The O’Hara Affair

She wouldn’t open it. She shouldn’t open it. But of course, Dervla couldn’t help herself.

The pages of the journal were covered in sprawling, energetic writing – as if the hand of the author could not keep up with the torrent of thoughts splashed over the creamy paper. Dervla’s eyes scanned the script, lighting randomly on a paragraph here, a sentence there. ‘The most far-fetched vow I ever made,’ she read, ‘was when, as a child, I swore that if I ever had children I would love them unreservedly: a promise I have been utterly powerless to keep.’ ‘As well as being non-conformist, I happen to be very proud, and that, of course, makes one aloof.’ ‘We have been married for over two decades now, and still have nothing to say to one another.’ ‘Spent the weekend with L. in the Royal Albion in Brighton. We fought like tigers, as usual.’ ‘Have decided to send C. & J. to boarding school. Children are not conducive to conducting an amour.’ ‘R. presented me with a diamond so paltry I promptly hurled it into the lavatory. Much to my amusement, he retrieved it.’

Dervla sank to her knees on Daphne’s thick-pile carpet. It took her a scant ten minutes of riffling through the journal to learn that Daphne had had a string of lovers; that she despised the wives of those lovers, and that she especially despised her husband. On the last page, she declared that she was going to relate the story of her life so far in the form of a novel.

Oh. Oh God! Was there more? Again, Dervla couldn’t stop herself from reaching for another of the faux volumes. Inside was an identical vellum-bound journal with the owner’s name writ large in her distinctive script. The date was 1969. Systematically, Dervla worked her way through the hollow Collected Works of Charles Dickens. There were thirteen volumes, and each contained a journal. By Dervla’s calculations, the diaries spanned the years 1960 to 1973. The final volume contained a splenetic attack on the literary agents who had repeatedly declined to represent Mrs Vaughan on the basis that her novel appeared, in fact, to be a work of thinly disguised autobiography too slanderous ever to find a publishing house.

Dervla sat motionless on the floor, gazing at script so jagged it looked as if it had been penned by a razor dipped in ink. Did Christian know about these diaries? Did his sister, Josephine? Dervla knew that Christian had attended boarding school from a young age, but he had told her it was the Vaughan family policy: his father had attended Eton, and his grandfather before him. Dervla privately thought it shocking that children be shunted off to boarding school on account of some antediluvian tradition: now that she knew that the real reason was to facilitate his mother’s amours, she found it infinitely more shocking. Her quandary now was: should she tell Christian about the diaries? She thought not. Sleeping dogs were best left to lie, and Dervla knew what power past secrets had to inflict damage.

The sound of wheels on gravel made her turn. Through the window, she could see Christian’s car rounding the corner of the big house into the courtyard. Quickly, Dervla shoved the last journal into its leather-bound casing, noticing ruefully that the title of the volume in question was – ironically – Hard Times. How hard would it be to defer to her mother-in-law, knowing what she now knew?

She watched as the Saab pulled up outside the front door of the cottage. Christian got out, rounded the bonnet and opened the passenger door, leaning in to offer his mother support as she struggled to her feet. Meanwhile, a pretty, almond-eyed girl emerged from the rear and started hefting bags out of the boot.

‘We’re here now, Mum!’ Dervla heard Christian say.

‘Where, exactly, are we?’

‘We’re at your new home.’

‘I’ve never been here before in my life,’ came the autocratic reply.

‘I know that, Mum. It’s your new home.’

Daphne was wearing a navy blue trouser suit with a turquoise silk blouse. A string of pearls was looped around her neck, a Kelly bag dangled from the crook of her right arm, and on her feet were blue canvas pixie boots. She looked around, and as she did, her gaze travelled to the open window in which Dervla stood framed. Mother and daughter-in-law locked eyes, and then: ‘There’s someone in there,’ pronounced Daphne. ‘You said this was my house.’

Dervla moved out into the hall, took a deep breath and shook back her hair. Then she counted to three and opened the door, estate agent’s smile perfectly in place. ‘Hello, all!’ she called brightly. ‘Welcome!’

‘Hello, love,’ said Christian. ‘Come and say hello to Mum, and Nemia!’

Dervla stepped onto the gravel and advanced, willing her smile not to falter as she reached out and took Daphne’s free hand in both her of own. ‘Did you have a good journey, Daphne?’

‘What kind of a stupid question’s that?’ said Daphne, withdrawing her hand.

