Another laugh drifted up from the allotment. It really would make a great subject for a painting. Fête Champêtre, Irish style. A bunch of middle-aged country women gossiping over ham sandwiches and flasks of tea, swapping recipes and showing off pictures of their grandchildren. Very petit genre, as her art teacher would have said! Cat pulled a scrunchy off her wrist, scraped up her mass of damp hair and wound it into a knot on the top of her head. Then she flexed her fingers. It was time to go cut some wallpaper.
Río emerged from the water and shook salt droplets from her hair. A swim was the only surefire way to clear a gal’s head after knocking back quantities of iced Cointreau and gin in the afternoon. Above her on the terraced slopes her sister Dervla was strolling between raspberry canes and strawberry beds, sampling produce; while under the shade of a parasol, recumbent on cushions, Fleur was leafing through a magazine and murmuring love songs to her baby. The words of some French nursery rhyme came floating down to the shore – Alouette, gentille alouette, alouette, je te plumerai . . .
This was the third picnic they’d enjoyed this summer. The first had been organised by Río, whose orchard it was. She had provided cold Spanish omelette, red wine and Rice Krispie buns. Picnic number two had featured champagne, finger sandwiches and exquisite miniature pastries, courtesy of Fleur. Today, Dervla had brought along a cocktail shaker (she mixed a mean White Lady) and canapés requisitioned from the eightieth birthday celebration she’d hosted the night before.
So far, the picnics had been a great success. They’d been lucky with the weather, they’d been able to synchronise time off work; they’d even solved the drink/drive problem by organising transport. Today, because all his regular drivers were otherwise employed, the owner of the local hackney company had dropped them off at Río’s orchard himself – in a Merc, no less. In an hour’s time he would pick them up and deliver them back to their respective addresses. Dervla would be dropped off at the mews behind the Old Rectory, the state-of-the-art retirement home she ran with her husband Christian; Fleur would return to her duplex above Fleurissima, the bijou boutique that had been her pride and joy until the arrival of baby Marguerite; and Río would climb the stairs to the apartment that boasted a grand view of Lissamore harbour and its fishing boats, where she lived on her own.
The view was what she loved most about her apartment. She had never read E.M. Forster’s A Room With a View, but she didn’t need to. The title said it all. How could anyone live in a room that didn’t have a view? For Río, that was unthinkable.
Río’s balcony presented her with a different picture of the village every day, according to the vagaries of the weather. On a fine day, the village was carnival-coloured: a riot of hanging baskets and brightly painted hulls bobbing on the water and all manner of summer accessories outside the corner shop – beach balls and shrimping nets and sun hats and display stands of pretty postcards. This was the view inhabited by tourists, who wandered the main street of the village, licking ice-cream cones and taking pictures with their camera phones. Río preferred the view in the winter months, when the street was deserted and the mountains on the horizon wore an icing-sugar dusting of snow and the skies were so big and breathtakingly blue that you felt no picture could do them justice.
However, Lissamore and its environs simply begged to be photographed. On occasion, Río had come across tourists who had wandered off the beaten track, and strayed into her orchard with their BlackBerries and iPhones. They would apologise, say that they hoped they were not trespassing, and Río would say ‘Arra, divil a bit’ in her best brogue, and offer them samples of whatever was in season – blueberries or goosegogs or apples. And then she was delighted when these visitors contacted her via Facebook and posted photographs of her orchard on their walls and exhorted all their friends to visit Lissamore and buy Río’s produce from her stall at the weekly Sunday market.
The three women had hit upon the orchard as the rendezv ous for their summer junkets because no one could bother them there. None of them ever had windows for so-called ‘me’ time, so they’d opted for ‘us’ time instead, and the picnics were designated stress-free events. In the orchard, Fleur couldn’t ‘just run downstairs’ to deal with a delivery or a fussy customer, and Dervla couldn’t ‘just nip next door’ to check on how a new resident was settling in. And while they were there, Río wasn’t allowed to fret over greenfly or weevils or mealy bugs. Río’s orchard was their very own Garden of Eden, their private piece of paradise.
Reaching for her towel, Río glanced up at the Villa Felicity, the house that had once belonged to Adair. Since he had sold it, it was rumoured to have changed hands a couple of times, and it now wore the look of an unwanted frock in a second-hand shop. Or that’s how Fleur – with her penchant for sartorial imagery – had put it. Río liked that the place was empty. She liked to be able to skinny-dip here unseen, she liked to be able to work in her garden unobserved, she liked to be able to lounge in the hammock she had strung up between two apple trees, knowing that she had this corner of Coolnamara all to herself. No one in the world could reach her here, except . . .
From above, came the sound of her phone – the ringtone that announced that Finn was calling.
. . . except Finn.
Río was off the starter’s blocks, wrapping her towel around her, and sprinting up the beach towards the orchard gate.
‘Your phone, Río!’ called Fleur. ‘Shall I answer it for you?’
‘Please!’ The ringtone stopped, and Río heard Fleur’s low laugh. ‘No, Finn! It’s your godmother here! Hang on two seconds, she’s on her way. Here she comes, tearing up the path like Roadrunner.’
Breathless, Río joined Fleur on the rug, and held out a hand for the phone. ‘Finn!’ she said into the mouthpiece. ‘What’s up?’
‘Hey, Ma,’ came her son’s laconic greeting.
‘Why are you phoning the mobile? What has you so flathulach? Why not wait to Skype later?’
‘I’m a bit all over the place, today.’
Río did some quick mental arithmetic. ‘It must be eight o’clock in the morning in LA. What has you up so early?’
‘The clock says four p.m. where I am.’
‘So you’re not in LA? What’s going on?’
‘Are you heading home soon, Ma?’
‘In about an hour. Why?’
‘Then I can tell you the good news in person.’
‘What do you mean, in person?’
‘I’ll be in Lissamore in a couple of hours, unless Galway airport’s closed again. I’m in Heathrow now.’
‘You brat! You never told me you were coming home! Holy moly, Finn – that’s fantastic news!’
‘Glad you think so, Ma. But there’s more.’
‘More good news? What?’
There was a smile in Finn’s voice when he replied.
‘It’s a surprise,’ he said.
Chapter Three
From: [email protected]
To: Keeley Considine
Subject: Re: Extended break
Hi, Keeley.
So you’ve got yourself a cottage in Lissamore?
Nice. Pity about the tax on second homes though, ain’t it ;b
Enjoy your ‘extended break’, but please note that I’m holding you to your contract, which has a further three weeks to run. (Not having broadband is no excuse. I Googled the joint: there’s an internet café in the village.)
Yours (I mean it),
Leo
PS: