The windows were down and Patrick switched on the radio and hung one arm out as though he was on holiday.
Rosie glanced at him and laughed. ‘You look happy,’ she said.
He grinned at her. He did feel happy. Just being in this old Land Rover. ‘I feel as though I’m on holiday. Just for a moment. Before the wedding all starts up again.’
An old song came on the radio, some guitar-heavy noodling.
‘Remember Smoggy?’ Patrick said. ‘He used to always play Led Zeppelin, didn’t he? I wonder what happened to him.’
‘I bumped into him and his five children a year or so ago,’ said Rosie. ‘His wife runs some kind of beauty salon and he’s a stay-at-home dad. Had them all colour co-ordinated and lined up in a row.’
Patrick laughed again. ‘Good old Smoggy. Glad it all worked out for him. If it hadn’t been for him and that houseshare, we would never have met.’ He looked at Rosie, to see what she was thinking.
She smiled at him. ‘Turn the music up,’ she said. ‘And let’s get you back to the wedding.’
35
ROSIE
The rehearsal dinner was in full swing. More guests had arrived, those who were staying in the village in the Sandycove Arms had piled out of taxis and headed down along the lawn to the marquee. And now it was dusk, a curtain being closed on the day.
Rosie and Grace had left the guests in the capable hands of the caterers. Tomorrow was going to be a big day. There would be more guests arriving from 10a.m. and they had organised extra breakfasts and teas and coffees, and then the ceremony was from 2p.m. and the party in the marquee from 3p.m.
And then, Sunday, it would all be over. All the guests dispersed back to their homes and it would be just the hotel again. How would she say goodbye to Patrick? What would they say to each other? Lovely to see you again? Have a good flight? Have a great rest of your life? If this past few days was anything to go by, then their bond would always be there and that was a comfort. Somewhere out there, he was a friend even if she never saw him again.
Grace and Rosie walked out from the hotel into the garden, where there was shade from the trees, the sun finally beginning to lose some of its heat.
Grace stared at her. ‘Are you wearing make-up?’
Rosie shook her head. ‘I was swimming.’
‘Ah, the glow of the Irish Sea. It’s a form of cryotherapy. But you look ruddy…’
‘Ruddy?’
‘Blooming. That’s the word. You look blooming.’
‘Blooming awful?’
‘Blooming gorgeous. You really do.’ Grace smiled at her. ‘What about me? Blooming gorgeous or blooming awful?’
‘Blooming amazing, as always.’
Grace hesitated. ‘Rosie, do you know Patrick? I mean, as more than a guest? I’ve seen you talking to him earlier and then you arrived back in the Land Rover. What’s going on?’
Rosie’s words all came out in a rush and a relief. ‘We used to know each other. I didn’t tell anyone. I’d been living in the city centre, working in the Shelbourne and I was in a houseshare and so was he. He was finishing his business degree on a placement and he was due to go back to Boston where he’d done a year out. There was a woman called Kerry-Anne Daly who was going to invest…’
‘Ah…’ said Grace, as though it was all falling into place. ‘And you two were… what?’
‘Involved. Romantically. In love. Whatever.’
‘In love?’ Grace almost dropped her clipboard. ‘So that’s why your eye was twitching and you’ve been acting all shifty and strange.’
Rosie could feel herself reddening. If she wasn’t ruddy before, she was now. ‘Keep your voice down! It was a long time ago. And he barely remembers it. I barely remember it!’
It wasn’t true, at all. The memories had been preserved, like a photo album, ready to be opened. Flashes of scenes, smells, tastes, the way his hands felt, the way his lips felt, hearing his voice and what they talked about, and one time, standing in the shallows of Sandymount Strand, the voices of children playing far away on the edge of the shore, the birds curling in the sky above them, and thinking this moment was perfection, this man was perfection, and a feeling that nothing else was going to go wrong. They had found each other and life was going to work out. Except for meddling Lucinda.
‘He told me that Lucinda had told him he wasn’t good enough for me,’ she said to Grace.
