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hill, we all stepped out of the car. Okay, this was not Malibu Beach. There wasn’t a hope of getting a suntan and the wind as it came off the coast would have cut straight through anyone not suitably layered up, but there was a calmness and a stillness there that made me breathe out and relax just a little.
    My mother, Dolores holding her hand, was staring out to sea.
    After a while I noticed her brush a tear from her eyes and as the waves crashed into the shore, one after the other, the tears fell from her eyes one after the other too. I stood and watched as Dolores wrapped her arms around my mother’s hunched shoulders and I wanted to wander over and stand there beside her, my own arms wrapped around her, but it felt in that moment as if they were having their own private moment so I walked on through the sand, letting my feet sink into the soft grains and walking so close to the water’s edge that when the waves crashed in I had to dash from them. Was it daft that I felt momentarily free – even though I was jetlagged half to distraction and concerned about my mother who was sobbing? I pulled my cellphone out of my bag to phone Craig and tell him of this little moment of freedom – and cursed at finding I had no signal. Wondering if it was simply down to my cell being American, I turned and walked back towards my mum and Dolores, and a whisper of their conversation caught me on the wind.
    “There is no point in having regrets, Stella,” I heard Dolores say, clearly unaware I was making my return up the beach. “So much has happened since then – good things. You’ve been happy, haven’t you? That’s real life – not some fairytale.”
    I probably should have alerted them to the fact that I could hear their conversation carry on the wind but I was intrigued. My mother was wiping at her eyes as Dolores held her. Perhaps I should have walked right up and asked what exactly wasn’t a fairytale – approached the whole situation casually as if I hadn’t been excluded from any part of the conversation even though I had wandered down the beach and away from them. After all, this was a family day out and this was my trip to Ireland with my mother; surely I was entitled to ask what exactly they were talking about? But there was something about my mother’s demeanour and the way Dolores shook her head, her short curls blown almost straight in the breeze off the sea, that made me realise this conversation was definitely not for my ears. So I stopped and turned to stare out to sea, trying to catch every second or third word as they spoke. Occasionally whole sentences came to me. “You can’t go back in time,” I heard Dolores say as my mother muttered something to her, her voice too low to be carried on the breeze. And then a few moments later: “You would be best to leave the past in the past.”
    I turned to watch as my mother turned on her heel and walked back towards the car on her own, leaving Dolores standing there running her fingers through her hair. I’m pretty sure I heard a swear word as well before she too turned and followed my mother, calling her name. I went back to staring at the sea, and then at the phone in my hand, wondering if I would ever get round to calling Craig . . . but more than that, wondering what on earth that had been all about.

    * * *

    “Tell me you take a drink?” Sam said as he pulled a delicious-smelling lasagne out of the oven.
    “I take a drink,” I answered with a smile. In fact, after the day I’d had with my mother I was tempted to take a very big drink indeed.
    “Well, what’s your poison, cousin of mine?” he said, as he fished about his drinks cabinet. “I have Coors, I have wine – both red and white. I have vodka. I have a rather suspect-looking tail end of a bottle of Drambuie and I’m sure there’s some god-awful kind of a schnapps knocking about in the back of this cupboard somewhere.”
    “Red wine would be perfect,” I said, already dreaming of the