Breakfast at Darcy's (13 page)

‘What’s wrong, Darcy?’ Niall asks, coming over to me.

‘Darcy forgot to order the furniture,’ Dermot says, matter-of-factly.

‘No, I didn’t forget,’ I snap, lifting my face again. ‘I didn’t know I was supposed to be ordering any!’

‘We have no furniture?’ Roxi gasps, her mouth hanging open in horror to add to the effect.

‘No,’ I say miserably. ‘And no curtains, or anything like that. People
are
bringing their own sheets and towels and basic equipment, aren’t they, Niall? We did ask them to bring that sort of thing?’

Niall nods. ‘Yes, but we’re supposed to be providing habitable living quarters on their arrival. And really that suggests
houses with at least a bed as the bare minimum.’

Dejectedly I nod my head. ‘What on earth are we going to do? We can’t just ring up Ikea and expect them to deliver to a dozen
houses in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Can we?’ I ask again, looking hopefully between the four of them.

Niall shakes his head.

‘They’ll just have to rough it for a few days until we can get something sorted,’ Dermot suggests straightforwardly. ‘They’re
hardly coming over here expecting five-star accommodation. They’re coming to experience getting back to basics, so that’s
what we’ll be giving them – a real taste of basic living to begin
with. Me and the other boys have been all right kipping on the floor for the past few weeks. It didn’t do us any harm, and
they’ve gone home happy enough.’

I shake my head. ‘No, Dermot, it’s not good enough. I’m sure you and the other builders have had great fun playing Boy Scouts,
but I’ve told these people what they’re to expect when they arrive here, and I can’t let them down by not even having the
decency to provide them with a bed on their first night here. There has to be another way. There
has
to.’

Roxi puts her arm around my shoulders to comfort me.

‘I might have an idea,’ Conor says quietly. ‘It’s a bit of a long shot, to be honest.’

I turn hopefully towards him. ‘What is it? Anything’s worth a try at the moment.’

Conor smiles at me. ‘Well, I was talking to the owner of the B and B I was staying in over breakfast this morning. There was
only me staying, and I think she was glad of the company. Anyway, she was telling me that her bookings are down a bit for
this year but her sister, who has a hotel up in one of the towns, is doing even worse, and is thinking of selling her hotel
because she just can’t make a go of it any more.’

We all stand staring at Conor for a moment, allowing what he’s suggesting to register in our own minds.

‘That, Conor, could be just the answer to Darcy’s problems,’ Niall says excitedly. ‘What do you reckon, Darcy?’

How come they’re all suddenly
my
problems, when something goes wrong?

‘I’m not too sure about second-hand beds.’ I wrinkle my nose up at the thought and look at Roxi. She does the same, but shrugs
and holds out her hands.

Dermot rolls his eyes. ‘I’d say you don’t have much choice.’

‘OK, OK, you’re both right,’ I sigh. ‘I’m sorry, Conor, it’s a great idea. I suppose we’d better go back over to the mainland
and find this hotel, then. That’s all right, isn’t it, Niall? The budget will stretch to that, won’t it, if we can persuade
this lady to sell?’

‘It won’t stretch to you buying a hotel, Darcy, no. But if you can talk the owner into selling you her fixtures and fittings,
it might.’

‘How quickly can you have the boat ready, Conor?’ Dermot asks. ‘There’s no time like the present.’

‘Give me five minutes,’ Conor says with a small salute.

‘Five minutes!’ I exclaim. I can’t possibly be ready in five minutes. ‘I need to change.’

‘Why?’ Dermot demands.

‘Just look at me.’ I gesture at my jeans and waterproof coat. ‘I can’t possibly go over to try and negotiate buying stuff
from a hotel dressed like this. I need to look at least like I can afford it. Roxi, tell them.’

‘She’s right, she needs to look the part or she can’t play the part. It’s not rocket science.’

Conor grins at the two of us.

Dermot does his usual eye-rolling. ‘Darcy, I’m sure the owner of this hotel won’t give a monkey’s what you look like, just
as long as your wallet’s big enough.’

‘I don’t care, I’m changing and that’s that.’

‘Looks like it’s …
fifteen
minutes, then?’ Conor asks hesitantly.

I shake my head.

‘Twenty?’

I nod. ‘That will be great, thanks, Conor. I’ll meet you down at the harbour in twenty minutes.’

