Chapter Twelve
Dervla loved showing houses after Río had worked her magic on them.
Over the course of a few months, her sister had equipped herself with what could only be described as ‘inventive’ tools of her new calling. She made her own furniture polish from linseed oil and turpentine, claiming that nothing beat the smell of fresh polish. She had accumulated a plethora of props with which to ‘dress’ properties after the cleaning people had been in–old Chanel No. 5 or Jo Malone bottles filled with coloured water, second-hand coffee-table books, her own paintings, some beautiful clothes on loan from Fleur: an embroidered lawn dressing gown to drape casually at the foot of a bed, a pair of designer shoes positioned to look as though they’d just been kicked off, a theatrical sunhat that she’d leave on a garden table next to a Gucci sunglasses case (empty) and the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine. For another house, New Statesman might be more appropriate, for yet another, GQ or Vogue, or Elle Decoration.
‘It’s fun!’ Río told her sister. ‘First I go in and wander round and think about the type of person who might like to live there. If the house is near the sea, I think “maritime”, so the coffee-table books will all be about fishing, or yachting. Or if it’s a city-centre apartment, I think “city chic”, and dress it with edgier, more modern stuff–all a snip from Dunnes home-ware. And auction-room or car-boot-sale finds are great for older houses–I got some beautiful china tea cups, and a lacquered fire screen and a sterling-silver dressing table set. It’s amazing what you can find for half nothing if you look hard enough.’
‘Where on earth do you keep it all?’
‘Mrs Murphy’s allowed me to use her garage. She’s still sick with guilt about the garden.’
‘I noticed the big bowls of fruit and the baskets of vegetables—’
‘They’re nearly as important as fresh flowers. But you have to choose only misshapen veg, otherwise they don’t look organic’
‘You’ve been busy,’ Dervla told her. ‘That’s good. It’s so important to keep busy when you’re trying to fight off the blues.’
‘Gardening’s the best therapy of all,’ pronounced Río.
‘Clearly. You’ve done great work on the Whelans’ garden.’ Río had transformed a nondescript yard into a fabulous patio with the help of half a dozen bags of golden gravel, half a dozen paving slabs, and some bedding plants in urns and baskets. ‘And by the way, did I spot hollyhocks in the garden on Eaton Terrace?’
‘Yep.’
‘How did you manage that?’
‘They were leftovers from the previous viewing. They were nearly finished, so I just whipped them out of the vase and stuck the stems in the flowerbed. I did that with the tulips in the Grantham Street place too. And I was thinking of dropping shop-bought apples around the trees in Norton Row, except it’s the wrong time of the year. I’ll have to wait until autumn before I can pull that stunt.’
‘Um. Why fallen apples?’
‘Well, just think how nice it would be to wander out into your garden and pick up a load of apples to juice for breakfast. People are really aware of that sort of stuff now that it’s hip to be frugal. If I had the time, I could do a to-die-for vegetable patch. Oh, another thing I’ve come up with is postcards.’
‘Postcards?’
‘To stick under fridge magnets. Finn’s been sending me postcards from all the exotic places he’s been, and if I stick them on the fridge, it makes people think that the people who own this house must be really popular, because of all the postcards they get, and maybe if they bought the house, some of that popularity might rub off on them. And, Dervla, please don’t get rid of any of your invites to your posh social events. I’ve got an idea for them too.’
So Dervla furnished Río with all her party invitations, and the next time she visited one of her properties, she was amused to see that the pin board in the home office was covered in invites to exhibition openings and fashion shows and golf classics and charity lunches. And there were memos too, written in Río’s beautiful, flowing italic script that read: ‘Buy birthday champagne for the Hamilton-Stewarts’ and ‘Send flowers to Naomi’ and ‘Email Joneses–thanks for the garden party’ And once, when Dervla had been showing a couple round, she heard Río’s voice come over the speaker on the answering machine saying: ‘Hello! Hope you’re well! Just to say thank you so much for dinner on Sunday. We had a wonderful time, and I have to say that your house is looking divine! Thanks again–and looking forward to seeing you at the premiere next week!’
‘You might start leaving love letters lying around too,’ said Dervla, the next time she spoke to Río on the phone.
‘Not a bad idea!’ said Río.
‘I was joking.’
But Río did indeed start to leave billets-doux peeking out from under books and magazines, written on beautiful handmade paper, and bearing such affirmations as ‘I said yes!’ and ‘Love, love, love you!’ and ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty…’ until Dervla drew the line when one puzzled viewer said: ‘I may be going mad, but didn’t I see that notepaper in the house we looked at last week?’
Still, Dervla had to admit that her sister’s unorthodox approach was bearing fruit. Who wouldn’t want to live in a house with good karma, a house that smelled of Jo Malone and furniture polish, where the women lounged around in embroidered white peignoirs over breakfast in the garden reading Vanity Fair, and the men left their bow ties casually flung on a bedside table beside a book on quantum physics, and the children played with old-fashioned building blocks and zoo animals, and read traditional storybooks instead of slumping over computer consoles, and where everybody ate fresh fruit and vegetables instead of junk food, and drank vintage Bordeaux and San Pellegrino instead of Blue Nun and Sunny Delight?
Thanks to Río’s flights of fantasy, Dervla’s houses started to sell themselves again. She was keeping her head above water in what was a barely buoyant market. And one day she realised that, although the news on the radio was all doom, gloom and bye-bye boom, she was feeling A-OK. It was good to have a sister.
