Spin the Bottle

by Monica McInerney

  The next day she was paying for her broken sleep, feeling lethargic. She had things to buy at the shopping centre, but she didn’t have the energy to drive in there. She should be racking her brain for ideas to get the B&B moving, but that part of her brain had shut down for the day too. All she felt like doing was sitting by the fire and reading.

  Then she realised she could do exactly that. In fact, she could go back to bed for the day if she wanted. Lie on the kitchen floor all day and eat toast. Put a bag on her head and run up and down the stairs all day singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ if she wanted to. Who would see her? What else did she have to do?

  She took the least weird option, fearing a little for her sanity. She had just settled in front of the fire with one of the Tara books from the library when she remembered she had something much more interesting to read – May’s folders of letters. She’d promised herself she could read them after the first month was up and now it was. Where on earth had she put them, though? She racked her brains. She’d picked them up from Mr Fogarty’s office, then just shoved them away into a cupboard when she and Eva started on the painting.

  She found them in the smallest of the spare rooms, in one of the wardrobes. She flicked through the papers on top, a mixture of bills, circulars and newspaper clippings. Good, she could sort them, pretend to be Sally Secretary for the day. She was certainly sick to death of pretending to be Harriet Housekeeper.

  With the radio on in the background, the comforting murmur of voices on the local radio station, she started emptying the folders. The files inside them were all in a mess, like a paper version of the chaos Lainey had found in the kitchen cupboards. May had obviously had some secretarial training in her life, had kept copies of all the letters she had written, attached any reply to them with a paper clip. But that was as far as her filing had gone. She’d obviously just flung them all into files after that. There were letters of complaint to politicians, filled with ideas about how the country could be run more efficiently. There were letters about improving the state of the roads, several of them written in cross capital letters. Overhanging trees were the bane of her life too, it seemed. Drains were a problem. Noisy cars. The lack of road signs. Too many road signs. Her aunt was the original ‘Outraged of Meath’. Lainey wouldn’t like to have been at the receiving end of any of her letters – May hadn’t taken no for an answer and in some cases the correspondence had shot back and forth between the two parties for some months, before her aunt had seized on a new issue. But at this distance it was great entertainment. Lainey made herself another pot of coffee, put her feet up on the warmth of the fireguard and kept reading.

  As she read letter after letter, she started to form a real picture of her aunt. She was not only fierce, but funny at times too. Not only judgemental but lively-minded, curious at least. This was no old woman taking a back seat, content to let the world pass by. May was in there in the thick of things, passing remarks on any issue, big or small, firing letters off in all directions. It was just as well she hadn’t had any guests. There wouldn’t have been time to look after them, with all these letters to write and trips to the post office to make.

  Her father’s words came back to her. That Lainey reminded him of May sometimes. The awful thing was she was starting to recognise some of the traits in herself. Certainly she liked to have as many things on the go at once. But was she as hot-tempered? No, she didn’t think so. As stubborn? She felt an uncomfortable shimmer of recognition. Then again, who did like admitting they were wrong about something?

  She picked up the final file, packed with newspaper clippings, snippets cut from magazines, handwritten scraps of paper. The subjects ranged from recipes to handy household hints, herbal cures to health tips. Lainey read a couple. ‘Don’t despair if you run out of dental floss, the string of a tea bag makes a handy substitute.’ ‘A cut onion in a freshly painted room will quickly banish those fumes!’ If only she and Eva had known that all those days ago. Tucked in the back of the file she found an unopened envelope, addressed to her father in the Melbourne suburb of Broadmeadows. Scrawled across it in block letters was the message: Return to sender. No longer at this address. Lainey could only just remember the Broadmeadows house. They’d rented it for only a few months, leaving in a hurry when a gang of bikies had moved in next door. It had been the third or perhaps the fourth house they had lived in during their first few years in Melbourne. So could she open this one? She thought for a moment of checking with her father, but then she had his permission to read May’s letters already, didn’t she? She opened it. It was short, to the point. Just the one line, in fact, written in an angry scrawl.

  Don’t you dare blame Peg. This is YOUR fault.

