Foreign Affairs

by Patricia Scanlan

  Brenda’s mood lifted at the thought of a lazy afternoon. She’d work like hell for the rest of the morning and then flop. Energized, she walked up the garden path to the back door. A howl from Claudia sent her sprinting along the last few yards. Brenda raced in to find Claudia with a trickle of blood dribbling down her nose. There were marrowfat peas all over the floor. An open packet lay on its side in one of her fitted presses.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ she exclaimed. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve asked Shay to put childproof catches on those bloody doors.’ She lifted Claudia up and tried to peer up her nostrils.

  ‘Did you put a pea up your nose, Claudia?’ she demanded. Claudia was a holy terror for stuffing things up her nose. They’d been to Temple Street Hospital twice about it before.

  ‘Did you put a pea up your nose? Tell Mammy.’ Brenda tried to keep her voice normal. She didn’t want to scare Claudia or make her feel she was annoyed with her.

  Her daughter, still yelling, nodded.

  Oh shit, thought Brenda. Her heart sank at the thought of another trip to Temple Street. Who the hell was she going to get to look after the twins? Kit was working part-time in a café in town. Grandpa Myles was too old to be left with such young babies. God only knew where Shay was. She’d have to ask her next-door neighbour, Mandy.

  Brenda ran out the front gate in her dressing-gown with a howling Claudia under her arm. Mandy’s curtains weren’t pulled. She had to knock several times before she got a response. It was obvious she’d woken her neighbour out of her sleep. Mandy stood, bleary-eyed, gazing at her.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mandy, Claudia’s stuffed a pea up her nose. I’ll have to bring her to Temple Street. Would you be able to look after the twins for me for an hour or so?’ Mandy hesitated. ‘I’m really stuck, Mandy,’ Brenda pleaded.

  ‘OK, bring them in, and bring some of that Cow & Gate so I can make up a bottle for them. You’ll probably be stuck there for ages,’ Mandy said in resignation.

  ‘I’ll pay you back some way,’ Brenda promised.’ I swear to God, they’ll think I’m doing it on purpose, this will be my third time to bring Claudia in with something up her nose.’

  ‘I know,’ Mandy said drily. This was not the first time she’d had to mind the twins because of Claudia’s penchant for inserting foreign bodies up her nostrils. Brenda was too harassed to notice the tone of her neighbour’s voice. ‘I’ll be in with them in a minute,’ she said hastily, as she took off down the path with Claudia still yelling blue murder.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ Mandy thought irritably as she watched Brenda’s dramatic exit. Brenda Hanley and her children were becoming right pains in the ass. Brenda kept landing her kids in on top of Mandy. She always had some great drama or excuse. When Brenda moved in first, Mandy was glad that someone young and lively had moved in next door. The old lady who had lived there had been a cantankerous old soul. Giving out if the boys kicked the ball into her precious garden. ‘There’s a green down the road, let them play on that,’ she’d grumble, making a big drama out of picking up the flowers the ball had damaged. Mandy was always nagging the kids to go and play on The Green. When the old lady decided to sell up and go to a nursing home, Mandy had been on tenterhooks to see what the new neighbours would be like. She was delighted when Brenda and Shay arrived and introduced themselves.

  Everything had gone very well at the beginning, although Brenda could be a bit of a nuisance, looking for milk and sugar and the like, when she ran out. But compared to Mrs Long’s shenanigans it was paradise . . . until Claudia was born. From the time the baby was only a few weeks old, Brenda had started asking Mandy to keep an eye on her while she popped down to the shops. That always took an age despite the fact that the shops were only five minutes away and Brenda drove there. Brenda got more blatant and asked would Mandy mind Claudia so she could go into town. Mandy found it very hard to say no to people. She’d say ‘It’s no bother’ even though the last thing she wanted to do was mind a baby. She’d reared three of her own without inflicting them on her neighbours. Her nine-year-old daughter Lisa was mad about Claudia so if she was at home, it wasn’t too bad.

  But Lisa wasn’t at home today, she thought crossly. She was at school and Mandy was going to have to endure the twins by herself.

