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Georgie, for her part, knew exactly what she should have said even before she’d reached the narrow gate that bordered off what was once an abundant flower garden in front of the little cottage. She should have gone into raptures about the cottage from the moment they came to the end of the drive, because to be fair to Iris, she’d done every bit of the work herself. She’d cleaned and scrubbed, painted, mopped, dusted and laundered every single inch of that little cottage and she’d done it happily in an effort to make some contribution to the Delahaye property. It was not Iris’s after all, Georgie had to remind herself. Iris would have no interest in putting down roots here. All that this place would mean to Myles, and by extension to Iris, was probably a couple of cruises or maybe a slightly bigger car every other year.Hewas so predictable.
She should have offered from the get-go to take on some of the work around promoting the cottage. Although she was no website design expert, she knew her way around a couple of programs well enough to set up something that would outshine anything else on the market for miles around Ballycove. She should have congratulated her sister, Georgie knew. She should havebeena sister to Iris for the last few weeks – no, for much, much longer than that.
Instead of doing any of those things, she found herself doing the worst possible thing she could have done. And why exactly? Why was she still carrying this hurt of so many years earlier? What sort of woman can’t forgive her sister for choosing her husband over her sisters? Perhaps it was time to face the fact that as much as there was bitterness in Georgie’s heart, that had faded long ago, only to be replaced with something else. It was a feeling that settled on her when she was alone in her expensive London apartment – envy. Iris had Myles. Nola had an army of friends.Theyboth had people they could count on, people who cared that they were well and happy.
Georgie glanced around the table. It seemed she wasn’t the only one to have lost her appetite. Nola had hardly touched her food either and Iris had only picked at the meat and corralled the vegetables to the side of her plate.
‘I’m going to bed. My head is throbbing and I can’t take another minute of this,’ Iris said, getting up from the table, and Georgie couldn’t help but notice the dark circles dug out beneath her eyes.
‘But it’s your turn to…’ Nola said feebly.
‘The dirty dishes can wait until the morning,’ Iris said in a tone that brooked no arguments.
‘Go on. Sleep well,’ Georgie heard herself saying, but Iris was already making her way upstairs. She began to clear the table and handed the rubber gloves to Nola, who made a face but slipped them on with a shrug. Nola. Suddenly, the familiar resentment bristled under Georgie’s skin. The argument at the cottage had been down to Nola as much as any of them. ‘This is all your fault – you know that, don’t you?’ The words were out before she could stop them. And even as she was saying them she could hear her therapist’s soft Galway voice in her mind sayingreally? Seriously?
‘Excuse me?’ Nola swung round from the sink.
She couldn’t back down now. ‘Well, you started it.’
‘I’m not having this conversation with you, Georgie; I’m not ten years old anymore. It’s time for you to move on. I’ve already given up enough to come back and play this bloody charade so we can finish this thing and walk away from each other for good,’ she said, pulling off the gloves and then, before Georgie could say another word, Nola banged the door behind her and stomped up the stairs with as much anger as she’d ever pounded into those steps in her worst teenage strops.
And then, Georgie thought, there was one. So she set about putting the kitchen to rights. By the time she was finished, it was almost dark outside. Still, she knew that after the tumultuous evening there was no point in thinking she’d sleep without a good long walk. She grabbed one of the old coats that hung behind the back door and stuffed her phone in her pocket. She had no particular route in mind, but soon she was in front of the little gate house standing in the pools of faded light thrown out from the old carriage lamps hanging either side of the porch. The curtains at the windows were drawn back in even bows and from the chimney she could smell the homely scent of woodsmoke drifting out onto the evening stillness. It really was quite the most idyllic little getaway you could want.
And then, before she realised it, Georgie found she was crying, great big tears running silently down her face. And finally, she knew, there was no running from it here. Maybe this is where she was meant to be when she faced up to the emptiness she’d been trying so hard to cover up for so long. She stood there wallowing in the melancholy, which strangely felt more real than anything she had felt for a very long time, and as the tears subsided, it felt as if she’d cast off a heavy burden she hadn’t even realised she’d been carrying. That argument she’d had with Nola, the miserable way in which she’d treated both her sisters – what sort of person talked to people like that?
