The Guesthouse on the Green Series Box Set 2

by Michelle Vernal

  ‘Okay, you can open them.’

  ‘Aaggh!’ Aisling screamed, ‘Christ on a bike, I nearly had an accident, Moira. Anyone but him!’

  Moira grinned behind her Bono face mask.

  ‘I like U2’s early music when I’m doing the housework, it’s so angry and full of fire it sees me finish the hoovering in next to no time,’ Ro-ro announced randomly as Moira began passing the identical masks around for the group to wear.

  ‘Ha ha, very funny,’ Aisling said, leading the charge down the stairs as she peered through the round eye holes. She had to admit though it was.

  THE CHAUFFEUR, WHOSE name was Ned, was well used to raucous hen nights but this was a first he thought, holding the door open. A split second ago ten female Bonos, all reeking of various perfumes and booze and wearing the sort of shoes that would put holes in your lino had piled out of the guesthouse. Now they scrambled into the back of the white stretch limo one after the other. He closed the door on their squeals over having located the mini bar before getting behind the wheel. He was grateful there was a screen separating him from them lot in the back. It was relatively peaceful here in his own little bubble. A tap on the screen before he could even turn the key in the ignition put paid to that however and he pushed the button to make it slide down.

  ‘Ned, my man, do you happen to have any U2 with you?’ the Bono he’d noticed was wearing purple knickers as she clambered into the limo asked. ‘We thought it would be a great craic to play Beautiful Day loud and when we pull up at the lights instead of mooning people, we’ll Bono them.

  Sweet merciful God, it was going to be a long night, Ned thought, fishing out his U2 CD.

  Chapter 18

  The limousine slid expertly into the side of the kerb outside The Singing Bird shortly after midnight. Ned cocked an ear, no chance of the hens in the back having turned into pumpkins though, not given the amount of noise they were making. He looked at the flashing neon sign over the entrance to the bar and breathed a sigh of relief. This was his last stop on the pub crawl itinerary and he was more than ready to call it a night. He couldn’t wait to hang up his chauffeur’s cap and fix himself a warm milk to sup on before sliding in beside his Janice who’d be snoring her head off by now. The Bonos in the back had precisely an hour here and then he’d see them safely home. They’d all be feeling a little sorry for themselves in the morning he was guessing as he got out of the limo and adjusted his cap.

  The tense situation on Wellington Quay was seemingly forgotten about with the prospect of karaoke here at The Singing Bird. The exclusive brick Clarence hotel on Wellington Quay was owned by Bono and The Edge. The nightclub tucked away downstairs in its depths was where the beautiful people of the city congregated after dark. The burly fella on the door had taken umbrage to the women impersonating the man who wasn’t only his boss but also his personal hero and had refused them entry. He did say he’d let the one with the purple knickers in on account of her looking like a supermodel with a Bono mask on but she’d said it was one for all and all for one or something like that. The mammy and her friend had told him it was discrimination was what it was and threatened him with going to the papers but then they heard the next and final pub was The Singing Bird and there was a stage and proper microphones and everything and they’d all but thrown themselves back in the idling limousine.

  Now Ned held the door open and stood back to let the clucking hens out thinking it was lucky for them they weren’t famous with the paparazzi all lurking and waiting to snap them getting out of the back of the limo. They’d need to learn a little decorum if that were the case, especially the one in the purple knickers.

  Aisling straightened her dress and fluffed up her veil before linking her arm through Moira’s. ‘I’m having a grand time, so I am, Moira. Thank you for organising this. It’s brilliant being able to let my hair down.’

  ‘You have been a bridezilla. It’s good to see you relaxed.’ Moira grinned, nudging Aisling before pointing out a group of lads wey-hey-heying as they walked down the street with chips, no doubt smothered in curry sauce, in hand. Aisling was sorely tempted to charge on over and help herself to a few soggy sorry excuses for a potato but she was also keen to get inside the bar and get hold of the microphone. She blew them a kiss and received a cheer but no offer of a chip and so, linking her other arm through Leila’s, she dragged them toward the neon light.

  The rest of the group staggered forth, Maureen and Bronagh bringing up the rear. Maureen nearly tripped on a cobblestone but Bronagh caught her before any damage could be done. ‘Sure, it’s a good thing we’re here to keep an eye on the young ones,’ she said steadying herself.

