KATE THOMPSON
Secrets Between Sisters

Copyright

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2009

This ebook edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2018

Copyright © Kate Thompson 2018

Cover design © Becky Glibbery 2018

Cover photographs © Shutterstock 2018

Kate Thompson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9781847560995

Ebook Edition © May 2009 ISBN: 9780007329021

Version: 2018-02-06

Dedication

For Padraig

Epigraph

The light of evening, Lissadell,

Great windows open to the south,

Two girls in silk kimonos, both

Beautiful, one a gazelle.

W. B. Yeats

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue: Summer 2001

Chapter One: Several Years Later

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Prologue Summer 2001

‘Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing?’

It was a girl’s voice, brittle as cut crystal. Rio, daydreaming amongst sea pinks, wondered if the words were directed at her. Lazily, she turned over onto her tummy, pushed a strand of hair back from her face, and leaned her chin on her forearms. From her vantage point atop the low cliff she had a clear view of the shore, picture-postcard pretty today, with lacy wavelets fringing the sand. Below, on the old slipway that fronted Coral Cottage, a girl of around twelve years old stood, arms ramrod stiff, hands clenched into fists.

‘You!’ said the girl again. ‘Didn’t you hear me? I asked what you were doing.’

The boy squatting on the sandstone glanced up, took in the blonde curls, the belly top, the day-glo-pink pedal-pushers, the strappy sandals, then resumed his scrutiny of the rock pool that had been formed by the receding tide. ‘I’m looking for crabs,’ he told her.

‘Smartarse. I didn’t mean that. I meant – what are you doing on my land?’

‘Your land, is it?’ murmured the boy. ‘I don’t think so, Barbie-girl.’

‘You may not think so, but I know so. That’s my daddy’s slipway, and you’re trespassing. And don’t call me Barbie-girl, farm-boy.’

Río smiled, and reached for her sunglasses. Bogtrotter versus city slicker made for the best spectator sport.

‘Shut up your yapping, will you? There’s a donkey up in the field beyond trying to feed her newborn. You’ll put the frighteners on the pair of them.’

Río saw the girl’s mouth open, then shut again. ‘A donkey? You mean there’s a donkey with a baby?’

‘Yip.’ The boy rose to his feet. ‘I’ll show you, if you like.’

The girl looked uncertain. ‘I’m not supposed to go beyond the slipway.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I’ve got new sandals on. I might get them dirty’.

The boy shrugged. ‘Take ’em off.’

‘Take my shoes off’

‘They’re not nailed to your feet, are they?’

From the field beyond came a melancholy bray.

‘What’s that?’ asked the girl.

‘That’s Dorcas.’

‘Dorcas is the mother donkey?’

‘Yip.’

‘What’s her baby called?’

‘She doesn’t have a name yet.’

‘What age is she?’

‘A week.’

‘A week! Cute!’

‘She’s cute, all right,’ said the boy, moving away from the slipway.

The girl gave a covert glance over her shoulder, then reached down, unfastened her sandals and stepped down from the slipway onto the sand.

‘My name’s Isabella,’ she said, as she caught up with him. ‘What’s yours?’

‘Finn. Do you want some liquorice?’

‘Hello? Don’t you know the rule about not taking sweets from strangers?’

‘Liquorice isn’t really a sweet. It’s a kind of plant. Have you clapped eyes on a donkey before?’

‘Yes, of course. On the telly. What’s that stuff?’

‘That’s spraint.’

‘What’s spraint?’

‘Otter poo.’

‘Ew!’

Finn laughed. ‘Wait till you see donkey poo.’

The children’s voices receded as they moved further down the beach. Río was just about to call out to Finn, to warn him to mind Isabella’s feet on the cattle grid, when new voices made her turn and look to her left.

Two men were strolling along the embankment that flanked the shoreline. One sported a shooting stick, the other had a leather folder tucked under his arm. Both were muttering into mobile phones, and both wore unweathered Barbours and pristine green wellies. City boys playing at being country squires, Río decided.

The men clambered down the embankment, then meandered along the sand until they came to a standstill directly below Río’s eyrie.

‘Get your people to call mine,’ barked one man into his Nokia, and: ‘I’ll get my people to call yours,’ barked the other into his, and then both men snapped their phones shut and slid them into their pockets.

As Isabella and Finn disappeared round the headland, Río heard Dorcas greet them with an enthusiastic bray. One of the men looked up, then raised a hand to shade his eyes from the sun. Leaning as he was on his shooting stick, he looked like a male model from one of the naffer Sunday supplements.

‘What’s that bloody racket, James?’ he asked.

‘A donkey. You’d better get used to it,’ said the man with the folder. ‘Noise pollution in the country is as rampant as it is in the city, only different. You’ll be waking up to the sound of sheep baaing all over the place.’

‘And birdsong. Felicity’s having a statue of some Indian goddess shipped in from Nepal, so she can greet the dawn every morning from her yoga pavilion.’

Yay! Río realised she was in for some top-quality eavesdropping. Yoga pavilions! Indian goddesses! What kind of half-wits were these?

‘Did Felicity mention that she wants me to relocate the pavilion further up the garden,’ asked the man called James, ‘in order to maximise the view?’

