Out of Focus

by Muriel Bolger

Genres: Family Life; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

It seemed like any other day, until she spotted it: a white envelope, addressed to her in unfamiliar handwriting. Sandra is afraid to read what's inside, knowing that its contents will expose the secrets she's kept buried for years - and memories of the time when her son was taken from her. She must now face her past. But as Sandra comes to terms with the actions of her parents all those years ago, she begins to understand that, in order to heal, she must look to the future. But will her son be able to do the same? Out of Focus is a powerful story about family, legacy and hope.

Release date: July 2, 2015

Publisher: Hachette Ireland

Print pages: 400

Sample

Sandra picked up her daughter’s wedding photo from the mantelpiece, remembering the day three years earlier and how happy they’d all been. Mal, looking as though he would explode with pride, Leah looking up at Adam, her new husband, and finally her own face, smiling happily under her big picture hat. She was putting it back when the phone rang. As she stretched, she missed the edge of the mantelpiece and the photo toppled off and shattered on the marble hearth.

‘Yes, yes, I’ll be there for twelve. No. No worries. No, honestly, that’s fine.’ She slid the phone back into her pocket. ‘Damn and blast. I’m not rostered for today,’ she said. She liked not to have to go to the courts on Fridays. It made the weekends feel longer.

She turned her attention to the shattered frame. As she was extracting the wedding photo, another, yellowing photograph fell out. So that’s where Mal had hidden it. She felt a chill as she looked at it, its surface scratched and the edges milky with age. Two girls looked out. They were almost the same height, one with smooth hair hanging to her shoulders, the other with a curly frizz looking like a halo as the sun shone through it. They had their arms around each other and were laughing at whoever was taking the snap. They didn’t look remotely like sisters.

Finding that photo always seemed to precede some upheaval or other. She knew it was silly to think like that – how could an old picture have any influence on life? She put it on the nearby table and gingerly picked up the bigger shards of glass.

Mal knew how much the photograph upset her.

‘Love, you know you can’t turn back the clock,’ he’d said when he found her crying over it one day. ‘Concentrate on what you have and don’t give those dark thoughts any head space.’

Sandra tried to banish her ‘dark thoughts’ as she got out the hoover to clear the smaller pieces of glass.

She had just finished when she heard the post coming through the letterbox.

Walking into the hall, Sandra picked up the scattered mail. It was the usual mix of household bills, sandwiched between junk mail and charity appeals. Then, she noticed the little sticker on the back of one of the envelopes and curiosity made her look more closely. It just said ‘K. Kinsella’, followed by an address in ‘Stoneybatter, Dublin 7’. She turned it over and realised it was actually addressed to her. She carried it into the kitchen and put it on the drainer. Her hands shook as she filled the kettle. It couldn’t be. Could it? She’d waited so long for this but still she wasn’t ready. ‘I can’t go back there,’ she said to no one as she made coffee. ‘I just can’t.’

Years earlier, her therapist had told her to ‘take difficult days an hour at a time’. It was the only thing she remembered from those sessions, and it always worked in times of crisis – and today was turning out to be one of those times. They had a fancy name for it now – mindfulness – and every paper and magazine seemed to have an article or opinion on it, as though they had just discovered something new.

Sandra picked up the envelope again – there was nothing distinguishable about it. She read the little rectangular sticker on the back again. ‘K. Kinsella’. Kevin? Keith? Killian? Keelan? Kenneth? Could it be Kyle?

The answer was one quick flick of the letter opener away, but she resisted. She couldn’t do it. She pulled out a drawer and slid the letter underneath a pile of tea towels. Mal would never in a million years look in there. She took a sip of her coffee and winced. It was stone cold. She made another cup and took it through to the conservatory. Outside, the dahlias splashed their random colours, but today she couldn’t enjoy their beauty.

* * *

Mal Wallace was dictating letters. Even though there were only five weeks until the end of the self-employed tax year, not all of those clients he represented had replied to his earlier letters to return their paperwork as soon as possible. He knew from experience that he was facing a lot of late nights as their accounts dribbled in at the last minute to make the deadline. He smiled as he remembered almost having apoplexy when Leah and Adam announced their wedding date. They planned it to coincide with spring in Tasmania, where they were going for their honeymoon – and that coincided with the end-of-year tax-return mania at Malachy J. Wallace & Company, Chartered Accountants and Tax Consultants. As Mal prided himself on the personal touch, he’d hated having to hand over some of his long-standing clients to others in the firm.

