marc Bouchard’s life, with her head held high.

  Chapter Seven

  “He’s banging Amelia? You’re kidding me!” Lizzie Ross almost spluttered her tea in surprise. When Marie-Claire had phoned to tell her closest friend and colleague that she wouldn’t be returning to work at Bouchard and Clay’s Sound and Post Facilities, Lizzie had told her to come over to her place immediately and spill.

  “Yep—and buying her gifts in Tiffany’s and bringing her to Niagara Falls when I was scheduled to be in New York,” Marie-Claire revealed half an hour later, sitting in Lizzie’s kitchen.

  “What a shit!” Lizzie scowled. “And with that little weasel-faced pipe cleaner…”

  Marie-Claire laughed at that, despite her heartache.

  “Well, she is, all bones and angles, and fried eggs for boobs!” Lizzie exclaimed loyally. “What does he see in her when he has you?”

  “I have asked myself that question,” Marie-Claire said drily. “I’ve questioned everything about our relationship.” She took a glug of the chilled Chardonnay Lizzie had poured for her and nibbled unhappily on a cracker smeared with pâté.

  “He’s crazy! I don’t get it.” Lizzie paced up and down the wooden floor of her light-filled kitchen. “He respects you—”

  “But he doesn’t love me. Clearly, if he’s shagging Minnie Mouse, I’m not enough for him.”

  “Don’t you dare blame yourself for his bad behaviour,” Lizzie retorted. “It’s not a lacking in you. It’s a lacking in him. He’s been a bit of a ladies’ man as long as I’ve known him, but he really did change with you. He seemed so happy—I thought you’d tamed him. I was expecting an announcement, to be honest.”

  “I thought we were heading in that direction myself. In fact, part of his Christmas present to me was a key to a two-bed condo in his building. He wanted me to move in with him.”

  “Are you serious?” Lizzie stared at her.

  “I am. Hasn’t he got some nerve, expecting me to move in with him while he’s cheating on me behind my back?”

  “And what did he say when you confronted him?” Lizzie refilled their glasses, before checking on the chicken dish she’d put in the oven for supper.

  “I didn’t confront him. I told him I wasn’t moving in, told him I was resigning from the job and going home. I told him it was time for me to move on. He couldn’t believe his ears.”

  “You dumped him! And he doesn’t know why! I love it!” Lizzie clapped her hands. “Hoisted by his own petard. Oh, well done, woman, well done! I’d love to have seen his face!”

  “He was gobsmacked for sure.” Marie-Claire managed a small smile. “Don’t you ever let on that I know about Amelia,” she warned her friend.

  “As if!” scoffed Lizzie. “But you do know he’ll quiz me.”

  “So tell him I felt like a change. And because my lease was up, it was the right time to do it.”

  “OK,” Lizzie agreed glumly. “I’m really going to miss you, though, Marie-Claire. Couldn’t you leave the job but stay in Canada and look for another?”

  “I’d like to go home for a while and sort out my head. I’m not sure what I want to do next in my life. I’ll put my belongings in storage here. If I decide to come back, fine; if not, I’ll have them shipped home.”

  “Please come back, Marie-Claire,” Lizzie begged. “I can’t believe you’re leaving. Work won’t be half as much fun without you,” she said mournfully, giving her a hug. Marie-Claire hugged her back.

  “It will give you a reason to come to Ireland, if I decide to stay,” she comforted. Lizzie was a great pal. She’d made some lovely friends in Canada, but she’d great friends at home, too, she reminded
herself, and they would keep her going as she ended one chapter of her life and began another.

  Chapter Eight

  Keelin

  It was always bittersweet coming home, Keelin reflected when Armand took the slip road off the motorway and headed west. When they got to Ardcloch, ten minutes from where her mother lived, she would ring Imelda and tell her to put the kettle on.

  This journey home never failed to bring mixed emotions. Delight because she loved Ardcloch and Glencarraig, the small town Imelda lived in and where Keelin had grown up. Sadness because she would be visiting the graveyard in Ardcloch where her beloved father lay buried with his parents. And painful memories, too, of a grim and fraught time when harsh words had been said between them. That had been the worst phase of her life, and though the passage of time had healed some of the hurt, there was still an underlying residue of anger and resentment that Keelin didn’t think would ever leave her, no matter how hard she tried to let go of it.

