Читать книгу Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets - Cathy Kelly - Страница 52

Millie’s roars could be heard in three counties at least.

‘Don’t want to be in the car!’ she bellowed, her small face screwed up with anger and rage.

‘Neither do I,’ muttered Hope tight-lipped as she negotiated the hire car along the winding road, oblivious to the wind and rain swept scenery they were passing by. When the plane had banked before it arrived in Kerry’s airport, Hope had done her best to peer out the window and see what sort of fabled, emerald isle she was landing on, but Toby had chosen that moment to grizzle miserably at the jerking motion of the aircraft, so she’d dragged her eyes away from the slightly bleak looking patchwork fields and comforted him. Now the rain was lashing down, giving the whole place a dismal air that was at odds with Matt’s description of it.

‘I remember sitting with Gearóid on the steps in the sun, him with a bottle of Guinness, the sound of the bees droning around us and the smell of hay being cut in the fields nearby. Everything was rich greens and soft golds…’

They must both have been drinking Guinness, Hope reflected, because there was nothing sunny or golden about the modern version of Kerry, even allowing for the fact that it was a blisteringly cold November day. Any bees buzzing around would have been drowned in the downpour.

This was not what she’d hoped for. Definitely not.

‘It’s going to be fabulous,’ Dan had said enthusiastically at the Parkers’ leaving do in the Three Carpenters two days before Matt’s departure. ‘The way Matt has described Ireland to me makes it sound magical.’

‘We all envy you so much,’ said a swaying Betsey, who’d come from a publicity launch in London for a new perfume and was half-plastered on free champagne, not to mention reeking of free scent. ‘You’ll have a blast.’

Hope, still exhausted from the stress of packing up the house and the misery of having to hand in her notice in the building society, sincerely hoped she would, although she felt that a week in a health farm was probably what she needed to relax her.

‘You will keep in touch, won’t you?’ begged Yvonne, who was unexpectedly tearful at the thought of Hope leaving. ‘I’ll miss you, you know.’

Hope hugged her. ‘ ‘Course I will. I’ll be back in no time at all. And you can come and visit us. Matt tells me it’s a beautiful place.’

He’d talked longingly of sitting on the coast on the Beara Peninsula looking over the rugged Atlantic, listening to the sound of the curlews as you created perfect prose. And he’d told her how Redlion nestled in a valley that protected it from the cruel winds that blew in off the sea. ‘Idyllic’ had been his word for it.

It didn’t seem very idyllic at the moment, though. Hope began to think that the original idea of Matt driving her Metro via the ferry to Ireland ten days earlier to get the cottage shipshape hadn’t been such a good idea. Travelling with the children was always a nightmare and she could have done with some help. It would also have been nice to have some reassurance that it didn’t rain all the time and that this downpour was unusual she hoped.

But Matt had insisted that someone had to do some work on the cottage because the lawyer had mentioned it was a bit ‘uncared for.’ And he’d also been keen to meet the artistic community people he’d been corresponding with, in relation to working in their centre, as soon as possible.

Hope tried to concentrate on the road, which wasn’t easy with Millie yelling. Their progress since landing had been slow to say the least. Just when Hope was panicking about being stranded without their luggage, her five suitcases had finally turned up. Battling through the small but incredibly crowded airport with two fractious children, she’d picked up the sturdy four-wheel drive vehicle she’d booked in advance and had just managed to hump all their cases into it without giving herself a hernia when Millie decided to throw a tantrum.

A visit to the ladies, bribery involving biscuits and juice, and the purchase of a cuddly bear in an Aran sweater had all been useless. Millie had decided she was not in a good mood, wailing so hysterically that a cluster of little old ladies disembarking from a coach at the airport doors had looked at Hope as if she was wearing a sign saying ‘unfit mother.’

True to form, Millie had yelled and cried at full blast for the last hour as her harassed mother read the map, worked out where she was going and made it out past the lunchtime rush in Killarney. Trying not to mow down pedestrians had been the biggest problem. People in Killarney just seemed to walk out in front of the car, not caring that she was a few feet away from them in a deadly piece of all-terrain vehicle with bull bars on the front. Did they look right and left before crossing the road? No, they just threw themselves blithely into the traffic, hopping over puddles and treating the passing cars like nuisances. The Irish were all mad, she decided darkly. She wished Matt had been able to collect them but as the Metro had burst a gasket and was currently languishing in the local garage, it made more sense to rent a car because they’d need transport until the Metro was fixed.

Toby sat quietly in the back, strapped in carefully. Millie, feeling liberated because the car seats were coming later, kept trying to remove her seat belt until Hope had to stop the car and attach her even more firmly. Outraged at being unable to move so freely, Millie decided to roar even more.

Finally, Hope could stand it no longer. The rain had practically stopped and they all needed a bit of fresh air. A

few miles outside Killarney, she stopped the car by a gate at the side of the road, got out and unhooked the children.

It was windy and there was still a fine mist of rain that dampened the children’s hair immediately, but Millie didn’t care. Delighted to be free, she bounced over to the big rusty gate, surprising the herd of muddy black and white cows huddled next to the ditch.

‘Cows,’ she said as happily as if she’d just discovered a herd of rare beasts.

Toby clung to his mother nervously. He wasn’t keen on big animals and when he’d been taken to the zoo, he’d sobbed at the sight of the elephants. Millie, on the other hand, had had to be restrained from clambering up the monkey enclosure, waving her ice cream enticingly.

‘It’s all right, darling,’ Hope said now, hoisting Toby onto her hip and carrying him to the gate. ‘They’re friendly.’

As if to disprove this point, one of the cows lurched towards the gate in investigative mode.

Millie squealed with delight and Toby hid his face in Hope’s shoulder, shuddering with fear.

‘Mummy, will we have cows?’ demanded Millie excitedly.

