Breakfast at Darcy's (22 page)

‘You probably had a combi boiler,’ Demot says matter-of-factly. ‘They just heat your water all the time over elements. They
don’t store it in a tank like these systems we’ve got here.’

‘Oh,’ I say quietly, ‘I see.’ Then another thought occurs to me. ‘So how long before I can get hot water again?’

‘Twenty minutes to half an hour, if you’ve drained it completely.’

‘What!’ I’m starting to feel very cold again now, as the warmth of the shower begins to drain from my body as quickly as the
water had done earlier down the plughole.

‘That’s what happens when you don’t listen to what people tell you.’ Dermot shrugs, reaches down and begins stroking Louis
behind the ears, who immediately rolls over on his back for his tummy to be tickled.

Standing in my kitchen wrapped in only my towel and with conditioner plastered through my hair, I feel angry, awkward and
cold all at the same time.

Dermot turns his head back up to look at me. ‘You could
come over to my cottage and finish your shower, if you like?’ he suggests, standing up again.

I narrow my eyes at him, not quite sure how I feel about this suggestion. ‘And just how will I get over there? I’m already
soaking wet!’

Dermot shrugs again. ‘Dry yourself? Put on some clothes?’

I think this through. Roxi would be unlikely to have any hot water left – she would have used all hers up when she had her
own shower.

‘That could work, I suppose.’

‘Thank you, Dermot. What a wonderful suggestion,’ Dermot says, grinning at me. ‘And how wonderfully generous of you to let
me use your very precious hot water, when I’ve so carelessly used my own up in such a carefree manner.’

‘All right, don’t go over the top,’ I smile ruefully at him. ‘Yes, thank you then, I would like to use your shower if I may,
please, Dermot.’

‘You may indeed, Darcy. Now get dressed, for goodness’ sake before you leave more puddles. The puppies will think they need
to house-train
you
in a minute!’

The shower in Dermot’s bathroom works a treat, and I manage to have another lovely wash, rinsing my now very well-conditioned
hair out in a constant stream of hot running water.

When I’ve finished, I towel myself dry and dress again. But before I leave, I can’t help having a little nose around Dermot’s
bathroom. Not that there’s much to see; Dermot obviously isn’t the sort of man who’s heavily into aftershave balms and cleansing
lotions. In fact, once I’ve gathered my own beauty products up there’s hardly anything left to see at all. There’s a toothbrush
and some toothpaste sitting in a glass, a bar of soap in a dish, a can of deodorant, a cut-throat razor and some shaving foam
– very disappointing.

I return to find Dermot making breakfast in his kitchen.

‘Better?’ he enquires.

‘Yes, thanks. Much.’

‘Tea?’ he asks, holding out a mug.

‘Why not?’

‘Milk and sugar?’

‘Just one, please,’ I nod.

I watch Dermot make the tea. He does it in the way he seems to do everything – practically and with little wasted effort.

‘Now, can I get you some breakfast?’ Dermot enquires, adding some rashers of bacon to the sausages that are already sizzling
away in a frying pan on his stove.

I shake my head. ‘No, thanks. I don’t really do breakfast.’

Dermot raises his eyebrows. ‘Why not?’ he demands.

‘I don’t know. I never really had time when I was in London.’

‘You’ve got time now. Let me cook you some. You look like you could do with some decent grub inside you.’

I peer over the top of his frying pan, wrinkling up my nose when I see the fat sizzling and spitting up around the meat.

‘What’s up, not used to a good fry-up in the morning?’ Dermot enquires, grinning. ‘It’ll put hairs on your chest.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, screwing up my face, ‘but that is something I can well do without.’ I eye Dermot’s chest through the opening
of his shirt. ‘Looks like you’ve had a few over the years, though.’

Dermot smiles wryly. ‘Come on, Darcy, you can’t live on crispbreads all your life. What about eggs on toast, then?’

I haven’t had a fried egg for years. I suppose one wouldn’t do me any harm … ‘Go on, then. Just the one, though.’

Dermot swirls some fresh oil around the bottom of a second small frying pan, then expertly cracks two eggs into the oil once
it’s heated.

The rain beats down on the window outside. ‘I hope that soon clears up,’ I say, to make conversation while we wait for the
eggs to cook.

‘It will,’ Dermot tilts his head to look out of the window. ‘I can see patches of blue sky out there already.’ He takes four
slices of bread and lays them under the grill.

