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Perhaps not surprisingly, Vivian Doyle had chosen not to join the other ladies on their outing to the holistic fair. She texted Dorothy to say she had so much on her plate with the move, she was barely able to think straight. She did not think it would be fair to spoil their day out with her odd behaviour; ergo she would give the fair a miss.
In hindsight, Dorothy was grateful for Viv’s absence. It had been difficult enough to hide the angst generated by the card reading from her mother and sister. Viv tended to have a very sharp eye for such things, and might not have been so easily fooled. Nonetheless, she was a little worried about the other woman. Amy called from France to say she too was concerned.
‘I know she says she doesn’t love Garry like she used to,’ Amy said sadly, ‘but we both know breakups can be hard, even if you’re not madly in love. Viv thinks she’s letting Yvonne down by taking her away from Wexford. To hear her talk, you’d swear she was dragging her off to live on the moon. See if you can get her to open up about things, Dottie. She’ll listen to you, and a heart to heart is what she needs right now.’
‘Why will she listen to me of all people?’ Dorothy asked curiously.
‘Because you took the twins away from Declan and divorced him the first chance you got,’ Amy explained patiently. ‘They turned out okay, didn’t they? Try to make her understand Yvonne’s life won’t be ruined by this separation.’
A week later, Dorothy got the call she had been expecting. Viv had spent forty-eight hours moving herself and her daughter into their new apartment, and was officially a Dublin resident once more. She invited Dorothy around for a drink, saying she badly wanted to ask her opinion. Not just on the new apartment, but also on her ideas for the shop.
Dorothy jumped at the chance to see her friend, as she had still not given her any cash from the golf win. She took the envelope from the Falcon safe and a bottle of champagne from the fridge. Then she asked Jamie if he would drop her off on South Anne Street so she could have a drink with Viv and toast the new enterprise. When Jamie pulled the car over, Dorothy saw the shop was still fully shuttered.
The doors to the three apartments were around the side and, as per Viv’s instructions, she went to press the buzzer for the first one. Rather than using the remote release, Yvonne came downstairs to admit the guest. As soon as the girl opened the door, Dorothy grabbed her for a hug and welcomed her to Dublin.
Yvonne was short for her twelve years, and her hair tended towards the limp and lanky variety. She had fair skin, and was unlucky enough to have active glands causing her chin to break out. She was very slim in the style of both her parents, although she veered more towards her father’s tolerant disposition than her mother’s driven one. She led the visitor upstairs, chatting as they went.
The apartment was in the region of fourteen hundred square-feet. It had two double bedrooms and one single, as well as a decent kitchen fitted out in oak and granite. Garry had not objected to his spouse removing the choicest pieces of furniture from their old home, a situation of which Viv had taken full advantage. Dorothy smelled new carpet as soon as she got through the front door, and assumed the landlord had acceded to the latest tenant’s request for some modernisation.
Viv was wearing faded jeans with an old plaid shirt, and had her blonde hair tied up in a red scarf and knotted at the front like a land girl. It was odd to see her without her usual lipstick and mascara, although Dorothy was quick to spot that, despite everything, she was quite relaxed. Viv grinned happily at her friend.
‘Welcome to bedlam,’ she bent down to hug her.
Dorothy was offered a cup of coffee, which she declined, and given the full tour. She was relieved to see how quickly the residence was coming together, and how settled they already looked after barely one day. Yvonne showed off her new bedroom and opened the built-in wardrobe so the guest could see how well she had progressed with her unpacking. When she had Dorothy alone for a minute, she smiled shyly and thanked her again for the National Solidarity Bonds.
‘I didn’t really understand what they were at first,’ she admitted. ‘But Dad explained it to me. He says if I’m careful, I’ll never have to take out a mortgage on my home. Dad says I’ll be set for life if I use the money wisely. He says I’ll only be sixteen when the first one matures. I think he’s a bit worried about that. He says that’s too young to have so much money. He’s looking into a way of tying it up for me until I’m eighteen or even twenty-one.’
