Foreign Affairs (75 page)

‘God, Ronan, this is awful,’ she muttered. ‘Talk about being ripped off. Wait until I get that creep of a manager.’

‘Will I go and tell them to take it back and serve something else?’ Ronan whispered.

‘They probably haven’t got anything else. It would be embarrassing to ask everyone to hand back their dinner. This is terrible.’ Jennifer was distressed.

‘It’s too late to do anything about it now, Jenny, we’ll just have to put up with it for the time being.’ Ronan sighed. He couldn’t eat anyway but the manager of
the hotel was going to get a roasting from him, and he was going to demand some of their money back. Having to pay in advance left you with little comeback when you were ripped off like this. You
were at the mercy of the hotel.

Jennifer fretted about the meal. It ruined the rest of her wedding day, despite everyone’s protestations that the meal had been fine. When Grandpa Myles saw how upset she was he went and
gave the manager a ferocious ear-bashing.

‘You should be ashamed of yourself, ruining a girl’s wedding like that and embarrassing her in front of her friends and family. If that was spring lamb I’ll eat my hat. I can
tell you one thing, young fella, it would be a lot more tender than your so-called lamb! So what are you going to do about it then, matey?’

In vain the harassed manager tried to pacify Grandpa Myles by saying that it had been a long wet winter and the lamb wasn’t as tender as in previous years.

‘Cut out your spoofing, lad. What are you going to do to make amends?’ Grandpa Myles was not to be put off. Much to Jennifer’s delight. Good enough for you! she thought
unsympathetically. Give him hell.

In the end, unable to take any more, the manager offered a free bar for an hour. By the time the dancing started everyone was in great form and the meal was forgotten as the guests boogied the
night away.

Jennifer was so annoyed about the meal that she told Ronan she wasn’t going to stay in the hotel as planned. She informed the manager that they weren’t spending the night in the
hotel and he could go whistle if he thought she would pay for the room. She didn’t give him time to bluster an answer as she swept upstairs to change into her going-away outfit.

‘Where would you like to stay, Ro?’ she asked as they divested themselves of their finery.

Ronan swallowed and she could see that it hurt. He looked at her. ‘It’s up to you, Jenny, wherever you want to go, we’ll go.’ She knew he was putting on a cheerful act
for her.

‘You know where I’d like to go?’ she said softly. ‘I’d like to go home to our own house.’

Ronan smiled at her. ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking but I didn’t want to do you out of a night in a plush hotel.’

‘Oh, I’ve got plans for you,’ Jennifer teased.

‘What?’ grinned Ronan.

‘Wait and see.’

An hour later they drew up outside their little redbrick house. Ronan paid the taxi man, carried their luggage into the house and came back for Jennifer. ‘Now, are you ready for
this?’ he asked, sweeping her into his arms.

‘My hero,’ Jennifer laughed as her husband carried her over the threshold of their home.

‘What have you got planned for me?’ he asked as he dropped her gently on to the couch.

‘Go upstairs and get into bed,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll be up in a minute.’

‘I’ll be waiting.’

Jennifer had swiped three oranges from the complimentary fruit basket in the hotel room. While she waited for the kettle to boil, she squeezed the oranges and poured the juice into a long glass,
she added sugar, and a spoonful of honey. Then she poured a measure of whiskey and filled the glass with hot water.

‘Be a good boy and take your medicine,’ she instructed Ronan, who had lost no time in getting into bed. She stood over him as he sipped his hot drink. Jennifer kissed her husband on
his forehead when he handed her the empty glass. He was very hot. ‘I’ll be up in a minute. I’ll just lock up downstairs.’ She pulled the sheet up under his chin.

‘You’re a wonderful wife,’ Ronan teased.

‘I know,’ she agreed smugly.

She pottered around downstairs, enjoying the feeling of being in her own house at last. Ten minutes later, she switched out the lights, locked the front door and walked upstairs yawning. She was
jaded tired. She could hear Ronan’s low rumbling snores from half-way up the stairs. So much for a night of sex and passion, she thought grinning. Well they’d waited this long. Another
night wouldn’t kill them. And hopefully by morning Ronan would be feeling better.

Chapter Seventy-Three

‘You made a holy show of me!’ Brenda fumed. ‘Just because there was a free bar for an hour didn’t mean you had to try and drink the place
dry.’

‘Aw shut up, Brenda,’ Shay groaned from beneath his pillow. ‘I’ve a terrible headache.’

