‘He’s right,’ agreed Ginger. ‘We’re not friends anymore and we have nothing to say to each other. Goodbye.’
Slowly, Liza walked outside but turned quickly. ‘I never meant—’
‘That’s the past, Liza.’ Ginger put an arm around Will. ‘Goodbye.’
And Will shut the door.
‘Right,’ he said, picking her up, ‘I think you need a serious kiss after that.’
‘So do I,’ said Ginger.
Epilogue
The big living room in the biggest house you could rent on the posh golfing estate in Ballyglen had been transformed with fairy lights and flowers into a birthday bower.
The dining table was immaculately made up with the finest napkins, candles, glasses, silver and plates, all from Grace’s home. Piles of wrapped boxes sat on one side, ready to be opened.
Grace Devaney looked around the house with pride. She and Esmerelda had worked hard – well, instructed hard – to get the place into shape. This was going to be a very special birthday party, a party where the three birthday women had been through the fire and had come out the other side. Grace had it planned perfectly.
The rental agent hadn’t batted an eyelid at the list of instructions.
‘I can get you people to do all this,’ she’d said, calmly, studying the list typed up on Grace’s state-of-the-art computer. ‘You’re supplying the extra furniture, I see, and the movers will put it into place. But a butler with his shirt off ...? We’d all love one of those, Mrs Devaney, but Ballyglen is a bit short on help of that sort or—’ The rental agent threw her head back and laughed so much that her cat’s eye glasses fell back off her face and into the nest of her purple rinse. ‘I’d have hired him myself. Personally, you’d do better with a few of the agricultural college students helping around the place. They’re all gorgeous.’
‘On the scale of, what is it – one to ten?’ demanded Esmerelda, who had very specific views on men and their beauty. She liked these Irish men more now that the country contained so many nationalities and a lusty woman could find a man with skin of any colour and a voice like honey. Variety was the spice of life, as her grandmother, God bless her in heaven, used to say.
‘Esmerelda,’ chided Grace. ‘it’s so hard to grade men.’
‘Not impossible,’ said the rental lady, fanning herself now with her clipboard. ‘These boys are all handsome and polite. But I don’t think we can ask them to serve the party with their shirts off. It would be sexist.’
She caught Grace’s eye and they grinned evilly.
‘But such fun,’ said Grace. ‘Fine. Dinner jackets for them all. Add the rental to the price.’
Since everyone had arrived, Grace had been enjoying herself thoroughly as hostess, greeting everyone, making sure all of them were happy with their bedrooms, hugging randomly, telling Ginger she was beautiful and looked so on the television.
Ginger had blushed.
‘Redheads are so darling when they blush,’ Grace said to Will, and then she chucked him under the chin. ‘He already thinks so, Ginger,’ she called out. ‘He’s besotted.’
Pat, Phil and Grace had had a marvellous time with Esmerelda recounting tales of their youth, and Poppy had listened in, fascinated.
Callie went over to Sam and Ted’s cottage and gave them a hand with India while they dressed.
‘Babies smell so delicious,’ she said, inhaling the scent of India’s little dark head.
‘We’re thinking that we might try for a second baby,’ Sam said. ‘Is that madness at my age?’
Callie smiled. ‘What’s mad about loving another child. Why not?’
At seven on the dot, everyone had to assemble and toast the birthday girls: Ginger, Callie and Sam.
Grace had made up a glorious elderflower cocktail for the non-drinkers and had champagne for anyone else.
‘Who would have thought that three such incredible women would have significant birthdays on the same day,’ Grace said, her voice clear as a bell. ‘And you have all had, let me say, interesting years.’
Everyone laughed, the three women most of all.
‘Time does not go backwards for any of us so we are not celebrating thirty, forty or fifty, but the joy of thirty-one, forty-one and fifty-one and surviving with grace and courage. That is the true mark of a strong woman.’ She raised her glass. ‘To Ginger, Sam and Callie.’
