Divided Loyalties (35 page)

‘Oh, for God’s sake! They wouldn’t give you a minute,’ Shauna snapped irritably. ‘She knows we’ve come in on the midnight flight. They’ll all be
knocking at the door today and tomorrow. Well, I don’t care who else knocks, Filomena, don’t answer it. Let’s try and get some sleep. Thanks for all your help.’

‘You’re welcome, ma’am,’ Filomena said with her usual good humour and closed the bedroom door gently.

Shauna lay back down. She liked her neighbours but sometimes they could be a little demanding. They’d all be wanting to talk to her and tell her the news and gossip and she’d spend
the next two weeks making coffee for a stream of visitors. Sometimes she felt that she was their ‘summer entertainment’. When Greg was home there’d be barbecues every weekend, and
dinners and lunches in between. It could all be slightly wearing, and of course Della and co. would be visiting constantly. Her heart sank. Della!

She’d phoned, very put out when Carrie had arrived home without the silks and spices she’d ordered, and instructed Shauna to make sure to bring them home in the summer. Shauna had
been raging at her cheek, and had determined that she wasn’t in any circumstances going to go out of her way to buy the required items for her sister-in-law.

The week before she came home she’d chickened out and bought some material. She couldn’t find the shade Della was looking for so she’d bought some royal blue. If her detested
sister-in-law didn’t like it she could lump it!

Shauna’d forgotten all about these aspects of coming home in the excitement of actually arriving and seeing Carrie and the gang. Her feel-good bubble began to evaporate. She felt a surge
of annoyance with her next-door neighbour for reminding her of the ‘arrival home negatives’ as she called them. Anyone with a bit of cop-on would know that she’d be exhausted
after the long journey. And she certainly wasn’t going to entertain
any
visitors this evening, she decided drowsily as fatigue overtook her and she finally fell asleep.

Carrie hummed to herself as she drove along the M1, trying to block out the sounds of Britney, who was playing on the CD player. There’d been a row between Olivia and
Davey about what to listen to, with Davey insisting on Green Day. She’d solved that one by letting Davey listen to his CD on the way out. It was now Olivia’s turn to listen to
her
absolute favourite. Britney was cool, according to her daughter. When the squabble had got particularly fraught she’d threatened them both with Hannah’s nursery rhyme
CD.

It was great having Shauna home. She was looking forward to a few girls’ nights out with her and Sadie. And she was really looking forward to seeing Shauna’s face when she showed off
her new enterprise.

Carrie’s face split in a broad grin. So much had happened since her holiday in the spring. She was now the proud owner of a small caravan park. It had been extremely hard not telling
Shauna about it but she’d wanted to surprise her. It had all happened so quickly she was finding it hard to believe herself.

This would be her first season; she was two-thirds booked out and had high hopes of having one hundred per cent occupancy for the high season. Was she mad, she wondered, going into a demanding
business that would take over her whole summer? And saddling herself with a fairly hefty bank loan to boot?

She’d give it a whirl for a year, she’d told Dan when he’d pointed out that her work load was going to be trebled and he’d be too tied up with his own business to give
much help. She was used to hard work, she’d said dryly. The difference was, this time she’d be working for herself.

She sighed, remembering how uncharacteristically depressed she’d become after the high of her holiday in the Gulf had dissipated. She’d found herself comparing her humdrum life to
that of her sister. Shauna had done so much and seen so much, met so many people and travelled extensively with Greg. In comparison, Carrie felt her life seemed tame and uninspired.

She had worked briefly in Dublin for two years as a legal secretary before she’d married. She’d shared a house in Fairview with two other girls. She’d enjoyed a good social
life and living in the capital but had been happy enough to settle in Whiteshells Bay when she’d married Dan. Seeing Shauna’s fast-paced, social style of life, and comparing it to her
own rather routine, day-in day-out stuff, had made her feel that middle age was creeping up fast and what had she to show for it? She wanted to get out of her comfortable rut. Because she
was
in a rut, even if it was a nice rut, she’d told Dan moodily.

‘Look, you’re both different people, with different personalities and different ways of life. You can’t compare yourself with her,’ Dan pointed out, half sorry
they’d gone out to Abu Dhabi. It was very unusual for his beloved to get down in the dumps for more than a couple of hours. Now all this questioning and angst and talk of middle age was
extremely unsettling.

