My Mother's Secret by Sheila O'Flanagan Page B

telling you that I don’t want the guests on the floor before we’ve cut the cake and made proper speeches and everything. You did remember to bring the gift, didn’t you?’
    Roisin planned to give her parents a crystal bowl with an inscription after they cut the cake.
    ‘Of course I did,’ said Paul.
    ‘Well then,’ said Roisin. ‘I want you to be sober enough to hand it over at the right time.’
    ‘I’ve only had a couple,’ protested Paul.
    Roisin said nothing.
    ‘OK, OK. I’ll switch to water for a while.’
    Roisin sighed as she rubbed the back of her neck. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to get stroppy. But I’ve worked hard to make this a nice day and I don’t want it ruined by the actions of that … well, whatever she is.’
    ‘She’s just a kid,’ said Paul. ‘She’s harmless.’
    ‘Oh sweetheart, if you think that …’ Roisin shook her head slowly and left the room.
    Colette Mullens arrived late to the party. She hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. She had no interest in family gatherings, and although she liked her aunt and uncle, she didn’t think that her being there would make the slightest difference to them. But her mother, Sarah, had nagged and nagged at her, telling her that Roisin and Steffie had gone to a lot of trouble to get as many people as possible to celebrate with their parents, and that Colette should remember that Jenny and Pascal had had her entire family stay with them one summer and that she should show her gratitude by turning up.
    Colette remembered the summer – a particularly wet and miserable one, when she was about twelve, which had confined them to the house a lot of the time and probably driven Jenny mad. It had been the year that her parents had split up. But instead of talking to them about it like normal people, Sarah had packed Carl, Colette and their two younger brothers off to Aranbeg so that she and James could … well, what? Colette wondered. She’d never figured that out. She didn’t know if her father had left the day after they’d gone or if he’d stayed at home for a while afterwards. She didn’t know if her parents had tried to work at their marriage without the stress of four children around the place. All she knew was that her mum rang every night and ordered them to have a good time. Colette didn’t know how she was supposed to have a good time when she was stuck in the middle of nowhere with her three brothers, plus Steffie, who was the baby of the family, and Roisin, by then too wrapped up in her own life to notice her. Despite the fact that Aunt Jenny tried to cheer her up with visits to the cinema and offers to teach her to paint, Colette spent most of the summer in her bedroom reading Sweet Valley High books, pouring her heart out into her diary and wishing she lived in California.
    It was a long time since she’d seen Roisin or Steffie. Or Davey. Davey had been the only one of Jenny and Pascal’s children who’d bothered with her while she was at Aranbeg, mainly because he’d got a motor scooter and was always looking to take people places. So every time she wanted to go to Wexford to buy another book, Davey offered to take her. She’d felt quite grown up putting on her helmet and climbing on the back of the scooter behind him. And she’d enjoyed whizzing along the country lanes, her arms tightly around his waist.
    Of course Davey was living abroad now, like so many people. Roisin, as the oldest of them, tended to ignore her completely. And Steffie – well, she always felt a little uncomfortable with Steffie, because she’d pushed her cousin out of an apple tree that summer and Steffie had broken her arm. They’d both got into terrible trouble over it. Although they kept in occasional contact through social media, Colette wasn’t sure that Steffie had truly forgiven her.
    As it was over an hour since the party had been due to start, and her aunt and uncle had undoubtedly been surprised by now,