The girl’s pale and thin face looked very earnest, and Dorothy caught a flash of the despised braces when she smiled. She walked over to her and wrapped her arms around the slim frame. ‘You don’t have to think about the money for years yet,’ she said quietly. ‘You focus on being a kid for the time being, and let the future take care of itself.’
She left Yvonne to finish her unpacking and went to find Viv. The other woman was in the kitchen searching for the good champagne flutes. She insisted Dorothy make herself comfortable at the island unit and poured her a glass of iced water to keep her going while she continued her hunt for the glassware. Grateful to have the other woman to herself for a few minutes, Dorothy handed over the envelope and spun the usual story about her investments.
Viv expressed herself surprised at the unexpected gift of twenty-five thousand. She said Dottie had given her so much already, she felt bad about accepting more. This came as something of a relief to Dorothy. In a dark corner of her mind, she had fully expected Viv to be disappointed because the sum was relatively modest. On the contrary, far from being disappointed, Viv tried to return the envelope. It was only Dorothy saying if she would rather not use the money for herself, she should put it aside for Yvonne’s school fees that stopped the other woman in her tracks.
Viv tucked an escaping strand of blonde hair back into her scarf. She said she would hide the envelope in one of her secret hidey-holes in case Yvonne spotted it and became curious. Then she hurriedly excused herself and almost ran from the room. Dorothy could see her friend was a little emotional and did not blame her. Amy was quite right. Viv had been through a lot in a relatively short space of time, and was busy adjusting to her new life as a lone parent.
She wandered out to the living room and made herself comfortable with a magazine and her glass. She would give the other woman a few minutes to collect herself. Poor Viv. Divorce was hideous, regardless of whether you were twenty or forty.
As Dorothy flicked through the April edition of Tatler magazine, and tried hard not to reflect on her own marital breakdown and subsequent divorce, Viv went to her bedroom and hid the envelope of cash in her tights drawer. Her mother had already been around to help with the unpacking, and had insisted on focusing on her daughter’s bedroom. She was convinced the quicker the sleeping area was organised, the better the quality of rest Viv would get.
Viv had left her to it and concentrated her own efforts on the kitchen. Geraldine Moroney had unpacked every stitch of clothing her daughter possessed, and methodically stowed it away in the large wardrobes and chest of drawers. She had stopped a couple of times to shed a tear when she inadvertently stumbled across mementoes of her daughter’s life.
Vivian Moroney, as she was back then, made her parents very proud when she achieved enough points in her Leaving Certificate to bag a place on the much-coveted Bachelor of Commerce course at University College Dublin. Having obtained her degree with relative ease, she spent the year that followed graduation backpacking around the world, telling them all she needed to get the wanderlust out of her system before she returned home and made her fortune in the world of business. Viv’s return to the home country in 1995 coincided with the emergence of the Celtic Tiger years.
It also coincided with the death of her grandmother, from whom she inherited a respectable sum. Fresh from the fields of Vietnam and bristling with life, Viv used the money to invest in a property deal with two young men she had known in college.
Even though her parents were not in favour of the venture, it proved to be a success, and Viv doubled her money. The three partners created their own company, and continued in the development business for the next two years. All three had very different long-term goals, and merely regarded the property game as a way of creating a substantial lump sum for their futures.
Her foray into the development business also gave Viv a taste for design. She knew lifestyle stores were destined to become huge in Ireland as the millennium approached. She also knew that becoming a landlord was the way to go in order to ensure financial success. She used some of the profits from the business to put deposits down on a number of investment properties.
There were two things Viv Moroney never tried to keep secret. The first was she wanted her own business, ideally with a design or lifestyle theme. The second was she wanted to be a mother one day, ideally before she turned thirty. When she was twenty-seven, she met Garry Doyle at a trade show. He was a steady thirty-three year-old who ran a successful garden centre in Wexford. Garry took an immediate shine to the vivacious and ambitious girl with the brown eyes. The two became inseparable almost immediately. Six months later, Viv discovered she was pregnant. Two months later, she and Garry married at a quiet ceremony with only fifty guests.
