The Stone House (11 page)

Romy splayed her elbows on the table, not wanting to leave the cosy circle of chat. ‘Daddy's reading the papers. He'll kill me if I disturb him,' she protested.

‘The hall is full of boxes of glasses and plates from last night. Tell your father to put them in the car to bring back, and you can do a count of the cutlery on the dining table to make sure we have them all.'

‘It's not fair,' she wailed. ‘Why do I have to do everything?'

She flounced out of the kitchen, her fair wavy hair streeling, and banged the door behind her.

Her mother diplomatically excused herself and Kate wished she could just crawl back to bed for the rest of the day.

‘Don't mind,' urged Minnie. ‘Sisters can be right bitches sometimes.'

‘That's an understatement.'

‘We'd better start making tracks,' suggested Dee who had driven down in her mother's Starlet. ‘Do you want to come back with us?'

Kate had intended lolling around the house for the rest of the day, basking in the glory of the past twenty-four hours and doing nothing.

‘Listen, I better not. Mum will be mad if I just shoot off now and disappear. I'll get a lift or the bus back later this evening.'

The others had gone in a cloud of exhaust fumes and honking of the horn by the time Moya appeared downstairs, washed and showered and immaculate, dressed in a pair of pale-blue jeans and a white shirt, her dark hair loose to her shoulders.

‘Great party,' she smiled, helping herself to tea and toast and marmalade as Kate packed the dishwasher. ‘I like your friends.'

‘I know you do.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, it was quite obvious last night.'

Moya bit into the freshly made toast, deliberately
ignoring her sister's snide remark. Kate was so annoyed and angry with her she couldn't help herself shouting.

‘Why did it have to be Patrick? Why him?'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘You know I asked him to the party because I like him. I've gone out with him a few times, we meet up, have a drink, a laugh. We've had a few dates and I like being with him. You know that.'

‘I didn't know that!'

‘Everyone knows it!'

‘Well, I didn't go looking for him, Kate, so don't be so bloody ridiculous! We just got talking, that's all. If you must know, he was the one who chatted me up.'

‘I don't want you ever talking to him again or seeing him, do you hear? Promise me!'

‘I can't promise you that,' said Moya softly. ‘I'm sorry, Kate. I can't promise you that.'

‘It was my twenty-first, my night,' she howled, ‘and you tried to spoil it for me.'

Moya got up from the table, leaving her plate and cup.

‘I'm sorry you see it like that,' she said.

Even though it was her first day as a mature adult, Kate put her head on her arms and bawled like a big baby.

Back in Dublin she threw herself into study, revision becoming all important as she crammed and crammed. She gave up going out mid-week and attended every tutorial she could. Every spare hour she was in the library going over lecture notes and case studies. The
final exams were looming and she was determined to get First Class Honours. Her mother was doing a novena for her and she could hardly eat or sleep with the stress of it all. Minnie had broken out in spots and Dee had got mouth ulcers and by agreement their flat was decreed a no-go zone until after the exams. Moya had phoned her once or twice, trying to arrange to see her, but she had managed to avoid her and as for Patrick, he had no interest in swotting exam students and was caught up in his own social life. She had bumped into him briefly outside the bank one day. He had been polite, thanked her for the party and wished her good luck with her exams, but had made no mention of getting together or a night out to celebrate afterwards.

‘Put him out of your mind,' advised Minnie.

‘He's a shit!' added Dee emphatically, trying to memorize the Constitution.

Kate had bags under her eyes and had gained about sixteen pounds by the time the exams ended. Bread, chocolate and peanuts had sustained her brain for studying and now she was paying for it.

‘We look absolutely awful,' sighed Minnie, contemplating the red marks and scabs on her face.

‘I feel like I could sleep for a month.'

‘Let's go out and dance and drink and get picked up by some gorgeous guys and have a laugh,' pleaded Dee.

‘No-one will pick us up looking like this.'

‘We can dance and have a laugh, then. We're finished college, for God's sake.'

