That Gallagher Girl (16 page)

‘Yeah,' said Río. ‘We just reckoned – well, you know – the more the merrier.'

The More the Merrier. Keep Right on to the End of the Road. Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag. You'll Never Walk Alone
. . . There surely was comfort to be had in squeezing the life out of those old clichés.

Some time later, Marguerite having awoken and become fractious, Fleur decided it was time to take her home.

‘Bed and bath time for you,
bébé
,' she said, draining her wineglass and swinging her daughter onto her hip. ‘Home again, home again, jiggedy jig.'

‘Oh! Can I do it?' asked Dervla. ‘Put Marguerite to bed?
And
give her a bath?'

‘Yes. You stay here and have another glass of wine, and I'll do the needful. I'd love to!'

Fleur looked uncertain. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Sure I'm sure. It gives me enormous pleasure watching your baby splashing around and playing with her rubber duckies. Beats watching my old dears being given a blanket bath any day.'

‘That's damn decent of you, Dervla. I must say I'd love another glass of wine. Let's see . . . You know where everything is? All her changing stuff is in the bag –' Fleur indicated the changing bag on the floor bursting with baby paraphernalia ‘– and you'll find a clean Babygro in the chest of drawers.
Kiki à la Mer
is her current favourite bedtime story, but have a root around in her toybox for something in English.'

‘
Ulysses
?'

‘We've done that already.'

‘It'll have to be
Finnegan's Wake
, so.'

‘That should have the desired soporific effect.
À la Recherche du Temps Perdu
worked wonders.'

Fleur busied herself with the bundle that was Marguerite, manoeuvring her flailing arms into a pompommed matinée jacket (courtesy of Osh Kosh) before tucking her under a harlequin-patterned quilt (Babylicious), and fitting on Calvin Klein bootees. Then she did a checklist of the contents of the Baby Vuitton changing bag – ‘Wipes, Sudocrem, mug, rusks, nappies . . . Oh! Where's her soother?!' – until Dervla grabbed the bag and said, ‘Relax, Fleur! Trust me: I'll manage.'

‘All right. Any problems, just phone. And I know that blanket she sleeps with is minging, Dervla, but unfortunately she's got to have it. Any time I wash it she throws a tantrum – like she's a master parfumier and I've contaminated her signature scent. You know where the steriliser is, don't you? There are spare soothers in there – and remember to wash your hands before you fish one out. And dry them on kitchen paper. What else? Her favourite lullaby CD is in the player, and . . .'

Río stopped listening as Fleur followed Dervla through the door of the flat and hung over the banister, issuing further orders as Dervla descended the stairs with Marguerite and all her designer baby accoutrements. What a fusspot she was! It made Río smile when she remembered how different things had been for her when Finn had been a baby and they'd lived in that squat in Galway. She'd never had to bother with sterilisers because she'd breastfed Finn for the first year of his life. His clothes had been cast-offs donated by other mothers, or charity shop purchases, or quirky little garments knitted and crocheted by friends. He'd never had a soother, and his bedtime stories had been improvised by Shane or whichever of their actor or musician friends happened to be around at bedtime. More often than not, Finn had fallen asleep in a fuggy pub, passed from one pair of arms to the next, lulled to sleep by traditional Irish music and the raucous voice of the barman crying, ‘Time, gentlemen,
plis
! Have yis no homes to go to?'

A wave of nostalgia washed over her. Moving to her bureau, Río pulled open the drawer where she kept her memorabilia, and took out a bulging manila envelope. Then she went back to the couch and curled her feet up beneath her before upending the contents of the envelope on to the coffee table. Photographs spilled everywhere.

The more dog-eared were of Dervla and Río as children, and as teenagers. To look at them, you wouldn't think they were sisters. Río was all freckles and red-gold hair, Dervla was sallow and dark, with Giaconda eyes. Some of the photographs featured their parents – holidays in Kerry and Sligo, a trip to the zoo in Dublin, the St Patrick's Day parade in Galway – but most of the photographs were of the sisters together, presenting a united front against the world, arms linked and fingers entwined.

There were, unsurprisingly, very few of them together as adults, since Dervla and Río had been estranged for most of their adult life. The most recent one – cut from a local newspaper – showed them at the opening of Dervla's upmarket retirement home. And there was a picture of Shane – the devil who had been responsible for their estrangement. No wonder both girls had fallen for him! Río had forgotten what killer looks he'd had back then when, with breathtaking insouciance, he'd broken the heart of one sister and made a baby with the other. Finn was the image of him: father and son had the same wicked green eyes, the same unkempt dark hair, the same sculpted bone structure, the same Michelangelo mouth. They shared identical laughs, an identical rangy, loose-limbed demeanour and the same dangerous devil-may-care attitude – like modern-day gun-slingers, Río thought.

