What She Wants (20 page)

‘How about unclean, unpainted and utterly unsuitable for two small children,’ she snapped back at him, tiredness and a general feeling of being unloved making her cross. ‘Not to mention freezing. We’ll all get hypothermia if we live here. This is a dump. I don’t suppose you were roughing it here?’

‘Well, no, I was at Finula’s and I know we have a lot to do here and I’m sorry I haven’t really got started but I thought we could manage for a few days with those portable stoves and then get some work done on Monday …’

‘Matt, you mean you haven’t told Hope the place wasn’t ready yet?’ said a low, throaty female voice. ‘How bold of you. Slap, slap.’

They both turned to face the newcomer. Tall, rotund and exuding rural friendliness, she was forty-something and wore a selection of flapping garments that all appeared to be patterned by the hand of Laura Ashley. Hope identified pyjama style trousers, a voluminous shirt and a rakishly-angled hat, all flowery and pink. A big tartan shawl completed the outfit.

‘Hope, meet Finula Headley-Ryan, the leading light of the artistic community in Redlion and the lady who’s been so kind about getting me into the writers’ centre at short notice.’

‘Tsk, tsk,’ said Finula, clearly delighted with this description but pretending she wasn’t. ‘I’m only an old dauber, hardly an artist at all.’

She sailed over to Hope and held out a freckled hand, weighed down with elaborate old gold rings. The glamorous effect was slightly ruined by chipped scarlet nail varnish that revealed yellowing nails underneath.

‘I’m sure you’re not so pleased to meet anyone when this house is like the wreck of the Hesperus,’ she said in that low, thrilling voice. ‘Matt, you are a melt for not telling the poor girl that the place isn’t habitable. Think of the shock she got when she thought this was her new home in all its freezing glory. What are you like?’

‘Well, I wanted Hope to come and I knew she’d hardly

be keen if I told her what was left to do,’ he said, giving Finula the benefit of his handsomest smile. ‘Anyway, Hope,’ he added, slightly wheedling, ‘I’ll get the workmen to start on Monday.’ ‘Obviously, the children can’t stay here,’ Hope said, her shock at the state of her new home overcoming her dislike of getting personal in front of strangers. ‘We’ll have to stay in a hotel.’ ‘Nonsense,’ Finula declared. ‘You’ll stay with me. The only hotel round here is five-star and would cost a bomb. We’d love to have you. A couple of days and we’ll have this house spick and span. It’s not at all fit for children.’ She leaned over and rubbed Millie’s cheek.

Instead of scowling the way she usually did when someone she didn’t know touched her, Millie dimpled up at Finula. ‘Little dote, isn’t she?’ sighed Finula. ‘My Cormac is twelve now, too big for cuddles but they’re lovely at that age.’ Thinking of Millie’s waking-the-dead tantrums on the journey from the airport, Hope managed a weak smile and said yes, lovely. ‘Now, follow me,’ Finula ordered. Within minutes, she’d bundled Hope and the children into her car, a battered green station wagon that had been side-swiped so often there were only stripes of green paint on the doors. ‘Matt can take your car,’ Finula said, crunching gears as she drove over a few bushes doing a five-point turn. ‘My house is down an awful potholed bothreen and you’d be tortured following me.’ The inside of the car was as messy as the outside, with a filthy pair of Wellington boots on the back seat and several smelly waterproof coats, exuding a scent of mud and wet dog, crumpled up on the floor. Hope sat in silence as they drove at high speed along a narrow road. She was suddenly exhausted after her journey

and so angry with Matt for expecting her to live in such squalor that she was incapable of making polite conversation. Finula, however, kept up a stream of talk that, luckily, required no response.

‘There are seventeen of us in the community who live here full time. Mainly artists but we’ve got three novelists and two poets. I’m sure you’ve heard of Maire Nic Chinneide.’

Before Hope had time to nod dishonestly at this, Finula was off again.

‘Amazing poet, so lyrical. Her poems about the traffic on the Killarney Road would bring a tear to your eye. Anyway, as I was saying, as well as the full timers who live in the area, at least two hundred artists and writers come during the year, and we have a wonderful time. I’ve been here ten years and I feel like part of the furniture. Myself and Ciaran - Ciaran’s a novelist by the way - came from Dublin originally. I wouldn’t go back for all the tea in China. There are no twenty-four-hour shops here or high rise buildings: it’s heaven.’

Hope, longing for a twenty-four-hour shop and a couple of high rise buildings, said nothing.

