Patrick was disappointed in the girls and she was as disappointed in them as he was. The girls’ education had cost a small fortune, and they didn’t have a single qualification between them. She had been so sure that they would both be achievers, would both make their parents proud of them. It had never occurred to her that they would end up no better than if they had been brought up on a council estate. She had assumed the fact they went to a very expensive private school would have at least guaranteed them a place in society, would have given them something that could have helped them to get on in life. But it had been a waste of time and a waste of money.
She was also becoming aware that her husband saw these daughters of his as the product of her machinations, her insistence that he let her sort it all out, because he was incapable of understanding the economics of a female’s education. But she was not to blame – it was her daughters who had failed them both, who had not understood that they were in a position to make something of themselves, who had both left a very expensive education with no more than a backward glance, and nothing whatsoever to show for any of it. Even she had read more books than they had, and that was saying something. She had simply assumed the school would see to everything they needed for a decent education – they were getting paid enough money after all. It had never occurred to her that the school would take the money and run.
Patrick saw his daughters as no more than the spoilt brats they were. He was absolutely right about that, of course. Now she had to break the news to him that Assumpta was pregnant. She was losing him, she knew that much; he already saw her as the architect of everything that had gone wrong with the family. This could be the final straw.
The girls were still at it. It was amazing really to see them in action. When they were fighting they really didn’t have any care for anyone else around them.
‘Assumpta, shut up for five fucking minutes and talk to me, will you?’
The girls both looked at their mother with abject shock at her words.
‘Your father is going to go fucking ballistic when he finds out you are in the club. So, if I were you, darling, I would think long and hard about his reaction to your news. I would also make sure that the father is on hand, or at least give him a name. By Christ, I never thought that I would look at you two and feel such shame!’
Assumpta and Gabriella exchanged glances. It suddenly occurred to them both just how serious the consequences of their lifestyles might be.
When Assumpta looked at her mother, Carmel saw the fear on her eldest daughter’s face. She had finally broken through to both of her girls.
‘Your father is going to want to kill whoever is responsible, take my word on that. So, please, Assumpta, use your brain for once, and try and make this as painless as possible for everyone concerned.’
Carmel Costello had finally won her daughters’ full attention and, even though she knew it was only because they needed her to stand between them and the man who had fathered them, it was still something of a coup for her.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Michael had just come through the back door of his house and, as he was taking his sheepskin coat off, he called out loudly, ‘Oh, Josephine, you’re not going to fucking believe this, darling. It’s so fucking mental.’
Sitting in her daughter’s kitchen, Lana Callahan was all ears; she knew a serious bit of gossip when she heard it. She shook a warning finger at her daughter, and Josephine smiled. She always told her mother everything eventually anyway.
Michael bounced into the kitchen, all dark good looks and natural confidence. That was his way. He always seemed to be happy with his surroundings; no matter what the situation might be, nothing ever seemed to faze him. He sounded shocked, though, about whatever he had heard. Lana suspected that this was one of the few times he had let his usual guard down.
The sight of his mother-in-law, however, sitting to attention at his kitchen table, stopped him in his tracks. She wasn’t his biggest fan, he knew that, but she was a woman who liked to know what was going on first-hand. And she was like the grave.
So, grinning nonchalantly, he said in a pseudo-dramatic voice, ‘This is something you might regret hearing, Lana, I’m warning you now.’
Lana laughed. She loved to hear the latest gossip, but she was more than capable of keeping it to herself; she knew the danger involved in repeating things she heard in this house, especially when it concerned people like the Costellos and their ilk.
Josephine opened the fridge and took out a can of lager and, as she opened it, she looked at her husband craftily, and said, ‘Come on then, Flynn, don’t keep us in suspense.’
Michael took the beer from her and, after taking a deep drink, he wiped his mouth carefully. Then he waited for his wife to sit back down at the kitchen table before he said seriously, ‘Assumpta Costello is pregnant. Patrick is going off his fucking nut.’
He waited for the reaction he expected, but it didn’t arrive. Instead, his wife and her mother didn’t act even remotely surprised at his news. He had expected them to have been agog, as shocked as he was at the news.