‘This is Dervla, Mum,’ said Christian. ‘Remember her? She’s my wife.’

‘I’ve never seen her before in my life.’

‘Well, it’s been some time since you met. Let’s go inside, shall we, and have a cup of tea? And if we’re lucky, there might be biccies.’

‘There are biccies,’ said Dervla. ‘Choccie biccies.’

‘Choccie biccies! Yum yum,’ said Christian.

He offered Daphne his arm as they began to move towards the cottage, then looked back at Dervla and gave her a tired smile. Her heart went out to her husband. He didn’t need tea and biccies as much as a huge Scotch. Dervla remembered the champagne that she’d stashed in the fridge, and, as she saw Daphne stumble over the threshold, decided against producing it.

‘Hello. I’m Nemia,’ came a voice from behind her, and Dervla turned.

‘Oh – I am sorry! How rude of me not to have introduced myself. I’m Dervla.’

‘Nice to meet you, Dervla.’

‘Likewise. Hey. Let me help you with those.’

‘Thanks,’ said Nemia. ‘There’s nothing very heavy.’

Dervla swung a carrier bag out of the boot, noticing that it bore the logo of a pharmacy in Galway.

‘Did you have to stop off somewhere on your way here?’

‘Yes. We just needed to stock up on some basics.’

‘How was your journey?’

‘Fairly uneventful. There were no delays, which helped.’ Nemia reached into the boot, and produced another carrier. ‘Oh, crap. There’s a split in this bag. Can I just transfer the breakable stuff to yours?’

‘Sure.’

Nemia delved into the bag, then handed over a couple of distinctive Côté Bastide bottles. Sliding them into her bulky carrier, Dervla was about to observe that Côté Bastide just happened to make her favourite bath oil – but the words never made it out of her mouth. Instead, as she took in the contents of the bag, a single word emerged from between her lips.

‘Nappies?’

Nemia turned to her and smiled. ‘Just in case,’ she said.

Chapter Three

Sliding an arm out from under the duvet, Fleur reached for her watch. Eight-thirty. Corban had left an hour ago. She’d smiled as he’d kissed her goodbye, her eyelids fluttering open briefly before she’d tumbled back into dreamland. She’d hoped to have a leisurely breakfast à deux this morning, with freshly juiced oranges and croissants on the deck, but Corban had had other plans. He’d scheduled an early meeting with the director of The O’Hara Affair.

As she set her watch back on the bedside table, Fleur’s eyes fell on the flamboyant gypsy threads that she’d discarded the previous night with Corban’s help. Undressing her – or watching her undress – was one of Corban’s peccadilloes, and because it made him happy, she was glad to oblige. Fleur indulged her lovers – to a point. Once they showed signs of complacency, or became overfamiliar, she showed her displeasure. By saying ‘no’, by being unavailable, by being a little less free with her favours, she kept her men on their toes. It was a highly skilled game, and one at which she was very good.

Or had been, until she met Corban. Corban was proving a lot less malleable than the lovers she’d had to date – all of whom had been considerably younger than she. Río had used to joke about Fleur’s penchant for toyboys, declaring that her love life would make a great biopic. But since Corban had taken centre stage, she wasn’t sure whether the story of her life was a rom com or a melodrama. Aspects of it fitted both categories, she supposed, but whichever genre it belonged to, it was certainly X-rated.

Sinking back against her pile of goosedown pillows, Fleur allowed her mind to meander back to the first time she and Corban had met, six months ago. It could make a stand-out scene in a movie…

INT. UPMARKET HOTEL.

BALLROOM. NIGHT.

A charity ball in Dublin. The theme: the Tudors. The ballroom billowing with society dames dolled up as Elizabeth, bejewelled frocks and coppery-coloured curls everywhere. The men all emulating Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry (or trying to); everyone in masks.

Fleur had struck lucky with her frock. Joan Bergin, the costume designer of the Tudors TV series was a friend, and Joan had wangled a divine outfit for Fleur. It included an elaborate wig, a gold mask, and a magnificent gown, the bodice of which was embroidered with droplets of lapis lazuli and tiny seed pearls. The mask, too, was trimmed with pearls. It concealed most of Fleur’s face, but stopped short at the jaw line, leaving mouth and chin exposed. Exposed, too, was most of her bosom: her breasts pushed so high by the boned corset that she felt practically naked. The effect was one of rather sexy regality, of come-on combined with ‘look, but don’t touch’. The get-up, however, was bloody uncomfortable, and after a couple of hours of small talk in the crowded ballroom (during which much champagne was poured by overzealous waiters, and baroque music was played to deaf ears), Fleur yearned to escape.

