The O’Hara Affair Read Free

was why Cat had insisted she be buried there. When she was a little girl, she and her mother had used to take picnics over to the island, and swim in the more sheltered of the easterly coves. They’d explored the abandoned village, too, making up stories about the people who used to live there, and had once even pitched a tent and stayed overnight in one of the roofless cottages.
    ‘Do you miss her still?’ asked Raoul.
    Cat turned to him. ‘Of course I do. But I hate her too, in a way, for leaving me alone with that bastard and his whore.’ She saw Raoul raise an eyebrow. ‘What’s up?’ she asked. ‘You know how I feel about them.’
    ‘Cat, Cat, you drama queen,’ he chided. ‘Sometimes you talk like something out of Shakespeare.’
    ‘That bastard and his ho, then,’ she returned, pettishly. ‘Let’s open the other bottle. I feel like getting drunk.’
    Cat had never been able to call her stepmother anything other than whore. Although Sophie had been Mrs Gallagher for nearly ten years now, Cat refused to acknowledge her. When she had moved in with Hugo four years ago she had steadfastly resisted all Sophie’s attempts to befriend her. Stepmother and stepdaughter barely bothered with each other now.
    Raoul took the second bottle of wine from his duffle bag, and started to strip away the foil from the neck. ‘You’re seventeen now, Cat,’ he pointed out. ‘Legally speaking, you could leave home, with our father’s permission.’
    ‘Sure, he’d give it in a heartbeat.’ Cat leaned against the wall, and slid down until she was sitting on the carpet.
    ‘Well, then?’
    ‘Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. But where would I go – and don’t tell me I can move in with you because there’s no way I’m gonna cramp your style with the ladies.’ Raoul inserted the corkscrew and pulled the cork, and Cat smiled up at him. ‘I’ll never forget how pissed-off your girlfriends used to look every time I escaped from the boarding school of doom and landed on your doorstep.’
    Raoul laughed. ‘It was a little bizarre. Remember the night you sleepwalked your way into bed with me and – what was her name? It was some hippy-dippy thing.’
    ‘Windsong. I could never keep my face straight when I talked to her. Windsong hated me.’
    Raoul poured wine, then handed Cat a cup, and sat down beside her. ‘So let’s have a serious think about this. You can’t move in with me, and you can’t afford to rent anywhere.’
    ‘You’re right. There’s no way I could afford to live on my allowance. And I can’t live without it. It’s a catch twenty-two. I may hate our dad, but he doles out the dosh.’
    ‘And he’s not going to cut you off, kid. If you do move out, get him to lodge money to your bank account.’
    ‘I don’t have a savings account. And I can’t open a current account until I’m eighteen.’
    ‘Get him to send you postal orders.’
    Cat gave him a sceptical look. ‘To where? Cat Gallagher – no fixed abode?’
    ‘It’s dead simple. I used to do it all the time when I was travelling. You set up a Poste Restante in the local post office, and pick up your mail there.’
    Cat made a face. ‘Maybe I should get a job.’
    ‘Maybe you should.’
    ‘Ha! Let’s face it, Raoul – I’m unemployable.’
    ‘Don’t be defeatist, sweetheart. And, hang on – I think…I think… ’
    ‘Share. I hate enigmatic pauses.’ Cat took a hit of her wine.
    ‘I think I might be having a very good idea.’ Raoul gave her a speculative look. ‘How would you feel about living on a houseboat, Kitty Cat?’
    ‘A houseboat! How cool! Tell me about it.’
    ‘I have a friend who has one in Coolnamara. He could do with someone to caretake it for him.’
    ‘Are you serious?’
    ‘Yes. His wife’s in a wheelchair, and they can’t live on a boat any more. Can’t sell it, either. And he doesn’t want it to rot away on the water.’
    ‘Where is it?’
    ‘It’s on a stretch of canal near