Chapter 5 #5
‘Oh, I’ve spoken to him about it,’ Conor said. ‘I told him what to do to nobble the old biddy…’
The conversation drifted on to Lorcan’s production and Kate was grateful to Will for the diversion.
But what her mother had said was hovering in the air, and when Helen announced that she was going to make some fruit salad for dessert, she offered to do it instead.
‘You’ve done enough, Helen,’ she said, and scurried off to the kitchen.
She began to relax as she peeled and chopped mangoes, hulled strawberries and spooned the seeds out of passion fruit. The familiar rhythm of chopping and slicing soothed her and gave her space to think.
‘Can I help?’
It was Brian, seeking refuge from her family, no doubt.
‘You can cut this up,’ she said, handing him a pineapple. ‘Sorry about Conor,’ she said, as Brian set to work. ‘He tends to see the megastar in everyone. I think he reckons with a bit of effort you could be the next Tessa Bond.’
‘Actually, he was comparing my work to Deepak Chopra’s,’ Brian said, sounding affronted.
Kate winced. She couldn’t believe Brian had let Conor get to him with his grandiose plans for taking the world by storm. ‘You shouldn’t mind him,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s just his way of being kind.’
‘Is that your way of saying you don’t think I could be Deepak Chopra?’ he asked.
‘You don’t want to be him, do you?’
‘No – I don’t think he has a diet, does he?’ He grinned. ‘I wouldn’t mind being Louise Hay, though,’ he added.
‘Nah,’ Kate chuckled, ‘you don’t have the tits for it.’
Just then, Josie came into the kitchen. ‘Kate,’ she hissed in a conspiratorial stage whisper, ‘as soon as dinner’s over, I say we make a bolt for the pub. Are you in?’
‘Sure.’ Kate couldn’t see the necessity for the cloak-and-dagger routine.
‘We’ve got to make a break for it before Rachel gets out the wedding video,’ Josie said urgently.
‘Oh, right!’ Kate said. ‘But it’s only putting off the misery until tomorrow night,’ she warned.
‘It’s every man for himself then,’ Josie rejoined. ‘But tonight’s my night off, and I’m fucked if I’m spending it watching the rerun of her bloody wedding. More to the point, I won’t be fucked if I spend the night watching it.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t count on it either way, if I were you. This village isn’t exactly bursting at the seams with talent.’
‘I’ll take my chances,’ Josie said.
* * *
There was a magnificent sunset by the time they set out for the pub.
Now the sky was streaked with pink and shot through with gold, promising another glorious day tomorrow.
Grace and Jack had opted to stay at home with Helen and Conor, and Carmen was holed up in her room again, sending Lorcan dirty text messages.
So, Will, Kate, Brian, Josie, Tom and Rachel sauntered down the hill in the still evening and along the beach road.
Inside the little whitewashed pub they found a hot mass of bodies and the whole place was jumping with chatter and laughter. People were packed ten deep at the bar, and in one corner a local four-piece band was playing, the jangle of electric guitars adding to the din.
Tom and Rachel were soon borne off by old friends who hadn’t made it to the wedding, congratulating them and vying with each other to buy them drinks and tell Tom what a lucky man he was.
Rachel was in her element, surrounded by admirers: she liked to think that some of the local boys had spent the year ticking the days off on their calendars until the next time she brought a splash of unattainable glamour to the sleepy fishing village.
Kate knew the pub was fraught with danger for Brian, so she was pleased when he insisted on getting the first round.
To her intense relief, he didn’t even have to ask her for money to go up to the bar.
It wasn’t that she minded giving him money, but she didn’t want to do it while her family were watching.
She settled on a stool opposite Will, wedged in by Josie, who was avidly scanning the room.
The four-piece that had been playing rock standards when they came in suddenly went into full-on rockstar mode, thrashing their instruments with gusto, the drummer going into a showy impromptu solo that evidently took his fellow band members by surprise.
The singer and lead guitarist were leaping about so much that they ended up banging heads in mid-air with a sickening crunch.
‘Jesus!’ Will laughed.
‘I imagine this is for your benefit,’ Kate said.
Brian returned, holding a clutch of drinks to his chest and distributed them. Kate caught surprise on Will’s face as Brian placed a glass tumbler in front of him. ‘Is that tap water?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Brian said defiantly. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
Kate raised her eyes to heaven. ‘Sorry, Will,’ she said. She snatched up the glass and stormed off to the bar.
‘It’s fine, Kate—’ he began, but she pretended not to hear him.
She stood, fuming, in the crush. She thought it would take her another half-hour to get served, but the barman must have seen the sparks flying off her, because he pointed at her over the crowd, tilting his head as an invitation to shout her order.