‘What do
you
think of my idea?’ I ask, while I watch Dermot cook. ‘I know you stood by me yesterday. Thanks for that, by the way.’ I smile
at him. ‘I appreciated your support.’

‘Couldn’t have old Rusty thinking he’d got one over on you, could we?’ Dermot winks, moving his bacon around with a spatula.
‘So how
are
you going to run this island as a holiday resort, then? That was all a bit sudden yesterday.’

I think it’s probably best I don’t share the bucket-and-spade story with Dermot, since I’m still not too sure of what happened
on the beach myself.

‘I just had to think of something quickly, and it came to me in a flash. Don’t you think it will work?’

Dermot considers this for a moment while he jiggles the eggs in the frying pan. ‘It could do, if you handled it right.’

‘Right, being …?’

‘That they all know who’s in charge from the start. None of this cooperative sharing, namby-pamby nonsense. You tell
them who’s doing what and where, and they get on with it, no questions asked.’

‘I can’t do that!’ It had been bad enough just standing up in front of everyone yesterday, let alone the thought of bossing
them all around
.
‘We do need
some
people to stay on the island with us. I want people to be happy while they’re here on Tara; this is their home, too, not
just their place of work.’

Dermot smiles at me and shakes his head.

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘You can’t be in charge
and
be everyone’s friend, Darcy, it just doesn’t work.’

I think about Jemima back at
Goddess
magazine. There is no way I want to throw my weight around like she does, and have everyone afraid to say a word to me. And
if Dermot thinks he’s turning me into a carbon copy of Jemima, he’s got another think coming.

‘No, I won’t be like that with people. It
will
work if we all take the time to discuss, listen, then agree on what everyone’s going to do here on the island. Tara is the
sort of place that works with a bit of give and take, not with a tyrannical ruler lording it from a castle somewhere high
up on the hillside.’

‘They’ll take all right, if you let them,’ Dermot says, slurping a quick gulp from his mug of tea. ‘You just wait and see.
And I never meant that you should be a tyrannical ruler, Darcy, far from it. I’ve never seen many of them painting their nails
in preparation for an important battle, have you?’

Like a wounded soldier, I sip at my own tea now while I prepare my defence. ‘So what’s made you so cynical about life and
the human race, then?’

‘I’m not cynical; I’m just realistic about people and how they’re likely to behave in certain situations.’

‘But not everyone’s like you.’

‘Be a damn sight better world if they were, though,’ Dermot smiles into his frying pan of bacon and sausages before lifting
them off the stove and tipping them onto a plate.

I shake my head in disbelief.

‘I’m just warning you, Darcy, that’s all. Be careful, not everyone’s as naive as you are.’

‘I’m not naive.’

‘All right, maybe naive is the wrong word. Innocent, then. Easily led.’

‘I prefer to call myself open-minded. Prepared to give people a fair chance to prove themselves. Which, it seems, you’re not.’

‘And how have you come to this conclusion?’ Dermot says, flipping the toast under the grill.

I think for a moment.

‘OK, apart from your statement just now about the islanders messing me about, and your insistence when we first met that I
was “of a type”, what about Conor? You didn’t want to give him a chance when we interviewed him, did you?’

‘No, that’s true. I didn’t.’ Dermot makes no attempt to defend himself.

‘There you go, my point exactly.’

‘What do you mean,
your point exactly
? My opinion about Conor still stands. I don’t trust him.’

‘But why? What’s he done to you?’

Dermot shrugs, sprinkling salt and then pepper on the top of each egg while they’re still frying in the pan. He
carefully flips each one over with a spatula. ‘Nothing,’ he says, looking at me now. ‘Doesn’t mean I have to trust him, though.
But it proves my earlier point about
you
being easily led. He just flashes his blue eyes in your direction, uses some of his Celtic charm on you and you’re putty
in his hands.’

I’m slightly distracted by what Dermot’s just done to the eggs. I’ve only ever seen one other person cook eggs that way before:
my aunt. She used to cook them for me for breakfast, usually before we’d take the dogs out on a long walk together. She’d
never let me go out without a good breakfast inside me, either. I try and gather my thoughts back to the present once more.
‘I am
not
putty in Conor’s hands! Don’t be silly.’

