The Kinsella Sisters (25 page)

Dervla raised her eyes heavenward. ‘Honestly, Río! I don’t know why you’ve taken so agin the girl.’

‘It’s she who’s taken agin me. Every time I open my mouth she gives me the evil eye.’

‘I’ve never seen her be anything but perfectly polite to you. You’re being completely paranoid, you know.’

‘You can smile and smile and still be a villain,’ said Río, tapping her nose. ‘Shakespeare said that.’

‘And Thomas Jefferson said that the happiest moments of his life had been the few he passed in the bosom of his family. You should welcome the opportunity to celebrate this reunion, Río. How often do you get a chance to drink champagne with your son and his father? If you carry on in a big strop you’ll ruin the evening and regret it in the morning.’

‘Who says I’m in a strop?’

‘It’s perfectly obvious that you’re in a strop. You can’t bear the idea of Finn and Shane having fun without you, and you’re too miffed to join in.’

‘I wouldn’t want to intrude,’ said Río.

‘Oh, act your age.’

‘Act my age?’ Río returned indignantly. ‘Act my
age.
Just what age do you think Shane is acting–flirting with a girl who is young enough to be—’

Just then a waitress approached their table. She was carrying a bottle of champagne, an ice bucket and two flutes, and Río immediately stapled on a dazzling smile. ‘Hi, Miriam!’ she said. ‘What’s this? Did you order champagne, Dervla?’

Dervla shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Compliments of Mr Bolger,’ Miriam told them.

‘Mr Bolger? You mean Adair?’ said Dervla. ‘How kind! Where’s he hiding?’

‘He’s in the alcove table, around the corner.’

‘Oh, you must ask him to join us!’ said Río, brightly. ‘Please do, and bring an extra glass!’

‘You’d better make that three extra glasses,’ said Dervla.

Río raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Three?’

‘Finn and Shane are about to join us,’ Dervla reminded her.

‘They don’t deserve any more champagne.’

Miriam hovered, looking uncertain. ‘One glass or three?’ she asked.

‘Three please, Miriam,’ Dervla said categorically, skewering her sister with a look.

Río shrugged, and Miriam sashayed off.

‘I thought you said you had no time for Adair?’ remarked Dervla, leaning her elbows on the table. ‘What makes you so keen to invite him to join us?’

‘What’s sauce for the goose,’ remarked Río, airily.

‘And by that you mean…what, exactly?’

‘If Shane can sit and flirt with Princess Isabella over a bottle of champagne, I don’t see why I can’t flirt with her father.’

Dervla struck her forehead with the heel of her hand. ‘Dear Jesus, Río! You’re even more juvenile than I thought!’

‘Well, if you’d seen the way Shane was leaning over my balcony ogling her arse yesterday,
you’d
want to get back at him too.’

‘Why should you want to get back at Shane for ogling a pretty girl’s arse, for God’s sake? It’s not as if he belongs to you.’

Río thought about it. What Dervla said was true. Shane didn’t belong to her. And yet, and yet…since he’d become famous as a Hollywood big shot and all those creepy web women had been posting their comments and weaving their lurid fantasies online, Río had felt increasingly that actually, yes, Shane
did
belong to her. He certainly belonged to her more than to any other woman: he was the father of her son, after all, wasn’t he? He had sired Finn, the famous so-called ‘love child’, born of a ‘tempestuous relationship’ early on in his career in Ireland. Ha! Río had to admit that when you looked at it that way, it sounded quite intriguing–almost as intriguing as an episode of
Faraway.

Her musings were brought to an abrupt end by the arrival of Adair Bolger–all smiles and compliments and solicitous enquiries after their health–and no sooner had he arrived than Shane and Finn came roistering up the stairs, preceded by a visibly glowing Isabella.

Uh-oh, thought Río. Dervla had been right. She
had
been a bloody eejit to invite Adair to join their table, because now, of course, his daughter would be part of the equation. What a complete wuss she had been, not to have deduced that father and daughter would be likely to be dining à
deux
in O’Toole’s!

And now everyone was making room and small talk, and new places were being set at the table for Adair and Isabella, and another champagne flute–and, indeed, yet another bottle of bubbly–was on its way, and menus were being handed round.

