The Kinsella Sisters (7 page)

‘No, he’s not waiting table this time,’ responded Finn. ‘He’s got acting work.’

‘He has?’ Río was genuinely astonished. Shane had done nothing but wait on tables for at least two years now.

‘Yeah. He’s got a part in a pilot for a new TV series.’

‘Oh. The title of which is presumably
The Series That Will Never Be Made.
’

Shane had appeared in numerous pilots for projects that had never got off the ground. He had played a cowboy in something called
Clone Rangers
, and a vampire in something called
Blood Brothers
and an alien commander in something called
Ace of Space
, which Río had renamed
Waste of Space.
She and Finn had dutifully watched the DVD he’d sent them and tried not to laugh, but after a couple of glasses of wine not laughing had proved impossible, and Río had guffawed so hard that wine had come spurting out of her nose. The pair of them had gone round quoting from
Ace of Space
for weeks afterwards, intoning such gems as ‘Instruct the hyperdrive to convey us to Twelfth Warp!’ and ‘Planet Quatatanga is ours!’

‘Well, you know what Dad’s like,’ said Finn. ‘He’s always convinced that whatever he’s in will be the next
Lost.
He said to tell you how sorry he is that he won’t be able to make it to the funeral. He’s shooting all this week and next.’

‘That’s sweet of him to even think about coming over, but I wouldn’t have expected him to travel all that way for Frank.’

‘Sure, it’d be no problem for him with the auld Hyperdrive. That conveyed him to the Twelfth Warp in no time at all’

‘But the Hyperdrive exploded on Planet Quatatanga, taking Captain Ross and his crew members with it. And that was the end of that pay cheque. I got my winter coat and my Doc Martens out of that pilot.’

‘And I got my Xbox.’

‘I wonder what we’ll get out of this one?’

‘I know what I want.’

‘What?’

‘My scuba-dive instructorship.’

‘Oh, Finn! It breaks my heart to think that if Frank hadn’t left me out of his will—’

‘Ma, Ma! Please don’t beat yourself up over it! I’ll find a way to get my certification, I promise I will’

‘But it’s so expensive—’

‘Please,
please
don’t worry about me, Ma. That’s the last thing I want you to do. You’ve enough on your plate.’

Río made a face. ‘I just wish it was scallops and lobster.’

‘I’ll fetch you scallops on my next dive. I know where there’s a big bed off Inishclare. Hey! Let’s check the EuroMillions results.’ Finn reached for the mouse and set sail on Internet Explorer. ‘Maybe we’ll be lucky tonight.’

There was a pause, then Río stapled on that grin again. ‘Knowing our luck,’ she said, ‘Dervla’s probably already won it.’

That night–after she’d said goodbye to Río, and driven the forty kilometres back to her penthouse in the Sugar Stack in Galway, and sipped a glass of chilled Sancerre, and performed her Eve Lom routine, and slid between her Egyptian cotton sheets–Dervla did something she often did after she’d recced a property. As she lay in bed, she walked through it in her head, retracing her steps in a kind of virtual tour.

The front of Frank’s house would clean up well. White-washed walls, a new front door painted a tasteful shade of duck-egg blue, window boxes. Inside, the porch would have to be retained. Porches were important on this stretch of the Atlantic coast, not just as storage space for fuel and wellie boots and umbrellas, but because they acted as buffers against the wind that beat up against the fronts of the houses in wintertime. Beyond the porch, the hallway, the sitting room and the kitchen could be knocked through into one vast, L-shaped living space, with the kitchen housed in the extended foot of the ‘L’, and with the old scullery
beyond serving as a utility room. The study could be converted into a spare bedroom.

Downstairs and up, huge, double-glazed picture windows could be installed to frame that panoramic vista of sea and sky and mountains. The front bedroom was sizeable enough to accommodate an en suite shower room if a section of the landing was annexed. The bathroom would have to be ripped out, and all fittings replaced with state-of-the-art sanitary ware. A home office could be fitted under the stairs, library shelves in the stairwell, and the spare room overhauled and fitted with storage units. A deck could be constructed on the roof of the downstairs extension that housed the kitchen and utility room, with double doors opening onto it from the landing.

