He Loves Me Not...He Loves Me Read online

  About the Book

  In the heart of County Kildare is Davenport Hall – a crumbling eighteenth-century mansion house, ancestral home to Portia Davenport, her beautiful younger sister Daisy and their dotty, eccentric mother, Lucasta. Disaster strikes when their father abandons the family, cleaning them out of the little cash they had managed to hold on to. But a ray of hope appears when Steve Sullivan, an old family friend and confirmed bachelor, suggests that they allow the hall to be used as the location for a major new movie.

  So Davenport Hall is taken over by the crème de la crème, including the self-centred Montana Jones, fresh out of rehab and anxious to kick-start her career, and Guy van der Post, a major sex symbol with an eye for Daisy. Throw in Ella Hepburn, Hollywood royalty and living legend, and soon there’s more sex and drama off-camera than on!

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For Anne and Claude, who are absolutely nothing like the parents in this book.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  At the risk of sounding like a starlet on Oscar night, I really do have so many people to thank that I don’t know where to begin, but here goes:

  Huge thanks to Marianne Gunn O’Connor; there wouldn’t be a book without her. I often think she should have a plaque on her office door that says ‘Dreams Come True Here’.

  Thanks to Pat Lynch at the agency, surely the calmest and most patient person in the northern hemisphere.

  Thanks to Francesca Liversidge, Sadie Mayne and everyone at Transworld.

  Thanks to Anita Notaro, Kate Thompson and Patricia Scanlan for their constant encouragement and gentle guidance, guardian angels one and all.

  Thanks to Clelia Murphy for putting up with me during the long hours cooped up together in dressing rooms, with me about to fling my computer off a wall.

  Thanks to Vicki Satlow in Italy for telling me that she sang Paddy’s drunken love song down the phone to Marianne.

  Thanks to Susan McHugh and Sean Murphy, the best couple on the planet, for the twenty-four-hour technical support.

  Thanks to everyone in Fair City, especially Niall Matthews, Brien Gallagher, Ann Myler, Johnny Cullen, Tony Tormey, Tom Hopkins and Zoe Belton for all their kindness and help during the last year.

  Thanks to Maureen McGlynn and Eleanor Minihan.

  Thanks to my family in Scotland, the Hearnes, for all their help when I was researching this.

  Finally, I’ve been lucky enough to have been blessed with the nicest bunch of friends anyone could ask for. Special thanks to Karen Nolan, Larry Finnegan, Marion O’Dwyer, Pat Kinevane, Alison McKenna, Lise-Ann McLaughlin, Hilary Reynolds, Sharon Hogan, Madge MacLaverty, Fiona Lalor, Siobhan Miley and Elizabeth Moynihan.

  Chapter One

  OK, SO IT wasn’t a Friday, but it was still the thirteenth. If Portia had never been superstitious before, she was now. As she stood in the freezing Drawing Room of her family’s ancestral home, Davenport Hall, with her mother wailing in the background, she found herself idly wondering, the way you do in times of crisis, could this really be happening?

  ‘It can’t be true, my darling. It simply can’t be true,’ howled Lucasta for the umpteenth time that morning. ‘How could he just bolt off into the blue without a by-your-leave? We were married for thirty-six years and to think that your father has abandoned me . . . ME! I was debutante of the year in nineteen sixty-six and everyone said your father was the luckiest man alive to have landed me . . .’ And at the thought of her bygone youth and beauty, she spiralled off into a fresh bout of hysterics. ‘I know I told him to bugger off, but how was I to know the bastard would actually leave? The one time in his worthless buggery life he actually did what I asked!’

  Portia sighed deeply as she went to console her mother, yet again.

