The Guesthouse on the Green Series Box Set 2 Read online

  Oh, how she wished Mammy and her sisters were here right now to hear him say that. Actually she didn’t but nobody had ever seen her as a kind of warrior woman before and she liked it. She liked it a lot.

  ‘Another beer?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ She felt like living a little dangerously.

  She decided against dessert, opting instead for a tequila sunrise from the cocktail menu. Shay went for a margarita. It had been a long time since she’d had a night out. There wasn’t much in the way of spare cash for hitting the nightspots in her London life and, truth be told she didn’t want to. Shay made her feel carefree, like the girl she used to be. She tossed her head back and laughed at the tale of a well-known heavy metal performer’s toddler-like meltdown upon finding the wrong brand of Earl Grey teabags had been put in his dressing room.

  ‘You’ve ruined him for me forever now. What happened to hard living?’

  Shay wasn’t apologetic.

  Nature called and Roisin excused herself, getting up and making her way over to the ladies. She fanned her face, it was hot in here and her legs felt a little unsteady, but then that’s what you got when you wore strappy six-inch heels. It was as she was washing her hands that she looked in the mirror and gave a small yelp at the reflection staring back at her. Christ on a bike, she’d forgotten all about the fringe. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to it, or by the time she had it would have grown back to a respectable length. Still, she thought, drying her hands, Shay hadn’t done that thing where he kept glancing up at it and then, realising he was staring, made himself look away. Colin had been a right gem for doing that. She never needed to look in the mirror to know she had a spot, not when Colin was on the scene.

  She’d have liked to have splashed cold water on her face but didn’t want to ruin Moira’s efforts, besides she thought, with one last glance in the mirror, it’d be her luck the mascara she’d used wouldn’t be waterproof and she’d re-emerge looking like Alice Cooper. The buzz of the restaurant washed over her as she opened the door to the Ladies and weaving her way back to their table, she saw a woman was crouching down at their table chatting animatedly with Shay. She immediately took in the fact she looked to be in her early twenties, a lithely-framed model type, all cheekbones and peachy skin. The sort of woman whose hair did what it was supposed to effortlessly, and whose fringe would never be too short.

  Looking at her, Roisin suddenly felt all wrong. She was nearly thirty-seven, a mother and a soon-to-be divorcee. Who was she kidding? What was she doing here? Shay was in his late twenties and lived the kind of drifting lifestyle that didn’t loan itself to fitting in with her regimented life in London. So, what was this? Why was she here? Deep breaths, Roisin, she told herself, practising the exercises she’d been telling Shay about a few minutes earlier. She approached the table with a smile firmly attached to her face.

  ‘Roisin, this is Estelle,’ Shay said as she sat back down.

  She would be called Estelle. It had been too much to hope for a good old Geraldine or the likes, Roisin took the girl’s soft, dainty hand and managed to refrain from giving it a hard squeeze. ‘Hi, lovely to meet you,’ she said in a breathy voice and Roisin instantly felt mean. Her face was open and honest as she smiled at her. Even so, Roisin was pleased to note that she had lipstick on her teeth.

  ‘You, too.’

  ‘Estelle and I go way back,’ Shay explained. ‘We met when I was just starting out.’

  ‘At a gig in Galway.’ Estelle filled in the blanks.

  God, what was she then, twelve? Stop it, Roisin.

  ‘I was dating Lex from Bad Noise,’ Estelle grimaced. ‘God, he was a nightmare. It took him longer to do his hair than me and he was forever pinching my smoothing serum.’

  Roisin smiled despite herself at the mental picture invoked and the girl beamed back straightening up. Roisin was glad she was sitting down. Her head would have only come up to the girl’s chest and as for her legs, well, they’d finish at Estelle’s kneecaps.

  ‘Well, Roisin, it was lovely to meet you and Shay.’ She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Always fabulous to see you but I’ll have to love you and leave you, Maxim is like a spoiled baby when he’s not getting attention.’ She giggled and pointed to her date who looked like a Calvin Klein advertisement as he pouted around the restaurant, a moody vision in denim.

  ‘Yeah, you too, say hi to Bella, Sebastian and the gang for me when you catch up next. It’s been way too long.’

  Roisin looked at him and back at Estelle and felt like the square peg who’d never fit into the round hole world, they moved in. She knocked back her sunrise and ordered another.