  ‘It is indeed, Maureen,’ said Bronagh, hiccupping.

  The group blinked as they found themselves in a darkened, smoky bar. It was hot and crowded, and the whiff of body odour was lurking in the air-conditioning ducts. They’d all pushed their Bono masks off having decided he would be too hard to emulate on stage. Roisin shouted over the top of the woman who was murdering Whitney Houston up on the stage, ‘Clearly there are a lot of frustrated wannabe pop stars in Dublin.’

  ‘Jaysus, she’ll put us all to sleep. We need something lively so we do,’ Aisling yelled in Leila’s ear. Leila looked at her, Aisling looked at Leila and simultaneously they shrieked, ‘ABBA!’ Off they tottered and a coup was held on the stage where they managed to wrestle the microphone from Whitney who received no support from the audience before requesting Mamma Mia. ‘I’m the blonde one,’ Leila stated for obvious reasons but Aisling pulled a face, ‘Yes, but I’m the bride so I should get to choose. I want to be Agnetha for once.’

  The familiar opening beats sounded and Leila consented, taking her position on the left of Aisling. The pair began to sway their hips and click their fingers. The dance floor filled as the catchy tune began in earnest and Aisling and Leila gave it their all. The only glitch in the performance was when they spun around to face each other with too much gusto and narrowly missed headbutting one another. Aside from that when the song drew to a close, they received loud applause. Aisling was all set for Super Trouper but to her surprise Ita had gotten in with a request and was waiting to take the stage. Aisling and Leila milked the spotlight a moment longer before reluctantly handing the microphone over.

  Maureen had mooched up to the bar once her middle daughter and Leila had finished their double act. ‘I’ll have two pina coladas please,’ she shouted across the sticky bar top to the young fella who, if she half shut her left eye, had the look of the dimply one from Westlife. He gave her a cocky smirk.

  ‘What was that love? Two penis and lagers?’

  Maureen was flummoxed, her gin and tequila-addled brain thought he’d said the word penis but that couldn’t be right. Surely not. ‘No,’ she shook her head vehemently but didn’t like the way it made her head spin. ‘Two pina coladas,’ She gave him the fingers inadvertently before assailing him with her rendition of the chorus of the famous song by the same name. ‘And, I’d like the little umbrellas in them. The ones you get when you’re on your holidays.’

  Jaysus, he had a right one here, he thought, setting about making the cocktails, and what was with the cowgirl look? She was taking karaoke to another level.

  ‘Can you do the Tom Cruise thing. You know from that film, what was it called, now?’

  ‘Cocktail and it was before my time.’

  ‘Oh.’ Maureen was disappointed, she would have liked a show, so she would.

  ‘He’s no good, Bronagh, he can’t do the Tom Cruise thing,’ she said as she joined her to wait for the drinks.

  ‘Ah, never mind,’ Bronagh flapped her hand. ‘This place has karaoke. I love karaoke me. Moira’s done Aisling proud with tonight, it’s been grand so it has. The meal was very good too.’

  The dimply one shook his cannister.

  ‘Give it more elbow into it, son,’ Maureen called over and turning back to Bronagh, she agreed. ‘She has and it was.’ They’d gone to a Mexican restaurant and had
a lovely time tipping their heads back in the dentist chair for the tequila shots. Truth be told, neither woman would have been able to tell you whether they’d had nachos or a burrito to eat.

  ‘Those two were very polished.’ Bronagh pointed to the stage where Leila and Aisling were bowing deeply as though they were getting a standing ovation at the Royal Variety Show performance.

  ‘They were. They knew all the dance moves and everything.’ Maureen looked at the stage in time to see Aisling pass the microphone to Ita. ‘I wonder what Ita will sing.’

  ‘Sadie the Cleaning Lady,’ Bronagh said, hiccupping and giggling at the same time. ‘Because singing about doing the old scrub-a-dub-dub is as close as she’ll get to actually giving it what for.’

  Ita or Idle Ita as Moira was fond of calling her was not the most dedicated director of housekeeping. It was a fact, but still, out of loyalty to her old friend, Ita’s mammy, Maureen stuck up for her. ‘Ah, she’s alright Ita. She had a hard time of it after her daddy left. She deserves a break.’

