Orange Blossom Days

by Patricia Scanlan

  She placed her husband’s supper on the table. ‘Eat well, Eduardo. As the old adage says, “This too shall pass.” But for now we’ll forget our worries and concerns, and make the most of the last few days of our holidays. We’ll be back to the grindstone soon enough.’

  ‘Gracias, Consuela. You are a most forgiving and reassuring woman,’ he said gratefully.

  ‘I am,’ she agreed, and laughed at the expression on his face, offering him some crusty bread to soak up his gravy.

  ‘And I’m a very lucky man,’ Eduardo said ruefully, raising his glass to her.

  ‘You are,’ she agreed again and they smiled at each other and began to eat, as the thunder grumbled away towards Africa.

  Constanza Torres studied two posters advertising cleaning and maintenance services that had been handed in to her to display. Word had got around that some owners might be interested in employing a new company to look after their apartments now that Jutta Sauer was no longer in business.

  Be Clean and Atlantis, Property Management and Cleaning Services were very professional. She knew Emma and Brendan, and Jason and Luis, the couples who ran the companies and regarded them highly. She would permit the posters to hang on the notice board in Reception. Constanza always made sure anything on ‘her’ notice board came with her imprimatur.

  She logged out of her computer and glanced around her office to make sure that everything was in its place. Satisfied that this was so, she picked up the photographs given to her by Dora Sheldon from Portal 3. Dora, one of Constanza’s spies in the camp, had photographed ‘Little, Fat Facundo’, as she liked to call him, loading Busy Lizzie plants into the back of his car from a consignment delivered to La Joya, to be planted in the grounds. Dora had dated the photograph. She’d also, on a different date, observed and snapped the new full-time concierge chucking a large packet of toilet rolls and a couple of bottles of cleaning spray into that self-same boot.

  ‘Semtex wouldn’t move that lazy lump, normally, but when De La Fuente’s here, Little Fat Facundo is bustling around, all business and full of his own self-importance,’ sniffed Dora who lived in La Joya all year round and knew everything that was going on.

  ‘Gracias, Dora, this may prove most helpful.’ Constanza took the photos from the elderly lady, who gave her a wink and a thumbs up.

  So El Presidente’s new concierge was nothing more than a common thief, Constanza thought. Just like that Jutta Sauer.

  That news had shocked Constanza to her core. She’d always thought Jutta was a lady, and a trustworthy businesswoman. She’d got that wrong for sure. One thing about life in La Joya, it was never boring.

  The news of De La Fuente’s re-election had not stressed Constanza as much as it had previously. She had the measure of him now. That would make life easier. So, she’d had to reluctantly admit, did having another concierge to share the burden of work. Having shorter working hours was proving to be extremely pleasant indeed, Constanza conceded, switching out the lights and locking her office door. She would keep her ammunition close to her chest if she needed it, but for now she was still managing La Joya de Andalucía, a little piece of paradise on earth.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  As always my first acknowledgement is to my Spiritual Team led by Jesus, Mary, St Joseph, the Divine Feminine Energy of Mary Magdalene, Saints Michael and Anthony (the stalwarts) and all my Angels, Saints and Guides. My books would never be written without your Divine Inspiration.

  Thanks to my dear and precious Dad, for all your prayers, for the fun, laughs and fascinating chats we had and for setting a fine example to me of how to handle life’s difficulties. I will miss you more than I can say. You were an outstanding father.

  To my sister, Mary, who is always there to share the highs and lows and without whom I would never get my books written.

  To Yvonne and Breda (and Mary) my Besties, for inspiring some of the scenes in this book. It was such fun writing them and I love our jaunts away and our ‘Girls’ nights!

  To my family, especially my nieces who keep me au fait with trends, make-up and slang, for my younger characters.

  To Helen Gleed, my fantastic Publicity Manager and a dear friend. What would I do without you?

  To my much loved ‘Tribe’ and Soul Family: Aidan, Murtagh, Joe, Pam and Simon for true friendship and constant, kind encouragement and sound advice for The Field project, and to Dr Mary Helen Hensley, and Mrs Helen Hensley, (Mama H.) likewise, and huge gratitude also for your sound advice on all things Southern, Texan, and American, for the character of Sally-Ann and her family. (‘We’s just folks!’)

