Cathy Kelly 3-Book Collection 1: Lessons in Heartbreak, Once in a Lifetime, Homecoming

The only difference was that Edward had left Anneliese for Nell. He’d had the moral courage to walk away to be with the woman he apparently loved. But Joe hadn’t. There was a nice simple message for her in all of this – Joe hadn’t loved her enough. Whether he’d been lying or not when he said he and Elizabeth were no longer together was immaterial: he hadn’t wanted to be with Izzie when she needed him.

Despite the guilt and shame, she felt as if she might cry.

Anneliese gazed at her niece and felt incredibly guilty for having told her what was happening. It seemed so bloody ridiculous that with darling Lily lying in the hospital, here she was having to reveal the sad details of her own life.

Poor Izzie, no wonder she was shocked, silent and tearful. And if Izzie was shocked, Anneliese didn’t even want to think about what Beth would do when she heard. Oh Lord, Beth. Anneliese knew she’d taken the coward’s way out by not telling Beth yet, but she simply couldn’t face it.

She recalled her mother explaining the mother-child bond when she’d been pregnant with Beth: ‘It’s the greatest love,’ her mother had said. ‘The greatest. I can’t explain it to you, nobody can. In a few months, you’ll have this child who depends on you utterly, and nobody else matters, nobody, even Edward.’

‘Ma, don’t be daft,’ Anneliese had laughed.

‘No, really,’ her mother had insisted. ‘Wait and see.’

And she had seen. Anneliese had never thought of herself as particularly maternal until she’d had her daughter. Up until then, she’d felt she was capable, almost masculine in her ability to turn her hand to just about anything. She’d always loved the physical side of gardening – the digging, planting, hauling things around. She had such great strength and energy. So she thought she was one of those women who might not be terribly maternal. And then Beth had appeared, and it was like being hit hard over the head with one of her gardening spades: bash.

Suddenly she was in love and enthralled with this tiny, squalling, mewling infant who screamed a lot. The first six months of Beth’s life, Anneliese had existed on practically no sleep.

She’d gone half crazy, thinking that she could manage through sheer force of will to push the depression out of her mind. If only such a thing were possible.

Her mother had been right: Beth had become her life. And now she had to tell that sweet, fragile person that her parents were splitting up.

She only hoped that Beth wouldn’t stare at her and say: ‘You must have known!’

Anneliese thought of a politician she’d read about in the papers, who’d told his wife he was gay an hour before he gave a press conference telling the whole world. His wife had stood beside him in front of the cameras and reporters, holding his hand, and somehow, that became the most talked-about part of it all. How could she? She must have known.

The story was no longer about him. It came down to the question: How could she not have known?

Years later, the woman gave her side of the story and made sense of the strange events of that day. She hadn’t known. They were married, they had a child, why should she doubt him?

When he told her, she was stunned, and was still stunned an hour later when they stood together.

‘Anneliese,’ said Izzie, and Anneliese was sure poor Izzie was about to cry. She looked on the verge of it. ‘I thought I wanted this coffee but I don’t, actually. I’m going to get myself some water from the coffee shop. Will I get you something too?’

‘No thanks,’ Anneliese said. She didn’t feel hungry or thirsty these days. She couldn’t feel anything other than the big, black hole inside her.

With Izzie gone, she could go back to torturing herself, thinking about the past. It was a movie reel she couldn’t turn off in her head. She kept going back over their lives together, analysing everything, working out when Edward had been telling the truth and when he hadn’t.

At Christmas, Beth and Marcus had come to stay and the house on Milsean Bay had been full of laughter and joy. Anneliese had loved it. She’d gone overboard with finding the perfect Christmas tree, decorating it, turning the whole house into a Christmassy bower with lots of holly, mistletoe, shiny gold balls and enough Santas to sink a ship. On Christmas Day, she’d had a lunch party for seven: her and Edward, Brendan, Lily, Nell, Marcus and Beth. Nell had brought her famous dark chocolate meringue, which they’d had with raspberries.

So often over the years, when they’d invited Nell to their house for something, Nell would say gratefully: ‘Thank you for having me.’

And she hadn’t said it that Christmas. Anneliese remembered it most clearly because at the time she’d thought, with pleasure, that Nell had finally accepted that they were friends, that she didn’t need to thank them for their kindness every single time. How wrong she’d been.

‘Can I do anything to help?’ Beth had said, coming into the kitchen, looking like a Christmas fairy with her glossy, dark hair curling around her face and wearing a beautiful moss-green silky sweater, over a grey velvet skirt that twirled around her legs.

