My Mother's Secret (11 page)

‘Yes, but I think that your wife is pissed off at me,’ confessed Summer. ‘She wanted everyone to be drinking wine.’

‘There is rather a lot of it,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of sparkling rosé too.’

‘We could make Bellinis with that,’ suggested Summer. ‘What else is in that cupboard?’

‘Tequila,’ said Paul. ‘Vodka. And brandy.’

‘You don’t want to make anything with brandy. Not in the middle of the afternoon,’ Summer said. ‘Is there any Cointreau? We could do margaritas. Well, if there’s more lime juice, that is.’ She looked enquiringly at him. ‘Or perhaps I should butt out?’

‘Cocktails are fun and the mojitos were great,’ said Paul. ‘We should’ve thought of it ourselves.’ He took a bottle of Cointreau from the cupboard. ‘How d’you make a margarita?’

‘Easy peasy,’ said Summer. She rinsed a glass and then sliced one of the limes that Roisin had brought to add to the jugs of water for the guests who asked for it. ‘This is the version we do in the bar,’ she said as she mixed it and then handed it to him. ‘I can make it stronger.’

‘It’s pretty good the way it is,’ said Paul when he tasted it.

‘I could do with a proper cocktail shaker,’ Summer said.

‘I bet Jenny and Pascal have one somewhere.’ Paul started rummaging in the cupboard again.

‘What are you doing?’

Neither of them had noticed Roisin walking into the room.

‘Ow!’ Paul yelped as he banged his head on the cupboard door. He turned slowly, rubbing his temple. ‘Hi, sweetheart. I was looking for a cocktail shaker.’

‘For heaven’s sake! There’s to be no more cocktails.’ Roisin looked angrily at him. ‘This isn’t an episode of
Mad Men
. It’s a garden party. With wine and beer. Nobody is supposed to be having hard liquor.’

Summer laughed.

‘Excuse me?’ Roisin glared at her. ‘You find something funny?’

‘Hard liquor,’ said Summer. ‘I’ve never heard someone call a margarita hard liquor before.’

‘It doesn’t matter what I call it,’ said Roisin. ‘Cocktail hour is over. It’s wine, beer or water from now on.’

‘OK. OK,’ said Paul. ‘Sorry.’

‘Well I’ll take this with me before the ban comes into force.’ Summer picked up the margarita and disappeared through the doors to the garden.

Roisin continued to glare, this time at Paul.

‘What?’ he asked defensively.

‘She gatecrashed this party and you’re encouraging her to get the guests totally legless!’ cried Roisin. ‘For God’s sake, Paul. What d’you think you’re at?’

‘She didn’t gatecrash. Carl brought her. And they’re not that strong, those cocktails.’

‘Are you mad?’ demanded Roisin. ‘Aunt Moya is half cut already. Bobby and Tom are guzzling them like there’s no tomorrow. Alivia is posing in the garden with hers.’

‘So what?’ Paul smiled at her. ‘It’s a party. Lighten up.’

‘I’m in charge,’ Roisin said. ‘And I’m telling you that I don’t want the guests on the floor before we’ve cut the cake and made proper speeches and everything. You did remember to bring the gift, didn’t you?’

Roisin planned to give her parents a crystal bowl with an inscription after they cut the cake.

‘Of course I did,’ said Paul.

‘Well then,’ said Roisin. ‘I want you to be sober enough to hand it over at the right time.’

‘I’ve only had a couple,’ protested Paul.

Roisin said nothing.

‘OK, OK. I’ll switch to water for a while.’

Roisin sighed as she rubbed the back of her neck. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to get stroppy. But I’ve worked hard to make this a nice day and I don’t want it ruined by the actions of that … well, whatever she is.’

‘She’s just a kid,’ said Paul. ‘She’s harmless.’

‘Oh sweetheart, if you think that …’ Roisin shook her head slowly and left the room.

Colette Mullens arrived late to the party. She hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. She had no interest in family gatherings, and although she liked her aunt and uncle, she didn’t think that her being there would make the slightest difference to them. But her mother, Sarah, had nagged and nagged at her, telling her that Roisin and Steffie had gone to a lot of trouble to get as many people as possible to celebrate with their parents, and that Colette should remember that Jenny and Pascal had had her entire family stay with them one summer and that she should show her gratitude by turning up.

