Chapter Twenty-nine
Río was cycling along the coast road, singing. She was on her way to inspect her new orchard. She felt like Eve, being invited back into the Garden of Eden. What would she plant there? What plants did well by the seaside? Sea kale and sea pinks, obviously. Cupid’s dart flowers, butterfly bush, pineapple guava. Shrubby Mediterranean herbs and New Zealand flax. Flaming montbretia, candy-coloured hydrangea, baby-pink weigela. Buddleia to lure butterflies. Angel’s fishing rod and sea holly. She would plant only the leanest and meanest–the survivors.
Like her, she told herself as she rounded the corner that would take her to the Villa Felicity. She was a survivor. What were the odds of survival for a fatherless single parent who had lost her mother at a tender age, been estranged from her sister, and raised by a raging alcoholic? She reckoned she had enough credentials to write a misery memoir. Maybe she should ask Dervla for her putative publisher’s contact details.
Her phone tone sounded from her bag. Río dismounted to find Dervla’s name displayed.
‘Hi, sis!’ Río sang into the mouthpiece.
‘Río. Where are you?’
‘I’m on my way to the Villa Felicity. To re-explore my orchard!’
‘You can’t go there.’
‘Because Adair Bolger’s throwing a birthday party for you there tomorrow evening, and he’s getting the place ready.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, shit! I’ve just blown the surprise element. Look, I don’t have time to explain now. Just pretend you didn’t hear that. Can we meet at your gaff? I’m there now.’
‘Sure. What’s wrong, Dervla?’
‘I need a shoulder to cry on.’
‘Then you’re talking to the right gal. I’m on my way.’
Río turned her bike around, and cycled back the way she’d come, pondering on the conversation she’d just had. Why was Adair Bolger throwing a surprise birthday party for her? How bizarre! And what was up with Dervla? Surely she couldn’t be regretting her marriage to Christian Vaughan already, after herüber-romantic honeymoon? She barely knew the man, after all. Even their own mother–poor impulsive Rosaleen–had held off for two months and two days before marrying Frank. Maybe Dervla’s new husband had turned out to be an alcoholic? An alcoholic or a gambler or a wife beater, or all three? Río suddenly felt fearful for her sister.
She pulled up outside Harbour View, and dumped her bike against the wall. Dervla was sitting on the sea wall, worrying a cuticle. She jumped up when she saw Río and said, ‘Can I get drunk and stay over with you tonight?’
Oh God, thought Río. Things must be really bad. ‘Of course you can. Come on in.’
Río led the way upstairs, and into her apartment. Taking a bottle from an off-licence carrier bag, Dervla made straight for the drawer where Río kept her corkscrew, uncorked the wine and sloshed copious amounts into two glasses.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Río.
Dervla told her. She told her about her new mother-in-law and her new stepdaughter and about the myriad unforeseen problems she’d invited into her life.
‘Oh God,’ said Río, when she’d finished. ‘Where’s Christian now?’
‘He’s staying over at the hotel with Megan and his mother. We’re going to the Old Rectory on Sunday to check out the feasibility of a granny flat with accommodation for a carer, and he’s going to drive them to the airport on Monday’
‘Hell’s teeth, Dervla. It’ll be some responsibility, living next door to a–what’s the politically correct term for someone with dementia?’
‘To hell with political correctness,’ said Dervla, taking a swig of wine. ‘This dame is a cross between a wicked pixie and a dragon.’
‘Couldn’t she go into a home?’
‘I suggested that to Christian, and he literally turned white with horror. We’re just going to have to find an excellent support team for her, once we’ve moved in. I don’t know how this Nemia person’s been managing all on her own. She must be some kind of Mother Theresa to put up with that kind of abuse.’
‘Well,’ said Río, activating her laptop. ‘Thank God for the internet. The first thing you’re going to have to do is bone up on the disease. Let’s have a trawl through cyberspace.’
First up was Wikipedia. It made for gloomy reading. So did FamilyDoctor.org, and MedicineNet.com and the self-explanatory Dementia.com. There were pages and pages and pages of articles proffering scholarly words of wisdom and advice, and by the time they’d got to a ‘Hobbies, Pastimes and Everyday Activities’ page, Río and Dervla were quite drunk.
‘“Create a reliable daily routine,’” Río read out loud, ‘“from washing hands, saying prayers, preparing food, cleaning and singing, to a little dancing before bedtime.’”
‘Dancing before bedtime?’ scoffed Dervla. ‘Mrs Vaughan can barely walk, let alone dance. And just what kind of dancing do these internet do-gooders have in mind? Old-time waltzes? The hokey cokey? A samba round the garden? Maybe she’ll get up and stepdance like Jean Butler at Adair Bolger’s party tomorrow night. Ha! What a danse macabre that would be.’
It was time to change the subject. It was clear that Dervla was completely wound up about her new situation, and Río really didn’t want to hear any more depressing stuff about dementia. She suspected that she might be showing signs of early onset herself–she’d left the apartment in her shower cap yesterday.
‘What is all this about a party?’ she asked.
‘Don’t let on I told you,’ Dervla begged her. ‘It’s the sweetest thing. Adair decided to throw a farewell bash before the house goes on the market, and when he heard it was your birthday, he hit on the idea of making it a combination farewell-birthday party.’
‘Oh’ said Río, turning pink. ‘That is sweet.’
