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Blissfully unaware of the mixed emotions her well-intentioned letter had generated within the breast of Horace Johnson, Dorothy sat in the study of the Falcon apartment with her laptop open on the desk. In the hope it would make him appear older, she narrowed her eyes and squinted at the image of Charlie on the screen. Alas, no matter how much she screwed up her face, the young man did not look a day over twenty, and Simone still glowed and looked all loved up. She exhaled heavily and commenced typing.
From: Dottie8888@chatulike.ie
To: SRedmond@chatchat.com; ANorris@talkalot.com
Date: May 14th, 2011
SUBJECT: LAWYERS AND PACKING
Hi Girls,
I am safely back at Falcon after my recent adventures in Kerry. I will soon be the proud owner of yet another piece of real estate called Otter House. I have attached a link to the details so you can fully appreciate it. Almost as soon as I got back, I met with Nicholas Kerrigan, my new solicitor.
I expected him to be middle-aged, fat and balding, but nothing could be further from the truth. He is early forties, tall, athletic, and beautifully groomed. He was wearing a suit that could not have cost a cent less than one thousand euro. He is one of those square-jawed types, which gives him a vaguely heroic air. He reminded me of a character from an Agatha Christie novel. I kept expecting him to suggest a spot of tennis or perhaps a round of croquet. No sign of a wedding band. He seems highly skilled at lawyering as well...LOL. He will be handling the Otter purchase for me as well as the hotel deal.
He specialises in estate planning, and we agreed he will start to review all my affairs as soon as possible, and of course begin drafting a new will. He kept talking about tax implications and inheritance planning, which he says will slow things down a little. We chatted for a few minutes and you would not believe how complicated these things can be. Unless you are ultra-careful, the taxman stands to take about a third of your estate after you’ve shuffled off the mortal coil. I know it’s not possible to avoid paying all taxes, although Nicholas says there are ways he can mitigate the situation. Yikes!
BTW, I think I have found the perfect shop for Viv. I was walking up South Anne Street on my way to the meeting with Nicholas, and there it was across the road from me. It has the added bonus of an apartment above it. As a matter of fact, the whole building is over four floors and three of those floors are apartments, although I am assuming Viv and Yvonne will only require one.
I mentioned it to Nicholas because it’s located in his neck of the woods. He says the rents are very high in that particular area but so is footfall. I told him a few details about Viv, and he said it might be rather pricey for her, and she might be better off setting her sights a little lower if she is in the process of clawing her way back from the brink of financial disaster. I suppose he is right and she ought to be cautious, although in my opinion one little viewing can’t hurt.
I called the number on the board and it is definitely still available. The whole building is vacant and they are looking to lease the shop, although they will consider offers from anybody who is interested in purchasing the freehold on the entire building.
I don’t know if Viv is ready to buy again so soon after having her fingers badly burned in the marketplace. That said, there is nothing to stop her renting an apartment in the short term, and taking a lease on the shop. I personally think that would be the sensible option. At least that would give her an opportunity to see how well her numbers stack up before she makes an even bigger commitment.
As soon as Yvonne finishes school at the end of next month, they will be moving to Dublin. They will stay with Viv’s mum for a couple of weeks unless they have a place already lined up. Viv doesn’t want to rush out and sign up for the first thing that comes along, but at the same time she really wants to find a permanent place to live before Yvonne starts secondary school in September. Ergo, the pressure is on.
She sounds tense whenever I speak to her. I think a part of her feels guilty for taking Yvonne away from Garry, but at the same time she genuinely feels a fresh start will be better for both of them. I personally don’t think she should stay in Wexford if it has unhappy memories. It’s not as if she’s taking Yvonne to the other side of the world. They will only be a short drive away from Garry, and I know Viv would never try to prevent him from seeing Yvonne or anything petty like that. She says he has always been a great dad.
