Читать книгу That Gallagher Girl - Kate Thompson - Страница 9

Chapter Two

Cat was lying in a sun trap on the flat roof of the house. She’d soaked every single item of clothing she possessed in the oversized bath, she’d soaped herself from head to toe in the blue marble wet room before towelling herself dry with her scrap of microfibre towel, and now – damp hair spread out around her like a nimbus – she was allowing the midday sun to do the rest of the work. Above her, gulls were wheeling in a hypnotic spiral, reminding her of the whirligig seeds that used to drop from the branches of the sycamore tree her mother had planted in the garden of the Crooked House, her childhood home. How different two houses could be! This house was all steel and glass and acute angles: the Crooked House was all ramshackle and bockety and – well – crooked.

Slap-bang in the middle of a forest, overlooking a lake, the Crooked House could have been a magical place for a child to grow up. Cat remembered children coming to visit, the sons and daughters of her parents’ friends all bubbling with excitement as they explored the secret rooms and winding passageways within its walls, the bosky tunnels and hidey-holes without. The jewel in the crown – the treat that Cat liked to delay showing off to new friends until the very end of her guided tour – was the treehouse.

Cat’s mum Paloma had built the house in an ancient cypress tree, when Cat was seven. It had been a surprise for her birthday that year, and Cat had never had a better birthday present, before or since. The flat-pack playhouses and designer dens of other children seemed mundane in comparison.

The floor of Cat’s eyrie was a wooden platform, the walls constructed from something her mother told her was called ‘osier’, a type of bendy willow used in wickerwork. With the help of Raoul, Paloma had woven the osier into a beehive shape, then covered it in waterproof camouflage material and tacked on masses of branches and foliage. There was a rope ladder that could be drawn up against intruders, and a basket on a pulley that could be lowered and filled with provisions. There was a window with a raffia blind from which vantage point Cat could spy on the coming and goings of foxes and badgers, and a cupboard for her books and art materials. The house was practically invisible, especially when the tree was in leaf: she and her mum had christened it the Heron’s Nest because, if you spotted it from below, you really might think it was one.

The Heron’s Nest was Cat’s refuge from the real world, her cocoon for dreaming, her very own private property. She had hung ‘Keep Out’ signs at the entrance, but of course she hadn’t been able to resist showing off the place to all comers because she was so proud of it. She was even more proud of the fact that her beyond-brilliant mum had made it. Sometimes they had slept there, Paloma and Cat, snug and cosied up in duvets. Sometimes Cat’s dad would come looking for them, blundering through the under-growth and muttering and cursing when he fell, which was frequently. Paloma would plug them both into headphones then, and Cat would fall asleep to the sound of her mother’s recorded voice telling her stories, and wake to boisterous birdsong.

Cat no longer enjoyed the luxury of falling asleep to stories or music. She kept her wits about her now at all times: even while she slept. The last time she’d been stupid enough to let her guard down she’d woken to the shrilling of a smoke alarm, and the greedy sound of flames lapping against canvas. Under cover of night, someone had boarded her houseboat. They’d crapped on the companionway, jemmied the hatch under which she stowed her paintings, slung turpentine over them, and set them alight before scarpering. That had been a month ago. The following day Cat had posted the keys of the houseboat back to the guy who owned it. After two years of living on the canal, after two years of enduring the kind of persecution that mavericks and vagabonds the world over are subject to, she had decided it was time to move on.

She’d hitched a ride on a rig, and ended up here in Lissamore. She knew the village – she’d worked as a scenic artist on a film, The O’Hara Affair, that had been made in the vicinity, when she’d been put up in one of the numerous B&Bs requisitioned by the film makers. But Cat couldn’t afford a B&B now. Nor would she want to stay in one. Landladies were inquisitive sorts, prone to asking questions and making the kind of observations that Cat would not care to elucidate on. Is it a Donegal Gallagher you are? It’s hard to place you by your accent. Are you travelling on your own? You want to be careful, so. You’re paying by cash? That’s unusual, these days. Is that all the luggage you have? You’re sure? Fill in the register, if you’d be so kind. Signature and ID, please.

Cat hated registers, as she hated all manner of form-filling. She couldn’t get her head round the bureaucracy, any more than she could understand why she had to divulge all kinds of personal stuff to the faceless penpushers who processed the info. Who wanted to know this stuff about her? Why did they want to know it? What was in it for them, and why did they have to make life so unnecessarily, so infuriatingly complicated?

Raoul had offered to help her complete an application form once, for a mobile phone contract, but when she got a load of the stuff you’d need to get one – ID, utility bills, bank account details – she had despaired, and opted for a pay-as-you-go instead.

