That Gallagher Girl (23 page)

‘Let go of me,' said Río. ‘You're hurting me, Shane.'

‘Not as badly as you hurt me. Broken hearts don't mend easily. But then you don't know that, do you? Because you've never had one.' He glared into her eyes for a long moment, and then he released her wrist, turned, and strode back the way he'd come, leaving Río standing on the slipway with tears streaming down her face.

Oh!
Oh!
She knew too well the pain of a broken heart, for behind the cage of her ribs her heart felt as though it had been squeezed by a fist in a chainmail glove. Maybe . . . maybe she should confide in Shane, explain the reason behind her hasty decision to marry Adair? She owed him an apology, at the very least. She owed him
some
kind of explanation.

‘Shane!' she called. But her voice was drowned out by the sound of an approaching engine. Looking up at the hardcore track, she saw Adair bouncing along it in his tractor, grinning broadly. Quickly, Río wiped the tears from her face with her towel.

‘Off for a swim, my little mermaid?' Adair said, jocularly, as he drew near.

‘No. The water's too cold,' she lied. ‘Let me climb up beside you and you can give me a ride home.'

‘Home again, home again, jiggedy jig!' quipped Adair. ‘Better fasten your seat belt, Río! We're in for a bumpy ride!'

And as Río climbed aboard, she took one last look back up at Coral Mansion. Shane was nowhere to be seen. But there on the wall was a girl dressed in oversized workmen's overalls. Cat. Finn's friend, workmate, helpmeet . . . bedfellow? She, Río, had been all those things to Shane once. Now, she was just a housewife. Worse than that, she was a leisure lodge wife.

‘“The little cat laughed to see such fun”,' sang Cat on the wall. ‘“And the dish ran away with the tool”.'

‘Get back to work,' said Finn crossly, flicking a fragment of wooden dowling at her. ‘And stop spying on people.'

‘I'm not spying,' Cat told him. ‘If I were crouched down behind the wall, peeping over, I'd be spying. I'm just standing here enjoying the view. Oh, look, there's our roving reporter, roving along the shore.' She pointed to where Keeley was strolling along the shoreline, talking on her phone. ‘Roving. Roving! It's a daft word, ain't it? I mean, when would you ever use it, except for “roving reporter”. You'd never say “I roved down the street”, would you? And now there's Shane hoving into view. Hiya, Shane!'

But Shane just threw her a black look as he passed through into the house.

‘He's in a bad mood,' observed Cat.

‘Why?' asked Finn. ‘Did you do something to annoy him?'

‘Me? Never! I'm little Miss Sunshine. Hey, Keeley! Enjoying your rove?'

Below on the shore, Keeley paused in her roving and looked up. ‘Hello there, Cat. How are you?'

‘Wait there! I'm coming down.'

Cat slid off the wall and scampered down to join Keeley on the beach.

‘Thanks for saying nice things about my paintings,' she said, admiring her reflection in Keeley's mirrored sunglasses.

‘You're welcome. Is Shane happy with the piece?'

‘Yeah. He's over the moon. Like the cow. And so will you be when I tell you who's arrived in Coral Mansion. It looks like you might have another worldwide exclusive on your hands.'

‘Oh? Who?' asked Keeley.

‘Elena Sweetman,' said Cat.

‘No shit!'

‘Yes shit.' Why did people wear mirrored sunglasses? wondered Cat. They were dead distracting, and she really wanted to concentrate on her spiel. ‘Um. Sweetiepie's notoriously reclusive, as you probably know. But I think I might just be able to persuade her to talk to you.'

‘Could you, Cat? That would be fantastic!'

‘Text me your phone number. I'll have a word with her and get back to you. And I won't charge you an introduction fee if you give my paintings another big plug.'

‘An introduction fee?'

‘Yeah. A publicist would charge a fee for this kind of thing. Max Clifford didn't get rich by being selfless, did he? So, promise me that you'll rave on about my paintings, and I promise you an interview with Sweetie.'

Keeley looked uncertain. ‘I . . . I don't really see how I could find a way of promoting your paintings in an interview with Elena Sweetman,' she said.

‘Oh, you most definitely will be able to,' Cat told her, ‘because she's going to be holding a big exhibition of my work when she goes back to LA, and inviting all the stars.'

‘Is she really?'

‘Yes. And all the proceeds are going to charity.'

‘My word! That's remarkably altruistic of you, Cat.'

‘I know. I'm a big-hearted gal. And like I say, I won't even charge you an introduction fee. Now, take down my number. It's 086 . . .'

