Breakfast at Darcy's (23 page)

I spy a comb sitting on the chest of drawers, so I pick it up and begin to run it through my long hair. As I’m doing so, something
else catches my eye. It’s a picture frame, and in the frame is a photo of Dermot with a young girl sitting next to him on
a swing. I stop combing my hair for a moment to look more closely at the photo. Yes, there’s no denying the resemblance. The
young girl, who must be about five, is the spitting image of Dermot.

Staring out of my window at the sea crashing against the rocks down on the coast, I wonder just how Tara has managed to survive
for so long with this constant bashing and buffeting from Mother Nature.

If it’s not the sea attacking her from below, it’s the weather assaulting her from above, and just at this very moment I can
feel her plight as Niall and Dermot discuss – well, argue over – the plans, timetables and itineraries for the island while
I play piggy in the middle.

‘Darcy, will you tell him, please?’ Dermot sighs impatiently, folding his arms. He stands up. We’ve been sat around a desk
in my front room for the last hour discussing everything since our first island meeting was called to a close late this morning.
The other islanders had quickly disappeared, leaving us with the incredibly difficult task of organising things and keeping
them all happy. I’d made Niall, Dermot and myself a sort of brunch, even though Dermot and I had already had breakfast
earlier (what is it about food here on this island? Everyone always seems to be hungry!), but even that isn’t keeping things
calm as Niall and Dermot continually come to blows about how the island is going to be run. Now I almost wish I had taken
up Roxi’s offer of a leg-waxing session.

‘It’s no good you appealing to Darcy. I’m in charge of the finances here, and I’m telling you, that’s far too much capital
to be spending on machinery.’ Niall pushes his glasses firmly onto the bridge of his nose and sits back in his chair, looking
at me determinedly.

‘What?’ I ask in exasperation, my eyes moving between the two of them. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

‘Make a decision,’ Dermot says bluntly. ‘It’s your island.’

‘Oh, not this again.’

‘Yes, this again. You have to.’

‘He’s right, Darcy,’ Niall says softly. ‘If we can’t agree then you will have to make the decision for us. Anyway, I thought
you did very well out there, dealing with the meeting.’

‘I suppose it didn’t go too badly,’ I admit. I’d actually been quite proud of myself. When, as Dermot had correctly predicted,
things did start to get a little out of hand, I’d remained firm but fair. I’d listened to all the different views being aired
about island life, and then I’d noted them all down in a big black notebook that Niall had lent me. Then I’d returned here
determined to keep everyone happy.

‘In fact I was going to say the same thing,’ Dermot remarks, to my astonishment. ‘You did very well when they started kicking
up a fuss about who was going to do what and when.’

I’m stunned into silence. Was Dermot complimenting me, for once? I stare at him.

‘What?’ he asks. ‘You did. But then I did warn you they’d mess you about unless you played a firm hand. So technically it
was me that was right.’

That sounds more like it.

I smile wryly at him, while Dermot grins at me in amusement.

There’s a knock at the door. ‘Anyone home?’

It’s Conor.

‘We’re in here,’ I call, subconsciously running my hand over my hair to check it’s tidy.

Dermot rolls his eyes.

‘Howdy, folks,’ Conor says, dipping his head to enter the room.

Didn’t people ever grow above six foot tall on this island, I wonder?

‘How’s it going?’ he asks, looking between the three of us. ‘Are we all rota’ed up and ready to go?’

Dermot makes a sort of
hmph
noise, and strides over to one of Niall’s whiteboards to examine his workings-out.

‘Don’t you be messing with that now, Dermot,’ Niall calls, hurrying over to him to make sure Dermot doesn’t
accidentally
smudge any of the figures.

‘It’s not going all that well just now, no,’ I whisper, taking Conor to one side. ‘We’ve got a bit of a problem with the financial
side of things.’

‘So what are you going to do about it?’

‘Not you as well,’ I sigh.

‘What do you mean, not me as well?’ he asks, folding his arms and tilting his head to one side. ‘It’s simple, Darcy: it’s
your island, what do
you
want to do?’

‘At this very moment?

‘Yes.’

‘Get out of here. I’ve had enough of names, numbers and charts for one morning.’

Conor grins. ‘Well, why didn’t you say so before?’ he clears his throat. ‘Darcy,’ he says in a stern voice, ‘those poor puppies,
when were they last out? They look like they’re bursting, so they do.’

