The Kinsella Sisters (31 page)

‘What’s Dervla asking?’

‘Five and a half million.’

‘Fuck me sideways! You could buy the Taj Mahal for that.’

‘That’s what Dervla has as her screen saver.’

‘The Taj Mahal?’

‘Yeah. What’s your screen saver, by the way?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘You told me when we did that stupid quiz that the photograph on your screen saver was your most treasured possession.’

‘My screen saver,’ said Shane, reaching out and toying with a strand of Río’s hair, ‘is the photograph of you and Dervla that I took just before your mother died.’

‘Two girls in silk kimonos?’

‘Yep.’

Both beautiful, one I adore
…He adored her, she knew that. He’d offered her love, marriage, a new life in LA. He’d offered her a future beyond the wildest dreams of most women in the world. But he’d offered her the impossible. She could no more leave Coolnamara now than she could have twenty years ago. The reason was implicit in the motto embroidered on the sampler Dervla had given her.
Home is where the Heart is.
And Río’s heart belonged, always had and always would belong, in Coolnamara.

She suddenly thought she might cry, but she really, really didn’t want to. She, Río, was a strong, independent woman whose name meant ‘queenly’, and queens never cried. She needed something to distract her. Reaching for the volume of erotic verse, she thrust it at Shane and said, ‘Read me something.’

‘What?’

‘I dunno. Just open it at random.’

‘OK.’ Shane opened the book, cleared his throat, and in his lovely, sonorous voice read the following:

‘You eejit, Shane Byrne!’ laughed Río. ‘You deserve a kiss for that!’

‘I deserve a kiss for reading a rude limerick? Jeez, Río, I didn’t get a kiss when I gave you that stonking great rock!’

‘Oh, you deserve more than a kiss for that,’ she said, leaning into him with a smile.

But just as the kiss was getting interesting, her phone went again.

‘Shit, shit,
shit!’
Shane said, with feeling. ‘Do you have to take that?’

‘I’d better. It’s Dervla.’

‘Your phone has the worst timing in the world,’ he grumbled, pulling the quilt over his head.

‘It actually might have the best. You know what they say about delayed gratification. Hi, Dervla. What’s up?’ Río slid out of bed and padded back towards the window. The clouds had encroached further into the view, and raindrops had started to dent the pewter surface of the lake.

‘Hello, my little sibling!’ purred Dervla. ‘How are you?’

Río nearly dropped the phone. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard her sister purr before. If she hadn’t called her ‘little sibling’, she’d have thought that Dervla might have dialled a wrong number.

‘I’ve just had the most glorious breakfast!’ came Dervla’s velvety voice again.

That was weird. To Río’s reasonably certain knowledge, Dervla seldom bothered with breakfast.

‘Isn’t it a bit late for breakfast? You’ve usually got an entire morning’s work behind you at this hour of the day’

‘There’s more to life than work, Río. Isn’t it a glorious morning?’

‘Not where I am.’

‘Poor thing!’

Taken aback by this expression of sympathy, Río decided it
was about time they got down to whatever business Dervla was calling about. ‘What can I do for you, Dervla?’

‘I hope you might do me a favour. I know this is very sudden, but can I ask you to stand in for me on any viewings that may come up in the Lissamore area this week? The team can cover the Galway region, but I hate asking them to travel further afield.’

‘Um. Sure. Are you all right, Dervla? You’re not sick or anything?’ Dervla certainly didn’t
sound
sick. She sounded like the cat who’d got the cream.

‘No. I’m not sick. Actually, I’m going on holiday.’

‘Holy moly.’ Río nearly dropped the phone again. ‘It’s not like you to take off on the spur of the moment.’

‘No, it’s not, is it? But I’ve decided I need more spontaneity in my life. I’ve been too bloody
comme il faut
up till now.’

‘Com il fo? What’s that?’

‘It means, “doing the right thing”. I’ve decided a little more anarchy is called for.’

‘Where are you going? Somalia?’

Dervla laughed. Because it was probably the first time ever that she’d laughed at one of Río’s juvenile jokes, Río nearly dropped the phone a third time.

‘No. I’m not going to Somalia. I’m going to Las Vegas.’

‘Las
Vegas?
But that’s
so
not you, Dervla!’

‘I know. But it’s the only place that can organise what I want in a hurry’

What was
with
her sister? Did she have some secret addiction? Río’s grip on the handset tightened. She’d never have dreamed that Dervla might have a gambling problem.