‘I bet it’s more like thirty,’ I hear Dermot murmur to Niall.

I ignore Dermot and continue talking directly to Conor. ‘Conor, will you come with me once we get over there, and help get
me out of this mess?’

‘It would be my pleasure to help a damsel in distress,’ he says smiling. ‘Just you and me going, is it?’

‘Yes,’ I say without hesitation. ‘I’m sure Dermot has lots of structural work to be getting on with. Soft furnishings aren’t
his department, are they, Dermot?’

Dermot narrows his eyes but doesn’t bother to reply.

‘Is that OK with you two?’ I ask Roxi and Niall. ‘You don’t want to come back over with us now you’re here, do you?’

‘No, Darce,’ Roxi says, looking with interest between Conor and me. ‘You go off on your little shopping expedition.’ She links
her arm through Dermot’s. ‘I’m sure Mr Cowell here will protect me while you’re gone.’

Dermot looks unenthusiastically down at Roxi’s arm that’s wrapped around his, and then up at Roxi. But her eyes simply twinkle
with amusement as she blinks back at him.

Niall, who’s been standing grinning while this whole interlude has been taking place, shakes his head. ‘No, I’m grand, but
you’ll be needing these.’ He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a chequebook and a bank card. ‘Don’t go mad,’ he says,
passing them to me. ‘I know we desperately need this stuff, but haggle with the woman, Darcy. This is
not
a shopping expedition.’

‘Niall, I’m an expert at grabbing a bargain. I’ll be good, I promise.’

‘Conor?’ he looks imploringly at him.

‘Sure, Niall, I’ll keep an eye on her.’

And I find the thought of Conor keeping an eye on me a very comforting one indeed.

‘You were only supposed to be going for furniture!’ Dermot exclaims as Conor and I pull up in the harbour later that day in
the little red boat. ‘Darcy, how have you managed to acquire three dogs, half a pet shop and an extra person in one afternoon?’

It had been a very successful trip over to the mainland; we’d managed to buy not only the bedroom furniture but a number of
fixtures and other fittings from a tourist hotel that, as Conor had predicted, had sadly seen its heyday some years before.
The owner, Mary, was a lovely woman and had taken to Conor straight away, so with a little bit of charm – mostly Conor’s –
and some wheeling and dealing on my part, we’d managed to persuade her into selling us what we needed, even though Mary’s
furniture wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. But since I hadn’t got much option, I’d put my own tastes aside for once, and
had tried to be content with the fact that at least we now had some furniture coming over in the next couple of days.
Plus, we were also sailing back with some added bonuses for the island.

It had all started on the trip over there in the boat. Conor was steering the craft expertly across the sea as always, while
I sat quietly in the back (or is that the stern?) in my newly chosen outfit, a Karen Millen white jacket with navy piping,
straight-legged navy trousers and a navy and white striped top. I’d thought the nautical theme might be a cheerful twist as
we journeyed across the sea, but with the added extra of my bright orange life jacket now spoiling the effect, my seaworthy
outfit was somewhat ruined. So as I sat in the back trying to control my hair from gusting about my head, I began to wonder
just what sort of hotel it was we were going to try and buy the insides of …

Conor looks back at me, as I sit lost in thought. ‘Euro for them?’ he enquires.

‘What?’

‘A euro for your thoughts. I didn’t think we were allowed to say “penny” now, with the EU and all.’

I smile now, too. Getting up, I carefully make my way to join him at the helm, steadying myself on the sides of the boat as
I go.
The red heeled sandals weren’t one of Roxi’s better ideas. But she was right; red went so well with navy and white, it seemed
such a shame not to wear them
.

‘They’re not worth a euro, or a penny, really.’

‘Everyone’s thoughts are worth something, especially to the person thinking them.’

I turn to look at Conor, but he continues to face forward while he speaks, concentrating on the task of getting us across
safely to the mainland. His profile is still every bit as handsome.

‘No, honestly, they’re not,’ I insist.

Conor briefly turns his head towards me. ‘You’re just like your name.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your name, Darcy – it’s from the French word for fortress.’

‘Is it?’

Conor nods, looking out to sea again.

‘Unless of course your name is of Celtic origin,’ he continues suddenly, while I’m still considering his first statement.
‘And then it would mean dark-haired, which, if I might add, I think suits you much better now with those beautiful chocolate-brown
eyes of yours.’

