In a Moment Read online

  “It’s not your fault, love. I’m okay, I promise. It’s just a bump on my head.” She put her hand to her head and already she could feel the swelling grow. Everything was swaying before her eyes but she forced herself to act normally for her ten-year-old daughter’s sake. She sat on the edge of the single bed to steady herself.

  “I’m scared of him, Mam – I wish he’d just go away and leave us alone.”

  “I know, pet. I know. Come here.” She hugged her daughter in her arms so that Chloe wouldn’t see the tears that were streaming down her own face. She was scared too. That was the first time he had actually hit her. God knows he had come so close to it several times before but never before had he actually done it. Her son had hit her. She was left reeling with the shock of it all.

  “How about you sleep in with me tonight? We can cuddle up together and watch a film in bed. How about that?” She knew it was safer to have Chloe sleep beside her as she couldn’t predict what kind of a mood he would arrive home in. She had seen his Jekyll and Hyde behaviour before – he could either be a total monster or else he act like nothing had happened just hours earlier.

  Chloe nodded her head emphatically, relieved that she wouldn’t have to go to sleep on her own. At ten years of age, she was at that stage where she didn’t usually like her mother fawning her with affection but tonight she was vulnerable and upset and was happy to let her mother take care of her. Thank God Kyle was at a sleep-over in his cousin’s house, Jean thought to herself. It was one less thing to worry about.

  Jean was still trembling as she set up the DVD player while Chloe chose what DVD she wanted to watch. She picked Shrek, one of her favourites. Jean sat up against the wooden headboard with her daughter’s head resting on her chest as the colours danced from the screen to the wall. Chloe was sucking her thumb, which she did only when she was really tired, and had the duvet pulled right up under her chin while her mother stroked her hair softly. Jean watched her daughter’s eyes repeatedly grow heavy and the lids begin to close before she would open them wide again as she tried to fight the tiredness. Eventually she gave in and dozed off in her mam’s arms.

  Jean lowered the volume so that she was watching the rest of film in silence, as her daughter slept peacefully in her arms. Her head was pounding. She listened to every sound, to see if it was Paul coming home, and she had her phone in her hand just in case. Every sound she could hear outside caused her to tense up with fear in case it was him. She couldn’t fall asleep, she was too scared of what might happen if she did, so instead she stayed there staring at the ceiling all night watching Chloe’s chest rise and fall in shallow beats.

  When morning dawned, Jean was relieved to find that he hadn’t come home. It wasn’t unusual for him to stay out all night, but there was always the lingering worry of what he was up to. Chloe was still asleep beside her; the poor mite was exhausted by the events of the night before. She managed to wriggle her way out from underneath her and went into the bathroom. She took two more Paracetamol but they didn’t seem to be shifting her headache. When she looked in the mirror, the damage was plain to see. It was far worse than she had thought. Her whole left eye was inflamed in an ugly mass of blue-black tissue. How was she supposed to hide that? She splashed cold water on her face before dabbing it dry with a towel. Her sister Louise would be calling to drop Kyle back later on that morning; she would be wondering what had happened. She tried to dab some foundation over the skin to conceal it but it was painful under her fingertips. She persisted, trying to layer concealer, foundation and powder, but no matter what she did the bruising still came through. She knew she was wasting her time; no amount of make-up was going to hide it. She racked her brain to come up with a decent excuse, one that wasn’t the usual one women used about walking into doors. She decided to say that she slipped on the floor in the kitchen after she had mopped it and fell against the kitchen table. She would blame her flip-flops. Yes, that was it. They were lethal on wet surfaces, everyone knew that, and in fact she had nearly slipped on several occasions in the past when she had been mopping the floor so it was a very easy thing to do. The more she thought about her story, the more she began to believe it herself.

  When Chloe woke up, she padded into the kitchen where Jean was seated at the table with a cup of tea. She was startled by her mother’s face.

  “Your face looks really sore, Mam!”

