Authors: Marita Conlon-McKenna
‘I’m sorry,’ said her mother, squeezing her hand.
‘I’m sorry, too … for not listening to you and my friends. I should never have believed him, wasted so much time with him. It just gets me mad when I think of him. Married now, with a new wife and a daughter! No problem about having kids now … apparently he loves being a mature dad! Sarah in the office keeps me posted on the goings on,’ she said bitterly.
‘Oh, Tessa!’
‘I know. I’ve been so stupid … such a fool. So coming back home away from Grant and all the office intrigue and gossip was maybe not the worst thing in the world, Mum.’
‘I just worry about you … I can’t help it. You are a beautiful intelligent young woman!’
‘Mum, I’m thirty-nine … and probably at this stage set to be the spinster in the family!’
‘Tessa?’
‘No, Mum, it’s OK. At my age you have to accept things and put them behind you.’
‘You need to get out more … see people,’ fussed her mother. ‘You should be socializing. I’m sure that there are plenty of decent nice men out there.’
‘Mum, for heaven’s sake.’ Tessa laughed. ‘I’ve given up on meeting someone! And I do go out … I have my job, my lunchtime Pilates class on Wednesday, and my cookery class on Tuesday nights, and I regularly go to the cinema with Cass and Naomi if they are around.’
‘Exactly,’ said Florence. ‘You never go to parties or dances, or whatever you young people do!’
Tessa could see the genuine concern on her mother’s face. She was still a very beautiful woman. She had married at twenty and been adored by Tessa’s father, Christopher, right up till the day he died ten years ago. Florence Sullivan had no experience of heartbreak and deceit or disillusion! How could she?
‘Well, Mum, you’ll be glad to hear that I’m actually going to a party tomorrow night.’
‘A party?’ her elderly mother seemed surprised.
‘Yes,’ Tessa said brightly. ‘Paul and Gemma, a lovely couple in my cookery class, have invited us all to their house-warming party this weekend. It should be fun!’
As they walked back to the car and her frail mother stopped to admire the bright pink camellias, Tessa decided that maybe
she should really go to the house-warming. She’d presumed that Gemma had only invited her out of politeness, but to her surprise most of the class had said they would go. The crowd were good fun. She’d text Gemma and let her know she’d changed her mind.
Kerrie debated going to Gemma and Paul’s house-warming party. On Tuesday they had invited everyone round to their new flat.
‘If you are free on Saturday night we are having a bit of a party, as we’ve just moved into the garden flat in an old house on Booterstown Avenue. It’s quite close to the pub, so if we run out of drink we can get fresh supplies there,’ Paul had joked.
‘I’m going to cook some tasty nibbles,’ tempted Gemma. ‘And we really mean it. We’d love you all to come along.’
‘Count us in,’ said Rachel and Leah.
‘But can we bring our husbands, Nick and Pete?’ asked Rachel. ‘We’d like everyone to meet them!’
‘Of course you can! The more the merrier!’
‘Finn and I’ll be along too.’ Lucy smiled. ‘I’m dying for you all to meet him.’
‘My boyfriend’s off at a football weekend in Barcelona with some clients,’ explained Kerrie, relieved that Matt was not around to meet her friends from the cookery school. ‘But if you don’t mind I’ll come along on my own.’
*
With Matt out of the way for two days, Kerrie had the opportunity to spend most of the day cleaning and tidying the apartment. Matt was so messy compared to her, and she had sorted out his sock drawer, his underwear drawer and his sportswear drawer. She had stripped and remade their bed. Cleaned out the fridge, washed the floor and polished the windows. Looking at their expensive grey leather couches and polished wooden floor and display of Mark Trubridge’s simple black and white prints, she thought the living room looked so perfect with nothing out of place, just the way she liked it. The kitchen was absolutely spotless, as was their bathroom, and the whole place looked like a show apartment now that she had jettisoned all Matt’s old newspapers and magazines and put all his DVDs and messy games into a black storage box which fitted behind the plasma TV.
Pleased with herself, she hopped in the shower and then blow-dried her hair.
Unsure of what to wear, Kerrie opted for black leggings and boots and a floaty pale-green tunic that she had barely worn. Gemma and Paul were hardly stylish dressers, and probably their friends were the same. She grabbed two bottles of Prosecco in the off-licence and got a taxi to their new address.
