Chapter 9
Pulling open the curtains, sunlight streamed through from a cloudless cerulean sky and there, in front of me, like a sparkling, iridescent diamanté cloak, was the Irish Sea.
Seagulls soared overhead, there was a small trawler with a tiny sou’westered figure standing on deck, and there was a lone yacht whistling across the white foam.
And, best of all, the sun was shining, as though after last night’s torrent, there couldn’t be any more rain left.
Something stirred within me, as though my heart was shifting a millimetre or so, as though trying to lift.
The last time I had eaten anything was a lifetime before, in the airport, waiting for the flight.
After showering and brushing my teeth, I quickly dressed and dredged through my suitcase, looking for my make-up bag and straighteners, two life essentials that I would rescue in a fire.
Except, I’d left them behind. The hotel’s dryer was slower than if I’d blown on my hair and so I gave up and went down to breakfast with damp hair and wearing my usual off-duty uniform of white T-shirt, jeans, navy blazer and loafers.
I was ridiculously overdressed, as though I was going to lunch at a Cape Cod yacht club. All the other guests – and even staff – were in shorts, as though they were all on vacation in the Bahamas.
A small woman, my grandmother’s age, wearing a man’s checked shirt, a pair of baggy cargo shorts, with sandals and socks, greeted me at the door, grasping my hand and giving it a good, hard shake, beaming up at me.
‘A very good morning to you, Ms Daly. You’re very welcome to the Sandycove Arms. I’m Maureen Gallagher, stand-in, de-facto, replacement-bus hotel manager.
I’m recently retired of this parish and they enticed me back just for the summer.
I heard you arrived very late last night, you poor pet.
It was after midnight you were washed up on our doorstep, was it not? ’
‘It was the early hours,’ I said. ‘I think. I’m a little confused at the time of anything.’
‘Well, it’s 8.30 a.m. here in Ireland,’ she said.
‘Back in Boston, from which I hear you hail, it’s thirty minutes past the one.
In the A.M. It’s a feed of breakfast you’ll be needing after transatlantic adventures.
My daughter Ellie, the one who’s in public relations, flew in from New York last week and when she landed on home soil again, said all she craved was tea and toast. Said she would have relinquished a kidney if someone could have procured it over there.
Ran out of teabags as well. A week without tea and toast sounds very testing.
She said the concept does not exist on your side of the pond. ’
‘Oh, it does,’ I assured her. ‘But perhaps not quite in the same way.’
‘Exactly.’ Still beaming, she led me through the doors. ‘Now, I have a very nice table in our breakfast room. We’re open from 7 a.m. every day, until 10 a.m. for those who are more sleep-inclined. You’re obviously an early bird?’
‘Or a bit jet-lagged?’
‘Oh, that’ll wear off. My Ellie says a swim in the Forty Foot is a great cure for jet lag.’
‘What’s the Forty Foot?’
‘It’s where we all go swimming,’ she said.
‘Imagine rocks smoothed from millennia of waves, and then you can just drop into the sea like a pebble. I always say one dip and you’ve cured a million ailments.
Your head is spinning? Go for a swim. The old sciatica is playing up?
Go for a swim. Your soul is shrivelled? A swim will get you going again. ’
‘I was there before,’ I said. The memory of it all coming back to me. ‘A year ago. It was just after a friend had died and I flew in to meet someone…’
‘Well, then you know.’ She smiled at me. ‘Come and see it. I have a lovely view from my favourite table.’
I followed her through the oak-panelled room which was full of people eating breakfast on heavy white linen tablecloths.
At the back was a curved bench, a round table and the perfect view of the sea.
Peering out of the window, it was the same stunning view as the one from my room upstairs. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘There’s nothing like the sea,’ said Maureen.
‘The wilder it is, the calmer you become. There’s a feeling of safety, so there is.
But it’s a quiet enough day today, no wind or rain, not like last night.
It was like a burst balloon, all on top of Ireland.
Now, you settle yourself down and we’ll bring over the breakfast. You eat everything, do you not?
No allergies or anything? No general finickiness?
No? What about your feed then? A Full Irish?
Or something light, a plate of rashers and scrambled eggs?
There is also avocado on toast. I think that is a legal requirement these days on menus, but I don’t think it goes for breakfast, I really don’t. ’
Her choices sounded a bit much, so I thought I’d stick with my usual. ‘Coffee, please, and a banana?’
‘Now, that’s positively spartan? I have the perfect compromise. Tea and toast for your jet lag or a Sandycove Special, soda bread, butter, jam and a pot of tea?’
I remembered what Mom had said about not eating too many carbohydrates, but right now, they were all I wanted.
I slipped onto the cushioned banquette as Maureen placed some newspapers down in front of me.
When my basket of fresh, warm sliced soda bread, along with generous slabs of butter and a large jar of jam, with a home-made label, were put on the table, I began to eat.
When I went home, I vowed to encourage Mom to let bread back into her life.
Perhaps it was the lack of bread which was causing her terrible taste in husbands.