The Kinsella Sisters (20 page)

‘How would you feel about putting some manners on a garden, Ri?’

‘Whose garden?’

‘The Villa Felicity’s.’

‘It’s hardly the right time of year for planting.’

‘I think it’s major tidying that’s needed here. Nobody’s been near the place for nearly a year.’

‘But that’s criminal! That garden needs masses of TLC if it’s to thrive.’

‘And I’m hoping you’re the gal to do just that.’

‘Hm. Tell me more.’

Dervla filled her sister in on Adair’s plans for the Villa Felicity.

‘So he’s hoping to sell it? Yikes. Who’d want to buy a monstrosity like that?’

‘Let’s not be negative, Río. We’ve got to concentrate on all the pluses.’

‘I suppose you’ve written the blurb already?’

‘Río, I wrote it months ago.’

‘Oh, yeah? What do you have to say about the frilly bedroom?’

‘Exquisitely decorated.’

‘And the oversized deck?’

‘Ideal for entertaining.’

‘So who’s on your mailing list? Elton John?’

‘Río, are you interested in the job or not?’

‘Of course I’m interested. Times are hard. The recession lost me two gardening jobs last week.’

‘In that case, I’ll pick you up at one fifty on Saturday. He’s going to give us lunch, so please look presentable.’

‘I’ll wear my French maid’s outfit. Will I get to style the house too?’

‘If Adair Bolger is as insecure as most people, I’m sure he’d be glad of your advice.’

‘Torch the joint, would be my advice. Torch it, and rebuild Coral Cottage with the insurance money.’

Dervla sighed. ‘That’s hardly helpful, Río.’

‘C’mon, Dervla. It’s clear that his taste is chalk to my cheese.’

‘You mean Felicity’s taste. That house was designed to her spec’

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. ‘It was?’

‘Yes. It was her pet project. All Adair cared about was the view.’

‘Some pet project. Ha! I know just what to put in them thar closets.’

‘Let me guess. Skeletons?’

‘Spoilsport! How did you
know
I was thinking skeletons?’

‘I’m pretty familiar with your sense of humour, Río. Just draw the line at putting fake poo in the loo, will you? I might as well warn you that I check
everything
out before a viewing.’

‘Sheesh,’ said Río. ‘I’d better cancel that order to the online joke store, so.’

On Friday afternoon, Río got a call from the hackney company to ask her to pick up a fare from Galway airport. The fare’s name was Sharkey, his destination was Lissamore, and, as ill luck would have it, she learned too late that his flight was delayed by an hour and a half. ‘Sure, no matter!’ said the girl in dispatches, as Río negotiated the Galway ring road. ‘Take yourself into town and treat yourself! Lucky you, to have time off for a bit of shopping!’

Río couldn’t understand the girl’s ebullience. She had never been much of a one for shopping. She wasn’t easily intimidated, but department stores were, for her, amongst the scariest places on earth. How some women viewed shopping as a ‘leisure activity’ was beyond her. She hated having to ask advice of the snooty-looking girls behind the cosmetic counters with their immaculate
maquillage
, and she hated it when she shuffled out of changing cubicles, shaking her head apologetically at the salesgirls because the clothes that looked so gorgeous on the rack looked like shit on her.

But sometimes you had to be brave and just do it. Having finally found a place to park, Río slouched into a posh emporium, feeling shabby in her polyester suit. It looked all right from the waist up, she supposed, but the bum had gone shiny from all
that sitting in the driver’s seat. She ventured first into the cosmetics section, and was immediately set upon by an army of girls wielding perfume sprays. No, no,
no!
There was nothing worse for a fare than being stuck in a hackney with a driver who smelled like an air freshener. Río ducked and dived like a resistance fighter, and finally drew up at a counter where there was a promotion on. She found herself being suckered into parting with a nauseating sum of money for a night cream that the salesgirl promised would eliminate free radicals (whatever they were) and a cleanser that would calm her stressed skin.

Upstairs, she made her way to the discount rail, where a nondescript mackintosh caught her eye. It stood to reason that if the coat looked unappealing on the hanger, it might look quite good on her, and she was right. Because she badly needed a coat now that autumn was on the way, she bagged it, and then she bagged a pair of jeans that had been marked down from 250 euro to 50 (who in their right mind would pay 250 euro for a pair of jeans?), as well as a plain black dress with elbow-length sleeves that was very un-Río but looked pretty stylish, and a pair of heels that she knew she’d never be able to walk in. A cardigan! Why not?

Río was feeling reckless, now–so reckless that she thought she might even pluck up the nerve to infiltrate the lingerie department. It was Fleur’s birthday soon, and she wanted to buy her friend something special. On Río’s last birthday, Fleur had presented her with the most beautiful coffee-table book of underwater photographs by David Doubilet. Río wanted to return the compliment by giving Fleur something she knew she would love, and Fleur was passionate about underthings. In the lingerie department, she helped herself to a pair of darling knickers, polka-dotted and trimmed on each hip with a miniature geyser of scarlet ribbons, and a matching bra with teeny bows on the straps.

