‘I’m glad you like it,’ said her grandfather. ‘It’s part of a new range we’re doing.’
‘The girl doesn’t need to know about our business, Dad.’ There was a touch of impatience in Philip’s voice. ‘It’s just a present, for heaven’s sake.’
‘It’s the nicest present I’ve ever been given,’ said Bey, although she crossed her fingers behind her back as she spoke. It was certainly the most expensive present she’d ever received, but the nicest was always whatever Lola had chosen, because it was handed over with love and joy. Perhaps there was love behind the locket too, she reminded herself. Lola insisted that it wasn’t her father’s fault he hadn’t had the chance to love her the way she did. But that he did love her in his own way. Bey wished that adults didn’t always make things so complicated.
Her final gift was from Astrid and Anthony and was a Cadbury’s selection box.
‘Excellent,’ she said, and meant it. ‘I’ll go and get your stuff now.’ She scrambled to her feet, then looked at Donna enquiringly.
‘Up two flights of stairs and it’s the third bedroom on the right,’ she told her.
Bey scampered out of the room and hurried up the stairs. It was a relief to be on her own again, even if it was only for a few minutes. Being with her father’s family was hard work, and she wondered fleetingly if she could pretend to be ill so that Lola would have to come back and get her. But that would be letting her mother down, and she didn’t want to do that. Besides, after she’d handed out her presents, things might get easier. She certainly hoped so. Otherwise it was going to be a terribly long day.
The guest room was about twice the size of her bedroom at home. It was decorated in shades of pink that were pretty in what Bey thought was a rather girlie sort of way. Her bag had been placed on a low chest at the end of the bed. She opened it and took out the presents she’d wrapped carefully in silver paper the previous night.
When she returned to the living room, everyone stopped talking. She smiled apprehensively as she began to hand over her gifts: an expensive cigar for her father, an annual for Anthony and glass bead bracelets for Donna and Astrid that she’d made herself the previous week.
‘I’m sorry.’ She looked at her grandparents, her uncle and Cushla. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here so I didn’t bring anything.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ said Adele, who was looking at the beaded bracelet in Donna’s hand. ‘I only wear Warren’s jewellery, so anything else would have been wasted on me.’
‘It’s very pretty,’ said Donna as she fixed it around her wrist. ‘Perhaps you’ve inherited the family talent.’
‘Actually, it’s like the Adele Tiger Lily,’ remarked Richard. ‘The ambers and greens are very similar.’
‘I’m glad you think so!’ Bey beamed at him. ‘I copied it.’
‘What!’ Adele stared at her granddaughter.
‘I like making stuff,’ Bey explained. ‘And I saw a picture for this in Woman’s Way . So I thought it would be nice to copy it. I didn’t know at the time that Dad was a Warren. It’s sort of a coincidence, isn’t it?’
‘It’s really quite clever,’ said Peter as he looked more closely at the bracelet. ‘See, Mum, she’s got it exactly right.’
‘I suppose anyone can do anything with a kit,’ remarked Adele. ‘But I don’t really see the point in copying our beautiful classic jewellery in glass beads!’
Bey looked at her doubtfully. ‘I thought it would be nice,’ she said.
‘It’s still only beads,’ said Astrid.
‘They’re very well made,’ said Philip into the silence following his daughter’s words.
‘Thank you,’ said Bey.
‘I think they’re lovely,’ said Cushla. ‘I’m hopeless at anything like that.’
‘I’d have made one for you too if I’d known you’d be here,’ Bey said.
‘You can have mine.’ Astrid handed her bracelet to Cushla. ‘I have other bracelets.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly take your lovely Christmas present,’ protested Cushla. ‘Perhaps Bey will make me a bracelet of my own another time.’
‘Sure.’ Bey didn’t allow herself to feel hurt at Astrid’s rejection of her gift. She’d already decided that her half-sister – and it pained her to even think the word – was a grade A wagon and that they’d never like each other.
‘I’ll just wear my locket.’ Astrid had received a similar one to Bey’s from her parents and she adjusted it around her neck. ‘It’s the prettiest thing ever.’
