Chapter 15
ROSIE
The birds had been in full song for the last hour.
In the hedgerow behind Rosie’s cottage, there was a daily feathery opera, beginning before the very first glow of sunrise and ending long after dusk.
In the old days, her mother would return from a dawn garden ramble and say, ‘Have you heard the birds, Rosie? Go out there and listen to them! They are magical.’ Rosie refused to do it, being a young teenager, thinking that there was plenty of time to hear birds and more than enough time to ignore her mother’s wishes. And of course there wasn’t.
Rosie thought of Patrick, barely believing he was in her hotel, only metres away from her. After all this time. Last night, it had been a welcome distraction to have dinner with her family, but now, in the gloom of dawn, she could think of nothing else.
The look on his face yesterday told her that he was horrified to see her and yet…
she wished more than anything to talk to him.
But making sure no awkwardness occurred meant that she would have to avoid him for the weekend, it was that simple.
And it was easy, wasn’t it? She wasn’t really needed this weekend, the wedding was Grace’s baby, everything was in hand, she could remain hidden away.
But if she wasn’t careful, life would just slip away.
And if she was anything, it was too careful.
Patrick had taken a risk leaving Ireland and from the look of him – healthy, confident, handsome – he was doing well.
Meanwhile she was wearing old-fashioned skirt suits and didn’t even seem to have the kind of thoughts and opinions that Grace or Nessa had.
Nessa wanted her life to change, that was brave.
But Rosie? Her life was practically shrinking, she was stuck in a rut.
She made a pot of tea, warming the pot, spooning in the leaves, letting it stand for ninety seconds, exactly like Bertie had taught her all those years ago in the Shelbourne Hotel, and poured it into one of her mother’s old bone china Belleek cups and added her milk.
Leaving the saucer behind, she went outside, in search of birdsong, which was like a multitrack from the canopy of trees which edged the hotel’s grounds.
The air was heavy with the scent of nectar, a damp dew on the grass, the air chilly but a wash of warmth which signalled that today was going to be a fine one.
Past the lavender path, past the greenhouse and the beehives and over to the white-painted bench, under the sycamore.
She sat for a moment, sipping her rapidly cooling tea, listening to the birds and the zzzzing of the bees which were hard at work, crawling in and out of the giant roses, before heading off to the next nectar-laden stop.
It was first light and in the hotel, she knew, the front desk would still be peopled by the night staff, the kitchen team would be arriving in an hour.
For now, the place was hers. Just Rosie, the birds and the bees.
She blew on her tea and sipped it. And then she heard another sound. Someone was walking along the path.