‘No way,’ Ed said. ‘I stay in Airbnbs all summer long, and I’ve never been handed an apple tart.’
‘No to apple tarts,’ Cara said. ‘But let me talk to a couple of the housekeepers about running it between them. I’m sure it’ll work.’
A stunned silence followed. Had they actually found a solution to a mini-crisis that was an improvement on the original situation?
‘Well!’ Jessie was radiant with pleasure. ‘Fair play,’ she said to Ed and Liam. ‘Both of you marrying such resourceful women.’
While Cara laughed off the compliment, Nell looked literally sick.
‘It’d be very handy if you were having an affair,’ Jessie said suddenly.
‘What would?’ Cara sounded mystified.
‘Having the key to Johnny’s flat. Knowing the schedule. You could time your meet-ups for when no one was staying there.’
Cara rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, I’m definitely affair material.’
‘You’re too hard on yourself,’ Jessie said. She looked at Ferdia. ‘Isn’t she?’
Ferdia squirmed. But he didn’t want Cara to be embarrassed.
‘Do you mind?’ Ed said. ‘I am here.’
Everyone laughed, except – Ferdia noticed – Nell.
She muttered something about going to the bathroom and left the table. Seconds later, so did Liam.
Ferdia decided to follow and found them in the kitchen.
‘… no one can get a place to rent in Dublin,’ Nell was saying. ‘All because landlords are Airbnbing flats to tourists.’
‘Why shouldn’t Johnny get the most he can from his investment?’ Liam’s face was close to Nell’s.
‘Johnny isn’t hurting for cash. But thousands of people in our city can’t afford a flat.’
‘So he should just give money away because of the greater good?’
‘Actually, yes.’
‘That’s bullshit.’
‘He’s hardly going to be destitute,’ Nell called after him, as he strode off towards the front door. Then she noticed Ferdia. ‘What do you want?’
In the face of her righteous ire, Ferdia suddenly felt afraid. ‘Just to say that Airbnb is only one reason why no one can rent a place. We need much more social housing and an end to –’
‘I know. But it doesn’t help either, does it?’
Chastened, he slunk away.
THIRTY-TWO
Jessie yawned as her elbow almost slid off the table.
‘Go to bed, babes,’ Johnny said. ‘I’ll look after things.’
But Cara and Ed were still there and some weird shit was going on out in the hall with Nell and Liam.
‘Ah, no, we’ll head off,’ Ed said, decent as always.
‘Okay. Sorry. Just wrecked.’ She said her goodbyes and trailed up the stairs. Unexpectedly, she felt sober, sad and unable to stop thinking about what it had been like after Rory had died so suddenly, all those years ago.
The first year afterwards was a blur. She’d taken almost no time off work. Not because of her, very real, need to keep earning but because – and it took her a long time to understand this – she didn’t believe that Rory was actually dead.
The kids were far better than her at expressing themselves. Two nights out of three, Ferdia woke with nightmares. Saoirse, barely two years old, far too young to understand concepts such as ‘alive’ or ‘dead’, yelled the house down whenever she was away from Jessie. She read that children who lost a parent at an early age, even if, like Saoirse, they were too young to remember them, would always feel a loss, even if they couldn’t consciously attribute it. They were more likely than others to experience depression in later life.
She worried all the time about the kids, and any energy left over, she gave to her job. She wasn’t as effective as she’d once been – her concentration was terrible, her ability to grasp facts slippery – but it mattered as much to her as it ever had.
Her head knew Rory was dead but her true self had no clue.
One of the few feelings she remembered from those first twelve or eighteen months was embarrassment, at once again being a bit of an oddball. By falling in love with Rory, him falling in love with her, and going on to have a little boy and a little girl, she’d felt that she finally fitted in. No more pompous boyfriends with strange hobbies. No more being sniggered at by other women, either. Courtesy, once again, of Rory were the first real girlfriends she’d had in years – his sisters, Izzy and Keeva. But suddenly she was a young widow, enraged by the logistical challenges of life without Rory. Getting Ferdia to school and Saoirse to crèche, making time to collect them – well, she and Rory had had a system. Now