The only conundrum was–what to do about the attic?

That night, after saying good night to Finn, Río poured herself a glass of rough red wine and took it into the bathroom to sip while she cleaned her face. Studying herself in the mirror, she searched for some physical manifestation of her paternal genes. Her nose? No, it was definitely her mother’s retroussè. Her hair? That red-gold mass was her mother’s legacy too. Her eyes held her mother’s faraway gaze, and when she smiled, her mouth–with its slightly too-short upper lip–curved into something that men seemed to find a lot more lethal than a cupid’s bow. Had Rosaleen smiled that way at her father? Oh, how Río hoped she had! She deserved to have had some fun in her life, and some romance too, even if it had been clandestine.

What she had learned today explained the dearth of family resemblance between her and Frank, and between her and Dervla. But while Dervla had inherited the dark Kinsella colouring, in effect, Frank had been no more father to Dervla than he had to Río. He’d neglected them both equally. Did she feel any less connected to Dervla now that she knew they had been fathered by different men? No. If anything, today’s revelations could only
have brought them closer. Having a half-sister certainly felt a whole lot better than having a sister from whom you were estranged. Any kind of sister was far, far better, Río decided, snapping the top back on her Simple night cream, than having no sister at all.

‘We’ll need to have a long talk.’

‘Oh God, will we?’ Río turned towards Dervla, who was standing in the doorway of their father’s study, looking business-like in a black suit with a little boxy jacket. Río didn’t own anything black to wear to Frank’s funeral. She had rifled through her wardrobe that morning and selected a chiffon and velvet skirt in saffron yellow, which she’d teamed with a woolly sweater and a pair of Doc Martens. She didn’t care if it was inappropriate garb for a funeral. Frank had turned up drunk at their mother’s funeral, and how appropriate was
that?.

‘I’ve asked Mr Morrissey to stay on after the wake—’

‘Who’s Mr Morrissey?’ asked Río, taking a sip from her wineglass.

‘Our father’s–Frank’s solicitor. He’s in next door with Mrs Murphy now.’

‘Delivering the glad tidings about the garden, presumably?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’ll be all round the village soon.’

It was inevitable that word of Frank’s will would get out. All of Lissamore had showed up at the church today, to listen to the priest’s eulogy. Río had wondered idly what class of a sin Father Miley was committing, standing up there spouting platitudes
about what a wonderful human being Frank had been. Ha! How had he fooled them all so consummately?

Once the lie-fest was over, she and Dervla had had to smile stoically as the parishioners stood in line to tell the sisters over and over how sorry they were for their trouble, before trooping down to the graveyard on the headland where they’d said prayers for the repose of Frank’s soul under a blaze of blue sky crisscrossed with the wispy white lines of vapour trails heading west across the Atlantic. The day of the funeral had turned out to be one of those miracle days that you get in Coolnamara in midwinter, the kind of day that Rosaleen had used to describe as ‘pet’ days. And Río had put on her best downcast expression as she’d tossed a shovelful of earth onto Frank’s grave and muttered, ‘Bastard bastard wretched fucking bastard.’

Now the wake was underway, and Frank’s spring-cleaned house was host to a throng of guests who had come bearing gifts for the girls, much as they had come bearing gifts for Frank when he was alive. The table in the kitchen was groaning under the weight of the food and drink that had been contributed, and W.B. was looking distinctly tubbier. He was patrolling the house proprietorially, clearly perplexed to see so many people invading his territory.

The doorbell went again.

‘I’ll get it,’ said Dervla. ‘And then I think I’ll just leave the damn door open to all-comers.’

Dervla high-heeled off, leaving Río smiling wanly at yet another person who’d rolled up, glass in hand, to tell her how sorry he was for her trouble and what a character Frank had been.

She’d had enough. Muttering an excuse, she grabbed a bottle from the hall table, and hotfooted it upstairs. Plonking herself down on the bottom step of the staircase that led to the attic, she swilled wine into her glass and wondered if she was becoming an alcoholic. It was hereditary, she’d read somewhere. How
ironic that the only thing she might have inherited from her father was his alcoholism. And then she reminded herself that Frank wasn’t her real father, and the whole situation became more ironic still.

