It had all begun with a proposal because the bride and groom had become engaged at the hotel while staying there the previous winter, and as they were checking out, they had asked Grace if Cliff Top ever hosted weddings. ‘I said yes without thinking,’ Grace later told Rosie. ‘And they are so nice and it’s only going to be a small wedding, only fifty of their friends and family.’
Any ‘overflow guests’, as Grace called them, were being accommodated in another hotel down the hill in the village called the Sandycove Arms.
‘The couple are so lovely,’ Grace told Rosie. ‘And so in love. It’s almost sickening. Niamh and Seán. Both work in tech. Live in Dublin. He’s from Cork originally. Very nice people. You’ll love them. And it’s all going to be such fun!’ she said to Rosie as they sat in the office of the hotel, trying to keep cool with the fans Grace had lugged up the hill from her house in the village. During this heatwave, Grace had taken to wearing wafty kaftans, her hair tied up in a scarf. The rest of the hotel’s staff had removed jackets and rolled up sleeves. Even Maureen was in flip-flops borrowed off one of her grandchildren and Bertie, their immaculate house manager who Rosie had known from her Shelbourne days when she was on her placement, had changed from his usual pinstripe to unbleached Irish linen suits. However, Rosie was still in her navy skirt suits, unable to wear anything but this uniform, which was her armour against bank managers, unruly guests and rogue tradespeople. Once she put one on, she became Rosie the hotel owner and able to face the world, but she had been slowly baking all summer, in a sous vide of navy suiting.
‘But the weddings are meant to be fun for the people having them,’ said Rosie. ‘They aren’t meant to be fun for the people hosting them.’
‘We can have some fun,’ said Grace. ‘We can have fun by association or by osmosis.’
It was, Rosie reflected, probably the only way she was going to ever have any kind of fun. Her life was small, she knew. Hidden away in the hotel, living in the grounds, rarely socialising as her hours were so long. There had been a few brief almost-romances with men over the years but nothing skyrocketingly amazing. Grace, on the other hand, had a whole other hinterland, beyond the hotel. She socialised with friends, went on dates, and even though she invited Rosie along, Rosie always had the excuse of the all-encompassing Cliff Top.
Rosie’s cottage was in a hidden part of the grounds, close to her father’s kitchen garden. Every Wednesday evening, he cooked dinner for Rosie and Nessa and her eight-year-old twins, Isabelle and Killian. Nessa had married Laurence, whose family owned the golf course next to the hotel, and Nessa and Laurence lived in a house on the edge of the course, just over the hedge which bordered the hotel. There was a gap in the hedge through which the family nipped back and forth from the hotel to home. Nessa and Laurence seemed happy and Laurence made a pretence of working, but his job as golf club manager didn’t seem the most onerous of professions as it appeared to consist of playing a round of golf a day, which Laurence claimed was part of the job. He’d been made a manager a few months earlier when his father had announced his retirement, but so far there were few signs of Laurence taking on much extra responsibility and he still seemed to be living a life of leisure. ‘Being sociable is a necessary evil,’ he said. ‘Is it my fault I happen to also like playing golf?
Cliff Top was sailing along with 90 per cent capacity for most weekends and had bookings into next summer, a year’s time. When Rosie had taken over the hotel, the finances were in dire straits and Rosie had had to start at the beginning, working out where they needed to spend money, and it was a tough five- or six-year process of upgrading and modernising. Three years ago, Bertie had arrived to see her. ‘I’m leaving the Shelbourne,’ he’d said, as they shared a pot of tea in the Cliff Top lounge. ‘I’ve had it with management who are now telling us that we’re not allowed to engage the guests in conversation. Apparently, they’re not here to talk to us. We should be invisible, like poltergeists, things being moved around without anyone knowing who is doing the moving. I’ve decided to just focus on my orchids, perhaps have a little nursery for them, start a business selling them.’
‘Do you want to leave the hotel business?’ Rosie had asked him.
He’d hesitated. ‘I’ve loved it since I was an elevator boy at the Metropole,’ he admitted. ‘But the big hotels have changed. So much less personal. I’m all about the personal.’
‘What about working here? We need a good manager and you’re the best in the business.’ She had quickly done the calculations. The hotel was doing so well, they could afford to match his Shelbourne salary and, to her delight, Bertie was nodding.
‘You’re right, I’m not ready to leave it all behind.’ He smiled at her. ‘I won’t let you down.’
It was exactly what she’d said to him on her first day of her placement. And now, she couldn’t imagine the hotel without the unflappable competence of Bertie, and he was now part of the family, a close pal of Teddy, who had even given him his own small glasshouse which was perfect for Bertie’s collection of orchids, which he trimmed and fed, fussing over them as though they were his very own offspring.
And Rosie was glad to have Bertie by her side for their very first wedding after Grace had convinced Rosie that it wouldn’t cost them anything and that they should at least break even. Grace had hired everything in, managing to get good deals on the marquee, the chairs and tables, the florist, even the local DJ had waived her fee. ‘Good for business,’ she had told them. ‘You can pay me at the next one.’
If there was a next one, which Rosie secretly hoped there wouldn’t be. She was looking forward to their nice, quiet hotel life returning. If they stayed small, she reasoned, then there would be fewer opportunities for things to go wrong, so much so that Rosie didn’t leave the hotel for too long.
‘But that’s why God invented insurance,’ Grace would say. ‘Although you should check the small print to see if sinkholes are included. Now, don’t go all pale on me. I promise you, if the hotel is swallowed up in some giant, cavernous underground cave, I will pay out.’
