Dinner Party

A Tragedy: a heartrending literary novel about family, and all the ways we try – and fail – to escape them; 'Stunning' Meg Mason

Sarah Gilmartin

• Publisher: ONE
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781911590569
• eBook ISBN:
  9781911590576
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

A MAJOR FICTION DEBUT, THIS REMARKABLE IRISH NOVEL ABOUT THE MESSINESS OF MODERN FAMILY LIFE COMES WITH PRAISE FROM MEG MASON TO ANNE ENRIGHT

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AN IRISH TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER

SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR

'Gilmartin is clearly a writer to watch' Clare Chambers

'The search is off - here is our next read. Here is an expert writer' Meg Mason

'Sarah Gilmartin gives us terrific, complex characters and strong themes, in prose that is charged with insight' Anne Enright

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Kate has taught herself to be careful, to be meticulous.

To mark the anniversary of a death in the family, she plans a dinner party - from the fancy table settings to the perfect Baked Alaska waiting in the freezer. Yet by the end of the night, old tensions have flared, the guests have fled, and Kate is spinning out of control.

But all we have is ourselves, her father once said, all we have is family.

Set between the 1990s and the present day, from a farmhouse in Carlow to Trinity College, Dublin, Dinner Party is a dark, sharply observed debut that thrillingly unravels into family secrets and tragedy.

As the past catches up with the present, Kate learns why, despite everything, we can't help returning home.

A brilliant coming-of-age page-turner about the complications of sibling relationships and the trauma of family secrets, perfect for fans of Kate Atkinson, Maggie O'Farrell and Anne Enright

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FURTHER PRAISE FOR DINNER PARTY

'Gilmartin's depiction of an Irish family across the decades leaves the reader in no doubt how complicated love can be ' John Boyne, author of The Heart's Invisible Furies

'A fresh, confident and compelling new take on sibling dynamics and family secrets that are never far from the surface' Henrietta McKervey, author of A Talented Man

'Sarah Gilmartin is a really wonderful storyteller. A writer here to stay' Joseph O'Connor, bestselling author of Star of the Sea

'A classic Irish family saga... A blazing new talent in Irish fiction' Gavin Corbett, author of This is the Way

'One of the best Irish debuts I've read this year. A novel of family - full of warmth, insight, tragedy and, ultimately, how to survive it all...' Rick O'Shea

'A family gathering goes disastrously wrong in Gilmartin's raw, emotionally searing novel about the toxicity of secrets and the inescapable lure of home.' Waterstones

'Exquisitely captured... beautifully paced, confident and insightful' Daily Mail

'Gorgeously wrought and moving' Irish Times

'A fine debut' Irish Independent

'Delicately studied' Sunday Times, Ireland

'A finely observed Irish debut' Guardian

'Gilmartin writes beautifully' Sunday Times, Culture

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READERS LOVE DINNER PARTY

'A tense, literary page-turner'

'An incredibly poignant story of a family torn by loss and grief'

'A totally compelling read about fraught family relationships, sisterhood, loss, grief and everything in between'

43

CARLOW

August 1999

44

45

Kate sat in front of the grown-up’s dressing table with her book in her lap. Her mother was plucking the dead hair out of the hairbrush, a rasping, itchy sound.

‘Pick a bobbin.’ Her mother nodded at the china bowl near the mirror. She divided Kate’s long hair in three and began twisting the strands into a scalp-burning French plait. Without looking, Kate took a go-go from the bowl and left it beside the perfumes.

‘You think?’ her mother said. ‘Not with your dress.’

They were going to the best hotel in the midlands for afternoon tea. Aunt Helen was coming too, but it was their mother’s treat.

Kate swapped the yellow one for a pale blue and went back to her book, tracing her finger along the coarse paper until she found the right line. Her mother was talking to no one in particular, as she often did when she was happy, and Kate kept losing track of the story. She read the paragraph again but it made less sense now and she knew she would have to go back to the start of the chapter, later, when the house was quiet.

In the mirror, her mother’s green dress shimmered in the sunlight. She owned no in-between clothes, like other mothers did, just dressing gowns or dresses. She would never show up to school in a tracksuit on parents’ day. Kate could not, at this moment, remember her in pants. The only way you’d know this was an extra special Sunday was from her necklace. Somehow, the pink pearls at her collarbone made her skin even creamier, her blonde hair blonder. Of the four of them, only Peter was blond and it killed Kate that the colour had been wasted on a boy. 46

‘Keep still.’ Her mother pulled tighter on the hair—a sneezy tension behind her eyeballs. ‘Your scalp has gone greasy,’ she said. ‘You’re overwashing.’ She smiled as she bent down to Kate’s level and the two of them admired the plait. The room felt stuffy and sleepy, a thin line of light from the midday sun splitting the mirror into uneven panels. Kate smiled at her reflection but quickly closed her mouth at the train tracks, the dull metal clamps like the wire on the chicken coop. She wished she’d been allowed to go for colours.