  Her uneasy relationship with her mother was all the more prickly without the balm of her father’s patient, even-tempered presence.

  Please let her not be rude to Armand. Please let her not take the good out of Mère Brigid’s party, Keelin prayed silently. Fervently.

  Why did Imelda dislike men so much? No man was good enough in her opinion. Not even her loyal and tolerant husband.

  “How can you put up with her meanness, Dad?” Keelin had asked her father once, furious with Imelda for not allowing her to go to a dance that all her school friends were going to. Larry had tried his best to get his wife to change her mind, but Imelda had snapped, “You know as well as I do what goes on at those dances, and I’m not having her coming home thinking she’s falling in love with some Romeo, and mooning over him, and having her schoolwork suffer.”

  “That’s a bit of an exaggeration now, Imelda,” Larry protested, winking at Keelin. “Sure, it’s the boys who’ll be mooning over our lovely daughter!”

  “She’d be better off keeping away from men.” Imelda scowled.

  “Why? Weren’t you very lucky to get a kind man like Daddy?” Keelin had exclaimed hotly, disgusted at her mother’s derisory tone.

  “Lucky! Is that what you call it?” Imelda retorted, stalking out into the garden to pick some peas and broad beans for dinner.

  “She’s so mean and nasty,” Keelin raged.

  “Ah, she’s having a hard time starting that old menopause thing. And with her own da being sick, she’s worried and tired. Take no notice, pet; this too will pass,” Larry uttered one of his favourite sayings, and gave her a hug. “Put a pillow under your quilt. When it gets dark, I’ll slip out and put the stepladder at your window and leave your bike down at the gate. But don’t be too late home. And be as quiet as a mouse climbing in—although, knowing your mother, she’ll be dead to the world by ten-thirty,” he added humorously.

  “Oh, Dad, you’re the best in the world. I love you so much.” Keelin had flung her arms around her father and hugged him with all her might.

  Larry had been her champion, and she’d been his, so much so that Imelda had once accused them of ganging up on her.

  “Don’t be like that, Imelda,” Larry had said sternly. “I don’t like that talk and I won’t have it. So we’ll have no more of it.” It was almost unheard of for him to take that tone with her; shocked, Imelda had muttered an ungracious apology, but an apology nevertheless.

  When her father had died, Keelin had wished bitterly that it had been her mother who had been taken first. But Larry was not the parent she’d to learn her life lessons from, she thought ruefully. It was Imelda who was teaching her tolerance, patience, and forgiveness, much as she wished it might be otherwise.

  “You OK?” Armand looked over at her, the expression in his brown eyes kind and loving as ever. “Are you thinking of your father?”

  “How did you know?” She smiled back at him.

  “I know you.” He reached across and squeezed her hand.

  “I’m so glad you got to meet him,” Keelin sighed.

  “I’m glad, too. I had and have a lot to thank him for.”

  “Me too,” Keelin sighed. “He was as good a father to me as you are to Marie-Claire.”

  “High praise for me,” her husband said, expertly avoiding a pothole the size of a mini volcano crater as the winding road narrowed the farther west they drove.

  The pale wintery lemon sun flashed dazzling rays between the bare hedgerows and naked-branched trees. Keelin was glad she wasn’t driving. The sun had been low in the sky, heading west, blinding in spots, but once they hit the Midlands, the fields shrouded in wisps of fine misty fog had an ethereal feel. The countryside was resting, deep in winter’s grip. So Celtic, so druidic, she’d thought, relishing the energy of her homeland. Now, as they neared the west coast and home, the sun made an appearance again, dappling the bare grey hedgerows with sunlight.

  Imelda had sounded tetchy on the phone when she had called her the previous day. Keelin knew it was because of Brigid’s upcoming party. Her mother was annoyed because Keelin and Armand would be breaking their holiday with her to travel south to stay with Brigid for a few days.

  The bond between Keelin and her aunt was strong, and enduring because of what they had been through together. Imelda could not help but feel jealous, even though Keelin tried hard to be as loving and kind as possible to her mother and give her no cause to fret about their own relationship.