Finula described the entire artistic community, how often they met in the Creativity Centre (every day, as far as Hope could make out) and what sort of wonderful entertainment was available (weekly dinners during the high season and two creativity workshops during the year when the place sounded as if it was over-run with would-be writers and painters.) Matt had explained all this to Hope previously but when he’d said how it worked, it hadn’t sounded like some demented religious commune. Feeling more and more anxious, Hope wondered if there were other women with small children.

‘The locals don’t bother with us much, they think we’re all mad artistic types,’ Finula tittered.

Hope privately thought that Finula relished being a mad artistic type. Compared to Finula’s flamboyant floral rig out,

Hope felt like a mouse in her serviceable navy chinos, navy wool polo neck and beige casual jacket. Would she have to start wearing loads of mascara, plenty of shawls and her Liberty nightie to fit in? ‘I’m sure Matt has told you all about us,’ Finula said, swerving rapidly as she made a right hand turn into a beautifully-kept driveway. ‘Not really,’ Hope hedged, vowing never to get in a car with Finula ever again. They pulled up outside a big homely farmhouse set amid a forest of pine trees. Unlike the cottage, this was beautifully maintained, with big planters full of dwarf conifers in a regimented line beside the porch and ornamental wagon wheels set along a veranda. A swing seat took pride of place on the left of the veranda, complete with stripy canopy. The entire premises would not have looked out of place in a Doris Day movie. ‘Let’s get you all in and get some food into the little ones,’ Finula bossed. Finula’s home was everything Hope wanted in a rural retreat. Rambling yet cosy, with plenty of squashy sofas, Turkish rugs on the stone floors and lots of pictures, ornaments and books to enliven the place. Her kitchen was the sort of place that highly successful television cooks always seemed to have: a triumph of golden wood complete with an Aga, butcher’s block and bulbous copper saucepans hanging from the ceiling. Hope had always wanted one of those saucepan-hanging things. ‘I know it’s a shock when you up sticks and move to the country for the first time,’ Finula said when Hope and the children were installed at the huge wooden kitchen table, the children with homemade yoghurts and homemade apple juice, Hope with a big glass of red wine - thankfully not home made. ‘But it’s so good for the children. You can have a chance to bring them up the right way here, to teach them about life and nature, to feed them natural, organic foods and to

be with them all the time. It’s a quality of life you can’t get in the big city. No rapists, murderers or burglars.’

Hope took a slug of wine and mused on how the locals had managed to keep murderers, rapists and burglars out: with an electric fence, perhaps?

‘Of course, personally, I think those degenerate hippie people up the road aren’t to be trusted,’ Finula added nastily, ‘but we’ve had no trouble with them yet. Matt’s been telling me how you’ve longed to spend time with the children, that you were tired of the rat race.’

Hope wished Matt hadn’t been quite so free with his confidences. Finula already seemed to know everything about her. She idly wondered if he’d mentioned her premenstrual tension or that time he’d had shingles and been off sex for a month, just to give a rounded psychological picture of them as a couple.

‘Wait till you’ve had the thrill of growing your own vegetables,’ Finula sighed.

Now did not seem like the time to mention that Hope only liked her vegetables fresh from the supermarket counter and that the last thing she’d grown was a peace lily given to her when Toby was born. It was long since on a tip somewhere, withered because she’d forgotten to water it.

‘And hens, you’d love hens,’ Finula said. ‘Old Gearoid had a lovely hen house out the back and you’d be mad not to get hens. Think of it,’ Finula’s eyes went misty, ‘your own free range eggs. You have to watch the foxes, mind,’ she added, waving a finger to illustrate how dangerous foxes were. ‘Matt really needs a gun, you know. For the foxes, although I doubt if he’d get a licence for one.’

‘I can’t imagine Matt shooting anything,’ Hope ventured.

‘Well, he’s great at fishing so I assumed he could shoot as well.’

Hope stared at her. ‘Fishing? I didn’t know he could fish.’

‘There’s no point hiding your light under a bushel here!’ Finula wagged a finger. ‘He’s wonderful fisherman. He didn’t let on at first, but we soon got it out of him. There are no

