The Guesthouse on the Green Series Box Set 2

by Michelle Vernal

  Bronagh’s eyes widened at the thought of this flamboyant man at the helm of the guesthouse. She wondered if he knew Elton – he did live in Los Angeles after all. Sure, they were always rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous out there. Patrick was after telling her he knew yer man, Cruise. They frequented the same juice bar. She wondered if Patrick, Cindy and Cormac all went to the same dentist.

  ‘A decision that worked out well for us all.’

  ‘That it did.’

  They smiled at each other and Pooh nuzzled up next to this new member of his family.

  ‘He likes you.’ Maureen was pleased. Cormac hadn’t made a fuss like Roisin over sitting in the back of the car when she’d picked him up from the airport. He said he was used to it. Apparently, he had a driver over there in Los Angeles.

  ‘Where’s the bride-to-be? I thought she’d be here to greet me, given you’ve officially handed over the baton, Mo.’ Cormac pouted. He was a little put out. He’d come a long way after all and the least his middle niece could do was be here when he arrived.

  ‘Erm, Aisling’s upstairs. Moira’s at college and said to tell you she’s looking forward to seeing you.’ She pursed her lips knowing full well Moira was hoping her fashion-king uncle had brought gifts from the Land of Plenty with him. ‘Patrick and Cindy are due in the day before the erm, ah, the erm wedding because Cindy had a bra commercial to film and Roisin’s arriving from London with young Noah tomorrow.’ She’d filled Roisin in on the unfolding drama of Aisling and Quinn but had told her she should still come because it wasn’t over until the fat lady sings. Roisin had shaken her head, and told her mammy that she wasn’t fat, cuddly yes, but not fat. Maureen had been put out and had huffed she hadn’t been speaking literally. ‘Noah’s a dote so he is,’ she told Cormac, her arms already itching with the urge to wrap him in a big hug. ‘Now then, Cormac, let’s get you settled in your room and then we’ll go upstairs and have ourselves a nice cup of tea and catch up.’

  ‘Green tea?’ Cormac asked hopefully.

  ‘Sure, tea’s tan not green and anything else isn’t tea, you eejit,’ Maureen tutted before telling him she’d find their housekeeper, Ita, and get her to give them a hand with his luggage. She was eager to get Cormac away from the reception area. He was prone to dramatics and she had a feeling they were in for an explosion when he learned Aisling had announced the wedding was not going ahead despite her best efforts to talk sense into her daughter yesterday. The way things currently stood, he’d had a wasted journey.

  For his part, Cormac may not have seen his sister-in-law for a good while but she had a face he could read like a book and he raised an eyebrow.

  It was a lovely shape so it was, Bronagh thought, looking on and smoothing her own pencil thin ones. His skin had a glowing sheen to it too, she noticed. She could do with more glow; she’d have to ask him what products he was after using.

  ‘Is there something I should know, Mo?’

  Maureen ignored him. ‘Pooh, you stay there with your uncle Cormac.’ She took to the stairs calling out Ita’s name.

  Bronagh began whistling Rocketman and looking everywhere but at Cormac.

  Chapter 33

  Maureen found Ita looking shifty in Room 3, and enlisted her to help them haul Cormac’s luggage to his room. The housekeeper obliged with far more grace than she would have Aisling, but then it wasn’t Aisling who was friendly with her mammy and liable to tell tales. She’d have liked to have had a few moments to admire the strange little man with the mat on top of his head’s Vuitton cases because one day she’d travel the world with expensive luggage but for now she did as she was asked and followed Maureen’s lead dragging the case up the stairs to Room 5.

  Maureen had personally done a sweep of Cormac’s room before she’d left to collect him. It was important to her that he saw first-hand what a success she and Brian had made of the guesthouse, even after all these years. Room 5 with its old-world elegance was a nod to the Georgian grandeur of the building. It afforded a grand view over the Green and as such it was one of her favourites. The pillows had been plumped by her personally, the bathroom inspected, and the bed smoothed. Her reward for her efforts came when Cormac made appreciative murmurs as he inspected his quarters. ‘It’s hardly recognisable from the days when Mammy and Dad ran the place.’