Hope had absolutely no idea. If cows were included in the property, Matt hadn’t mentioned them. His memory of Uncle Gearóid’s had included a quaint cottage covered with old fashioned roses and an expanse of wild looking garden out the front. He’d been a bit woolly on the other details although the lawyer’s letter had mentioned four bedrooms, a kitchen with a genuine iron range and a bathroom with an antique claw foot bath. It all sounded lovely, but then, so did novels about the Middle Ages where nobody mentioned the pain of not having dentists and how women routinely died in agonizing childbirth. Hope thought about her lovely, only-just-paid-for modern freezer and the shower in their house in Bath where you’d swear you were being stabbed with millions of exquisite tiny needles when you turned it on at full blast. She didn’t hold out much hope for a quaint cottage having such a marvellous plumbing innovation. But then, who knew? Uncle Gearóid could have been a modern sort of man with a passion for Bang and Olufsen stereos, giant kitchen equipment with icemakers, and a jacuzzi. The unknown was exciting, Matt had said before he left.

However, on the phone since then, he’d sounded a bit dreamy and short on facts about things like plumbing and installing two phone lines for the e-mail so he could correspond with the office. Men liked the unknown, women didn’t, Hope decided.

‘It’s so unspoiled,’ he’d said the night before over a crackly phone line. ‘You’re going to love it.’

Mind you, he’d thought she was going to love the black lace thong underwear he’d purchased for her birthday on a trip to Bristol. Sam had insisted that if you wore thongs for two weeks, you never went back to normal knickers again. Hope had given up after two days.

Still, they had the house in Bath. If the rural writing retreat proved too rural, she could always up sticks and bring the children home. So, they had rented it out for a year but Hope was sure she’d find a way round that. That’s what lawyers were for.

‘Come on,’ she said now in bright Mummy-speak. ‘Back to the car, we’ve got a bit longer to go and then you can explore our new home!’

The children clambered back into the car and Hope strapped them in, thankful they’d fallen for her faux enthusiasm. Back on the road, she admired the scenery and tried to pretend that it didn’t look very bleak. Beautiful, certainly, with those majestic purple mountains looming in the horizon and a faint mist covering them like icing sugar rained down by some heavenly cook. Everywhere was astonishingly green in the rain but a tad desolate. Not really like the idyllic, sun-drenched place she’d seen in the Discover Ireland travel book.

So far, Hope couldn’t imagine the sun ever shining in this remote part of the world. She liked visiting romantically desolate spots for cosy weekends, enjoying going for a walk in the woods as long as there was a glorious hotel complete with log fire in the bar when they got back so they could roast their wet socks, giggle over a couple of hot ports and plan what to wear for dinner.

Real life desolation all the time was a different proposition. The scenery around her looked so…well, untamed. The countryside around Bath was green too, but it seemed more laid out and more normal. Here, the fields were all sizes with stone walls and briar hedges going off in all directions. The drivers were all mad too: she’d nearly been forced off the road by some little old man in a van who could barely see over the dashboard and at least six flashy new cars had overtaken her in exasperation on dangerous bits of road, obviously furious to be behind a hire car going at a respectable forty miles an hour.

At a tiny crossroads with no signpost at all, she consulted her map again. If it was to be believed, she had to take the right turn, follow the road for a few miles and then she’d come to a town. She drove carefully until she came to the first signs of habitation.

‘Quaint, untouched,’ had been Matt’s verdict on Redlion, the small town where their house was situated.

‘Really quaint,’ Hope thought grimly as she drove into it a few minutes later.

She had to turn off before she got to the main street, therefore not seeing all of the place, but on first viewing with the rain pelting down in a sheet, Matt’s quaint town was anything but. What she could see consisted of a winding line of terraced houses, one battered pub, a tiny post office, a convenience shop with security bars that looked capable of stopping a tank, and a caravan park with its signpost hanging drunkenly from one corner. Thinking she must be in the wrong place, because this could hardly be the pretty place Matt had described, she came to a hump backed bridge. An elderly green water pump over the bridge signalled that she was, indeed, in Redlion. Matt had mentioned both the bridge and the pump and according to him, she had to take the next left which was a winding road that led away from the town to her new home. It was official, she decided: she was now in The Back Of Beyond.

With an increasing sense of doom, Hope drove down a narrow lane with a grass spine in the middle and big puddles of mud either side. She felt the same way she’d felt when she and Sam had gone to big school for the first time: a little bit excited at the thought of being a big girl, a bit more excited about her school uniform with the dark blue jumper, and absolutely terrified at the thought of all those other girls with their normal families who’d think that she and Sam were weird having no parents and only a mad old aunt to pick them up from school.

She rounded a corner, past a giant monkey puzzle tree that bent out over the lane, and then she saw it. Her new home.

If the outskirts of Redlion had been given a grievous battering with the ugly stick, Curlew Cottage had escaped. Gloriously pretty, it sat snugly in a wilderness of hedges and beech trees and looked as if it been drawn by an illustrator who was trying to imagine a home for the Seven Dwarves. From the small windows with their latticed shutters to the fat wooden door with black iron fittings, it was adorable. The pretty climbing rose that Matt had waxed lyrical about had been cut back and, as it was November, there would have been no flowers clustering round the door anyway, but that was the only negative thing she could see. It was a bit run down but what would you expect from an elderly man living here on his own for years?

Hope sighed with relief. At that exact moment, an unseen cockerel loudly proclaimed that this was his territory and that they better back off. Toby shrieked with fear and Millie shrieked with delight.

‘Let me out Mummy,’ she roared, desperate to explore.

The cockerel crowed again.

An attack hen, Hope decided, feeling her sense of humour return.

The rain had stopped, so she let the kids out, warning them to stay close. Toby didn’t need any telling and clung to her trouser legs. Millie, on the other hand, raced off after the cockerel.

‘Come back!’ yelled Hope nervously with her city-mother mentality. ‘Right now!’

Millie wavered long enough for her mother to grab her anorak hood. With Millie reined in and wriggling crossly and Toby sucking his thumb nervously, they made their way to the front door.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ Millie said with interest.

