The Tavern on Maple Street

by Sharon Owens

  ‘At least I didn't bring germs back here from the Art College,’ said Bridget defensively.

  ‘It's not my fault Mrs B and Mr B are sick. I haven't got the flu, so it can't have been me,’ Daisy cried, setting her cup on the little wooden ladder.

  ‘Whatever the reason, I'm going to plough on,’ said Lily. Privately, she blamed the stress of paying for Bridget's one-woman Demolition Derby for making her and Jack ill. But they needed Bridget desperately and they couldn't let her go. She could turn those cocktails out at an amazing speed. ‘We are going to be incredibly busy over the next few days,’ Lily added.

  ‘You stay in bed and we'll get the tavern open,’ said Daisy. She threw off her blankets and climbed down from her bunk. ‘We'll all pitch in, won't we, girls?’

  ‘Would you?’ gasped Lily, beginning to cough again. ‘That would be so nice of you. I haven't felt this wretched in years.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ announced Bridget, taking charge. She wasn't having Daisy bossing her around, under any circumstances. ‘Trudy and Marie can bake the pies for lunch, and Daisy can clean and polish the bar.’

  ‘What will you do?’ asked Daisy, her temper rising. She didn't object to doing the cleaning. It was far better than slaving over the cooking, actually. But still, she'd liked to have volunteered for mop and duster duty, rather than submit to Bridget's orders. Bridget still seemed to believe that she had some authority over the others, just because she was the only full-timer.

  ‘I will start getting the cocktail ingredients ready. There's a big party at seven, in case you've not looked at the calendar. And there are dozens of new glasses to be unpacked from their boxes and put through the dishwasher. I've to colour the sugar for dipping the glasses. And there's a fire to light.’ She hopped out from under her pile of blankets and raced to the bathroom with her sponge and bath towel.

  ‘Leave some hot water for the rest of us,’ the other girls chorused.

  ‘Thanks, girls. We really appreciate this. Are you sure you know where everything is?’ Lily fretted. ‘There's extra flour in the crockery cupboard, and rolls of tin foil in the cutlery drawer. About four pies should be enough, I think? Ten slices in each, and serve with the salads for lunches?’

  ‘Yes, we know,’ said Trudy. A collection of poetry books slithered off her pillow and fell onto the carpet. Sighing, she gathered them up and stacked them neatly beside the bed. Her self-improvement campaign would just have to be put on hold for the day.

  ‘Off you go, and stay in bed for a while. I'll bring you and Mr Beaumont a cup of tea,’ said Marie, pulling on a fleecy jacket with teddy bears on it.

  ‘Oh, lovely! Now, I think four pies should be sufficient,’ said Lily, still worried about the catering. ‘We surely won't have more than forty lunches each day, even with the recent publicity. If there's time, you might consider a mushroom and nut strudel for the vegetarians? I left the recipe on the notice board. It only takes fifteen minutes in the oven, apparently.’

  ‘Right, now off you go. We'll manage,’ said Daisy. ‘And if we have a domestic emergency, we know where you are.’

  ‘And we'll not set fire to any tea towels, this time,’ added Marie. ‘Now we know how hot the stove rail can get.’ They all smiled warmly at each other. Their confidence made Lily relax a little bit. She thanked them again, and told them to come to her the minute they needed help. They chased her out through the door with many promises to fetch her if there was a disaster, and even more reassurances there wouldn't be.

  Lily trailed back to bed and clambered in beneath the eiderdown. Jack put his arm round her and kissed her forehead.

  ‘You're quite warm, you know. Maybe you have a temperature?’ he said.

  ‘I'm hot stuff. No, I'm okay, just about. Cross your fingers, darling. The lunatics are taking over the asylum. But they've given me their word that they won't burn it down.’

  Lily and Jack lay in each other's arms for a while but then had to move apart as they felt hot and stuffy. Lily thought they should try to get up and dressed but the room was very cold. They decided to stay in bed. Trudy and Marie were soon frying onions, chopping steaks and rolling pastry in the kitchen, so they couldn't go in there and contaminate the pies. The bar would be chilly and the sitting room was full of beds. There was nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. As they fell asleep, side by side and holding hands, they could hear and smell the various preparations get under way with a surprisingly small amount of fuss. Bridget could be heard chinking glasses downstairs and Lily counted only two smashes. Daisy soon had the whole place full of the scent of citrus furniture polish, and the hum of the vacuum cleaner was quite a soothing sound when someone else was using it.

