Last of the Great Romantics (10 page)

'I sure do,' replied Shelley-Marie, coughing slightly on the gin. 'Well, this room should be called the
retoxification
centre, where they can all come to top up on nicotine and booze and, well, name your poison really. Of course I suggested all this to Portia and she told me to sober up and bugger off.'

Shelley-Marie's expression instantly turned from gushing to aghast. 'Why, I simply cannot believe that your wonderful suggestion was brushed aside! You know, Portia' – which she pronounced 'Purrsha' – 'sure seems like a mighty good person, but . . . well . . .' she hesitated, deliberating, and then flashed her biggest, brightest, toothiest smile. 'I should learn to hush my mouth, shouldn't I? She is your daughter after all.'

'Oh, don't be so ridiculous. You're like a daughter to me now, darling, we're connected on quite another plane entirely. All that crap you read about how a mother should be bonded with perfectly ghastly people just because they've been down your birth canal is utter bollocks, if you ask me. Anyway, it's bad luck not to share gossip.'

'Well,' replied Shelley-Marie, dropping her voice conspiratorially, 'I know I've only known her a short time but I'm pickin' up such a lot of tension from her. I wonder if the stress of running a fancy big hotel is all gettin' to be too much for her. That handsome husband of hers must have spent a fortune on the place. She must be mighty worried that they won't make all that money back. How long has she been married to him for?'

'Oh I don't know, sweetie,' Lucasta giggled. 'About two stone?'

Portia had walked in on this cosy little tête-à-tête just in time to hear the tail end of the conversation. Shelley-Marie heard her footsteps on the polished wooden floor and had the wit instantly to shut up, beaming angelically at her, as if she and Lucasta had been discussing nothing more innocuous than the weather.

'I didn't know you drank neat gin,' Portia said, coolly taking in the scene.

'Why, as I was just remarkin' to your mama, it's never too late to learn a new skill.'

'We'll be seeing you go around the Hall in your nightie and Wellingtons next, bashing out show tunes on the grand piano,' Portia had replied, silently boiling and wondering just how much more of her she could take.

Shelley-Marie didn't answer her, just smiled condescendingly as if to say: I understand exactly where you're coming from and I forgive you. She held her gelatined smile until Portia was out of sight and then shot a significant 'told you so' look at Lucasta.

It was as though she'd quickly assessed the pecking order at Davenport Hall and, having won Lucasta over, she next went to work on Mrs Flanagan. Andrew was the one who discovered them this time, sitting companion-ably together in the family living room watching daytime TV.

Mrs Flanagan had the rare gift of being able to follow about eight soap operas all at once, be they American, Australian, English or home-grown, as well as being fully abreast of what 'was happening on each and every one of the daytime talk shows. It was useless to ask her anything about current affairs – US Presidential elections could have been won and lost and she wouldn't know – but ask her who'd just had a makeover on
Live at Five
or who was about to have an affair with whom on
Coronation Street
and not only would you get a full report, but an in-depth analysis of future storylines to come as well. She could barely tell you the names of all the new household staff that she was supposedly supervising at the Hall, but when it came to characters on her favourite soaps, her memory was encyclopaedic. She was like a human computer: if you programmed in just one soap character's name, she'd immediately give you their fictitious date of birth, place of education, number of sexual partners past or present, number of marriages, brain tumours, occasions when they were left at the altar – the list went on and on.

'Now, you know so much more about TV than I do,' Shelley-Marie was saying, 'but it's my opinion that Oprah Winfrey is a prophet for our time. In another hundred years or so, I believe she'll be deified.'

She'd hit another home run.

'I'm hoarse saying that and no one ever listens to me,' replied Mrs Flanagan, delighted. 'If it wasn't for Oprah, I'd never have lost the half-stone.'

'Well, you'd better just be mighty careful not to smoke yourself too skinny now, you hear?' replied Shelley-Marie, affectionately patting the TV guide beside her. 'Now, would it bother you to tell me again all about the character of Ken Barlow in
Coronation Street?
I never tire of hearing you talk about him.'