‘Th-thank you,’ I stutter, not used to compliments quite like this. In fact, of the few boyfriends I had when I was in London,
none of them was exactly lavish with his compliments, and if he did choose to shower me with praise, it was more likely to
be about the cup of tea I’d just made him, or the fact that I knew the latest football score. ‘I think I like the second meaning
better than the first, though. I’m hardly a fortress.’

Conor shrugs. ‘I only say what I see.’

So I’m not that great at letting my emotions out. But how does Conor know? I’ve only known him five minutes.

‘So what does “Conor” mean, then?’ I ask, hoping to change the subject away from me.

‘Lover of hounds,’ he says without hesitation.

‘And have you,’ I ask, trying to keep a straight face, ‘loved many hounds in your life?’

Conor smirks, but keeps looking ahead. ‘That would be
telling.’ He turns to me again, his bright blue eyes searching mine. ‘But if you want the serious answer to that question
– I adore dogs, actually. People, Darcy, they’ll always let you down. A dog will never do that; they’ll always love you, whatever
you say or do.’

‘Yes, I know, my aunt used to keep dogs.’ A vision of Molly’s big old mongrel dogs Bran and Piper suddenly comes flooding
back to me. ‘They were lovely, dopey old things.’

Gosh, I haven’t thought about them in ages. I used to play for hours with those two when I came over to stay with Molly. I
was heartbroken when Bran had to be put down. I think Piper eventually died of natural causes some years later, but that was
when my contact with my aunt became sporadic. I feel a stirring inside me as too many memories are released from the box at
once, and it’s immediately snapped shut.

So when, during our negotiations at the hotel, we discovered that the hotel’s golden Labrador, Bella had just had puppies,
I simply couldn’t resist taking a quick peek at them …

Mary takes us along to her kitchen, where we find six of the cutest puppies I think I’ve ever seen in my life being watched
over by their mother, and a young man with jet-black curly hair in his early twenties, whom Mary introduces us to as Patrick.

‘I prefers Paddy,’ he informs us as Mary fusses about him almost as much as he’s fussing over the dogs. Apparently Paddy has
been working with Mary in the hotel since she gave him a chance of a job some years ago when nobody else would. ‘A bit of
a tearaway,’ is how Mary describes him to us, and looking at
him crouched down in his jeans, Doc Marten boots and a t-shirt that says
Irish Boys Do it Better
, I can quite believe it.

Mary explains that because the puppies aren’t pedigrees, she is having trouble selling them. The fact that they’re a half
Labrador, half Irish wolfhound cross isn’t helping either. ‘Sure now, they’ll be big fellows when they’re fully grown. They’ll
need a lot of exercise.’

I try to remain impartial as the puppies wander over to us, nibbling at shoelaces and tumbling and falling over their own
paws, which seem far too big for their little bodies. But even in my heels, soon I’m down on the floor with the others, cuddling
the puppies and allowing them to nibble at my ears and lick my fingers.

‘I have homes for two of them,’ Mary says after a while, ‘and I’m going to keep one myself. ‘But it’s the other three I’m
stuck with.’

‘Which ones?’ I ask casually, praying that she’ll include the little brown one with the flash of white in his tail.

‘That one,’ she points at a multicoloured female Paddy is holding. ‘Also the sandy one over there nibbling on the brush; and
this little brown fellow with the white fur on his tail.’

I look at Conor, and remember what he’d said to me on the boat earlier.

A dog will never let you down …

I’ve always wanted a dog of my own. A couple of girls in the fashion magazine offices next to us had dogs, but they were those
tiny ones that they kept in their handbags. They were one of the few fashion accessories I didn’t yearn after. These puppies
were going to grow up to be proper big dogs. Apart from my holidays with Molly, I’d never had the chance of
keeping a dog of my own. We’d never lived in the right sort of house, or had a big enough garden for me to have a dog, or
for that matter any other sort of pet when I was young. After my father left, my mother took a full-time job as a sales representative
for a clothing company and that meant we were always moving around. I can hear my mother’s shrill voice now as I think back:
‘It will just be another thing for me to have to look after as well as you, Darcy.’

I shake my head free of that memory and think fast. ‘Conor, would you like a puppy to take over to the island?’