‘Oh I’m sure your pal won’t mind if you’re a bit delayed,’ Paddy says bossily, though not even making eye contact with me. Instead he’s eyeing up the Hall behind me, like he’s mentally preparing for the day when he can let a hoard of estate agents loose on the place.
I should explain; Paddy Beauford is not only my cousin, but my nearest living relative and Jayne’s his wife; caramel highlights, skinny jeans and perfect teeth; you know the type. Anyway, they live up in Dublin, where their kids are in posh private schools. The pair of them were by a mile the most well-off people I knew, until the recession hit and suddenly Paddy’s property management company went belly-up. Which according to them was everyone’s fault, except his.
But instead of retrenching and just cutting back, like the rest of us have had to, their solution is to cling tightly by their fingernails to their five star lifestyle and just sell off any excess assets they had. Which they did; jettisoning the whole lot. Stuff they considered as ‘essential’, everything from their holiday apartment in Marbella to the pony they’d bought for their eldest daughter’s sixteenth.
Except now they’ve run out of family silver to sell, and are looking with even greedier eyes at Beauford Hall. Long story, but basically if it were ever to be sold, Paddy is a Beauford and has a right to his cut. And therefore feels he has a God-given right to tell me what to do with the place.
So with a sickeningly familiar knot in my stomach, I know exactly why they’re here – together as a tight little unit – and what it is they want to say to me. Which is basically just a variation on the same thing they’ve been droning on about for all of two years now, ever since I first came into the Hall.
‘So where’s the fete happening?’ Paddy asks.
‘At the Beauford Arms. I was actually just taking a stroll down there now, so if you’ll excuse me …’
‘Hop in so, we’ll drive you,’ Paddy says smiling benevolently.
‘Not at all! It’s a lovely evening, I’ll walk!’
‘Wouldn’t hear of it. Sure we’re driving through Avoca anyway. And we can have a nice little chat in the car.’
Bugger it. No way of avoiding what’s coming then, I think, climbing up into the back seat as we swoosh back down the driveway. They even centrally lock the doors, so I feel irrationally trapped, like I’m being held captive.
‘You’re looking so tired, Lizzie,’ Jayne says, turning back to me from the passenger seat, all big blue eyes and faux-concern. ‘Even more so than the last time we called to see you. Look at you, you’re absolutely exhausted. Doesn’t she Paddy love?’
‘Because she’s wearing herself out trying to sustain that white elephant of a place,’ he says, shaking his head and focusing on the road ahead. Every now and then though, I catch him taking sneaky, surreptitious little looks back at me through the rear-view mirror, as if he’s trying to suss out just how far he can push it with me right now.
‘Paddy’s right, you know,’ says Jayne, swishing her long, glossy, Kate Middleton hair in agreement. ‘And at the end of the day, is it really worth all the hassle?’
‘Actually everything’s being going absolutely fine at the Hall,’ I lie stoutly. ‘Better than fine, in fact. Wonderful. Had a school tour in today, as it happens. Very successful. And … emm … lucrative too.’
‘Yes, but you have to admit, it’s still a massive struggle for you,’ Paddy says, shaking his head sadly. ‘Breaks my heart to see you trying to make the place pay, when we all know the days of big houses like that are long over.’
‘I mean, look at the state of it!’ says Jayne. ‘It needs millions spent on it, just to make it habitable …’
‘… and millions is exactly what no one has these days …’
‘… but I’ll tell you who does have that kind of dosh …’ Jayne takes it up from him as my head follows the pair of them, Wimbledon style.
‘… wealthy ex-pats coming back to Ireland from abroad, that’s who. You know, guys who’ve made their money, made it big, and now they’re looking for a slice of classic country life in a stately home. Cash buyers.’
‘… Good point Jayne. And you know, these people actually have the money to spend on places like Beauford Hall, they’d be well able to upgrade it and restore it back to what it should be …’
For God’s sake! I think, almost feeling like steam is starting to fume out of my ears, cartoon-like. Did the pair of them rehearse this on the way down? Because I wouldn’t for two seconds put it past them. They’re actually starting to sound like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee; the very same bloody conversation I’ve been listening to for months now.