‘Is that Shane?' said Fleur, dropping back on to the couch beside her. ‘Or Finn?'

‘It's hard to tell, isn't it?' said Río with a smile, sliding another photograph in Fleur's direction. ‘That's actually Shane – taken around the same age Finn is now. And look – here's you.'

‘Oh, my God!' exclaimed Fleur, affecting a nauseous expression. ‘What was I
wearing
?'

‘Vintage Balenciaga, probably.'

‘No,' said Fleur, tossing the photograph aside. ‘It's Dior. I found it in that stuff we got at the house auction, d'you remember? Lord somebody-or-other was getting rid of his ex-wife's wardrobe, and we were in like Flint when we heard.'

‘I remember. That was the first time we turned a profit.' They'd opened a bottle of Asti Spumante to celebrate, Río remembered, sitting on the floor of the old grocer's shop they'd converted into a vintage clothing store. Río had painted trompe l'oeil French café scenes on the walls, and Fleur had improvised changing cubicles from cuts of timber retrieved from a skip, draped with yards and yards of World War II parachute silk.

‘And look!' said Fleur. ‘Here I am in one of Philip's very first hats. How amazing to think he's designing for royalty now.'

‘And how amazing to think that you are now the owner of one of the chicest boutiques in Coolnamara,' said Río.

‘The
only
boutique in Coolnamara,' Fleur corrected her. ‘Anais had to shut her place last week. That's three retailers gone in the last nine months. Nobody can afford to stay afloat.'

‘What about you?' asked Río. ‘How are you coping?'

‘I'm lucky,' said Fleur. ‘I have a little private income from my investments –
merci, merci sacrés Maman et Papa, pour la bénédiction!
But if it hadn't been for my inheritance I'd be in trouble. Right now, it's costing me to keep the shop up and running.'

‘Is it worth it?'

‘Oh, yes! It would break my heart to close up. Apart from Marguerite, that shop is my
raison d'être
. More wine, please, Río.' Fleur held out her glass. ‘Thank you. How lovely for a gal to be able to indulge when a pal like Dervla volunteers to oversee baby beddy-byes. How's her business doing, by the way? I meant to ask earlier, but all those horrific wedding sites distracted me.'

‘She's doing all right. Retirement homes must be cleaning up, now that we're all living longer. And she's cornered the grey vote, of course. I'm guessing she'll be running for Taoiseach next.'

‘I'd love to be like Dervla when I grow up.'

‘I don't know about that. She's so run off her feet we rarely get time to talk these days. I'm glad I have you to advise me on . . . stuff.'

Río remembered that she didn't want Fleur's advice on her forthcoming marriage, that she'd suspected it might make for uncomfortable listening. No. There must be no reminders of
temps perdu
, no recriminations and no room for regret. Río had made her proverbial bed, and she was going to make damn sure that – for as long as she had to lie in it – it would be as comfortable as possible. Anyway, what woman wouldn't envy her? Her husband-to-be was a gift – good looking, generous and dead set on making her happy.

‘I'm not so sure that a woman who has embarked upon motherhood without even an absentee father for support is grown-up enough to offer advice to anyone,' said Fleur, looking thoughtful. ‘That divine zipless fuck was probably the most irresponsible thing I've ever done.'

‘I managed.'

‘Ah, but you had Shane. He might have been absentee, but he was always there for you. Every woman should have a Shane in their lives.' Río felt her heart do a tumble-turn. Her eyes skimmed away from Fleur's, and then both women looked abruptly back down at the photographs. ‘Or an Adair!' added Fleur, brightly.

Río stapled on a smile, and changed the subject. ‘Look at you! You're like Dorian Gray, Fleur – forever young. You've hardly changed since that photograph was taken.'

Fleur wrinkled her nose. ‘I guess I've my mother to thank for those genes. Her and Eve Lom.'

‘Who's Eve Lom?'

‘A doyenne of skincare.'

‘Expensive?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'll stick to Simple, so. But French women do say that an occasional glass of wine is as good as a spa treatment.'

‘I'll drink to that,' said Fleur, raising her glass.