  That was it. Lainey turned it over, but there was no explanation. What had been his fault? What had he blamed her mother for? Feeling as though she’d peeked through a curtain and seen something she shouldn’t have, she hurriedly poked the page back into the envelope. She gathered all of the folders and stowed them back in the cupboard upstairs.

  For the next week, she worked on her ideas for the revamp of the B&B. She’d devised dozens of marketing plans in her working life, knew all the steps. Define your product, then your market, then work out a way of letting the market know about your product. So what was her product?

  She had a nice old house. Good views. It was peaceful. Beside an historic site, already on lots of tourists’ itineraries. But also less than an hour from Dublin, just the right distance for stressed city people wanting a weekend getaway.

  The hair at the back of her neck prickled in the way it always did when she knew she was onto a good idea. She had actually been joking when she’d spoken to Rohan about opening a theme B&B, but perhaps that was exactly what she could do. Run theme weekends. Theme luxury weekends, with great food and wine, maybe even a guest speaker. People would book to come, so she wouldn’t have to rely on passing trade. She’d know exactly who was coming, how many, what time to expect them, how long they’d be staying.

  She grabbed one of the tourist board booklets. Why did people come to Ireland? Music. Scenery. History. Family roots. She turned away from the keyboard of the computer, the ideas flowing so fast she wanted to feel them through a pen, not watch them appear on a screen.

  Ten days later she was with Eva and Joseph in their flat above the Ambrosia deli and café. She had handed each of them an information sheet and was standing beside her laptop computer, the screen of which displayed the title: ‘A Feast of Ireland’.

  ‘Right, then, are you ready?’

  ‘Lainey, you really could just tell us about it,’ Eva said, fighting a smile. ‘You don’t have to go through with this presentation, you know. We’re your friends, remember?’

  Lainey looked slightly shamefaced. ‘I know it’s ridiculous, but it’s just habit. Can you indulge me? If I run through it like this, it’ll make it all clear in my head.’ They weren’t just ideas, either, she explained. She’d done all the research to back them up. She’d decided to forget all about competing with the other B&Bs in the area. Instead, she was launching a series of gourmet weekends, under the title of A Feast of Ireland.

  ‘Sorry, Lainey, I don’t quite understand it yet,’ Eva interrupted. ‘It’s more like a mini country house hotel thing than a B&B, do you mean? With just the four rooms?’

  Lainey nodded. ‘It’s the intimate experience people want these days. That combined with the theme weekends. You know, people will come and stay on Friday and Saturday nights and I’ll really lay it on for them, drinks on arrival, two dinners, two nights accommodation, and a guest speaker, all following a particular theme.’

  ‘Oh, right, I see,’ Joseph said. ‘I read about a hotel that did weekends based on the Seven Deadly Sins. I wanted to go on the sloth one, just lie around all weekend doing nothing. Or the gluttony one, and just eat all weekend.’

  ‘Why don’t you try that idea, Lainey?’ Eva said. ‘Start with the lust theme, and organise a wife-swapping party on the Satur
day night.’

  ‘Then the next weekend could be a Ten Commandments theme to get everyone back on the straight and narrow,’ Joseph suggested.

  ‘Have you two finished?’ Lainey said, arms folded. At their nods, she continued, flicking through the slides on the screen. The first four weekends would each be based on a different topic – Irish art, music, language and literature. All the guests had to do was lap up the luxury, sit by the fire or out in the garden if the weather was good, enjoy wine and fine food and take part as much or as little as they wanted.

  And her secret weapon? Fantastic food cooked by Meg, Eva’s cousin, who would travel across each weekend from the Ardmahon House cooking school, where she was a lecturer.

  ‘I hope you didn’t mind me contacting her, Evie, but she jumped at it,’ Lainey said. ‘It’ll be the best of Irish produce cooked in a modern style, simple but really top class. Meg will look after the two dinners and I’ll do the breakfasts. I’ve just about got them sorted out now.’

  Eva and Joseph diplomatically didn’t mention the burnt breakfast she’d served them the weekend they first stayed.

