The Other Side of Wonderful Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  When Love Takes Over Chapter 1

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names,

  characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the

  author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Published 2013

  by Poolbeg Press Ltd

  123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle

  Dublin 13, Ireland

  E-mail: [email protected]

  www.poolbeg.com

  © Caroline Grace-Cassidy 2013

  Copyright for typesetting, layout, design, ebook

  © Poolbeg Press Ltd

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781781991312

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  www.poolbeg.com

  About the Author

  Caroline Grace-Cassidy was born in Dublin. She lives in Knocklyon with her husband Kevin and two daughters Grace and Maggie.

  Caroline works extensively as a writer, television and film actress and as a regular panellist for Midday on TV3.

  First and foremost she is a very proud mammy.

  Her debut novel, When Love Takes Over, was also published by Poolbeg.

  Also by Caroline Grace-Cassidy

  When Love Takes Over

  Published by Poolbeg

  Acknowledgements

  Acknowledgements – such a long word and it mocks you “Don’t forget anyone now!” as it sniggers behind its many vowels. So I’ll start at the top and work my way down . . . no, that’ll mean the people at the bottom will feel they are less important than the people at the top . . . okay, so I’ll start with the people who see me every day with no make-up, still love me and more importantly still recognise me!

  For my husband Kevin Cassidy whose support is completely and utterly unwavering. Without his hand on the small of my back pushing me back up the stairs to write, no book would ever be finished. Kevin, thank you for your understanding and patience and for how incredible you are with our girls. Thank you for ‘keeping it all together’ when I’m writing and most importantly thank you for always refilling my wineglass to the very top. On behalf of your three girls: we love you.

  For Grace and Maggie Cassidy, my wonderful daughters, you both bring us so much joy every single day. Even when you both reach that screaming high-pitch octave that only little girls can reach! Mammy and Daddy are your greatest fans. Love, adore and worship you both.

  I am indebted to my parents Robert and Noeleen Grace for all they have done and continue to do for us all. They are the most amazing, supportive, hip, loving, funny and loyal unit. Also Samantha my sister and Keith my brother, horse-rider and rock-and-roll-star siblings and truly fantastic friends! I love you all and am so lucky to have the four of you in my life. Thank you for being so supportive and for always being there for myself and Kevin and the girls. Rock solid fam’bly.

  Paula Campbell, one of the Top 10 most influential women in Ireland, don’t you know! Super mammy and friend. Thank you. The feeling of seeing my book on a bookshelf for the very first time was magical.

  To Sarah, Ailbhe, David and all at Poolbeg, thank you so much for all your hard work. You are always wonderful to deal with.

  Gaye Shortland, I’m sure you have a third eye you whip out at night. Thanks again for a brilliant edit and your words of encouragement for my writing.

  My heartfelt thanks to Tara, Amy and Honour for taking such fantastic care of Maggie, and to Miss Dore and The Learning Curve for teaching and taking care of Grace.

  For Louise Murphy Bates, who in fairness paid for my pints of Budweiser for many years and sometimes still does. Bul & Bud always pal.

  For Elaine Crowley, I love working on Midday with you and all the girls . . . thanks for making me laugh every single time I’m with you.

  Thanks to all my girlfriends without whom . . . I’d be sober way more often! Marina Rafter, Amy Conroy, Susan Loughnane, Alison Canavan, Jenny Barrett, Tara Durkin O’Brien, Lisa Carey, Maia Dunphy, Lucy Kennedy, Amy Joyce Hastings, Samantha Doyle, Nicola Pawley, Ciara O’Connor, Nicola Charles, Aveen Fitzgerald, Claire Guest, Maeve Callan, Caroline Cassidy, Angela Cassidy, Sorcha Furlong, Sarah Flood, Jenn McGuirk, Elaine Hearty, Gail Brady.

  And to all the wonderful Irish authors – especially Ciara Geraghty for motivating me to write in the first place with your ridiculous talent.

  Special thanks to three incredibly inspiring Irish women: Victoria Smurfit, Miriam O’Callaghan and Caroline Downey.

  Margaret Kilroy – not a day passes that I don’t think about you.

  This was, at times, a difficult book to write and a very emotional journey. Huge thanks to all who helped me with the research and facts for the book. Rathfarnham Garda Station, Women’s Aid, The Sims Clinic, National Flight Centre, and especially to Tara who told me her story and talked to me so openly and honestly at length.

  My most heartfelt thanks of all are to you wonderful readers. I hope you enjoy The Other Side of Wonderful. Thank you so much to all of you who bought When Love Takes Over and for sending me your emails and comments. Without readers I can’t write stories and I love writing stories! It’s always amazing to hear from you all so please do continue to email, tweet, and facebook me through my website, www.carolinegracecassidy.com.

  Love, Caroline. x

  For my parents, Robert & Noeleen Grace

  Thank you both for everything . . .