‘No, darling,’ said Anneliese, looking up from the cooker. She’d changed out of her Christmas outfit after church and had put on a pair of jeans and an old shirt for doing the cooking, which was terribly messy. She would change quickly as soon as dinner was ready. Meanwhile Nell had covered up her finery in a big apron. Nell was looking great, Anneliese thought fondly. Edward and Anneliese had bought her these beautiful handmade earrings shaped like little fuchsia drops and a necklace with a fuchsia drop pendant. Nell wore them with pride.

‘How’s the turkey doing?’ she asked Nell. Nell was the turkey expert.

‘I’d say another twenty minutes, just to be on the safe side,’ Nell said, sounding professional.

‘Right, I’ll open the oven if you manhandle it in,’ Anneliese replied.

Edward had come in when they were finished. ‘How are my two favourite cooks?’ he said cheerily.

‘We’re fine,’ said Anneliese, going over to poke around in the saucepan where the sprouts were steaming away.

‘Everything is going wonderfully,’ said Nell. ‘Doesn’t it smell amazing? I know you’re ravenous, Edward, it’s going to be fabulous though. Better to take that teeny bit longer and have it just perfect.’

‘You’re the expert, Nell,’ he said.

And dinner had been perfect. Every moment of it. Anneliese had felt proud to think that so many people fought like cats and dogs over Christmas dinner, while her family and friends enjoyed this warm, civilised meal where they laughed over appalling cracker jokes and reminisced about Christ-mases past.

That night, when everyone had gone home and Marcus and Beth were downstairs watching something on the TV, Anneliese and Edward had lain in bed and held each other.

‘It was a lovely day, wasn’t it?’ Anneliese said.

She was exhausted. All that standing around in the kitchen was so tiring and she’d wanted to make the day just right. It seemed to have gone just right anyway, but she still felt the need to be watching, a bit like flying and never going to sleep, as though the psychic will of all the people with their eyes open could keep the plane in the sky, and if they concentrated hard, the plane would land safely. That’s how she felt about days like Christmas.

‘It was wonderful, darling,’ Edward said, giving her a chaste kiss on the forehead and turning over. ‘You’re tired,’ he said magnanimously. ‘Let’s go to sleep.’

Once upon a time, they made love at night after big events like anniversaries and birthdays. It had become a part of their marriage, Anneliese remembered now. She should have realised there was something wrong then, when Edward didn’t want to hold her and undress her gently, making love to her with the combination of passion and gentleness that came after thirty-seven years of marriage. She should have known something wasn’t quite right. But she hadn’t because she was so busy concentrating on the wrong thing.

Was that going to be her epitaph? Anneliese kept her eyes open so the plane would stay in the air, but she’d watched the wrong plane?

No matter how angry she was with Edward, Anneliese realised that she felt even angrier with herself. She hadn’t seen what was happening and she couldn’t forgive herself for that.

It was no good: she couldn’t face seeing Izzie again and seeing the shock on her face, not when she felt this close to screaming. She’d come back to spend time with Lily later. Better to go home and have Izzie briefly wonder where she’d gone, than to fall apart in front of her niece.

At home, she could give in and take one of the tranquillisers she had left over from years ago. There were a few left in a small bottle in her bedside table, enough to do her until she went to the doctor. There was no point putting that off, either. She’d fought it, determined not to have to go back on bloody antidepressants again, because taking them felt like such a sign of failure. But the time had come for the big guns: if Dr Whelan had something to take away the grim darkness in her head, then she needed it. Lots of it. Otherwise, who knew what might happen?

It was seven that evening when she returned to the hospital, in a state of tranquilliser-induced calm. She hoped that Izzie’s jet-lag meant she’d have left and returned home to her father by then, but even if she hadn’t, Anneliese could cope.

It was amazing how one little tablet could make her feel better. Well, not so much better, but calmer. As if she was on a tiny lifeboat in the middle of a huge, deep ocean, and with the little tablet inside her, she didn’t need to look over the edge of the boat to see the vast inky blueness beneath her. It was still there, she knew that. But she didn’t need to look at it. She could exist and not look, which was much nicer than forcing herself to stare at it and feel the anxiety flooding in.

The hospital was busy with visitors rushing to and fro, carrying flowers, bottles of mineral water and magazines in to their loved ones. Anneliese smiled at them all serenely. People were so kind, really.

When she got to Lily’s ward, she was surprised to see a woman sitting by Lily’s bed, holding her hand. It wasn’t Izzie: it was a younger woman, perhaps late twenties, and she had long streaked blonde hair piled on top of her head in an untidy knot, and wore the loose trousers and thonged shoes that Anneliese always associated with students on gap years in Thailand.

‘Hello,’ she said curiously.

‘Oh, hello.’ The girl leapt to her feet and her lightly tanned face looked anxious.

‘I’m Anneliese, a relative of Lily’s.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. I’m Jodi, I’m not a friend or anything.’

Anneliese blinked at her in surprise. The girl’s freckles looked Irish but her accent was pure Australian.