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

by Meaney, Roisin

  They were in Kensington, staying in a Georgian townhouse across the street from the park, less than three miles as the crow flew from Rosie and Ed’s house. She’d found the place on Airbnb, and taken it for a week. It was bright and airy and spotless, with high ceilings and big windows. There was a full kitchen with black and white floor tiles, like in their hall at home, and three bedrooms, and a wonderful claw-footed bath in the larger of the two bathrooms. The place was far bigger than they needed, but after their cramped conditions at Rosie and Ed’s, Susan had craved lots of space.

  A second man entered the park. She watched as he drew closer, a newspaper tucked under one arm, a cardboard cup in each hand. He wore a dark grey fleece, and jeans that had seen better days, and soft brown shoes. Even with his glasses on she could see the pockets of skin beneath his blue-green eyes. His hair – the darkness washing out of it, particularly at the temples and sides – could do with a cut.

  He wasn’t really, she thought, a man you’d pay too much attention to. Not really a man worthy of a second glance, unless you were his wife, and loved him.

  He handed her one of the cups, and she caught a waft of the nuttiness of freshly brewed coffee. He dropped the newspaper onto the bench and pulled open the pocket of his fleece. ‘Put your hand in,’ he said to Harry, ‘and see what you can find’ – and Harry drew out a cookie studded with Smarties, or maybe M&Ms, and a carton of apple juice.

  ‘Mama,’ he said, passing it to his mother, who poked the accompanying straw into its designated space and handed it back to him.

  ‘What do you say to Daddy?’

  ‘Ta ta,’ he said, looking up at his father.

  They sat on the bench, their child between them. Susan and Harry had taken possession of the townhouse the previous afternoon, and Luke had caught a flight from Dublin in time to join them for an early pasta dinner. Her idea, the neutral territory where the three of them could reunite, a week of settling back with one another before resuming their life in Dublin.

  The doorbell had given her a start, keyed up as she’d been about seeing him again. Wait here, she’d told Harry, and I’ll bring Daddy in.

  You found us, she’d said, wearing the new turquoise dress that Rosie had complimented when she’d put it on for her.

  He carried the weekend bag she’d bought him a few birthdays ago. His raincoat was slung over an arm. In the four weeks they’d been apart he seemed to have lost weight. Was it only four weeks? It felt like months. She ached to put her arms around him, but held back.

  My God, he’d said, I’d forgotten how beautiful you are.

  He sounded tired. Maybe he hadn’t slept well, without her beside him.

  Come in, she’d said, tucking the compliment away safely – and stepping over the threshold he’d stumbled, and she’d put out a hand to steady him, and he’d let his bag and coat go then, just let them fall to the floor, and they’d found themselves pressed into one another, his hand cradling her head, rocking her against him, saying her name, his mouth against her face, his breath warm on her cheek, Susan, Susan, he’d said, and she’d wrapped her arms around his waist and clung on, and thought maybe this time they’d get it right.

  And later, much later, after Harry had been tucked up in bed with Toby, and they were finishing off the bottle of red Luke had bought in Duty Free, he’d told her the news he’d been given in February.

  Five years, he’d said, holding tightly to her hand, never once letting his eyes move from hers. I swear I’ll make the best of them. I’ll make it up to you, and to Harry.

  He was dying. Her husband was dying. It was unthinkable. She’d felt everything collapse inside her.

  Are you sure? How can you be sure?

  I’ve had tests, he’d said. I’ve had a battery of tests, and several opinions. I’m sure.

  But there must be trials, there must be something—

  Not for me, he’d said. Too far gone.

  He’d gone through all that, and she’d had no idea. When were you going to tell me?

  I was going to wait until I had no choice. I was being a coward.

  You’re not a coward. You’re the bravest man I know. Are you in pain now?

  No.

  He would never see his son grow to manhood. Before Susan was fifty, she’d be a widow. It was too much. It was too sad. Her heart wasn’t able to take it in.

  Let’s try to enjoy what’s left, he’d said, and in the midst of her immense shock she could see, she could understand, that that was their only choice. Impossible as it seemed, she would have to find ways to push the future away, to live in the moment with her husband and son.

  They’d sat close together, their talk sporadic, the news settling into her, filling her, leaving room for nothing else.

  Let’s go to bed, he’d said finally, and they’d left the wine unfinished and gone upstairs, and rediscovered one another in an unfamiliar, but very comfortable, king-size bed. She’d lain in his arms afterwards, her face tight with the salt of the tears that their lovemaking had released, and she’d listened to his sleeping breaths and determined, by whatever means, to meet this new chapter, this terrible unexpected episode, head on.

  They might travel a little, before Harry started school, and while his father was able. They might move out of the big house, find tenants for it and rent a smaller one in the countryside, or near the sea, or both. Close enough to Dublin, and to hospitals, and to whatever might lie ahead for him.

  They might get a dog. A dog might be a comfort. Dogs loved so unconditionally. Yes, she thought, they needed a dog.

  He might paint a little. If that was what he wanted, she wouldn’t object.

  And now it was the morning after, and the three of them were on a park bench, and at some stage during the week they would take a train to Windsor to see what Harry made of Legoland – or maybe they wouldn’t. They were going to have a week of taking each day as it came, of not planning ahead. They were just going to be in the moment, like she would try to do for all the moments, until they ran out.

  For now all she wanted was to drink coffee, and sit in the sunshine with her husband and child, and take what happiness she could from wherever she found it.

  HENRY MANNING, PROPRIETOR OF ROONE’S ONLY hotel, was taking stock.

  Seventy years on this earth as of today, eight years more than his brother had got. Ten to go until he passed out his father, fifteen for his mother – and with Henry’s death, the Manning family would be no more.

