The Hideaway Read online

  I’d been easy pickings for him. Still a bit vulnerable after Sean but ready to dip my toe back in the water and fall for someone who was charming and intelligent and warm and compassionate. Because he was all of those things. I don’t fall for bastards. At least . . . not the sort you know are already heartbreakers. Brad wasn’t. He just wasn’t. He was the most wonderful person I’d ever gone out with. We did that thing, you know, where we knew what the other person was going to say before they said it. We were on the same wavelength. We wanted the same things from life.

  At least, that’s what I’d thought. But I hadn’t been on Brad’s wavelength at all, had I? When I’d assumed he was in the moment with me, he could just as easily have been thinking about Alessandra. Or his beautiful son. Or the baby they were going to have. I’d been so sure of him. I’d been so wrong.

  I stood up abruptly and the cat gave a mew of disapproval before scurrying into the orange grove, a flash of silver among the green and gold. I went into the house and picked up the phone that I’d left on the kitchen counter. I had a number of messages from Cleo, Saoirse and Pilar and a couple from my sister, Gonne. I didn’t want to look at them yet. Instead I opened my photo stream and scrolled back to the last one I’d taken. It had been a selfie. Brad hadn’t wanted me to take it and he’d looked away at the last minute so his face was blurred.

  ‘I’ll have to do it again!’ I wailed as I looked at it. ‘That’s hopeless.’

  ‘I hate having my photo taken,’ he told me. ‘I don’t like looking at pictures of myself.’

  ‘This isn’t for you.’ I grinned at him. ‘It’s for me. So that when you’re in Belfast and I’m here pining for you I can look at it and feel close to you.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Juno,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe I should X-ray you instead,’ I teased. ‘I could put a picture of your femur on my wall.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear my words about being an idiot?’ But his eyes were twinkling.

  I tried to take another selfie but he grabbed the phone and took photos of me instead. In them I’m laughing, my hair tousled, my eyes bright with the knowledge of loving him. In our selfie I’m laughing too, even though the only part of him that’s in focus is his ear.

  Why had he pretended?

  Why had he lied?

  And why had he gone on that damn holiday and got himself killed?

  I went into the house as soon as I started to scratch my arm and realised the mozzies were biting. I hadn’t thought of mozzies and didn’t have any repellent to spray on my skin. There were some dusty citronella tea lights in the house, though, so I lit a few of them before going into the living room.

  The cat was in the armchair. I had no idea how he’d got from the orange grove into the house without being seen, but he’d managed it.

  ‘Out, cat!’ I ordered. ‘You’re not meant to be in here. And you’re especially not meant to be on the furniture.’

  He ignored me.

  ‘Come on.’ I nudged him gently. ‘You can’t stay here.’

  He took no notice as I watched him delicately wash his face. I was perfectly well aware that cats felt themselves to be pretty much above the inane requests of humans and that this cat had no intention of doing anything I asked.

  ‘Maybe it’s because you’re Spanish,’ I said out loud. ‘Maybe I have to talk to you in Spanish. In which case – vamos!’ I used one of my five words.

  The cat continued with his toilette as though I wasn’t there.

  ‘Do you have a name?’ I repeated my earlier question.

  His ears flickered slightly.

  ‘Does it matter if you have a name?’

  He yawned and then moved to washing his behind.

  ‘Oh, please!’ I yelped. ‘That’s disgusting. Stop!’

  He gave me a disdainful look, gave himself another lick and then leaped gracefully from the chair and walked into the kitchen, where he jumped into the recycling box.

  ‘I guess you’ve decided this is home,’ I said. ‘Which is fine, you’re very welcome. But I’m the boss here. To start off, I’m going to give you a name, and it’s going to be English.’

  I stood over him as he made himself more comfortable in the box. Along with his chunky girth he was a determined-looking creature, very sure of himself and his place at the Villa Naranja. And – despite knocking things over – he was as stealthy as the ghosts I didn’t want to believe in.

  ‘Banquo,’ I told him. ‘It’s appropriate.’

  Banquo was my first introduction to ghosts, thanks to my mother, who had played the part of Lady Macbeth a number of times. I’d walked in on her reading through the play with my godfather, another leading actor of his generation. She was giving the ‘out, damned spot’ speech, and the ferocity of it made me cry. Afterwards she explained to me that it was all pretend and I looked at her in surprise and asked her why she had to pretend to be someone else at all.

  ‘You pretend, don’t you?’ she’d asked. ‘When you’re being a doctor or a teacher or an astronaut?’ (I’d wanted to be an astronaut when I was smaller. I wanted to go to the stars.)

  ‘I’m a child,’ I’d replied to her. ‘I’m supposed to pretend. You’re a grown-up. You don’t have to.’

  I didn’t realise then that grown-ups pretend a lot more than children. And we’re a good deal less honest about it.

  When I was a little older and she was once again playing the part, she explained to me about Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness and the character of Banquo, who haunts the king. Gonne brought me to the opening night at the Abbey Theatre. I remember her poking me in the ribs when Mum first appeared. In character, she was even more imposing than she’d been when I’d walked in on her reading, and I was completely caught up in her performance. I knew she was still my mother, the woman who made my breakfast in the morning and yelled at me for leaving my clothes on my bedroom floor, but she’d turned into somebody else too, someone I didn’t know.

