Chapter Twenty-three

Dervla never went to bed with someone on a first date, and she had no intention of doing so this evening, so why had she gone shopping for brand-new lingerie at lunchtime?

Because a girl needs a treat, she persuaded herself, as she stood before the mirror in the ladies’ room of the Hamilton Hotel, checking out her look. Having opted for elegance with a dash of sex appeal, she was wearing her ‘Chanel’ suit. It was actually a very good bespoke copy by her dressmaker comprising a skirt that streamlined her derriere and skimmed her knees, teamed with a beautifully cut jacket, in red and ecru tweed. Her black patent sling-backed stilettos–shiny as her newly styled hair–clicked satisfyingly on the tiled floor as she angled herself this way and that. Did she look the business? Yes, she most certainly did.

Hm. Looking the business was all very well, but it was so long since Dervla had been on a date that she’d forgotten how to behave. Did one flirt? Or was flirting unseemly in a woman hitting forty? Did one talk shop? No, no–please, no–she was fed up talking shop, especially now that house prices were the new weather when it came to small talk. She could small talk about wine. She had consulted her Bluffer’s Guide in order to bone up on Christian’s specialised subject, so hopefully she wouldn’t appear too ignorant when the sommelier poured Burgundy or Bordeaux into her glass. She could allow herself wine tonight, since she wasn’t driving.

She checked the time on her phone. It was just after seven thirty. If she sprayed herself with scent now and retouched her lipstick she’d be a very acceptable five minutes late, and she could make a poised entrance into the restaurant upstairs.

Unclasping her bag, she took out her atomiser, and as she did, the door to the ladies opened and a young woman with a buggy came through. She was laden with carrier bags, she had a baby strapped to her front, and she was trying to soothe a screaming child, who was struggling against his harness like a miniature King Kong.

She shot Dervla an apologetic look. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘My little boy has been caught short, and he’s too young to go into the men’s toilet by himself. I hope you don’t mind. I know this hotel is dead posh, but there was nowhere else I could go.’

‘I don’t mind at all,’ said Dervla, with a smile, spritzing herself with eau de parfum and reaching for her lipstick. In the mirror, she could see the woman fumbling with the straps on the buggy as the small boy threshed around. ‘Stop it, Rocco,’ she said. ‘Ssh, now. Hush, hush–will you ever give over that racket? Stop–please stop. Now lookit! You’ve gone and made your sister cry!’

Rocco was puce in the face, roaring and shaking his fists like a bad actor playing King Lear, and to add to the drama, the poor baby had started to whimper and squirm in her sling, crushed as she was between Rocco’s flailing limbs and her mother’s bosom. Free at last, Rocco made a bid for escape, but the minute he propelled himself out of the buggy, the weight of the carrier bags hitched to its handles threatened to topple it over. His mother lunged for the bags and dumped them randomly on the floor where they lay, spilling their contents. Then, grabbing Rocco by the hand, she started pulling him in the direction of one of the cubicles. It was, however, patently clear that all three members of the family were not going to fit in, and it was then that Dervla saw that the woman was pregnant.

She set down her lipstick. ‘Please let me help you,’ she said.

‘Oh!’ The woman looked at Dervla as if she were an angel descended from heaven. ‘Would you mind? Thank you so much–that’d be brilliant. If you could just take Angelina for me while I help Rocco…?’ And the woman started unstrapping the bundle attached to her chest.

Dervla hesitated, wishing there was some other way she could help. She wasn’t very good with babies. She tended to avoid those of her friends who had become mothers because they talked about nothing else but nappies and formula, and croup, whatever that was. And most babies she thought hideously ugly. But the baby that was handed to her had the face of a Raphael cherub framed by golden curls. Angelina blinked up at Dervla with forget-me-not-blue eyes, and her rosebud mouth rounded in a kissable ‘O’ of surprise.

‘I don’t think Angle’s ever seen anyone with such red lipstick before,’ said her mother. ‘Maybe she thinks you’re a clown. Um, no offence.’

‘None taken,’ said Dervla, with a laugh, taking the child into her arms. ‘Angie! Hello, Angie! How lovely to meet you! What a pretty girl! What age is she?’

