Cathy Kelly 3-book Bundle (58 page)

‘Don’t worry, pet, it’ll be you getting married one day,’ said Mrs Kinsale, mistaking the gleam in Natalie’s eye for tears over her unmarried state. ‘But I’d do something different with your hair, pet. That doesn’t suit you.’

While the hotel staff were rearranging the tables for the dancing that evening, Natalie went to the ladies to take down her hair. Damn Shazza and her bloody idea. Painstakingly, she took out all the little hair clips until her head was metal-free and she was able to shake her dark hair loose again. She looked better already. With Bess’s wrap around her shoulders, she felt like herself and not the horrible fake bridesmaid version.

Despite the cold, she thought she’d venture outside to breathe some fresh air. The smokers had annexed a little outside bar area with heaters and seats, and she went the other direction to stand on the terrace and look out at the coast where the flicker of the lighthouse lamp broke up the darkness of the sea.

‘I was wondering what you’d look like with your hair down,’ said a man’s voice.

‘Whatever it looks like, it certainly feels better,’ said Natalie,
turning towards the voice. ‘I have just taken twenty-seven pins from my head.’

‘Twenty-seven?’

‘I counted every one.’

He had a nice grin. Was nice all over, really, with an open, intelligent face and kind eyes. He was probably her own age or a bit older, and even in a very elegant navy suit and grey silk tie, looked like he was designed for bashing down doors and had ended up in a tie by mistake.

‘I don’t do much with my own hair,’ he added, and put a hand unselfconsciously up to his head, which was shaped like a bullet on top of huge shoulders and totally shaved.

Natalie laughed out loud.

‘Sorry,’ she said instantly, afraid she’d offended him.

‘It started to fall out,’ he said, ‘and I didn’t want to be one of those guys who have three long hairs and hairspray them into place: one to the left, one to the right, and one tossed.’

‘No, not a good look,’ she agreed.

‘I got rid of the lot.’

It suits you,’ she said.

‘Does it?’ he said, sounding as if he’d never really considered such a thing.

Natalie felt a sudden liking for this big, friendly man.

‘It’s handy,’ he shrugged.

‘Whose side are you on?’ she asked.

‘The groom’s side. I’m Rory Canavan,’ he said, and offered her a giant hand to shake.

‘I’m Natalie Flynn, bridesmaid number one and school friend of the bride,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he admitted. ‘I asked.’

‘There are men who have to score the bridesmaid at weddings, you know,’ Natalie said.

‘I have heard that,’ he said. ‘Not the most noble of aims, is it?’

‘No. I wonder, do they have a points system? Three points
for the chief bridesmaid, four if she’s married and is matron of honour, and ten points and a bonus prize if you score the bride?’

‘That is so cynical,’ he said, but he was laughing.

‘You’re not trying to score three points?’

He shook his head. ‘I followed you out here because I saw you earlier and I wanted to meet you but you seemed very interested in the people at your table.’

‘If only you knew,’ Natalie said with feeling. ‘You could have rescued me earlier.’

Rory looked pleased. ‘Am I rescuing you now?’

‘You would be if you sat with me at my table,’ she said thoughtfully.

Mrs Kinsale asked all the questions Natalie couldn’t.

‘What do you do?’ she asked, fixing Rory with her most adorable smile and giving him a poke in his substantial chest. The sparkling wine had been round her side of the table many times and she had almost forgotten her grudge with the hotel over the in-room facilities.

‘I’m a vet,’ he replied.

‘Ooh, a vet! A professional man,’ she said, and gave Natalie a delighted poke this time.

‘Where exactly?’

‘About ten miles outside Ardagh,’ he said, speaking loudly to the little old lady. Natalie could have told him that Mrs Kinsale was so sharp, she’d have heard a pin drop from the other side of the room. ‘It’s a big animal practice.’

‘Big practice or big animals?’ asked Natalie, grinning, although she knew very well what he meant.

‘Big animals,’ he said. ‘Cattle and horses, and some dogs and cats.’

‘I had a Yorkshire terrier, but she died,’ said Mrs Kinsale, getting maudlin. ‘She was like a child to me, that dog. I loved her like a child.’

‘Did you get another dog?’ asked Rory.

The old lady shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t be able for it and who’d mind her if I died?’

