‘Did I tell you I got accepted by Carroll and O’Riordan’s for my articles?’ she boasted.
‘That’s great, Kate.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m hoping to do King’s Inn.’
Kate blinked. She couldn’t imagine Rob in court as a barrister.
‘The old man wants me to follow in his footsteps.’
She hugged him. He was kind and soft and very intelligent and not like some of the arrogant, self-centred men she’d come across who treated the courts like their stage.
‘So in a few years you can pass me on some of your clients,’ he said.
She giggled. The two of them mature enough to sort out other people’s legal problems. It didn’t bear thinking about.
Annabel’s was packed with final year students, Minnie waving wildly at a crowd from Arts. Kate pushed her way onto the dance floor as the guys promising to buy them drinks made a beeline for the bar. The music was throbbing and it felt good to relax and just let her body follow the beat. Within an hour the whole place was jumping as everyone danced off the weeks of tension, the noise and the music deafening.
‘I’m taking a break,’ she signalled to the girls as she made her way up to the sitting area, collapsing into a chair beside James and taking a sip of her beer. Rob was down on the dance floor with Dee trying to strut like John Travolta.
‘He always does that when he has a few pints in him!’ joked Minnie.
Kate shrugged. She looked around. There were a few lecherous old guys smarming their way around trying to pick up someone, their wedding rings hidden away for a few hours. The girls gave them short shrift.
‘Jesus, they’re pathetic.’
Over at the far end of the bar a group of American tourists, who were probably staying in the hotel and automatically got free passes to its nightclub, were trying out pints of Guinness.
‘They’ll be paying for that in the morning,’ James joked.
She liked James, he was tall and easygoing and, she supposed, good looking, if you were into red hair. His eyes crinkled when he laughed. It was a pity he was going to be away for the summer, she thought as he slipped his arm around her.
They all agreed it was the best night ever as they walked back to the flat. The city streets were empty except for taxis hunting for fares. Rob and Dee were arm in arm. ‘Coffee, tea and toasted cheese sandwiches in our place,’ offered Minnie as they passed a group of revellers coming up the stairs and out of Buck Whaley’s nightclub. Kate stopped for a second, looking at the tall couple standing on the pavement trying to flag down a cab. She recognized them immediately. It was Patrick, his arm around a girl, her sister Moya’s dark head resting on his shoulder. She prayed they wouldn’t see her and wondered how it was that her prayers never got answered as Minnie screeched his name.
She could see Moya was embarrassed, and even Patrick seemed rattled at meeting them in the early hours of the morning.
‘Listen, Minnie, I’m sorry,’ he apologized, declining the invitation to join them, ‘but some of us have jobs to go to and I’ve got to be in the office by eight.’
Moya said nothing. Not a single word to Kate as the two of them jumped into a black cab and disappeared.
Silently she cursed them. Moya was a bare-faced cheat who would put going out with a fella above her sister.
‘You OK?’ asked Dee and Rob in unison.
She shrugged. She wasn’t really. Imagine being kicked in the guts by a member of her family! Men were disloyal and untrustworthy but she expected more of her own sister. Moya had let her down rotten and it wasn’t something she was ever likely to forget.
Chapter Twelve
MOYA WAS IN love. She blushed remembering wearing her mother’s old striped green and white apron when she first met Patrick Redmond. Her face was flushed and hot from lifting roasting trays in and out of the oven, as she helped with the food at Kate’s twenty-first birthday. Who would have believed that her brainbox of a sister would even know such a handsome, good-looking guy!
Patrick had come into the kitchen looking for some ice and immediately introduced himself. Wherever she turned that night he seemed to be there, at her elbow, passing her a plate, getting her a drink.
Food served, plates cleared and birthday candles blown out, she had eventually been able to relax and enjoy the party herself, Patrick topping up her wine glass with chilled white wine.
‘You look beautiful,’ he’d said, reaching and touching her hair and pushing the loose tendrils off her face.