  ‘It was different times and they did a grand job. We just brought it up to date,’ Maureen said loyally; she’d been fond of Brian’s parents. They’d been good to her and the bitter feelings between Mr and Mrs O’Mara senior and Cormac had been nothing to do with her. Like she’d said, it was different times. Cormac had been long gone when she’d come door knocking to the guesthouse seeking work, never dreaming she’d marry the handsome young man who’d opened the door to her and that one day they’d run the place. Brian hadn’t spoken of his older brother often. On those few occasions when Cormac had come back to Ireland it had been clear to her why he’d gone. It was a truth the family had refused to acknowledge and in doing so had ensured he could never be at home in his own country. It saddened Maureen to think he’d shared his home with his partner Ricardo for over twenty years but even now wasn’t comfortable bringing the person he’d chosen to spend his life with here to Ireland to meet them.

  On the bright side her brother-in-law was a particular so and so but he was happy with the room she’d chosen for him and that was high praise. She was pleased because, once she got him away from Ita’s flapping ears and up to the privacy of the family apartment to explain what was going on with her daughter, he was going to be anything but happy. A sudden movement caught her eye. ‘Don’t even think about it, Pooh,’ she warned the poodle, who was inching toward the bed having decided it was as good a place as any for a siesta. Pooh froze and gave her what she recognised as his affronted look. The ‘as if I would do something like that’ expression. Ita was still loitering in the doorway. ‘Thanks for your help.’ She dismissed her with a smile but she wasn’t quick enough to stop Cormac from whipping out his wallet.

  He handed a wad of notes to Ita who looked like the cat who’d got the cream. The American guests were her favourite and thanking him, she stuffed the money in the pocket of her smock before taking herself off. She could sense Maureen’s disapproval of her taking the tip from him given he was family. Well, tough, she’d interrupted her in the middle of a game of Snake and her phone was burning a hole in her pocket. It was high time she got back to it.

  ‘Come on then, Cormac, let’s get you upstairs,’ Maureen said, giving him the card he’d need to access his room. She shooed Pooh out of the door ahead of her and headed up the last flight of stairs.

  Cormac dawdled up behind her, muttering about elevators having been invented for over a hundred years. The apartment was, again, vastly different from his childhood memories where everything had seemed tired and worn out like the building itself. Maureen had a flair when it came to interiors. He liked the ambience she’d created. What he didn’t like was the growing sensation that all was not as it should be. Maureen had begun to act skittish as she moved about the kitchen fetching cups and saucers and there was still no sign of Aisling.

  ‘Mo, I have swapped the beautiful sunshine and palm trees of LA for winter in Dublin. Please tell me the wedding is going ahead this Saturday.’

  If he’d been hoping she’d be taken aback by the intimation anything was wrong then he’d have been disappointed. He watched as her mouth performed a dance of indecision before she called out, ‘Aisling O’Mara, get out here now and explain to your uncle Cormac, who’s flown all the way from Los Angeles what’s going on.’

  It took a moment or two but Aisling mooched forth looking like she’d been sleeping rough and Cormac gave her a head to toe once over before stamping his Versace clad foot. ‘No, absolutely not, Aisling. Not a second time. I’m not having it.’

  Aisling stared at him dully, she’d have thought Mammy would have told everybody not to come. She was the one in charge of the guest list. She tried to catc
h her eye but Maureen was feigning great interest in the tea she was brewing.

  ‘You are not cancelling on me twice, Aisling. Now, sit yourself down and tell me what’s happened.’

  It was a funny thing, Aisling thought, doing as she was told, but when her uncle was mad his American accent became decidedly Irish. Cormac sat down next to her, kicking off his loafers, and she tried not to fixate on his sock clad feet as he began rotating his fat ankles in little circles. He looked at her in a way that brooked no nonsense and she caught a glimpse of her daddy in his features. It made her feel warm inside and she found herself babbling the whole sorry story out. Maureen brought his tea over, making unhelpful mmm noises at different points in Aisling’s monologue.

  When Aisling had run dry, Cormac looked at her. ‘Is that all? You’ve quibbled over a few pounds?’

  ‘It was more than a few pounds, Uncle Cormac.’