Río observed the way the seating arrangements were shaping
up, and was delighted when Adair elected to sit next to her at the top of the table, where she could flirt with him as outrageously as she liked and piss Izzy off. And maybe even Shane, too. Shane chose the seat on her right, while Izzy sat facing her father, with Shane on her left, and Finn on her right-hand side. Dervla, meanwhile, after greeting Shane with an elegantly executed air-kiss, resumed her seat directly opposite her sister, regarding her with an inscrutable expression.

‘Shane! You’ll have mussels to start, I know you will!’ sang Río. ‘You never could resist them. And Adair? Let me see…scallops for you? How did I guess! And for me, Miriam? I think I’ll have oysters. Half a dozen, please. No, wait! Since Shane’s paying, I think I might just manage a dozen.’

And Río looked across at Dervla with a catlike smile, as if to say, ‘How could you ever have imagined that I was in a strop? I’ll be Ms Congeniality personified tonight!’

At the end of the table, with Shane on her left and Finn on her right, Izzy felt as if she were sitting between two very attractive bookends. Father and son were really ridiculously alike, with the same lopsided smile, the same wicked green eyes, and the same preposterous cheekbones. Their mannerisms were identical too, and they even spoke in a similar timbre, which Izzy found bizarre, considering that they had lived apart for most of their lives. The rapport between them was unmistakable.

She had learned from Finn that his mother had brought him up single-handedly, and made many sacrifices for him–including her career. She could have been a huge success as a theatre designer, he told her. Even though she had never formally trained, she had served as a kind of apprentice to a highly acclaimed international designer while she was still in her teens. And for a number of years she had worked in the fashion business as well, as Fleur’s partner. Had Izzy seen the lovely watercolours on display in Fleur’s shop? Well, they were his mother’s!

Izzy had listened and smiled and nodded. The watercolours were gorgeous, she agreed. She thought she might even buy one for her father for Christmas (and hide it away in a drawer). Poor Finn was clearly deluded about his mother, as so many only children were. She was lucky that she suffered no such delusions about her own mother, and she was fortunate too that she had a father who was the most generous and understanding and lovable in the whole world, and who adored her unconditionally.

At the other end of the table, she couldn’t help noticing that her dad was spending a lot of time leaning to his right, engaging Río in conversation, and laughing a fair bit at her ‘repartee’. Pah! Couldn’t he see through the bohemian, hippy-dippy facade to the gold-digger that lurked beneath? Wasn’t it obvious that here was a woman hitting a certain age, who was using all the ammunition left to her disposal to bag herself a man before it was too late? She’d clearly been pulling out all the stops yesterday, when she’d worn that black dress to lunch. It had been elegant, certainly–even sexy in an understated way–but entirely wrong for the occasion. The woman had no social nous whatsoever.

This evening she was back in hippy garb, sporting some cobwebby ensemble with bangles and trailing scarves that made her look like a Celtic version of Mystic Meg. Izzy found herself wondering if she was wearing her recently purchased underwear, and immediately slapped a mental health and safety no-go-area sticker on
that
particular idea.

Izzy herself was wearing her new polka-dotted bra and knicks combo under jeans and a pretty, long-sleeved Alberta Ferretti T-shirt. She’d checked herself out in her mother’s cheval glass earlier, and was relieved to see that she’d lost most of the weight she’d put on in Koh Samui. After she’d injured her foot on Tao at the end of August, she’d been out of action exercise-wise, and had spent the rest of the holiday slumped on a sun lounger, feeling glum and stuffing her face with paninis because there’d been nothing else for her to do in paradise if she wasn’t diving.

Back in Dublin, Felicity had offered to wangle her membership of her very exclusive gym, but the idea of exercising alongside her mother made Izzy go weak at the knees. She knew for a fact that her mother actually exercised like a demon
before
she went to the gym, so that when fellow gym bunnies marvelled at the fact that she kept so trim simply by performing a couple of effortless yoga poses, Felicity could turn to them and say: ‘Oh, I’m just naturally slender, you know. I even burn calories while I do sudoku!’ Of course, the added bonus for Felicity was that, because her brand of yoga was sweat-free, she could keep her make-up and jewellery on.

This evening Izzy was a make-up-free zone, with the exception of a touch of mascara and a smear of lipgloss. She wondered what it must be like for a dude de luxe like Shane Byrne to be surrounded by such ordinariness. He must be used to dining in fabled eateries like Spago and the Hotel Bel-Air in the company of the world’s most glamorous women. She felt incredibly privileged to be sitting here now, the sole focus of his attention. He certainly was an accomplished flirt: he knew how to listen, he knew how to make her laugh, and he knew how to make her blush.