Good question, Hope thought. She’d hoped he’d be waiting for them, ready to run out, throw his arms around his family and say he’d missed them desperately for the past ten days. She’d been watching too much TV, she reckoned. Husbands only ran out in thrilled delight on made-for-TV movies or romantic dramas. They never did it in real life except when they were famished and you’d just been at the shops buying food.

She knocked at the front door. No reply. After a moment, she turned the handle and the door creaked open a fraction. Should they go in or not? She dithered until an ominous rumble in the sky signalled an end to the brief interlude of dry weather.

Rain started pelting down again like a tropical storm. ‘Gosh, isn’t this exciting,’ Hope said gaily to the children as she pushed the door fully open.

Inside, the adorable cottage scenario went awry. The first thing to hit Hope was the cold. Still warm from the steamed-up atmosphere of the car, the cool November air had barely registered with her at first. Now, standing inside the cottage she was struck by an arctic sensation. Stone floors, stone walls and no visible source of heat made for a combination of bone-chilling damp and cold. In fact, everything in the cottage looked damp and cold. Instead of the hand-crafted wooden furniture, lovingly made frilled curtains and air of sparkling cleanliness she’d prayed for, she was faced with a big bare room with no curtains at all. The only furniture was a coffee table and two elderly tweedy armchairs with disturbing dark, oily patches on the cushions.

Hope held the children’s hands more tightly as she gazed around her in horror. This wasn’t fit to live in: it hadn’t been painted for years and was completely filthy. The cobwebs that festooned the ceiling were the least of her worries. Matt had made the entire family emigrate and their new home wasn’t a cosy cottage but a dishevelled shed. She wanted to cry. Her thoughts were broken by the sound of a car engine and a slamming door.

‘Millie, Toby! Sorry I’m late, love. Just got caught up with the gang!’ Matt rushed into the room, hair plastered down on his forehead, wearing an unfamiliar sludge brown jacket, mud splattered corduroys, Wellington boots and a welcoming expression.

He gave Hope a brief warm kiss and then picked a child up in each arm, hugging them to him.

‘Did you miss Daddy?’ he demanded.

‘Yes,’ said Millie huskily, burying her little head lovingly in his shoulder. ‘Lots and lots and this big.’ She demonstrated how much she’d missed him by holding her arms wide.

Hope didn’t want to break up this cosy family thing. She felt like the bitch from Hell about to remind Snow White that it might not be a good idea to shack up with seven small men who were looking for a cheap housekeeper, but it had to be done. Besides which, Matt hadn’t thrown his arms around her.

‘Matt,’ she said in her everything-in-the-garden-is-rosy voice so as not to alarm the children, ‘we need to talk about the cottage.’

‘Isn’t it lovely,’ he said. ‘So naïf.’

‘What?’ she said, rosy garden voice disappearing to be replaced by sour-milk voice.

‘You know, unspoiled,’ he said artlessly.

‘How about unclean, unpainted and utterly unsuitable for two small children,’ she snapped back at him, tiredness and a general feeling of being unloved making her cross. ‘Not to mention freezing. We’ll all get hypothermia if we live here. This is a dump. I don’t suppose you were roughing it here?’

‘Well, no, I was at Finula’s and I know we have a lot to do here and I’m sorry I haven’t really got started but I thought we could manage for a few days with those portable stoves and then get some work done on Monday…’

‘Matt, you mean you haven’t told Hope the place wasn’t ready yet?’ said a low, throaty female voice. ‘How bold of you. Slap, slap.’

They both turned to face the newcomer. Tall, rotund and exuding rural friendliness, she was forty-something and wore a selection of flapping garments that all appeared to be patterned by the hand of Laura Ashley. Hope identified pyjama-style trousers, a voluminous shirt and a rakishly-angled hat, all flowery and pink. A big tartan shawl completed the outfit.

‘Hope, meet Finula Headley-Ryan, the leading light of the artistic community in Redlion and the lady who’s been so kind about getting me into the writers’ centre at short notice.’

‘Tsk, tsk,’ said Finula, clearly delighted with this description but pretending she wasn’t. ‘I’m only an old dauber, hardly an artist at all.’

She sailed over to Hope and held out a freckled hand, weighed down with elaborate old gold rings. The glamorous effect was slightly ruined by chipped scarlet nail varnish that revealed yellowing nails underneath.

‘I’m sure you’re not so pleased to meet anyone when this house is like the wreck of the Hesperus,’ she said in that low, thrilling voice. ‘Matt, you are a melt for not telling the poor girl that the place isn’t habitable. Think of the shock she got when she thought this was her new home in all its freezing glory. What are you like?’

‘Well, I wanted Hope to come and I knew she’d hardly be keen if I told her what was left to do,’ he said, giving Finula the benefit of his handsomest smile. ‘Anyway, Hope,’ he added, slightly wheedling, ‘I’ll get the workmen to start on Monday.’

‘Obviously, the children can’t stay here,’ Hope said, her shock at the state of her new home overcoming her dislike of getting personal in front of strangers. ‘We’ll have to stay in a hotel.’

‘Nonsense,’ Finula declared. ‘You’ll stay with me. The only hotel round here is five-star and would cost a bomb. We’d love to have you. A couple of days and we’ll have this house spick and span. It’s not at all fit for children.’ She leaned over and rubbed Millie’s cheek.

Instead of scowling the way she usually did when someone she didn’t know touched her, Millie dimpled up at Finula.

‘Little dote, isn’t she?’ sighed Finula. ‘My Cormac is twelve now, too big for cuddles but they’re lovely at that age.’

Thinking of Millie’s waking-the-dead tantrums on the journey from the airport, Hope managed a weak smile and said yes, lovely.

‘Now, follow me,’ Finula ordered.

Within minutes, she’d bundled Hope and the children into her car, a battered green station wagon that had been side-swiped so often there were only stripes of green paint on the doors.

