Better Together (5 page)

Nina, whose back was to them, couldn’t help smiling. Sean was turning on the charm. And he could be very, very charming.

‘I’m not good enough,’ Hayley told him. ‘Lesley Chapman’s got that role.’

‘It’s a great play,’ Sean said. ‘I’ll definitely be along to watch.’

‘You’d have made a good Henry Higgins yourself.’ Hayley was blushing slightly. ‘You’ve got a certain arrogance. And charisma . . .’

Nina glanced over her shoulder.

‘I was a bit of an actor myself back in the day,’ Sean said. ‘In fact I did once star as Henry Higgins.’

‘Really?’ asked Hayley. ‘When? And how come you’ve never joined us, in that case?’

‘Oh, I don’t have time for it these days. It was in my college years,’ replied Sean. ‘For one week only, but it was a great performance, according to the critics. Who were students too, so perhaps they were a bit biased, although they fancied themselves as harsh reviewers. After that I trod the boards for a time, but then . . .’

‘. . . he met me and his priorities changed,’ Nina finished for him.

‘I just didn’t get the breaks,’ said Sean. ‘I would’ve given George Clooney a run for his money.’

This time Nina guffawed. But Hayley looked at Sean appraisingly.

‘You know,’ she said. ‘I absolutely think you would.’

After Hayley had gone, Nina sat down at the kitchen table.

‘You were flirting with her,’ she told her husband in amusement.

‘Bringing a little glamour into her life,’ Sean said. ‘It must be dreary enough having nothing better to do than run a crummy amateur dramatics show with a bunch of losers.’

‘You said they were very accomplished,’ protested Nina.

‘I was being polite,’ said Sean. ‘One or two of them are OK. Most of them are hopeless. And naturally the good parts go to the people who are the pushiest, not the ones who’re best. There’s no way Lesley Chapman’s good enough for Eliza Doolittle.’

‘How would you know?’ asked Nina.

‘Didn’t she do a reading at that literary night you dragged me along to last month?’ demanded Sean.

‘That’s true.’

‘It was torture,’ Sean said. ‘Both the night and her damn reading.’

‘It was important to be seen at it,’ Nina told him. ‘It’s nice to be part of the community.’

‘How can we be anything but part of this community?’ he asked her. ‘Haven’t we lived here all our damn lives?’

It was hard to believe that she’d lived in the same town for ever. And yet Nina had always been a home-bird, someone who loved Ardbawn even though for most of her youth it had been a backwater, small and dreary and lacking in excitement. But then Nina wasn’t much for excitement herself; she liked a quiet life, although, when she was older, she sometimes went up to Dublin with her mother or her older sister for a bout of shopping (the fashion business in Ardbawn providing particularly slim pickings). However, she wasn’t as interested in the shops as her sister Bridie; she thought the capital was dirty and crowded and she always longed to be back in Ardbawn and their rambling house beside the river.

It had been a guesthouse for as long as she could remember. Dolores and John, her parents, had opened it the year she
was born; at first as a sideline because John’s paying job was in a creamery. But after he suffered a severe leg injury following an accident, he started to work in the guesthouse too. John had died a few years after the accident, leaving Dolores as the linchpin of the family. She was a stern matriarch who took no nonsense from her children – or from her guests. Nina’s sister and two older brothers had moved out as soon as they possibly could, before, Bridie once said, Dolores’s mean-spiritedness could wear them down. All of them had emigrated – Bridie to the States, Tom to New Zealand and Peadar to London. By the time Nina left school, all three of her siblings were married with families and had settled in their new homelands.

‘You know enough about the guesthouse to be useful on a full-time basis,’ Dolores Doherty told her daughter one day when she was loading an armful of bedlinen into the washing machine. ‘It’s a good asset in this family. And it can be yours. Anyhow, you’re the only one who gives a damn about it.’

It wasn’t entirely true that Nina cared about the guesthouse. She knew that it was hard work and she sometimes questioned its viability. But her whole life had been spent helping Dolores and so she was familiar with every aspect of how to run it.