‘I’m glad you like it, sweetheart,’ said Adele. She turned to Philip. ‘Of course, if I had my way, we wouldn’t be doing them at all. Warren’s is about precious gemstones, not silver lockets.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Philip. ‘But we’ve decided to run this range and we’ll stick with it for a while.’
‘Nothing can compare to a real gemstone,’ said Adele.
‘Luckily for us,’ Richard said. ‘Because they’re what draw the customers in. Colour and sparkle.’
‘I like colour and sparkle,’ Bey said. ‘It makes you want to pick something up the minute you see it.’
Richard looked at her appraisingly. ‘Why do you think that is?’ he asked.
‘Because . . . because it makes it alive,’ she said.
‘Perhaps you can get a Saturday job in the shop when you’re a little older.’ Peter smiled. ‘Warren’s could do with someone like you.’
‘I hardly think that’s appropriate,’ said Adele.
Bey couldn’t imagine working in the Warren’s shop either. Although it would be nice to be able to look at beautiful jewellery every day.
‘Did you sell a lot for Christmas?’ asked Cushla into the silence that had suddenly fallen.
‘We certainly did. It’s shaping up to be an excellent year.’ Richard looked pleased. ‘The Adele Dahlia was very popular.’
‘It’s stunning.’ Cushla looked at Adele’s magnificent dark ruby ring, which Bey had noticed earlier.
‘The Adele rings were what took Warren’s from a high-street jeweller to an iconic brand,’ said Richard. ‘But of course my beautiful wife was their inspiration. And turning the range into complete sets has made them inspirational for our customers too.’
Adele looked complacent.
‘I was thinking of buying one for Cushla,’ Peter said, and then cleared his throat. ‘Though not the Dahlia. The Snowdrop. That’s the one people choose as an engagement ring, isn’t it?’
‘Peter!’ They all exclaimed at once, while Cushla stared at him.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s as good a time to ask as any. Cushla Morrissey, will you marry me?’
Behind her enormous glasses, Cushla’s expression was astonished.
‘Well?’ He looked anxiously at her.
‘This is . . . unexpected,’ she said.
‘Unexpected but not unwelcome, I hope,’ said Peter.
‘Of course not unwelcome.’ She smiled at him. ‘And of course I’ll marry you.’
Peter’s proposal changed the atmosphere completely. Everyone clustered around them, congratulating them and asking them questions about when they planned to get married and where they were going to live – questions that Peter batted away with ‘We’ve only just got engaged’ while Cushla said that she hadn’t been thinking about anything like that but hoped it would be soon.
Bey had never seen anyone propose or been accepted before, and she was totally caught up in the emotion of it. She wondered if anyone would ask her to marry them one day. There were girls in her year in school who already had boyfriends, but she wasn’t one of them. Her experience of boys was limited to her cousins in Cloghdrom, and those experiences had all been about climbing trees and getting into mischief. She hadn’t yet met a boy who’d made her think differently.
‘When I get engaged, I’ll have an Adele ring too,’ said Astrid.
‘Of course you will.’ Donna hugged her. ‘Just like me.’
Donna’s
engagement ring was the Adele Rose, a stunning pink diamond that had been the first in the Adele range. Even to Bey’s inexperienced eye the quality and workmanship was evident. She wondered what it would be like to own one. She didn’t expect she’d ever know. Her grandfather might make them, but he certainly wouldn’t ever give her anything so beautiful. And she’d never, ever be able to afford one for herself, even if they gave her a discount for being the outsider in the family dynasty.
Chapter 14
Tanzanite: a popular blue gemstone
Bey knew that Warren’s was a dynasty, because when Lola had told her about her father, she’d told her all about his family too. She’d explained how the shop that had been founded by Bey’s grandfather had grown from small beginnings, and how the Adele collections had become classics over the years. The most famous were the Rose, which featured pink diamonds, the Snowdrop, where the diamonds were white, and the Bouquet, which contained pink tourmaline, tanzanite, emeralds and, of course, diamonds too.
Bey had wondered if Lola would like to own the sort of jewellery that the Warrens sold, but Lola shook her head and said no, that Bey was the jewel in her life, which always made Bey smile.