  She passed them a copy of the suggested menu that Meg had emailed to her. She’d chosen an interesting mix of dishes combining Irish produce with modern food trends. The starter the first night would be Galway oysters served as fresh as they could be, with homemade brown bread – ‘Mrs Gillespie down the road’s agreed to make all my bread for me,’ Lainey explained – and even a glass of Guinness for those who wanted it. The next night she’d serve crab claws from the Ring of Kerry in a simple garlicky fresh tomato sauce. For the main courses Meg had suggested oven-roasted Connemara lamb served with parsnip mash and fresh green beans with toasted almonds one night, and fillets of wild Irish salmon served with cucumber and dill salad, tzatziki – greek yoghurt, garlic and grated cucumber – and fresh soda bread with lashings of perfect Irish butter the next. For dessert there’d be a choice of golden syrup dumplings with Tipperary cream, a spicy, crunchy walnut and fig pudding with rich vanilla ice-cream, or perhaps even a rich chocolate pudding.

  ‘And plenty of Irish farmhouse cheeses to follow, we thought. Meg said you are queen of the cheeses, Evie, and that I had to take your advice as gospel. And I’d love to be able to buy everything from you at Ambrosia, if that’s all right. And I don’t want you to think of any discounts or anything, just see it as a nice, big, fat windfall.’

  ‘Lainey, are you mad? Your food bills will be big, you know.’

  ‘I can’t think of anyone better to get all of May’s money than you, then. I thought you might even like to put up a little display in the B&B – some of your favourite goods, and of course I’ll advertise everywhere that the Ambrosia delicatessen is my official supplier.’

  Lainey forgot all about the computer presentation then, just sat in front of Eva and Joseph, getting passionate as she explained the rest of the program. Her guest speakers were tentatively booked, each of them flattered at the thought of being feted for a weekend and happy with the fee she was offering too. All they had to do was deliver an hour-long talk on their subject of interest, or play music for an hour, or show paintings and then be available to answer questions and talk with guests. She’d tracked down a young music lecturer who could play the violin and the uilleann pipes and specialised in the history of Irish folk music. The literary editor of one of the new lifestyle magazines had agreed to come and talk about modern Irish literature. He’d hinted that he might be able to coax a friend of his, the latest voice of Irish writing, to come along and read from her new book. An Irish language expert was coming over from Galway, delighted with the thought of a weekend near Tara. Lainey had also contacted the National Gallery and invited one of their curators to come and talk about the work of Jack B. Yeats and Roderic O’Conor. She’d also decided to ask Rohan Hartigan if she could hire him to take her groups on personally guided tours of the Hill of Tara at some stage over each weekend.

  As a first step, she was going to throw a launch party, inviting everyone she could think of from the local tourism industry, the other B&B operators in the area and local journalists. She was going to place just a few select advertisements, but mostly try and operate on a word-of-mouth basis. Far more exclusive. She’d done a similar thing with a party in Melbourne once, not sent out invitations, just had a word with a few key blabbers around town. It had worked beautifully. People had started ringing her, casually mentioning that they’d heard there might be a party happening and how did one manage to get on the guest list? The party had been a huge success.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ she said, finally coming to the end of her spiel.

  Eva and Joseph raised their glasses. ‘It’s brilliant.’

  As she let herself back into Tara Lodge a little later that night, she heard a faint rustle, a scuttle of feet across the floors above. Her friend, Mister Mouse. He – and his friends? – seemed to come and go, treating this place like a boarding house, thumbing their noses at her traps and baits. She’d have to do something about them before she opened for business. That would hardly excite her high-paying guests, the sight of mangy rodents tearing across the bedroom floor. Unless she convinced them they were the ghosts of the famous Tara mice, known far and wide as surely the wisest, canniest mice ever to set foot on Ireland’s shores…

  No, perhaps not. She took her notebook out of her bag and made one last entry for the day.

  Buy more traps/poison

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  SHE RANG ROHAN THE next morning. First she confessed that she’d been exaggerating slightly – well, hugely, in fact – about her theme B&B ideas. He sounded relieved. Then she explained her real plans and asked whether he would be interested in running personally guided tours of the Hill of Tara.