Sunday Supplement Man swivelled round to survey the bay, then nodded. ‘She’s right. Imagine starting the day with that vista spread out in front of you.’

‘She’ll be like stout Cortez.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Stout Cortez. Upon his peak in Darien. It’s Keats, you know.’

‘Oh, yes.’

Río smiled. Something about the man’s demeanour told her he was bluffing, and that he didn’t have a clue about stout Cortez or Keats.

‘You’ll be able to moor your pleasure craft there,’ observed lames, indicating a buoy that bobbed some fifty yards out to sea. ‘That’s where the previous owners used to moor their row boat, according to the agent.’

‘I’ll need a rigid inflatable to take me out. I assume there’ll be space in the garage for an RIB as well as the Cherokee?’

‘Of course. And space for the garden tractor too. I was mindful of all that when I drew up the dimensions. But while you’re in residence you’ll be able to leave your RIB on the foreshore below the gate.’ James indicated the five-bar gate that opened onto the foreshore. It was the gate into the old orchard that adjoined the property, the orchard where Río had often picnicked as a child because it was a designated right of way onto the beach.

‘That’s commonage, yeah?’

‘Strictly speaking, yes.’ James opened his folder, and drew out an A6 sheet. ‘But if you plant a lawn – see here, where it’s marked on the plan – that stretch of foreshore could easily be incorporated into the garden.’

‘Could be dodgy. People can be very territorial.’

James shrugged. ‘Only someone with local knowledge will know it’s an established right of way, Adair. And I don’t imagine many locals go strolling here, away from the beaten track.’

I do! thought Río indignantly. I go strolling here! And not only that, but I go skinny-dipping here too. And picnicking. And once upon a time I even managed some alfresco lovemaking here. Try planting a lawn on that foreshore, Adair, and I’ll tether Dorcas there and have her crap all over it!

‘I don’t want to make any enemies, James,’ said Adair. ‘It’s going to look bad enough, pulling down the cottage and putting up a structure ten times its size.’

‘I shouldn’t worry too much about that. The cottage would be sure to have a demolition order slapped on it within the next year or so in any case – if you hadn’t had the nous to snap it up first. Derelict buildings are anathema to the boys in Health and Safety’

‘And anathema to every developer worth the name.’ Spreading an expansive arm that took in the foreshore, the embankment and the cottage that Río knew lay nestled in the tangle of ancient trees beyond, Adair – looking more like Sunday Supplement Man then ever – sighed with contentment and said: ‘This will be our bucolic retreat, far from the maddening crowd. Our very own Withering Heights. There’s a literary reference for you!’

If Río hadn’t felt so pissed off, she might have sniggered.

‘Have you dreamed up a new name?’ James asked, with alacrity. ‘“Coral Cottage” will be a serious misnomer once you’ve increased the square footage.’

‘How about “Coral Castle”?’ suggested Adair, with a laugh.

‘That may be more accurate,’ agreed James. ‘But it’s hardly the most diplomatic of choices, if you want to keep the locals on your side.’

‘You’re right. As I said, I don’t want to make any enemies.’

Río bit down hard on her lip in an effort to stop herself shouting out the retort that sprang instantly to mind. But she was hungry for more insider knowledge and had no wish to alert these city gents to her presence – not just yet, anyway.

‘I’ve done a fair amount of tweaking since we last spoke.’

‘Good man, James!’

‘Allow me to show you the redrafts.’ James spread a sheaf of plans over a flat rock, and both men hunkered down to study the drawings. ‘As I said, I’ve changed the aspect of the yoga pavilion. It’ll mean less privacy, but by angling it a fraction more to the east it will catch the morning sun full on, and …’

And on. And on. And on the architect went. Several more minutes of prime eavesdropping went by, during which time Río learned the following: the house was to have underfloor heating. It was also to have a vast feature fireplace in the sitting room, floor-to-ceiling triple-glazed windows throughout, and state-of-the art white goods in the catering kitchen. It was to have two family bathrooms, three en suite bathrooms, a downstairs shower room, and a hot tub on the deck. It was to have an entertainment suite, a games room and a bar, as well as a home gym and a home spa and a home office so that Adair could keep in touch with his business associates in Dublin and London and New York. It was to have a guest suite with more en suite bathrooms, where Felicity’s friends could take up residence when they came down from Dublin for house parties. It was to have a swimming pool – a swimming pool, fifty yards from the sea! – and, of course, it was to have a walk-in wardrobe-cum-dressing room in Felicity’s suite, where, Río presumed, the lady of the house could stash her Ralph Lauren casuals. It was – in James’s words – ‘a home with a kick’.

A home with a kick?. Whatever happened to a home with a heart? Or was home in Celtic Tiger Ireland no longer where the heart was? Was it more imperative to construct a great big kick-arse des res that announced to the world your great big kick-arse status?

‘Felicity can start compiling her invitation list,’ was Adair’s final observation, as the two men got up to go. ‘She’s planning some serious parties. She’s asked Louis if Boyzone might be available for the house-warming.’