  Banquo, played by my godfather, was just as much of a revelation. I totally believed in him as a haunting presence, and it took a lot of reading of my favourite picture science books to dislodge the feeling that it might be possible for ghosts to exist, after all – despite the complete lack of proof.

  Regardless of the intensity of the play, though, I was more taken with the stage set and the changing scenery and the way the cauldron of the three witches bubbled and belched out smoke than with the brilliance of the acting. When, afterwards, I asked my mother about all the backstage activity she’d looked at me in despair. ‘You’re not supposed to think about it,’ she said. ‘You’re supposed to be transported.’

  Because of my questions about the practicalities, Mum never really understood how much I’d loved her performance. And even though I’d gone to many of her opening nights after that, I always felt that she’d given me up as a lost cause. I suppose to her I was. But perhaps not entirely. Not if I could name a cat after Banquo’s ghost.

  Banquo himself had now curled up in a ball in the box and was purring happily again. I headed back to the living room and looked at my phone.

  The messages from my friends were all hoping that I was enjoying Spain and that everything was OK. I got the feeling that Saoirse was particularly anxious about me. She’d been the one who’d seen me at my worst, after all, and I suppose she was afraid I’d go into some terrible decline on my own.

  The one from Gonne was long and rambling, just like her usual conversation, but the gist of it was that she was stuck for a babysitter for Cian on Saturday night and asking if I was free. Cian, my youngest nephew, had just turned thirteen. His sister, Alannah, is sixteen. Both of them are as dreamy and musical as their parents, but I would’ve thought Alannah, who is a leading light in her school choir, was perfectly capable of keeping an eye on her brother for an evening. I said as much in my reply and then added that I was in Spain.

  Whaaattt! Gonne’s message arrived with the appropriate harp sound as an alert. When did u go?

/>   Yesterday.

  You said nothing.

  Was spur of moment.

  Anywhere nice?

  Place called Beniflor. Somewhere between Alicante and Valencia.

  Oh! With who?

  Alone.

  There was a text silence as my sister digested this. Being alone to channel the creative muse is part and parcel of the Ryan family but it’s not a part that I usually embrace.

  Are you all right?

  Of course.

  She didn’t know anything about Brad. Why should she? We don’t talk much.

  OK. Well, give me a shout when you’re home. We could meet for coffee.

  Sure.

  I didn’t say that I planned to be away for a few months. That would have caused a barrage of questions. Mum might even have got involved. After all, this was completely out of character for me. The serious one. The sensible one. The one with the boring life.

  The one who’d fallen in love with a married man who’d died in an earthquake.

  We’d met at a workshop during a seminar on diagnostic imaging, which was being held at the National Convention Centre. We’d starting chatting as we queued for coffee after the session and discovered we’d both been to the Bruce Springsteen concert earlier in the year – Brad had been in the row directly behind me.

  ‘You weren’t the one with the River baseball cap, were you?’ he asked. ‘Leppin’ up and down like a mad thing.’

  I grinned.

  ‘No, that was my friend Cleo,’ I told him. ‘I was the one with the home-made knitted scarf.’

  ‘I remember!’ he exclaimed. ‘It had his song titles knitted into it.’

  ‘Only some of them,’ I protested. ‘I knit in the winter evenings. It keeps me calm.’

  ‘We all need things to keep us calm,’ he said, and the tone of his voice was suddenly softer and more intimate. ‘Would you like to have a calming drink with me when this is over?’

  Of course I said yes. We’d only spoken a few words but I think I’d fallen for him already.

  I fell for him properly on our first real date, a couple of weeks later. We met at the National Gallery (Sean wouldn’t have been seen dead wandering around an art gallery but I like it, and it has a brilliant café) and then headed to one of Dublin’s newest and most fashionable restaurants off Grafton Street. After that, Brad insisted on a nightcap at the Shelbourne Hotel, where we both had cocktails.

  I felt very sophisticated as I sat in a window seat with my gin sling, watching people hurrying along the street outside while I half listened to Brad talking about the new developments in diagnostic imaging they’d featured at the seminar.

  Suddenly he stopped talking and laughed.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m giving you the lecture I give my staff. And you’re so very much not my staff, Juno Ryan.’

  ‘I should hope not.’ I grinned at him. ‘It wouldn’t do to be quaffing cocktails with the boss at all.’

  ‘It’s just that it’s so nice to be with someone who knows exactly what I’m talking about,’ he said.

  ‘After a few of these you could be talking about anything on earth and I wouldn’t have a clue.’ I raised the cocktail glass.

  ‘They’re lovely, aren’t they?’ He raised his in return. We clinked glasses. And then he told me that I was beautiful.

