Free The Kinsella Sisters by Kate Thompson

they were quite different types–not just temperamentally, but physically too. Río had an unruly mass of red-gold hair, while Dervla wore hers in a sleek dark bob. Río had an unashamedly voluptuous figure, while Dervla’s was lean and androgynous. Río’s eyes were green, Dervla’s conker brown. Río took after their mother, while Dervla favoured their father.
Her
father…
    Who would know? Who in the village might possibly know the identity of Rosaleen’s secret lover? For lovers they certainly hadbeen–a cursory glance at a single sentence in one of the letters had told her that: ‘My darling, my darling–I worship the place between your legs, and your buttocks, and your beautiful, beautiful breasts…’ Dervla hadn’t wanted to read on.
    She thought of their poor mother, trapped in a wretched marriage, tied to a man who–while never physically abusive to her, as far as Dervla knew–had certainly inflicted massive emotional damage on Rosaleen. Dervla had sometimes wondered if the stress of being married to Frank had contributed to the cancer that had killed her. Perhaps the only joy she’d had in her life had been those snatched meetings with a man called Patrick. Where had they consummated their passion? In his house? Or in theirs, while Frank was comatose or ensconced in the pub? She pictured the couple exchanging covert glances, touching hands surreptitiously, stealing kisses. She imagined their mother making excuses to go to the beach, where the secret place was that Patrick left the letters that meant so much to her.
You tell me my letters help ease the pain of your joyless marriage…
    Why–
why–
if the marriage had been so joyless, had Rosaleen stuck it out? But even as she asked herself the question, Dervla knew the answer. She’d said it herself, earlier, when they’d cracked open the wine in Frank’s kitchen. Rosaleen had done it for her daughters. Had she kept the letters for her daughters too? Had she held on to them so that some day in the future Río might know the truth of her paternity? It wasn’t the kind of thing a mother could easily admit to; had this been Rosaleen’s way of communicating with her daughter from ‘beyond the grave’, as Río had put it? Or had she held on to the letters simply because they were the most precious things she owned? Proof that she had been adored?
    It did not cross Dervla’s mind to be censorious. On the contrary, she was glad, so glad for her mother! Rosaleen deserved to have had some romance in her life, even if it had been clandestine. Dervla remembered the rare occasions on which hermother had laughed, and wondered had she laughed that way with Patrick, too. She hoped so.
    Questions came crowding into her mind now. Had Frank guessed that Rosaleen had been having an affair? Or had he only learned about it after her death, through her written testimony? Where had Rosaleen kept the letters hidden? When had he found them? Dervla pictured her father hunched on the bockety sofa in the attic, reading the fulsome expressions of love for his wife that were written in another man’s hand. How had he felt when he discovered that Río was not his daughter? Or had he always suspected it? How was Río feeling now? To find out on the day of your father’s death that he was, in fact, not your real father must be some kick to the head. No wonder her sister craved alcohol.
    In Ryan’s, the local shop, Dervla responded to the expressions of sympathy that came her way, the offers of help, the solicitous enquiries. Everybody wanted to reminisce about Frank, and tell her what a ‘character’ he was. ‘Character’ was a very useful word to use about a deceased person, Dervla decided. A bit like the obituaries that referred to a stonking misanthropist as someone who ‘didn’t suffer fools gladly’ or a roaring alcoholic as a ‘bon vivant’.
    She selected a pricy bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape for her and Río to share, then waited for ages at the cash