Chapter 31
ROSIE
The sun was reaching its zenith, the heat rising as they licked their ice creams. The children were telling them about their teacher Mrs Juniper and how they were trying to make a car from an old bicycle.
She and Patrick barely talked to each other, the two falling into something akin to an old friendship, as though they didn’t need words, or perhaps words would make everything complicated, and that this delicate ecosystem needed gentle handling.
‘Shall we head back?’ she said, standing up and brushing crumbs from Killian’s shorts and handing a corner of her beach towel so Isabelle could wipe her mouth. ‘We’ve got the garden picnic next.’ She turned to Patrick. ‘Would you like a lift?’
He nodded, looking at her. ‘If you have room?’
‘Of course we have room!’ said Killian. ‘It’s gigantic. And me and Isabelle are small and we can go in the back and you can go in the front and we’ll all fit.’
‘Well, if you’re sure?’ Patrick smiled at him. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t rain again.’ He turned to Rosie, giving her a look.
She laughed. ‘Putting up gazebos is not a talent of mine…’ She paused. ‘Or lighting barbecues.’
He laughed. ‘I thought we’d arrived at the filming of some disaster film. Towering Inferno.’
The twins were listening. ‘Snakes on a Plane,’ said Killian. ‘That’s a film with a disaster. And snakes. They got everywhere. Including this man’s shoes.’
‘You weren’t allowed to watch it,’ Isabelle told him.
‘And you promised not to tell Mum and Dad.’
‘What happened to the gazebro?’ asked Isabelle to Rosie. ‘Did it go on fire?’
‘What’s a gazebro?’ asked Killian. ‘Is it a gazelle and zebra joined together?’
‘A gazebo. It’s a tent, basically,’ said Rosie. ‘And well… it nearly went on fire, but it collapsed in the rain and just gave up on life.’
‘It was all rather biblical,’ laughed Patrick. ‘Raging fire, torrential rain. Rosie was punched in the face…’
The twins gasped. ‘By who?’
‘No one,’ said Rosie, quickly. ‘Patrick is exaggerating for the purposes of humour.’
She and Patrick suddenly grinned at each other, as though conspirators and it felt…
amazing. And the feeling hung in the air while they got back into the car, slinging bags in the boot, and then back onto the road and up the hill to the hotel, the twins talking incessantly all the way.
Rosie pointed out Maeve Binchy’s house and the Roger Casement house, both great Irish heroes, the island where there was a sailing race every May, the secret swimming place called White Rock which only locals knew about.
‘Switch on the radio, Rosie,’ ordered Isabelle.
‘We want to hear our favourite song,’ said Killian. ‘We like “All You Need is Love”. Mrs Juniper plays it and we all sing along.’
Rosie fiddled with the car radio and found a station. A song was just ending. ‘Sorry, Killian, it’s not “All You Need is Love”,’ said Patrick.
‘It will be the next one,’ said Killian, confidently. ‘I know it will be.’
Except it wasn’t. It was The Waterboys’ ‘The Whole Of The Moon’, and Rosie recognised it from the very first note, her body stiffening, and was immediately transported to a night on Camden Street, back in the old days of Dublin, at Whelan’s and singing her heart out.
Patrick took a note or two longer and he looked at her.
‘I love this!’ shouted Isabelle. ‘Mrs Juniper played this to us.’
‘It’s about a moon,’ said Killian. ‘But Jimmy O’Brien said that his father said it was about someone showing their bottom and Mrs Juniper said he was being silly.’
‘It’s definitely about a moon,’ said Rosie, glancing at Patrick, who was grinning. She turned it up, and the four of them sang along.
‘I saw the croissant!’ shouted Killian, out of the window. ‘You saw the whole of the MOOOON!’
They all carried on singing, performing all the fiddle parts and the keyboard, the bah-bah-bah-bah parts, until they drove through the gates of the hotel, over the cattle grid, bouncing over the gravel before stopping at the entrance to the hotel.
The sun was shining, the sky was blue and Cliff Top looked magnificent.
On days like this, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
It was so clear why her mother had fallen in love with the place.
She had once told Rosie of the day they came to view it.
The house had been boarded up for years, the trees surrounded it overgrown, weeds growing out of cracks in the stone and birds’ nests in the chimneys.
‘But,’ her mother had said, ‘there were pink valerian flowers everywhere, hollyhocks gone wild, the green lawn rolling to the edge of the cliff and the sea actually glittered. And the house itself seemed so friendly. A home for us and a home for our guests. I was smitten.’ This was her mother’s dream, and today she could see exactly why.
‘This is where we say goodbye,’ she said to Patrick.
‘Here? But you can drop me where you park the car?’ Patrick seemed almost reluctant to get out.
‘You have to. You’re a guest again,’ said Isabelle. ‘We’re the owners.’