Apart from the year she spent travelling, Viv had never lived outside of Dublin. As Garry managed the garden centre on a full-time basis, and needed to keep a tight grip on the reins, she agreed to move to Gorey, and secretly resolved to make the best of things. The first thing she did was insist upon Garry remortgaging his bachelor pad and using the funds as a deposit for a larger dwelling.
This was quickly done, and three months later the newly-weds purchased a five-bedroom detached house to better accommodate their growing family. Even though he inwardly winced as he signed his name to what felt like a substantial financial commitment, Garry was more than happy to humour his spouse with regard to their living arrangements because he assumed the baby currently growing inside his wife’s belly was merely the first of many children.
When Yvonne was six months old, large premises became available a few hundred yards from the garden centre. Viv did not hesitate. She signed the lease and opened two shops, one dealing in home improvement and the other the exclusive tile store she had been dreaming about for the past year. Both of these retail units proved to be extremely popular amongst the natives of the southeast, and the garden centre derived significant benefit from the custom they generated. For a decade, all three businesses thrived, and the Doyles effectively become a power couple within their small community.
Geraldine Moroney paused in her unpacking and ran her index finger along the leg of a silk stocking she had unearthed at the bottom of a sturdy cardboard box. She sighed sadly. Viv and Garry had kept the romance alive and well for many years after Yvonne came along. They had always been proud of that aspect of their relationship.
Garry had been sorely disappointed when a son did not put in an appearance when Yvonne was a toddler. It came as a severe shock when his wife informed him she had only ever wanted one child, and could not understand why he assumed there would be more. Garry told himself to be grateful they had a healthy, happy daughter, and tried not to feel disappointed and bitter at what he considered Viv’s deceitful behaviour. They plodded on as they had done before.
Then, in the autumn of 2008, the world as they knew it changed beyond recognition. By the summer of 2009, their hopes and plans for the future of the business began to look like nothing more than pipe dreams. Vivian Doyle’s aspirations to be a successful wife, mother, and businesswoman began to crumble around her ears. Garry caved under the pressure. He blamed Viv for their troubles. He said she had been the one who insisted on opening the DIY and tile shops and buying the investment properties. He claimed it had overstretched them, and they should have stuck with the garden centre.
The fact her husband was right did not sit well with Viv. The fights started. The date nights became a thing of the past, and the lingerie was relegated to the back of a drawer. Three months later, Garry admitted to an affair. By now, it was hard for Viv to care. She began to ask herself if she had ever really loved him. Had she married him because that was what her friends were doing, and because she wanted her child to have a reliable father?
She survived the news of her husband’s infidelity and determined to stick it out. Not only for the sake of her daughter, but also in the hope the financial situation could somehow be turned around. Two years later, she was forced to acknowledge it had all been for nothing when the couple stared financial ruin in the face.
Geraldine was well aware that, if not for the lottery, her daughter and granddaughter would almost inevitably have ended up living in her own spare bedrooms. She would not have minded that for herself. On the contrary, she would have enjoyed the company as she was now a widow. She knew the lack of independence would have broken Viv’s heart. For that reason, she was grateful Dorothy and the Euromillions had saved the day.
Vivian and Garry had paid their debts and clawed their way back from the brink of disaster. A major bonus was that Garry had been able to retain the garden centre. Geraldine was relieved for the sake of her son-in-law. She knew he would provide for Yvonne to the best of his ability. Sadly, with the exception of this single asset, the couple had been left with very little.
Pretty much everything with a monetary value attached to it had been sold. Even the beautiful family home that was Viv’s pride and joy. The Doyles set aside a few thousand euro towards the costs of Yvonne’s third level education, then divided up what was left. Garry insisted his wife take the lion’s share because she was making a new life for her and Yvonne. Viv had not hesitated to accept the money. It was still barely enough to start a new life, to say nothing of a new business.
Despite some misgivings on the part of Geraldine, Viv had taken a lease on the expensive premises on South Anne Street with the apartment overhead. The footfall was high in the area, and she planned to turn it into an old-fashioned sweet shop and create an online business. Geraldine advised her daughter to start smaller and in a more affordable area. Viv laughed at her mother. ‘Mam, I’m opening a sweet shop,’ she said. ‘You can’t get much smaller than that.’
