Chapter 35
ROSIE
The rehearsal dinner was in full swing. More guests had arrived, those who were staying in the village in the Sandycove Arms had piled out of taxis and headed down along the lawn to the marquee. And now it was dusk, a curtain being closed on the day.
And then, Sunday, it would all be over. All the guests dispersed back to their homes and it would be just the hotel again.
How would she say goodbye to Patrick? What would they say to each other?
Lovely to see you again? Have a good flight?
Have a great rest of your life? If this past few days was anything to go by, then their bond would always be there and that was a comfort.
Somewhere out there, he was a friend even if she never saw him again.
Grace and Rosie walked out from the hotel into the garden, where there was shade from the trees, the sun finally beginning to lose some of its heat.
Grace stared at her. ‘Are you wearing make-up?’
Rosie shook her head. ‘I was swimming.’
‘Ah, the glow of the Irish Sea. It’s a form of cryotherapy. But you look ruddy…’
‘Ruddy?’
‘Blooming. That’s the word. You look blooming.’
‘Blooming awful?’
‘Blooming gorgeous. You really do.’ Grace smiled at her. ‘What about me? Blooming gorgeous or blooming awful?’
‘Blooming amazing, as always.’
Grace hesitated. ‘Rosie, do you know Patrick? I mean, as more than a guest? I’ve seen you talking to him earlier and then you arrived back in the Land Rover. What’s going on?’
Rosie’s words all came out in a rush and a relief.
‘We used to know each other. I didn’t tell anyone.
I’d been living in the city centre, working in the Shelbourne and I was in a houseshare and so was he.
He was finishing his business degree on a placement and he was due to go back to Boston where he’d done a year out.
There was a woman called Kerry-Anne Daly who was going to invest… ’
‘Ah…’ said Grace, as though it was all falling into place. ‘And you two were… what?’
‘Involved. Romantically. In love. Whatever.’
‘In love?’ Grace almost dropped her clipboard. ‘So that’s why your eye was twitching and you’ve been acting all shifty and strange.’
Rosie could feel herself reddening. If she wasn’t ruddy before, she was now. ‘Keep your voice down! It was a long time ago. And he barely remembers it. I barely remember it!’
It wasn’t true, at all. The memories had been preserved, like a photo album, ready to be opened.
Flashes of scenes, smells, tastes, the way his hands felt, the way his lips felt, hearing his voice and what they talked about, and one time, standing in the shallows of Sandymount Strand, the voices of children playing far away on the edge of the shore, the birds curling in the sky above them, and thinking this moment was perfection, this man was perfection, and a feeling that nothing else was going to go wrong.
They had found each other and life was going to work out. Except for meddling Lucinda.
‘He told me that Lucinda had told him he wasn’t good enough for me,’ she said to Grace.
They’d had tea in the lounge and Lucinda had been her usual imperious self but everything was fine, Rosie showing Patrick off, talking about his work, explaining that they were going to be long-distance.
‘I’m going over and he’s coming home. And we’ll do that for a while and then see.’ She must have seemed hopelessly naive. Lucinda had taken it all in and then she had pounced.
‘I don’t think he’s the one for you,’ said Lucinda. ‘He’s from farming stock…’
‘Yes… isn’t that a lovely thing to be?’
Lucinda looked at her, almost sadly. ‘You poor thing. How little you know of the world.’
It was perhaps true, thought Rosie. But she wasn’t sure Lucinda knew that much about the world either.
‘Benji has been asking about you,’ said Lucinda. ‘You know their family is very wealthy, don’t you? He’s really very keen. His mother was telling me.’
‘He’s definitely not interested in me,’ said Rosie. ‘And I’m not interested in him. I like Patrick.’
‘Money, Rosie. Are you a fool? How do you think the hotel is going to survive without money? It’s a money pit, always was. I said to Sarah, my dear, departed sister, that it was going to drain her of everything she had and I was right. Your choice is to run it and be drained by it or marry well.’
‘I will run it and not be drained by it,’ said Rosie, and then they both stopped talking because Patrick was returning, a big smile on his face.
And now Rosie realised Lucinda had spoken to him and warned him off because it was the next day that he announced there would be no long-distance and that the two of them were over.
‘Who knows about you and Patrick?’ asked Grace, now. ‘Does Nessa?’
Rosie shook her head. ‘I never told her. It was that summer she was working in Spain. Lucinda knows, Bertie met him when I was on my placement. And that’s it.
I was going to introduce him to Dad when I brought him to Cliff Top that day, but he wasn’t here.
