The O’Hara Affair (27 page)

The grandfather clock struck the hour. Hero would be here any minute. How lucky she was to have met him! Tara seldom bothered with Second Life any more since she’d got herself a boyfriend, and now that the evenings were drawing in, Bethany might have found living in Díseart more than a little lonely.

Drumming her fingers on the tabletop, she looked around her at real life. Below her, a chauffeur was holding the door of a Merc open for Elena Sweetman, one of the older stars
of the film. The actress emerged from the back seat wearing wraparound shades and jeans, yawning, her hair dishevelled. Soon, Bethany knew, she would be transformed by hair, make-up and wardrobe into a flawlessly coiffed and gowned nineteenth-century beauty. The animal wrangler was leading a horse across the car park – the one that Shane Byrne had been riding around on all last week. One of the ADs – the hot one – was sitting on a dry-stone wall, working away on his BlackBerry. She watched him push a wing of dark hair back from his face, and then he looked up, and their eyes met. He gave her a smile that could, she supposed, be described as ‘winning’. Bethany blushed, bit her lip, and smiled back at him before returning her attention to her screen.

In Second Life, Hero had arrived.

From her vantage point on the top of the bus, Fleur watched Bethany go through her paces. She’d observed her half an hour earlier, when she’d been tip-tapping away on her laptop. Had she been floating around Shakespeare Island? Fleur wondered. Had she hooked up with Hero? Had she been laughing, crying, blowing kisses, dancing?

Where might Bethany’s Hero be in real life? Dublin was his home town, he’d told her, but he could be anyone, anywhere. He could be burly Dave, with whom Fleur had had that clumsy cyber sex. He could be ‘Peeping’ Tom Hunter, who spent every evening hunched over the screen of his MacBook Air. He could be that charming AD, Jake, who’d been messing about on his BlackBerry earlier. He could be a rock star, a politician, an astrophysicist. He could be the Queen of England for all anyone could ever know.

Now, watching Bethany in her role as lady’s maid, she wished she’d remembered to bring Dervla’s binoculars –
spying wasn’t nearly as much fun when you couldn’t get close-ups.

Bethany’s brief was to emerge from the front door of the big house, walk to where a groom was holding the leading rein of a horse, and ‘chat animatedly’. A party was being thrown by the evil landlord, and all over the driveway, starving peasants were raking gravel and weeding flowerbeds. Bethany looked good in her lady’s maid outfit. Her hair was tucked up under her lacy white cap, displaying to advantage her delicate bone structure. The ‘animated chat’ may have consisted of nothing more than the usual ‘rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb’, but when Bethany was animated, it made her pretty face even prettier. Fleur could see that she was attracting a deal of attention – especially from the male members of the crew. Whether she was aware of it or not, Bethany was blossoming, and Fleur felt privileged – and not a little proud – to witness her protegée’s transform ation from gawky girl to beauty.

She herself remembered the pain of the transition period. While Bethany had been called ‘pleb’ and ‘loser’, Fleur had been called ‘
bon à rien
’ and ‘
crétine
’. She had been slow to develop physically, she had been mildly dyslexic and – like Bethany – she had been no good at games. She might not have got through this difficult time if it had not been for her mother, who every day would leave a message for her under a fridge magnet. These took the form of quotes from famous women, such as this from Colette: ‘Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.’ From Brigitte Bardot: ‘Every age can be enchanting, provided you live within it.’ And, from Coco Chanel: ‘The most courageous act is still to think for yourself.’ Fleur had started to do the same for Bethany – although technology meant that she could dispense with the fridge magnets. Every day – under the guise of Flirty O’Farrell – she sent the girl
affirmations on Facebook. From Jeanne Moreau: ‘People’s opinions don’t interfere with me.’ From Claudette Colbert: ‘It matters more what’s in a woman’s face than what’s on it.’ And from Françoise Sagan: ‘One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.’ It might be as facile as dressing up as a fortune-teller and offering specious advice, but as the Tesco ad famously declared – ‘every little helps’. And Bethany really did seem to be emerging from her cocoon.

