Chapter Twenty-five
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.’
‘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?
‘Did you want a home with a kick, Adair?’
‘No. If I’d known my marriage wasn’t going to last, I’d have been happy with a fishing lodge–as long as it had a window big enough to frame my view.’
‘So you’re a man of simple tastes?’
‘I like to think so.’ Adair regarded her speculatively. ‘If you owned this house, Río, and you wanted to give it a more homely vibe, how would you do it?’
‘I’d give it a sense of humour.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, don’t you think this house takes itself too seriously? That po-faced goddess on the yoga pavilion, for instance. She could do with a touch of rouge, a little polish on her nails, some fire-engine red lipstick.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘What else?’
Río thought hard. ‘I’d grow creeper all over the exterior walls, to soften the angles. Creeper hugging a house makes it look as if it’s loved. I’d paint the interiors in soft, warm shades of saffron and poppy, and I’d get rid of all that cutting-edge furniture and replace it with floppier stuff. I’d fill the house with plants, and install aquariums in every room and fill them with angel fish and zebra fish and Siamese fighters. And there would have to be a cat. There’s nothing like a cat to stop you getting too big for your boots. Cats rule.’
‘And on a viewing day? How would you stage it to persuade someone that they’d want to live here?’
‘I’d get a long trestle table,’ said Río, rising to her feet. ‘And I’d put it slap-bang here in the middle of the deck, and cover it in a big white linen cloth. And then I’d set it for dinner, with at least a dozen places.’
‘So it would look as if the owner was about to entertain guests?’
‘No. So that it would look as if the owner had entertained guests.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’d stage it to look as if the guests had enjoyed the grandest dinner imaginable, sitting over great wine and good food in front of one of the most fabulous views in Ireland, laughing and shooting the breeze until the small hours.’
‘How on earth would you manage that?’
‘Well, think of the dinner we had in O’Toole’s the other night. We all had a good time, didn’t we?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how did the table look afterwards?’
‘Messy.’
‘Go to the top of the class. That’s what happens when people have a good time.’
‘So you’d set the table as if a load of people had messed it up?’
‘Yes. But it would have to be very carefully messed up. There’d be no red wine stains on the tablecloth, or rinds of cheese left on plates, or scraps of wilted salad leaves. I’d leave napkins casually draped on table mats, and some of the glasses would have a little wine left in them. Guests would have been at the coffee stage, so there’d be a couple of cafetiéres with coffee grinds in, and lots of silver teaspoons.’ Río furrowed her brow, thinking. ‘What else? Wine coolers, of course, and loads of bottles, some half full’
‘Not half empty?’ Adair smiled at her, and she smiled back.
‘Never half empty,’ she said. ‘There’d be flowers, of course, and I’d scatter the table with petals. A big bowl of oranges, with maybe a little orange peel by some of the side plates. And candles–lots and lots of half-burnt candles all over the deck, and a fiddle propped up by the rail, to show that there’d been music’ Río was really warming to her subject now. ‘And by the pool, there’d be a pile of inflatables, to show that kids had been there, and that they’d had a great time too. Staging a house is like telling a story, you see, Adair.’
‘I’m impressed,’ he said. ‘You’re good at this, Ms Kinsella.’
‘I know. But there’s more. Let me think…Champagne, of course. A pashmina left hanging on the back of a chair. A discarded bracelet. Maybe a trace of red lipstick on a napkin.’
‘A cigar?’
Río shook her head. ‘No. These people don’t smoke.’
‘What were our people celebrating?’
‘Um. An anniversary? A birthday?’
‘So there’d be presents.’
‘Yes. Let’s make it a lady’s birthday. What does she like?’
‘Jo Malone?’
‘But of course! Jo Malone candles and body lotion.’
‘Lingerie?’
Río considered. ‘Maybe not. Too intimate.’
‘Books?’
‘Yes. Lovely big glossy coffee-table books on gardening and cooking and wildlife.’
‘CDs?’
‘Definitely. She’d be into trad–that’s why the fiddle is there, and maybe a bodhrán too–so you’d have Donal Lunny and Sharon Shannon.’
‘And Zoe Conway.’
‘Of course! And there’d be wrapping paper and ribbon festooned around the place, and birthday cards with “Happy Birthday” written all over them in different handwriting–and maybe there’d have been dancing, maybe someone had left their shoes on the deck–red shoes with heels–and oh! it would all be so much fun!’