Dorothy was unaware that Geraldine disapproved of her daughter’s choice of location, although she was fully cognisant of the history between Viv and her husband, and secretly agreed with those who claimed the couple had brought trouble to their own door by over-extending themselves financially.
They had leveraged one business to pay for the others and, worse still, had mortgaged the family home to pay for rental properties which had not held their value. She could never have done it herself, which was why she was watching every penny right up until the day she won the money.
Dorothy envied Viv her drive and attitude to risk. There was no doubt in her mind the other woman would make a success of the sweet shop, and justify the choice to set up in a high rent area. As Dorothy flicked over a page and admired a tall skinny girl called Imogen modelling a stunning Vera Wang gown, Viv came running in from the kitchen clutching two flutes in one hand and the bottle of champagne in the other. ‘I found the good glasses,’ she exclaimed in delight.
She placed them gently on the coffee table in front of the guest then set about extracting the cork from the bottle. Dorothy noticed her friend popped and poured in a way that suggested she had performed the same task countless times before. Most folks were timid when approaching an expensive bottle of champagne, but not Viv. She grasped the bottle around the neck and twisted hard as if she and it were old adversaries.
Dorothy accepted her glass with a wry smile. She doubted there would be much champagne in Viv’s life for a while yet. At least she was fortunate enough to have gotten Yvonne into a good school with reasonable fees which she and Garry would be able to afford between them. She had also put a sound roof over both their heads, even if it wasn’t the four thousand square-feet of opulence they were used to.
On top of all this, she had the support of her mother, meaning she would be able to socialise without fear of leaving her daughter alone. She would also have a family member nearby in the event of an emergency, something a lone parent could never overlook. Dorothy felt that, all in all, Viv had fallen on her feet compared to many who had lost their shirts during the crash.
When the hostess had poured the sparkling concoction to her satisfaction, the women lifted their glasses.
‘To Bah Humbug,’ Viv’s voice trembled with emotion as she gently touched her flute to the matching one her guest was holding.
‘Bah Humbug. The best little sweet shop in Dublin,’ Dorothy smiled. ‘May she and her owner live long and prosper.’
It seemed as if the twins had only been back from Glastonbury for a couple of days when they were once again bidding their mother farewell, and heading off to the Oxegen festival for three fun-packed days of music and mud. There was none of this malarkey in my day. We were grateful for MTV. The closest we got to a festival was watching a documentary about Woodstock.
Dorothy was distracted from her minor foray into the eighties by a call from her Spanish solicitor. The news was good. All relevant parties had completed on the purchase of the villa in Mallorca. Consequently, she was officially the proud owner of three thousand square-feet of beachfront property in the Balearics.
Dorothy thanked the Spanish woman and hung up. Gordon also received notification, and was quick to update his wife. Scarcely ten minutes later, Dorothy received a second call, this time from a highly excited Orla, who wanted to know if it would be okay for she and Gemma to fly to Spain and spend a few days at the villa.
They wanted to ascertain what might be required by way of furniture before the summer holidays began in earnest, and there was not much time. Pat and Joey had agreed to help Peter and Gordon with the grandchildren so both daughters could get away for a couple of days together with a clear conscience.
Dorothy had temporarily forgotten there was more to buying a holiday home than merely signing on the bottom line. She gratefully acquiesced to this plan and offered to transfer enough funds into Orla’s bank account to cover the costs of any household purchases. Orla said both she and Gemma would have their credit cards with them, as well as a few thousand euro in cash. They were more than happy to purchase the essentials and sort out the money upon their return.
This sounded like a common sense approach to Dorothy, whose next enquiry was whether or not they needed her to arrange a private jet for the trip. Orla snorted in amusement. She assured her sister they would be fine. She was not to worry because they certainly did not want any such thing. She also reminded her sister that her thirty-seventh birthday was just around the corner, and she had always fancied a gold- plated Bentley. She added that when Gemma turned forty-three, she was expecting a herd of lamas for the back garden.
