by Marian Keyes
‘I can just go on up?’ she asked.
‘Sure. You need privacy?’
‘Ah, no … I’m just FaceTiming with Paige to eat humble pie. I was interfering again.’
Ferdia remained downstairs on his laptop. Jessie connected to Paige and, after a flurry of hellos, she said, ‘Paige, I’m so sorry for sticking my oar in –’
Paige’s voice: ‘Jessie. Hold up. We need to talk about Italy. What did you mean about the dates not working?’
‘The girls have camp and couldn’t come.’
‘Come where?’
‘To Italy. The house in Tuscany. Where we are now.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Liam messaged you months ago. Inviting the girls. But the dates didn’t work.’
‘Liam didn’t message me one single thing about Italy.’
‘But …’ Jessie was struggling to keep up. If this were true, it was completely awful. How much could Ferdia hear of this? The bedroom didn’t have a door she could close.
‘Liam wouldn’t commit to dates for the girls to come to Ireland. Said his job is too busy.’
‘Paige … I don’t know what to say. I’m mortified. It was wrong for me to interfere, but we all love you.’
‘Liam doesn’t.’
‘The rest of us, though, we love you and the girls. But I don’t know where we should go from here?’
‘Okayyyy.’ Paige gave a long, heavy sigh. ‘Liam and I need to have a conversation. And I need to process. We’ll work it out. Thanks for caring. Love you, Jessie.’
‘Love you too, Paige.’
Jessie ended the connection and sat looking at her hands. She felt light-headed.
‘Mum, what the hell?’ Ferdia had run up the stairs.
‘You shouldn’t have listened.’
‘He never invited his kids?!’
‘No.’ Then, ‘D’you think Nell is in on it?’
‘Nell? She hasn’t a clue. She’s all about protecting Liam because his life is so tragic.’
Jessie’s head was awhirl. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘How to fix this.’
‘Mum.’ Ferdia’s tone was careful. ‘I don’t mean this in a bad way but it’s between Liam and Paige.’
‘But he’s lied to all of us.’ Jessie sighed. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have invited the girls. It’s just that the bunnies miss their cousins.’
‘Your heart was in the right place.’
‘Ferd.’ She was suddenly urgent. ‘You can’t tell anyone about this, okay? We shouldn’t know this. I won’t even tell Johnny, not till we’re home. It would cause an atmosphere here. Okay?’
‘I can keep my mouth shut.’
‘Look at you, all grown-up.’ She gave a sad little laugh.
‘Speaking of which, you want to know what happened with Barty?’
‘Well, aaaah, yeah.’
‘It’ll probably upset you. I’m sorry about that.’
‘Tell me anyway.’
He laid it out and she listened without comment.
When he’d finished, she said, ‘I messed up so badly with the Kinsellas. I’m sorry for how it’s hurting you.’
‘Ah, Mum, stop.’
‘I feel strange.’ Cara spoke into the phone. ‘In my head I know that I love people or that I should be happy but the feelings aren’t there. I sort of feel … nothing.’
‘You’re numb,’ Peggy said. ‘You’ve been playing fast and loose with your brain chemistry. Now it’s sorting itself out. Trust me, you won’t be numb for long.’
‘You’re not exactly reassuring me.’
Peggy laughed. ‘Fight today’s war today. Leave tomorrow’s war until tomorrow.’
Nell marvelled as cogs began spinning, moving every part of the apparatus. This was a flour mill, but also here were flying machines, a tank and a water pump. Da Vinci’s vision was incredible. He’d used techniques that, nearly six hundred years later, were still relevant to her work today.
Liam hovered at her elbow. ‘Look,’ she said, in delight. ‘See how the drawings were so accurate?’
‘You’re having a good time?’
‘Oh, God, yes.’ Then she realized that that hadn’t been what he’d been asking. He wanted to know how much longer they were going to be there. ‘Are you having a good time?’
‘Yeaaah. Just my back isn’t great.’
Exasperation flooded her. Why had he come? Ferdia had offered. Ferdia had wanted to be here.
‘You’d like me to hurry up?’
‘That’s not what I said.’
She tried to ignore his silent but evident impatience, but she had only so much stamina. ‘Come on, so.’
