The twins were listening. ‘Snakes on a Plane,’ said Killian. ‘That’s a film with a disaster. And snakes. They got everywhere. Including this man’s shoes.’
‘You weren’t allowed to watch it,’ Isabelle told him.
‘And you promised not to tell Mum and Dad.’
‘What happened to the gazebro?’ asked Isabelle to Rosie. ‘Did it go on fire?’
‘What’s a gazebro?’ asked Killian. ‘Is it a gazelle and zebra joined together?’
‘Agazebo. It’s a tent, basically,’ said Rosie. ‘And well… it nearly went on fire, but it collapsed in the rain and just gave up on life.’
‘It was all rather biblical,’ laughed Patrick. ‘Raging fire, torrential rain. Rosie was punched in the face…’
The twins gasped. ‘By who?’
‘No one,’ said Rosie, quickly. ‘Patrick is exaggerating for the purposes of humour.’
She and Patrick suddenly grinned at each other, as though conspirators and it felt… amazing. And the feeling hung in the air while they got back into the car, slinging bags in the boot, and then back onto the road and up the hill to the hotel, the twins talking incessantly all the way. Rosie pointed out Maeve Binchy’s house and the Roger Casement house, both great Irish heroes, the island where there was a sailing race every May, the secret swimming place called White Rock which only locals knew about.
‘Switch on the radio, Rosie,’ ordered Isabelle.
‘We want to hear our favourite song,’ said Killian. ‘We like “All You Need is Love”. Mrs Juniper plays it and we all sing along.’
Rosie fiddled with the car radio and found a station. A song was just ending. ‘Sorry, Killian, it’s not “All You Need is Love”,’ said Patrick.
‘It will be the next one,’ said Killian, confidently. ‘I know it will be.’
Except it wasn’t. It was The Waterboys’ ‘The Whole Of The Moon’, and Rosie recognised it from the very first note, her body stiffening, and was immediately transported to a night on Camden Street, back in the old days of Dublin, at Whelan’s and singing her heart out. Patrick took a note or two longer and he looked at her.
‘I love this!’ shouted Isabelle. ‘Mrs Juniper played this to us.’
‘It’s about a moon,’ said Killian. ‘But Jimmy O’Brien said that his father said it was about someone showing their bottom and Mrs Juniper said he was being silly.’
‘It’s definitely about a moon,’ said Rosie, glancing at Patrick, who was grinning. She turned it up, and the four of them sang along.
‘I saw the croissant!’ shouted Killian, out of the window. ‘You saw the whole of the MOOOON!’
They all carried on singing, performing all the fiddle parts and the keyboard, the bah-bah-bah-bah parts, until they drove through the gates of the hotel, over the cattle grid, bouncing over the gravel before stopping at the entrance to the hotel. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and Cliff Top looked magnificent. On days like this, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. It was so clear why her mother had fallen in love with the place. She had once told Rosie of the day they came to view it. The house had been boarded up for years, the trees surrounded it overgrown, weeds growing out of cracks in the stone and birds’ nests in the chimneys. ‘But,’ her mother had said, ‘there were pink valerian flowers everywhere, hollyhocks gone wild, the green lawn rolling to the edge of the cliff and the sea actually glittered. And the house itself seemed so friendly. A home for us and a home for our guests. I was smitten.’ This was her mother’s dream, and today she could see exactly why.
‘This is where we say goodbye,’ she said to Patrick.
‘Here? But you can drop me where you park the car?’ Patrick seemed almost reluctant to get out.
‘You have to. You’re a guest again,’ said Isabelle. ‘We’re the owners.’
‘But I want to be an owner too,’ said Patrick, laughing, turning around to face Killian and Isabelle. ‘I want to be in your gang.’
‘But you can’t,’ said Isabelle. ‘It’s very sad. But it’s not something any of us has choosed, is it? Rosie didn’t choose to be an owner, and nor did we. We would like to be a guest sometimes.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Killian, with feeling. ‘Stay in bed and watch television. Eat crisps and drink Coke.’
‘Be dropped off at the front,’ said Isabelle. ‘Like a sofa.’
‘Chauffeur,’ corrected Rosie. ‘But she’s right.’ She turned to Patrick, who was now leaning through the open window of the Land Rover. ‘You’re a guest. You can’t have everything.’
‘Rosie, you’re smiling,’ said Isabelle.
‘I always smile, what are you talking about?’ said Rosie. ‘I never stop smiling.’
