The Kinsella Sisters (19 page)

Jesus! thought Río. What are these women on?

Another random click produced the following: ‘“Please, Sir Shane, do not harm me!” I cower half-naked on the floor of the dungeon while Sir Shane towers above me, menacing in
his leather trews. He raises the hand with the whip in it and growls: “Nay, I will not harm thee if thou grantest me a favour.” I quail. “What mightest that be?” I stammer, trembling. “This,” he says sternly. He unfastens the thong on the crotch of his trews and—’

Ew! Río leaped back to the comparative safety of the home page, where her saturnine ex was eyeballing her, and found herself echoing the question that had been posed earlier on the iSpy Channel by flirty Charlene. How–
how
–had this happened so suddenly? There was really only one person to ask. Río did some mental calculations and worked out that it was eight o’clock in the evening, LA time. Picking up the phone, she dialled Shane’s number.

‘Shane?’ she said when he picked up. ‘It’s Río.’

‘Río,
acushla
–love of my life and mother of my first-born! How’s it goin’?’

The intimacy of his voice in her ear had the effect on her that familiar music did. It made her feel warm, syrupy, a little fuzzy round the edges.

‘Mother of your first-born?’ returned Río. ‘Does that mean you’ve had more sprogs since?’

‘Nah. I just love to speak in the flowery lingo of my native isle. What’s up, Río?’

‘I just saw you on the telly.’

‘On Charlene’s gab fest?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But it’s only four o’clock in the morning in Ireland! What has you up and about so early in the day?’

‘Finn rang to tell me. He was watching you in Koh Tao.’

‘So that’s where the gobshite is. Last I heard from him he was in Australia.’

‘That was months ago.’

‘How’s he getting on?’

‘He’s diving. What more can I say?’

‘OK. So he’s in heaven. How about you? Have you moved into your new gaff yet?’

‘Yes. I sent you a change-of-address email, Shane.’

‘Um. Sorry. I haven’t been keeping up to speed lately. There’s been so much going down here.’

‘So it would seem. How does it feel to be a star overnight?’

‘Very, very,
very
weird. People who wouldn’t normally have looked twice at me in the studio commissary are now suddenly blazing a trail to my table. And actresses are twinkling at me and blowing kisses all over the place. It’s as if—Hey, sweetheart, this is your phone bill! You can’t be wasting your money on calls to LA. Let me call you right back.’

He was as good as his word.

‘Tell me all about you, and life in Lissamore,’ he said.

‘Come on, Shane! You really want to hear about my boring life in the sticks?’

‘Nothing would give me more pleasure. I mean it. I’m an expat, remember, and ex-pats get awful homesick.’

So Río did. She told Shane all about her new apartment, and her new job, and how life was a lot rosier now than it had been since the last time they’d communicated. That had been a brief flurry of MSN over six months ago, Río realised, before she’d got her life back on track.

‘Is there anything I can do for you, Río?’ he asked. ‘You know, I’m making a fair amount of money now.’

‘No, Shane. It’s sweet of you to offer, but I’m managing OK.’

‘Are you still working in the bar?’

‘Occasionally, if they’re stuck. But now that I’m working for Dervla and I don’t have to fork out for rent, money worries aren’t as pressing.’

‘Still driving?’

‘Again, not as much as I used to. But it suits me now that we’re heading into autumn. I’ve always hated driving in the dark.’

‘I remember how you used to be scared of the dark. I’ll never
forget having to comfort you when you woke up from nightmares, calling for the light to be turned on.’

‘Oh! Yes.’

There was a pause over the phone line, and then Río said, ‘Tell me all about your new life, Shane. Do you do all sorts of starry things like strolling up red carpets and signing autographs? And are you really going to do a
Vanity Fair
photo-shoot?’

‘Yeah.’ From the tone of his voice, Río could tell that the prospect did not fill him with glee. ‘It’ll be one of those wanky pull-out covers where the whole cast poses in character and looks soulfully to camera.’