  Chapter 1

  Cara Byrne eased her foot lightly off the accelerator and the car pulled up slowly outside the hotel as morning was slowly stretching itself awake. It was an ungodly hour to begin her day but she’d better get used to it. This dark morning was the start of her brand-new life and her new career, as the hospitality manager at the Moritz Hotel, in the quaint old village of Knocknoly. She stared out the frosted car window before rubbing the condensation clear with the palm of her cold thin bluish hand. Her eyes devoured the building. The architecture of the hotel was uniquely beautiful, reminding her of a fairytale castle she had loved in her favourite torn storybook as a little girl. It was a perfect building, one of a kind, stonewashed white all over, with bay windows on the lower level and magnificent oriel windows on the upper levels. It looked to her like a perfect parcel, with t
he enormous wooden mahogany door a brown sticker to seal it together. A little spot of Irish paradise. The hotel sat in the middle of acres and acres of unspoiled green fields and was a truly breathtaking sight as the early morning stirred. The sky was bleeding shades of greys and blues, waiting for the sun to combine the two colours together.

  She flicked off the engine and the lights on her trusty silver Ford Fiesta. She really had to get the heater fixed. She really had to do a lot of things. All in good time, she answered herself in her head. That was another thing she had to stop doing – talking to herself – because most of the time she did it out ‘crazy lady’ loud. The November morning was bitterly cold but crisp. The type of hour and air that made you really feel alive. It hit you full-on, like opening one of those huge freezers in the supermarket except you couldn’t slam it shut again.

  She looked at the hotel again. There were people silhouetted in some of the windows already. Upstairs and downstairs. Setting up for breakfast and for the hotel’s day ahead.

  As she watched them Cara took a deep breath. This was the job she had always wanted. She had gone back to college and studied hotel management at the Dublin Institute of Technology while continuing to waitress at The Law Top at nights and weekends. This job had really always been her ambition but life had side-tracked her before she’d had time to blink. Sometimes it took life to kick your arse bloody hard to make you realise what you really wanted from it.

  Cara slid on the light-switch above the rear-view mirror and checked her face. She smiled widely at her reflection and then unsmiled as the crow’s-feet jumped out at her. She rubbed at them gently then flicked the light off. Bloody face cream advertising all lied. There should be a law against it.

  Starting over at thirty-five would certainly be a challenge.

  She had tied her long, wild loose red curls up in a bun and added jet-black mascara to her green eyes and a dab of BB tinted moisturiser. BB tinted moisturisers were all in and, while she hadn’t a clue what they did, she bought into the hype anyway. Cara bought into the hype of everything unfortunately – she was that kind of girl. If someone said something worked then she believed them. “It really works – honestly, I can’t live without it,” the counter assistants with their perfect skin would tell her every time and every time she fell for it. Nothing was ever what it seemed though. She laughed inwardly at that thought. How bloody true! She had always been too innocent. A sucker. That was the problem: she hadn’t been able to see through the bullshit and the fancy packaging.

  Cara’s skin was dotted with light-brown freckles and she loved them. There was no point in piling on the make-up today or she would have to do the same for the next however many years she worked here. ‘Start as you mean to go on,’ was her new motto. Cara just wanted to be herself again.

  She smoothed down her crisp white shirt as she sat in the driver’s seat and was confident that the charcoal-black Stella McCartney suit she had spent a small fortune on would take her through the next few years – all she’d need were some different-coloured shirts and vest tops in summer. “Dry clean on your day off,” Zoe Doyle, her course tutor, had said as she’d strongly advised her on the costly purchase. She took Zoe’s advice. She had learned that skill only too harshly. She had finally learned to listen to people who knew what they were talking about.

  Her mother Esther had bought her a sleek brown-leather Wilsons dual-pocket briefcase that would carry her laptop when she actually bought one of her own. She’d always wanted a sleek briefcase. Esther must have saved hard to afford this, or had a secret windfall at the bingo. In her old job as a waitress at The Law Top Cara used to watch the career women – the solicitors, the barristers and the judges – come and go with their all-important briefcases. She had felt so stylish but professional last night as she had posed in front of the mirror with hers. She was ready. She knew she was more like Melanie Griffiths than Sigourney Weaver in Working Girl, but she was working her way up. She was proud of herself. The briefcase somehow made it official. Cara Byrne was a businesswoman. She wouldn’t look back. She couldn’t look back.

  She had better get in there and meet the manager. She hadn’t met Mr Jonathan Redmond yet as she hadn’t been interviewed here but at the sister hotel, the Zatlend in Cork, where the heads of the conglomerate and managers Amy and Graham Haswell had met with her.