  It was great having good neighbours, Brenda thought as she turned right onto the Ballymun Road and headed south towards town. Mandy was crazy about the kids, she loved babies. She never minded looking after them for Brenda. Claudia whimpered in the baby chair in the back. What had possessed her to push a marrowfat up her nose? You’d want eyes at the back of your head trying to keep an eye on her. Brenda sighed. She should have put her in her playpen while she went out to hang out the clothes but that would have started another tantrum.

  The traffic wasn’t heavy and she dithered as to whether to park on Eccles Street or drive down past the hospital and risk not finding a space there. She parked as near to Dorset Street as she could and walked the rest of the way towards the hospital. She turned left down the little lane to Casualty and hoped it wouldn’t be packed. Wishful thinking. The place was crammed. Brenda resigned herself to a long wait.

  It was almost noon before Claudia, minus her pea, was ready to leave. Brenda was starving. She’d made up a bottle of milk and Liga for Claudia before she left home. On the spur of the moment, she decided to pop into town. It was so near the hospital. She was sure Mandy wouldn’t mind keeping the twins for another hour or so.

  She parked behind Bolton Street Tech and cut up to Henry Street along Moore Street. Five minutes later she was tucking into a ham sandwich and a coffee slice in the Kylemore while Claudia guzzled her bottle, sitting in a highchair and staring around with interest. This was a rare little treat, Brenda thought to herself, and at least Claudia had suffered no ill effects, although her yelling could have been heard in Howth when they’d been extracting the pea.

  Now that she was in town she might have a look around for a new pair of jeans. Paula was wearing a gorgeous pair of 501s the last day she’d seen her. Maybe she would treat herself.

  She tried on several pairs of jeans, getting more despondent all the while. Paula’s had clung to her like a glove but Brenda was unable to fasten the first two pairs and ended up trying on a size sixteen for the first time in her life. She was horrified, especially when she turned sideways in the mirror and saw her fat bottom and the tree-trunk thickness of the top of her thighs.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she muttered in horror. That’s it, I’m going on a strict diet, she vowed, regretting the huge coffee slice she’d just eaten and the large dollop of cream that she’d spooned into her coffee. Imagine being a size sixteen! That was the pits. There’d been a time when she was a size twelve. Feeling like weeping, Brenda left the shop, minus the jeans. Soon it would be summer and she wasn’t going to wallow around in her flab. It was so easy to forget about her weight and hide her bulk under layers of cover-up clothes in winter. It would soon be time to get into summer clothes. She was going to get down to a size fourteen at least, she promised herself. She would go on a brown rice diet. It was very healthy. Shay could go on one too. He was putting on weight around his middle, she decided as she took a detour into Nature’s Way and spent a fortune on health food.

  She was half-way up Mobhi Road when the heavens opened. Blast it! she fumed. If she’d been home ten minutes earlier she’d have got her clothes dry.

  ‘So sorry I’m late, the hospital was jam-packed,’ she exaggerated to Mandy when she got home.

  ‘No problem,’ Mandy said in a brittle tone. ‘The twins are fed and changed.’

  ‘You’re a pet,’ Brenda said gratefully. ‘If I can ever do you a favour.’

  ‘Well now that you mention it.’ Mandy smiled. ‘It’s our wedding anniversary on Friday, maybe you could babysit. Tom’s going to take me out for a meal.’

  ‘Oh, Mand, I’m sorry. It’s Grandpa Myles’s birthday on Friday and we’re all going home for a party. We’ll probably b
e staying the night.’ This wasn’t strictly true. They might stay a bit late but they’d definitely be coming back home. It was too much hassle uprooting three infants for a night, lugging nappies and bottle feed and the like. But she wasn’t going to say that to Mandy. She didn’t feel like baby-sitting on Friday night. Mandy and Tom never came home until well past midnight on their nights out.

  ‘How about Saturday, then?’ Mandy was not giving up hope.

  ‘Aw,’ Brenda said in insincere dismay. ‘I think Shay’s doing a nixer.’

  ‘Sunday’ll do then.’ Mandy was determined. She was damned if she was going to let Brenda get away with taking advantage.