  What could have happened to set off such resentment? Keelin wondered, as she always did when she thought about the relationship between Imelda and Brigid.

  The familiar outline of Ardcloch’s small church came into view and, below it, the houses and farms nestled in the valley. Memories surged back as Keelin took in the patchwork of her grandparents’ farm in the distance and the house where Brigid and Imelda had grown up, and where Keelin had spent much of her childhood and teenage years helping out. She remembered watching the rising sun exploding in glorious Technicolor over the top of the hills, her feet drenched with dew, foraging for mushrooms with her grandfather, to cook on the griddle with salt and butter for breakfast. Happy, sweet memories to counteract the sad ones, she acknowledged, looking eagerly along the main street of the village where Kennedy’s shop and Post Office still stood, with its press-down brass door handle that rang a bell when you entered. Across the street stood the green cow-tail water pump, where in the old days the women of Ardcloch used to gather to chat and fill their water containers. The water from that pump made a great cup of tea, Keelin remembered nostalgically.

  The primary school beside the church was closed now, while the bigger one in Glencarraig, where she’d been a pupil, had expanded. Always the rivalry between Ardcloch and Glencarraig, which dared to think of itself as a town. “They have notions in that place. They think they’re a cut above the rest of us,” her granny used to say scornfully when Imelda said how much she liked living there. Driving past the church and graveyard, Keelin felt the spirits of her long-dead relatives greet her in warm welcome. You’re back. You’re home, she fancied she heard them say.

  Keelin rooted in her bag, found her mobile phone, and scrolled to Imelda’s number. “In Ardcloch now, Mam,” she said when her mother answered. “Stick the kettle on.”

  * * *

  Imelda peered at herself in the mirror, inspecting the sides of her mouth and chin. She’d noticed, when she’d gone to clean the mirror in the guest room en suite, that she was sporting several curly white hairs that needed snipping. Thank goodness she’d been wearing her glasses. She wouldn’t have seen the little buggers without them, and the last thing she wanted was to meet her French son-in-law looking like a walrus.

  Armand Durand was not her favourite person. It was all his fault that she and Keelin had become estranged. His fault that Larry had died a troubled man.

  It was only after Larry’s funeral that Imelda, unable to bear Keelin’s distress, had grudgingly held out the olive branch. For the sake of her daughter and gra
ndchild, she tolerated Keelin’s French husband and tried to be civil to him. But it wasn’t easy. Not easy at all!

  It was a pity Marie-Claire wasn’t coming home this year. There was something about her that softened the atmosphere. She had a carefree way about her that was contagious, and she could make Imelda laugh like no one else could, with her impudence. Imelda smiled. She’d three other grandchildren and, while she loved them, Marie-Claire was her favourite.

  She’d better get a move on; Keelin would be here in five minutes. She went into her own bedroom, patted her hair, powdered her cheeks with MAC bronzer, and rolled her lipstick over her lips.

  The Frenchman wouldn’t find her lacking in her toilette.

  The kettle had no sooner boiled than Imelda heard the rental car crunch over the stones in the drive. She whisked off her apron, placed it on the oven rail, and went to open the front door.

  “Welcome, home, Keelin. Happy Christmas,” she greeted her daughter. They hugged. Imelda was glad Keelin remembered not to kiss her in the French fashion, on each cheek. That nonsense irritated her greatly. Once was enough to kiss a person, there was no need for a pantomime, she’d said crossly to Armand after all the kissing eventually got too much for her.

  “Armand, come in; happy Christmas to you, too,” she said in as friendly a tone as she could manage.

  “Mrs. O’Brien”—she’d told him sharply when she’d first met him not to call her madame; she didn’t run a house of ill repute—“it’s very good to see you looking so well. The felicitations of the seasons to you, also,” her son-in-law said, leaning down to kiss her cheek.

  The felicitations of the season, indeed, Imelda thought irascibly. Why couldn’t he just say happy Christmas like everyone else? “Get in out of the cold”—and don’t be annoying me, she would have liked to add, but she restrained herself. She’d given herself a stern talking-to earlier and told herself to keep her sharp tongue under control. It got her into a lot of trouble, but keeping silent about things was not in her nature.