The night was young. They'd started off in the Buttery Bar for old times' sake and then crowded onto the 46a bus and gone to Hartigan's where all the rugby crowd hung out. Rob and James and a crowd from Bective rugby club insisted on buying them pints. The place was so jammered you could scarcely move and the crowd spilled out onto Leeson Street. Kate was so hot she could feel her pale blue T-shirt sticking to her.

‘James and Dave and a few of the guys are off to Boston on Monday for the summer to work,' announced Rob. ‘So we have to give them a bit of a send-off.'

‘Where are you working?'

‘Construction. Building sites most likely,' grinned James.

They stayed there till closing time, the barman lifting their glasses from the counter to get rid of them. The night was warm as they stood outside deliberating.

‘Where to, ladies?'

‘Dancing,' insisted Dee.

They considered a few of the nightclubs and discos close by, eventually settling on Annabel's, which was within walking distance and had a late bar and disco.

Rob held Kate's hand as they walked along Leeson Street past the empty offices and basement nightclubs. It was such a lovely night she was glad she'd made the effort to come out instead of collapsing into bed with exhaustion. Rob and herself avoided all mention of the exam papers and what they had written. The die was cast as far as she was concerned and there was no point going back over it. It was so
hard to believe she was no longer a full-time student and would soon be out in the working world trying to make a living.

‘Did I tell you I got accepted by Carroll and O'Riordan's for my articles?' she boasted.

‘That's great, Kate.'

‘What about you?'

‘I'm hoping to do King's Inn.'

Kate blinked. She couldn't imagine Rob in court as a barrister.

‘The old man wants me to follow in his footsteps.'

She hugged him. He was kind and soft and very intelligent and not like some of the arrogant, self-centred men she'd come across who treated the courts like their stage.

‘So in a few years you can pass me on some of your clients,' he said.

She giggled. The two of them mature enough to sort out other people's legal problems. It didn't bear thinking about.

Annabel's was packed with final year students, Minnie waving wildly at a crowd from Arts. Kate pushed her way onto the dance floor as the guys promising to buy them drinks made a beeline for the bar. The music was throbbing and it felt good to relax and just let her body follow the beat. Within an hour the whole place was jumping as everyone danced off the weeks of tension, the noise and the music deafening.

‘I'm taking a break,' she signalled to the girls as she made her way up to the sitting area, collapsing into a chair beside James and taking a sip of her beer. Rob
was down on the dance floor with Dee trying to strut like John Travolta.

‘He always does that when he has a few pints in him!' joked Minnie.

Kate shrugged. She looked around. There were a few lecherous old guys smarming their way around trying to pick up someone, their wedding rings hidden away for a few hours. The girls gave them short shrift.

‘Jesus, they're pathetic.'

Over at the far end of the bar a group of American tourists, who were probably staying in the hotel and automatically got free passes to its nightclub, were trying out pints of Guinness.

‘They'll be paying for that in the morning,' James joked.

She liked James, he was tall and easygoing and, she supposed, good looking, if you were into red hair. His eyes crinkled when he laughed. It was a pity he was going to be away for the summer, she thought as he slipped his arm around her.

They all agreed it was the best night ever as they walked back to the flat. The city streets were empty except for taxis hunting for fares. Rob and Dee were arm in arm. ‘Coffee, tea and toasted cheese sandwiches in our place,' offered Minnie as they passed a group of revellers coming up the stairs and out of Buck Whaley's nightclub. Kate stopped for a second, looking at the tall couple standing on the pavement trying to flag down a cab. She recognized them immediately. It was Patrick, his arm around a girl, her sister Moya's dark head resting on his shoulder. She prayed they wouldn't see
her and wondered how it was that her prayers never got answered as Minnie screeched his name.

She could see Moya was embarrassed, and even Patrick seemed rattled at meeting them in the early hours of the morning.

‘Listen, Minnie, I'm sorry,' he apologized, declining the invitation to join them, ‘but some of us have jobs to go to and I've got to be in the office by eight.'

Moya said nothing. Not a single word to Kate as the two of them jumped into a black cab and disappeared.