  Chapter 19

  1957

  ‘Nice flowers kid,’ Dermot Muldoon said, gum snapping as he passed by her desk. She’d put the bouquet in an emptied-out pencil holder and was almost hidden behind the colourful blooms as she attacked her typewriter in an effort to catch up on the pile of rewrites dumped in her in-tray. The gum chewing usually annoyed Clio, they weren’t Americans and Dermot loved to play the hardened, New York reporter type, modelled no doubt after films he’d seen. Today however, the thought of America and anything to do with the country made her feel like singing. In fact, she’d just had a tap on the shoulder from Ciara, who sat at the desk behind her, asking her to stop humming Loving You. She hadn’t known she was but Ciara said she’d inadvertently typed Elvis Presley into the editorial she was working on.

  Nobody had ever given her flowers before and this posy had been brought to her desk by a young delivery boy who’d winked at her and said, ‘Somebody must be sweet on you.’. It had made her feel all warm inside and she knew her face had coloured. She’d been centre of attention as the other girls in the typing pool had speculated as to who her admirer was. Clio had been coy, although she’d enjoyed all the fuss. She’d ignored the whispered remark bitchy Brigid, who wore her skirts just a little too tight, had made about there being no accounting for taste. She was only jealous, she told herself. All that mincing around the office she did was getting her nowhere.

  The note she’d pulled from the envelope attached to the blooms was from Gerry. There was no one else they could have been from and her pulse beat a little quicker at the thought of him thinking enough of her to splurge on a bouquet. She’d held the message close as she read it, well away from the others’ prying eyes.

  Dear Clio, I hope I didn’t offend you the other day and if I did well, this is my way of apologizing for being a brash and insensitive American. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and would like to invite you to afternoon tea at that most Irish of establishments, the Merrion Hotel this Saturday at 3.30pm. I shall wait for you in the drawing room where I believe the people watching is excellent and I hope I’ll see you there.

  Clio gazed at the flowers, once more losing herself in the intricate patterns of the petals. Nature was a wonderous thing she thought dreamily, jumping a moment later as the chief’s booming growl sounded from his office. ‘Clio where are those damned rewrites? They should have been on my desk half an hour ago.’ Her fingers began to fly over the keys once more. Nature was all well and good but she had a job to do, she told herself sternly.

  CLIO’S WEEK WAS MERCIFULLY busy although her mind kept drifting to Saturday and what she would wear. She’d seen a dress in the window of Brown Thomas on her way to get the bus and had stopped to stare. It was lemon coloured with a nipped-in waist and full skirt and the slogan next to it said ‘Be a Ray of Sunshine on an Autumn Day. Yellow looked well on her, she knew that. The dress was far prettier than anything she had hanging in her half of the wardrobe at home. She mentally poured herself into the dress and imagined the admiration in Gerry’s eyes as she swept in through the hotel’s doors, white gloves on and cardigan draped over her shoulders. The doorman would fall over himself to greet her and Gerry would think himself a fortunate fellow indeed. She’d blinked, aware of the people hurrying past her and feeling rather foolish standing gawping at a shop window. Sh
e reminded herself that she wasn’t really a ray of sunshine on an autumn day sort of a girl. No, she’d resolved, come Saturday afternoon she would be herself because that’s exactly the sort of girl she was and if he didn’t like it then he wasn’t the fella she hoped he might be.

  Even so, she’d taken an age to get ready come Saturday. She’d fussed with the rollers and had been pleased with the way her hair curled under at the ends. As for her bouffant, for once it didn’t look like a sponge pudding sat on top of her head. All in all, someone was on her side she thought, giving it a final dousing with the setting spray. She’d compromised inasmuch as she ever did by teeming her checked pants with a lemon sweater. She didn’t normally bother with make-up, she was always in too much of a hurry to head out the door and find out what was happening in the world. Today however, she applied a peachy, pink lipstick before standing back from the dressing table mirror to admire her handiwork. A giggling sounded from the doorway and she spun around to see Fidelma peering around it. She made kissing noises and, as Clio lunged at her, she tore off down the hallway, her feet thundering down the stairs to the safety of her mam’s skirts in the kitchen. Clio followed at a pace befitting a young woman about to go for afternoon tea at the Merrion.