Boyzone! What planet were these people living on? Río rose stiffly to her feet and followed their progress from behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses. Their voices came back to her intermittently on the breeze as they trudged along the sand. They were talking money now. They were talking millions.

‘Adair?’ A woman wearing a butterscotch suede shirtwaister and matching loafers was making her way with difficulty along the overgrown path that flanked Coral Cottage. Her hair was swishy and stripy with highlights, her tan looked airbrushed, and her accent was a grown-up version of Isabella’s. ‘Adair!’ she called again. ‘Where’s Izzy got to?’

‘I thought she was with you?’ said Adair.

‘No, no! I thought she was with you. Where on earth is she?’

‘Maybe she’s exploring.’

‘Well, I hope she’s not. I told her if she set foot on the beach that she was not to go beyond the slipway. Izzy? Isabella!’ The woman’s eyes scanned the shoreline, and then her hands flew to her neck and clasped at the pearls that encircled it. ‘Ohmigod. There are her sandals.’

‘Where?’

‘There, on the slipway. See? But where is Isabella?.’

The tableau the three of them struck looked so much like something out of a Greek tragedy that Río felt like a deus ex machina as she stepped forward to the edge of the cliff.

‘It’s OK,’ she told them. ‘I know where she is.’ Raising a hand to her mouth and forming an ‘O’ with the tips of her thumb and middle finger, she blew robustly. Her second whistle drew a corresponding one from beyond the western headland, and within moments Finn was silhouetted against the skyline.

‘Finn!’ shouted Río. ‘Bring the girl back here. Her mammy wants her.’

‘Coming!’

Twisting her hair into a knot, Río bent down to scoop up her espadrilles and her backpack, then proceeded down the cliff path towards where the gobsmacked trio of adults was standing. When she drew abreast with them, she slid off her sunglasses and gave them the benefit of her steely, green-grey gaze.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Your girl went off to have a look at the donkeys.’

‘Well, goodness!’ said a clearly discomfited Felicity. ‘She really shouldn’t have done that without asking me first! I emphatically told her not to go beyond the slipway’

‘Hey, Ma!’

Turning, Río smiled at Finn as he approached the slipway. The sure-footed stride, the intelligent face, the lean-limbed grace – all these traits evoked the Celtic chieftain after whom he was named. And the liquorice smeared around his mouth only served to emphasise the lopsided beauty of his grin.

Isabella was loping along beside him, gloriously dishevelled. Her blonde curls were tousled, her face was flushed, and her hot-pink pedal-pushers were covered in grass stains. Her mouth, like Finn’s, bore telltale traces of liquorice, and her smile was radiant.

‘Mummy!’ she cried, dancing over to where Felicity stood, still clasping her pearls as if they were rosary beads. ‘You should have seen the baby donkey! She was sooooooooo cute! And guess what we’ve called her? Pinkie!’

‘Hello? You called her that,’ said Finn.

Felicity stepped onto the slipway, and looked pointedly at Isabella’s abandoned sandals. ‘Put your shoes back on, Isabella,’ she said. Then she turned to Río. The smile that she stapled onto her face made her look as if she were sucking on a lemon. ‘How do you do?’ she said. ‘I’m Felicity Bolger. This is my husband, Adair, and this is our architect, James McDermot.’

‘I’m Río,’ said Río. ‘And this is my son, Finn.’

Felicity Bolger looked at Finn with ill-concealed distaste, then turned back to Isabella.

‘Can we get a donkey, Mummy?’ breezed Isabella, fastening her sandals. ‘We could keep it down here and Finn could look after it for me when we’re in town. Finn says donkey races are great craic. He says he could organise them and we could charge people money to come and watch and take bets on which donkey’s going to win. I had a go on Dorcas, and even though I fell off, Finn says I have quite a good seat and—’

‘Oh, do stop your chattering, Isabella, and concentrate on what you’re doing,’ snapped Felicity. ‘We’re going to be late for this reception.’

Isabella gave her mother a mutinous look. ‘I don’t want to go to a stupid reception,’ she said. ‘I’d rather stay here and ride Dorcas.’

There was an ominous silence. Then James cleared his throat, Adair whistled a bar of some random tune, and Felicity drew in a small, shuddery sigh.

‘All right, then!’ she said in a tremulous voice. ‘Stay here and ride Dorcas, if that’s what you want. I can’t bring you to the reception, anyway, looking the way you do. You can travel back with Daddy in James’s Jeep. I’m going on by myself. Give me the keys to the Merc, please, Adair.’

‘Felicity—’

‘Give me the keys.’

Reaching into the pocket of his Barbour, Adair drew out a set of car keys and handed them over.

Then, with a barely audible: ‘Thank you. Have fun …’ Felicity flicked back her frosted hair and fled without another word.

Another silence fell, and then Adair Bolger said, ‘Go after her, darling.’

‘But, Daddy—’

‘Go on. I’ll join you in an hour.’

‘But—’

‘Please, sweet-cheeks. This reception means a lot to Mummy. It’ll be her first big social event in Coolnamara.’

Isabella gazed after her mother, who was stumbling along the shore, looking wretched and unloved. Then she looked back at Finn, who had resumed his scrutiny of the rock pool.