‘Ladies and gentlemen—’

Oh, no! The speeches were about to begin. She had to get out of there. Murmuring excuses, she threaded her way through the throng of Walter Raleighs and Mary Stuarts, troubadours and serving wenches.

French windows took her onto a terrace. Here it was balmy, the air sweet with night-scented stock. The sound of the string quartet came faintly, and she could hear a fountain splashing at the far end. As she moved towards it, the silk lining of her underskirt moved against Fleur’s legs like a caress. She longed to dance, but because no one was versed in the arcane steps of the gavotte, no one was dancing this evening; and now everyone would be sitting listening to speeches for the next hour.

Dipping a hand into the bubbling water, Fleur laid the palm first on her forehead, then her breasts. The coolness was so sensual that it made her want to slip off her shoes, gather up her skirts and get wet, like Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita. As she went to lean over the pool again, she became aware of a man lounging against a pillar, watching her. He was unmasked. A predatory half-smile curved his mouth, and he was eyeing her cleavage as if he wanted to dive straight in.

The insolence! Fleur dismissed him with a toss of her head and a curl of her lip; but her hauteur was wasted. He responded with a low laugh, peeled himself away from the pillar and sauntered towards her. The next thing she knew, her arms were pinioned and she was being kissed more forcefully than she’d ever been kissed in her life.

Her initial impulse was to pull away, but the greater her resistance, the more insistent the kiss, until Fleur’s champagne-muzzy mind thought Pourquoi pas? Who cares? His kiss was so expert, so masterful, so goddamned sexy, that it would have been too selfless an act not to kiss him back. As he pulled her harder against him she was aware of his erection, aware of the subtle scent of spice, the subtler one of sweat, aware of his breath on her cheek as he released her mouth and trailed a kiss along the line of her jaw.

‘I think you’d better stop now,’ she managed finally, sounding as if she’d been inhaling helium.

‘Really? I think the lady doth protest too much.’ His voice in her ear contrived to sound both sceptical and amused. A finger skimmed the curve of her throat, pausing briefly to trace the scoop made by her collarbone, and then the stranger allowed his hand to travel further, sliding it beneath her bodice and cupping her breast. ‘Something tells me you don’t want me to stop. Something tells me you’re more trollop than sovereign, Rachel. Perhaps you should have thought about attending the ball as the whore Boleyn, rather than the virgin Queen.’

Rachel? Rachel! Oh, horror, horror! This was clearly an egregious case of mistaken identity. What to do? What to say? Fleur knew she should disabuse him at once, but the sensations being triggered in her by the touch of this man were so unexpectedly, so wickedly erotic that she didn’t want to come clean, didn’t want to explain that she wasn’t who he thought she was, didn’t want him to back off with an awkward apology. She heard her breath coming faster, felt her nipple rise under his fingers, and – as he thrust a knee between her legs – recognized the surge of lust that made her want to grind herself against him…Oh! She was shameless! She wanted to be a whore, a hussy, a harlot!

‘Slow down, sweetheart,’ he murmured, disengaging his hand, dislodging his knee, and leaving her weak as water. ‘Let me go check if there’s a room available.’

And the tall, dark stranger – who, before the night was out would be a stranger no longer – had bestowed a smile upon her before dropping a brusque kiss on her mouth and strolling back into the ballroom…

The strains of Edith Piaf’s La Vie en Rose interrupted Fleur’s sentimental journey. Corban’s name was displayed on the screen of her iPhone.

‘Hello! I was just thinking about you,’ she told him with a smile.

‘I’m glad to hear it. What were you thinking, exactly?’

‘I was thinking about the first time we met.’

‘Soppy girl.’

‘It would make a great short story.’

‘Or a Mills & Boon.’

‘Now there’s a thought! I read somewhere that sales of romantic fiction have gone through the roof recently. Everyone’s trying to escape into fantasy land.’

‘Might be too raunchy for Mills & Boon. You’d have to shut the door on the bedroom activity.’

‘Au contraire. They publish really sexy stuff these days.’ Fleur stretched languorously. ‘Let’s see – how would our story go? “‘I’m not who you think I am,’ confessed our heroine, as the masterful stranger took her hand. ‘I don’t care who you are, any more than you care who I am,’ he growled, leading her into the bedroom of the magnificent, luxury penthouse.”’

