The Hollow Heart Part 24

"Is she supposed to be here?"

"No suppose about it. She's like a d.a.m.n magnet, that woman. No offence ma'am, but this relationship is driving a coach and horses through a number of very important people's schedules."

"Is it now?" Miss MacReady was unimpressed.

"Well is he there, or not?"

"Sure, there's been over three thousand people here this weekend."

Larry sighed. Why were the Irish so d.a.m.ned obtuse?

"Ma'am, could you please just get a message to him? His wife had a baby boy yesterday. Both fine. Can he please get his a.s.s back here PDQ. Have you got that?"

"Oh, how lovely, two babies in the one weekend. A great omen for the future, I'm sure of it."

"If you see my client ma'am, please give him the message, or he'll have no future!"

"Ah, Mr Leeson, you're very dramatic. I thought Ryan was the actor."

Larry hung up and, not for the first time, tried to fathom out what was going on in the seemingly deranged brain of his long-time-buddy and errant client. Ryan had everything they had been working for all these years, a fantastic career and all that went with it. Okay, his relationship with Angelique was tricky and needed to be handled delicately, but that could be managed, and Ryan could once again be free to enjoy the fame and fortune he had always craved.

Yet in those quiet moments during a break on set, or in the back of a limo en route to a press conference, Larry knew Ryan was somewhere else, with someone else, probably being the most important thing of all - himself. He shrugged at the New York skyline through the office window. Well, if that is what love does to you, you can keep it. And forgoing his diet, he decided to treat himself to a very large lunch.

Despite Larry's cynicism, Ryan and Marianne were, indeed, working on the script. Ryan had persuaded an editor friend in Hollywood to look over the first draft and put it on a memory stick. He was having problems with some of the dialogue.

"It's the love scenes. It sounds false. He comes over as a right gobs.h.i.te."

"The less dialogue in a love scene, the better, I reckon." She turned a few pages, distracted. Ryan cartoon-tip-toed away, then turning back, did a silent movie double-take and threw himself at her, fumbling at her clothes, pulling down her collar to s...o...b..r over her throat. She beat him back with a cushion. Monty, now yapping wildly, decided to join in, tugging at the hems of their jeans as Marianne fought back. Ryan started to tie Marianne up in a throw and, as she tried to escape, they all fell writhing to the floor. Miss MacReady nearly collapsed on the swirling ma.s.s as she came in through the back door. She was dressed from head to toe in grey flannel. No time for frivolity today.

"What are ye at?" she snapped, "you crowd are always rolling around on the floor together. You're like a gaggle of gypsies."

They broke free, breathless and laughing. Monty greeted her enthusiastically. Miss MacReady always smelled wonderfully exotic.

"Mr Leeson's been on. I have news." She gave them a minute to gather themselves. "Your wife had a little boy yesterday. You're needed elsewhere."

Ryan gasped. Marianne stood up slowly, brushing herself down.

"They're both fine. But you'd better call him, he's very agitated as you can imagine."

Ryan took Marianne's hand. She was staring at her feet.

"I didn't say I'd seen you, either of you. Goodbye now," Miss MacReady called back as she left.

"Goodbye now," Ryan echoed. Marianne let his hand drop. She folded the throw, put the cushions back on the sofa. She gave Ryan a half-smile.

"I'm glad your baby is okay. It's lovely news that you have a little boy. I know you have to be with them," she said.

"I want to be with him, not them, and I don't want to leave you, but I do have go back now. Can you understand that?"

"I'll have a look at the script, see what I can do, but no promises. Gone with the Wind, it ain't." She straightened some papers on the kitchen table, fiddled with the tap at the sink.

"I'll get going then," he said very quietly, picking up the overnight bag. Pulling his jacket from the back of the chair, he took a small box from the pocket and, opening it, held something glistening on a chain towards her. "For you, a love token." It was a platinum pendant, a tiny replica of a Weathervane with each moving part set with diamonds. He held it aloft and spun the arrow. "Wherever you are, part of me, the best part of me, is with you, and wherever you are, that's where I want to be. It's where I'm meant to be."

His smile was lopsided. He put the pendant around her throat, kissing the downy skin of her neck as he fastened the clasp.

"It's beautiful," she said, silent tears sliding down her cheeks. "You'd better go." She touched the gift and sat down at the table. He patted Monty, kissed the top of Marianne's head, and left.

Chapter Twenty Four .

Doing The Right Thing

The photograph of a barely identifiable couple embracing on a wintry beach with a small white dog at their ankles first appeared in an Irish Sunday newspaper. Within a week it had gone global in celebrity gossip magazines; TV s...o...b..z news and online, the story was everywhere. Headlines screamed, 'Super spy love-rat abandons pregnant wife' 'Wife in labour as Ryan labours under another love' 'Star misses birth to be with Irish lover.'