‘You know, if you get her from a good vet, they could promise to do their best to look after your pet if you couldn’t take care of her any more,’ Rory said kindly. ‘It’s a worry for lots of people and the veterinary community understand that. And a sprightly thing like yourself would be dancing for many years yet,’ he added. The band were striking up ‘When I Fall in Love’. ‘I don’t suppose you can waltz? I’m very bad at it.’

Mrs Kinsale beamed at him.

They made an odd couple on the dance floor: the giant of a man supporting the frail lady, and Natalie saw she wasn’t the only person looking at them fondly.

Lizzie, who hated slow dancing, wandered over hauling her dress behind her. The skirt was speckled with something dark and reddish. Red wine, Natalie guessed.

‘I’m wrecked,’ Lizzie said, sitting tiredly in Rory’s chair. She picked up a full glass of sparkling wine and drained it. ‘I see you’ve met Rory,’ she added.

‘He’s nice,’ said Natalie, which was actually an understatement. She’d never gone for those big, Gaelic football-playing type of fellows before, but she could see the charm. You’d feel totally safe with Rory by your side, safe in every sense of the word. There was a decency about him, a sense that he’d protect you from all harm.

‘Sure, if you like that type of thing,’ said Lizzie shortly. Lizzie had always liked sophisticated men. Steve, with his narrow hips and well-cut hair, could have stepped out of a modelling catalogue. ‘You can’t dress him up, though. He looks ridiculous in a suit.’

‘Since when do we judge people by dressing them up?’ Natalie asked, hurt but hiding it. She hadn’t liked a guy for ages and now she was liking one she’d met at Lizzie’s wedding and Lizzie seemed put out by the whole idea.

Besides, Rory looked lovely in his suit. Sexy and rumpled, somehow. She wondered what he’d be like to kiss–

‘He’s a bit of a caveman,’ said Lizzie dismissively. ‘And there isn’t an artistic bone in his body. You hate men like that. Remember how much you hated dopey Alan at school?’

‘I didn’t hate him,’ Natalie said. ‘I just didn’t fancy him, that’s all.’ Alan was a strapping farmer’s son who’d adored Natalie for years, but her constant refusal to go out with him had eventually upset him to the point that he’d called her a ‘stuck-up cow’.

‘That was years ago, Lizzie. It’s ancient history.’

‘Just reminding you.’

It was as if, Natalie thought, Lizzie wanted their past laminated and untouched so she could visit it from time to time. Lizzie hadn’t seen how much everyone else had changed, but then, perhaps she hadn’t changed that much herself.

When Rory came back with Mrs Kinsale, he asked Natalie up to dance.

The tempo had changed and the band, who’d been warned to mix old and new, were tentatively trying out a version of ‘Wonderwall’.

‘I love this song,’ said Rory as they found a place on the heaving dance floor.

‘By Oasis, though?’ asked Natalie mischievously.

‘This version has its good points,’ Rory replied, not taking his eyes off her.

‘You mean the lead singer’s only a teeny bit off key?’

‘No, I mean the company,’ he said, and Natalie’s heart skipped a beat.

He could dance. Not many big men could. Natalie had known many who’d lurched around like fridges on wheels, looking ungainly. But Rory had rhythm. He was fit too. By the time ‘Wonderwall’ was over and the entire fast Elvis canon had been gone through, Natalie was sweaty and exhausted.

‘Let’s slow it down,’ crooned the lead singer and the
drummer went at his drums with the brushes as the band launched into a slow set.

Natalie laughed at the corniness of it all and had been about to walk back to her seat, when Rory caught her hand and pulled her to him.

‘Shall we dance?’

His body was hard and muscular up close, and she felt light as thistledown in his arms, but the effect was ruined by the fact that she was sweating profusely. She’d bet the damn pale pink dress was stained under the armpits and her hair was wet at the roots from dancing. Impossible to feel romantic under the circumstances.

And yet she did feel romantic. Natalie was tall and even so, her nose was about level with his chin. There was something beguiling about being with a man who made you feel like a fairy straight out of a children’s film.

‘I wanted to ask you something, but is it fair to ask without the lady at your table here?’ he said. ‘She’s so interested, it doesn’t seem right to continue the whole thing without her.’

Natalie laughed. ‘You can ask me anything,’ she said.

‘Can I see you again?’