‘Still nothing from Billy Byrnes or Amanda Pierce?’ he asked his PA as she left his post on his desk. ‘They do this every year. My dire warnings of fines and penalties don’t seem to bother them at all.’

‘I don’t see why you should worry about that,’ she said. ‘You’ve told them, and reminded them. The responsibility is theirs now.’

‘You sound like Sandra. She’s always telling me I’ll be the one to have high blood pressure worrying, not them.’

‘And she’s right there.’

But he did worry, just the same.

A glance at the calendar as he reached for his post reminded him to ring his daughter. Although calendars were definitely becoming a thing of the past with laptops, smartphones and tablets nudging people’s memories, he liked to keep one on his desk – he liked the page-a-day type, with little mottoes or proverbs at the end of each page. He and Leah each exchanged one every Christmas and she always said, ‘Remember, Dad, no peeping at what’s on the next page – let each day speak for itself.’ And he did. The first thing he did every morning when he got to his office was tear off the previous day’s page and digest the newly revealed words of wisdom. Today Aesop informed him: ‘Appearances are sometimes deceiving.’

Maybe they could grab an anniversary bite together at lunchtime. He could always make time for that. He picked up the phone and dialled.

‘Oh, Dad, I’d love to,’ Leah said when he suggested meeting for a sandwich. ‘But I’m caught up with something here. Let’s leave it until next week.’

‘OK. I hope that husband of yours is spoiling you today.’

‘Oh, you know Adam. He’s always full of surprises,’ she said, forcing a laugh.

Leah had been an impish and determined child and after she met Adam, it was obvious to her parents that there was no going back. Mal had misgivings about him being son-in-law, or indeed husband, material before and after it was all official.

‘Let’s face it, Mal, no one will ever be good enough for your little girl – that’s a fact of life,’ Sandra had told him one evening before the wedding when he’d voiced his worries to her.

‘I know that, and he is considerate, but I feel he’s too much of a playboy. He’s too flashy. I hope she’s not just been dazzled by him and that there’s more there for her when the glitz fades.’

‘Like there was for us?’ she’d said with a grin.

‘I think we hit the jackpot. I know I did,’ he’d told her, sliding his arm behind her on the couch and drawing her closer.

‘Oh, I think I did all right too,’ she’d teased. ‘Although I still think you were born in the wrong era. You should have been in charge of an estate, a large country pile with farms and tenants, maybe even a ward or two, some tied cottages, and a dower house, with minions and runners to keep everything in perfect order.’

He’d laughed at his wife’s suggestion. He had hoped his daughter would be as lucky in her marriage and that Adam wouldn’t ever let her down.

Leah hadn’t slept. She had been tempted to ring in sick but she had a deadline. She worked in Concentric Circles and Concepts, a cutting-edge advertising company in Dublin’s city centre. A highly successful television and poster ad campaign for a new cereal had catapulted her up the ladder and she was now creative director. Her clients were depending on her to finish an important presentation for a new crafts initiative in one of the high-tech, high-spec buildings along the quays – they wouldn’t care that she had married a cheating toerag. She depended a lot on Susie, her zany and colourful assistant, and had more reason than ever today to know she could rely on her.

‘Are you OK?’ Susie asked. ‘You seem distracted.’

‘Yeah, I’m fine. Just a touch of migraine.’ Leah had never had a migraine in her life, but she couldn’t tell anyone the real reason she was so addled.

As she put the finishing touches to her presentation, Leah thought about the previous evening. The champagne she’d bought in anticipation of their anniversary, the sexy new underwear too. It was three eventful, busy and fulfilling years since they had exchanged vows – vows they had written themselves – and Leah had been planning their evening for weeks. She couldn’t help but think back to how they met and what an eventful few years it had been.

* * *

She hadn’t been long out of college when their paths crossed. Adam was working in one of the four design studios to which she had sent her CV in the hope of joining the ‘creative team’. When she went in to ‘have a chat’, he had been the main interviewer. The other person present, a sleazy-looking man who was introduced as ‘the Money Guy’, was called Judd something or other, and he spoke with an affected mid-Atlantic accent, and he made her feel uncomfortable by staring at her breasts throughout the interview. When she was asked to display her portfolio on a large table, Judd stood too close to her. She tried hard to concentrate on what she was saying and, turning her back on him, she addressed herself to Adam. That was equally disconcerting. His dark eyes were intense and unreadable and contrasted with the mop of floppy fair hair that fell over his forehead as he perused her work. His aftershave was subtle and expensive.

