The Rose Garden Read online

  ‘Most definitely,’ said Joe. ‘A great escape – we’ll head for a drink to the Step Inn.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ asked Liz.

  ‘Of course not … you’ve been so good to me. I don’t mind doing a bit of babysitting and if you want I’ll make dinner for us all tomorrow night.’

  ‘I’ll take you up on that!’ Joe grinned.

  Kim felt relieved that at least she could help out, even if she couldn’t contribute very much financially. Her stay here was only meant to be short-term, but, having trawled a lot of rental sites on the internet, paying out rent in a house or apartment on her own was not a viable option while she was so broke and on the dole.

  Later she helped bath the kids and put them to bed. Having the children sharing the one bedroom was hardly ideal, as she had almost to whisper so she didn’t wake the sleeping Finn.

  Downstairs she virtually collapsed in front of the TV. Joe and Liz were in the kitchen getting clothes and things sorted for the next day – parenthood was sure tough work.

  By eleven o’clock everyone was in bed, the house quiet. She could hear Liz and Joe talking and laughing in bed together. Snuggled against her pillow, Kim found herself going back over all her old messages from Gareth. She wondered what he was doing and if he was missing her the way she missed him …

  Chapter 10

  ‘YOU LOOK BEUUUTIFUL,’ PRONOUNCED AVA, WHO WAS WATCHING HER as she got ready for her night out with the girls.

  Glancing at herself in the mirror, Kim was pleased with her efforts. Tight jeans, expensive Karen Millen top, and her classic fitted black jacket. A bit of eyeliner made her eyes look huge and she ran a slick of fresh lip gloss across her lips.

  ‘And you look beautiful too,’ she told her niece, who was in her pink rabbit pyjamas with her hair washed. ‘Mmm – and you smell really good too.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m meeting some of my friends and we are going to have dinner and have some fun. I’m staying in my friend’s tonight, so I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Downstairs Liz and Joe had rented two DVDs and had a bottle of wine chilling.

  ‘Once Ava is safe in bed, we are enjoying our Saturday,’ teased Joe, kissing Liz.

  Kim laughed – it didn’t sound too bad to her.

  ‘Enjoy your night!’ called Liz.

  Kim parked her car near Evie’s apartment and left her overnight bag there. They each had a glass of wine as they set up the futon in the living room where she would sleep later. Evie’s place was such a mess, she had no idea how her old schoolfriend managed living this way; there were canvases and paints and clutter everywhere.

  ‘Did I tell you that I’ve got a spot in the artists’ exhibition on Merrion Square for the next two weekends, selling my work?’

  ‘Oh Evie, that’s brilliant news!’

  ‘Spots are like gold dust and I’ve been waiting months for this. It gives me a chance to show off my work and hopefully sell a few paintings.’

  ‘If you need any help, I’m free,’ offered Kim.

  ‘Thanks – it would be nice to have a bit of company.’

  Kim knew how much painting and art meant to her friend. So Evie had studied art and had really struggled after college to find a market for her big, strong canvases. She had done a teaching diploma and now worked three days a week as an art teacher in a city-centre school. The kids there loved her and she was always doing big art projects with them, but Evie really wanted to sell her own work and make a name for herself as an artist.

  Kim loved her friend’s paintings and was busy creating a website for her that showcased her artwork and gave details of how to buy it and even commission pieces.

  ‘Hey, we’d better hit the road. Ali and Mel and Lisa just texted to say they’re already on the way into town,’ urged Evie, and they made a run for the Luas tram.

  Alfredo’s on Wicklow Street was packed and Kim couldn’t believe how lucky they were to get a big table near the window. She hadn’t seen some of the girls since her break-up with Gareth.

  ‘You okay?’ asked Rhona, who was sitting beside her.

  ‘Not really,’ she admitted. ‘It hurts like hell, but I’ve got to try and get used to it.’

  ‘Gareth’s such a wally! When he comes crawling back to you, promise me that you won’t cave in and go back with him!’

  ‘I don’t think that’s going to happen,’ she sighed, grabbing a glass of the house white.

  ‘It will – he’ll realize that he had one of the nicest girlfriends on the planet and he let her go …’

  ‘Thanks, Rhona,’ said Kim, a lump in her throat.