Anyhoo! She likes the sound of the premises I stumbled across, and is planning to drive up over the next few days and view it. Bel and I would dearly love to tag along, but we are heading off to Rome tomorrow. Jamie packed my Louis with all the essentials and Bel made all the arrangements. Isn’t that great?
I was over with Sharon this morning for a manicure and tan so I won’t disgrace myself when we visit all of those designer shops. I am really looking forward to it. I hope Bel brings her walking shoes. I seem to recall it takes at least six hours to tour the Vatican museum. LOL. Love to all. Dot xx
‘I have an errand for the pair of you,’ Dorothy regarded Josh and Deco over the kitchen table.
‘Does it involve getting off with girls or scoffing copious quantities of beer?’ Josh asked, as he shoved the last piece of chicken into his mouth and chewed down on it as if it was made of rubber.
‘There are times when I feel deeply ashamed of your table manners,’ his mother informed him sadly.
‘Sorry, Ma,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘That was a very nice chicken yoke you made us. The girls will be sorry they missed it.’
‘I had good reason for excluding them today, which brings me back to the subject of the errand. To answer your question, it has nothing to do with shifting some poor unsuspecting young one, although it may well involve a certain amount of beer guzzling.’
‘Sounds intriguing,’ Deco said, as his eyes roved around the kitchen hopefully.
‘No dessert until you’ve agreed to the errand,’ Dorothy told them firmly. ‘Come into the dining room for a minute.’
The boys obligingly stood up and followed her out of the kitchen and into the room next door. In keeping with the rest of the apartment, it was decorated in a very modern style, with hardwood floors and a long, rectangular glass-topped table that could seat ten diners.
‘Wow,’ Deco paused on the threshold. ‘My ma would love this.’
‘It’s very nice,’ Dorothy agreed, ‘although the dining room in the palace at Howth will be twice the size of this one. I’ve decided to buy a table large enough to seat twenty. That way, when I have a dinner party, I won’t have to stress about lack of space. I found a company in Bangkok who will design and make one for me using a single slab of acacia. I’ve very excited about it.’
Josh and Deco exchanged a look that spoke volumes. ‘A ginormous acacia table sounds very cosy,’ Josh said sarcastically. ‘Will there be any eating areas for normal folks? Like us?’
‘We’re thinking of installing an island in the kitchen with lots of stools around it,’ his mother told him, ‘and a breakfast nook sort of tucked away for anybody who’s feeling anti-social. It’s only ideas right now, we’re nowhere near finalising the plans. The house is barely half built.’
‘The island yoke sounds more like us,’ Josh nodded thoughtfully. ‘Will there be a man space?’
‘The man cave will be roughly the same size as this entire apartment,’ Dorothy smiled at him. ‘I don’t want to spoil the surprise by saying too much, but I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed with the finished result.’
Deco rubbed his hands together with relish. ‘A man cave,’ he uttered the words with deep satisfaction.
‘A ginormous man cave full of toys and gadgets,’ his bestie corrected.
‘And a bar,’ Deco regarded Dorothy hopefully.
She smiled impishly, but remained silent.
‘There’s definitely a bar,’ Deco told Josh, and elbowed him in the ribs.
Josh’s eyes lit up and he opened his mouth to interrogate his mother further about the layout of her new home.
‘No more questions,’ she slapped his hand to get his attention. ‘I asked you in here to show you this.’ She pointed at the large wicker basket perched on the sideboard.
‘What is it?’ asked Josh.
‘It’s a gift for Horace’s thirtieth birthday. I need the two of you to deliver it to Shankill on the nineteenth, and spend a bit of time with him. It doesn’t seem right to abandon him on the big 3-0, and I’m not going to be around.’
At this juncture, she dug her hand into the pocket of her jeans and extracted a wad of cash. She peeled eight, fifty-euro notes off the stash and pushed what was left back in. Then she handed four of the fifties to each boy saying, ‘This is to grease the wheels of the celebration. Make sure you buy a decent cake, and ask the butcher for a juicy bone for Trotsky.’
‘Can we take the day off college?’ Josh watched her face expectantly.