That pay-as-you-go sounded now, alerting her to a text. She knew who the sender was without having to consult the display. Raoul was the only person in the world who knew her number.

Where are you, Catkin? she read.

In a gud place, she texted back.

Be more specific.

On a roof in lisamor.

I should have guessed. Tin?

No but it is hot.

I like it. Keep your phone turned on. I have news for you.

OK.

News. Good. She hoped it had to do with the house-sitting gig he’d told her about.

A couple of academics, friends of Raoul’s in Galway, were taking a year’s sabbatical in New Mexico, and they needed someone to dust their books and water their marijuana plants and play with their dog while they were away. The house in question was near the village of Kilrowan, and came complete with river views and a light-filled conservatory that Cat could use as a studio. It was ideal, Raoul had told her and – more importantly – it was timely, for since Cat had become a person of no fixed abode, money had become a problem.

She had phoned her father to tell him to stop sending her allowance to the houseboat and that she’d alert him to her new address as soon as she knew it herself. She was chancing her arm, she knew: she was nineteen now, and past the age when she could expect any kind of parental support. But, hey: she was Hugo’s only daughter, she’d been motherless from the age of fourteen, and since the only affection she had ever received from her father had been of that maudlin variety that alcoholics bestow capriciously and indiscriminately, the very least he could do was cough up a few bob to keep her off the streets. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it.

Her phone rang.

‘Raoul! You punk! It’s been ages since you called.’

‘I could say the same thing about you, little sister.’

‘I can’t afford to make calls. You know that. How are you? How’s your new lady? Tell me everything.’

Her questions went unanswered. ‘I’ve bad news, Cat.’

‘Shit.’ Cat furled herself into a sitting position and reached for her sarong. ‘What’s up?’

‘Your house-sitting gig’s gone to a more deserving cause.’

‘A more deserving cause! Is that some kind of joke? Whose cause could be more deserving than mine? I’m homeless and broke.’

‘I’m sorry, Cat. Their nephew’s volunteered to do it. He’s just been made redundant.’

Cat looked up at the sky, narrowing her eyes against the sun, and watched a tern plummet seaward. ‘Bummer,’ she said. ‘I kinda liked the idea of living in a house with a conservatory.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘On a roof in Lissamore. I told you in my text.’

‘Whose roof?’

‘I dunno whose roof it is. It belongs to one of those great big holiday villas that were being built all over the place when we Irish thought we were millionaires.’

‘Posh?’

‘Yeah. But it looks like no one’s been near it for yonks, so I decided to breathe a little life into the joint.’

‘How long have you been there?’

Cat considered. ‘A week. Maybe longer. What day is it?’

‘Friday. How did you get in?’

‘How do you think? That right-angled screwdriver you gave me has proved mighty handy, Raoul.’

She heard him sigh in her ear. ‘OK, sweetheart. You’ve had your fun. Don’t you think it’s time you went home and did some thinking about your future?’

‘Home? Where’s that?’

‘The Crooked House.’

‘Don’t make me laugh, Raoul. That ain’t my home any more than it’s yours.’

‘Then come to Galway.’

‘I’m not moving in with you, bro.’

‘Then what the hell are you going to do? You said it yourself – you’re homeless and broke.’

Cat got to her feet, yawned and stretched. ‘I guess I’ll have to do that poste restante thing,’ she said, strolling to the parapet and looking down, ‘and get Dad to send cash to the post office here until I find myself some kind of fixed abode.’

‘Cash? Hugo sends you cash? I thought it was cheques?’

‘No. It’s always been cash. Sure, what would I do with a cheque when I’ve no bank account?’

‘Nobody deals in cash nowadays, Cat! How does he send it?’

‘Like the way you would to a kid on their birthday. In a card. He even managed to find a Hallmark one once that had “To a Special Daughter” on it. That made me fall about.’

On the other end of the phone, she heard Raoul sigh again. He must be thinking – he always sighed when he was thinking hard.

‘Has he upped it?’

‘Upped what?’

‘The money he sends you?’

‘No. It’s still a hundred a week.’

‘And that’s all you’ve been living off?’

Cat shrugged. ‘It’s plenty. Sure, I had no rent to pay on the houseboat, and what would I spend money on apart from food and art materials?’

‘Most nineteen-year-olds would have an answer to that.’

‘Maybe. I don’t know any nineteen-year-olds, so I don’t know how they spend their money.’

‘They spend it on clothes. Music. Games.’

‘Clothes.’ Cat looked down at the sarong wrapped around her nakedness. ‘Hm. Maybe I could use a few new clothes. My boots are in bits, and some fucker stole my jacket.’

