Prologue #3
Marian was his sister-in-law. Infant teacher in the local school, jangle of bracelets, blue streaks in her hair.
She always looked good, hunting down designer labels in charity shops, putting items of clothing together with style, wearing colours that should clash but didn’t, and knowing exactly how to use accessories.
And yes, her house was very nicely put together too.
‘And we could find room for a yoga studio in there,’ he added. ‘Just if you wanted it.’
She stared at him. ‘What?’
‘Why not?’
‘Would there be enough demand around here for that?’
‘Course there would. You’d be a real novelty – first yoga teacher in the area.’ He started the car. ‘We’d put it on the sea side of the house, so you’d have that view once the garden was cleared. In the summer you could teach out of doors, put mats on the lawn.’
All the way back to his house, she saw nothing of the scenery beyond the windscreen. She was seeing the overgrown weeds and brambles gone, the garden returned to the thing of glory it must once have been, the sea spread out at the bottom of it.
She was seeing yoga students unrolling their mats, filling their lungs with the clean ocean air as they went through their sun salutations and warriors and cobras and downward dogs. And in the winter a heated studio, with big windows to hold on to the sea view.
Was he right, saying she’d get enough takers? She liked the idea of being the first to bring yoga here. A novelty. A pioneer. She’d surely find her students among the seven hundred.
He pulled into his driveway and turned to face her. ‘It has to be an omen,’ he said. ‘The name, I mean.’
‘Chance House,’ she said.
‘It’s our chance to make something wonderful there.’
She nodded, her eyes brimming again. This day had too much in it.
He thumbed away the tears as they fell. ‘You’re with me, sweetheart?’
‘All the way.’
‘You don’t mind the thought of moving from Dublin?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘Brilliant. I’ll arrange a viewing for when you’re down again.’
‘Do.’
Chance House. She hardly dared to hope.
Later, showered and changed and on the train back to Dublin, she phoned Brona to tell her of the engagement.
‘About time,’ Brona said. ‘I can’t believe he took six whole months to propose.’
A year ago, Brona had married her childhood sweetheart at the age of thirty. They’d been together since she was fifteen.
‘I can smell your sarcasm from here,’ Lydia told her. ‘Six months isn’t a long time, but we’re both sure.’
‘I know you are, Liddy. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more perfectly suited couple – apart from me and Shaun, obviously – and I’m thrilled for you.’
‘And there’s more.’
‘Tell me absolutely everything.’
Lydia told her.
‘Let me get this straight,’ Brona said. ‘You’re planning to buy a tumbledown house and do it up. You’ll be moving three hours away from me to live in the middle of nowhere.’
‘It’s very near the village, only about half a mile outside it. And my own yoga studio, don’t forget.’
‘Yes, your own studio is wonderful. So you’ll be moving three hours away from me to live near a village that’s in the middle of nowhere. Am I right so far?’
Lydia laughed. ‘Oh come on, don’t be negative.
You and Shaun can come and stay once it’s done up.
And I won’t be going anywhere until that happens, so I’ll be around for ages.
And that’s all assuming we get the house – we might be put off it when we see the inside, or someone with more money might come along and outbid us. ’
‘But if you get it, you’ll definitely be leaving. What will I do without my Liddy?’
‘Don’t,’ Lydia said. They’d known each other for as long as she could remember, grown up two streets apart, started school on the same day. ‘We’ll still see lots of each other. Dublin isn’t a million miles away.’
‘Have you told all this to his parents – and yours?’
‘Only his so far, and only the engagement part. We won’t mention the house to anyone unless it happens.’
‘And how did they react?’
‘His father’s happy. I’ve told you what Kathleen’s like.’
‘You have.’
His mother hadn’t taken to Lydia. Nothing had been said, but it was clear in the way she never called her by name, never spoke to her unless she had to, never made proper eye contact. At the start, Lydia had wondered if she’d inadvertently said the wrong thing, but Marian had put her right.
It’s nothing you’ve said or done – Kathleen would rather a local girl for Damien, that’s all.
What does it matter where I’m from?
Maybe she’s afraid you’ll whisk him away to Dublin.
I’d never do that.
Well then, you have nothing to worry about – but Lydia still had to endure the aloofness, the feeling that she was not appreciated by the woman who was now destined to be her mother-in-law.
It was all Kathleen could do to congratulate her when they’d broken the news of their engagement.
Anyone could see it wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear.
No matter: all the Kathleens in the world couldn’t spoil this wonderful day. ‘Wait till you see the ring,’ she told Brona. ‘It’s gorgeous.’
She tilted her left hand to watch it sparkle.
Damien had said they could do a swap if she didn’t like it – the jeweller was a neighbour of his father’s cousin – but she liked it a lot.
A simple, sweet solitaire, the band white gold because Damien knew she preferred it to yellow.
Exactly what she would have picked herself.
Brona was right: they were perfectly suited. It had taken a long time for their paths to cross – they’d met a week after her thirtieth birthday – but he was worth the wait. She conjured his smiling face in her mind’s eye and felt the happy little inner flip it always caused.
On the way to the station they’d decided to put marriage plans on hold to focus on Chance House. Their engagement might be a long one, but now that they’d committed to one another, now that their future together was assured, she could handle a long engagement.
What a life they were going to have.