She was twenty-five when Dolores died and left it to her. Her siblings sounded her out about selling the house and, indeed, she seriously thought about it herself, but after talking to the local auctioneer, she realised that there would be very limited interest in a difficult-to-heat, in-need-of-refurbishment, damp and rambling building near the river. He advised her to modernise it and think about selling when the market
picked up. Her brothers and sisters agreed. Anyway, they said, they had no interest in returning to Ardbawn and they didn’t need whatever money selling it might bring. She was welcome to it. Nina felt that they were just grateful that she’d been the one left at home to look after both the guesthouse and their mother. Not wanting money was a way of purging their guilt. The solicitor made sure that there couldn’t be any comeback in the future (in case, he said merrily, property prices rose and the other Dohertys changed their minds), and so Nina was secure in her ownership. Peadar, the day he left, told her that it was more trouble than it was worth. It had been a drain on them all their lives.

Peadar wasn’t entirely correct. Although its upkeep and maintenance was costly, the Bawnee River Guesthouse had a steady stream of visitors, mainly those who came for the fishing and who didn’t mind Dolores’s strict meals timetable, or sharing two draughty bathrooms between eight equally draughty rooms. But Nina knew that people now wanted warmth, en-suite bathrooms and better facilities. If she was to keep the guesthouse profitable, she would take the estate agent’s advice and do some upgrading. There were possibilities for attracting more visitors too. In addition to the already excellent fishing opportunities, a new golf course was being developed a few miles outside the town, and there was a riding school which, she was sure, could offer lessons to guests. The way Nina looked at it, she’d been handed a potentially profitable business, but if she didn’t modernise it she’d be left with a millstone round her neck. However, she wasn’t at all sure that she knew how to go about changing things. Dolores had been a strong, domineering woman who was respected if not particularly liked in the community. Nina
was considered a pale imitation, the girl who’d stayed at home to be with her mother, who hadn’t had the guts to leave home like Bridie, Tom and Peadar. It didn’t matter that this wasn’t true, that Nina was happy to stay in Ardbawn and that (despite Dolores’s testiness and difficult nature) she loved her mother. She was considered to be the loser in the family, regardless of the fact that she was now the owner of one of the biggest houses in the town.

It took her nearly two weeks to pluck up the courage to meet with the bank manager. It was a difficult encounter. Dominic Bradley patronised her throughout, remarking that she was a bit young to think about running the place single-handed and that she hardly had her mother’s brain for business. Dolores was unique, Dominic told her. A special sort of woman. Nina was glad she’d spent so much time the night before going through the figures, so that, despite her nervousness, she was able to answer every question the bank manager put to her. She thought he was rather disappointed that he hadn’t managed to trip her up, but in the end he said he’d let her know about the loan, although he doubted they’d be able to give her everything she wanted. Even though she felt deflated after talking to Dominic, she then went to see Peggy Merchant in the riding school about a joint venture offering B&B and riding lessons for an all-inclusive price. Peggy, surprised by the younger girl’s visit, nevertheless agreed that it might be a bit of a money-spinner and she gave her some leaflets to put in the guesthouse. While she waited to hear from Dominic Bradley about the loan, Nina started to experiment with more exciting evening-meal choices than her mother’s – substituting lasagnes and pastas for the stodgier fry-ups and chops that had been the usual offering. (Her
success in changing the menu was rather limited. Most of the fishermen had loved Dolores’s fry-ups.)

She’d hoped she’d have the renovations done by the beginning of the summer season, but the day she met Sean Fallon she was in a foul mood, frustrated by the lack of a positive response from the bank and thinking that her sister and brothers had been right and that her mother had left her a poisoned chalice. She’d come off the phone from Dominic Bradley, who’d told her that there was no point in her throwing a hissy fit, there were procedures to be followed before any loans could be authorised, and she was stomping angrily down the main street when she bumped into Sean. Literally.

‘Hey, careful,’ he said as he steadied himself. And his eyes narrowed as he looked at her. ‘Bernadine, isn’t it?’

‘Nina,’ she said. Only some of the older women in the town still called her Bernadine. She’d switched to Nina in her teens, although it was a switch Dolores had ignored.

‘Suits you better all right,’ said Sean. ‘That dark hair. Those smouldering eyes. You’re a definite Nina.’

That was what she’d always thought. Although she’d never considered her eyes to be smouldering. She liked the idea. She smiled at him.

‘And those lips.’ He winked. ‘Pure Nina.’

She blushed. She wasn’t very experienced when it came to handsome men (there was a distinct lack of eligible bachelors in Ardbawn, handsome or otherwise), and Sean Fallon was one of the best looking of them all. His father was the town’s most respected GP, and the Fallon family had always been considered a cut above everyone else.