From downstairs, voices floated up to her, and she remembered how she and Dervla had sat hunkered here as children, eavesdropping on their parents’ rows and clutching each other’s hand.

There was Dervla’s voice now, raised in greeting to some new arrival. ‘So glad you could make it,’ she was saying. ‘And Isabella too. How are you, Adair?’

Adair? It could only be Adair Bolger, the man who owned Coral Mansion. Río hadn’t seen him for yonks. The last time she’d had an encounter with him had been while swimming in the Lissamore estuary. Adair had sped by in his pleasure craft, cutting a swathe through the water and creating a wake that might have drowned a less able swimmer. Río had shaken her fist and yelled at him, but he had given no indication that he had either seen or heard her.

Curious, Río crept along the landing and peered down through the banisters. Dervla was air-kissing Adair warmly. He’d changed a lot since the day she’d first met him, when he’d reminded her of Sunday Supplement Man. He’d lost weight, and some hair too, having opted for a close-cut crop. Much savvier for a balding man than a comb-over, Río thought: it lent an edge, somehow.

‘I’m good, Dervla,’ said Adair, on finishing the air-kissing ritual. ‘But I’m sorry for your trouble. Your father was a real character, by all accounts.’

Río scowled.

‘I suppose one might describe him as a bon vivant,’ said Dervla, diplomatically. ‘Talking of bon vivants, thank you so much, Adair, for introducing me to Matt Flanagan at the awards ceremony. We had a most pleasant business lunch last week, and we’ve agreed to meet up for a round of golf when he’s next in Galway.’

Awards ceremonies! Business lunches! Golf! What very different lives she and Dervla led.

‘You’re welcome,’ responded Adair smoothly. ‘I suspected you’d find him helpful. Matt and I go back a long way. When it comes to investment portfolios—Oh! Ha-ha. What a friendly little cat!’

Río craned her neck further to see WB. winding himself around Adair Bolger’s shins, and rubbing his muzzle against the expensive fabric of his trousers. How dare the cat welcome him, of all people, into the house?

‘What
are
you doing, Ma?’

Finn had emerged from the bathroom, and was standing on the landing, watching his mother curiously.

‘Ssh!’ said Río. ‘I’m spying.’

‘On who?’ asked Finn, taking a step towards the banister and looking down at the occupants of the hall. ‘Holy moly!’ he added in a stage whisper. ‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s Adair Bolger, the millionaire who owns Coral Mansion.’

‘No, I mean, who’s the hottie?’

‘Hottie? You mean his daughter?’

‘That’s never Isabella? The little girl I took donkey riding? My, oh my, but she’s some fox!’

Río allowed her eyes to roam in the direction of Adair Bolger’s daughter. Uh-oh. Isabella Bolger
was
a fox–the kind of little vixen that would have the dogs of the village panting in hot pursuit if they ever plucked up the courage. Isabella was golden of skin and hair–that expensive shade of gold that comes courtesy of a team of colourists and beauty therapists–and she was dressed in something that could have stepped from the pages of
Vogue.
She had about her that air of composure that only the very rich wear–a kind of serene confidence that nothing can go wrong in their world.

‘Hands off, Finn,’ growled Río. ‘You don’t want to get involved with a girl like that.’

‘As if, Ma! A girl like her wouldn’t look twice at someone like me.’

Just then, Isabella raised her china-blue eyes to Finn’s. Her gaze rested on him for a nanosecond before she was distracted by W.B., who was now winding himself around her lissom legs. But Finn was wrong about a girl like her not looking at him twice. Because after reaching down to give W.B.’s ears a perfunctory rub, Isabella looked straight back up at him. And smiled.

Oh God oh God oh God, thought Izzy, tearing her eyes away from the vision that was Finn and fixing them on the lipsticked mouth of the woman called Dervla. You stupid, stupid girl. What did you mean by grinning flakily at someone who’s just lost his grandfather?

Did he remember her? She knew she bore little resemblance to the kid he’d once hefted onto a donkey’s back, the kid who’d ordered him off her land.

