Page 27 of The Gin Sisters' Promise

‘Life is short – you’re right to make time for it.’ It was lovely to talk to someone who seemed to have a normal life with everyday worries; and happy with his lot. ‘You have your hands full here, I’d say.’

‘You can sing that one.’ He sat down in the seat opposite. ‘It was all grand while the B&B up the road was running. They took our overflow, but Mrs Peters is too old now to be putting up breakfasts for twenty people at all hours of the morning, so she threw the whole thing up at the start of the season. It’s left us in a bit of a pickle when it comes to weddings at this time of year, I can tell you.’

‘So, where do you send them now?’

‘They simply have to go to the next town over, but the hotel there is an awful dump, so I’ll have to organise something more upmarket before too long.’

‘Well, good luck with that,’ she said, because looking around, this was a gorgeous hotel and they were lucky to have it in Ballycove, but the chances of anything even half as good opening up were slim or nil.

‘Hey, you don’t fancy turning that big house into a fancy bed and breakfast, I suppose?’ He laughed.

‘Things haven’t quite come to that yet,’ she joked. But when he left to sort out some other emergency, Iris found herself picturing it: she and Myles running a little country hotel together, her cooking the breakfasts, him charming the guests on the reception desk. Well, a woman could always dream. She sipped her coffee, enjoying the brief respite from real life, for just a little longer.

*

That night, outside her bedroom window, Georgie could hear the ocean roar far off in the distance. The rain, which had looked like just a spitting shower earlier in the afternoon, seemed in no hurry to leave. She heard it rush through the downpipes that ran from the creaking eaves at each corner of the house. Tomorrow, everything would have that lovely, lush look and smell to it. She was already looking forward to a satisfyingly squelchy walk before breakfast, if the rain lightened up. But it wasn’t the rain, or the ocean, that kept her awake until this hour. It was something else: a nervy anticipation that sat at the bottom of her chest, an itch she needed to scratch with growing desperation.

Iseult Gin. Ever since speaking with Robert English, the idea of doing something with her parents’ gin had nagged at her. For the first time in her professional career, she didn’t want to do something to look good for someone else, nor to advance her career. No, this time, it was for her mother, and her father. She knew she wanted to create a legacy with it, something that would live up to the fabulous product her father had worked so hard to create and have her mother’s name spoken all around the world. Apart from anything else, it would be good to have a little project to divert her in the long months ahead.

She wasn’t being cocky; she knew with certainty that she could do it. With the right branding, a few phone calls to some of her old contacts and good old-fashioned hard work, she could launch Iseult Gin and catapult it to the front of the international market fairly quickly. As she lay in her childhood bed, tossing and turning with the unmistakable adrenaline of a new venture coursing through her, she pictured walking into her local London supermarket in a year’s time and seeing bottles of Iseult gin on the shelves, and she smiled to herself in the darkness.

Then her smile faded as she realised she’d have to ask her sisters’permission. Well, get their agreement, at least. She’d run her own projects for so long that having to answer to her sisters stuck in her throat. Would they cut her down just because they could? Probably not, but with that pair, who knew?

*

‘So, what do you think?’ Georgie asked Iris over a plate of chicken casserole and vegetables the following night.

‘What do I think?’ Iris asked, sounding taken aback at being asked. ‘Well, of course, I think you absolutely should take it on, if you feel you want to—’

‘Well, it’s not that I want to as such,’ Georgie said a little crossly. There was no way that she was having Iris think they were doing her some sort of favour by letting her take this on. Even if she was very excited about it, she meant for them to appreciate it would be hard work and using her not inconsiderable talents. ‘I mean, the product has to be branded and launched, we can employ some two-bit company over here or I can take it on and give it the best start it could possibly hope to get.’

‘Of course you should do it. I didn’t mean to sound as if…’ Iris’s words petered out, and Georgie felt a stab of regret.

‘No, don’t worry. I’m sorry for snapping. Thank you,’ Georgie said stiffly; apologies didn’t come naturally to her. ‘In that case, I’ll get started first thing tomorrow morning.’ She picked up Iris’s plate and took both it and hers to the sink.

The evening seemed to stretch out ahead of them like the Arctic.

‘I suppose we could watch the news,’ Iris said, intruding into her thoughts. And so Georgie found herself sitting stupidly in front of the television and letting one programme after another wash over her until she began to nod off into a surprisingly restful nap.

‘Hey.’ Iris’s prodding finger woke her and made her jump. It took a second to orientate herself, but then the grandfather clock in the hall chimed out and in her half-awake state she thought she counted eleven strikes clanging along the hallway and up the stairs. Suddenly, she realised she had missed that. Every sound was muffled in her plush London apartment – she’d actually paid extra for it. Here, the echoing rattles and chimes were charming and homely. Even the dry political discussion on the television was somehow soothing, and Iris had slipped a blanket across her, which blocked out any stray draughts. No wonder she’d slept so soundly.

‘You should really go to bed.’

‘But it’s only early.’ Even to her own ears, Georgie sounded like a stroppy teenager.

Iris raised her eyebrows. ‘Makes no difference to me, but if you want to make the most of your night’s sleep…’ She smiled then, folding away the yarn and needles that she’d been contentedly knitting for most of the evening.

‘I’m usually out like a light anyway,’ Georgie said, not mentioning the small white pill that she’d been prescribed years earlier to help her cope with hypertension and stress. It normally knocked her out sufficiently for four to five hours every night. Since she’d come back to Ballycove almost a week ago, she hadn’t taken one, she realised, as she headed up to her room. Maybe it was all that sea air.

*

A band of crows picking crossly at the eaves outside her window woke Georgie late the following morning. She checked her clock, checked it again. It couldn’t be ten o’clock in the morning, could it? She hadn’t slept that long in over a decade. What on earth was wrong with her? She tumbled out of bed, stood and stretched on the faded circular mat that she remembered so well from childhood. She dressed quickly and was met by the smell of bacon as she walked into the kitchen.

‘Ah, you’re up, are you?’ Iris said and placed bacon and fresh bread on a plate before her. Coffee had just been brewed. There was another aroma in the kitchen and it took a moment for Georgie to place it. Boxty – Iris must have been up early to have prepared the potatoes and flour for this homely breakfast. Georgie couldn’t remember when she last ate boxty although she’d loved it as a youngster. ‘I was going to call you if it went too late, but I was hoping the aroma of the frying pan might do the trick.’ Iris looked as if she was just back from a long tramp across the fields.

‘Thank you,’ Georgie said tightly. She felt uncomfortable knowing that she’d slept so late, as if it was a chink in her normally perfect armour.

‘I think you’re right, by the way.’ Iris sat down opposite her and began to butter a slice of bread. ‘We should probably make the most of these six months to recharge our batteries – you know, take long walks, soak in the bath, enjoy spending time doing things that we don’t normally get the chance to.’ Then she laughed. ‘Well, apart from taking on the branding of a whole new product, that is.’

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