A Degree of Truth

by Muriel Bolger

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Her future plans were already decided. Then he came along ... When undergraduate student Tansy Nugent lands herself a job as research assistant to debonair university professor Sean Pollard, her summer starts to look up. Captivated by his sophisticated ways and affable personality, a new world opens up to her -- far from her sleepy roots and the country life her mother is so keen for her to return to. As feelings they can't act on develop, Tansy tries her best to forget the professor and move on, eventually falling for a fellow student. But there is always an unspoken presence in the back of her mind. After she graduates, Sean unexpectedly arrives back into Tansy's life and the possibility opens up anew of the two becoming closer. But under the charming exterior lies another side to the man, and there is much about him she does not yet know. Tansy slowly comes to realise that love sometimes comes at a price and that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is...

Release date: July 4, 2019

Publisher: Hachette Ireland

Print pages: 384

Sample

The mass exodus for summer was accompanied by many goodbyes, hugs and kisses, and promises to keep in touch during the holidays. From the first day that Tansy had crossed the threshold, she had felt connected with the university in a way she could never have imagined. She’d definitely miss being here over the next few months. And if she was feeling a little directionless, Phyllis was on the verge of tears.

‘Our second year over already. It’s gone by far too quickly.’

‘And you know the scary part? When we finish, we’ll be considered educated,’ Mags said.

‘When that time comes, we’ll have our bits of paper to prove that somebody thinks we are,’ Tansy said. ‘My biggest worry right now is can I manage to keep paying the rent with the summer job falling through? If I don’t get anything this week, I’ll be heading home to try my chances there.’ And I can spend more time with Ross, she thought.

Gina said, ‘I told you not to worry about that. My folks are happy to pay to hold the place for us till September.’

‘While you’re off in Spain – not that I’m even the tiniest bit jealous or anything, but I thought we were supposed to be all grown up now, not depending on handouts from our folks,’ Phyllis said, then she laughed. ‘Oh, who am I kidding? It would definitely make life easier if I had wealthy folks like you two.’ She put her arms around Gina and Mags.

‘We’ll manage, somehow,’ Tansy said, following them.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we can still have aspirations … like …’ Phyllis slowed down as they passed the notice board in the university entrance hall. The notices on this had played an important part in opening their eyes to college life, to its culture and its sub-cultures too.

‘What is it?’

‘Look, Tans. There’s a job for you.’

A large handwritten notice, which neither of them had seen earlier, had been secured behind the glass in the case, obliterating at least five others. It was written in bold red marker.

Urgent. Student, literate, intelligent and fluent in English, required for three months to transcribe manuscript. Start immediately. Will be paid. Must be punctual and interested in anthropological perspectives. Interviews 12.30–2pm today in Room 207. Professor Sean Pollard.

‘I’m an arts student. I’ve never even heard of anthropological perspectives. What the hell are they?’

‘I don’t know but, Jaysus, Tansy, how hard can that be – transcribing a manuscript? And you get paid.’

‘It was obviously written in a hurry, probably by someone hoping to take advantage of a penniless student. The payment is probably a pittance.’

‘Anything is better than nothing. What would you have made in the coffee shop? In the summer – with all those students coming in to use the Wi-Fi – and not leaving tips? Go for the interview. Now! You’ve nothing to lose.’ She looked at her watch. ‘It’s a quarter to two.’

‘When did you become so bossy, Phyllis Martin? I can’t go for an interview when I know zilch about the topic.’

‘Go in and wing it – tell him you’re willing to learn, that people are your thing. I think that’s what anthropology is about, isn’t it, studying people and their traits?’

‘I think so, but …’ Phyllis grabbed Tansy’s arm and steered her back to the quadrangle. ‘What about Mags and Gina? They’ll be wondering where we got to.’

‘I’ll text them. Have you any credit on your phone? Mine’s dead.’

‘So’s mine.’

‘I rest my case. We need you to get the job!’ She laughed.