‘No, they can’t be, they were only out—’ I suddenly get where Conor is heading with this. ‘It must be a while now, yes. Maybe
they could do with a walk.’

Even Woody’s and Louis’s young ears know the word ‘walk’ by now. Immediately they come bounding over with their long tongues
hanging out and their tails wagging in excitement.

‘Just as I thought,’ Conor says, matter-of-factly. ‘Darcy and I will be back in a while,’ he announces. ‘When we’ve taken
these poor creatures out to do whatever they must all over Tara’s sacred soil.’

Dermot looks down at the puppies and then up at me. ‘They look all right to me,’ he shrugs, choosing deliberately not to look
at Conor. ‘But it’s your life, Darcy.’ He gives me a meaningful look.

Conor cheerfully ignores him. ‘I’ll just be away and fetch the puppies’ leads, Darcy, just in case we head anywhere near the
cliffs.’

‘Thanks, Conor,’ I reply, breaking eye contact with Dermot.

‘But what about all of this?’ Niall asks, gesturing at the papers and plans strewn over the desk. ‘We need to finalise everything.
So we know what we’re doing.’

I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a moment.

‘Just give him the money, Niall,’ I say decisively, as I open them again. ‘Give Dermot whatever he wants to get the cottages
renovated as soon as possible.’

I know Dermot’s grinning without even looking at him.

‘The way I see it, the quicker it’s done and the quicker we get people over here, paying for the privilege, the quicker we
recoup some of the initial outlay.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ Niall grudgingly admits.

‘Come on, Niall,’ Dermot encourages, looking a bit too pleased with himself as I correctly predicted he would. ‘Admit it,
Darcy’s right. Her mind works quite well when she puts it to good use. On certain subjects, anyway,’ he adds as Conor returns,
clutching a red and a blue dog lead in his hand.

‘Ready?’ he asks me.

‘Yep, I just need to pick up my jacket. Right – I’ll leave you two to it, then.’ I try to soften the impact of my impending
departure, as tiny waves of guilt begin to lick at my conscience. I put on my sweetest smile. ‘You know I trust the pair of
you to make a great job of anything you do.’

Niall returns my smile. Dermot doesn’t.

‘Nice try, Darcy,’ he says. ‘But the fact remains you’re still leaving us to do all the donkey work while you go gadding about
with Golden Balls here.’

Conor just grins ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, Dermot, since Mr Beckham is not only considered one of England’s greatest
footballers, but a bit of a handsome fellow to boot.’

Dermot allows his eyes to flick momentarily towards Conor, where they narrow for a moment, before they return to me.

But I’m not going to let him see he’s getting to me.

‘Perhaps I am “gadding about”, Dermot. But everyone
keeps telling me I need to make all the decisions, so I’m going to make an executive one of my own and take my dogs for a
long walk in some very pleasant company. Come on … ’ I’m about to say Conor, but I see an opportunity of striking the winning
goal in this match of words with Dermot: ‘ …
David
,’ I say, firmly knotting my raincoat around the waist of my jumper. ‘Shall we go?’

A grinning Conor follows me out of the cottage, quickly pulling his own sweater on, as I stride away across the grass with
Woody and Louis.

‘Whoah there,’ he says, eventually catching me up, ‘slow down a minute, will you? My legs may well be a lot longer than yours,
but they won’t motor at the speed you’re going right now!’

I cease marching up the path for a moment. ‘Sorry. It’s just that he makes me so mad sometimes.’

‘Who, Dermot?’

‘Yes, Dermot.’ I look back towards the cottage in frustration. ‘They go on about me being in charge of everything and making
all these important decisions, and then when I do, they don’t like it.’

‘You call taking your dogs for a walk making an important decision?’ Conor asks, quizzically raising an eyebrow.

‘No, not really, I suppose,’ I sigh. ‘Oh, but you know what I mean.’

‘Come on,’ Conor turns to face me as he begins to back away along the path with Woody and Louis. ‘Let’s see if Tara will blow
away some of the frustration from that pretty brow of yours.’ He grins. ‘You’ll get wrinkles if you keep pulling those sorts
of faces.’

‘Oi,’ I shout, chasing after him as he turns around and begins to run up the path. ‘I will not. I’ll have you know I use the
same face cream as Jennifer Lopez.’