secrets in Redlion. I’m sure you’re very into organic food as well. I wouldn’t dream of having anything else in the house. And as for convenience foods, tsk!’ Finula’s snort indicated what she thought of convenience food. ‘Shop bought meals and tins of food, they rot your insides, believe me.’ It occurred to Hope that she’d have to visit the village shop under cover of darkness if she was to purchase things like fish fingers, Lean Cuisines and the tinned spaghetti the kids adored. Then again, maybe the village shop didn’t have things like fish fingers or tinned spaghetti. Maybe it only sold tofu, yak’s milk and bean sprouts. And not a single packet of crisps and Hula Hoops. Suddenly, she yearned for a delicious packet of Hula Hoops, full of non-organic preservatives and things Finula would disapprove of. Gorgeous. Finula was still talking. Did she ever shut up? ‘Cormac has done so well since he came here. We spend quality time together. You don’t get that when you work outside the home,’ she said beadily. Hope wanted to stand up for working outside the home. Millions of women have to work, they have no choice, she wanted to say. And many more want to work, they want a career. That doesn’t mean their children suffer. But she said nothing. Matt had obviously painted her as an earth mother who couldn’t wait to give up her job, so there was no point. She hardly knew this woman after all and they were her guests. So Hope smiled her polite smile and wished she was at home in her own kitchen in Bath, doing the ironing. Yes, that would be a suitable swap. A mound of ironing as big as a house would make up for being in this mad woman’s kitchen feeling her life spiralling out of control. At that moment, Matt arrived and to Hope’s utter surprise, started to make himself a cup of tea, seemingly completely at home in Finula’s kitchen. ‘Ciaran and I put the cases in the two back bedrooms,’ he said. ‘Finula’s been putting me up since I got here. Isn’t she wonderful?’ he said to Hope, patting her arm affectionately. ‘Yes,’ said Hope, tightlipped.

Tired from their journey, Toby and Millie miraculously went to bed without a fuss. Hope would have loved to have thrown herself onto the double bed in her and Matt’s room and joined them in the land of Nod, but she knew she had to have dinner with the others.

Ciaran, who turned out to be a short, bald and spectacled man looking a million miles away from his description as an arty type who wrote historical novels, was making his special beef in Guinness, the family’s favourite recipe.

‘You’ll adore it,’ said Finula throatily to Hope. ‘Oh my dear, do meet my lovely little Cormac’

Cormac was a big, sullen lad who was anything but lovely. He wolfed down his meal almost before the rest of them had picked up their forks and immediately shoved his seat back from the table and left.

‘Homework,’ said Ciaran.

Bad manners thought Hope.

It was a strange evening. Over dinner, Hope watched her husband laugh, joke and tell stories about the advertising rat race and how he was glad to be out of it. There was no trace of the focussed, ambitious ad man who lived and breathed for his job and who read the advertising magazine, Campaign, as if it were the Bible.

She also watched Finula gaze raptly at the handsome happy face like a dog drooling for a marrow bone. Matt seemed utterly unaware of Finula’s admiration.

‘I love this place,’ he said, squeezing Hope’s hand. ‘It makes me feel alive.’

Hope squeezed back. It was wonderful to see Matt happy again and to feel that there was new life in the marriage. It was only for a year after all.

The local people were, according to Ciaran and Finula, all very boring. Having overheard herself being described as boring more than once, Hope felt a glimmer of pity for the locals.

‘I have tried, believe me,’ Finula said querulously after her sixth glass of wine. ‘I’ve tried to get them involved in the

community. We had that That evening in June and invited everyone to come. I even got a Tai Chi teacher to come in for a demonstration, I thought it would be lovely to start local classes. But no.’ She sniffed. ‘Only a few came and they were out the front door like a shot as soon as Su Lin started the demonstration. Although my tiger prawns went down well. They’re all only interested in business and the prices of property. Honestly, we came here to get away from all that. And the women are always on about this Macrame Club they have going. I ask you, macrame. That went out in the seventies.’ ‘Not everyone’s into stuff like Tai Chi,’ volunteered Hope. ‘I mean, I’m not. I love aerobics though. I hope there’s a class round here, otherwise I’ll balloon. I could certainly do with a few sessions of turns and bums.’ She looked up from her meringue with blackberry coulis to see Finula staring at her in shock. ‘Aerobics,’ said Finula as though she was speaking of tertiary syphilis, ‘is hardly the same as Tai Chi.’ ‘I know, I know,’ said Hope, backtracking, ‘but that’s what I like. Everyone likes different things. You can’t make people interested in Tai Chi if they’re not…’ She felt Matt’s hand gripping her thigh under the table. ‘Hope, love,’ he said, ‘that’s the point of the community. It’s not just about letting a group of artists work in a supportive atmosphere, it’s about fostering culture in Kerry. Teaching people that there’s more to life than existing in the humdrum working world.’ He sounded so earnest when he spoke that Hope wondered if her real husband had been body snatched and replaced with this lookalike. And no wonder the locals weren’t keen on the artistic gang. It was a bit rich to turn up in an area and basically accuse everyone of being culturally illiterate. ‘I understand,’ she said gravely. In the end, Matt drank so much of Finula and Ciaran’s lovely wine that he got plastered and by the time they