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

by Meaney, Roisin

  More silence. She looked at their woebegone faces, and didn’t relent. ‘So why are you telling me now?’

  Seamus twitched a shoulder, darted a look at his sister on the floor. ‘Cos … we think it’s why Poppy fell down the stairs.’

  It was unexpected. Poppy’s head tipped up at the mention of her name. Laura frowned. ‘What are you saying? You think it was some kind of … punishment for what you did?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ben said. ‘We did something bad, and then something bad happened to Poppy.’

  Karma. Laura was reasonably certain that they didn’t know the word, and here they were, blaming it for their sister’s fall. And who was to say they were wrong? Who had the smallest idea how this convoluted universe worked?

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t a very good punishment then, was it? Because a little girl was the one who got hurt, and she did nothing wrong.’

  Seamus’s chin began to wobble. ‘We’re sorry, Mum,’ he said, his eyes filling.

  ‘Yeah, we’re really sorry, Mum. We didn’t mean it. We didn’t want her to get hurt.’

  Both of them weeping now, tears rolling along freckly cheeks. She’d have to talk to Gavin, who wasn’t their father but who treated them like his sons. On the other hand, he was hopeless at disciplining them, urging leniency on Laura, whatever the offence. Gavin the pushover, the good cop to her bad.

  No, she’d say nothing. He’d be no help. She’d tell him, but she’d wait until she’d dealt with it.

  ‘You’ve done something very serious indeed,’ she said, ‘and very dangerous. You gave a terrible fright to that poor man who saw it. He could have had a heart attack – he could be dead now. And you two could have—’

  She bit it off. Couldn’t think it, couldn’t say it.

  ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘It’s good that you’re telling the truth now. I’m glad about that. But it doesn’t excuse what you did. You’re my oldest children, and you have three little sisters. Imagine if Evie and Marian knew it was you, and decided it sounded like fun, and wanted to do something like it. Imagine that.’

  She stopped to let it sink in. She regarded them standing before her, scrubbing tears away, wiping wet fists on shorts. She took in the scabby knees, the ginger hair that never lay straight, the ears they hadn’t quite grown into.

  They were eleven. They were boys. Eleven-year-old boys got into trouble: it was part of their job description. Young boys were almost duty bound to cause their parents sleepless nights, and more than a few grey hairs. And eleven-year-old twins caused twice as much woe, so she was doubly cursed.

  But occasionally, boys treated their mother to a pack of her favourite Maltesers on pocket-money day. And now and again they brought sheets in from the clothes line without being asked. And once in a while they could be persuaded to read bedtime stories to their sisters, so the adult readers would get a break.

  And a few months earlier, on Valentine’s Day, two boys had presented their mother with a bracelet made from colourful buttons that they’d strung onto elastic thread. It had snapped as Laura was taking it off that night: she’d gathered up the buttons and restrung them on a length of stouter elastic, and no one was any the wiser.

  ‘I’ll have to tell Sergeant Fox, because he’s carrying out the investigation, and he needs to know so he can close the case. I’ll ask him if he’ll let you off, as it’s your first offence. That’s the best I can do.’

  They’d already been punished, as guilt-laden as herself about Poppy’s fall. And Tom Fox wouldn’t be too hard on them. According to Nell, Tom’s boy Alan, half a dozen years older than the twins, had caused his parents plenty of mortification growing up: skipping off from school, robbing orchards, moving early-morning milk bottles from one doorstep to another, borrowing the odd bicycle and depositing it elsewhere on the island. Nothing too outrageous, Nell had said, but he was a right little scamp in his day.

  Settled down a while back – He’s going for the guards, Tom had told Laura not so long ago when she’d met him on the street, his face full of pride – but the memory of his son’s wayward youth might make Tom go easy on her lads.

  Not too easy though. She’d ask him to call over and have a word when Gavin was out on his deliveries. Put the fear of God in them with talk of suspended sentences maybe, and juvenile detention centres. Keep them from carrying out any future nonsense.