‘It wasn’t a penthouse,’ Corban corrected her.

‘In my Mills & Boon version it is. “She set her champagne flute down on the marble-topped bedside table and turned to him. His gaze was fierce. ‘I must have you,’ he told her. Her bosom heaving, she sank upon the fourposter, looking up at him through the slits of her golden mask. ‘Now?’ she breathed. ‘Now!’ he insisted. Without further ado, he reached for his manhood. She gasped when she saw—”’

‘OK. Enough’s enough. Time to shut the door. Incidentally, did I really growl, and did you really gasp?’ asked Corban.

‘Of course. Gasping was mandatory. It was the raunchiest thing I’ve ever done. Until last night, that is. It’s a pity I’ll have to give Río back her gypsy costume.’

‘I’m sure we can think of some other suitably titillating attire. I rather fancy you as a schoolgirl.’

‘No! Schoolgirl’s too pervy, Corban. And I’m far too old. French maid is more my line, don’t you think? Il y a quelque chose d’autre que je peux faire pour Monsieur?’

‘Translate.’

‘Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?’

‘Well, yes, actually, there is. I scribbled a number on yesterday’s Financial Times, and forgot to enter it into my phone. Could you text it to me?’

‘Sure.’ Fleur swung her legs out of bed, and reached for her peignoir. ‘Whose phone number is it?’ she asked, as she padded downstairs.

‘Shane Byrne’s. I want to arrange lunch with him.’

‘Lucky you. Where are you taking him?’

‘There’s a new place that’s opened not far from where they’re shooting today. I thought I’d try that.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘Chez Jules.’

‘Oh! How brave of Jules to open when all around him restaurants are closing. I hope it works out for him.’

The Financial Times was on the breakfast bar, open at some arcane article on investments. A number was scrawled in the margin, with the initials S. B. beside it. How many people in the world had access to Shane Byrne’s private phone number? Fleur wondered. Maybe she should auction it at the charity gig this afternoon, to raise more money for the hospice. Reaching for her mobile with her free hand, she started texting Corban. ‘Shall we eat out tonight?’ she asked, as she keyed the numbers in.

‘No. I’ll pick something up on the way back. Fillet or sirloin?’

Fleur’s heart sank a little. Corban adored red meat, while she favoured chicken or fish. However, since she didn’t have many opportunities to cook for her man, she might as well serve up what he was partial to. ‘Why not bring me some good quality braising steak, and I’ll do Carbonade de Boeuf?’

‘Excellent. I’ll get us a Bordeaux to go with it.’ There came a blip over the line. ‘Ah – incoming call. I gotta go, lover. Did you find that number?’

‘Yes.’ Fleur pressed ‘Send’. ‘It’s on its way to you now. A plus tard, chéri.’

Setting the phone down, Fleur tied the sash on her robe, broke off a hunk of baguette, spread it with butter and thick comb honey and moseyed out onto her deck. The first time she’d appeared on the deck in her peignoir, the village had been mildly scandalized; now, no one turned a hair.

It was a shame that she’d be breakfasting alone, she thought. It was a perfect morning for perusing the papers over café au lait and shooting the breeze with her lover. They managed so seldom to spend quality time together, as demands on Corban to spend precious weekends in his Dublin office were ever more pressing. Even though he had a boat moored in the marina, Lolita spent most of her life at anchor. There had only been one excursion so far this summer, and the curtains of Corban’s holiday apartment on the harbour were constantly drawn. No wonder really – any time Corban O’Hara could afford to spend in Lissamore was spent chez Fleur.

‘Hey, gorgeous!’

Looking down, Fleur saw Seamus Moynihan unwinding the hawser of his boat from a bollard.

‘Hello, Seamus! Off to inspect your lobster pots?’

‘I am. But sure I don’t know why I’m bothering. There’s no demand for lobster since that outcry on the radio.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Some gobshite complained on a talk show about lobsters being killed inhumanely, and the politically-correct brigade have decided to boycott them.’

Fleur felt a pang of guilt. She should have talked Corban into going for lobster this evening, in O’Toole’s seafood bar, with Guinness instead of Bordeaux. It made sense to support the local community now that times were hard. She knew well that the only reason her shop was doing such brisk business was because word had got out on the street that Elena Sweetman, the star of The O’Hara Affair, had taken to dropping in to Fleurissima. Once the movie was wrapped she – and all the workers employed on the film – would be back to leaner times.