A giggling Orla rang off and Dorothy was left with food for thought. She was becoming acutely aware that, not only did she own a house in Shankill and an apartment on Grand Canal, but also what some might describe as a small estate in Kerry, and now a villa in the Balearics. She also owned a majority stake in a catering company, not to mention a chunk of a large hotel in Killarney. She was doing her level best to set up a chocolate company. If Cara O’Shea got her way, it was very likely she would soon find herself a stakeholder in a bakery.
She privately admitted she was beginning to lose track of what she owned and of some of her responsibilities. She was certain she would be totally lost if not for Gordon and Claudia leading her by the hand. This situation could not continue. If she intended to invest in other businesses, and generally broaden her horizons, she would have to find somebody to act as her fulltime assistant and help her on her way.
Dorothy stood on her favourite spot on the apartment balcony and stared out over the city and mountains. She absentmindedly rubbed her chest as she did so. She closed her eyes and asked God to send her help. When she had finished logging her request with the universe, she returned to the small drawing room so she could practice on the piano for an hour.
From: Dottie8888@chatulike.ie
To: SRedmond@chatchat.com; ANorris@talkalot.com
Date: June 30th, 2011
SUBJECT: REAL ESTATE AND YET MORE REAL ESTATE
Hi Girls,
Can you believe it’s the end of June already? What happened to the first half of the year? I have just received glad tidings of great joy. The purchase of the Spanish villa has been finalised. Fortunately for me, Orla and Gemma have taken responsibility for making sure it is fully equipped before the height of the summer, which is one less thing to worry about. I should also be completing on Otter within the week. In case you’ve forgotten, that’s the house on the river in Kerry.
The Mercedes dealership called earlier to tell me my new AMG will be delivered in the next few days. I am so excited! I am planning to drive it to Kerry as soon as I get word from the lawyers. I want to look at the new house and decide what needs doing. It will also be a good opportunity to catch up with Bea and Jools, and see their plans for the hotel refurbishment.
They will be holding on to The Bee indefinitely, although they have promoted one of the staff to management level so they can focus on the hotel for the rest of the year. It will be very tough for them. I don’t for a moment believe they will be able to let go of The Bee emotionally, but we shall see what happens. We have allocated one million to the hotel refurbishment project, although judging by something Gordon said recently, that budget could easily over-run unless we watch it carefully. Yikes!
Did I mention that Bel, our lovely pal, is on a mission to get me back in the dating game? She invited me to make up a foursome with her and Gerald, and a chap called Dean Watson who is a business acquaintance of Gerald’s from London. Bel and I have had a few heart to hearts recently, and there’s no getting away from the fact I am still carrying a lot of pent-up anger. Not only towards Victor, but also towards myself.
I know I need to start the process of moving on, although that doesn’t necessarily mean dating is the answer. As Bel pointed out, it wasn’t a real date. Since Dean is not a local man, there’s no chance of him showing up on my doorstep any time he feels like it, so it’s not as if I have to worry about him stalking me or anything weird like that. She made a good point. I thought it over, and in the end I agreed to go with them.
Dean Watson is Irish born but has been living in the UK for almost a decade. He pronounces some words with a marked London accent, and some with what the Brits would describe as a ‘strong Irish brogue’. He is not what you would call classically handsome, because his face is a little on the thin side, and his eyes are rather small and close together. That said, he has his fair share of charm and is obviously used to getting his own way with the ladies.
Even though I was not really expecting to like him, I found I did. He is a little slick for my taste, and I somehow doubt he would make great boyfriend material, but he could be a lot worse! The evening went well. We had a lovely meal at one of our favourite Mexican restaurants and the conversation was sparkling.
He asked me if I would join them for dinner the next time he is in town, and I graciously agreed. What do you think of that, ladies? Amanda was thrilled when I told her. She has been nagging me for months to start seeing men again. Some folks are so pushy. Love to all. Dot xx
Six days later, Dorothy’s solicitor, Nicholas Kerrigan, called to let her know Otter House was officially hers. She was energised at the prospect of seeing it again and immediately got on the phone to the agent in Killarney and arranged to collect the keys.