  ‘Leave your sister alone, Fidelma,’ she heard Mammy admonish over the cacophonous noise coming from the kitchen. She poked her head around the door in time to see her sister’s cheeky face peer around her mam to see how the land lay. A pot was bubbling on the stove, its lid rattling, and the savoury smell of stew clung to the air. The twins Tom and Neasa were banging spoons on upside down pots playing the drums and looking pleased with their musical ability. Tom was clutching a piece of cheese in his spare hand and Tabitha, Mittens’ predecessor was cowering in the corner ever hopeful of a tasty titbit being sent her way.

  It was a madhouse, she thought calling over top of the ruckus, ‘I’ll be off then, Mammy.’

  ‘Ah now, hang on just one moment, young lady. Tom, Neasa, give that a rest, you’re giving me an awful headache so you are. And Tom give me that cheese if you’re not going to eat it.’ Tom pressed the cheese into his mouth defiantly and Mammy sighed, turning her attention back to Clio.

  ‘Now who is he this fellow of yours? And what is it he does?’

  ‘Mammy!’ Clio rolled her eyes. She’d already told her more than once. ‘We’ve been through all of this.’

  ‘Don’t you Mammy me, not when you’re after stepping out with a fella we’ve not met.’

  Clio decided to tread a little more carefully. She was lucky it was just Mammy she was having to deal with, Da thanks be to God had gone to watch the match. ‘His name’s Gerald Byrne and he’s an Irish American from Boston. He’s in Dublin for the year studying at Trinity—a third-year law student.’

  ‘A law student, and from Boston, you say.’ Mammy’s eyes were alight and slightly glazed. Clio knew she’d just transported herself from her kitchen in Phibsborough to a swanky Boston society wedding where she, as mother of the bride, was clad in the very latest haute couture. She’d have a hat on too, Clio mused, a great big one with feathers like one of the three musketeers knowing Mammy. She read far too many magazines for her own good.

  CLIO FELT LIKE SHE’D stepped into another world as she was ushered through the doors of the elegant Georgian hotel. She paused for a moment in the foyer and fancied she could smell the stories imprinted on the Merrion’s walls. The air was fragrant with extravagant floral arrangements and, to Clio’s mind, there was a hushed, almost reverent atmosphere rather like being in church. The foyer was quiet this time of the day and a well-groomed young man with a pencil-thin moustache looked up from the concierge desk to ask if he could help her. ‘I’m meeting a friend in the drawing room,’ she explained a hand automatically going to her hair to check it was still sitting where it was supposed to be and hadn’t morphed into a bird’s nest on the journey here.

  ‘Certainly, madam.’ He gave a tight smile, his moustache curving upwards, and gestured to a porter asking if he would ‘Show madam to the drawing room.’ She hurried behind the liveried boy who didn’t look much older than herself and found herself in the entrance of an understated, refined room full of intimate tables and comfortable armchairs in which several guests lounged with the casual air of people well used to the finer things life had to offer. A colossal chandelier dominated the space sending shafts of rainbow lights darting about the room. Flames spluttered and coughed from the open log fire and there, sitting in the middle of it all and looking every bit as handsome as she remembered, was Gerry.

  His face lit up as he saw her, and Clio thanked the porter. She tried to stop the big goofy grin from spreading over her face as he got up to greet her. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come. You look wonderful by the way.’ He kissed her on the cheek and she inhaled his scent closing her eyes for the briefest of moments trying to pinpoint the familiar, fresh smells. It was Pears soap and green apple shampoo she deduced, accepting his invitation to sit down in the chair opposite him.

  ‘Shall I order us tea and scones?’

  ‘Grand.’

  He did so and then produced a packet of Player’s from his shirt pocket. He opened it and giving it a tap offered the protruding cigarette to her.

  ‘Oh, no I don’t, thanks.’ She’d had a puff on the cigarette her friend, Deirdre, pinched from her mammy’s apron pocket when they were thirteen. She’d thought she was going to cough up a lung and when she’d finished wheezing, she’d felt violently ill. It had put her off for good.

  ‘Do you mind if I do?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  She watched him from under her lashes as he lit the cigarette with a gold Zippo. It was engraved but she couldn’t read what with. He saw her looking at it.

  ‘A twenty-first present from my folks. I’ve a matching hip flask.’

