The Birthday Party: The spell-binding new summer read from the Number One bestselling author

by Meaney, Roisin

  ‘A real treat … [Meaney] wraps her readers in the company and comfort of ordinary strangers’ Sunday Independent

  ‘Meaney can excavate the core of our human failings and present it to us, mirror-like, on the page … Which makes her utterly credible, utterly authentic, utterly irresistible’ Irish Independent

  ‘Warm and insightful … Roisin Meaney is a skilful storyteller’ Sheila O’Flanagan

  ‘Meaney weaves wonderful feel-good tales of a consistently high standard. And that standard rises with each book she writes’ Irish Examiner ‘This book is like chatting with a friend over a cup of tea – full of gossip and speculation, and all the things that make life interesting’ Irish Mail on Sunday

  ‘An addictive read with engaging, flawed characters and a unique writing flair that pulls you into the plot from the very beginning and keeps you entranced to the very end’ Books of All Kinds

  ‘A delightful read about relationships and the complexities associated with family life … A cosy read for any time of the year, be it in your beach bag or sitting curled up in front of the fire’ Swirl and Thread

  ‘It’s easy to see why Roisin Meaney is one of Ireland’s best-loved authors … Should you spot this on a bookshelf, grab a copy’ Bleach House Library

  Roisin Meaney was born in Listowel, Co Kerry, She has lived in the US, Canada, Africa and Europe but is now based in Limerick, Ireland. This Number One bestselling author is a consistent presence on the Irish bestseller list and she is the author of fifteen novels including three stand alone novels set in the fictional island off the west coast of Ireland: One Summer, After the Wedding and I’ll Be Home for Christmas. Her other bestsellers include: The Last Week of May, The People Next Door, Half Seven on a Thursday, Love in the Making, The Things We Do For Love, Something in Common, Two Fridays in April, The Reunion and The Anniversary.

  Also by Roisin Meaney

  The Anniversary

  The Street Where You Live

  The Reunion

  I’ll Be Home for Christmas (A Roone Novel)

  Two Fridays in April

  After the Wedding (A Roone Novel)

  Something in Common

  One Summer (A Roone Novel)

  The Things We Do for Love

  Love in the Making

  Half Seven on a Thursday

  The People Next Door

  The Last Week of May

  Putting Out the Stars

  The Daisy Picker

  Children’s Books

  Don’t Even Think About

  It See If I Care

  Copyright © 2019 Roisin Meaney

  The right of Roisin Meaney to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in Ireland in 2019 by

  HACHETTE BOOKS IRELAND

  1

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  Ebook ISBN 9781473643055

  Hachette Books Ireland

  8 Castlecourt Centre

  Castleknock

  Dublin 15, Ireland

  A division of Hachette UK Ltd

  Carmelite House,

  50 Victoria Embankment,

  EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hachettebooksireland.ie

  Contents

  Praise

  About the Author

  Also by Roisin Meaney

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  JUNE

  Eve

  Laura

  JULY

  Imelda

  Tilly

  Laura

  Susan

  Eve

  Imelda

  Laura

  Tilly

  Eve

  Susan

  Imelda

  Laura

  Tilly

  Eve

  Susan

  Laura

  Imelda

  Tilly

  Eve

  Susan

  Laura

  Imelda

  AUGUST

  Tilly

  Eve

  Susan

  Laura

  Imelda

  Tilly

  Eve

  Laura

  Susan

  Imelda

  Tilly

  Eve

  Susan

  Acknowledgements

  For Rory Barnes, one of life’s gentlemen, remembered fondly

  HENRY MANNING, PROPRIETOR OF ROONE’S ONLY hotel, was making plans. Weeks to go yet, tomorrow only the first of June, but half the fun was in the planning.

  A marquee set up in the grounds, because a summer garden party sounded wonderful, but everyone knew you couldn’t depend on the weather in Ireland, even in August. Lots of canapés, trays and trays of them. His chefs would be busy.

  Flutes of champagne to greet everyone on arrival. Real champagne, none of your Prosecco or Cava nonsense. Wine and beer on offer too – he might steer clear of spirits – and tumblers of Mrs Bickerton’s sparkling lemonade (named after the long-departed hotel guest who had shared her recipe with Henry) for the children in attendance, and the wise older souls on the island who kept their distance from alcohol. Tea and coffee put out later, when the cake appeared.

  Music, of course. He pictured a string quartet out on the lawn – or in the gazebo if the rain came. Henry was partial to a little Vivaldi in the summertime, and was casting about among his musical connections for a suitable ensemble that would fancy a night on the island.

  The cake would be five tiers at least, on a scale big enough so everyone who wanted it got a taste, and ordered from the mainland so he didn’t offend any of Roone’s bakers by choosing one over another. Candles to be lit and blown out: wasn’t Henry as entitled to a wish as anyone?

  No fireworks, much as he enjoyed a bit of airborne fizzle: too bright in August, the days still too long, the nights not yet cloaked in enough darkness. Fireworks, he felt, were better suited to New Year’s Eve, when he unleashed a modest number of rockets and Catherine wheels at midnight for the benefit of those who had chosen to see out the old and herald the arrival of the new at Manning’s.