When she got back to the table, Josie had disappeared and Brian was giving Will his bottled-water speech.
‘…people aren’t happy unless they’re paying for it,’ he was saying.
‘You’re just paying for the designer label and the corporate advertising to make you think you need bottled water in the first place.
And don’t even get me started on the plastic bottles—’
‘Okay, I won’t,’ Will said. ‘Thanks for the heads-up.’
‘Sorry about that, Will,’ Kate said, placing a glass of sparkling mineral water in front of him, complete with ice and a slice of lemon.
‘Thanks, but there was really no need—’
‘I don’t think anyone should have to pay for water,’ Brian persisted.
‘Well, you didn’t pay for it,’ Kate reminded him, ‘so forget it.’
‘That’s not the point. It’s not about the money.’
‘Of course it’s about the money.’
‘How much was it anyway?’ Brian asked, looking at the till receipt Kate had tossed on the table. ‘Four euro!’ he exclaimed indignantly. ‘Four euro for a glass of water.’
What an unbelievable shit, Will thought.
It wasn’t that he gave a damn about the water but he could have wrung Brian’s neck because he had embarrassed Kate.
It was no mystery why the O’Neills were so keen to be rid of him, but all Grace’s scheming seemed unnecessary.
As far as he could see, Brian was doing a bang-up job of digging his own grave.
‘Nice pub,’ Brian said, clearly anxious to change direction now.
‘Yeah, we’ve been coming here for years,’ Kate said.
‘Lorcan and I bought you your first drink here,’ Will reminded her.
‘And then I helped him carry you home.’
‘You spend a lot of time with Kate’s family, don’t you?’ Brian said, almost accusingly.
‘Will is like the third brother I never had.’
‘Ouch! I’m not sure I like that! Brothers don’t perform acts of devotion like I did.’
‘When?’ Kate asked mockingly.
‘Remember that time you had a really bad fall off a horse and I stayed home with you all the next day when everyone else went into Cork?’
‘Only because you knew I’d make you brownies.’
‘True,’ Will laughed. ‘Kate makes the best brownies in the world,’ he told Brian.
‘Yes, I know,’ Brian said tightly, peeved. Will might have known Kate longer than he had, but he needn’t think he knew her better.
‘Remember that Christmas we spent here?’ Will said. ‘We all got plastered on Christmas Eve and went into the sea.’
‘Yes!’
‘Was that the year you lived with the O’Neills?’ Brian asked.
‘No, it was another year.’
‘Will always spends Christmas with us,’ Kate explained to Brian.
‘You never go home at Christmas?’
‘This is home,’ Will said. ‘I live in Ireland now.’
‘But I mean to your family.’
Kate glanced at Will. ‘Like Mum said, we’re sort of Will’s family.’
‘How does your father feel about that?’ Brian asked.
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Will doesn’t speak to his father,’ Kate said quickly.
‘What – never?’
Brian was eyeing Will like a vulture that had spotted a hobbled lion – no doubt measuring him up for one of his therapy groups, Kate thought.
Will fixed him with a cold stare. ‘Never,’ he said, raising his eyebrows challengingly at Brian, daring him to have a problem with it.
‘That must be difficult for you,’ Brian said.
‘It’s very easy, actually.’
In fact, it had been anything but easy, but he had succeeded through sheer steely determination to make his father suffer.
In Will’s teenage fantasies, the full impact of what he had done would hit Philip one day and render him catatonic, impotent, unable to work, eat, sleep or love.
He had stopped believing such a devastating road to Damascus possible, but he still persisted in punishing his father.
It was the only real bone of contention between him and the blood-is-thicker-than-water O’Neills.
It was the one thing about him that they all disapproved of – Lorcan, his best friend in the world, sweet, soft-hearted Kate, even Jack, the gentlest, most forgiving man on earth.
And he knew Grace disapproved because she invariably addressed him as ‘William’ when she was talking about his father.
‘I spoke to Philip today, William,’ she would inform him, in a tone of reproof. When Will showed no interest, she would proceed to relay the entire conversation to him, while Will remained stubbornly aloof.
But deep down Will feared it wasn’t in his power to make his father suffer by withdrawing his love. After all, what was his love worth? It hadn’t been enough to make his father stay. It hadn’t been enough to make his mother want to go on living.
‘There’s a guy not far from here who does wonderful work on healing the past,’ Brian was saying. ‘He’s doing a workshop tomorrow that sounds really interesting, based on dealing with fear.’
As far as Will was concerned, Brian was speaking in a foreign language.