‘Matt can take your car,’ Finula said, crunching gears as she drove over a few bushes doing a five-point turn. ‘My house is down an awful pot-holed bothreen and you’d be tortured following me.’

The inside of the car was as messy as the outside, with a filthy pair of Wellington boots on the back seat and several smelly waterproof coats, exuding a scent of mud and wet dog, crumpled up on the floor.

Hope sat in silence as they drove at high speed along a narrow road. She was suddenly exhausted after her journey and so angry with Matt for expecting her to live in such squalor that she was incapable of making polite conversation. Finula, however, kept up a stream of talk that, luckily, required no response.

‘There are seventeen of us in the community who live here full time. Mainly artists but we’ve got three novelists and two poets. I’m sure you’ve heard of Maire Nic Chinneide.’

Before Hope had time to nod dishonestly at this, Finula was off again.

‘Amazing poet, so lyrical. Her poems about the traffic on the Killarney Road would bring a tear to your eye. Anyway, as I was saying, as well as the full timers who live in the area, at least two hundred artists and writers come during the year, and we have a wonderful time. I’ve been here ten years and I feel like part of the furniture. Myself and Ciaran – Ciaran’s a novelist by the way – came from Dublin originally. I wouldn’t go back for all the tea in China. There are no twenty-four-hour shops here or high rise buildings: it’s heaven.’

Hope, longing for a twenty-four-hour shop and a couple of high rise buildings, said nothing.

Finula described the entire artistic community, how often they met in the Creativity Centre (every day, as far as Hope could make out) and what sort of wonderful entertainment was available (weekly dinners during the high season and two creativity workshops during the year when the place sounded as if it was over-run with would-be writers and painters.) Matt had explained all this to Hope previously but when he’d said how it worked, it hadn’t sounded like some demented religious commune. Feeling more and more anxious, Hope wondered if there were other women with small children.

‘The locals don’t bother with us much, they think we’re all mad artistic types,’ Finula tittered.

Hope privately thought that Finula relished being a mad artistic type. Compared to Finula’s flamboyant floral rig out, Hope felt like a mouse in her serviceable navy chinos, navy wool polo neck and beige casual jacket. Would she have to start wearing loads of mascara, plenty of shawls and her Liberty nightie to fit in?

‘I’m sure Matt has told you all about us,’ Finula said, swerving rapidly as she made a right hand turn into a beautifully-kept driveway.

‘Not really,’ Hope hedged, vowing never to get in a car with Finula ever again.

They pulled up outside a big homely farmhouse set amid a forest of pine trees. Unlike the cottage, this was beautifully maintained, with big planters full of dwarf conifers in a regimented line beside the porch and ornamental wagon wheels set along a veranda. A swing seat took pride of place on the left of the veranda, complete with stripy canopy. The entire premises would not have looked out of place in a Doris Day movie.

‘Let’s get you all in and get some food into the little ones,’ Finula bossed.

Finula’s home was everything Hope wanted in a rural retreat. Rambling yet cosy, with plenty of squashy sofas, Turkish rugs on the stone floors and lots of pictures, ornaments and books to enliven the place. Her kitchen was the sort of place that highly successful television cooks always seemed to have: a triumph of golden wood complete with an Aga, butcher’s block and bulbous copper saucepans hanging from the ceiling. Hope had always wanted one of those saucepan-hanging things.

‘I know it’s a shock when you up sticks and move to the country for the first time,’ Finula said when Hope and the children were installed at the huge wooden kitchen table, the children with home-made yoghurts and home-made apple juice, Hope with a big glass of red wine – thankfully not home made.

‘But it’s so good for the children. You can have a chance to bring them up the right way here, to teach them about life and nature, to feed them natural, organic foods and to be with them all the time. It’s a quality of life you can’t get in the big city. No rapists, murderers or burglars.’

Hope took a slug of wine and mused on how the locals had managed to keep murderers, rapists and burglars out: with an electric fence, perhaps?

‘Of course, personally, I think those degenerate hippie people up the road aren’t to be trusted,’ Finula added nastily, ‘but we’ve had no trouble with them yet. Matt’s been telling me how you’ve longed to spend time with the children, that you were tired of the rat race.’

Hope wished Matt hadn’t been quite so free with his confidences. Finula already seemed to know everything about her. She idly wondered if he’d mentioned her premenstrual tension or that time he’d had shingles and been off sex for a month, just to give a rounded psychological picture of them as a couple.

‘Wait till you’ve had the thrill of growing your own vegetables,’ Finula sighed.

Now did not seem like the time to mention that Hope only liked her vegetables fresh from the supermarket counter and that the last thing she’d grown was a peace lily given to her when Toby was born. It was long since on a tip somewhere, withered because she’d forgotten to water it.

‘And hens, you’d love hens,’ Finula said. ‘Old Gearóid had a lovely hen house out the back and you’d be mad not to get hens. Think of it,’ Finula’s eyes went misty, ‘your own free range eggs. You have to watch the foxes, mind,’ she added, waving a finger to illustrate how dangerous foxes were. ‘Matt really needs a gun, you know. For the foxes, although I doubt if he’d get a licence for one.’

‘I can’t imagine Matt shooting anything,’ Hope ventured.

‘Well, he’s great at fishing so I assumed he could shoot as well.’

Hope stared at her. ‘Fishing? I didn’t know he could fish.’

‘There’s no point hiding your light under a bushel here!’ Finula wagged a finger. ‘He’s wonderful fisherman. He didn’t let on at first, but we soon got it out of him. There are no secrets in Redlion. I’m sure you’re very into organic food as well. I wouldn’t dream of having anything else in the house. And as for convenience foods, tsk!’ Finula’s snort indicated what she thought of convenience food. ‘Shop bought meals and tins of food, they rot your insides, believe me.’