‘I’m boring,’ Carrie wailed. ‘All I do is cook and wash and shop and do homework and then I do the same thing the next day and the next.’

‘Carrie, you make a home. You’re the linchpin. Our children are happy, I’m happy—’

‘And I’m
boring
,’ she interrupted crossly.

‘You’re not, you’re gorgeous and sexy and interesting,’ Dan assured her. Then wondered whether he should have put interesting before gorgeous and sexy so that she
wouldn’t feel like an airhead. He wasn’t used to walking on eggshells with Carrie. It was unnerving him.

‘What else would you say?’ She brushed his compliments aside irritably. ‘You’re hardly going to say that I’m fat and frumpy and dull. And that’s the way I
feel right now. I’m serious, Dan. Life’s passing me by,’ she said frustratedly.

‘You only feel like that because you’ve a few extra pounds on you after the holiday,’ he said soothingly. ‘Once you get back into your routine it will fall off
you.’

‘So now you’re telling me I
am
fat!’ She stared at him in horror.

‘No I’m
not
, Carrie. You said that you’d put on a few pounds. I think you’re fine,’ he exclaimed in exasperation. What had got into her? She wasn’t
usually this illogical.

‘Make up your mind, Dan,’ she snapped.

‘Now stop it. Or we’ll end up having a full-scale row over nothing,’ he ordered, looking uncharacteristically stern.

‘Sorry.’ At least she had the grace to apologize, he thought, relieved. ‘I just feel frustrated and unsettled since I came home.’ She paced up and down the kitchen.

‘Well what do you want to do?’ he asked, perplexed at this unwelcome personality change.

‘I don’t know. I can’t really get a job because I don’t want to change the kids’ routines. They’ve never been used to crèches and childminders and I
wouldn’t like that anyway.’

‘Not even having someone like Filomena?’ Dan asked, trying his best to be of help.

‘I don’t know,’ Carrie said doubtfully. ‘Chloe’s been with her since she was two almost. She knows her as well as she knows Shauna.’

‘Well, tell me what you want to do and I’ll try and support you as much as I can.’ Dan gave her a hug, optimistic that she’d be back to normal in the morning.

Carrie knew her husband well enough to know that he was desperately hoping that this was a passing phase and she’d get back to her old self sooner rather than later. What was it about men
that they were so ill equipped to handle emotional stuff? All she wanted to do was talk about it. All he wanted to do was find a solution instantly and get on with things.

Dan was a very supportive husband. He didn’t like it when she was upset or agitated. Just as she didn’t like it when he was troubled, she reflected. She hadn’t been very fair
to him, exploding at him out of the blue like that. She’d better get over herself and get on with things, she’d thought glumly, remembering that she had to take her father to the
dentist the following morning.

A week later they’d been walking on the beach with the children. It was a warm, pleasant evening without a hint of a breeze and the strand rang with the sound of children’s laughter
and barking dogs, and seagulls screeching and squawking as they wheeled and circled and soared and dipped over the waves. The sun was beginning to sink in the west and great slashes of peach,
purple and gold had tinted the sky as they’d headed back home.

They strolled past Seafield, a large twelve-acre field, owned by Dan, which had been rented out since his father’s time to a couple who ran a small, serviced caravan park on it.

‘Billy Moran told me yesterday that himself and Rita are retiring. They’ve bought a place in Spain and they were wondering did I want to keep the field as a caravan park or should
they sell off the vans. What do you think?’ Dan remarked, as they glanced up at the five big mobiles that had the best view of the sea, high up on their green perch.

‘Do you want to put more tunnels or glasshouses on it?’ Carrie looked at him, thinking that if he did expand his market business it would be more work for him and she’d see
less of him.

‘It’s an option. But the rent from the park is good as it is, and I like having it as another egg in my basket so that we’re not completely dependent on the market
gardening.’ Dan skimmed a flat stone across the water and they watched it hop half a dozen times before it sank.

‘That’s true.’ She knew how her husband valued having some regular financial security for his family.

‘If Billy and Rita can get someone in to take it on as a going concern, I’m happy enough to keep it as it is, I think. I’ll see how they get on.’

‘There must be good money in it if they can retire to Spain.’ Carrie tucked her arm in his. ‘I wonder where will we retire to?’