  To Geraldine Tynan and Marian Lawlor, the most loyal friends I could wish for.

  To Sarah Lutyens: my rock and wonderful agent, and to Felicity, Jane, Daisy, Juliet, Susannah and Francesca, at Lutyens & Rubinstein, (and Gillian who is also striding up the publishing ladder). Thanks my dears for all the hard work you do on behalf of me and all your authors.

  I have a wonderful team behind me at S&S UK, USA, Australia, India and worldwide. A huge thanks to Jo Dickinson, my steadfast and very dear editor. It is a joy to work with you. And to Carla Josephson, Sally Partington, and all in editorial. To Dawn, SJ, Rich, and all my Schusters in the various departments, a massive ‘Thank You.’

  To Judith Curr in Atria Books, and my American editor, Jhanteigh Kupihea, thank you and all my US Schusters for your enthusiasm and continued support.

  To My Schusters in Australia and in India, far away but much appreciated for the great work you do on my behalf.

  To all my translators, foreign publishers and sub agents, it is such a thrill to see my books in other languages.

  I have the best Publishers’ Agents ever. To Simon, Dec, Eamonn, Nigel (and of course Helen,) at Gill Hess & Co, there aren’t enough thanks.

  There are some very special people I’d like to thank who have helped me and my family in ways that there aren’t enough words to say thanks.

  To all my extended family, especially our great cousins, and to Betty Halligan, the administrator of St Aidan’s cemetery, Kikrane.

  To Fr. Brendan Quinlan, our friend and pastor and our rock in times of trouble. Thank you for your great kindness to my late mother and father.

  Thanks also to Fr. Joe and Fr. Harry, Noel Horgan, the bereavement group and the choir in Our Mother of Divine Grace Parish, Ballygall.

  To Dr Fiona Dennehy, Nurse Maria, Mary, Noreen, Doreen and all the staff of the Cremore Clinic for your great care and kindness to my parents over the years. We are very grateful to you all.

  To Mr Hannan Mullet, Grainne Roche and Finn and Orla, and Mr Denis Collins and Sheena Murtagh, I am in your debt and am so grateful for all you’ve done for me. And to all the staff in the SSC for terrific care when I had my hip op.

  To Professor Joe Duggan, Dr Denise Sadlier, Laura, Tara, Sara, Karen, Joe, Paula and all the nurses and carers on St. Benedict’s ward and to Professor J Egan, Siobhan Ryan, Jackie, Linda and all the very kind kitchen staff, who gave me and the family many cups of welcome tea, and to all in the Mater Private Hospital: your kindness and care are greatly appreciated. Thanks also to Fr. Kieran, hospital chaplain, for his very kind care of Dad.

  A very special thanks also to Kamila, Dave, and all the staff of Oakwood, and Beneavin House for your immense kindness.

  And our most grateful thanks to Keith Massey and his team at Masseys Funerals, for taking care of our dad and us, as he did for our late mother. You are exceptional and kind beyond words.

  A very special thanks also to Toni Carmine Salerno, gifted artist and bestselling author who generously permitted me to quote from his beautiful Magdalene Oracle Cards.

  Thanks also to Mary Mitchell of Green Angel Skincare for your very generous contributions to our Facebook competitions.

  And finally, and most importantly, a huge thanks to all in the book trade worldwide who have supported each and every one of my books. And to my dear and ever-loyal readers, and Facebook followers, you are the ones that make
the writing of my novels such a rewarding and gratifying endeavour. The pleasure I get from your enjoyment of my writing means so much. Thank you m’dears. XXX

  Read on for an extract from Patricia Scanlan’s latest heart-warming bestseller . . .

  A Time for Friends

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘See you tonight,’ Niall Hammond said, planting a kiss on his drowsy wife’s cheek.

  ‘What time is it?’ Hilary groaned, pulling the duvet over her shoulders and burying her head in the pillow.

  ‘6.35,’ he murmured and then he was gone, his footsteps fading on the stairs. She heard the sound of the alarm being turned off, heard the front door open, then close, and the sound of the car reversing out of the drive.

