‘I manage the golf course next door, but it doesn’t really need managing. The grass grows, someone cuts it. Someone orders new golf balls, someone else makes sure there is beer behind the bar and wagyu steak in the restaurant. So, I’m often at the hotel. If you need anything, let me know. I’ll sort it.’
Patrick was still staring at Laurence, trying to work out how someone like him had managed to marry Rosie.The sooner the wedding is over and I can leave, thought Patrick,the better.
13
ROSIE
Rosie knocked on her father’s door.
‘It’s open!’
In the kitchen, Teddy had two huge mitts on his hands and was removing an outsized lasagne from the oven.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said, reaching over to peck Rosie on the cheek. ‘How was the day? Wedding guests arrived?’
‘It’s all fine,’ she said, trying to smile and glad that in the company of Nessa, Laurence and the twins she wouldn’t be required to do much talking. ‘That smells good.’
‘Bet you haven’t eaten all day.’ Her father smiled at her.
‘We had some biscuits,’ admitted Rosie.
When their mother was running the hotel, Teddy’s job was the garden and the kitchen, where he would make meals for the guests and it would all be served what he called ‘family style’ as a buffet where guests could pile on as much mashed potato or lamb cutlets or roast chicken and green beans as they wished. Nothing much still existed from that time, the hotel having been turned into a far more professional enterprise under Rosie’s watch.
‘Dad, remember the dessert trolley?’
His eyes twinkled for a moment. ‘Do I remember? How could I forget? What was on it? Your mother used to have a formula. Always a kind of pie. Apple or blackberry usually. Something creamy, meringues usually. Something chocolately, a mousse, and then something cheesy. Your mother loved that trolley. She said the reaction from guests was always so nice. They always loved it. And the fact that they could choose a little bit of this, a spoon of that.’
‘We should bring it back,’ said Rosie. ‘Do you know where it is?’
Teddy put down his wooden spoon, scrunching his face. ‘I think the old garage. Right at the back. Behind a few things. I could have sworn I saw it there a while ago. Would need a good clean and the wheels could do with an oiling. I’ll go and look for it in the morning.’ He reached into the oven and pulled out a pile of plates. ‘Just going to make the salad.’
‘May I help?’
‘Not a bit of it.’ He swatted her away with the mitts. ‘You’ve been hard at work. Give the gang a shout and tell them dinner is ready.’
Teddy’s cottage still had remnants of his late wife everywhere, including the photograph of her outside the hotel, with Rosie and Nessa standing beside her, their arms linked around her legs. There was their wedding photograph as well, one which he lit a small candle in front of every evening at 6p.m., as well as photographs from Nessa’s own wedding and a succession of ones of the twins from birth to school photographs where they both faced the camera with rictus smiles.
Isabelle and Killian were kneeling in front of the coffee table in the lounge area, drawing some pictures, while Nessa was curled up on their mother’s old armchair, her eyes closed. Laurence was scrolling through his phone. ‘Howya, Rosie,’ he whispered. ‘How’s the craic?’
‘I’m asleep,’ Nessa said, lips barely moving like a ventriloquist, her eyes still clamped shut. ‘No one is to disturb me.’
‘Mum’s had a hard day,’ said Isabelle.
‘Balancing the books,’ said Killian. ‘Which doesn’t sound hard. Books are very easy to balance.’
‘Yes,’ said Isabelle. ‘They’re flat.’
‘You have no idea,’ ventriloquised Nessa. ‘It’s very tiring indeed.’
‘And so have I,’ said Laurence. ‘There was a minor altercation on the golf course today. Someone kept getting in the way of someone’s shot and they were accused of doing it on purpose.’
Killian and Isabelle’s eyes were wide.
‘They could have been brained to death,’ said Isabelle.
Killian nodded. ‘Golf balls are liken cannonballs,’ he said, knowledgeably. ‘They can kill people. One swing and you’re gone.’
‘Were they, Daddy?’ asked Isabelle. ‘Were they brained to death?’