‘Good enough for you,’ Brenda retorted. ‘I’ve no sympathy for you.’

‘Would you give it a rest?’ Shay growled.

‘No, I won’t give it a rest,’ Brenda snapped. She had no intention of letting her husband away with it. She’d been mortified at the wedding when he’d insisted on
singing some dreadfully gloomy Leonard Cohen song that he’d forgotten half the words of. She’d seen Paula Matthews sniggering with that boss of hers and Jenny’s. Kieran somebody
or other. He was a fine thing too. He arrived at Jenny’s wedding on a huge black Harley-Davidson. He fancied Paula too. Brenda knew it by the way he looked at her and danced with her and
listened attentively to what she said. Paula didn’t seem to be very interested in him. She hadn’t been flirty or seductive.

Brenda frowned. No wonder Paula had men falling all over her. She’d looked stunning in the ice-pink bridesmaid’s dress. Her figure was perfect, her tan golden, her hair a shining
silky blond bob. Brenda felt like an elephant beside her. She’d tried so hard to lose the weight she’d gained since Claudia was born. But it clung stubbornly. Her waist was thick, her
stomach and thighs flabby and her bum was a disaster. It was her own fault, of course. Since she’d left work she was inclined to sit around a lot. And eat . . . Any excuse and she was
nibbling, or having coffee and biscuits. Not to talk about bowls of Cornflakes and Weetabix together. She’d developed a real passion for them. Her good intention to lose weight after she left
work had failed dismally. Being matron-of-honour had not been a strong enough incentive either. Brenda pinched her waist. She could definitely pinch an inch, she thought despondently. Now that the
weather was starting to improve and the summer was coming, she’d start bringing Claudia out for walks in her buggy. She might join an aerobics class. Maybe she could persuade Kathy to come
with her. She had to do something. She was turning into a flabby frump.

Brenda stared down at her now sleeping husband. She’d a good mind to wake him up and tell him she was going into town and that he was to look after Claudia for the day. That would fix him.
Looking after a demanding one-year-old toddler was no joke.

Suddenly a dizzy faintness came over her. Brenda leaned back against the pillows waiting for it to pass. What the hell had caused that, she wondered in dismay. Holy God Almighty! Brenda had a
terrifying thought. She’d felt like that once early in her pregnancy with Claudia. She couldn’t be! She couldn’t possibly be pregnant again so soon. She hadn’t gone back on
the pill because she’d kept hoping she’d lose weight and she didn’t want the added half-stone that the pill always put on her. Shay had been using condoms because she hated using
a diaphragm. Brenda groaned as another wave of dizziness assaulted her. Her period was a week late but she hadn’t given it any thought. Her cycle was still a bit irregular. Why had she been
so stupid? She should have gone straight back on the pill and to hell with vanity. She hadn’t lost an ounce of weight and now, if her suspicions were correct, she’d be putting on a hell
of a lot more.

Gingerly she got out of bed and walked into the bathroom. The toilet seat was up. Fury engulfed her. She slammed it down, hard, and didn’t care if it cracked. She was always telling Shay
to put the toilet seat down after him. It irritated the hell out of her, as did his habit of squeezing the toothpaste from the middle. Brenda poured herself a glass of water and sipped it
slowly.

Claudia was a handful. Adorable, but a handful nevertheless. How would she manage two of them? So much for her idea of a life of rest and relaxation.

She heard Shay’s rumbling snores. Her lips tightened in a thin line. He needn’t think he was going to sleep blissfully for the rest of the morning. She wasn’t going to suffer
on her own.

‘Shay! Shay! Wake up. I have to talk to you.’ Brenda shook him vigorously.

‘Wha . . . what’s the matter?’ He sat up bleary-eyed.

‘I’ll tell you what’s the matter, Shay Hanley. I think I’m pregnant!’

‘Oh crikey!’ Shay turned a whiter shade of pale. ‘Are you sure?’

‘No, but I feel like I did when I started with Claudia.’ Brenda burst into tears.

‘Don’t cry, Bren. Maybe you’re imagining it.’ Shay got out of bed and put his arms around her.

‘My English teacher told me I had no imagination.’ Brenda wept.

‘Let’s hope she was wrong,’ Shay said fervently.

Brenda spent a tense weekend and was up at the doctor’s surgery first thing the following Monday morning.

‘Congratulations, Mrs Hanley,’ Brenda heard him say, as Claudia started to howl. She felt like howling herself.