‘Good girl, you’re all done.’ Her mother patted Kate’s arm and left a light, dry kiss on her cheek. ‘Your aunt will do her usual, no doubt. She always lands in early.’ Her mother studied her own reflection, sucked in her cheeks and plumped the shoulder pads on her dress—two bright green triangular lumps that Kate didn’t like. ‘The Gleesons love to catch a person out. But we’ll be ready for her today, won’t we? Off you go. Send in your shadow.’

Kate went to the landing to call her sister. Her mother always spent more time on Elaine. There would be shrieks and giggles and, maybe, those little fits of laughter that Kate picked up too late. They were thirteen years old, too big to be having their hair done like it was their First Communion, but today was a happy day, and why would anyone want to change that?

At the far end of the landing, the door to their bedroom was closed. Even though Kate technically owned half the room, Elaine had been trying to claim the lot all summer. Her sister’s stuff (indeed, her sister herself) had no respect for borders. Kate leaned on the banister and shouted her sister’s name. Silence. On their door, the hunk in his Levi’s wasn’t giving anything away. Kate traced her tongue over her braces. If you pressed hard enough, you could get blood. She put her weight on the banister and dangled her feet in the air. Though she was only inches from the carpet, she felt a kind of thrill, right there, between her thighs. 47

At the foot of the stairs, Copernicus was curled up, his silky golden forehead squashed between his paws. He would be four in October and had finally learnt that he was forbidden to go in the bedrooms. When Daddy had brought him home as a surprise, her mother had taken to the bed for a week, which was, in fact, a big mistake because by the time she got up again, Copernicus was a fully fledged member of the family. It was the best example of the power of democracy Kate had ever come across, even better than her history project on the French Revolution which had gotten the silver medal from Mr Byrne.

‘Elaine!’ Kate touched the carpet with her ankle socks. ‘It’s your turn.’

Copernicus twitched but didn’t wake. Kate wished they could use democracy more often at Cranavon, but getting a pack together was harder than you’d imagine. Unless there was a Labrador to save, people looked out for themselves.

Down below she could hear the squelch of wellies on the kitchen floor and she hoped her father—and it was her father, because Peter knew better—would have the sense to tidy up. He was supposed to leave dirty shoes on the plastic honeycomb mat in the utility. How did he not know by now? She looked down the corridor to Ray’s box room where the curtains were still drawn even though their mother had been in and out at least five times since breakfast. These days her brother was a narcoleptic who would fail his Leaving Cert if he didn’t cop himself on. Men were useless, or they didn’t care about consequences, not even when they got older. Ray probably had his headphones on, listening to that depressing wailer music. Today we escape, we escaaaaaape. He’d gone around in a mope all summer with them glued to his head, ignoring her, as if they’d never been friends, as if it was her fault they were making him do all honours for the Leaving when Peter had been allowed to do pass. 48

‘Kate, tell your sister to come in here—immediately.’ A clatter of hangers and she heard her mother curse. There was always some inanimate object in trouble.

Kate kicked the Levi’d crotch. ‘Elaine. Hurry up.’

The silence was worrying. She’d probably climbed onto the flat roof of the extension for a cigarette. Their father had been in the fields all morning showing Peter the new barley crop. All he had to do was look up. Reckless, so reckless.

‘Kate!’ Her mother’s voice was like a siren down the hall.

‘She’s coming, Mammy. One minute.’

Kate walked into the bedroom and saw Elaine sprawled on her unmade bed, face in the peach pillow, hair tied in a messy bun. Her side of the room was like a tip as usual, and she’d another of those goth posters gone up this morning. The men, or women, Kate wasn’t sure, had actual blood streaks on their faces.

‘Nice poster,’ said Kate. ‘Classy.’

You could barely see Elaine’s wall for all the posters, whereas Kate just had her dog calendar.

‘Anything to hide the peach paint,’ said Elaine. ‘It’s like living inside a wound.’

‘Yuck,’ said Kate. ‘Get a move on.’

‘I’m sick,’ said Elaine.

The radio was too loud. Kate went to the locker and turned it off.

‘Cop on,’ Elaine said.

She was still in her nightdress, which was actually one of Peter’s check shirts. She’d rifled his wardrobe when he was in San Diego, took everything half decent before Kate got a go. Peter would probably take the shirts back now that he was home. He was like their mother in that way, precious about his belongings.

