TEN YEARS LATER…
WEDNESDAY 25 JULY
1
ROSIE
The village of Sandycove, on the rocky coast just outside Dublin, was a gloriously pretty village where seagulls soared and the sea glittered and was currently basking in a golden heatwave. In the yellow haze of summer, ice cream vans busily traversed the country, trying to keep the Irish citizens cool, the smell of barbecue was in the air, as the whole nation roasted to golden brown.
Cliff Top was looking particularly resplendent because the hotel was about to host its very first wedding. It had been scrubbed, dusted and decorated until it gleamed. Arrangements of giant, billowy hydrangeas and hollyhocks from the garden had been placed in large vases around the hotel and small vases of roses in each of the fifteen bedrooms. The doors from the lounge were opened to allow a cool breeze from the sea to flitter through, the cushions were plumped, the reception area was even more welcoming than usual.
Maureen, the hotel’s housekeeper, had applied her eye even more beadily over the hotel and had even ordered a clear-out of the hotel’s stores and laundry cupboard, unearthing some beautiful embroidered tablecloths and old Waterford crystal vases which now shone in pride of place in the lounge. Maureen had cleaned every last inch of the hotel, the corners, the tops of curtain rails. Rosie had even spotted her disappearing into the storeroom, where they kept suitcases and golf clubs and rental bikes, with a mop and bucket and reappearing with a cobweb or two in her hair. ‘You could eat your tea off that floor,’ she muttered, before going to change the water in her bucket and tackle other rarely seen parts of the hotel.
The wedding had not been Rosie’s idea. She hated chaos and risk-taking and thought a wedding was an unnecessary invitation to risk and chaos. Until this moment, she had concentrated on providing the best hotel service for their guests, weddings just changed everything and brought an element of the unknown and the unstable to the table. Instead, it was Grace who had pestered her about holding one and she had eventually given in.
Grace, an old friend of Rosie’s, had joined the team a year ago after her life had taken an abrupt U-turn with the double calamity of a loss of a job and relationship. She had quickly made herself indispensable at Cliff Top, and was full of ideas.
‘The hotel is beautiful,’ she had persisted. ‘We’re in one of the most gorgeous parts of Ireland. We’re perched on a fecking cliff, for God’s sake. Think of the social media photographs. We’re welcoming, we have a terrace for drinks. We have the garden. The beach… and what else? There’s an ice cream van which makes the best salted chocolate.’ Her eyes were gleaming with all her ideas. ‘Aperol spritzes, Black Velvets, smoked salmon canapés, shells on the tables… we can use honey from the garden in the cocktails… or honey biscuits for breakfast…’
It was Teddy who had finally persuaded Rosie. She had gone to find him early in the spring, when she was still trying to decide if it was a good idea or not. He was digging over one of the raised beds in the walled kitchen garden. He’d been devastated after his wife’s death, but his daughters had sustained him and this garden, the constant new life, the hard work in spring and summer, the pride he had in the fruit and vegetables he grew. He was a quiet soul and was the one person Rosie trusted more than anyone. He’d taken a break from the digging and they’d sat on the bench outside the potting shed, close to the beehives, while he boiled the old kettle on the Primus.
‘The garden’s already looking beautiful,’ Rosie had said, admiring how neat and tidy it was, the rows of potted seedlings ready to be planted in the beds, the blossom on the fruit trees.
‘That’s nature for you,’ said Teddy. ‘All you need to do is be good to it, and it will be good to you.’
He handed her an enamel mug of tea and sat on the wooden bench beside her.
‘Dad?’ she asked, while blowing on the surface of her hot tea. ‘Do you think Mum would have had weddings at the hotel? Or do you think she would have thought it would take away from the hotel being small and quiet, a break from noise and all that?’
‘You’re thinking of having a wedding at the hotel?’
She nodded. ‘It’s Grace’s idea. This couple became engaged here and they were asking Grace and she asked me and I just don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. I mean, do you think Mum would have liked it?’
‘I think she would,’ he said. ‘She liked celebrations, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, but weddings can get out of hand. People get drunk and they can be chaotic. The golf club hosted one recently and there was a fight.’
‘I heard about that,’ he said. ‘It’s a risk, I suppose. But running a hotel anyway is a risk. You never know what is going to happen. And if Grace has met this couple and she says they are nice…’
‘Very nice, apparently.’
‘Well then. But would it mean more work for you?’
‘Not really. But I don’t mind the work. And Grace wants to be in charge of it all. I just have to say yes or no.’
He looked at her for a moment. ‘I think your mother would have taken the risk,’ he said. ‘She was an adventurer. Not like me, who likes this garden too much. It was your mother who wanted to buy the hotel, wasn’t it? That was a risk. And we have to live, because she can’t. Risks are a part of living, aren’t they? And if you do hold a wedding, you have Grace, Bertie, Maureen and all the team. And me and Nessa. I’ll help out as much as you need.’
And so she’d said yes to Grace.
The wedding planning had given Grace even more of an energy and purpose. She had begun walking around with a clipboard, biting the end of her pen, deep in thought, or ostentatiously ripping pages from wedding magazines, showing Rosie photographs online. ‘Look,’ she had said, ‘the bride and groom arrived by zip line to the front of the altar. How cool is that?’
‘Let’s just keep it simple, yes?’ said Rosie. She had got the hotel to a point where she thought that perhaps they could relax a little. Grace was right, the hotel was looking lovely, the garden at its verdant best, the staff were all excellent and they consistently received amazing reviews and repeat guests. Why change it?
But even Rosie’s sister, Nessa, who was the hotel’s part-time bookkeeper, was extra-energised by the wedding planning and had suddenly developed many opinions. Before, she only would express her thoughts on colour schemes and fabric choices or for the garden furniture on the terrace they’d bought the previous summer.
‘There has to be a floral arch,’ Nessa now said. ‘Weddings have to have things like that or they are not weddings. And Aperol spritzes are a must. And bunting is non-negotiable. I will not countenance a wedding at Cliff Top without it.’
Teddy had picked the flowers for the arrangements and had been commissioned by François, their new chef, to provide all the herbs and baby tomatoes for canapés, along with anything else he could find in the kitchen garden. He had power-hosed the terrace and the garden furniture, had mowed the long lawn down to the cliff edge where the marquee was going to be placed and had made sure that every pot, every stone, was looking perfect. He’d even polished the brass plaque outside the front gates.
