Colette knew that her parents had wanted her to study law and follow them into the legal profession. It had been their plan for her all along but she had rebelled. She had no intention of studying dry as snuff law tomes and arguing the toss about some legal point or other over interminable dinner parties such as she’d had to endure at home with her parents’ legal friends and colleagues.
Francis O’Mahony had been horrified when Colette’s mother Jacqueline had suggested their daughter go and stay with his sister Beatrice in London to get over a failed romance. ‘That girl needs to knuckle down; she’s been gallivanting around Europe, partying like the end of the world was coming and spending money like it was going out of fashion,’ he grumbled. ‘We all agreed that she was going to study law after her travels. It’s time for her to grow up and get serious,’ Francis had decreed at his most thunderously impressive. To no avail.
Colette had taken off to London and enrolled in a fine arts college. Her father was somewhat mollified by her choice of career. It wasn’t a common or garden career. Nothing worse than to have to say to his peers, many of whom had children studying law, that his daughter hadn’t started university yet, or was only taking an arts degree. Every Tom, Dick and Harry had an arts degree. He had wanted more for Colette. Legal preferably but a career in the medical or financial fields would have sufficed. Fine arts would just about cut it. It was classy if nothing else.
Jacqueline was rather pleased. She knew in her heart of hearts that her daughter, although she had brains, was not cut out for a legal career. She would have spent her time flirting with the judges, she’d thought wryly, when Colette had sashayed into the Law Courts to meet her for lunch one day and had ended up with a flock of young legal eagles around her, much taken with her charms and the fact that she was Francis and Jacqueline O’Mahony’s – the hot power couple everyone wanted on their legal team – daughter. The difference between Colette and her mother was that Jacqueline had had to fight to get to where she was in life. She had worked with her best friend Sally, Hilary’s mother, in the local supermarket during their school holidays, and when she’d gone to university she’d worked as a hotel chambermaid to pay her way through her law degree because her father hadn’t been able to afford the fees. Jacqueline had clawed her way up the ladder of success rung by rung. Colette had cruised through life never wanting for anything because her parents had been hungry to succeed and had indeed succeeded beyond their aspirations. Both of them had ended up raking in massive fees. Their sense of entitlement grew, as did Colette’s, and the hoi polloi were now a different race.
When Colette had flown home for Jacqueline’s birthday celebrations she knew that the first barbecue was for those very hoi polloi who peopled their life. The grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins who had grown up in Artane. The Kinsellas had been Jacqueline’s neighbours when she lived at home, and Hilary and Dee, who had been Colette’s childhood friends, were coming.
Colette knew this was the ‘duty’ party. The one that was expected by family. But the more lavish one, the ‘real’ party where serious money would be spent and champagne would be the drink of choice, would be for their neighbours in Sutton, their golfing and bridge friends and their colleagues.
Colette had been looking forward to showing off, especially at the first party. She had a fabulous Dolce & Gabbana dress that screamed money, courtesy of her parents’ more than generous allowance. She had told Hilary, who to Colette’s complete astonishment had still been dating Niall Hammond, to bring him to the party. Colette couldn’t quite see what Niall saw in Hilary. Hilary was just Hilary, dependable, loyal, unexcitingly normal. She had been more than miffed to hear that he had indeed phoned her friend and had passed on the chance to date her when she had last been home. Colette had been somewhat disconcerted to see the intimacy and frisson between her oldest friend and the hunky Niall. ‘Are you sleeping with him?’ she’d asked when Niall had gone to the marquee to get more drinks for them.
‘Of course I am. I’m practically living in his flat,’ Hilary laughed. She was glowing, she’d dropped weight, her hazel eyes were sparkling, and the new layered hairstyle suited her chestnut locks. Colette couldn’t help the surge of envy that washed over her.
‘Have you met the parents?’
‘I have.’ Hilary grinned. ‘I was invited to Sunday lunch, the first time, and I was rattling, especially when Niall told me his mother only brought out the good china, and the Irish-lace tablecloth, for very special occasions. I was petrified I’d drop gravy on it or something. But they were lovely and made me feel at home and I relaxed and we actually had