  ‘OK,’ Brenda said unenthusiastically. She knew she couldn’t make any more excuses. It would be too obvious.

  ‘We won’t be too late,’ Mandy added pointedly.

  Even Brenda couldn’t miss the sarcasm in that last remark. There was no need for Mandy to get huffy. She’d only nipped into town for an hour or two. It wasn’t as if she’d absconded for twenty-four hours or anything.

  Brenda never got the chance to lie on the sofa in front of the fire. Lauren had colic and was very cranky and she spent the rest of the afternoon trying to pacify her. Then it was time to give Claudia her dinner, feed the twins, change them and put them to bed.

  She cooked up a pot of brown rice, added a tin of tuna and some peppers and sat down to dinner. At least she’d started her diet. She was going to stick to it without fail. She’d bought some Ryvita as well. Bread was definitely out from now on.

  ‘What’s for dinner, I’m ravenous?’ Shay leaned over and kissed her when he arrived in from work.

  ‘There’s a pot of brown rice and tuna,’ Brenda informed him. She was engrossed in Brookside.

  Shay made a face. Brown rice and tuna didn’t sound the slightest bit appetizing. Don’t say Brenda was on one of her faddy diets. When Brenda went on a diet, he had to go on one too whether he liked it or not. He lifted the lid of the pot and looked at the contents. ‘Sod this,’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m going to the chipper,’ he called. ‘Do you want anything?’ There was a long silence as Brenda struggled with her conscience.

  ‘Get me an onion ring,’ she said finally.

  Shay arrived back twenty minutes later. ‘I got you a single as well so you wouldn’t eat half of mine.’

  Brenda’s mouth watered. She tore open the white paper and demolished the onion ring in three bites. It was scrumptious. Brenda knew she was a disgrace. No wonder she bulged out of size sixteen jeans. Well today had been a traumatic day. She needed a little treat, she comforted herself as she took a slice of buttered batch bread from Shay and made a chip butty. She would start her diet tomorrow, definitely, she assured herself. She’d get down to a size twelve and Paula Matthews wouldn’t be the only one who could wear skin-tight jeans and look a million dollars.

  She went to bed around eleven, and was asleep within minutes. At half past twelve Lauren started to cry.

  ‘Oh no,’ Brenda groaned. She gave Shay an elbow in the ribs. He snored on. Brenda dragged herself out of bed. She paced the floor with her daughter as the rest of the household slept. This was the pits, she told herself as Lauren yelled in pain, her little face contorted. This was definitely the end of her family, she told herself viciously. If she ever found out she was pregnant again, she’d shoot herself . . . and Shay with her.

  Book Three

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Paula held up the little sundress, hat and cardigan and couldn’t make up her mind between them and the scarlet jumpsuit. In the end she bought all of them despite the fact that they cost a fortune. Shopping in exclusive boutiques on the French Riviera was not for the fainthearted. Paula didn’t mind. She could well afford to buy her precious goddaughter expensive gifts. She earned a hefty salary. But she worked for it.

  Since she’d started up the Holiday Villa scheme with Kieran four years ago, she’d travelled thousands of miles. They worked night after night until the early hours with Kieran’s accountants, costing and projecting. And now, finally, it was starting to pay off. The Holiday Villa scheme was established.

  It hadn’t been easy though. There’d been problems with accommodation. Even though she personally checked out every villa they selected for use in the brochure, the problems only started to come to light once the villas were in use. They’d made no profit at all in the first year of business, and spent a considerable amount of money relocating dissatisfied customers to luxury hotels when villas turned out to be unsuitable.

  Kieran never wavered in his support of her and told her they had to expect teething problems. They had couriers in place because of the main charter holiday business so many of the problems were sorted out fairly easily. But that first year Paula criss-crossed the sun spots of Europe ironing out problems her couriers couldn’t handle.

  Now things looked much better. Their existing villas were booked out for the current season. Satisfied customers were coming back, demand had outstripped supply and she was now scouring the south of France for new locations. It was her third visit this year and so far she’d inspected several villas that looked promising. She’d also met a rather dishy Frenchman called Pierre Dupré.