‘Oh, all right,’ she said. She quickly finished fastening her sandals, then jumped off the slipway. ‘Mummy, Mummy!’ she called. ‘Hang on! I’m coming!’

Felicity paused, drooped, then made a helpless gesture with her hands. ‘But your clothes…’

‘She can change in the hotel,’ replied Adair, quickly. ‘Run, Isabella.’

Isabella ran. Halfway up the beach, she turned, and waved at Finn. ‘Next time I see her, she could be ready for racing!’ she called, before continuing on after her mother. ‘Mummy – wait up! Finn’s going to allow me to ride Pinkie when she’s old enough. Maybe I could get jodhpurs and proper riding boots? And a hard hat.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Isabella. You’re talking about riding a donkey, not a thoroughbred pony’

‘But it could be fun! Remember that film where…’

Isabella’s voice grew reedier and reedier, and then mother and daughter disappeared along the path that led to Coral Cottage.

‘I think you said your name was Río?’ enquired lames, turning to Río with a polite smile. ‘Río… um …?’

Río knew the architect was fishing for her surname, but she was damned if she’d volunteer it. ‘It’s short for Ríonach,’ she told him.

‘That’s an unusual name.’

‘It’s Irish; it means “queenly”.’

‘How fascinating. Well, nice to meet you, Río,’ said James.

‘Likewise,’ said Adair. Now that Río saw him up close, he didn’t look like a male model at all, she realised. There was something about him that was a bit rough around the edges, despite the country gent casuals. ‘Do you live locally?’ he asked her politely.

‘Yes,’ said Río. ‘I’ve lived in Lissamore all my life.’

‘In the village? Or – um…?’

‘In the village. But here is my favourite place. It’s so unspoiled. Did you know that it’s a designated area of outstanding natural beauty?’

Adair and James exchanged neutral looks. ‘Is that so?’ said Adair.

‘You mean you weren’t aware of that when you made the decision to bulldoze Coral Cottage and build your Legoland mansion?’ Río gave him a disingenuous smile. ‘That’s a shame. You might want to take things a bit more slowly, Mr Bolger. People in the country don’t like it when things happen too fast.’

‘I’d hardly describe the planning procedure as “fast”,’ said James, with a supercilious smirk. ‘Each application is subject to rigorous examination by the relevant department and—’

‘Don’t patronise me, and don’t push your luck,’ returned Río. ‘You might just about squeeze permission to stable a donkey here. But I’ve never heard of planning permission being granted for a yoga pavilion in Lissamore. And as for mooring a pleasure craft…’ Raising her chin, she gave them a challenging look. ‘Let’s just say you could find yourselves with a fight on your hands. Slán, lads.’

With a toss of her head, Río strode away from them, back in the direction she’d come. The climb up the cliff path was a stiff one, and by the time she got to the top she was breathless with exertion and anger. Looking down, she saw that the beach was deserted now but for Finn, poised above his rock pool. Fishing in her backpack for her phone, she dragged a couple of deep breaths into her lungs before jabbing the keypad. What she was about to do was going to take some nerve. She was going to phone her sister.

Río had read some aphorism somewhere, about sisters being bonded by childhood memories and grown-up dreams. She and her sister, Dervla, shared plenty of childhood memories, but she hadn’t a clue what Dervla’s grown-up dreams might be. The Kinsella sisters hadn’t spoken in any meaningful way for over a decade, and the reason for this was quite simple. They had learned to loathe one other.

‘Dervla?’ said Río, when the number picked up. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that Coral Cottage was on the market?’

‘Because it never was on the market,’ came the cool response. ‘It was sold privately’

‘Did you handle the sale?’

‘I may have had something to do with it, yes.’

‘How could you, Dervla? You know it’s always had my name on it.’

‘Oh, Río – give me a break! It never had your name on it. It never will have your name on it. I thought you’d given up on that dream years ago. Oh, excuse me one moment, will you? I have a call coming in.’

‘On-hold’ music jangled down the line, and Río repressed an urge to fling the bogging phone off the cliff. Then she took another deep breath, bit down hard on her bottom lip, and decided instead to use this ‘Greensleeves’ interlude to count to ten, the way she’d learned to do any time she had dealings with Dervla.

As she counted, she compared herself to stout Cortez in the poem, except she was viewing the Atlantic, not the Pacific, and this view was her birthright. To the west, the bay gleamed lapis lazuli, its islets blazing emerald in the low-slung sun. Below her, a low, fluting call and the glissando of wings announced the arrival of curlews on the foreshore. An early season Cabbage White fluttered past – insubstantial as tissue paper – and a honeybee buzzed over the bright cotton of her skirt, thinking, perhaps, that Río might be a flower. And then, beyond the headland, came the riotous, discordant guffaw of the donkey.

‘Is that a friend of yours I hear?’

Dervla was back on the line, and because Río had only got as far as seven, her voice shook with rage when she spoke again.

‘You, Dervla Cecilia Kinsella, are a conniving bitch. I will never forgive you for this.’

