‘Don’t get rid of yours,’ he’d replied.
Ralphie had insecurity issues as a result of having been brought up in a house that contained Diarmuid Tallisker. Diarmuid was the sort of competitive man who had to piss on every lamp post he ever saw. No young buck would ever take over his deer, so to speak.
Hence Ralphie never believed he was as wonderful as Eden knew him to be. She wondered how she’d got out of her family with her self-esteem intact: living with a sister as stunning as Indy would have flattened the self-esteem of most people but then Mum had been brilliant at making them all proud of their individuality.
Although – Eden grinned at the memory – Rory had hated it when their mother proudly championed Rory’s lesbianism.
‘Stop it!’ Rory used to hiss when their mother sailed past wearing gay pride T-shirts and discussed, in all sincerity, getting one wall of the ballroom painted in the LGBTQ+ rainbow. ‘I’m a person, not a bloody cause!’
Eden turned back to her speech.
‘Nobody who was ever in the Sorrento Hotel forgot it—’ she began and then stopped typing again becausethatwas a total lie. A fair whack of the hotel’s guests would have been in a stupor courtesy of her father’s signature Martinis half an hour after they arrived. It would have taken a skilled hypnotherapist and photographic evidence to get them to remember anything.
The Sorrento had certainly enjoyed a ten-year-sojourn as the cool hotel for visiting movie stars and rock stars and such was the welcome they received from her parents that nobody ever remembered a thing about it.
Newspapers and magazines had lurked in the bushes trying to get photos of the great and the good, and, for a while, fashion shoots had been held there. Because Steve’s photos of the four sisters had hit the papers with the first one, subsequent recreations of photos of the four sisters, wearing their individual necklaces, had been wildly famous in editorial shoots.
‘You’re famous,’ one of the bullying girls at school had said to Eden once, unable to stop herself forgetting her role as bitch and currying favour. Eden had stared thoughtfully at the girl who picked on everyone, although never the Robicheaux girls or their allies. Nobody had ever had the temerity to bully Eden.
‘Yeah, and when you’re asking “fries with that?” when you leave school, loser, I’ll still be famous,’ Eden had replied sweetly.
In truth, she’d never felt famous, despite the papers publishing Steve’s photos of her and her sisters for a few years running.
Savannah had been anxious about the anti-bullying exchange; Indy had been annoyed: ‘there’s no need to sink to their level’, and Rory had been indifferent.
Even as a lowly first year, nobody had bullied Rory or her crew, which was all Rory’s doing. The gang of just-coming-out kids, like fledglings all fluffed up and confused, leaving the hetero nest and finding their place in an LGBTQ+ world, they would easily have been picked on but Rory, lesbian and proud since she was eleven, when she’d cut her own hair short and thrown out all her girl’s clothes, protected her people fiercely.
One bitchy comment involving the word ‘so gay’ and the commenter would find their head in one of the girls’ toilets with the flush going. Male or female: Rory, physically strong and determined, took no prisoners.
Eden had never felt famous as a teenager chambermaiding for free. Plus, if she’d been a movie star, she’d have gone somewhere with more reliable heating. But then the Sorrento had easy access to nearby Dalkey’s rock and movie stars, her father had been in charge of the drinks and he had a heavy hand with the vodka and tequila. Also, his pal, Redzer, who’d drive up in a pimped-up yellow Volkswagen beetle – wire tyres and zebra furry seats – brought drugs with him.
Eden wasn’t sure how Mum tolerated it, but then she’d stopped tolerating it, hadn’t she? When Dad’s gambling and love of smoking joints and doling out ginormous drinks had got out of hand, Mum had pulled the plug. The hotel had been sold because the bank insisted, the family had broken up and …
Eden deleted all she’d written.
At thirty-seven, she didn’t find her parents’ break-up and divorce painful anymore but this remarrying – it was strange. It brought up the old feelings of fear of having to leave the hotel.
Yes, it was a nightmare looking after it, endlessly glueing down bits of wallpaper, scrubbing windows that really needed painting in order to hide the dark, creeping damp.
But it had been home.
Then the divorce – fierce, angry, horrible. Dad had been so desperate for it not to end but Mum had been angry. She’d loved the hotel, the security, and she could not forgive their father for losing it. It was the first time Eden had ever seen her mother really, really upset.
Eden knew that of the four siblings, she and Indy had clambered out of it best. Indy, because she’d had lovely, kind Steve with her. Steve was like a Dutch sea wall: he kept the ocean at bay and protected his beloved. Eden herself – well, she’d been made of tough stuff.
Also, anyone with a brain could have seen that Mum and Dad would implode at some time. But it had been hard. And they’d been so cripplingly poor afterwards.
Eden had been determined never to be poor again if she could help it.
Savannah and Rory, they’d definitely found the divorce very hard. And possibly the wedding too … Not my problem, Eden thought and felt a hint of guilt. But she wasn’t responsible for her siblings, not anymore.
Eden thought of the wedding countdown. Today the four sisters were meeting Mum and Vonnie, her best friend, at The Beach Hut to iron out who was responsible for what.
As it was a wedding on a budget, they’d each agreed to take on a few jobs. Rory was in charge of getting the wine and Eden wasn’t sure if this was wise: Rory with access to free wine was unpredictable. Though she was the youngest sister, Rory drank with the brio and hollow-legged ability of a much older person. Alarmingly like their father, in fact.
Savannah, Eden’s twin, was involved in making the hotel beautiful as she had so much artistic talent. She and Indy were going to do the flowers on Friday because Eden had a meeting and couldn’t get out of it. Eden was going to make sure the kitchens were clean and was going to, if necessary, organise dehumidifiers if the hotel was damp.
Ifthe hotel was damp – Eden wanted to laugh. Of course it was damp. When was it ever not damp? Nobody had ever revamped it so dampness was a given.
