‘And you enjoy yourself?’
‘Sure do. It’s good fun. Really good fun. Pressures, deadlines, who needs them?’
Dave poked his head in then. ‘Joseph, there you are. Leave the hired help alone and come back out here. A gang of us are talking about going up to Queensland in the next few days, spur-of-the-moment thing. Fancy coming along?’
Joseph made a snap decision. ‘No, thanks anyway, Dave. I’m going to head for Melbourne.’
The hired help smiled into the sinkful of glasses.
In Melbourne the following evening, Lainey looked up from her refrigerator and groaned. ‘Oh, damn it, I forgot to get champagne for tonight.’
Eva glanced over from the dining area where she had just finished laying out the place settings. ‘Do you want me to drive down to the off-licence and get some? You’ve still got the food to finish, haven’t you?’
Lainey was at the kitchen bench, which was covered in bowls of cut-up vegetables and delicious smelling sauces. She was making an Asian-style banquet for them all. ‘They’re called bottle shops here, remember, not off-licences,’ she said automatically. ‘Would you mind, Eva? Are you sure you’re okay with the trams?’
‘Just give them right of way at all times, is that the general rule?’
Lainey nodded and tossed her the car keys.
‘That’d be brilliant, thanks a million. Can you get half a dozen bottles?’ ‘Half a dozen?’ ‘Well, you know the saying. You can never be too thin, too rich or have too much champagne in your fridge.’ By the time Eva had got lost, then found the bottle shop, found a parking place then chosen six bottles from the many varieties of Australian champagne, nearly an hour had passed. Back at the flat she struggled up the final set of stairs carrying the box of bottles in both arms. The front door flew open. She nearly jumped out of her skin to find Lainey standing right there. ‘They’re all here,’ she whispered, a strange glint in her eye. She took the box out of Eva’s hands and put it in the hallway beside her, then tugged at Eva’s hair tie so her hair flowed around her face and down her back. ‘Oww!’ Eva was completely taken aback. ‘What on earth are you doing, Lainey? Give that back.’ Lainey pocketed the hair tie and pulled a bright silk flower out of another pocket. She deftly pinned it in Eva’s hair. ‘Trust me,’ she hissed. ‘It’ll be fun.’ Bewildered, Eva followed her into the apartment. As they reached the entrance to the dining room Lainey stopped and spoke in a loud voice. ‘Oh Niamh, here you are. Come in, I’ve just been telling everyone all about you.’ She caught Eva’s eye and winked.
In a quieter voice she spoke quickly to Eva. ‘Yes, I’ve just been telling them all about your sculpting and that caravan in Galway you live in and your wonderful singing and the fact that you’ve just finished working with Enya on her new album.’ Her voice rose again. ‘Everyone, this is my friend Niamh Kennedy, all the way from Ireland.’ Eva understood then why Lainey had played those tricks with her hair. To get the wild gypsy look to match this wild artist’s story. She started to smile, about to confess it was all nonsense and that Lainey had always been a madwoman. Then she noticed how interested everyone seemed in her. The four people in the living room had stopped their conversations. They had turned to look at her, smiling expectantly. Curiously, even. Eva wasn’t used to this sort of reaction at all. People in Ireland certainly didn’t react like that when she said she lived in Stoneybatter and worked in a delicatessen on Camden Street, that was for sure. She caught Lainey’s eye. Out of sight of her friends, Lainey was winking madly. ‘Go on,’ she mouthed. Eva’s mind worked quickly. Would she or wouldn’t she go along with it? A long second passed. Then, smiling warmly, she moved into the room. ‘Hello, everyone.’
Two hours later, the dinner party was in full swing and Eva was having the time of her life. The food was delicious. The entrees of deep-fried spiced tofu and cold Vietnamese rolls had disappeared in minutes. Now the steamed salmon in black bean sauce, grilled prawns with coriander and spicy rice noodles were being passed around from guest to guest. The wine was plentiful. They’d managed to assemble quite a collection of empty bottles already. Eva had answered lots of questions about her first impressions of Australia. And with Lainey’s help, she’d answered lots of questions about her sculpting and singing too. She was usually nervous about meeting new people - when she was Eva Kennedy, at least - but she didn’t feel half as nervous being Niamh Kennedy. She actually felt quite confident. It gave her something to hide behind. Greg Gilroy, the owner of the Four Quarters bar and cafe, had been particularly attentive. Lainey had been right, he did have a thing about Ireland and all things Irish. Early in the evening he’d managed to manoeuvre things so that he was sitting next to Eva at the table. He’d been minding her closely since, refilling her wineglass, passing dishes of food, and leaping to explain any Australian terms or the background to any Melbourne stories that came up in the conversation. She wondered if he had any Irish blood in him. According to Lainey, loads of Australians did. No, if
anything, Greg looked Scandinavian. Tall, brown skinned, his blond hair cut fashionably short. He was asking her now to describe the area in the west of Ireland where she lived. He listened with rapt attention as she spoke vaguely about wild beaches, dramatic cliffs and stormy skies.
