That Gallagher Girl (15 page)

‘Hi, Catkin,' said Shane, sending her his great smile. ‘You're looking very fetching today. Meet Elena.'

‘Hello, Elena.'

Cat actually felt shy, greeting Elena, which was not an emotion she was familiar with. She hadn't felt shy when she'd met Finn's dad over the internet because he was only Finn's dad, even if he was a shit-hot Hollywood star. But meeting Elena Sweetman was a bit like meeting the Queen of Sheba, or Catwoman. Elena had been a legend forever: Cat even remembered going to see her films with her mother.

‘Hi, Cat.' Elena leaned a little closer, and looked straight into Cat's eyes. ‘Nice to meet you! You're the artist, right?'

The artist! Because Cat had never been called an artist before in her life, she wasn't sure whether to answer yes or no. But as she dithered, Finn answered for her. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘You got the JPEGs, Da?'

‘I did. Nice work, Cat,' said Shane. ‘Elena's a big fan.'

‘You mean, you like them?' Cat demanded.

‘I love them,' said Elena. ‘They brought me right back to that corner of Ireland. I made a film there once, near Lissamore.'

‘
The O'Hara Affair
?'

‘That's right.'

Ha!
The O'Hara Affair
just happened to be Oaf's favourite film, too! How Cat would love Oaf to see her now, talking on Skype to Hollywood royalty. A future scenario flashed across her mind's eye, of Cat sitting with Hugo and Oaf, and casually dropping Elena Sweetman's name into the conversation.
Elena's loving my new work! Elena and me
. . .
Elena says
. . .
My new best friend, Elena Sweetman
.
. .

‘I'd like to buy one of your paintings, Cat, if I may?' said Elena.

‘What?' answered Cat, rudely. ‘I'm sorry? I'm assuming they're for sale?'

‘Oh! Sure!' No shit! This was getting better and better! ‘Which one would you like?'

‘The one with the dolphins? Is that available?'

‘Yes.'

‘How much?'

‘A thousand.'

Beside her, Finn stifled a guffaw.

But Elena didn't bat one of her beautifully painted eyelids. ‘A thousand seems very reasonable. Consider it a done deal.'

‘Um . . . How will I get it to you?' asked Cat, thinking fast. She could hardly stick it in a loo-roll tube, the way she had with the painting she'd sold Izzy.

‘That won't be a problem,' said Elena. ‘Shane can pick it up for me when he's in Lissamore next.'

Dammit. That might not be for ages, thought Cat. And she could hardly ask Elena Sweetman to send her a cheque until after she'd received delivery of the goods. A cheque. She supposed that was how people paid for pricey stuff. Could she cash a cheque in the pub? That's what her father had always used to do before he got famous. Or would she have to open a bank account? No! Maybe she could ask Elena to give Shane cash to bring over with him? But that didn't look very professional, and Elena clearly thought she was dealing with a professional artist . . .

Hm. This was getting complicated, and Cat liked to keep things simple. She was on the verge of asking how long it would take for Meryl Streep's toe to get better when she remembered that all that stuff about Shane and Tilda Swinton and Meryl Streep making a film together called
The Corsican Brothers
had been made up to confound Izzy, and that Shane was actually ‘resting' between films right now. Maybe she could persuade him that a holiday in lovely Lissamore would be just the ticket?

‘Lissamore's looking lovely at the moment,' she began. ‘The . . . er, sun is shining and the sea is . . . um, blue and . . .'

But further cajolement was unnecessary because: ‘I'm glad to hear it,' said Shane. ‘I'll be over there next week.'

Beside her, Cat felt Finn stiffen. ‘You what?' he said.

‘I'm coming over to inspect my new property in person,' said Shane. ‘I'll pick up Elena's painting from Cat then.'

‘Cool. How . . . um, how long are you staying, Da?'

‘That depends,' replied Shane, ‘on how energetic I'm feeling. I might like to do some hands-on work myself on the joint. Or I might just like to take things easy for a while.'

‘Oh, fuck. What day are you arriving?' asked Finn.

‘Name a day,' said Shane. ‘Monday?' suggested Cat. ‘Monday it is.'

Cat couldn't help it. She started to laugh.

Instantly, Finn clicked on the picture of the little red telephone receiver, and that funny noise came through the speakers – that sound between a plop and a whoosh that told Cat the call had been terminated.