‘… Just think about selling Lizzie,’ says Paddy. ‘That’s all I’m saying. And you know, I’ve a lot of contacts in the property world, so I’d be delighted to make all the necessary arrangements for you. You wouldn’t have to lift a finger and in one fell stroke, you could pay off your mortgage, your capital gains tax, inheritance tax …’
‘… and still have a fortune left over to buy yourself a gorgeous little flat in town. Somewhere warm and cosy and easy to keep …’ Jayne chimes in, nodding enthusiastically.
‘… where you wouldn’t be so isolated and where we wouldn’t have to worry ourselves sick about you struggling away here all on your own …’
Worry about me? I want to screech at them, my eyes I’m sure bulging out of their sockets now from the sheer annoyance of having to listen to this unutterable load of horse dung. Oh yeah. They’re worried about my personal welfare alright. So worried that over the whole of last Christmas, I never even got a phone call from them, just a Christmas gift. Which, by the way, was a fridge magnet with an estate agent’s logo plastered all over the back of it. Just in case I’d miss the subtle hint.
Not soon enough, we swish up as far as the outskirts of Avoca and in about two seconds flat, I’m out the car door and saying goodbye to them through the window.
‘Well thanks so much for this,’ I tell them crisply, not succeeding too well in keeping the edge out of my voice. ‘But I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.’
Then drawing myself up to my full height, I tell them proudly, ‘You know, Beauford Hall has been in our family for over two hundred years and hell will freeze over before it’s sold. Not now and certainly not on my watch.’
‘Lizzie, you’ve got to stop being so stubborn and try to see some sense. There’s a massive mortgage on the place. If things keep going the way they are, how are you ever going to meet your mortgage repayments?’ is Paddy’s parting shot.
Honest answer? I. Do. Not. Know. Instead, I stride on in the direction of the Beauford Arms, rage fuelling me onwards. And as ever, in spite of myself, just walking through the tiny country street, covered in bunting and thronged with people on their way to the fete; overexcited kids too high on chocolate and ice cream, with their parents all looking forward to the night’s festivities ahead, my spirits slowly begin to lift.
I don’t care what Paddy Beauford thinks. I’m categorically not off my head insane to try to take on such a mammoth ‘white elephant’ as he refers to it. And Mum and Dad would be proud of what I’m trying to do. I don’t just know it, I feel it.
I turn a corner and just as I’m on Main St, suddenly my eyes fall on a giant poster right outside Hartigan’s Grocers.
‘Happy Midsummer to one and all!’
Then, out of nowhere, something my mother always used to say instantly comes back to me.
‘Magic happens at Midsummer,’ I can still hear her saying. ‘Always remember that Lizzie love and always trust it. If anything ever happens to me, I’ll be sure to send you a Midsummer miracle. All you need to do is trust it. Magic can and will happen.’
And today’s the day. It’s June the twenty-first.
Mum, Dad? I find myself silently praying to them. If you’re looking down on me now, if you can see me at all … can you find me my Midsummer miracle?
God knows, I’ve never needed one more.
‘Jeez, the arseho
les you’ve the misfortune to be related to!’ Hilary almost splutters into her bowl of penne pasta, when I fill her in about my unwanted visitors.
‘I know,’ I nod, taking another lovely, nerve-calming sip of Pinot Grigot.
‘Dollar signs lit up in Paddy Beauford’s little gimlet-y eyes, I suppose?’
‘Like you wouldn’t believe …’
‘And the wife probably had her measuring tape out and all, ready to get the place on the market first thing in the morning …’
‘Well not quite, but not too far off either.’
‘Never trust a man with the eyes too close together. And you have to admit, Paddy definitely has a touch of a ferret-y look about him …’
‘I know, love, I know,’ I tell her soothingly, topping up her glass of wine, which she gratefully knocks back.
‘You see this is what makes me so irrationally angry!’ she says, working herself up into a crescendo of righteous indignation. ‘Paddy and what’s-her-face see a single woman on her own in a house that size and not only assume that you’re not coping, but that you’ll jump at the chance to just walk away from something you’ve worked so hard for all this time. Jesus, Lizzie, you’re doing everything humanly possible to keep the place afloat!’