Again and again she was required to walk down the front steps and approach the extra playing the groom, and again and again she hit her mark, no problem. On the penultimate take, the horse – who was clearly bored at being kept standing – helped himself to Bethany’s mob cap and her hair came tumbling riotously over her shoulders. But instead of looking mortified and blushing, as Fleur knew the girl would once have done, Bethany laughed, and grabbed the cap back. It was a lovely, spontaneous moment, and Fleur hoped that the editor would have the nous to keep it in.

It looked as if Bethany was embracing her inner butterfly.

Later, a knackered Río fell into Shane’s trailer where Dervla and Fleur were sitting on a leather-upholstered banquette, quaffing champagne.

‘You jammy bastards,’ said Río. ‘Swigging back champagne while I was setting a dinner table for twenty poncy actors with Sèvres porcelain and an artillery of cutlery.’

‘So we’ll be getting a real meal tomorrow?’ said Shane, rubbing his hands like Jamie Oliver. ‘Yes! What’s on the menu?’

‘Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.’

Shane gave her a ‘grow up’ look. ‘Seriously, Río. What are we getting to eat?’

‘I am serious,’ she said. ‘Live songbirds in a pie was a famous olde-worlde recipe for special occasions. I hope those birds crap all over you, Shane Byrne. You deserve it, for skiving off like this.’

‘I’m not skiving off!’ protested Shane. ‘I had a really tough day today.’

‘You call snogging Elena Sweetman tough?’

‘Somebody’s got to do it.’

‘Children, children – stop bickering,’ said Fleur. ‘Pour Río a glass, Shane.’

Shane sloshed fizz into a glass, and handed it to Río, who accepted it ungraciously.

‘Hey, sis,’ she said, turning to Dervla. ‘I haven’t seen you in a while. How are things?’

Dervla sucked in a stoical breath. ‘Things are great,’ she said. ‘I have a new job.’

‘A new job? Doing what?’

‘I’m going to take over caring for my mother-in-law.’

Río’s jaw dropped. ‘Permanently?’

‘No, no. Just while Nemia’s away on holiday. It’s actually going to work out really well. I plan to move in there with my laptop, and finish my book. It’ll be like killing two birds with one stone.’

‘I’d better remember to fill my pockets with stones tomorrow,’ said Shane, glumly. ‘I’ll need at least a dozen, if I’m going to kill off two blackbirds per shot.’

‘Sounds like a really good idea, Dervla,’ said Río, ignoring Shane. ‘What made you decide to do it?’

‘We can’t find anyone else. And the money’s good.’

‘How much?’

‘Six hundred and fifty a week.’

‘Sheesh,’ said Río. ‘I’d be up for that if I weren’t working on this caper. What does it involve?’

‘A little cooking, a little cleaning, a little ironing.’ Dervla didn’t mention the washing, or the scrubbing of the dentures.

‘Nice work if you can get it.’

‘I think I’d rather be paid to snog Elena Sweetman,’ said Shane.

‘How much do you get for that?’ Río gave him a curious look.

‘An obscene amount of money.’

Dervla wondered what, exactly, constituted an obscene amount of money. In her estate agent days, she had earned what might have been considered an obscene sum. But she bet it was nothing near what Shane earned. Looking around at the state of the art trailer, she calculated how much it must be costing the film people to accommodate their stars in this kind of luxury. She’d explored it earlier, while Shane made a phone call. There was a pull-out TV housed in an opaque glass and pear-wood cabinet; there was a bar, a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom. Integrated halogen lighting illuminated the joint, and it was carpeted from head to toe in pure new wool. Shane’s home from home was, Dervla thought ironically, probably better furnished than the Old Rectory. Maybe she and Christian should sell up, buy a state-of-the-art camper van and go travel the world? But there was, of course, the small matter of his mother. Daphne could hardly come careering around the world with them.

Christian had spent the previous evening devising a list for Dervla, of phone numbers and email addresses to contact in case of emergency while he was away, plus Daphne’s bank and Bupa details. He’d printed it out for her, and titled the document ‘Mum Matters’. Dervla wasn’t sure whether the emphasis should be on the first word or the second. ‘Mum Matters’ sounded like the kind of miniature book you’d stick
in a Christmas stocking, full of sentimental aphorisms about motherhood.

Nemia had promised to do something similar: she was going to compile a list of activities for Dervla to engage Daphne in if she happened to get bored with David Attenborough and Monty Don. Going through old photograph albums worked a dream, Nemia told her, because even though Daphne couldn’t decipher details, once the places and people in the photographs were described to her, they restored long-dormant memories.