‘So, Nina Doherty, how come I haven’t seen much of you lately?’

‘I rather think it’s because you live in Dublin now,’ she told him.

‘Splitting hairs.’ He grinned. ‘I do have a place there. But I come home a lot of weekends.’

‘Do you?’ She was surprised. She couldn’t imagine Sean would find anything to interest him in Ardbawn.

‘My mother hasn’t been well,’ he told her. ‘She likes me to visit.’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘But now I might have another reason.’ He grinned again.

‘You might?’

‘Doing anything tonight?’

She looked at him in surprise. Was he asking her out? Sean Fallon? Surely not. She wasn’t in his league at all. Despite his flattering comments about her hair and eyes, Nina doubted that her overall package – average height, carrying a few too many pounds, old jeans and even older jacket – would be Sean Fallon’s cup of tea. In their schooldays (at four years her senior already way beyond her) Sean had always been seen with the popular and attractive girls in the town. Sometimes he even went out with girls a year or two older than him, who were nevertheless happy to be seen in his company because Sean Fallon was self-assured, attractive and mature for his age. Any time she’d spotted him since he’d gone to college, he’d had someone glossy and groomed by his side.

‘Well?’ He looked at her enquiringly.

‘I’m sorry. I’m working,’ she replied. It was better surely not to accept any invitation from Sean Fallon than to go out with him for a night simply because he hadn’t got anything better to do. Nina wasn’t stupid. She had no intention of being his stopgap.

‘On a Saturday?’ He sounded disappointed.

‘Saturday’s are busy days for guesthouse owners.’

Sean looked at her curiously. ‘You own the guesthouse now?’

‘Ever since my mother died.’

He hadn’t been at the funeral, but she wouldn’t have expected that. His parents had, though. Anthony Fallon had been Dolores’s doctor.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know. At least,’ he checked himself, ‘I’m sure my parents told me, but I forgot.’

‘That’s OK.’

‘So . . . when do you get time off?’

‘Afternoons sometimes,’ she told him. ‘It depends on the guests.’

‘Tomorrow?’

There was no point in going out with him. He broke women’s hearts. He always had. It had been rumoured that Ellie Slater had tried to throw herself in the Bawnee River when Sean had ended their six-month relationship. Flora Morgan had lost a stone in weight when she and Sean split, causing her mother (who’d been friendly with Dolores) to spend hours at the guesthouse worrying about her daughter. And Aidie Keogh had failed her finals because she’d been devastated when Sean had dumped her. Admittedly they’d all eventually got over him (all three were married with children now), but Nina wasn’t going to allow him to mess with her heart. She had a business to run; she couldn’t afford to be dumped and spend a few weeks or months pining after a man. But maybe if she knew that already, there was no harm in one date. She was twenty-five, after all. Not young and silly like Ellie, Flora and Aidie had been.

Although she was a quiet-living home-bird, Nina also longed for a semblance of a social life. Practically all of her friends had left both Ardbawn and Ireland because they’d found it so difficult to get work. There weren’t many people of her age around to party with, and the guesthouse had been both a blessing and a burden as far as socialising was concerned.

‘I suppose I could take a bit of time tomorrow,’ she said slowly.

‘I’ll pick you up at two.’

‘You will?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘OK.’

‘See you then.’

She couldn’t quite believe she was going out with Sean Fallon.

She’d had three boyfriends in her whole life and none of them could match him for wit, or humour, or sheer good looks. He was handsome in a matinée-idol sort of way with his black hair, square jaw and deep blue eyes, and she couldn’t help catching her breath every time she saw him. She didn’t know what he saw in her; why, even after his mother had recovered from her illness, he went on coming to Ardbawn to see her. She continued to remind herself that Sean was a heartbreaker and that she didn’t have time to have hers broken. She told herself that he was a pleasant diversion for her and she was an equally pleasant diversion for him. It wasn’t love, she knew. Sean didn’t love her. And she couldn’t possibly love him. She said the second part out loud every night but she didn’t really believe it. Because she’d utterly fallen for his easy charm, his casual nature and those dark
good looks. She hadn’t been able to help herself. And how could she? Every woman she knew was a little bit in love with Sean Fallon. But she wanted to keep a part of her heart intact so that she had something for herself on the inevitable day when he’d dump her, just as he’d dumped so many women in the past.