family with the same icy hostility. There was no intel on Rose’s first encounter with Paige. But Jessie had been there when Rose said to Nell, ‘Another daughter-in-law. Lord.’
Christ, she was dreading the next forty-eight hours.
Her suspicion – never far from the surface – that no one really liked her, hit her once more. Her closest women friends – Mary-Laine and Annette – were from the Women In Business network; they tended to exchange wry identification rather than secrets of the heart.
As for Ed and Cara and Liam and Nell, if she didn’t offer spensie outings, would she ever even see them? You have to rent your friends. Where had that awful thought come from? But it was true, wasn’t it? If she didn’t shell out loads of cash, she’d be totally alone.
She had to stop thinking this way. But it just showed what proximity to Canice and Rose did to her, to them all.
At least they were staying in a beautiful place. She’d hired three holiday cottages, outside town, within walking distance of Bawn Beach and the bracing Atlantic waves. The letting agent was a regular at the PiG cookery school. She’d given Jessie a cut-price rate in exchange for two free tickets to Hagen Klein. Jessie, Johnny and the four girls were in one house, Ed, Cara and their boys in another. The third she’d dubbed ‘the young persons’ house’. Liam and Nell were there, along with Ferdia, Sammie and Barty.
Jessie had played slightly sneaky to guarantee Ferdia’s attendance: she’d invited Sammie, who liked the sound of an alcohol-fuelled weekend in the west before she left Ireland. Ferdia had grudgingly said he’d come if Barty was also invited. So there it was.
Rose and Canice did their best to ignore Ferdia – and Saoirse, of course – and Jessie wanted to push back. She loved Johnny but she would not pretend that her marriage to Rory hadn’t happened …
A series of beeps from her phone distracted her: they had coverage again. But, scanning her emails, there was one from Posie, the manager in Malahide, with the happy news that she was three months pregnant.
Ah, shite.
Shite a thousand times.
Posie ran that shop brilliantly. All kinds of logistical personnel shenanigans would be needed to cover her absence.
Even when it was highly inconvenient Jessie prided herself on being good to her staff. Posie’s maternity leave would be six long months. Jessie would throw a baby shower and buy a high-spec Bugaboo.
Six months off, though! She’d barely taken a month with each of her own children.
Now she’d take a quick look on Facebook. But that also gave her a shock.
‘God.’ She swallowed.
‘What?’ Johnny asked.
‘Facebook’s suggesting I friend request Izzy Kinsella. Why would they do that? Why now?’
‘Their algorithms are mad. Ignore it.’
‘But … has something happened? Someone I know must have friended her.’
‘Their metrics are far more random than that.’
‘Sorry, babes.’ It didn’t matter, and poor Johnny already had enough going on. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Ah, you know.’ He tightened his hands on the wheel and kept driving into the sun.
FORTY-ONE
Liam braked suddenly, sending Nell’s pencil skidding across her graph paper. They’d come to a standstill in yet another small town.
‘How much longer?’ she asked.
‘You sound like a kid.’
Sitting helplessly in the car for the last four hours had been torture. Four precious hours that she could have been working, instead of desperately trying to draw in a moving vehicle.
‘Are we there yet?’ he taunted.
She checked her phone: another seventeen minutes before they arrived at Westport station to pick up Ferdia, Sammie and Barty. After that, another twenty minutes before they reached the holiday home.
Another thirty-seven minutes of achieving nothing.
Even talking about the project would have helped untangle some of the ideas in her head, but Liam was still off with her. It was hard to know whether she should feel guilty or resentful. They’d never had a situation like this before, where he chided her for being selfish. But her work was really important to her and he knew that. Surely he knew what a great opportunity this was. Or maybe she should be kinder. Liam’s parents were both total pieces of work. This weekend would be hard for him.
‘Text them,’ Liam said.
They were parked outside Westport station, waiting for Ferdia and gang. Their train should have arrived about ten minutes earlier, but there was no sign.
‘What’s his number?’
Liam made a ‘Pffft’ of irritation. ‘I don’t have it. Text Jessie.’
She clicked off a text. But after staring at her phone for a long,