Somehow, she'd even managed to get around the humourless Tim in the kitchen. A great snob and an even greater stickler for the niceties of protocol, he doggedly insisted on referring to Shelley-Marie as 'Lady Davenport' and Lucasta as 'the elder Lady Davenport'. He'd made the cardinal mistake of saying this to Lucasta's face the morning after the funeral when they were all having breakfast together in the Red Dining Room. The jar of homemade raspberry jam she flung across the room at him in response only missed his impeccably starched, crisp white chef's jacket by a hair's breadth.

'Elder my arse!' she snarled as Tim sensibly beat a retreat into the relative calm of the adjoining kitchen.

Recognizing her cue, Shelley-Marie followed him, carefully closing the door behind her. 'You must find it in your kind heart to forgive her,' she said, as though she'd known Lucasta all her life. 'She's still a little shocked, it's my opinion.' Then, perching herself on a stool, she flashed him her toothiest grin (which was reserved for men only) and hoisted up the thigh pelmet which passed for her Lycra mini-skirt. 'Tim, I wanna compliment you on that wonderful breakfast. Truly, that is the nicest meal I have been privileged to enjoy since I came to the Emerald Isle,' she half whispered in her breathy little girl's voice, being careful to point her breasts at him. Although it was a freezing morning in mid-February, she wore a see-through black gauze top through which her double D assets were clearly visible, with only the flimsiest scarf around her neck for warmth.

'Would you mind covering up, please? It's unhygienic not to wear the correct sanitary uniform in the kitchen,' he sniffed, flinging a chef's jacket and gauze hairnet at her.

Instantly copping that the sexy approach wasn't going to get her anywhere, she abruptly changed tack.

'Say, Tim? Would you have the time to show me exactly how you made the
deeeelicious
poached eggs with hollandaise and caviar? Where I come from, everything is just deep-fat fried till you can't barely taste nothin' but the grease. It sure would be a right honour for me to see a master chef like you in action,' she drawled, gamely trying to stuff her thick backcombed hair into the tiny hairnet.

Tim rarely smiled but he did now, delighted to have such a willing guinea pig, especially as one of his long-term ambitions for the Hall was to have a cookery school where he'd give hands-on demonstrations to guests who'd pay a fortune for the privilege.

Meanwhile, Andrew's jeep was just zooming past the outskirts of Ballyroan and still the debate raged.

'Do you know that when I was Daisy's age I was well on my way to being a junior partner in Macmillan Burke?' Andrew was saying, glancing sideways at Portia, who knew it was best for the sake of peace to let him have his say without interrupting. 'Her trouble is that she's just coasted along through life, indulged by your father, dropping out of school when she felt like it, messing around in the stables and calling it work because no one has ever pushed her to try and make something of her life. Don't you see? You and I are presenting her with a golden opportunity to impress everyone, not least herself. Up until now, she's been flakier than a bar of Cadbury's.'

Portia looked over at him to see if he had finished his pep talk, but there was more to come. She knew he didn't mean it, but there were times when he sounded just like one of those American self-help motivational experts, the 'you can change your life in seven days' type.

She looked out the car window just in time to see Lottie O'Loughlin, who ran Ballyroan's local Spar, chatting with Danny Maguire, their postman on the street corner. Portia instinctively smiled and waved at them, but both of them utterly blanked her, turning back to their conversation. They'd seen her, she was sure of that. More noses out of joint for not being invited to the opening. It was hard to blame them, given how long she'd known them and also the massive press exposure the Hall was getting. They were neighbours and should have been asked, simple as that. Honestly, she thought, I could kick myself for not standing up to bloody Julia Belshaw . . . There and then, she made a silent resolution not to be such a pushover in future. A little assertiveness would go a long, long way, particularly at Davenport Hall.

'And, let's face it, it's hardly nuclear physics, is it?' Andrew was still in full flow. 'Tim's running the kitchen like a dream and Molly and the rest of the staff have the place looking spotless. Bookings for the Hall are beginning to come in thick and fast. For God's sake, all Daisy has to do is answer phones politely, meet and greet guests and try and keep your mother as far out of sight as possible.'