  Both women were rendered silent though as Ita cleared her throat before beginning to sing. She’d chosen Dusty Springfield’s Son of a Preacher Man and her voice started off with a wobble but built in confidence until it was soaring around the bar. It was one of those rare karaoke moments when someone gets up who can actually sing and people who’d been sitting in darkened corners nursing drinks were compelled to make their way onto the dance floor to move to her sultry sound.

  ‘Who’d have thought it?’ Bronagh said.

  ‘I wonder if her mammy knows she can sing,’ Maureen said.

  ‘Here we are ladies.’ Two creamy drinks in tall glasses were placed in front of the women. Each had a cocktail umbrella swizzle stick poking out the side, much to Maureen’s delight. They sipped their drinks while listening to Ita.

  ‘Look who’s after getting up next.’ Bronagh nudged Maureen to where Roisin, Moira and Nina were ready to storm the stage. ‘Hard act to follow,’ she lamented, looking sorrowfully into the depths of her drink. ‘Glad it’s them not us.’

  Maureen agreed, joining in with the cheers, Ita received when she’d finished. There were calls for more, more but Roisin, Moira and Nina were already up and ready. As they erupted into a poppy dance song, Maureen spluttered, sending a fine spray of pina colada forth. ‘Christ on a bike! Chance would be a fine thing where those two of mine are concerned.’

  They’d picked Like a Virgin and were earnestly singing about being touched for the very first time.

  By the time Ro-ro and Tina-Marie had gyrated their way through Black Velvet, Bronagh could feel the urge to croon welling up in her throat.

  ‘Come on now, we can’t let the side down, Maureen. It’s our turn next so it is. Let’s see what there is to choose from.’

  Maureen drained her drink and told Bronagh she had to spend a penny and then she’d be over to join her. ‘It was a very nice pina colada,’ she said to the dimply one before tottering off. True to her word she was soon back flicking through the book of songs. It was on the second page her eyes alighted on the perfect tune and she looked at Bronagh. ‘What do you think?’

  Bronagh gave her the thumbs up wondering if she could sing and hold her stomach in at the same time. ‘And you look the part, too,’ she added.

  Maureen looped her thumbs through the belt hooks on her skirt like she did at the line dancing classes and began uttering a quiet ‘me, me, me, me,’ to warm her voice up. She wound up coughing due to the smoky atmosphere but by the time they got the signal they were up, she was recovered.

  ‘Jaysus, Mammy, Bronagh, you’re not after getting up, are you?’

  ‘Don’t you be starting with the discrimination. You’re only as old as you feel and we’ve a fine pair of lungs on us haven’t we Bronagh?’

  ‘We have indeed, Maureen. We’ve been around the block a few times, so.’

  Maureen cast her a ‘speak for yourself’ glance unsure what that was supposed to mean before wagging her finger in her youngest child’s face. ‘Watch and learn how it’s done.’

  Moira shook her head watching her mammy step up on stage. She leaned into Roisin whose hand had flown to her mouth as she swallowed a giggle. ‘And she was on at me about flashing my knickers to all and sundry about town.’

  Nina’s brown eyes were enormous at the sight of Mrs O’Mara with her skirt caught in the back of her knickers. ‘I’ll tell her.’ But the song had already started and she didn’t want to rain on her parade. ‘Maybe she’ll stay put and nobody will notice,’ she added hopefully as Moira and Roisin clutched each other in fits. Staying put and doing nothing was not on Maureen’s curriculum though and with due Dolly flair she began strutting around the stage to 9 To 5. Bronagh’s attempts to catch hold of her and wrest her skirt down as Maureen somehow managed to stay one step ahead of her only served to make the girls laugh harder. Even Nina had begun to giggle.

  IT WAS APPROXIMATELY one fifty-three am by the time Ned dropped the remaining hens off back at O’Mara’s. He’d been very obliging in taking the other girls, Leila included, home beforehand. The mammy one in the back had not stopped going on about how she thought her drink had been spiked by your dimply one on the bar because it was not in her character to make a holy show of herself. The purple knickers one who by all accounts hadn’t touched a drop all night informed her mammy there was no drink spiking involved and the holy show was down to the gins, the tequilas and the cocktails her mammy had knocked back over the course of the evening. They were still bickering over it all as they tried to open the door to the guesthouse.

