Spin the Bottle

by Monica McInerney

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘So why are you here?’

  Lainey decided to tell her the truth. ‘So I can sell this place in a year’s time and my father can get the money he needs.’

  Nell nodded, but didn’t ask any more. Perhaps she knew it all from Rohan already. ‘We’re prisoners, the pair of us,’ she said gloomily.

  Lainey laughed. ‘Then we should stick together, shouldn’t we?’

  ‘Are you offering me the job?’

  ‘Do you want the job?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ A big smile.

  Hurrah, there was life in there somewhere. ‘Can you start next week? And bring your camera?’

  Another nod. She’d gone back to being shy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE NEXT TIME LAINEY picked up her emails there was one from Hugh.

  To: Lainey

  Re: Hypothetical situation

  Dear Sister,

  A puzzle for you. If by some chance I happened to own a restaurant in Camberwell and needed ideas for a special Mother’s Day promotion coming up, what would you suggest? This hypothetical restaurant has some competition nearby and early bookings would be a relief, so a hasty (non-hypothetical) reply at your earliest convenience would be appreciated. Please feel free to use this secure email address. Your loving brother, Hugh

  PS How is the cooking going? What are you planning on serving them, jam on toast? Thought of you in the kitchen has caused much hilarity among your family, thank you for cheering us up.

  Lainey felt a glow start around about heart level. Hugh was channelling Adam’s requests, like some spirit medium. This had obviously come up when they had met for a beer. Should she answer it? Of course. She had loved coming up with ideas for Adam’s restaurant. She typed as fast as she could.

  Dearest Hugh,

  Congratulations on the opening of your hypothetical restaurant, I wish you only the best with it. Some Mother’s Day ideas as follows:

  ∗ Italian theme perhaps? Call it Mamma Mia Day, put on Italian-style food, plates of antipasto, plenty of chianti, Italian opera playing in the background – attract local Italian families and Italy lovers, ie lots of people – everyone loves Italy.

  ∗ Early bookings could go into a draw for a chauffeur-driven trip for Mum, from home and back – hire one for the day or borrow a flash car from a friend.

  ∗ Use that digital camera of yours and offer free photos on the day of the mums and their families together. Cost? Minimal. Be sure to have name of hypothetical restaurant visible in background of all photos.

  PS re cooking, you’d be impressed actually – the full menu attached for your reading pleasure. It’s amazing, did you know that you can do other things with vegetables than stir-fry them???

  There was an answer back the next morning.

  Thank you. You are an angel.

  Lainey read the message twice. Angel. That was Adam’s pet name for her, not Hugh’s.

  ‘This, Lainey, is a fish. Officially known as a salmon. And this is a potato.’

  Lainey stood back from the kitchen table and glared at her friend. ‘I really can’t think why RTÉ hasn’t given you your own comedy show.’

  ‘You said you needed cookery lessons.’

  ‘I haven’t just arrived from the planet Zorg, though. I do recognise basic food items.’

  ‘Okay, smartie, what do you do with the fish and the potato?’

  ‘Cook them in lots of oil and wrap them in newspaper?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Hurl them in the bin and run outside screaming?’

  ‘No, not that either. Watch.’

  Eva really knew her stuff. Lainey took notes as her friend demonstrated the dishes she would need to cook for the theme weekends. It was just a matter of being organised, Eva kept insisting. All Lainey had to do was make sure she had the best quality ingredients she could find and then bring them all together.

  ‘Just like running an event, really,’ Eva said cheerily. ‘You’ll pick it up, Lainey. You’ll be a gourmet chef before you know it.’

  Lainey wasn’t so sure, still wondering if it would be possible to pass off frozen meals from the Dunshaughlin supermarket as her own cooking.

  ‘Have you had any more bookings?’ Eva asked, as she showed Lainey how to prepare the Connemara lamb for roasting.

  ‘Four more. The first weekend is nearly full now, but I’m still really worried about the others.’