  He didn’t hesitate. ‘I’d be happy to, Lainey. Thanks for asking. Perhaps we could meet for a drink and you could tell me exactly what you imagined me doing?’

  She blinked. What I imagined you doing? Rohan, you’d blush if I told you. ‘Great idea,’ she said, a little too brightly.

  ‘Mind you, all my research papers and books are a bit awkward to carry around. Why don’t you come over to my house instead?’

  ‘Um, sure, yes, that makes more sense,’ Lainey said.

  They arranged the time and confirmed his address. Hanging up, she had a sudden mental image of Eva beaming at her, giving her the thumbs up, waving a banner with the words ‘It’s a date!’ written on it.

  ‘Oh stop that,’ she said aloud.

  She was hardly out of the driveway the next night on her way to Rohan’s house, windscreen wipers working double time against the heavy rain, when the mind-film started playing…

  His living room was warm, welcoming, the open fire flickering, sending light around the room. There was a small table set beside the sofa, a bottle of wine and two glasses on it. He made sure she was comfortable, had everything she needed, and then sat down beside her. ‘Your ideas for the B&B sound really fascinating, Lainey. Tell me everything about them.’

  In a soft voice, very conscious of his closeness, she told him, hardly aware of the words, thinking instead of their hands brushing against each other as they reached for their wine, his arm carefully resting against the back of the sofa, against the back of her head.

  He nodded thoughtfully as she spoke, smiling a little sometimes as she said something witty, giving her his full attention. She took a sip of her wine, then placed the glass back on the table. He did the same.

  He looked at her with those dark-blue eyes. ‘And tell me exactly what you would like me to do.’

  She hesitated for just one fraction of a moment and then she spoke softly, confidently. ‘I’d like you to kiss me.’

  Her eyes closed as he leaned forward, his mouth just inches away and then not away, but on hers, warm, soft, sensual. The feel of his hand touching the back of her head, moving her closer to him. Their lips harder against one another. She leaned forward, feeling her breasts against his chest�
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  Her mobile rang. She snatched it up, nearly running off the road as she did so. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ she said under her breath. Had she taken complete leave of her senses? She could imagine the headlines: Woman dies in car crash, found with dreamy smile on face. ‘Hello, Lainey speaking.’

  ‘Lainey? I’m looking for Timothy. Is that not Timothy?’

  ‘No, it’s Lainey.’

  ‘Oh, feck, wrong number again. Sorry.’

  ‘No worries,’ she said. For the rest of the way she concentrated firmly on the road.

  The rain was pelting down when she pulled up outside what she thought was Rohan’s house. She peered through the windscreen, trying to see the number. Yes, that was definitely it, but there were no lights on outside. She clambered out, putting her folder over her head and running up the path, cursing her long skirt as she nearly tripped.

  She knocked on the porch door and was relieved when the light came on. Rohan answered it. ‘Lainey, you found your way all right, then? Sorry, I forgot to leave the light on. Come in. Let me introduce you to my mother and my niece, Nell. They’ve just called in too.’

  As she walked into the brightly lit, centrally heated living room, she pasted a smile on her face. A family reunion. For a moment she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

  Two hours later, she gathered up her notes and prepared to leave. It had been an extremely useful evening, if not quite as stimulating as her imaginings. Mrs Hartigan had been pleasant, apologising for being in the way. They’d just happened to drop by to see Rohan on their way home from visiting a friend. The niece was the young woman Lainey had seen with Rohan in town several weeks earlier. She was staying in Ireland for a few months while her mother, a doctor, was in America on a study exchange, Mrs Hartigan explained. Nell was dressed tonight in a cross between Britney Spears teenwear and London street fashion – low-slung jeans, tight T-shirt, straight hair parted in the middle – but despite the confident clothing there’d hardly been a peep out of her all night. Mrs Hartigan made up for her silence, joining in on the discussions about the Hill of Tara, enquiring after Lainey’s parents, asking about Australia and passing on bits of news about people she thought Lainey might know from her childhood. Lainey gave a bright report about the B&B, mentioning the mice problem in passing. Mrs Hartigan tutted in sympathy. Apparently there were a lot of them about at the moment.