It was warm in O’Toole’s, and the champagne (and the compliments!) had made Izzy flushed and muzzy. As Shane refilled her glass she thanked him, and pushed up the sleeves of her T-shirt. At the other end of the table she could hear Río’s voice saying, ‘I had no idea that the islands were so close, Adair! If you’d hooked up with Finn, he could have taken you diving on Tao.’

‘I’m not a great one for diving,’ said Adair, ‘but Izzy is. She did go diving on Tao, actually–had a close encounter with a whale shark, no less!–but she had to leave the island the same day because she injured her foot.’

And as Izzy was registering this exchange in one part of her brain, another part was registering Shane’s sonorous voice saying, ‘Hey! What an interesting tattoo! What is it?’

‘It’s a Japanese kanji,’ responded Izzy automatically. ‘It
means…’ And then she and Finn turned to each other at exactly the same moment and said simultaneously, ‘Water’.

‘Speaking of which,’ said Shane, ‘we could do with another bottle. What’s the waitress’s name, Finn?’

‘Miriam.’

‘Miriam! Could you bring us another bottle of still water, please?’

‘Sure,’ said Miriam. She swooped down between Finn and Izzy and started to clear away plates, but as she made to move away, a fingerbowl slipped and water and prawn tails landed all over Finn’s jeans.

‘Oh! I’m so sorry!’ said Miriam, reaching for a napkin. She dropped to her knees, and began to mop ineffectually at the spill. ‘Oh, Finn! I can’t believe what I’ve done! You’re soaked.’

‘No worries, Miriam,’ said Finn, looking uncomfortable. ‘It’s only water.’

‘But I can’t allow you to sit there in wet jeans!’ Reaching for his hand, Miriam pulled him to his feet. ‘Come with me. I have an idea.’

And as Miriam led Finn away, ignoring his protests that he was fine, and to stop making such a fuss, Izzy decided to grab this opportunity to get out of there before he came back and started interrogating her about the kanji.

Feeling even muzzier, she rose from the table with a vague, ‘Excuse me.’ Then she turned and fled for the sanctuary of the loo as if a school of tiger sharks was in pursuit.

The loo was downstairs, but Izzy didn’t need to pee. She just stood there fidgeting and fretting, wondering if Finn had put two and two together yet. If he had, what was he going to think of her? She had gone to extraordinary lengths that day on Tao to keep her identity secret just because of her stupid hair extensions, and she now wished fervently that she hadn’t, because she fancied the arse off Finn Byrne. Sorry–what? Rewind. Replay.
Because she fancied the arse off Finn Byrne…

Oh God. Izzy looked at herself in the mirror and would have blenched if her face wasn’t so red and shiny. Her roots needed doing, she had a spot that even her blemish bombs hadn’t been able to blast, her lipgloss was half chewed off, and her mascara was smudged. What was she going to do? She had two choices. She could do some remedial work on her face and go back upstairs as if nothing had happened, or she could beat a hasty retreat, phone her dad, tell him that she wasn’t feeling well and that she’d decided to walk home.

Oh–walk, walk, yes! She wanted to walk and clear her head and figure out what kind of mess she’d got herself into. And, more importantly, figure just how she was going to get out of it. Except, she reckoned, as she slung her backpack over her shoulder and escaped through the door of the pub, she actually
didn’t
have to figure out how to get out of this particular mess. Come next week, the Villa Felicity would be on the market and she’d never need to come here to Lissamore again, would never need to see Finn Byrne and his maddening smile, and–best of all–she’d never need to see that obnoxious Río Kinsella again.

Outside, the main street of the village was deserted, apart from here and there the spectral shadow of a cat. Izzy pulled her phone from her bag and jabbed speed-dial. Adair sounded concerned when he picked up, saying, ‘What do you mean, you’re walking home by yourself, Isabella?’

‘Don’t worry, Dad. I’m fine. I just need some fresh air, and the walk will do me good. Don’t even think about leaving on my account–
please
don’t. I
promise!
I’ll have hot chocolate waiting for you–just give me a bell when you’re leaving. Yes, yes, yes–love you, too! See you later. Mwah!’

Izzy continued walking, phone tucked snugly in her hand like a gun, just in case. But of course, she hadn’t reckoned on the fresh air getting fresher as she walked, or the rain starting to come down, and before she was halfway along the village street
she was wet and freezing, and wishing that she hadn’t left her jacket behind in the restaurant, hanging on the back of her chair.