The other stuff could be fudged but the parts with Chloe in it, or the fictional version of Chloe, would be harder to tweak.
Rory felt the familiar ache in her belly.
Probably hangover, she told herself.
Before the drink had started flowing the night before, Louisa had explained that there’d be a lunch with the publishers and her new editor during the week, if possible.
‘Of course,’ Rory had said expansively, conveniently forgetting that her parents were getting married on Saturday and that she was involved because she was giving away the bride and had agreed to go to both the hen night and the rehearsal dinner.
If her parents were remarrying, she really wanted as little to do with it as possible apart from the actual ceremony but it was proving impossible to get out of it all. She was not, however, going to the ‘let’s pick up Ma’s new wedding dress’ morning out.
If her mother wanted to play dress-up, then Rory was not going along with it.
She peed, rinsed her mouth with mouthwash, managed not to look at herself in the bathroom mirror, then, pulling on her dressing gown, made it into the living room which smelled like a pub after a lock-in.
She and Louisa had got through so much drink last night, which was dreadful for a Sunday night. Louisa had flown back from London that afternoon after conducting the auction on Friday.
‘We can discuss when to make it public,’ Louisa had said as she’d arrived, with two bottles of champagne.
It transpired that Louisa knew how to party. When the champagne was gone, they had vodka-and-tonics with the delicately herbed omelettes Chantal had conjured up to line their stomachs, when it became obvious that neither of them was going to stop drinking until the auction was thoroughly toasted.
Then, they’d moved on to flavoured gin, which Rory didn’t like on principle, but was perfectly capable of drinking when there was nothing else. Then that very weird brandy she and Chantal had brought back from Greece once, the sort of thing that tasted amazing when you were in Greece and suddenly not so amazing as soon as you got it home. She and Louisa had one glass but it tasted a bit off. Rory had then remembered a bottle of whiskey she’d been sent from a whiskey advertising campaign she’d worked on and even though she didn’t like whiskey, needs must.
‘Not bad,’ she’d muttered as she sipped it first, knowing full well that mixing grape and grain was fatal the next day.
‘Here’s to Ireland’s newest bestselling international novelist,’ Louisa had said, triumphantly raising her whiskey glass.
She had triumphantly raised a lot of glasses, actually.
By the time she had finished with all the praise, Rory felt that a Pulitzer for her first novel was not out of the question. Which was amazing because in all the years she’d been writing or thinking about writing, Rory had been supercritical of her work. She’d write, stare at what she’d written and then delete it. Was this just her? Was she only pretending to be a writer?
And now this interest in her work, an actual contract: anxiety and joy mingled.
‘Everyone will adore you,’ Louisa said enthusiastically. Louisa was a portrait of enthusiasm.
She was the physical opposite to Rory: short to Rory’s leggy tallness. Rory was five eight, although not as tall as her older sisters. Rory had dark hair cut into a clever bob by a friend of Chantal’s who made it look sleek and chic even when Rory ran her fingers through it and it became messy.
Louisa, on the other hand, looked like one of those girls Rory had seen coming out of the posh schools when she was a teenager.
Girls with long hair they flicked back, as well as rich parents and cars bought for them as soon as they hit seventeen and were able to drive. Rory’s family had never been like that, for all that outsiders thought they were. Outsiders – neighbours, the press, everyone – bought the Robicheaux family story. They saw the glamour and assumed wealth went with it, when in fact, despite Stu Robicheaux having come from money, he had none.
But the hotel made people think they were rich – the Sorrento had been in the newspapers so many times because lots of glamorous people had parties there. When shabby-chic was fashionable, the quirky Sorrento with its genuine William Morris wallpaper, hand-painted silk Chinese hangings, and four-poster beds had an exotic and fabulous feel. Rory’s parents had been so good as hotel hosts that nobody had ever guessed they were so absolutely appalling at handling money.
Mum would sail serenely through the hotel looking glamorous and elegant, kissing people on the cheek, making them feel as if she was inviting them into her home. Dad would be there mixing drinks, playing fantastic music in the background, giving people drinks on the house. It was where all the fabulous people wanted to come. And yet, they were always broke, despite always in the paper as the must-go-to destination.
It was partly the location. Set at an angle along the winding Eboli Road near Killiney Beach, close to the fabulous, successful and much better-run, Killiney Court Hotel.
Rory used to envy the girls from the private schools who came out flicking back their long hair, getting into their sweet cars bought by adoring parents and Louisa was typical of the breed, except that Louisa was unnervingly street sharp, a brilliant agent and had somehow, against all odds, managed an auction where she had sold Rory’s first novel to British and American publishers. Not just her first novel, her second novel too. A novel which was largely unthought of because Rory had spent so long writing the first one.
‘It’s not really about all of you though, is it?’ Louisa had said when they were well stuck into the champagne.
They’d had this discussion before, because Louisa, for all her long-haired, flicky-backy poshness, was at heart a ruthless business woman.
‘No,’ lied Rory, feeling her heartbeat race, ‘it’s just loosely based on a family running a hotel. I mean I wouldn’t write it totally about us, but there are – shades of the family in there.’
She could hear Chantal in the kitchen getting cheese and crackers and some of those delicious little nutty biscuits they all loved. Chantal knew the truth; Chantal knew that the book was very largely based around the Robicheaux family and Rory’s vision of it.
They talked about it endlessly. Fought about it.