  The unseasonable March sunshine streamed through the enormous bay window which dominated the room, bathing mother and daughter with warmth, which neither of them felt inside. To an outsider, they looked like an odd pair. Lucasta, Lady Davenport, although only in her mid-fifties, looked a great deal older, a legacy of her fondness for one gin and tonic too many. Her waist-length hair, which had been so admired during that debutante year, was now grey and matted and certainly hadn’t seen the inside of a hairdresser’s since the moon landings. Dressed in her trademark wellies, moth-eaten navy jacket and layer upon layer of heavy wool jumpers, she looked like she’d just mugged a homeless person and then ripped the clothes off their back. Yet, even though her red face was all puffy and swollen from crying, you could still tell that, in her youth, she would have been considered ‘a handsome woman’.

  Portia, her eldest daughter, was another story. Tall, thin and pale, with her light brown hair tied neatly behind her neck, she was as white as a ghost today. Not from shock, but from worry, sheer worry. As she handed her mother another fistful of tissues, she looked wearily around the room. At the filthy windows with their cracked panes; the high Georgian rose ceilings, which hadn’t seen a lick of paint in decades and were now covered in cobwebs; the threadbare Persian rug on the floor, which stank to high heaven from all the generations of cats that her mother freely allowed to sleep there; and at the huge, bare, light patches on the walls, which marked where the Davenports’ paintings had once hung.

  In Portia’s grandfather’s time, the family’s art collection had been quite renowned, one of the most impressive in the country. A Gainsborough and a Reynolds, no less, had hung in that room; Portia could remember seeing them as a child. She never even knew they were famous until, when she was at school, she recognized one of them from the cover of an art history book and thought: That’s hanging in my house.

  All gone now. All sold off, at way below their market value, to pay off her father’s gambling debts. Portia sighed deeply. No point in dwelling on that now, what’s done is done, she reminded herself. As she looked out of the bay window, she could see the distant figure of her younger sister, Daisy, furiously galloping on her favourite mare over the parkland surrounding the house.

  It’s even worse for her, the poor darling, thought Portia as she gently soothed her mother. She actually liked him.

  Jack, Lord Davenport, known as ‘Blackjack’ because of his addiction to the game, was by now, Portia calculated, halfway to Las Vegas. Always one to do things in style, it wasn’t enough for him simply to walk out on his wife and daughters, cleaning them out of the little cash they had, but, for added entertainment value, he had taken Sarah Kelly with him. Sarah Kelly was a stable hand on the estate. S
arah Kelly was nineteen.

  It’s all my bloody fault, as usual, thought Daisy as she galloped past the rose garden, the wild March wind full in her face, I hired the stupid little slapper. In her defence, though, it had looked like a good idea at the time. She had taken Sarah on last summer to help out during the tourist season. But I was explicitly clear about her job description. She was to help me muck out the stables and clean up horse shit, I never said anything about running off with Papa, Daisy wailed to herself, large tears now starting to roll freely down her face. How could he do this to us? How could he just run off with that thick-ankled shit-shoveller? She galloped on, past the old tennis courts with their nets rotting away, past the orchard and on towards the surrounding hills, which were still part of the Davenports’ land. Whenever Daisy was this upset, there was only one place for her to go.

  Davenport Hall had an equestrian centre close to the house, which at one time provided some badly needed income for the family. The idea was that visiting tourists could spend a day at Davenport Hall (‘This stunning example of Georgian architecture in the heart of County Kildare’ as the Bord Fáilte brochure boastfully and rather misleadingly declared). Those who were up for it could go out pony-trekking over the acres of beautiful woodland around the Hall, past the River Kilcullen with its own salmon trap, and up as far as the Mausoleum, a magnificent neo-classical monument where nine generations of the Davenport family were buried.

  A stranger arriving here for the day could easily be forgiven for thinking how wealthy the family were, with all that land . . . and as for the Hall itself! From the outside, Davenport Hall looked so grand, you’d think royalty lived there. It dated back to the mid-eighteenth century and at one time was considered the finest house in the province of Leinster. Designed by James Gandon for his old drinking buddy, the first Lord Davenport, the Hall boasted eight enormous reception rooms, a Ballroom, a Library, a Portrait Gallery (where, legend had it, Edward VII and his Irish mistress had once lost a fortune at cards), and no less than sixteen bedrooms. To the naked eye you would think that only a Lottery winner or else Michael Flatley could afford to live there. Until you opened the front door and saw the sorry state into which Davenport Hall had fallen.

