Читать книгу Secrets Between Sisters: The perfect heart-warming holiday read of 2018 - Kate Thompson - Страница 13

Oh God oh God oh God, thought Izzy, tearing her eyes away from the vision that was Finn and fixing them on the lipsticked mouth of the woman called Dervla. You stupid, stupid girl. What did you mean by grinning flakily at someone who’s just lost his grandfather?

Did he remember her? She knew she bore little resemblance to the kid he’d once hefted onto a donkey’s back, the kid who’d ordered him off her land.

She cringed when she remembered the way she’d spoken to him that day, all puffed up with self-importance because her daddy had told her that the land she stood on–the pretty overgrown garden and the fairy-tale orchard and the stretch of beach beyond–belonged to them now. What a prissy, obnoxious brat she’d been! No wonder the people of Lissamore had ‘taken agin’ the Bolger family, big time. Today was the first time in all those years that anyone had invited them to anything.

Izzy had been having lunch with her dad in the seafood bar upstairs at O’Toole’s, earlier in the day, when Dervla Kinsella had approached and invited them to attend the wake for her father. Izzy had known it was Dervla, because she’d met her while accompanying Adair to the Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in Dublin. Izzy hadn’t wanted to go to the wake. She’d never been to one, and she wasn’t sure how you were meant to behave on such an occasion, but her father had insisted. It would show respect to the Kinsella family, he’d said, and it would be noted with approval by their neighbours.

Izzy knew that her father was keen to curry favour with the people of Lissamore. Since he’d built the barnacle on the beach, the Bolger family had not been made to feel welcome here. They’d spent just a handful of summers in their ‘country cottage’ before Mummy had left Daddy, and the house had become one of those ghost houses that you see all over Coolnamara, boarded up for the best part of the year until the owners find windows of opportunity to descend for weekends.

Those summers had been one long stream of house parties, with guests arriving from Dublin in their Mercs and top-of-the-range SUVs. The grown-ups would spend the weekends drinking Pimm’s and swapping gossip on the terrace while the kids played in the garden or in the pool. They weren’t allowed to play on the beach because it was deemed to be too dangerous for the smaller children without their au pairs in tow (Izzy often thought that the real reason was because the yummy mummies didn’t want the kids’ OshKosh gear to get spoiled), although they were allowed to play on what Felicity called ‘the Greensward’–the strip of lawn that she had had planted adjacent to the slipway.

Isabella had thought this stretch of land to be their own private property until it had been made clear by the Lissamore people that it was no such thing. The locals had taken to bringing picnics down to ‘the Greensward’ and playing ball games on it, and once the Bolger family had arrived down from Dublin to find some baby goats tethered there. Izzy had been delighted, wanting to keep them, but Felicity had nearly fainted when she’d seen the state of her lawn. That was the last time her mother had come near the ‘country cottage’.

Izzy had come down a couple of times since with her father –just the two of them–but they hadn’t had much fun. Adair had encouraged Izzy to approach some of the local kids any time he’d seen them playing on the beach or on ‘the Greensward’ or swimming in the sea, but she hadn’t had the nerve, and after a few such dismal weekends they had given up on the house in Lissamore altogether, and gone back to taking their holidays in the Caribbean instead. Separate holidays for Mummy and Daddy, of course.

Felicity’s favourite haunt was the überposh Sandy Lane in Barbados, but Izzy hated going there because her mother treated the staff like shit, and the kids in the teen club nicknamed her ‘Irish Potato Head’. She much preferred going on holiday with her dad because he didn’t spend all his time in the spa, although he did disappear from time to time to do business–a.k.a. playing golf. Adair had told her that more deals got done on the golf course these days than in the boardroom.

So Izzy spent a lot of time on holiday swimming solitaire in the pool, or in the sea, scuba-diving: scuba was for her the ultimate escape from reality.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, when Daddy had announced that his best Christmas present ever would be the pleasure of his daughter’s company in Lissamore, Izzy hadn’t been able to say no. Her friend Lucy had spent some time with them, and her aunt and some cousins, but now it was just the two of them again.

She resumed her stoical expression as she listened to her father talking small talk to Dervla Kinsella. ‘In estate agent’s parlance, this house has a lot of character too,’ he observed, looking round at the shabby entrance hall with the peeling wallpaper, the threadbare carpet and the cracked fanlight over the door.

‘Actually, it’s oozing with character,’ Dervla corrected him with a smile. ‘And damp.’

‘As a property developer, all I see is potential,’ said Adair. ‘And this place has loads. Prime site too, overlooking the sea.’

Oh God. Now they were going to start talking property-speak–the most boring language in the world. How could Izzy escape? Through the open front door she could see a dog sitting on the sea wall across the road, smiling at her. Murmuring an excuse to her father, Izzy slipped away.

The dog on the wall was a bichon frise. Her mother owned two, but Felicity’s bichons frises had been given those awful pompom hairstyles. This little dog looked more like a miniature sheep than a miniature poodle, and as Izzy approached, its smile grew broader and its tail began to wag.