‘Oh, I loved Galway,’ he said with feeling. ‘I think it was my favourite part of Ireland.’
Oh no, Eva thought. Lainey hadn’t told her he’d actually been to Ireland. Thank God she hadn’t tried to be any more specific. She’d only been to Galway a few times in her life. ‘When were you there?’ she asked politely.
He proceeded to tell her in great detail everything he’d done on a trip to Ireland five years previously to source ideas and props for his Irish theme pub. He also managed to namedrop shamelessly, telling her about every minor brush with every minor Irish celebrity he’d met during that time.
‘I wish I’d known you back then as well, Niamh,’ he said with a slightly oily smile. ‘I could have commissioned you to do a sculpture especially for my pub.’
Lainey overheard and winked at Eva. ‘Oh Greg, you wouldn’t have been able to afford Niamh’s work. She’s far too exclusive for a pub and cafe owner like you.’ She flashed him a wide smile. ‘No offence, of course.’
‘None taken, of course,’ he said. A little huffily, Eva noticed.
One of the other guests, a woman called Christine, turned to Eva. ‘Niamh, do you mind me asking, how do you actually spell your name?’
Another woman spoke up too. ‘I was about to ask the same thing. When Lainey rang to invite us to meet you, I thought she said your name was Eva, but I must have misheard.’
Lainey interrupted. ‘It’s spelt N-i-a-m-h, but pronounced Nee-av. The ‘mh’ is pronounced as a V sound in the Irish language, isn’t that right, Niamh?’
Eva just nodded. She felt foolish, as though she had formally appointed Lainey as her spokeswoman for the evening. But she didn’t dare open her mouth in case the charade came tumbling down around her.
Greg was listening intently too. ‘Could you spell that again, Lainey?’ he said.
As Lainey did so, Eva watched amazed as Greg wrote it down in a Filofax he’d taken from his jacket pocket. He noticed that she had noticed. ‘Such a beautiful name, I’d hate to forget it.’
‘But it must drive you crazy having to spell it out all the time to people like us,’ Christine said. ‘Are you ever tempted to shorten it or change it?’
‘You Aussies, what are you like!’ Lainey turned to Eva. ‘Didn’t I tell you, Niamh, they - or I should say we, shouldn’t I? - shorten everything here. Football is footy. Breakfast is brekky. How could we shorten your name though? Call you Knee, perhaps?’
Eva laughed with everyone else, feeling more and
more uncomfortable as the centre of attention. She decided to excuse herself. ‘Look at all those empty bottles. I’d better go and see if I can find a full one. I’ll be right back.’
Lainey waited until Eva had gone to the kitchen, then leaned towards the others. ‘Just between us, Niamh would never change her name to anything else. She is very particular about her Irish heritage. You know of course that the English came in and anglicised so many of our names.’
Christine glanced over at Eva in the kitchen and whispered too. ‘Is that what the Troubles and all those other things we hear of in Ireland are all about? The English changing your names?’
‘Well, that’s part of it,’ Lainey said diplomatically, not keen to launch into a full explanation of Irish history tonight. She spoke quickly as Eva came back toward the table with the new bottle. ‘But trust me, it’s just better not to talk about any of it in front of Niamh. She can get very passionate about it. And you know these artists, they can get very hotheaded. Niamh has an absolutely wild temper.’ She smiled innocently across at her friend as Eva sat down.
Next morning, Eva took over the kitchen, cooking up a huge fry - bacon, eggs, sausages, the works. Rex sat at the kitchen door, waiting for a rind, flicking his tail from side to side.