  Hilary yawned and stretched and her eyes closed. I’ll just snooze for ten minutes, she promised herself, before drifting back to sleep.

  ‘Mam, wake up, we’re going to be late for school.’ Hilary opened her eyes to see Sophie, her youngest daughter, standing beside the bed poking her in the ribs.

  ‘Oh crikey, what time is it?’ She struggled into a sitting position.

  ‘8.12,’ her daughter intoned solemnly, reading the digital clock.

  ‘Holy Divinity, why didn’t you call me earlier? Where’s Millie? Is she up?’ she asked, flinging back the duvet and scrambling out of bed.

  ‘She’s not up yet.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake! Millie, Millie, get up.’ Hilary raced into her eldest daughter’s bedroom and hauled the duvet off her sleeping form.

  ‘Awww, Mam!’ Millie yelled indignantly, curling up like a little hedgehog, spiky hair sticking up from her head.

  ‘Get up, we’re late. Go and wash your face.’ Hilary was like a whirling dervish, pulling open the blinds, before racing into the shower, jamming a shower cap onto her head so her hair wouldn’t get wet. Ten minutes later, wrapped in a towel, she was slathering butter onto wholegrain bread slices onto which she laid cuts of breast from the remains of the chicken she’d cooked for the previous day’s dinner. An apple and a clementine in each lunch box and the school lunches were done. Hilary eyed the full wash-load in the machine and wished she’d got up twenty minutes earlier so she could have hung it out on the line seeing as Niall hadn’t bothered.

  She felt a flash of irritation at her husband. It wouldn’t dawn on him to hang out the clothes unless she had them in the wash basket on the kitchen table where he could see them. Sometimes she felt she was living with three children, she thought in exasperation. Typical that it was a fine day with a good breeze blowing and her clothes were stuck in the machine and would have to stay there until she got home.

  Millie was shovelling Shreddies into her mouth while Sophie calmly sprinkled raisins into her porridge. Sophie was dressed in her school uniform, blonde hair neatly plaited, and yet again Hilary marvelled at the dissimilarity of her children. Millie, hair unbrushed, tie askew, lost in a world of her own, oblivious to Hilary’s hassled demeanour. At least they’d had showers, and hair washed after swimming yesterday, she thought, taking a brush from the drawer to put manners on her oldest daughter’s tresses.

  Twenty minutes later Hilary watched the lollipop lady escort them across the road, and smiled as Sophie turned to give her a wave and a kiss. It was hard to believe she had two children of school-going age. Where had the years gone? she wondered as she crawled along in the school-run traffic.

  It shocked her sometimes that she was a wife and mother to two little girls and settled into the routine of family life that didn’t seem to vary much when the girls were at school. At least she’d spent a year au pairing in France after leaving school, and she’d spent six weeks on the Greek Islands with Colette O’Mahony, her oldest friend, having an absolute blast the following summer! That had been fun. Hilary grinned at the memory, turning onto the Malahide Road, and groaning at the traffic stuck on the Artane roundabout.

  Colette would never in a million years be stuck in school-run traffic, she thought ruefully. Colette had a nanny to bring Jasmine to school in London. No doubt her friend was sipping Earl Grey tea in bed, perusing the papers before going to have her nails manicured or going shopping in Knightsbridge. Their lives couldn’t be more different. But then, even from a very young age, they always had been.

  Colette, the only daughter of two successful barristers, had had a privileged, affluent childhood. Her parents fulfilling her every wish, but handing her over to the care of a succession of housekeepers, as they devoted themselves to careers and a hectic social life, before packing Colette off to a posh and extremely expensive boarding school.

  In contrast, Hilary’s mother Sally had been a stay-at-home mother, although she did work a few hours on Saturdays in the family lighting business. Hilary’s dad, Mick, owned a lighting store and electrical business and Hilary had worked there every summer holiday, either in the large showrooms, that stocked lights and lamps and shades of every description, or in the office working on invoices and orders and deliveries.