‘Hello,’ said Izzy, sitting down beside the dog. ‘What’s your name?’

Because the dog looked so intelligent, she half expected an answer. So, taking the dog’s paw in her hand, she introduced herself.

‘I’m Isabella Bolger,’ she said, ‘Izzy for short. I live in a house just outside the village, by the sea–except I don’t really live there, if you know what I mean. My dad bought the house because my mum wanted a holiday hideaway, except she didn’t really want to hide away. She wanted to be able to show off her house to all her friends, and when people weren’t that interested because they couldn’t hack the drive down from Dublin she went into a sulk and decided she didn’t want it after all, and then Dad told her that he couldn’t afford the diamond she wanted for her birthday, so she decided to divorce him, and when she did that she took all their so-called friends with her.’

The dog’s ears seemed to droop in sympathy, which encouraged Izzy to continue.

‘And now my mum’s living in our D4 house and dating the man who did buy her the diamond, and Dad’s living in a penthouse in the financial district, in the same block as me, and he’s dating no one because he’s a social misfit on account of Mum taking all his friends away. And he’s dead lonely, and I feel so sorry for him sometimes. And I wish he could get a girlfriend –only not the kind of girlfriend that he’s dated from time to time in the past, because I know for a fact that all those women were just after his money, and that they hated me, even though they pretended to like me and called me “darling Izzy”. And, do you know what? I hate it here in Lissamore because it seems to me that everyone resents us because we’re rich and because we took over the Greensward and the house is far too big for just me and Dad, and we feel like losers staying there, with not even any friends to invite for the weekend.’

‘Would you look at yer wan! Talking to a feckin’ dog!’

A voice somewhere to her left made Izzy stiffen.

‘That’s because nobody else wants to talk to her,’ came the reply, accompanied by a snigger.

Izzy’s peripheral vision told her that a group of lads had congregated on a corner diagonally across the road. Her instinct was to get up and walk back across the road into the Kinsella house, but she was damned if she was going to let them faze her. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the middle distance, even as she felt her face begin to burn.

‘I wouldn’t mind giving her one.’

‘Pah! I bet she’s frigid.’

‘Give her a pearl necklace, then.’

‘She’s already wearing one.’

‘Not that kind of a pearl necklace, ya gom.’

‘Maybe she takes it up the arse.’

‘Like Posh Spice.’

‘She’s a great pair of tits on her.’

‘Posh Spice?’

‘Nah. The bitch sitting on the wall.’

‘Wonder how much she paid for them?’

‘Nothing but the best for a D4 princess. Sure Daddy would have paid for them.’ A dirty laugh.

‘Hey, sweet-tits! Were they worth the money? Make those baloobas bounce for us!’

Izzy couldn’t take any more. She was just about to get to her feet and make as dignified a retreat as possible under the circumstances, when there came the sound of a new voice.

‘Cut it out, lads. Go find someone your own size to bully.’

‘Ooh. It’s Finn Kinsella. We’re quaking, Finny’

‘Go on. Get the fuck out of here.’

‘It’s a free country, Finny. We can shoot the breeze wherever we like.’

‘Not here, you can’t. I’ll say it again. Get the fuck out of here, and stop abusing the lady.’

‘You gonna make us get the fuck out of here, Finn Boy?’

‘Not today, I’m not. That’d mean disturbing the peace. And I don’t like the idea of doing that when there’s a wake going on. I’m just after burying my grandfather.’

That did it. A silence fell, followed by a gruff: ‘Forgot about that. Sorry for your trouble.’

‘It’d be no trouble to kick the crap out of you if I hear you talking that way again,’ came Finn’s voice. ‘Learn a bit of respect, lads.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Izzy saw the group disperse. She remained sitting motionless on the sea wall until she became aware of Finn’s presence directly behind her. Then she turned, face aflame.

‘Thank you for doing that,’ she said.

‘No problem.’ Finn looked down at her, concern in his eyes. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I just hate Lissamore more than ever now. What a horrible, obnoxious bunch of people.’

‘I’m sorry you were subjected to that. It was drink talking. They’re normally scared shitless by girls like you.’

‘Girls like me? What is a girl like me? What makes me different?’

‘You have class. That’s what makes you different, in their eyes.’

‘And that makes them feel that they have the right to talk to me like that?’

‘I guess it’s a way of masking their insecurities.’

‘My heart bleeds for them! What about my insecurities?’

‘They probably don’t think you have any.’

‘Ha! Everyone has insecurities.’

The bichon frise looked indignantly up at her, and gave a little bark as if to say, ‘I don’t!’, and Izzy looked at her and smiled.

‘Hey, Babette,’ said Finn, reaching down to scratch the dog under the chin. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Her name’s Babette?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Cute!’

‘A bit girly for my taste.’

‘What’s wrong with being girly?’