Phyllis was on a mission and no one and nothing was going to stop her. Two men were waiting in the corridor outside Room 207 when they turned the corner.

‘This is a waste of time,’ Tansy whispered, ‘they’re probably graduates.’

Phyllis ignored her and went straight over to them.

‘Hi guys, are you here for the gig? You’d better be good. You’ve stiff competition here. My friend is just back from Peru, where she was working with some doctoral candidates in the field over there. Isn’t that right, Tansy?’

The men didn’t have a chance to react to Phyllis’s revelations because from the open door behind them a generously tattooed girl emerged and shook her head at them. On her heel, a tall man followed and without preamble said to Tansy, ‘In that case I’ll take you first.’

She felt her face redden, her palms sweat and her mouth dry before she realised the drumming was not someone practising for a rock concert, but the blood pumping through her veins.

‘You, yes, you, come through,’ he ordered, turning back to the room.

She wanted to run. She was vaguely aware of one of the other fellows walking off, in disgust, anger or defeat, she wasn’t sure which, and of Phyllis’s two hands on the middle of her back propelling her towards the door.

‘So, you’re a bit of an expert,’ he said. ‘I rarely meet young people with so much experience. How old are you? Twenty-three? Twenty-four? Where did you study?’

She couldn’t even think of a plausible lie and stammered, ‘Actually, I’m—’

‘Let me explain the project. I’m Sean Pollard, Dean of the Faculty.’ He launched forth before she could confess. So addled was she that she scarcely heard a word of what he was saying.

‘… And hand written, that’s why it’s imperative that it’s error-free.’

Hand written? Error-free? Had she to handwrite a manuscript? What had to be error-free? She’d kill Phyllis when she got out of this room, which seemed to be closing in on her, making her very aware of the professor’s presence. He seemed to fill the space. His melodic voice was authoritative yet pleasing to her ear. She felt herself flush under his scrutinising look of intensity. Focus, she told herself, thinking his floppy hair made him look more like a student than a professor. A mature student. Focus.

‘You’ve no holiday plans, or other jobs, I hope.’ He paused, making it sound like a question that needed an answer.

‘No. I had something lined up, but I—’

‘Good, because I need total commitment until this is finished. The university has come up with funding at the eleventh hour and has put another room at my disposal. That’s where you’ll be working. It’s right next to my office if you have any queries, but I’d prefer not to be bothered every five minutes, so I think structured times to meet and discuss these would be less distracting for both of us.’

‘I’m not—’

‘I hope you are not going to tell me you’re not interested.’

‘No. I am. It’s just … I was just going to say—’

‘Good. I like to get going early. I am usually here from seven, but I can see from the look on your face you think that’s too early. How would an 8 a.m. start sound to you? You’ll be free to leave at four and that’ll give you a chance to work on your own papers.’

‘I feel—’

‘Oh, by the way, you’ll be properly rewarded. The funding covers fairly decent remuneration, which, in light of your experience, is a good thing.’

In light of my experience … The sum was almost three times what the coffee shop was offering, with tips. ‘And if we finish before our deadline, there’ll be a bonus in it for you.’

‘That sounds very—’

Again, he cut her off before she could tell him that she was a fraud, a fraud with no experience whatsoever.

‘I wish I had more time to talk this through, but I’m running late already. Give me your phone number in case I need to contact you and I’ll give you mine.’ He scribbled his down on a piece of paper, stood up and put out his hand.

‘Welcome to the team, Tansy.’ She was out the door before she really knew what was happening.

One of the guys was still waiting outside. Phyllis was like an excited puppy. ‘Well? Did you get it?’ she whispered.

A voice came from behind her. ‘She did, and I’m afraid, young man, I won’t be needing your services,’ Professor Pollard said to the other candidate, ‘but thank you for coming along. I’ll take your details in case this one doesn’t work out.’ He turned and went back inside.