  ‘Don’t be, I’m sure they’ll come in. We Irish are notorious for late bookings, remember.’ Eva returned to her role as chef instructor then, making Lainey copy her movements exactly. ‘Well done. Just make sure you don’t use too much salt. The lamb gets a wonderful flavour from the heather it’s fed on over in the west, so you have to enhance it, not overwhelm it. See, it’s all in the preparation. You’ll have Nell to help you too, won’t you?’

  Lainey was trying to banish a mental picture of a snowy-white animal gambolling across heather-covered fields. ‘Hopefully, if she’s in a good mood on cooking days. I reckon there are actually two of them, twins. One day the shy one comes, the next day the talkative one. But she’s a good worker. She helped me do the windows this week, and we’re going to do all the floorboards and banisters next week, get everything shiny and gleaming. And I’ll tell you what else, she showed me some of her photos and they’re really good. I’ve asked her to take some of Tara for me. Maybe I’ll use them as postcards or guest souvenirs or something.’

  Eva gave a wicked grin. ‘This couldn’t be happening better if I had planned it myself. Rohan’s niece working with you, the perfect excuse for him to drop in. He won’t be able to keep away now.’

  ‘Eva…’ Lainey warned.

  It was no good, the damage was done. That night, the mind-films starring Lainey as herself and Rohan Hartigan as the leading man played in glorious tech-nicolour and with a definite Adults Only rating.

  ‘Time for tea, I think, Nell, before we collapse of exhaustion.’

  Nell got up from the staircase without a word and followed Lainey down into the kitchen. They’d been scrubbing at the banister rails for nearly two hours now, both of them amazed at the layers of dirt that had accumulated over the years. It was Shy Nell Day, Lainey noted. Nell was silent, staring at the photos of friends and family that Lainey had stuck all over the fridge door.

  ‘Is that you and your mother? This one here, where you’re all dressed up?’

  It was a photo taken at the twins’ baptism. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And who’s that man in the wheelchair beside you?’

  ‘That’s my dad.’

  ‘Is he a cripple?’

  Lainey winced. ‘He had an accident at work and he was in a wheelchair for a while,’ she said in even tones. ‘But he uses a walker now. He can get around on his own a little way.’

  That seemed to perk Nell up. ‘It happened at work? Brilliant. My friend’s uncle had an accident at work and he got paid millions – like, never has to work again. They bought a new house and all.’

  ‘And how is your friend’s uncle?’

  ‘Oh, he’s completely paralysed,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘But the house is great, two storeys, with one of those lift things that go up and down the stair rails. We had a go on it when he was out at the hospital. It’s wicked.’

  That wicked thing is there because your friend’s uncle can’t climb the stairs, Nell, not as a fairground ride, Lainey wanted to say. She bit her tongue.

  ‘And these three fellas? They’re your brothers, right?’

  ‘That’s right. Brendan’s the oldest, then Declan and the one with the blue hair is Hugh.’

  ‘Is Hugh adopted? He doesn’t really look like the other three of you, does he? I mean, apart from the blue hair even.’ She was studying the photo.

  Poor Hugh had been getting asked that all his life. Short and stocky where the rest of them were like their parents, tall and lean, he was always being called the cuckoo in the nest. Lainey cranked out the usua
l family response. ‘My parents had run out of all the good genes by the time they had him, unfortunately. He’s made up of leftovers.’

  ‘Or else your mother had an affair with the milkman,’ Nell offered.

  ‘Or there’s that, yes,’ Lainey said wearily. ‘Tea or coffee, Nell?’

  ‘Tara Lodge, good afternoon.’

  ‘Lainey Byrne please.’

  ‘This is Lainey.’

  ‘Lainey, this is Leo Ramsay. Do you remember we met at your party?’

  The creepy Englishman who had asked after her mother. ‘Yes, Mr Ramsay. I passed on your message to my mother.’

  ‘I’m glad. Seeing you was like seeing her again, like being spirited back in time. That same long body, the lift of the chin, that combination of strength and vulnerability – enchanting in your mother and now here it is in you as well.’

  Lainey held the phone away and pulled a face. What was this, dial-a-weirdo?