  ‘Don’t underestimate yourself,’ continued Rhona firmly. ‘Women do it all the time.’

  Kim nodded. Rhona had been in school with herself and Evie, and worked in one of the big law firms. Her husband, Will, was a lawyer too. They’d got married two years ago and had a baby boy of about five months.

  ‘How’s Baby Ollie?’

  ‘He’s thriving. Will and I might be exhausted, but he’s great! We’re mad about him. It changes everything, but in a good way … But listen, no baby-talk tonight. I finished breastfeeding ten days ago and after fourteen months am finally able to drink again! I’d kill for another glass of wine.’

  ‘Sure thing!’ laughed Kim, topping her up.

  They ordered two big plates of antipasti for the table and Kim went for the seafood risotto.

  Mel was getting married in five months’ time and entertained them with awful stories of the outrageous behaviour of her future mother-in-law, who wanted to invite fifty friends to the wedding.

  ‘We keep telling her that it is going to be a smallish wedding, but she doesn’t believe us. She thinks that we’re made of money.’

  ‘Set a limit and tell her she has twenty-five or thirty places, and that you don’t care who makes up her thirty places but that there is no going over on that,’ advised Rhona.

  Kim loved the girls; most of them had been friends for so long and knew each other really well. Husbands and boyfriends didn’t really come into it when they were together, which meant she wasn’t over-conscious of being single again. Anyway, she knew the girls were all on her side no matter what happened.

  The waiters kept them topped up with wine and she shared some dessert with Rhona. They were happy there, talking and swapping places and chatting, and as they ordered coffee the head waiter brought them each a flaming sambuca on the house.

  It was long after midnight when they began to break up.

  ‘Fingers crossed that Ollie is conked out,’ muttered Rhona, getting into a cab with Lisa. ‘If he wakes up Will is going to have to deal with him and give him his night feed – I’m far too tipsy to manage!’

  ‘The night is still young,’ slurred Ali. ‘Why don’t we hit a nightclub?’

  Kim had absolutely no intention of going to a nightclub; she wasn’t in the mood for dancing and shouting at people.

  ‘Let’s find a nice cosy bar where we can have another drink or two,’ suggested Evie.

  ‘Davy Byrne’s,’ said Ali, leading the way up towards Duke Street.

  Town was busy and they stopped for a few minutes to listen to a young band performing U2 songs in front of a massive crowd on Grafton Street.

  ‘Bono’d be proud!’ laughed Kim.

  The bar was busy, but Evie and Ali managed to find a booth near the back that they could all squeeze into.

  Mel was being chatted up by some gorgeous Frenchman who seemed oblivious to the engagement ring sparkling on her finger.

  ‘Maybe he’s blind,’ teased Evie.

  Kim was so glad that she had made the effort to come out with her friends. She’d economize for the next week. Seeing the girls had made her feel like herself again – the old Kim who had existed before Gareth had come along. Sipping her wine, she relaxed as Evie and Ali talked about going away to the sun in a few weeks’ time for a girly break.

  ‘If you want to come with us yo
u’re welcome,’ laughed Ali. ‘My dad and mum have a place near Marbella and I’ll get it for a few days. We’ll just have to pay our airfare and spending money.’

  ‘I’ll have to see if I can afford it …’ she trailed off.

  ‘Maybe you’ll get that great job that you were telling me about,’ Evie encouraged her.

  ‘Maybe!’ she said, embarrassed. She’d love to go on a break with the girls, do all the things they could afford to do, but at the moment she was stony broke.

  It was almost 2 a.m. when they decided to call it a night and, grabbing her coat and handbag, Kim joined the throng of people on Dawson Street. There was no shortage of taxis on the busy street, with all its late-night bars and restaurants. As Evie and she headed towards the front of the rank, Kim stopped suddenly, realizing that Gareth was further up in the queue. He was laughing and talking with some guys, probably his mates Cormac and Shay.

  Kim stopped. Should she say hello to him, or pretend she didn’t see him? He was deep in conversation, unaware of her watching him.

  ‘Gareth!’ she shouted drunkenly. ‘Gareth!’ She started to move towards him.