It occurred to Hope that she’d have to visit the village shop under cover of darkness if she was to purchase things like fish fingers, Lean Cuisines and the tinned spaghetti the kids adored. Then again, maybe the village shop didn’t have things like fish fingers or tinned spaghetti. Maybe it only sold tofu, yak’s milk and bean sprouts. And not a single packet of crisps and Hula Hoops. Suddenly, she yearned for a delicious packet of Hula Hoops, full of non-organic preservatives and things Finula would disapprove of. Gorgeous.

Finula was still talking. Did she ever shut up? ‘Cormac has done so well since he came here. We spend quality time together. You don’t get that when you work outside the home,’ she said beadily.

Hope wanted to stand up for working outside the home. Millions of women have to work, they have no choice, she wanted to say. And many more want to work, they want a career. That doesn’t mean their children suffer. But she said nothing. Matt had obviously painted her as an earth mother who couldn’t wait to give up her job, so there was no point. She hardly knew this woman after all and they were her guests. So Hope smiled her polite smile and wished she was at home in her own kitchen in Bath, doing the ironing. Yes, that would be a suitable swap. A mound of ironing as big as a house would make up for being in this mad woman’s kitchen feeling her life spiralling out of control.

At that moment, Matt arrived and to Hope’s utter surprise, started to make himself a cup of tea, seemingly completely at home in Finula’s kitchen. ‘Ciaran and I put the cases in the two back bedrooms,’ he said. ‘Finula’s been putting me up since I got here. Isn’t she wonderful?’ he said to Hope, patting her arm affectionately.

‘Yes,’ said Hope, tight-lipped.

Tired from their journey, Toby and Millie miraculously went to bed without a fuss. Hope would have loved to have thrown herself onto the double bed in her and Matt’s room and joined them in the land of Nod, but she knew she had to have dinner with the others.

Ciaran, who turned out to be a short, bald and spectacled man looking a million miles away from his description as an arty type who wrote historical novels, was making his special beef in Guinness, the family’s favourite recipe.

‘You’ll adore it,’ said Finula throatily to Hope. ‘Oh my dear, do meet my lovely little Cormac.’

Cormac was a big, sullen lad who was anything but lovely. He wolfed down his meal almost before the rest of them had picked up their forks and immediately shoved his seat back from the table and left.

‘Homework,’ said Ciaran.

Bad manners thought Hope.

It was a strange evening. Over dinner, Hope watched her husband laugh, joke and tell stories about the advertising rat race and how he was glad to be out of it. There was no trace of the focussed, ambitious ad man who lived and breathed for his job and who read the advertising magazine, Campaign, as if it were the Bible.

She also watched Finula gaze raptly at the handsome happy face like a dog drooling for a marrow bone. Matt seemed utterly unaware of Finula’s admiration.

‘I love this place,’ he said, squeezing Hope’s hand. ‘It makes me feel alive.’

Hope squeezed back. It was wonderful to see Matt happy again and to feel that there was new life in the marriage. It was only for a year after all.

The local people were, according to Ciaran and Finula, all very boring. Having overheard herself being described as boring more than once, Hope felt a glimmer of pity for the locals.

‘I have tried, believe me,’ Finula said querulously after her sixth glass of wine. ‘I’ve tried to get them involved in the community. We had that Thai evening in June and invited everyone to come. I even got a Tai Chi teacher to come in for a demonstration, I thought it would be lovely to start local classes. But no.’ She sniffed. ‘Only a few came and they were out the front door like a shot as soon as Su Lin started the demonstration. Although my tiger prawns went down well. They’re all only interested in business and the prices of property. Honestly, we came here to get away from all that. And the women are always on about this Macramé Club they have going. I ask you, macramé. That went out in the seventies.’

‘Not everyone’s into stuff like Tai Chi,’ volunteered Hope. ‘I mean, I’m not. I love aerobics though. I hope there’s a class round here, otherwise I’ll balloon. I could certainly do with a few sessions of tums and bums.’

She looked up from her meringue with blackberry coulis to see Finula staring at her in shock.

‘Aerobics,’ said Finula as though she was speaking of tertiary syphilis, ‘is hardly the same as Tai Chi.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Hope, backtracking, ‘but that’s what I like. Everyone likes different things. You can’t make people interested in Tai Chi if they’re not…’

She felt Matt’s hand gripping her thigh under the table. ‘Hope, love,’ he said, ‘that’s the point of the community. It’s not just about letting a group of artists work in a supportive atmosphere, it’s about fostering culture in Kerry. Teaching people that there’s more to life than existing in the humdrum working world.’

He sounded so earnest when he spoke that Hope wondered if her real husband had been body snatched and replaced with this look-alike. And no wonder the locals weren’t keen on the artistic gang. It was a bit rich to turn up in an area and basically accuse everyone of being culturally illiterate.

‘I understand,’ she said gravely.

In the end, Matt drank so much of Finula and Ciaran’s lovely wine that he got plastered and by the time they climbed into the comfortable big bed, Hope knew there was no point in raising the state of Curlew Cottage again, and adding that she’d be on the first plane back to Bristol if he didn’t take immediate action to make it habitable.

The next morning Hope got up at seven with her energetic offspring and went downstairs to make them breakfast. Her reserved soul didn’t like the idea of pottering around in someone else’s kitchen. There was no sign of Finula or Ciaran. Sleeping off massive hangovers, she supposed. Being artistic seemed to mean sinking an awful lot of booze.

Coco Pops were the current favourite breakfast with Millie. But true to her beliefs, Finula didn’t have a single packet of manufactured cereal anywhere. Not even cornflakes, which were practically a health food in Hope’s book. There was just a big jar of home-made muesli that looked for all the world like mouse droppings.

‘Want Coco Pops,’ whined Millie after a few minutes’ waiting. Toby sat quietly as usual, turning the pages of his Silly Pig Finds A Friend picture book.

‘I can’t find any,’ Hope said. She opened another cupboard and bingo: no Coco Pops but lots of lovely home made bread.

They breakfasted on toast and jam, with milk for the children and coffee for Hope.

