Foreign Affairs (77 page)

The traffic wasn’t heavy and she dithered as to whether to park on Eccles Street or drive down past the hospital and risk not finding a space there. She parked as near to Dorset Street as
she could and walked the rest of the way towards the hospital. She turned left down the little lane to Casualty and hoped it wouldn’t be packed. Wishful thinking. The place was crammed.
Brenda resigned herself to a long wait.

It was almost noon before Claudia, minus her pea, was ready to leave. Brenda was starving. She’d made up a bottle of milk and Liga for Claudia before she left home. On the spur of the
moment, she decided to pop into town. It was so near the hospital. She was sure Mandy wouldn’t mind keeping the twins for another hour or so.

She parked behind Bolton Street Tech and cut up to Henry Street along Moore Street. Five minutes later she was tucking into a ham sandwich and a coffee slice in the Kylemore while Claudia
guzzled her bottle, sitting in a highchair and staring around with interest. This was a rare little treat, Brenda thought to herself, and at least Claudia had suffered no ill effects, although her
yelling could have been heard in Howth when they’d been extracting the pea.

Now that she was in town she might have a look around for a new pair of jeans. Paula was wearing a gorgeous pair of 501s the last day she’d seen her. Maybe she would treat herself.

She tried on several pairs of jeans, getting more despondent all the while. Paula’s had clung to her like a glove but Brenda was unable to fasten the first two pairs and ended up trying on
a size sixteen for the first time in her life. She was horrified, especially when she turned sideways in the mirror and saw her fat bottom and the tree-trunk thickness of the top of her thighs.

‘Oh my God!’ she muttered in horror. That’s it, I’m going on a strict diet, she vowed, regretting the huge coffee slice she’d just eaten and the large dollop of
cream that she’d spooned into her coffee. Imagine being a size
sixteen
! That was the pits. There’d been a time when she was a size twelve. Feeling like weeping, Brenda left the
shop, minus the jeans. Soon it would be summer and she wasn’t going to wallow around in her flab. It was so easy to forget about her weight and hide her bulk under layers of cover-up clothes
in winter. It would soon be time to get into summer clothes. She was going to get down to a size fourteen at least, she promised herself. She would go on a brown rice diet. It was very healthy.
Shay could go on one too. He was putting on weight around his middle, she decided as she took a detour into Nature’s Way and spent a fortune on health food.

She was half-way up Mobhi Road when the heavens opened. Blast it! she fumed. If she’d been home ten minutes earlier she’d have got her clothes dry.

‘So sorry I’m late, the hospital was jam-packed,’ she exaggerated to Mandy when she got home.

‘No problem,’ Mandy said in a brittle tone. ‘The twins are fed and changed.’

‘You’re a pet,’ Brenda said gratefully. ‘If I can ever do you a favour.’

‘Well now that you mention it.’ Mandy smiled. ‘It’s our wedding anniversary on Friday, maybe you could babysit. Tom’s going to take me out for a meal.’

‘Oh, Mand, I’m sorry. It’s Grandpa Myles’s birthday on Friday and we’re all going home for a party. We’ll probably be staying the night.’ This
wasn’t strictly true. They might stay a bit late but they’d definitely be coming back home. It was too much hassle uprooting three infants for a night, lugging nappies and bottle feed
and the like. But she wasn’t going to say that to Mandy. She didn’t feel like baby-sitting on Friday night. Mandy and Tom never came home until well past midnight on their nights
out.

‘How about Saturday, then?’ Mandy was not giving up hope.

‘Aw,’ Brenda said in insincere dismay. ‘I think Shay’s doing a nixer.’

‘Sunday’ll do then.’ Mandy was determined. She was damned if she was going to let Brenda get away with taking advantage.

‘OK,’ Brenda said unenthusiastically. She knew she couldn’t make any more excuses. It would be too obvious.

‘We won’t be
too
late,’ Mandy added pointedly.

Even Brenda couldn’t miss the sarcasm in that last remark. There was no need for Mandy to get huffy. She’d only nipped into town for an hour or two. It wasn’t as if she’d
absconded for twenty-four hours or anything.

Brenda never got the chance to lie on the sofa in front of the fire. Lauren had colic and was very cranky and she spent the rest of the afternoon trying to pacify her. Then it was time to give
Claudia her dinner, feed the twins, change them and put them to bed.