  Suddenly Kim realized that Gareth wasn’t with a few of the guys, but had his arm loosely around the shoulder of a tall, skinny, dark-haired girl.

  ‘No!’ shouted Evie, grabbing her arms and dragging her back. ‘Leave him!’

  She watched as he got into a cab with the girl. Who the hell was she? Had he just met her in one of the bars?

  ‘Was that Gareth?’ asked Ali drunkenly as they got into a cab of their own.

  ‘Shut up!’ hissed Evie.

  Kim stared out at the city lights, street after street, unable to think of anything but the fact that tonight Gareth was with someone else …

  Chapter 11

  SOMEHOW KIM MANAGED TO HOLD IT TOGETHER UNTIL SHE AND Evie had climbed up two flights of steep stairs of the tall Georgian building to her second-floor flat. The ancient lift was dodgy and Evie refused to put foot in it once darkness fell. Ten minutes earlier they had deposited a very drunken Ali safely to her door.

  The minute they got in Kim began to cry. Evie made her sit down on the couch and have a pint of water.

  ‘Gareth didn’t even say hello to me!’ she sobbed.

  ‘Luckily he didn’t see you!’

  ‘He’s met someone already!’ she wailed. ‘I can’t believe it! Do you think he was seeing her while we were still living together?’

  ‘I know Gareth’s a bit of a shit, but I don’t think he’s the two-timing type,’ said Evie. ‘He’s too old-fashioned and boring to be having an affair under your nose! Odds are he just met that girl tonight, or maybe she’s a work client or something.’

  ‘Sure,’ sobbed Kim, imagining the dark-haired girl arriving back at the apartment and being romanced by Gareth, who could be so bloody charming when he wanted.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do about it,’ Evie said gently. ‘Let it go.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she wailed, ‘I just can’t!’

  ‘Remember when Brian and I split up two years ago and I found out that he’d been seeing bloody Aoife behind my back for weeks? It nearly drove me mad. The fact that my boyfriend was going out with someone who I used to call a friend nearly drove me crazy.’

  ‘But they broke up, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, but it was the betrayal and the broken trust that got me. Brian was bad, but Aoife was worse for going out with him. I haven’t spoken to her since.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have gone out tonight. I should have stayed in and babysat for Liz.’

  ‘You babysat for them last night,’ Evie reminded her. ‘Besides, just because you and Gareth aren’t together doesn’t mean you can’t go out with the girls for a meal and a drink. Don’t be so stupid, Kim!’

  ‘But if I wasn’t in town,’ she hiccupped, ‘I wouldn’t have seen him!’

  ‘You are hardly going to hide away. You know what Dublin’s like – everyone knows everything about everyone!’

  ‘I just wish that I had stayed home and hadn’t seen him.’

  ‘I know,’ Evie consoled her. ‘It’s shit seeing your boyfriend with someone else.’

  ‘It’s so crap that he’s not my boyfriend any more,’ she said, feeling sadness overwhelm her. ‘I just don’t know how I’ll ever get used to it.’

  ‘You will,’ said Evie loyally, getting up and bustling about the tiny kitchen area on one side of the large room. ‘I’m making us toast and hot chocolate.’

  ‘Sure.’ Ever since she was about nine years old, Evie had always believed that hot chocolate was the best drink there was in a time of crisis and this was most definitely a crisis.

  ‘I hate my life! I hate the way things are,’ Kim confessed as she sat in front of the gas fire with her mug of hot chocolate. ‘Everything is a disaster.’

  ‘You have to start believing in yourself,’ Evie insisted. ‘Forget Gareth! Forget those stupid wanker bankers you used to work for! You’ve got to find something that you really want to do for yourself – something that makes you happy, like my painting, or Lisa and her running, and Mel and her mania for interior decorating. You’ve got brains to burn, Kim, but you just need to find the right thing to do in life – no more second bests! You have to change things.’

  Drunk as they both were, Kim knew what Evie was saying was true. She was the only one who could change her life – the only one.

  She had tossed and turned on the futon before finally giving in to sleep. When she woke it was lunchtime and Evie was in her pyjamas painting.