‘I’m quaking in my Manolos, darling. Incidentally, what sartorial statement is your footwear making today? Are you sporting espadrilles? Or Birkenstocks? Or are you wandering lonely as a cloud, barefoot along the beach in Lissamore with sea pinks in your hair and—’

This time, Río did obey the inner voice that had urged her to hurl her phone off the cliff. She followed its trajectory as it sailed through the air, bounced off a boulder and fell with a splash into the sea.

Shit, shit, shit! she thought. That impulse, that fit of pique, that little act of what my sister would describe as lunacy, just cost me the best part of sixty bogging punts…

Chapter One Several Years Later

‘You’re like Baa, baa, Black Sheep, Ma.’

‘Baa, baa, Black Sheep?’

‘You’ve got three bags full by the kitchen door.’ Finn was leaning against the doorjamb of Río’s bedroom, watching her curiously. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m decluttering.’ Río looked up at her son from where she was sitting on the floor, surrounded by junk. ‘It’s my New Year’s resolution. I heard someone on the radio this morning say that every time you buy something new, you should discard at least two items of your old stuff, and I haven’t thrown anything out since the cat died.’

‘The cat dying hardly counts as throwing something out.’

‘No, but throwing out her bed and her kitty toys did. So now I’m making up for the fact that I haven’t trashed anything for ages by dumping loads of things. Like this.’ Río tossed a theatre programme over her shoulder. ‘And this.’ A desk diary went flying. ‘And these. Go, go, go!’ A bunch of Christmas cards fluttered after the desk diary. ‘Decluttering’s proving to be surprisingly therapeutic. How’s your hangover?’

‘Not too bad.’

‘Last night was fun, wasn’t it?’

Río and Finn had rung in the New Year in O’Toole’s pub, where Río worked part time as a barmaid. But for once she hadn’t been pulling pints–she’d been singing and laughing and dancing into the small hours. She and Finn had swung home around three a.m., and then Skyped Finn’s dad and left a recording of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ on his answering machine in LA.

‘Last night was a blast.’ Finn moved across to the pile of debris that Río had fecked into the middle of the floor, and pushed it about a bit with his bare foot. ‘Anything here I might want to keep?’

‘Nope.’

‘What about the bags in the kitchen?’

‘They’re full of crap too.’

In the kitchen Río had bagged–amongst numerous other useless objects–a torn peg bag, half a dozen broken corkscrews, a copy of a GI diet book (never read), a cracked wine cooler and a yoghurt maker still in its box.

Upstairs, she had decided to attack her bureau before attempting to cull her wardrobe. She suspected that if she opened the closet door, her clothes would start pleading with her not to discard them–especially those heart-stoppingly beautiful garments she’d earmarked for herself when she’d dealt in vintage clothing. The chiffon tea dresses, the cobwebby scarves, the silk peignoirs–all had their own stories to tell, and all had the power to bring her hurtling back to the past.

As did the photographs. They were mostly of Finn. Finn aged seven, in a rowing boat with his father, both squinting with identical green eyes against the sun; Finn at thirteen, climbing a mast, black hair a-tangle with wind and sea salt; Finn at fifteen, kitted up in scuba gear, poised to perform a backward roll from a dive boat; Finn on his twentieth birthday, smiling to camera with a pint of Guinness in his hand…

‘Ha! Get a load of Dad’s ponytail!’

‘What? Show me!’

‘I could blackmail him with this if he had any money. Look.’ From out of the bureau Finn handed Río a yellowed newspaper cutting. Underneath a headline that read ‘Flawed Hamlet Fails to Engage’ was a picture of Shane gazing moodily at a skull. ‘What year was this taken?’

Río frowned, thinking back. ‘It must have been’ eighty-seven, because I was pregnant with you during the run of that show. I remember climbing ladders to paint the backdrop, and trying desperately to hide my bump–I was scared they’d fire me for health and safety reasons if they found out. No wonder you’ve a head for heights’.

‘And depths. I was down at forty metres this morning.’

‘Finn! Don’t scare me!’

‘Pah! It’s a piece of piss, Ma. I could dive in my sleep now. I got gills.’ Finn started rummaging in the drawer again, and produced a carrier bag stuffed with mementoes. ‘Baby shoes!’ he said, pulling out a pair of teensy bootees. ‘Jeepers! Were my feet ever that small?’

‘Give me those!’ Río grabbed the bootees from him, and set them reverently aside in a box she’d labelled ‘Things to Keep’.

‘And here’s more newspaper stuff about Dad. Hey! Listen to this. “Shane Byrne glowers sexily as Macheath, but he should not also be required to sing.” Was Dad a really crap actor, Ma?’

Río laughed. ‘No, he wasn’t. He just never got the breaks he deserved. Good-looking actors can be at a real disadvantage. Casting directors tend to want to bed them rather than hire them.’

Finn gave her a cautious look. ‘Ahem. Casting directors are mostly women, yeah?’

‘Yip.’

‘Thank Jaysus for that. You want to keep this?’

Río shook her head, and Finn screwed the newspaper cutting into a ball and batted it across the room. Next out of the carrier bag was a photograph mounted on pretty, marbled card.

‘Well, hello!’ said Finn. ‘Who are these foxy ladeez? Don’t tell me it’s you and Dervla, Ma? Take a look!’

