Blood And Water (24 page)

“Is
what
true?” Enya asked, glancing first at Ciara then at her father.

“Not you,” Ciara rebuffed her angrily. “
Him
.” A hint of desperation had crept into her voice as she pointed at William.

“Ciara!” a shocked Enya cried in return, her tone a mixture of impatience and concern. “What on earth’s got into you?”

Ciara didn’t think it possible but she was sure she noticed her father’s already ashen face turn a shade lighter.

So, he thought, the day has come. Just as she said it would.

But, unlike his wife, it wasn’t a day that he either anticipated or thought about to any great degree, but now it was here he wished he had, because maybe then he’d know what he was supposed to do. He might have at least rehearsed it mentally in preparation. His mouth dropped a jot, as did his eyes, with an audible intake of breath.

Ciara thought he was about to say something. But he didn’t and couldn’t or wouldn’t meet her stare.

He knew exactly what she was asking, of that she was sure: his face said it all. Without him uttering a single word he answered her question. It was true. But she already knew it was – why would her mother lie about such a thing? She just needed to hear it or see it in her father.

“Ciara, what’s going on?” Rian demanded quietly, standing up to take charge.

She could tell he was thinking, ‘Oh, here we go again! Drama! Drama! Drama!’ And he was probably right; she was a drama queen and a damn good one at that. But this time, at the root of the fuss, she was entitled to a little commotion. Turning, Ciara smiled. He knew no different, she knew that – he was behaving as he always did, trying to maintain a level of calm and, because of his ignorance of the situation, he had every right to look at her in that way. But she knew that when he found out the truth behind her actions he would look to protect her, at least she hoped he would. For a split second, a moment of fear, she wondered if her newly defined title within the family would change how he treated her. Rian always maintained the voice of reason, especially around her, so she wasn’t surprised when he stood beside her and, wrapping a reassuring arm around her, looked to steer her away from danger. But even Rian’s embrace wasn’t sufficient to extinguish her fire.

With damp and mascara-smudged eyes, she pleaded silently for him to leave her be. She felt the pressure of his fingers on her shoulders, a reassuring and genuine pressure, the kind to make her heart sigh with the shame of disappointing him. But she had no alternative, she knew he’d see that, eventually.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, more gently this time, searching her face for an answer.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to him and, releasing herself from his embrace, stepped towards the bed. “I asked you,” she said with restrained calm, due mainly to Rian’s composed influence, “is it true?”

Rian let her go and looked expectantly towards the bed, curious to know what had triggered her hysterical agitation.

Only the sound from the corridors outside that buzzed with activity and the heave of Ciara’s breath filled the room as they waited for him to respond.

“From your behaviour I can only assume,” William eventually replied, lifting his eyes to look petulantly at her, his words a bored effort, “that you’ve been fighting with your mother again.”

Spiked with such condescension, they were all Ciara needed.

“
But
,” she stressed with almost rabid glee, leaning closer to the bed, “she’s
not
my mother, is she?” A deep thrill swept through her, triggered by the sharp intake of breath from her audience, their reclassified relationship weighing heavy on her heart but almost instantly giving her the distance required to see just how peculiar the dynamics of their dysfunctional family really were. Rian with his love-struck fiancée and Enya sitting at the bedside of their almost tyrannical father who enjoyed nothing more than terrorising and demeaning each of them at every opportunity. The absence of Sebastian and Cormac was interesting. And then there was their mother: not
hers
, but theirs. Drunk probably, unconscious possibly and damaged definitely.

Both Enya and Martha stood as if repulsed by the revelation. Enya stepped forward to place her hands on Ciara’s arm. Martha dropped her head and Ciara saw her eyes shut slowly, likely mortified by the family she was about to marry into. The thought flashed through her head: how much damage would this revelation cause to Rian’s relationship with Martha?

“Take a breath,” Enya told her quietly.

Ciara smiled, wondering if she was sorry she ever came back. What a joke.

Then turning back to her father, Enya, standing firm beside Ciara, asked, “What is she talking about, Dad?”

