The O’Hara Affair (39 page)

‘Daphne!’ screamed Dervla, sprinting in hot pursuit. But Finn got there first. Daphne had parted company with the wheelchair halfway down the last embankment and was lying on the grass gazing serenely up at the sky. She didn’t appear to be fazed at all.

‘How did I get here?’ she asked.

Finn hunkered down beside her. ‘My name is Finn. I’m an Emergency First Responder. Can I help you?’ he said.

Daphne looked at Finn and smiled. ‘Yes, you may. I’m pleased to meet you.’

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘My name is Earl.’

Finn looked at Dervla. ‘She’s confused. She may be concussed.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Dervla told him, fishing wildly in her bag for her phone. ‘She often comes out with things like that.’ Dervla dialled, shouted, ‘Ambulance!’ into the mouthpiece, then gave details to the service provider. ‘Please be quick!’ she begged. ‘She’s a very frail old lady.’

By now, Daphne’s tumble had attracted quite a crowd. People were milling around, proffering advice.

‘Put her in the recovery position!’

‘Don’t move her!’

‘Loosen her clothing!’

‘Is her airway blocked? She may need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.’

‘Are all these people here for me?’ said Daphne. ‘Help me up, young man, so that I may address them.’

‘I don’t think you should move, Daphne,’ said Dervla.

‘I’m perfectly fine. I just took a tumble. That’s perfectly normal at my age. I’m eighty, you know.’

‘Please don’t move, madam,’ said Finn. ‘Not until the ambulance gets here.’

‘An ambulance is coming? For me?’

‘Yes.’

‘What fun. I’ve never been in an ambulance before. Nenagh, Nenagh.’

Daphne continued to gaze up at Finn, who was removing his riding coat. Underneath, he was buff in a black T-shirt. He rolled the coat into a compact bundle, and handed it to Dervla. ‘Put that under her head,’ he said, as he gently took Daphne’s face between his hands. Dervla did as she was instructed, and watched as Finn carefully laid the old lady’s head upon the makeshift pillow.

‘Why are you wearing a skirt?’ Daphne asked him. ‘Are you homosexual?’

‘No.’

‘I think you call homosexuals “gay” now, don’t you? I think it’s rotten –
rotten
– that the word “gay” has been taken over, and made to mean something that it’s not. I like to say that I’m in a “gay” mood or such and such, or that I’m singing a “gay” song, but nowadays I suppose people would laugh at me if I said such a thing. I’m eighty, you know.’

‘She’s actually older than that,’ Dervla told Finn in an undertone.

‘I took a tumble, didn’t I? It’s just as well I’m not an egg.’

An egg? thought Dervla. ‘Where did that come from?

‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,’ said Finn, and Daphne joined in with enthusiasm.

She continued to converse blithely with Finn for the next twenty minutes, as if it were quite normal to be lying on her back on a green baize lawn, all the time gazing up at him as if she were worshipping at the shrine of Adonis.

Once the ambulance men arrived she transferred her
adoration to them, and once she was ensconced on a trolley in A&E, she transferred it to the doctor. She positively blossomed under the attention that was being lavished upon her – all the nurses wanted to have a look at the plucky old dear who had survived a tumble down a forty per cent gradient without a hair on her head being disturbed. Nothing was broken, there wasn’t a mark on her (although there was a ladder in her pop sock), and she had – pronounced the beaming doctor – the haemoglobin of a twenty-one-year-old. After a few hours observation, Daphne was given a clean bill of health and the all-clear to go home.

Daphne, Dervla decided as she escorted her
belle-mère
into the cottage with the aid of a taxi driver, was clearly cut from the same indestructible cloth as Keith Richards.

Later that evening, Finn called in to see Fleur.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, godmother.’

‘How many times have I told you not to call me “godmother”. It makes me sound like a superannuated old bat. Come in and have a drink. Beer?’

‘Please.’

‘Help yourself from the fridge and join me on the deck.’ Fleur wandered onto the deck, reached for the wine bottle in the cooler and poured herself a glass of Chablis. On the main street, a tour bus operator was herding the last of his passengers on board. They were looking a little morose, clearly reluctant to leave this picture-postcard-perfect village on such a glorious evening.