  At eleven o'clock, there was a gentle knock on their bedroom door and Trudy came in with a tray bearing tea, toast, scrambled eggs, a dish of marmalade and a couple of newspapers. There was also a selection of painkillers, two glasses of water and a box of mentholated tissues.

  ‘Wakey, wakey,’ she trilled.

  ‘I must be dreaming,’ said Lily, struggling to open her eyes. ‘Isn't this lovely? I thought you forgot about the tea.’

  ‘Oh, I was here twice before with it, but you were both unconscious. Sorry to wake you up, this time,’ said Trudy. ‘And there's more,’ she added proudly, nodding towards the door. ‘They're decent, Marie. You can come in now.’ Marie came edging shyly into the pink bedroom, carrying a portable television she'd asked her father to drop by. She set it on the bureau and switched it on. She also plugged in the old Christmas tree. The room suddenly became much cosier as the tree cast its yellow, pink and orange shadows across the walls. On daytime TV a young woman was making Christmas stockings out of fluffy towels, curtain tassels and toy sleigh-bells.

  ‘I always like a bit of telly when I'm under the weather,’ Marie said and hurried out again. ‘Got to keep an eye on the stove. Two pies down, two to go.’

  ‘Oh, this is great. I feel better already,’ said Lily and then reached for the painkillers as another wave of pressure attacked her brain. ‘Jack, the cavalry has brought food.’ She prodded him on the shoulder. Jack muttered his thanks from deep underneath the eiderdown. He felt quite shy with all these young girls running about the place. He was afraid to get dressed without locking the bedroom door in case one of them burst in and caught him in his shorts. Trudy left the tray on a chair beside the bed and went back to the kitchen, announcing that she was going to make the best mushroom and nut strudel that had ever been seen in the city of Belfast.

  ‘I should say something clever at this point, regarding Belfast and nuts, but I haven't got the energy,’ said Jack, and Lily laughed even though it was sheer agony to do so. They both sat up in bed and enjoyed their elevenses. It was slightly surreal, hearing the girls do all the jobs they used to do. Especially the rasping scrape of the shovel on the hearth, as Bridget removed the ashes from the fireplace. Jack had to restrain himself from going down to check that she was not using too many lighters, or covering the tavern in cinders. At lunchtime, they could hear Barney, Joey and Francy Mac arriving downstairs, and after a while the familiar scent of Barney's tobacco came drifting up the staircase.

  ‘I think I'll have a shower,’ Jack told Lily as the afternoon wore on. ‘See if the hot water helps my head feel any better. Maybe if I steam open my pores some of the pain will escape too.’

  ‘Maybe, but I doubt it. What a time to get sick.’

  ‘I was going to try out the new chip-maker today.’

  ‘It's called a deep-fat fryer,’ she laughed again. ‘Ouch! And you'll do no such thing. You might get even worse if you don't rest.’

  ‘What about tonight's event?’ he asked. It was a Christmas party for journalists from the Irish Independent, their friends and families. Lily had offered to make fat potato chips, wrapped up in paper cones, as one of the side dishes. She'd suggested making the cones out of pages from the Mirror, a rival newspaper.

  ‘I've already told Marie all about it. She says she'll b
e only too happy to man the fryer when the time comes.’

  ‘And the rest of it? How will they manage?’

  ‘Bridget has a system,’ explained Lily, ‘of making enough mix for twenty cocktails at the same time, and pouring it along a row of frosted glasses. It's quite a spectacle, I believe. And Daisy said she'd make a hundred cones out of the newspapers and line them with greaseproof paper, ready for the chips tonight. They can serve cold sausage rolls and chicken wraps with salad and coleslaw. And the desserts are already made. So we're fine. Jack?’ But he had dozed off again, sitting up in the bed with a fork still in his hand.

