Chapter 17
Back in my room at the hotel, I caught up with my Boston work, going through everything Tara had sent me, including a list of proposed projects, clients that needed decisions being made, and a new strategy that she wanted us to pursue in the autumn.
I’d been relying on her increasingly over the last year, and I could see that my time away was good for her.
She needed and deserved this opportunity for more control, and I was sure it wouldn’t be long until she left my foundation and set up her own.
When I’d done all that, I moved to the knitting circle, drawing up a draft business plan, emailing the local enterprise board asking about funding and grants and other supports. Then I made a few calls home.
‘Mom? It’s me.’
‘Honey, how’s it all going? How’s Ireland?’
‘Ireland is nice… beautiful. People are lovely… but it doesn’t feel like a vacation…’
‘Well, of course it doesn’t. Ireland isn’t a vacation. It’s an experience. You go to Hawaii for a vacation. Ireland is where you go when you want something to happen to you, like I don’t know, climb a mountain or go swimming with dolphins. You needed a vacation, not an adventure.’
‘I’m not having either,’ I admitted. But then I thought of the people I had met and how much I was enjoying dipping my toe into the life of an Irish village. Perhaps I wouldn’t look immediately for a return flight. I could just play it by ear.
‘Your grandmother was asking how you are getting on,’ said Mom. ‘She’s worried about you. Mentioned Milhouse. Is everything okay between the two of you?’
‘Perfectly.’ I wasn’t ready to puncture Mom’s wedding bubble.
Not if I didn’t have to. But I thought of Henry’s face when I was telling him about Milhouse’s rules and how appalled he looked and I felt embarrassed.
I sat on the armchair in my bedroom and looked out at the sea, the constantly moving waves, creating the flashing colours of the sea.
What would life look like without Milhouse?
I desperately needed something to distract me and my world to change, but not if I was ashamed about saying it out loud.
Mom was still talking, ‘Audrey Callaghan is having her bachelorette weekend in Miami. Mitzi asked me if you’d like to come. I’ve said yes.’
‘Please no.’
‘It’s too late.’
‘Please decline. I couldn’t bear it.’
‘Honey, listen. Audrey has some wonderful ideas for her own wedding, it would be good for you to have a talk with her. And you need more friends…’ She paused.
‘Anyway, she’s having Michael Bublé to sing at the wedding.
The Moldovan prince is friends with him apparently and I thought if you were friends with Audrey, you too could have Michael Bu—’
‘Mom, no. And what if I didn’t get married? What if I called it off?’
‘Why would you do such a thing?’
Mom saw being married as a prize, a reward for hard work, like a special commendation from school. In a way, her optimism in the face of failure was sweet.
‘Mom, I love you and I’ll call again soon, but everything’s fine and I’m having a very nice time.’
‘I love you too, Kerry-Anne… if you would only—’
‘Gotta go, Mom!’
There was no way I would be attending Audrey Callaghan’s Miami bachelorette because it was a place where I never wanted to go again: it was where I’d had my last vacation with Caitlin.
We’d stayed on Ocean Drive and we would head off to the beach for the day, sunning ourselves, people watching and reading, and waiting for cocktail hour, which Caitlin decreed as 4 p.m. I think we laughed more on that trip than anyone could have laughed in a year.
We found everything funny, it was like we were thirteen again.
Just thinking of that week in Miami, the two of us in shorts, broiling by day, going to the bar by night, and laughing all the time, now it made me sad.
Next, I called Granny Annie.
‘Kerry-Anne? How are you? Where are you? Please say you’re home?’
‘Not yet! But—’
‘You’re still in Ireland?’ she interrupted. ‘I thought you might be home by now?’
‘Not yet. I mean, I was going to come home early, but it’s actually so cute and awesome, and I’ve met these—’
But she interrupted me. ‘Sounds wonderful… Look, I can’t talk at the moment. You can tell me all about it when you come home. But I need you home soon.’
She was obviously worried about me after I had told her about Milhouse.
‘I have to go now,’ she went on.
Granny Annie was never this abrupt. ‘How are you?’ I tried.
‘Is everything all right?’ I had a sickening feeling.
Her health? As she had grown older, Johnny and I were terrified of anything happening to her.
She always looked well, but last year she did have her cataracts done and although she said it just meant an excuse to wear her Chanel sunglasses indoors, it made us worry.
The last person we wanted to be vulnerable was our matriarch.
‘I’m fine,’ she insisted.
‘You would tell me if you weren’t, wouldn’t you?’ I said, knowing she wouldn’t.