And then in what felt like a dawning epiphany she realised, it was exactly how she’d treated everyone she’d ever worked with. This is what Sylvia had been trying to show her all along. What had happened to her? Was it jealousy? Or was it something else – the need to always be the best, the strongest, to make sure that everything turned out as it was meant to – was that what being the top dog had always meant to her? She gasped, drank in the night air like a drowning child. It was time to let it all go, the fears that had driven her since her mother had died, the obsessive need to save her sisters from themselves, which had only driven them from her, and the way she’d learned to push people away in case she’d have to suffer the pain of losing anyone again. Suddenly, she could see it clearly for what it was and it had to stop if she was ever going to be truly happy. She had to learn to be kind to everyone, including herself.
She turned back towards the main house and strode up the drive. Full of energy, she knew that she would do her best to make things right. And then a heavy feeling floated about her:if shecouldjust make things right.
*
Nola managed to avoid her sisters the following morning. Friday. It was her long day at the local school. She had classes in the morning and in the afternoon. She was meant to take a couple of different groups to start rehearsing for the Easter play. She had decided on a pared-down version ofEaster Paradeand the teachers were delighted. It made a change from the usual Easter pageant, which all of the teachers – and they suspected most of the parents – were sick to death of.
Nola had spent quite a bit of time trying to track down a script that would be suitable for the youngsters; something they could deliver that would incorporate a couple of big song and dance numbers so everyone got a chance to shine.
‘Well, what do you think?’ she asked Gary when they were having coffee together.
‘I think it’s brilliant. Ambitious, but if you can pull it off, it’ll be the best production we’ve ever put on.’ He handed her back the copy she’d given him a few days earlier.
‘I’m looking forward to it. Okay if I hold auditions over the next few days in the gym?’
‘Better make it Mrs O’Dea’s room. She’s going to be off for the next while and we’re doubling up classes so you can make yourself at home there for the foreseeable.’
‘Perfect,’ Nola said.
‘Just pop up a note on the noticeboards with audition times and you’ll find you’ll soon be run off your feet.’ He laughed as he headed out the door.
When she heard the bell for the start of her class, Nola felt that familiar waspish nervousness in her stomach. It was the closest thing to going on stage that she could remember. She gathered up her books and strode off down the corridor as if she was walking towards the spotlight.
It was a busy day and at the end of it, Nola felt as if she’d done a hundred straight shifts in the café with no break for coffee. It was exhausting in a completely different way. But, she thought as she dragged herself wearily back through Ballycove and headed towards Soldier Hill House, it was tiring in a way that was unexpectedly fulfilling. Far more fulfilling, it turned out, than that day all those years ago she’d spent hanging about a film set saying three words that continued to haunt her. Thank God, they seemed to have taken that blasted add off the TV over here and none of the students had seen it.
*
A few days ago, Nola knew exactly where she was going to tell Aiden Barry to go with his pity date; although she was pretty certain that it wasn’t a date. Except of course, when she’d been planning to knock him back, she hadn’t been living in a house with an atmosphere colder than Siberia. Neither of her sisters was talking to her and she really couldn’t face another night of frosty silence and early to bed, so the opportunity to go and have a few drinks, maybe meet some normal people and have an ordinary conversation, suddenly looked far more attractive.
So Nola tidied herself up – well, clean jeans, a fresh blouse and her best jacket. She smeared a slick of red lipstick across her lips and tucked a couple of euro into her purse. With a spritz of perfume she was ready to walk out the door at precisely the correct time. She felt a hint of happy nervousness. It had been so long since she’d been to a pub and she couldn’t help but wonder if there would be people she remembered from school still hanging about the village.
‘All dolled up and nowhere to go?’ Iris said as she passed by her open door.
