For a moment, Gloria didn’t speak, looking down at her lap as if seeking wisdom there. Finally, she admitted: ‘Yes.’
Lou let out a tiny sob. ‘Why did nobody tell me?’ she said hoarsely.
‘It wasn’t my place to do so,’ said Gloria, still speaking slowly as if she was choosing her words very carefully. ‘My brother was your father because he raised you and he loved you.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Lou interrupted.
‘He was not your biological parent, but he was your father, Louise,’ Gloria’s voice was stronger now. ‘Trust me when I say that. Nobody loved you like Bob.’
‘But this Angelo. Did you know him? Who is he?’
Gloria looked down before speaking.
‘He was here for a while,’ she said cautiously. ‘He was a painter from Sligo. An artist rather than a house painter,’ she added with a small laugh, as if Lillian would ever fall for someone with as normal a job as being a house painter. ‘He went back home to Sligo and nobody has seen him here since.’
Lou realised she had been holding out hope that Gloria would deny the story, that Lillian’s behaviour had been the result of anger and too much gin, but it seemed not.
Darling Bob Cooper was not Lou’s father after all.
Toni was her half-sister.
Gloria was no relation to her at all.
Lou shuddered. It was all too horrible and shocking. The Barking Dog could not have come up with a catastrophe like this – this was the stuff of Lou’s nightmares. That her precious family weren’t hers at all. That almost everything she loved was a lie.
‘What was his surname?’ asked Toni.
‘His name was Angelo Mulraney,’ said Gloria quietly, reaching down to stroke her little dog, who was now bored with her bed and wanted to sit on someone’s lap. ‘And yes, he’s your father.’
There was a long, long pause. Lou stared at Gloria, her eyes filling with tears.
‘I want to meet him,’ she said at last. ‘I need to see him.’
She turned to Toni.
‘Will you take me?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Toni said at once. ‘Yes, of course.’
If this was what Lou needed, then she would do it in a heartbeat. And it was what Toni needed, too.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Gloria asked Lou. Her voice was tremulous, her face very pale. ‘I’m not sure it will help ...’
‘I want to hear it from him,’ said Lou in a high shaky voice. ‘I want to hear him tell me he’s my father because I don’t believe my mother. In fact, I’ll never believe anything she tells me again.’
She burst into tears. She felt broken inside. The smiling Lou Fielding was gone and in her place was the fragile version that very few people had ever seen.
Chapter Ten
Lou jerked upright in the passenger seat as the car stopped and looked out her window. She’d been asleep on and off for hours, ever since they’d left Cork city. Outside, the landscape was harder, colder than the gentle Whitehaven coast. The fields were small, dotted with stones and there were no rolling hills, only a stand of bent trees in front of them and dry-stone walls lining the road. Had they arrived in Sligo already?
Lou looked out the driver’s side window and realised that they’d stopped on the forecourt of a pub, a long low building with a thatched roof.
‘Here?’ she asked, confused. ‘Is this a pub? Is this where we were heading?’
The pub was set on the side of a high road. To one side was a vast car park and to the other was a sandwich board proclaimingFood served all day!
Was this it? Aunt Gloria had given them the name of a place in Sligo: Easkey. Nothing more.