‘I can’t believe it, Kathy,’ she cried on her best friend’s shoulder, later that morning.

‘It’s not as bad as you think,’ Kathy soothed. ‘It happened to me. But look at it like this, they’ll all be reared together and it will make life much easier when
they go to school.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ she sniffed. ‘But that’s it. Two’s enough.’

‘Famous last words,’ laughed Kathy. ‘Look, why don’t I take Claudia for the afternoon and you go and put your feet up, or go into town and treat yourself.’

‘Thanks, Kathy. You’re a pal.’ Brenda gave a watery smile. ‘I’ll tell you one thing. This time I’m telling them to knock me out. I’m taking anything
that’s going.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Kathy assured her. ‘It’s never as bad the second time.’

‘Don’t tell fibs, you told me Andrew’s birth was ten times harder than Anita’s.’

‘No I didn’t. I’m sure I didn’t.’

‘Yes you did,’ Brenda said glumly. There was no point in fooling herself.

She had resigned herself to her pregnancy and was finding it much easier the second time round when she went for her first scan. She lay trying to make out the black and white images on the
monitor showing her baby. The doctor took her hand and smiled down at her. ‘Is everything all right? Is the baby OK?’ Brenda asked anxiously.

‘Everything’s fine,’ he assured her. ‘Only it’s not one baby, Mrs Hanley,’ she heard him say. ‘Congratulations, you’re expecting twins.’

Chapter Seventy-Four

‘This time last week Grandpa Myles was giving that poor manager hell,’ Ronan reflected as he swung lazily in a hammock by their private villa.

‘Poor manager my foot!’ Jennifer scoffed from the hammock she was lying in sipping Malibu and pineapple. ‘He deserved everything he got, the little rat. He ruined my wedding
day.’

‘Ah, it wasn’t that bad,’ Ronan soothed. ‘The free bar was all everyone could talk about. Poor Shay was well on.’

‘I know, I could hear Brenda telling him not to make a show of her and him telling her to stop bossing him around. They weren’t exactly whispering.’ Jennifer grimaced.

‘And did you hear Dad getting on to Rachel about how she was too fond of the booze. She’d only had two glasses of white wine!’

‘You know Rachel should get her own place. She should never have taken that job in Bray,’ Jennifer reflected. ‘She’ll never do anything as long as she’s living at
home.’

‘Jenny, you’re preaching to the converted.’ Ronan took a slug of ice-cold Coke.

‘Let’s go for a walk on the beach before dinner,’ she suggested.

‘A walk!’ Ronan exclaimed in mock horror. ‘I couldn’t possibly do anything that energetic. I’m on my honeymoon in the Cayman Islands. And she wants me to go
walking
! What kind of a wife did I get?’

Jennifer eased herself out of her hammock and stood looking down at him.

‘Get up, you lazy lump,’ she laughed, tipping him out.

Ronan laughed. ‘Be on your guard for that!’ he warned.

Jennifer tied her sarong around her waist and placed a big white hat on her head. It was late afternoon and the intense heat of the day had eased but she wore her hat anyway. She walked down the
tiled steps of the terrace where they had been relaxing. Ronan watched her admiringly. She was golden brown. Her long dark hair was plaited and entwined with flowers and it followed the curve of
her slender sexy back. He was the luckiest man in the world, he thought happily as he sprinted down the steps to join her.

‘This is really a paradise, isn’t it?’ Jennifer took his hand as they walked down the winding flower-edged path to the magnificent swathe of white-gold beach. The sand was like
silk beneath their feet. The sea was a clear aquamarine. They walked to the water’s edge and paddled along in the rippling surf.

‘It’s handy having a wife in the travel business.’

‘Yeah, it’s going to be a real perk when we’re taking our holidays. It was a great brainwave of Paula’s to get us to check out the scene here.’

‘Oh they can use us as guinea pigs anytime.’ Ronan laughed.

‘She’s started to make a go of that new project, I can tell you,’ Jennifer said admiringly.

‘Knowing Paula, I wouldn’t doubt it. What will your report say?’

‘Oh . . . it will say that it’s the ideal honeymoon spot, and if you’ve got the right husband . . . heaven on earth!’ Jennifer turned to Ronan and kissed him long and
lingeringly. They drew apart and smiled at each other.

‘I think we should call and say that two weeks isn’t half long enough to make such important decisions as to whether TransCon would find Grand Cayman a suitable location for its
holiday programme. I’d suggest six months on expenses.’

‘Absolutely,’ Jennifer agreed.