‘I spent all morning trying to find them.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘And did you?’ Roisin asked.
‘I did, but only because Mrs Grenfall who lives at the end of the street telephoned my husband to say she had two rabbits fine-dining in her vegetable patch.’
Everybody laughed and the tension hovering over their table dissipated.
‘Has Noah any pets?’ Louise asked.
Roisin nodded. ‘Yes, Mr Nibbles, his gerbil and he dotes on him.’ She shared the story of how Mr Nibbles had decided her ex-mother-in-law’s bra made a lovely bed, and the fuss she’d made upon finding Mr Nibbles nestling in the cup of her best bra.
They were all giggling when Donal put a round of drinks down in front of them with a pleased expression at the joviality around the table. Anna, carrying two wine glasses slid one towards her sister and shot her a glance as though to say, traitor!
She was going to be a tough nut to crack, Maureen thought, sighing into her wine glass.
Donal asked how the yoga pant party had gone and Moira piped up.
‘They’re called the Mo-pant now, aren’t they, Mammy? It’s short for Maureen not Moira in case you’re wondering.’
Maureen gave Moira a warning look. ‘We sold out. The party was a success.’
‘What’s this all about?’ Louise asked, her curiosity piqued as Anna nursed her glass close to her chest.
The mood as Maureen relayed the story as to how they’d doctored the wine bottles was good-humoured and relaxed by the time the young lad waiting tables came over with his pen and pad in hand. Even Anna seemed a little more at ease. There was a mass opening of menus with Moira the first to order, Anna the last.
‘So, these pants, Maureen, they’re super comfortable you say?’ Louise asked.
Maureen nodded. ‘They are. Aren’t they girls?’
The O’Mara sisters nodded and all three crossed their fingers under the table. The same thought running through their heads, please God don’t let her take it upon herself to get up and do a line dance demonstration, but then remembering she wasn’t wearing her Mo-pants they uncrossed them once more.
‘Would I be able to order a pair?’ Louise asked, to all their surprise.
Maureen looked to Roisin. ‘Rosi’s my supplier.’
‘We sold out, Louise, but I’d be happy to post you a pair when I get home.’
‘Grand. Let me know how much and I’ll fix you up before we leave.’
‘And I’ll get your address.’ Rosi smiled across the table having made up her mind she liked her.
Maureen risked a glance at Anna whose face was inscrutable. She chewed her bottom lip and then decided to try her luck instigating a conversation because she was nothing if not one of life’s tryers and God loved a tryer.
‘Anna, your dad’s after telling me what an important job you have at the hospital. Anna’s an emergency room physician.’ She told Roisin, Aisling and Moira who made various utterances of ‘really?’ and ‘oh wow’.
Anna nodded.
She could have been chewing on a clove given the look on her face, Roisin thought. If she was her sister, she’d be putting the boot in under the table.
‘You do some long hours, don’t you, love?’ Donal coaxed.
Anna shrugged, not meeting anyone’s gaze as she held the stem of her wine glass. ‘People keep having emergencies.’
Moira asked, ‘Is it like ER, you know, with your man Clooney?’
Anna was scornful as she replied, ‘No, it’s nothing like that.’
A tenseness settled over the table once more and this time it was Donal who chipped away at it by enquiring how Moira was getting on at college. ‘She’s a very good artist,’ he told his girls. ‘Maureen’s shown me a painting you did which won the Texaco Children’s Art competition. It was very good. Of a fox it was.’
‘Foxy Loxy,’ Moira informed them.
‘Mr Fox,’ Aisling said.
‘He’s our resident fox at O’Mara’s. He’s a hole he squeezes through from the Iveagh Gardens behind the guesthouse in order to visit the bin outside our kitchen. It drives Mrs Flaherty, the breakfast cook, up the wall because he more often than not leaves a trail of rubbish behind to let her know he’s paid a visit. She’s always threatening to storm the gardens with her rolling pin.’
There was laughter at the image invoked and then Louise asked about the guesthouse, commenting on what a gorgeous example of Georgian architecture it was, not to mention its fabulous location. ‘Dad told me you all grew up there. It must have been interesting, what with the different guests coming and going.’
‘Well, we didn’t know any different but I suppose it was,’ Aisling spoke up for the first time as she described their games of hide and seek and how she’d tuck herself away in the dumbwaiter running all the way from their apartment on the top floor to the basement kitchen in order to read in peace. ‘St Stephen’s Green across the way was our garden,’ she added. ‘You can see the treetops from our living room window and I love to watch the leaves changing with the seasons.’
‘And you manage it now?’ Louise asked.
‘I do, I love the place, and our guests. There’s never a dull moment. I can’t imagine living anywhere else now.’
‘And you’re a newly-wed?’
‘Ah, Sweet Jesus,’ said Moira. ‘Don’t be getting her started on that.’ She winced as Mammy kicked her under the table.
The food began to arrive then, steaming plates of poached or pan-fried fish and Dublin Bay prawn deliciousness. They tucked in, all exclaiming over the buttery fish or silky sauce and the like before Maureen enquired as to what Louise’s husband did, knowing it was something unpronounceable and interesting that took him away from home on occasion and involved dinosaur bones.
She filled them in on his role as a palaeontologist and the latest dig he was working on in Argentina.
‘That must be hard, him being away for chunks of time like that,’ Roisin said.
‘The hardest thing is adjusting to him being back. Oh, don’t get me wrong,’ The flaky white fish wobbled on
