Cathy Kelly 3-Book Collection 2: The House on Willow Street, The Honey Queen, Christmas Magic, plus bonus short story: The Perfect Holiday

A billionaire Swiss friend had put it wonderfully when he said that having money merely emphasized what you were all along. If you were a poor son of a bitch, you’d turn into an even worse son of a bitch with money. But if you were fundamentally decent, then you’d stay that way – simply with a nicer bank balance.

‘One question,’ Mara asked, when they’d spent an hour walking around the house, talking, with her taking copious notes all the while. ‘Is this to be your home, or are you doing it up to sell?’

Cashel didn’t look at her.

He seemed a million miles away, in fact. It was as if he had to drag himself back to the present when he finally answered her: ‘I don’t know. Yet.’

When Mara had left, Cashel walked around the house and looked at it. It didn’t matter how much money you had if you weren’t happy, he knew that all too well.

And he knew that the Power family had loved each other, even though there wasn’t any money to go round. They were never too proud to be friends with the locals. Well, maybe Suki wasn’t friends with all and sundry, but that was because Suki had always been wild. Even so, the wildness didn’t come from her thinking she was a cut above anyone else. If anything, it was a fierce desire to do better that made her wild. To get herself out of Avalon. To be rich and famous.

But old Mr Power and Tess – even thinking of her name upset him – those two never thought they were better than anyone else. Maybe their ancestors would have thought so. It would have been bred into the De Paors: You are better than all the townsfolk. They are there to do your bidding. But old Mr Power and Tess weren’t like that.

He remembered Tess, years ago, getting angry with him as they passed through the gallery where all the portraits were. She had noticed that he was walking cautiously, as though he might get into trouble for being in this part of the house.

‘Would you stop comparing our backgrounds, Cashel, please,’ she’d said. ‘You know,your mother knows, we have nothing. We’ve barely been able to pay for electricity for the past three years. There’s no money in this house. Stop looking at it like it’s something different. It’s a big house, nothing more. So what if my father can trace his ancestors back for decades? What does that mean in real terms, exactly? You’re the one who’s making it different.’

These days he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her – not surprising, given that he was buying the house she used to live in. The house she’d lived in when he first kissed her. The house she’d lived in when she betrayed him.

He made a note to himself to talk to Mara in the morning. Not a penny was to be spared when it came to Avalon House. It was to be the best of everything. The very best.

Within weeks, Cashel found a strange peace in walking around the grounds of Avalon House. Mara had sourced a company of local tree surgeons, who were diligently examining the trees in the avenue. Some of the beautiful magnolias would have to come down, they’d told Cashel, because they were diseased.

Mara had also found a landscape gardener who specialized in the restoration of old gardens, and even though Cashel had meant to be in a meeting in London the morning she arrived, he’d found himself cancelling so he could join in on the walk around the grounds.

The gardener, a formidable lady named Judy, was in her sixties and wore sensible tweeds and a waxed jacket that looked at least as old as the house. She had a brusque manner and a small dog snapping at her heels, and Cashel found he was delighted to lope along behind her and Mara, wearing wellington boots and a heavy coat.

‘There’s a lot of work to be done here,’ Judy said. ‘Really serious work. It looks as though none of this has been touched for nigh on thirty years.’ Her tone conveyed the disgust she felt for those responsible.

‘It’s true that the place has been neglected,’ said Mara, who’d begun to research the history of the estate diligently and had learned how, thanks to her feckless ancestors, Tess had lost her home. And now the poor woman was struggling to hang on to her shop, as well as having to cope with her husband leaving. Though Judy was clearly the sort of woman who brooked no opposition to her views, Mara felt she owed it to her new friend to provide a more sympathetic account of Avalon House’s recent history:

‘For the past eighteen years, the house has been empty. The previous owners – the Powers, who’d owned Avalon House since its inception – lost all their money, so they hadn’t the resources to do anything to stop it becoming more and more decrepit.’

Cashel found himself compelled to intervene, although he didn’t know why he was sticking up for Tess’s family. ‘These huge houses are a nightmare to run,’ he said. ‘It’s the same story all over the country: grand old houses that were once the envy of everyone, handed down the generations until there wasn’t a ha’penny left to maintain them, for all that they could trace their ancestors back to the year dot and had the portraits in the hall to prove it. Not that it matters who your ancestors are, or anything,’ he trailed off.

‘Yes,’ said Judy, maintaining her brisk pace. ‘I can see that. I’ve come across many similar cases in my work. I take it you want to make sure this garden is restored in keeping with the property?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Cashel, and he found himself wondering why he’d said anything positive at all about landowners in trouble.

It was as if he was standing up for Tess, Suki and their father, and the fact that they hadn’t a ha’penny. Bizarre. He kept pace with Mara and Judy, shortening his long strides so the other pair could keep up. Mara shot him a couple of interesting glances but he ignored them. There could be something on her mind, he decided. Mara was not like any other assistant he’d ever had before. In fact, he’d probably have fired any assistant who behaved as Mara did toward him. Not for any insubordination or lack of ability – far from it, she was marvellously efficient, clever, capable of thinking on her feet and coming up with fantastic ideas – but she didn’t kowtow to him at all. Of late, however, Cashel had changed; he found Mara’s attitude refreshing. It was as if she was saying, You may have lots of money and be my boss, but you’re no better than me, sweetie.

Cashel Reilly, who’d grown up feeling exactly the same way, admired that sort of spirit.

While he found Judy a joy, he couldn’t cope with being present for too many of the architectural meetings. The architect, a slender, respectable young man named Lorcan Reed, had been highly recommended, having been involved in the restoration of many such period houses. But after hearing him expound at length on the need to ensure that all renovations and improvements remained absolutely in keeping with the various periods of the building, Cashel had decided that Lorcan Reed was an almighty bore. The architect was also intent on getting his own way, which immediately put Cashel’s back up as he was accustomed to people deferring to his preferences, especially when it was his money they were spending.