She cringed when she remembered the way she’d spoken to him that day, all puffed up with self-importance because her daddy had told her that the land she stood on–the pretty overgrown garden and the fairy-tale orchard and the stretch of beach beyond–belonged to them now. What a prissy, obnoxious brat she’d been! No wonder the people of Lissamore had ‘taken agin’ the Bolger family, big time. Today was the first time in all those years that anyone had invited them to anything.

Izzy had been having lunch with her dad in the seafood bar upstairs at O’Toole’s, earlier in the day, when Dervla Kinsella had approached and invited them to attend the wake for her father. Izzy had known it was Dervla, because she’d met her while accompanying Adair to the Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in Dublin. Izzy hadn’t wanted to go to the wake. She’d never been
to one, and she wasn’t sure how you were meant to behave on such an occasion, but her father had insisted. It would show respect to the Kinsella family, he’d said, and it would be noted with approval by their neighbours.

Izzy knew that her father was keen to curry favour with the people of Lissamore. Since he’d built the barnacle on the beach, the Bolger family had not been made to feel welcome here. They’d spent just a handful of summers in their ‘country cottage’ before Mummy had left Daddy, and the house had become one of those ghost houses that you see all over Coolnamara, boarded up for the best part of the year until the owners find windows of opportunity to descend for weekends.

Those summers had been one long stream of house parties, with guests arriving from Dublin in their Mercs and top-of-the-range SUVs. The grown-ups would spend the weekends drinking Pimm’s and swapping gossip on the terrace while the kids played in the garden or in the pool. They weren’t allowed to play on the beach because it was deemed to be too dangerous for the smaller children without their au pairs in tow (Izzy often thought that the real reason was because the yummy mummies didn’t want the kids’ OshKosh gear to get spoiled), although they were allowed to play on what Felicity called ‘the Greensward’–the strip of lawn that she had had planted adjacent to the slipway.

Isabella had thought this stretch of land to be their own private property until it had been made clear by the Lissamore people that it was no such thing. The locals had taken to bringing picnics down to ‘the Greensward’ and playing ball games on it, and once the Bolger family had arrived down from Dublin to find some baby goats tethered there. Izzy had been delighted, wanting to keep them, but Felicity had nearly fainted when she’d seen the state of her lawn. That was the last time her mother had come near the ‘country cottage’.

Izzy had come down a couple of times since with her father
–just the two of them–but they hadn’t had much fun. Adair had encouraged Izzy to approach some of the local kids any time he’d seen them playing on the beach or on ‘the Greensward’ or swimming in the sea, but she hadn’t had the nerve, and after a few such dismal weekends they had given up on the house in Lissamore altogether, and gone back to taking their holidays in the Caribbean instead. Separate holidays for Mummy and Daddy, of course.

Felicity’s favourite haunt was the überposh Sandy Lane in Barbados, but Izzy hated going there because her mother treated the staff like shit, and the kids in the teen club nicknamed her ‘Irish Potato Head’. She much preferred going on holiday with her dad because he didn’t spend all his time in the spa, although he did disappear from time to time to do business–a.k.a. playing golf. Adair had told her that more deals got done on the golf course these days than in the boardroom.

So Izzy spent a lot of time on holiday swimming solitaire in the pool, or in the sea, scuba-diving: scuba was for her the ultimate escape from reality.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, when Daddy had announced that his best Christmas present ever would be the pleasure of his daughter’s company in Lissamore, Izzy hadn’t been able to say no. Her friend Lucy had spent some time with them, and her aunt and some cousins, but now it was just the two of them again.

She resumed her stoical expression as she listened to her father talking small talk to Dervla Kinsella. ‘In estate agent’s parlance, this house has a lot of character too,’ he observed, looking round at the shabby entrance hall with the peeling wallpaper, the threadbare carpet and the cracked fanlight over the door.

‘Actually, it’s
oozing
with character,’ Dervla corrected him with a smile. ‘And damp.’

‘As a property developer, all I see is potential,’ said Adair. ‘And this place has loads. Prime site too, overlooking the sea.’