When Cat had finished dictating her phone number to Keeley, she gave her a cheery salute, and danced back up to Coral Mansion, where Finn was leaning on a spade, waiting for her. ‘Get back to work shovelling, Pusscat,' he said. ‘You've done enough skiving for one day.'

Cat gave him an indignant look. ‘All I did was have a bit of a rove,' she said. ‘I wonder why so many dogs are called Rover? I mean, dogs don't really rove at all, do they? They stay at home mostly, or go for walks on leads, and that could hardly be described as proper roving. Cats are much more roving types than dogs. Aha! There you go! There's your new pet name for me, Finnster! I'm getting bored with Pusscat.'

‘Sorry? What's your new pet name?'

Cat stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Rover, of course,' she said. And then she took the spade from Finn, and set to work. ‘Did you give that ring to Shane, by the way? The one with the diamond?'

‘Yes,' said Finn, gloomily.

‘How did he take it?'

‘With very bad grace.'

‘So he didn't really want it back?'

Finn shrugged. ‘I guess he doesn't know what to do with it.'

‘If he really truly doesn't want it back, I know what he can do with it.'

‘What?'

Cat sent Finn a dazzling smile over the spade handle. ‘He can give it to me of course,' she said.

Chapter Eighteen

Keeley was in Ryan's corner shop, buying more cleaning products. Now that she had delivered her last ‘Epiphany' and was a free agent (the interview with Shane had been very well received, Leo had told her, and sales figures for the
Insignia
had shot up that particular Sunday), she had the luxury of time on her hands. She had scrubbed her little cottage until it was cleaner than the house in the Mr Muscle ad, and she'd hung new curtains and bought new bed linen and lots of cushions and scented candles and pretty little jugs that she'd taken to filling with wild flowers. The place felt like home now, and after nearly a month in Lissamore Keeley was feeling less than enthusiastic about going back to her flat in Dublin, with its view of an identical apartment across the way, furnished – just as hers was – by Ikea, where the flowers came courtesy not of Mother Nature, but from M&S, and where there was no open fire in which to burn driftwood.

But beckon Dublin did. Keeley needed to forge some kind of financial future for herself, and the notion of becoming a literary agent was becoming more and more attractive. Most of the agents she knew seemed to spend most of their time in their French
gîtes
or their Tuscan villas, and if Keeley could set herself up with the help of Tony ‘The Tiger' Baines, she liked to think that she could spend most of
her
time in her Coolnamara cottage.

In Lissamore, Keeley had settled into a brand new life. The cosmopolitan girl who had once partied and dined and experimented with sex toys with her very sophisticated, very married lover, had morphed into a singleton who was ac tually quite happy to be single. Her usual routine of book launches, exhibition openings and theatrical first nights had been supplanted by evenings spent in front of the fire with a book or a radio programme after a power-walk along a beach. Except her power-walks had become more like strolls, during which she listened to birdsong rather than news on her iPod, and took time out to peer into hedges and study cloud formations and breathe in the ozone. She was dressing differently, too. Instead of the smart-casual look she favoured in the city, she'd adopted a more feminine boho look – not dissimilar, she supposed, to the look espoused by Río Kinsella. She'd bought herself a pair of espadrilles and a pair of flowery-patterned wellingtons and a pair of walking boots and a pair of gaiters for hill-walking. She was even thinking of getting a dog, so that she'd have to go walking in all weathers. A dog would be company, too, for the long winter evenings. Or would it be cosier to curl up on her couch with a cat?

Speaking of which, she hadn't heard from that girl, Cat. She'd texted her her phone number, but had had no response, and on the couple of occasions that Keeley had tried contacting her, the phone just rang on and on, without even allowing her the option of leaving a voicemail. Oh well, Keeley had thought with a mental shrug, you win some, you lose some. Maybe the ‘notoriously reclusive' Elena Sweetman had been immune to Cat's powers of persuasion, after all. And anyway, her final ‘Epiphany' was done and dusted so there was no call for her to go trekking after celebrities any more. For which relief, much thanks . . .

‘Grand day, thank God,' Mrs Ryan said, as Padraig Whelan, the tasty wild-haired fiddle player, came into the shop.

‘'Tis.'

Padraig joined Keeley in the cleaning products aisle, where he tossed a bottle of Ecover into his wire basket. On the shop radio, a female voiceover was waxing orgasmic over the cleaning prowess of Cif. Hm. Cif would do the job, but maybe Keeley should be going for the more ecologically friendly option, like Padraig? She had just helped herself to a bottle of natural wood floor soap and was perusing the label, trying not to be distracted by Padraig who had moved on to scented drawer liners (Gay! He was gay! Just her luck), when she saw on the other side of the aisle that Río Kinsella was doing her shopping too. Her new husband was going to be well fed, observed Keeley. Río's basket was piled with provender, including sausages and rashers and eggs and black pudding: Adair was clearly the kind of man who liked to start his day with a cooked breakfast. There was a tub of cream there, too, for his Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. Not great for the cholesterol, though.