Adair gave her a look of admiration. ‘You have some imagination, Río Kinsella. I just wish I had a birthday coming up so that we could do it for real. But then, I have no friends here to invite.’
‘My birthday’s coming up, weekend after next. Maybe you should throw a party for me.’
‘Now, there’s a thought. Maybe we should. I may have no friends in Lissamore, but you must have loads.’
‘Adair. That was a joke.’
‘About your birthday?’
‘No. About throwing a party for me,’ she said, sitting back down beside him. ‘Now. Back to business. You see now how important it is, when you’re staging a property, to get the ambience just right. Your main aim is to get your viewer to think–Wow! This is a house where fun can be had, where music and laughter and love are on the agenda. You want them to think that when they buy your house, they’re buying all these things too.’
‘They say that money can’t buy you love.’
‘But–as Marilyn Monroe claims in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes–it certainly can help.’
‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes!’
A girl’s voice came from the other side of the deck. ‘Isn’t that the movie where she played the ultimate gold-digger?’
Río turned to see Izzy leaning against the railing, watching them, her gaze bluer and more inscrutable than a Siamese cat’s.
‘Izzy-Bizz!’ said Adair. ‘Where did you come from?’
She was clever. Oh, this woman was clever! Clever, devious and dangerous.
From the road above, Izzy had watched Río swimming ostentatiously to and fro between mooring and slipway, before emerging like Halle Berry (she wished?) in Die Another Day, or Aphrodite in the Botticelli painting, then looking up at the Villa Felicity to see if the lord of the manor had been gazing upon her wondrousness.
He evidently had, because as Izzy rounded the corner of the house several minutes later, the pair of them were having a cosy tête-à-tête on the deck, Río all snuggled up in a towelling robe–her towelling robe from the Merrion Hotel, Izzy noticed with some indignation.
She decided that it might be a good idea to stay shtoom for a while before making her presence felt. She listened as Río mouthed on about some fake birthday party she was planning to throw–some kind of a staging ploy to help sell the Villa Felicity, with prop candles and champagne and flowers and a feckin’ violin. ‘Oh!’ she heard the woman say in a breathy, little-girl voice. ‘It would all be so much fun!’
The piece de resistance had been when she’d mentioned–oh so casually–that it happened to be her birthday, weekend after next. Well, just think! What an astonishing coincidence! Izzy almost had to admire her. The dame had masterminded the scenario so adroitly that she’d even managed to drop in her wish-list of presents. Jo Malone and pashminas didn’t come cheap–and as for the ‘discarded bracelet’! Izzy was surprised that she hadn’t specified the number of diamonds she wanted on said bracelet, or the carat size, or whether it should come from Tiffany or Cartier.
How subtle she’d been! How Machiavellian! But Izzy could be Machiavellian, too, and was not to be underestimated. Sauntering across the deck, she hummed a couple of bars of ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ before depositing a kiss on her father’s forehead and dropping into the chair beside him.
‘Hello, Daddy dearest,’ she said. I came by to pick up my togs. ‘I’m going snorkelling.’
Río felt uncomfortable beyond belief. With her clothes in a pile on the deck and herself wrapped in a bathrobe, she knew it must look as if she and Adair had had sex. She’d have to disillusion the girl.
‘Your father very kindly lent me this,’ she stammered, sitting up straighter and pulling the lapels of the robe up to her chin. ‘I–I’m wearing it because I was swimming.’
‘But of course! Why else would you be wearing it?’ asked Izzy ingenuously, widening her eyes. Río felt more uncomfortable than ever now. Oh why did she allow this girl to have such a debilitating effect on her? She felt as if she were back at school, guilty of some misdemeanour.
‘I don’t know,’ she said stupidly.
Izzy gave her a pleasant smile. ‘That Marilyn Monroe quote was from the end of the film, wasn’t it? When she admits she’s marrying for money?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s what I love about that movie,’ said Izzy. ‘She’s so upfront about the fact that she’s venal. It’s her candour that makes us root for her.’
Adair looked at his daughter proudly. ‘Izzy was originally going to take Film Studies as her degree course,’ he told Río, ‘until she decided that Business Studies would be more useful.’
