by Cathy Kelly
‘Me too,’ said Hannah. ‘I can’t see Felix being reliable when it comes to maintenance money for Claudia.’
‘David’s well off, isn’t he?’ said Emma archly.
Hannah scowled at her. ‘I’ve only just left my husband,’ she said, ‘don’t go setting me up with strange men. It’s a bit soon.’
Emma and Leonie exchanged glances.
‘I think I’ll ask that nice David if he fancies a holiday this year,’ Emma said. ‘Those villas are cheaper if you have lots of people going. I’m sure somebody will let him bunk down in their bedroom.’
Hannah threw a cushion at her.
‘I swear, I am never going on holiday with you two again,’ she insisted.
The next morning was sunny but the ground was frosty. The tyres of David’s car crunched on the gravel as he drove out of Leonie’s.
‘I shouldn’t be letting you do this,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s a hell of a long drive to Connemara and you’re missing more work.’
‘Four hours at the most,’ David replied, eyes on the road. ‘It’s only half eight, we’ll be there in time for lunch.’
‘That’s only the journey down. I feel terrible about this. I could have got the train,’ she said. ‘Claudia is a great traveller,’ she lied.
‘I wanted to drive you,’ David said.
‘You didn’t need to,’ she answered.
‘Hannah, why do you think I’m doing this?’ he demanded. ‘Why did I come to the airport? Because I’m crazy about you, that’s why.’
‘Stop the car,’ she commanded.
Surprised, David pulled over on to the grass verge.
Claudia, who’d been asleep in the car seat Leonie had dug out of the attic, woke up and began to bawl.
‘You get used to it,’ Hannah remarked as the wails increased. Then she leaned over and kissed David firmly on the mouth. In an instant, his arms were around her and he was kissing her back furiously. He tasted wonderful and he felt wonderful too. Different from Felix. Solid and comforting, the way she’d known he would be. His mouth was soft but not gentle, he kissed passionately, intensely. Hannah felt herself melt in response.
She pulled away reluctantly and stared at him.
‘It’s going to take time,’ she warned. ‘I’ve left Felix but he still hasn’t left me, if you know what I mean. I can’t forget about him in an instant.’
‘We can take it slowly,’ David said, eyes roaming over her face lovingly.
‘Really slowly,’ she repeated.
‘Like this.’ David pulled her into his arms again and lowered his mouth to hers. Claudia roared louder. ‘You’re right,’ he said in wonder, stopping kissing her for a moment, ‘you do get used to it.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Please forgive me in advance for whoever I leave out because I just know I’ll leave someone out. People ask what’s the hardest thing about writing a book and I always say it’s this bit, because when you’ve put your heart and soul into a novel, you desperately want to remember to thank all the lovely people who’ve helped you in some way during the writing of it or during the last few books. I tend to think of whom to thank when I’m at the traffic lights in the car and can’t write it down. I subsequently forget this vital bit of information in the same way I go into the supermarket to buy milk and come out with four bulging bags of shopping – and no milk. So here goes:
Thanks to my darling John for all your love and encouragement; thanks to my family for being so supportive, to Mum for all the endless things you do; to dear Lucy for being Rupert, to Francis for always being there on the phone to cheer me up, to Anne, little Laura, Naomi and Emer, to Dave and St Lucia, and to my beloved Tamsin who brings sunshine into my day and who appears in this book (thinly disguised).
To Ali Gunn, sweetie, the best agent in the world and the woman who understands that the phone isn’t just for Christmas, it’s for life. To Deborah Schneider with much gratitude, to Diana, Carol and all at Curtis Brown. To Sarah Hamilton for encouragement, understanding and lovely gossip, to Rachel Hore for gently and expertly doing wonderful things with this book, practically into the maternity ward with baby Leo. Thank you to my wonderful new family at HarperCollins, especially dear Anne O’Brien, Nick Sayers, Adrian Bourne, Eddie Bell, Fiona McIntosh, David North, Martin Palmer, Jane Harris, Phyllis Acolatse, Terence Caven, Jennifer Parr, Lee Motley, Venetia, Moira, Tony…just all of you for being so good to me and risking death by hanging those big posters in the atrium! I appreciate it. Thanks to my Irish family, Poolbeg, especially Paul Campbell, Lucy, Suzanne, Philip, Kieran, Conor for all your support, fantastic work and those deadly Poolbeg cocktails.
