Mr Lynch’s Holiday Read Online Free PDF

time.’
    ‘What do you mean, “company”? It’s only Roger and Cheryl. Who else is it going to be? Come in! We’re just having a barbecue, tons too much food as usual. Roger was saying earlier that he’d not seen you for ages. Where’s Laura, she not with you?’
    ‘We shouldn’t have just dropped in like this …’ but it was too late, Roger’s voice came echoing down the hallway.
    ‘Is that Lynch I hear? Get in here, you insufferable streak of piss!’
    ‘With his father!’ Becca called out in warning as she ushered Eamonn and Dermot into the lounge.
    Roger was standing in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips – a peculiarly disconcerting way he had of greeting people. Part-King of Siam, part-Matalan billboard.
    ‘Eamonn’s father, eh? Well, this is interesting.’
    Roger was somewhere in his early fifties. His features had a kind of Le Bon-like swollen-bully quality to them. Handsome
to some, perhaps, in the past, but chubbed-up now. Fleshy in an affluent kind of way. His accent hovered between the south-east of England and the west coast of America. He spoke with a somewhat sardonic inflection, making him sound like a jaded commentator on all he saw.
    Dermot held out his hand: ‘Dermot Lynch.’
    Roger squeezed and shook: ‘Ah – a proper Paddy at last. Very good to meet you.’
    ‘Roger!’ said Becca.
    ‘What? Jesus, don’t you start. Normally it’s PC Lynch there policing my every comment. Paddy? Paddy? Really? I can say “Paddy”, can’t I? “Paddy!” There. It sounds affectionate to me.’
    Ian came in from the terrace where the barbecue was smoking, and after further introductions were made, asked, ‘Can I get you a beer, Dermot?’
    ‘I’m grand, thanks.’
    Roger feigned shock. ‘What? A good Irishman refusing a drink?’
    Dermot smiled, but Eamonn detected the note in his voice. ‘It’s a little early in the day for me.’
    Becca steered the conversation on to safer ground, asking Dermot about his journey, which led to a lengthy discussion about different possible routes from the airport, rip-off taxi drivers and public transport in the region. Dermot mentioned his bus-driving days and Becca clapped her hands, both delighted and amazed that the conversation appeared to have some cohesion.
    Eamonn watched Roger and Ian back at the barbecue. He and Laura thought there was something slightly vampiric about Roger and Cheryl’s need for ‘young blood’. The older couple exerted a certain pull, having been the first settlers in Lomaverde, and had positioned themselves at the very heart of the small community. In their first three months there he
and Laura had spent a lot of time with them. On the surface all was great bonhomie, endless beer and barbecues, but underneath there seemed to be something darker. Initially, they interpreted the older couple’s constant invitations as an uncomplicated desire for company, but over time they came to feel that Roger and Cheryl needed the presence of spectators in order to be able to function. They each had the habit of appealing to their guests to support whatever aspersion they were making about the other; their relationship at times taking on an almost pantomime quality, demanding audience participation. Roger and Cheryl seemed to assume a greater intimacy between the four of them than either Laura or Eamonn felt comfortable with, the younger couple often finding themselves fending off prying questions, pretending not to notice heavy-handed innuendo. They had tried to extricate themselves from the friendship, but it hadn’t been easy. Finding your hosts indefinably creepy was not an acceptable reason to give for declining an invitation; instead they had to fabricate excuses, an exercise made very difficult by their close physical proximity and the stark absence of other people or things to do. They longed for the day that the development would be fully populated and they could melt away unnoticed in the crowd, and, while