  ‘Pfft.’ He made a motion with his hand as though it were a matter too trivial to be bothered with. ‘Well, you don’t need to worry because your fairy godmother is here now. Once I’ve had my tea and my ankles have returned to their normal size, we are off to see that fiancé of yours.’

  Maureen gave a strangled cough as her tea went down the wrong way.

  Chapter 34

  Quinn and Aisling were seated opposite each other at the table in the kitchen of his mammy and daddy’s house. They were both studying the rings left behind by hot drinks over the years, the marks of family life. The sweet smell of baking hung on the air but there was no cosiness to be found in the sugary smells. Aisling had her hands folded in her lap and Cormac was sitting at the head of the table like a presiding judge. She felt as if she’d been called to the headmistress’s office for a playground misdemeanour. If only she could get a rap over the knuckles and be done with it but Quinn hadn’t looked at her, not once, since Cormac had ordered them both to sit down. She felt sick and wasn’t even the slightest bit tempted to help herself to one of Mrs Moran’s brownie biscuits. There was no way she could call her Maeve, not now. Unlike her mammy who’d been all, ‘Now then, Maeve, what are we going to do about these children of ours?’ And whom she suspected right now had her head together with Quinn’s mammy in the living room discussing their eejitty children.

  If Mrs Moran had been surprised to find a washed-out Aisling, Maureen O’Mara, and a little man in a Miami Vice suit and a hair piece standing on her doorstep that damp Dublin afternoon, she’d hidden it well. She’d been gracious, ushering them in out of the cold before fussing about making tea. She’d even managed to retrieve a herbal teabag for Cormac. There was no need for him to know it had been lurking down the back of her cupboard since Ivo had gone out with that girl with the dippy hippy ways a few years back. If anything, Maeve was grateful that someone was taking matters in hand and she had a feeling that Cormac was the right man for the job.

  Quinn had not come quietly, protesting all the way from his room, but he’d clammed up when he saw the trio of O’Maras standing around the kitchen table. He’d managed to shake Cormac’s hand and mumble hellos to Maureen and Aisling. He was well mannered her boy, even if he was an eejit. He hadn’t looked Aisling in the eye but she’d seen Aisling risk a glance from under her lashes at him. Her mouth had parted a little, startled by his dishevelled appearance. Maeve had tried to talk sense into her son by telling him Aisling had gotten carried away, that was all, but he was cut from the same cloth as his father and it was a stubborn one. She’d even had to remind him to shower like she’d had to when he was a teenager these last few days. She gave a surreptitious sniff hoping he’d remembered to put deodorant on.

  She’d hovered on the edge of the group unsure how this would go but when Cormac asked the young couple to sit down so they could have a chat, his manner had them both doing as they were told. He was a little like a male Judge Judy she’d thought, linking her arm through Maureen’s, assured things were going to be just fine. She suggested they take their tea and enjoy a slice of brownie in the front room. It would be nice to get to know Aisling’s mammy a little better.

  ‘Right then,’ Cormac said, and if he’d had a gavel, Aisling suspected he would have banged it down. Instead he had to make do with placing his mug on the table. ‘Aisling, I want you to explain to Quinn why you behaved like a mad woman over this wedding.’

  Aisling grasped her hands a little tighter and licked her lips. She had nothing to lose by opening up. ‘It doesn’t make much sense, Quinn, but from the minute you put my beautiful ring on my finger I had this sinking feeling something would go wrong. I suppose I felt that because Marcus called everything off, I wasn’t worthy of being married and so to compensate I overcompensated by trying to bury those thoughts in buying and booking things.’

  ‘Bling, darling,’ Cormac elaborated for her before turning to Quinn. ‘You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to work out that her compulsive spending was a reaction to the anxiety she was feeling. I’ve seen it time and time again on Rodeo Drive where my boutique is. Women throwing the cash around to try to make their problems go away.’

  Quinn nodded. He got it, he did, but what he didn’t get was why she hadn’t trusted him. He put voice to this.

  Aisling dug her nails into her palms and her voice was tinny. ‘I do trust you. It’s me I didn’t trust.’

  Quinn looked bewildered but didn’t get a chance to probe further because Cormac was pointing at him. ‘You’re on.’

  ‘Um,’ Quinn hesitated.

  ‘Come on, you’re a chef, you should be good at expressing your feelings.’

