Chapter 5
ROSIE
Nessa and her eight-year-old twins had arrived in the hotel’s office, a small room which was once a boot room and now had two desks and an armchair squashed in and a row of filing cabinets, old black-and-white photographs of the house in its prime, the stonework pristine, the trees barely grown.
Nessa had what she called her ‘cell’, which was a windowless cupboard-office under her stairs at home, and so getting out of the cell and stretching her legs was part of her day.
It was the summer holidays and the twins, Isabelle and Killian, had been coming in and out of the hedge to the hotel from their home on the golf course for weeks now.
Not that anyone minded as the twins were a pleasure and were happy wandering in the garden, helping their grandfather with the tomatoes in the greenhouse or picking sweet pea, or assisting Bertie in the breakfast room, laying tables and polishing glasses.
Grace might set them crayoning in the office, or Maureen would set them to work, sweeping if they were tall enough, or dusting low shelves if they weren’t.
The children were beelining for Rosie now and Isabelle kissed her ear as Killian wound his small arms around her neck. ‘Hello, Rosie,’ he said. ‘You’re to look after us.’
The twins looked the same, both with dark hair and heavy fringes and both had a constellation of freckles across their button noses. They were the other’s best friend and in constant motion. Even when they slept over in Rosie’s cottage, they constantly wriggled while asleep.
‘Rosie, you don’t mind, do you?’ asked Nessa. ‘Only I just need someone to keep a half-eye on them. Dad will do it, if you’re busy. He probably needs help weeding.’
‘We don’t need actual minding,’ said Isabelle. ‘Now we’re eight and a half.’
‘No, we mind ourselves.’ Killian grinned. ‘So you don’t have to do anything. Just half an eye. Not a whole one.’
‘Just make sure we don’t play with knives,’ said Isabelle.
‘Or drink anything poisonous,’ said Killian.
‘Exactly,’ said Nessa. ‘Just keep them alive. Is that okay?’
‘Of course.’
Nessa was wearing shorts and a T-shirt saying ‘Vitamin Sea’, a towel poking out of her straw tote.
‘I’m late for my sea swim and Siofra says I have to join them.
Everyone is down there. It’s like the way the Island pub used to be on a Saturday night, remember?
You’d meet everyone you know. Not that I have been in a pub for a very long time. What is a pub anyway?’
‘You’re asking me?’ said Rosie.
‘A pub is a place where Daddy goes,’ said Killian. ‘You can drink fizzy drinks and eat crisps and watch sport.’
‘There you go,’ said Nessa. ‘My children are already corrupted.’
‘You like crisps and fizzy drinks too,’ said Isabelle.
‘True. I like my fizzy drinks in a large bottle with a cork that you have to pop,’ said Nessa.
‘And Siofra wants me to go on a women-only yoga and swimming retreat in County Clare next month. Apparently it’s amazing.
You do yoga by moonlight and it’s all bra-burning and howling and things like that.
I just have to go. I need to howl, I really do.
I’ve spent the morning doing the bookkeeping for the hotel.
It all looks fine. But I haven’t got a full picture yet.
I’ll let you know when I do.’ She quickly kissed the twins’ heads in turn.
‘Love you. Now be good for Rosie, okay? No running in the hotel, no—’
‘…Shouting, no pulling the cushions off the sofa, no nonsense and only use our indoor voices,’ the twins said in unison, as they reached for the pot of colouring pencils kept purely for them and their pile of scrap paper.
‘Excellent,’ said Nessa, flashing a grin at Rosie. ‘Now are you sure you don’t mind me dumping my kids on you?’
The twins looked up to see what Rosie’s reaction would be.
‘I love it,’ Rosie said. ‘They make everything better.’
The twins both smiled to themselves as they resumed their colouring.
They brought a level of chaos and unpredictability to proceedings, but Rosie adored them so much she had long made an exception for them.
She loved them being around the hotel or, if she had time, she brought them swimming at the local bathing spot, the Forty Foot, and for a post-dip ice cream.
Rosie walked Nessa out and they passed through the lounge, where the bride-to-be and Kate were relaxing, talking in low voices on one of the sofas, sipping the mint water.
‘I am thinking of getting a full-time job,’ said Nessa. ‘Not just part-time bookkeeping. I mean, I just have to get out of my cell from time to time and see people.’
‘But you have a job,’ protested Rosie. ‘We need you for the hotel.’
‘A bigger job,’ explained Nessa. ‘One that takes up more of my time, so I have fewer hours to navel-gaze or watch videos on how to style a white shirt.’ She looked at Rosie.
‘Doing bookkeeping for the hotel doesn’t give me enough to do.
I need to be me again, except I don’t know who me is or where me went.
But maybe some kind of executive-level big corporate thing, you know, suits, shoulder pads, barking orders, Teams meetings, Zoom calls, Excel spreadsheets…
’ She had a dreamy look in her eye. ‘Conferences and shared documents and Friday night drinks and oh…’ She sighed heavily.
‘My own packed lunch, eaten al desko, as they say. In a proper office, where I can gaze out of the window, talking to humans. Have those desk toys like the hanging ball thing or a Rubik’s cube.
’ She looked so happy for a moment, envisioning this new corporate life.
‘And look, I know my only real job is bookkeeping and before that bar manager in Mucho Loco in Malaga, but it’s time to spread my corporate wings. ’
‘You should,’ encouraged Rosie. ‘You’d be brilliant at bossing everyone around.’
Nessa gave her a look. ‘You’re the bossy one out of the two of us.
’ She glanced around the lounge area. ‘It looks nice,’ she said, approvingly.
‘The hydrangeas are lovely. And the vases. I remember them from when we were little.’ She reached down to chop one of the cushions on the sofa.