‘What fucker?’

‘The fucker who set fire to my paintings. He probably thought there was stuff in the pockets.’

‘Did he get anything?’

‘A little cash. Twenty euro, maybe.’

‘No cards? No ID?’

‘I don’t have any cards. Or ID. Apart from that fake student one.’

‘You’ve still no passport?’

‘I’ve never needed one, Raoul.’

‘We’ll have to remedy that, Catkin. You gotta see some of the world.’

‘Right now, this corner of the world suits me fine.’

Beyond the parapet, the dark blue line of the horizon stretched from east to west, dividing sea from sky and trailing a cluster of cabochon emerald islands in its wake. Cat had been painting variations on this view for the past six days, including, as she always did, a little self-portrait. Her minxy self – Catgirl – diving off a pier, or dancing down a sand dune, or shimmying up a drumlin. Having run out of canvas, and with no money to buy more, she’d taken to cutting old rolls of wallpaper into twelve-by-eighteen-inch rectangles.

‘Anyway, seeing the world costs money, bro,’ she resumed. ‘And that brings us nicely to where we came in. I’m going to have to phone Hugo and beg.’

‘Have you spoken to him recently?’ Raoul asked.

‘Dad? Are you mad? No.’

‘He’s not well, Cat.’

‘Of course he’s not well. He’s a raving alcoholic.’

‘It’s worse than that. He’s not painting.’

‘He’s blocked?’

‘Either that, or he’s burnt out.’

‘Oo-er. That is bad news.’

Cat leaned on the parapet and watched the progress of a tiny spider crawling along a fissure in the concrete. A money spider! Maybe if she turned her hand over, it would cross her palm and bring her luck? She crooked a forefinger, to coax it in the right direction.

‘How’s Ophelia coping?’ she asked.

‘She’s covering up quite well. I have to say I’ve a grudging admiration for her. She even managed to drag Hugo out to some dinner that was being given in his honour last week. The pics were all over the papers.’

‘Well, it’s in her interest to cover things up, isn’t it? What’ll become of her status as muse and keeper of the votive flame when Dad finally burns out? Our Oaf loves the limelight. She won’t like being a nobody.’ The spider emerged from the crack and started to scale Cat’s hand. Yes!

‘She’ll find some way around it. She’s a survivor. And she’s no eejit.’

That was true. When it came to finding her spotlight, Raoul and Cat’s stepmother was exceptionally clever. She’d been an actress in a former life, and – conscious that she was approaching her best before date – she’d been glad to fill the vacancy left when Paloma wearied of her role as Hugo Gallagher’s muse and ran away from the Crooked House, taking their only daughter with her. There was a lot of artyfarty crap talked about being a muse, Cat had learned. It was a thankless job really – a bit like being an unpaid minder to a grown-up baby. It wasn’t about lolling around on divans eating grapes and quaffing champagne: it was about cooking and cleaning and nagging and making sure that money was coming in to pay the bills. Cat remembered her mother locking Hugo into his studio for hours on end, not letting him out until he had something concrete to send to his gallery. Then, when payment finally came through, Paloma would spend a day feverishly scribbling cheques to all their creditors and writing thank-you letters to those local tradesmen who had been patient with her – the butcher and the plumber and the market gardener (all of whom were, Cat suspected, a little in love with her mother). She remembered how, on the day electricity was reconnected after three weeks of suppers cooked on a Primus stove and homework done by candlelight, she and her mother had celebrated by making buckets of popcorn, turning on lights all over the house and playing Madonna at full blast. Hugo had celebrated by going off on a pub crawl that had lasted three days.

But things had changed since then. In Paloma’s time, Hugo had been on the cusp of success: now he was feted as one of Ireland’s greatest living painters. Paloma’s successor, the lovely Ophelia, could afford to hire someone to do the cooking and cleaning. She could shop till she dropped online (now that broadband had finally infiltrated the Crooked House), have all her bills paid by direct debit, and not be obliged to dream up outlandish excuses for creditors.

‘How did Dad look, in the pictures?’ she asked Raoul.

‘Distinguished as ever, according to the caption. You wouldn’t think he was burnt out.’

‘What about her?’

‘She looked great.’

Cat didn’t want to hear this. She would have loved it if Raoul had told her instead that Ophelia had looked awful, playing up to the camera like the WAG she was at heart. But her stepmother had modified her look since she and Hugo had first met. In the early days, Oaf had traded on an overt sex appeal that turned heads – and pages in the tabloids. Once she had Hugo in her sights she had toned things down, knowing that her wannabe image was inappropriate for a gal who was auditioning for the role of real-life muse to a national treasure. Now she was more country girl than siren – softer, earthier, even a little curvier. The last magazine spread Cat had chanced upon had featured Oaf in full-on bucolic mode, waxing lyrical about life in the Crooked House and her role as homemaker and devoted wife to Hugo Gallagher. Clad in dungarees and wellies, hair artfully dishevelled, she’d been pictured scattering corn for her hens and feeding her pretty little goats.