  ‘Now dry your eyes and go next door, and tell your dad to come home. And tomorrow I’ll go with you to Michael Brown and you’ll tell him you’re very sorry for taking his scarecrow. We’ll have to figure out how to replace it. And next time Jerry Malone wants you to do something really stupid and dangerous, tell him to do it himself.’ She’d have her own word with the little thug, next time he crossed her path. She’d warn him that she was watching him. ‘OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And give me a hug,’ she said, because she was their mother, and they were eleven, and repentant.

  When they’d left she rang Nell, disturbing her at the salon, which she rarely did, and asked her for Tom Fox’s number. ‘I’ll fill you in later,’ she said. ‘Nothing to worry about, just some information he needs.’

  ‘Tom,’ she said, when he responded, ‘I have a bit of news for you’ – and when that conversation was over, and Tom had agreed that a serious chat with the young offenders would probably be enough of a sanction, Laura hung up and thought about Imelda’s Italian visitor, and the fright he must have got when Michael Brown’s scarecrow had plunged into the sea right in front of him. She hoped he’d take up her invitation to dinner: it would be some small recompense.

  In due course Tilly arrived with their fish and chips, which were quickly disposed of. Laura regarded her family around the table as everyone ate. Still intact, despite all their catastrophes. Ben’s bad tumble from his bike when he was five or six, four stitches to keep his chin together; Seamus’s fall from one of the apple trees last year, a bump on his head the size of a golf ball; Gavin’s acute appendicitis, which had caused him to miss Evie and Marian’s birth. Her own breast cancer, diagnosed on the same day she heard she was carrying Poppy.

  How to keep them all safe, that was the question. She wished there was a way, but of course there wasn’t. When Death came to take you, like it had come for Walter, and Nell’s mother Moira, and Hugh, it didn’t leave empty-handed.

  Afterwards, while Ben and Seamus were clearing things away, Tilly offered to put the girls to bed.

  ‘You’re not going out?’ Laura asked. ‘Two nights in a row? Not like you.’

  ‘I’m tired,’ Tilly said, ‘and Andy’s in the bar again tonight, so …’

  She’d been subdued through dinner. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Fine.’

  She sat on the bench beneath the window, Evie on her lap, Marian tucked into her side. Her limbs were slender, her waist trim. She wasn’t curvy, like Laura and Eve – no hips to speak of, and precious little on top. Boyish, you’d call her. She wouldn’t be described as vivacious, or particularly funny, but there was a touching sense of vulnerability, a kind of charming puppyish eagerness, in her demeanour. She was gentle and generous, and the girls adored her.

  It occurred to Laura – why had it never struck her before? – that she was pretty much the polar opposite to Eve, in both looks and personality. Eve was altogether more streetwise; there was more bite to her, good and bad – and yes, she could be very amusing. Had Andy deliberately chosen someone as different as he could find to replace the girl who’d broken his heart?

  And following on from that question came another more disturbing one: what if he’d never got over Eve? What if their recent one-night stand was more than the accidental drunken encounter Eve was making it out to be? What if Tilly had never been more than a rebound romance until he could get back with Eve? She so wanted to ask Nell’s opinion but instead she was forced to keep this wretched business to herself.

  ‘Don’t let them keep you up there too long,’ she told Tilly. ‘I’m putting on
a batch of scones – we can have a cuppa while they’re baking.’ And maybe instead of a cuppa they’d break out the Ben & Jerry’s that Laura had decided after all not to produce for dessert, given the boys’ confession.

  Gavin accompanied Poppy upstairs, Tilly following with the other girls. Ben and Seamus took themselves into the sitting room. As Laura was assembling her scone ingredients, her phone rang.

  ‘I have to know why you wanted Tom Fox’s number,’ Nell said.

  ‘Sorry, forgot to get back to you.’ She filled her in, one ear open for the sound of Gavin’s return. ‘Keep it to yourself,’ she said. ‘They’ve learnt their lesson – at least, they will once Tom’s had a word with them.’

  ‘The little pups. They could have been killed.’

  ‘Stop – I can’t go there. By the way, on a happier note, I’m having a dinner party for my birthday, and you and James are cordially invited.’

  ‘Lovely – the night itself?’

  ‘Yes, Wednesday.’