  Paula glanced at her watch and saw that she was running late. She would have liked to sit and watch the world go by and sip coffee in one of the cafés in the Zone Pietonne and then walk along the palm-lined coast road to her sea-front hotel. Nice was not for rushing around. Nice was to be savoured at an easy-going pace. She shouldn’t have dawdled so long in the boutiques.

  Regretfully, Paula hailed a taxi to get her back to her hotel. Pierre was taking her to dinner tonight. She liked him, he was good company as well as possessing any amount of Gallic charm. She’d had dinner dates and lunches with lots of men in the past four years. All business affairs. Pierre was partly business too. He was the owner of several luxury villas she was thinking of using. He had property all along the French Riviera that he rented out to holiday companies. She’d made her mind up on the properties she was going to select. Tonight they would finalize the details over dinner. She would sign the papers the following morning in his office.

  ‘Merci.’ She thanked the taxi driver, tipped him and ran up the marble steps of the hotel and checked at reception for messages. There were several.

  One from Jennifer asking her to call Kieran. One from a courier in Palma asking her to call back and one from Pierre advising her that he’d be half an hour late and had changed their dinner booking accordingly.

  Paula took her key and ran up the stairs. She never took lifts unless she had to. That extra half-hour’s breathing space was just what she needed. She’d return her calls, have her shower and get ready without feeling she was in a terrible rush.

  She rang Palma first. Couriers’ calls always got priority. Paula now had two staff working exclusively for Holiday Villa in the office, but she always left strict instructions that she was to be contacted if there were problems. No matter where she was.

  ‘What’s up, Trish?’ she asked briskly as soon as she heard the courier on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Hi, Paula. It’s the Scullys. Last night was their final night and they had a big party and trashed the place. It’s a shambles. Señor Diega is hopping mad and he’s not going to allow us to have the villa any more. And the Madigans are flying out today.’

  ‘Oh hell!’ Paula scowled. The Scullys were a wealthy high-profile Dublin couple. He was a high-flying businessman, with an eye on politics. She was a ‘Lady who Lunched’ although her lunches were more of the liquid sort. Well they weren’t going to get away with trashing a mega-luxurious villa. Peter Scully was an arrogant shit. A fat blob of a man in his mid-forties. He adored being the centre of attention.

  She had met him when Kieran asked her to accompany him to a business dinner and Peter was there, lording it over the rest of the company. He made a beeline for Kieran when he saw Paula and immediately asked to be introduced. He took her
hand in his hot sweaty one, his little beady eyes roved over her lasciviously. Paula looked at his fat wet lips and felt revolted.

  ‘I’m Peter Scully,’ he announced. From the way he said it, Paula knew he practically expected her to genuflect.

  ‘How do you do,’ she said coolly, withdrawing her hand. ‘I’m Paula Matthews.’

  ‘Kieran, you sly old fox you. Where have you been keeping this gorgeous bird hidden?’

  ‘Miss Matthews is a business associate,’ Kieran said coldly.

  ‘What do you do?’ Peter asked with an arched eyebrow. As far as he was concerned women were for decoration and sexual purposes only.

  ‘I run the Holiday Villa Company for TransCon,’ Paula said briskly.

  ‘Tell me all about it,’ he invited, giving her a leer.

  Paula gave him a short concise run-down of her operation and was surprised to hear him say, ‘I could do with a place like that for a week or so some time in April. I’m cooking up some deals with a few guys who live in Marbella. You say these places have live-in staff and their own pools?’

  ‘Yes,’ Paula said curtly. She didn’t want Peter Scully and his entourage as clients.

  ‘Fine, I’ll get my secretary to make the arrangements. You will give me a good discount?’ He smirked at Kieran. Kieran glanced at Paula and smiled.

  ‘Sorry, Peter, it’s not up to me. I never interfere in Holiday Villa’s business. Paula is the boss there.’

  Peter’s beady little eyes gleamed. ‘I’m sure the beautiful Paula will oblige,’ he said confidently.

  ‘Sorry,’ Paula smiled sweetly. ‘We don’t do discount holidays. Try our charters if that’s what you require. You will excuse me, I have to call the office.’