What was she doing, she wondered, as she handed over her credit card. She had never spent this kind of money in her life,
ever! As she keyed in her PIN, her palms were sweaty and she was practically hyperventilating–and then two things happened that made her wish that the ground would open up and swallow her and her glossy carrier bags in one big gulp.

The first thing that went wrong was when the salesgirl murmured: ‘I’m sorry, madam, but there appears to be a problem with your card.’

‘A problem?’ stammered Río to the assistant, whose name tag told her she was Kirsty. ‘Surely not! I’ve made several purchases already with my card.’

‘I’m sure it’s just the usual gremlin in the works,’ said Kirsty, with professional politeness, ‘but I will have to phone the bank to get clearance. Liz–’ this to a fellow salesgirl–‘could you serve the gentleman, please?’

‘Certainly!’ said Liz, joining her colleague at the cash desk.

And this is when the second awful thing happened. Río heard a man’s voice from behind say: ‘If I’d known that you were going shopping for girly stuff, I wouldn’t have come with you. I always feel like a perv in these places.’ And then she heard a girl’s voice say: ‘Put your wallet away, Dad! I will
not
have you paying for my underwear.’ Río knew that voice, that imperious Dublin 4 accent.

She started to sidle unobtrusively away from the cash desk, but as she did so, she heard the man’s voice say: ‘Río! Hello! What a coincidence. I believe you’re joining us for lunch tomorrow?’

‘Hello, Adair. Yes, I believe I am.’ Río turned to him, agonisingly aware that her face was now redder than the ribbons on her new purchases.

Isabella was looking at her with an expression of ill-concealed affront, and Río knew that it was because she had clocked the items of underwear that Kirsty had left on the counter when she’d gone off to phone the bank. They were, Río realised now, identical to the ones that Isabella herself was purchasing. Oh, God! This was awful,
awful!

‘I’m sorry,’ said Kirsty, putting her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, ‘they’ve put me on hold.’

‘Oh, look,’ said Río, ‘it doesn’t matter. I’ll come back another time.’

‘I don’t mind holding,’ said Kirsty.

‘No, no, really.’ Río was now desperate to get out of there. ‘I’m running late for an appointment. Please give me back my card.’

‘Well, if you’re sure…’ said Kirsty.

‘Sure, I’m sure. Thank you.’ Río snatched back her card and jammed it into her wallet.

‘Can I help?’ asked Adair.

‘No. No, thanks. Really.’ Río’s wallet hit the deck, and a load of coins came tumbling out of her change purse.

‘It’s just that the bank’s taking ages to respond,’ Kirsty told him, helpfully.

Oh God, she must have assumed that she and Adair were shopping together, thought Río, as she scrabbled around on the carpet for fifty-cent pieces.

‘Please allow me,’ said Adair, turning to Liz, ‘to add Ms Kinsella’s purchases to my bill’

‘Certainly, sir.’ Liz reached for the pile of ridiculous frippery and helped herself to a length of tissue paper.

‘I can’t allow you to do this, Adair!’ protested Río, getting to her feet. She was now so frazzled that she thought she might start snivelling.

‘Why not? Sure, won’t we be seeing each other tomorrow? I’ll allow you to pay me back then, for the–um…’

Liz had started to wrap each of the flimsy items carefully in tissue paper, and as she did so, a terrible silence descended, as everyone registered exactly what Río was buying. The silence was broken only by Kirsty, who had started singing along to ‘Greensleeves’ down the phone.

‘Thirty-six C?’ Liz trilled at Río, holding up the polka-dot bra with the scarlet bows. Río nodded.

Then: ‘Thirty-two C?’ she trilled, turning to Isabella. Isabella said, ‘That’s right,’ in that perfectly modulated voice of hers, and just gazed serenely into the middle distance. Oh! The wretched child didn’t seem at all fazed by the fact that the two women had opted for the same underwear, and Río went redder still when she thought of shapely little Isabella sporting scanties that would make Río in comparison look like a wobbly chunk of fatty mutton masquerading as lamb. She suddenly remembered the dancing hippos in Disney’s
Fantasia
, pirouetting in their tutus, and she couldn’t help it–she started to laugh and cry at the same time.

Adair looked at her with concern. ‘Is something the matter?’ he asked, and Río managed to shake her head. How she’d love to be able to explain that the underwear wasn’t for her–that it was actually for her very girly girlfriend–but she had a suspicion that an explanation would make her look as if she were protesting too much. ‘I’m–I’m just remembering a joke,’ she said, ‘that makes me laugh, but because–because my son told it to me, it makes me cry at the same time.’

Oh God, oh God. Any minute now Río was going to wake up and laugh when she realised that the past ten minutes had been just a crazy nightmare! But no such luck. The next thing she knew, her phone was alerting her to a text, which read: ‘Sharkey’s flight landing in ten.’