‘Of course I would.’ We both accepted she was lying.
‘How did your bridge night go? Was Gloria Goldschmidt there? How did her honeymoon go?’
But Granny Annie seemed impatient to get off the phone. ‘I’ll tell you everything when you’re home,’ she said. ‘Love you, Kerry-Anne.’
Click. And she was gone.
Johnny might have some intel, so I called him next. He answered in a whisper. ‘I’m in Oprah’s orchard.’
‘Oprah’s orchard? She has an actual orchard?’
‘Of course she has an orchard!’ He lowered his voice again.
‘The orchard is just the beginning. She has fountains and a freshwater swimming pool and a vegetable garden which grows fourteen varieties of green beans and this glasshouse which is larger than my entire flat. It’s like something from Versailles.
There’s even a topiary of her head. And it looks like her, it really does.
Like, whoever does her topiary is really, really good.
And I’ve just eaten a peach from one of her trees. ’
‘Johnny, she’ll sack you!’
‘I didn’t steal it, dummy. It was given to me by her assistant. Or her assistant’s assistant’s assistant. Have you ever heard of a bilberry? Well, she has them. And loganberries. And things like rhubarb and chard and crazy things like kiwis.’
‘What’s crazy about a kiwi? Wait, do you mean the fruit?’
He laughed. ‘No, I mean the birds. She has whole flocks of them. Of course I mean the fruit! She has an entire greenhouse with just exotic fruits. Anyway, how is Ireland?’
‘Nice. Everyone’s really lovely, but I’m not on vacation. I’m kind of working and meeting people.’
‘Well, stop working and meeting people. Just stay in bed and refuse to meet anyone. It’s so typical of you, K. You go on holiday and still work. What kind of work? Is Tara sending stuff over?’
‘Yes, I’ve got emails to go through now. But it’s other stuff. It’s too much to explain right now. But I’ll tell you all when I see you. And, I think I’m going to go swimming one of these mornings…’
‘Swimming? But it’s cold there.’ He sounded horrified. ‘Has it stopped raining?’
‘Yes. I had a glass of wine sitting outside just now.’
‘On your own?’
‘No, with Henry.’
‘What kind of Henry?’
‘A nice kind of Henry. Into boats and wears jumpers, but the home-made kind. Made by his grandmother…’
Johnny laughed.
‘He’s not my type,’ I said, hastily. ‘So don’t go getting any ideas.’
‘Anyway, you’re engaged. Remember?’
‘I hadn’t forgotten.’ Thankfully Johnny didn’t know about the rules. If he did, he’d go crazy.
‘This Henry, is he attractive?’
‘Tall, glasses, skinny.’
‘So, attractive then…’ He laughed to himself again.
‘Tara says I am only attracted to overconfident males. Do you think I am?’
‘Tara’s not wrong. For what it’s worth, K, I think you’ve got bigger issues than the men you like.
As I have said, you need to spend time on your own, reflecting and all that jazz.
You give too much of yourself, which is why it is infuriating when you say you are working and meeting people on holiday.
I hate meeting people on holiday. Michael says I am antisocial, but I call it self-preservation. ’
‘It’s either that or talk to no one,’ I said.
‘So? Talk to no one. Enter a nunnery, go on a retreat. Just stop. For once in your life, stop what you’re doing. I mean, have you thought about talking to someone?’
‘You just told me to stop talking!’
‘You know what I mean…’
‘Johnny, I’m fine.’ I’d stopped listening, thinking about Granny Annie. ‘Johnny, be quiet a minute…’
‘So you want me to stop talking, now, is it?’
‘No! I want you to go to a nunnery,’ I said.
‘Nuns do talk, you know. Some of them even sing.’
‘You’re thinking of Maria von Trapp.’
‘Yeah, maybe. She’s my favourite nun of all time.’
I had to move Johnny on. ‘Listen, have you spoken to Granny Annie lately? She couldn’t wait to get off the phone with me just then.’
‘Perhaps she was busy, not everyone is just waiting around for you to call them…’
‘I know that!’ God, he was infuriating.
‘Perhaps she needed to use the bathroom?’ He paused. ‘I’ll call her, okay? And I’ll call you back if I’m concerned, but I bet she’s fine, she always is. Anyway, I have to go and tend Oprah’s orchard. Look, leave rainy old Ireland and come and see us. Miss Daisy wants to meet her aunt.’
‘Yeah… but I think I’m starting to enjoy myself…’
But he was gone, back to his orchard and the head hedge and the sunshine of Los Angeles.