‘Jaysus, those walls must be paper thin or else he has ears like a bat,’ Phyllis said. ‘Oh, by the way, that was Noel. He’s doing philosophy and he’s going to join us for a drink.’

That was no surprise at all. Phyllis was like a magnet attracting specimens of humanity in all guises, large and small, glittering and dull. She’d make a good anthropological case study herself, Tansy thought.

‘I’m sorry,’ Tansy said to Noel when he returned.

‘No need to be. The best person got it and, to be honest, I haven’t a clue what the project involves.’

‘Neither have I. Phyllis, I need to talk to you, privately,’ Tansy said.

‘Sure, but let’s go and meet the others first.’

They found their friends frantically trying to hold on to a table in the student bar. Noel was introduced. It was a good hour before Tansy managed to get Phyllis on her own, in the toilets.

‘What were you thinking, doing that, lying through your teeth? Not only have you landed me in it, Phyllis, but you cheated that poor Noel guy out of a job. He might need it more than me.’

Phyllis laughed. ‘Don’t be like that, Tans. All’s fair in love, etc. What’s the pay like?’

‘Very good, but I’m not taking it. I can’t bluff my way into something I know nothing about.’

‘Well, you must have managed it at the interview.’

‘I didn’t get a chance – he overheard you spoofing and assumed what you said was true. He never asked me one question about my experience. He just took it as a given.’

‘Oh.’ She considered. ‘That could be a little awkward all right.’

‘I’m going to ring him and tell him the truth.’

‘You can’t do that. Look at the alternative. I mean, apart from being close to Ross, do you really want to go back home to the country for the summer and leave all this behind?’ She waved her arms dramatically around the dingy washroom, with its pockmarked mirrors, purple doors and orange walls. ‘Well, maybe not this exactly, but you get the picture. Besides, those profs are all buddies and you’d be labelled “unreliable”.’

‘And a liar. Thanks to you.’

‘But if you didn’t spoof him, he can’t tell them you did. You didn’t lie. It was he who jumped to conclusions, not you. So that makes it his problem, doesn’t it? Brazen it out if he makes any accusations. Getting the job in the first place has to mean he thinks you have potential. Give it a try and see what happens. What have you got to lose? If you’re out of your depth, you can pretend your granny in Timbuktu needs you.’

Tansy replied, ‘I’m not happy about it.’

‘It’s not like you to be negative.’

‘Negative? I’m not being negative! As for you … Well, it’s just like you to be bossy, but I suppose I do need a job.’

‘Then stop stressing and playing it safe. Give it a shot.’

‘I just hope it doesn’t all end badly.’

‘What’s going on in here?’ asked Mags, coming into the toilets at the end of this conversation. ‘What might end badly?’

‘This one’s summer job, which I got her, and that’s going to pay her a shedload of money and set her up for next year. Just sayin’. She should be thanking me and buying me a drink. Instead she’s having second thoughts. I give up. I should have gone for the interview myself.’ Phyllis flounced off and Mags looked at Tansy.

‘Not now. It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in later.’

‘We have to head back to the flat and help Gina pack.’

‘She won’t need any help. She’s the most organised person I know.’

‘I just want to make sure she isn’t taking my best clothes to Spain with her.’

‘I doubt she’ll want any of mine, Mags. You know what a label whore she is,’ Tansy said. ‘And I’ve just had a thought. Maybe now I’ll be able to buy something that hasn’t been previously loved and comes from a charity shop. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be the one heading abroad next year.’

By the time she left on Friday to go home to visit her parents in Dunmoy, Tansy was still suffering pangs of indecision. Her mother was waiting to collect her from the bus. As they drove, she said, ‘The town is really suffering since the new shopping centre opened on the bypass. And now the cinema’s closed down. It’s such a shame. Your father and I used to enjoy going there.’

‘So did I.’

Tansy found herself looking at what had once been the epicentre of her universe. It seemed to shrink with each visit. It only took a couple of minutes to drive through it and, despite knowing every bit of it, that still surprised her. Each time she returned it felt smaller and more contained and looked so – she searched for a word to describe it – so flat. That was it. It seemed flat.