  A speech. He felt one should be made. Not long: the latest version had run to approximately three minutes and forty seconds when he’d tried it out before his bedroom mirror. A few words of thanks, a few amusing anecdotes pulled from his thirty-seven years at the helm of Manning’s.

  A mention of his grandparents, Charles and Dolores, who had built the hotel eighty-two years ago this October – and his parents, Jerry and Tess, who’d taken it over in due course and extended it to cater for the increasing number of tourists to the island. And Victor, Henry’s older and only sibling, who’d set sail for America as a young man, in search of somewhere more adventurous than twenty-eight square miles of island set on the westernmost edge of Europe.

  Victor had left Roone, but not hotels. He’d ended up with a chain of them along the Ameri
can east coast, had made quite a packet before he’d jumped, aged sixty-two, from his penthouse window to escape the fire that raged below – started, it was discovered, by a carelessly wired refrigerator. No mention would be made of that sorry episode, of course. Poor Victor – dead, they’d been assured, from a heart attack before he’d hit the concrete, thirty-three floors later.

  Bunting, lots of bunting. Henry had a thing for bunting. The very sight of the colourful little triangles fluttering above the lawn, any lawn, brought an answering flutter beneath his waistcoat, and made him feel instantly more festive. Even in the rain, bunting lifted the spirits – and after the recent sudden death of a much-loved island resident, spirits needed very badly to be lifted.

  As to invitations, none were to be issued. Over the next few days Henry would simply put out the word that everyone was welcome, and it would pass among the islanders quicker than Fergus Masterson in his postal van. Not everyone would turn up, of course: there were those on Roone who wouldn’t be seen dead inside the hotel. Uncomfortable with a hotelier who had never produced a wife, whose interests clearly lay elsewhere – although Henry had never flaunted his status, never made any declaration, or paraded a male companion about. No matter: let them condemn him if they must. Let them stay away, and Henry would enjoy himself with guests who didn’t judge him for his preferences.

  August the second he’d chosen for the party. Six days before his actual birthday, which he was planning to mark more privately, and more quietly, in Paris – but he wanted the public celebration too. He wanted the congratulations and the gifts and the toasts, surrounded by friends he’d known since boyhood, and their children and their children’s children.

  Not every day a man turned seventy. Not every man batted away death for all those years. Henry intended to make the most of it, and give Roone a night it wouldn’t forget.

  JUNE

  Eve

  FOR THE PAST SIX WEEKS THERE HAD BEEN A simmering in her head. That was the only way she could put it. A slow, steady simmering, a quiet bubbling that now and again rose up and threatened to – what? Spill over and drown her. Send her screaming into the nuthouse. Cause her to do something terrible and unforgivable and irreparable.

  It was a miracle she’d been able to keep afloat, to go back to work after the week off she’d been granted following Hugh’s death. It had taken everything she had not to snap at her little charges, or raise a hand and let them have it. If the parents had known how close she’d come to it once or twice, they’d have taken their children away and never allowed her within a mile of them again.

  But the parents were being so gentle with her. So caring, so kind. How are you? they asked, in hushed voices. How are you coping, dear? Bringing her batches of cookies, or paper bags of apples from their trees, or pots of homemade jam. As if food, any food, could help, even if she’d been able to stomach it. As if anything could make her feel even a tiny bit less dire. She wanted to scream at them to go away, to leave her be, but of course she couldn’t do that either.

  It was Hugh. It was all down to Hugh, all his fault. She couldn’t think about him, couldn’t stop thinking about him. How could he have left her? It was unconscionable that he wasn’t there any more, that she couldn’t pick up the phone and hear his voice, or meet him for one of their beach walks, or arrive at his house – his and Imelda’s house – and watch him light up with pleasure at the sight of her. That had been worth anything, the smile she’d brought to his face. Hello, minx, he’d say to her, gathering her into him with his good arm. What have you to say for yourself? Account for your movements.

  It was unbearable that he would never be there again, that his chair at the top of the table was now empty, and would stay empty. She felt ragged from the loss of him, and tightly wound as a bow string, and the simmering never let up for a minute.

  In the week immediately following his death, the crèche having been temporarily handed back to her predecessor Avril, Eve had spent most of her time with Imelda. Both of them too dazed to think straight, too shocked to do more than sit in silence a lot of the time, Imelda eventually getting up to reheat someone’s donated casserole that they would then push around their plates until it grew cold.

  Even after she resumed work, Eve had continued to spend as much time as she could with Imelda – and every night, except for one, she’d returned to the apartment above the crèche that had been her home since January, and tried to catch even a couple of hours’ sleep.

  But one night, she hadn’t. One night, only nine days after Hugh’s death, she’d sought refuge from her grief and loneliness – and now, a month later, when she’d thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, they had. Now everything had changed again. Now, along with missing Hugh, along with wanting, every now and again, to throw something fragile against a wall, she had a new situation to grapple with, and she had no idea how she would cope. If she would cope.