‘Are you…is it some kind of
gambling
holiday, Dervla?’

Dervla laughed. ‘No, Río. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the business I’m in, it’s that gambling never pays.’

‘So what
are
you going to do in Vegas?’

‘I’m getting married,’ said Dervla.

Río’s phone clattered to the floor.

Río needed to swim. So much had happened in the past few days that she craved time to herself.

After the phone call from Dervla, another had come asking her to pick up a fare from Ardmore. She had said a hasty goodbye to Shane (no time for anything more intimate than a quick kiss) and sped away like Cinderella, stopping off at her apartment on the way to change out of her fairy-tale threads.

Having dropped off her passenger, Río hit the beach. There, she stripped off again, glad to be rid of the obnoxious feeling of the man-made fabric of her suit against her skin. Maybe she should have taken Shane up on his offer of new clothes after all? But the suit was functional and creaseproof, and that was what mattered in her line of work. She had taken the precaution of putting her bathing togs on underneath–she hadn’t skinny-dipped on this beach since the Villa Felicity had been built. Yet another reason for her to have taken umbrage against the Bolgers.

The sea was uninviting–a stone grey slab under a leaden sky. The only thing to do was to dive straight in. But Río knew that once the initial shock wore off, the temperature of the water was immaterial. For her, swimming was more about the mind than the body.

She struck out towards the buoy that marked the mooring
for Adair’s boat, which she always used to gauge distance. Between that and the slipway was roughly fifty metres, and Río usually managed a swim of at least five laps, which she calculated to be around a quarter of a mile. She couldn’t understand why people forked out a fortune to go training in a gym when you could get fresh air and exercise for free.

Once she reached the buoy, she turned over on her back and floated for a few moments. The sun was chiselling its way through the cloud: it looked as though it was going to turn into one of those days the west of Ireland is famous for, when you can experience all four seasons in the course of a single twenty-four-hour period. Launching herself against the tide, Río established a rhythm, arms slicing through the water, feet kicking vigorously, mind rerunning recent headlines in her life. If she were a news reader, they would go like this:

‘Film Star on Nostalgic Visit to the Emerald Isle.’

‘Dive God Returns Home.’

‘Millionaire’s Daughter Seduces Dive God.’

‘Film Star Proposes to Former Girlfriend.’

‘Top Business Woman Elopes with Strange Man.’

This final headline was the one that was of most concern to her right now. Had Dervla lost her mind? In the course of the phone call earlier that morning Río had learned that her big sister had decided to make major changes in her life after a baby had vomited on her and she’d been forced to wear a pair of pyjama bottoms to a hot date. It had been her Eureka moment, Dervla had told her, her Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway Opportunity of a Lifetime. And when the Vaughan bloke (for it had been he who had been the hot date) confessed that he’d invented a wine importers’ conference in Galway as an excuse to see her again, Dervla had swooned and–as far as Río could see–lost all reason. They had booked a honeymoon suite in a fabulous resort in some place in Mexico called Careyes–stopping off in Vegas to make it official at the Little White Chapel
first–and when they came back, they were going to move into the Old Rectory together and Dervla was going to wind up the business and write a book.

‘A Mills & Boon romance?’ Río had asked, and Dervla had tinkled with laughter.

Río wasn’t so sure that Dervla had anything to laugh about. Mills & Boon romances had happy endings and didn’t usually feature an elderly mother and a teenage daughter in their cast of characters, and as she recalled from an earlier conversation with her sister, this Christian Vaughan came with both responsibilities. Río feared that Dervla might have landed herself a man with a lot of baggage. But, hey, she thought–the gal was a grown-up, after all. What she did with her life was her business.

Her quarter-mile dispatched, Río swam ashore and clambered onto the slipway where she’d left her clothes. Her phone was ringing.

‘Río Kinsella,’ she answered.

‘Hello, Río. That was some swim.’

‘Who is this?’

‘Don’t worry. It’s not a stalker. It’s Adair Bolger. If you look up to your right you’ll see me in the yoga pavilion.’

Río turned and looked up at the Villa Felicity. There, sure enough, was Adair standing on the yoga pavilion.

‘What do you think you’re doing, spying on me swimming?’

‘A cat may look at a queen.’

‘Not if you put its eyes out,’ she retorted. ‘What can I do for you, Adair?’