The weather was fantastic too, which helped lighten her mood, and–while sales were still down–the fact that she was selling more houses than any other agent in the Coolnamara region was music to her ears. The restoration of Frank’s house was going smoothly; building work was easy to come by, and cheaper than it had once been, and together the sisters had overseen the construction of Dervla’s rental apartment, and of Río’s eyrie. The downstairs duplex was designed as a typical holiday let, fully fitted and furnished with hard-wearing pieces from Ikea and an entertainment system for rainy days. The entertainment system comprised HD television, hifi and Xbox, and Dervla thought wryly of past Sunday afternoons playing Cluedo or Monopoly in front of the fire in the old sitting room. The rear of the kitchen had been replaced with a wall of glass brick, to allow light into the room, and to preserve the privacy of Mrs Murphy in the garden that was now hers, and all the regulation fire alarms and extinguishers and blankets had been installed.
Upstairs, accessible via a separate staircase, Río’s apartment was full of light from the Veluxes that had been built into the roof. It was one long, wide open space, with a bathroom adjacent and a mezzanine under the eaves that housed a sleeping platform. Río had painted this alcove chalky blue, and hung it with gauzy drapery to create a private place for dreaming.
In the main space, the colour scheme was similar–the floorboards limewashed, the tongue-and-groove walls sponged in duck-egg blue. Río had set up her easel and a trestle work table in a corner next to the door that led onto the small deck, and screened it off with white-painted lattice-work. The kitchen was separated from the main living space by a blue-tiled counter, and glass-fronted cupboards housed Río’s collection of blue and white china. In the sitting area two sofas covered in loose white linen covers sat on either side of her pretty ceramic Dutch stove, and a big cosy armchair had been positioned by the door that led out onto the balcony–from where Río could observe the comings and goings in the harbour below. There was space for a pull-down chaise longue where Finn could sleep when he came to visit.
The move hadn’t even been that stressful for Río. Every time she visited from her rented house just down the road to chat with the painters and the carpenter, she had brought with her a box of books or a crate of paintings or a bin bag full of rugs, and Dervla watched as, bit by bit, her sister’s nest began to take shape. A cushion here, an embroidered throw there, a jug of daisies–just so! All combined to make a home ‘oozing’–in estate agent’s parlance–‘with charm and character’.
And as soon as everything had been completed to her satisfaction, Dervla contacted an outfit that specialised in holiday lets, put her name on their books, and sat back waiting for her first tenants to arrive.
Río was looking round Mrs Murphy’s garage, trying to rationalise the space. Mrs M had recently replaced an old bureau, a Formica-topped table and a plush eighties-style armchair with trendier items that she had asked Dervla to pick up for her from Ikea. The redundant furniture had been relegated to the garage, awaiting the arrival of a van that would take them to the recycling depot.
Río had shifted the table and armchair to one corner of the garage, and was wondering where best to stow the bureau. It was a pretty little rosewood thing, but badly scratched. Looking at it now with a critical eye Río realised that if sanded and French-polished, it might be worth keeping. Hunkering down, she inspected it for woodworm. There were no telltale signs on the exterior, and the drawers all seemed worm free.
The interior was nicely fitted with cubbyholes, and a ‘secret’ drawer. Río’s grandmother had had something similar in her house in Galway, and had used to leave sweets inside for Río and Dervla to discover. Pressing the mechanism that opened the drawer, Río peered inside. There was no trace of woodworm here either, but there was a letter. Mrs M must have forgotten about the hidden drawer while clearing out the contents. The envelope was addressed to ‘Anne-Marie’, which Río knew was Mrs Murphy’s Christian name.
She was just about to pocket it to hand back to her neighbour when something made her stop. The writing on the envelope was identical to the writing on the letters that the man called Patrick had written to Rosaleen. Río’s stomach did a somersault; her mouth went dry. Her hands began to tremble as she did the thing she knew was wrong, the thing she could not stop herself from doing. She opened the envelope and took out the letter.
‘Dear Anne-Marie,’ she read, in her father’s hand,
I am leaving tomorrow. Will you make sure that Rosaleen gets the enclosed? I know that she will be too weak after the baby to be able to get to the beach for some weeks, and I dare not risk leaving a letter in the usual place for such a long time, in case someone might find it.
You have been a real friend to us. I know that it went against all your moral principles to help us the way you have, and I am sorry to have vexed you in that regard. Yet I will always be grateful for your all-too-human connivance. It made Rosaleen and me very happy. But you are right. I can no longer stay here, especially since the arrival of little Ríonach.
Please, please keep your promise to never breathe a word of what you know to anyone. I dread to think what might become of Rosaleen and our baby if Frank were to find out.
Also, please find it in your heart to wish me well, Anne-Marie, and to pray for me. My heart is so very, very heavy as I write this. I will not know such love again. May God bless you.
Yours,
Patrick
Río put the letter back in the secret drawer. She stood there for many moments, lost in thought, then shook herself out of her reverie. Now that she looked again, she decided that the rosewood bureau was not worth restoring. It would look silly and old-fashioned next to Mrs Murphy’s spanking new Ikea furniture, and Mrs Murphy would not thank her for returning it to her. Río would instead put it in the back of the van that would transport it to the recycling depot, taking its secret with it.