‘Why did you do that?' she scolded, turning to Finn.

‘Why do you think?' he said. ‘Why do you fucking
think
? The shit's just hit the fan.'

‘Yes! That's exactly what it sounds like!' said Cat, with a delighted smile.

‘What? What are you on about now?'

‘That noise the computer makes when you end a call. It's like shit hitting a fan.'

Hopping down from the table, she skipped over to the fridge. ‘Fancy another beer, Finnster? I'm having one, to celebrate. And no worries – I'll treat you to the next crate when we go to the supermarket to stock up. I'm a rich girl. A thousand! A
thousand
! I wonder, did she mean dollars or euros? Which is worth more, Finn? Finn?'

But Finn wasn't listening. When she set the can on the table he had that stupid staring-into-a-crystal-ball face on again. Except this time his expression was darker.

Pah! He was clearly going to be no fun for the rest of the evening. Plugging herself into his iPod and grabbing her beer, Cat shimmied up on to the roof to do some stargazing.

Chapter Ten

‘Look at this one! “The Lady Galadriel”. You could get married as an elf, Río!'

‘Or Queen Guinevere. It says you will be sure to feel like a graceful nymph as you walk and dance in this lovely design.'

‘Or Snow White. Get a load of that
gúna
!'

‘I told you gals – I'm getting married in my red dress.'

Dervla, Fleur and Río were sharing a bottle or three of wine (while the eminently portable Marguerite slept soundly in her Silver Cross Pop Vogue), browsing internet sites to do with Celtic weddings. Fleur had hit upon one specialising in outlandish fairytale wedding dresses that had her in fits of giggles. Río had come to realise that getting married barefoot on a beach wasn't going to be quite as straightforward or simple as she'd expected, and now Fleur and Dervla kept coming up with stuff to complicate matters even further.

‘What about music?' said Fleur.

‘Um. I guess I could ask Padraig Whelan to play his fiddle. ‘She Moves through the Fair', or somesuch,' Río said, off the top of her head. She hadn't given a single thought to what music should be played. ‘That song's all about a wedding, ain't it?'

‘It says here that you can do a dance after you make your vows, as a couple,' observed Dervla.

‘I'm not dancing with everyone looking on! I'd feel like a complete eejit.'

‘You could have Padraig play that Duran Duran song,' suggested Fleur. ‘That would be really appropriate, since you're getting married on a beach.'

Río shook her head. ‘I'm sick to death of that song.'

‘Have you booked O'Toole's yet?'

‘Yes.'

‘Ordered champagne?'

‘Yes.'

‘OK. So what else needs to be done?' said Dervla.

‘Um. The rings.'

‘Get them in that silversmith's in Galway. He does lovely Claddagh rings.'

‘You think I should go for a Claddagh?'

‘For sure. It's a Celtic ceremony.'

‘What's the symbolism behind a Claddagh ring?' asked Fleur.

‘Well, the heart is a symbol of love, of course,' explained Dervla, reaching for the wine bottle. ‘The hands on either side are for friendship, and the crown means loyalty and fidelity. And you have to wear it with the heart turned inward, because that means you've committed your lives to each other forever. It's more of a statement than your common or garden engagement or wedding ring, isn't it, Rí?'

There was something very significant about the way Dervla was looking at Río, and Río knew that she was making an oblique reference to the engagement ring that Shane had given her once, a solitaire diamond she'd never got round to returning. Río tried to ignore her sister, and returned her attention to the screen, where a woman was pictured modelling a hideous confection of nylon lace.

‘More romantic, too, to have a Claddagh ring!' said Fleur. ‘Remember, you'll have to get a cake, Río. They can be really expensive – someone I know paid five hundred euro for her wedding cake.'

‘What? Was it coated in gold leaf, or something? I'll bake my own cake.'

‘Will you have time? You'll want to get your hair done, and your nails – and a facial, of course. Oh, listen to this: “If the bride's mother-in-law breaks a piece of cake on the bride's head as she enters the house after the ceremony, they will be friends for life.”'

‘If anyone broke a piece of cake on my head after I'd forked out a fortune on my hair, I'd hit them a dig,' said Río. ‘Anyway, I'm not going to be entering a house. I'm going to be entering a mobile home. Or a leisure lodge. Or whatever it calls itself.

‘Will Adair carry you over the threshold?' asked Dervla.