Río refilled her own glass, then continued rummaging through the photographs. It was funny, she thought, that there were so many of Shane, and so few of Adair. In fact, she realised that the only photographs she had of Adair were on the hard drive of her computer. The one that she especially loved had been taken at the party he had thrown for her in Coral Mansion some years earlier, when they'd embarked upon their short-lived affair. Adair had been laughing to camera, his arm slung around her. He had then been at the height of his career, having just wrapped up some property deal in London's Knightsbridge – an audacious pincer movement that had had his name trumpeted by Forbes. Río remembered that in those days he had exuded almost palpable wealth and power. She knew that most women found that irresistible in a man, but dirty sexy money had never done it for Río. If it had, she would have married Shane yonks ago and moved to LA.

Oh, stop it, stupid girl! Stop thinking about Shane! To distract herself, she grabbed another photograph from the pile – one of Finn this time.

‘Ooh!' said Fleur. ‘Look at your gorgeous boy! I saw him in Ryan's last week, with a stunning dark girl.'

‘That must have been Cat. I haven't met her yet. What does she look like?'

‘
Jolie-laide
, I guess, would be the way to describe her.'

‘
Jolie
what?'

‘It's a French term – it means pretty, in an unusual way. She has Armada eyes.'

‘Armada eyes? Like a pirate?'

‘Yes. You Irish would call them “bold” eyes. Are she and Finn an item?'

‘I don't know. Twenty-something boys don't tend to talk to their mothers about their love lives.'

‘But he and Izzy are history now, are they?'

‘Yeah.'

Fleur set her glass down. ‘Río? Do you mind if I ask you something . . . personal?'

‘Shoot.'

‘Do you love Adair? I mean, do you love him the way you loved Shane?'

Río didn't need to think about it. ‘No,' she said. ‘Of course I don't. Shane was white heat. Adair and I are more . . . I dunno. Glowing embers, I guess. It's a cosy thing, like wearing comfortable shoes. The kind of love you'd never read about in a romance novel, but that you appreciate when you stop believing in the Mills & Boon myth.'

‘When you grow up, you mean? Like Dervla?'

‘I guess.'

Fleur looked down at Río's bare feet, and then at her own Blahnik-shod ones. ‘Comfortable shoes?' she mused. ‘Seems like a contradiction in terms, somehow.'

Chapter Eleven

Cat was enjoying a Guinness in O'Toole's when she saw Río Kinsella walk past the window. For a bride to be, she looked pretty grim. Cat couldn't understand why Río was marrying this bankrupt Bolger geezer when she could have married a Hollywood hotshot who was mad about her. Shane had proposed loads of times, according to Finn. Maybe Río felt sorry for Adair, and was marrying him out of pity? Somebody in the pub earlier had been talking to the barman about an article in today's
Sunday Insignia
about how loads of the top bankers and developers who had once been Celtic Tigers couldn't even find anyone to play golf with any more because they'd been abandoned by all their former friends and nobody wanted to know them, let alone be seen playing golf with them. And the barman had said that it was a bit rough on Adair because he was a decent skin at heart, and wasn't it grand that he had decided to stay on in Coolnamara and was even marrying a local gir1 – not like some of those shysters who had all sold up their country cottages and buggered off to Spain instead of weathering the storm and contributing to the ailing economy.

And the geezer at the bar had said, ‘Bad cess to the lot of them! And isn't it the fault of that shower of shites up in Daíl Éireann? This government has . . .'

And then Cat had zoned out for a bit because talk about the economy and the government bored her senseless, and she fixed her attention instead on the stuffed fish in the glass cases that were displayed on the walls of the pub, wondering who had ever thought it a good idea to stuff a fish in the first place instead of eating it. The next thing she knew, Río and that French woman who ran the posh boutique had come into the pub and made themselves comfortable in the corner. Now might be a good time to introduce herself to Río, Cat thought, especially since she was going to her wedding tomorrow – but then she heard Río say, ‘How did Elena find out?' and her ears pricked up.

‘Twitter.'

‘Twitter! So Shane knows now.'

‘Yes. Once something's tweeted, everybody in the world knows your business.'

Río gave a heavy sigh. ‘I should have known I couldn't keep it quiet for long. When's he due?'

‘She didn't say.'

‘Did you actually talk to her?'

‘No. We had a confab on Facebook.'

‘Oh? How long have you and Elena been Facebook friends?'

‘Since
The O'Hara Affair
wrapped. Don't you keep in touch with her?'

‘I don't do Facebook much.'