‘So you’ll have wear your leather kilt?’

‘Yeah. God, it’s embarrassing. I’ve had extras deliberately drop things as they go by so that they can bend down and take a gander.’

‘So what
do
you wear underneath?’

‘A Victoria’s Secret confection of satin and lace.’

Río laughed. ‘I’ll post that nugget on one of your fan sites.’

‘Oh,
no!
Don’t tell me you’ve been checking out the fan sites, Río?’

‘Sure have. Finn put me on to them.’

‘Oh,
fuck!
This whole thing just gets more and more embarrassing.’

‘Take the money and run, Shane. But beware the warlord Xerxes.’

‘He’s actually a transsexual. He used to be a beauty therapist called Suellen.’

‘In real life or in
Faraway?’

‘In real life. But don’t tell anyone I told you.’

I could sell that tidbit to the
Enquirer!

‘And have Xerxes lose his job next season? That would be uncharitable of you, Río.’

‘So there’s going to be another series?’

‘Yep.’

‘And it really was a complete sleeper?
Faraway
took you completely by surprise?’

‘Not just me, Río. It took all of LA by surprise. There’s no accounting for the tastes of the great American viewing public’

Río became aware of a faint beeping noise on the line. ‘Hey, you’ve another call coming in, Shane. You’d better take it.’

‘Yeah. I better had. It’s my agent. But listen, Río, it was really good to talk to you. Good to be back in the zone, you know?’

‘The zone?’

‘The bullshit-free zone.’

Río smiled. ‘Take that call, Shane,’ she said. And then she put the phone down, unfurled herself from the sofa, stretched and yawned.

Wandering onto her balcony, she watched the sun climb above the mountains to the east, tracing golden brushstrokes over the topmost peaks. How strange to think that in LA, Shane’s day was about to end–probably with dinner in some nobby restaurant. And on Koh Tao, Finn had already spent half the morning underwater, checking out marine life. What should she do now? Go back to bed? No, she was too wide awake. She’d hit the beach–that’s what she’d do. Four thirty a.m., with the sun rising and the tide high and the curlews calling–there was no better way in the world to greet the dawn than by diving into the Atlantic and emerging under a sky bluer than a teal’s wing.

Down in the lobby, her bicycle was waiting. Río wheeled it through the front door, mounted it, and set off through the village, humming as she went.

It was only when she was in the water, floating on her back and gazing up at a cloud shaped like a dolphin, that she realised that the tune she’d been humming had been the ominous theme from
Faraway.

Izzy had decided to surprise her dad by treating him to a home-cooked meal. She wasn’t much of a cook, but she’d got herself some ready-prepared stir-fry ingredients and a pre-washed salad and a bottle of wine from Marks & Sparks. Izzy was a bit worried about her dad. He’d been losing weight since they came back from Koh Samui, and was looking haggard. She’d seen something on the news recently about stress-related heart attacks, and had felt a flash of fear for him.

At seven o’clock, she texted him to say that she was on the way up to his apartment. Being Friday, she was reasonably–although not altogether–certain he’d have finished work by now. Sure enough, the reply that came bouncing back read: ‘Izzy bizzy dying 2 c u come strait on up.’ So Izzy gathered together all her bits and pieces of shopping, switched off her phone, and took the elevator up to the penthouse.

Adair opened the door, and gestured to her to come in. He was talking on his BlackBerry, and Izzy could tell by his demeanour that it was business talk, as usual. It wasn’t fair! It was after seven now, and the bastards still couldn’t leave him alone.

She dumped the bags in the kitchen, poured two glasses of wine, and took them through to the living area. Handing one to
her father, she moseyed over to the vast window that overlooked Dublin’s docklands. Glinting glass, gleaming steel–God, how samey it all was, how very identikit! If she could Google Earth in close-up now, she knew what she’d see: city dwellers in developments all over the world gazing out at identical views from identical apartments, all furnished with identical decor. Girls like her with identical hair wearing identical clothes listening to someone talking identical corporate-speak on identical phones.