‘I’ll leave that up to your conscience,’ she could not resist smoothing his unruly hair flat against his head. It promptly sprang upright again. Josh ignored her futile attempts to tidy him.
‘A cake and a juicy bone,’ Deco was busy committing the instructions to memory. ‘What about candles?’
‘I put a packet in the hamper,’ Dorothy replied, and waved in the general direction of the wicker basket. It looked very sturdy and was held closed by two brown, leather straps. There was a half-moon handle at each end which would make it easy to carry.
‘What else is in there?’ Deco enquired curiously. Josh did not bother waiting for a reply and was already walking towards the box. He undid the straps before lifting the lid.
‘Booze, cigars, junk and two bibles,’ he reeled off a list.
‘They’re not bibles,’ Dorothy said crossly. One’s a journal, and the other is for drawing. The covers are made from nabuk leather, and the paper is handmade Amalfi. I stumbled across them in a lovely little shop the day we went to the Sineu fair in Mallorca. You may remember it was you two philistines who carried them for me.’
Josh lifted out one of the tomes and examined its tanned leather cover critically. It was almost a foot across and fifteen inches tall, and was held closed by strips of dark brown leather looped in a loose knot. Out of the hamper, the book was an impressive sight. ‘Were they expensive?’ he asked.
‘Crazy expensive,’ his mother replied crisply, ‘although there’s no need to mention that to Horace.’
Deco had succumbed to temptation, and was busy examining the remainder of the treasure. He pulled out a long wooden item which appeared to serve no obvious purpose and turned it over in his hands. ‘What is it?’ he held it up so Josh could get a better look.
‘It’s a pipe rack,’ Dorothy told him impatiently.
‘But Horace doesn’t smoke, Ma,’ Josh grinned at her cheekily.
‘I saw it in Spain,’ she confiscated the book and, with some difficulty, returned it to the sanctity of the basket. ‘I know it was a silly thing to buy, but the coat of arms reminded me of his quilt so I bought it on impulse. You can tell him to burn it if he doesn’t like it. I won’t be offended.’
‘I guess it is some sort of coat of arms,’ Deco perused the badge critically. ‘You can barely make it out under the grime. No offence, Dorothy, but this is a piece of crap.’
She slapped his hand sharply and promptly confiscated the rack. ‘Horace can decide whether or not to keep it,’ she said firmly. ‘I thought he might like the way the big dog is lying under the tree, and the stars are shining down on the scene. By the way, you can tell him I’ll bring him back a pair of snazzy sunglasses from Rome, and I’ll be over to visit him and Amanda in June.’
‘What’s this?’ Josh held up a small purple envelope and shook it. It made no sound.
‘It’s a few hundred euro. You know how weird he can be about money, so I thought he might not freak out over a small amount. I don’t know if you realise I had to bully him into accepting a present from the win. He was quite affronted at the notion of me giving him any of the dosh. He started getting all irate and speaking in tongues.’
‘Abite nummi, ego vos mergam, ne mergar a vobis,’ Deco unexpectedly threw in.
Dorothy gawked at him in astonishment. ‘Derek Moynihan, are you speaking Latin?’
‘It’s one of Hairy Horace’s favourite sayings, Ma,’ Josh looked surprised by her response. ‘I’m surprised you don’t know it off by heart as well.’
‘But what does it mean?’ she looked from one to the other helplessly.
‘Away with you, money, I will sink you that I may not be sunk by you,’ the boys recited in unison.
‘Well, I guessed it was something negative about money,’ Dorothy sounded unimpressed, ‘but that’s all rather melodramatic. I don’t see anybody around here being sunk, and I have enough dosh to literally send a battleship to a watery grave on the seabed.’
‘Especially if you converted it to gold,’ Deco nodded vigorously in agreement. ‘I wonder what one hundred and thirty eight million yo yos looks like in the form of solid gold bullion. The physics department might work that out for us.’