  “Oh, it looks worse than it is,” she brushed her off.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I am!” Her tone was upbeat. “Now, do you know what I’m in the mood for?”

  “What?”

  “How about pancakes?”

  “Pancakes?” Chloe’s eyes were wide with excitement.

  “And maple syrup!”

  “Oh yes, please, Mam!” Chloe squealed at the rare treat.

  Jean moved around the kitchen mixing eggs, milk and flour before pouring some of the batter into a heated frying pan. She turned the pancake over and as soon as it had browned, she flipped it out of the pan and onto a plate. She squirted maple syrup in lines across it and served it up to Chloe, then set about cooking more and piling them up on a heated plate.

  “He’s not here, sure he isn’t, Mam?” Chloe asked through a mouthful of pancake.

  “No, love, he didn’t come home last night.”

  “Good – I hope he never comes home.”

  “Chloe!” Jean was taken aback with her daughter’s forthrightness. “You don’t mean that!”

  “I do, Mam!” She defiantly shook her head, her brown eyes wide and serious. “Every time he goes out, I hope he never comes back.”

  Dear God, thought Jean. She had no idea her daughter was that scared of him. In her own home.

  “It’ll be okay, love.”

  “Will it, Mam? Because he just keeps getting madder and madder.”

  She was only ten years old but already she had seen so much and was speaking more sense than Jean ever could.

  “I’ll talk to him, love, okay? Don’t be worrying about things.” She took a deep breath. “Now, y’know your Auntie Louise will be dropping Kyle home later?”

  “Yes?”

  Chloe was smart; Jean knew she would have to tread carefully. “Well, she’ll probably be wondering what happened to my face, so I was thinking it might be a better idea to say nothing to her about last night?”

  “Why not, Mam?”

  “Well, we don’t want to worry her. I’ll just say I slipped after mopping the floor.”

  “Mmmh,” her daughter said, giving a half-hearted reply, and Jean could see she wasn’t really buying into it.

  “Please, Chloe, we’ll just keep it between ourselves, yeah?” Her voice was desperate.

  Chloe looked up at her and Jean begged her with her eyes.

  “Okay, Mam, if that’s what you want.”

  “Thanks, love. Did you have enough pancakes? Will I put on another batch?” She was disgusted with herself – trying to butter up her own daughter.

  She was dreading facing her older sister. She considered getting Chloe to tell her that she was sick in bed but she knew she would insist on coming up to the room to see how she was, so she would see her either way.

  Chloe sat chewing away on her pancakes in small bites while Jean played around with the one on the plate in front of her.

  Soon after she could hear the heavy engine of her sister’s black Range Rover SUV pulling up beside the footpath outside the house. A gang of teenagers began to circle around it before Louise had even had time to step out of it. They eyed up Louise as she climbed down from the jeep. It looked completely out of place in the forlorn council estate with its graffitied walls, boarded-up houses and foot-high weeds shooting up through the cracked pavements. Louise looked nervously at the teenagers and held her Louis Vuitton tote tight to her chest. Kyle hopped out of the back seat and came running up the path ahead of her.

  Although the sisters were separated by just two years in age, Jean and Louise’s lives couldn�
��t have turned out more differently. Louise was the wife of an adoring husband who was always whisking her off for romantic breaks or giving her thoughtful little gifts such as flowers or jewellery. He was a senior partner in one of Dublin’s leading accountancy firms, which allowed her to be a stay-at-home mum to their two boys, Ronan and Seán. They had built a huge seven-bedroomed house in the country on acres of land, with its own stables and paddocks and Louise had kitted it out with luxuries that Jean could only dream of, like a mahogany walk-in wardrobe, a kitchen island that was as big as Jean’s entire kitchen and a bright and airy living room with floor-to-ceiling-height glass. Louise had employed a designer to choose the wallpapers for the feature walls and complementary fabrics for the curtains and cushions. The house wouldn’t look out of place in an interiors magazine. Louise and her family were living the country dream. It was in stark contrast to Jean’s three-bedroomed house down the back of a tough local-authority housing estate.