Oh God. Now they were going to start talking property-speak–the most boring language in the world. How could Izzy escape? Through the open front door she could see a dog sitting on the sea wall across the road, smiling at her. Murmuring an excuse to her father, Izzy slipped away.

The dog on the wall was a bichon frise. Her mother owned two, but Felicity’s bichons frises had been given those awful pompom hairstyles. This little dog looked more like a miniature sheep than a miniature poodle, and as Izzy approached, its smile grew broader and its tail began to wag.

‘Hello,’ said Izzy, sitting down beside the dog. ‘What’s your name?’

Because the dog looked so intelligent, she half expected an answer. So, taking the dog’s paw in her hand, she introduced herself.

‘I’m Isabella Bolger,’ she said, ‘Izzy for short. I live in a house just outside the village, by the sea–except I don’t really live there, if you know what I mean. My dad bought the house because my mum wanted a holiday hideaway, except she didn’t really want to hide away. She wanted to be able to show off her house to all her friends, and when people weren’t that interested because they couldn’t hack the drive down from Dublin she went into a sulk and decided she didn’t want it after all, and then Dad told her that he couldn’t afford the diamond she wanted for her birthday, so she decided to divorce him, and when she did that she took all their so-called friends with her.’

The dog’s ears seemed to droop in sympathy, which encouraged Izzy to continue.

‘And now my mum’s living in our D4 house and dating the man who did buy her the diamond, and Dad’s living in a penthouse in the financial district, in the same block as me, and he’s dating no one because he’s a social misfit on account of Mum taking all his friends away. And he’s dead lonely, and I feel so sorry for him sometimes. And I wish he could get a girlfriend
–only not the kind of girlfriend that he’s dated from time to time in the past, because I know for a fact that all those women were just after his money, and that they hated me, even though they pretended to like me and called me “darling Izzy”. And, do you know what? I hate it here in Lissamore because it seems to me that everyone resents us because we’re rich and because we took over the Greensward and the house is far too big for just me and Dad, and we feel like losers staying there, with not even any friends to invite for the weekend.’

‘Would you look at yer wan! Talking to a feckin’ dog!’

A voice somewhere to her left made Izzy stiffen.

‘That’s because nobody else wants to talk to her,’ came the reply, accompanied by a snigger.

Izzy’s peripheral vision told her that a group of lads had congregated on a corner diagonally across the road. Her instinct was to get up and walk back across the road into the Kinsella house, but she was damned if she was going to let them faze her. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the middle distance, even as she felt her face begin to burn.

‘I wouldn’t mind giving her one.’

‘Pah! I bet she’s frigid.’

‘Give her a pearl necklace, then.’

‘She’s already wearing one.’

‘Not that kind of a pearl necklace, ya gom.’

‘Maybe she takes it up the arse.’

‘Like Posh Spice.’

‘She’s a great pair of tits on her.’

‘Posh Spice?’

‘Nah. The bitch sitting on the wall.’

‘Wonder how much she paid for them?’

‘Nothing but the best for a D4 princess. Sure Daddy would have paid for them.’ A dirty laugh.

‘Hey, sweet-tits! Were they worth the money? Make those baloobas bounce for us!’

Izzy couldn’t take any more. She was just about to get to her feet and make as dignified a retreat as possible under the circumstances, when there came the sound of a new voice.

‘Cut it out, lads. Go find someone your own size to bully.’

‘Ooh. It’s Finn Kinsella. We’re quaking, Finny’

‘Go on. Get the fuck out of here.’

‘It’s a free country, Finny. We can shoot the breeze wherever we like.’

‘Not here, you can’t. I’ll say it again. Get the fuck out of here, and stop abusing the lady.’

‘You gonna
make
us get the fuck out of here, Finn Boy?’

‘Not today, I’m not. That’d mean disturbing the peace. And I don’t like the idea of doing that when there’s a wake going on. I’m just after burying my grandfather.’

That did it. A silence fell, followed by a gruff: ‘Forgot about that. Sorry for your trouble.’

‘It’d be no trouble to kick the crap out of you if I hear you talking that way again,’ came Finn’s voice. ‘Learn a bit of respect, lads.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Izzy saw the group disperse. She remained sitting motionless on the sea wall until she became aware of Finn’s presence directly behind her. Then she turned, face aflame.