Miss MacReady was straight down to Weathervane when the story broke, bringing copies of newspapers and magazines. Shocked, Marianne immediately prepared a statement to refute the claims but, as the story took hold, she, the experienced media manipulator, felt powerless against the onslaught of gossip and conjecture.

The same question kept ringing round in her head. Who had taken the photographs, who had betrayed them, here, where they felt safe, where they could be themselves? Marianne switched off her mobile and unplugged the laptop. Miss MacReady promised to keep her abreast of any significant developments via the landline.

The warning of the small huddle of paparazzi hiding in the lane behind the cottage, came too late. Marianne and Monty walked straight into them on their way to see Oonagh and the baby.

"How long have you been seeing Ryan O'Gorman, Miss Coltrane?" called one.

"Did you know he abandoned his pregnant wife to be with you?" shouted another.

"It's been said you're an ambitious home-wrecker. What do you say to that?"

Marianne scooped Monty up and side-stepped into Maguire's. Padar slammed and bolted the door behind her. She pushed the hood of her jacket back.

"Miss MacReady phoned here when she couldn't get you up at the cottage."

Marianne sighed heavily. Padar put a hand on her shoulder.

"Can we go up?"

He nodded.

She flew up the stairs to greet a glowing Oonagh and a tiny, bluish baby Bridget. She clasped her sweet smelling friend to her. Oonagh was propped on pillows and cushions, a collection of pink and white gifts already ama.s.sing in a corner of the room. Marianne spied the clutter of magazines and newspapers on the floor. Oonagh's laptop was snoozing on her dressing table; her addiction to celebrity gossip barely on hold.

"I believe there's swathes of paparazzi on the island," Oonagh stated eventually, sipping tea Padar had delivered, as Marianne sat in the armchair, nursing Bridget.

"Hardly swathes. They'll soon get bored and b.u.g.g.e.r off."

"You're very stoical about the whole affair."

"And that's what it is, an affair, or what it was."

Oonagh spotted the trinket, glistening at Marianne's usually unadorned throat.

"It's over?"

Marianne did not answer. She turned her attention to Bridget, telling her how beautiful she was and how lucky her parents were to have her. Monty endorsed this from a polite distance, slowly shifting his tail from side to side.

"Did you see the double-page spread in The Biz?"

"The new show business magazine, under the editorial direction of one, Paul Osborne?" Marianne raised an eyebrow at her friend.

"A series of pictures going way back, starting with the 'Power 2 The People' Awards. You're holding hands."

"He was leading me out of a bomb site, as I recall."

"Then there are pictures here on the island and, together, having a quiet dinner at a Tudor lodge in Berkshire, more than just an affair, anyway."

"Oonagh, drop it."

"One of the newspaper supplements ran a really unflattering photo of you next to one of Angelique at a red carpet event, with the headline: 'Who would you want to wake up with?' But then another celebrity mag dug out a lovely one of you at the anniversary celebrations, saying you were a highly talented, award-winning journalist and stunning looking as well, in fairness to them." Oonagh always liked to highlight the good points of the publications she was so addicted to.

Marianne asked Bridget when she hoped her official christening would be. Oonagh finally took the hint.

"The eighth of December, Feast of the Immaculate Conception. What do you think?"

"Highly appropriate." They both laughed.

While Oonagh recovered from her traumatic, yet triumphant, pregnancy, Marianne set to work splitting her time between helping Padar run the pub, and editing and rewriting Ryan's script. Not six weeks after the 'Bridge Too Far' weekend, some semblance of normality had returned to Innishmahon. EU funds were allocated, and work on the bridge was scheduled to recommence in the New Year, with everything on track for the beginning of the next tourist season.

Miss MacReady, taking a brief respite in her role as the island's communications mogul, was thrilled to be asked to make Bridget's christening gown, and was working on a concoction of cream satin and antique lace, with hand sewn crystals from a wedding tiara she never had occasion to wear. Legend had it; the treasure belonged to one of the Romanov princesses, who had escaped slaughter at the hands of Russian revolutionaries in 1918. How Miss MacReady had come by it was another story altogether. And oddly for her, one that she would only hint at, as the three women sat sipping Prosecco, making plans for the christening in the room Oonagh had turned into a boudoir suite for herself and the baby.

"Oh, I might have needed it for a wedding myself once, but it wasn't to be." She was puffing on a plastic cigarette, an aid to giving up, she had been struggling with ever since Bridget had been born.

"Not like Miss Haversham, Miss MacReady, you weren't left at the altar, were you?" Oonagh was teasing, but Marianne saw Miss MacReady draw her lips into a crimson slash. She had hit a nerve.

"I'm sure that would never be the case," Marianne offered quickly, "sure women like Miss MacReady lead armies and build empires. You're way ahead of your time, Miss MacReady, an independent, educated, career woman. What man could keep up with you?"

Miss MacReady blinked and was smiling again.

"You're very earnest, aren't you, Marianne?" Oonagh slurred, not able to drink half as much as she could before Bridget arrived.

