‘No, this is not it,’ she said, undoing her seat belt. ‘But Angelo’s last place of residence was here in the town of Easkey and people who run pubs know everything about everyone. It’s the first rule of journalism – apart from being able to ask the correct question at the correct time and know how to fill in your expenses forms. Come on,’ she added. ‘We’re going in.’
Slowly, Lou undid her own seat belt. This had been her idea, and she still wanted to find Angelo – but it felt as if everything was moving so quickly. As soon as they had left Gloria’s, they had been on their way – with only a brief stop home to pack a bag, hug Emily and explain where they were going – and now they were here, she did not feel at all ready. Lou liked preparing, liked having all her things with her on trips, felt anxious otherwise. This speedy departure from her normal life in Whitehaven, which felt right earlier, seemed foolishly unplanned now.
‘Come on,’ Toni said, rapping on her window. Slowly, Lou got out of the car.
The pub was named Margo’s Bar and Lounge, an establishment with the painted wheels of an old-fashioned cart on the white walls as decoration. There was also a Kelly green water pump from ye olden days and wooden tables and benches surrounded by enough pink and white begonias in tubs to fill several gardens.
‘It’s adorable,’ said Lou miserably, searching for why the sight of this pretty place made her feel sad.
Then she got it: normally, she’d be here with Ned and Emily on a little family weekend away. Now she was here with Toni to search out a man she hadn’t known existed until the night before, with her whole life in disarray. No wonder she didn’t feel very cheerful. But then, she hadn’t had enough sleep, either, and she was hopeless without sleep. It made her feel nauseous, the way she felt now, in fact.
‘We could have lunch,’ Toni was saying as she locked the car.
‘I don’t feel hungry,’ grumbled Lou.
‘You can watch me eat, then,’ said Toni sharply and marched in ahead of her sister. ‘Come on. The country pub is a place where everyone knows what’s going on. It’s like Facebook with Interpol tendencies.’
The interior of Margo’s Bar and Lounge had been hit many times with the same cute stick as the outside. Prettiness abounded. If Margo was a person, Lou guessed that she’d trawled the length and breadth of the country looking for adorable Irish bric-a-brac with which to adorn her premises. There were elderly china chamber pots hanging from hooks and old spinning wheels nailed precariously to the wall, with a cluster of cherub-adorned holy water fonts hammered into a wooden beam near the door in case anyone felt the need to bless themselves several times in one go. The stone walls teemed with hungobjets trouvésand behind the bar were enamelled signs from days of old, promising fabulous pints, marvellous cigarettes and train journeys to places that were now bypassed. None of it matched precisely and the hanging decorations were all in danger of concussing the taller customer, but somehow, the kitschy chaos worked.
A dark-haired girl in her twenties was behind the bar supervising a couple of old lads holding tightly to pints as if some mysterious person might steal them if not held tightly.
‘Good afternoon,’ said Toni briskly to the girl. ‘Can you help us? We’d like the lunch menu – and I wonder if anyone around here knows Angelo Mulraney?’
Standing behind her sister, Lou felt her body vibrate with a sudden rush of anxiety.
She didn’t actually want to meet Angelo Mulraney, she decided abruptly. She wanted life to go back to the way it was before, when her father was her father. Bob Cooper was her father, not some randomer her mother had casually become impregnated by. The nausea was back and she closed her mouth in case she was sick. This was hellish, every nightmare she’d ever had. Lou liked things to remain the same. Change made her anxious and this was change with knobs on.
From behind the bar, the dark-haired girl handed over two menus and then yelled ‘Ma! There’s a woman here to talk to you,’ in the general direction of the back of the premises.
Toni passed her a menu and Lou took it automatically. If they left, she could pretend last night hadn’t happened.
‘Can we go—’ she began, but before Toni could turn and tell her no, which was what would inevitably happen because Toni was so bossy, an older woman appeared.
A glamorous vision with dark hair, lots of lip gloss and with a black apron covering skin-tight jeans and a clinging T-shirt, the woman was a version of the bar girl, but twenty years older and with suspicious eyes.
‘What can I do for you, ladies?’ she asked crisply.
‘Are you the Margo who owns this gorgeous place?’ asked Toni, using her television voice. ‘I adore it. You’ve done fabulous work. Has anyone ever filmed anything here ... ?’
Apparently, there was no trowel too thick with which to apply flattery when it came to pub decor. It was indeed Margo and she blossomed under the trowelling.
‘Sadly no ...’ she began, and then looked closely at Toni.
Lou had seen the television metamorphosis before and it still amazed her. Ordinary Toni stood up taller, flicked her platinum blonde hair, deepened her voice and kowabunga – people recognised Toni Cooper, TV star extraordinaire.
‘You’re ... Toni from the telly?’ said Margo, shocked.
Toni waved a hand as if batting away the career she’d fought tooth and nail for.
‘Oh, we’re here privately,’ she said, in a voice that hinted at great secrecy and men with walkie talkies outside handling her security. ‘My sister and I. We’re doing a little trip and we thought we’d look up an old friend of our aunt’s, an Angelo Mulraney. Dear Auntie G mentioned him, and we thought since we were here, we’d say hello.’
Lou sat shakily down on a bar stool and, despite her anxiety, was able to admire both her sister’s ability to fib and her expensive dentistry, which was getting a good showing.
‘I love your programme,’ said Margo, ‘although we don’t always get to see it, what with running the bar and all.’
‘You must be so busy,’ cooed Toni. ‘Don’t let us hold you up. We’re going to have something delicious from your menu but if you do think of where we might find Angelo, that would be wonderful.’
Margo whisked around to the sisters, shook Toni’s hand delightedly and showed them to a round table where there was a definite chance of them being knocked out by low-hanging chamber pots. Both sisters ducked cautiously.
