Breakfast at Darcy's (3 page)

‘Oh no, I
never
drink on duty – so to speak.’ Niall pulls out a chair and rests his briefcase on it.

‘But I bet you never perform your duties in a pub, do you? So there’s a first time for everything. You should really have
a drink – a Guinness, maybe?’

Niall looks at my half-empty pint glass in horror. ‘Maybe a small gin and tonic then, just to be polite. No, no, I shall get
these,’ he insists, holding up his hand as I attempt to stand up. ‘Can I get you another one, Darcy? Or maybe you’d like something
else?’

‘Another of these will be great, thanks, Niall.’

Niall nervously puts his order in with Michael at the bar. Then he stands and fidgets with a beer mat while he waits impatiently
for the Guinness to settle and separate into its two distinctive colours, before Michael will part with it and allow Niall
to carry it back over to me at the table.

‘There,’ he says, sitting down opposite me, eyeing up the rich black liquid suspiciously. ‘Never really been my cup of tea,
Guinness.’

‘Nor mine, when I’m in England,’ I admit. ‘It tastes completely different over there. But on the rare occasion I venture over
to Ireland I always have to have a pint – it’s like a tradition.’

The truth of the matter is I wouldn’t be seen dead drinking a pint of anything back in London. It’s usually an elegant-looking
glass I’m to be found clutching, more often than not containing a trendy cocktail.

‘Indeed,’ Niall takes a sip of his G&T. ‘So: on to business,
then.’ He reaches down for his briefcase, snaps it open and pulls out some important-looking documents. Then he looks around
him, just like he’d been doing in the house and garden earlier.

‘We’re quite safe here, Niall. I really don’t think many of the people that were at Aunt Molly’s funeral frequent this pub.’

Niall smiles. ‘Probably not. Although the barman did ask me if I wanted a cherry on a stick with my gin and tonic, so maybe
they do have the more discerning clientele in here occasionally.’

I pinch myself under the table in an attempt to stop myself laughing. I decide pointing out to Niall that the only cherries
Michael ever saw in here were likely to be the ones on the fruit machine, and he was in fact making a joke at Niall’s expense,
was not only going to be a waste of time but probably a little cruel too. The sort of places Niall probably goes to drink
are trendy Dublin wine bars – all chrome seats and blue lighting. Just the kinds of place I end up in on nights out in London
with my colleagues from the magazine. Perhaps I’d do well to keep my thoughts to myself.

‘So,’ Niall continues, ‘how did the rest of the wake go? I’m sorry I had to leave but I had some other business to attend
to, and on finding out who I worked for, some of the other guests were beginning to ask some very awkward and rather probing
questions.’

‘It went as well as a wake ever goes, I suppose.’ I pause, hoping he’ll continue. ‘So … ’ I look at him encouragingly.

‘So.’ Niall looks at me blankly. ‘Right, yes, of course, you’ll be wanting to know about the will.’ He rearranges the papers
in front of him, picks one up as if he’s about to begin reading,
then he pauses, looks at me and puts it back down again. ‘Before I begin, Darcy, may I first tell you how we in the office
all wish to say how much your aunt is to be congratulated on her very thorough tying-up of all her affairs. It’s made both
the organising of her funeral, and the arranging of this slightly
unusual
bequest, both easy, and, if I may say so, an actual pleasure on our behalf.’

I try to look gratified by his comments about my aunt, but all the time my mind is racing.
What does he mean, ‘unusual’ bequest? Surely my being the only beneficiary makes this whole process quite simple?
I haven’t really had much time this afternoon to think about my aunt’s will, and nor have I wanted to, really. After all,
we’ve only just spent the day saying goodbye to her. But now I’m here with Niall, I’m curious to know. Maybe her estate is
the little cottage we were in today, but why would that be unusual? It doesn’t make sense.

‘So I’ll just start by reading, if I may.’ Niall holds up the document again and adjusts his glasses before beginning. ‘I,
Emmeline Ava Aisling McCall, being of sound mind … ’ he begins in a solemn voice.

‘Niall,’ I interrupt. ‘I won’t mind if you don’t put on your solicitor hat tonight. After all, it doesn’t really seem appropriate
here,’ I gesture to our surroundings.

Niall stares at me for a moment, then glances at the other people enjoying themselves in Mulligan’s bar tonight.