Río gave her an ‘as if' look. ‘He'd need to embark on a serious weight-training programme if he was going to do that.'

‘D'you remember our childhood dreams, Río?' said Dervla. ‘About the kind of houses we were going to live in?'

‘Tell me,' said Fleur, refilling their glasses.

‘Well, I was going to live in a Great House, and Río was going to live in a cottage by the sea. Coral Cottage was her dream house, before the Bolgers knocked it down and turned it into Coral Mansion.'

‘It was the prettiest place then, Fleur,' said Río. ‘You wouldn't have known it, the way it was when we were kids. Mama used to take us to visit the old woman who lived there, to buy free-range eggs. And Dervla and I used to have picnics in the orchard – squashed tomato sandwiches and MiWadi, Dervla, do you remember? And we used to do balancing tricks on the sea wall, and pretend we were circus acrobats, and lie under the trees and dream about the men we were going to marry, and the babies we were going to have. You married your dream man, Dervla.'

‘Yeah. But you got the baby.'

Río smiled. ‘It's funny to think that Finn was ever a baby.'

‘Wasn't he conceived in that orchard?' asked Fleur.

‘Yes. In the garden of my erstwhile dream cottage.'

Oh! To have a little house!
The lines of the Padraic Colum poem that she'd learned at school came back to Río:

It had been her favourite poem, so simple, and yet so full of yearning. And it was true that that was all Río had ever wanted from life. A little house of her own, and a plot of land to tend as a garden.

There was a silence, as they all reflected on their past, and then Dervla hauled them back to the present.

‘What are you going to do about this place?' she asked Río. ‘Let it?'

‘This place?' Río looked around at her apartment, her lovely little eyrie above the harbour that had been gifted to her by her sister after their father had died, having left Dervla the bulk of his estate. ‘No. I'm going to need it as a bolthole. I'll want somewhere to escape to from time to time as long as we're living in the Bentley. I won't be able to paint there.'

‘What about when you do up the cottage?'

‘There's an outhouse I could convert into a studio. But it would break my heart to leave here.'

Río's eyes went to the embroidered sampler that Dervla had given her when she'd first moved in, the one worked in French knots and featherstitch and herringbone that bore the motto ‘Home is where the Heart is'. Something told her that she wouldn't be bringing it with her when she moved into the Bentley.

Since she'd agreed to marry Adair, and since she'd found out that Shane was coming back to live in Lissamore, Río had felt as if she were going through an out-of-body experience. She'd spent an hour after Finn had left her last night sitting in front of an enormous glass of wine, staring at the palms of her hands. Her life line, her heart line, her head line . . . Had she allowed her heart to rule her head, or vice versa? She hadn't a clue. Nothing made sense any more. And then she'd retrieved the diamond ring that Shane had given her when he'd asked her to marry him once upon a time, and slid it on to her finger. It was worth a lot of money. Río had had a notion, once, that she might sell it to help set Finn up in business; but then plans had changed, as they had a habit of doing, and she hadn't had to sell it after all. She'd have to give it back to Shane ASAP. She couldn't keep his ring, now that she'd promised to marry Adair.

Shane coming back was a disaster of the highest order. Dervla had been right when she'd said that Río and Shane were made for each other. She'd also been right when she'd said that Río had never faced up to it. Right until now, she hadn't. While Shane was on the other side of the Atlantic, any kind of rekindling of their relationship had been out of the question. Out of sight, out of mind had been the principle that informed their
modus vivendi
. And now he'd be within a stone's throw of where she was to live with her new husband.

How she'd love to throw, hurl, pelt and sling stones at Shane – thousands of them. How she'd love to send all the pebbles on the beach raining down upon the one-time love of her life. Why –
why
– hadn't he told her himself that he'd bought Coral Mansion? If she had been in possession of this know ledge a week ago, would she now be contemplating marriage to Adair Bolger? Oh, God . . . it was a head wreck of a situation, a cat's cradle of a conundrum, a complete fucking
bitch
– and she could confide in no one. Not even Dervla was in a position to advise her now.

What would she say, anyway, if she were to seek advice? I'm marrying a man I cannot claim to love with my entire heart and soul, and the reason I'm marrying him is because he's dying. And now the man I do love with my entire heart and soul, the man whom I have always loved, and who is the father of my child, is coming back to Ireland, and what can I tell him? Should I come clean and reveal to him that the real reason I'm getting married to someone else is because my husband-to-be has terminal cancer, and – hey – if we can just hang on for a year, he'll more than likely be dead and I'll be a free woman again? Chill, Shane – it's just a year! Oh, it was unthinkable.
Unthinkable!

