Stand by Me (23 page)
‘Anyway, now that you and Greg have the knack, maybe there’ll be more little Delahayes in the future,’ said June brightly to Emma, who glanced at Dominique.
‘Oh, I dunno,’ she said. ‘Might take a leaf out of Domino’s book and stop after one. It’s better for the figure, don’t you think?’
June looked appalled and Dominique stifled a giggle. Maybe June’s right about some things, she thought. I can be very silly sometimes!
Brendan decided that they should stay in Cork for a few days. He wanted to look at a couple of sites and maybe have some discussions with the sellers.
As Kelly was on a mid-term break, Dominique didn’t mind. She enjoyed being in Lily’s house, where the atmosphere was always warm, welcoming and relaxing. Kelly loved staying with her granny and grandad too, because they indulged her endlessly and nobody ever told them to stop.
Dominique wanted to see Emma again before they headed off, so she dropped by on Saturday morning while Brendan, Kelly and Roy - the youngest Delahaye, who worked on one of the ferries but was at home on leave - went down to the port to watch the boats.
‘We’ll go to Carrigaline for lunch,’ Brendan told her. ‘If you want to meet us there, that’d be good.’
‘Will do. Enjoy yourselves.’
She knew they would. Both her husband and her daughter loved being out in the open air, and there were plenty of nice walks around the town they could do together. Meanwhile she borrowed Lily’s car and drove to Emma’s house. Every time she came here, she wondered whether she and Brendan were off their heads living in Dublin when there was so much more space outside the capital.
Greg answered the door. He looked tired, and he hadn’t shaved, but he smiled when he saw her.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘If you’re looking for Emma, she’s not here. She had to take her dad to the doctor.’
‘Is everything all right?’
Greg nodded. ‘To be honest, he’s just fretting at the moment. He panics every time he coughs or sneezes in case it’s something terminal, and then he frets about giving it to the baby.’
‘Poor Norman.’
‘Ah, hopefully he’ll get over it. Both the hypochondria and Maura’s death. Are you coming in?’ Greg added.
‘Will she be long, d’you think?’
‘God knows.’ Greg shrugged. ‘You know what those Saturday-morning clinics are like. Why don’t you stay for a while anyhow?’
‘If I’m not interrupting you ...’
‘Not at all. I was just reading the paper and looking at my son every two minutes.’
Dominique laughed and followed him through the house to the sunny conservatory at the back. Lugh was in his pram in a shaded corner.
‘Would you like some tea?’ asked Greg. ‘Or something stronger?’
Dominique looked at him in amusement. ‘It’s only eleven thirty,’ she said. ‘I haven’t turned into one of those suburban housewives who down secret glasses of wine in the mornings. A glass of mineral water would be fine.’
She looked into the pram, where Lugh was sleeping happily, and then sank into one of the cushioned chairs. Emma’s fashion sense, which worked so well in her clothes, was evident in the conservatory too. The fabrics were modern and bright, and instead of busy lizzies and geraniums, the mainstay of most conservatories, Emma had orchids and birds of paradise. It was also very neat. Dominique’s own conservatory (added on by Brendan a few years previously) was part reading den, part playhouse and part office. It was impossible to sit down anywhere without moving a pile of papers, toys or the occasional hobnailed boot first.
‘How’s fatherhood?’ she asked Greg when he returned with her water.
‘It’s good,’ said Greg.
‘Is that all?’ Dominique’s eyes danced. ‘You look knackered. Is it harder than you thought?’
‘No. No, Lugh’s an absolute dote,’ said Greg quickly. ‘I never realised before how deeply you could feel about a child.’
Dominique nodded. ‘Thanks to you, I feel the same about Kelly.’
‘You would’ve come round eventually,’ said Greg.
‘Perhaps.’
‘This is my first time alone with him,’ Greg told her. ‘I was a bit worried, but actually he’s grand, just sleeping away there and not a bother on him.’
‘Of course he is,’ said Dominique cheerfully. ‘Takes after his father. And you can see he’s a Delahaye through and through.’
‘Yeah, thanks.’
Dominique shot Greg a puzzled glance. She would have thought that he’d be more excited about the birth of his first child, but there was a strained air about him. As though he was holding something back from her. But they never kept things from each other.
‘Will I get you another?’ he asked as she finished her water.
‘Actually, I’ll take you up on the offer of tea.’
‘OK,’ said Greg. ‘Won’t be a minute.’
He disappeared, and Dominique walked over to the pram, and peered in. Lugh continued to sleep, his hands curled into two little fists beside his face. You couldn’t help staring at babies, she thought. But even Greg’s son, smelling of milk and baby powder, didn’t make her feel like she wanted to go through it again. Perhaps, she thought, Lugh might go into the development business with Brendan. It could be Delahaye and Nephew instead of Delahaye and Son. Unless Kelly decided that she wanted a life of hard hats and boots. It was always possible.
She left the sleeping baby and sat down on one of the comfortable chairs just as Greg returned with the tea.
‘Thanks.’ She took the cup from him, stretched her legs out in front of her and rotated her ankle.
‘Nice shoes,’ he said as he noticed the soft pink leather and silver buckle of her stilettos.
