The Matchmaker Read online

  ‘I’m not sure if those Irish coffees were such a good idea, though.’

  ‘They were,’ he insisted.

  She laughed, remembering how they’d fallen into a taxi and gone straight home, Shane holding her close all the way, racing upstairs and dancing to Sade on the stereo as he made her take off her shoes and stockings and sit out on the balcony with him watching the moon. It had been such a perfect romantic night and Shane had been tender and funny and held her until she had fallen asleep in his arms.

  ‘Will I see you later?’ she asked, turning away from him as she got up to make more coffee.

  ‘I’ll text you. Depends on Johnny and what time we finish. We might just get a quick steak in the clubhouse. So don’t worry about me, OK?’

  It wasn’t OK but she wasn’t prepared to admit it and nag and fight like some needy woman.

  ‘Listen, Gracey, I’ll let you know if I can call by later. If not I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Fine.’ She smiled brightly, layering some marmalade on a slice of golden toast.

  He smoothed her tumble of shoulder-length blond hair and then bent and kissed her lips. He tasted of coffee and sugar and his skin and hair smelled of her expensive Jo Malone orange and lime shower gel.

  ‘Thanks for breakfast and everything,’ he said, kissing her one last time as he grabbed his jacket and wallet and keys.

  Resisting the urge to argue with him, she walked him to the door and watched him get the lift.

  Afterwards she stayed sitting for ages, her coffee going cold as she contemplated her relationship with him. Seagulls screeched along the river; a bold cormorant dived up and down as if it was looking for treasure, watching the waves below as it moved across the water. Shane was probably off swinging a golf club somewhere, totally oblivious to the fact that he had upset her. It was stupid, she knew. He hadn’t done or said anything deliberately hurtful. It was more what he hadn’t done, had left unsaid.

  They had been going out for nine months. She knew that didn’t mean she owned him but she hoped that he enjoyed being with her as much she did with him. They saw a lot of each other at work, and that was the way their relationship had started. But outside of work it was different: they needed to make time for each other, no matter how busy their schedules were or how many projects they were working on. She was prepared to make the effort, to give their relationship the time, but she wasn’t sure that Shane O’Sullivan was.

  She glanced at her watch, suddenly realizing it was past midday as the sunshine streamed in the window. She could sit here for the rest of the day moping around or get dressed and go for a brisk walk along Sandymount Strand before heading home for a meal at her mother’s. The comfort of Sunday lunch beckoned.

  Chapter Four

  Standing at the bedroom door, Sarah studied her sleeping child: Evie’s long dark eyelashes fanning across her cheek, her black hair in a tangle across the pillow, a smile on her lips. Sometimes it took her breath away just to look at her. Her daughter was utterly, totally beautiful.

  ‘Mummy, are you watching me?’ a sleepy voice asked.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, clambering into bed with her and pulling the pink gingham quilt up around them.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I love you, and when you’re asleep and dreaming you make all kinds of funny faces.’

  ‘What are they like?’

  Curled up beside her daughter, she demonstrated and Evie giggled aloud.

  ‘I was dreaming up a dog,’ Evie said slowly, her blue eyes shining. ‘A big white dog, with soft hair and a black nose . . .’

  ‘That was a nice dream then,’ Sarah agreed. Evie was going through a doggy phase. Sarah had searched the mothering manuals, but there was no mention of what to do about a child who was so obsessed about getting a dog that she even dreamed about them.

  ‘His name is Snowy.’

  Sarah just could not afford to take on a dog at the moment with all the costs involved: food and injections and vet’s bills. Evie didn’t understand how tight their finances were and how a hungry dog could be the last straw that would upset the delicate balance of their budget.

  ‘Some day, pet, we’ll get a dog,’ she promised, ‘but not just yet.’

  ‘When?’

  Sometimes she wished that Evie wasn’t so clever. ‘Well, we can’t get a dog while Granny still has Podge. He’s a very old and slow cat and it wouldn’t be fair to him to have a new young dog running around the place and in the garden. It would scare him, wouldn’t it? The dog would probably bark at him and chase him and I think poor old Podge might not even be quick enough at running to make it up a tree. It would be cruel. Do you see?’