‘Dinner is ready,’ announced Donna, who’d been flitting in and out of the kitchen while the rest of them were talking in the living room. ‘Would you like to take yourselves off to the dining room and sit down.’
The dining room was another spacious room. It had a long oval table covered by a crisp white linen tablecloth and laid with silver cutlery. A red and purple floral decoration was placed in the exact centre, and foil crackers inscribed with each person’s name were set at their place. Bey couldn’t help comparing it to Granny Fitzpatrick’s scrubbed-pine table and the blue Willow Pattern china, which was kept for ‘good’. There was always a free-for-all when it came to the seating arrangements, and as soon as Granny put the food on the table everyone helped themselves from the big tureens filled with home-grown vegetables and potatoes. The ham was farm reared too, although the turkey came from Bohane’s on the other side of Cloghdrom. She felt a pang for the easiness of it all, for the banter and the teasing of anyone who took more than their fair share of carrots or cauliflower or broccoli or sprouts. (Not that there was much demand for the sprouts. Their only fan was her mother’s older brother, her uncle Milo.)
But then Philip switched on the hi-fi in the corner, and the familiar sound of Christmas carols filled the room. It didn’t matter that Christmas was different at the Warrens’, thought Bey. Not everyone’s had to be like Granny Fitzpatrick’s. Or even the Christmas dinner at the Golden Apples centre, which was filled with laughter at the feeble jokes from the crackers they pulled as soon as they sat down. Christmas was Christmas wherever you were.
Reading the names on the crackers at each place setting, Bey saw that Donna and her father were at either end of the table, while she was on one side, between him and Cushla. Astrid was at the far end, between Donna and Uncle Peter. Anthony was in the middle, beside their grandfather. Richard Warren said grace, just as they did in Cloghdrom, though the words were slightly different, and then Donna served a salmon mousse that everyone agreed was melt-in-the-mouth. Bey knew that the food at Granny Fitzpatrick’s was good and nourishing and bursting with flavour. But she’d never tasted anything like Donna’s salmon mousse before.
When the starters were cleared away, Philip made a big fuss of sharpening the carving knife while Donna brought out the turkey and ham. Bey stopped comparing things to Cloghdrom and just tucked in to what was a well-cooked meal while listening to Richard and Cushla talking about Warren’s. Her grandfather was explaining more about the shop’s history, telling her about the Adele rings and how they were designed.
‘Norman and David, our designer and consultant, brainstorm ideas,’ he said. ‘Because the collections are named after flowers there’s a theme there already. So then Norman sketches them up and shows them to me. Well, to both of us now.’ He nodded at Philip. ‘We have a think about it and maybe ask some questions and then we give the go-ahead.’
‘Where do the jewels come from?’ Bey was fascinated and couldn’t help butting into the conversation.
‘For the Adele ranges I go and meet people who buy and sell gemstones,’ explained Richard. ‘Your dad sometimes comes with me. We travel to places like South Africa and Amsterdam and New York. Then our designers work on the pieces.’
‘It sounds very exciting.’
‘It is,’ said Richard. ‘And then when you get the right stone the designer has to do his very best with it to turn it into something really beautiful.’
Bey wanted to ask more questions but she didn’t think Richard would appreciate her peppering him with them, especially as his conversation was really with Cushla, so she allowed her mind to drift instead to the bead bracelets she’d made for Donna and Astrid. She supposed her grandmother was right and it had been impertinent to copy the beautiful Warren designs, which had been intended for precious stones and not coloured glass. She wondered how much the Adele Tiger Lilies actually cost – in the magazine ads she’d seen there had been no mention of prices. Granny Fitzpatrick always said that if you had to ask, you couldn’t afford it, so it was clear that Warren’s jewellery was aimed at really rich people, not just someone looking for a pretty bracelet or ring.
But the jewellery her grandfather was now talking about was out of the reach of even averagely rich people. These were pieces that were made to be seen only on the very wealthy and famous as they got out of a car at the Cannes film festival, or appeared on stage at the Oscars. Warren’s didn’t make that sort of jewellery. ‘True haute joaillerie – high-class hand-made jewellery – is out of our reach,’ Richard told Cushla. ‘But we do a great job with what we have.’