To her delight, the new Mercedes arrived in plenty of time for the trip. She spent a couple of days getting used to the controls by driving it around the city. She took the owner’s manual indoors so Jamie could help her decipher it, and between them, they worked out the essentials.
Dorothy had never experienced anything even close to the luxury of driving such a high-end vehicle, and in many ways felt as if she was at the controls of a spacecraft. The air conditioning was so quiet compared to her old car, the seats were so comfortable, and everything smelled so good. The stereo was so high-powered with such fantastic reception, the handling was so smooth, the dashboard so Star Trek. Once she had mastered the controls and knew what button controlled which function, she was looking forward to getting on the motorway and giving her new car a little spin.
She set off alone at the end of the first week of July. Jamie initially planned to accompany her, but at the last moment Jerome got an unexpected break in his schedule and his plans changed. Dorothy did not especially mind. She wanted to spend time with the Laceys, which Jamie might have found a tad boring.
Despite her mother’s protestations that it was not appropriate for a woman to drive cross country alone, she was not at all nervous about travelling solo. Lately, there had been moments when she felt she had spent no more than a handful of days alone, ever since the Friday in January when she had finished work for good. Consequently, she was looking forward to a bit of quiet time.
It was a warm day so she switched on the air conditioning, then cautiously piloted the new car out of the city and onto the motorway. As she indicated and eased the car into the fast flowing traffic, she recalled her last trip to Kerry and how she had experienced the vision of swimming with the seal man in the Kenmare River. She frowned as she recollected the second vision. The dead body and sawn-off shotgun aspects of the apparition had been quite scary; hence she had taken the decision not to share the details with anybody.
She did not want her friends freaking out just as they were getting used to hearing her somewhat bizarre stories. She did not want to overload them by confessing to having seen the man from the pool dream with a cadaver slung over his shoulder like a sack of spuds. She clearly recalled how he had walked away from her, carrying the corpse as if it weighed no more than a feather. She frowned some more. What did it all mean?
Since she had no way of knowing what it meant and even fewer means of finding out, Dorothy turned up the volume on the stereo and overtook a BMW just to prove she could. She continued on in this manner until she reached Killarney. It took her a while to navigate through the town, but she was soon able to pull the car into a loading bay outside the estate agents and run inside.
The keys were ready and waiting, and less than five minutes later she was good to go again. The agent proposed to accompany her to Otter, but she sensed it was not a genuine offer as there was a certain amount of weekend traffic flowing through his office. She politely declined and headed off alone once more.
A room had been set aside for her at The Bee so she would not have to worry about cooking dinner or airing beds, or indeed any of the usual tiresome tasks involved in a house move. She planned to take a good look around Otter and make a list of things needing to be purchased or cleaned, or left well alone as the case may be.
She had brought her new digital camera along with the intention of taking a selection of decent photographs to show the rest of the family. It was not exactly a high-end model, and she had chosen it because it was easy to use. Josh had chuckled when she showed it to him and even Deco, who tended to be more polite, smirked. Feck that pair. What’s the point in owning something with a million settings I don’t know how to use?
The weather was dry and as it had just turned two o’clock there was still plenty of light. The new car ate up the miles along the Sneem road, and in next to no time she reached the gates to the house. Dorothy pressed the electronic button on the door of her new Merc and lowered the window. The agent had presented her with a scrap of paper on which he had written the keycode for the gate.
Using slow and precise movements, she pressed the buttons on the unit in what she hoped was the correct order. To her relief, the light turned from red to green and the gates began to slowly open inwards. I’m not sure I like all this keycode nonsense. Maybe I should consider having the gates removed. The last owners must have been paranoid. What did they think was going to happen to them in this part of the world for feck sake?
The cherry blossom trees lining the winding driveway were in full bloom, and Dorothy admired the foliage as she passed. Perhaps one day, the driveway at the palace would look as picturesque as this one. It was difficult to imagine at present, as even in July the building site resembled a scene from a disaster movie.