‘She’s bringing out a book, by the way,’ remarked Raoul.

‘What? Oaf is? But she has the imagination of a flea!’

‘You don’t need to have an imagination to write a book any more. You just need to be a celebrity. And/or photogenic. Ophelia will milk her celebrity for what it’s worth. Like I said, she’s a survivor.’

Cat’s lip curled. ‘It won’t be much longer before she’s unmasked.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘She’s a liar, and not a very good one. It takes one to know one, Raoul, and I’ve had her number for ages.’

‘I’m sorry to say that I quite like her.’

‘Ah, but you’re not a liar, Raoul. You don’t understand the way our minds work. She knows how to push your buttons, just like she knows how to push Hugo’s.’

‘But she can’t push yours?’

‘No. And that’s why she hates me.’

‘Aren’t you being just a little OTT, Catkin?’

‘No. My instinct is right on this one. It’s that feeling I told you about – the one I get in my bones. Trust me.’

‘But you’ve just admitted to being a liar. How can I trust you?’

She could hear the smile in his voice, and she smiled back. ‘Blood ties, Raoul. We’re family.’

The spider that had been travelling across Cat’s palm began to lower itself effortlessly over the parapet on a lanyard of silk.

‘Oh!’ she said, gazing downward. ‘Whaddayaknow! I got company.’

‘What?’ Raoul’s voice on the phone sounded alarmed. ‘No worries. It’s just some local ICA types. They’ve descended on the next-door allotment.’

‘ICA?’

‘Irish Countrywomen’s Association. There’s a market-garden-type place right next to this house – very convenient, I have to say, for poor starving me. I’ve been feasting on organic produce all week.’

‘You’ve been robbing an allotment, Cat? You’re going to get yourself into trouble.’

Cat affected an injured tone. ‘What else is a gal to do, bro, when her daddy done gone and left her broke?’ From below came the sound of women’s laughter. They were unpacking a picnic hamper, Cat saw, and laying out rugs and cushions under the apple trees. They were clearly going to be there for some time. ‘They’d make a great subject for a painting,’ she remarked. ‘I could put one of them in the nude, like Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’Herbe.’

‘Cat?’

‘Yes.’

There was a pause. ‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing will come of nothing. That’s Shakespeare, ain’t it? Better go, bro.’

Cat pressed ‘end call’, and stood staring at the display on her phone for some moments. She knew what Raoul had been going to say. He was going to tell her to get her ass back to school, get some qualifications, and get a job. He was going to tell her that she couldn’t carry on living the way she had for the past couple of years, and that it was time for her to wise up. He was going to tell her to get real, to get a life. But Cat had a life. She had a life that suited her. And she didn’t want to get real. Not just yet.

Another laugh drifted up from the allotment. It really would make a great subject for a painting. Fête Champêtre, Irish style. A bunch of middle-aged country women gossiping over ham sandwiches and flasks of tea, swapping recipes and showing off pictures of their grandchildren. Very petit genre, as her art teacher would have said! Cat pulled a scrunchy off her wrist, scraped up her mass of damp hair and wound it into a knot on the top of her head. Then she flexed her fingers. It was time to go cut some wallpaper.

Río emerged from the water and shook salt droplets from her hair. A swim was the only surefire way to clear a gal’s head after knocking back quantities of iced Cointreau and gin in the afternoon. Above her on the terraced slopes her sister Dervla was strolling between raspberry canes and strawberry beds, sampling produce; while under the shade of a parasol, recumbent on cushions, Fleur was leafing through a magazine and murmuring love songs to her baby. The words of some French nursery rhyme came floating down to the shore – Alouette, gentille alouette, alouette, je te plumerai . . .

This was the third picnic they’d enjoyed this summer. The first had been organised by Río, whose orchard it was. She had provided cold Spanish omelette, red wine and Rice Krispie buns. Picnic number two had featured champagne, finger sandwiches and exquisite miniature pastries, courtesy of Fleur. Today, Dervla had brought along a cocktail shaker (she mixed a mean White Lady) and canapés requisitioned from the eightieth birthday celebration she’d hosted the night before.

