Cruising with the O’Maras (The Irish Guesthouse on the Green #17)

Chapter 22

Meanwhile, back in Dublin...

B ronagh finished checking the Belfast businessman out of room seven with an efficiency honed from her long service behind O’Mara’s reception desk. She graced him with her high-beam smile as she waved him off and wished him well in his meetings before calling out to Freya, her voice suggesting it was urgent. Since the twins’ arrival, Aisling had realised she needed to loosen her grip on running the guesthouse, and Freya was her right-hand woman. She was currently amid her morning routine next door in the guests’ lounge, replenishing the tea and coffee sachets, tidying magazines, and plumping cushions. A creature of habit, Freya’s expression was disgruntled as she appeared in reception to see what couldn’t wait a minute longer.

‘There’s an email after pinging through for Aisling and Moira from Maureen,’ Bronagh explained. ‘I tried ringing upstairs to let them know, but the phone’s engaged.’ Both women were aware of Kiera’s latest trick. The toddler had taken to clambering onto a chair to pick up the phone. She’d hold an animated one-way conversation and then hang up, but she’d not mastered properly putting the phone back on the hook. The more Moira told her not to do it, the more Kiera seized every back-turned opportunity that came her way. You never knew whether someone was actually on the phone or not. ‘You know yourself how they’ve been carrying on as if they’ve been orphaned since their mammy and Donal left: they’ll want to read it pronto.’

Freya nodded and, given she had a streak of the fecky brown-noser in her – according to Moira – she was eager to be the one to run upstairs to tell the sisters. ‘I’ll go up now and tell them to come down. I don’t mind watching the little ones for a while, seeing as Tom and Quinn are out for a run.’ If she wondered why Bronagh didn’t print off a copy for her to pass on, she didn’t ask.

‘That’s very good of you, Freya.’ Bronagh was just as keen for an update on how life aboard a cruise ship was treating Maureen and Donal. She fancied the idea of a cruise for her and Leonard’s honeymoon. Mrs Flaherty, too, would want to hear Maureen’s update because she wrote a good letter. The sort that made you feel like a fly on the wall.

‘Not at all,’ Freya said, already heading for the stairs. All the staff were fond of the O’Mara children and keen for any excuse to cuddle them, especially the twins at that plump baby stage. Where Kiera was concerned, though, you’d want to watch you weren’t wearing white when she wrapped herself around you. Lately, she seemed to have always had her hand shoved in something she shouldn’t. Bronagh had wound up with peanut butter handprints all over her cream blouse the last time the toddler had sat on her knee. She kept her mammy on her toes, that was for sure!

Hearing Freya’s light footfall on the stairs, Bronagh hit ‘print’ on the computer and swivelled in her seat, waiting for the printer to spit the letter out. All four pages of it. Then, getting up, she headed past the storage cupboard to the top of the stairs leading down to the basement kitchen and dining area to call out to Mrs Flaherty that Maureen had sent an email if she wanted to come and hear all the news. The breakfast service was finished but the mouth-watering aroma of bacon lingered as the cook banged about in the kitchen, clearing up for the day. She appeared at the bottom of the stairs, red in the face from all her rub-a-dub-dubbing to say she’d be up in two ticks.

Meanwhile, having reached the top floor, Freya tapped on the door of the O’Mara family apartment. She could hear an almighty din coming from within and knocked again to ensure she’d been heard. A frazzled Moira opened the door.

‘How’re you, Freya?’

‘Grand, Moira.’ Freya didn’t bother asking how Moira was as it was apparent how she was faring. ‘Bronagh sent me up to tell you and Aisling your mammy’s after emailing. I’m volunteering to watch the children if you two want to head downstairs to read her letter together.’

Moira looked tempted to run off downstairs without so much as a backward glance, however she beckoned Freya in. ‘You might regret that offer. Kiera and the twins are in the middle of band practice.’

Freya trailed behind Moira, the noise growing ever louder, into the sitting room where Aisling was at the table with a calculator and spreadsheet in front of her. ‘Bronagh tried to ring but I think your phone is off the hook again,’ Freya shouted over the top of the children.

Moira checked it and pulled a face. ‘It was. Thanks, Freya. Kiera, I’m beginning to sound like a broken record. You’re to stop playing with the telephone, do you hear me?’

Sitting on the kitchen floor with a couple of upturned pots in front of her, Kiera was too busy smacking them with the wooden spoon like she was Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones to care. Meanwhile, the twins sat on either side of her in their nappies and vests, taking turns emitting high-pitched squeals.

