Miles away, Clodagh Dunne sat at her big desk in a city-centre office. She stared through the glass doors in front of her. Clodagh was Kim’s younger sister and Elsie’s youngest child. In her letters to Chicago, Elsie always said Clodagh worked in Ireland’s top advertising company. Elsie made it sound as if Clodagh ran the company. In a way, she did. She was the receptionist and took all the phone calls. The boss joked that the company would fall apart if Clodagh didn’t keep them all on their toes. She was very good at her job.
But she was also fed up. She was twenty-nine and she didn’t want to be a receptionist any more. Even in a trendy advertising office. She wanted to be creative. She wanted to do more than say: ‘Hot Flash Advertising, can I help you?’ a hundred times a day.
Her boyfriend, Dan, was torn. He wanted her to be happy but he knew she had no training for a creative job. And if she gave up her good job in Hot Flash, how could they afford the lovely luxury flat they were renting in Ringsend? That was why he never said anything when Clodagh got into one of her creative moods. In her last mood, she’d repainted the bathroom bright blue and made fish patterns in navy blue all along the bath. She had made a blind for the window all by herself. It looked beautiful, Dan admitted. But God knows what the landlord would say.
‘Hot Flash Advertising, how can I help you?’ said Clodagh wearily. It was nearly half five. She wanted to go home.
‘Clodagh, it’s me,’ said Kim.
‘Hello!’ said Clodagh happily. She loved talking to her sister.
‘Are you at home tonight?’ asked Kim. ‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Yes,’ said Clodagh. ‘Coronation Street is on the television tonight. Where else would I be?’
‘I’ll ring you after that,’ said Kim. She said goodbye.
What was the big mystery? Clodagh wondered. She looked at the big silver clock on the wall. It was exactly half five. She put her special headset down and got up from her desk. If anyone wanted to phone now, tough bananas. They were too late.
That night, Kim and Clodagh spent half an hour on the phone.
‘Poor Mum,’ said Clodagh when she’d heard all the details.
‘What do you mean poor Mum?’ shouted Kim. ‘It’s me you should feel sorry for. These American girls are going to come and look down their noses at my house. They think I’ve got a housekeeper.’
Kim was getting more upset.
‘Charleen’s in college. She’s very clever, Mother says. She probably has her own car at home. All American kids have their own cars. We can barely afford the van and my rust bucket. The house hasn’t been touched in years. Tom painted the hall two years ago – that’s it. He did the girls’ bedroom the year before. The living room is a mess and I hate that green colour in the bathroom. I can’t have two strange girls move in and see the state of the place.’
‘Calm down,’ said Clodagh.
‘I can’t,’ said Kim. She burst into tears. Her mother was ashamed of Kim and her family. That was it. Why else would she lie about Kim and her job? Why else would she lie about the big house and Tom’s job? Because she was ashamed of Kim. That had to be the answer.
‘She’s not ashamed,’ said Clodagh when Kim explained how she felt. ‘Remember when I was ten or eleven. Miriam from across the road told me she was getting a bike for Christmas. I told her I was getting a bike and a dolls’ house. I wasn’t. I just didn’t want her to think she was better than me. That’s all.’
‘Yes, but you were ten. Mother is an adult. She should know better,’ said Kim sadly.
‘Don’t be silly, Kim. Of course Mum is proud of you. She has my head light every time I see her. “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” she says. It’s like listening to a broken record. Why can’t you get married and settle down? She thinks that Dan and I are living a wild life and go to night clubs all week. She wants us to be like you and Tom.’
‘Do you think so?’ asked Kim. She wiped her eyes with a tissue.
‘Yes.’ Clodagh was cheerful. ‘Don’t panic. I have a plan. Let’s all meet up in your house on Friday night. Tell Rob to come.’ Rob was their older brother. He worked in the bank. He had four sons and was married to Jill. Jill was tall, blonde and thought she was the last word in style.
Elsie hated Jill. That was why she lived with Kim and not with Rob. Rob and Jill’s house was bigger than Kim’s. But if Elsie and Jill had to live together, even the UN wouldn’t be able to keep the peace.
Clodagh wasn’t fond of her sister-in-law either. Jill had once told Clodagh that she felt sorry for her for having red hair. Clodagh’s hair was long, curly and the colour of flames. Clodagh had never forgiven Jill. Poor Rob was stuck in the middle. Family get-togethers could be deadly. At Christmas, Jill, Clodagh and Elsie had to be kept well apart from each other. After the argument last year about whether to watch Titanic or a ballet special, Kim had decided against having Christmas dinner in her house.
‘I bet Mother didn’t have to tell Aunt Maisie lies about Rob,’ Kim said bitterly to Clodagh.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Clodagh said. ‘She probably said Jill was a nice person. That’s a lie for a start.’
