Today had been fun. Now Quin and I were back at my house. ‘Do the thing with your thumbs,’ I begged. ‘Press them – oh God, yesss!’
‘You should have a bath,’ he said. ‘We should have a bath. Loosen up those muscles.’
‘Not enough time.’ We’d been invited to his parents for ‘supper’ at five o’clock. Quin didn’t care if we were late but I did. ‘Quick shower,’ I said. As his eyes lit up, I added, ‘Nothing else!’
Ma and Da Quinlivan lived in a big, solid 1950s build, surrounded by what an estate agent would call ‘a large, mature, south-facing’ garden. There were full-grown trees, handsome shrubs and flower beds bursting with vivid daffodils.
As a family, the Quinlivans fascinated me – so accomplished, so confident, so certain of their place in the world.
The front door was ajar. ‘Who goes there?’ a woman’s voice floated down the hall. Then, ‘Nicholas! Rachel! Welcome!’
Quin’s mum Genevieve – known as Vivi – breezed towards us, her Hermès scarf fluttering. Blonde, bony and capable, she’d been a high court judge until her retirement five years ago.
Kissing us briskly, she relieved us of our coats and directed us towards the kitchen for drinks. ‘Daddy’s down there, making some concoction.’
‘First-born!’ Quin’s dad, Roly, set down the jug in his hand. He was delighted to see Quin – or Nicholas, as they called him. ‘I’m making Dutch negronis! We drank them in Amsterdam, your mother liked them.’
Big and beardy, Roly was a nice enough man. Well-intentioned, if nothing else. The problem was that he’d been a constitutional lawyer, much renowned. His professional life had been spent advising the government of the day and generally being treated as an oracle. For the past few years, he’d been just a regular citizen but he still thought he knew everything.
It made for awkward games of Trivial Pursuit.
From the hall, Vivi called, ‘Robert and Ava sont arrivés.’
Robert – a younger, quieter version of Quin – had a neat, pretty wife and three clean, obedient children. He worked as a commercial lawyer.
As did Quin’s sister Michelle. The youngest of the siblings, Michelle looked like Roly rather than Vivi. Her scaffolding was robust and her face was large and square. But instead of raging that her mother’s skeletal, high-cheekboned genes had passed her by, she was a buoyant, assured woman, living her best life. She’d made partner in a big, shiny law firm at the tender age of thirty-one, their youngest ever. Her husband, a red-haired charmer called Barry, was also a lawyer and their two kids were cute and hilarious. （Unlike Robert and Ava’s, who were whispery and timid.）
Because Quin didn’t work in the law and because his marriage had broken up, he was regarded as the family rebel – which they insisted they were proud of. ‘Nicholas marches to the beat of his own drum. Struck out by himself and made his own path. That takes character.’
Graciously, they presented their own stellar careers and harmonious marriages as a little dull and predictable.
‘Sit, Rachel, sit, please!’ Vivi wafting past, in a discreet breath of Coty Chypre, directed me to the dining table. ‘Wherever you please. No placement today as we’re just family.’
‘Jesus.’ Quin shook his head. ‘The Barbarians are at the gate.’
‘Cheeky.’ Vivi’s eyes flicked from my glass to the smaller jug of juice on the worktop, checking that ‘Daddy’ had done things right. The Quinlivans would never be crass enough to make a drama of me being a non-drinker. Instead, they always had something special prepared – today it was fresh pineapple juice, laced with ginger – which they served without comment.
‘Boys, come with me.’ Vivi commandeered Robert’s children and had them carry quiches and bowls of salad into the dining room. ‘And genuine Dutch stroopwafels for pudding!’ She smacked away Michelle’s rambunctious children. ‘No, thank you, girls. We can quite do without your help. Everyone! à table!’
‘So?’ Michelle took a sip of her Dutch negroni and asked, ‘How was Amsterdam, Mum?’
The senior Quinlivans observed （what seemed to me） a punishing schedule of cultural events. They were forever off to the Wexford Opera Festival or Oberammergau or a Mozart recital in a deconsecrated church. They followed rugby, they were tennis fans, chess was a particular passion and they were freshly returned from Amsterdam, where they’d spent four days immersed in the Old Masters.