'Honey, I know exactly what you're saying and I agree with you. Daisy hasn't exactly been a model career girl so far and under normal circumstances, I'd have no difficulty encouraging her to take a bit of responsibility for a few months. But no matter what way you look at this, these are not normal circumstances.'

'Portia, you are getting on that flight with me tomorrow and I won't take no for an answer.' Andrew was grinning, but his tone was deadly serious. 'We've worked our asses off getting the Hall up and running and we both need the change of scene. I want you in New York with me, simple as that.'

She could tell he was getting tetchy with her because he took the sharp left turn which led to the main gates of the Hall at breakneck speed, jolting her roughly against her seatbelt. 'Do you think I don't want to go? Do you think for one minute that I would choose to be apart from you?' She deliberately kept her voice cool and calm. 'But my point is that we have both worked too hard and invested far too much money for this not to work. The first few months that the Hall is open for business are critical. If I go away with you, the way things are at the moment, when we come back either Daisy will have stabbed Shelley-Marie or the other way around or one or other of them will have set fire to the Hall. A bloodbath or a massacre is the only outcome to this situation, and somehow I don't think that's the kind of publicity for the hotel that either of us wants.'

They drove on in silence for a bit, both of them at deadlock. They'd got as far as the tennis courts before, eventually, Andrew spoke. 'OK. OK. Say I talk to Miss Southern Fried brass neck as soon as we go in. If I can persuade her to leave quickly and quietly, as soon as possible, then will you come with me? Do we have a deal?'

He'd pulled the car up outside the main entrance by now and switched off the engine, turning to face her. He looked at her with that boyish, adorable, turn-me-down-if-you-dare glint in his eye which made her smile. Impulsively, she leaned forward across the passenger seat to kiss him. 'Then we've a deal,' she murmured, stroking his cheek with the back of her hand. Playfully, he caught her hand and was moving in to kiss her when there was a loud thud on the roof of their car. Another one followed immediately and then there was a deafening crash right beside where they had parked.

'Jesus Christ!' said Andrew as they both leapt out of the jeep and looked up to see what the commotion was. From a third-floor window above, which looked down directly on to the forecourt, Daisy was unceremoniously hurling bulging black bin liners like missiles and not caring where they landed.

'Bitch!' she screamed, flinging yet another one out of the window, which only missed the windscreen of Andrew's car by inches. 'Do you see wheels on the side of this Hall? Do you?' She was screeching like a demented banshee by now, Portia could only guess for Shelley-Marie's benefit. 'Well, let me tell you something! There ARE no wheels on the side of this house, therefore it is not a bloody trailer so you can take all your tarty rubber mini-skirts and the rest of your slapper-wear collection and you can BUGGER OFF!'

In a flash, Shelley-Marie came running out of the Hall door, totally ignoring Portia and throwing herself helplessly into Andrew's arms. 'I'm detectin' so much hostility from your sister-in-law; I'm beggin' you to help me. Her papa died in my lovin' arms callin' my name—'

'That's a tiny bit of an exaggeration, actually,' Portia interrupted; annoyed with Daisy for physically throwing Shelley-Marie's stuff out of the window like this, but well able to see where she was coming from. 'My understanding is he died alone at a card table.'

'Oh, who are you, his biographer?' wailed Shelley-Marie, for once letting her guard down. 'I brought love and comfort to him in the twilight of his life and this is how his daughters thank me!' She could really turn on the tears at will; they were flowing freely down her cheeks now, making her thickly applied mascara run and giving her panda-bear eyes. Then came the trump card she'd been waiting to play for days. She hugged Andrew even tighter so that her make-up was now dribbling on to his jacket. 'After all, I am family now and there's no place else I can go.'

'Oh, good luck,' Portia called over her shoulder to him as she tripped up the steps and into the Hall, leaving Andrew to deal with it. She couldn't, she just couldn't. Any more of Shelley-Marie and she thought she'd physically be sick.