‘We’re leaving?’ He sounded delighted.
‘After we’ve been to the gift shop.’
‘You? Mrs Anti-Consumerism?’
Without answering him, she headed out, scanned the shelves and found what she was looking for. ‘Just need to pay for this.’
‘What is it?’
‘A little flying machine. One of the designs. For Ferdia.’
‘What?’
‘To thank him for Tuesday.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Liam looked displeased. Not angry but irritated. ‘And where’s my thank-you?’
‘You want a thank-you? Would you like a little flying machine too?’ She was being sarcastic, which wasn’t like her.
He gave her a strange look. ‘Whatever. So what do we do now? I need to eat.’
‘We can take a wander, see if we stumble across a nice place?’
‘So? Palazzo dell’Arte Vivente?’
‘… What do you mean? We’d have to book and stuff.’
‘Jessie hasn’t sorted it for us?’
She was astounded. ‘Not that I know of. Did she say she would?’
‘I don’t know. I just thought, if she did it for Ferdia, she’d do it for me.’
‘But, baby …’ She felt ridiculously guilty. ‘I didn’t know anything about it the other night. It was all between Ferdia and Jessie. I don’t know what to say.’
‘Fuck it. We might as well go home.’ He stalked away up the street.
‘Liam!’ A hundred thoughts were tracking through her head. Should she ring Jessie? Was Liam right to be angry? Could she fix this?
No, she decided. No and no.
On the drive back to the villa, Nell knew he meant her to be intimidated by his silence. Or perhaps feel guilty that she hadn’t made his day spectacular. But she felt neither. Liam was like a kid, nearly as bad as ten-year-old Vinnie.
When they reached the villa, he parked the car with jerky motions then gave the door a hard slam as he got out and shot up the stairs.
There was no one to be seen, so Nell went down to the pool, looking for a friendly face.
‘You’re back early,’ Cara exclaimed. ‘How was it?’
‘Nice. Thank you.’ Because it had been nice. Bits of it, anyway. ‘Do you know where Ferdia is?’
‘You could try his little house?’
She headed back up the stone path and knocked on Ferdia’s door.
He opened it immediately. ‘Hey, you’re back! Come in. How was it?’
‘Amazing. What are you doing, lurking up here like a vampire?’
‘Working. I’m doing a –’
‘I got you a little thing in Florence.’
‘You did?’ He sounded surprised.
Shyly, she gave him the model. ‘It’s only small. Just to say thank you for Tuesday and sorry about today.’
He opened the box.
‘It’s one of Da Vinci’s designs,’ she said. ‘A flying machine. It moves and all.’
‘Look at that! She gives me flowers. She gives me planes.’ He opened his arms wide, and uncertainly she took a step back. He’s going to hug me.
It was unexpected. And yet it wasn’t.
She let him wrap his arms around her. It was hard to know how it had happened but she and Ferdia had become friends.
S
EVENTY-SEVEN
Late on Friday afternoon, there was a knock on Ferdia’s door. ‘Ferd? Can I come in?’
It was Saoirse. ‘Course. What’s up?’
She crept towards the couch and sat down, curling her legs into herself. ‘I feel a bit …’ Tears began to trickle down her face. ‘Robyn. She doesn’t like me.’
Saoirse was probably right, but he didn’t want to add to her misery. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I get on her nerves and she keeps saying she’s bored. I don’t know what she expected – I told her this wasn’t Shagaluf. But today was weird. And horrible. Everything I tried on in the outlet, she said I looked fat.’
‘You’re not.’
‘I actually know that, she was just being a bitch. But her and Liam, they were talking to each other and, like, blanking me. I’m sure they were laughing at me.’
Fury stirred in Ferdia. ‘Based on what?’
‘She sat in the front of the car, beside him. They were talking in quiet voices and laughing. But when I asked what was up, they said, “Nothing, nothing” in that fakey way.’
‘Motherfuckers.’
‘What should I do?’
He sighed. ‘Probably nothing. People like her – and him – if you call them on stuff, they’ll full-on gaslight you. This is our last night, just get through it. Stick with me. And when you’re back home, just never see her again.’
‘But, Ferd, what about Liam? He’s our uncle. I can’t never see him again.’