Funny how she asked him and not me, Ciara thought, but said nothing, willing to wait and see if William would answer her, curious to see what he’d say.

“Do we have to do this now?” William asked, dropping his head back onto the firm white pillow.

“Yes. Yes, we do,” Ciara replied, incensed further by his frigid and almost blasé return. It just didn’t matter to him. Bunching her hands into fists, she squeezed them tight, quelling the urge to grab and shake him wildly,

“I’m not sure this is the time,” he told her, true to his patronising form.

“Why not?” she asked him. “Is it because
they’re
here?” She nodded towards Rian, Martha and Enya. “Or because you need time to concoct some kind of pathetic excuse for what happened?” She stopped to catch her breath which was beginning to run away from her. “You know, when she told me for a split second I didn’t believe her.” She shook her head as again William diverted his gaze. “But she was telling the truth, wasn’t she?”

William didn’t answer. In his mind, he was asking: why now, why here? What had he done to deserve the last week of angry insolent outbursts from his family? Could this possibly get any worse? Maybe if he were lucky, he told himself, he’d just close his eyes and fade away.

“
Wasn’t she?
” Ciara repeated, raising her voice to an angry snarl, breaking through his self-obsessed reverie.

“Dad, please, answer her!” Enya pleaded.

Sensing a situation ready to implode, Rian stepped up again.

“Ciara,” he said, taking a gentle hold of her arm, “seriously. Now isn’t the time.” He steered her away from the bed. “Whatever it is, it can wait. Dad’s having his operation in the morning – he needs to rest.”

“Everything all right in here?” The previously friendly nurse popped her head around the door, her voice cheerful but with a ‘don’t mess with me’ edge. Expertly assessing the situation, she entered the room, giving each of them a brief but stern glance, changing it as she approached William to a warm smile. He was her charge, in her care, and she took the task seriously. Fixing his pillows she quietly asked if everything was okay.

“It’s fine, a minor family spat,” William told her, oozing charm despite his fragile disposition.

“I’m right outside if you need me,” she told him before patting his bruised and punctured hand.

At the door she turned.

“I’m going to have to ask you to keep it down, or leave,” she said to the others. “Your father is a very sick man and this is not helping.” With a superficial smile she then left the room.

The silence that remained was excruciating, the tension thick.

Ciara waited and let the silent tension build.

When he did eventually lift his eyes to hers they were empty: no sorrow, no shame, just blank.

“You bastard,” she whispered, “I have tried so hard for you to like me! So bloody hard. No wonder it’s never worked.” Turning on her heel she left the room, wishing she could slam the door behind her.

“Let me –” she heard Martha say and heard her trot down the hall after her.

“Ciara!” she called. “Wait up!”

Despite herself Ciara slowed down and, without turning, waited for Martha to catch up. Although different in so many ways, they got on well together. While the others seemed worried about the age difference, Ciara just got on with getting to know her. And it wasn’t just because she was Rian’s girlfriend and so merited a special effort: she actually liked her.

Overtaking her, Martha stopped in front of Ciara, her breathing fast. Sensing immediately her abject despair, she opened her arms, inviting Ciara to walk into her embrace.

As soon as Martha’s arms wrapped around her the tears came.

“
Shhhh!
” Martha soothed, rubbing her back and stroking her hair.

Ciara’s body quaked as the tears came fast and furious, both of them ignoring the looks that came as they stood in the middle of the corridor, Ciara weeping oblivious to her surroundings while Martha silently cursed William Bertram and everything he stood for.

Chapter 22

Martha returned to William’s room and all heads turned as she entered, their collective sigh of relief when they realised she was alone undisguised.

“Is she alright?” Rian asked.

“Not really, but she will be,” Martha replied, unable to meet William’s gaze.

William watched her from the bed, acutely aware of her purposely averted eyes. Although she did an excellent job at concealing it, her revulsion was palpable.

Shame, he thought to himself, I liked her. And almost immediately his trust in her was lost. Who the hell did she think she was anyway? Waltzing in with her presumptions and misconceptions. Catching himself, he wondered if the sneer he felt inside him was visible on his face. She doesn’t know what she’s dealing with. There are two sides to this story, he silently warned her, and made a mental note to make sure she saw it that way.