  Kyle came in the door. He dropped his bag on the floor and stared at his mother. “What happened to you?”

  “Well, hello to you too! Did you have a good time? I hope you were good for Auntie Louise?”

  He nodded his head.

  “Jesus, Jean, what happened to your face?” Louise’s eyes were riveted to the bruise on her younger sister’s face. It looked tender and, judging by how she winced every time she made a facial expression, it was painful.

  “Oh that? It’s nothing!” she replied, trying her best to sound nonchalant. “I was stupidly mopping the floor yesterday in my flip-flops and I slipped and fell against the table. No matter how many times I tell myself never to mop the floor in flip-flops, I never learn, and I ended up with this shiner!” She forced a smile on her face to sell her story.

  “My God – that is some bruise!” Louise leant forward to take a closer look.

  “It looks worse than it is,” Jean lied, because it was bloody sore, as was the egg-shaped lump on the back of her head.

  “You gave yourself some bang.”

  “Bloody flip-flops, you know how slippy the things are.”

  Something in Jean’s eyes wasn’t quite right and Louise looked over at Chloe for confirmation.

  C’mon, Chloe don’t let me down, Jean begged silently.

  Chloe sat at the table, saying nothing. Her expression gave nothing away. Jean thanked her inwardly.

  “You should get that seen to,” Louise continued.

  “Sure they can’t do anything about a bruise, I’ll just have to hide under a pair of dark sunglasses for a couple of days.” She laughed, trying to make light of the situation.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Louise said somewhat hesitantly. She looked at the lines on the face of her younger sister, her grey pallor, her brown velour tracksuit, her lank hair pulled back. She was stick-thin from years of worry. You would never think she was the younger one of the two of them.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m grand, it’s just a bruise. I’d hate to see the fuss if I really injured myself.”

  “Mmmh . . . well, are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine, Louise, stop worrying. Will you stay for a coffee?”

  “Sorry, love, I have to pick Seán up from karate in five, but if you need anything just give me a ring, yeah?”

  Jean let out a huge sigh of relief as soon as she closed the door behind her sister and from the window watched her pull off from the kerb. Chloe and Kyle had moved to the sitting room to play on the X-Box. They were twins and were as close as they came. She could hear Chloe’s animated voice talking to Kyle so she moved towards the door so she could hear them better. Their backs were to her and their faces were concentrating on the graphics on the screen.

  “He just started screaming because I wouldn’t give him my money and then when Mam came up he pushed her and she banged her head and now she has the bruise.”

  “You should have just given it to him, Chloe.”

  “I wish I did because it’s all my fault that Mam hurted herself.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Dunno.” She shrugged her small shoulders. “He didn’t come home. I hope he’s gone away forever.”

  “Me too.”

  They continued playing their game, as if it was the most normal thing in the world and Jean felt her heart twisting with sadness. She was supposed to be the adult here, she was meant to be in control, but this whole situation was her fault and it was now starting to affect Chloe and Kyle. How could he try and take her pocket money from her? She was only ten years old for God’s sake! She was saving it for a trip to the toy store that Jean had promised her.

  She went into the kitchen and sat at the table drinking a cup of tea. She knew she needed to do something but she hadn’t told anyone about the nightmare that was her daily life. No one knew of the constant terror that followed her around, the anxious waiting and wondering what kind of a mood he would come home in. And now that the line had been crossed into violence, what would come next? She constantly lived in fear in case the smallest thing set him off into a rage. He could have killed her last night – her head had missed the edge of the radiator by millimetres, but what was worse was that Chloe had seen the whole thing. What kind of an environment was that for the twins to be brought up in?

  After dinner there was still no sign of Paul and she didn’t know if that was a good or a bad sign. On the one hand it would give him more time to calm down but on the other he could be building up into a rage again and could fly through the door in a mood worse than when he had left. That was the thing with Paul – he was completely unpredictable.

