A Week in Winter(58)

‘It could be just a bit overwritten . . . it might not be like that at all, of course.’ Nicola was almost afraid to be enthusiastic.

‘Yes, but they couldn’t fake those pictures – the waves and the big empty beaches . . . all those birds.’

‘Should we call them? What’s her name again . . .? Oh, Mrs Starr.’

The voice that answered had a slight American accent. ‘Stone House, can I help you?’

Nicola explained that they were in their thirties, they had been working very hard and needed a holiday and a change. Could she tell them a little more about the place.

And Chicky Starr told them that it was all very simple but in her own opinion, a very restful and healing place. She used to work in New York and came back here every year for a holiday. She walked and walked, and stared out at the ocean and when she got back to America, she always felt able to cope with anything.

She hoped that her guests would feel the same way.

It was beginning to sound too good to be true.

‘Will it be all sing-songs and, you know, like an Irish pub?’ Henry asked diffidently.

‘I very much hope not,’ Chicky laughed. ‘There will be wine served with dinner, of course, but if people want a more lively nightlife they can go out to the local pubs, which have music.’

‘And do we all eat together?’

Chicky seemed to understand the implications of the question.

‘There will be about eleven or twelve of us around the table each evening, but it won’t be an endurance test. I worked in a boarding house all my life before I set up this place. I’ll make sure that no one is forced into being over-jolly. Believe me.’

They believed her, and made the booking straight away.

Henry’s parents were pleased.

‘Nicola did tell us you had plans,’ his mother said. ‘I was afraid I had been intrusive but she said it hadn’t been firmed up.’

‘No, Mother. No question of you being intrusive,’ he lied.

Nicola’s parents were astonished.

‘Ireland?’ they gasped. ‘What’s wrong with Britain? There are thousands of places here you haven’t seen.’

‘It’s Henry’s decision,’ Nicola lied. That sorted it out. They were indeed slightly in awe of their son-in-law.

They flew to Dublin and took a train to the West. They looked out of the windows at the small fields, the wet cattle and the towns with unfamiliar names written in two languages. It felt quite foreign, even though everyone spoke English.

The bus to Stoneybridge did indeed meet the train as Chicky Starr had promised them that it would. She said she would collect them in her car.

‘How will we know you?’ Henry had asked anxiously.

‘I’ll know you,’ said Mrs Starr, and so she did.

She was a small woman who waved at them immediately and chatted easily as they drove to Stone House.

The place looked exactly like the photograph on the website. The house stood four-square on a gravelled pathway; the light was already going from the day and the windows glowed with soft light. A black and white cat sat in one of the windows, curled up in an impossibly small ball of fur and paws and ears.

Behind them the creamy, frothy foam on the waves rolled in towards the shore and crashed against the stark cliffs, which were somehow both majestic and containable at the same time.

Chicky gave them tea and scones and showed them to their room, which had a little balcony looking right out to sea.

She was calming, and asked them nothing about their lives or the reasons they had chosen her hotel. She reassured them that the other guests, some of whom had already arrived, all seemed delightful people. They lay down in their big bed and drifted off to sleep. A siesta at five o’clock in the afternoon! For Henry and Nicola it was another first.

Only the sound of the gong woke them, otherwise they might have slept all night. Cautiously they came down to the big kitchen and met the others.

Already gathered was an American man called John, who looked very familiar though they couldn’t at first place him. He said he had come here on an impulse because he’d missed a flight at Shannon. Then there was a cheerful nurse called Winnie, who was travelling with her friend, an older woman called Lillian. They were both Irish and seemed an odd couple though each was entertaining company. There was Nell, a silent, watchful, older woman who seemed a bit reserved, and a Swede whose name they didn’t catch.

The food was excellent; the advice about touring the area very thorough. Nobody arrived with a fiddle or an accordion and a medley of Irish songs. As Mrs Starr’s niece Orla cleared the table, the group all drifted off to bed easily without speeches or explanations. Back in their room, Nicola and Henry hardly dared tell each other that it looked like being a success. Over the past two years they had been through so many false starts.

A kind of superstitious magic made them tread carefully but they slept again deeply, and the sound of the waves crashing below the cliff was comforting rather than alarming.

The next morning, they woke to scudding clouds and blustery winds and felt that this was indeed going to be the place that let the fresh air in. Their acquaintance with the other guests was close enough to be familiar but not so much as to be intrusive. When Winnie and Lillian went missing the following night, Henry offered to join the search party in case medical assistance was needed; Mrs Starr said she would rather he and Nicola stood by at the house in case the two missing women made it back by themselves. The local doctor, Dai Morgan, had been alerted and was waiting in his surgery.