She cooked up a pot of brown rice, added a tin of tuna and some peppers and sat down to dinner. At least she’d started her diet. She was going to stick to it without fail. She’d
bought some Ryvita as well. Bread was definitely out from now on.

‘What’s for dinner, I’m ravenous?’ Shay leaned over and kissed her when he arrived in from work.

‘There’s a pot of brown rice and tuna,’ Brenda informed him. She was engrossed in
Brookside
.

Shay made a face. Brown rice and tuna didn’t sound the slightest bit appetizing. Don’t say Brenda was on one of her faddy diets. When Brenda went on a diet, he had to go on one too
whether he liked it or not. He lifted the lid of the pot and looked at the contents. ‘Sod this,’ he muttered.

‘I’m going to the chipper,’ he called. ‘Do you want anything?’ There was a long silence as Brenda struggled with her conscience.

‘Get me an onion ring,’ she said finally.

Shay arrived back twenty minutes later. ‘I got you a single as well so you wouldn’t eat half of mine.’

Brenda’s mouth watered. She tore open the white paper and demolished the onion ring in three bites. It was scrumptious. Brenda knew she was a disgrace. No wonder she bulged out of size
sixteen jeans. Well today had been a traumatic day. She needed a little treat, she comforted herself as she took a slice of buttered batch bread from Shay and made a chip butty. She would start her
diet tomorrow, definitely, she assured herself. She’d get down to a size twelve and Paula Matthews wouldn’t be the only one who could wear skin-tight jeans and look a million
dollars.

She went to bed around eleven, and was asleep within minutes. At half past twelve Lauren started to cry.

‘Oh no,’ Brenda groaned. She gave Shay an elbow in the ribs. He snored on. Brenda dragged herself out of bed. She paced the floor with her daughter as the rest of the household
slept. This was the pits, she told herself as Lauren yelled in pain, her little face contorted. This was definitely the end of her family, she told herself viciously. If she ever found out she was
pregnant again, she’d shoot herself . . . and Shay with her.

Chapter Seventy-Six

Paula held up the little sundress, hat and cardigan and couldn’t make up her mind between them and the scarlet jumpsuit. In the end she bought all of them despite the
fact that they cost a fortune. Shopping in exclusive boutiques on the French Riviera was not for the fainthearted. Paula didn’t mind. She could well afford to buy her precious goddaughter
expensive gifts. She earned a hefty salary. But she worked for it.

Since she’d started up the Holiday Villa scheme with Kieran four years ago, she’d travelled thousands of miles. They worked night after night until the early hours with
Kieran’s accountants, costing and projecting. And now, finally, it was starting to pay off. The Holiday Villa scheme was established.

It hadn’t been easy though. There’d been problems with accommodation. Even though she personally checked out every villa they selected for use in the brochure, the problems only
started to come to light once the villas were in use. They’d made no profit at all in the first year of business, and spent a considerable amount of money relocating dissatisfied customers to
luxury hotels when villas turned out to be unsuitable.

Kieran never wavered in his support of her and told her they had to expect teething problems. They had couriers in place because of the main charter holiday business so many of the problems were
sorted out fairly easily. But that first year Paula criss-crossed the sun spots of Europe ironing out problems her couriers couldn’t handle.

Now things looked much better. Their existing villas were booked out for the current season. Satisfied customers were coming back, demand had outstripped supply and she was now scouring the
south of France for new locations. It was her third visit this year and so far she’d inspected several villas that looked promising. She’d also met a rather dishy Frenchman called
Pierre Dupré.

Paula glanced at her watch and saw that she was running late. She would have liked to sit and watch the world go by and sip coffee in one of the cafés in the Zone Pietonne and then walk
along the palm-lined coast road to her sea-front hotel. Nice was not for rushing around. Nice was to be savoured at an easy-going pace. She shouldn’t have dawdled so long in the
boutiques.

Regretfully, Paula hailed a taxi to get her back to her hotel. Pierre was taking her to dinner tonight. She liked him, he was good company as well as possessing any amount of Gallic charm.
She’d had dinner dates and lunches with lots of men in the past four years. All business affairs. Pierre was partly business too. He was the owner of several luxury villas she was thinking of
using. He had property all along the French Riviera that he rented out to holiday companies. She’d made her mind up on the properties she was going to select. Tonight they would finalize the
details over dinner. She would sign the papers the following morning in his office.