  Her parents, unlike Colette’s, were extremely family orientated. Hilary and her older sister Dee had grown up secure in the knowledge that they were much loved. Sally and Mick enjoyed their two girls and had bought a second-hand caravan so they could all spend weekends and holidays together. Hilary’s abiding memory of her childhood was of her mother making scrumptious picnics in the little caravan kitchen, and her dad lugging chairs and windbreaks and cooler bags down to the beach and setting up their ‘spot’. And then the games of rounders, or O’Grady Says, with their parents and aunts, uncles and cousins joining in, a whole tribe of Kinsellas, screeching and laughing. And then the sand-gritted picnic with tea out of flasks, or home-made lemonade, and more often than not, a gale whipping the sand outside their windbreak as clouds rolled in over the Irish Sea, the threat of rain somehow adding to the excitement. And when it did fall, all hands would gallop back up the bank to the caravans, and Mick would laugh and say, ‘That was a close one,’ when they’d make it inside before the heavens opened.

  Sally enjoyed the company of her girls and, when time and work permitted, they would head over to Thomas Street, and ramble around the Liberty Market, browsing the stalls, especially the jewellery ones, oohing and aahing over rings and bracelets. Kind-hearted as ever, Sally would fork out a few quid for a gift for Hilary and Dee. Their mother had steered them through the ups and downs of their teen years and had urged her daughters to spread their wings and see the world and follow their dreams. She had been fully behind Hilary’s decision to go to France after her Leaving Cert and be an au pair and become fluent in French.

  After her year of au pairing and her six weeks roaming the Greek Islands with Colette, Hilary had planned to do an arts degree with a view to teaching languages but Mick had suffered a heart attack the August before she was to start university, and she had felt it incumbent on her to put aside her own plans for her future, especially as she’d been abroad for more than a year, enjoying the freedom to be carefree and unfettered. She had stepped up to the plate to help her parents in their hour of need. Her older sister Dee was in the middle of a science degree and there was no question of her dropping out of university.

  Hilary was desperately disappointed at having to postpone her degree course; she had been so looking forward to going to university and enjoying the social side of life. Dee might study hard, but she partied hard too and lived on campus, free of all parental constraints.

  Hilary had been looking forward to moving out of the family home. Having spread her wings in France, she was keen to have the freedom to live her own life but her father’s illness put paid to that. She buried her regrets deep and put her shoulder to the wheel to keep the showrooms ticking over, while Bill O’Callaghan, Mick’s senior electrician, looked after that side of the business.

  Hilary had taken a bookkeeping and accounts course at night school soon after, and it was at a trad session one sweltering bank holiday weekend, in the college grounds, that she had met brown-eyed, bodhrán-playing Nial
l Hammond. She had tripped over someone’s handbag and tipped her Black Velvet Guinness drink down his back.

  He’d given a yelp of dismay and jumped to his feet and then started to laugh when he’d turned round and seen her standing, hand to her mouth in horror, her glass almost empty.

  ‘I . . . I’m terribly sorry,’ she stuttered; dabbing ineffectually at his shirt with a tissue, while his friends guffawed.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said easily. ‘I was getting too hot anyway.’ He pulled the soaking shirt over his head, exposing a tanned torso with just the right amount of dark chest hair to make her think: Sexy!

  Students were in various states of undress because of the sultry heat, so being shirtless wasn’t a big deal, she thought with relief, trying not to gaze at her victim’s impressive pecs while he wrung out his shirt and slung it over his shoulder.

  ‘You are such a clutterbuck, Hilary.’ Colette materialized behind her and gave a light-hearted giggle. She rolled her eyes heavenwards and held out her dainty hand to the hunk in front of them. ‘Hi, I’m Colette O’Mahony, and this’ – she made a little moue – ‘is Hilary Kinsella who has two left feet as you’ve just found out.’

  ‘Well, hi there, ladies. Niall Hammond is my moniker and I guess we should have a round of fresh drinks to get us back on track.’ He waved politely at a waitress and she nodded and headed in their direction. ‘Guinness for you, Hilary? Did you have anything in it?’

  ‘Um . . . it was a Black Velvet,’ Hilary managed, mortified, and raging with Colette for saying she had two left feet. Her friend could be so artless sometimes.