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.
There was a shrine to Fleur’s little doggie, Babette, on the deck. It comprised a photograph of Babette that Daisy had taken, and had framed as a present for Fleur. Fleur had surrounded the photograph with flowers and candles and some of Babette’s toys. She had buried her best friend six months ago, on the beach at Díseart, where the dog had loved to romp. Fleur still missed the Bichon Frisé with the laughing eyes and the perma-smile.
From the hill above, the church bell chimed nine. Fleur had promised Río that she’d be in the fortune-telling booth ready to go at midday. For the past week, she had practised her crystal ball skills every evening, using Daisy’s password to gain entry to her Facebook page for research purposes. Some of the comments on Daisy’s wall had expressed a genuine interest in going to see Madame Tiresia. ‘If she got your future sorted, Daisy-Belle, then I’m deffo gonna go!’ one girl had written. ‘She might make me lucky 2
Fleur had felt a twinge of guilt when she’d read that one. She guessed that some people really did believe in tarot and horoscopes and all that jazz: you just had to look at the number of fortune-tellers advertising in the back pages of gossip magazines, who charged rip-off rates for their services. But then, Fleur wasn’t ripping anybody off. All the money she took today was going to charity – and then some. Corban had been true to his word. After she’d donned her gypsy outfit for him last night, he’d made out a cheque to the Irish Hospice Foundation, signed it, and left the amount blank.
‘You’ve just quadrupled your donation,’ he told her. And then he’d taken her by the hand and led her upstairs to her bedroom.
It was funny, Fleur thought, that dressing up for Corban didn’t embarrass her. If any of her former lovers had suggested that she dress up to have sex, she’d have told them where to get off. But then, in all her previous relationships, Fleur had been the more experienced partner: her lovers had deferred to her. In her current relationship, Corban called the shots; and it hadn’t taken long for Fleur to find what a relief – and what a turn-on! – it was to be told what to do rather than doing the telling.
The mini Mills & Boon scenario she’d dreamed up earlier had rehashed much of what had actually happened on the night she and Corban had first met. Having gone off to book a hotel room, her tall dark stranger had returned to find Fleur sitting on the edge of the fountain in an attitude of bewilderment. ‘What’s wrong?’ he’d asked. ‘I’m not who you think I am,’ she’d told him. And his response – as per the stupefying response of her Mills & Boon hero – had been: ‘I don’t care who you are, any more than you care who I am.’ And then Corban had escorted her upstairs to the room and – with a passion that compensated for the deficiency of ceremony – had baisé’d her.
Smiling, Fleur leaned her chin on her forearms. Why was there no equivalent word for the sex act in English? ‘Fuck’ was too rough. ‘Shag’ too casual. ‘Making love’ was far too fey. The only verb that accurately conveyed the deliciousness, the pleasure, the sheer je ne sais quoi of coitus was the French one: baiser.
She remembered how, afterwards, he’d unmasked her and laughed and said: ‘You’re Fleur O’Farrell!’
He’d seen her in Lissamore, he’d told her, going about her business, and thought how quintessentially French she was, and how very lovely. He’d Googled her and viewed her website, but he had never found an opportunity to woo her. And now that he had her in his bed, he told her, he didn’t intend to let her go.
‘What about Rachel?’ she’d asked.
‘Ancient history,’ came the response. ‘Let’s not talk about her.’
So they’d talked about him for a while instead. Over a glass of champagne, Fleur learned that Corban O’Hara was a successful entrepreneur who had taken to financing films. The O’Hara Affair was his most ambitious project to date. He was divorced, he told her, sans children. A pleasure craft, recently acquired, was moored in the marina at Lissamore, where he owned a holiday apartment – also recently acquired. He supported numerous charities, including her favourite, the Hospice Foundation. And when he let a hint drop as to his age, Fleur realized that – at nearly a decade older than her – he was the most grown-up lover she’d ever had. It made her feel deliciously, absurdly youthful.
And then they’d had some more champagne, and she’d told him a little about herself, and they’d discovered that they each had a penchant for Paris and piquet and the Monsieur Hulot films, and they’d laughed and larked a little and then baisé’d some more.
But Rachel – whoever she might be – preyed on Fleur’s mind. Corban had booked the room for Rachel, and
