‘’Kay.’ Trinity settled back to doze.
They drove on in silence.
Lou could easily see how a person raised in Sligo with the fierce winds of the Atlantic whipping at their home could decide to relocate to Sicily and spend time with the other side of their family, in a place with the same craggy wild feel but a warmer climate. She wondered where in the family tree the Mulraneys of Easkey had connected with a family in Sicily. Then, her mind went back to thinking about Bob, her real father.
She felt the same pang again. She wished Dad were here, for her to talk to, now more than ever. Would he feel she was betraying him, by meeting Angelo? If Dad had wanted her to know he wasn’t her biological father, wouldn’t he have told her? It felt so strange to think he had withheld something so important from her – he had always been someone she knew she could count on, no matter what. She remembered Emily’s tenth birthday party, when she had organised a picnic party for fifteen children on the beach.
The party had been planned so that there were beachy games that ten-year-olds liked and it was a princess party into the bargain. The only boy coming along was a sweet blond cherub called Jacob, who loved princess costumes just as much as Emily and Simone. The three of them were in the same class in school and adored playdates with each other. Jacob’s mother Fifi was coming to the picnic as well as Toni and was the fifth adult.
‘I’m thinking of making muffins with butterfly tops and sparkly things on them,’ Fifi had said to Lou on the phone.
‘Perfect,’ Lou had said, thinking that was another thing she could tick off her list.
‘I could whip up a batch of Rice Krispies buns as well,’ Fifi added. ‘I’ve got purple sprinkle dust as well as the gold and silver I’m using for the muffins. Jacob is really into glittery purple at the moment.’
‘Really? You are amazing,’ Lou had said.
Lillian was not able to come – she was in Dublin at a grand event where one of her pieces of sculpture was being unveiled – and nor was Ned until the very end.
‘We must be mad,’ Mim had said. ‘Fifteen children, an ocean, it might rain and we’ve only got five adults.’
‘Five is perfect – we’ve got my dad,’ reminded Lou.
Bob Cooper, tall, white-haired and with the kindest blue eyes on the planet and a gentle face that had soothed so many distressed people in his pharmacy, was the perfect person to help.
Lou knew he’d do exactly what he’d always done at her parties: gently shepherd the children in the correct direction at all times and watch with great vigilance in case any of them wandered out too near the water. He had dressed, that day, in his normal summer outfit of soft cornflower blue linen shirt and khaki shorts with his long legs and knobbly knees peering out underneath and what he called tennis shoes on his feet.
Children loved him because he listened to them carefully and treated them with respect. He was the perfect grandfather, and always a hit with Emily’s friends. Jacob, in particular, adored Bob and felt he was his grandfather, which made Emily very proud.
‘Jacob has to share Granddad because my granddad is the best,’ she said.
Jacob’s actual grandfather, his father’s father, had not seen his grandson ever since Jacob had refused to make his first Holy Communion if he wasn’t allowed to wear a white fluffy dress like all his girlfriends.
‘They were so angry,’ Fifi had told Lou privately. ‘So Jacob and I haven’t seen them since and I’m not going to see them. Jacob is who he is. If he wants to wear a dress, that’s his business, not theirs. They’ve even had the temerity to say that I made him wear dresses. As if,’ Fifi said in anger.
Lillian, who liked to behave exactly as she wanted to, as an artist, was also not a fan of seeing little Jacob in princess dresses, something Lou could not understand. Standing at the beach, she had mentioned this to her father.
‘Children will be who they are,’ Bob said wisely. ‘Your mother has a conservative side if you scratch deep enough. But with children, you just have to accept them on their terms.’
Lou had felt a passionate love for this kind man and a gratitude that he was her father. He’d stick by her no matter what, and she’d always known that.
When the rushing around from the game was over, the children threw themselves onto the rugs and began to dig into butterfly fairy cakes, tiny cheese sandwiches and orange squash.
Tired now, Bob sat down on the beach beside his daughter and accepted a cup of tea from her flask.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You forget how much energy these little people have, don’t you?’
‘Sadly, they’ll have more energy after this because we are basically feeding them sugar.’
Her father laughed, his eyes crinkling up.
‘The photos are going to be wonderful,’ he said. ‘Definitely lots for your photo wall.’
He brought a tiny digital camera for special occasions.
‘Here’s one of you with Emily,’ he said.
‘Sneaky. I never noticed you taking that one,’ she replied, looking at the little vignette of the party: her and her ten-year-old crouched on the sand looking at a shell, oblivious to the camera.