  ‘I see, Mummy.’ Evie nodded, giving a big disappointed shrug of her shoulders.

  ‘What’s that for?’ Sarah joked. ‘Your granny’s cooking us a lovely dinner today and Grace and Anna and Oscar from next door are coming over too.’

  ‘Can I wear my pink dress and my new pink tights then?’ pleaded Evie, bouncing up and down with excitement in the bed.

  ‘Of course, but you have to have a bath after breakfast and wash your hair,’ Sarah bargained as her daughter covered her in kisses before jumping out of bed.

  Sarah watched her bounce out of the room and smiled to herself. It was funny how the worst thing that could have happened to her had ended up being the best. Finding out at nineteen, in the middle of college, that she was pregnant had seemed a disaster. A baby had been the last thing she wanted, but now – well, she couldn’t imagine life without Evie.

  She had been madly in love with Maurizio, an Italian exchange student in the year above her. He was over from Milan for six months studying media technology. Small and dark and very handsome, he had asked her to show him how the contrary college photocopying machine worked and she’d ended up helping him copy his project. He had repaid her with coffee and a sandwich in the student café afterwards. Maurizio told her that Irish girls were the most wonderful creatures in the world. Sarah had, of course, believed him. She was so crazy about him that she could barely breathe. When she told him that they were going to have a child he had asked her to move back to Italy with him – live in a student house in Milan, transfer from her Art and Design course in Dun Laoghaire to college there.

  ‘Wait till the baby is born,’ her mother and father had advised. Sarah, overwhelmed by their support and love and insistence that they would help cover all the costs of having a baby, had agreed.

  Maurizio had returned to Milan and his studies, coming to Dublin for three days when baby Evie was born. Evie had his dark, almost black hair and long eyelashes and, Sarah suspected, a little of his Italian temperament, but her blue eyes, heart-shaped face and fair Irish skin were a carbon copy of her own looks. At first Maurizio had sent some money and she had made the effort to visit his parents in Italy for a week. It had been a disaster. His father wasn’t well, the Carlucci family’s apartment in central Milan was on the tenth floor and smaller than she expected; Evie’s waking for night feeds woke the whole family and probably half of their neighbours too.

  She had returned home exhausted. Maurizio only made it to Dublin for five days that summer to see his daughter. He was doing a masters degree, transferring to Rome; he was excitedly looking forward to the future. Sarah realized that Evie and herself were not part of it. There had been no big fight or angry words, they had simply drifted apart. Over the years his contact with his child had lessened, his financial support dwindled, leaving Sarah disappointed but not really surprised.

  Motherhood had totally changed her. When Evie was born she had insisted on being with her all the time, refusing to hand her baby over to a crèche or someone else to mind. The maelstrom of emotions she felt for this small being who was so dependent on her made her decide to quit her course, stay home and be a full-time mother.

  ‘Are you sure that’s what you want?’ her father had asked.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  She was still sure, and didn’t
regret an hour or a day that she had spent devoted to her small daughter. Her parents had been more than generous, turning the basement of their house into an apartment for herself and Evie, refusing to accept any rent for it.

  ‘Sure, all we were doing was storing stuff there, and who in God’s name needed a table-tennis room,’ Leo Ryan had pointed out as two bedrooms, a small sitting room and a bright kitchen had been created and painted up with new heating and new fittings installed. When Evie was two and a half Sarah had gone back and finished her course at night, her mother encouraging her to get her qualification and babysitting on Tuesdays and Thursdays for her as she wrote her thesis and took on her final year project.

  She lived on the small income she got for working part-time in the local national school, which meant she was broke most of the time. She helped out with their library and gave art classes to the older children. The odd design job came her way through old college contacts and if she needed extra money her friend Cora, who ran a successful catering company, was always glad of an extra pair of hands either in the kitchen or serving at some of the fancy Dublin parties she catered for in people’s homes. Still Sarah had no regrets. She watched as her friends’ careers began to take off, and knew she wouldn’t change places with them for the world, for she had Evie.