The pleasurable feeling Natalie felt from being pressed up close to Rory increased. ‘I’d like that,’ she said.

‘Great.’ He stopped dancing long enough to wave over to Mrs Kinsale. ‘She said yes,’ he roared.

It’s never too late to stop and change the way you’re going. Never.

Marcella Schmidt’s mother had always told her she was too picky. If Marcella had been given two choices, she wanted a third, just to be absolutely sure. Back then, she’d been Marcella Doyle, a name she couldn’t wait to change. Doyle was fine on its own, the same as Marcella was: but together, the two sounded ridiculous. The exotic Marcella teamed with the utterly non-exotic Doyle. Her mother, Jane, had defended her choice in children’s names.

‘Marcella is a name you’d notice,’ said Mrs Doyle, who’d hated being plain Jane all her life. There might have been some Janes who lived exciting lives with thrilling things happening to them, but she wasn’t one of them. Her children wouldn’t be saddled with the same problem. Nobody could forget girls called Marcella, Regina and Concepta. And if their surname was quite ordinary, it didn’t entirely matter. Their given names were the ones people remembered.

Marcella’s Confirmation outfit had been the source of much drama in the Doyle household. Her mother had wanted
Marcella to wear the same cream lace dress her older sisters had worn. Marcella had balked at that.

Regina, who’d left their small farm in Mayo to work in an office in Dublin, had promised to send a dress from Arnotts’ children’s department. ‘A little dress, something in velvet? You’d look very smart.’

Marcella didn’t see herself looking smart in either cream lace or velvet. She’d spotted a very nice coral-pink shift dress and matching jacket, à la Jackie O, in a boutique in Ballina. It wasn’t a child’s outfit, but she was tall for her twelve years, and it would fit her.

Concepta, who was three years older but shorter, thought it totally unfair that her little sister might look glamorous on her Confirmation Day, when s
he’d
looked like a child in that ridiculous cream dress with babyish white ankle socks and white patent shoes. Marcella was growing up far too fast.

‘Regina’s going to send you a dress from Dublin,’ she wailed. ‘Isn’t that enough for you?’

‘Regina still thinks I’m a child,’ Marcella said calmly. ‘I’m not.’

‘She has great taste; she’ll send you something lovely,’ Jane Doyle soothed. ‘And you can’t parade down the church in a grown-up’s dress, Marcella. You’re only twelve. Besides, where are we going to get the money for it?’

‘If Regina’s going to pay for a dress from Dublin, she can pay for this instead,’ Marcella said. She’d thought it all out. ‘I want to look just right, Mam.’

‘You’re too picky, love,’ her mother had sighed. ‘It doesn’t pay to be picky.’

Marcella disagreed. On her Confirmation Day, everyone had said she looked marvellous in her coral pink. The adult effect of the dress meant the grown-ups didn’t talk to her like she was a child, and the older boys she fancied–brothers of the lads in her class in school–clearly fancied her back.

‘You always get what you want,’ said Concepta crossly, as if it was a bad thing.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ Marcella asked, stung. She wanted her sister to approve of her.

‘You’re a tonic,’ said their father, smiling at his youngest daughter proudly.

Marcella forgot about Concepta’s remarks and basked in her father’s praise. She adored her dad. He didn’t think she was picky: he thought she was right.

Thirty-seven years on, Marcella was no longer sure about the benefits of being picky–or discriminating, as she liked to call it now.

It worked in business: Marcella’s company was one of the top three in the country and could pick and choose clients. It worked in finance: her portfolio of shares was doing better than most, despite the horrific stock market downfall. And it worked in clothes: Marcella loved shopping and wore a clever mix of investment clothes alongside High Street stuff so that nobody could tell the difference.

But pickiness simply didn’t work when it came to men. With men, pickiness meant that you ended up alone.

It wasn’t that she’d made a deal with the Devil and opted for work success over home and hearth. Marcella had wanted both and would have sacrificed some workplace success if it had been necessary; if she’d met a man who’d wanted less spin doctor and more of a wife. The sisterhood who sang her praises as a feminist might have been shocked to discover this, but it was true. The end justified the means.

But the right man hadn’t asked her–either subtly or in an outright fashion–to compromise her career, and she wondered now if it had been her fault because her criteria for the perfect man was too stringent? Marcella didn’t want someone who would ‘do’. She wanted it to be perfect or she didn’t want it at all.