  Five more minutes, she decided, and slid the light on again. She picked up her notes. It was Steve, her dear friend and barman at The Law Top, who had seen the job advertised and passed the ad on to her. “Saw this and thought of you,” he’d said as he slid the paper cutting across the bar to her, wiping as he went. He had circled the advert in bright red pen. She never in her wildest dreams thought she’d get the job. In fact, the night before the interview she had decided she wouldn’t go. It was her mother who had talked her round over a large Toblerone and a pot of hot Barry’s tea.

  She licked her thin index finger and thumb and flicked through her notes for the thousandth time. The Moritz Hotel had been built in the eighteenth century and was a residence and stately home to the Harte clan. It had been passed down through the generations until the youngest of the sons, Emerson Harte, had sold his birthright to a moneylender in order to pay off gambling debts. How tragic, Cara thought once again as she flipped over the page. It had been falling into ruins until a famous Polish film director spotted it in the early seventies and used it as a location for his film Thin Ice. The filmmaker fell in love with the place and bought it. When he passed away it was sold to the American conglomerate that restored the old place to its original splendour.

  The Moritz was now considered one of the more exclusive hotels in Ireland without being too posh or too stuffy. It was comfortable, it embraced you. It was immaculate, with great friendly staff, and an award-winning chef from Marseille, Delphine Coudray. It oozed a beautiful relaxed atmosphere. It was everything a hotel should be. Cara had visited for lunch before going to Cork for her interview and felt relaxed and pampered as soon as she entered the building. It wasn’t huge by any means. It now had twenty-two bedrooms, four of them luxury suites, with a stunning bridal suite, and in the last few years they’d had the Haven Spa built onto the side, along with a small fitness centre and swimming pool. Down a long winding cobbled pathway opposite a wonderful courtyard there was the Breena Stable Yard, where guests could avail of complimentary horse-riding around the magnificent five-acre grounds and even down into the local village of Knocknoly. Cara had ridden only once as a child, on a donkey in Blackpool on the North Pier. The donkey had been called Buckles, she remembered now. She was looking forward to taking horse-riding up properly when she was a bit more settled into the job. She loved the idea of the freedom she associated with it. Ahh, freedom!

  Cara rolled down the car window and let the freezing morning air fill her lungs. Someday she’d have a car that boasted electric windows and heated seats. She laughed as she pictured Esther’s face as her bum got hotter and hotter.

  The scent of freshly ground coffee mixed with the cold fresh air was wonderful. She would eat something soon – she knew she still had to put on over a stone. “Build yourself up, love, won’t you?” her mother had told her as she left for Knocknoly. Esther had stood in the glass porch of Cara’s Auntie Ann’s house, and waved her goodbye and good luck.

  Cara’s life had been very tough over the last year and a half but that was all behind her now. She was a free woman, retrained, with an exciting new start. “Close that closet!” She whispered the mantra to herself, clicked the fingers on her left hand and smiled.

  She had rented a beautiful small stone cottage in the village, just over the bridge from the Moritz. Mr Peters, the elderly owner, had more or less told her she could redecorate any way she pleased and she fully intended to do so. To be honest it must have been a few years since the cottage had seen any TLC. ‘Musty’ was the word that sprang to mind. But it was her very first place of her own and she planned to make it all hers. In fact, if this job turned ou
t the way she was hoping it would, she might just try and buy the place one day.

  She turned off the overhead light, rolled up the window, got out of the car and locked it. She zipped down and removed her grey hoody and opened the boot to remove her suit jacket and briefcase. She inhaled deeply before exhaling very slowly and watched her warm breath escape on the cold air.

  “Welcome to your bright new future, Miss Cara Byrne,” she whispered to herself as she began to walk and the stony gravel crunched noisily under her feet.

  Chapter 2

  Sandra Darragh pinned her shiny gold name-badge onto her black blazer and, squeezing her eyes shut tight, she lashed the L’Oréal Elnet hairspray onto her tidy bun. Her poker-straight shoulder-length black hair had still been damp from the swim as she rolled it into the knot but she was rushed for time. She took her short yellow comb from her bag and brushed down her straight thick blunt fringe. It was almost as far as her eyes –– she needed a trim. She loved the early-morning swims in the Haven Spa’s pool before it was opened to the guests. Jonathan Redmond had told her she was welcome to use it anytime she liked. The swim was also doing wonders for her figure she’d noticed as she dried off this morning. It was toning her up in all the right places. It woke her up and got her ready for the day’s duties on the busy reception desk.

  As the head receptionist and first point of contact with the guests, she tried to set a good example. Her uniform was kept pristine and she was always immaculately presented in a black blazer, a crisp white shirt, a yellow-and-red tie, a tight knee-length black skirt, barely black tights and black kitten-heeled shoes. She liked how she looked in the uniform. She wore quite a lot of make-up to work but liked to look as though she’d made an effort. She was a bit old-school, she supposed, and four years on Aer Lingus as a number-one stewardess before she married Neil Darragh had whipped grooming into her. She checked her blood-red nail polish.