‘Er, what kind of business are you thinking of going into?’ asked Río.
‘Funny you should ask that. Finn–your son–and I had lunch earlier, and we were talking about how brilliant it would be to set up a dive centre in Lissamore, now that the one on Inishclare’s gone.’
‘He was?’ Río was taken aback. This was all happening much faster than she planned, nor was it necessarily going in the direction she’d intended. Izzy Bolger and Finn as business partners was a scenario from hell, as far as she was concerned.
‘Shane–his dad–has offered to back him,’ said Izzy.
‘I know Shane is his dad!’ Río wanted to snap at her. What was all this ‘Finn–your son’ and ‘Shane–his dad’ shit? Did the girl think she was such a total imbecile that she had to detail Río’s own family tree?
But instead she said, ‘Yes. Shane mentioned something about helping him out.’
‘It would be an expensive business, setting up a dive outfit,’ observed Adair.
‘I’ll do the maths when I get back to Dublin. The captain of the subaqua club in college is clued in about that stuff. He has contacts in the trade.’ Izzy’s phone alerted her to a text message. She smiled when she accessed it, and jumped up from her seat. ‘I’d better get cracking. Finn’s waiting for me up on the road. Apparently the viz off the island is cracking today.’
‘You’re snorkelling off Inishclare?’ asked Adair.
‘Yeah. Finn’s mate Carl’s lent him his boat. I’ll see you later, Daddy. Bye!’
Izzy danced away, looking pleased with herself. An awkward silence descended for the second time that afternoon, but Izzy was back before either Río or Adair had a chance to remark upon the burgeoning relationship between their offspring. ‘Dad! Could you let me have some money? I’d like to buy a round later, and I’m out of cash.’
‘Sure.’ Adair got to his feet. ‘Just let me find my wallet. Where did I put it?’
‘It’s on the table in the atrium.’
‘Excuse me for a moment, Río,’ Adair said. And as he followed his princess inside, Río heard a phone tone and the tinkling sound of Izzy’s laughter from the ‘atrium’.
Well! It looked as though minxy little Isabella Bolger had well and truly annexed her son. How and why had she done that? Río would have thought that the girl’s preference would be for a metrosexual, or a man with ‘prospects’ in law or accountancy, but she supposed Finn was pretty damn irresistible. He had said something on the phone today about Izzy having visited Koh Tao while he was there. Had they planned to meet? Had they spent much time together? Had they maybe slept together then?
Río remembered how well matched they’d looked all those months ago on the day of Frank’s funeral, sitting together on the sea wall across from Harbour View. Perhaps they’d shared contact details that day. That was how young people got to know each other now, carrying on and flirting on Facebook and Bebo and My Space. For all she knew, Finn and Izzy could have been an item for some time. For all she knew, they could be making plans for a future together. She wondered how much information Finn would volunteer about the affair. Very little, knowing him. Not even Dr Phil could have got her son to open up about that kind of stuff.
‘Well!’ said Adair, with mock heartiness, as he returned to the deck. ‘It’s nice to see our two young people having fun!’
‘Yes.’ Río managed an unconvincing smile. ‘All that fresh air and messing about in boats is far better for them than playing mindless computer games.’ Oh God. She sounded like a bad infomercial for the Scouting movement.
‘Would you like something else to drink?’ asked Adair. ‘A glass of wine?’
‘No, thanks. I’d better go.’
Río rose, feeling awkward again. She didn’t much fancy the idea of changing back into her clothes on Adair Bolger’s deck.
But he must have sensed her discomfort, because: ‘Feel free to use the downstairs shower room to change,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’
She made her way through the massive sitting room and into the ‘atrium’, where the shower room was located. It could have accommodated three of her puny bathroom, Río thought, as she disrobed and got back into the suit she so hated.
As she went to hang her borrowed bathrobe on the back of the door, she dislodged another from its peg. Stooping to retrieve it from the floor, a citrusy scent hit her. It was a scent that she recognised at once as Acqua di Parma, the aftershave Adair used.
Deep inside her, Río felt something like a flower unfurling.
‘You’re some waterbaby,’ Finn told Izzy.
Having just completed a series of tumbles, Izzy was floating on her back, watching a vapour trail trace its way across the sky.
‘You remind me of my mum,’ he added.
