Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets

It was a shock to see her heavy kohl and pancake foundation being removed. Leonie closed her eyes and reminded herself that she could run into the nearest pub loo when she left the hairdresser’s and reapply her heavy-lidded glory.

Only she didn’t need to. When she opened her eyes, the face that greeted her looked like a stranger. Gone was the heavy smoky kohl and the lipstick line that had circled her mouth since she’d been twenty. In its place was a subtle mélange of golds and fawns. Her eyes stood out, thanks to beautiful shading and a slender line that opened them up. Her usual sooty black mascara had been replaced with rich brown and her mouth was a full pout thanks to a caramel shade with no visible liner.

‘Gosh,’ was all she could think of to say.

‘It’ll be better when the tinfoil is gone,’ said the beautician sagely.

When the tinfoil was gone, Leonie thought her hair looked quite dark.

‘It’s still wet,’ said Nicky comfortingly. ‘Wait till it’s dry. You won’t recognize yourself. You’ll look amazing.’

And she did. After half an hour of expert blowdrying, the golden brassy colour had vanished and in its place was a mop of wavy hair, a mass of honeys, pale golds and hazel browns. Leonie touched it in wonder. She looked like another version of herself, like the rich, elegant twin of her old brassy self. All she needed now was a wardrobe of subtle cashmere clothes, some discreet but expensive jewellery and a BMW, and she’d be a lady who lunched. She grinned at her reflection.

‘Never mind my friends not recognizing me, I don’t think my kids will!’ she joked.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#ulink_21587376-f512-590f-84f7-b100b53dcc2b)

Hannah laughed loudest and smiled the most at the Dwyer, Dwyer & James staff Christmas party in McCormack’s. She roared with laughter when the stripping vicar turned up as a surprise for Gillian because it was her birthday the day after Christmas, and when the vicar was down to his boxer shorts and looking for somebody else to kiss, Hannah gave him a cheeky grin and earned herself a big hug. Nobody watching her glowing face lit up with mirth would have imagined that, inside, Hannah felt about as festive as a turkey in a poultry farm.

‘Goodness, what are we doing here?’ gasped Donna at half ten, throwing herself down on the banquette beside Hannah after they’d queued for half an hour to go to the ladies because the pub was jammed with festive drinkers.

‘Yes, we’re mad,’ Hannah agreed, doing her best to make her eyes sparkle happily as she said it. It would be too, too humiliating to admit to Donna that once again Felix had let her down. ‘I’ve still got a load of Christmas shopping to do and I don’t fancy getting up first thing in the morning to brave the city-centre shops. I know I should be home in bed but I feel like having fun.’

‘Buying presents on Christmas Eve is murder,’ agreed Donna, ‘especially with a hangover. I’ve got everything already, thankfully. Believe me, it’s so much harder when you’ve got kids to think about. You daren’t leave buying Santa’s presents until Christmas Eve in case there’s been a run on Barbie’s pony or whatever. Tania would go berserk if Santa didn’t come up trumps.’

Hannah nodded. She’d lied about the Christmas shopping as she’d already bought presents for everyone she needed to buy for. She’d been holding off buying anything for Felix because she wanted to buy him something utterly perfect. Now there was no point going near the shops, but it sounded so sad and single to say so.

‘What are you up to for the day, anyhow?’ asked Donna, pouring tonic into her vodka. ‘I’m so glad I’m staying at home this year. Every Christmas we trek to my mother’s in Letterkenny. This year, I told them all to come to us. The house will be full, mind you, but it’ll be fun. I get nightmares at the thought of cooking for ten!’

Hannah grinned. ‘I can’t see you getting nightmares at anything so simple,’ she joked. Donna was one of the most organized people she knew and probably had the entire dinner pre-cooked and already frozen, waiting to be defrosted half an hour before the meal was due to begin.

‘My kitchen is so small it’s hardly designed for large-scale catering,’ protested Donna. ‘What about you? Staying here with the glorious Felix, or do you go home to the West?’

