Both Lucasta and Mrs Flanagan have, to everyone's relief, a new fad to occupy them and keep them well out of harm's way. Lucasta has recently embraced the Kabbalah with a vengeance and now drags poor Mrs Flanagan to meetings of the Kildare branch in Newbridge once a month. Mind you, the pair of them rarely get beyond Shaughnessy's bar on the main street.
'But that's not the point,' as Lucasta firmly says. 'We're on a spiritual quest for enlightenment and there's nothing like a nice g. and t. to open the chakras, I always say. And we both have these lovely cottony bracelets to show for it too, you know.'
On a different note, Daisy has now been happily dating Simon for the past few months and they've just gone off to Mexico on holiday together. They both really needed the break; Daisy having worked harder that she'd ever done in her whole life, now that she's been promoted to a fully fledged hotel manager, and Simon badly needing to recover from the stresses of the Oldcastle season. The main stress being Mark Lloyd, who had his worst season yet, being plagued with injuries and blaming it all on Simon. Although the hounding he received from the press when it came out that the 'rebound girl' he was seen leaving his own aborted wedding with was, in fact, a post-op transsexual, did very little to improve his performance either. On or off the pitch.
Simon and Daisy, who does a very good impression of him, just laugh at him behind his back and plot how they can get Eleanor together with Jasper. According to Simon, she's knickers mad about him, the trouble being that Jasper remains utterly oblivious. The type of guy who would barely notice that a woman fancied him, short of her dancing naked in front of him singing 'take me now'.
There was only one slight hiccup on their outward journey. While waiting on a connecting flight at Newark airport, they were sitting at a Starbucks café, when who should come clickety-clacking her stiletto-heeled way in. She was wearing the Continental Airlines stewardess's uniform and was with a gaggle of other air hostesses but there was no mistaking her. The big hair, the inch-thick pan-stick make-up, the lip gloss: it was definitely Shelley-Marie.
'Holy mother,' said Simon, 'is that who I think it is? And do you think she's on her way to a cross-dressing convention or what?'
Daisy giggled, but just then, Shelley-Marie turned from the counter and spotted her. A moment of recognition passed, where each saw the other but neither said anything. Wordlessly, Shelley-Marie picked up her overnight wheelie bag and swished out of the coffee shop.
'She was staring right at you,' said Simon. 'I was afraid there'd be a cat fight.'
'Most definitely not,' replied Daisy, smiling up at him. 'Just let her go.'
'Thank God for that. The size of her? She'd have beaten seven kinds of shit out of me.'
As for Andrew, he was as good as his word. He went back to New York, finished the Globex case and then, much to everyone's surprise, turned down Macmillan Burke's incredibly generous offer to stay on in New York on the grounds that his wife was pregnant and his place was with her. In Davenport Hall. More precisely, in the gate lodge, where he's now living, whilst Portia has temporarily moved back into the Hall proper. The official reason is that, now that she's big and blooming, it's better for her and the baby to rest up in the Mauve Suite, being pampered and waited on by Tim and Molly and all the staff. Only what she deserves, having worked so hard for so long, everyone says.
And if there were a few raised eyebrows at her living separately from her husband, Portia didn't care.
'If I didn't know better, madam,' Molly often remarks to her, 'I'd say that you and Andrew are more like boyfriend and girlfriend than husband and wife. Another dinner date again tonight! It's like he's courting you all over again.'
Portia smiled.
'And do you think you'll move back into the gate lodge then, madam? After the baby's born, I mean?'
'We'll just have to see, Molly. Just wait and see.'
THE END
REMIND ME AGAIN WHY I NEED A MAN?
By Claudia Carroll
Ever since she was a little girl, all Amelia Lockwood has ever wanted is to get married. The Tiffany ring, the Vera Wang dress, the Jordan-style tiara . . . the whole shebang. The car, the gorgeous flat and three fabulous friends only go so far in consoling her now that she's thirty-seven and still not married.
So when Amelia hears about a course that promises she'll be saying 'I do' before the year is out, she jumps at the chance to enrol.
What Amelia doesn't realize is that a fundamental principle of the course is that you need to revisit all your past relationships to work out where you went wrong. In single-minded pursuit of her ultimate goal Amelia gets in touch with every ex-boyfriend she's ever had – right back to age sixteen – with some surprising results!
059305539X
COMING IN SEPTEMBER FROM BANTAM PRESS
HE LOVES ME NOT . . . HE LOVES ME
By Claudia Carroll
In the heart of County Kildare is Davenport Hall – a crumbling eighteenth-century mansion house, ancestral home to Portia Davenport, her beautiful younger sister Daisy and their dotty, eccentric mother, Lucasta. Disaster strikes when their father abandons the family, cleaning them out of the little cash they had managed to hold on to. But a ray of hope appears when Steve Sullivan, an old family friend and confirmed bachelor, suggests that they allow the hall to be used as the location for a major new movie.
So Davenport Hall is taken over by the crème de la crème, including the self-centred Montana Jones, fresh out of rehab and anxious to kick-start her career, and Guy van der Post, a major sex symbol with an eye for Daisy. Throw in Ella Hepburn, Hollywood royalty and living legend, and soon there's more sex and drama off-camera than on!
'IT BUBBLES AND SPARKLES LIKE PINK CHAMPAGNE. A HUGELY ENTERTAINING READ' Patricia Scanlan
'HEARTWARMING AND WITTY. A WONDERFUL DEBUT FROM IRELAND'S NEW ANSWER TO JILLY COOPER'
Morag Prunty
'IT MADE ME LAUGH OUT LOUD'
Anita Notaro
'FABULOUS FUN – A SPARKLING DEBUT'
Kate Thompson
0553816640
THE WWW CLUB
By Anita Notaro
THE WOMEN WATCHING WEIGHT CLUB
Luckily, you're not literally what you eat because otherwise Pam would be a hamburger, Ellie a sausage, Maggie a doughnut and Toni a sushi roll. Together they form the WWW Club.
Every woman needs a WWW club in her life – how else would you get to moan about men, absorb the nasty details of detoxing or hear how your latest accessory has, in fact, just gone out of fashion. All while scoffing chicken korma and drinking beer without the slightest trace of guilt, fully intending DEFINITELY to start again tomorrow.
The WWW Club – a tale of calories, gossip, laughter, a little romance . . . and the enduring power of female friendship.
'FULL OF GIRLIE FUN . . . KEEP THE TISSUES AT THE READY'
Company 'Must-buy book'
0553816845
Last of the Great Romantics Page 32