‘Maybe you could just read the important bits, if it’s easier, and cut out all the legal stuff?’ I place my hand over his
on the table. ‘Put it to me in layman’s terms.’ I think about fluttering my eyelashes at him, but decide that would be taking
it a bit too far.

Niall hesitates, then he looks down at my hand and nods. ‘All right then, I guess it wouldn’t hurt just this once.’

‘Fantastic, thank you!’ I snap my hand away. ‘Go for it.’

For a moment, Niall eyes me suspiciously from behind his glasses. ‘It seems, Darcy, your aunt was a very wealthy woman.’

‘Was she?’
This is news to me
. ‘How wealthy?’

‘Very. The frugal life she appeared to be living here in the little cottage we were in today, masked a large fortune built
up over many years of good investment.’

‘Investment – investment in what?’

‘Property, mainly. She used to own quite a large estate over in Kerry, I believe.’ Niall looks for a particular document on
the table.

‘Yes, I used to stay there with her, as a child. But that was just the one big house. She bought it when my uncle died.’

Niall, having found the relevant document and now back in his comfortable solicitor’s role, again takes charge. ‘Oh no, she
owned quite a lot of land around the area, too – some arable, some with planning permission to build a large number of houses.
So when she had to move back over to Dublin about five years ago,’ he consults his papers again. ‘She needed specialist medical
treatment, I believe?’ he pauses to look up at me.

I’m nodding, but I’m ashamed that I don’t really know what he’s talking about.
I really should have made more of an effort …
I think again for the hundredth time today.

‘She sold most of her land to facilitate the move and the cost of her treatment,’ Niall continues, ‘and then wisely invested
the rest of the money.’

I am utterly amazed now. I had no idea Molly had been
some sort of financial wizard. I just remember her as my slightly eccentric aunt.

‘Her financial advisor briefed her very wisely indeed.’ Niall picks up another sheaf of papers, and this time I notice they’re
covered with figures.

‘So then,’ I ask, taking a sip from my glass, ‘just how much money are we talking here, Niall?’ I hope I look calm and unflustered
by the information Niall is feeding me, when really I need this drink to steady my nerves. I hope he doesn’t see my hand shaking
as I lift my glass to my lips.

‘I’m not actually at liberty to tell you the exact amount just at the moment.’ Niall fidgets nervously in his seat. ‘But what
I can tell you is the entire estate amounts to,’ he glances around him in the same way he had in the garden earlier, and then
leans across the table, lowering his voice, ‘a good seven-figure sum.’

How I hated maths at school – in fact I hate numbers of any kind, even now. What are seven figures? I try to figure this out
quickly in my head while I calmly sip at my drink.
There are six figures in £100,000, so what is the most you can get in thousands? That would be £999,999, and the next step
up from that would be …

‘Oh my God, that’s a million pounds or more!’ I hiss, shooting a cream-coloured spray across the table at Niall. A little
lands on his white shirt, but the majority soaks his burgundy silk tie forming a large, abstract pattern of Guinness.

‘Niall, I’m so sorry!’ I leap to my feet and hurriedly grab a beer towel from the bar. I grasp at his tie and desperately
begin dabbing it with the towel. ‘I’m pretty sure it won’t stain, though if we get it off quickly.’

Niall’s head has been pulled into a temporary noose caused
by my dangling on one end of his tie. So while I manically dab at the taught burgundy bridge between us, he’s incapable of
doing anything other than casting his eyes downwards and watching me in horror. Then I’m aware of his eyes slowly lifting
again. ‘Stop!’ he gasps, his voice barely audible. He holds up his hand. ‘Just stop, Darcy, please.’

I cease wiping at the fabric and look at him.

The tie is more like a loose rope bridge between us now, as Niall calmly removes it from my hand. Then, equally calmly he
removes the beer towel from my other hand and places it back on the bar, smoothing it out before he turns around to face me.
He shows no sign of emotion as he blinks at me through his beer-speckled glasses. ‘I suppose I’ve got an excuse to take the
damn thing off now,’ he says, suddenly grinning.

Thankful he’s seen the funny side, I breathe a huge sigh of relief. ‘Just as well it wasn’t a good one,’ I blurt out without
thinking, and immediately wish I hadn’t. ‘I … I mean, it’s not like it’s designer.’ I can feel my face flaming as red as the
fire burning brightly next to us.

Niall raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t appear to take offence. ‘No, I don’t really do designer ties.’ As he grins even more
at my embarrassment, I quickly return to my chair before I drop myself in it any deeper.