  ‘So, you’re twenty-one.’ She’d wondered.

  ‘Closer to twenty-two and what about you, Clio, how old are you?’

  ‘Eighteen. I’ll be nineteen in June.’ She watched him lift his head and exhale a plume of smoke. There was something elegant about the process and she almost wished she did smoke.

  ‘So,’ he said lazily. ‘Tell me more about yourself. What makes you tick, Clio Whelan.’

  ‘Well,’ Clio thought about his question, ‘I suppose what drives me is my need to break the mould.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, I don’t want to wind up being an Agony Aunt for the paper or writing a women’s lifestyle column. That isn’t what I want to read when I pick up the paper. I want to read about what’s going on in the city and that’s what I want to report on. There aren’t any women doing that and I think it will be a while before there are, but I intend to be right there with my pen and pad at the ready when things change. And I want to write my book of course.’

  Gerry could see the passion in her eyes as she spoke. ‘And, I think you’ll do both.’

  Clio checked his smile but there was no hint of condensation or indication that he might be humouring her, as was apt to happen when she put voice to her dreams. The only thing she could read in his expression was admiration.

  ‘There’s more to you than your ambition, though. What about family, you know brothers and sisters?’

  ‘Oh,’ she waved her hand dismissively, ‘I’ve too many of both.’

  Something, her words or her expression, Clio wasn’t sure, made him laugh and encouraged she told him all about the Whelan madhouse.

  ‘It sounds like fun.’

  ‘Chaos more like. They drive me mad all of them but I love them dearly. What about yourself?’ She looked at him sitting back in his chair, legs crossed, relaxed, and was struck by how at ease he was here in the hotel. Taking tea in upmarket establishments was clearly something he was used to unlike herself who was perched on the edge of her seat half expecting a tap on the shoulder from the concierge asking exactly what she, Cliona Whelan from Phibsborough was doing there. She could sense from h
is quiet confidence how different their lives were and the seed of an idea was planted.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Everything and do you mind if I take notes?’ Her hand was already closing around the notebook she never left home without.

  ‘For your character profile?’ He looked amused as he took a long drag on his cigarette.

  Clio watched the tip glow brightly and the ash begin to bend. He flicked it in the ashtray and looked at her expectantly.

  ‘No, I’ve an article I’d like to write.’

  ‘About me? I can assure you, your far more interesting than me Clio.’

  She shook her head. ‘I disagree. Your life’s so different to mine and the average Dubliner, Gerry therefore it’s automatically of interest especially as so many Irish have family in Boston. I want to know about what your life there’s like. Why you feel connected to Ireland even though your third generation. The, things you did growing up that sort of thing. What it means to you and your family for you to spend a year at Trinity and how it differs from college life in Boston. I’m sure others would too.’

  ‘I think you’re quite mad, Clio.’ He shook his head and ground his cigarette out.

  ‘A little maybe, but most of us Irish are.’ He smiled at that and encouraged, she clicked her pen testing it on the blank page she’d opened her notebook to. ‘Well, what do you say?’

  ‘Will you let me read it when you’ve written it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He studied her intently for a moment. ‘I don’t think you are the sort of girl who takes no for an answer are you, Clio?’

  ‘I’m most certainly not,’ she said, mock-sternly.

  He grinned. ‘Well then, I’ve no choice. Where should I start?’

  ‘Tell me about your family and what it was like growing up in Boston.’

  Clio listened intently, her hand flying across the page, not wanting to miss a word of what he was saying. She was right, his life was as different to hers as could be and reading between the lines, she sensed his family was wealthy. What they called in America, old money wealthy. Gerry was one of three boys who’d had a pretty sheltered childhood. He’d gone to good Catholic schools, summered in Cape Cod, that sort of thing. She watched his face grow illuminated as he described the wide sky and endless stretches of sand and the sense of freedom he’d always felt arriving at the Cape, knowing the whole summer was his to lie on the warm sand, to run down the beach as the waves caught his feet, and to swim. As a teenager he’d been good at track and he’d have liked to have studied medicine. Medicine was a noble profession, he said, but as the oldest son, a career in politics was predetermined. His father moved in those circles and it was an assumption Gerry had grown up with that he would follow in his father’s weighty footsteps. She detected a slight bitterness in his tone and tried to imagine having no choice over what direction you pointed your life in.