‘Four months. She’s been growing like the clappers since I put her on solids. I don’t know what I’m going to do when she gets too big for the sling. I’ll have to get myself a double buggy. More feckin’ expense.’ Angelina’s mum finally succeeded in manoeuvring Rocco into the loo. ‘Now. In we go. Good boy. Here, let me help you with that…’ and as the door shut behind them, Dervla heard Rocco being asked if it was number one or number twos. Her heart sank a little when she heard it was to be number twos. She supposed this could take some time.

There was a gilt boudoir chair on the other side of the ladies. Moseying over to it, Dervla shifted Angelina onto her hip, the way she’d seen mothers of young babies do. It felt right, somehow. It felt–well–comfortable, as if her hip had been specifically designed to be a perch for babies. Settling herself down to wait until Rocco had delivered his number two, she transferred Angie from her hip to her lap and checked out her reflection again. Hm. The ‘baby as fashion accessory look’ suited her rather well, she decided. Particularly one as cute as this Angie was. The child was still gazing up at her mouth with a kind of awe.

‘Well, my little Angel!’ said Dervla, automatically seguing into the voice used by women all over the world when addressing infants. ‘You like my lipstick, do you? You don’t need lipstick, Angel! Your mouth is perfect as it is–as pretty as a peony!’

Dervla started to jiggle her knees, and as she did, something miraculous happened. Angelina smiled. It was like watching speeded-up footage of a flower blooming on the National Geographic Channel, and it made Dervla’s heart blossom in equal measure.

Uh-oh. It was the first time she had ever, ever felt like this, and Dervla was quite unprepared for it. Was the overwhelming, biological urge to procreate finally kicking in before it was too late? She had read somewhere that the pupils of women’s eyes dilate when they look at babies. It could have been her imagination, but her eyes in the mirror really did seem darker.

The mirror reflected not just Dervla in her exquisitely tailored suit and bonny little Angelina in her ruffly stuff; it also reflected the detritus scattered on the floor of the ladies’ room. The buggy with its stained upholstery and grubby changing bag, the carrier bags disgorging products such as rusks and creams and wipes onto the floor: items as arcane to Dervla as the props of a magician.

Another bag spilled articles of chainstore underwear: a six-pack of plain cotton knickers, a nursing bra, a pair of pyjamas. These were not the shopping bags of a yummy mummy with money to spend. Dervla experienced a stab of guilt when she realised that the combined cost of knickers, bra and pyjamas was probably less than the sum she had splurged on a single pair of Agent Provocateur briefs earlier today.

But looking down at Angelina’s little face, Dervla had no doubt that this child was more precious to her mother than the Krupp Diamond. That yearning rose in her again.

‘Angelina, Angelina,’ she murmured. ‘What have you done to me? You are a little minx–that’s what you are–to make me feel this way.’

The sound of the minx’s mother’s voice came from behind the door of the cubicle. ‘Good boy!’ she said. ‘All done!’ The door opened, and the pair emerged looking many times less frazzled than when they’d gone in. ‘Now, we’ll wash our handles, will we? Thank you so much,’ she added, turning to Dervla. ‘The name’s Paula, by the way.’

‘I’m Dervla,’ said Dervla, turning Angelina round so that she could see her mama. ‘Look, look! There’s Mummy now! Wave your little handie!’ She took Angelina’s tiny starfish hand in hers and wiggled it, and Paula waved back, and said, ‘Good baba!’

‘I have to tell you,’ continued Dervla, ‘that I have absolutely fallen in love with your baby. She is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I’m very tempted to tuck her under my arm and kidnap her, and—Oh!’

Dervla felt a sudden wash of warmth on her lap. Looking down, she saw that the cutest thing she’d ever seen had been sick all over the skirt of her faux Chanel suit.

‘Oh!’ she said again, and, ‘Oh my God, I am so sorry!’ said Paula. The two women looked at each other, and it would have been impossible to tell who was the more horrified.

After a second or two of frozen non-action, Paula made the first move. She grabbed Angelina and set her on the floor, where she remained looking serenely up at her mother and gurgling. Then Paula pounced upon the pile of paper towels that lay folded by the wash-hand basin, and fell to her knees in front of Dervla, mopping ineffectually at the pool of sick that was spreading over the front of her skirt.