Long-dormant memories…Maybe, Dervla thought, she might access some of the memories that pertained to Daphne’s string of lovers? Would it be un-kosher if she took out the letters too, that she had found hidden away on the bookshelves? She might find out a little more about what had motivated her mother-in-law to do the things she’d done.

‘More champagne, Dervla?’

‘Oh! Yes, please. But just a tad.’

Dervla smiled at Shane as he refilled her glass. There was still a little make-up – kohl possibly – smudged around his eyelashes, and she could understand how women worldwide fell for his easy charm. ‘Stop there!’ she said. ‘I’d love more, but I’m driving.’

Maybe this evening she should open one of the bottles of fizz that Christian’s partner had given them as a wedding present. To celebrate…what? To celebrate the fact that she was married to a lovely, lovely,
lovely
man, and how lucky was that? She remembered the cherry stone game she used to play with Río when they were children.
Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor
– well, Christian was none of those.
Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief…
Neither was he beggar man nor thief. He
had
been a rich man when they first met – Dervla
remembered him buying the ring, booking the honeymoon and approving the architect’s plans that had been drawn up for the restoration of the Old Rectory. But he was now – thanks to the recession – a comparatively poor man.

Not as poor as some baby-boomers, though – those forty-and fifty-somethings who had sold off parents’ houses to pay for their care, and who were now scraping the bottom of the barrel to maintain it. She’d heard a man on the radio recently talking about how he had been forced to take his mother out of the home in which she had been living for a decade, and have her admitted to hospital via A&E, because he could no longer afford private care. Nobody was inheriting anything any more, and Dervla just hoped that whatever Daphne had got from the sale of her house in London would last her until the end. They’d have to be careful.

But in a way, she decided, as she watched Shane fetch another bottle of champagne from the fridge, the
nouveau pauvre
status conferred upon her and Christian had made them richer. Two years ago, Dervla had spent money in a spurious attempt to address what was missing in her life. She had helped herself to the wardrobe, the gadgets, the fuck-off penthouse. Now she had acquired more valuable things. A lazy-eyed smile to greet her upon waking. Text messages that read:
I am horny just thinking about u sexy wifelet xxx
or
I cannot WAIT to get home.
Little gifts secreted in unexpected places: a cartoon clipped from
The Guardian
slipped between the pages of her library book; more favourite tunes downloaded to her iPod; rose petals from the garden sprinkled on the surface of a bath run for her when she was bone tired. Immeasurable riches. Dervla looked at her sister, she looked at her friend. Both Río and Fleur had been unlucky in love. Río had had two great loves in her life and lost them both, while Fleur had
had a team of toyboys, and was now involved with a man who was rarely there for her.

Yes, Dervla told herself as she reached for her glass, of the three women sitting here in this miniature mobile palace, she was by far the richest.

‘What are we celebrating?’ asked Christian, on hearing the popping of a cork from the utility room.

‘Everything and nothing,’ said Dervla. She dropped the champagne cork into the bin, half-filled two glasses, and moved through to the kitchen. Christian was sitting at the table, the itinerary of his forthcoming French tour in front of him and Kitty at his feet. Dervla set the bottle and the glasses on the table, and came clean with him. ‘To be honest, I just feel like getting a little drunk,’ she said. ‘And you certainly look as if you could do with a hit of alcohol.’

‘I do?’

‘Yes. You have a furrow on your brow.’ Dervla ran a finger over her husband’s forehead, tracing the line that ran from temple to temple. It had not been there a year ago.

‘Move over, Kitty,’ said Christian, levering the dog’s head off his lap, and pulling Dervla down. ‘There’s a new girl in town.’

She drew him against her, loving the feel of his face against her breasts, the way his hands automatically moved over her hips to cup her ass.

‘What’s worrying you, love?’ she asked.

‘Everything and nothing.’

‘I know exactly how you feel. It’s weird, isn’t it? As if there’s something hovering in the atmosphere. A kind of universal malaise.’

‘I’ve stopped listening to the radio in the car. I can’t bear to hear the news.’

‘I’ve started playing classical music very loud. It drowns out the clamour in my head.’

They looked at each other and laughed.