  If any tourists were unfortunate or misguided enough to find themselves there, on crossing the threshold of the once grand entrance hall, the first thing that struck them was the freezing cold. Such cold, in fact, that even in deep winter it was often warmer outside the house than inside. Daisy would often throw a blanket around her and say, ‘I’m just popping outside for a thaw.’ But the cost of renovating the Hall’s ancient heating system was out of the question for the cash-strapped Davenports. However, once the unfortunate visitor had acclimatized him or herself, it was the smell that hit you next. A truly revolting aromatic blend of cat pee and damp, it was not for the faint-hearted. If visitors were particularly unlucky and it happened to be raining, then dodging the puddles on the floor caused by the gaping holes in the ceiling was the next ordeal. Portia had remortgaged the Hall a few years previously to have the roof repaired, but Blackjack, true to form, had run off with the bank’s money . . . to the Curragh races. The cash lasted him for about an hour.

  The Yellow Drawing Room, where Lady Davenport and Portia now sat, was probably the only hospitable room in the house: at least there was always a fire burning there and if you sat right on top of the hulking stone fireplace, it was possible to feel the merest flicker of warmth. Which was exactly what Portia was trying to do when the door burst open.

  ‘For God’s sake, Mrs Flanagan, do you ever think of knocking?’ cried Lucasta from the chaise longue where she sat surrounded by snotty tissues.

  ‘Ah, would ya ever relax, luv,’ replied Mrs Flanagan in a thick North Dublin accent. ‘I thought youse would like a cuppa tea,’ she added, cigarette ash dangling precariously from the fag at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Flanagan, you’re very kind,’ said Portia. ‘Come on, Mummy, sugary tea is good for shock.’

  ‘Oh, bugger that, Mrs Flanagan, get me a very stiff gin and tonic please, easy on the tonic,’ replied her ladyship.

  ‘Woulda thought it was a bit early, even for you, luv,’ said Mrs Flanagan as she waddled towards the drinks cabinet in the corner of the room. Bless her, thought Portia. She’s the only one of us who’s taking this completely in her stride.

  ‘And you know yer’re miles better off without the aul’ bastard anyway,’ continued Mrs Flanagan as she splashed liberal dashes of tonic on her ladyship’s gin.

  ‘Blackjack was a wonderful husband,’ said Lucasta primly, ‘and I said go easy on the tonic.’ Teary-eyed, miserable and bereft as she was, she still managed to watch Mrs Flanagan pour her drink like a hawk. Being an abandoned wife was one thing, but watery gin was quite another.

  ‘Yeah, well, you keep thinking that if ya want, luv,’ replied Mrs Flanagan, ‘but I couldn’t stand the aul’ gobshite. Miserable git. And he couldn’t pick a horse to save his life. Did youse not explain to Sarah Kelly that she was supposed to shovel the shite into a bucket, not run off to Las Vegas with it—AH JAYSUS!’ she screamed out as she tripped over one of Lucasta’s particularly mangy cats. ‘I swear I’ll drown them all one of these days. They have me heart broken,’ she growled, handing over the drink.

  ‘Oh Mrs Flanagan, you really must be careful with little Gnasher,’ said her ladyship, holding the cat close to her and stroking it. ‘In a past life, he was the Shah of Persia, you know.’

  Mrs Flanagan, not a great believer in past life regression, merely muttered under her breath. She was never one to be easily intimidated by her blue-blooded employers and frequently put Lucasta in her place, but not today. Changing her tone, she handed Portia her tea and gently said, ‘So how are you doing, luv?’