For a millisecond, Hannah considered her options. She could sit at home, eating a solitary Christmas dinner and pleasing herself about what to watch on the box, fortifying her spirit with plenty of wine. With no Felix to share it all with, she couldn’t face cooking the pheasant she’d bought, and what would be the point of decorating the table with fat beeswax candles, gleaming holly sprigs and intricately tied red and gold ribbons if there was nobody to admire her efforts? Or she could do what had seemed unthinkable before – go home to Connemara with her tail between her legs. Her mother hadn’t given up asking Hannah to come home for Christmas even though she’d been absent for the past two years. Hannah had claimed she was working in the hotel the previous year, the year she’d been Harry-less and embarrassed by the fact. Her family all knew Harry and, even if they weren’t incredibly impressed by him, having him was better than being without him. Everyone she’d grown up with at home was now married with kids, so Christmas was like a parade of accomplishments from the returning thirty-somethings. Outside the church on Christmas Day was reminiscent of a beauty pageant with proud locals showing off their spouses and kids. Hannah had allowed herself to dream of future Christmases when she’d roll up with the famous Felix Andretti and really get people talking. So much for that idea.

In late November, she’d told her mother she had plans for the holidays. Which had been true at the time. She’d planned a gloriously romantic idyll with Felix, a time where they could take long walks in the icy afternoons after spending sensuous mornings in bed giggling over Willie Wonka and watching re-runs of Little House on the Prairie. They wouldn’t see anybody or go to any parties: it would just be the two of them on their own. Sheer bliss. Felix had put the kibosh on this darling plan by saying point-blank that he was going home to his mother in Birmingham. He hadn’t invited Hannah or even appeared to consider that she might be hurt by being left out of his festive arrangements.

‘Family problems,’ he’d said blandly on the phone, as if that absolved him from having to think about anything or anyone else. ‘I’ll call you when I get there.’

But he hadn’t. Left to simmer in her own misery, Hannah decided that she’d just joined the ranks of Felix’s ex-girlfriends, another one to add to the not-so-select band of those who hated him. Three days had elapsed since that final phone call and she’d retreated into herself in depression. She couldn’t bear to think about him, to remember the wonderful times they’d shared. It was so painful, like having a tooth extracted without an anaesthetic. Felix had been the one. She was sure of that. But it now appeared that while he was her one, she wasn’t his.

More numb than she’d been at any time since Harry had left, she existed on automatic pilot and tried to stop herself wondering why she picked men who dumped on her and then dumped her. That was a no-go area, one for another day, another century, perhaps. Hannah didn’t want to look into her subconscious and work out what was wrong with her. She wanted to get incredibly drunk instead, and the office party was providing a pretty good opportunity for this.

She threw her eyes to heaven at Donna’s enquiry about her Christmas plans. Hannah’s current Christmas arrangements were non-existent. Unless…

‘Going home to the West, I’m afraid. Felix is furious with me because he wanted us both to visit his mother, but I promised my mother last year that I’d be there this time…’ Hannah broke off and sighed deeply to give Donna the impression that being a good and dutiful daughter was tough but that Hannah simply had no option. ‘I’ll miss him but I couldn’t let Mum down. My brother, my sister-in-law and their little boy are going to be away for Christmas so my parents will be on their own. Anyway, Felix and I will see each other for New Year,’ she lied. Who knew what Felix was up to for New Year? Probably bungee-jumping from some Australian bridge or something equally wild. Maybe partying with honey-skinned models turned actresses who longed to hang out with real actors. Whatever he was doing, he hadn’t discussed it with Hannah.

‘You deserve a medal!’ exclaimed Donna. ‘If it was me, I think Felix’s charms would win and I’d be telling my poor mother she’d have to live without me for one more year.’ Donna laughed. ‘You’re a hell of a woman, Hannah Campbell. Your word is certainly your bond.’

‘I know, I’m a saint.’ Hannah drained her drink, hating herself for lying to someone as good and kind as Donna. ‘I’m going to brave the bar again. Do you want another?’

‘Go on,’ Donna groaned. ‘Just one more and then make me go home, please!’

‘I promise,’ grinned Hannah.

She felt almost happy, bizarrely enough, now that she’d decided to go home for Christmas. Lolling around in misery since Felix had delivered his bombshell three days previously, Hannah hadn’t been able to manifest any enthusiasm in anything. She’d felt adrift, unmoored. But with the notion of going to her home in Connemara, she felt like a part of something again. She wasn’t a lonely woman destined to a solitary existence of Lean Cuisines, single pots of creamed rice and the television guide. She was Hannah Campbell, a person with roots and a family, even if she didn’t see them a great deal. It was as if a punishing weight had been lifted from her and she bounced up to the bar, insinuating herself into the anxious crowd yelling for drinks before closing time kicked in.