Silently she cursed them. Moya was a bare-faced cheat who would put going out with a fella above her sister.

‘You OK?' asked Dee and Rob in unison.

She shrugged. She wasn't really. Imagine being kicked in the guts by a member of her family! Men were disloyal and untrustworthy but she expected more of her own sister. Moya had let her down rotten and it wasn't something she was ever likely to forget.

MOYA WAS IN
love. She blushed remembering wearing her mother's old striped green and white apron when she first met Patrick Redmond. Her face was flushed and hot from lifting roasting trays in and out of the oven, as she helped with the food at Kate's twenty-first birthday. Who would have believed that her brainbox of a sister would even know such a handsome, good-looking guy!

Patrick had come into the kitchen looking for some ice and immediately introduced himself. Wherever she turned that night he seemed to be there, at her elbow, passing her a plate, getting her a drink.

Food served, plates cleared and birthday candles blown out, she had eventually been able to relax and enjoy the party herself, Patrick topping up her wine glass with chilled white wine.

‘You look beautiful,' he'd said, reaching and touching her hair and pushing the loose tendrils off her face.

‘Mmmm.'

Moya was used to accepting compliments, to seeing
men's eyes widen when she walked into a room and women reach for their partners' hands. With a passion for clothes and an innate sense of style and colour and what suited she was glad of the expensive black dress she'd decided to wear. Enjoying the flattery, she simply smiled up at him.

The wine was good and taking in his tall figure and long face and curling dark hair, she realized with a jolt, so was he. It was rare for her to meet a man who was her physical match, at ease with his looks and seemingly totally comfortable with himself. He was also easy to talk to and matter-of-factly told her about his career and where he worked. Moya, impressed with his ambition, could barely believe that he was a cousin of Minnie's.

Kate was flapping around the place in her pink dress and dragged him away insisting that he dance with her.

‘Come on, Patrick. It's my birthday! You promised.'

She watched the two of them twirl around the dance floor for a few minutes, before collecting some dead glasses and bringing them into the kitchen for washing. She was barely able to hide her relief when half an hour later he appeared again.

‘You're not getting away from me that easily,' he'd said softly. Moya knew in that instant that she would never want to get away from Patrick, ever.

By the end of the party he had arranged to see her again in Dublin. Both of them were equally aware of the significance of their meeting.

Kate had screamed and cursed at her the next day, accusing her of stealing her boyfriend and ruining her
party, and Romy gave her the cold shoulder for being so mean to Kate.

Her father was dying of a hangover and not fit to talk to anyone and her mother was in lunatic form cleaning and tidying up after the hordes. Relieved to be going back to Dublin she accepted her mother's offer of a lift to the early afternoon train, glad of Maeve Dillon's non-judgemental attitude to her daughters' arguments and refusal to get embroiled in them.

‘Kate's upset about last night, Moya, but I know you wouldn't deliberately hurt her. Phone her later in the week when things between you have calmed down a bit.'

‘I will,' she promised.

‘Then take care, pet, and thanks for helping with the party.'

She'd met Patrick on the Tuesday night for dinner in the Unicorn and went to the theatre with him on Thursday and to a party at a solicitor friend's of his on Saturday. Her mind in a whirl, she knew by the time they drove down to Enniskerry for lunch on Sunday that she was in love with him. She felt like pinching herself to see if it was real. She had gone out with lots of boys before but there had never been anything like this. She felt overwhelmed, swept away by his charm and good looks and personality. Her flatmate Anne-Marie had declared him a ‘dreamboat'.

‘God, Moya, where did you meet him? He's gorgeous.'

But it wasn't just that he was handsome, it was his confidence and the way he seemed to know everything and was able to tease her and make her laugh.

After work on Fridays she began to join him in the Shelbourne Bar with some of the other guys from his office, all in their expensive suits and ties ready to unwind after a hard day making money. She could see the appreciative looks in their eyes but ignored their flirting: she had no interest in anyone but Patrick. As far as she was concerned he was the only man in the world for her.