A good crowd was already there, and Gemma gave her a quick tour of the place. They had a massive sitting room which opened off the hallway. There were three different couches in the room, one red, one black and a kind of black and white big daisy print one. There were candles and snacks laid out on a collection of small tables, and on one wall there
was a display of charcoal sketches and some paintings and wonderfully decorated plates.
‘They’re mine,’ said Gemma modestly. ‘I just love working with ceramics and paints and seeing what happens.’
On the other side of the hallway Gemma showed her their bedrooms.
‘We get all the morning sun in here,’ she said. ‘It’s such a relaxing room.’
There was an enormous brass bed with a colourful throw, and a big wardrobe, a writing desk and a wickerwork chair, along with a range of blown-up photographs of Paul and Gemma on their travels.
‘That’s in Goa, it’s really tranquil and beautiful there, that’s Brazil … spectacular country, and that’s us diving in the barrier reef in Australia.’
‘Wow, you two sure have seen the world!’ said Kerrie.
‘We took two years out and explored. We wanted to do it before we settled and got married and started having babies!’ Gemma giggled. ‘Though we’re still working on the last bit at the moment. We got the bedspread in Indonesia, and that carving is from Peru, and that old saggy baggy elephant is Barnaby, and I’ve had him for ever.’
‘Kerrie, you can leave your coat in here,’ Gemma offered, opening the door of another room.
The bed was already covered with a pile of coats, and two of the walls were stacked with bookshelves and bric-a-brac.
‘Come on, and I’ll get you a drink!’
‘I’ve brought some Prosecco.’ Kerrie grinned.
‘Well, let’s get it open then!’
Paul was being barman in the kitchen, which was a big long room with windows and a door out to the garden. Gemma
had something cooking in a pot on the cooker, and the kitchen table had been turned into a bar with a range of glasses and drinks. The units were ancient, but they had been painted a dusky blue and it was a lovely bright room.
‘Hey, Kerrie!’ yelled Rachel, introducing her to her husband Pete. ‘Leah should be here soon – their little boy Sam had a bit of an earache, so she wanted to get him asleep herself before they left.’
Kerrie helped herself from one of the bottles of Prosecco and popped the rest into the fridge. The kitchen was pretty crowded, and Paul introduced her to a few of his friends.
‘This is another one from my cookery-class gang,’ he said.
The party began to swell and swell as more people arrived, and some of the group spilled out on to the patio, where Chinese lanterns and fairy lights had been strung up.
‘Great house!’ said Emmet, who had brought along his friend Steven.
‘What kind of a cook is he in class?’ asked Steven.
‘Great! Why?’
‘I’d always figured him for an instant quick-frozen pizza and frozen-lasagne type, and now when I call over he wants to make three-course fancy dinners! He seems to have chilled out a bit, which I suppose is a good thing.’
‘We all have,’ Kerrie admitted.
She smiled when she saw Tessa had arrived. Tessa was wearing jeans and boots and a pretty pink shirt and looked younger. She had brought along some food.
‘They’re spicy meatballs, and there’s a yogurt dip to go with them!’
‘Great,’ said Gemma, giving her a big hug.
‘Is everyone else here?’ Tessa asked, looking around.
‘There’s a few more to come, but it’s pretty crowded,’ said Gemma, passing her a large glass of red wine and steering her to the rest of the gang.
‘Hi, everyone!’
‘Wine’s good,’ said Rob. ‘Very good.’
Kerrie left Tessa and Kitty chatting with Rob, who was busy explaining to them about how to tell a good red wine from a bad.
She escaped back outside to Emmet and Paul, who were comparing the merits of the Xbox and the Playstation; it was a debate she’d heard Matt regularly discuss, and was happy to join in even if she was crap at playing both of them.
‘Hey, here’s Lucy and her new boyfriend!’
Lucy looked amazing in a long maxi dress, and Finn was wearing a ‘Busy’ T-shirt under his combat jacket.
‘What does it say?’ asked Paul.
‘“Busy Partying”! What else?’ joked Finn, downing a can of beer.
‘I want one of them,’ said Emmet.
‘Me too!’ said Steven.
‘That’s brilliant,’ said Kerrie. ‘Nearly every guy in Dublin is going to want one!’
‘That’s what we’re hoping,’ admitted Lucy, her eyes shining.
‘He’s so cool and so nice,’ Kerrie whispered under her breath to Lucy as the guys went to get more beers from the big plastic basin filled with ice on the patio.
