‘I don’t need accommodation,’ Kate protested. ‘I have my flat.’And I don’t need a bloody workshop, she thought. ‘Besides, it’s in Galway.’
Will was aware that Grace was gazing at him expectantly. This was his cue to ask Kate to work for him in Tuscany. ‘If you don’t want to go to Galway for a job,’ he began hesitantly, ‘I don’t suppose you’d consider Tuscany?’
‘Tuscany?’
‘They’re hardly the same thing,’ Grace put in.
‘Yes,’ Will answered Kate. ‘I’m taking the band to Tuscany for the summer to work on the new album. We’ll be staying in a villa just outside Florence. It’ll be a chance for the guys to chill out and get some work done at the same time.
‘Anyway, we’ll need a cook,’ he continued, ‘and I was wondering if you’d be interested. It’ll be pretty relaxed, just me and the guys most of the time. There’ll be a few house guests in the last couple of weeks, but, up until then, it’s strictly a working holiday.’
‘Wow!’ Kate was unable to contain her excitement, her eyes sparkling. ‘It’s an amazing offer. How long are you going to be away?’
‘A couple of months. I’d understand if you don’t want to be away from Dublin for that long.’
‘Well, I have just got back,’ Kate said, glancing at Brian and trying to stop herself automatically jumping at the chance to spend the summer in a villa in Tuscany cooking for one of the most famous bands in the world… and Will. She was engaged now, she reminded herself. She had to consider Brian’s feelings.
‘Nonsense, Kate,’ Grace said briskly. ‘You can’t miss out on an opportunity like this.’
‘They don’t come along every day,’ Conor advised her. ‘It would open lots of doors for you.’
‘I don’t know…’ Kate procrastinated. She could sense that Brian, beside her, seemed rather put out.
‘Well, think about it,’ Will told her.
‘What is there to think about?’ Grace said imperiously. ‘It’s the chance of a lifetime, Kate.’
‘I’d pay well over the odds,’ Will added, sensing the silent power struggle that was going on between Kate and her boyfriend and suddenly wanting her to say yes.
‘That’s settled, then,’ Grace said.
‘Nothing’s settled, Mum,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll have to discuss it with Brian.’
‘And there’s the job at the Haven,’ Brian reminded her.
‘Kate, you can’t work for nothing just to keep yourself from starving like some… hobo!’ her mother declared. ‘Especially when Will has offered you this fantastic job – well-paid and working for really important people.’
‘I’llthinkabout it,’ Kate said firmly.
With Kate’s next career move sorted out to his satisfaction, Conor was haranguing Brian about his work. ‘What you do really taps into the Zeitgeist right now,’ he was saying. ‘The whole new-age thing is huge. Look at Deepak Chopra or LouiseHay – they do sell-out gigs at big venues. But you want to strike now while the iron’s hot, before the bottom falls out of the whole thing.’
‘I hope there’ll always be people willing to grow,’ Brian countered.
‘Well, hoping’s not enough,’ Conor said bossily. ‘You want to get yourself firmly established before people have moved on to the next big thing and you find yourself left behind. How do you do in terms of bums on seats?’
‘Well, I don’t really…’
‘You’ve got to quantify,’ Conor told him sternly. ‘Got any merchandise?’
‘Merchandise?’
‘Self-help books, inspirational CDs, stuff like that?’
‘Oh, um, no,’ Brian stuttered, knocked off balance by Conor’s rapid-fire interrogation.
‘Well, you’d want to get cracking,’ Conor advised him. ‘Don’t let the grass grow under your feet. Do you have an agent?’
‘An agent?’ Brian looked confused.