Flopping into an armchair, Izzy picked up a magazine.
GQ
, again. She made a
moue
of exasperation. When was her dad ever going to grow up? Still, at least he didn’t subscribe to
NME
, like Lucy’s parents. She leafed through the glossy pages, scanning text and photographs with unseeing eyes. Gadgets. Grooming. Gear. Yawn.

Since Tao, Izzy had grown restless. She had taken a long look at her life, and she hadn’t much liked what she’d seen. Every day she spent hours stuck in traffic, commuting to college. Every day she listened to her Business Studies lecturers banging on about profit margins and market economy and investment portfolios. And every day she wondered if she was doing the right thing.
Business
Studies? What in the world had made her apply for the course in the first place? Did she want to become a clone of one of those Alan Sugar wannabes, living, breathing and sleeping accountancy and marketing and finance? Did she want to go into property development like her dad and end up stressed out and working twenty-four/seven? No, no, no!

What other role models had she? Her mother? The last time she’d visited Felicity, she’d had a look at her organiser. It read like this: ‘Mon: gym, a.m.: man, ped, p.m. Tues: gym, a.m.; hair, facial, p.m. Wed: gym, a.m.; private view, p.m. Thurs: gym, a.m.; charity lunch p.m. Fri: gym, a.m.; psychotherapist, p.m. Sat: gym, a.m.; personal shopper p.m. Sun: gym (personal trainer reassessment) a.m.…The space reserved for ‘Sun p.m.’ activities had been blank.

‘What do you do on Sunday afternoons, Mum?’ Izzy had asked her.

‘Sunday afternoons?’ Felicity had to think about it. ‘On Sunday afternoons I take to my bed, darling, suffering from exhaustion.’

‘No,’ Adair was saying. ‘It’s the wrong time to invest in commodities. Profit margins are down, and the economic structure’s unstable.’

Izzy looked over at her father, and gave him a look of enquiry. ‘How much longer?’ she mouthed. ‘Five minutes,’ he mouthed back. Ha. That meant at least another ten. Reaching for her wineglass, she took a sip and returned her attention to
GQ.

A full-page ad for vodka showed a wide-eyed, dim-witted-looking beauty applying her lipstick while hunkered down next to a man’s crotch. The message? Buy this product and you might get a blow job. Is this what Business Studies was going to teach her? If so, then she needn’t bother finishing her degree. Q: What sells product? A: Sex sells product. End of.

Flicking idly through the pages, looking for more stupid ads aimed at even stupider men, Izzy stopped abruptly, arrested by a black-and-white portrait of the Man of the Month. ‘Introducing Shane Byrne,’ went the headline. Hm, thought Izzy. Man of the Month was not an exaggeration. Shane Byrne was some dude. The photograph showed him looking directly to camera, connected, engaged, receptive–and yet with a vague air of
noli me tangere.
He was dark, sculpted and dangerous-looking, sporting the obligatory designer stubble and narrow-eyed smile. He was, Izzy learned, as she ran her eyes over the text, also old enough to be her father.

The three-hundred-word piece of puff journalism told her that he ‘hailed from’ County Galway in Ireland, and that he had struck lucky when he’d landed the role of Seth Fletcher in
Faraway
, a hit US television series due to hit screens all over Europe. The usual adjectives featured. Shane Byrne was self-deprecating, humorous, amiable, laid-back, down to earth,
considerate and–of course–charming. Izzy yawned, and was just about to send the magazine skidding across the surface of the coffee table, when something made her stop and look again at his photograph. There was something about him–about the eyes especially–that reminded her of some man she’d met in the recent past. Who, exactly? And where and when had she met him? At a party? In the student bar? In a dream? It had to have been in a dream because men like that didn’t exist in the real world, and they definitely did not exist on campus.

‘Izzy!’ At last her dad was off the phone. ‘I’m sorry, baby, to have kept you hanging on. That’s definitely the last call I’m taking this evening, I promise.’ His BlackBerry shrilled again, and Izzy saw his eyes go to it, shiftily, as if he was trying to resist the impulse to pick up.