The church was the highest building in the place. After that came the parochial house, which was close by, an austere, dull, old, pebbledash three-storey, a window on either side of the hall door, with symmetrical ones on the floors above. The bank ranked next, with its stone facade and grandiose corner entrance on one side of the market square. Mary McLaughlin’s general draper’s and outfitters on the opposite side added a little bit of balance before a row of mismatched shopfronts led them back into the country.

She knew what was happening as they drove past Dunfy’s field, with its donkey standing like a dishevelled sentry guarding a few outhouses that had seen better days. It was what her mother feared most when she went off to college. She was outgrowing Dunmoy and she didn’t know where that would lead. What would happen if after college she didn’t want to come back from the city to spend her life here? Ross would never leave. He was firmly rooted, and she had told him she’d never leave him either, but that didn’t stop her wondering.

‘Ross, you’d love Dublin once you’d got used to it. I know I do. I love the old tall houses in Rathmines, where we live,’ she had told him enthusiastically shortly after starting college. ‘Each one is a warren of high-ceilinged bedsits, and grand elegant stairways. They must have been beautiful when they were the homes of wealthy families.’

‘I think I’d feel smothered.’

‘I don’t think you would. Ours is right in the centre of student flatland. It’s very cosmopolitan.’

‘And noisy and crowded. No, thanks. Give me the wide-open spaces anytime,’ he had replied.

As though reading her mind, her mother remarked, ‘I suppose you’ve got used to the city by now.’

‘I have and I’m really happy there. It’s so alive. There’s a great busyness to the place. I love the ethnic shops – they sell things I’ve never heard of and can’t pronounce. And there are lots of charity shops, where we go rummaging for bargains.’

‘It certainly seems ideal,’ Peggy said.

‘It is. We’re close enough that we can walk into town and save on bus fares if we want to. There’s even a twenty-four-hour mini-market at the end of our road.’

‘I don’t think Dunmoy’s ready for that yet.’ She laughed, amused at her daughter’s enthusiasm. ‘It’s great to have you home, though. It’s not the same without you around.’

‘Well, I’m here now, until Sunday.’

‘I’ve made an apple tart. We’ll have a cup of tea and you can tell me all your news. I miss our chats. You know your father’s not one for small talk or gossip, and I want to hear everything before you go swanning off with that boyfriend of yours,’ she said, turning into the driveway.

Her mother seemed incapable of calling Ross Doyle anything other than ‘that boyfriend of yours’, and for Tansy those four words adequately summed the whole gamut of emotions Peggy felt towards him.

They encompassed her opinions that he wasn’t good enough for her only daughter, and that was not because they had expected more for her. True, Peggy would have preferred Tansy to have hooked up with Jim Murty, the doctor’s son, or Maurice Daly, the solicitor’s second lad. Both Jesuit boarding school educated and destined to take over family practices locally. It wasn’t the social status they enjoyed that drove Peggy’s attitude to Ross. There was bad blood over a land title between her family and Ross’s, going back to her great-grandfather’s time. In small communities, it took aeons for such memories to fade.

Tansy had long given up defending her choice. She had fallen for Ross when they met at a local disco. He was her knight in shining armour. Her first love, all-absorbing and passionate. Whenever she thought about him, she smiled. Leaving him to go to Dublin was the hardest decision she’d had to make until then.

In a kind of way, they’d known each other all their lives. He went to the boys’ school in the next town. His family kept horses and lived on a fair-sized farm, just two miles away from Tansy’s parents. As a result of marriages, Ross’s family also owned several businesses and ran the main grocery store in town and the undertakers too.

‘You really do love those horses,’ she said to him at a local meet where, despite his youth, he impressed her with the way he seemed to be able to converse knowledgeably on equine matters with the trainers and jockeys. Someday I’ll be confident like that, she thought.