Facebook! Cat narrowed her eyes speculatively. Now there was a thought! Maybe Finn could do a Facebook page for her artwork. Hm. She'd have to find out more about Twitter, too. She'd ask him this evening all about social networking – and she could tell him then too that he wouldn't have to bite the bullet and Skype his dad about Río's wedding, since Shane already knew. Cat was just about to get up and go over to Río to say hello when she heard the French woman say ‘That journalist is in town. You know, the one who does the interviews in the
Insignia
? She did a piece on that actress in today's edition – Ophelia Gallagher.'

‘The one who's married to the painter?'

‘Yes. Apparently she's signed a book deal.'

‘The journalist has?'

‘No. Ophelia Gallagher. She's . . .'

Cat didn't want to hear about Oaf. She drained her Guinness and left the pub, noticing as she crossed the road to the sea wall that there was a lovely display of hydrangeas growing on the little triangle of grass that locals liked to call the village green. Cat had been wondering what she could get Río as a wedding present. Mauve and white hydrangeas would be perfect, she thought, perching herself on the sea wall where she could check out the boats bobbing about in the harbour.

There was one she hadn't noticed before. Moored next to an ostentatious motor launch, looking as though it were cocking a snook, was a pretty little yacht. And cock a snook it should. To sail a boat like that would be much more fun than ploughing through the sea propelled by horsepower on a so-called pleasure craft, Cat thought, craning forward to see if she could make out the names painted on the hulls. She couldn't discern the name of the yacht, but the pleasure boat was called the
Sting Ray
.

A bloke on board was posing for her delectation in cargo pants and sunglasses and nothing else. He was well fit, but Cat didn't like that bronzed, gym-toned look; it spoke of trying too hard. She liked the way Finn looked – muscular without the body-sculpture thing going on, and tanned by exposure to sun and sea rather than a sun booth or chemicals. She knew he'd seen her looking the other day when he'd stripped off his T-shirt; but then, she'd seen him looking that same afternoon when she'd undone her overalls and tied the arms around her waist in an attempt to cool off. The T-shirt she had been wearing underneath was one that she'd stolen from Oaf, and was two sizes too small. Since then, they'd both stayed covered up, and last night when Finn had accidentally made contact with her hand on reaching for the corkscrew, he'd reacted as if he'd been burnt, and said, ‘Oh – sorry, Cat.'

She knew what that meant. They both did.

Cat smiled, and swung her legs off the wall. Maybe it was time to treat herself to something new to wear for Finn's ma's forthcoming wedding.

After a weekend spent writing up her next ‘Epiphany', Keeley was out power-walking through the dunes by Coolnamara Strand. She'd got into an exercise routine since settling in Lissamore: sometimes the bog road beckoned, sometimes the beach. The Coolnamara air was so heady that it put a spring in her step, and while the fine weather lasted she was determined to make the most of it, working off calories that in Dublin would be burned on her cross-trainer in front of Sky News. Today she'd spent the morning spring-cleaning her cottage and now she needed to blow away the cobwebs in her head.

She'd delivered her piece on Ophelia Gallagher (it had appeared in yesterday's
Insignia
), and conducted an interview with an ageing rock god via an intermittent Skype connection, and now she was casting around for another subject. There were lots of potential candidates living in the Lissamore region: artists and writers and musicians tended to gravitate towards Coolnamara, presumably for the inspiration it afforded them.

The village itself was full of intriguing individuals. There was Fleur, the French woman who owned the gorgeous boutique on the main street, and who was the mother of a small baby – rather surprisingly, given her fairly advanced age. There was Dervla Vaughan, who was running as an independent in the forthcoming elections, and who was garnering support from older voters on account of her pro active stance on the ageing demographic. There was Dervla's sister Río, whose son was the love child of the actor Shane Byrne, now a major player in Hollywood. A rumour was circulating that he had bought a house in the area, and Keeley was keeping her fingers crossed that he might move in soon. Shane Byrne would make a great interview: if she could persuade him to talk to her, her swan song for the
Insignia
would be unforgettable.

Just one more ‘Epiphany' to nail, and then Keeley would join the ranks of the unemployed. She wondered now if she hadn't been a bit hasty in her decision to quit the paper and go freelance. She'd spoken to a journalist friend on the phone last night, and he'd told her that his commissions were way down on last year. But Keeley had hated the duplicity going on in her life: she knew that word of her affair had leaked out, and she hated the idea that her peers might assume that the only reason she had won her prestigious weekly slot on the
Insignia
was because she was fucking the editor.