For advice and support for all sorts of different things thanks to Susan Zaidan, Lola Simpson, Barbara Stack, Lisa Lynch, Patricia Scanlan, Marian Keyes, Kate Thompson, dear Clare Foss, Mairead, Margaret, Esther, all my friends for their help and encouragement, especially all at Sunday World.
To the staff at the Animal Welfare Clinic for allowing me to spend some time with them and all their patients, especially to John Hardy, Paul, Grainne, Vanessa, Pamela, Tracy, Juliana and anybody else I’m leaving out. Thanks to Aisling O Buachalla from Sherry FitzGerald for letting me in on the secrets of working as an estate agent. Any mistakes about either being a vet nurse or an estate agent are all mine – probably due to me not being able to read my own shorthand after the event (not unusual).
Thanks to the incredible staff at the Kylemore Nursing Home who looked after my father when he was dying with Alzheimer’s and who managed, through a combination of professionalism, compassion and humour, to make that last year a time full of good memories.
Thanks to the booksellers who work so hard selling my books, who have to keep up to date with the phenomenal volume of novels coming out every month, and who are the only people I know who can have wonderful times at parties, drink wine and still have intelligent conversations about the new books they’re dying to get their hands on. Thanks to you, the people who buy my books and give me such a thrill when you write and say you like them. Without you, none of this would have happened. So thanks.
Excerpt from The House on Willow Street
Prologue
Danae Rahill had long since learned that a postmistress’s job in a small town had a lot more to it than the ability to speedily process pensions or organize money transfers.
She’d run Avalon Post Office for fifteen years and she saw everything. It was impossible not to. Without wishing to, the extremely private Danae found herself the holder of many of the town’s secrets.
She saw money sent to the Misses McGinty’s brother in London, who’d gone there fifty years ago to make his fortune and was now living in a hostel.
‘The building work has dried up, you know,’ said one of the little Miss McGintys, her tiny papery hands finishing writing the address she knew by heart.
Danae was aware the hostel was one where Irish men went when the drinking got out of control and they needed a bed to sleep in.
‘It must be terrible for such a good man not to have a job any more,’ she said kindly.
Danae saw widower Mr Dineen post endless parcels and letters to his children around the world, but never heard of him getting on a plane to visit any of them.
She saw registered letters to solicitors, tear-stained funeral cards, wedding invitations and, on two occasions, sad, hastily written notes informing guests that the wedding was cancelled. She saw savings accounts fall to nothing with job losses and saw lonely people for whom collecting their pension was a rare chance to speak to another human being.
People felt safe confiding in Danae because it was well known that she would never discuss their personal details with anyone else. And she wasn’t married. There was no Mr Rahill to tell stories to at night in the cottage at the top of Willow Street. Danae was never seen in coffee shops gossiping with a gaggle of friends. She was, everyone in Avalon agreed, discreet.
She might gently enquire as to whether some plan or ambition
had worked out or not, but equally she could tell without asking when the person wanted that last conversation forgotten entirely.
Danae was kindness personified.
And yet a few of the more perceptive residents of Avalon felt that there was some mystery surrounding their postmistress because, while she knew so much of the details of their lives, they knew almost nothing about her, even though she’d lived in their town for some eighteen years.
‘She’s always so interested and yet …’ Mrs Ryan, in charge of the church cleaning schedule and an avid reader of Scandinavian crime novels, tried to find the right words for it, ‘… she’s still a bit … distant.’
‘That’s it exactly,’ agreed Mrs Moloney, who loved a good gossip but could never glean so much as a scrap of information from Danae. The postmistress was so tight-lipped that the KGB couldn’t have got any secrets out of her.