Jessie waited until everyone had ordered before she said what she always said on the last night of their holiday. ‘Bunnies? Can we go round the table and say our personal highlight?’
A chorus of groans was her answer.
‘It was swimming,’ TJ said. ‘It’s always swimming.’
‘Excuse me,’ Tom said politely, ‘but my highlight was actually not swimming.’
‘Swimming and gelato,’ Vinnie shouted.
‘Thank you, Vinnie,’ Jessie said. ‘I know you all laugh at me –’
‘I don’t,’ Dilly said.
‘It’ll come,’ Bridey said.
‘Tell us your highlight,’ Johnny prompted Jessie.
‘Having all my bunnies together. Our tribe of bunnies. There was one day when every bunny came down to the vegetable garden with me and we picked tomatoes. You don’t know how happy that made me. Thank you all for that.’
‘Thank you, Mum,’ Bridey said. ‘For paying for everything. For all the gelato and stuff.’
‘Daddy did too.’
Bridey’s look was disparaging.
‘Johnny? Your highlight?’
‘I’m up to six espressos a day now without feeling like I’m about to have a heart attack.’
‘You really put the work in.’ Jessie felt great, great affection for him. And pride, yes, pride. ‘You deserve the results.’
‘Ferd?’
Ferdia stared off into the middle distance. ‘It was all good. But if I had to pick one thing –’
‘You do,’ Dilly murmured.
‘Sorta, like, the total point of “highlight”.’ Bridey was lofty.
‘– I’d have to go with seeing the Medusa in the Uffizi!’
‘Really?’ Jessie was astonished, then alarmed. What if Ferdia turned into an art lover? She’d have to make herself into one too!
‘I was going to say that!’ Nell was glowing. ‘I’ve loved it here. So much beauty, and cool people, thank you so much! But my very best bit was the Medusa.’
Ed said, ‘It’s been heartening to see Italian market gardeners turning away from pesticides.’
‘Ah, Ed.’
‘And the wedding,’ he added. ‘That was brilliant. Cara?’
‘Not having to make fish fingers and chips forty times a day. All the cooking you did, Jessie, seriously, thank you. Basically, having nothing to do except read and drink wine was just looooooovely.’
Gloomily Liam said, ‘My most memorable moment was the crappy Italian road banjaxing my back.’
Even though Saoirse was next, Robyn piped up, ‘Liam was my highlight.’ She slid him a sideways smile. ‘Thanks for driving me to the outlet so I could get Sergio Rossi fuck-me slingbacks at sixty per cent off.’
‘Language!’ Bridey snapped. ‘There are children present!’
Quite, Jessie agreed. Whatever happened next year, Robyn wasn’t coming.
‘Saoirse?’ Jessie was gentle. She suddenly felt the full extent of Saoirse’s misery: she’d had a hard week.
‘Just, you know,’ Saoirse mumbled, ‘all of it. The sunshine and that. Thanks, you guys.’ Her voice trailed off.
Jessie’s heart twisted. She knew exactly how her beloved daughter felt: uncool and wrong, the object of a joke, rather than a fully fledged human being. Saoirse’s time would come, just as Jessie’s eventually had, when she finally made real friends, when people saw her ‘flaws’ as assets. But until then, Saoirse would feel lonely and foolish. She would get crushes on people who pretended to love her back, not because of who she was but for what she could do for them. Jessie remembered it well. But then she’d met Izzy and Keeva Kinsella and everything had dramatically improved.
SEVENTY-EIGHT
From the very first Friday evening, so long ago, when Rory had taken Jessie and Johnny ‘down home’, Izzy and Keeva had been nothing but lovely. That night, the three of them had shared a bedroom, Jessie in one single bed and the sisters topping-and-tailing in the other. They stayed awake until the small hours talking about everything.
Lying in the dark, Jessie related her stories of Burmese Cat Man and Amateur Flute Player and was delighted to reduce them to helpless mirth.
‘I thought I had the funniest story ever!’ Keeva howled. ‘But you win!’ Then she told her about the local lad who’d sidled up to her and said, with heavy suggestion, ‘I could do great things with your three acres.’