‘I thought you might like to join me for refreshments?’

‘Thanks, mister. I could do with something warm after that swim.’

‘Hot chocolate?’

‘Perfect. I’m on my way.’

Río wrapped herself in her beach towel and strolled over to the gate. Someone had been this way recently, she saw. The brambles
had been beaten back and there was a shoe lying on the grass amongst the fallen apples under the trees. Izzy’s, to judge by the size and style. She picked it up, and carried it along with her clothes across the overgrown lawn and onto the deck. Round the corner, the side door into the sitting room was open.

‘Hi, there!’ called Río.

‘I’m in the kitchen,’ came Adair’s voice, bouncing off the walls of the cavernous house.

‘I’d better stay on the deck. I’m still dripping wet.’

‘Would you like a robe?’

‘A robe would be great.’

Río set her clothing down, and balanced Izzy’s shoe on the railing. She was towelling her hair vigorously when Adair emerged onto the deck carrying a robe that was even fluffier than the one she’d worn earlier that day in Coolnamara Castle.

‘Thanks.’ Taking it from him, she shrugged into it, noticing as she did so that the logo embroidered on the breast of the garment was that of the überposh Merrion Hotel in Dublin. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were the kind of person to steal bathrobes from hotels,’ she remarked.

‘I didn’t steal it. Izzy did.’

‘Izzy did?’ That the impeccably mannered daughter of the house was capable of stealing came as a surprise to Río.

‘She was at some twenty-first shindig where you had to fetch stuff from all over Dublin, as a kind of competition.’

‘You mean a party game?’

‘Yeah. You know, like a pair of chopsticks from Wagamama or a cocktail glass from the Four Seasons. The one who pilfered the most items won. Izzy beat them to it by a mile.’

Río was curious. ‘How did she get the robe?’

‘She bribed some hapless hotel porter to let her have it. She can be a minx, sometimes, my Izzy’

A minx? thought Río. Hm. Sounds more like spoiled brat behaviour to me. She had an image of a load of Hooray Henrys
and Henriettas swanning around Dublin, snatching stuff from beleaguered serve persons.

‘Let me fetch your chocolate,’ said Adair. ‘You must be freezing after that swim.’

‘Nah, I’m used to it. I’m like a hardy perennial. And it’s suddenly turned into a beautiful afternoon.’

It was true. All the weather forecasters were predicting an Indian summer. It would be a real treat to have a couple of weeks of good weather before winter came to claim Coolnamara.

Río watched Adair go back into the house. Then she perched on the rail and scanned the view, swinging her legs. She wondered, if the Bolgers had got planning permission for the helicopter pad that was to facilitate the coming and going of all their D4 pals, would he and Felicity still be married? If he applied for PP for his helipad now, would it be granted? It wouldn’t surprise her. Planning permission was being granted for all kinds of projects now that the building market had slumped; projects that wouldn’t have got the go-ahead a decade ago were being green-lighted left, right and centre in an effort to keep the economy buoyant.

‘Hot chocolate, madam.’

Río turned to see Adair setting a mug down on the table.

‘Thanks,’ she said, moving across to join him.

‘Is that Izzy’s shoe?’ he asked, nodding at the trainer on the rail.

‘Yes. I found it in the garden.’

‘She was fretting that it had gone missing. It’s some limited edition must-have thing.’

Río sat down and wrapped her hands around her mug. ‘I’ve never understood the appeal of “must-have” stuff’.

‘It’s a thing of the past now, anyway, isn’t it?’ Adair said. ‘Now that the new austerity’s hit.’

‘Recession chic suits me. I’ve been recycling my clothes for years.’ She took a sip of hot chocolate. ‘Mm. This is delicious.’

‘I don’t make it as well as Izzy does, unfortunately.’

‘I believe she persuaded you to stay on for a few days?’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Finn.’

They looked at each other guardedly.

‘They’ve–um…’ said Adair.

‘Looks like it,’ said Río.

‘He–yes–he stayed over the other night. I–er–understand.’

‘Yes.’

Río took another sip of her chocolate to cover the awkward silence. The suspicion that his daughter may have been sexually active under his own roof must be difficult for Adair to handle.

‘Izzy’s at college, is she?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Doing Business Studies.’

‘Finn tells me she dives?’

‘Yeah. It’s her passion.’

‘Finn’s too.’