Afterwards, she wrapped them all up in anoraks and Wellingtons and they set off to explore. If the previous day had been dismal and wet, this was the perfect example of a glorious winter day. Crisp and cool, with a bright wintry sun shining low in the sky, dusting the landscape with piercing light. It was beautiful. Today, the hills in the background looked picturesque instead of brooding and Hope could pick out a myriad of colours in the landscape instead of yesterday’s dull, rainy grey. She could see warm peat browns, soft umbers and rich plums. The stone walls that criss-crossed the land were a flinty grey and there were traces of green everywhere, from the gleam of dewy grass to the faded verdigris of moss clinging to the walls. It would be a wonderful place if you were a painter. She breathed deeply, letting the sharp country air permeate her lungs. In the distance, she could see two cottages and one two-storey farmhouse but for at least a mile on either side of Finula’s house there was nothing. Incredible, she thought. This really was the country.

‘Let’s go for an adventure,’ she said. ‘We might find some animals.’

Toby looked unsure. ‘Mummy will pick you up if you’re scared,’ Hope told him gently, ‘but we’ve got to get used to cows and things. Maybe we’ll find some baby cows.’

She had no idea if this was possible. Did cows have calves in winter? Or maybe they had them at Easter. Or was that lambs she was thinking of? Who knew. The countryside was very mysterious.

The ground crunched as they walked down the drive and out onto a lane bordered by a low stone wall. Holding both the children’s hands, Hope walked slowly, admiring the stark leafless trees, bent and gnarled as they clung low to the ground.

The ground was mucky after the previous day’s rain and she stepped around puddles delicately, while Millie struggled to jump in them.

A car drove past and the driver raised a hand in greeting. When the driver of the second car waved, she decided that the local people were simply friendly and waved to everyone. The next vehicle was a tractor with a grizzled old farmer sitting on it.

‘Let’s all wave,’ said Hope enthusiastically.

‘Helloooo!’ they all yelled.

The farmer kept both hands on the steering wheel and looked at them as if they were mad.

They found a herd of cows clustered around a trough of hay, all up to their hocks in mud. Millie was fascinated as to why they were all so dirty.

‘Mud, darling,’ Hope said.

‘Oooh look!’ Millie yelled as one beige coloured cow lifted her tail and let forth a stream of manure. ‘Cow pooh pooh, Mummy! Cow pooh pooh! Can we smell it?’

Back at the house, Finula was up and already organizing.

‘PJ Rice will be down at the cottage at eleven and he’ll discuss what work you need done,’ she told Hope bossily.

‘Is he a contractor?’ Hope asked, extracting Millie from her Wellington boots and hoping that she didn’t have cow pooh on them.

‘He does a bit of everything,’ Finula said.

‘Surely we need a separate plumber and heating man…’ Hope began.

‘Nonsense. We’ll all muck in with the painting and as for heating, sure Gearóid had a great range that’ll heat the entire cottage. All it takes is to get it cleaned out and a bit of a knack to keep it running.’

‘We saw cow pooh pooh, Daddy,’ squealed Millie happily as her father appeared, clutching a glass fizzing with soluble painkillers.

Hope had had her suspicions about PJ, but after three days of back-breaking work from all parties, the cottage was looking better. Homes and Gardens wouldn’t be desperate to photograph it for their latest issue, but at least Curlew Cottage was fit for human occupation.

PJ had installed a new shower in the bathroom and the pipes in the kitchen no longer rattled ominously when you turned the taps on. The big cream range was going and indeed, it did heat the whole cottage, although it gobbled up fuel at an horrific rate.

Matt had rented a sander and the floors upstairs were soon smooth and pale gold. The downstairs flooring was icy stone slabs and Hope vowed to buy nice rugs for them as soon as she got a chance. PJ’s two colleagues, a couple of hard working teenage lads, painted the entire inside of the cottage with white paint because Matt said it would be a good idea to lighten the place up as the windows were so small. However, as the two painters painted any dirt and dust into the walls at the same time, Hope soon learned that she had to scrub and clean each room before they started. The bathroom was the biggest nightmare because under the infamous claw footed bath was a thriving and wriggling community of bugs.

‘Clock beetles,’ PJ remarked laconically as several jet black insects scurried out from under the bath, frantically running in different directions. ‘They’re lucky, you know.’

‘Not in this house,’ Hope said with feeling.

Worn out and with reddened hands from plunging them into buckets of soapy water, Hope insisted that Matt deal with the wild life in the bathroom.

‘I hate creepy crawlies,’ she shivered, handing him the soapy cloth and the bucket, ‘even lucky ones.’

On Thursday, Matt bought three beds and a second-hand couch in Killarney, along with a fridge freezer and washing machine. All were to be delivered on Friday. The few bits of furniture they’d had shipped from Bath were due to arrive at the same time.

‘What about a cooker?’ asked Hope suddenly, realizing that there was one vital omission from Matt’s shopping list.

‘We can cook on the range,’ Matt shrugged. ‘Anyway, I’m too broke now to buy anything else. Paying PJ and paying for this lot cost a bomb.’

Hope bit back the retort that it had been his idea to come here in the first place and if he hadn’t thought they could afford it, they shouldn’t have come. He wasn’t going to have to cook on the horrible old range, that would be her job.

She stormed off to their bedroom. So much for the wonderful revitalization of their marriage.

By Friday evening, five days after their arrival, the family were finally installed in their new home. Matt’s computer was set up in the tiny box room, ready for the consultancy work he was going to do part-time for Judd’s, and the kids’ rooms were as perfect as they could be under the circumstances, full of their toys and pictures, if a little barren.

Their own bedroom was a bit of a mess with just an old rail for hanging clothes and two upturned boxes as bedside tables. Everything was still a long way from her vision of country life with the cosy cottage, Hope thought. Instead, she’d found herself in what looked like a barren holiday cottage where the owners had never really made themselves at home.

‘It’s a bit sparse,’ she said, looking around the sitting room with its meagre furniture and no pictures on the walls.

