Page 49 of The Gin Sisters' Promise

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Rather than feeling utterly depressed at the idea of divorcing Myles, Iris actually felt a wave of relief envelop her over the next few days after they returned from London. She felt better; she looked better. Gone were the gaunt shadows on her face. She’d even put on a little weight. It must be the combination of the fresh air and home cooking.

It certainly wasn’t that she was glad her marriage was over – far from it. But there was no getting away from the fact that it actuallywasover and even if it hadn’t been her choosing, there was something empowering in having taken the bold step of engaging Muriel Huggit on her behalf.

The other thing that Iris noticed since she’d returned was that the decision seemed to have lifted whatever barriers there were before to her actually enjoying her time in Ballycove. This morning, she made breakfast for the three of them and they sat down in their usual chairs. She watched Nola sip her black coffee slowly as if she was carefully turning a key into wakefulness and Georgie reading a trade magazine for the Vintners Association of America and felt an unusual fondness for them both. She should tell them, but as she stood there folding a tea towel and hanging it on the Aga, she couldn’t quite find the words. She just wasn’t ready yet. Would she ever be ready to admit to them that her marriage was over?

‘I’m thinking of helping out at the fete this year. Are either of you interested in joining me?’ she asked as she topped up their coffee cups.

‘Huh?’ Nola asked, winding her hair in a long semi-circle across her shoulder so she had one enormous ringlet falling along her arm. Iris couldn’t help but notice how striking her sister was, devastatingly beautiful really; it had been the ruination of their relationship all those years ago. ‘Is that even still going?’

‘Of course it’s still going.’ Iris stopped for a moment, lowered the radio at her back. ‘It’ll be the last time the Delahaye family will be here. It might just be closure, you know?’

Nola yawned.

‘The distillery will always be here,’ Georgie said from behind her magazine again.

‘Maybe, but that doesn’t mean that it’ll still be the Delahaye Distillery.’

‘I’m sure it will,’ Georgie said lightly, then she dropped her magazine, folded it over and sighed. ‘Anyway, I’ve already said we’ll do a stall. We’re donating any proceeds to the local tidy towns committee. Let’s just hope it’s not bucketing down with rain or we’ll all be cultivating a nasty strain of pneumonia together.’

Georgie looked across at Nola expectantly.

‘I’m probably going to help out on the school stall. We’re looking for props for the end-of-year play and the kids are making up little crafty things to sell on the day.’

Iris for her part was hoping to get a second-hand book stall or something straightforward like that. ‘Well, watch out, Ballycove fete – it looks as if the Gin Sisters are coming your way this year.’

A little later, Iris set off down the avenue with a few basic provisions and the intention of readying the cottage for the couple and a small child who were due to arrive later in the afternoon. Running the little cottage as a business had been a complete revelation. In the few weeks since Georgie had set up the website, there had been only one night when it wasn’t occupied. Mainly couples, but occasionally a small family group.

Today, a lovely fresh breeze whipped through the trees, making them sway and creak as if they were chattering among themselves. The rooks high up in their branches joined in to give voice to their disapproval of the wind whipping about their nests. In the field that had been fenced out of what had once been a rather stately drive, a herd of curious cattle escorted Iris towards the cottage. Their great big button eyes watched dolefully as she turned in at the cottage gate. She was glad of the company.

It didn’t take long to zip through the work, changing sheets, scrubbing the bathroom and washing down the kitchen surfaces. She left the smaller bedroom to last. It was funny, but this was the first room in the house she’d tackled and even though she’d squeezed in a double bed, she had chosen the sort of colours she’d always have imagined in a nursery room if she’d had children herself.

The room was a confection of soft buttery yellows – suitable for either a boy or a girl. It was pretty, but it still worked with the hints of pale green that accented the accessories and were stitched along the heavy Corrigan blanket that lay across the foot of the cast-iron bed. She stretched the cover out, smoothing any creases so the bed looked perfect.

Later, she would pull down the old rocking horse she’d hauled out of the attic a few weeks earlier and stored for families arriving. Last time she’d sat for almost half an hour cleaning the blasted thing only to realise that the child was sixteen and more interested in a Wi-Fi connection than an antique wooden toy. She’d been disproportionately disappointed; she’d liked the idea of the little wooden horse creaking over and back softly and the sound of a child’s laughter echoing about the little cottage.