How lucky she was to live here! How many blessings could she count right now? She had a beautiful duplex, a fabulous shop, wonderful friends, an enviable lifestyle, and a handsome Mr Big for a partner – whose apartment, she remembered, rather ruefully, required some housework. Still! She had the evening sun on her face, a glorious view to gaze upon, a glass of wine, a bowl of Picholine olives, and the prospect of excellent company. She had money worries, yes – but didn’t everyone?

Far out to sea, a scintillating disturbance in the water
spoke of dolphin activity. Another blessing! But why on this evening of all evenings, when she had no binoculars to hand?

‘Finn – quick!’ she called. ‘Come and look! There’s a pod of dolphins out there, just beyond Inishclare. Doesn’t that mean good luck or fine weather or something?’

‘No,’ said Finn, snapping the tab on his Budweiser. ‘It just means that the herrings are in. Why have you Bud in your fridge, by the way? I’ve never seen you drink beer in your life.’

‘My boyfriend’s partial to a can from time to time.’

Finn shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted at the horizon. ‘I dived with dolphins once, in Killary harbour.’

‘You privileged person!’

‘Yep. It was seriously special.’

‘Sit down. Have olives.’

‘Thanks.’ Finn took a seat, stretched out his long legs. ‘Any word on Mrs Vaughan?’

‘Yes. I spoke to Dervla earlier. She hasn’t a mark on her, apparently.’

‘Wow! How did she manage that?’

‘They reckoned her padded gilet helped.’ Fleur did not share with Finn the fact that the padded pants had probably helped, too.

‘She’s some tough old bird. Maybe I should ask Dad to see if he can get her a job as a stunt double.’

Fleur laughed, and helped herself to an olive. ‘You’re doubling for some actress playing um – a dowager, isn’t that what Río said?’

‘Yeah. She’s a great big horsy woman who’s meant to lead the local hunt. She said on her CV that she could ride, but she’s actually scared shitless of horses.’

‘Nice opportunity for you.’

‘It’ll see me through until I head off on my travels again.’

‘
Sans
Izzy?’

‘What’s “
sans
” mean?’

‘Without.’

‘Yeah.’ Finn’s indifferent shrug looked a little too studied. ‘We’re on a break.’

‘What does that
mean
, exactly? I’ve never really understood that phrase.’

‘It means that we’ve decided to spend some time apart.’

‘Oh, Finn – I am sorry. You made such a beautiful couple. And I liked Izzy. She was a minx.’

Finn smiled. ‘That would be Izzy, all right. She’s in Dubai now, you know, working for her dad. She asked me to come with her, but I really didn’t want to end up in the world capital of bling.’

‘Not your style, I wouldn’t have thought. You’re clearly more Bud than Bolly.’

Finn looked thoughtful. ‘So was Izzy in a funny kind of way. She was real down-to-earth for a D4 princess. But it always made me feel weird, knowing that she could just snap her fingers if we were in trouble, and have her dad send money by Western Union. And if we had gone into business together and set up that dive school in Adair’s place, I think I’d always have felt like the hired help. It meant that I sometimes acted a little weird around her, and she couldn’t understand it. And when she told me her dad could find me work on a construction site in Dubai, I kinda flipped. Not because I felt it was beneath me or anything – it just made me feel like I was some kinda charity case. So we decided to go our separate ways for a while.’

‘Was she upset?’

‘We both were. It was just awful at the airport, heading for different gates. But hey – Izzy’s a beautiful girl with prospects, and she can’t waste time hanging around with a
no-hoper like me. Mum was right – I should have studied marine biology instead of becoming a diving instructor.’

‘You are emphatically not a no-hoper, Finn Byrne,’ Fleur told him sternly. ‘You are one of the kindest, funniest, most free-spirited, beautiful young men I have ever had the pleasure to meet, and I am proud to be your godmother. Of course you’re feeling dispirited now, but I guarantee you that you will bounce back. It’s in your genes, after all. Look at Río and Shane – they’ve always landed on their feet.’

‘I guess Ma and Pa are resilient, all right.’ Finn reached for an olive, then pushed the bowl back across the table to Fleur and gave her a curious look. ‘What has me blabbing my mouth off to you? I haven’t even confided all this stuff in Ma.’

‘That’s because you don’t want her to worry about you. That’s why she made me your godmother, because she knew that at times like this you’d need someone you could take your troubles to.’ She popped an olive into her mouth. ‘Is Izzy seeing anyone else, Finn?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Are you?’