‘Yeah, I remember Gearóid having lots of oil paintings, stuff his friends had painted. I suppose he had to sell them in the end. Money was always tight with him. I thought he was brilliant but he never had much success with his poems.’

‘How many books did he have published?’

‘Three and they’re out of print now,’ Matt said sadly. ‘Poor Gearóid. He was talented. Still, let’s not get maudlin. We’ll be so happy here.’ He hugged her. ‘Thank you for this, Hope. I know it’s been strange for you this week, but it’ll be fantastic for us all from now on. We need this, I need this.’

He kissed her tenderly, the way he’d kissed her on their wedding day: as if he didn’t believe it was all for real. For the first time in ages, Hope felt her insides contract. She hadn’t felt even vaguely sexy all week. It was the strain of sorting things out. But she felt a definite frisson now. It was wonderful the way he could do that to her. They loved each other, she knew, they’d survive anything.

‘Let’s go to bed early tonight,’ Matt murmured.

As he pottered around in his study, Hope walked through the cottage thoughtfully. She had plans for it. She’d drape throws over things, the way Finula did to such effect. The modern silver frames with their wedding photos and pictures of the children looked somewhat wrong too. Perhaps she could learn how to make curtains. It couldn’t be too hard, it was a challenge. Hadn’t women always travelled to strange destinations to be with their menfolk. They had followed armies in centuries gone by, enduring enormous deprivations just to be with the ones they loved. They had in Jane Austen’s time, Hope reflected trying to feel suitably noble. If they could do it, she could.

She fried some of Finula’s homemade sausages and free range eggs for dinner. It was the only thing she could think of to cook as she had no idea how to deal with the range. It could take twenty minutes to boil the kettle on it – Lord knew how many years it would take to cook a chicken casserole.

After dinner, she sat in front of the range with a cup of cocoa and watched Matt fiddling around with the television trying to pick up a signal. There was no noise outside, no sound of other people or car doors slamming or horns blaring. Nothing. Just the silence of the countryside.

Used to the madcap atmosphere of Ciaran and Finula’s where people arrived at all hours, unannounced and wandering into the kitchen to make themselves tea, it felt strange to be on their own again.

Finula had been very kind but she was so overbearing, as if she wanted to lay claim to the newcomers as her own possessions. Matt couldn’t see it and felt that any criticism of his new friend was a sign of ingratitude after all she’d done for them. Well, they wouldn’t see that much of Finula from now on, would they?

Matt cursed under his breath as the snowstorm effect on the television got worse instead of better. He’d been fiddling with the damn thing for half an hour and so far, all he’d managed to locate was an Irish language television channel, which was going to be bugger all use to them. Maybe they had sub-titles for the films: that was going to be the best they could do at this rate.

‘We could always watch with the sound turned down and make up our own dialogue,’ he joked, turning round to Hope. But she was deeply asleep, squashed into a corner of the uncomfortable old brown sofa with a cushion wedged against her head. Matt watched her for a moment, smiling at the way her fair hair was all fluffed up around her face, lots of little curls running wild because she probably hadn’t run a comb through it since that morning. She hadn’t bothered with make up either and her long, thick eyelashes rested palely against her flushed cheeks. She looked very vulnerable in sleep, her rounded face defenceless against the world, her gentle coral mouth moving as she dreamed. She certainly didn’t look like a thirty-seven-year-old mother-of-two. More like a naive, trusting twenty-something. Naive, that was certainly Hope, Matt thought with a twinge of guilt. Despite his fierce belief that this was a good move for them all, he couldn’t help feeling selfish for bringing her here. Dear Hope loved her routine, the comfort of the familiar. A creature of habit, she was nervous of the unknown and yet he’d transplanted her from her own world into a strange place where she knew nobody.

He knew she’d follow him to the ends of the earth and that was why she was here: because she loved him utterly.

And he was here for purely selfish reasons. Sure, he’d managed things so that he’d have a job to go back to in Bath, and their mortgage there was taken care of by letting the house out. So the family wouldn’t lose out financially. But the reason they were here was because of his dream, not theirs. He wanted the peace to write and he’d brought them all here because of that.

Hope would forfeit every dream in her life just to make sure her beloved family were happy and content. And he’d forfeit all their contentment so that he could be happy. Matt thrust that thought out of his mind. Redlion was a beautiful place. He loved it here, he felt connected to it on some deep, emotional level. He’d had such wonderful holidays here as a child. Hope would learn to love it too. He’d work his backside off to make his book a success, then they’d have real financial security for the rest of their lives. He could do it: he was sure of it. Whenever he thought about the book, he felt a fresh burst of excitement.

He’d started it in a rush of ideas, racing to get his thoughts on paper, eager to tell the story of a man on the verge of a breakdown who takes off around the world to escape his misery but ends up in a parallel universe where he’s living fifty years in the past. In his fantasies, Matt imagined literary magazines reviewing his novel with words like ‘lyrical’, ‘exquisitely written’ and ‘a breathtaking new talent.’

It wasn’t going to be easy, he knew, but life wasn’t easy, was it? He’d write a wonderful book with the drive and determination he was well known for. He’d work deep into the night every night if necessary but there was no way he would fail. He dismissed the idea. After all, he smiled to himself, his drive and brilliance had worked magic for Judds, making them the hottest agency in the area. He could do that again, for himself this time. When had he ever failed at anything?

‘You’re the new people from old Gearóid’s place,’ said the elderly man behind the counter at the convenience shop when Hope went in to buy groceries for her newly painted cupboards.

‘Er yes,’ said Hope, a bit startled. It was the day after they’d moved into the cottage and this was her first time in the village. How did he know who she was?

‘Lovely house, say it’s a bit wild on the inside. He wasn’t the full shilling, old Gearóid. Them hens had the run of the place, inside and out.’

