by A. O'Connor
“Typical banker – you only stopped short from asking how much we paid for it,” Kate mocked him, causing Steve to look embarrassed.
“The house is down the country, and we actually bought it from this man here,” said Tony, placing his two hands firmly on Nico’s shoulders.
Everyone looked at Nico.
“And how did you come to own the house?” questioned Melanie curiously, studying Nico.
“It’s been in my family for generations,” said Nico, made uncomfortable by all the sudden attention.
“It’s in a terrible state though. It hasn’t been lived in for –” Tony stopped and looked at Nico. “Well, when was it last lived in?”
“Not for nearly ninety years. The last person who lived there was my grandfather, Pierce Armstrong,” said Nico.
“That was Lord Pierce Armstrong, wasn’t it?” asked Kate.
He looked at her, surprised. “You certainly have done your homework, haven’t you?”
“I always do when I’m buying something.” She held his look.
“Lord Armstrong? That sounds intriguing – are you a lord, Nico?” questioned Melanie, getting excited.
“I’m afraid not – the title went one way and the money the other. There’s some distant cousin in England who got the title – my mother had no brothers, you see, to inherit it. All I got was the draughty, dilapidated house – and I don’t even own that anymore!”
“What a shame!” Melanie immediately lost interest in him again.
“So – you will soon all be having weekends with us at our country estate,” said Tony, bemused at the thought as he sat down to join them to eat.
Later, everyone had gone and Kate was stacking the dishwasher in the kitchen.
“I wish you hadn’t asked Nico to join us tonight,” she said.
“Why? He’s seems a nice enough fella,” said Tony.
“I just don’t want to blur the lines with him. We employ him to do a job for us. I don’t want him thinking he’s our friend.”
“Ah, will you come on! Most of those people there tonight depend on us for their living in one way or another.”
“He’s just a bit pompous sometimes.”
“Is he? Hadn’t noticed. In what way?”
“I just think he looks down on us a little,” she said.
“What?” Tony was incredulous. “Why would a tuppenny-ha’penny architect look down on us?”
Kate closed up the dishwasher. “Oh, for reasons you’ll never understand.”
Kate looked at Tony’s puzzled and confused face. Going over to him, she put her arms around him and smiled. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Who cares what Nicholas Armstrong-Collins thinks anyway?”
You seemingly, thought Tony.
Chapter ninety-two
As the months went by, planning permission was granted and work began on the house. Nico was busy overseeing the work and made the trip down regularlyfrom Dublin. He was busy in his own life as well as the divorce became final. They had paid off the mortgage on his former home with Susan and he’dbought a house for himself in Ranelagh. By the time they had paid off the Armstrong debts and legal fees, there was only loose change left.
“At least you’re not saddled with any debt anymore,” Susan had pointed out. “You’re free now.” She had looked at him wryly. “Free to concentrate on your work – without any distractions.”
He didn’t mind being away from Dublin for a while after the long-drawn-out divorce. So he spent a lot of time atHunter’s Farm. The beauty ofbeing an architect was he didn’t always need to be in the office and could work from the farm, which also allowed him to be near Armstrong House to supervise the work there. The drawback to the whole situation was the constant interfering presence of Kate Fallon. He quickly discovered she was a hard taskmaster who wanted to be involved in every aspect along the way.
“With the money she’s paying, even with that stupid twenty-per-cent discount you threw at her, if she wants you dancing to Swan Lake around that house down there, then you do it!” insisted Darrell when Nico complained of her interference. It was easy for Darrell to say that, he wasn’t the one who had to put up with her, thought Nico.
He was in the house inspecting the work as the team of builders were busy renovating around him. The house was beginning to take shape. The rooms that had been destroyed by fire had been rebuilt and plastered, the roof had been replaced. Even the stairs werebeing lovingly restored.
“Oh, here’s trouble.” said one of the electricians as the familiar red Ferrari roared up to the front.
“Not again!” Nico said out loud. “She must be keeping Ashford Castle going with the amount of business she’s giving them staying there.”
A minute later, Kate came striding in, momentarily examining the new front door which she had sourced in Italy.
“You know, you really should not be in here without a hard hat and protective clothing,” Nico said as she walked over to him in high heels and a business suit. She gave him a withering look and ignored him.
“I could get intotrouble with you swanning around here like that,” he continued.
“Your problem, Nico, is you worry too much about things that will never happen.” She continued with her inspection.
He seethed as he followed her through the rooms while she examined the work.
“You’re way behind schedule,” she pointed out.
“No, we would be on target,” he said evenly. “But you’ll find we are simply working to a new schedule caused by your own interruptions.”
She swung around to face him. “I hope you remember there’s a clause in our contract saying that you have to compensate us, if you go a certain time past the schedule.”
“I think you’ll find that does not stand because you caused the delays.”
She turned and kept on walking briskly. “I think you’ll find it does.”
She somehow enjoyed winding him up. It was so easily done. Seeing he was getting more annoyed, she pushed a little further. “Why not get it checked out by a lawyer . . . if you can still afford one after that divorce you had.”