‘Thank you for doing that,’ she said.

‘No problem.’ Finn looked down at her, concern in his eyes. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I just hate Lissamore more than ever now. What a horrible, obnoxious bunch of people.’

‘I’m sorry you were subjected to that. It was drink talking. They’re normally scared shitless by girls like you.’

‘Girls like me? What
is
a girl like me? What makes me different?’

‘You have class. That’s what makes you different, in their eyes.’

‘And that makes them feel that they have the right to talk to me like that?’

‘I guess it’s a way of masking their insecurities.’

‘My heart bleeds for them! What about
my
insecurities?’

‘They probably don’t think you have any.’

‘Ha! Everyone has insecurities.’

The bichon frise looked indignantly up at her, and gave a little bark as if to say, ‘
I
don’t!’, and Izzy looked at her and smiled.

‘Hey, Babette,’ said Finn, reaching down to scratch the dog under the chin. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Her name’s Babette?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Cute!’

‘A bit girly for my taste.’

‘What’s wrong with being girly?’

Izzy saw Finn’s eyes go to her peep-toe shoes, and travel upwards to the floral print skirt, which she had teamed with a baby-pink cashmere cardigan. She saw him take in the pearl necklace, and the lapis lazuli-framed sunnies tucked into her neckline, and the chiffon scarf that she’d wound around her head, and she saw him smile as he said: ‘Nothing much at all wrong with being girly, I guess. If you’re a girl.’

Izzy felt herself go as pink as her cardigan, and said–to change the subject–‘Who does she belong to?’

‘Babette? She belongs to Fleur, who owns the boutique up the road.’

‘Fleurissima! Oh, that’s a fabulous shop! I got these shoes there.’

‘Yeah? I noticed them in the window. I was looking for a Christmas present for my ma,’ he added, as if to explain what a macho bloke like him was doing checking out a girly emporium like Fleurissima.

She saw Finn’s eyes go again to the patent leather peep-toes, and wondered–if he had noticed them in the shop–had he also noticed the obscene price tag of four hundred and ninety euro?

‘What did you end up buying her?’ she asked.

‘A raffia basket.’

Izzy had seen the pretty little baskets in the bargain bin of Fleurissima, reduced to clear at twenty-five euro.

‘Are you going to be around Lissamore much, later in the year?’ Finn asked, sitting down beside her on the sea wall.

‘No. I’m…going travelling.’

‘Going travelling’ sounded more streetwise than ‘I’m going on holiday with my best friend and my dad’. Adair had promised to treat her and Lucy to a fortnight in a five-star resort in Koh Samui in Thailand at the end of the summer, if they performed well in their first-year exams. Izzy would secretly have preferred to have gone off backpacking with her mates, but she couldn’t bear the idea of her dad staying in an island resort on his own.

‘Me too,’ said Finn. ‘In a fortnight’s time I’ll be backpacking in Queensland.’

‘Wow. How long for?’

‘Till the money runs out. Where are you heading?’

Izzy shrugged in what she hoped was a nonchalant fashion. ‘Haven’t decided yet. Somewhere I can chill before I start the slog of a second year in college.’

‘What are you studying?’

‘Business studies. What about you?’

‘I gave up on the idea of college.’

‘So what do you do?’

‘I work on boats.’

‘In the marina here?’

‘Yeah. And in the scuba-dive centre over on Inishclare.’

‘Oh! You’re a diver—’

‘Finn!’

A voice from across the road made them look up.

‘Hey, Ma! What’s up?’

A woman whom Izzy took to be Finn’s mother was standing in the doorway of the Kinsella house, arms akimbo. How different
she was to Izzy’s mother, Felicity! Río Kinsella was statuesque, with turbulent red-gold hair. She reminded Izzy of the picture of Queen Maeve on the cover of a book on Irish myths and legends her father had given her once. She was barefoot and dressed boho style in tie-dyed chiffon and velvet, with heavy bangles around her wrists. Her stance may have been regal, but there was something mistrustful about the way she was eyeing the pair.