Chapter 1
Sally Hunter
slowly opened her eyes. Bright Caribbean sunlight in golden shafts was piercing through the round portholes and
reflecting off the shining white chart table and polished metal surfaces. Even the dark varnished interior wood seemed
to funnel light into her pupils. Sally winced and narrowed her eyes. She turned her head slowly and carefully and
surveyed the floor of the yacht's cabin. It was littered with cigarette butts and empty beer-cans. An empty Mount Gay Rum
bottle was lodged against the chart table held in place by a large, man-sized brown Timberland docksider. The unpleasant
odour of stale drink and smoke filled the 'living-room' of the luxury 60 foot Swann yacht.
"Sal!"
a voice yelled from the deck above. A tousled, blonde-headed
girl appeared at the hatch.
"Not so
loud, Ginny," Sally muttered.
Ginny smiled
and padded down the wooden steps into the cabin. Small, brown as a berry, with the mad energy of a three-year-old, Ginny
was the crazy Corkwoman who worked with Sally on Queen of the Sea. Wearing a plain white T-shirt, an indecently
tiny pair of cut-off jeans masquerading as shorts and an ancient pair of docksiders, Ginny still managed to look
stunning. With long white blonde hair cascading down her back, shockingly clear, tanned skin, striking green eyes and
a smile to stop the traffic, Ginny was a natural beauty. Sally found it sickening, but forgave her because to top it
all she was the nicest and kindest girl you could meet and more fun than a basket full of puppies. She even drank Mel,
the middle-aged playboy owner of Queen, under the table.
"Oh,
Sal," Ginny whispered, as her eyes roamed around the cabin, settling finally on the makeshift 'bed' on the floor.
"You didn't."
For a split
second Sally was reminded of her mother.
***
"Oh,
Sally you haven't," spluttered Mrs Hunter, one summer's
morning in the vicarage kitchen four years ago. "Is it
the exam pressure? You know, darling, I'm sure you'll get
them this year."
Sally tried
to silence her shocked mother and explain why she had dropped
out of her Teacher Training Diploma at UCD. She had failed
the exams last June, badly enough to necessitate her
repeating the whole year. But exam stress wasn't the reason
and if her mother would stop blustering and fussing for one
minute she would try to explain.
"Oh my,
what will I tell your father?" Mrs Hunter continued.
"Oh Sally, he'll be so disappointed, he so wanted you to
succeed this time."
"But,
Mum . . ." Sally tried to interrupt her mother's flow,
but she had as much chance as stopping lava flowing from a
newly erupted volcano.
"Sally,
it's just so . . . "
Sally tried
again. "I know it's hard to understand, Mum, but if
you'll just let me . . . " But it was no use.
"What
will we tell the parishioners? They were so proud of you, Mrs
Bailey in the choir and Mrs O'Reilly who does the flowers and
. . . oh dear, oh dear, whatever to do, what a thing, what a
thing . . ."
"Mum,"
said Sally firmly, "it's not the end of the world,
please be reasonable."
But by now
April Hunter was pacing up and down the kitchen, wringing her
hands and talking to the ceiling above the central light
fitting.
When Sally
and her younger brother and sister, Jamie and Emma, were
small they thought that God lived in that very same light
fitting. Mrs Hunter had a habit of addressing 'The Lord'
through her kitchen ceiling.
"What to
do? Oh Lord, please help me."
"Ah
Mum," Sally sighed, completely exasperated at the
overwrought woman, "it's not that bad, I have a great
contingency plan . . . "
Just then the
Reverend Hunter came striding into the kitchen from his
study, where he was trying to write next Sunday's sermon on
'Family Values in a Modern World'.
"Commotion,
commotion! How is a body supposed to work around here?"
The tall,
silver-haired man looked enquiringly at his fraught wife.
James Hunter, was a good husband and father. Endowed with
endless reserves of patience, he was quite used to his dear
wife's histrionics.
"Now
what's all this about, April?" he asked firmly.