‘Anything going on with you and Rory?’ Izzy asked.
‘Not a thing.’ Because there wasn’t, not back then.
‘Or Johnny?’
‘Nor him either.’
‘“Hey, Johnny,”’ Keeva said, in a squeaky voice. ‘“How come you’re such a big hit with the goils?”’
Once again, the three of them burst into a storm of laughter.
‘I don’t even know why I’m laughing,’ Izzy complained. ‘What’s funny about that?’
‘It was an ad. You don’t remember? For Coke, I think. You’re probably too young.’
‘Is Johnny a big hit with the girls?’ Izzy asked.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Don’t be at him, Izzy,’ Keeva chided.
‘Ah, Keeev-eeeee!’
‘She’s a brat,’ Keeva said to Jessie. ‘She flirts with every man she meets. But she’s only leading them on.’
‘Having some fun. That’s all I’m doing. Doesn’t do any harm. Hey! Should we get biccies?’ A shape that was probably Izzy swung herself out of bed.
Keeva made a strangled noise. ‘Careful, you larky article. You kicked me in the face!’
Squeaking noises came from Izzy, as she rocked with hilarity.
Jessie felt tears of laughter trickle into her pillow. She hadn’t enjoyed herself this much in, like, ever.
It had been a turning point in Jessie’s life.
Less than two weeks later, Rory stood at Jessie’s desk. ‘Izzy just rang,’ he said. ‘She says you’re to come to Errislannan on Saturday night.’
‘Oh!’ A gorgeous warmth lit up her chest. ‘Will Keeva be there? Will you be there?’
‘That’s the idea. And Johnny.’
‘… Well, great!’
As far back as then, the three Kinsella kids had already as good as moved out of home: Rory had his flat in Dublin; Keeva stayed with her fiancé Christy in nearby Celbridge five nights out of seven; and Izzy was already looking for a place in the city. But at least once a month, especially if they’d had a hard week, they rang around each other and descended on Ellen – Johnny and Jessie usua
lly in tow – looking for some mothering.
After they’d been fed, Jessie and Johnny would join in the tussling for the best spot on the couch. They’d watch films, maybe go to the local for a quick drink, and spend the following day visiting the pups or supporting Celbridge in the GAA. On those weekends, Izzy and Keeva always shared a bedroom with Jessie, lying awake until four in the morning, talking and laughing. Jessie was finally living out her teenage fantasies, of having close friends, confidantes to whom she could tell anything.
As time passed, she began meeting up with Izzy and Keeva in Dublin, without Rory or Johnny.
Izzy rang one Thursday afternoon. ‘Shops? After work? I’m looking for boots and I need you to ride shotgun.’
Humbly, Jessie said, ‘I’m not great with fashion.’
‘But you’ll give it to me straight. If I want to buy high-heeled boots that make my legs look like pipe-cleaners, you’ll tell me. C’mon, Jessie.’
Jessie felt high with happiness and, in order not to disappoint, did exactly what Izzy had asked, and said, ‘Pipe-cleaners’, when Izzy tried on a pair of pointy-toed boots. Izzy was slightly knock-kneed, as if her limbs were too long for her to manage. ‘But,’ Jessie added, ‘there’s nothing wrong with pipe-cleaners. I’d love long, skinny pipe-cleaner legs.’
‘Nah.’ Izzy stared at herself critically. ‘No good. I look like a spider.’
She actually did, with her shaggy dark hair and long, thin limbs. But such a lovable, fun spider.
‘C’mon so. Let’s go for a drink. And next time, we’re going shopping for you. Let me and Keeva know when you’ve been paid.’
‘Oh! Okay. How about Saturday?’
‘Saturday it is.’
They met at 10 a.m., and Izzy told Jessie, ‘We’ve decided you’re not making the most of yourself.’
‘She decided,’ Keeva corrected. ‘I think you look fine.’
‘You’re just a bit …’ Izzy said. ‘Too many suits? Ya know? You need new clothes. Jeans.’
‘I have jeans.’
‘But they’re too … What’s the word? Neat? Polite. Stop ironing them, Jessie. You’d look great in a wrecked pair.’
‘Would I?’ She was breathless with a new, daring vision of herself.
‘Yes!’