Whether it was a question of choosing a particular flooring, a certain type of wood or stone, Cashel’s choice would invariably be rubbished by Lorcan as historically inaccurate:

‘With all due respect, in this part of the house it simply has to be parquet flooring,’ he would splutter, becoming even more earnest when he was trying to make a point. ‘I mean, there can be no other choice.’

Mara looked at Cashel, one eyebrow raised and the slightest hint of a smile playing around her lips, which were some wild, red colour today. He wondered where she got those mad lipsticks. They never seemed to fade. It was as if Mara decided Today I shall be wearing bright red and it shall be bright red from morning ’til night.’

‘Will you bail me out when I kill that bloody Lorcan?’ Cashel asked her when the architect was gone. ‘He is so determined to have his own way.’

‘I know somebody else like that, but I can’t think who …’ said Mara.

Cashel swotted at her with his giant pile of papers ‘Make me a coffee, madam, and stop teasing. After a couple of hours listening to him drone, I think I need a kick-boxing session.’

‘Kick boxing?’ she’d asked. ‘I’d no idea you were interested in that. I saw you as more of a weights man. Or a marathon man. Yes, I can see you doing marathons, never giving up. Oooh, the iron man – have you ever done one of those?’

He grinned at her properly this time. ‘You really are a minx,’ he said.

‘Have I overstepped the mark?’ Mara enquired. She did sometimes wonder whether she overstepped professional boundaries in her dealings with Cashel, but they got on so well that this wasn’t an issue. Leaving Kearney Property Partners after what had happened with Jack had changed her. The part of Mara that was always irreverent and determined to be her own person had come fully to the surface. No matter what job she was in, she was going to be herself, her ordinary self. She was not going to reinvent herself in order to conform to other people’s notions of what she should be, what she should wear, how she should behave, not worry over whether her boyfriend approved of her mad clothes, for example. She shook her head as if to dislodge the thoughts. No, let’s not go there.

‘Are you going to join the land of the living any time soon?’ Cashel enquired. ‘My espresso is ready.’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘My mind was elsewhere. I was picturing you doing the marathon after a very long bike ride.’ Her eyes twinkled at him. ‘Worn out, begging for mercy.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I really believe that.’

Restored after his espresso, Cashel set off to find Freddie, the master builder.

Striding round the house in his wellies and hard hat, eyeing things up and pulling a pencil from behind his ear to adjust his calculations on a scrap of paper, Freddie was a delight to deal with. He had lived in Avalon his entire life. Though younger than Cashel, he knew Riach and pronounced him ‘sound’, which appeared to be the highest praise there was in Freddie’s estimation.

He was less enthusiastic when it came to Lorcan.

‘He’d drive a sober man to drink,’ Freddie had been heard to say on a few occasions, according to Mara. He never said it in Cashel’s hearing though. No, Freddie wasn’t that stupid. It would be an awful mistake to insult the client by letting on you thought the architect should be locked up somewhere. Preferably with padded walls and something to draw on.

‘It’s a fine house,’ Freddie would say wistfully when they were standing outside looking at the sweep of Avalon House in front of them. Then they’d turn and look at the avenue of trees, where the tree surgeons were busy at work, and over to the gleaming sweep of Avalon Bay. Because it was winter, the hard landscaping Judy was overseeing had to end early, but Cashel and Freddie would often linger after the workforce had gone home just to appreciate a spectacular sunset or the beauty of the view from Avalon House.

For all that Cashel was a very wealthy man and the new owner of Avalon House, because he was Avalon born and bred, Freddie looked upon him as an equal.

‘Sure they were different times then,’ Freddie might say, ‘times when the landed gentry had land and money and the rest of us, ah sure, we had nothing. My father used to get fierce angry over the injustice of it all,’ Freddie went on, ‘the haves and the have nots made him a bitter man. A bitter man,’ he repeated. ‘He was always thinking of what we down there in the town had and what the rich people up on the hill had. And sure, for all I hear, near the end, they didn’t have two pennies to rub together.’

‘True,’ said Cashel, ‘true.’

‘And it doesn’t matter whether you live in a castle or a hovel. What matters is that you have a bite to eat, a fire to warm yourself at and a bit of love. What was that old saying from the bible …?’ Freddie could talk for hours in this manner, and Cashel found he liked to listen to him. ‘“Better a dinner of herbs and love than a stalled ox and hatred within.” I think that was it, anyway,’ said Freddie. ‘For all the teachers who tried to get it into my thick skull, I can’t remember much of the aul catechism, but it was something like that.’

Cashel grinned. ‘I know what you’re saying,’ he said. ‘My own family didn’t have much, either.’

He was waiting to see what Freddie knew about his humble upbringing – but then, Freddie must have known, given that he knew Riach. Whatever he knew, however, Freddie was too wise to mention it.

‘Ah, we were all the same back then,’ was all Freddie said. ‘No arse in our trousers.’ He laughed. ‘Look at us now, two fine men with jobs – aren’t we doing great?’

Yes, we are, thought Cashel to himself. And on the surface, it all looked great. So why didn’t he feel great?

Chapter Sixteen (#ulink_db1a98d6-53e5-5f80-9e91-9b96f57b71ef)

Her addiction to hot chocolate with Danish pastries for elevenses would have to go, Mara decided as she drove down Willow Street in the direction of Lorena’s, the best café in Avalon. She could feel her waistband getting tight and, now that Christmas was coming, she didn’t want to have to watch what she ate. Mara loved Christmas. The only problem was working out where she’d be for it.