If he was hoping that her return would distract his children from their interrogation he was to be sadly disappointed. They weren’t about to let the matter lie.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Enya pleaded, “but Ciara just said that Mum is not her mother. You can’t expect us to let that go without explanation!”

William sighed. The only way to stop them plaguing him was to tell them the whole truth.

“Yes. Your mother is not Ciara’s mother.”

“Mum is not Ciara’s mother?” Enya repeated slowly, trying to get her head around what he meant. “
How could that be?
” she almost shrieked, standing up in surprise.

“She’s adopted?” Rian interpreted and, feeling Martha’s hand find its way into his, he squeezed it tight.

“No,” William replied, finally demonstrating an element of discomfort as the need to spell it out became apparent. “Ciara is my daughter, but not your mother’s.”

“Holy shit!” The words fell from Enya’s mouth, followed by a burst of nervous laughter that quickly morphed into a solemn groan of melancholy. “Ciara,” she whispered, falling back into the chair. “Oh Jesus!” she finished with her head in her hands.

“And us?” Rian asked.

With a sigh William shook his head. “Your mother is …” He paused, realising how ridiculous he sounded, but with nowhere else to go with it finished his sentence, “well, your mother is your mother.”

A snort masquerading as a laugh again escaped Enya, much to the annoyance of her father.

“So who is her mother?” Rian followed impassively, like conversations like this happened every day. He watched as their father took the question and processed it, probably wondering how he should answer: be direct and tell the truth or distract and point to another source for the truth, inevitably their mother. Rian could almost hear the cogs in motion behind those cold blue eyes and didn’t expect him to answer. Turning from him to stop the queasiness, he walked to the window.

Now, he thought to himself, now it all makes sense: Ciara, his mother …

“Can we not do this now? Please?” William asked, feeling genuinely weary.

“No, seriously, answer the question,” Enya said, in a gentle but unrelenting tome. “Who is her mother? We deserve to know.”

There was no point in holding on to it any longer; they were going to find out soon enough and it might as well be from him.

“Lillian,” he answered. “Lillian was Ciara’s mother.”

Who the hell is Lillian? Enya was puzzled – the way he said her name it was like she should know her.

But Rian knew exactly who he was talking about.

“Lillian?” He spun to look back at William. “Lillian our nanny? Are you serious?”

But William was lying back, looking up to the ceiling.

“Jesus, Dad, she was so … so bloody young … she was there to care for us for God’s sake!” He was too young to really remember her but what he could recall was that she was more like a big sister than a nanny. “How could you? I mean really, how? She was so young, like …” He couldn’t find the words and looked at Martha, embarrassed by the filthy secret being revealed in front of her. What must she think? But he couldn’t tell; she held her head low, eyes to the floor.

“Good news, William,” the nurse announced, entering the room, heading straight to the chart at the end of the bed. “Your tests have come back clear so we’re good to operate tomorrow.” Sensing the tension, she eyed William directly and judging the situation for what she understood it to be responded accordingly. “Okay. I’m afraid you all need to leave now. Your father needs his rest. We’ll be operating first thing so he needs his strength.”

She stood watch over them and waited while they gathered their belongings in silence and prepared to go. Rian led Martha out first without so much as a sideways glance back but Enya took her time, pausing at the door to look back at her father. He didn’t see. His eyes were closed. But he felt her chilling stare wash over him.

William wasn’t surprised when later that evening Ciara returned, just as he knew she would. He braced himself for what was likely to come. Notably calm and controlled, she pulled up the chair to his bedside and sat down, taking a moment to gather herself together before speaking.

“So, Dad,” she enquired politely, “can you tell me who I am?”

The level tone of her voice wasn’t what he had anticipated.

And Ciara wanted him to notice how calm she was, how controlled and neutral her tone was. She wanted it to register with him that she was trying to be mature and wasn’t taking her usual often-hysterical approach even though, for once, she had every right to do exactly that. She wanted him to recognise that this time, this was different. She was different. And he needed to be different but honest in his response.