‘No.’

‘But since you’ve inherited your father’s good looks as well as his temperament, I imagine there’s no shortage of takers.’

Finn shrugged. ‘That Anastasia Harris is kind of flirty around me. She insisted on coming for a drink with me and Dad the other night, and I got a vibe. But Dad warned me not to go there.’

‘Because she’s married?’

‘Well, not just that. Look, this is classified information, Fleur. She’s involved with one of the producers.’

‘Which one?’ Fleur popped another olive into her mouth.

‘Corban O’Hara.’

Suddenly Fleur was standing up from the table and clutching her throat, and Finn had leaped to his feet and wrapped his arms around her from behind, thrusting his fist into her solar plexus. At the third thrust the olive came shooting out of Fleur’s mouth and landed like a bullet on the deck. Finn ran into the kitchen, and emerged with a glass of water.

‘Drink this,’ he commanded. ‘Sit down. Try and breathe easy.’

Fleur did as he instructed, pulling in long, shuddering breaths, and steadying herself by placing her palms flat upon the tabletop.

‘Well, hell,’ said Finn. ‘Am I glad I was here. Are you OK, Fleur?’

She nodded, and Finn handed her a paper napkin so that she could wipe her streaming eyes. She took a swig of water, and followed it with a swig of wine.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘That was scary.’

‘Two separate emergency first responses in one day is a little more than I bargained for when I took my training. I’ve never done the Heimlich manoeuvre in a real-life situation.’

‘First time lucky. Thank you, Finn. You saved my life.’

‘Wow. That’s a first, too. Nobody’s ever said that to me before.’ He took hold of Fleur’s shoulders and looked penetratingly at her. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

‘Sure. I’m just a little shaken-up.’

From the kitchen came the sound of her ring tone. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now. The only person she felt like talking to was—

‘Oh, look. There’s Dad,’ said Shane.

‘Where?’

‘On the street, by the tour bus. He’s signing autographs.’

‘I want a word with him. You stay here, Finn, and finish your beer. I won’t be long.’

Fleur grabbed her keys and left the flat without stopping to put on her shoes. She joined the queue waiting for Shane’s autograph, and when her turn came, she laid a hand on his arm and annexed him by forcing him into the doorway of her shop. Her fierce expression told him resistance was futile.

‘Sorry, folks,’ he said, looking back apologetically at the fans who’d missed out. ‘Another time.’ He looked down at Fleur. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Why didn’t you tell me that Corban’s been having an affair with Nasty Harris, Shane?’

Shane adopted a guarded expression. ‘Um. Who told you that?’

‘Finn.’

‘Aw,
shit
! That’s highly classified information.’

‘So it’s true?’

‘Yes,’ said Shane, sheepishly.

‘How long’s it been going on?’

‘Pretty well from the start of filming.’

‘Oh!’ Tears sprang to Fleur’s eyes, but this time they were tears of rage. ‘
Quel con!
Oh – Shane, why didn’t you
tell
me?’

‘I didn’t want to see you get hurt, Fleur.’

‘But I’m your
friend
! You don’t allow your friends to make fools of themselves! And you let me carry on seeing – seeing
ce con horrible
when all along you knew he was betraying me? Oh! Don’t you realize, don’t you realize…
comme je me sens stupide
?’

‘I’m sorry, Fleur. But if word got out, Nasty’s marriage would be over, and I’ve heard rumours about Jay David. His last wife kept walking into doors – d’you know what I mean? Nasty’s a silly, spoilt little girl, but it was seriously stupid of
her to think that she could handle the DCOL thing, and I wouldn’t want to see her get hurt. And, anyway, I kinda thought the thing you had going with Corban wouldn’t last – you’re far too good for him, sweetheart, you know that. I just assumed that he was one of your – um –
plaisirs d’amour
, is that what you call them?’

Fleur dashed away a tear with such force she hurt her cheek.

‘I’m sorry,’ Shane said again. ‘Please don’t cry. I felt awful about it, but I just couldn’t get involved.’

‘Does Río know?’

‘No.’

‘So the only people on the planet who know about this are you and Finn?’

‘Yes. Well, Elena guessed, but she’d never breathe a word. She’s discretion personified.’

‘You’re quite sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So where have they been conducting
cette affaire torride
– this – this steamy liaison?’

Shane looked uneasier than ever. ‘In his apartment.’