Over the years, Rosie had modernised the hotel, upgrading the heating system, refurbing the rooms and communal areas, buying new Avoca rugs, as well as updating the menus. It was, however, still essentially her mother’s hotel, but perhaps more a lovely boutique hotel, decidedly unpretentious, with a cosy bar and a bright dining room with large doors leading out to the terrace with views across Dublin Bay.
These days, as Rosie walked through the lounge where the local walking club relaxed, or through the dining room where a family was celebrating a big anniversary, or when she walked out into the gardens, the birds singing and the view across to the blue of the Irish Sea, she felt she was doing something right.It was all worth it, Mum. Your dream is still alive.But there were times, she barely dared to admit, she wondered what else the world might have in store for her.
‘You’re stuck?’ Nessa had said, when Rosie had tried to explain it to her. ‘Try being at home with twins. And a husband who only has two conversation threads, golf or what’s for dinner. If he mentions Rory McIlroy again, I am personally going to set fire to his horrible purple and green argyle jumper.’ Nessa paused and closed her eyes as though drawing strength. ‘I am slowly going mad. He made dinner last night and he microwaved two supermarket pizzas and when I asked him why he had microwaved them, he said, “why not?” and I said he would never be allowed into Italy ever again and I’m desperate to go for a weekend. But the Italians would ban him from entering the country because of his crimes against Italian food, but he said he didn’t mind because all he wants to go is to Portugal for the fecking golf! I mean, it’s not even an actual sport. You don’t actually burn any calories playing it and they give you little go-carts to make it even less exerting. And all I want is a nice weekend in Rome, drinking wine and seeing some churches and buying a nice bag or something.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Anyway, I’ve decided to try sea swimming, see if it helps with my stress levels, and Siofra is making me join her book club. Says it’ll be good for me.’
Rosie knew that Nessa was making some valid points. Rosie wasn’t stuck and hadn’t reached a dead end, because she had, after all, chosen to take on the hotel and complaining about it wasn’t going to get anyone anywhere. She would do this one wedding and then they could get back to the normal running of the hotel. How bad could it be?
2
PATRICK
In the first-class lounge at Boston’s airport, Patrick Power was waiting for his flight to Dublin for his brother Seán’s wedding. Time-wise, he couldn’t afford to take the whole week off because Johnny, his chef in Fitzgerald’s, was creating a new menu and meeting a farmer about his new herd of imported Dexters. Paddy, his sommelier, had texted him about a consignment of very expensive Irish whiskey being stuck in customs. And then there was the new investor that Kerry-Anne wanted him to meet. It was Wednesday and he’d be gone until Sunday. He’d have to catch up with everything then. Fitzgerald’s wasn’t just his business, it was his passion. It had been named after his mother’s family, and was one of those sophisticated bars, with an Irish twist. Decent cocktails, low lighting and the best modern Irish menu including oysters and Guinness. Irish without the blarney, in other words.
He thought about Kerry-Anne’s proposal the night before. He couldn’t concentrate on it right now. Perhaps she’d forget about it and they’d never speak of it again. She was his business partner and friend, but nothing more, and she’d complicated it now. A few days in Ireland might give him time to think.
He read Seán’s text again.
Niamh and I can’t wait to see you… as long as you don’t go on about how much better you were at hurling than me! I need to impress my fiancée. Keep quiet about my inadequacies. It’s going to be a small enough wedding. Just a really nice hotel by the sea, bit of food, drink and other kind of wedding malarkey. And by the way, Dad’s coming. Sorry. Niamh said we had to invite him. And he’s bringing Sandra.
Patrick had assumed their fatherwouldn’tbe coming. He and Seán felt the same about the man who’d left their mother and their farm and moved in with a woman he’d been having an affair with. It was good riddance in lots of ways because he was a man with a short temper and a big mouth and had treated their mother and them with complete contempt. At home, he was awful. But he was the town’s big man, couldn’t do enough for anyone, no favour too big. He’d milked their neighbour’s cows for a whole month once, when Paddy-Joe was in hospital after a heart attack; he’d be the first one with his hand in his pocket for any kind of charity whip-round, the first to the bar to get the round. But at home it was another story. Silent, moody, a man of few words. Except when he exploded, which he often did, his unpredictable rages concentrated on his wife or on his two boys. The brothers had relied on each other, more perhaps than other siblings.
So of course Patrick wouldn’t miss Seán’s big day, especially as he was to be best man and had the speech all written: a few stories, a few jokes, an emotional denouement and then a big laugh at the end. He would make mention of Seán’s heavy metal band in school called The Mad Bullocks and how they had insisted on performing at the end of term in assembly but had been so loud it made everything in the school vibrate, including Mr Peacock, who vibrated all the way to the edge of the stage and fell off. Another story was when Seán’s favourite cow, a beautiful soft-nosed girl called Linda, used to cry when the milking was over for the evening. She’d hang back for Seán, her head squeezed under his arm. They hated leaving all the cows, really, but Linda was particularly lovable. Patrick wanted his speech to show that Seán was one of life’s good guys, so good that cows picked you out as special.
Seán was also away from the farm, now living in Dublin and working in computer engineering, lifting weights in a gym rather than bales of hay. Their mother had stayed on in the farmhouse after they’d both left home for college, the house quiet without them, she always said, no more sports bags dumped in the hallway or the fridge packed with their favourite food. ‘I hardly know what to do with myself,’ she had said with a laugh to Patrick on one of his visits home. ‘I’ll have to get a hobby. Or a dog.’
Now he wished he hadn’t gone away and started a life in Boston he couldn’t finish. But he’d run away, really, not from his mother, whom he loved. Or from Seán, his little brother. No, Patrick had needed a life where he could be the man he wanted to be, not the son of Brian Power, not someone in the shadow of such a man.
