Sandra slipped back in the door, clearly fending off the ire of a midwife intent on enforcing the ward’s visiting hours.
‘My daughter is very distressed.’ She shoved the door closed decisively behind her before rushing to put her arms around Shelly. ‘Oh pet, please don’t cry. Everything is fine now. Georgie is fine now. We just didn’t want to upset you in the middle of the birth. Georgie is with your dad, Dan will be landing shortly and I’m going home to them. Everyone is safe.’
‘Mam.’ Shelly held her mother’s gaze. ‘I have to go with you. I have to hold her. She must’ve been so frightened.’
Shelly began to ease herself off the bed. Sandra looked uncertain but surely her mam knew there would be no arguing with her on this.
An hour later and after jumping through several logistical hoops to sign Baby Devine out of the hospital early, Shelly and her mum were sitting tensely in a taxi back to the house.
It was nearly 11 p.m. and the streets were deserted. Shelly had given the baby a feed before they left the hospital, but it seemed as if he had still not woken up to life quite yet. He had gone straight back to sleep once they’d bundled him up in the car seat.
As they came through the door into the warm house, Jim dashed out to the hall and crushed Shelly in a hug.
‘My darling girl! I heard you were wonderful.’
Over his shoulder, Shelly could see Amy, Ali and Ali’s roommate Liv hovering awkwardly. She didn’t even bother asking what they were doing there.
‘Where’s Georgie?’
‘I just this second carried her up to bed. Wired.’ Jim grinned. ‘You’d swear being almost kidnapped was the best day of her life.’
‘Dad, Jesus.’ Shelly could feel tears overcoming her again as she gingerly hurried up the stairs – she was tender from the birth. She tried to calm her breathing outside Georgie’s room, then she tiptoed in and carefully crouched by her sleeping daughter, burying her face in her warm, familiar smell. The relief of holding her after reading the accounts of her hideous ordeal. Shelly stayed like that for a while until she realised her own tears were making a damp patch on the little girl’s pillow.
Chapter 30
The fallout from Polly’s M50 meltdown was more far reaching than any Insta-scandal ever before. The media was addicted to the bizarre story and all week the internet had been awash with updates and hot takes that Ali felt certain would surely herald an implosion of the Irish Insta-sphere, yet @HolisticHazel was intent on going ahead with W Y N D festival.
‘I don’t think you should go, Ali. It’s too close to your due date. Where is it on anyway?’ Liv had asked that morning as Ali packed a final few bits and downed some coffee in the kitchen.
‘It’s on some uninhabited island off the west coast.’ Ali had sighed. ‘Look, I know it’s close, but I feel totally fine. Vadge-mageddon is four weeks away and this thing is showing no sign of budging plus the appearance fee is whopper. Anyway, we need this, it’s the last time I’ll be making any bank for potentially months and we still haven’t bought the bloody travel-system yoke.’
‘Oh yeah.’ Liv scrambled for her phone. ‘I’ve added some new ones to the spreadsheet for you to look at.’
‘It’s so bizarre that you’ve become the gear nerd for this baby.’ Ali grinned.
‘Well, someone had to.’ Liv sniffed.
‘Well, I’m bringing in the money and cooking the bloody thing. Now I will be gone for less than forty-eight hours, you don’t have to worry. The influencers don’t have to stay for the whole thing, we just show up to add a bit of prestige, Hazel says.’
‘I’m worried about the world when a bunch of women talking to themselves in their phones constitutes prestige.’ Liv slumped bleakly at the kitchen table. She pulled up the W Y N D hashtag.
@HolisticHazel had posted a video of herself perched, hair streaming behind her, on the prow of a boat speeding towards an outcrop of rocks at dawn. Beyond, on a sliver of white, sandy beach, dancers twirled fire poi and drums were beating.
Liv scrolled on. Selfie after selfie of festival attendees, young women in mirrored sunnies, tie-dyed bikinis and Docs making the peace sign in Athlone services. #FestivalBound #WYND #BestFest #Chillax #BestLife.
More pics showed fire pits surrounded by cabanas and hammocks, with pristine white villas grouped along dramatic cliff paths.
‘This is unreal,’ Liv breathed.
‘Yeah, they’ve done so much since the launch meeting. In only two, three months, like? Unbelievable.’
‘What was here? Before, I mean? How did Hazel get the permits and the planning? There’s a vintage carousel on the beach. Incredible! You sure, Hazel isn’t spoofing and these aren’t Coachella shots?’
Ali peered at Liv’s phone. ‘Well, the tagline is “Beyond the bounds of the impossible lies … W Y N D”!’ Ali grinned. ‘Sure, I’d say they’ve been generously touched up. I mean, it looks practically tropical. But even if it pisses rain, it’s gonna be class. You don’t know how badly I want to lie down and be pampered. I am so over being pregnant. I just wish you were coming.’
‘Well, it’s not often Amy gets unexpected time off, so with Shelly on early mat leave we figured, ya know, make hay and all that. We’re only going to Kildare. Besides, once the baby comes, we won’t be going anywhere for ages.’ Liv looked apologetic.
‘Don’t worry, I fully get it. She’s your laaa-day.’ Ali segued into a rendition of the Styx song. ‘I get it. It’s like your babymoon. Soak it up. In another few weeks, it’s gonna be baby ka-boom.’
‘So has she been arrested or what?’
‘I dunno, it’s not like she got very far with the kid—’
‘Yeah, but just because you’re crap at kidnapping doesn’t mean you should get let off.’
‘Still, it’d be obvious to any judge or jury that she wasn’t in her right mind. That Insta LIVE was demented.’
‘Did you hear that she was stalking Shelly?’
‘Shut up! NO! But they’re like “Insta-mum BFFs 4eva”.’
‘Yup. Appara that post Shell-Belle did a while ago about the troll was actually about PollysFewBits herself.’
‘Juice.’
Ali slid lower down in her seat to hide from the other gals on the small plane chartered for W Y N D. She’d kept her hoodie up and glasses on since they’d embarked in Galway so she didn’t have to chat and pose for selfies or, as it turned out, field questions about the latest Insta shitshow. Thankfully, at that moment the roar of the engines increased, preventing further gossip.
Ali turned her attention to the view from the tiny oval window to her right. The wing of the plane dipped and, through the low grey clouds, she got her first glimpse of Inis Brí. From this angle, it looked like an uninviting shard of rock rising from the Atlantic. Smoke billowed ominously from various parts of the island.
Must be the fire pits, thought Ali. At 4 p.m., their plane was one of the last to arrive on the island for the day. She searched the #WYND hashtag on Instagram to see how things were unfolding but the latest posts were hours old. Weird that nobody was updating. As the plane banked towards the island, Ali could see the strip of tarmac that constituted the runway. From up here, it looked to be the only road on the island, but that couldn’t be right, could it? How would they have built the festival stages and accommodation without roads? As they flew lower, aiming for the runway, Ali could see bonfires on the beach and crowds dancing below.