Keeley wondered if it was maybe about time she had people round for supper. Maybe she should introduce herself to Río, and ask if she and Adair would like to come round some evening? It would be good to get to know Río. Keeley still didn't have any friends in the village, and she liked the look of Ms Kinsella and her gal pals.

She was just about to cross aisles and say hello, when the woman rhapsodising about Cif shut up, and a chirpy voice on the radio said: ‘News hot in from Hollywood! Irish actor Shane Byrne and
Silver Vixens
star Elena Sweetman were married yesterday in the Little Wedding Chapel of the Flowers in Las Vegas. Heartthrob Shane said in a press release—'

But Keeley wasn't to hear what heartthrob Shane said in his press release, because there came an enormous crash as Río Kinsella's wire basket fell to the floor.

‘Río!' said Mrs Ryan, scurrying out from behind the till. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Río!' said Padraig, dropping his purse. ‘What's the matter, love?'

Río looked like death, white-lipped and wretched. ‘I'm fine,' she managed. ‘I'm sorry about the mess. I'll pay for everything next time I'm in.' And then she fled the shop, leaving Mrs Ryan gazing after her, shaking her head in concern as cream and eggs spread in a thick puddle on the floor.

‘Don't worry,' said Keeley, rounding the aisle and stooping to pick up the cartons. ‘I'll help you clean it up.'

‘It's not the spillage I'm worried about,' said Mrs Ryan. ‘It's Río.' She and Padraig exchanged meaningful looks.

‘I knew it would all end in tears,' said Padraig, shaking his head mournfully. ‘That Shane!'

Cat was watching a re-run of
Silver Vixens
on Sky Plus. Finn had had the biggest plasma screen in the world installed in the entertainment suite of Coral Mansion, and in the evenings after work the pair of them would curl up on the leather upholstered sofa and surf channels looking for programmes about DIY disasters, which always cracked them up. Occasionally they'd come across old films featuring Shane before he'd got famous, which cracked them up even more, or Elena in her starlet phase looking so breathtakingly beauti ful that Cat would press the pause button just so she could gaze at her idol. They'd seen footage of Shane and Elena too, on the Smile channel, walking hand in hand at some red-carpet event, telling the world how happy they were, and smile, smile, smiling for the cameras.

So, sly boots Elena had been in love with Shane all along! Cat liked to think that maybe she had been instrumental in getting them together. While the pair had been staying in Coral Mansion, Cat had engineered it so that they were left to their own devices as often as possible. She had sent them off in a row boat to a neighbouring island to pick mushrooms, she had packed them off with a picnic to Coolnamara Strand, she had even played soppy love songs over the sound system when they were relaxing on the deck of an evening. And then, very early one morning, she had come across them on the beach, Shane with his head on Elena's lap while the actress stroked his hair and murmured words of wisdom in his ear: well, Cat couldn't actually hear the words, but she just knew that any words murmured by Elena would be wise.

And lo and behold! the very next day they had announced to Cat and Finn that they were going back to the States, and just a few days after that they had announced to the media that they'd been married in a place called the Little Chapel of the Flowers in Las Vegas.

The episode of
Silver Vixens
Cat was watching was called ‘Love on the Rebound'. In it, Elena was getting married to someone who had been jilted, and really, wasn't life aping art, as they so often said? In real life Shane had crashed and burned and then bounced into Elena's arms like an India-rubber ball, the way Hugo had bounced into Oaf's arms after Paloma had left him – although of course, Elena was much more deserving of love than Oaf. Why did men do that rebound thing? Was it any port in a storm? Her father certainly needed looking after, and Cat thought rather begrudgingly that at least Oaf cooked and looked after the house and stuff, even though it was perfectly obvious that she had only married Hugo for his money. It served her right that he was broke again. Why couldn't Hugo have married someone who was as good and true and beautiful as Paloma had been, someone more like Elena?

Elena had looked lovely on Smile TV, radiant in a silvery, shimmery gown, like a real star that had dropped down from heaven. And Shane had talked about how Elena had made an honest man of him at last (why did people who got married always say that? Cat had wondered), and had even managed to get in a plug for his next film.

And now Cat was hoping to hear from her new best friend about the exhibition of her paintings that she'd promised to organise in LA. She had taken the precaution of buying some sturdy cardboard tubes for her artwork in an art suppliers in Galway, and had carefully rolled up each painting and labelled each tube with her signature C A T, and packed them into the boot of Shane's hire car before the star-crossed lovers had taken off back to the States.

