Secrets Between Sisters: The perfect heart-warming holiday read of 2018. Kate Thompson

She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the middle distance, even as she felt her face begin to burn.

      ‘I wouldn’t mind giving her one.’

      ‘Pah! I bet she’s frigid.’

      ‘Give her a pearl necklace, then.’

      ‘She’s already wearing one.’

      ‘Not that kind of a pearl necklace, ya gom.’

      ‘Maybe she takes it up the arse.’

      ‘Like Posh Spice.’

      ‘She’s a great pair of tits on her.’

      ‘Posh Spice?’

      ‘Nah. The bitch sitting on the wall.’

      ‘Wonder how much she paid for them?’

      ‘Nothing but the best for a D4 princess. Sure Daddy would have paid for them.’ A dirty laugh.

      ‘Hey, sweet-tits! Were they worth the money? Make those baloobas bounce for us!’

      Izzy couldn’t take any more. She was just about to get to her feet and make as dignified a retreat as possible under the circumstances, when there came the sound of a new voice.

      ‘Cut it out, lads. Go find someone your own size to bully.’

      ‘Ooh. It’s Finn Kinsella. We’re quaking, Finny’

      ‘Go on. Get the fuck out of here.’

      ‘It’s a free country, Finny. We can shoot the breeze wherever we like.’

      ‘Not here, you can’t. I’ll say it again. Get the fuck out of here, and stop abusing the lady.’

      ‘You gonna make us get the fuck out of here, Finn Boy?’

      ‘Not today, I’m not. That’d mean disturbing the peace. And I don’t like the idea of doing that when there’s a wake going on. I’m just after burying my grandfather.’

      That did it. A silence fell, followed by a gruff: ‘Forgot about that. Sorry for your trouble.’

      ‘It’d be no trouble to kick the crap out of you if I hear you talking that way again,’ came Finn’s voice. ‘Learn a bit of respect, lads.’

      Out of the corner of her eye, Izzy saw the group disperse. She remained sitting motionless on the sea wall until she became aware of Finn’s presence directly behind her. Then she turned, face aflame.

      ‘Thank you for doing that,’ she said.

      ‘No problem.’ Finn looked down at her, concern in his eyes. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes. I just hate Lissamore more than ever now. What a horrible, obnoxious bunch of people.’

      ‘I’m sorry you were subjected to that. It was drink talking. They’re normally scared shitless by girls like you.’

      ‘Girls like me? What is a girl like me? What makes me different?’

      ‘You have class. That’s what makes you different, in their eyes.’

      ‘And that makes them feel that they have the right to talk to me like that?’

      ‘I guess it’s a way of masking their insecurities.’

      ‘My heart bleeds for them! What about my insecurities?’

      ‘They probably don’t think you have any.’

      ‘Ha! Everyone has insecurities.’

      The bichon frise looked indignantly up at her, and gave a little bark as if to say, ‘I don’t!’, and Izzy looked at her and smiled.

      ‘Hey, Babette,’ said Finn, reaching down to scratch the dog under the chin. ‘How’s it going?’

      ‘Her name’s Babette?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘Cute!’

      ‘A bit girly for my taste.’

      ‘What’s wrong with being girly?’

      Izzy saw Finn’s eyes go to her peep-toe shoes, and travel upwards to the floral print skirt, which she had teamed with a baby-pink cashmere cardigan. She saw him take in the pearl necklace, and the lapis lazuli-framed sunnies tucked into her neckline, and the chiffon scarf that she’d wound around her head, and she saw him smile as he said: ‘Nothing much at all wrong with being girly, I guess. If you’re a girl.’

      Izzy felt herself go as pink as her cardigan, and said–to change the subject–‘Who does she belong to?’

      ‘Babette? She belongs to Fleur, who owns the boutique up the road.’

      ‘Fleurissima! Oh, that’s a fabulous shop! I got these shoes there.’

      ‘Yeah? I noticed them in the window. I was looking for a Christmas present for my ma,’ he added, as if to explain what a macho bloke like him was doing checking out a girly emporium like Fleurissima.

      She saw Finn’s eyes go again to the patent leather peep-toes, and wondered–if he had noticed them in the shop–had he also noticed the obscene price tag of four hundred and ninety euro?

      ‘What did you end up buying her?’ she asked.

      ‘A raffia basket.’

      Izzy had seen the pretty little baskets in the bargain bin of Fleurissima, reduced to clear at twenty-five euro.

      ‘Are you going to be around Lissamore much, later in the year?’ Finn asked, sitting down beside her on the sea wall.

      ‘No. I’m…going travelling.’

      ‘Going travelling’ sounded more streetwise than ‘I’m going on holiday with my best friend and my dad’. Adair had promised to treat her and Lucy to a fortnight in a five-star resort in Koh Samui in Thailand at the end of the summer, if they performed well in their first-year exams. Izzy would secretly have preferred to have gone off backpacking with her mates, but she couldn’t bear the idea of her dad staying in an island resort on his own.

      ‘Me too,’ said Finn. ‘In a fortnight’s time I’ll be backpacking in Queensland.’

      ‘Wow. How long for?’

      ‘Till the money runs out. Where are you heading?’

      Izzy shrugged in what she hoped was a nonchalant fashion. ‘Haven’t decided yet. Somewhere I can chill before I start the slog of a second year in college.’

      ‘What are you studying?’

      ‘Business studies. What about you?’

      ‘I gave up on the idea of college.’

      ‘So what do you do?’

      ‘I work on boats.’

      ‘In the marina here?’

      ‘Yeah. And in the scuba-dive centre over on Inishclare.’

      ‘Oh! You’re a diver—’

      ‘Finn!’

      A voice from across the road made them look up.

      ‘Hey, Ma! What’s up?’

      A woman whom Izzy took to be Finn’s mother was standing in the doorway of the Kinsella house, arms akimbo. How different she was to Izzy’s mother, Felicity! Río Kinsella was statuesque, with turbulent red-gold hair. She reminded Izzy of the picture of Queen Maeve on the cover of a book on Irish myths and legends her father had given her once. She was barefoot and dressed boho style in tie-dyed chiffon and velvet, with heavy bangles around her wrists. Her stance may have been regal, but there was something mistrustful about the way she was eyeing the pair.

      ‘We could do with some help here!’ she called. ‘There are glasses to