April Hunter
took a deep breath and began. "Sally has dropped out of
college and as if that isn't bad enough, she's decided to
join a convent . . . "
Sally looked
at her mother in amazement and began to laugh.
"Ah
Mum," she giggled. "I didn't say convent, I said
contingency."
James held
his hands up in a gesture of peace. He calmly addressed his
wife and daughter.
"Now,
April, knowing our daughter I think a convent is possibly the
worst place in the world for her. Let's just listen to Sally
about all this and see what she has to say."
They sat down
at the kitchen table and Sally unfolded her plan. She
explained why she had made this unusual decision. Her mother
was less than enthused with what she was hearing. The
prospect of telling the neighbours about her 'drifter'
daughter did not amuse her. But Mr Hunter was practical and
realistic to the last.
"Sally
has to find her own way in this world, April. We may not like
it but she has to make her own decisions - she's a big girl
now."
Relations
with her mother since Sally had left Ireland for Antigua had
been decidedly frosty, thawing a little from time to time -
at Christmas and birthdays. Of course she never failed to
write if there was what she considered 'news', which always
meant the engagement of someone who had been in school with
Sally, or a neighbour's child's promotion in the bank or,
lately, which local Protestant boy was single! All of which
made Sally less and less keen to return home. Until the news
of Mark and the reunion of course.
Sally removed
the large bronzed hand from her left breast. She twisted away
from the heavily sleeping body beside her and sat up
gingerly. Spying her crumpled T-shirt on the cabin floor near
her she reached over and scooped it up. Naked torso covered,
she carefully stood up. The man beneath her groaned in his
sleep and rolled towards the middle of the opened-out sofa
which was masquerading as a bed. His dark-skinned back was
smooth and muscular and moved gently with the steady rhythm
of his breathing. Sal glanced down at her jeans in disgust.
They were covered with beer stains, dried sea salt, old rust
and paint marks. The sleeping prince's dark blue 501's were
still immaculate. "Typical," she thought to
herself. Ginny was sitting on the navigation table, gazing in
amazement at the sleeping shape.
"Sal, do
you know who that is?" she whispered.
"Of
course I do - that's Jay, Mel's accountant," Sally
replied triumphantly, delighted that she'd remembered his
name.
"Like
hell it is," muttered Ginny darkly. "Sal, he's
darling daughter's fiancé!"
A small smile
came to Sally's lips, widening slowly into a deliciously
wicked grin.
"I don't
believe you, Ginny,' she whispered. "Are you
serious?"
The two Irish
girls hated their boss Mel's only daughter Iona with a
passion. An arrogant little madam of twenty-one, she loved to
lord it over the two friends, bossing them about and packing
her rich and stupid girlie 'friends' onto 'Daddy's yacht' to
sunbathe. Iona in turn hated her father's boathands as
she didn't have a clue how to hoist a sail, let alone how to
sail the yacht. So if Iona wanted to leave the marina she had
to ask Sally and Ginny for assistance. And how she hated
asking them for anything! It didn't help that Sally had once
forced the spoilt girl to break two precious long, red talons
by making her winch in a rope. Or that Ginny had refused to
tack the boat because Iona complained that the sun was hidden
behind the sail.
"Iona,"
the Corkwoman had yelled, "we're on a set course and I'm
not turning Queen unless it's important.'
Iona, in the
shadow of the large mainsail for what seemed to her an age,
had missed valuable sunbathing time, not to mention losing
face in front of her giggling friends.
To add insult
to injury Sally had quipped, "Hey, Iona, this is a
sailing machine not a tanning parlour."
The girls
climbed up the wooden steps from the cabin. The sun's rays
hit their faces as they stepped onto the immaculately
varnished wooden deck. Ginny closed over the hatch to the
cabin.
"Let
Prince Charming sleep," she said laughing. "Anyway,
where did you find him?"
The two girls
settled themselves comfortably, Sally sitting with her back
against the thick wooden mast and her friend lying on her
stomach facing her with her head resting on her hands.
