Page 117 of The Girl with the Irish Secret
Sylvia caught Vi’s chin and turned her face. ‘That’s not a cold. Those red eyes are the result of a lot of tears. Is it because of that photo inThe Irish Times?’
Vi nodded. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘And you immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion. You silly girl.’ Sylvia started the car. ‘Let’s get home and we’ll have a cup of tea and then we’ll talk.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Vi protested. All she wanted was to go home and figure out what to do next. With another actor in Jack’s place, the film was no longer a guaranteed success. What was she going to do next with her life? She couldn’t continue to pretend she was going to make it. She needed to be realistic now. ‘Please drive me home.’
‘I will not,’ Sylvia snapped. ‘You’re going to come home with me and listen to what I have to say. You have a lot to learn, my girl.’
‘About what?’ Vi asked defiantly. ‘Men?’
‘Yes. And life. And what goes on out there in cyberspace. And how not to jump to conclusions and a lot of other things.’
Bewildered, Vi stayed silent until they reached the manor and Sylvia parked the car in the courtyard. Then she got out and followed her grandmother inside and sat down at the kitchentable while Sylvia busied herself making tea and heating up a slice of apple pie. While she waited, she remembered those incidents when Sylvia had tried to make Vi break up with boyfriends she thought ‘unsuitable’. Vi had rebelled against it and kept seeing whoever it was, even though she secretly agreed with her grandmother. Vi had had a habit of falling for good-looking young men who weren’t either kind or loyal. But that was when she was very young and once she had embarked on her career, she had become a lot less gullible. But this time she had been taken in by Jack’s charm and empathy – and his obvious love of Kerry. She realised she had been wrong yet again and now her grandmother would give her another lecture.
When Sylvia had handed Vi a steaming mug and a plate with warm pie topped with cream, she broke her silence. ‘So,’ she said, sitting down opposite Vi with her own mug. ‘Drink your tea and have some pie while I talk.’
Vi nodded and sipped some tea which, with the addition of the smell from the apple pie, made her feel a little better. ‘Go on, then. What have I done wrong this time?’
‘Nothing, apart from overreacting,’ Sylvia said. ‘Before we go on, could you look up that photo again?’
‘The one with…’ Vi started, picking up her phone.
‘Liz and Jack, yes.’
‘Why?’ Vi mumbled as she got to the page she was looking for. ‘It’ll only make me feel worse.’ The photo appeared on her screen and she flinched as she saw it. ‘Okay. I have it.’
‘What do you see?’ Sylvia asked, taking a careful sip of her tea.
‘Liz and Jack in a clinch,’ Vi mumbled as she peered at the screen. ‘Sitting in a car.’
‘Take a closer look at Liz. Her hair in particular,’ Sylvia instructed.
‘Yeah, okay. It’s… short.’ Vi looked at Sylvia. ‘Did she have it cut?’
‘No. But that photo is two years old. Taken just before they broke up. Liz let her hair grow out and now it’s all the way down her back, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s right. It was the last time I saw her.’ Vi looked at the photo again and saw what her grandmother meant. Liz’s hair was cut in a pixie style and Jack also looked different. His hair was very short. ‘He must have had that style done for the thriller he was in at that time,’ Vi said.
‘Exactly.’
‘Oh.’ Vi took another sip of tea to steady her nerves, then dug into her pie. ‘How do you know all this?’ she asked when she had swallowed her first bite.
Sylvia put her mug in the table. ‘Jack called me just after he had spoken to you. He said you had hung up before he had a chance to ask why you were so curt with him and then you didn’t answer when he tried to call you back.’
‘He calledyou?’ Vi stared at her grandmother incredulously, her spoon with pie frozen in mid-air. ‘Are you serious?’
Sylvia looked slightly awkward, brushing fluff off her cardigan. ‘Yes, we’ve had a few chats over the phone from time to time in the past weeks.’
‘Chats? About what?’ Vi couldn’t believe her ears.
Sylvia waved her hand. ‘Oh, you know, life, love, men, women, relationships, family…’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘He hasn’t had a very happy childhood or youth. He left and went to drama school to get away from it all. And then he found he was good at it and began to love acting. He worked so hard in the early years. And then all that fame… It didn’t sit well with the folks back home.’
‘He told me some of that,’ Vi said. ‘But you… I can’t believe that you’ve been talking to Jack all this time and never told me.’
Sylvia took Vi’s empty plate and got up to get another piece. ‘Well, I think he didn’t want anyone to know. But then, I thought it would be best to tell you. And to make you understand what was going on, after what happened with that old photo and his past history with Liz. You needed to know the truth. And to learn an important lesson.’
‘What lesson?’ Vi asked angrily.