‘That’s better. But, oh my God, this is terrible.
I can’t believe we haven’t thought of this before…
’ She looked aghast. ‘This is a complete derogation of hospitality!’
‘What on earth is it?’ asked Rosie, panicked.
‘There are no candles! There needs to be a night light on each table in front of each sofa. I can’t believe you haven’t noticed.
’ She shook her head. ‘Honestly, sometimes I think I am the only one with good ideas around here.’ She smiled at Rosie.
‘Thanks for minding the twins. I really appreciate it. Laurence is at the golf club and will be back in a couple of hours.’ She paused.
‘I think Laurence is having some kind of… I don’t know… a crisis.’
‘A midlife crisis? He’s a bit young, isn’t he?’
‘He says that he wants more responsibility at the golf club, but he thinks his father doesn’t trust him.
He’s meant to be a manager and his father is meant to be retired, but he’s still effectively running the place and refusing to include Laurence in decisions or meetings or anything.
And Laurence was really hurt about it and he said that if his father was going to treat him like a child, then he was going to act like one.
’ Nessa rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t know why they don’t just talk about it properly, like grown-ups, but I do think there is an immature streak in that family, I really do.
His father has just bought himself an electric scooter for getting around. ’
‘I saw him with a backwards baseball cap,’ said Rosie.
Nessa glanced at Rosie, up and down. ‘That navy suit…’ She shook her head. ‘It’s July…’ She tugged at her T-shirt. ‘You need nice, cool clothes…’
‘Not you as well…’
Nessa eyed her. ‘Who else has said it?’
‘Bertie and Grace.’
‘Well, they’re right. As always. Bertie is a man of impeccable taste. Grace may like her shapeless sacks, but no one should he wearing navy polyester…’
‘It’s not polyester!’ Rosie’s voice was a little shrill.
But she made a mental note to check the label on her suit later.
The jacket was hanging off the back of her chair in the office but the skirt made a rustling sound she’d never noticed before.
And around the waist she could feel a band of sweat.
‘Now,’ went on Nessa, ‘you look like a trainee bank manager circa 1992.’ She paused, contemplating. ‘Or even 1987.’
‘1987?’ She was shrill again. What was happening to her?
‘Look, I’m your sister. It’s my civic duty to protect you and tell you when you look tired and boring.’
‘I am tired and boring!’
Nessa sighed. ‘Oh, I suppose we’re all tired and boring.
I’m trying to be energetic and interesting by pretending I like sea swimming, but in fact I hate every second of it.
But being a sea swimmer makes me sound like I have an actual personality.
This T-shirt I’m wearing makes me a fraud.
Vitamin Sea? Honestly, I make myself sick.
Now, we’ll see you at Dad’s tonight. He’s making lasagne.
Again.’ She smiled at Rosie. ‘We all need a decent meal after Laurence’s microwaved pizza.
’ She shuddered. ‘It was like eating something globular. Greasy and disgusting. By the way, Lucinda was round at mine this morning, asking questions about the wedding. She feels aggrieved that she hasn’t been involved in the preparations. ’
Lucinda was their mother’s sister who had spent most of her life in Dubai but had arrived in Sandycove after Sarah’s death, claiming she wanted to be a part of her nieces’ lives.
She was nothing like her sister, the girls’ mother, as she was selfish, petulant and an attention-seeker, only interested in other people if there was something she could gain.
But for their mother’s sake, the girls endured her, although Teddy usually ran a mile, back to the garden, whenever he saw her coming.
‘I don’t know what it is about that woman, but she brings me out in hives,’ he said.
Rosie often thought of her as being like a tornado, whisking its way across the land, sucking things up and disgorging them again.
She had recently acquired a small, rat-faced dog called Pedro, whose every whim she indulged, and if anyone tried to pet him, he repaid the affection by snarling and snapping.
Isabelle and Killian had long given up trying to get Pedro to like them.
‘But Lucinda doesn’t work at the hotel,’ said Rosie. ‘I don’t know why she thinks she should be involved. She’s the last thing we need.’
‘You know what she’s like,’ said Nessa. ‘The queen of the easily offended. Anyway, just so you know that she’s bound to pop up. As she does. She’ll want some of the wedding action.’
After Rosie had waved Nessa off in her car, she walked back into the office. The children stopped whispering and looked up at her, plaintively. They exchanged a glance.
‘Rosie?’ asked Killian, in his best, most polite voice. ‘Would you please…’
‘Yes, would you pleeeease,’ said Isabelle.
‘If we were really good…’ said Killian.
‘Really, really good,’ added Isabelle.
‘You’re both always really good,’ said Rosie.
‘Would you take us swimming in the Forty Foot?’ said Killian. ‘Mum won’t because she goes with her friends and says it’s her time and Dad says he doesn’t have time. And we’re both so hot.’
‘I almost died last night with the heat,’ groaned Isabelle.
‘I did die,’ added Killian.
‘If we’re really good and don’t drown?’ said Isabelle.
‘Or cause you any worry at all,’ said Killian.
‘Yes,’ said Rosie, as the twins both let out a whoop that could have been heard across the bay and as far as Howth. ‘But not today. Friday? Can you wait?’
The twins nodded as Isabelle squeezed Rosie’s hand. ‘We love you, Rosie.’
‘Yes, we love you,’ agreed Killian. ‘We are the luckiest children in Ireland to have you for an aunt.’
‘Yes, Mummy says we are lucky to have you because you only have Lucinda and you’re a much better aunt to us than she is to you.’ And Isabelle smiled a dimpled smile at her and Rosie felt suddenly better about the chaotic weekend ahead of her and her obvious-to-everyone awful navy suit.