"Am I?" asked Marianne, and then realising this was not quite the compliment she a.s.sumed, "I think I'm sincere."

"Odd trait for a journalist," Oonagh observed.

Marianne nudged her. "Oi, cheeky!"

"You strike me as all those things," concurred Miss MacReady, nibbling a cheese thin. "Ever tried living a bit dangerously?"

"In my own way, at times," laughed Marianne. "Why have you, Miss MacReady, ever?"

Miss MacReady gazed over their heads.

"Ah sure, what would I know about dangerous living, a meek-mannered spinster like myself. No never!" she said, as she tugged her sparkly vest down to reveal an exquisite tattoo on her left breast. It read, "My Baby" in a love heart of roses and barbed wire.

The other two stared first at Miss MacReady, and then at each other, speechless, and then all three of them roared with laughter, rocking the bed with their mirth.

The Quinns invited over eighty guests to celebrate their daughter's arrival into the world. Father Gregory was officiating at the service, which was to encompa.s.s Bridget Marianne's formal baptism; a renewal of Oonagh and Padar's marriage vows; a Ma.s.s in thanksgiving for the survival of the devastation wrought by the storm, and a general blessing of all souls gathered regardless of race, religion, creed or s.e.xual orientation. As the priest put it, "Sure while I have a captive audience, I may as well throw the whole lot at them."

A feast in honour of the occasion was being prepared in the now highly-organised kitchen at the pub. Marianne and Padar worked well together, despite Oonagh's fierce criticism and disparaging tastings. Padar had become an excellent cook, styling himself on a number of celebrity chefs but with less bad language. Marianne, who had basked in George's encyclopaedic knowledge of food and wine, had never been particularly interested in cooking and only started taking an interest in the kitchen when it was necessary, helping Oonagh and her 'storm troopers' during the typhoon. But as her culinary interest awakened, she too, was having a beneficial effect, choosing a selection of new and old world wines to complement Padar's developing menu. They had even enjoyed a highly favourable review in one of the Sunday supplements, now framed and hung in pride of place above the bar.

Oonagh was, on the one hand, delighted, and on the other, slightly put out that her husband and best friend made such an excellent team, but for the most part, she was happy to leave them to it. Still not in the best of health, she was far too busy with christening plans. She was under no illusion though, Marianne's tireless dedication to duty and interminable workload, was a dogged attempt to wipe Ryan from her consciousness and, if circ.u.mstances were different, and Marianne had her own commitments, the Quinns would be the poorer for her lack of devotion.

Despite Marianne's evasion of the subject, Oonagh was determined to find the elusive film star and made numerous attempts to contact him, requesting he confirm his attendance at her daughter's christening, as he had promised. Ever hopeful, she checked her emails but there was no response or even acknowledgement from Ryan. As time pa.s.sed, Oonagh increasingly considered his treatment of her friend and the Innishmahon community, tawdry to say the least, but for once she kept her own counsel.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, an emotionally-battered man was kissing his baby son goodbye, and grabbing a hastily packed bag to board yet another flight. Ryan was very aware he would miss the little boy desperately whilst on this particular 'low profile' trip. He was, however, totally unaware the child's Nanny had started to telephone her paparazzi contact before his taxi had even swung out of the gates of the rented Los Angeles mansion.

The Virgin's feast day was a great excuse to commence pre-Christmas festivities, and the fact the whole village was invited to a party, meant everyone had a reason to dress up, buck up and perk up. Padar had roped in an army of cousins to a.s.sist with the preparations. Oonagh had ordered matching faux fur capes and hats for herself and Bridget, while Miss MacReady was simultaneously putting finishing touches to a formal sari and christening cake.

Marianne, clearing out Weathervane's neglected attic, had unearthed a large, grubby Holy Grail affair, which, after a tin of polish, revealed a glorious Georgian punch bowl, complete with stags-head handles and horseshoe feet. Miss MacReady suggested it was part of a haul stolen from the 'big house' at the time of the troubles in 1916, and she and Marianne vowed to attack the attic in earnest once the demands of the festivities were over.

Marianne decided to put the punch bowl to work at the party, delving into one of George's tomes for a suitable concoction for a celebratory tipple.

"I shall leave the punch bowl to Bridget in my Will," she told the postmistress.

"She's a lucky girl."

"We're lucky to have her," Marianne replied. Miss MacReady agreed. The bonny child was a delight to all she encountered, being the embodiment of both parents and yet, day by day, very definitely more herself, Miss MacReady confirmed, every time she saw her.

"Oh, she's a lovely child, alright. I always think baby girls are just the best thing in world, don't you, Marie?" Miss MacReady was polishing the punch bowl.

"You never wanted your own?" Marianne asked gently.

Miss MacReady was on her guard.

"I could ask the same of you?"

"I can't have children, so not an issue for me. I just accepted a family is not mapped out for me. Don't have brothers or sisters, either. Just the way it was; it is."

"There's still time for you."