‘They’re good kids on the whole, scuba-divers, I find. There’s a kind of philosophy attached to diving that you don’t find in many other sports. A kind of Zen thing.’

‘You looked very Zen on the yoga pavilion. What were you contemplating?’

‘I was thinking about how hard it will be to let go of this place.’

‘You haven’t used it much.’

‘No. I just never seemed to have the time. It’s ironic that we’re splitting just as Broadband’s finally available.’

‘You’re hooked up?’

‘Only just. Because we’re in a dip, the signal couldn’t reach us here. If it had happened sooner, I could have spent a great deal more time in Lissamore. I was able to get work done online this morning that I wouldn’t have been able to do a year ago.’

‘What kind of work?’ Río asked, just to be polite.

‘I won’t bore you with the details.’

‘Is your job really boring?’

‘It can be stultifyingly boring. Sometimes, during meetings, I look around at all those faces drooping over the boardroom table and I want to stand up and let rip a fart.’

‘Do you really?’ said Río admiringly.

‘Yes. Maybe one day I will. And then I’ll retire to Coolnamara and live off the fat of the land. I’ve always fancied myself as a fisherman.’

Río laughed.

‘What’s so funny? I’m serious.’

‘I’m laughing at the idea of you as a fisherman. It’s a bit like Marie Antoinette masquerading as a shepherdess.’

Adair raised an eyebrow at her. ‘You don’t have a very high opinion of me, Río, do you?’

‘On the contrary. I think you’re very nice, for a millionaire.’

‘How many other millionaires do you know?’

‘None. Oh–actually, I think Shane might be one. Or he will be, once
Faraway
goes into a second series.’

‘But it’s your contention that millionaires are not especially nice people?’

Río shrugged. ‘I don’t think that many people get rich by being nice.’

‘So maybe I’m the exception that proves the rule.’

‘Maybe. I’ve never really understood what that means.’ She took another sip of her chocolate, then looked at him speculatively. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, Adair, but how
did
you get rich?’

‘I worked hard.’

‘It was that easy?’

‘Don’t be facile, Río. You know as well as I do that getting rich through hard work is no easy thing. Lots of people work hard–you do, Dervla does–but not everybody gets rewarded as a result.’ He looked away from her and focused on the shoreline, and she saw a muscle clench in his jaw. ‘To answer
your question, I started as a bricklayer at the age of fifteen. I suppose you could say that I got lucky, with the property explosion happening when it did, but if I hadn’t had an ingrained work ethic, I would never have benefited from the boom.’

‘Where did the work ethic come from?’ asked Río.

‘Generation after generation of my family were forced to emigrate to find work–including my father. My mother scraped by on what my pa sent home from London. That’s why I left school so young. I was determined that I would work my arse off to make a better life for her. Sadly, she died before she saw me become a success.’

‘Oh. That
is
sad. What about your dad?’

‘He died when he got too old to be climbing scaffolding and shovelling concrete. When the work ran out for him, he ran out of hope as well as money’

‘Did he come back to Ireland?’

‘No. He died in a doss house in London, clutching a bottle of cheap whiskey for solace.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Río. She knew from experience that more words were unnecessary.

‘Let’s change the subject,’ said Adair, turning back to her. ‘How exactly are you going to help your sister sell my house? The way things are at the moment, the pair of you might have a tough job on your hands.’

Río looked around at the empty planters and urns and troughs. ‘I’ll enjoy doing the garden for you.’

‘What about the interior? I thought you did–um–how did you describe your job again?’

‘Home staging.’ Río drained her mug of chocolate. I won’t have to do anything to this interior. ‘It already looks as if it’s been styled.’

‘It does?’

‘Well, yes, it does. I’ll get some flower arrangements in,
maybe–a few of those less-is-more Japanese-inspired displays they have in boutique hotel foyers–but otherwise I’ll leave it as it is.’

‘That suggests you think this house is more like a hotel than a home.’

‘Well, it is, isn’t it? Didn’t your wife use some Philippe Starck-inspired hotel as a template?’

‘Yes. She wanted–how did the architect describe it again? Um…’

‘A home with a kick,’ said Río.

‘Funny–those were his exact words!’

Río cast her mind back to the afternoon all those summers ago when she had eavesdropped on Adair and his architect. She wondered, would her opinion of him have altered if she’d known then that Felicity, not Adair, had been responsible for the appearance of the barnacle on the beach?