So far, the picnics had been a great success. They’d been lucky with the weather, they’d been able to synchronise time off work; they’d even solved the drink/drive problem by organising transport. Today, because all his regular drivers were otherwise employed, the owner of the local hackney company had dropped them off at Río’s orchard himself – in a Merc, no less. In an hour’s time he would pick them up and deliver them back to their respective addresses. Dervla would be dropped off at the mews behind the Old Rectory, the state-of-the-art retirement home she ran with her husband Christian; Fleur would return to her duplex above Fleurissima, the bijou boutique that had been her pride and joy until the arrival of baby Marguerite; and Río would climb the stairs to the apartment that boasted a grand view of Lissamore harbour and its fishing boats, where she lived on her own.

The view was what she loved most about her apartment. She had never read E.M. Forster’s A Room With a View, but she didn’t need to. The title said it all. How could anyone live in a room that didn’t have a view? For Río, that was unthinkable.

Río’s balcony presented her with a different picture of the village every day, according to the vagaries of the weather. On a fine day, the village was carnival-coloured: a riot of hanging baskets and brightly painted hulls bobbing on the water and all manner of summer accessories outside the corner shop – beach balls and shrimping nets and sun hats and display stands of pretty postcards. This was the view inhabited by tourists, who wandered the main street of the village, licking ice-cream cones and taking pictures with their camera phones. Río preferred the view in the winter months, when the street was deserted and the mountains on the horizon wore an icing-sugar dusting of snow and the skies were so big and breathtakingly blue that you felt no picture could do them justice.

However, Lissamore and its environs simply begged to be photographed. On occasion, Río had come across tourists who had wandered off the beaten track, and strayed into her orchard with their BlackBerries and iPhones. They would apologise, say that they hoped they were not trespassing, and Río would say ‘Arra, divil a bit’ in her best brogue, and offer them samples of whatever was in season – blueberries or goosegogs or apples. And then she was delighted when these visitors contacted her via Facebook and posted photographs of her orchard on their walls and exhorted all their friends to visit Lissamore and buy Río’s produce from her stall at the weekly Sunday market.

The three women had hit upon the orchard as the rendezv ous for their summer junkets because no one could bother them there. None of them ever had windows for so-called ‘me’ time, so they’d opted for ‘us’ time instead, and the picnics were designated stress-free events. In the orchard, Fleur couldn’t ‘just run downstairs’ to deal with a delivery or a fussy customer, and Dervla couldn’t ‘just nip next door’ to check on how a new resident was settling in. And while they were there, Río wasn’t allowed to fret over greenfly or weevils or mealy bugs. Río’s orchard was their very own Garden of Eden, their private piece of paradise.

Reaching for her towel, Río glanced up at the Villa Felicity, the house that had once belonged to Adair. Since he had sold it, it was rumoured to have changed hands a couple of times, and it now wore the look of an unwanted frock in a second-hand shop. Or that’s how Fleur – with her penchant for sartorial imagery – had put it. Río liked that the place was empty. She liked to be able to skinny-dip here unseen, she liked to be able to work in her garden unobserved, she liked to be able to lounge in the hammock she had strung up between two apple trees, knowing that she had this corner of Coolnamara all to herself. No one in the world could reach her here, except . . .

From above, came the sound of her phone – the ringtone that announced that Finn was calling.

. . . except Finn.

Río was off the starter’s blocks, wrapping her towel around her, and sprinting up the beach towards the orchard gate.

‘Your phone, Río!’ called Fleur. ‘Shall I answer it for you?’

‘Please!’ The ringtone stopped, and Río heard Fleur’s low laugh. ‘No, Finn! It’s your godmother here! Hang on two seconds, she’s on her way. Here she comes, tearing up the path like Roadrunner.’

Breathless, Río joined Fleur on the rug, and held out a hand for the phone. ‘Finn!’ she said into the mouthpiece. ‘What’s up?’

‘Hey, Ma,’ came her son’s laconic greeting.

‘Why are you phoning the mobile? What has you so flathulach? Why not wait to Skype later?’

‘I’m a bit all over the place, today.’

Río did some quick mental arithmetic. ‘It must be eight o’clock in the morning in LA. What has you up so early?’

‘The clock says four p.m. where I am.’

‘So you’re not in LA? What’s going on?’

‘Are you heading home soon, Ma?’

‘In about an hour. Why?’

‘Then I can tell you the good news in person.’

‘What do you mean, in person?’

‘I’ll be in Lissamore in a couple of hours, unless Galway airport’s closed again. I’m in Heathrow now.’

‘You brat! You never told me you were coming home! Holy moly, Finn – that’s fantastic news!’

‘Glad you think so, Ma. But there’s more.’

‘More good news? What?’

There was a smile in Finn’s voice when he replied.

‘It’s a surprise,’ he said.