She checked her watch. Time just seemed to glide away from her here, but then she was busy, content to be doing something that was useful. The final task was placing the rocking horse in the second bedroom. She took it gently from the tiny trapdoor that led into one of three separate attics running across beneath the crouching pitched roof of the cottage. She dragged it along the floor and placed it just between the window and the side of the bed. She’d been wise enough to cover it in lose plastic last time, so now it just had that shaggy worn look that comes with age and love, but it was clean and perfectly huggable if you were a small child. She stood next to it, drawing her breath for a moment when it struck her.

This should have been hers. This rocking horse, this excitement at the idea of a small child clamouring over it and hours spent in the beginning holding him or her on safely and then later, sitting in a nearby chair while her child swung contentedly. The very idea of it brought tears to Iris’s eyes and she could feel what it seemed had become a familiar swell of sadness rise up within her. Was it normal to grieve for a child that had never been hers? And now, as she reached out and stroked the familiar face of the toy from her childhood, she felt angry as well. She was angry with Myles, who had taken away her chance at having a child.

Suddenly, as the curtains billowed in the breeze wafting through the open windows, she knew that Myles had never wanted a child with her. Why hadn’t she just faced up to this years ago instead of brushing it under the carpet of her fairy-tale dreams? Sadness engulfed her and she knelt down next to the rocking horse, throwing her arms around its shaggy old neck and burying her face in its soft fur. She rocked gently with it, back and forth, a rhythmic movement to the heaving sobs that were escaping out of her.

After she wasn’t sure how long, the sound of a car on the gravel outside broke into her misery. She raised her head to look through the window. The guests had arrived early. She swore under her breath then rubbed the rocking horse’s fur back in place, stood up quickly and straightened herself out in the mirror. She didn’t look too bad. Actually, considering that a minute earlier her heart felt as if it might break, she looked bloody great. Then she caught something, a glint in her eye, perhaps a measure of Georgie rubbing off on her. She moved closer to the mirror; yes, there it was.

She smiled, because of course it was obvious now. If she wanted a child, she would never have had one with Myles. It would always have been on her own. Myles had only wanted her to take care of him, and a child would have meant dividing her attention. Being a mother would have meant she had something more to think about other than devoting her every waking worry on Myles. The question was, did she still want one badly enough to go it alone? Or did she want Myles back so much that she was willing to give up on the idea altogether?

*

It was a crazy idea, but it woke Georgie early the next morning and it wouldn’t leave her for days. What if she bought out her sisters’ shares of the distillery when this was all over? Madness – she knew, but on the other hand it was becoming harder with each passing day to come up with any good reason to return to the life she’d been living before. It seemed now she was here that there was nothing to go back to London for.

Oh, on a practical level, she knew she’d get another job. She was certain too that working in that high-pressure corporate environment, she would revert to being the same person she’d been in London and it hadn’t made her happy. The longer she spent at the distillery, the more it felt as if this was where she was meant to be. She was creating a marketing and branding strategy for Iseult Gin and more than that, she was learning as much as she could about the distillery from Robert. She didn’t want to go back to being the same person she was before, nor did she want to go back to that life.

It was clear to her now that she didn’t enjoy the backstabbing nature of relationships she’d had with her colleagues in London. In the distillery, she was building relationships with the other people who worked there. They had celebrated her birthday together. She was as excited as any of them when Shane McCall’s girlfriend went into labour and produced the most adorable baby girl. Robert would bring her coffee most evenings and they would sit for hours just going through whatever he was doing that day, and she was genuinely fascinated by it all, looked forward to their chats.

But it was the silence of the place that she loved the most. When everyone else went home and she just sat there, breathing it all in; this history, this legacy – it was in her blood. She had started to close her eyes and imagine what it would be like if this became her life’s work. Could she do it? Could she throw up everything London had given her to come back here and become a distiller? God, even thinking about it brought up such a mixture of fear and excitement.

She could afford it. She was pretty sure about that. Even if she had to go up against one of the big brewers, what with her severance package, her apartment in London and her share of the house and farm here in Ballycove, she would have enough to buy her two sisters’ shares out. It could be the perfect solution for all of them. It was obvious, they’d both just want their slice of the pie as quickly and easily as possible so they could go back and resume their lives in London.

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