He had been a tall, gangly kid, whose straw-coloured hair made him easy to spot anywhere. That had now darkened as he had filled out, and his popularity had increased with his sporting prowess.

‘College isn’t an option for me. I hate book-learning and study,’ he told her. ‘Anyway, I probably wouldn’t get the points because I am decidedly average academically.’

‘It’s not the be-all and end-all of everything,’ she said, holding his hand. She told him, and Peggy, that his tenderness and affinity with humans and animals were attributes that she deemed to be more valuable than brains.

Grudgingly her mother agreed with this logic, countering it with ‘Yes, although they won’t pay a mortgage or put food on the table. I suppose there’ll always be the family businesses to fall back on, although I never saw you standing behind a counter serving your betters.’

Tansy laughed. ‘And you won’t either. Ross wants an outdoor life, one that doesn’t deal with death or slicing rashers.’

‘We’ll see. I told your father to be back for tea. You know what he’s like – if there’s nothing needing to be done, he’ll find something.’

There was no point telling her mother to stop fussing. That was Peggy Nugent’s nature.

Even though it was warm outside, Tansy’s favourite spot was, and always had been, the kitchen. Nothing much ever seemed to change in here, although the big wooden table was now covered with a spotted oilcloth, instead of the one they’d had when she left. It had been patterned with bunches of cherries with a blue stripe around the edges. The bills and letters still had a place of their own on the second shelf of the dresser, along with her grandmother’s never-used collection of blue and white crockery jugs. When she said she thought they were very old-fashioned, her mother had chided her. ‘They came from your father’s home and they mean something to him. Someday you’ll understand.’ Tansy didn’t believe she ever would.

‘When I have my own house, I’ll have plain white everything and purple napkins,’ she once told her other nan, ‘and everything will match.’

‘Oh, you innocent wee dote.’ She laughed. ‘That’s what we all want. Everything matching and in its proper place, but life isn’t like that. You’ll learn soon enough that sometimes even the cracked cup has a place in someone’s heart.’ She had looked at her intently through her thick lenses and said, ‘You haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, Tansy, have you?’ And she hadn’t.

Now sometimes she recalled conversations like those that she had enjoyed with her nan before dementia robbed her of her cognitive abilities. Since Tansy moved to Dublin, she was beginning to understand the desire to hold on to bits of childhood, to keep things with sentimental attachment, things that had always been there, with all their imperfections. She would love to have been able to tell her nan that she was now grown up enough to admit to herself that the big range and the smell of brown bread or scones baking in the oven, and the chats with her and her mother in this room were an intrinsic part of what made her who she was. And that someday she intended to visit the places she’d promised her she would. Some ditty they used to recite together had a line ‘Morocco, Mauritius and Malta’ in it. She couldn’t remember anything else about it, apart from her nan showing her where they were on the globe she’d bought her and telling her, ‘I’ve never seen any of those places so you must go for me instead.’ Tansy vowed then that she would, some day.

‘Everything that happens of significance, and of none, has been discussed around this table,’ her dad said when he returned to find his women sitting there. ‘And it’s heard its fair share of balderdash over the years too.’

Tansy laughed and hugged him before enquiring about Gappy Jim.

‘The poor old fellow’s not too good. He’s getting on and he’s as deaf as a stone now. He spends most of his time watching racing on the telly.’

‘I couldn’t image him not being around the place. He’s such a part of it,’ Tansy said.

‘Aye, that he is. He’s moved in with Little Jim now. He wasn’t looking after himself properly.’

Although Gappy Jim was one of the farm workers, he came inside every day for tea breaks and lunch. He earned his moniker because he was missing a few teeth, and he walked with a limp after an altercation with a horse at the local racetrack when he was young. There was nothing little about his son, Little Jim. In his forties and at six feet four, he now towered over everyone in the church at Mass each week.

‘The old boy is a frustrated jockey,’ her father had told her. ‘He knows everything there is to know about horses. If he’d had money, and maybe a little more education, he’d have made a great trainer.’