For a start, there was her name: Danae. Completely strange. Not a proper saint’s name or anything.
Dan-ay, she said it.
‘Greek or some such,’ sniffed Mrs Ryan, who was an Agnes and proud of it.
‘I don’t even know when her husband died,’ said Mrs Moloney.
‘If there ever was a husband,’ said Mrs Lombardy.
Mrs Lombardy was widowed and not a day passed without her talking about her beloved Roberto, who grew nicer and kinder the longer he was dead. In her opinion, it was a widow’s job to keep the memory of her husband alive. Once, she’d idly enquired after Danae’s husband, because she was a Mrs after all, even if she did live alone in that small cottage at the far end of Willow Street with nothing but a dog and a few mad chickens for company.
‘He is no longer with us,’ Danae had said, and Mrs Lombardy had seen the shutters coming down on Danae’s face.
‘Ah sure, he might have run off with someone else,’ Mrs Ryan said. ‘The poor pet.’
Of course, she looked different too.
The three women felt that the long, tortoiseshell hair ought to be neatly tied up, or that the postmistress should maintain a more dignified exterior, instead of wearing long, trailing clothes that looked second-hand. And as for the jewellery, well.
‘I always say that you can’t go wrong with a nice string of pearls,’ said Mrs Byrne, in charge of the church flowers. Many years of repeating this mantra had ensured that her husband, known all over town as Poor Bernard, had given her pearls as an anniversary gift.
‘As for those mad big necklaces, giant lumps of things on bits of leather, amber and whatnot …’ said Mrs Lombardy. ‘What’s wrong with a nice crucifix, that’s what I want to know?’
Danae was being discussed over Friday-morning coffee in the Avalon Hotel and Spa, and the hotel owner, one Belle Kennedy, who was very light on her feet for such a large and imposing lady, was listening intently to the conversation.
Belle had ears like a bat.
‘Comes in handy when you have a lot of staff,’ she told Danae later that day, having dashed into the post office to pick up a couple of books of stamps because the hotel franking machine had gone on the blink yet again and someone hadn’t got it fixed as they’d promised.
‘I swear on my life, I’m going to kill that girl in the back office,’ Belle said grimly. ‘She hasn’t done a tap of work since she got engaged. Not getting the franking machine sorted is the tip of the iceberg. She reads bridal magazines under her desk when she thinks no one’s around. As if it really matters what colour the blinking roses on the tables at the reception are.’
Like Danae, Belle was in her early fifties. She had been married twice and was long beyond girlish delight over bridal arrangements. It was a wonder the hotel did such good business in wedding receptions, because Belle viewed all matrimony as a risky venture destined for failure. The only issue, Belle said, was when it would fail.
‘The Witches of Eastwick were talking about you in the hotel coffee shop this morning,’ she told her friend. ‘They reckon you’re hiding more than pre-paid envelopes behind that glass barrier.’
‘Nobody’s interested in me,’ said Danae cheerily. ‘You’ve a great imagination, Belle. It’s probably you they were talking about, Madam Entrepreneur.’
Danae’s day was busy, it being a normal September morning in Avalon’s post office.
Raphael, who ran the Avalon Deli, told Danae he was worried about his wife, Marie-France, because she had an awful cough and refused to go to the doctor.
‘“I do not need a doctor, I am not sick,”’ she keeps saying,’ he reported tiredly.
Danae carefully weighed the package going to the Pontis’ only son, who was living in Paris.
If she was the sort of person who gave advice, she might suggest that Raphael mention his mother’s cough to their son. Marie-France would abseil down the side of the house on a spider’s thread if her son asked her to. A few words in that direction would do more good than constantly telling Marie-France to go to the doctor – something that might be construed as nagging instead of love and worry.
But Danae didn’t give advice, didn’t push her nose in where it didn’t belong.
Father Liam came in and told her the parish was going broke because people weren’t attending Mass and putting their few coins in the basket any more.
‘They’re deserting the church when they need us now more than ever,’ he said, wild-eyed.
