‘Green tea?’ Cormac asked hopefully.
‘Sure, tea’s tan not green and anything else isn’t tea, you eejit,’ Maureen tutted before telling him she’d find their housekeeper, Ita, and get her to give them a hand with his luggage. She was eager to get Cormac away from the reception area. He was prone to dramatics and she had a feeling they were in for an explosion when he learned Aisling had announced the wedding was not going ahead despite her best efforts to talk sense into her daughter yesterday. The way things currently stood, he’d had a wasted journey.
For his part, Cormac may not have seen his sister-in-law for a good while but she had a face he could read like a book and he raised an eyebrow.
It was a lovely shape so it was, Bronagh thought, looking on and smoothing her own pencil thin ones. His skin had a glowing sheen to it too, she noticed. She could do with more glow; she’d have to ask him what products he was after using.
‘Is there something I should know, Mo?’
Maureen ignored him. ‘Pooh, you stay there with your uncle Cormac.’ She took to the stairs calling out Ita’s name.
Bronagh began whistling Rocketman and looking everywhere but at Cormac.
Chapter 33
Maureen found Ita looking shifty in Room 3, and enlisted her to help them haul Cormac’s luggage to his room. The housekeeper obliged with far more grace than she would have Aisling, but then it wasn’t Aisling who was friendly with her mammy and liable to tell tales. She’d have liked to have had a few moments to admire the strange little man with the mat on top of his head’s Vuitton cases because one day she’d travel the world with expensive luggage but for now she did as she was asked and followed Maureen’s lead dragging the case up the stairs to Room 5.
Maureen had personally done a sweep of Cormac’s room before she’d left to collect him. It was important to her that he saw first-hand what a success she and Brian had made of the guesthouse, even after all these years. Room 5 with its old-world elegance was a nod to the Georgian grandeur of the building. It afforded a grand view over the Green and as such it was one of her favourites. The pillows had been plumped by her personally, the bathroom inspected, and the bed smoothed. Her reward for her efforts came when Cormac made appreciative murmurs as he inspected his quarters. ‘It’s hardly recognisable from the days when Mammy and Dad ran the place.’
‘It was different times and they did a grand job. We just brought it up to date,’ Maureen said loyally; she’d been fond of Brian’s parents. They’d been good to her and the bitter feelings between Mr and Mrs O’Mara senior and Cormac had been nothing to do with her. Like she’d said, it was different times. Cormac had been long gone when she’d come door knocking to the guesthouse seeking work, never dreaming she’d marry the handsome young man who’d opened the door to her and that one day they’d run the place. Brian hadn’t spoken of his older brother often. On those few occasions when Cormac had come back to Ireland it had been clear to her why he’d gone. It was a truth the family had refused to acknowledge and in doing so had ensured he could never be at home in his own country. It saddened Maureen to think he’d shared his home with his partner Ricardo for over twenty years but even now wasn’t comfortable bringing the person he’d chosen to spend his life with here to Ireland to meet them.
On the bright side her brother-in-law was a particular so and so but he was happy with the room she’d chosen for him and that was high praise. She was pleased because, once she got him away from Ita’s flapping ears and up to the privacy of the family apartment to explain what was going on with her daughter, he was going to be anything but happy. A sudden movement caught her eye. ‘Don’t even think about it, Pooh,’ she warned the poodle, who was inching toward the bed having decided it was as good a place as any for a siesta. Pooh froze and gave her what she recognised as his affronted look. The ‘as if I would do something like that’ expression. Ita was still loitering in the doorway. ‘Thanks for your help.’ She dismissed her with a smile but she wasn’t quick enough to stop Cormac from whipping out his wallet.
He handed a wad of notes to Ita who looked like the cat who’d got the cream. The American guests were her favourite and thanking him, she stuffed the money in the pocket of her smock before taking herself off. She could sense Maureen’s disapproval of her taking the tip from him given he was family. Well, tough, she’d interrupted her in the middle of a game of Snake and her phone was burning a hole in her pocket. It was high time she got back to it.
‘Come on then, Cormac, let’s get you upstairs,’ Maureen said, giving him the card he’d need to access his room. She shooed Pooh out of the door ahead of her and headed up the last flight of stairs.
Cormac dawdled up behind her, muttering about elevators having been invented for over a hundred years. The apartment was, again, vastly different from his childhood