When she left, she wanted to cry.

‘I made a complete botch of the whole thing. They must think I’m an inarticulate idiot,’ she told her mother on the phone. ‘I know I’m good at what I do – it’s just the interviews I hate.’

‘You’re selling yourself short talking like that. The right one will come along,’ Sandra assured her, ‘and it will be worth waiting for.’

She was amazed when she got the call to tell her that the job was hers. She settled in easily and, after a while, she and Adam had started dating – although she had a feeling from the very beginning that they would end up together. She confided this gem of information to her only brother, who promptly warned her off getting involved with any work colleague, let alone her boss.

‘Oliver, that’s so last century. The creative world is very different. Everyone hangs out with everyone and we all celebrate each other’s new contracts, and we celebrate when each job is finished. We’re much more social than you lot working in finance.’

‘With your clients paying though their noses for all that, no doubt.’

‘And your clients don’t? You’re all terrified you’ll reveal your leads or your deals.’

He laughed. ‘Maybe, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I think it’s a bad idea to start anything. You should keep work and personal life separate.’

‘It worked for Mum and Dad, didn’t it?’

Oliver had to agree. He was her junior by fourteen months. She knew he had enjoyed playing the protector when they were at college because she’d heard him boasting to his friends that keeping an eye on his sister meant he could meet her friends.

His warnings turned out to be futile. Leah was smitten and she wasn’t about to listen to any brotherly advice. To her surprise, the girls in the office warned her off too.

‘He didn’t get his reputation for nothing. You know what they say – you can judge a man by the company he keeps.’

If the office gossip was to be believed, Adam did go out on the town a lot with Judd the Stud, as he was called behind his back, notching up conquests as fast as they could. The consensus was that he was definitely easy on the eye, but that was where his appeal stopped. Judd had gone through about four girls in the office before they had all decided to give him a wide berth.

‘Judd – who christens their child Judd?’ Avril had asked when Leah was trying to find out if Adam was dating. Avril had a disastrous date with Judd and he’d turned quite nasty when she refused to let him see her home. ‘I bet he just made it up because it rhymes with “stud”.’

‘He should have picked Fletcher to rhyme with lecher,’ a temp had said.

That got a laugh. Susie had joined in, ‘Or Frank to go with wank!’

‘Or Merve to go with perve.’

Then Leah had said, ‘I bet he’s actually a closet Paudie or a Tadhg. Maybe even a Thaddeus.’

His arrival then in the kitchen had stopped that line of conversation.

One Monday, a few weeks later, news spread that Judd was gone – to Melbourne – at a moment’s notice. Whisperings around the water cooler revealed an involvement with the wife of one of the company’s most important clients. ‘I heard the irate husband threatened to destroy the company, and to set the heavies on him, so he ran as far away as he could go – down under.’

Speculation was rife as they gathered later in the kitchen for coffee. ‘Where does that leave Adam, with his partner in crime on the other side of the world?’ asked Avril.

Leah said nothing in case her feelings showed. She had turned a blind eye to this side of Adam and convinced herself that he was in a completely different league to Judd.

Adam was too clever to say if he missed his clubbing buddy. He was going places, making quite a name for himself in the competitive world of the media. He quite enjoyed his reputation as a bit of a bad boy, leaving a trail of broken hearts and unfulfilled dreams in his wake, but Leah defended him. He wasn’t sleazy.

‘Maybe not,’ conceded Avril, ‘or maybe he just chooses his conquests more prudently.’

She didn’t reply.

Judd’s replacement was a completely different animal. He was a man in his fifties, who along with his former Miss Ireland wife, was often seen in the social pages of the glossies. He played down his successes and wore his family wealth easily and quietly. Rumour had it that he’d been central in the dot.com boom and had brokered deals that sold several start-ups for mega bucks.

Leah continued to watch Adam from afar. Professionally, his character was impeccable and within a matter of months of Judd’s departure, he was headhunted. A partnership and a move up, in the pressured world he loved so much, proved to be too good to turn down. It also freed up space on the advancement ladder for those behind him and gave Leah a chance to progress more quickly than she would otherwise have done. She became a creative designer, which meant she now handled specific minor clients of her own.