‘What?’ Izzy stopped floating, and started vigorously treading water.
‘She adores the sea. She does all her soul-searching in the water.’
Izzy did not welcome the news that she reminded Finn of his mother. Pah! Why did boys say the stupidest things? She performed one last tumble, then shook her wet hair back from her face and swam back to the boat, where Finn was leaning back against the stern, looking at her admiringly. Oh! How good it felt to be gazed at admiringly by a beautiful boy!
‘Help me out, will you, punk?’ she said.
Reaching down, he helped her haul herself out of the water. It felt good to be pulled on board a boat by a beautiful boy too, and to be wrapped in a towel by him, and it felt even better when he took her in his arms her and kissed her.
‘You’re very beautiful,’ he said.
‘That’s funny,’ she said, tracing the line of his mouth with a finger. ‘I was just thinking the same thing about you.’
‘You’re beautiful and you’re funny and you’re ballsy.’
‘Not a spoiled, stuck-up brat?’
‘You’re one of the least stuck-up girls I’ve ever met,’ said Finn. ‘And I’ve met a few. Some of the divas I’ve had to train would make Paris Hilton look like a cherub.’
‘Tell me!’
‘Oh, girls refusing to carry their gear in case they broke a nail. Girls complaining about seats on the boat being wet…’
‘Hello? It’s a boat.’
Finn spread his palms. ‘Doh, yeah. Girls not wanting to get into hire neoprene suits because they might look fat. Girls moaning about masks ruining their hair and make-up.’
‘Girly girls. Barbies. We call them “plastics” in college.’
‘“Plastics” is good. That’s what’s so great about you, Izzy Sometimes you behave more like a boy than a girl’
‘Hey! Thanks.’
‘No, I don’t mean it that way’ He pulled her tighter, and smiled down at her. ‘Obviously I don’t. In fact, when I first met you as a grown-up, on the day of my grandfather’s funeral, I thought you looked edibly girly.’
‘Don’t I look edible today?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He licked her neck. ‘You taste of the sea, and you’re making me hungry. Let’s go get chowder in O’Toole’s.’
‘How romantic, to tell a girl that she tastes of fish.’
‘You taste delicious, but you need something to warm you up. You’re cold.’
‘How can you tell?’ she asked, disingenuously.
‘How do you think?’ he asked, running a hand over her nipples. ‘God, you’re a sexy piece of work, Isabella Bolger.’
The way he was looking at her made her feel sexy too. Winding her arms around his neck, she tangled her fingers in his hair. ‘Maybe we should just go home,’ she suggested.
‘To the Villa Felicity. I have a suspicion that you’re horny as hell, Finn Byrne, and there’s not a lot you can do about that when you’re on a boat in the middle of the bay. There are probably binoculars trained on us as we speak.’
‘Won’t your dad be at home?’
‘He’s cool. He didn’t bat an eyelid when I told him you’d stayed over on Sunday night.’ It was true. But Izzy suspected that it had cost her father an effort not to bat an eyelid.
‘I felt kinda bad about that.’
Izzy shrugged. ‘Honestly, you needn’t worry about him. The house is so big that he probably won’t even know you’re there. My mother’s the one I’d have a problem with. She’s not half as easy-going as him.’
‘Your mum’s Felicity, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘The Villa Felicity. Imagine if I called a house after myself. The Villa Finn doesn’t have the same ring to it, somehow. The Villa Isabella sounds good, though.’ Finn moved midstern, and took hold of the oars.
‘What if your name was Bob?’ mused Izzy. ‘The Villa Bob. That’s a good one.’
‘How about Phyllis? The Villa Phyllis sounds like some kind of a disease.’
‘What’ll we call our dive shop? Finn Fun?’
‘Fizzy Izzy’s?’
‘Frizzy Izzy’s if I got dodgy hair extensions again. How about Fish Finn-gers?’
‘Crab Catchers?’
‘Rude boy! If it was a bicycle shop, you could call it Finn de Siécle.’
‘Or if we lived in France we could call it Finny’s Terre.’
And as the oars dipped rhythmically in and out of the water and the sun started to sink down below the horizon, Izzy and Finn giggled like schoolkids as they made their way back to the safe harbour at Lissamore.
From her balcony overlooking the harbour, Río and Shane regarded their son as he made a boat fast to a bollard.