‘They’re singing.’ Aisling looked up from her task. ‘I think I’ve potentially got a pair of opera singers in the making. Listen to how they hit those high notes.’

Freya cocked an ear, winced and demurred to her boss, ‘Oh, definitely bright futures there, Aisling.’ Her eyes travelled past Aisling to the many panes of glass in the Georgian windows, expecting to see them buckling and shattering.

‘Fecky brown-noser,’ Moira said under her breath, adding loudly, ‘They’re shredding my nerves and potentially going to give me a migraine if they keep it up. Can’t you jam a rusk in their gobs, Ash?’

Aisling ignored her sister as she asked Freya what had brought her upstairs. Upon hearing there was a message from their mammy, she heaved a relieved sigh. ‘At last. We thought they were MIA.’ She pushed her chair back from the table and got up.

‘MIA?’ Freya asked.

‘Missing in Action. It's been three days since they last made contact.’

‘Well, I suppose Maureen and Donal have been in the middle of the ocean, so they couldn’t get in touch until they reached one of the cruise ship’s stops,’ Freya appeased.

‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way,’ Moira stated, backing her sister. ‘Sure, in days of old, they used carrier pigeons. She could have strapped a message to a seagull and sent it on its way.’

Freya wasn’t sure whether Moira was joking or not. Nor was she sure as the sisters headed out the door and Moira's voice drifted back, ‘Sure you don’t mind if myself and Aisling head out to a day spa after we’ve read what Mammy has to say, do you?’

She tittered nervously, looking anxiously to where Kiera was now waving the spoon at her baby cousins like a conductor.

The door banged shut before she could reply.

Aisling and Moira just about tripped over one another in their haste to get downstairs. ‘You shouldn’t wind Freya up like so,’ Aisling admonished, reaching the first floor and pausing to tell Ita a message from Maureen had arrived.

‘You’re welcome to come and listen to what she has to say.’

‘Thanks, but I’d better crack on here. We’ve had a good few guests check out this morning, so I’ve a lot to get through. Bronagh can fill me in on all the news when I clock off later.’

Aisling and Moira exchanged glances as Ita returned to dragging her hoover down the hall. It was a look that questioned, not for the first time, whether this was the same girl they had nicknamed Idle Ita, who’d been employed solely because Mammy was friends with her mammy. She’d turned over a new leaf when she’d met a nice fella and started her veterinary nursing course, fitting it in around her housekeeping duties at O’Mara’s.

The sisters found Bronagh and Mrs Flaherty eagerly awaiting them, and the honours fell on Aisling to read the email out loud. Mrs Flaherty and Moira sank into the sofa to listen. At the same time, Bronagh scooted her chair close to where Aisling stood in front of the brochures, checking the email pages to ensure they were in order.

‘Moira, if I close my eyes, don’t think I’ve fallen asleep. I’m soaking in the ambience of what Maureen’s got to say. I want to feel like I’m on the cruise ship with her and Donal,’ Mrs Flaherty said.

‘Three’s a crowd, don’t you know?’ Moira received a ‘cheeky mare’ response from the breakfast cook.

Aisling cleared her throat, glancing up to ensure she had all their attention; she cleared her throat again.

‘Ash, it’s not the reading of the will. Get on with it, would you, or I’ll do it.’

Aisling began to read, and by the time she’d reached the ‘All my love, Mammy and Donal’ part, her voice was hoarse.

‘Doesn’t it sound wonderful?’ Mrs Flaherty was the first to speak up. ‘An entire station dedicated just for the omelette making. Imagine it.’ She shook her head.

‘Those Blue Lagoon cocktails sounded delicious,’ Bronagh said. ‘Although I’m partial to a Strawberry Daiquiri on my holidays.’

‘Imagine lying poolside soaking up the sun while the children are entertained in a Kids’ club.’ Moira was entranced by the idea and mentally counting down the days between now and their holiday.

‘Imagine eating whatever you want at the Lido Buffet, whenever you want and not having to cook or wash a single dish. Just think, Moira. That will be us in a month.’

‘They’re having a grand time,’ Bronagh said.

‘Do you think they miss us?’ Aisling wondered out loud.

‘Bound to,’ Mrs Flaherty replied reassuringly.

‘I miss her and Donal,’ Aisling said. ‘Roll on the cruise.’

‘Me too and I can’t wait either,’ Moira agreed, and then she frowned. ‘What I want to know, though, was what the Golden Arch thing in Cabo was all about? It sounds like she spotted a floating McDonalds. Now that I'd like to see.’