‘Mmmm.’
Moya was used to accepting compliments, to seeing men’s eyes widen when she walked into a room and women reach for their partners’ hands. With a passion for clothes and an innate sense of style and colour and what suited she was glad of the expensive black dress she’d decided to wear. Enjoying the flattery, she simply smiled up at him.
The wine was good and taking in his tall figure and long face and curling dark hair, she realized with a jolt, so was he. It was rare for her to meet a man who was her physical match, at ease with his looks and seemingly totally comfortable with himself. He was also easy to talk to and matter-of-factly told her about his career and where he worked. Moya, impressed with his ambition, could barely believe that he was a cousin of Minnie’s.
Kate was flapping around the place in her pink dress and dragged him away insisting that he dance with her.
‘Come on, Patrick. It’s my birthday! You promised.’
She watched the two of them twirl around the dance floor for a few minutes, before collecting some dead glasses and bringing them into the kitchen for washing. She was barely able to hide her relief when half an hour later he appeared again.
‘You’re not getting away from me that easily,’ he’d said softly. Moya knew in that instant that she would never want to get away from Patrick, ever.
By the end of the party he had arranged to see her again in Dublin. Both of them were equally aware of the significance of their meeting.
Kate had screamed and cursed at her the next day, accusing her of stealing her boyfriend and ruining her party, and Romy gave her the cold shoulder for being so mean to Kate.
Her father was dying of a hangover and not fit to talk to anyone and her mother was in lunatic form cleaning and tidying up after the hordes. Relieved to be going back to Dublin she accepted her mother’s offer of a lift to the early afternoon train, glad of Maeve Dillon’s non-judgemental attitude to her daughters’ arguments and refusal to get embroiled in them.
‘Kate’s upset about last night, Moya, but I know you wouldn’t deliberately hurt her. Phone her later in the week when things between you have calmed down a bit.’
‘I will,’ she promised.
‘Then take care, pet, and thanks for helping with the party.’
She’d met Patrick on the Tuesday night for dinner in the Unicorn and went to the theatre with him on Thursday and to a party at a solicitor friend’s of his on Saturday. Her mind in a whirl, she knew by the time they drove down to Enniskerry for lunch on Sunday that she was in love with him. She felt like pinching herself to see if it was real. She had gone out with lots of boys before but there had never been anything like this. She felt overwhelmed, swept away by his charm and good looks and personality. Her flatmate Anne-Marie had declared him a ‘dreamboat’.
‘God, Moya, where did you meet him? He’s gorgeous.’
But it wasn’t just that he was handsome, it was his confidence and the way he seemed to know everything and was able to tease her and make her laugh.
After work on Fridays she began to join him in the Shelbourne Bar with some of the other guys from his office, all in their expensive suits and ties ready to unwind after a hard day making money. She could see the appreciative looks in their eyes but ignored their flirting: she had no interest in anyone but Patrick. As far as she was concerned he was the only man in the world for her.
She had tried to talk to Kate about him, be nice and friendly and tell her that they
were most definitely involved. She wanted to explain to her younger sister that meeting Patrick was one of the most important things in her life and that it was a serious relationship, much more serious than the brief fling he’d had with Kate. Kate was tense, pale and tired, exhausted from studying too hard when she finally agreed to meet in the Winding Stair Bookshop, the café on the quays overlooking the River Liffey.
‘I can’t stay long,’ insisted her sister, hanging her jacket on the back of her chair. ‘Minnie wants me to meet her.’
‘How did the exams go?’
‘The finals were shit! I don’t know how you are meant to cram years of work and case histories into a few hours. Let’s hope Mam’s novena to Saint Theresa worked!’
‘You’ll do fine, I promise,’ Moya said.
‘It’ll take more than a few old prayers.’
‘Come on, Kate. You are such a brainbox!’
They had just ordered mugs of frothy cappuccino from the waitress when Moya broached the subject of Patrick, realizing almost at once that she should have left it.