  At five, Daisy popped her head in to ask where the glue was kept. She handed Lily and Jack two small dishes of strudel with a drizzling of sauce made from port, redcurrant jelly and balsamic vinegar. They sat up to test the new dish and declared it delicious.

  ‘This is fantastic, Daisy. It'll be fine served cold for the party tonight,’ said Lily.

  ‘It's all gone, Mrs B. That was the last bit.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Trudy made forty portions, and they all sold this lunchtime.’

  ‘What about the steak pies?’

  ‘All gone too. It's heaving down there. Human soup, it is. Bridget is serving pints at the speed of light. I have to admit, she's pretty good under pressure.’

  ‘So did you run out of food, then?’

  ‘No, we served open prawn sandwiches to the stragglers. We've lifted a fortune of money.’

  ‘Where is it?’ said Jack at once.

  ‘It's in the kitchen, in a bucket under the sink, Mr B.’

  ‘Oh, Daisy, that's not a very safe place to put money.’

  ‘We didn't know what else to do with it. There's no room in the till. Do you want more strudel made for the party? There's plenty of mushrooms and filo pastry left over.’

  ‘If Trudy has the energy, that would be fantastic,’ said Lily. ‘It looks very upmarket. Thank you.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ added Jack. ‘We're both very grateful. Are you sure you're all okay? Did you get some lunch yourselves?’

  ‘Yeah, we grabbed a bite. Must dash, or Bridget will be on the warpath. See ya.’

  ‘What do you need glue for, by the way, Daisy?’ called Lily.

  ‘For the paper cones.’ She popped her head back in the room.

  ‘I think sticky tape would be better. We don't want to poison anyone. There's a new roll beneath the bar.’ Lily blew her nose loudly.

  ‘Gotcha,’ winked Daisy.

  ‘Will you be able to close up tonight?’ Jack asked. ‘Do you want me to come down to eject the stubborn ones?’

  ‘No, that's okay. We just found out Trudy's got a black belt in karate. I'll get on with the cones, then, Mrs B?’

  ‘Thanks, Daisy, you're an absolute treasure,’ coughed Lily, stunned that Trudy wasn't afraid of aggressive men when she was terrified of pearly buttons. Lily and Jack looked at each other and simply shrugged. Every day that passed brought with it a surprise or a shock of some kind.

  Lily and Jack decided to stash the bucket of money in the wardrobe, and then spent the rest of the evening listening to their favourite records from the 1980s, and making some compilation tapes on Jack's old stereo. By the time the first party of the season was drawing to a close with a riotous sing-song and much cheering and clapping in the room below, they had settled on some iconic songs for Clare Prendergast's Christmas Eve celebration. ‘Sometimes’, by Erasure. ‘The First Picture of You’, by the Lotus Eaters. ‘Everyday I Write the Book’, by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. ‘Don't Talk to Me About Love’, by Altered Images.

  ‘That fairly takes me back,’ said Jack, wiping a tear from his eye. ‘If my poor body wasn't in agony from top to toe, I'd take you in my arms right this minute, and do things to you that decency prevented on that riverside bench in 1984.’

  15. The Waiting Room

  Tuesday, 21 December

  Trudy hovered by the door of the waiting room, unsure what to do next. Every instinct in her soul was telling her to run back along the pale green corridor, down the stairs of polished black marble and out through the revolving doors to safety. She could be home in minutes, curled up on her bed with The Nation's Favourite Poems. She was currently memorizing ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’, by Dylan Thomas (1914–53). She didn't need all this fuss and nonsense. It was Lily Beaumont who had talked her into phoning for an appointment and, to Trudy's great alarm, the receptionist had said there was a cancellation and could she come in at eleven? Unknown to Trudy, her own doctor had called in a few favours to secure the precious appointment. He'd been trying to get her to come here for over two years.

  But Trudy's phobias, or her little notions, as she liked to call them, were not really a problem. Everybody had something wrong, she reasoned. Some perfectly law-abiding women went shoplifting when they thought their husbands were having an affair. Some otherwise sane and normal men simply couldn't get on an aeroplane, even if they'd just won a luxury holiday. Trudy twirled her crochet scarf round her neck, took it off, then put it on again. Finally, she took it off, folded it neatly and squashed it into her coat pocket.