Río looked–and looking took her straight back to the spring of 1987, the year her mother had died. The picture showed a seventeen-year-old Río walking hand in hand with her sister through the garden of their childhood home. Both girls were wearing silk kimonos–one patterned with birds of paradise, the other with cherry blossom–and both were barefoot. Yellow-faced monkey flowers and blushing meadowsweet stippled the banks of the pond in which a lamenting willow trailed her arms, and a pair of lazy koi drifted. You could practically smell the damp earth.

Río remembered that Shane had taken the photograph–from the sitting-room window, to gauge from the angle. And sure enough, when she turned the print over, there on the back were some lines he had adapted from a Yeats poem, written in his scrawly black script:

The light of morning, Lissamore,

Sash windows, open to the south,

Two girls in silk kimonos, both

Beautiful, one I adore.

‘You were beautiful, all right,’ observed Finn. ‘Both of you. Jaysus, if I’d been Dad, I’d have been hard-pressed to choose between the pair of you.’

Río looked up from the photograph. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked uncertainly.

‘Well, he’d obviously already made his choice, hadn’t he? You were the adored one. Otherwise I would never have happened.’

‘Oh. Yes.’ Río’s eyes dropped back to the image on the photograph, of the two girls wandering through an Impressionist garden, waiting in anguish for their mother to die. She remembered how her older sister’s hand had felt in hers, the reassuring coolness of her palm, the comforting pressure of her fingers. They’d held hands again at the funeral the following week, and slept together in their mother’s bed afterwards, with their arms wrapped around one another. But just months later, Dervla had turned on her heel and stalked out of Río’s life.

Río looked at the photograph for a long time, and then she reached for an envelope and slid it inside.

‘What went wrong between you and Dervla, Ma?’ asked Finn.

Río affected a careless attitude. ‘Sisters fall out. It happens all the time.’

‘But you must have been close once. You can tell by that photograph.’

‘Dervla and I were all each other had for a couple of years. On the day that picture was taken, my father was most likely slumped over the desk in his study with a whiskey bottle beside him, while Mama lay dying in the bedroom above.’

‘What about friends? Had you no one to help you?’

‘Young people are no good at handling death, Finn. It embarrasses them. Most of our friends tended to steer clear. Apart from Shane.’

‘Good for Dad.’

‘He was a rock, all right.’ Río set the envelope aside in the ‘Things to Keep’ box, then looked back up at Finn, who was unfolding another press cutting.

‘Hey–here’s a pic of you in the paper,’ he remarked. ‘I remember that dress from when I was about ten.’

‘You were nearer thirteen,’ Río remarked, peering over his shoulder. ‘That was taken in my activist days, when I kicked up a stink about Bully Boy Bolger pulling down Coral Cottage.’

‘I thought Coral Cottage had fallen down years before?’

‘It was derelict, but not a ruin. And it was slap-bang in an area of outstanding natural beauty. It should have been resurrected, not built over. It still makes me mad when I think about that barnacle of Bolger’s getting planning permission.’

‘How did he wangle it?’

‘Brown envelopes stuffed with cash, presumably. That kind of carry-on was rampant in those days.’ Río took the cutting from Finn, scanned it, then sat back on her heels and tossed it onto the pile, where it joined the jetsam of her past. ‘I suppose I wouldn’t mind so much if anybody actually lived there. But apart from this Christmas, the Bolgers haven’t been near the joint for yonks. Imagine spending all that money on building a holiday home with all mod cons, and mooring for a boat, and a fecking yoga pavilion, that you never even bother to visit!’

‘Maybe they bugger off to Martinique and the Seychelles and places like that instead. I wouldn’t blame them, given this climate.’

‘I wonder what it’s like to have that kind of dosh. Lucky Mrs Bolger will get a tasty settlement when her divorce comes through.’

‘They’re getting divorced?’

‘That’s what the dogs on the street are saying.’

Shaking back her hair, Río stretched, got to her feet, and wandered to the window. On the street below, there were indeed dogs–quite a few of them. Her neighbour’s Yorkshire terrier was sitting on the harbour wall chatting to the postmistress’s Airedale, and Seamus Moynihan’s lurcher was looking out to sea, waiting for his master’s trawler to arrive back with the lobster pots. The bichon frise that belonged to Fleur of Fleurissima was posing prettily in the doorway of the shop, waiting for one of the local curs to pluck up the courage to ask her for a date.

Fleurissima was the village’s sole boutique. Río’s friend Fleur specialised in non-mainstream designers sourced from all over Europe: her beautiful shop was a mecca for those with some wealth and a lot of taste, who were seeking unusual and elegant one-offs. It opened for just nine months of the year, because it didn’t make financial sense to stay open after October. In wintertime there were no well-heeled visitors around to snap up her exquisite garments, so Fleur opened the shop only in the run-up to Christmas, but she always took New Year off to fly to some exotic location with her latest lover. This year, she planned to celebrate New Year’s Day by swimming in the Blue Lagoon in Jamaica.