I look across the tiny table at her fondly. This is why everyone should have a Hilary in their lives, I think from out of nowhere. There are absolutely no grey areas with her, she just sees everything in black and white monochrome. You’re either one of us and on our side, or else you’re the lowest form of human life and should be put out of your misery.
Nights like this, you gotta love her for it.
The Beauford Arms is packed tonight, with the Midsummer fete in full swing, but the pair of us have somehow managed to find a cosy, quiet table right at the back. The place is a hugely popular gastropub/ restaurant, by the way, that Hilary has been waitressing in, since long before I first rolled into town, all of two years ago now. And we’ve been buddies pretty much from the off; word somehow went out on mysterious local tom toms that old Mr Edward Beauford’s niece was taking over the place after he passed away.
So there I was, rattling around this massive stately pile that I only dimly remembered visiting with my parents as a small child, when suddenly there was a hammering on the hall door. And when I unlocked it, there was this glorious creature, six feet tall and stick-thin, with sharp bobbed jet black hair, the thickest black eyeliner I’ve ever seen and dressed head to toe in black. She’d two things in her hands; a welcome basket of muffins that she’d baked herself and a bottle of champagne that she filched earlier from the pub, bless her.
‘Welcome to the sticks,’ she grinned at me. ‘Couldn’t handle the thought of you here all by yourself on your first night, so what do you say we get this party started?’
And that was it. Mates from that day to this.
‘And I wouldn’t mind,’ Hilary goes on, tearing off a giant lump of ciabatta bread and soaking up arrabiata sauce with it, ‘but it’s not like you’re hanging round up there, lying on a chaise longue like Lady Mary from bloody Downton Abbey. Look at you, you’re working your arse off!’
‘Except I’ve a massive mortgage and none of it is exactly paying, is it?’
Hilary, bless her, is too tactful a soul to go into it any further. Mainly because there are some things which even in retrospect, we’re just not ready to have a laugh at just yet.
‘And you know something else?’ I say, shoving my empty plate away and slumping back into the squishy sofa behind me. ‘I think that’s what really gets me more than anything else, you know. Everyone around me seems to think that I’m off my head bonkers to even try to sustain a place the size of Beauford Hall. But they don’t get it! No one seems to understand that I actually do love it there. And yes, I know it’s run-down and I know it’s seen better days, but I love living here, you know, country life. And I know if Mum and Dad were still around, they’d do exactly the same thing in my shoes. So in a way, I’m doing it in their name. I just know it’s what they would have wanted.’
A short pause while Hilary looks worriedly across at me. Mainly because I’m still at the point where even talking about my parents and how much I miss them both every day can either send me into a depressive slump or else reduce me to a snivelling basket case. That’s the funny thing about grief; one day you think you’re fine, then just something tiny like stumbling across a childhood photo of Dad and that’s me effectively gone for the rest of the day. But this time I do a quick audit of my feelings and realise that … it’s actually OK. There. I mentioned them out loud and I seem alright.
Maybe it’s because it’s Midsummer. As Mum always said a time when miracles can and do happen.
‘I understand,’ Hilary says gently, for her. ‘And if no one else gets it, then I promise you, at least I do.’
I smile gratefully back at her, then slump back against the sofa.
‘Come on,’ she says, shoving her empty plate away. ‘It’s party night. There’s a party in full swing outside for once, I’m not working tonight. What do you say we have a few drinks, kick our shoes off and just for tonight forget about all our troubles?’
‘Sounds like a plan to me!’
‘By the way, Andy’s on his way up from Dublin,’ she throws in, faux-casually.
‘Oh, really?’ I answer, trying my best to sound all blithe and disinterested. ‘And..emm … is he bringing Eva with him?’ The girlfriend. You don’t want to know.
‘Well no, as it happens. He said he’d loads to tell me, but by the sounds of it, they’ve finally broken up. Huh, no suprises there. I always knew that one was trouble; God knows, I told Andy enough times.’