‘Stupid shoes,’ she told him. ‘I bought them on a whim and now I feel obliged to wear them. But the heels are too high. Emma would be able to wear them a lot more easily than me.’
‘She’s good with high heels all right,’ said Greg blankly.
‘An ability to carry off difficult footwear is a great reason to marry a woman,’ Dominique joked.
‘Why d’you think she married me?’
The question hung between them for a few seconds, during which Dominique wondered what answer he wanted her to give.
‘Because she loves you?’
‘Does she ever talk about me?’ he asked.
‘What sort of question is that?’ Dominique frowned and then shrugged. ‘I guess girls always talk about the men in their lives. I talk about Brendan. Emma talks about you.’ But not much, she realised. I don’t talk about Brendan much and she doesn’t really talk about Greg that much either. We don’t share things. We don’t moan about them. We tell each other that they work hard and that they’re decent men. But we don’t gossip. We keep it to ourselves.
What does Emma keep to herself? wondered Dominique. And what, when it comes down to it, do I?
‘She never says terrible things about you,’ she added lightly. ‘In fact she usually comments on your good looks and manly charm and rabbits on about what a great husband you are.’
Greg said nothing.
‘Is everything OK?’ asked Dominique.
‘Of course it is.’ He shrugged and then smiled at her, and quite suddenly it was as though the cloud over him had lifted, and they chatted easily about babies and childcare and there were no undercurrents or tensions in his voice at all.
Dominique stayed for an hour, but there was no sign of Emma returning. And so, because she was meeting Brendan and Kelly for lunch, she had to leave.
Greg walked with her as far as the front gate, Lugh in his arms.
‘You make a lovely daddy,’ she said teasingly.
‘Thanks.’
‘Tell Emma I’ll see her again before we head back.’
‘Sure.’
She kissed Lugh on the forehead and smiled at Greg, who kissed her too, on the cheek, as he always did when they said goodbye. Dominique kissed him in return and then hurried to the car, because she didn’t want to be late for lunch and she knew that Brendan and Kelly would be waiting impatiently for her. She put the car in gear and drove away from the house. In her rear-view mirror she could see Greg with Lugh in his arms, still standing at the gate, watching after her.
After lunch in Carrigaline town, Brendan, Dominique and Kelly returned to Castlecannon and sat on a low, crumbling wall overlooking the silver-grey sea, eating Cornettos. When Kelly got up to skim stones across the surface of the water, Brendan asked Dominique if she didn’t think that this was the most glorious place in the world. She nodded, and then said but maybe not so glorious if he was thinking of building houses all over it.
‘Not houses,’ he said. ‘That’s not what the site I’m interested in is about. It’s a business park.’
‘Here!’ She looked horrified.
‘No. Further inland. A great opportunity to work with local developers. A few of them have approached me already.’
‘Don’t you think you’ve got an awful lot on your plate?’ she said. ‘Houses, hotels, apartments, business parks ...’
‘The company is getting bigger,’ he said. ‘We need a prestigious headquarters. I want that to be here.’
‘In Castlecannon?’ Her voice was a squeak.
‘Well, the business park wouldn’t be here, I can’t get the land. The best site is near Ringaskiddy.’
‘And what about . . . We live in Dublin, Brendan. How can you have a headquarters here?’
‘I want to put money back into this area,’ he said. ‘So we’re going to move here, Domino.’
She stared at him. ‘When?’
‘In a year or so. When I have the house built.’
‘What house?’
‘There’s another site.’ He looked at her with excitement in his eyes. ‘Overlooking the bay. It’ll be fantastic.’
She looked at him hesitantly.
‘You want to move everything down here?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about Kelly? And school?’
‘For God’s sake, Domino. There are schools outside Dublin, you know.’
‘Of course I know that,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s just a big decision. And you seem to have made it without talking to me.’
‘It’s my job to make the big decisions, and I’m talking to you about it now,’ he told her.
She said nothing.
‘I’m doing what’s best for us as a family.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes. And you’ll be living a few miles from Emma. She’s your best friend, isn’t she? What more do you want?’
‘
You’re
my best friend,’ she said. ‘All I want is to be with you. To be a family and to be happy.’
You’re
my best friend,’ she said. ‘All I want is to be with you. To be a family and to be happy.’
‘I know.’ He smiled too. ‘You’re very easy to please, Domino.’
‘Too easy?’ she asked.
‘Sometimes. But this is the right move for us.’
She nodded. ‘I can see that. I just needed a minute or two to think it through.’
Brendan was right about moving to Cork, she realised. There was nothing to keep them in Dublin, and being in Cork would mean being closer to the Delahayes and to people who cared about her. There was nobody in Dublin who mattered to her in the same way as the Delahayes did. There never would be.
Chapter 12
Once the decision to move to Cork was made, Dominique was impatient for things to progress. She’d thought it would be quick, but there was a lengthy planning process to go through before the building could actually start. There was also the issue of who was going to do the building. She’d assumed that Brendan would build the house himself, but she quickly realised that she was being silly and that he would contract out the work. He was far too busy being the managing director of Delahaye Developments to actually lay bricks any more.
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