  ‘I’ll make sure James isn’t working. And I assume we’ll need a babysitter – Tilly will want her man there too.’

  ‘I’m sure she will.’ Laura would just have to force herself to smile, and have as little to do with him as possible. ‘And I’m going to ask Imelda and her tenant.’

  ‘Oh do – I still haven’t met him. And how’s my favourite patient?’

  ‘Better than myself.’

  Ten minutes later, as she was putting the scones into the oven, the door opened and Tilly reappeared.

  ‘Perfect timing. Fancy some posh ice-cream – or are you all ice-creamed out?’

  ‘Maybe a little. I rarely eat it in the van.’

  ‘Wise woman.’

  They settled at the table with two scoops each of salted caramel. ‘How are you?’ Laura asked, and Tilly ducked her head and stuck her spoon into her bowl.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘I’m good.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  Silence fell. There was a sharp cry outside, a bird or an animal. They both ignored it.

  ‘Listen,’ Laura went on, ‘I’m not poking my nose in, and I’m not looking for information. I just want to say that long distance relationships can be a bitch. I know I’ve said this to you before, but I’m saying it again because I think it bears repeating. When you’re not with him you’re wishing you were, and when you are, you’re feeling this huge pressure for everything to be perfect, and nothing is ever perfect. It’s not easy, is what I’m trying to say, so it’s OK to get frustrated with the whole thing. It’s perfectly understandable.’

  What was she doing? She’d resolved to listen, and here she was, delivering a lecture. Worse, she was saying the wrong things. She should be preparing Tilly for a fall, because a fall was surely coming. Instead, she was saying hang in there, don’t fret.

  Tilly poked at her ice-cream, messing it about, yet to have a single taste. Eventually she spoke. ‘Can I tell you something?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘I was going to ask him to marry me. This summer, while I was here.’ She tried to smile, but couldn’t.

  It wasn’t wholly unexpected, not entirely surprising – but not good either. ‘You were going to? So you’ve changed your mind?’

  ‘I think …’ Tilly stopped, rubbed her nose. ‘I get the feeling he’s not quite there yet.’ She let her spoon drop, pressed her palms to the table, studied her nails. ‘I think he just needs more time, you know?’

  Take care, Laura thought. Get this part right. ‘Or,’ she said, slowly, gently, ‘the other thing is, he might not actually be the right one, Til. He might not be meant for you. It’s just a possibility.’

  Her sister nodded several times, quick little hops of her head. ‘But I won’t give up on him yet,’ she said, with the same not-quite-there smile, and Laura saw the fight inside her not to crumple.

  She pictured her flying to Ireland, hugging her resolution to herself. How brave of her, how foolishly wonderfully tragically brave of her to think of asking anyone to marry her, to run the risk of hearing the wrong answer.

  Laura herself had popped the question to Gavin, but only after he’d already asked her three times, and been turned down three times, so she’d been reasonably confident of the outcome. And yes, men proposed all the time, and a share of women too – but for some reason, the idea of Tilly planning to do it seemed particularly valiant, and her subsequent decision not to, equally poignant.

  I think he just needs more time. Suspecting, maybe, that he wasn’t as in love as she was, but putting her trust in time to deepen his feelings towards her. The trouble with that was their separate lives on separate continents. The trouble was the thousands of miles that lay between them for eleven months of every year.

  The trouble with trusting him to love her was that she couldn’t trust him.

  Laura reached for her sister’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘do what feels right. It’s what I always do. When it feels right, it usually is right. Now, we need to start planning the menu for my birthday dinner party – because I’ve decided to have one, and I’m useless at knowing what to serve. And eat that ice-cream, because it cost a bomb.’

  They ate, and talked menus, and set the other aside.

  Imelda

  ‘TELL ME ABOUT YOUR RESTAURANT,’ SHE SAID, AND he took out his phone and found photos. Tosca, he said it was called, ‘because is my favourite opera, and also is easy name for person to remember’.

  He showed her a haphazardly paved courtyard bordered with orange and lemon trees in giant terracotta pots. Nestling between them were a dozen or so round tables of varying sizes, all topped with ochre cloths that toned pleasingly with the fruit on the trees.