‘Enough of that. We can talk about them anytime,’ Peggy told her husband. ‘We want to know all about your exciting life in Dublin, Tansy. Did you get another job, or will you be coming back to us for the summer?’

‘No, Mam, I won’t because I’ve got something else. I’ll be doing a bit of work for someone in the university. I only found out about it on Wednesday, and I wasn’t too sure if I’d be up to it at first,’ she replied, admitting to herself for the first time that she was willing to give the job a try. ‘The pay is much better than the coffee shop too, so I’ll be able to save, if it works out.’

‘What will you be doing?’

‘Working on some anthropological research papers for one of the professors.’

‘That sounds very fancy.’

‘It’ll probably be boring as hell, but I’ll give it a go.’

Tansy could see her mother’s delight at this piece of news. Peggy would just have to let people know how well her daughter was getting on in the capital.

‘Please don’t go telling everyone about it, Mam.’

‘Now don’t go getting above yourself, Tansy. I know you’re getting the chance to go to university, which is more than your father or I got, but never forget who you are. Having letters after your name won’t make you better than us,’ she cautioned, ‘although there are some who think they do. Like those Ferguson girls. So rude to poor Mary in the shop.’

Tansy stopped herself saying they were probably trying to halt Mary’s inquisition. Mary had no filters when it came to personal questions.

‘It’s not that. It’s just that I can visualise Mary McLaughlin telling everyone – “I hear the Nugent girl is working for a professor, no less, up in Dublin. What do you make of that?” You know what she’s like.’

Her mother laughed. ‘Indeed I do.’ No other shop in the town had its window displays changed as often as McLaughlin’s. Because of its location on a corner, her drapery shop provided a lookout in two directions. That gave Mary a bona fide reason to keep an eye on everyone’s comings and goings, and somehow she felt she had a duty to share these with many a willing, and the odd unwilling, ear.

‘She’s harmless, really.’

‘That’s not what Dad thinks, is it?’

‘Who are you telling?’ he replied, casting his eyes skywards and they both laughed. By now everyone knew the story. A few years previously, Gappy Jim and her father had business in the bank down the street from Mary’s shop. Pat Nugent, who never put a bet on anything in his life, was seen ducking into the betting office, dragging Gappy Jim after him to avoid an inquisition by Mary. She had been casually observing their movements and had come outside ostensibly to inspect her window, but in reality to intercept and interrogate him. He’d muttered something about trying to avoid ‘that old gossipmonger’ to Gappy Jim. He, a regular in the bookmaker’s, misheard and said, ‘Put a tenner each way on Gossip Column for Pat here and one on Annaghmakerrig Dawn for me.’ Pat’s horse was a rank outsider and romped home first after a pile-up eliminated the favourites shortly after the off.

By the time Pat returned home, Mary McLaughlin had already phoned his wife to congratulate her on their fine win.

‘Knowing your father’s aversion to gambling, I didn’t know what to think when she told me she’d seen him leave the bank and go straight to the bookies with Gappy Jim!’ her mother reminded Tansy, and they laughed at the memory.

‘You never forgave her for that, did you, Pat?’ Peggy continued, without stopping to take a breath. ‘He’d have liked to surprise me with the unexpected windfall; instead he had everyone coming up to him for weeks afterwards, asking how much he’d won. You’d swear our numbers had come up on the Euromillions and, Lord knows, he doesn’t even approve of me having a flutter on that.’

‘And you wonder why I don’t want you talking about me,’ Tansy said.

‘Indulge me. It’s natural to want to tell everyone about my only child when they’re all talking about theirs.’

She gave in. ‘I’m going to get ready for Ross.’

♦

‘Hi, gorgeous. You look cool,’ Ross said, grabbing her in a bear hug, ‘and you smell delicious too. Hi, Peggy, Pat,’ he said, grinning at them when he’d released their. . .