She looks at me keenly and I find myself flushing to my roots. Andy is Hil’s older brother. And the crush I was sort of referring to, during the grilling I got about my love life from the first years at Our Lady’s earlier.
The pair of us are just at the door of the pub, weaving our way through the crowds on our way to the gorgeous gardens outside, when Dave Sullivan, head barman and proprietor, calls the pair of us back.
‘Hang on a minute ladies, aren’t you both forgetting something?’
Hilary and I both stop, turn and look at him blankly.
Dave signals for us to come back, then switches on the overhead TV.
‘Well, it’s Saturday night, isn’t it?’ he says, incredulous that we’ve somehow overlooked this.
‘Yeah … why?’
‘Well, Saturday night Lotto’s coming on any minute now, isn’t it? Just hang on a sec till we check our numbers.’
Oh God, here we go. Yet again. We’ve got a bit of a village syndicate going, you see. Been going for years and never as much as yielded a single bean. Hilary’s in it, so is Dave and half the staff at the Beauford Arms and I was dragged into it (thank you Hil) when I first moved here.
‘Ah forget it Dave!’ Hil laughs, steering me away from the TV and outside into the warm sunshine. But something, couldn’t even tell you what, stops me dead in my tracks. I know it’s hopeless and I know you’ve about as much chance as being struck by a bolt of lightning, and I know it’s a waste of time, but my mother’s words keep coming back to me.
If anything ever happens to me, I’ll be sure to send you a Midsummer miracle.
‘Just hang on a sec …’ I tell Hil, focusing upwards towards the telly.
Wheel begins to spin … and the first number is called.
‘Three!’
‘Yup, that’s one of mine,’ says Dave. ‘Date of my wedding anniversary.’
Second number is … seventeen.
‘Yeah, we have that too,’ says Tracey, another barmaid who’s abandoned clearing tables and is now glued to the telly with the rest of us.
Third and fourth numbers are … ‘twenty four and twenty six!’ annouces a highly Botox-ed looking presenter from the TV.
‘Twenty four is mine!’ says Hil, ‘my birthday!’
‘Oh my God … we’ve got twenty six too!
’ says Tracey. ‘That’s my one, it’s the number of my house!’
The whole pub has gone eerily silent now and I swear you can practically feel people suddenly tuning into this.
‘Just two more … that’s all we need …’ says Dave, ashen-faced, from behind the bar.
‘Fifth number is …’ says Miss Botox on telly, ‘… number twelve!’
Silence as we all look around in panic, praying someone in our syndicate will claim it. After a heart-stopping pause Mrs. Fitzgerald, a pensioner who lives nearby, pipes up.
‘What did she say? Was it twelve? I couldn’t hear the telly properly; my hearing aid needs new batteries.’
‘Yeah, twelve,’ the rest of us chorus back at her.
‘Oh, yes, we we have that too. That’s my number. Date of my late husband’s anniversary.’
‘So then … that means …’ Hilary says, turning to me, ashen-faced.
‘Just one more,’ I answer numbly, instinctively gripping her hand, vision starting to blur a bit with all the tension.
‘And what’s the jackpot tonight?’
‘It was a rollover from last week. So it’s around twenty five million.’
I find myself gasping. Twenty five million, split ten ways. A fortune. An absolute, unimaginable fortune.
I could pay off my mortgage. Renovate the Hall. Restore it to what I dream it can be; a proper family home again. I look at Hilary who’s clinging to my hand so tightly now I think she’ll cut the circulation off. Hil could do what she’s always wanted to do too. Set up her own business, open her very own restaurant. And have change to spare!
But no, we couldn’t be that lucky. Could we? Nah. Sure everyone knows you’re more likely to be run over by the Space Shuttle than for an unimaginable miracle like this to happen, don’t they?
And then Mum’s words come back to me. ‘Miracles happen at Midsummer …’
‘Come on …’ says Dave. ‘Come on … just one more …’
‘What is our last number anyway?’ says Sheila Quinn, a mother of four kids all under the age of seven, who’s in the syndicate too and who needs cash almost as badly as I do myself.
The Perfect Escape Page 10