  Chapter Five

  Sunday lunch. Maggie Ryan was a great believer in the tradition of Sunday lunch. Some considered it old-fashioned, but she clung firmly to the tenet that gathering around the table for a good meal at the end of a busy week was the best way to keep a family together. It ensured time with her children, kept her in touch with relations and was a relaxed way to entertain friends. Leo had always enjoyed it, carving up beef or lamb or turkey or pork loin into slices as he sipped a glass of red wine and put the cares of the week behind him. When he’d died she had abandoned the whole idea of entertaining, hating Sundays with a vengeance because they highlighted his absence, making it an awful day. Gradually, however, over the past few years, as her anger and grief had subsided, she realized that she hated being on her own Sunday after Sunday and had reinstigated the tradition.

  Today the smell of roasting lamb and potatoes pervaded the kitchen and she had just added a tray full of peeled onions to the dish at the bottom of the oven. She had a large rhubarb crumble ready to pop in the oven later for dessert and some sticky toffee ice-cream in the freezer that she knew her little granddaughter adored.

  The big mahogany dining table was set and she had lit the fire in the drawing room as there was still a nip in the air. Satisfied with progress in the kitchen, she decided to have a read of the papers, putting her feet up for a few minutes before the onslaught of visitors. Podge, her aged marmalade tabby cat, snoozed beside her in the chair.

  Sarah and Evie were naturally the first to arrive, having only to make the short trip from the basement apartment up the stairs to the main part of the house. Sarah was wearing her usual jeans and T-shirt, topped by a pretty pink tapestry waistcoat.

  ‘Imagine! I found it in the Oxfam shop,’ she beamed as Maggie hugged them both, Sarah’s long straight fair hair such a total contrast to her granddaughter’s cascade of dark locks. Evie made a beeline for Podge who was lost in some cat reverie.

  ‘How old is he, Granny?’ she asked.

  ‘About twelve, I think.’

  ‘Will he die soon?’

  Maggie cast a look of alarm over at Sarah, not wanting to upset her granddaughter. Maybe they’d been talking about death in school?

  ‘Don’t worry, Evie,’ she reassured her. ‘I hope that Podge will live for another few years.’

  Sarah shot her a grateful glance, offering to help with the food as Evie’s attention strayed from the family cat. She certainly was a live wire and full of chat as she bounced around studying the table.

  ‘Granny, why are you using the special plates?’ she quizzed, scrutinizing them.

  ‘That’s because I’ve extra visitors coming,’ she replied, ‘and I thought they might like these plates with their pretty pattern.’

  ‘She’s full of questions about everything at the moment.’ Sarah laughed. ‘It’s non-stop.’

  ‘There’s nothing worse than a quiet child,’ teased Maggie. ‘Parents are always worrying about them. At least you don’t have that problem!’

  The doorbell went and Maggie watched as Sarah ran to open it. Her neighbours Gerry and Helen Byrne and their son Barry, who was home on a visit from London, had just arrived, Gerry carrying a bottle of expensive-looking red wine and Helen a bunch of purple and yellow freesias, to give her hostess.

  Barry almost lifted Sarah off the floor in a bear hug. The two of them laughed and chatted as Sarah took their coats and offered to put the flowers in water; Barry followed her down to the kitchen in search of a vase. Sarah had known the Byrnes all her life: they had been good friends to Maggie over the years and a tower of strength when Leo had died.

  ‘This is just like old times,’ Gerry exclaimed, warming himself in front of the fire.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ Maggie offered.

  ‘A glass of wine for me, and Helen will have her usual gin and tonic.’

  Maggie hoped that there was lemon in the fruit bowl in the kitchen as Helen was fussy about adding a slice of lemon to her drink.

  Grace arrived next. She looked amazing in a pair of slim-fitting cream cords and a beige cord jacket, smelling of that expensive American perfume she always wore.

  ‘I’ve just had a lovely walk along Sandymount Strand.’ She smiled and hugged her mother.

