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Prologue
Ballycove, Ireland, Twenty-Eight Years Ago
The saddest funeral I was ever at.That’s what the mourners had whispered as they’d left the remaining Delahayes standing by Iseult’s grave. And now, perched at opposite ends of the living room, Iris and Georgie were drowning in their own grief, but it was little Nola – just seven years old – who needed her father the most and there was no way round it; there was nothing left of him to give. He was suffocating when he knew he should be comforting his children.
The cry that emitted from Nola came as gasping gulps, as if she was going under, smothering in the cold waters of despair. She was far too small for her feet to touch the bottom of her grief, far too young to navigate these treacherous waters.
Iris heard her first. The choking sobs startled her from her own wretched melancholy. ‘Nola,’ she cried, fearing the worst. Panic gripped her; she couldn’t remember seeing Nola since they set off for the funeral earlier. But that wasn’t right. Of course she’d seen her. Nola must have sat in the church pew at the end of their row, stood next to her and Georgie by their mother’s grave. She must have been there in the car when their father had driven them back to Soldier Hill House.
Sheer horror propelled Iris from the window seat. How could she have forgotten about little Nola? In the hall, Georgie too was racing to find their youngest sister, panic etched across her features, only just edging past the devastating grief overhanging each of them. They crashed into each other at the foot of the stairs.
‘Where is she?’
‘Oh, God.’ Georgie was frantic, her eyes wide, a slight odour of sweat emanating from her clothes, a mixture of the painful day and the near-consuming fear reflected in Iris’s eyes. Another gulp came from the alcove, just outside their father’s study, and their eyes dropped to the pathetic bundle of dark clothes lying on the floor. Nola. In her best dress, the one their mother picked out for Christmas Day. Maroon velvet, too heavy for a July afternoon, too festive to mourn your mother in.
‘He just left me here.’ Nola wheezed between disconsolate sobs. ‘First Mammy and now Daddy. All I wanted was for him to put his arms around me, like Mammy did, and tell me everything would be all right, but it won’t be all right now, will it? It’ll never be all right again.’
‘Come here.’ Iris pulled Nola into her chest roughly. Georgie too fell on top of them, bundling Nola in their weeping cocoon so she could hardly breathe. But somehow, the familiar scents of her sisters – washing powder, the faintest remains of their mother’s perfume, which they’d all applied that morning, and that slightly tangy end-of-day smell that you only got in the summertime – were strangely comforting. ‘We’re all here together. That’s the main thing, Nola. That’s all that matters now. We’ll be okay. Everything will be fine – you’ll see.’
‘But you’re going to leave. You’ll go off and forget about me and then I’ll be here alone, with Daddy, and I can’t stand it.’ She was gulping down the words now, almost hysterical with grief and pain and maybe fear too.
‘We’re never going to leave you, Nola,’ Iris said, ‘I promise. How could we possibly ever leave you?’
‘We couldn’t,’ Georgie said solidly in that way she had of saying things that let Nola know she’d never let her down. ‘We’ll always be the Gin Sisters, remember?’ Georgie said using the abbreviation of the initial letters of their names that their father had coined.
‘Oh my God, yes! We can make our own little club, just us, with a promise that means we’re always going to be together. Nothing will ever come between us.’ Iris was flushed, trying hard to make things better for her younger sister. There had been too much sadness already today. She found herself smiling at her own silly idea.
‘Really, our own club? The G-I-N Sisters – get it, gin sisters?’ Nola scraped her hair from her eyes, drying off some of the tears that stained her cheeks. ‘I love that idea.’ She breathed out slowly.
‘We’ll need a constitution.’ Georgie pulled a mock-serious face to make more fun of it. She could always be depended on to be the strong one.
‘Yes, Georgie, you can write it up. Now, quick, go and get some paper and a pen, Nola.’ Iris fell back on her heels; she’d do anything to make Nola feel better. The poor kid, they were all too young to lose their mother. But Iris felt she had some additional gravity because she had just become a teenager, even if Georgie always tried to rub it in that she was one year older, but Georgie would never be the maternal one among them – they both knew that. Whereas everyone said Iris was cut out to be a wonderful mother someday, and in truth it was the only ambition she had in life.
Beyond the door, she heard the muted sounds of her father shuffling about, and Iris imagined him filling up a tumbler of whiskey and slouching in the large armchair with that photograph of their mother that he’d taken long before they’d ever had children or, it seemed, worries. Still, it was better that he was here and not down in the distillery where it seemed he could lose track of time entirely. Delahaye Distillery, his life’s work, was becoming an all-consuming distraction, maybe his only way to cling on at this stage.
‘And no boys.’ Georgie was scribbling down the club rules to Nola’s subdued delight. Georgie already knew that Iris was in love with a boy called Myles who didn’t even know she existed and probably never would.
‘Eugh, of course no boys.’ Nola scrunched up her face.
‘And ice-cream every Friday.’ Iris tried to make her voice sound as if she really could be happy again one day.
‘Just for us,’ Nola said on a breath that was still ragged, but at least her little body had stopped shaking. ‘And you’ll never leave me?’
‘We promise we’ll never leave you,’ Georgie and Iris chorused together. Anything else was unthinkable.