‘I’m going to buy all the jewellery for Warren’s when I grow up,’ said Anthony. ‘And then I’m going to own the business.’
‘Are you really?’ It was Cushla who asked the question.
‘Dad says so,’ replied Anthony. ‘It’s my inheritance.’
There was a burst of laughter from the adults at the table, then Philip nodded at Anthony and told him that he was indeed the heir to the Warren’s throne. But Bey wondered why it had to be Anthony’s inheritance and not Astrid’s. And what if Peter and Cushla had a baby? Why wouldn’t it be his or her inheritance? Why Anthony’s?
‘Because I’m the eldest, of course,’ he said when she asked.
‘You’re a twin,’ she objected. ‘Astrid’s the same age.’
‘But she’s a girl.’ His voice was scornful.
‘Astrid will wear the Warren jewellery and people will admire her style and elegance,’ said Adele. ‘Anthony will make it and sell it. Just like with Richard and me.’
Bey glanced at Astrid, wondering if she was happy at being relegated to the status of someone who simply wore the family’s products rather than being involved in their manufacture in any way. But her half-sister was fiddling with the locket around her neck and wasn’t listening.
And then the thought struck her. She was the eldest. Not Anthony or Astrid. So if that was how they measured it, the inheritance should be hers. But then she remembered that her name was Fitzpatrick and not Warren. And that was why it wasn’t.
Dessert was Christmas pudding, which Donna placed on the table before pouring warmed whiskey over it and setting it alight. The effect, along with the fairy lights twinkling in the early-evening gloom, was totally magical.
‘Having fun?’ Philip asked Bey as she tasted it.
It wasn’t the same sort of fun she’d have had in Cloghdrom, but she’d relaxed a little and the food was truly amazing. Cooking was never a high priority for Lola, but it was obvious that Donna, who was so quiet when she was among the rest of the family, was properly talented in the kitchen. Bey nodded because her mouth was full, and he smiled and patted her on the back. At that moment she felt part of it all. Part of the glamour and the elegance and the wonder of being a Warren. Then she though
t of her mother home from the Golden Apples dinner without her, and felt alone and guilty at the same time.
The crackers were pulled over tea and coffee. Whether you won or lost at the pulling, you still received the token inside the cracker with your name on it. Bey’s gift was a small key ring with a leather fob, the letter B tooled into it.
‘That’s a coincidence,’ she said in surprise.
‘Isn’t it?’ Richard chuckled, and she smiled back at him, feeling part of it again. Of all the Warrens, she liked her grandfather the best. He was the only one who seemed perfectly at ease with her being there, and when he talked to her, he treated her like the young adult she wanted to believe she was.
‘Help your mother,’ Adele said to Astrid when Donna began to clear the table. ‘You too.’ She nodded at Bey. ‘You’ve had a good day. Show your appreciation.’
‘Of course,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you very much, Donna. Come on, Anthony.’ She glanced at her half-brother, who was fiddling with his watch, a present from his grandparents.
‘I don’t do washing-up,’ said Anthony. ‘That’s girls’ work.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Bey. ‘We should all help with the dishes.’
‘Anthony will be pouring the drinks in the living room,’ said Philip. ‘That’s his job.’
Bey opened her mouth to say that it was an easy job in comparison with washing and drying up after an entire Christmas dinner, but she saw the steel in her grandmother’s eyes and stayed silent. She carried crockery into the kitchen, followed by Astrid, who brought the used linen napkins.
If Bey thought the living and dining rooms of Cleevaun House were big, she was blown away by the enormity of the kitchen. There was an island counter in the centre that she reckoned was the absolute height of modernity, a state-of-the-art cooker, a huge American-style fridge and – best of all – a dishwasher, which Donna was busy stacking. They didn’t have one in Ringsend because her mother didn’t see the point when there were only two of them, but Bey had always longed for one. She felt bad that she’d thought Anthony had an easy job, because stacking the dishwasher was actually fun.
What Happened That Night: The page-turning holiday read by the No. 1 bestselling author Page 13