A couple of good-looking guys in rugby shirts smiled at the pretty woman with the glittering eyes and the provocative smile on her face. Hannah had worn a silky pewter-grey blouse to the pub and she’d deliberately unbuttoned it so the top of her black lacy bra was just barely visible. Subtle but sexy as hell. It had made her feel better to dress up.

‘Go ahead, love,’ said one of the rugby blokes, making a space where Hannah could squeeze past him and get nearer to the bar.

‘Thanks,’ she breathed, giving him a blast of unrestrained Hannah. If Felix didn’t want her, there was no reason not to flirt with other men. Her confidence needed a lift, she decided firmly.

‘Maybe I can buy you a drink,’ he said hopefully.

Hannah shot him a wicked glance. ‘I don’t see why not,’ she said.

‘I see you’re enjoying yourself,’ said a dry voice. She looked around to find the big figure of David James looming over her. Still in his suit from the office, he looked out of place among the casually dressed and very merry gang in the pub. His grey eyes were tired and more crinkled up than ever, giving him a rumpled bloodhound look.

‘Where did you spring out of?’ she asked, mildly discomfited to be found flirting with strangers when she was supposed to be deeply in love with Felix.

‘I’ve been working late and dropped in for half an hour,’ he replied, eyes taking in her flushed face, the coral lipstick that was smudged off her full lips and the silky blouse with three buttons open.

‘So, what are you having, love?’ asked Mr Rugby Shirt.

‘Nothing,’ said David coldly. ‘She’s with me.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Mr Rugby Shirt said huffily to Hannah.

Her colour ripened to that of a peony, bright red and embarrassed.

‘I thought perhaps you needed rescuing,’ David said pointedly.

‘No, I didn’t,’ she hissed, wriggling out of the throng for the bar.

He followed her and grabbed her by the shoulder, turning her round to face him.

‘I’m sorry, Hannah,’ he apologized. ‘I saw that guy chatting you up and I thought you wouldn’t like it…’

‘David, I’m sick of people taking it upon themselves to know what I’d like and what I wouldn’t like,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m going home. Have a nice Christmas.’

She turned and left, stopping only to pick up her coat and wave bye at an astonished Donna. As she pushed her way out of the pub, she could feel David’s eyes upon her and knew they were probably hurt by her curt behaviour. But she hadn’t been able to help it. An entire evening pretending to be happy and smiling until her jaw ached had been too much for any woman to bear. She’d apologize to David after Christmas. He’d been so good to her since she’d taken over from Donna that day. He had even said he’d train her in as a junior agent in January, which was an incredible opportunity. Hannah knew she should be delighted at this chance, but she felt depressed and low. Bloody Felix.

Early the next morning, she stopped in Rathmines long enough to buy edible goodies, booze, a few presents from Dunnes and a big bottle of ludicrously expensive perfume for her mother, before taking the road west. At ten on Christmas Eve morning, the roads were still busy but the line of traffic that would soon clog up all the main routes out of the city hadn’t yet materialized.

Fortified with toffees and with the radio blaring carols, Hannah drove west, ignoring the steadily falling rain that made travelling such a pain. She amused herself by listening first to a radio play and then a current-affairs programme where the guests analysed what had been happening politically during the year. Talk radio was better than music, she’d discovered. It was too painful to listen to chart music that she’d heard with Felix. The same thing had happened to her when she’d split up with Harry. A fan of opera, he’d often played his precious Maria Callas records when they’d been making love. Even now, Hannah couldn’t listen to a single bar of an opera on the radio without getting a lump in her throat and having to change the channel immediately. Those tragic throaty sounds were all too tied up with loss and misery in her mind; the loss of Harry, the loss of Felix. Was her life always going to be about losing things?

Four hours later, it was still raining. The scenery had changed utterly. Houses were few and far between on the winding Clifden road once she’d passed the postcard-pretty village of Oughterard with its pastel-coloured houses. Prettiness gave way to the desolate, angry beauty of the inhospitable grey mountains which loomed out of the mist on her right. The rolling foothills were crisscrossed by drystone walls, with small houses dotted here and there in the wilderness, trails of smoke drifting from their chimneys. She could smell the peat in the air, the scent of burning turf that would forever symbolize home to her. Hardy mountain sheep grazed by the road, ignoring the traffic that passed as they chewed grass methodically. To the left, she could see the Atlantic peeping from between the myriad gorse-covered peninsulas. God, it was beautiful, but so remote.