‘Really,’ Hope said politely as she dawdled in front of the eggs. She wanted to buy free range but they were more expensive and she’d better economize until she knew how their finances were going to pan out. The hire car had gone back and they were stuck with her Metro, which had been fixed at great expense.

‘Would you be thinking of getting hens yourself?’ the old man inquired sweetly.

‘Well, I don’t know…’ Hope hesitated, disarmed by his twinkling faded blue eyes in a warm old face. Finula had suggested she got some, she just hadn’t felt ready for livestock just yet.

‘They’re very easy to look after. Just throw in a bit of feed and sure, you’ve got your own eggs. You could even sell the eggs and make a few bob. The tourists are mad for eggs in the summer. And the winter,’ he added hastily. ‘I know just the man you should see.’

The six baby chicks tweeted maniacally all the way back into Redlion. Muffled thumps from the big cardboard box in the back of the car made it sound as if they were clambering hysterically over each other, falling off and landing painfully on each other’s fragile yellow feet. Slowing down, Hope peered in the back. The chicks were clambering hysterically all over each other and were making desperate, upset baby noises at being separated from their mother. Oh God, what had she done, Hope wailed out loud. Matt would kill her. It had sounded like a brilliant idea for saving money when Emmet, the man from the shop, had explained it.

All she’d need now was a feeding trough, some hen meal and maybe to put a light bulb over the box to keep them warm at night. The chemist was also the animal foodstuffs provider, Emmet’s brother, Paddy said happily as he waved her off, her cheque in his hands. It seemed a lot of money for six little birds but Paddy insisted they were pedigree.

The kind-looking woman in the chemist, who introduced herself as Mary-Kate and who, like Emmet, seemed already to know who Hope was, was sceptical: ‘Pedigree, my backside. That old rogue Emmet Slattery sold you his brother’s runts. Nobody else would buy them at this time of the year. It’s too cold to have them outside for months unless you put central heating into the hen house. You’ll have them killed with pure temper long before you’ve got an egg to your name. What are they?’ she relented. ‘Speckled or Rhode Island Reds?’

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ Hope said. They both peered into the cardboard box in the car.

Mary-Kate’s hard face softened at the antics of the tiny balls of yellow fluff.

‘I love chicks but they’re not always easy,’ she sighed.

‘I thought they were no trouble at all,’ Hope said anxiously. ‘Finula said they weren’t. So did Paddy.’

‘Finula Headley-Ryan has killed more pullets than the chicken factory,’ snorted Mary-Kate. ‘Don’t mind her. She thinks farming is so easy a child could do it but she hasn’t a clue. She’s a city girl born and bred and until she landed here, the only time she’d ever seen a hen was in an illustration over the frozen chickens in the supermarket. And as for that pair of old bandits, Paddy and Emmet, I wouldn’t listen to a word they said. Come on in. I’ll make you a cup of coffee and tell you what to do with your hens.’

Smiling guiltily at the thought that the spectacularly efficient Finula wasn’t as brilliant at everything as she thought, Hope opened a window in the car for the chicks and followed Mary-Kate, not thinking that it was unusual to be asked in for coffee when you were shopping. This was Redlion: everything was different here. Talking to total strangers seemed bizarrely normal.

Mary-Kate’s office at the back of the chemist was a cosy nook complete with a comfortably worn couch, portable television and a sophisticated looking Italian coffee machine. Three darling kittens played in the corner, taking turns to mangle a knitted mouse. While Mary-Kate began the complicated business of brewing coffee, Hope sat down and watched her hostess. She was tall, thin and on the wrong side of forty. Soberly dressed in a grey dress with her brown hair cut in a neat, shining bob, she was as far removed from the flamboyant Finula as it was possible to be. She also had an intense, clear gaze. ‘What you see is what you get,’ said Mary-Kate’s honest expression.

‘Are you settling in?’ she asked.

‘Well, it’s a bit difficult,’ Hope said, wanting to be loyal to Matt. ‘The house is a bit of a mess and I have to admit that it wasn’t my idea to come here,’ she amazed herself by revealing.

‘I’m not surprised the house is a mess. Your husband’s uncle was a complete nut,’ Mary-Kate remarked, handing Hope a cup of coffee. ‘He used to say he couldn’t get married because he was too eccentric for any woman to live with. The truth was he lived like a pig. I had to throw him out of the shop on many occasions because he’d put the other customers off with the smell of him.’

Hope laughed. ‘So far, everyone I’ve met has claimed he was a misunderstood genius who deserves a statue erected for him.’

‘Genius doesn’t mean you can’t wash your clothes,’ said Mary-Kate, proffering biscuits. ‘If they erect a statue to old Gearóid, I hope it’ll have a scratch ’n’ sniff bit to get the whole effect.’

They talked about the trials of doing up old, damp cottages and how terrible the weather was, managing to consume two more cups of coffee while doing it. Hope found it an incredible relief to talk to someone who wasn’t discussing culture, with a capital C, organic food or making your own compost heap. At home, she’d have never let her reserve down in such a manner but Mary-Kate was very easy to talk to.

‘Do most people round here grow their own food and kill their own animals?’ Hope asked cautiously.

‘Are you crazy?’ asked Mary-Kate, stunned. ‘There’s a Dunnes supermarket five miles away and there’s Tescos in Killarney. The butcher’s shop is beside the pub. It’s closed now because it’s being refitted but he’ll be open again in two weeks. I’d much prefer to buy my food in the shop than grow it myself. Stay out of Emmet Slattery’s if you don’t want to be fleeced. I have a shampoo in the chemist that costs two pounds and I caught him selling the very same one for three! He’s a crook, rob his grandmother for a shilling.’

Hope grinned. ‘I sort of thought everyone made their own bread and jam and everything.’

‘Only if you’re stone mad, you do,’ Mary-Kate said. ‘Hope, this is the 21st century. What are supermarkets for?’

‘Well, Finula said…’

‘God preserve us from that woman! We’re modern people who just happen to live in a rural community, not a remote tribe fresh from the pages of National Geographic