  It was a sobering thought. It was perhaps not one best suited to the little pavement café where he currently sat, with its view, albeit distant, of the Eiffel Tower, and its more immediate distractions in the shape of the immaculately dressed businessmen who didn’t sit down to drink their swift espressos, and who vanished as fast as they had appeared, while Henry lingered over his second café au lait.

  He turned his attention to his recent party, which hadn’t exactly gone to plan. It had started promisingly enough, with a turnout of pretty much everyone he’d been expecting, and precisely the ones he’d thought might give it a miss staying away, which was for the best. Live and let live, et cetera.

  For the first few hours there had been a gratifying buzz about the place. Food and drink going down nicely, an embarrassing number of gifts presented, which were accepted and quietly removed to be unwrapped later. His speech had been well received, and only interrupted once by the wailing of an overtired infant, who had been whisked away promptly. The cake, all five generous tiers, had been admired and cut and sampled.

  And just as he’d begun to congratulate himself on a well-orchestrated and successful event, and was enjoying his first glass of champagne, now that the speech was safely behind him, it had happened. He’d missed it, having just returned to the marquee at the time, where Maisie Kiely was getting into the party spirit and threatening to dance.

  They’d gradually become aware of a stir among the assembly, a new excitement, a nudging relay of news that had spread through the marquee
like licking flames. Has something happened? Maisie had wondered – and Henry, feeling it incumbent on him as host to find out if something had indeed happened, had set aside his glass and made enquiries, and been told.

  Out he’d gone in search of Eve Mulqueen, his newest chambermaid, and one of his waitresses for the evening – but his search had proved fruitless. She wasn’t to be found, so he hunted down the other names he’d heard mentioned, Andy Baker and his stepmother Nell, whom he’d known her entire life, and with whom he’d been chatting only minutes earlier, and Andy’s unfortunate girlfriend, who must now, if the reports were true, be in a bit of a state.

  But here again he drew blanks. Nell, he was told, had left – and Andy, it was assumed, had gone with her. As for the girlfriend, whose name he couldn’t recall, nobody could tell him what had become of her.

  He’d done what he could to salvage the night. He’d scurried about, issuing orders for glasses to be refilled, food trays replenished, more of the cake cut and passed around. And it had been salvaged, to an extent – the chat had resumed, the noise level gradually cranked up to its previous volume – but he’d fancied that the atmosphere about the place had altered.

  The incident, not surprisingly, had remained the topic of the evening. Passing groups of merrymakers, he’d heard frequent mentions of Eve and Andy’s names. Some heads had shaken in disapproval; others seemed to find it all very amusing and diverting. His party, he’d realised, had been hijacked by the girl he’d taken in largely out of pity, because he’d heard her story from Nell, and because she’d recently lost Hugh, who’d been like a father to her.

  Her work had been good. He’d checked it out discreetly, as he checked out the efforts of all his staff – well, he had standards to uphold – and apart from the occasional stray hair that she missed, he’d found no fault. She’d been pleasant and polite in manner whenever they’d encountered one another in the course of her duties. There had been no indication, no warning, of what was to come.

  She hadn’t returned to the hotel after the night of the party. She’d missed her shift the following day, and his manager reported, when Henry enquired, that there had been no further sighting of her. It hadn’t surprised Henry all that much. He knew how the island tongues could wag: who could blame the girl for wanting to hide from them now?

  She should have let him know, of course. She should have been in touch to tell him she couldn’t face the aftermath. That would have been the right thing to do. He’d felt hard done by, put out by her lack of consideration – but then he’d heard, just yesterday, and also via his manager, that the pregnancy she’d revealed on the night of the party was an imaginary one, a figment of a troubled mind, and it had prompted a measure of sympathy towards her.

  Treat others as you would like to be treated: someone had advised Henry of that as a boy – his mother, it might have been – and he’d tried, all his life, to live by it. He would listen to the girl, he decided, if she made any contact on his return, and he would show kindness if he felt it was called for. He’d take her back, if she wanted to come back. Some might call him a fool, and they were perfectly entitled to their opinions.

  He sat alone in dusky pink cotton shirt and navy linen trousers, and the grey calfskin loafers, deliciously comfortable, that he’d splurged on during a little shopping trip to Milan in the spring. With each lift of his cup he experienced a pleasant waft of the bergamot and citrus notes of the Tom Ford eau de toilette he’d applied to his pulse points before dressing. Treating others kindly was all very well, but being kind to oneself was also to be recommended.

  He’d strolled to the café this morning from his hotel in the Marais, after a leisurely breakfast and a long bath, and he intended to spend the day ambling from museum to gallery, with regular intermissions such as this one. He had yet to decide on a restaurant for dinner, but was reasonably confident that a suitable one would present itself in the course of his perambulations.

  ‘Monsieur?’

  He glanced up to see his rather delectable waiter at his elbow. ‘Encore?’ the waiter asked, indicating Henry’s almost empty cup, giving Henry the opportunity to admire his impeccably manicured nails.

  ‘Actually,’ Henry replied, ‘I’d prefer a cognac, s’il vous plaît.’

  A few minutes shy of noon, but to hell with it. Not every day a man turned seventy.

  Acknowledgements

  HEARTFELT THANKS AS EVER TO EVERYONE WHO helped to get this one over the finish line. All at Hachette Books Ireland, agent Sallyanne, obliging research contributors Geraldine Exton, Philip Gleeson and Nicky Quinn.

  Thanks to my family for their constant support and encouragement.

  Thanks to the dedicated book bloggers who play such vita roles. You know who you are.

  Sincere thanks to my faithful readers (and welcome to the new arrivals). You are truly appreciated.

  Roisin x

  www.roisinmeaney.com

  @roisinmeaney

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