  ‘Hey, I’ve got bacon and scrambled egg for brunch,’ she said, standing over Kim.

  ‘I’m not really hungry.’

  ‘You hop in the shower and I’ll get it ready,’ Evie said, ignoring her protests. Fifteen minutes later Kim was beginning to feel human again as she sat on the couch in her jeans and sweatshirt eating.

  ‘It was a great night,’ murmured Evie, ‘except for us seeing you know who!’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you want to do something today?’

  ‘Not really … well, unless you count sleeping …’

  ‘Okay, I am going to paint, but you are welcome to hang out here.’

  ‘What you said last night – it made me think.’

  ‘I was probably far too wasted and said more than I should have,’ said Evie apologetically.

  ‘No, you were right. The only one who can change my life is me. Not a job, not a guy – the elephant in the room is me. I need to sort that out, find out what I want …’

  ‘Oh Kim!’ said Evie, throwing her arms around her. ‘I just want you to be happy!’

  ‘I know.’

  Later, as she drove back to Liz’s house, she wondered how the hell she was going to even begin to change things.

  Chapter 12

  GINA SULLIVAN STOOD AT THE COUNTER LOOKING OUT ON THE street. Rain again. God, did it ever stop raining? Heavy rain and showers kept customers away, and heaven knows Cassidy’s Café could sure do with more of them.

  Norah Cassidy had put up the day’s lunch menu: vegetable soup, roast pork with apple sauce and potatoes, and ham salad up on the board; hardly the fare to tempt hungry diners. There were also fresh scones and Norah’s famous apple tart, and Gina’s own home-made brownies and cupcakes for those coming to have a coffee or tea and while away the time.

  There were already two customers sitting at a table in the window, one eating a lemon drizzle cupcake. Gina had made it herself, getting up at six this morning to bake, and Paul, her husband, had dropped her off at work with her just-baked delivery for the café. Then he had gone off to deliver her order to Beech Hill, the old folks’ home on the outskirts of Kilfinn, and another dozen of both cupcakes and brownies to Ramona’s Coffee Shop in the nearby town of Castlecomer.

  Twice a week Gina rose early to bake, amazed that something she loved to do was also proving a fairly regular source of income for the family. In fact it was her brownies and cupcakes that had
first helped her to get to know Norah. She had come into the café with some free samples of her baking and Norah had tasted them and given her an order straight away. Three months later, when Sonya the girl who helped out in the café decided to head off to Australia with a few of her friends, Norah had asked Gina if she would be interested in coming in and helping. Gina couldn’t believe her luck, and though her salary was nothing to write home about, it was a job, when she hadn’t expected to find one and when she and Paul needed work.

  That was two years ago, and it had been one of the best decisions ever. She loved working in the village café, meeting the regulars, hearing all that was going on in Kilfinn and having the chance to test out a dish of her own every now and then on the customers. Her boss, Norah Cassidy, was a good woman – old-fashioned and somewhat stuck in her ways, but a good cook. Okay, she tended to have the same dishes on the menu week in, week out, but the food was always good and, if possible, sourced locally. Gina tried to expand the menu range every now and then, with Norah sometimes grudgingly admitting that the customers liked something new.

  Norah was working away in the kitchen, the smell of her warm tarts filling the café. She might not be the most adventurous of cooks, but she was a dab hand at pastry. People went mad for her apple tart and ice cream. It had been strange for Gina coming to work in a small village café after her job in a busy catering company, but Norah had been kind and generous to her and over time the older woman had come to rely on her.

  The past few years had been tough, with Paul’s job in construction just disappearing overnight, and then Grattan’s Gourmet Foods, the busy caterers where she’d worked part-time for years, getting into financial difficulty and eventually shutting down. They had struggled on for months, not knowing what they should do, when fate had intervened and Paul’s mother Sheila had offered them to come and live with her in Kilfinn.

  Sheila Sullivan had fallen downstairs at home and broken her collarbone and wrist. However, the hospital discovered that she was suffering from heart failure and suggested that she move into a nursing home. But Sheila, an independent, feisty woman, made it very clear she was not budging and wanted to stay in her own home. Paul and Gina coming to live with her in Kilfinn was the obvious solution.