‘It’s OK, Dad. Take the call if you need to,’ she said.

‘No!’ said Adair. ‘In fact, I’m going to turn the damn thing off!’ From his defiant attitude, you’d have concluded that he was committing some act of anarchy. ‘There! And good riddance!’

‘Sit down, Dad. Have some more wine.’

‘I will. I’d like that.’

Adair collapsed against the cushions on the sofa that ran the length of an entire wall, then turned the corner and went on for several more feet. It could have seated fifteen, easily. And Izzy found herself wondering if had ever seated more than just two people–her dad and herself.

‘Here.’ She refilled his glass and handed it to him, then sat down next to him and curled her feet up underneath her. ‘You look awful tired, Daddy,’ she said. ‘I’m worried about you. Even that break in Samui doesn’t seem to have done you any good.’

‘Two weeks isn’t enough for me to recharge the auld batteries any more, Iz.’

‘What would help you recharge them?’

‘If I cut back my workload to four days a week, and took more time out in Lissamore, I’d be happy’

‘And can’t you do that?’

Adair laughed, but there was no humour in the laugh. ‘No. If anything, I’m going to have to start working six-even seven-day weeks.’

‘Daddy, no! You can’t! You’ll drive yourself into the ground.’

‘It’s the way of the world once recession hits, sweet pea. It’s a jungle out there–red in tooth and claw–and you know what the first rule of the jungle is, don’t you?’

Izzy shook her head. She didn’t want to be hearing any of this.

‘It’s “Survival of the Fittest”. And I’m not as fit as I once was, Iz. It’s a young man’s game. You and your peers are the next generation of young turks. The world is your oyster. Grab it while it’s hot.’

If Izzy hadn’t been feeling so worried about her dad’s fitness level, she’d have teased him about his mixed metaphors. He was always getting things wrong–song lyrics, famous quotes, aphorisms. And he always laughed at himself when he tried to keep up with fast rap or mimic Lily Allen’s accent. But this evening Izzy wasn’t finding anything very funny.

‘Maybe we could go down to Lissamore again? Just you and me? There’s a long weekend coming up, and we haven’t been for–what? Nine months?’

‘That’s sweet of you, Izzy. I know Lissamore isn’t your favourite place in the world.’ He looked away from her towards the window that framed the view of the glittering cityscape, and added, ‘In fact, I was thinking of going down there soon. I could do with a fix of that view. I just want to sit in the hot tub and gaze at mountains and sea and sky’

‘Yay! Let’s do it, Dad!’ Right now she’d do anything to make her dad happy, even if it meant trailing down to that arse-end of nowhere.

‘The thing is, sweet pea, it’s not just the view I want to go for. I need to go for business reasons too.’

‘Not
more
business, Dad! Lissamore is your escape. You can’t be dragging business down there. Look, I’ll even go round the golf course with you, if you like. I know I’m not very good at it, but—’

‘Izzy I’m going to have to sell up.’

There was a horrible, horrible silence. Then Izzy said, in a very small voice, ‘Sell the Villa Felicity?’

‘Yes. I’ve been in denial for too long, Iz. The place is like a big white elephant around my neck, and it’s been bleeding money. I can’t afford to maintain it any longer.’

‘But, Dad, it’s your dream home! It’s where you were going to retire to!’

‘Correction. It was Felicity’s dream weekend retreat. It wasn’t designed as a retirement home. If I sell it, I can afford to buy somewhere smaller–somewhere you might like to come and stay when I’m a barmy old git, and bring my grandchildren to visit.’

‘Oh, Daddy, don’t talk like this! Everyone knows that the recession is just a hiccup. In no time at all, everything will be right as rain and you’ll be sitting pretty again.’ Somehow, Izzy felt that her father might find it comforting if she spoke to him using the clichés he was so fond of.