  He found the right words. ‘I never wanted a big wedding, Aisling, but I didn’t want to upset you because you were a force to be reckoned with. You’d ask my opinion but I could see you didn’t want it, you wanted me to agree with whatever you were suggesting. All I wanted was to say our vows, me and you in front of our family and friends. Then celebrate with a party at the restaurant. Simple.’ He gave a shrug as though he still couldn’t believe how hard it had all gotten.

  There was truth in his words. Aisling knew it had been her way or the highway. Her face felt hot and not because of the spots, they’d finally disappeared, but because she’d been so unfair. ‘I’m sorry, Quinn.’

  Cormac looked at Aisling and then at Quinn. They both looked to him wondering what he’d say next. ‘Do you love, Aisling, Quinn?’

  ‘Of course, I do.’

  Aisling’s eyes welled and a plump tear formed on her lower lashes.

  Cormac nodded – this was going exactly how he’d planned. ‘And, Aisling, do you love Quinn?’

  ‘More than anything.’ The tear rolled down her cheek.

  ‘Do you remember the Beatles?’ Cormac asked.

  This was getting weird, Quinn thought. ‘Yeah, who doesn’t?’

  Aisling agreed with his sentiment.

  ‘Well as Paul sang, all you need is love.’

  Aisling and Quinn locked eyes. It was Quinn who spoke first. ‘Shall we start again?’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  Quinn reached over and brushed the tear from Aisling’s cheek. Cormac cleared his throat and got up from his seat. Humming the classic Beatles tune, he decided his work was done. It was time to leave them to it and he wouldn’t mind another slice of that brownie either.

  Chapter 35

  Noreen’s case lay open on her bed and she folded the last of the necessities she’d need for her stay in Dublin, placing them carefully around the vase she’d bought for Aisling and Quinn. It was well padded and she’d be sure to tell Terry not to be throwing her case around when he put it in the boot. He and Rosamunde would be here shortly to pick her up. She’d hang her outfit from the handle about the window in the back of the car. She checked her watch again wishing the hands would turn faster. It was still a good twenty minutes until they were due to collect her and she was unable to settle, thanks to the nervous excitement about what lay in store these next few days. Emer, she’d gleaned from Rosamunde, was living an hour out of Dub
lin and planned on meeting her mammy, daddy, and the rest of her siblings, who were also spread far and wide these days, at the church. Sadly, her marriage had broken down this last year and as such she’d be attending on her own. She wasn’t bringing her children either who were nearly adults now and had no interest in attending the wedding of a sort of cousin they barely knew.

  The thought of Emer’s children nearly grown up was a reminder of the lost years and Noreen pushed those rogue thoughts away. The past couldn’t be changed; it was what lay ahead that mattered.

  Chapter 35

  The day of the wedding

  Uncle Cormac was indeed her fairy godmother, Aisling thought, admiring the way the tiny crystals on the bodice of her dress sparkled under the light. She felt like a princess. He’d insisted on footing the bill for hers and her bridesmaids’ dresses. ‘Aisling,’ he’d said bossily, ‘I have dedicated my life to fashion and a girl should have the dress of her dreams on her wedding day but a pumpkin carriage,’ he’d shaken his head, ‘she does not need.’

  ‘You’ve got my something borrowed?’ Roisin checked, and Aisling dutifully lifted the heavy fabric of her gown to display the garter belt her eldest sister had worn at her own wedding. Roisin grinned, ‘I hope it brings you the sort of wedding night I had.’

  Aisling wrinkled her nose at the thought of Colin and Rosi doing the deed. She knew they had to have done so at least once or they wouldn’t have had Noah but still she preferred to think her nephew had been an immaculate conception.

  ‘He was many things, my ex-husband—’ Roisin continued.

  ‘A chinless feck for one,’ Moira piped up.

  Roisin ignored her, ‘But in those early days believe it or not, he was quite the ride.’

  There was a collective gagging sound from Moira and Aisling.

  ‘What are you on about?’ Mammy bustled over. She’d been practising her mysterious mammy-of-the-bride look as she peered out from under the hat sitting heavy on her head thanks to the weight of all those feathers. If she were to venture into rural Ireland she’d be in danger of being pecked at by hens, Moira had said upon seeing it.