  ‘Lainey, I’m calling to invite you to come and pose for me. I’d like to paint you as I did your mother. But I feel it’s important to get to know you better first, so I can be sure it is you I am painting, not just an echo of your mother. There are differences, I could sense that, but it is only in intimate surroundings, after long, searching conversations, that I will be sure of those differences, that I will know I have the essence of you, and not some pale reflection of my memories of your mother.’

  He was drunk, she realised. ‘Mr Ramsay, I think –’

  ‘You haven’t had children, have you? There is a certain fullness to a woman’s hips after childbearing which I couldn’t see with you. I loved that about your mother, the animal sexuality of her tempered with the Madonna, the woman who was truly all woman after the rigours of childbirth…’

  Not just drunk, but repulsive, too. ‘Mr Ramsay, I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you. Thank you all the same. Good afternoon.’ And with that she hung up.

  Spring was no longer on its way – it had arrived, in an explosion of yellow flowers. Lainey walked around the garden, in awe of the difference the mild weather had made. It was as if all the flowers had suddenly burst out of the ground. The previously bleak garden was revealing its true colours – bright-green buds on the line of shrubs near the front wall, a low hedge of crimson fuchsia lining the stone pathway to the front door. There was still plenty of blossom, too, and the beginnings of wild roses. Out the back what had been a scrappy piece of land was revealing itself as a wild vegetable and herb patch. Lainey couldn’t be sure, but she thought she could smell basil and parsley and oregano among the tiny green leaves poking through the soil. The only black spot was a sighting of a mouse near the compost pile. Still, better outside than in. Not that Rod Stewart seemed to care either way. He’d clearly decided he was in the house purely for decoration.

  She walked back into the house, a bunch of flowers in her hand, then ran as she heard the phone.

  ‘Tara Lodge. Lainey speaking.’

  ‘Good morning, this is Jenna Reid. I’m a reporter with the Sunday Echo newspaper. Is it true you have Hilly Robson and Noah Geddes staying with you this weekend?’

  The celebrity couple? Lainey laughed. ‘Oh sure, I wish. Of course not. Who told you that?’

  ‘We got a tip-off.’

  ‘Well, your tip-off is wrong. But I’ll let you know if they do arrive,’ Lainey joked. To her surprise, the woman left her phone number, saying she would appreciate a call, thank you.

  She’d just put the flowers in a vase when the phone ran again. Another newspaper, the same query, her same answer, followed by a conversation in the background. ‘She says it’s not true.’ ‘Well she would, wouldn’t she?’

  By the fifth call, this one from a London-based tabloid, she’d had enough. ‘Yes, they are staying with me this weekend actually. I went to school in Melbourne with Hilly, or Hillary as she was known then, of course, and when I heard she was in Ireland I got in contact and invited her and Noah here. But why don’t you all just leave her alone, the poor thing? All she needs is a bit of rest and recreation, some of my lovely cooking and a few nights in one of my luxurious bedrooms. Yes, that’s right, t-a-r-a l-o-d-g-e, two words. My pleasure, lovely to talk to you.’

  By the eighth call, Lainey was shouting, ‘No, they’re not here!’ and hanging up.

  She let three calls go unanswered until she realised they might be enquiries about her gourmet weekends. Gingerly she picked up the next one. It was Nell in a phone box in Dunshaughlin, sounding breathless. ‘Lainey, a huge limousine just went through town, pulled in at the new shopping centre and asked where your B&B was. And apparently it was that Australian actress, you know, the one going out with the pop star. Are they really staying with you tonight? Do you want me to drive over and help you?’

  Lainey made Nell go over it all again, slowly. ‘I mean it, seriously. My gran’s neighbour said somebody told her they’d seen this big car parked outside a pub in Dunshaughlin. They apparently ordered a pint of Guinness and a large Coke, then sat in the car drinking them, because it was too smoky for her in the pub. That sounds right, doesn’t it? I mean, I read that in a magazine. She’s got weak lungs or something.’