The notion of writing a book was – as always – an appealing one, but practically everyone she knew was writing a book. Everyone was aiming to be the next Maeve Binchy or Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling, and Keeley knew very well that unless you had a Unique Selling Point, the chances of your book being published were as slender as cheese wire. She also knew that six-figure advances, such as the one extended to Ophelia Gallagher, were now the stuff of legend. One writer of her acquaintance was taking in ironing to supplement the meagre income generated from her royalty payments; another worked evenings on a sex chatline.

No, there was no money to be made in writing . . . and on reflection, she didn't think she could hack the solitary nature of life as a dedicated writer, stuck inside her own head all day. But there might be money to be made somewhere along the line in the publishing world. Tony ‘The Tiger' Baines was said to have bought himself a nice little pad on the French Riviera on the strength of the deal he'd brokered for his newest client, a stunning twenty-something who was writing a trilogy aimed at young teens. Her USP (aside from her fortuitous good looks) had been that she came from a famous musical family – both her parents were platinum-selling recording artists – and it hadn't been hard to get a bidding war going. But the most important factor, according to Mr Baines, was that the book had merit. A USP could only get you so far up the ladder that led to publishing success: you needed genuine talent if you wanted to climb right to the top.

Did Keeley have the nous to become an agent? She had contacts in publishing, and she was passionate about books – had been since she'd turned the first thick cardboard pages of the Mr Men series with impatient baby fingers. Had been since, as a student, she'd got a summer job packing books in a big literary agent's in London. Each package of books constituted the dozen free copies to which authors were entitled under the terms of their contracts, and if Keeley had enjoyed the book, she always inserted a little note between the pages saying as much, and signing it ‘From the Book Packer'. On her last day at the agency, she had written a note to a celebrity author that had read ‘Don't give up the day job.'

Keeley also had an instinct for what would sell, having spent hours going through the slush pile of manuscripts that reared higher than the Manhattan skyline, recommending and discarding. She'd read an interview recently with a top agent who spoke of her career as a ‘vocation', and of the strong relationships she'd forged with both clients and publishers. Keeley was good with people – her ‘Epiphanies' were proof of that. She loved the wining and dining aspect of her job – what was not to love? – and there'd be plenty of wining and dining involved in being a literary agent. Maybe she'd put in a call to Tony's people and see if she might take him to lunch, pick his brains?

But in the meantime, there was the question of her remaining ‘Epiphany', and who might be the subject of her final grilling.

The strains of a violin made Keeley stop in her tracks. Who was playing a violin alfresco? It sounded like a lament, and then Keeley recognised the melody. It was ‘She Moves Through the Fair'. Climbing to the top of the dunes, she looked seaward. There, on the beach below, a party had congregated. It appeared some festive event was underway: a wedding, perhaps? A man wearing a snowy white surplice was standing in the centre of a circle of people, who were all gazing in the direction of a couple moving towards them along the sand. The woman was barefoot, clad in a dress of fluid red silk; the man accompanying her looked like a younger version of the film star Shane Byrne. It was Río Kinsella, Keeley saw as she drew nearer, with her son, Finn.

The journalist in Keeley was curious. Making her way down the dunes, she ambled towards the party until she was within eavesdropping distance. She hoped she didn't look like a crasher, but something told her it was OK to be a bystander in such a public place. Anyway, there was a kind of ‘more the merrier' vibe going on: a look around told her that most of the village had gathered here on the beach. She recognised several of them: Mrs Ryan from the corner shop was looking colourful in a fuchsia pink dress and matching hat with silk flowers, the barman from O'Toole's was wearing a pinstriped suit that looked as if it might have been trendy in the eighties, and the postmistress was looking extremely put out by the fact that she was being obliged to wield a pooper-scooper at such a solemn event, because her Airedale had just crapped in the sand.

Río and Finn were now encompassed in the circle of onlookers, and the fiddle player had come to the end of his solo. A light wind had got up: the priest's surplice was fluttering like the pinions of a seabird, and above them clouds were racing across the sky, casting shadows on the beach. Keeley watched as Río moved alongside a man whom she took to be the groom. He was clad in loose linen trousers with a matching Jodhpuri jacket, the kind of smart-casual look favoured by boho-inclined bridegrooms. Keeley had read about weddings like this, and had often thought that if she were ever to get hitched, alternative would be the way to go. A curlew called, low and fluting as it skimmed over the scalloped shallows, and then she heard Finn clear his throat nervously as he began to address the assembled company.

‘Um. Welcome to you all,' he said. ‘I'm not much of an orator, but Ma asked me if I'd say a few words, and I came up with this. As many of you may remember, my grandfather was a great man for reciting W.B. Yeats. This poem was a big favourite of his.