While Niall carefully removes his tie and cleans the rest of the Guinness from the lenses of his glasses with his handkerchief,
I just want to sit happily hugging myself.
I don’t have to worry about my overdraft any more!
I secretly shout inside my head as a warm, secure feeling begins to spread right through my body.
Thank you, Aunt Molly. Thank you!
But I try to remain cool and calm while I wait for him to continue with the reading.

‘So, where were we?’ Niall asks, replacing his glasses once more. ‘Ah yes, now, as I was saying, your aunt has left a very
large estate tied up within the terms of her will, and as long as these terms are met, then yes, you, Darcy, could end up
a very wealthy woman indeed.’

I lean back in my seat and smile contentedly – my maxedout credit-card bills can be paid off at long last, and I won’t have
to worry about scraping enough money together for the next rent payment either: I’ll be able to buy myself a nice little flat
now and I won’t have to share any more. Although I wouldn’t want to be too far away from my flatmate, Roxi – maybe I can buy
her a flat next to mine! And there’ll definitely be no more scraping around on the sale rails for bargains. No, from now on
it will be straight into the designer showrooms, with fawning assistants desperate to wait on me hand and foot, and pander
to my every—

‘Wait,’ I sit forward again in my chair. ‘What do you mean by
terms
?’

‘Ah.’ Niall slides his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose. ‘You see, this is where the really interesting part comes
in.’ He smiles nervously at me, and begins apprehensively tapping the ends of his fingers together.

While I start to get a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

‘Go on, Niall.’

‘When your aunt sold most of her property in County Kerry, it seems she held onto one quite large area – apparently it held
some sentimental value for her, and she refused to part with it.’ Niall pauses to check if I’m taking all this in. Happy that
I am, he continues. ‘So as part of her last will and testament she
requests that you, Darcy, go and live there, before you inherit any of her money. I believe she wants you to’ – he picks up
some of the paperwork again, still strewn all over the table, and thumbs through the pages before he reads directly from a
sheet – ‘“experience what I as a child knew growing up, and perhaps to recreate some of the magic we both shared together
in the house in County Kerry, and even some new magic of your very own”.’

I’m touched, hearing my aunt’s words read to me by Niall. I hadn’t realised our time together had meant so much to her. But
I suppose, for her to have left everything to me like this, it must have, and again that sense of guilt and sorrow overwhelms
me for a moment. But something still wasn’t adding up.

‘So I’m to go and live in her old house for a long summer holiday or something, is that it?’ That’s actually quite a sweet
idea, and it’s the least I can do to make up for all the time in her life I’ve missed out on. An extended holiday in Ireland
could be fun. There’re some big cities over here, so it won’t be all country living. I can cope with that. Dublin and Cork
are very cosmopolitan, for a start.

‘Er, no, not quite. It’s a bit longer than a summer holiday.’

‘How long then?’

I see Niall’s eyes flash towards my glass, which to his relief is safely placed on the table this time. ‘A year,’ he says
softly.

‘A
year
!’ I gasp. ‘How can I possibly take a year out of my life to come and live in a house over here? What about my life back in
London – my friends, my job, my flat? I can’t just leave all that!’

‘I’m afraid a year is the specified amount of time stated in
the will, Darcy, and it’s not exactly a house, either.’ Niall pulls at where his tie would normally be as if to loosen it.
But all he finds is a top button, so he undoes that instead.

‘So where am I going to live for a year then, if not in her old house?’ I ask hotly.

Niall shuffles his papers around.

‘Niall?’

‘An island,’ he murmurs in a voice so low I can barely hear him.

‘Yes, I know in
Ireland
, but whereabouts?’

‘No,’ he says, looking directly at me now. ‘An actual
island
, just off the west coast.’

I sit back in my chair, shaking my head slowly. ‘I’m sorry, but I thought I heard you say you wanted me to go and live on
an island for a year just then, Niall?’

Nodding, Niall holds up a new piece of paper. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it’s all here, Darcy.’ He taps the sheet of paper to indicate
the relevant paragraph. ‘Apparently your aunt grew up on the island, as part of a small community. Then as the community gradually
faded away and people moved off the island to greener pastures, your aunt’s family, as many others did, moved back to mainland
Ireland. But your aunt never lost her love for the island, so when it came up for sale in the mid-nineteen-eighties she purchased
it and moved back to the area. And she’s owned it ever since.’