  ‘Where’s that boyfriend of yours?’ Maggie asked. ‘I thought you said he was coming too.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she apologized, ‘but Shane couldn’t make it. It was a last-minute thing.’

  Maggie said nothing. She could read the disappointment in her eldest daughter’s eyes.

  Why Grace had got herself tangled up with someone so self-centred was beyond her. Shane O’Sullivan worked in the same architectural firm as Grace. She wasn’t sure it was at all wise for her daughter to get romantically involved with a colleague, especially one who seemed so unreliable. They’d been going out for almost a year but she had to admit she just couldn’t take to him. Grace on the outside might seem composed and direct but underneath she was sensitive and caring. She deserved a boyfriend who was a lot better than a handsome heartbreaker like Shane. Maggie had to bite her tongue on her opinion of him but to her mind he seemed to be constantly letting Grace down; today was only another example of it.

  ‘Who else is coming?’ Grace asked.

  ‘I’ve asked Detta and Tom. You know, I’m going to really miss them. They’ve been such good neighbours over the years, and when I think how kind they were when your father died and I couldn’t even think straight . . .’

  ‘I heard their house was sold,’ Grace said, all interested. ‘Who bought it?’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll tell us. Oscar of course is coming. He loves a good Sunday roast. Anna should be here soon.’

  Grace smiled; her mother loved having people around, cooking and entertaining and chatting. Her parents had always been a social couple but now her mother had to work hard to fill the void left by her father’s death.

  ‘Can I do anything?’ she offered.

  ‘No, you relax,’ urged Maggie. Her eldest daughter worked far too hard. At the top of her profession, her job in one of the city’s busy architects’ firms consumed her. She went from one project to another, constantly putting in long hours and overtime, with scarcely any time for a personal life. Maggie’s motherly worries were interrupted by the arrival of Detta and Tom O’Connor bearing two rather ancient bottles of champagne.

  ‘We found them in that old wine cellar under the stairs. We felt we must celebrate, Maggie. Can you believe it, the house sold and us upping sticks and starting over at our age,’ declared Tom, beaming like an overweight schoolboy in his usual navy blazer, his round face flushed with excitement.

  ‘When are you moving?
’ asked Gerry, congratulating him.

  ‘The removal people are coming on Thursday,’ answered Detta, full of emotion, her double chin wobbling. ‘All the boxes are already there and we’ve so much to pack and label correctly but they’ll help us, and then on Thursday evening we’re getting the car ferry over to Holyhead. We’ll stay the night there and the next morning drive down to Bath.’

  ‘Next Sunday, God willing, we’ll be with Cormac and Lynn and their three boys. We’ve bought a small cottage only about a half-mile from their house.’

  The bottles of Moët were well chilled and Gerry helped Maggie to open one. Maggie was just passing a glass to Detta when Oscar from next door appeared. He moved slowly, his arthritis obviously troubling him again, his long thin frame cushioned by a heavy tweed jacket. Anna arrived just a minute after him.

  Maggie welcomed them both but asked no questions, taking in the black T-shirt and unironed olive-green skirt and boots, and the dark circles under her middle daughter’s eyes and her pale skin as she hugged her.

  ‘You OK, Anna? Do you want some champagne?’ offered Sarah, not surprised when her sister demurred.

  The enormous leg of lamb was done to perfection, the potatoes nicely roasted when Maggie called everyone to sit down. Sarah and Grace helped her to carve and serve the food.

  ‘A toast to Detta and Tom,’ she called. ‘It’s sad saying goodbye to the best of neighbours but we all wish them good fortune in their new home in England.’

  Gerry and Helen nodded in agreement and seventy-five-year-old Oscar made a small speech of his own.

  ‘May the road rise to meet you,’ he said softly. ‘The square won’t be the same without such dear friends. How I’ll manage in O’Brien’s on a Wednesday night without Tom along for our regular pint of Guinness beats me.’

  ‘Gerry will have to buy you one instead,’ said Helen, squeezing his arm.