  Later on, after she had put Chloe and Kyle to bed and gone back down to watch TV, she heard his engine revving outside the house. Automatically her breathing quickened and she prayed he would be in good form. She heard him come through the door and walk straight into the kitchen. He was opening the fridge and then she heard plates banging. He walked out of the kitchen and straight past the sitting-room door and continued upstairs. Please leave them alone. She was relieved when she heard him go into his bedroom but minutes later the sound of dance music was pumping throughout the house. She really didn’t want to have to confront him.

  The sitting-room door opened inwards and Chloe’s small face appeared around it.

  “Mammy!” Chloe started to cry.

  “Come in, pet, what’s wrong with you? Is it the music?”

  She wouldn’t say and just buried her face in her mother’s lap, sobbing.

  “What is it, Chloe – has he been in to you?”

  She shook her head.

  “What is it, Chloe – come on, love, you can tell me.”

  “My bed is all wet.” She looked at her mother with shame in her eyes as her face convulsed in tears.

  “Oh love, it’s all right, these things happen.”

  She hadn’t wet her bed since she was being toilet-trained at the age of two.

  “I’m sorry, Mam.”

  “Don’t be silly. C’mon and we’ll get you changed.”

  Afterwards, Chloe didn’t want to go back to her bedroom so Jean let her snuggle up onto her knee on the couch. Soon after it was Kyle’s turn to come down to the sitting room.

  “I can’t sleep, Mam, the music is too loud.” He rubbed his sleepy eyes as they adjusted to the brightness of the room.

  “I know, love, I’m sorry.” Sorry for being too scared to do anything about it. “Sit down here with myself and Chloe.”

  Later she sat upright on the sofa with her two children lying on either side of her in sleeping bags as they eventually nodded off to sleep. She watched the hours change with the small hand on the carriage clock, the music still blaring down from upstairs until she drifted off in a hazy sleep at some point herself.

  22

  On Monday morning Jean busied herself with the morning routine of buttering bread and packing lunchboxes for Chloe and Kyle. They ate their cereal with painstakingly small mouthfuls while she loo
ked on in exasperation.

  “Hurry up, you two – we’re going to be late.”

  They looked up at her but continued to chew at a frustratingly slow pace. When they finally finished, they all bundled into her car. They were just reversing out the drive when Chloe realised she had forgotten her PE kit. Jean sighed wearily before getting out of the car again and letting herself back into the house, running around frantically trying to locate her daughter’s tracksuit and runners. She ran back out to the car and they set off on the school run. She dropped them outside the school gates, giving them each a kiss as they hopped out.

  Although it was only nine o’clock she was already exhausted. She hadn’t slept a wink after Paul’s antics over the weekend. She looked at herself in the rear-view mirror. The swelling in her face had now turned to a dirty yellowy-green colour but at least it was starting to fade. She had masked it as best she could, using layers of carefully applied concealer and different shades of foundation but if anyone in work asked what had happened, she would tell them the same story as she had told Louise. She locked her car and, taking a deep breath, made her way into the small solicitors’ office where she worked as a legal secretary.

  As expected her colleagues looked at her face with concern but her recounting of the story to Louise at the weekend had served her well and she told the story like it was real and even managed to throw in a laugh at her own stupidity. She knew they bought it.

  She sat down in front of her computer and got stuck into the cases she was working on. Her desk was a mass of paper – she had several letters to type, she also had to serve the proceedings for a family dispute. Plus she needed to do the preparation for a High Court case for her boss Sheila by this evening. Normally secretaries didn’t get involved in that sort of work but the partners had grown to trust her over the years and had been giving her bigger and bigger projects until now she was often doing the work of the solicitors herself. She liked the fact that they knew she was capable of the extra responsibility so she gladly took it on, plus it was break from the tedious administration side of her job.