  ‘Eve, love, you must try to eat.’

  She lifted her head and looked at Imelda. If only you knew. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Just take a small—’

  And then it happened. Out of nowhere – only of course it wasn’t out of nowhere: it was out of the simmering of six weeks – she finally bubbled up and spilt over.

  ‘I can’t eat!’ she cried, shoving away her bowl of soup, causing it to shoot across the table and go flying over the edge, landing with a clatter and a reddish-brown splash on the kitchen tiles, spattering cooker and cupboard doors, and Imelda’s slippers that sat on the floor by the fridge. ‘I can’t eat – stop nagging me! You’re not my mother!’ Her voice high and shrill and not sounding at all familiar, and Imelda’s mouth dropping open, her face full of bewilderment, and Scooter appearing from under the table to lap up the spill, apparently unaware that Eve had finally taken leave of her senses, had gone over the edge as surely as the soup.

  ‘I can’t stand this!’ she shouted, pushing back her chair with a screech. ‘I can’t bear it! I’m going home!’

  ‘Eve, it’s alright, I understand you’re—’

  ‘You don’t understand!’ she shot back, snatching up the jacket she’d dropped in a heap on the worktop. ‘You have no idea!’ Wrenching open the back door and slamming it behind her, running from the garden to the road, blood singing in her ears, praying to God she met nobody on the way home – and for once, God listened.

  In the apartment she sat with her head in her hands, trying to blot out the fact that she’d shouted at Imelda, who’d done nothing to deserve it. Still on fire inside, her breath coming short and fast, her fingertips tingling. Her phone rang, more than once: she ignored it. She sat, dry-eyed, throat hurting, wanting it all to stop. Needing it all to go away, but it wasn’t going away. It was going nowhere.

  And then, as darkness crept into the room, blurring outlines, leaching colours, as her breath slowed and softened, she thought, Imelda would have left me anyway. Imelda would have left like everyone else, once word got out. So it didn’t matter that she’d blown up in the kitchen: in fact, it was probably for the best. Cut the tie, be the one to end it.

  As she was undressing for bed, her phone rang again. She picked it up and saw Imelda’s name, and shut it off.

  Laura

  ‘I’D PREFER,’ HE SAID, ‘IF YOU TOLD NOBODY ABOUT this.’

  She regarded her fingers, resting on the steering wheel. There was a small blue bruise on a knuckle that she didn’t remember getting. ‘I really think you should tell Susan.’ When he didn’t respond she turned to face him. ‘Why won’t you?’

  He met her gaze. ‘Because I choose not to,’ he replied, the words carrying little emotion – she never remembered him raising his voice in anger – but she could see in the tiny narrowing of his eyes the irritation the question had caused. You didn’t question him.

  She looked away. She lowered her hands to rest them in her lap. Through the windscreen she watched the approach of the ferry that would take him from the island, an hour after it had dropped him here. />
  The surprise of seeing him on the doorstep, completely out of the blue. She’d been in the middle of cleaning up after the breakfasts – at least he hadn’t arrived in the middle of the full Irish but no tomato, and the extra toast just lightly browned, and the soft-boiled egg but make sure the white was set. At least he’d waited until all that palaver was over.

  You weren’t expecting me, he’d said, which had to be the understatement of the century. He must have left Dublin at cockcrow to arrive on Roone by eleven. She wondered what he’d told Susan to explain his absence, but she knew better than to ask him that. Susan came often to Roone, but his last appearance on the island had been for Laura and Gavin’s wedding, coming on for three years ago – or was it four? They’d married in October, three months after Marian and Evie were born, which made it four years. Time flew, whether you were having fun or not.

  There’s something, he’d said, I need to talk to you about – so she’d left Gav and the boys finishing off things in the house and she’d brought him out to the field, and he’d told her as they walked the perimeter what he’d come to tell her, and she’d tried to take it in, but she still hadn’t done that, not really. And then he’d asked her to drive him back to the ferry, so she’d returned to the house and got the van keys from Gav, and here they were.

  ‘I appreciate this,’ he said. ‘I know it’s asking a lot.’

  In all her recollections he’d never asked anything of her, never looked for her help in any way before this. But this wasn’t just any old request, any old favour: this was a big one. This was about as big as it got. And to have to keep it from everyone, even Gav, even Susan, was asking a hell of a lot. She’d have to make up a tale for Gav, who’d be dying to know what had prompted the visit – and Susan could never even be told that the encounter had taken place.

  She turned again to look at him, and again he met her gaze steadily. He’d never been one for looking away, she’d give him that. He met a situation head on, like he was meeting this one. He’d got older looking since their last encounter in Dublin, a year and a half earlier. The skin on his cheeks was beginning to descend, the first hint of jowls forming. The bags beneath his eyes were more pronounced, the brilliant turquoise of the irises fading, but the face was as arresting, as commanding of attention, as it had always been. Sixty-five, wasn’t he? Not old these days – and by all accounts, working as much as ever.