‘Why are you still seeing him?’ demanded Kate angrily.
‘I really like him. I’m sorry, Kate, but I do.’ She could see the hurt on her sister’s face.
‘Patrick’s one of my friends, one of my crowd. I don’t go trying to steal your friends and hang around with them!’
‘He’s still your friend.’
‘Like feck he is!’
‘He is!’ Moya insisted. ‘It’s just that he’s my boyfriend.’
‘You’re such a bitch! I don’t want to hear about you and your bloody boyfriend, do you hear me?’
Moya had tried to remain calm, to reason with her, but instead had made things even worse by saying, ‘You know in your heart, Kate, he was just a friend, never your boyfriend. Never!’
The two of them ended up in a foul slanging match.
‘I’ll never forgive you for what you did!’ shouted Kate, grabbing her jacket to leave. ‘Patrick obviously means a whole lot more to you than I do!’
Moya sat staring at the angry figure marching along by the river down below realizing the truth of it. He did. What kind of a girl was she that would put a man above her sister? Maybe Kate was right. Maybe she should break off with him.
‘Don’t mind her,’ soothed Patrick later that night, kissing her and stroking her skin as they lay on the couch. ‘Kate’s just jealous. She’ll get over it. There was no big romantic attachment between us. I promise.’
‘But she’s my sister.’
‘I know, she’s a nice girl, but she’s not you and it’s you I want.’
As their kissing became deeper and she became more aroused, she let Patrick’s lips and hands and body overwhelm any traces of guilt she’d been feeling. Moya was lost in a maelstrom of physical feelings. Although she’d had previous boyfriends and big romances nothing had been of this intensity. For all her sophisticated veneer she was old-fashioned, and at twenty-three was still a virgin.
‘I don’t believe it! You are the most beautiful girl in the world!’
‘I want it to be special,’ she admitted shyly. ‘I just don’t want to be disappointed.’
Patrick was patient and kind and, unlike her previous boyfriend, did not try to blackmail Moya into sleeping with him. Eventually she herself could bear it no longer and wanted more than anything to make love with him.
Patrick had organized a weekend away in Hunter’s Hotel in Wicklow. ‘It’s a quiet hideaway,’ he promised, ‘and we’ll have all the time in the world for ourselves.’
Surrounded by summer roses and a tumbling garden Moya immediately fell in love with the place. Good food, walks on the nearby almost deserted beach and the biggest bed she’d ever seen. All her nerves had disappeared when she’d lain naked beside Patrick and felt the touch of his skin against hers. He had wrapped her in his arms and kissed and touched her and stroked every inch of her body till she was begging him to enter her, Patrick pushing his erection deep inside her till they climaxed together. Afterwards she lay awake looking at his face and eyes and knowing he was the man she loved. Sweaty and exhausted, she wrapped her legs around him and began to touch him again. Feeling him begin to swell with the tips of her fingers and the rubbing of her hands, she turned her body to his.
‘Can we do it again?’
Patrick pulled her onto him this time, her long hair draping over his face as he took her nipple in his mouth and almost breathless she guided herself onto him. She groaned in pleasure.
‘Are you all right?’ he said eventually. ‘I didn’t hurt you?’
She shook her head.
‘I’m glad,’ she said.
‘Glad?’
‘Glad it was you,’ she said gently, rolling over and staring at him. Patrick kissed her eyelids as she closed her eyes. She fell asleep curled in his arms, every muscle and sinew in her body relaxed and unwound.
They enjoyed two blissful days and with great reluctance returned to the city and to work. Moya was unable to disguise her utter happiness as she sat at her desk in the art gallery and began to list the valuations on the latest paintings they would show.
She was besotted with him and went around with a perpetual smile on her face.
‘Are you sure you’re not losing your head over him?’ asked her mother anxiously.