‘Maybe you’ll have luck tonight,’ she told Seamus. ‘There’ll be lots of people looking for restaurant tables now that the festival’s in full swing. And I’m sure they are not all politically correct.’

Seamus shrugged. ‘Even the festival’s down-sized this year. There’s no fun fair, and no ceilidh. And I heard that Río’s too busy on the film to do her fortune-telling gig.’

‘Oh – but she’s enlisted a replacement.’

‘Who might that be?’

Fleur bit her lip. ‘I don’t know,’ she lied. She didn’t want to confess that she would be ensconced in the fortune-telling booth today. If word got around, people might not bother forking out money to see the local boutique owner do a bad imitation of Río, who always bluffed a blinder. ‘But I hear she’s very good,’ she added, lamely.

‘Maybe I should pay her a visit, so,’ remarked Seamus. ‘She might see something in my future to give me a glimmer of hope. Nets brimming with fish, for instance.’ Raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, he squinted at the horizon. ‘God be with the good old days when you actually caught something out there.’

Fleur gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘Well, bonne chance today!’

‘Bonne chance?’

‘It means “good luck”, darling!’

‘I’ll need it.’ Seamus pulled at the throttle of his outboard and chugged away from his mooring. ‘If I do have bonne chance,’ he threw back over his shoulder, ‘I’ll drop a couple of mackerel in to you later.’

‘Thank you, Seamus! Salut!’

Resting her forearms on the railing, Fleur watched as the boat made its way out of the marina, foam churning in its wake. Gulls looped the loop lazily in the sky blue above, and a tern plummeted headlong into the marine blue below, breaking the surface with barely a splash. She could see the submerged shape of a seal over by the breakwater; and a couple of beat-up-looking cats on the sea wall were laughing at Seamus’s lurcher, who was lolloping along the pier in pursuit of the post mistress’s Airedale.

There was a shrine to Fleur’s little doggie, Babette, on the deck. It comprised a photograph of Babette that Daisy had taken, and had framed as a present for Fleur. Fleur had surrounded the photograph with flowers and candles and some of Babette’s toys. She had buried her best friend six months ago, on the beach at Díseart, where the dog had loved to romp. Fleur still missed the Bichon Frisé with the laughing eyes and the perma-smile.

From the hill above, the church bell chimed nine. Fleur had promised Río that she’d be in the fortune-telling booth ready to go at midday. For the past week, she had practised her crystal ball skills every evening, using Daisy’s password to gain entry to her Facebook page for research purposes. Some of the comments on Daisy’s wall had expressed a genuine interest in going to see Madame Tiresia. ‘If she got your future sorted, Daisy-Belle, then I’m deffo gonna go!’ one girl had written. ‘She might make me lucky 2

’

Fleur had felt a twinge of guilt when she’d read that one. She guessed that some people really did believe in tarot and horoscopes and all that jazz: you just had to look at the number of fortune-tellers advertising in the back pages of gossip magazines, who charged rip-off rates for their services. But then, Fleur wasn’t ripping anybody off. All the money she took today was going to charity – and then some. Corban had been true to his word. After she’d donned her gypsy outfit for him last night, he’d made out a cheque to the Irish Hospice Foundation, signed it, and left the amount blank.

‘You’ve just quadrupled your donation,’ he told her. And then he’d taken her by the hand and led her upstairs to her bedroom.

It was funny, Fleur thought, that dressing up for Corban didn’t embarrass her. If any of her former lovers had suggested that she dress up to have sex, she’d have told them where to get off. But then, in all her previous relationships, Fleur had been the more experienced partner: her lovers had deferred to her. In her current relationship, Corban called the shots; and it hadn’t taken long for Fleur to find what a relief – and what a turn-on! – it was to be told what to do rather than doing the telling.

The mini Mills & Boon scenario she’d dreamed up earlier had rehashed much of what had actually happened on the night she and Corban had first met. Having gone off to book a hotel room, her tall dark stranger had returned to find Fleur sitting on the edge of the fountain in an attitude of bewilderment. ‘What’s wrong?’ he’d asked. ‘I’m not who you think I am,’ she’d told him. And his response – as per the stupefying response of her Mills & Boon hero – had been: ‘I don’t care who you are, any more than you care who I am.’ And then Corban had escorted her upstairs to the room and – with a passion that compensated for the deficiency of ceremony – had baisé’d her.