Dervla gave her a knowing look. ‘He fancies you, doesn’t he?’ she asked.
‘How should I know?’ Río covered her confusion by emptying the wine bottle into their glasses.
‘You do so know. You’re blushing. And it’s mutual. You fancy him too.’
‘I do not fancy him,’ protested Río, knowing even as she said the words that she was lying, and that she had in fact been in denial for some time about the fact that she really, really did fancy Adair Bolger.
‘He’s a good-looking man,’ observed Dervla. ‘At least I’ve always thought so.’
Río made a noncommittal sound.
‘He makes you laugh,’ continued Dervla. ‘And he listens to you.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I watched the pair of you together in O’Toole’s that night. At first I thought that you were flirting with him just to make Shane jealous, but I could tell Adair was really into you. You can’t fake body language like that. And he has manners–proper, good, old-fashioned manners. There’s nothing sexier than a man with manners.’
Río shrugged, and continued to avoid her sister’s eye. She was loath to admit that Dervla had nailed her so adroitly, because in the careless days of her youth, Río had scorned men with manners. She and her pals had flouted convention and subverted regulations and laughed in the face of authority, and as far as she’d been concerned back then, manners were for wimps. The kind of men she’d dated had been musicians and artists and actors, brigands and libertines, all of them, and most of them had been reckless with her heart.
But now she saw that Dervla was right. There was nothing sexier than a man with manners. Río was impressed by the way that Adair would hold a door open for her, or rise to his feet when she sat down at a table and–sexiest touch of all–the way he would guide her into or from a room with a decorous hand hovering over the small of her back. Every time he did that, it was an indication of the respect in which he held her. And now he was going further still, by holding a party for her!
‘He’s a nice man, Río,’ said Dervla, whose BlackBerry was bleating at her.
Río demurred. ‘Don’t you think he might just be on a kind of rebound thing, after Felicity?’
Dervla shook her head. ‘No. You don’t see the way he looks at you when your back is turned. I think he cares for you. I rather think he might adore you.’
Adore! That word again!
‘That’s what Mum wrote on the last of those letters that my–that Patrick Flaherty wrote to her. She said that she knew what it was to be adored.’
‘It’s a good feeling,’ said Dervla, with a smile.
‘Yes,’ admitted Río. ‘It is.’
Dervla returned her attention to her BlackBerry. ‘Well! This is interesting!’ she remarked, as her fingers started buzzing over the keypad.
‘What is?’
‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’
‘D’you know something?’ resumed Río, reaching for her wineglass again. ‘I know I’m flying in the face of my post-feminist convictions here, but I’d really, really like someone to care for me. I’m sick and tired of being all on my own, and fighting every inch of the way’
‘I know exactly how you feel. Beleaguered. That’s what made me decide to sell the business.’
Río slumped. ‘Pah. I can’t afford to give up work.’
‘You could if you hooked up with Adair Bolger.’
‘Don’t, Dervla! That’s just stupid. We’re polar opposites, Adair and me.’
‘He’s mellowed through the years. And so have you. Hey! Let’s play the “What if…?” game.’
‘What if? You mean, as in “what if” anything happened between us?’ Río looked dubious. ‘It’s an “if” of gargantuan proportions.’
‘Let’s play it anyway. Come on! It’s fun. Remember the old days when we used to play it all the time?’
In fact Río remembered that she’d played it rather more recently, with Shane in their suite in Coolnamara Castle. She tucked her feet up under her, and started toying with a strand of her hair. ‘Well…’ she began, reluctantly. ‘If Adair and I got together, there’s no way I could live in Dublin, for starters.’
‘What if you stayed here?’
‘There’s no room for two people here!’
‘No, I don’t mean here, in this flat.’
‘But you made the stipulation that I wasn’t to sell this place, Dervla!’
‘What if I changed that stipulation? What if you were to move into the Villa Felicity?’
‘Get real! The Villa Felicity’s up for sale!’
‘Can you really see me living in the Villa Felicity?’ Río scoffed.
‘You visualised yourself living there once. You pictured yourself being Queen of all you surveyed.’
‘I did not!’
‘You did, Ríonach. I clearly remember you speculating about what it would be like to wander out on the balcony and go for a skinny-dip before breakfast. And then you slid down the banister and Adair caught you at the bottom of the staircase. You were both laughing like drains.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Río squinted at a split end and broke it off. ‘I remember now.’
‘They say that if you visualise yourself living in a place, you subconsciously want to actually live in it,’ observed Dervla. ‘You’ve always wanted to live there, Río.’
‘I wanted to live in Coral Cottage, not in that house!’
‘That’s because it’s not a home. You could make it one, Río. You know you could. What if—’
‘Oh! This is bonkers!’ Río swung her legs off the sofa and marched towards the kitchen to get another bottle of wine. ‘I don’t want to play the “What if…?” game any more, Dervla. We’re grown-ups now.’
‘But what if it weren’t a game?’ asked Dervla.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What if it were for real?’
‘Dervla? Have you been spending too much time with your new mother-in-law? Is dementia catching?’
‘I think not.’ Dervla smiled her best Sphinx-like smile. ‘I’ve just had an email from Adair.’
‘So that’s what that was. What did he have to say?’
‘He’s taking the Villa Felicity off the market,’ said Dervla.