And now Fleur was saying something about buying ribbons for the handfasting, whatever that was, and Dervla was looking on her phone for the number of a florist in Galway, and Río just felt like running away and diving into the sea and swimming off to an island where she could live on her own for the rest of her life like W.B. Yeats on his Lake Isle of Innisfree.

Her despondency must have registered on her face, because, ‘Have some more wine,' said Dervla, giving her a sympathetic look. ‘And tell us, where is Adair taking you on your honeymoon? Somewhere
uber
-luxurious? Or is it a surprise?'

Río shrugged. ‘It's a surprise. And I doubt he can afford anywhere
uber
-luxurious now.'

‘Are you sure about wearing that red dress, Río?' said Fleur, typing ‘wedding cake recipes' into the search engine bar. ‘I have the loveliest little eau-de-nil number in stock.'

Río shook her head. ‘No. It's unlucky for a bride to wear green.'

‘What'll you do about the old, new, borrowed, blue thing?'

‘Well, my red dress is old. Maybe I'll get myself some new blue underwear. And you might lend me one of your pashminas, Fleur? I know you've got about a zillion of them.'

‘My pleasure!' Fleur raised her wineglass at Río. ‘A wedding! What fun! I haven't been to a wedding in ages. It's a pity Marguerite isn't old enough to be a flower girl. Can Dervla and me be official matrons of honour?'

‘Sure. What do matrons of honour do, exactly?'

‘Get drunk and flirt with the best man. Who's going to be Adair's best man?'

‘I don't think he has one.'

‘Thanks be to Jaysus,' said Dervla. ‘No boring best man speeches.'

‘But Finn is giving you away,' Fleur pointed out. ‘So he'll presumably make a speech.'

‘I guess so. Poor Finn. He hates public speaking. He didn't inherit the show-off gene from his dad.'

At the mention of the words ‘his dad', a silence fell. Shane was suddenly the elephant in the room.

‘Is . . . um . . . is Shane coming?' said Fleur, finally.

‘No. I haven't told him.'

‘You haven't told him you're getting married, Río?' Fleur looked aghast. ‘Why not?'

‘It's none of his business.'

‘But . . . don't you think he has a right to know?'

‘No,' said Río categorically. ‘He forfeited any rights to be involved in the complexities of my life when he fucked off to LA and left me holding the baby.'

‘But that was more than two decades ago, Río!' Fleur looked bewildered, now. ‘You're not still angry with him over that – didn't the pair of you get over all that shite yonks ago? You're best friends, still. And look at the fantastic son you reared. Shane's been a brilliant father, even if he was an absentee one. He's entitled, surely, to be involved in—'

‘Oh, look!' said Dervla, deftly changing the subject. ‘It says here that in the olden days, couples ate salt and oatmeal at the beginning of their wedding party as a protection against the power of the evil eye.'

Río sent her sister a grateful look for her intervention. She really, really didn't want to talk about Shane any more. She didn't even want to think about him until after Tuesday, when she would be bound irrevocably in matrimony to Adair Bolger.

She remembered the way Dervla had looked at her when she'd told Fleur about the symbolism surrounding the Claddagh ring.
You have to wear it with the heart turned inward, because that means you've committed your lives to each other forever
. . .

But Adair didn't have forever. He only had a year. Just under a week ago, Río had thought a year such a small sacrifice to make for the sake of his happiness. Now the lyrics of that lovely ballad that had won the Eurovision way back kept coming into her head . . .
What's another year, for someone who's lost everything that he owns?
For Adair, who had lost everything, another year
was
everything now. Another year would not just be a gift, it would be the most significant twelve months of his life, twelve months to be crammed brimful with living, twelve months in which he deserved to be made truly happy. That knowledge was what she had to stay focused on.

‘Salt and oatmeal?' she managed brightly. ‘I wonder might O'Toole's rustle up some salt and oatmeal
amuse-bouches
. Which reminds me – I'd better get back on to them. They need to know how many guests we're having.'

‘How many are coming?'

‘As many as they can fit. We've decided to take the entire restaurant. The whole village is invited.'

‘Good for you!' said Fleur. ‘Way to go, Río!'