Río had helped run the shop once upon a time; now she just dressed the window. In the old days, she and Fleur had acquired their stock from the house auctions that were held every few weeks in estates and big houses all over Ireland. They’d pull up in Río’s ancient, battered Renault, and drive away with cardboard boxes crammed with silk and satin and velvet and chenille, some bearing labels with legendary names: Ossie Clark, Yves Saint Laurent, Mary Quant. It broke their hearts to sell their spoils–in fact, sometimes they ‘borrowed’ the frocks themselves before they sold them–but that had been how they made their living in the days before Lissamore had become a playground for plutocrats.

Lissamore was one of the prettiest, most picture-postcard-perfect villages in the whole of the west of Ireland: there was even a sign to say so, a quarter of a mile down the road from Río’s house. It read: ‘You are now entering Lissamore–possibly the most picturesque village in Ireland.’

Since the sign had gone up a couple of years earlier, Río had been tempted to deface it by crossing out the word ‘possibly’. Opposite her front door, fishing boats bobbed cheerfully in a photogenic harbour against a backdrop of purple mountains. Islands shimmered in the bay beyond, rimmed with golden beaches–the kind of beaches that would be bound to win awards if only Condé Nast copped on to them. On the outskirts of the village, leafy boreens wound their way here and there, mostly leading to random beauty spots. Boats and boreens, mountains and islands–all could have been designed by a deity in a benevolent mood, or by the Irish Tourist Board.

Río’s house was on the main street, one of a nineteenth-century terrace of two-storey cottages. It was the kind of house that epitomised the estate agent cliché ‘oozing with character’, the kind of house that tourists chose to pose in front of for photos. There were, however, two major drawbacks to the property as far as Río was concerned. She didn’t actually own it, and it didn’t have a garden.

All her life Río had dreamed of tending a garden by the sea. When her mother had lain dying, she had sat by her bedside and told her stories about how one day she, Río, would own Coral Cottage, where she and Mama had used to go to fetch freshly laid eggs. She promised to plant there all the flowers her mother had grown in the garden of their family home, and build a bower for Mama to rest in on warm summer days, and a tree house for her future grandchildren to play in, and a picnic table, for when they felt like entertaining. And she’d promised her mother that when she died–and oh! she could have years ahead of her still! Mama could outlive Río!–her ashes would be scattered on the promontory by Coral Cottage, which overlooked the Atlantic. This last promise Río had kept; but of course the bower and the tree house and the picnic table had never been built. Instead there was an ostentatious yoga pavilion in the garden of what had once been Coral Cottage, and which was now known locally as Coral Mansion.

‘Ma? What are you daydreaming about?’ Finn’s voice brought Río back to the here and now, and she turned to him and smiled.

‘I was thinking about Coral Cottage, and the way it used to be. It was the loveliest place, Finn. My mother used to take me and Dervla to buy eggs from the old woman who lived there when we were small. There was always a smell of baking in the kitchen, and there were geraniums in pots on all the windowsills, and there would be a turf fire lighting and a cat on the hearth and hens in the henhouse, and I always used to dream that one day I might own a place like that and live the good life.’

Finn gave his mother a ‘get real’ look. ‘Come on, Ma! Who lives like that any more? Even you’d be lost without broadband and Skype.’

‘I was always a romantic, I guess. And the fact that you were conceived there made me—’

‘What! I was conceived in a derelict cottage?’

‘No. You were conceived under an apple tree in the orchard. I remember there was a full moon that night and—’

‘Ew, Ma! Too much information!’

‘Sorry I’ll shut up.’ Río returned to her bureau, absently leafed through an old notebook, then lobbed it onto the rubbish heap. Kneeling down and reaching randomly for something else to trash she said: ‘You should do this, Finn, in your room. Declutter your life. Isn’t it about time you got rid of a load of your old computer games?’

‘Funny you should say that. I was just thinking it was about time for me to do a blitz. I’ve been doing some thinking, Ma, and—’

‘Oh, look! One of your old school reports. Listen to this: “Finn is a popular and outgoing boy. However, he tends to concentrate overly on the physical aspect of his education. This is, unfortunately, to the detriment of his academic work, at which he could be very successful if he applied himself more rigorously.” I used to get that sort of thing in my school reports too. “Could do better. Must try harder.’”

‘Ma?’ Getting to his feet, Finn swept his hair back from his face, and the gesture reminded Río–as it always did–of his father.

‘Mm-hm?’

‘Carl’s decided he’s going to do the round-the-world thing this year.’

‘Good for Carl. When’s he going?’

‘In about three weeks.’

‘And he’s going for a whole year?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’ll miss him. What do you fancy for dinner this evening, by the way? Or maybe we should forget about cooking and head down to O’Toole’s for chowder? My treat.’

‘I hadn’t really thought about it. You see, Ma, the thing is that Carl’s asked me to go with him.’

Río paused in her perusal of a mail-order catalogue. ‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. And I’ve really been thinking about it. It would be a really amazing experience, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes. It would.’

‘He’s–um–planning on hitting Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, South America…’

‘That’s going to cost a lot of money.’ Río turned a page automatically. A garden gnome that was great value at only €22.99 winked up at her with unseemly cheerfulness. How could it wink at her when her world was about to cave in?