"On the
marina yesterday evening around seven, I guess," Sally
replied, grinning widely. "He came by to have a look at Queen
with Mel and we chatted briefly. I was washing down the
deck after Princess Iona spilt sun-cream all over it in the
afternoon. She knows that greasy muck she uses is hard to
clean off, little cow."
Ginny
murmured in agreement.
"Anyway
Mel and Iona were meeting Mel's ex-wife up in the hotel, the
second one I think, not the first one - wife I mean, not
hotel!"
Ginny
laughed.
"So Jay
hung around a bit and one thing led to another. After all he
had a rather nice smile, and ass for that matter. I thought
it would have been a shame to waste it, you know. "
Ginny knew
all right. She knew only too well. Sally liked men and they
liked her. Feeling something digging into her hip, through
her shorts, she suddenly remembered why she had been looking
for her friend. She rolled over and wriggled a folded white
envelope from her tight, cut-off jeans pocket.
"Post
for you," she said. "Sorry, I almost forgot. It's
from home." She flattened the envelope with the palm of
her hand and passed it to Sally.
Sally glanced
at the writing and grimaced. "It's from Mum," she
muttered, ripping open the envelope. As she pulled out the
letter a bright white rectangular card fell onto the brown
deck. It seemed to glisten and glow against the dark wood.
Sally picked up the card and read it, her face a picture of
growing astonishment.
"Well?"
asked Ginny, gagging to hear the news, "What's up?"
She gazed at the animated girl questioningly.
"You
remember the guy I once told you about - Mark
Mulhearne?"
Ginny nodded
eagerly.
"He's
only the guest speaker at my ten-year school reunion!"
"OK, let
me get this right - Mark is the guy you were in love with in
sixth year? The one you've never forgotten?" Ginny
asked. "The one who lives in Boston and writes those
amazing crime books?"
"Yes,
yes," Sally answered impatiently as she began to read
her mother's accompanying letter. As usual it was written in
purple ink on lilac paper - as Sally described it 'an insult
to the discerning eye and a horror to decipher'.
Suddenly
Sally exclaimed. "Mum's an angel!"
Ginny
snorted. "Only last week you wrote her off as an
annoying snob and a gossip, if I remember correctly."
Sally's smile
lit up her face. Her eyes danced with excitement and she
could hardly contain herself. "That's before she used
her jungle drums usefully. For once she is telling me news I
want to hear."
"Go
on," Ginny goaded her dizzy friend. "I'm waiting,
what is it? This amazingly interesting news?"
Sally took a
deep breath and exhaled slowly. "It's Mark. He's back in
Ireland. Mum met his sister, Susan, on Grafton Street."
Sally continued breathlessly. "And guess what? He's
staying with her and her family on their farm in Wicklow. And
get this - best of all, God bless her cotton socks for asking
Susan, he's broken up with that 'Park ma car in Haavard yard'
Boston creature. Mum reckons Mark's coming home to find an
Irish wife! Good old Mum, always on the ball!" Sally
really was impressed. Usually her Mum's insatiable curiosity
and matchmaking tendencies drove her up the wall but this
time it was different. Hell, Mark was the future Mr Hunter
and that's all there was to it!
Sally's mind
began to drift. She imagined herself in a cream sheath Sharon
Hoey wedding dress, with a tasteful bouquet of white roses.
Walking up the aisle, with Mark by her side. He would be
wearing a grey morning suit, with a waistcoat, perhaps in red
or maybe gold . . .
"Earth
calling Sally, come in Sally!" Ginny interrupted her
friend's reverie. "I asked you if you're going to the
school thing, the reunion?"
"Are you
joking? Of course I'm bloody going, you thick culchie."
Ginny thumped
the smiling girl's leg.
"Ah,
there's no need for violence now," Sally continued.
"It's my big chance, Ginny, damn right I'm going! Mrs
Mulhearne, here I come."
Her eyes
flickered and danced as a wild and bold plan began to concoct
in her mind. "It just might work," she said.
"He won't know what's hit him, poor man."
"God
help the guy," Ginny said, trying to keep a straight
face. "He won't stand a chance with Mustang Sally."
