Kate Thompson - The O’Hara Affair

‘Or a Mills & Boon.’

‘Now there’s a thought! I read somewhere that sales of romantic fiction have gone through the roof recently. Everyone’s trying to escape into fantasy land.’

‘Might be too raunchy for Mills & Boon. You’d have to shut the door on the bedroom activity.’

‘ Au contraire . They publish really sexy stuff these days.’ Fleur stretched languorously. ‘Let’s see – how would our story go? “‘I’m not who you think I am,’ confessed our heroine, as the masterful stranger took her hand. ‘I don’t care who you are, any more than you care who I am,’ he growled, leading her into the bedroom of the magnificent, luxury penthouse.”’

‘It wasn’t a penthouse,’ Corban corrected her.

‘In my Mills & Boon version it is. “She set her champagne flute down on the marble-topped bedside table and turned to him. His gaze was fierce. ‘I must have you,’ he told her. Her bosom heaving, she sank upon the fourposter, looking up at him through the slits of her golden mask. ‘Now?’ she breathed. ‘Now!’ he insisted. Without further ado, he reached for his manhood. She gasped when she saw—”’

‘OK. Enough’s enough. Time to shut the door. Incidentally, did I really growl, and did you really gasp?’ asked Corban.

‘Of course. Gasping was mandatory. It was the raunchiest thing I’ve ever done. Until last night, that is. It’s a pity I’ll have to give Río back her gypsy costume.’

‘I’m sure we can think of some other suitably titillating attire. I rather fancy you as a schoolgirl.’

‘No! Schoolgirl’s too pervy, Corban. And I’m far too old. French maid is more my line, don’t you think? Il y a quelque chose d’autre que je peux faire pour Monsieur? ’

‘Translate.’

‘Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?’

‘Well, yes, actually, there is. I scribbled a number on yesterday’s Financial Times , and forgot to enter it into my phone. Could you text it to me?’

‘Sure.’ Fleur swung her legs out of bed, and reached for her peignoir. ‘Whose phone number is it?’ she asked, as she padded downstairs.

‘Shane Byrne’s. I want to arrange lunch with him.’

‘Lucky you. Where are you taking him?’

‘There’s a new place that’s opened not far from where they’re shooting today. I thought I’d try that.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘Chez Jules.’

‘Oh! How brave of Jules to open when all around him restaurants are closing. I hope it works out for him.’

The Financial Times was on the breakfast bar, open at some arcane article on investments. A number was scrawled in the margin, with the initials S. B. beside it. How many people in the world had access to Shane Byrne’s private phone number? Fleur wondered. Maybe she should auction it at the charity gig this afternoon, to raise more money for the hospice. Reaching for her mobile with her free hand, she started texting Corban. ‘Shall we eat out tonight?’ she asked, as she keyed the numbers in.

‘No. I’ll pick something up on the way back. Fillet or sirloin?’

Fleur’s heart sank a little. Corban adored red meat, while she favoured chicken or fish. However, since she didn’t have many opportunities to cook for her man, she might as well serve up what he was partial to. ‘Why not bring me some good quality braising steak, and I’ll do Carbonade de Boeuf?’

‘Excellent. I’ll get us a Bordeaux to go with it.’ There came a blip over the line. ‘Ah – incoming call. I gotta go, lover. Did you find that number?’

‘Yes.’ Fleur pressed ‘Send’. ‘It’s on its way to you now. A plus tard, chéri .’

Setting the phone down, Fleur tied the sash on her robe, broke off a hunk of baguette, spread it with butter and thick comb honey and moseyed out onto her deck. The first time she’d appeared on the deck in her peignoir, the village had been mildly scandalized; now, no one turned a hair.

It was a shame that she’d be breakfasting alone, she thought. It was a perfect morning for perusing the papers over café au lait and shooting the breeze with her lover. They managed so seldom to spend quality time together, as demands on Corban to spend precious weekends in his Dublin office were ever more pressing. Even though he had a boat moored in the marina, Lolita spent most of her life at anchor. There had only been one excursion so far this summer, and the curtains of Corban’s holiday apartment on the harbour were constantly drawn. No wonder really – any time Corban O’Hara could afford to spend in Lissamore was spent chez Fleur.

‘Hey, gorgeous!’

Looking down, Fleur saw Seamus Moynihan unwinding the hawser of his boat from a bollard.

‘Hello, Seamus! Off to inspect your lobster pots?’

‘I am. But sure I don’t know why I’m bothering. There’s no demand for lobster since that outcry on the radio.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Some gobshite complained on a talk show about lobsters being killed inhumanely, and the politically-correct brigade have decided to boycott them.’

Fleur felt a pang of guilt. She should have talked Corban into going for lobster this evening, in O’Toole’s seafood bar, with Guinness instead of Bordeaux. It made sense to support the local community now that times were hard. She knew well that the only reason her shop was doing such brisk business was because word had got out on the street that Elena Sweetman, the star of The O’Hara Affair , had taken to dropping in to Fleurissima. Once the movie was wrapped she – and all the workers employed on the film – would be back to leaner times.

‘Maybe you’ll have luck tonight,’ she told Seamus. ‘There’ll be lots of people looking for restaurant tables now that the festival’s in full swing. And I’m sure they are not all politically correct.’

Seamus shrugged. ‘Even the festival’s down-sized this year. There’s no fun fair, and no ceilidh. And I heard that Río’s too busy on the film to do her fortune-telling gig.’

‘Oh – but she’s enlisted a replacement.’

‘Who might that be?’

Fleur bit her lip. ‘I don’t know,’ she lied. She didn’t want to confess that she would be ensconced in the fortune-telling booth today. If word got around, people might not bother forking out money to see the local boutique owner do a bad imitation of Río, who always bluffed a blinder. ‘But I hear she’s very good,’ she added, lamely.

‘Maybe I should pay her a visit, so,’ remarked Seamus. ‘She might see something in my future to give me a glimmer of hope. Nets brimming with fish, for instance.’ Raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, he squinted at the horizon. ‘God be with the good old days when you actually caught something out there.’

Fleur gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘Well, bonne chance today!’

‘ Bonne chance ?’

‘It means “good luck”, darling!’

‘I’ll need it.’ Seamus pulled at the throttle of his outboard and chugged away from his mooring. ‘If I do have bonne chance ,’ he threw back over his shoulder, ‘I’ll drop a couple of mackerel in to you later.’

‘Thank you, Seamus! Salut !’

Resting her forearms on the railing, Fleur watched as the boat made its way out of the marina, foam churning in its wake. Gulls looped the loop lazily in the sky blue above, and a tern plummeted headlong into the marine blue below, breaking the surface with barely a splash. She could see the submerged shape of a seal over by the breakwater; and a couple of beat-up-looking cats on the sea wall were laughing at Seamus’s lurcher, who was lolloping along the pier in pursuit of the post mistress’s Airedale.