‘I know,’ said Lucy. ‘He just makes me so happy!’
Twenty minutes later Gemma announced that there was some food in the kitchen, and everyone thronged in as Leah
helped her to serve plates of chilli and rice. There was also a selection of salads and breads, meatballs, chicken and vegetable kebabs.
‘Where’s Alice?’ asked Kerrie, surprised that she wasn’t there.
‘It’s her dad’s birthday so she couldn’t make it,’ confided Kitty, who had, as usual, come on her own.
Once the plates and bowls were put away, Paul turned up the music volume and everything seemed to get louder. Salsa music pumped through the flat.
‘Won’t your neighbours mind?’ asked Kerrie.
‘No.’ Paul laughed. ‘Because they are all here! See that gang over there in a huddle knocking back all our wine? That’s them … and that tall grey-haired man with the lady with the big earrings – they live upstairs. Tom and Rowena had us up for supper a few days after we moved in. They’re great. Why, what are your neighbours like when you have parties?’
Kerrie knew hardly any of their neighbours. Because they were on the eighth floor of their building, they only really saw people getting in and out of the lift or in the car park. Besides, Matt and herself had never had a party! They’d had friends for dinner a few times, and once Matt had organized to have some people for drinks before they went to a concert in the O2. But she would hate to have people in messing up their place and spilling wine and beer everywhere!
‘It’s a bit different than this,’ she said, slightly envious.
About midnight everyone got up dancing, and Kerrie found herself swinging around between Emmet and Steven and wishing that Matt was here with her.
Tessa and Rob were up dancing, and Finn had Kitty in
his arms, with Lucy taking photos on her phone camera.
‘You will send them to me, Lucy love?’ shouted Kitty.
‘Of course,’ said Lucy.
‘She wanted her husband Larry to come,’ confided Gemma, ‘but he’s such an old stick-in-the-mud he just wanted them to go to his local as usual, so Kitty dressed herself up and came on her own.’
‘She’s such a character!’ said Kerrie, who had found Kitty very helpful the past few weeks in class.
At two o’clock the party was beginning to thin out, and Kerrie decided to leave. She’d drunk far too much, and was ready to go home and collapse into bed. Tessa was a bit drunk, too, and she and Rob were sharing a taxi home. As Emmet and Steven were heading into a nightclub in town they agreed to drop Kerrie off en route.
Gemma and Paul were still going strong when they said their goodbyes, with Paul and his brother Dave playing their guitars and singing with a crowd in the kitchen.
At home Kerrie fell into bed. She was too exhausted to think about anything, and just wished that Matt was home with her. When she woke she felt awful, dehydrated and nauseated, but didn’t have the strength to get herself a cup of tea or a mug of coffee.
She had dozed off again and was drifting in and out of sleep when she realized that there was a warm body in the bed with her.
‘Mmm.’ She sighed, curling in against Matt, enjoying the feel of his naked skin against hers.
‘I missed you,’ Matt said, kissing her.
‘I missed you, too,’ she said. ‘What time is it?
‘Lunchtime.’
‘How did the match go?’
‘Brilliant, Barcelona was great. Everyone enjoyed it.’
‘Good,’ she said snuggling against him.
‘Where did you go last night?’
‘Just out with the girls, we ended up at a bit of a party. But it wasn’t the same without you.’
‘Well, I’m here now,’ he said, Kerrie feeling his arms wrap around her. She pulled the duvet up over the two of them.
Rob Flanagan hadn’t been sure what type of gift to bring along as a house-warming present to Paul and Gemma, and had gone into Brown Thomas and bought them an expensive casserole set like the ones Alice used, as he knew they hadn’t anything like that.
‘Oh, Rob, that is so kind of you, so generous.’ Gemma hugged him when she opened the box. ‘It’s just what we need.’
He hadn’t been at all sure about coming along to this house-warming party in Booterstown; he was a different generation after all, but Paul Elliot had been very persuasive. And he had come along a little in trepidation as to what Alice’s reaction might be, but hoping that meeting in the relaxed atmosphere of a party might be just the thing.
It was a fine old house, but a bit gone to rack and ruin, and Paul and Gemma had the total run of the ground floor and also the use of the garden.
‘I’ve been clearing it a bit, and I’m just starting to plant some things,’ confided Paul. ‘And we hope to have some of our own vegetables by the summer.’
Rob looked at the cans of cheap beer on the table and in the fridge, and opted to drink wine for the night.