‘Well, yeah. But there are ways of doing it on the cheap. You can get a ticket with a certain amount of stops on it, and it works out pretty good, depending on how many stops you take. It actually costs less than you might think. And I’ve been saving.’

Río wrenched her attention away from the gnome and forced herself to meet her son’s eyes. ‘You were saving up to go to college, Finn. I thought that’s what we agreed.’

‘I’m sorry, Ma. But I don’t want to study Marine Biology. I want to dive.’

‘But a degree in Marine Biology can help you as a diver. It can—’

‘Ma–I’m not an academic. I’m a hands-on kind of guy. I don’t want to pootle about underwater collecting specimens for analysis. I want to dive deep, I want to dive hard, I want to experience—’

‘You sound like some stupid slogan on one of your dive T-shirts.’

There was a silence, and then Finn said, ‘Shit, Ma. Are we going to fall out over this?’

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’ Río chewed her lip, hating herself. ‘I don’t mean to rain on your parade, Finn–really I don’t–it’s just that you’ve taken me a bit by surprise, that’s all’

Finn shuffled his feet. ‘You probably think that I haven’t put very much thought into this, Ma, but I have. It’s not like it’s going to be a holiday. We’ll pick up work as we go, me and Carl. There’s always work for Irish in bars, and we can help out in the scuba resorts we visit. And if I pick up enough work, I might be able to afford further training. Maybe even get my instructor-ship certification at last.’

‘Your big dream.’

‘My big dream.’

Río closed the mail-order catalogue and added it to the heap of junk. ‘Then go for it, Finn.’

‘You mean it?’

‘Yes, I do.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘If we were in a movie now I’d say something meaningful like: “Follow your dream, son. That’s the only thing that matters in life.” Blah, blah, blah…’

‘But we’re not in a movie, Ma. I want to know what you really think.’

‘It doesn’t matter what I really think.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘OK. Here goes,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘This is what I think. I love you more than my own life, Finn. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. And because I was responsible for bringing you into the world, I am responsible for your happiness. At the very least I owe you that—’

‘But, Ma, I owe you too. I owe—’

‘No, no. Listen to me. I owe it to you to be happy because there is no point–no point at all–in bringing into this world a human being who is going to end up a miserable son-of-a-bitch who resents his mother for standing in the way of what he really wants to do and turns into a–a big seething ball of bitter and twistedness. Oh God, how crap am I at this sort of thing! Let me try again.’ Folding her hands on her lap, Río looked down, waiting for the right words to come. ‘I didn’t make you so that you could care for me in my old age, Finn,’ she resumed, ‘or because I wanted to mould someone in my image. I couldn’t have done that even if I’d wanted to, because you were always your own man, even as a toddler. And now that you’re grown, it’s time for me to start letting go. Oh!’ Río stood up briskly. ‘I’m sounding like a character in one of your dad’s schmaltzier pilots. This is where I should get out your baby pictures and gaze at them tearfully.’

‘Here.’ Finn held out his baby bootees. ‘Gaze at these, instead.’

Río laughed, even though she actually did feel very choked up.

‘You’ve always been able to make me laugh, you brat.’

‘Maybe I’ve missed my vocation. Maybe I should do stand-up.’

‘No. Being a stand-up is more dangerous than being a scuba-diver.’

Mother and son shared a smile; then Finn gave Río one of those self-conscious hugs that twenty-year-olds give their parents, patting her shoulder and depositing a clumsy kiss on her cheek before disengaging.

‘Thanks, Ma,’ he said.

And then the phone went.

‘Get that, will you, Finn?’ said Río, reaching for a packet of tissues. She wasn’t going to cry. She just needed to blow her nose. She had nothing to cry about. She had reared a beautiful, confident, gregarious son, and she had done it all by herself. She had nothing to cry about.

Finn picked up. ‘Hi, Dervla,’ he said. ‘Yeah. I’ll put you on to her.’

‘Dervla?’ mouthed Río, giving Finn a sceptical look. ‘Dervla?’

He nodded, and Río wondered, as she took the handset from him, if this was one of Finn’s jokes. What had started as a fissure, just after their mother’s death, had developed into a rift between the sisters as wide and unbridgeable as the Grand Canyon. Dervla rarely phoned, and if they happened to meet on the street they would cross to the other side to avoid each other–to the private amusement of the rest of the village. For two decades Río’s sister’s preferred method of communication had been via terse reminders sent in the post or dropped through the letterbox. These billets-doux bore such legends as: ‘When was the last time you cleaned Dad’s kitchen?’ (A major chore.) Or: ‘Your turn to organise a chimney sweep for that fire hazard of a house.’ Or: ‘Please defrost Dad’s fridge. I did it last time.’ Since the advent of text messaging, the reminders had become terser still. ‘Lite bulbs need replacing.’ Or: ‘Washing machine broken.’

‘Hi, Dervla,’ Río said into the receiver, assuming a bright, faux-friendly expression to cover her confusion. ‘What’s up?’

‘There’s no easy way to say this, Río,’ came Dervla’s voice over the receiver. ‘But then there never is a good way to break bad news.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Río asked, antsy now.

‘Daddy’s dead,’ said Dervla.

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