‘Leave the physics department well and truly alone,’ Dorothy told him sharply. ‘Remember, discretion is the name of the game when it comes to the lottery. Now! Do we have an agreement regarding the delivery of the gift, and the cheering up of the hirsute one?’
‘No problem,’ Josh replied enthusiastically. ‘We might bring along a case of beer and make a night of it.’
‘In that case, why don’t you ask Amanda if you can stay in her spare room,’ Dorothy tweaked his nose. ‘That way, you won’t have to worry about getting home.’
‘Excellent notion, Mother,’ he tweaked her nose in return. ‘Any chance of the pudding you promised us? Is it homemade?’
‘It certainly is. It’s a sort of chocolate and banana pie. You can take what’s left home with you. Just don’t mention to Diane that you were here. I don’t want her to know about you visiting Horace.’
‘We’ll tell her we have a double date with a couple of partially sighted birds,’ Deco said happily. ‘Thanks for the cash, Dorothy. And everything else. I’ll take that hamper with me and hide it in my house if you like. That way, Di won’t stumble across it. I wonder if she’ll remember the Hairy Bear is due a birthday.’
Dorothy smiled at him fondly and said, ‘It’s the first anniversary of the day it all blew up in her face. I seriously doubt the poor girl will be able to forget it even if she wants to. It won’t be easy for Horace either. That day was the start of all his recent troubles. Until that moment, I think he honestly believed the we four would be on the best of terms for the rest of our lives. The poor man was devastated when the two of you moved away. He feels responsible.’
‘Do you ever wonder why he didn’t drag Di into his big bed that day and bang her brains out?’ Josh enquired of his mother.
Deco eyed Dorothy nervously, unsure of how this would be received. He need not have worried. ‘No,’ she replied evenly. ‘He didn’t pursue that course of action because that’s not who he is. He truly believed if he acted in such a way, he would have been taking advantage of a vulnerable young girl. Diane was always in safe hands when she was with Horace. I’d trust him with her life. There are very few men I can say that about.’
‘Not me oul lad anyway,’ Josh made the comment with a wicked glint in his brown eyes.
‘Let’s not spoil the day by bringing up the subject of your daddy,’ Dorothy replied firmly. ‘Are you looking forward to your trip to London next month?’
Since they were back in the kitchen, she busied herself cutting up the pie and sliding two large slices onto her white plates.
‘I’m looking forward to seeing his face when we break the news,’ Josh chortled. ‘Apart from that, I’m not too bothered about going over there at the moment. We have a lot going on here now we have a few bob to actually do stuff.’
As Deco nodded vigorously in agreement with this sentiment, he picked up a spoon and dived on his pudding. ‘So much moola, so little time,’ he muttered through a mouthful of food.
‘Don’t forget I’m taking you out for a meal on your birthday,’ Dorothy told her son earnestly. ‘After that, you can do whatever you like.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Josh told her. ‘Looking forward to the prezzie already. Don’t forget it’s Deco’s birthday a week before mine.’
‘I’m hardly likely to forget such a momentous day of the year,’ Dorothy replied gravely, and winked at Deco.
The boy mumbled something inarticulate, and Dorothy decided to leave them to their guzzling. She got up from the table and went to cover what was left of the pie with foil. It was important they take it with them and remove all temptation from her path. The boys had soon scoffed their way through the large slices, and declared it would be at least an hour before they would be able to eat again.
Deco went to collect the wicker basket while Dorothy spent a minute quizzing Josh about his laundry and personal hygiene. He answered all her questions with good humour, and seemed not to even hear her repeated references to shaving, deodorant, and clean underpants.
Both young men paused to drop a goodbye kiss on her cheek as they passed through the front door she held open for them. She could hear them laughing and chatting all the way to the lift, and even when the steel doors closed, she was sure she could hear the sounds of their voices radiating up from the lift shaft. She felt a sudden shiver of apprehension, but quickly brushed it away and went back indoors to clean the kitchen and complete her preparations for Rome.