Cat had started painting again on her days off. She'd used some of the money that Elena had given her to pay for new art materials, and she was working a blinder. She routinely headed down to the beach to paint her landscapes, always including in them a tiny self-portrait – a little catgirl perched on a gate or on the branch of a tree or the roof of a cottage. Her days off were more frequent now that there was less pressure on Finn to get the house finished. They worked rather desultorily now, and Cat secretly wondered if there was really any point in refurbishing the great white elephant that was Coral Mansion. Was Shane ever going to come back here to live with his beautiful bride? And if so, how would Río countenance it? She'd seen Río crying on the beach the day she'd had the run-in with Shane about the access road through the orchard, and she suspected that there was un finished business between Finn's parents. But she didn't think too hard about it. It made her much happier to think about Shane and Elena and the stellar Hollywood connections that were being lined up for her on the other side of the ocean.

Beside her, Finn's phone went. Cat glanced downward to see ‘Izzy' on the display. She picked up the phone, pressed the green button, and said, ‘Finn Byrne's phone. How may I help you?'

‘Oh,' said Izzy. ‘Is Finn there?'

‘He's in the bath,' said Cat. ‘Hold on. I'll take you to him.'

‘Oh, no – please don't disturb him. I'll call back another time.'

‘I'll take a message, if you like.'

‘Um. No . . . it's nothing. Nothing important. Goodbye.'

‘Goodbye.'

Hm. What did that Izzy want with her Finn, and should Cat tell him that she'd called? She didn't think she'd bother. After all, Izzy had said it wasn't important, and Finn was busy playing some game on his laptop. So Cat pressed ‘play' on the remote control, and resumed watching
Silver Vixens
instead.

In the Bentley, Río and Adair were watching
Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

‘I think I might have a bash at going on this show,' said Adair. ‘I've got all the questions right so far without having to lose a single lifeline.'

‘But you
were
a millionaire once,' Río pointed out. ‘And you didn't like it.'

‘That's true. Maybe I should apply to go on
Mastermind
instead.'

‘With your specialist subject being . . .?'

‘My wife.'

Río smiled back at him. ‘You're so sweet, Adair Bolger! OK, let's give it a bash. What's Río Kinsella's favourite colour?'

‘Purple,' said Adair.

‘You're right!' said Río, whose favourite colour was green. ‘What's her favourite item of clothing?'

‘Shoes!'

‘Right again,' said Río, who seldom wore shoes except when she had to. ‘What's her favourite food?'

‘Oysters!'

‘Clever clogs!' Río only ate oysters to please Adair. Shane would have known that her favourite food was fish and chips from McDonagh's in Galway. ‘We should go on
Mr and Mrs
,' she said, linking her husband's arm.

Adair winced.

‘I'm only joking! Adair? Adair, are you OK?' Río sat bolt upright, looking at him in concern. Adair's face had gone a strange shade of mottled grey and pink.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I'm fine. Just a touch of – of heartburn or something.'

Río jumped to her feet. ‘What can I get you? There's nothing in the house. Dammit – I should have got some antacid when I was in Ryan's the other day . . . I know! Celery. I used to chew on a celery stick when I was pregnant with Finn. I know it helped Fleur, too, when she was pregnant. And I mean, I know you're not pregnant, Adair, ha ha ha, but heartburn tends to affect pregnant women and someone told me that . . .'

And Río gabbled on and on as she took a head of celery from the fridge, cutting a stick from it and scrubbing it under the tap, because talking and keeping busy meant that she was buying time for Adair to manage the pain he was in. For Río knew that the pain he was suffering was not heartburn. And she knew that while her back was turned, Adair would be helping himself to one of the pills that had been prescribed for him by the doctor he was seeing in Galway, the doctor he had visited today. He'd made some excuse about checking out the oyster scene in nearby Clarenbridge, but when Río had hit the redial button on the landline to talk to Dervla, it had been picked up not by her sister, but by a doctor's receptionist.

Some minutes later she was back sitting next to her husband on the sofa, and he was chewing obediently on his celery stick. His face was back to its normal colour, and the
Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
theme music was coming to an end; and then the ads came on, followed by a trailer for a forthcoming special on quickie weddings. Río found herself gabbling again as the voiceover said something about the most recent example being Shane Byrne and Elena Sweetman, trying to pretend she wasn't seeing a picture of her ex and his bride flashing up on the screen in front of her, gabbling, gabbling on about how Dervla had got married in the Little White Wedding chapel in Las Vegas and had gone on honeymoon to some place in Mexico, gabbling on and on and
on
about anything other than what was staring them both in the face.