‘No, no!’ cried Dervla, leaping up and unzipping herself. ‘That’s going to make it worse–you’re just rubbing it into the fabric’

She wriggled out of the skirt and teetered in her heels over to the basin, where she saturated a handful of towels and started trying to swipe the sick off under the taps, but even as she did so, she knew it was futile. There was no way she could wear this skirt tonight: even if she got rid of the stain, it would take ages to dry and it would be impossible to get rid of the smell. Could she race home and change? No. By the time she got there and into a new outfit and back to the hotel in a cab it would be at least half-past eight. She’d just have to phone Christian and make some excuse; she couldn’t tell him that she wasn’t able to have dinner with him because she was covered in puke. But then what? This might be the only evening he had free in Galway He might decide it wasn’t worth asking her out again. He might even decide against doing business with her. She might never see him again. And he was the only man she had met in an awfully long time who had made her feel like a cat that wanted to be stroked. She felt like crying.

‘I–I can’t tell you how sorry I am,’ stammered Paula, and when Dervla turned to the woman, she saw that she was crying. ‘I’ve had the worst day, and now this happens. You’re probably going to want to sue me. I’d say that suit’s worth a fortune.’ Paula’s face had gone bright red, and she was abject as a beaten dog.

‘Of course I’m not going to sue you,’ said Dervla.

‘Why not?’ Paula looked incredulous. ‘Doesn’t everyone sue everyone these days?’

‘No, no. Rest assured that suing you is the last thing on my mind. I’m actually more concerned about how I’m going to get myself out of the bloody hotel. I don’t particularly want to have to get back into my skirt and walk through the foyer covered in vomit, and I can hardly walk out in what I’m wearing.’

‘No. You’d get arrested,’ said Paula, helpfully. ‘It looks like you’ve missed out on a really hot date, and it’s all my fault. Oh, Rocco, stop that! I’ve had to put up with enough from you today’

Rocco was sitting on the floor beside his baby sister, trying to put a pair of knickers on her. He’d ransacked the carrier bag containing his mother’s underwear, and was sporting another pair of knicks on his head. Paula crouched down and started putting things back into the bag, and as she reached for the pyjamas that were still attached to their chainstore plastic hanger, she paused.

‘I know!’ she said. ‘The red on these pyjamas is practically identical to the red of your suit. You could wear them out of the hotel, and nobody would bat an eyelid.’ Standing up, she held the pyjama bottoms against Dervla. The colours were a perfect match. ‘It’s just as well Angel didn’t get sick on your jacket, though. You mightn’t have gotten away with wearing the top.’ Paula’s pyjama top, Dervla saw, was emblazoned with the legend ‘Porn Star’.

Dervla looked at the pyjama bottoms and shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Ah, go on, try them,’ urged Paula. ‘I bought them for my sister–she’s around the same size as you.’

I–I can’t.

‘Why not? Go for it! Nothing ventured…’

Paula thrust the pyjamas at her, and, feeling a tad ridiculous, Dervla tentatively slid in first one black nylon-stockinged leg, then the other.

‘Yeah!’ said Paula. ‘That works!’

Dervla surveyed herself in the mirror. Funnily enough, it did work. The pyjama bottoms could have been taken for palazzo pants. They were cut a little on the wide side, but being mid-calf, they displayed to advantage her shapely ankles and her elegant heels. Teamed with the jacket with its nipped-in waist and little peplum, the effect was curiously elegant.

‘Could I really get away with it?’ she speculated out loud.

‘Deffo. Sure loads of people go around in pyjamas all the time. It’s the latest thing.’

Possibly not when you’re dining in a five-star hotel, thought Dervla. She reassessed her reflection, then nodded. ‘Hell. Nothing ventured! I’m gonna go for it,’ she said.

‘Thank God!’ Paula’s face was still red, but now she was beaming with pleasure, not crying. ‘I’m glad I could help in some way. Listen, give me over that skirt and I’ll get my mam to give it a going-over. She swears by bicarbonate of soda to get the smell of sick off clothes. I’ll have it right again by the morning, and I’ll leave it for you at hotel reception. Unless you’d want me to put it in the post?’

‘No, no, hotel reception’s grand.’