  One long rectangular table was placed behind the rest, covered with the same fabric. Imelda counted twenty-four chairs around it. ‘For the big group,’ Gualtiero explained. ‘For the families, and the celebrations – and sometimes, if we are full, we put the different persons together at the big table, and they find new friends.’

  A profusion of greenery studded with tiny white flowers – jasmine, he told her – spilt over first-floor balconies of the honey-coloured brick building to the rear, trailing almost to the ground. ‘In the night,’ he said, ‘the perfume of the jasmine is strong.’ Glass lanterns atop black poles stood sentry here and there between the tables. Fat red cushions sat on wicker chairs. A large blackboard was nailed to the wall of the rear building: he zoomed in and Imelda read ravioli con ricotta e cannella al ragù di cinghiale. ‘The special for the day,’ he told her. ‘Every day we make new.’

  ‘It looks beautiful,’ she said. ‘And you do the cooking?’

  ‘Yes, with another chef.’

  ‘And … did your wife cook?’ Wary of mentioning her, in case her memory, or the memory of her loss, cast a shadow on the conversation, but it didn’t seem to upset him.

  ‘Yes, sometime, and also she look after the tables.’ He scrolled through his photos and said, ‘Here is Dorotea,’ and Imelda took in the curly dark hair and the high cheekbones, the slightly hooded eyes, the large nose, the wide smile.

  ‘She looks happy.’

  ‘Yes, she was ’appy woman.’

  There was a short pause. ‘When Hugh died,’ Imelda said, her eyes still on Dorotea, ‘his friends and neighbours, people he’d known all his life, sat up with him the whole night. It’s a thing they do here. They never leave the dead alone until they’re buried.’

  ‘Is good thing,’ he replied. ‘After Dorotea die, the restaurant is closed for three week. On the night we open again, everyone in the village come for dinner. Everyone, everyone come, old person, young person, bambini, everyone. We must find more place for them, more and more place. Some person ’ave no chair, but still they come. Never before so many person on the same night. At the last, we ’ave no food.’

  ‘People are good,’ she said. ‘There is a lot of kindness about.’

  ‘Yes, Eemelda, is t
rue. In Ireland, in Italia, everywhere there is kind person. When you are sad, is good to remember this.’

  They sat on old wooden chairs beneath the shade of the horse chestnut tree at the bottom of the lawn, having just eaten the ham sandwiches she’d made for lunch. It was two days following the incident at the cliffs, and he had yet to resume his island meanderings.

  Is OK, he’d asked, the morning after, if I no go out today? and she’d assured him that he was most welcome to stay around any day he chose, so he’d set up his easel in the garden. Today I paint from my ’ead, he’d said, and now it was the next day, and for the second time they’d eaten lunch together.

  She’d been nervous of telling him about the scarecrow, when Nell had passed on the news. No doubt he’d be horribly embarrassed to have mistaken it for a human form, and to have instigated with his report the resultant extensive manhunt, but he had to be told.

  He hadn’t understood the word, so she’d taken a page from her writing pad and drawn a very poor scarecrow. To keep the birds away, she’d said, when he’d still looked puzzled. To stop them eating the crops. Like a person, but not real – and when it had finally hit him, far from showing signs of mortification, he’d shaken his head, smiling. Eemelda, he’d said, when I go back to Italia I must say to my doctor of eyes that he must give me the better spectacles.

  Relief, she supposed, that nobody, after all, had fallen into the sea – and she in turn was relieved at his taking it so well.

  They sat where she and Hugh had often passed a sunny afternoon. ‘My husband’s grandfather planted this tree,’ she remarked. ‘He built the house too, after he married’ – and as Scooter gnawed on a ratty old tennis ball at their feet, she found herself telling him more.

  ‘My husband owned a bar. It’s called Fitz’s – you might have seen it in the village. His niece’s husband manages it. I haven’t been able to call in since …

  ‘We met here on the island six years ago, on one of the smaller beaches. I was on holidays with my sister and her husband. I went for a walk early on the first morning, and there he was. It was the last day of July, and we were married in December. It was a first marriage for both of us. I never imagined …