‘Get up,’ Kate said. ‘You don’t look a bit sick.’ 49

The twins were never sick, not even when they’d had chickenpox.

Elaine writhed on the bed.

‘Seriously, you’ll be killed. What’s wrong?’

Her sister turned on her side, a little fart breaking air.

‘Gross.’

‘It was from my vagina,’ Elaine smiled. ‘They don’t smell.’

‘Go down to Mammy. She’s been waiting ages.’

‘What, like four seconds?’

‘Seriously.’ Kate sat on her own bed, shifted towards the headboard and held her plait out to the side. ‘You don’t want to ruin today.’

The window was suspiciously open, the floral curtain flapping, bursts of sunshine with each lift. On the back wall, Elaine’s rosettes caught the light.

‘I don’t want to go today.’ Elaine kicked the duvet down the bed. ‘Put on that lacy monstrosity when it’s a hundred degrees out there and be all la-di-da, yes sir, no sir, and die of boredom sir, before they even bring the fucking tea.’

Over the summer, her sister had started to say fucking as if it was any old word. Only last night their father had sent her to bed without any Kimberleys and here she was, at it again.

‘Elaine Gleeson!’ Their mother’s voice was still, surprisingly, far away.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Kate looked across the pine locker that separated their beds. ‘Aunt Helen’s coming. It’s always fun.’

‘It’s always fun.’ Elaine pushed the duvet onto the floor and got off the bed, her long legs tanned after her summer experiment with the sunflower oil. ‘Don’t you remember the last time? Mammy complained about her figure the whole way home, and was miserable eating her grapefruit for the rest of the month. It’s not worth it.’ 50

Their mother had been on some sort of diet for as long as Kate could remember, but a few times a year, there would be some occasion like this where she would gorge herself, and they would all be giddy and ridiculous, the envy of onlookers.

‘Don’t be like that,’ said Kate. ‘She’s all excited.’

‘Yeah, today she is. Next weekend she’ll have forgotten we ever went and start giving out to me about my jodhpurs being too tight for the show.’ Elaine grimaced. ‘The last tea was endless. She talked to every single person in the dining room. Yap, yap, yap.’ Elaine did a beak with her hand. ‘And when we did finally escape, the third years outside the newsagents saw us in our matching dresses. How do you not remember that? The shame.’

It was true, Kate did remember, the way they’d looked like two porcelain doll replicas, but there was no point bringing it up now. ‘Get dressed,’ she said, pointing at the peach wardrobe by the door.

‘Elaine Bernadette Gleeson!’

‘Go,’ said Kate. ‘Just go.’

‘Urgh. I hate my middle name.’

‘Better than mine.’

‘I’d take Maude any day over having a piece of her inserted into me.’

Elaine grabbed the new hair straightener off the pine dresser and pounded down the landing. They were the first in their class to have a proper one. Everyone else was still using the iron, the telltale line like a halo around the crown. Their mother had come home from Dublin with the straightener last month for no reason at all. No birthday, no Christmas. And she was the best Mammy in the world then. Elaine had no memory for anything, that was the problem. She was all feeling and no thought.

Kate scooched down the bed and looked at the cover of her book, jet black with a child’s drawing of a bird in red. The 51mockingbird, obviously. They were starting it in second year and she wanted to have it read, had four more weeks to finish it, though she would probably be done by tomorrow. She inhaled books, is what her mother told the bridge ladies.

Kate made a fan of the pages and left the book down on the locker. It was no good, the house was too busy today. Or her mind was—all whirly. She decided to go for a walk. On the landing, she checked again for light in Ray’s room. Last summer he’d driven her to town most Saturdays in his new Opel while Elaine was at horse riding. They’d jaunted about the place and met his friends by the river, boys who all were in senior school and wore Reebok Classics. But that was last summer, when he still played soccer for Park Ville. She lingered outside his room, listening to his snores. Not only was Ray a narcoleptic now, he was also a big lummox, according to their mother, which was funny because he was small for his age and their father complained that he was useless around the farm.

‘You’re a big lummox, Ray,’ Kate called out and then legged it down the stairs.

In the kitchen, her father was reading the paper and eating digestives from the packet. Elaine’s purple tamagotchi was buzzing beside the biscuits.

‘Hello, Daddy. How are the bales?’ She picked up the tamagotchi and fed i...

Table of contents

• TITLE PAGE
• EPIGRAPH
• CONTENTS
• DUBLIN: Halloween 2018
• CARLOW: August 1999
• CARLOW: September 2006
• DUBLIN: May 2018
• DUBLIN: Halloween 2018
• DUBLIN: Halloween 2019
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• COPYRIGHT