  I’m not beautiful. I’m not trying to be self-deprecating or overly modest when I say that. I’m being as factual as ever. My mother is beautiful, even now. She was a total stunner in her twenties. She has the sort of delicate bone structure that never ages. She just becomes more and more elegant with age. When I look at old photographs of her I can’t understand why she wasn’t snapped up for movies. Even in un-posed, off-the-cuff photos, she looks amazing. Gonne is beautiful too, although without the arresting quality Mum possesses. But she has the same golden-brown eyes, which always look fab in photos. My eyes are mid-brown with no exceptionally beautiful qualities. And my hair at that time was even more troublesome than it is now – too long to keep tidy, but too short to do anything clever with it. I still hadn’t got used to it, to be honest. When I caught sight of myself in mirrors I was always surprised at how I looked.

  So when Brad told me I was beautiful, I smiled and said nothing. He repeated his words and I came out with my usual blather of having grown up with really beautiful women in my family and that I was the runt of the litter, but he stopped me mid-sentence, took the cocktail from my hand, and kissed me. Then he told me that I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever met and that it wasn’t just because my beauty came from being smart and intelligent, it was that I was lovely to look at too. Who wouldn’t have fallen for that? Who?

  He insisted on more cocktails and I said yes, simply because I didn’t want to go home. He said that if he’d been staying anywhere less posh than the Shelbourne he might have tried sneaking me up to his room – always provided I wanted to be sneaked up to his room – but that he didn’t have the nerve to try it in one of Dublin’s finest hotels. And I said that I didn’t allow myself to be sneaked into rooms on first dates, but if I did, I’d certainly have been happy to join him, and we both laughed and I stood up and he put his arm around me to steady me as we walked outside to find me a taxi. Which wasn’t hard, because there’s a rank outside the hotel and they were lined up.

  ‘I wish I could see you before I go back tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘What time are you leaving?’

  ‘Early,’ he told me. ‘I’ve to be at the train station by nine.’

  ‘I could meet you for coffee at seven,’ I suggested.

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He kissed me goodnight and I went home in a cloud of happiness. I was still on the cloud the following morning as we had coffee and pastries, again in the Shelbourne.

  ‘Are you working today too?’ he asked as he signed the bill, and I said yes, but that I was on the evening shift.

  ‘Better go home and get a bit more shut-eye in that case,’ he said.

  I nodded but I was too awake and feeling too elated to go home. I walked down Grafton Street humming ‘Dublin Can Be Heaven’ under my breath and wondering how it was that a few weeks ago I’d been in the depths of despair over Sean, and now . . . now, even if Sean had called and told me he’d made a terrible mistake and that he really and truly loved me and he should never have broken up with me, I’d have said ‘Sean who?’ and put the phone down.

  Sean was my past. Brad was my present. And I hoped that he’d be my future too.

  Obviously, having only had three months together and that time curtailed because of living in two different cities – as well as timing difficulties because of the nature of hospital work – we didn’t see each other as often as we might otherwise have done. In fact, I think we went out together about eight times, although we FaceTimed almost every day. I slept with him after the third date. He was, without doubt, a better lover than Sean. He was perfect.

  Or he would have been, if he hadn’t already been married to Alessandra.

  Chapter 7

  I didn’t jump out of my bed in fright a couple of mornings later when yet another clatter from downstairs woke me up. After a few days at the Villa Naranja I’d got used to the fact that it was probably Banquo either coming home from a night on the tiles, or leaving by the window for a morning stroll. Because of the grilles, I’d decided it was OK to leave the kitchen window and shutters open at night, but while my imagined marauders couldn’t get in, Banquo was happy to use the open window as his personal entrance.

  I got out of bed and carefully opened the creaky bedroom shutters. There was a small white van parked outside the house. I ducked back inside because I wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing and didn’t want to put on a show for whoever had turned up. I got dressed hastily, wondering if it had been a knock on the door that had woken me. Then I ran a brush through my hair and went downstairs.

  Banquo had clearly gone out during the night because
there was no sign of him, although the paper in the recycling box now bore the indent of his body and a little mound of silver-grey hairs. I unlocked the kitchen door and stepped into the warm air. I couldn’t see anyone but I could hear sounds coming from the side of the house.

  Maybe the local farmer had come to pick the oranges, I thought, as their scent wafted towards me, but if that was the case he should’ve let me know. I walked cautiously around the house to see who was there.

  The answer was a Greek god.

  He was the most perfect man I’d ever seen. Tall and well built, he was wearing faded blue shorts that reached his knees, and no top. His torso, honey brown and glistening with a sheen of sweat, was perfectly toned. I caught my breath. It was impossible not to stare.

  He was cleaning the swimming pool, and he didn’t look up as I approached. I realised that he hadn’t heard me because he was wearing ear buds in his ears. I stared at him, hardly able to believe that such a man existed.

  ‘Hello.’

  My voice was croaky from lack of use. I hadn’t spoken properly to anyone since Rosa at the café, although obviously I’d shared a few exchanges with Banquo.

  ‘Hello,’ I repeated, more loudly.

  He looked up. His eyes were the colour of bitter chocolate. His chin had the traces of dark stubble. He was heart-meltingly gorgeous. I reckoned he was in his early twenties.

  ‘Hello,’ I said again. ‘I’m Juno. I’m staying here.’

  He took the buds out of his ears and put them in the pocket of his shorts.

  ‘Hello,’ he said in accented English. ‘I am here for to clean the pool.’