‘I’d better go and say goodbye to him,’ said Shane.
Shane’s bag was packed and waiting for him downstairs. Earlier that day he had received a call from his manager, requesting that he make an appearance on a mid-week television chat show. Well, it was more of a command than a request. Shane couldn’t say no. An S-class Merc was on its way to convey him to Dublin, and a suite had been booked for him in the Four Seasons.
‘Are you sure you won’t come up for the craic?’ Shane asked Río. ‘I bet there’s loads of stuff you could nick from the Four Seasons.’
Río shook her head. ‘No. Coolnamara Castle is as fancy as it gets for me. I’d be a fish out of water in the Four Seasons.’
‘There’s a pool’
‘I hate swimming in pools. Anyway, you’ll have no time for craic, Shane. You’ll be too busy being a media whore.’
Shane gave a pained expression just as his phone rang. ‘Yeah,’ he said into the mouthpiece. ‘Just opposite the harbour–the house with the balcony and the blue door. Thanks. See you in a minute.’ Stuffing the phone back in his pocket, he turned back to Río. ‘The car’s arrived. Hell, you know I’d much rather have you drive me up to Dublin, Río.’
‘No, Seth. It cannot be. Beyond the realm of Coolnamara, I transform into a wraith. You must go alone. And beware the warlord Xerxes.’
‘Akasha, it pains me to leave you.’
They stood smiling at each other for a moment or two, and then Río said: ‘Send me a message, will you, when you’re on telly? For fun. A private one, just for me.’
‘A message? Like something encrypted that only you will understand?’
‘OK. Watch out for it.’
Below them, the Merc pulled up by the kerb, and a chauffeur emerged.
‘Bummer,’ said Shane. A man. No one to flirt with. ‘I guess I’ll just have to talk about sport. Byebye, love.’
Río raised her face to his and closed her eyes. Shane kissed her lightly on the lips, and then she heard his feet on the stairs, and the door to the street opening.
‘Byebye, love,’ she echoed. And tried not to think of the next line of the song.
There was a lot of talk about sport on the chat-show the next evening. Snuggled up in front of the fire, Río dozed off until she heard the presenter say: ‘He’s taken the US by storm in the surprise hit of the season, Faraway; he’s set a whole new trend in leather-wear, and he’s back in his native Ireland for the first time in five years. Ladies and gentlemen, will you welcome please–Mr Shane Byrne!’
Shane loped onto the set and shook hands with the presenter, and then they settled down for their chat. The usual introductory suspects were gone over, and then, some minutes into the interview, Shane was asked how he was dealing with his newfound fame, and how it had changed him.
Shane paused for thought, and then he looked directly into the camera and said, in that voice that made Río melt like chocolate: ‘Fame? It’s not something I ever had a drouth for.’
‘A drouth?’ queried the interviewer uncertainly.
‘Yes. My drouth is slaked by simpler things. Such as…Beauty. Passion. Love wakened from despair. That kind of thing.’ And then Shane smiled straight into Río’s eyes.
‘I’m sorry?’ said the chat show host, looking a bit confused. ‘You’re maybe being a little too–um–metaphysical for me here.’
‘Forgive me,’ said Shane, turning back to him. ‘I guess I’m just waxing nostalgic. Re-visiting Coolnamara made me prioritise some things in my life. Fame means nothing to me. Love and friendship is all that slakes my drouth. Or–if you prefer–floats my boat.’
And then Shane resumed his affable expression and settled down to be grilled about life in La La Land.
Río laughed out loud and clapped her hands. He’d done it! He’d sent her a message in the form of a quote from the poem he’d read to her as he’d made love to her that night in Coolnamara Castle. She recalled fragments of it now…
I have craved…with passion burning
And with my whole heart yearning…
And looking at Shane on her plasma screen, she wondered now: did her heart yearn for him? No. She loved him–she loved him with her whole heart–but she didn’t yearn for him. Shane had been a revenant–a visitor from another era when Río had been young and irresponsible and–yes–passionate. And now she had put childish things behind her and grown up and moved on, and the men that mattered in her life were moving on, too. And as for passion? Passion was for poems and pop songs and paperback fiction. Passion was for members of that exclusive club known as jeunesse dorée. Passion would not be allowed a look-in in Río’s life.