And then it was all over and so I didn’t tell anyone. There was no point.’
Grace looked at her sympathetically. ‘You should have told us, your friends.’
‘I know.’
‘I mean, that summer… what was I doing? I was in Antibes, working on those mega yachts, being a skivvy. God, what a summer. I couldn’t touch rosé for years later. Almost put me off French men.’ She paused. ‘Almost. Now, what are you going to do?’
‘Nothing. What can I do? It didn’t work out. He left for Boston. I came back to Sandycove. I’m stuck here, in my rut. He’s living his glamorous and successful life over there. And you’ve said yourself that he’s fighting them off. Kate for one…’
Grace rolled her eyes.
‘And this American woman who’s coming. I think it might be Kerry-Anne Daly.
She’s his business mentor. Perhaps they are in a relationship.
’ She felt sick at the thought. But he had every right to be in another relationship.
She still wasn’t about to leave and go to Boston, she still had the hotel. Nothing had changed.
‘I bet she’s gorgeous. Toned arms. Glossy hair. Super confident. Teeth. Money.’
‘That’s helpful.’
‘Sorry. You’re gorgeous too, didn’t I say?’
‘You said, ruddy.’
‘Ruddy is a good thing to be. And I bet this American woman is not a patch on you.’ Grace smiled at her.
‘I’ve just got to get through to the end of the wedding, wave them all off and get on with my life again.’
‘And you’re sure you don’t want anything with Patrick? And by anything, I mean anything at all, from furtively passionate last tango in Sandycove to happy ever after, skipping into the end credits?’
‘How can I? It’s the long-distant past, that’s all.
It’s just brought a lot of things to the surface.
’ But she wasn’t ready to admit to Grace how seeing Patrick again had brought to the surface how small her life was and that she was beginning to panic that this was her life forever and nothing would change or get bigger simply because she was scared.
Grace surveyed her for a moment. ‘I get it,’ she said.
‘We need to look back in order to go forwards. I think your subconscious is bubbling away and who knows what your next move is going to be?’ Her phone beeped and she glanced at it.
‘Talking of Prince Charming and happy endings and all that… Martin’s here.
’ She gave Rosie a special look. ‘He’s come to fix the tap in the garage.
Come on, let’s go and see him.’ She paused.
‘Even though, I know you’re in love with another man… ’
‘I’m not!’
‘Keep your options open, that’s all. Especially as the other man lives in another fecking continent!’
Grace was right, she had to be realistic.
Rosie was in danger of allowing herself to start feeling connected to him again, imagining that there was a bond, when in fact everything they had was gone, over, dead and buried.
All that was left was a memory, a fragment…
something which lingered. If only it didn’t linger, if only she had forgotten it all, if only it hadn’t all come back to her, it would be easier.
‘That’s the past,’ said Rosie, firmly, as they turned the corner to the garage.
‘Okay, well, let’s see about your future.’
Martin was standing in his overalls, a spanner in one hand which he raised in greeting.
‘Here she is, the fire starter. Glad to see you survived the incident on the beach,’ he said.
‘Honestly, I was about to dial 999.’ He laughed.
‘It was like a pyrotechnic display. Some people would pay good money to see that.’
Grace laughed a bit too loudly. ‘When we arrived, all I could smell was Rosie’s singed eyebrows.’ She began laughing even more. ‘I’ve never actually seen her look anything but calm and in control before. It was quite refreshing.’
‘Glad you found it so amusing,’ said Rosie, which made them laugh even more.
‘Let’s have a drink,’ said Grace, still smiling. ‘Martin? Fancy a cocktail?’
‘Now you’re talking,’ he said. ‘I could leave the van here, okay with you?’ He looked at Rosie and she ignored Grace’s bony elbow screwing into her side.
‘Let’s relax and enjoy the evening. Rosie and I are off duty, Francois will be on his way.’ She checked her watch. ‘He’ll be finished soon.’
‘I hope Martin and I don’t cramp your style,’ teased Rosie.
‘I’m being friendly, that’s all,’ she insisted.
‘Entente cordiale and all that. Poor Francois doesn’t have any friends here yet.
And he spends all day in that hot kitchen.
The poor man is dehydrated and needs a nice drink.
’ She set out three glasses and then added ice, gin and elderflower.
‘Made with Teddy’s home-made cordial,’ she said, passing one to Rosie.
Martin was sitting back in the old wooden chair, his drink on the armrest. ‘I could get used to this,’ he said, taking a sip. ‘You two are playing a blinder with this wedding. It’s all going well.’ He smiled at Rosie, holding up his glass in a salute.