So many people seemed to think she had it all, particularly
women friends who’d split from their husbands and found themselves back in the world of dating again. Marcella, they seemed to imply, had everything sussed, knew how the system worked. She went out to dinners and parties, got her picture in the society pages, had a lovely life for herself and never sat at home moping with a bottle of wine and a DVD. She could guide them, the friends said, happy to have compatriots in their new single life.

Adept at appearing utterly content and in control, Marcella never allowed herself to shriek that of course she didn’t have it all sussed: if she had, she’d be sharing a bottle of wine and a DVD with her own man instead of schlepping around town with newly-liberated girlfriends.

Ingrid was one of the few people with whom she could be honest. How ironic that her confidante on the subject of loneliness was a woman with the perfect marriage.

‘It’s not all about a man, Ingrid,’ she explained. ‘I have so much and I’m lucky. I have the best job in the world; but at night, the job’s not much comfort. I keep thinking that it’s a lonely life, that I wanted more all those years ago, that I still want it. Not sex, really, but companionship.’

The running joke about the telly star, Ken Devlin, was a part of that: a game she and Ingrid played to pretend that men were just playthings and a woman like Marcella didn’t have time for them. But she did. And when friends like Ingrid spoke about their husbands, idly mentioning that they were going out for a pizza together or taking a spur-of-the-moment weekend away thanks to a cheap flight, Marcella felt horrendously lonely. There was nobody to do those things with her. Nobody to hold her hand during turbulence on a plane, nobody to buy her flu medicine when she wasn’t well, nobody to put the dustbins out on rubbish day. It wasn’t wild hot sex Marcella craved: it was another body to come home to and somebody to share her life.

‘Marcella, I’ve got Connor on line two. He says it’s urgent.’
Daniel, Marcella’s personal assistant, had a mellow voice that was very calming to listen to. He’d been with her for three years and no matter how frenzied the message he was delivering–and with the nature of their business, he sometimes had to deliver very urgent messages indeed–Daniel made it sound as if they had all the time in the world to sort the problem out.

‘Thanks, Daniel,’ said Marcella, flicking over to line two.

Connor Davitt was her partner in SD International, which stood for Schmidt-Davitt, and occasionally acted as a fire blanket to be thrown over disasters. Today, Connor was out on the road with one of their big corporate clients who were running a golf fundraiser and had been blessed with decent weather for it. It was part event management, part smiling and making sure all the right people met all the other right people. Connor could do it in his sleep. Unless someone had hit the nineteenth hole too early in the day and was now running amok with a nine iron and a bottle of scotch, Marcella knew that the problem was likely to be unrelated to today’s event.

‘Connor, what’s up?’ she asked.

‘It’s what’s down that’s the problem,’ he said. ‘Trousers.’

‘For Chrissake, not again. Who?’

‘Mickey Roche, on a fact-finding jolly in the Bahamas. And the problem, among others, is a woman who says she hadn’t been paid and he owes her four hundred dollars.’

‘Fact-finding jolly in the Bahamas? Why do they persist in sending people like Mickey Roche to the Bahamas?’ she asked wearily.

‘Fact-finding is less fun in wet cities than it is in tropical paradises,’ Connor answered.

Marcella hated these fire-blanket jobs. Because people read about them, they assumed it was all a company like SD International did. It wasn’t; as Marcella frequently said, their job was making people achieve the best possible version of themselves.

‘Has he been arrested?’

‘No. They were on the balcony of his hotel smoking a joint and he thought it might be fun to sunbathe in the nude, as you do.’

‘As you do,’ agreed Marcella, thinking with distaste of Mickey Roche, a councillor who would never be entered in a Mr Universe contest unless the judging criteria changed to allow swollen beer bellies, forty per cent body fat and lascivious eyes. He was also an idiot. He’d spent a week on an intensive SD International media-training course and had promptly gone out to do a radio interview where he’d managed to insult the interviewer by implying that big bosoms had got her the job. Bizarrely, the public liked him.
Mickey tells it like it is,
they said proudly.

There was, Marcella thought, no accounting for taste.

Connor continued the story: ‘He took umbrage when the hotel staff told him to put his clothes on.’

‘Naturally.’