  ‘Thank you, Ned, you’ve been a star so you have,’ the bride-to-be said, making him blush by giving him a kiss on the cheek before sorting her mammy and sisters out. She pushed the door open and herded them inside telling them to keep the noise down because it was a guesthouse not a fecking...

  Whatever it was he didn’t catch it, and getting back in his limousine he drove off home knowing it would be a very long time before his U2 CD saw the light of day again.

  Chapter 19

  Noreen

  Noreen tapped the side of the sieve and a sprinkle of icing sugar rained down on the Victoria sponge cake like snow. She stood back to admire her handiwork satisfied with the end result. It had become her signature cake around the village over the years. If ever there was a party, birthday or funeral and a cake was needed, she was enlisted to make one of her famous deep sponges. The baking of it never ceased to be bittersweet for the memories it evoked but memories were part of what made us who we were, Noreen always thought. You had to take the bad in order to have the good and as such there was no point in ignoring them. This sponge with its homemade jam, something she had time for now she no longer ran the shop, and fresh cream filling was intended for Father Peter. She wanted his advice as to what she should do about Emer and didn’t like to appear at the rectory empty handed. She knew Father Peter, a portly man with a penchant for anything sweet, like her Malachy, could never resist her sponge cake, and as such she’d have his undivided attention. Noreen untied her apron and went to tidy herself up.

  With her headscarf knotted beneath her chin to stop her hair from turning into a bird’s nest in the gusty breeze, she set off. It was a short walk through the village to the church at its edge. She was carrying the cake in her trusty container. She’d bought it years ago when Rosamunde had begun dabbling in Tupperware parties, balking at the price of it but Rosamunde had convinced her it would be an investment. It had been too, she’d be lost without it now. She spied Maisie Donovan’s cocker spaniel, Timmy, nosing around outside the butchers and held her container a little tighter. She didn’t trust the animal one little bit and had threatened Maisie with a phone call to the powers that be more than once. Sure, she’d once watched the crafty dog leap around the legs of Mrs Sweeney outside that very butchers. The poor woman, nervy at the best of times, had dropped the sausages she’d bought for her and Mr Sweeney’s dinner and the cocker spaniel had absconded with them, ta
il wagging all the way.

  She shooed Timmy away as she passed by him and said hello to Mr Farrell, who told her he was off for a warming bowl of stew in Murphy’s. Pint of ale more like, she’d thought, crossing over the stone bridge and hearing the stream babbling beneath it. The wind was cutting right through her today and she hoped Father Peter was in the rectory house and not the draughty old church.

  The church, she saw, peering around the door and inhaling its familiar smell of pungent incense was deserted and she followed the path around to the house, noticing the hydrangeas had been cut back for the winter months. Father Peter, Father Jim and Father Thomas all lived here in the rectory and the pruned flowering shrubs would be down to Father Thomas. It was he who had the green fingers. Father Jim and Father Thomas would be out visiting the housebound of the parish as was their custom on a Thursday, which was why she was hoping to catch Father Peter for a quiet word. She placed her container down on the step before rapping on the door, feeling the tug in her back as she bent to retrieve it.

  ‘Noreen, are you alright?’ Father Peter swung the door open in time to see her grimacing as she righted herself. ‘Here let me take that for you.’ He relieved her of the Tupperware, his eyes lighting up as he guessed at what might be inside.

  ‘It’s age, Father Peter, nothing more.’

  ‘Ah yes, it brings its aches and pains to be sure but how does the saying go?’

  ‘Do not resent growing old, many are denied the privilege.’

  ‘Truer words never spoken. Now then, come in out of the cold.’

  Noreen did so and followed the priest down the shadowy hallway with its worn runner through to the kitchen where the old Aga was ticking over and keeping the room cheerful. The scent of toast hung on the air along with something else. She spied a jar with sprigs of thyme in it and realised that was the underlying smell. Beyond the back door, Noreen knew, was a well-tended garden with a raised bed of herbs and a fruitful vegetable patch. If she were to pop her head out the door, she knew she’d find parsnips, swedes, leeks and Brussel sprouts – Father Jim’s penchant for the latter was well known and his reputation preceded him in the confessional box. Father Thomas kept his fellow priests well fed from his efforts in the garden. Given the priests looked after themselves, the place was kept very respectably Noreen thought, pulling out a chair and sitting down at Father Peter’s bidding, noting the scrubbed table and clear worktop as she did so. They were house-proud men.