Dermot attempts a high-pitched voice: ‘It
was
the coastal walk I was thinking of trying, Dermot. I think the puppies would enjoy some time down on the sand … Hmm,’ he
holds his finger to his lips and pretends to think. ‘Now let me see, who did you
accidentally
end up fishing with all morning on that walk?’

I narrow my eyes at Dermot. ‘Conor and I are just friends. He was simply teaching me how to cast out. Although why I should
have to explain what I get up to to you, I don’t know.’

‘Where’s your friend now, then, to help you out of your hot water emergency?’ Dermot just as carefully flips the eggs back
over again and places them gently on the toast he’s just lifted from the grill.

‘Conor is over on the mainland collecting supplies for Caitlin’s shop. I expect he’s just got caught up in the bad weather.’

Dermot seems unconvinced by this excuse. ‘It’s possible
he’s not returned yet,’ he says grudgingly. ‘I haven’t been down to the harbour to see if the boat’s back.’

‘And if Conor and I are supposed to be having some passionate affair like you think we already are,’ I continue, ‘then I can
assure you I’d definitely have been showering in his cottage and not yours, this morning.’

Dermot stares at me for a moment, but it’s difficult to read what’s going on behind those dark eyes of his as they dart across
my face. It’s not anger I can see reflected back at me, but it’s not upset either.

Maybe I went a bit far with my last comment. I’m about to apologise when Dermot shoves a plate in my hand. ‘Breakfast is served,’
he says, walking past me to sit at his kitchen table.

I look down at the plate to find a beautifully cooked egg perching on a piece of toast browned to perfection. ‘Don’t eat it
all at once,’ he says, pulling out a chair to sit on.

I follow Dermot to the table.

‘This looks lovely,’ I say to him by way of apology for my earlier comment. ‘I’ve only ever had eggs cooked like that once
before – with the salt and pepper added to them during cooking.’

Dermot looks up at me with interest while he tucks into his own breakfast.

‘By my aunt Molly,’ I say smiling at him. ‘So I’m sure these will be just as good hers used to be.’

We eat our breakfast in relative harmony for Dermot and me, and I’m just about to suggest I help him with the washing-up when
there’s a knock at his door.

‘Won’t be a moment,’ Dermot says, jumping up to go and answer it.

I recognise Caitlin’s voice.

‘I’m ever so sorry to bother you, Dermot,’ she says. ‘It’s just my roof seems to be leaking in all this rain, and I wondered
if you’d come and take a look before the puddle in my kitchen turns into a flood of biblical proportions.’

‘Leaking!’ Dermot exclaims in horror. ‘Surely not, that can’t be possible. I’ll come at once, Caitlin.’

He immediately rushes back through to me in the kitchen. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he says ‘Caitlin’s got—’

‘Yes, I heard. Go and tend to the emergency, Dermot. I can clear up here and let myself out, don’t worry.’

‘Right,’ Dermot pulls on his jacket. ‘I’ll see you later, then. Are you sure you don’t mind?’

‘No, of course not. And thanks again for the shower, and for breakfast.’ But I hardly think Dermot hears me as he dashes out.
I follow him through to the hall and wave to a surprised-looking Caitlin as Dermot bundles her out of the front door.

I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass of a picture as I return to the kitchen. It’s no wonder Caitlin looked surprised;
not only has she found me here early in the morning with Dermot having breakfast, but I’ve forgotten I’ve still got my damp
hair wrapped up in a towel turban. I quickly remove the towel, rub my hair dry and put it back in Dermot’s bathroom. Damn,
I’ve not brought a comb with me. I wonder if Dermot has one in his bedroom?

I feel a bit awkward as I venture inside the room. It’s not like I’m snooping or anything, but this is Dermot’s private space
and I’m not sure what I might find. I see he’s managed to wangle himself the rugby-themed room, although I’m sure I’d earmarked
another of the room sets for him when we were
planning what would go where. But knowing Dermot, I shouldn’t really be surprised by this. He always seems to be able to get
what he wants without creating too much fuss. Now I’m in here, I really don’t want to spend long looking at the decor; I just
want to find a comb or a brush or something to run through my hair before I walk back across to my cottage. It was bad enough
Caitlin seeing me in here, looking like this; the last thing I need is anyone else seeing me coming out of Dermot’s cottage
with dishevelled hair at this hour of the morning. It will be all around the island in minutes, and I don’t want Conor getting
the wrong idea.