‘The back of the garden in a caravan.’ Her husband grinned at her.

‘Daddy, Mammy, look! We found two starfish,’ Olivia yelled excitedly, as Hannah ran to them, dainty as a little ballerina, and started tugging at her father’s hand.

‘Daddy ’ish, ’ish,’ she cried, her eyes wide with excitement.

‘A fish, let’s see.’ Dan scooped her up and held her high over his head until she yelled with delight. Carrie watched them with pleasure and thought of her outburst a week
earlier. She was lucky, very lucky, even if she was in a rut, she acknowledged.

She hadn’t given the Morans’ departure too much thought until she met Rita in the supermarket and congratulated her on her retirement. ‘I’ll miss my little park, we were
happy running it,’ the older woman confessed. ‘It was a great life in the summer and we closed it in the winter and went off to Spain for weeks at a time. It was ideal, really.
That’s why we decided to retire out there. We like it and we’ve been going for years.’ Her permanent tan was the envy of her peers in the village who had to make do with a
two-week charter holiday once a year, or else resort to sun-beds or tan wipes.

‘Have you got anyone in mind to take it over?’ Carrie asked casually.

‘Colin Delaney and that young one he lives with seem to want to give it a try. He told Billy that he’d like to have a chat with him about it.’ Rita made a face. ‘I
wouldn’t be mad about him taking it over. He’s a bit of a chancer, if you know what I mean.’

‘I know, and he’s a hard drinker too. I don’t think Dan would be anxious to do business with him.’ Carrie frowned.

‘Would the two of you not do it yourselves? It’s so near to your house and of course it’s Dan’s land. Sure you’d be free to look after it in the summer when the
kids are off school, and to be honest our clients are mostly older couples and they’re no trouble. We’ve a few young families but the children are well behaved and we close it in
October.’ Rita looked at her questioningly.

‘I never thought of that. Neither did Dan,’ Carrie said. ‘Can I have a think about it, Rita?’

‘Do that, Carrie. I think it would be a grand little sideline for the pair of you and I’d be delighted knowing that my clients would be well looked after.’ Rita beamed at
her.

‘I don’t know now, Rita. I need to talk to Dan. Don’t say anything to anyone,’ Carrie warned.

‘Mum’s the word.’ Rita twinkled, pleased with her machinations.

‘What would you think of me taking over the running of Seafield as a business?’ Carrie asked Dan that evening as he handed her a glass of wine after the children had gone to bed.

‘
You!
’ he exclaimed.

‘Yeah,
me
,’ she said defensively. ‘I feel I’d be well able for it. Rita suggested it when I met her down the village today.’

‘Have you thought it out? We’d have to buy the vans. We’d have to insure the place, clean them before letting them, and maintain the grounds. And then what would we do, pay
ourselves rent for the field?’

‘The clients pay maintenance fees, and that covers all those costs, including the rent we have been getting,’ Carrie explained.

‘Yes, but Rita and Billy work together and live in one of the mobiles on the site during the season. How would you manage?’

‘Well, I’d be able to free up the mobile they live in and rent that out and use the money from that rent to pay one of the lads from the village to look after the grounds and be a
handyman. I’d get one of the women to help out with the cleaning every so often.’

‘We’d have to get a loan to buy the vans.’ Dan started scribbling figures on a piece of paper.

‘Yeah. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.’ Carrie sighed. She’d felt it was feasible, ideal for her as a mother of three young children. It wouldn’t be too much of
an upheaval for them.

‘No harm in seeing what the bank manager has to say.’ Dan smiled down at her.

‘Are you serious?’ She felt a surge of excitement.

‘It’s on our doorstep. It’s an opportunity. We’d be foolish not to investigate the pros and cons at least. And even more important, if it’s what you want and it
makes you happy, then let’s go for it.’ He bent his head and kissed her slow and deep and she groaned as flutters of desire spread out through her body. Even after all this time her
husband could still turn her on with just a kiss.

Carrie smiled at the memory as she took the slip road off the M1 and drove towards the village. One great thing about taking on the caravan park was the fact that she’d lost three-quarters
of a stone from all the racing around and the cleaning of the six mobiles that were available to rent out. There were thirty mobiles on the site altogether. Twenty-four were privately owned and six
were for renting.