Adam invited his work colleagues out on the town to help him celebrate, telling them, ‘I might as well make use of the expense account while I still can.’

He chose a pricy place to eat and made sure he sat next to Leah.

‘I wanted to ask you out from the moment I saw you walk into my office,’ he told her, ‘but I knew I couldn’t. I’d never have been able to work with you if I did. I’ve done that before, with disastrous results. Now that I’ll no longer be there, or your boss for that matter, would you go out to dinner with me?’

That was the start. Adam Boles was seven years older than her and had done quite a bit of living in that time. Everywhere they went, leggy, gorgeous women materialised and flirted with him. Leah found this hard to take in the beginning, feeling she was constantly on display, being vetted and judged by the competition. Within months of starting to date her regularly though, Adam began to change. His friends told her she had finally managed to do what no one had done before – tame the philanderer. Even she had been quite surprised that he was so into the idea of settling down, abandoning his penthouse for a house in suburbia and for marriage, even for kids at some stage in the future.

‘Wait until we’re three years married, then we’ll begin,’ he’d said. ‘I don’t want to be an old dad.’

And she believed him. She never for one moment doubted their future together. Hence the Moët & Chandon in the fridge at home and the flimsy black lingerie that she’d bought a month earlier and concealed upstairs in her wardrobe.

Leah couldn’t quite grasp that such a life-changing event could have happened so easily. How had she been so blind? How long had it been going on? While her promotion meant longer hours, she hadn’t allowed it to take precedence. She made sure Adam came first. He was her priority, yet earlier in the week, without any warning, apart from the revealing streak of make-up on his shirt, the expected course of her world derailed and she was now headed into a dark, unfamiliar wilderness.

He’d denied it at first.

‘What is this then?’ she’d asked as she’d picked up his soiled shirt from the bedroom floor. ‘Or should I say, whose is it?’

As smoothly as though it were the truth, he’d replied, ‘It must be from the samples that came in from that new make-up company we’re representing. I should have brought some home for you. The girls were going wild for them.’ Feeling guilty that she’d even had a hint of doubt about him, she’d gone to put the shirt in the laundry room. He’d grabbed her as she passed. ‘You’re too beautiful to need that stuff.’

She’d stiffened – he reeked of some cheap scent, far too much to have been contacted by anyone’s casual embrace.

‘Do they do perfume too?’ she’d asked, knowing full well they didn’t.

‘You’re asking the wrong person. Probably. I’m not sure. I don’t think so. They just sent in a big box of stuff, mostly creams and tanning potions, I think. You know me, I couldn’t tell one from another. The girls pounced on them like vultures, trying them out. I don’t recall any perfume though. I had to remind them we have a campaign to draw up around those things, so they put them back.’

‘Then whose perfume are you wearing?’ she asked, looking him straight in the eyes.

‘What? No one’s. What do you mean? What’s with the third degree?’

‘I think as your wife I’m entitled to wonder why your shirt is covered with cheap slap and why you reek of some awful cloying scent.’

‘I told you.’

‘I think I might also be forgiven for wondering why you missed dinner without the usual call or text to let me know you’d been delayed. Is that unreasonable?’

For a split second, he looked defensive, guilty almost, then he recovered.

‘You know how it is, Leah. That delivery got us buzzing about the new campaign and what direction it should take – I just forgot. I forgot the time too. Sorry, love. I’ll make it up to you. It won’t happen again.’

‘I’m sure it won’t,’ she’d answered, her voice steady although she was trembling inside. She knew with a wife’s instinct that he had been unfaithful. He was reverting to type. Her brother had warned her that it would only be a matter of time – and she hadn’t spoken to him for months afterwards. Could he have been right? She couldn’t, she wouldn’t, allow herself go there.

She tried to act normally at first but she couldn’t. Doubts kept haunting her and after a week of tearful conversations and accusations, he’d finally come clean and told her.

‘It was just a fumble in the lift when it stalled between two floors. You know the way it does,’ he said. She did. It often stalled if two people called it at the exact same moment from different floors.

‘She came on to me,’ he’d said.

‘Is that supposed to make it all right? Am I supposed to say, “Oh, that’s OK, darling, so long as it wasn’t you who made the first move”? You sicken me, Adam,’ she’d said. ‘You’re telling me this as though I were one of the lads and you’re boasting about pulling some chick or other. I’m your wife, for God’s sake, but you seem to have forgotten that.’