  Lainey was too embarrassed to admit that she’d read the same article and yes, apparently Hilly Robson did have weak lungs. Lainey also knew that Hilly Robson was thirty-four, from Melbourne, and had started her career as a singing telegram girl. She had hit the big time in a small arthouse film called The Wait, which had broken box-office records around the world. She was a vegetarian. She went to the hairdressers twice a week to keep her long blonde curls in top condition. She had only learnt to drive when she was twenty-eight, her favourite food was tofu and her favourite drink champagne. She’d been unlucky in love until recently when she had met English badboy white rap artist Noah Geddes with whom she had apparently been having a clandestine affair for the past eight months, conducted in luxury hotels all around the world. Lainey knew more about Hilly Robson than she did about some of her closest friends, all of it learned from reading magazine articles at supermarket checkouts. ‘And you said they were asking for directions for here? For Tara Lodge?’

  ‘The Tara Lodge, definitely.’

  Lainey hurriedly said goodbye and stood by the phone, her heart beating. There had been rumours in the paper that the pair were planning a holiday in Ireland. And was she right in remembering an interview with Hilly in which the actress had confessed a fascination for ancient Celtic mysticism? Where better to come than the Hill of Tara then? And where better to stay than the Tara Lodge? Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Lainey ran upstairs to check that all the rooms were ready, in case this piece of madness had just the tiniest link to reality. The doorbell rang. She nearly tumbled down the stairs in her rush to answer it.

  A man and a woman were standing there, the man with a camera round his neck. The woman was English. ‘We’ve heard Hilly Robson and Noah Geddes are staying here. Is that right?’

  ‘No,’ Lainey said, flustered.

  ‘But our news desk in London said you confirmed it this morning.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Lainey said, her heart thumping.

  ‘Why are you in such a panic then?’

  ‘I’m not in a panic – it’s asthma.’ She shut the door in their faces.

  Within the hour, waiting outside were three photographers, one freelance TV cameraman who said he was there for Sky news, and the local reporter who usually wrote about sport and looked annoyed to be covering celebrity gossip instead. Then the kids from the farm down the road wandered up. Then a tourist bus slowed down, went past, came back.

  Inside, Lainey ignored the ringing phone, waiting for something to happen and not having a clue what it might be. She peered through the windows again and her heart gave a leap. A long black limousine with tinted windows had come into view and was now edging its way through the crowd. Driving towards her. Just as Nell had said.

  She ran back into the kitchen, turned in a circle, wondering what she should do. I mean,
it wasn’t as if she had anyone else staying. There was definitely room, but bloody hell, Hilly Robson and Noah Geddes? Staying here? What would they eat? Would they need her to get some drugs for them? Some other famous people for them to talk to? Would the beds be comfortable enough?

  Her mobile phone started ringing. Oh God, what terrible timing. She glanced at the display. It was Eva’s number. She couldn’t ignore her. She spoke quickly, moving up the stairs. ‘Evie, hi sweetheart. This is a bad time, sorry. I can’t really talk.’

  ‘I know. Just shut all the curtains, lock the back door, then open the front door and we’ll come tearing up the path. And then make sure you shut the door right behind us, okay?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. You’ve got about a minute, Lainey. Quick, just do it.’

  With no idea why, Lainey did as she was told, running to the back of the house and bolting the back door, pulling the curtains in the two front rooms, then opening the front door, just as the limousine door opened at the front gate. Two figures, heads covered in scarves and hats, one with long blonde curly hair, both wearing dark sunglasses, ran up the path hand-in-hand, ignoring calls for them to turn around. They rushed past Lainey, who took a step back, then slammed the door as instructed. She watched, astonished, as the arrivals peeled off their scarves, hats, glasses and wig.

  It was Eva and Joseph, in fits of laughter.

  ‘G’day, mate,’ Eva said.

  ‘Respec’,’ Joseph said in a very bad rap voice and with a peculiar hand gesture, which set Eva laughing even harder.

  Lainey just stared at them in complete astonishment. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  Eva was beaming. ‘Getting you publicity. Look, it’s worked, hasn’t it? I read it in an old magazine at the hairdresser’s last week. Apparently Princess Diana used to do it the whole time.’

  Lainey couldn’t even pretend she knew what was going on. ‘Dress up as an Australian actress and hire limos?’