There were seven of them around the small dining-room table. Clodagh had brought her boyfriend, Dan. Rob had brought a pot plant for his mother and a box of chocolates for Kim. He hadn’t brought Jill.
Thank God for that, thought Elsie. Jill would look down her long nose at Elsie when she heard what had happened.
‘What’s the plan, Clodagh?’ asked Tom McDonnell. He felt sorry for his mother-in-law. She’d been boasting a little bit. So what? Lots of people did it.
‘Interior decoration,’ said Clodagh proudly.
‘What?’ said Tom.
‘We’re going to do up the house,’ Clodagh said simply.
‘We can’t afford an interior decorator,’ Kim said, shocked. Those people charged a fortune to tell you what colour wallpaper to use. She’d seen them on the telly. They never used the cheapest wallpaper. Oh no. They went mad and did things with paint and bits of scarves draped over lamps.
‘We’re not hiring anyone,’ Clodagh said. ‘I’ll do the designing and the rest of you will help out with the donkey work. All you need is clever ideas. You can do it really cheaply.’
‘Like you did our bathroom,’ said Dan. Clodagh had primed him beforehand on what to say.
‘Exactly,’ said Clodagh. ‘I’ve got some wonderful ideas. You’ve been saying for ages that it needs to be repainted, Kim. We’ll all help and it will be beautiful. Then you won’t mind Charleen and her friend staying. If they ask, you can say you got tired of the country and the horses. They won’t ask,’ she added confidently. ‘Say you like living near the city because you are at the centre of everything. You have shops and cafés round the corner. You can hear the bells of Christ Church. You’re minutes away from Stephen’s Green. Tell them you wanted to be more cosmopolitan.’
‘I thought that was a girls’ magazine,’ joked Dan.
Clodagh shot him a look. ‘It means that you wanted to live in the centre of a big, exciting city.’
‘We’ll say we’re far too old for ponies,’ Laura said. She loved this idea.
‘We can say we wanted to be nearer the shops,’ said Emer. That was true. Emer lived for the shops. Her side of the bedroom was like a sale of work with clothes everywhere.
‘I’ve got great ideas for painting up the bathroom and the kitchen,’ Clodagh said.
The rest of the family began to get excited too.
‘I could put up those shelves in the sitting room,’ said Tom. ‘They’re still in the box under the stairs. And I could make a special shelf for the television and video.’
‘We could have window boxes,’ said Elsie. She loved gardening. She had magic fingers with plants. But she hadn’t bothered since her husband had died. This was Kim’s garden and it would be rude to take over. Kim was bad with plants. She had only to look at an ivy and it dropped dead. ‘We could re-do all your garden pots, Kim,’ she said.
‘Exactly,’ said Clodagh. ‘Dan can help with the garden.’
‘I sell insurance,’ said Dan nervously. ‘I don’t know how to garden.’
Clodagh tickled him under the chin. ‘You know how to dig, don’t you?’ she said.
Rob said he had a load of paint in his loft. It was left over from the last time he’d had the house done. He knew where they could get nice patio slabs cheap and he had a friend who had a garden centre. They could get lots of plants at cost price.
Kim was the only one who was quiet. ‘We can’t afford it,’ she said. ‘What’s the point in painting the kitchen when the units are orange.’
‘We can paint them too!’ said Clodagh cheerily. ‘I’ve seen them do it on the TV.’
‘We’ll all chip in, Mum,’ said Emer.
‘I’ll buy the paint,’ offered Rob.
‘I’ll buy patio slabs,’ said Tom.
‘I’ll buy plants,’ said Elsie.
‘And we can do all the work ourselves,’ Clodagh added.
‘What about the housekeeper, and me being the school principal?’ demanded Kim. ‘I’m not lying to those two girls. I won’t do it. It’s wrong.’ There was no way she was going to be involved in such a lie. Kim believed in telling the truth. She spent her life telling the children in school that the truth was important. It would be wrong of her to tell such huge lies. She wouldn’t do it.
Tom decided it was time for his opinion. He’d been worried about how upset his wife was about the whole stupid thing. ‘There’ll be no lying in this house,’ he said firmly. ‘You aren’t the principal, we don’t have a housekeeper and there are no ponies.’
‘They’d never fit in the garden,’ joked Emer, looking into the tiny square of grass out the back.
Tom continued. ‘Nobody is going to lie to Charleen and her friend. They can stay here and be welcome. That’s all we’re doing, making them welcome. The house could do with a lick of paint. And if the house looks nice, you’ll feel better about the visitors, Kim. But if they ask, we’ll tell them the truth. There’s no housekeeper and there never was. Nobody will mention anything to do with ponies and you being the principal.’
‘Ah come on, Mum,’ said Emer. ‘It’ll be a bit of fun. You’re always saying I spend too much time doing nothing in the summer holidays. It’ll be cool to have Charleen here.’
Kim looked at the eager faces. ‘As long as I don’t have to spend my holidays working,’ she said.