‘Mum, you met him! There isn’t a woman in Ireland wouldn’t lose their head if they were going out with Patrick.’
‘I suppose. He’s very handsome and charming and . . .’
‘Wonderful!’ she interjected. ‘Mum, can’t you and Dad be happy for me? I’ve met the most perfect man in the world.’
‘No man is perfect.’
‘Well, he’s everything I want.’
‘Then I’m glad for you, pet.’
At the end of July Patrick brought her down to his family’s summer house in Clifden for a long bank holiday weekend to meet his parents. His father Robert was a retired general surgeon, and his mother Annabel even at fifty-six was a stunningly attractive woman. She welcomed Moya to their large home.
‘Patrick never told us what a beauty you are,’ she smiled, patting the seat beside her for Moya to sit down and skilfully proceeding to interrogate her about her family as they drank a glass of sherry before dinner.
‘Wow, Patrick, you sure know where to find them!’ declared his brother Andy, who worked as an intern in Dublin, as he and their sister Louise joined them. Louise, a tall and thin sophisticated sixteen-year-old, declared she wanted to be a model or a vet when she finished school.
‘There’s nothing like getting away from the city during the summer,’ said his father, ‘and having the family around us.’
Moya blushed, not sure if she was considered an outsider or part of the family.
The weekend was spent walking, swimming and making salads while Patrick disappeared off to play golf with his father and brother, leaving her to help his mother and sister with preparing lunch and dinner. Annabel was constantly on the move. Stick thin, and with lines of tension etched around her eyes, she insisted on almost every hour of the weekend being accounted for and kept up a level of incessant conversation that made Moya long for a bit of peace and quiet.
‘Can’t we sneak off to a little restaurant on our own for one night?’ she begged Patrick.
‘Mum would be insulted. She loves cooking for a crowd and big dinner parties.’
During the last day Moya lay in the sun, her skin turning gold, conscious of being watched by his mother. When they packed up on Monday afternoon, Annabel hugged her politely and begged her to come and join them again before the summer ended.
‘They like you,’ Patrick smiled, triumphant, as they began the long drive back to Dublin in the sweltering heat, Moya so exhausted she fell asleep.
At Christmas he had proposed, buying a solitaire diamond ring in Weirs, which looked just perfect on her long slim fingers and hands. The engagement notice was put in the Irish Times and Maeve Dillon burst into tears
with the good news of the impending marriage of her first daughter. Her father liked Patrick and had opened a bottle of champagne to toast the happy couple.
Even Kate had swallowed her anger and wished them both well, although the situation was still awkward between the three of them.
Sitting at her desk in the gallery, Moya still could not believe all that had happened and that she and Patrick were going to be married. They were a couple and were going to start a life of their own.
Robert and Annabel generously offered to host a small family get-together to meet her parents at their Dublin home. Her flatmate Anne-Marie gave up her bed so they could stay the night in her place. ‘I’ll muck in with Susan and Niamh,’ she said.
Moya was eternally grateful to her good-natured flatmate as she wanted to be able to keep a good eye on her parents, make sure they arrived on time at Patrick’s Foxrock home and that her father didn’t get waylaid in some Dublin pub or bar.
They both looked great, her mother in a black top and skirt with a slight diamanté trim and her father in his navy suit and white shirt.
‘Don’t keep fretting, Moya. I’m sure Patrick’s parents are wonderful and we’ll get along just fine.’
Her father begged Patrick to stop along the way at the famous Goat Pub so he could at least go in and wet his whistle before meeting the Redmonds.
‘One pint only,’ she mouthed at Patrick.
Three-quarters of an hour later they almost had to pull him out of the place.
‘We were getting worried about you,’ said Annabel with a smile as she ushered them into the large drawing room and took their coats.
Maeve Dillon admired the curtains and the wallpaper and the large paintings around the room, conscious of suddenly looking dowdy compared to the neat figure in the expensive designer outfit sipping a gin and tonic.
The Stone House Page 9