‘
Merci
.’ She thanked the taxi driver, tipped him and ran up the marble steps of the hotel and checked at reception for messages. There were several.

One from Jennifer asking her to call Kieran. One from a courier in Palma asking her to call back and one from Pierre advising her that he’d be half an hour late and had changed their
dinner booking accordingly.

Paula took her key and ran up the stairs. She never took lifts unless she had to. That extra half-hour’s breathing space was just what she needed. She’d return her calls, have her
shower and get ready without feeling she was in a terrible rush.

She rang Palma first. Couriers’ calls always got priority. Paula now had two staff working exclusively for Holiday Villa in the office, but she always left strict instructions that she was
to be contacted if there were problems. No matter where she was.

‘What’s up, Trish?’ she asked briskly as soon as she heard the courier on the other end of the phone.

‘Hi, Paula. It’s the Scullys. Last night was their final night and they had a big party and trashed the place. It’s a shambles. Señor Diega is hopping mad and he’s
not going to allow us to have the villa any more. And the Madigans are flying out today.’

‘Oh hell!’ Paula scowled. The Scullys were a wealthy high-profile Dublin couple. He was a high-flying businessman, with an eye on politics. She was a ‘Lady who Lunched’
although her lunches were more of the liquid sort. Well they weren’t going to get away with trashing a mega-luxurious villa. Peter Scully was an arrogant shit. A fat blob of a man in his
mid-forties. He adored being the centre of attention.

She had met him when Kieran asked her to accompany him to a business dinner and Peter was there, lording it over the rest of the company. He made a beeline for Kieran when he saw Paula and
immediately asked to be introduced. He took her hand in his hot sweaty one, his little beady eyes roved over her lasciviously. Paula looked at his fat wet lips and felt revolted.

‘I’m Peter Scully,’ he announced. From the way he said it, Paula knew he practically expected her to genuflect.

‘How do you do,’ she said coolly, withdrawing her hand. ‘I’m Paula Matthews.’

‘Kieran, you sly old fox you. Where have you been keeping this gorgeous bird hidden?’

‘Miss Matthews is a business associate,’ Kieran said coldly.

‘What do you do?’ Peter asked with an arched eyebrow. As far as he was concerned women were for decoration and sexual purposes only.

‘I run the Holiday Villa Company for TransCon,’ Paula said briskly.

‘Tell me all about it,’ he invited, giving her a leer.

Paula gave him a short concise run-down of her operation and was surprised to hear him say, ‘I could do with a place like that for a week or so some time in April. I’m cooking up
some deals with a few guys who live in Marbella. You say these places have live-in staff and their own pools?’

‘Yes,’ Paula said curtly. She didn’t want Peter Scully and his entourage as clients.

‘Fine, I’ll get my secretary to make the arrangements. You will give me a good discount?’ He smirked at Kieran. Kieran glanced at Paula and smiled.

‘Sorry, Peter, it’s not up to me. I never interfere in Holiday Villa’s business. Paula is the boss there.’

Peter’s beady little eyes gleamed. ‘I’m sure the beautiful Paula will oblige,’ he said confidently.

‘Sorry,’ Paula smiled sweetly. ‘We don’t do discount holidays. Try our charters if that’s what you require. You will excuse me, I have to call the
office.’

Arrogant bastard, she thought as she walked across the plush carpet of the function room and made for the foyer. After that put-down, she hadn’t expected Peter Scully to book a holiday
with Holiday Villa, but he had. Much to her disgust. Now he’d gone and trashed the place and assumed, no doubt, that he was going to get away with it. Over Paula’s dead body.

‘Trish, I’ll get on to Legal about it. I’ll get the office to phone the Madigans and offer them a refund or a suite in a luxury hotel. And if you give me Señor
Diega’s number I’ll call him and see if I can pacify him. OK?’

‘OK,’ Trish agreed, calling out the number.

‘I’ll get the office to give you an update,’ Paula said. ‘Take care, bye.’

She phoned Kieran immediately. Jenny took the call. ‘Hi, Jenny, how about you and Beth coming to dinner Friday night?’ she asked.

‘It’s awkward. I have Rachel with me for Easter. It’s a bit rude to take off and leave her at home,’ Jennifer said regretfully.