Danae sensed that Father Liam was tired of work, tired of everyone expecting him to understand their woes when he had woes of his own. In a normal job, Father Liam would be long retired so he could take his blood pressure daily and keep away from stress.
Worse, said Father Liam, the new curate, Father Olumbuko, who was strong and full of beans, wasn’t even Irish.
‘He’s from Nigeria!’ shrieked Father Liam, as if this explained everything. ‘He doesn’t know how we do things round here.’
Danae reckoned it would do Avalon no harm to learn how things were done in Nigeria but kept this thought to herself.
Danae nipped into the back to put the kettle on and, from there, heard the buzzer that signalled a person opening the post office door.
‘No rush, Danae,’ said a clear, friendly voice.
It was Tess Power. Tess ran the local antique shop, Something Old, a tempting establishment that Danae had trained herself not to enter lest she was overwhelmed with the desire to buy something ludicrous that she hadn’t known she wanted until she saw it in Tess’s beautiful shop. For it was beautiful: like a miniature version of an exquisite mansion, with brocade chairs, rosewood dressing tables, silver knick-knacks and antique velvet cloaks artfully used to display jewellery.
People were known to have gone into Something Old to buy a small birthday gift and come out hours later, having just had to have a diamanté brooch in the shape of a flamingo, a set of bone-handled teaspoons and a creaky chair for beside the telephone.
‘Tess Power could sell ice to the Eskimos,’ was Belle’s estimation of her.
It was from Belle that Danae had discovered that Tess was one of the Powers who’d once owned Avalon House, the huge and now deserted mansion overlooking the town that had been founded by their ancestors, the de Paors, back in feudal times.
The family had run out of money a long time ago, and the house had been sold shortly before Tess’s father died. There was a sister, too.
‘Wild,’ was Belle’s one-word summation of Suki Power.
Suki had run off and married into a famous American political dynasty, the Richardsons.
‘Quite like the Kennedys,’ said Belle, ‘but better-looking.’
After spending three years smiling like the ideal politician’s wife, Suki had divorced her husband and gone on to write a bestseller about feminism.
To Danae, student of humankind, she sounded interesting, perhaps even as interesting as Tess, who was quietly beautiful and seemed to hide her beauty for some unfathomable reason.
‘Hello, Tess, how are you?’ asked Danae, emerging from the back room with her tea.
‘Fine, thank you.’ said Tess. She was standing by the noticeboard, clad in an elderly grey wool sweater and old but pressed jeans. Danae had only ever seen her wear variations on this theme.
Tess had to be early forties, given that she had a teenage son, but she somehow looked younger, despite not wearing even a hint of make-up on her lovely, fine-boned face. Her fair hair was cut short and curled haphazardly, as if the most maintenance it ever got was a hand run through it in exasperation in the morning. Despite all that, hers was a face observant people looked at twice, admiring the fine planes of her cheekbones and the elegant swan-like neck highlighted by the short hair clustered around her skull.
‘I wanted to ask if I could stick a notice about my shop on your board, that’s all.’
‘Of course,’ said Danae with a smile.
Normally, she liked to check notices to ensure there was nothing that might shock the more delicate members of the community, but she was pretty sure that anything Tess would stick on the board would be exemplary. The vetting system had been in place since some joker had stuck up a card looking for ladies to join Avalon’s first burlesque dance club:
Experienced bosom-tassel twirlers required!
Most of the ladies of Avalon had all roared with laughter, although poor Father Liam allegedly needed a squirt of his inhaler when he heard.
‘How’s business?’ Danae asked.
Tess grimaced. ‘Not good. That’s why I’ve typed up the notices. I’m sticking them all over the place and heading into Arklow later to put some up there too. It’s to remind people that the antique shop is here, to encourage them to bring things in or else to come in and shop. The summer season used to be enough to keep me going, but not any more.’ She looked Danae in the eye.
Danae kept a professional smile on her face. Although she didn’t know her well, she sensed that Tess was not the sort of person who’d want sympathy or false assurances that everything would turn out fine in the end, or that the antique shop would stay open when other businesses were going under because of the recession.