‘And then, he shut the door on the lady in question, throwing her clothes off the balcony into the swimming pool area, but neglecting to throw down any of the four hundred dollars he’d promised her. They’re sending him home with all the other councillors, who are embarrassed and–’

‘–determined to shift any blame from themselves by letting everyone know what Mickey was up to, distancing themselves from the scandal.’

‘Precisely. Statements are expected by tonight. Only one of them was clued in enough to phone party headquarters to mention what had happened.’

Marcella knew it had been a slow news week. Mickey’s fun-packed jaunt had all the makings of a fabulous news story, offering the papers any number of angles, from the waste of tax-payers’ money onwards. Worst was the fun the tabloids would have with a story that involved public nudity and a man named Mickey.

‘Please tell me nobody’s got photographs?’ she said.

‘Can’t tell you that,’ Connor replied. ‘You’ll have to make some calls. I’m a bit stuck here.’

‘No problem,’ she said. ‘Talk later.’

Marcella swung into action. First, she needed to find out what the fourth estate knew about the problem. She phoned a journalist friend of hers.

‘Donald, it’s Marcella Schmidt. Can you talk?’

‘Private talk?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hold on. I’ll take this in the office.’

Marcella waited. She’d been in the
Courier Mail
often and knew that real privacy was almost impossible in a place where knowing other people’s business was the life blood of most of the inhabitants. As news editor, Donald had a glass-walled office, but the door was permanently open and, if he shut it, every reporter’s eyes would be on it, knowing that something interesting was happening. A few clever souls had learned to lip-read purely for moments such as these.

Donald and Marcella went way back. Many moons ago, they’d had a fling on a press trip to Brussels and, for whatever glorious reason, there had never been any awkwardness between them since. They’d both been between relationships at the time, and the following morning they’d lain in Donald’s giant bed in the hotel and enjoyed talking to each other just as much as they’d enjoyed making rather tipsy love the night before.

It would never have worked for them to be together properly, Marcella was sure of that. Donald was more married to his job than he could ever be to any woman. Committed journalists were a nightmare: always obsessed with stories, never able to let go of the job. But they’d remained friends and, sometimes, they tipped each other off on news the other should know.

‘I’m in the dog box,’ Donald said. ‘Talk.’

‘OK, I hate asking this, but I have a wayward councillor who’s in a bit of bother ’

‘Mickey Roche,’ he said before she’d even finished. ‘The chief sub-editor fancies “Taking the Mickey”.’ The
Courier Mail
was a broadsheet so would never print such a headline, but the office’s unofficial bookie, a sports writer named Chuck, ran a highly profitable book on possible headlines for stories in the tabloids. ‘My money’s on “Mickey’s Mouse”.’

‘You’ve got a picture,’ Marcella groaned. Only with photographic evidence could such a headline be imaginable. How else would they report that Mickey’s mickey was mouse-sized?

Donald laughed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think there are any pics, but you can’t be sure. We haven’t got them, anyhow. How are you going to play this?’ he asked.

‘Don’t know,’ Marcella replied. ‘Not a lot of damage limitation available for a toked-up councillor strutting his naked stuff on a Bahamian hotel balcony.’

This time, Donald laughed so much he snorted. ‘You should be in the office book for headlines,’ he said. ‘You have a flair for it. We’ll be going soft on Mickey, no puns intended. There’s bound to be a reaction in Leinster House, so we’ll use that rather than speculate.’ Leinster House was the Irish parliamentary chamber and while Mickey, as a local county councillor, wasn’t based there, his party would come in for a few slingshots over their wayward party member. ‘Are you around this week for a drink?’

Marcella ran through her diary in her head. ‘Should be,’ she said. ‘Friday maybe? I’ll phone you tomorrow.’

‘Great. Now, you’ve got the inside track with Ingrid Fitzgerald and David Kenny,’ he went on. ‘Any truth to the rumour that there are cash-flow problems with Kenny’s department store and that DeVere’s are going to buy them out in a fire sale?’

For a moment, Marcella’s legendary cool deserted her. A
fire sale only occurred when financial problems meant everything had to go. ‘What?’ she said.

‘I’ll take that as a “no” then,’ Donald replied. ‘Just a very small rumour, Ingrid. I heard it last week and there’s been nothing else, so I wondered if there was any truth in it. We don’t have the staff or the money to run on every tip-off.’