‘It’s not doing much of a job on her,’ Conor calls, still rushing on ahead of me. ‘I bet she still has to have everything
airbrushed out.’

After a few minutes of this cat-and-mouse game along the path that leads around the edge of Tara’s craggy coastline, with
Conor slowing down then deliberately speeding up again when I’ve nearly caught him, he stops at the top of a fairly steep
climb so I can catch up with him.

‘That’s better,’ he says, smiling, as I finally reach his side. ‘Now you’ve got some proper colour in those cheeks. You were
looking a bit pale back there.’

‘That’s why I’ve just been chasing you up this path?’ I pant, still trying to catch my breath. ‘To add some natural blusher
to my cheeks? I could have done that using a lot less energy and with much less pain using my make-up bag.’

‘But you wouldn’t have looked half as pretty as you do right now.’ Conor takes my hand and pulls me towards him. ‘A lovely
colour glowing on this delicate white skin of yours.’ In the gentlest of movements I feel his thumb caress my cheek, ‘With
your hair all billowing in the wind like it is just now? That is quite something to behold.’ He catches hold of one of the
wisps of hair that constantly seem to float around my face whenever I’m outdoors and carefully he tucks it behind my ear.
‘And then there’s your lips,’ he continues, while I swallow hard and hope my legs don’t suddenly buckle underneath me, knowing
that if they do it won’t be from the exertion of running up that hill. ‘They’re just so full and
beautiful right now, from your heart pumping hard. It makes me want to—’

Woof, woof!

What? Did I make Conor want to bark like a dog?

Oh, the puppies!

We both turn our heads to see Woody precariously close to the edge of the cliff face. He’s seen a seagull and he’s not happy.
What
is
it with him and seagulls?
He barks at it again while he balances on a piece of rock jutting out from the land.

‘Woody!’ I shout. ‘No! Get back here now!’

Woody turns his head to look at me for a moment, then immediately turns his fearsome gaze back to the seagull and begins barking
again. The gull doesn’t seem very impressed with the little dog’s attempts at ferocity; he simply flaps his wings at him in
response to the yapping and lets out a fighting cry of his own. I’m about to shout again when Woody appears to decide that
perhaps I’m the lesser of the two evils on this occasion. Scrambling back down from where he’s been trying to get his footing
on the rock, he bounds over to join his brother on the grass. Louis, as usual, is behaving himself and is doing something
much more innocuous – sniffing at some fresh rabbit droppings.

I breathe a huge sigh of relief and clasp my hand to my chest where my heart is still racing – from Woody’s little incident,
or from what was about to happen before it I’m not too sure.

‘Oh, my God, I can’t bear to think what might have happened then if he hadn’t barked! I should have kept a better eye on them
while we were up here.’

‘No,’ Conor says, shaking his head while still watching the puppies. ‘It was my fault. I was distracting you.’

‘Yes, but in a good way,’ I smile up at him.

‘You think?’

‘I certainly do.’

Conor grins. ‘Then perhaps we should continue this walk a bit further. But maybe inland, away from these dangerous cliffs.’
He looks around him. ‘Have you been up to visit the ruins yet?’

‘Up on the hill?’ I ask, shyly taking hold of his outstretched hand. ‘Just the once.’ It feels good to be holding Conor’s
hand again. I’d enjoyed it the first time down on the beach, but this time it feels more permanent.

‘Want a tour guide this time?’ he winks, squeezing my hand.

‘Only if he knows his stuff.’

‘Oh, I know my stuff all right,’ Conor says, patting his leg to call the puppies. We begin to walk in the direction of the
steep hill that leads up to the ruined building. ‘
And
I might know quite a lot about that old building, too.’

He raises his eyebrows at me, and I grin at his cheek. If anyone else had said that to me it might have sounded leery, but
with Conor it just seems to add to his appeal.

Walking hand in hand to the top of the hill, we take a few minutes to enjoy the sun’s rays that have managed to penetrate
the deep bank of cloud enveloping Tara today. While Woody and Louis snuffle about in the grass and the bushes, we sit on my
unzipped raincoat with our backs against one of the crumbling walls, looking down over the view.

Conor closes his eyes as he leans his face back in the sun. ‘Nothing better,’ he sighs.

‘It is lovely up here,’ I agree, looking out over the sea to the mainland in the distance.