Dervla handed over her skirt, and Paula rolled it gingerly into one of her bags. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘And I’m really grateful to you for not suing me. As for you, you bold, bold baba,’ she said, stooping down to pick Angelina up from the floor, ‘you should thank your lucky stars that you chose a nice lady to get sick on, and not an auld harridan.’

Dervla smiled. ‘She’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘She’ll be a heart-breaker when she grows up.’

‘And if she does that,’ said Paula ruefully, ‘she’ll take after her daddy. Thanks again, Dervla. You need have no worries that that skirt won’t be waiting for you tomorrow.’

‘I know it will, Paula. Good luck.’ Dervla picked up her bag. ‘Oh–I’ll leave your pyjama bottoms at reception for you too, shall I?’

Paula shook her head. ‘Nah. Hang on to them. They look fantastic on you. Honestly. And they only cost six euros.’

As Dervla high-heeled her way back to the foyer, a gaggle of women were emerging from the bar. She braced herself for sniggers as she strode past them in her pyjama bottoms, then realised she didn’t care. She just set her shoulders a little further back, and raised her chin an extra half-inch. Halfway across the floor she heard a voice say, ‘That’s Dervla Kinsella. Doesn’t she look fantastic? I wonder what label she’s wearing?’

‘It’s Chanel,’ came the categorical response. ‘And if it’s not, it’s a bloody good copy.’

And as Dervla made her presence known to the maitre d’ standing sentinel at the door to the restaurant, she saw, on the other side of the room, ChristianVaughan rise to greet her, admiration in his eyes.

On Tuesday morning, Dervla was woken by Christian Vaughan kissing her shoulder. ‘Oh,’ she said, rubbing sleep from her eyes. ‘It’s you. How strange. I never go to bed with someone on a first date.’

‘You just did,’ he told her. ‘And that has made me a very happy man.’

And half an hour later, when Dervla had made Christian an even happier man, he reached for the room service menu and said, ‘Shall we order breakfast?’

‘Mm. That would be good.’

‘Juice?’

‘Orange, please.’

‘Let’s add a little champagne, and make it a Buck’s Fizz. Porridge or cereal?’

‘Um…Porridge. With cream please.’

‘A cooked breakfast?’

‘Definitely. Scrambled eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon and hash browns.’

‘Toast or croissant?’

‘Croissant.’

‘They do pain au chocolat.’

‘Go for it!’

Christian smiled at her, and she saw that admiration in his eyes again. ‘I love a woman with a hearty appetite,’ he said. ‘It indicates a just for life.’

‘Maybe I’m just hungry after all that exercise,’ replied Dervla.

While Christian spoke to room service, she went to the bathroom. From the bedroom, she could hear him talking on the phone with admirable patience: it must have taken nearly five minutes for him to make his order understood.

Dervla took advantage of the extended conversation to improvise a toilette, thanking the good lord that she always carried cosmetic ammo. She splashed her face with water; slapped on some tinted moisturiser; rubbed away last night’s mascara from under her eyes and applied a little fresh MAC Coal Black; combed her sleek bob and then changed her mind and messed it up a bit.

And all the time she was thinking about Christian. Christian Vaughan was charming, full of character and extremely well presented. He was finished with a superb eye to detail, and in turn-key condition. An exclusive and elegant jewel of gracious proportions and in excellent decorative order with superb fixtures and fittings, Christian presented a unique opportunity for the discerning individual. He had the wow factor, he had the potential to be a forever investment. And as for the all-important location factor? If Christian Vaughan moved to Coolnamara, location was as perfect as it could get.

Desirability aside, Christian had made her laugh–and it had been a long time since Dervla had worn anything but a polite smile during intercourse (sexual or social) with the opposite sex. She had enjoyed his company so much last night that she had even forgotten to drop into the conversation those little gems from the Bluffer’s Guides that she usually relied upon to make an impression: it simply didn’t seem necessary to make an effort. Dervla had never felt so at ease–so right–with anyone in her life before. She remembered how, when she had shown him round the Old Rectory, he had turned to her and said, ‘Isn’t it a bitch when you fall in love with a house?’

It was a bitch when you fell in love with a house. She knew that. But there were ways and means of securing a house. It was even more of a bitch, Dervla decided, when you fell in love with a man.