  ‘It’s Daisy I’m most worried about, to be honest, Mrs Flanagan. She was always Daddy’s girl,’ said Portia, checking for dead spiders before gingerly stirring her tea in the cracked china cup. For once, Mrs Flanagan had produced the good china, clearly considering this break-up of the family to be an occasion worthy of the Royal Doulton.

  ‘And you know how emotional she is at the best of times.’

  ‘Ah, don’t talk to me. Do you remember the time one of her horses had to be put down? I thought she’d need psychiatric help, she was so devastated, God help her. And when she split up from that fella . . . what was his name again?’

  ‘Sean Murphy,’ Portia answered. Sean was the local vet and the only single, eligible man for miles around, whom Daisy had briefly dated a couple of months ago.

  ‘Yeah, lovely-looking fella, but when it was all off, I’ve never seen anyone so upset as Daisy was. My God, you’d think they’d been married for years, and she’d only been going out with him for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Well, this is certainly worse,’ Portia calmly replied.

  ‘I’d paste that little trollop Sarah Kelly to the wall if I had her now . . .’ continued Mrs Flanagan, her tone growing nasty. ‘Never liked her. Anyone with a pierced ear and a pierced nose and a chain going between the two of them is not to be trusted. What did she think, that someone was going to rob the nose on her or something—?’

  ‘You know, Mrs Flanagan, I really think I’d better go and find Daisy,’ Portia interrupted. She didn’t mean to be rude, but there was going to be enough gossip in the town about what had happened without her adding to it.

  ‘Ah yeah, go on so, luv,’ replied Mrs Flanagan, a bit embarrassed. The last person she’d ever want to offend was Portia, who was so good to her and so lovely to work for.

  ‘I’ll see you at dinner then,’ said Portia, kissing her mother on her cheek. ‘I think we can all guess where Daisy’s gone.’

  And off she went. Mrs Flanagan watched her walk out through the rotting French doors and on to the terrace, over the south lawn and on towards the hills, calm and composed with her head held high.

  And she thought her heart would break.

  Portia h
ad thought that the walk would do her good, but she was mistaken. Her head kept pounding with the worry of it all. It wasn’t the fact that she would most likely never see her father again while he lived, but what were they going to do now? How would they live? Blackjack had thoughtfully cleaned them out of every last penny that she’d scrimped and saved for over the years. And now here she was, thirty-five years of age, trying to manage this great white elephant of a house and its vast estate with virtually no help whatsoever. And still the tears wouldn’t come. On she walked, out of breath now, but almost there. She was at the top of one of the hills, which overlooked the south face of the hall, and she could see the neo-classical Greek columns of the Davenports’ Mausoleum coming into view. Sure enough, there was her sister’s beautiful white mare, Kat Slater (Daisy was something of a soap-opera addict) grazing beside the limestone steps.

  ‘Daisy?’ Portia called out, breathless. ‘Are you there, darling?’ A few stifled sobs from inside the domed temple gave her an answer.

  ‘I thought I’d find you here,’ Portia went on, tripping up the four steps to the central flagstone area, with its ornate, moss-covered, Grecian stone benches evenly set all around the edge of the dome. It was here that their Davenport ancestors had been buried and it was a favourite spot for both Daisy and Portia. In more carefree days, they would often ride up there together, sit down and admire the magnificent view. You could see three counties so clearly from that spot, rolling away into the distance. When they were younger, the sisters would often sit side by side, munching on their sandwiches and wondering what would become of their lives. The girls had always been close, in spite of a fourteen-year age gap between them. In fact, Daisy often looked on Portia as more of a mother figure than Lucasta had ever been.

  ‘Oh Portia!’ Daisy cried out, almost knocking her over as she hurled herself into her sister’s arms. ‘I’ll never trust any man ever again, as long as I live! Mrs Flanagan is right, they’re all just a shower of worthless fuckheads.’

  ‘There, there, darling, you get your cry over with,’ Portia said soothingly, handing her a great wad of Kleenex.