Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
‘Oh, sure . . . Just give me a minute.’ Turning back to the computer, I press ‘print’. There’s no hurry. So he wrote me a letter? So what? I’ll read it later, when it’s convenient.
Who am I kidding?
Less than two minutes later I’m sitting on the edge of the bed in my hotel bedroom, the pages of Spike’s email clutched in my hand. Catching my breath, I start to read.
Dear Emily,
The chances are you’ll delete this email before you ever read it. But, on the off-chance your curiosity is greater than your hate for me, right now you’re probably thinking I’m about to reiterate those sentiments that last night were so disgusting to you.
In which case, let me put your mind at rest and tell you that you don’t have to worry. You made your feelings pretty clear – in fact, I don’t think they could have been ANY clearer, so I think the faster we both forget about that, the better.
OK, that out of the way, I’ll cut straight to the chase. Last night you accused me of some pretty serious stuff and for personal reasons I was not prepared to explain or defend myself as I didn’t know what I could and should reveal. And anyhow, you’d made up your mind, so what was the point?
However, since then I’ve had time to think about it, and although it’s unlikely we’re ever going to see or speak to each other again, I still want you to know my side of the story. I would hate to think that you never knew the truth.
Now, obviously you don’t have to read this email.
You can delete it, banish it to cyber hell for ever with just a click of your mouse – it’s up to you.
But there’s some stuff you don’t know. There’s some stuff you SHOULD know.
Afterwards if you still think I’m guilty, still believe I’m a liar and a vindictive bastard, then so be it.
But to judge me without knowing all the facts isn’t fair – to you or me.
Last night you laid two serious offences at my door:
1. Lying to Maeve about Ernie and therefore basically ruining her first chance at happiness in years, maybe even her entire life.
2. Behaving despicably towards Ernie, a poor, defenceless old man who did nothing wrong but fall in love with my mother, causing me to fly into a jealous rage, make repeated threats to him, and culminating in me beating him up and breaking his nose without any provocation.
And then – it gets worse – forcing him to quit his job at the Daily Times, which he did, as he was so terrified of me.
OK, so now we’ve established what you believe to be the truth, let me tell you my version of events:
I first met Ernie Devlin when he came to work at the Daily Times five years ago as one of the drivers of our courtesy cars. We would say hello and goodbye, exchange small talk, discuss football scores, that kind of thing. And he seemed like a nice enough bloke.
Then one night my mum came to meet me after work.
That’s how she met Ernie. I was on a deadline, couldn’t get away from my desk, and so she had to wait half an hour in the lobby.
The two of them got chatting – Mum loves to talk – and, well, the upshot was Ernie asked my mum if he could take her out and she said yes.
Now, I know you’re not going to believe this, but when she told me she’d been invited on a date I couldn’t have been more pleased for her.
My dad died when I was sixteen and since then it’s just been the two of us, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want her to have another man in her life.
On the contrary. I loved my dad, but he’s gone now, and I don’t want her to be alone for the rest of her life.
I want her to meet someone and live happily ever after.
Who it is and what they do is irrelevant.
I’m not a snob. He doesn’t have to be rich or successful.
He just has to be a good bloke. And he has to love my mum.
So my mum and Ernie go on their date and then they go on another and another, until pretty soon they’re ‘courting’, as my mother likes to call it.
I was delighted for her. She was the happiest I’d seen her since before my dad died.
It was as if she was young again. And Ernie?
He called when he said he would call. He was always punctual.
Every time he turned up he’d have flowers or a small gift. He seemed like the perfect gent.
In hindsight, I think I should have been suspicious. He was too perfect.
But I think seeing Mum so happy again blinded me.
I didn’t have my investigative reporter head on.
When he talked about his past and how his wife had died tragically in a car accident, I didn’t try to corroborate his story, dig deep into his past or check the facts.
After Dad died there were months, years even, when I never thought I’d see my mum smile again, and yet here she was smiling and laughing – it was as if she’d come back to life.
I actually felt grateful to him.
And seeing as I’m being totally honest, I’ll admit to you something that I have difficulty even admitting to myself.
I was also relieved. I had a girlfriend.
I had a life. A job that took up long hours.
Now I didn’t have to worry about my mum.
Didn’t have to feel guilty that she was alone at Christmas when I went snowboarding.
God, that’s so fucking selfish of me, isn’t it?
My mum, who’d given me everything in life, and there was I, thinking about myself.
I still beat myself up about that now. I regret to this day that I didn’t ask more questions, pay more attention, spend more time getting to know Ernie Devlin.
Maybe then I could have uncovered some clue, something that would have made me suspect.
But I didn’t, and I can’t turn the clock back now, can I?
Ernie proposed to my mum just three months after they’d met.
Got down on one knee and gave her an antique diamond ring that he said was his mother’s.
She was over the moon. She cried when she told me the news.
They were going to have a small wedding in the summer, with a reception at the local golf club and a honeymoon on Lake Garda.
But they weren’t the only plans they’d made. They’d also decided to sell both of their houses and buy a place together, make a fresh start. In fact, they’d made an offer on a bungalow in a nearby village.
To be honest, it did all seem a bit soon, but like Mum said, they loved one another and at their age why wait? Put like that, who was I to spoil things? So I was sentimental about selling my childhood home, so what? I’d moved out, moved on with my life, why shouldn’t she?
They booked the registry office for June, which was only two months away, and preparations began in earnest. Flowers, invitations, menus, cars.
One day I discovered Mum’s credit-card statement and saw that everything for the wedding had been paid for by her.
That’s when I got my first inkling that Ernie might not be everything he seemed.
When I asked her about it, she breezily explained that Ernie didn’t use credit cards, he only had a cheque book, and so it was easier this way.
‘And anyway, like Ernie says, once we’re married, what’s mine is his and vice versa,’ she’d reasoned.
I got a bad vibe, but I tried to brush it off. I was just being over-protective; it made sense to pay by credit card rather than cheque; he hadn’t actually done anything wrong.
By this stage they were also getting ready to move into their new bungalow. Both Mum and Ernie had found buyers for their respective houses, and their solicitors were getting all the paperwork ready. All that was needed now was their ten per cent cash deposit so they could exchange contracts.
Ten per cent.
That’s thirty thousand pounds. Which, in today’s current exchange market, is nearly sixty thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money. And some people will do anything for that kind of money.
They’ll even break someone’s heart for it.
Unbeknown to me, the week previously, Ernie had gone over to Mum’s and told her that his buyer had pulled out at the last minute, that it might take weeks to find a new one, and what was he going to do?
Apparently he was distraught they were going to lose their new bungalow and so Mum told him not to worry and wrote out a cheque for the entire deposit.
Only she couldn’t remember the name of the solicitor, so Ernie told her to just leave that bit blank – he would fill it in later as he had all the paperwork back at his house.
The first we knew something was wrong was when the solicitor called Mum a week later, the day before her wedding was meant to be, asking where his money was, and several urgent phone calls to Ernie went unanswered.
My mum was beside herself. She thought he must have had some terrible accident.
That he was lying hurt somewhere. ‘Something awful must have happened,’ she kept saying, over and over, and I knew she was thinking of my dad, of the day she’d found him in the study, how he’d suffered a massive stroke, how it had been too late.
That’s when we got the police involved and it didn’t take long for them to discover Ernie had made the cheque payable to himself, deposited it in his bank account, calmly waited for it to clear, then left the country.
When Mum found out the truth she was actually relieved.
That’s my mum for you. Jilted a day before her wedding, by a man she thought loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, who’d stolen her life savings – and yet she’s still thankful he’s not hurt.
She’s such a bloody good person, my mother.
Me?