Izzy saw Finn’s eyes go to her peep-toe shoes, and travel upwards to the floral print skirt, which she had teamed with a baby-pink cashmere cardigan. She saw him take in the pearl necklace, and the lapis lazuli-framed sunnies tucked into her neckline, and the chiffon scarf that she’d wound around her head, and she saw him smile as he said: ‘Nothing much at all wrong with being girly, I guess. If you’re a girl.’

Izzy felt herself go as pink as her cardigan, and said–to change the subject–‘Who does she belong to?’

‘Babette? She belongs to Fleur, who owns the boutique up the road.’

‘Fleurissima! Oh, that’s a fabulous shop! I got these shoes there.’

‘Yeah? I noticed them in the window. I was looking for a Christmas present for my ma,’ he added, as if to explain what a macho bloke like him was doing checking out a girly emporium like Fleurissima.

She saw Finn’s eyes go again to the patent leather peep-toes, and wondered–if he had noticed them in the shop–had he also noticed the obscene price tag of four hundred and ninety euro?

‘What did you end up buying her?’ she asked.

‘A raffia basket.’

Izzy had seen the pretty little baskets in the bargain bin of Fleurissima, reduced to clear at twenty-five euro.

‘Are you going to be around Lissamore much, later in the year?’ Finn asked, sitting down beside her on the sea wall.

‘No. I’m…going travelling.’

‘Going travelling’ sounded more streetwise than ‘I’m going on holiday with my best friend and my dad’. Adair had promised to treat her and Lucy to a fortnight in a five-star resort in Koh Samui in Thailand at the end of the summer, if they performed well in their first-year exams. Izzy would secretly have preferred to have gone off backpacking with her mates, but she couldn’t bear the idea of her dad staying in an island resort on his own.

‘Me too,’ said Finn. ‘In a fortnight’s time I’ll be backpacking in Queensland.’

‘Wow. How long for?’

‘Till the money runs out. Where are you heading?’

Izzy shrugged in what she hoped was a nonchalant fashion. ‘Haven’t decided yet. Somewhere I can chill before I start the slog of a second year in college.’

‘What are you studying?’

‘Business studies. What about you?’

‘I gave up on the idea of college.’

‘So what do you do?’

‘I work on boats.’

‘In the marina here?’

‘Yeah. And in the scuba-dive centre over on Inishclare.’

‘Oh! You’re a diver—’

‘Finn!’

A voice from across the road made them look up.

‘Hey, Ma! What’s up?’

A woman whom Izzy took to be Finn’s mother was standing in the doorway of the Kinsella house, arms akimbo. How different she was to Izzy’s mother, Felicity! Río Kinsella was statuesque, with turbulent red-gold hair. She reminded Izzy of the picture of Queen Maeve on the cover of a book on Irish myths and legends her father had given her once. She was barefoot and dressed boho style in tie-dyed chiffon and velvet, with heavy bangles around her wrists. Her stance may have been regal, but there was something mistrustful about the way she was eyeing the pair.

‘We could do with some help here!’ she called. ‘There are glasses to be filled, and plates to be passed round.’

‘Coming, Ma.’ Finn turned back to Izzy. ‘Gotta go,’ he said.

‘Thanks again for coming to my rescue,’ said Izzy. ‘My name’s Isabella Bolger, by the way.’

‘I know. We’ve met before. But I nearly didn’t recognise you now you’re all grown up.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t have thought you’d have remembered.’

‘I could hardly forget a girl who tried to order me off “her” land.’

Izzy registered the emphasis and felt herself blushing again. ‘What a horrible brat of a child I was.’

‘You got your comeuppance when you fell off Dorcas.’

‘Yeah. You laughed like a drain at that.’

Finn smiled. ‘I was actually quite looking forward to teaching you to ride.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Word got out that your mummy didn’t want you associating with the local kids.’

Izzy bit her lip. Why did he call her mother ‘Mummy’ when he’d called his own mother ‘Ma’ earlier? Was he jeering at her? ‘I can make my own decisions now,’ she said with hauteur, ‘as to whom I associate with.’ And then she cursed herself for using the word ‘whom’ because she knew it made her sound prissier than ever, so she tried to change the subject again.

‘Are the donkeys still there?’ she asked.

‘Pinkie is. But she’s all grown up now too.’

‘Finn!’ came his mother’s–his mas–voice.

‘Coming!’

He got to his feet and stretched, and Izzy was horrified to find herself studying the musculature of his chest under the cotton of his T-shirt and wondering how it would feel to run her hands over it.

‘Goodbye, Isabella,’ he said, saluting her with a relaxed hand before moving off. She watched his progress, aware that his mother was doing likewise, with a cross expression on her face. Halfway across the road, Finn paused, turned and gave her an appraising look. Then he smiled, and something elastic in Izzy’s tummy tautened. ‘I’d still like to do it,’ he said.

‘Do what?’

‘Teach you to ride, of course, princess.’ Finn’s wicked smile broadened, his green eyes narrowed, and then he was gone.