He became incensed. “Excuse me, do you think that’s an appropriate thing to say?”
“Is it not? Whynot have it checked out by thelawyer while you’re checking the contract.” She stopped and ran a hand over a plastered wall. “Look at this, Nico – this is a bad job.”
He ran a hand over it. “Actually – no, it isn’t.” He looked dismissively at her. “What would you know about plastering, to be fair?”
His attitude angered her. “I think I’ve been involved in enough construction of shopping centres to know a bad plastering job when I see one,” she said.
“Who’s the architect around here?” he demanded.
She made a sarcastic face and raised her hands. “Oh, I’m sorry, is there an architect around here? I didn’t realise there was!”
“You know something?” He took off his hard hat and flung it on the ground in front of her. “You’re so fucking clever? You finish the building of your damned house yourself!”
He turned and stormed off, causing all the builders to cheer loudly.
Kate turned around to the men and said, “What an exit! I thought I was supposed to be the Diva around here!”
The builders clapped and cheered even louder.
“Excuse me, Mrs Fallon, we’ve found something – could you come and take a look?” asked the foreman.
“Certainly,” she said and she followed him upstairs to one of the bedrooms where they were removing the old floorboards. She peered into the crevice where there were stacks of old letters, some in bags.
“Get them out,” she said.
He pulled the bags out and brushed the dust off them. Katetook out a couple of the bundles. She saw they were addressed to Lady Clara Armstrong, Armstrong House.
“Do you want me to place them in the ballroom with all the other crap?” asked the builder.
As an actress she loved reading
through scripts and old books, and she would love to delve through these letters to an actual person who lived in the house.
“No, it’s fine, I’ll take these with me, thanks,” she said, putting the bundles of letters back in the bags. She picked them up and headed back to her car.
Nico parked outside Hunter’s Farm, marched up to the front door and let himself in. He strode down the corridor and into the sitting room where he poured himself a drink.
“Damned woman!” he said out loud.
His mobile rang and he saw it was Darrell.
“Yes?” he snapped.
“Oh – you sound in a bad mood.”
“I am. I’ve just walked off the Fallon job.”
“Ah, Nicholas!” Darrell was irate. “What’s the problem this time?”
“The same as the last time – Kate Fallon! She’s impossible to work with. She’s parading around all the time giving orders, undermining me, no respect. She prances around that building site as if it’s a movie set, in glitzy frocks, delivering witty one-liners – usually at my expense!”
Darrell chuckled. “You’ll kiss and make up tomorrow. You always do.”
“Not this time. I’m not going back. I’m way behind with all my other work because of her demands. I’m staying down here a couple of weeks to try and catch up, which means I won’t have Alex this weekend.” He walked over to the leather-top desk and turned on his computer.
“Right – I’ll talk to you later,” Darrell said, deciding to finish the conversation rather than to listen to any more of Nico’s moans.
Nico poured himself another drink and rested against a sideboard while he drank it. He looked at the framed photo of his ex-wife Susan smiling from a silver frame on the sideboard.
“And you can piss off too!” he said, grabbing the photo and turning it face down.
Kate carefully laid the stacks of old letters on the glass table in their house in Dublin. Most of them seemed to be letters to Clara. But what intrigued her was a group of letters addressed to Lord Pierce Armstrong at a military headquarters in France. But these letters were unopened.
She turned on her laptop and started to do an internet search through hereditary peers of Britain and Ireland.
The front door slammed and Tony came bounding in.
“Hi, love.” He bent down and kissed her. “What are they?” he said with a note of disgust, pointing down at the old letters.
“We found them today hidden under floorboards in the house. They are letters to Lady Clara Armstrong mostly dated 1915 and 1916 – isn’t that exciting?”
He peered down at them. “Hmmm – and who was Clara Armstrongwhen she was at home?”
“I’m just checking on a hereditary peer site. Here she is – she married Lord Pierce Armstrong, who was Nico’s grandfather, in 1914 – that’s all it says about her. She must be Nico’s grandmother.”
“Does he know you have them?”
“No.”
“Don’t you think you should give them to him, in that case?”
“Perhaps. I want to take a look through them first.”
“But why would you want to?” Hestared at the letters in puzzlement.
“I want to know about the people who lived in our house before us, that’s why.”
“I see!” He raised his eyes upwards. “Always the actress – researching for your new role as mistress of the house?”
“Besides, Nico walked out on the job today.”
“Oh no – why?”
“He can’t take direction.”
“And you can’t take a back seat!” he accused her.
“Don’t worry – he’ll be back in a couple of days – with another twenty-per-cent discount no doubt!”
He bent down and kissed her approvingly. “I trained you well! I’d better quickly change intomy tuxedo. We’re running late for tonight’s charity ball. Why aren’t you changed yet?”
“Oh Tony, I’ve got a terrible headache. I think I might have to miss it,” she pleaded.
“But they’ll all be expecting you!”
“I know! I’m sorry!”
