‘Yeah, you can’t get away from news with Wi-Fi,’ Poppy said, shrugging. ‘Although from BuzzFeed, I do know what Disney princess I am.’ She managed a laugh. ‘I know what Dad is supposed to have done.’
Callie nodded slowly. She had to let Poppy tell her this, even if she wanted to get Jason and stick pins in his eyes.
‘I know he must have done it because he ran away and left us, but I know it probably wasn’t his fault. I hate Rob. Bet he did it all. But Dad ran away too and he hasn’t talked to us, so ...’
Poppy began to cry, silent tears rushing down her face.
‘I hate that he did that, Mum.’
Callie pulled her daughter close and they cried together.
‘I hate that he did that too, lovie,’ Callie wept. ‘Not for me but for you.’
Incredibly, Poppy seemed to have come out of it all better than Callie could have hoped.
The resilience of youth? she wondered. Or just that Poppy was growing up, becoming interested in different things.
She’d been to a youth club disco with some of her friends from school and even though Callie had been on tenterhooks all evening, when she’d picked them up, all giggling and teasing each other about boys, Poppy had been euphoric. Driving them all home had been like driving a car full of girls fizzed up with firecrackers inside them, and Callie had felt so relieved. At least Jason hadn’t taken all vestiges of a normal childhood away from Poppy.
There was hope they’d both come out of this.
‘So where were you thinking of going, exactly, for this lovely weekend away?’ Callie asked her brother now.
‘Kenmare,’ said Freddie, his eyes lighting up. ‘I did some work there once. The Park Hotel. Beautiful place, old-world elegance, charm and style. The owners, the Brennans, are wonderful hosts. Nobody will recognise you, and even if they did, no one would breath a word. It’s a safe place, I promise you,’ said Freddie. ‘You’d be amazed how many famous people live around there and nobody knows.’
The Park Hotel in Kenmare was indeed beautiful, and as they drove up to the lovely front of the old castle-style hotel, Callie couldn’t help but think of the last time she and Poppy had stayed in a hotel. Sitting in the back seat with her, Poppy turned and said:
‘Do you remember the last—’
‘Oh gosh yes,’ said Callie fervently, thinking of the hotel on the outskirts of Dublin where they’d done nothing but fight and where the future had seemed so bleak. ‘Where everything was brown ...’
‘... And it smelled all smoky,’ Poppy said. Suddenly they were both laughing.
This glorious hotel was everything Freddie had said it would be: welcoming and friendly. There were books in Callie’s room, huge windows where you could look out to the bay and an amazing four-poster bed. Sitting on top of the bed was a fluffy white toy sheep. She picked it up and hugged it tightly.
‘I think I love this place,’ she said.
It was the sort of hotel that Jason would never have gone to. Jason liked modern, starkly modern, and if he’d seen a fluffy sheep toy anywhere in a room, he’d have been out the door so fast he’d have got a nosebleed. But this little oasis of comfortable luxury was just what Callie needed.
The four of them ate dinner that night and laughed and joked, watching the driving rain outside and feeling snug inside. And then later, Callie slept better than she’d slept in a very long time.
Kenmare was settled on the edge of the coast, perched on a rocky finger of land that stretched towards the Atlantic Ocean, and in the hotel, there was a sense that time stood still. Callie imagined she could be dressed like a Victorian lady going down to breakfast and it would be perfectly apt.
At breakfast, she ate everything in sight.
‘Mum, I haven’t seen you eat like that for ages,’ said Poppy, laughing at her mother.
‘Must be the sea air,’ said Callie. ‘I suppose I better walk it off. What are you going to do today, Poppy?’
‘I’m going into the town with Gran, then I might go to the hotel spa and I don’t know, just chillax.’
‘After that,’ said Pat, ‘I just want to do nothing, read the paper, look out the window and have tea brought to me where I don’t have to wash up the cups myself.’
‘That sounds nice,’ said Freddie, busying himself with his phone. ‘There’s a great walk down there past the garden where you can walk right out to a little headland. There’s a bat sanctuary, although I don’t know if there are many bats in it, but it’s beautiful and wild. Spiritual.’
It was indeed beautiful, Callie thought, half an hour later as she walked in the fresh December air, enjoying the sense of peace and calm. A lady with a small dog waved a hand of hello at Callie, who waved back, for once not scared she’d be recognised. As she kept walking, she warmed up and she felt the beauty of crunching along through the big stones with the water lapping to one side and the trees on the other. Bathing in the forest, the Japanese called the experience, and it made sense. Bathing in nature was a wonderful way of relaxing.
Here, nothing could touch her. Here, she was just herself: not trying to be the perfect mother in the midst of all her traumas and not trying to run from anyone. There was peace in this beautiful place.
