at such events. Hugh, on the other hand, never got bored with gala dinners.
She dragged her mind back to the task in hand.
There were seven committee members, so she whipped out seven cups and saucers, because Minnie always made such a big deal about china cups and not mugs. She laid out milk and sugar, cut her lemon cake into slices, and had everything ready by the time Minnie came downstairs.
‘Oh, Rose, you’re so good,’ trilled Minnie when she saw everything. ‘I don’t know what we’d do without you.’
Rose had been about to say something mundane about how it had been no problem, when she really looked at Minnie. For once, Minnie’s girlish complexion (‘soap and water every morning!’ she claimed) was grey and tired. Her eyes were a telltale watery red. It wasn’t mere tiredness, Rose realised. It was something else.
‘Are you all right, Minnie?’ she asked gently. Minnie looked into the face of the woman she’d been half in awe of ever since she’d moved to Kinvarra. Rose was like some elegant television celebrity; gracious and ladylike, without a hair out of place. She had a look of that poor Jackie Kennedy, God rest her. Minnie had never met any aristocratic types but she knew one when she saw one. Rose Miller came from classy people, Minnie was sure. And she was kind; as friendly to the girl in the pub who served them tea as she was to Celia Freidland, the committee chairwoman.
Minnie had tidied the house extra specially for the meeting mainly because Rose would be there. Rose’s husband was a very important man, she had a beautiful house in the most expensive part of town, and she had three lovely girls. Minnie never met Rose without being overwhelmed with a desire to impress her.
‘Minnie,’ said Rose again. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Is there anything wrong?’
Minnie shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m just tired, that’s all. Now, the committee will be here any minute.’ Her smile was camera-bright. ‘I suppose we’re all ready?’ she added.
‘Yes,’ Rose said kindly. There was more to it than tiredness, clearly, but if Minnie didn’t want to talk, that was her business.
The doorbell pealed and Minnie rushed to answer it, welcoming in her guests as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
For once, Rose didn’t hurry the committee’s ramblings. She was quieter than usual and the meeting meandered on until half five when everyone began making astonished noises at how time had flown and how they had families to feed. Rose left after giving Minnie a meaningful handclasp on the doorstep.
‘Please phone me if you need to talk,’ she whispered.
As she drove home, Rose couldn’t get Minnie Wilson out of her mind. There was something wrong there and Rose longed to be able to do something to help. Poor Minnie. As she speculated on her hostess’s misfortune, Rose couldn’t help thinking again of her own life and how happily it had turned out.
Adele often said, grudgingly, that Rose was lucky. But Adele was right. She had been lucky.
Nobody could be prouder of their daughters than she was of Stella, Tara and Holly. Even if she hadn’t been their mother, she’d have thought they were special women. She had a granddaughter she adored, too. Amelia had a great way of staring up at her grandmother with those big, grave eyes and asking things like: ‘Granny, will you and Grandad have a baby so I can play with it?’
Stella had roared with laughter when Rose told her about it.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said we were thinking of getting a puppy and would that do?’
‘Oh no,’ Stella howled. ‘She wants a dog more than she wants a baby sister; she won’t let you forget that.’
If only, Rose thought, Stella had someone in her life. Tara was blissful with Finn, happier than Rose would have imagined she could be. Seeing her middle daughter so settled, made Rose long for the same happiness for Stella. She’d have given anything to see Stella content. Not that she would ever say that to Stella. But a mother could hope.
And as for Holly: well Holly never told anyone what she wanted. Rose did her best to be there for Holly in the background but her youngest daughter had retreated from life in Kinvarra, and Rose, desperate to help, had to accept it. Perhaps Holly was happy after all. Because you never knew, did you, reflected Rose.
Hugh insisted that Rose should stop worrying about her brood.
‘They’re modern women, haven’t they the lives of Reilly?’ he’d say, proud as Punch of his three bright daughters. When the girls came home to Kinvarra, Hugh was always keen to take them into town to lunch or dinner, to ‘show them off’ as Rose teased him.
‘I’m surprised you haven’t set up the Daughters Sweepstake Race,’ she joked, ‘where all the great and good of Kinvarra get their offspring in the race to see who’s the best.’
‘There’s a thought,’ he said gravely. ‘You’re always telling me you’re fed up with organising charity dinner dances and cake sales. A sweepstake would be a sure-fire winner.’
Dear Hugh. He’d been blessed with a great sense of humour, for all that he drove Rose mad with his ability to spread chaos all over the house without ever bothering to tidy up. No matter how many times she scolded him, he still left the bathroom looking like someone had been washing the Crufts Best In Breed in it, with at least three soaked towels thrown around and the top off the shower gel so that a trail of sticky gel oozed into the shower tray. But, despite everything, she loved him and he was a wonderful father. There had been bad times, for sure. But Rose had weathered the storms, that was all in the past. She was lucky.
The Millers’ rambling farmhouse was in darkness when Hugh Miller returned home. Once, Meadow Lodge had been the badly-maintained home of a small farmer with several rackety haybarns, a silage pit positioned right beside the kitchen window and sheep contentedly grazing in the garden, doing their best to fertilise the landscape. When Hugh and Rose had bought it forty years ago, they’d knocked down the crumbling farm buildings, turned the three-acre plot into a decent, sheep-free garden, and had modernised the whole house. Nobody looking at Meadow Lodge now would ever think it had been anything but a gracefully proportioned building with fine big rooms, a huge comfortable family kitchen and gas heating to cope with the winds that sometimes swept down through the midlands and Kinvarra. Rose had filled the house with comfortable couches, luxurious-looking soft furnishings, lots of pictures, lamps that cast a golden glow and plenty of unusual ornaments.
With his arms laden down with his usual consignment of papers and briefcase, Hugh unlocked the front door, shoved it open with his shoulder and turned on the lights in the hall. He wondered where Rose was. It wasn’t like her not to be there when he got home. Even if she had one of her meetings on in the evening, she rarely left until he was home and, if they weren’t going out, she always had something delicious cooking for him. It was strange, therefore, to find a dark, cold house, especially since it wasn’t long before they had to go to the Poverty Action Night dinner.
Dumping his cargo, Hugh threw his big sheepskin coat on the hall chair, dropped his car keys on the hall table not thinking that they might scratch the wood, and went into the big yellow sitting room.
Switching on the overhead light, not bothering to shut the curtains or even switch on one of the Oriental table lamps that Rose liked, Hugh sank down into his armchair, stretched his long legs onto the coffee table because there