He looked at her with the letters spread around her. “You just want to spend the night reading through those silly letters, don’t you?”
“Do you mind?” She looked guilty.
“I guess not,” he sighed, smiling. “I’ll see you later.”
Chapter ninety-three
Kate was lying out on their bed reading a magazine. Tony came out of the bathroom and joined her. Her mobile started ringing and she answered it.
“Mrs Fallon, it’s Jeff Maguire here, foreman at the building of your house here.”
“Oh yes, Mr Maguire, how is everything?”
“You tell me, MrsFallon! Nico Collins hasn’t turned up for the past three days and we’ve gone as far as we can go without Mr Collins signing off on the work.”
“Damn! Can’t you just keep on working until he arrives?”
“No! It has to go on his insurance if there’s a problem, so he has to sign off. Or you replace Collins with a new architect and it goes on the new firm’s insurance. But at the moment you’re paying men for sitting around doing nothing.”
“Bugger!” Her face creased with worry. “All right, I’ll take care of it, Mr Maguire.”
“Trouble?” asked Tony.
“Bloody Collins is playing hard-ball and not turning up to work. Cheek of him!”
Tony studied his wife. “What is the problem between you and Nico? It’s been nonstop clashing since he started working for us.”
“Whatever problem there is, it’s his problem!” she said, exasperated.
“Nothing to do with you, of course?” he said knowingly.
“He just gets on my nerves!”
He put his arms around her and used a soothing voice. “Tell Tony – why don’t you like him? What’s he done?”
“Oh nothing! I’m being stupid.”
“Kate?” he said, with a warning face.
She sighed loudly. “When I was growing up in Castlewest near the house, we were poor. Before my family left for New York we had nothing.”
“I know. Same as my own background. We’re self-made. But what’s that got to do with Nico Collins?”
“I remember him growing up.”
“Do you? I thought you didn’t know him.”
“Oh, I didn’t, I can assure you. We lived in different worlds. He and his family would come down to their holiday home for the summers. You know Hunter’s Farm, down the road from where we’ve bought?”
“Uh huh,” nodded Tony, interested.
“His father was an architect and his mother was this very beautiful woman called Jacqueline. Everyone knew of them, because they seemed quite glamorous to us back then. I remember watching them, Nico and his brothers and sisters when they came into town or were playing by the lake. I mean, they were nobody compared to the Armstrongs in the past, but they just seemed so confident and classy. I guessI was envious of them. They seemed a million miles from my family, my life.”
“That’s a long time ago. Why is that interfering with your relationship with Nico now?”
“We’ve fought for everything we have. Both of us, fought from the bottom up. And I just feel Nico is resentful of us because of what we have – and he’s arrogant. When I say something, or make a suggestion, he makes me feel . . .he makes me feel like I’m not that important.”
“Come on, Kate, you’re on top of the world, everyone wants to be your friend, be with you. You’re letting insecurities from the past get the better of you. You’re no longer that girl in that town looking on at the Armstrongs enviously. You have more and have achieved more than they ever could. We’ve done it together.”
She sighed. “You’re right of course.”
“So you’ve two choices: either get rid of him, or forget all this nonsense and let him get on with rebuilding our new house. Our new home.”
She looked at him and kissed him. “Thanks, Tony.”
Nico answered the door at Hunter’s Farm and was taken aback to see Kate standing there.
“I think we need to talk,” she said, taking off her sunglasses.
He sighed and moved out of the way to allow her to enter. She stepped in and followed him down the corridor and into the lounge. She was impressed by the interiors which were antique and elegant and obviously hadn’t been touched for decades.
He leaned against a sideboard in the lounge. “So?”
“I’m not going to beat around the bush. I need an architect and you need a job.”
“Actually, no, I don’t. I was snowed under with work. I’m burying myself here in Hunter’s Farm to try and catch up with it.”
She dismissed him with a wave of her hand, that gesture she had that really irritated him. “Yes, but this job is special to you. It’s your ancestral home – you want to have a part in its restoration.”
“Cut the shit and tell me what you want.”
She lit up a cigarette. “Here’s the deal – I’ll stay out of your way while you complete construction and only come back when you are ready to renovate the interiors and need my input. Say – in three months?”
“Four months,” he corrected.
She made a face. “Four months then. Until then I’ll stay out of your way.” She put out her hand. “Deal?”
He thought for a second and then shook her hand. “Deal.”
“Great. Now we can all get back to work. You’re worse than a trade union, Nico.”
“And less of the wisecracks,” he warned.
She laughed. “That’s not part of the deal. Go on – make me a cup of tea to seal the pact.”
He nodded and walked off to the kitchen. She walked around the room and took in the ambience, liking it. She looked at the photos on the wall, mainly happy family photos of the Collins family growing up. She stopped and studied the photo of his parents, Jacqueline smiling happily as she walked along the lakeshore. She walked to the sideboard and saw a photo frame turned over. She picked it up and studied it.
And the ex-wife, I presume, she said to herself.