‘But I want to be an owner too,’ said Patrick, laughing, turning around to face Killian and Isabelle. ‘I want to be in your gang.’
‘But you can’t,’ said Isabelle. ‘It’s very sad. But it’s not something any of us has choosed, is it? Rosie didn’t choose to be an owner, and nor did we. We would like to be a guest sometimes.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Killian, with feeling. ‘Stay in bed and watch television. Eat crisps and drink Coke.’
‘Be dropped off at the front,’ said Isabelle. ‘Like a sofa.’
‘Chauffeur,’ corrected Rosie. ‘But she’s right.’ She turned to Patrick, who was now leaning through the open window of the Land Rover. ‘You’re a guest. You can’t have everything.’
‘Rosie, you’re smiling,’ said Isabelle.
‘I always smile, what are you talking about?’ said Rosie. ‘I never stop smiling.’
Killian and Isabelle exchanged a glance which was heavy with meaning. ‘You could smile more,’ said Killian, kindly. ‘That’s all we’re saying.’
‘So could Mum and Dad,’ said Isabelle.
Rosie looked over at Patrick. ‘Apparently I don’t smile,’ she said, smiling.
‘It’s overrated,’ he said. ‘I think we should all frown more. What do you think, Isabelle and Killian?’
‘No!’ they shouted. ‘Mrs Juniper says a smile costs nothing, and that you should turn frowns upside down.’
‘I like this Mrs Juniper,’ said Patrick. ‘She sounds like a woman of impeccable sense.’ He looked at Rosie, raising an eyebrow. ‘Thanks for the ride.’
‘You’re very welcome,’ answered Isabelle. ‘And if you like…’ She glanced at Rosie. ‘We could do it again tomorrow?’ Isabelle continued, and then turned to Killian. ‘But we have to be really good, okay?’
‘Look, I’ll leave you,’ said Patrick. ‘Back to our separate lives. I get it. You the owners, me the mere guest.’ He smiled again at Rosie, who wished he wasn’t walking away to take his place with the guests.
She was suddenly charged with the feeling she wanted him to stay here with her.
They could keep driving, keep going and have an adventure.
‘Bye, Patrick!’ she called briskly, and the children waved at him from the back window.
At least I know I’m not dead, she thought.
Over the years, she had wondered if she was still capable of feeling anything.
Whatever she was feeling, this whirl and whoosh of so many mixed emotions was like a reminder that she wasn’t dead.
She was fully, brilliantly and happily live and kicking.
It was like a shot of energy, a bolt of lightning.
At the garage, Grace came out to greet them as Isabelle and Killian climbed out of the back of the Land Rover. ‘I was wondering where my little helpers had gone to,’ said Grace.
‘We were busy talking to a guest,’ explained Isabelle.
‘He wishes he was an owner, like us,’ said Killian.
‘His name’s Patrick,’ said Isabelle. ‘He’s so nice. But he’s sad, I think.’
‘Sad? In what way?’ asked Grace.
‘Because he’s just a guest,’ explained Killian.
‘Was it Patrick, the brother of Seán, our groom?’ Grace smiled at the twins.
‘I think that’s the one…’ said Rosie vaguely, looking around the garage as though she was busy making some kind of inventory of the empty boxes, the rusty garden furniture, the bits of old wood, an old rabbit hutch left over from years ago.
There was a new wine fridge in the corner which Grace had placed on top of an old table.
All the equipment for the picnic was neatly stacked: the chairs, the rugs, the wicker baskets, glass pitchers, plates, glassware and gingham tablecloths.
‘I don’t think Patrick is sad,’ went on Grace.
‘He looks like a very happy man if you ask me. He and Kate, the matron of honour, will be an item by the end of the wedding, mark my words. He looks like the type who is fighting the women off,’ she went on.
‘The girls on reception were telling me that an American woman called asking if he was still resident and could she get a room tonight. Obviously we’re full, so they booked her into the Sandycove Arms.’
An American woman? Who was she? She must be Patrick’s girlfriend hoping to surprise him. But why would she need a separate room? It didn’t quite make sense.
Grace was smiling. ‘So, no, I don’t think he’s too lonely for female company.’
‘Nor am I,’ said Killian, passionately. ‘I’m not lonely for it. I’m lonely for boy company.’
‘Well,’ said Grace, ‘that makes two of us. Now, pick up that cooler box thing and we’ll go and fill it with picnic food and we will have the most wonderful afternoon, won’t we?’
‘I have to go and have a shower,’ said Rosie. ‘I can’t wear shorts to the picnic, can I?’
‘Of course you can!’ said Grace. ‘You look cool and comfortable. Which is just the atmosphere we want to convey. Stay as you are.’
And so Rosie did, relieved and pleased to not be wearing her navy skirt suit. In fact she couldn’t ever imagine wearing it ever again. The thought of being bundled up, restricted, tight and controlled was unbearable.