She reached the end of the driveway and pulled into the clearing. She made a conscious effort to avoid the muddy puddles in order to preserve the capri-blue sheen of her four day-old Merc for as long as possible. Then she got out of the car and stretched, grateful to have reached her destination safely. Due to the summer weather, the views had improved since her last visit, and the water in the bay looked calmer, clearer and warmer.
She ducked down and reached across to grab her tote from the passenger seat. It had quickly become her favourite bag and proved a worthwhile investment. The only thing she regretted was she had not purchased it in one of the lighter shades as well. She rooted around until she found her camera then pointed it at the river.
She clicked a couple of times then moved it around and took a few more shots of the views. She could have sworn there was a colony of seals perched on two large rocks, staring at her intensely. She picked up her bag and slipped the camera inside. Sighing at her own folly and hoping Otter would not provide any shocks today, she made her way to the front of the house.
As she approached the door, she slowed her steps and reached into the bag once more, searching for the set of keys the agent had given her. As she paused to rummage around in the copious interior, Dorothy noticed there was a brightly coloured vehicle parked around by the side of the cottage. She wondered if there had been a mix-up and if she had received the keys too early. It was not beyond the realms of possibility the previous owners may have needed a little more time to vacate the premises.
She felt a little trepidatious at the idea of coming face to face with the departing vendors. Nevertheless, striving to appear confident, and firmly reminding herself she was doing nothing illegal, she strode towards the front door and extended her arm with the intention of placing the key in the lock. Before she got a chance to complete the manoeuvre, a shuffling sound followed by a cough reached her ears. Slowly making a 180-degree turn, her heart pulsating rapidly, Dorothy came face to face with a man and woman.
They were both exceptionally slim. The sort of slim that does not go hand in hand with times of plenty. The woman was of average height, and appeared to be in her early thirties. She would have been pretty in a freckled, blue-eyed, brown-haired way, if not for the way her heart-shaped face looked so pinched and worried. The man was a skeleton. That was the most apt description she could come up with, and instinctively knew he had been very ill. He was about five ten in height. He too had the blue eyes and brown hair so common to many Irish.
With his high cheekbones and broad forehead, he looked like a man who had been handsome in a previous life. Illness had eroded his looks and left him gaunt and guarded, with a defiant yet weary expression in his eyes. The woman looked weary too, but not defiant. She looked protective, like a tigress.
She reminded Dorothy a little of Ryanna Newman. If Ryanna lost all her curves and found herself with her back against the wall somewhere in the wilds of Kerry with nowhere to turn. Dorothy was sure the couple were not the previous owners, and smiled welcomingly, her heart rate slowing as she did. ‘Hello! My name is Dorothy Lyle and I’m the new owner. Can I help you at all?’
The man stood up straighter and pushed the woman behind him a fraction. ‘My name is Eddie Loughnane,’ he spoke in a strong Kerry accent, ‘and this is my wife, Elaine. We’re trespassing.’
As the couple looked so exhausted and serious, Dorothy chose not to laugh. ‘I see. Well, as you’re already here, would you like to come in?’
Their faces were a picture of stunned amazement. ‘You’re inviting us inside?’ Eddie asked with a flicker of uncertainty.
‘I am. Although it’s only fair to warn you I don’t expect there’s a drop of milk or a tea bag in the house. I’ve driven straight from Dublin, and like a fool I forgot to pick up any supplies while I was in Killarney. My head is all over the shop these days.’
‘We have milk and tea bags in the van. I’ll fetch them,’ and Elaine promptly trotted off. Dorothy experienced a pang of envy when she registered the other woman had long slim legs. Her pins were on full display, as apart from a white T-shirt and flip-flops, her only attire was a pair of frayed denim shorts that had seen better days. By the time Elaine returned clutching a basket of supplies, Eddie had gently removed the key from Dorothy’s hand and, after opening the front door, ushered her inside.
‘Super, you’re a great woman,’ said Dorothy cheerfully, as Elaine showed her the contents of the basket. ‘Let’s go and take a meter reading and see what sort of state it’s been left in.’