Colette remembered the summer – a particularly wet and miserable one, when she was about twelve, which had confined them to the house a lot of the time and probably driven Jenny mad. It had been the year that her parents had split up. But instead of talking to them about it like normal people, Sarah had packed Carl, Colette and their two younger brothers off to Aranbeg so that she and James could … well, what? Colette wondered. She’d never figured that out. She didn’t know if her father had left the day after they’d gone or if he’d stayed at home for a while afterwards. She didn’t know if her parents had tried to work at their marriage without the stress of four children around the place. All she knew was that her mum rang every night and ordered them to have a good time. Colette didn’t know how she was supposed to have a good time when she was stuck in the middle of nowhere with her three brothers, plus Steffie, who was the baby of the family, and Roisin, by then too wrapped up in her own life to notice her. Despite the fact that Aunt Jenny tried to cheer her up with visits to the cinema and offers to teach her to paint, Colette spent most of the summer in her bedroom reading Sweet Valley High books, pouring her heart out into her diary and wishing she lived in California.

It was a long time since she’d seen Roisin or Steffie. Or Davey. Davey had been the only one of Jenny and Pascal’s children who’d bothered with her while she was at Aranbeg, mainly because he’d got a motor scooter and was always looking to take people places. So every time she wanted to go to Wexford to buy another book, Davey offered to take her. She’d felt quite grown up putting on her helmet and climbing on the back of the scooter behind him. And she’d enjoyed whizzing along the country lanes, her arms tightly around his waist.

Of course Davey was living abroad now, like so many people. Roisin, as the oldest of them, tended to ignore her completely. And Steffie – well, she always felt a little uncomfortable with Steffie, because she’d pushed her cousin out of an apple tree that summer and Steffie had broken her arm. They’d both got into terrible trouble over it. Although they kept in occasional contact through social media, Colette wasn’t sure that Steffie had truly forgiven her.

As it was over an hour since the party had been due to start, and her aunt and uncle had undoubtedly been surprised by now, Colette didn’t bother parking her Hyundai Santa Fe in the GAA grounds as requested on the invitation, but simply drove up to the house and left it outside the front door. She checked her appearance in the rear-view mirror. Her hair, raven black with a gold streak at the front, was held in a high quiff by industrial quantities of spray. Her eyeshadow was smoky and dramatic and her lips (her best feature, she thought, soft and pouty) were glossy and red. She leaned down and changed from her flat driving shoes into a pair of sparkly gold slingbacks before opening the car door and hopping on to the driveway. She was tugging her yellow and black striped dress into place when another car, driven far too fast, slid to a halt on the gravel beside her. The driver emerged and Colette opened her mouth, ready to complain about the dangers of speeding. But she didn’t. She looked at the driver in surprise.

‘Hello, Bernice,’ she said.

Chapter 10

Steffie had abandoned the veranda to sit in the shade of an apple tree. She adjusted the purple comb that was holding up her hair, and wriggled her toes in the slightly too long grass as she sipped the glass of cranberry juice she’d opted for in the place of more fizzy rosé. Leaning back against the tree trunk, she saw Roisin stalk out of the house and stand on the veranda overlooking the garden. She hoped she wasn’t looking for her to do anything. She was feeling nicely chilled from the rosé and not inclined to move from the shade. She wished that Roisin knew how to chill out too, but it was one skill she doubted her sister would ever possess.

If Steve had come to the party, they’d be having a laugh together now at Roisin’s unstoppable energy. Having a laugh was Steve’s speciality. He didn’t take life or himself too seriously. Which made it all the more irritating that he’d decided to be serious about work today. Or maybe it was just that coming to the party would have implied he was serious about her.

We’re not a serious couple, she reminded herself. We don’t want to be. But she couldn’t help thinking that right now she’d love to have someone in her life who’d turn up at a family event even if he didn’t want to, simply because he cared.

Her eyes flickered around the garden and rested on Jenny, who was in her bare feet, talking to one of the neighbours. She wondered if her mother had ever felt anxious about her relationship with Pascal, if there had been times when she’d felt that the balance of power between them was all wrong. There must have been bad days, Steffie acknowledged, but whatever they might have been, they overcame them. I bet she never kept checking her phone and wondering if Dad was going to call. Not that there were mobile phones back then, of course. But I bet Dad always called whenever he said he would.

They were lucky to have found each other, she thought, but it’s more than luck that’s kept them together for so long.