Eva threw him a piece, smiling as he caught it in his tiny teeth. Who’d have thought the day would come? Next thing she’d be thinking about getting a cat herself. Though perhaps that was jumping too quickly into the wonderful world of pets. She’d start with something smaller. A moth, maybe. ‘Hurry up,’ Lainey called over from where she sat surrounded by the weekend papers. ‘My hangover’s getting worse by the minute. I need a big dose of grease. God knows how I’m going to finish packing in time for my flight tonight.’ ‘You deserve every atom of that hangover,’ Eva laughed, flipping the eggs. ‘I kept waking up during the night thinking about that whole Niamh business. You’re a brat, Elaine Byrne.’ Lainey just smiled. ‘It was a bit of fun, though, wasn’t it? And no harm done. I’ll tell them all the truth next time I see them.’ With that she started singing very loudly and off-key. ‘“When Irish tongues are fibbing, the world is ”’ ‘Lainey, stop that, you’ll shatter the windows. Are you sure they won’t mind? Won’t think we were taking them for a ride?’ ‘Of course not. Anyway, we weren’t that far from the truth. Niamh could almost be a long version of Eva. Spoken by someone with a bit of a stutter. And you are an artist. And a singer. You’re just not practising at the moment.’ ‘No.’
Lainey stretched. ‘I have to say I thought Greg was very taken with you. I reckon my story about you and Bono from U2 really clinched it, though. Greg’s such a namedropper himself.’
Eva stopped cooking. ‘What story about me and Bono?’
Lainey turned innocent eyes at her. ‘Oh, I told Greg you’d done a sculpture for Bono’s garden.’
‘Lainey! When did you tell him that?’
‘I think you were in the kitchen,’ Lainey said vaguely.
‘That was taking it a bit far, wasn’t it? The Enya story was bad enough.’
‘Darl, it was just a joke. Don’t take it so seriously. Just be flattered by Greg’s interest. And he was interested in you, wasn’t he?’
Eva blushed.
Lainey pointed. ‘Aha, didn’t I tell you! Your Irish accent was driving him wild! He was so disappointed when he first met me and learned I’d actually had one but lost it. “But Lainey, have you any idea what an Irish accent does to a man? So, so sexy.”’
Eva smiled. Lainey managed to take off Greg’s slightly pompous tone very well. ‘Well, he did say he might give me a call, take me out while you’re up in Brisbane.’
Lainey clapped her hands. ‘Oh, excellent. That’s exactly what you need, a little holiday romance. And
he’s a nice fellow, even if he is a bit of a tight-arse.’ She laughed at Eva’s expression. ‘Tight with his money. And he can be a bit of a bloke, especially when he’s had a few too many. And he gets a bit possessive of his girlfriends, from what I’ve heard. But that won’t be a problem for you, you’ll be gone before he has a chance to get too weird.’ ‘Never start up a dating agency, will you, Lainey? That’s the worst character reference I’ve ever heard.’ ‘Well, nobody’s perfect. But he’s okay, really, despite all that. Very rich too. Now, come on, hurry up with that fry. I swear my head is about to explode.’
JOSEPH LOOKED out at the view from his South Yarra hotel. The English dishwasher at Dave’s party might have been eloquent about Melbourne, but had he been truthful?
From his vantage point on the fourth floor, the scenery wasn’t exactly breathtaking. An inner-city street of clothes shops, cafes and restaurants. The sky was grey. The mist was so thick he couldn’t see much beyond two streets away. There was a faint drizzle trickling down the window glass. Not a harbour to be seen, though he had glimpsed a muddy-looking river as he’d ridden in a taxi from Melbourne airport that morning.
Joseph was very impressed with his hotel, though. If he’d been an interior designer rather than an industrial designer he would have been even more impressed. His studio room looked like it had been styled for a magazine feature. Polished wood
everywhere. Two large windows, one looking into a small central atrium designed to resemble an Asian garden, with running water, simple plants, polished stones. The other window overlooked the street. One of Melbourne’s best shopping streets, the receptionist had told him. It was like a fashion parade there some days, she said. A shame the rain was spoiling the view. The only movement he could see from his window were the cars and the trams, adding some colour to the grey and gloomy scene.
He caught sight of his reflection in the window. He was wearing another of George’s Tshirts and his favourite old black jeans. He needed a haircut. He could almost be mistaken for a normal person on holiday, he decided, instead of the overworked, stressed businessman he was.
He’d checked in with his office the night before.
Rosemary had answered. ‘Joseph, you’re supposed to be taking a break, not worrying about us.’
‘Just checking everything’s fine.’
‘No problems at all. Maurice’s been in, picking up some paperwork. The designers are all happy. I’m taking messages for you, but nothing that can’t wait. Now, forget about us. Goodbye. And enjoy your holiday.’
He would, he decided now. Just as soon as he got some more work out of the way. During the one-hour flight from Sydney, he’d decided to visit some of the backpacker hostels in Melbourne, talk to some of the