‘Oh, yikes–yikes–I’ve gotta go,’ she whimpered. And she grabbed up her assorted carrier bags and fled the lingerie department. If all the hounds of hell had been hot on her heels, Río couldn’t have fled it faster.

‘Was she
drunk?’
Izzy asked her father, who was looking after Río with a bemused expression.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Adair. ‘I didn’t get a smell of drink off her.’

‘Maybe she’s mad,’ said Izzy.

‘A little scatty, maybe,’ conceded Adair. ‘She’s a bohemian. You expect bohemians to be a bit eccentric’

‘What was that you said about seeing her tomorrow?’

‘She’s coming with her sister, to have a look at the house.’

‘Why does she have to look at it?’

‘I’d value her opinion.’

Izzy gave him an incredulous look. ‘Is that wise, Dad? You just admitted yourself that she’s batty’

Adair shrugged. ‘Apparently she’s excellent with gardens. She whispers to plants.’

‘That makes her officially mad. And look, she left her stuff behind.’ Izzy indicated the carrier bag that Liz had packed with such care.

‘Sir?’ Liz was looking at Adair expectantly.

‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ he said, pulling out his wallet.

‘No, Dad.’ Izzy laid a firm hand on his arm. I told you you were
not
to pay for my stuff.

‘What about Río’s stuff? I said I’d pay for that.’

‘I’ll pay for it. Knowing you, you’ll be too embarrassed to ask her for the money back. And I don’t imagine she’ll be beating a path to your door to offer it to you on a plate.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s just a hunch. If she’s an eccentric bohemian she’s probably an anarchist too. And since anarchists believe in the equal distribution of wealth, by inveigling you into footing her bill, she’s doing her bit to redistribute it.’

‘When did you get to be so cynical, Izzy? Is this what they’re teaching you in college?’

‘I’m not cynical, Dad,’ said Izzy, jabbing her number into the chip-and-pin machine. ‘I’m just a realist. You’re the big softie in our family.’

And I’m not going to allow that cow Río, with her coy blushes and her big blinking bovine eyes, to take advantage of you, Izzy vowed, as she waited for the transaction to go through. She
wondered how much of today’s chance meeting had really been down to ‘chance’. Had Río spotted them and followed them to the lingerie department, and then staged it so her credit card didn’t register? It would be an easy thing to do: just enter the wrong pin a couple of times, and hey presto! Suddenly you’re a damsel in distress, in need of a knight in shining armour to rescue you. She wouldn’t put it past that Kinsella woman to have lots of con-artist tricks up her polyester sleeve.

‘Thank you so much,’ she told Liz as she swung the pair of carrier bags off the counter.

Her father was regarding his watch with a dismayed expression. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have stopped off in Galway,’ he said. ‘It’s nearly four o’clock.’

‘We needed to stock up on food,’ Izzy pointed out. ‘You’ve invited people for lunch tomorrow. I hope we have enough for four.’

When Adair had told her he’d invited Dervla for lunch, he hadn’t mentioned that her evil sister was part of the equation.

‘We could always eat out tonight.’

‘No. I’m going to make sure you eat properly. That’s why I got all that fruit and green vegetables. You haven’t been looking after yourself, Dad, and if you carry on working at this rate and eating out all the time, you’re asking for trouble. At least when you and Mum were together, you had a healthy diet.’

‘Nag, nag, nag.’

Izzy smiled up at her father, and linked his arm as they made their way towards the escalators. ‘Somebody has to do it,’ she said.

It was true. Somebody had to nag him and cook for him from time to time and give him shoulder rubs. Izzy was doing her best, but she couldn’t be there for him for ever. It was definitely time, she decided, that Adair got himself a new life partner. Preferably one of Izzy’s choosing.

Río was still whimpering as she manoeuvred the hackney into a space in the airport car park. How had it happened, she asked herself. How had she managed to make such a spectacular eejit of herself in front of Adair Bolger and his ice-princess daughter
again?
She felt like a circus clown–not the pretty Pierrette type, but the big bungling one with the outsized feet and the fright wig and the red nose, the one that all the other clowns jeered at.

But what bothered her more than anything was that she actually cared. Río–who normally didn’t give a toss about people’s opinion of her–actually
cared
what the Bolgers might think of her. How had this happened? When had she decided that she wanted to be accepted by Adair and Isabella, who stood for everything she despised?

Had her change of heart happened that time she’d seen Isabella and Finn sitting together on the sea wall, during Frank’s wake? They had made such a beautiful couple and looked so at ease with each other that Río had felt a weird sense of shame. What if they decided to become friends–or even more than just friends? Finn would hardly want to bring a princess like that home to meet a mother who might be dancing round the place singing along to her iPod, or sitting crying in front of a DVD of Disney’s
Dumbo
, or gazing out to sea with a joint between her fingers.