‘I’ll make it up to you. It won’t happen again. I promise. I have your present ordered.’

‘You cheated on me and you think a present will make up for that? You’ve destroyed everything we had together. You bastard.’ She’d started to cry.

He’d tried to pull her towards him but she’d pushed him away. ‘Your timing is impeccable,’ she’d told him. ‘We didn’t even make it to our third anniversary.’

He’d tried to placate her. ‘We can fix this. Just give me a chance, I promise. It didn’t mean anything.’

‘If it meant so little, why did you let it happen? And when will it happen again? That’s not a chance I’m prepared to take.’

‘I’d never hurt you.’

‘Listen to yourself, will you? What do you think you’ve just done? Everyone warned me this would happen and I didn’t believe them.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘It’s not. What you’ve broken can’t be patched up, no matter how much smooth talk you use. I want time on my own to think. Please just get out of my sight until I decide what I’m going to do.’

She’d known full well what she was saying, but she hadn’t thought for a minute that he’d take her at her word and walk out through the hall door. But he had. And he hadn’t come home.

She hadn’t slept at all and felt dreadful. She couldn’t take time off now, no matter what was going on in her personal life. Determined to pretend everything was normal, she did what she could to conceal her puffy eyes and headed to the office. She was checking her mobile for the hundredth time when her mother phoned.

‘Happy anniversary. Have you and Adam big plans for tonight? Are you going out, or having a romantic dinner at home?’

‘Thanks, Mum. You remembered. You’re great.’

‘Of course I remembered.’

‘Mum, I’m up to my eyes here. I can’t really talk.’ She knew her mother could read her like a book and would pick up on any upset. ‘I’ll call you back this evening.’

‘No, you don’t need to do that. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,’ Sandra said.

‘Are you OK, Mum? You sound a bit stressed.’

‘Yes. I’m fine, really – just a few things going on, and I’ve been called in to cover for someone, so I’m heading in to the courts. I just didn’t want to let the occasion pass.’

She wouldn’t have to worry about letting any more pass, Leah thought.

As she put her phone down, she got a text from her brother.

I have to hand it to you, sis. I never thought you’d make the first anniversary, never mind the third. Enjoy the day. xx

She knew there would be a few cards waiting at home for her. Her mum would have sent one too.

‘It’s nice to be remembered and it’s very important too,’ Sandra had often told Leah and Oliver when they were growing up. ‘It costs very little and it can make someone feel special or loved.’ Sandra was big into making people feel loved.

Today, however, it was going to take a lot more than a card and her mother’s wishes to make Leah feel anything but alone and rejected, despondent and downright miserable. But she wasn’t ready to tell anyone what had happened, not yet. Not until it finally sank in and she knew what she was going to do next.

Sandra made her way to the courts. She’s been a volunteer for several years now as part of the victim support programme. At times, she found it emotionally exhausting, but from personal experience she knew the value of a comforting hand, a willing ear and a non-judgemental opinion. She knew what it felt like to be alone. Now it was her chance to be there for someone else when they needed some support.

Some years ago, when her world had become disconnected and alien, it was one such connection that started to put everything back together for her.

‘You’re an angel’ was a comment frequently uttered after some case or other.

‘I’m no angel, believe me,’ she’d tell them, and she wasn’t. ‘But I do have a little idea of what you’re going through.’

She’d given up believing in angels long ago, when her beliefs about what was good and what was evil were shattered, and she’d had to figure it out for herself all over again.

Although her work with the courts was now only a small part of her life, it was very important to her. She realised that being there to explain what would happen inside the courtroom, demystifying the rituals or putting nervous witnesses at their ease meant a lot to them. Occasionally, she accompanied French tourists, translating for them.

It had taken Sandra a lot of soul-searching to go into this sort of social work after her own brush with the law. Then, she had been advised by her own medical team to take an extended break from work of any sort.

Mal had added his gentle pressure, and she had acquiesced. She knew how he’d watched his young wife, lost and confused somewhere he couldn’t reach her. Later, she’d realised how terrifying that had been for him, wondering if she would ever again be the person he’d married. If she’d had a family to call on, it might have helped, but Sandra had no one apart from him.

She had nothing but a faded, creased photograph, which, instead of bringing back warm, comforting feelings, opened the door to unanswerable questions and heartache in another life.

Most of the time, Mal made her forget. But sometimes, the pressure to escape threatened to engulf her or make her explode. And. . .