She found it hard to imagine herself living with someone for such a long time. She certainly couldn’t imagine spending forty years of her life with Steve. In fact, right now, she couldn’t even imagine spending another forty minutes with him. And what was the point of being with him at all, she wondered, if they were always going to be friends-with-benefits? Where was it leading?

Maybe I should follow Roisin’s advice and start looking for The One, she thought as she idly pulled the white petals from a daisy. Or maybe I should forget about men altogether and concentrate on my work instead. So that one day I’ll have a proper office in a proper office building. I might even have an assistant. And a receptionist! She thought of Liam Kinsella and how he had moved on from the overweight teenager into someone who had his very own restaurant. Not only that, she conceded, but those saturnine good looks, totally unexpected from the teenager he’d been, wouldn’t have gone amiss on a celebrity chef. She should tell Alivia about him. Her cousin could even interview him on her show and put Cody’s on the map.

‘I was just thinking about you,’ she said as Alivia herself flopped on to the grass beside her.

‘You were?’ Alivia ran her fingers through her dark hair and fixed her huge brown eyes on Steffie.

‘Don’t do that,’ said Steffie.

‘What?’

‘Put on your caring presenter look. The one you use when you’re doing one of your human interest sob stories.’

Alivia laughed. ‘It gets results.’

‘It creeps me out,’ said Steffie.

‘Not really?’ Alivia frowned. ‘It’s meant to be empathic.’

‘Yeah, but I know you,’ Steffie said. ‘I know it’s a TV thing.’

‘You wagon!’ Alivia made a face at her before dissolving into laughter. ‘I
am
empathic. Everyone says so.’

‘Of course you are.’

‘Really,’ she said. ‘I do honestly care about the guests. Not all of them, of course. Some are there for publicity and to flog whatever their latest thing is, but lots are good people. I want them to feel OK about being on the show and I want to highlight whatever their problem is.’

‘Well whatever you do, it’s working,’ said Steffie. ‘Your face has been all over the papers the last couple of weeks.’

‘Because the new season is starting,’ Alivia said. ‘I’m looking forward to it. Actually,’ she leaned closer, ‘I was thinking it would be really cool to do a piece about couples who’ve been together for a long time. I know forty years is pretty good, but I bet there are a fair few golden wedding anniversaries and more out there too.’

Steffie nodded her agreement.

‘But I could wangle your parents on as well,’ said Alivia. ‘Ask them the secret of their success.’

‘Gosh, that’d be fun.’ Steffie immediately forgot about Liam Kinsella and celebrity chefs. ‘Although Mum doesn’t really like a fuss, so she might not be too keen.’

‘She’s enjoying the fuss today,’ Alivia said.

‘Maybe,’ said Steffie. ‘Or maybe she’s making the best of it. Well, more than that, you’re right: with it being a fait accompli, she’s getting into it a bit more. But it’s not something she’d ever have thought of herself.’

‘I definitely think I’ll try to put that show together,’ said Alivia. ‘I bet I could persuade her to agree on the basis that it would be a serious programme about love and marriage. We could get a newly engaged couple on as well, see how long they think they’ll last.’

‘I’d imagine they’d be hoping for ever.’ Steffie grinned. ‘I don’t think anyone gets engaged thinking their marriage is only going to last a couple of years.’

‘You’re not thinking about it yourself by any chance, are you?’ asked Alivia. ‘It’d be supercool to have you and your mum and dad all on the same show.’

‘Not a chance,’ said Steffie. ‘I think I’ve just dumped my boyfriend.’

‘Steffie!’ Alivia looked around as though she might see the rejected man walking away.

‘I was thinking about where I am with him and stuff and … well … all of a sudden it didn’t seem as great as it had before.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘I asked him to come today and he ducked out of it. Not that I can totally blame him. Family things can be a nightmare for an outsider.’

‘Though not for Carl’s new girlfriend.’ Alivia grinned as she looked across the garden. Summer was standing beside Carl, her arm around his waist.

‘She’s something else, isn’t she?’ Steffie grinned. ‘And what’s he like with her? I mean, Liv, I know he’s not some middle-aged aul’ fella with a young wan on his arm, but really and truly, she’s nothing more than eye candy, is she? And I can’t help thinking he should have more sense. Poor Bernice, too. She’s a pet, and she thinks they’re on a break, not that he’s having his ego massaged by Lolita.’