‘I don’t know, sweetheart. I feel as if the fight has gone out of me. I kind of feel the time really has come for me to take up pipe-smoking and slippers. Maybe I’ll get a dog when I cash in my pension. I could call him “Rover”, and I could call my retirement cottage “Dunroamin”.’

Izzy managed a laugh. ‘If you’ve really done roaming, then the last thing you’ll want to call your dog is “Rover”.’

Adair smiled back at Izzy, and her heart wanted to break when she saw the tired lines around his eyes, and the hollows under his cheekbones and the way his mouth was starting to droop at the corners.

‘Let’s go down there together,’ she told him. ‘Then, when you’ve soaked yourself to a prune in the hot tub and got yourself a fix
of your view, we’ll go for long walks and play Scrabble and toast marshmallows. I might even let you win, to cheer you up.’

‘I had a pet rat called Scrabble when I was a kid.’

‘Cool! I’d love a pet rat. Maybe I could get one for Mum for her birthday. I wonder do they have posh carriers for rats, like the ones she has for her pooches? And maybe she could dress them in little rat clothes and find bejewelled collars for them, and hats and…’

And Izzy’s flight of fancy rambled on and on, until finally she had her daddy laughing again.

‘Dervla Kinsella speaking.’

‘Dervla. It’s Adair Bolger here.’

‘Adair! How good to hear from you.’ Dervla opened her electronic organiser, pressed ‘B’, scrolled down until she found ‘Bolger, Adair’, then double-clicked for ‘Notes’. There she had filed the following: ‘CEO: Keyline Group. Ex: Felicity; one daughter Isabella (Izzy for short).’ Other details included info that she had bookmarked diligently over the course of the past eight or nine years, including Adair’s estimated net worth, his business affiliates, and the approximate value of his house in Lissamore. Hm. She’d have to readjust that downward, that was for sure. ‘How are things in Dublin, Adair? Or are you calling from Lissamore?’

‘I’m calling from Dublin, but I’ll be heading to Lissamore this weekend. I was hoping we might meet up.’

Uh-oh. It was always tricky when a potential client used this line. One was never entirely sure whether the agenda behind the meeting was business or pleasure.

‘Certainly,’ said Dervla smoothly. ‘When might suit you?’

‘No, no–when might suit
you?’
insisted Adair. ‘I know you’re a busy woman.’

Dervla was glad that Adair wasn’t looking over her shoulder at her organiser. The appointments page was virtually blank.

‘When do you arrive?’

‘Friday evening.’

‘Well, I have a couple of viewings on Saturday morning,’ lied Dervla, ‘so perhaps we could meet up on Saturday afternoon? Have you a venue in mind?’

‘Yes. The Villa Felicity. I’d like to know your assessment of its value.’

‘I see,’ said Dervla, feeling a flutter of excitement. ‘Have you a particular reason for wanting an evaluation?’

‘I do,’ said Adair. ‘I’m putting the house on the market.’

Yes!
‘Well,’ said Dervla. ‘I’d be glad to drive over to you at, say, two o’clock?’

‘Two o’clock sounds good. The place should be well aired by then.’

‘Doesn’t your caretaker usually do that for you?’

‘I never got round to replacing him. I did ask your sister if she might be interested, but she told me she had a waiting list for her plant whispering service.’

‘She did?’ What mischief had Río been up to? ‘Well, if you’re putting the place on the market, Adair, you’ll want it looking presentable and well cared for. You might think about approaching Río again. She’s staging my properties for me, and she does an excellent job.’

‘Sounds good. Perhaps she could come along on Saturday and let me know what she thinks?’

‘I’ll put in a call to her. I’m sure she’d be delighted to have a look.’

‘Thank you. Say, why don’t I do lunch for you gals?’

‘There’s really no need, Adair.’

‘It would be my pleasure. Really.’

‘Well, that’s very generous of you.’

‘Consider it done. I look forward to seeing you again, Dervla.’

‘Likewise, Adair. Have a good journey.’

When Dervla put the phone down to Adair, she picked it up again to Río.