Recuperating from the previous night’s engagement party, which had ended in a mass rendition of ‘The Fields of Athenry’, Maggie decided to check her phone and email messages. She was relieved to see that there had been a good response to her discreet advertisement in the Irish Times seeking a new tenant to rent the small three-bedroom mews at the bottom of her garden, which had access to Pleasant Lane. Her previous tenants, three nurses, had been lovely girls but a bit of a headache, given to late-night parties on their monthly pay day and unfortunately flooding the upstairs bathroom. One had broken the microwave oven, blowing two of the kitchen sockets at the same time. The damages had been sorted out at the end of their rental period and the girls were now moving to an apartment nearer to St James’s Hospital where they worked.
It was Grace who had first suggested converting the rundown former coach house at the end of the garden, where they stored bicycles and old garden furniture and junk, into a modern mews which could be let out to provide an additional income to supplement the benefit from Leo’s insurance policy and her widow’s pension. How she hated that word ‘widow’. She’d never imagined herself having to face life alone. At times she cursed Leo for leaving her so unprepared for life without him, and turning their plans for his retirement into silly dreams. Her husband’s death had been totally unexpected. Leo had suffered a minor heart attack following a round of golf and had been admitted to hospital for tests. There he had undergone emergency heart surgery; a triple bypass which he had actually managed to come through, only to die a few days later from a simple blood clot in his lungs. How she had survived those initial awful black dark days, she didn’t know. She had wanted to hide away and stay in bed, refuse to face what had happened, but Grace and Anna and Sarah and her young granddaughter had needed her. Somehow they had got through the funeral, supported by family and good friends. The days had turned to weeks, the weeks to months and now years – and she found it hard to believe that it was just over four years and ten months since Leo had left her.
The building renovation project had taken almost a year. When the small three-bedroomed mews with its modern kitchen, large windows, French doors and paved terrace overlooking part of the garden was finally completed she had sat down and cried, knowing that it was a job well done and that Leo would be proud of her. At first it would be let out to provide extra income and in the future she could either sell it or move into it herself. So the mews had been rented and apart from a few small hitches had provided a nice additional bit of money.
Once the nurses had left, her Polish home help Irina had helped Maggie to clean and polish the mews from top to bottom. She had bought some bright new cushions from Habitat and complete sets of white cotton bed linen, which freshened the place, and a fancy new microwave. Jotting down the names and numbers and email addresses she began to return calls to set up appointments for potential new tenants to see the mews.
This afternoon she was showing the place to the first people. Fingers crossed that one of them would be suitable.
There was a couple who seemed good on paper; three single girls, which rang a kind of alarm bell; two single guys who only wanted a six-month let as they were waiting on an apartment they’d bought; a young Scottish businessman who had recently moved to Dublin; and a single girl. Grabbing the keys and her phone she walked down the garden path. She found this very hard. Leo had been a good judge of character but she knew she was a sucker for hard-luck stories. She determined that after showing each of them around she would take her time and check their references before making her mind up who should be her new tenant.
The couple arrived bang on time and Maggie was surprised by their age difference.
‘I’m not sure that I like that old stonework,’ complained the young blond woman as Maggie showed her around the ground floor. ‘And the fridge is rather small.’
The good-looking older man with her said little, but jotted things down on a notepad as Maggie led them upstairs. She noticed that he wore a wedding ring, while his much younger partner with her pouting lips and narrow hips didn’t, and he reddened with embarrassment as his girlfriend bounced on the double bed and cajoled him to join her.
‘I want a plasma TV in here too, Michael. For the nights when you’re not here.’
Maggie tried not to be judgemental but in the end could not help deciding there and then that over her dead body was she going to provide a hideaway love nest for the couple, which his wife would have no clue about.
The three young girls were up from Cork and were in first year in UCD. Nurses were one thing but students without accommodation a few months into the term another. God knows what they had done in their previous apartment!
The two guys were polite and easygoing and were very taken with the place, remarking on the stonework and lovely decor but after chatting to them for a few minutes Maggie realized she could rule out any possibility of them being potential husband material, as these two were most definitely not in the market for eligible females. They were nice guys but would only commit to a six-month lease as they were just killing time till their own new apartment in Stepaside was ready. The serious young single female lawyer with impeccable references who was entranced with the place seemed a very good prospect. The last applicant hadn’t appeared and she was fast coming to the conclusion that the young woman was her best bet as a suitable tenant. She was just about to phone her when the Scotsman finally made an appearance.
‘My flight was delayed,’ he apologized, ‘and then I got stuck in that awful traffic from the airport. I hope I’m not too late to see the place, it sounds exactly what I’m looking for.’
He was so enthusiastic that despite his being nearly two hours late she decided to show him round. She could see he was taken with the mews and asked her all about the restoration. He was small and thin and rather intense-looking with spiky black hair; he was wearing black jeans, a leather jacket and a T-shirt with the Red Hot Chili Peppers on it. Sarah had a poster of them in her bedroom. He looked more like a musician than a businessman but was definitely the arty type that appealed to her youngest daughter.
‘You should see the concrete box I’m staying in for the minute!’ he laughed. ‘I don’t know why anyone would build them like that. Give me a lovely old building like this any day of the week.’
‘I’m glad that you like it.’ Maggie smiled. ‘It was a labour of love restoring and modernizing it.’
‘I know I’ll be back and forwards to the office in Edinburgh regularly, but what I really would like is somewhere a little different to live during my time here in Dublin.’
‘The sockets in the kitchen will be replaced before anyone moves in,’ she promised.
‘Don’t bother on my behalf,’ Angus Hamilton said, his thin face serious. ‘I can do it myself. I’d probably like to connect up to broadband or wireless if that’s OK, and hook myself up to digital TV.’
She must have looked slightly baffled because he reassured her, saying that he had studied engineering before specializing in computers and designing software.
‘What do you do?’ she asked, curious.
‘I design programmes for computer games,’ he told her. ‘It’s a huge business. We work with animators and designers and come up with concepts and games that people want to play. We’re working on a game with leprechauns!’
‘Really?’
‘No, I’m joking, but it’s not a bad idea. Our company has offices here and in Edinburgh and I’ll be going back and forth between them.’
‘So it would be just you living in the mews.’
‘Yes.’ He grinned. ‘I’m on my own.’
That night as she sat watching the television Maggie weighed up the candidates. The thirty-year-old female lawyer Celine Heaney worked in one of the city’s smaller law firms and was busy studying at night for the Law Society exams in Blackhall Place; she certainly didn’t look the type to give wild parties. The charming young Scotsman seemed open and friendly and determined to enjoy his time in Dublin. Without a qualm Maggie decided on Angus Hamilton. The house was already far too full of single females. Having a man around the place again would make a very pleasant change and the fact that he was an eligible bachelor was a definite bonus . . .