  ‘Excuse me, are you looking for the counselling rooms?’ said a gentle voice behind her. She turned round and realized with a jolt that it was Gerry Madden. She recognized him straight away from a picture in Bridget's photo album. The blond crew cut, the ice-blue eyes, the tanned skin and the expensive jacket. But, of course, he didn't recognize Trudy.

  ‘Yes, the counselling rooms. Indeed. But I'm not sure if I'm in the right place,’ said Trudy softly. ‘It's somewhere along this corridor. The receptionist told me the room number, but I forget. Will we just sit down and wait anyway?’

  ‘We might as well. As far as I know, this is where the old counselling takes place, right enough. I, um, I shouldn't be here, really,’ he said. ‘Stress-related work thing, you know?’

  ‘Same here,’ Trudy said. They both shook their heads in fake amusement. ‘These meddling doctors, always fussing and fretting over nothing. Aren't they a caution?’ She said the last word very strangely, he thought. She lingered over it. Gerry Madden blinked nervously. Jack Beaumont had been given a police caution after that embarrassing little incident on Maple Street. He had been cautioned himself in New York. Gerry thought this beautiful girl standing beside him had a bit of a smirk on her face, but then he could be developing a touch of paranoia. That often happened to heavy drinkers; it was likely due to a poor diet, he reckoned.

  ‘I can't seem to settle the old head, these days. It's silly,’ he told her. Keep talking, he told himself. Say anything at all to her. Anything to fill the excruciating silence that all waiting rooms were cursed with. They ought to have soothing music piped into this room, Gerry thought. Or, better still, CDs of the comedian James Young. ‘No need for all this palaver. Waste of taxpayers' money. I'm only here to keep my doctor happy.’

  ‘Me too. I don't believe in therapy,’ Trudy said, and they both turned bright red. Therapy was such a scary word, she thought. It implied mental illness, Victorian asylums with bars on the windows, screams in the night. ‘I have a few little phobias, that's all. Sure, who hasn't, in this day and age? I feel daft, to tell you the truth.’ She smiled at him. There were no other patients in the room. It was the last session before lunch.

  They went in and sat down, carefully studying the dried-up posters on the walls. There was an old Interiors magazine lying on the coffee table, with a beautiful Christmas tree on the cover. The tree was decked out in strings of popcorn and cranberries. They both reached for the magazine at the same time.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You have it. Gerry Madden is the name.’ They gingerly shook hands.

  ‘I'm Marie Smith,’ Trudy lied. Well, she couldn't risk telling Gerry her real name. After all, she had shouted at him on the telephone and also said that he was round the twist.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Marie Smith,’ he smiled. Trudy was struck with h
ow handsome he was in the flesh. Very alive, somehow. Those blue eyes of his were full of mischief. And his shoulders looked rather good in that tweed jacket. No wonder bossy Bridget had put up with his heavy drinking and his marriage-avoidance for years. Trudy could well see the attraction of the man.

  ‘I'm not really into interiors,’ she said, hoping to God the nurse would hurry up and take one of them into the inner sanctum. ‘You have it.’ She indicated the glossy publication. In the end, neither of them got to read the article on designer conservatories and the magazine lay untouched on the table.

  Gerry prayed that none of his colleagues would come along and see him waiting for the nurse. It was an extremely humbling experience for him to be sitting on this side of the door. Even if he was only going to see a behavioural therapy nurse and not an actual psychiatrist. Relaxation techniques! Oh, the shame of it. His doctor and best friend, Toby Kerr, had recommended them, the day after Gerry had been suspended from his job. Gerry had little faith in the programme, even though he'd been recommending relaxation techniques to his own patients for years.

  They chatted for a few minutes about the weather, the possibility of snow on Christmas Day, and whether reality TV shows were a bit of harmless fun or a shocking waste of time and resources. They both agreed that paying washed-up celebrities good money for eating a few grubs in the jungle was nothing compared to being an African orphan who had no choice but to eat grubs every miserable day of his or her life. Gerry said he was tempted to take a career-break and go to Africa himself. Do some humanitarian work. He almost said he'd like to counsel some severely traumatized people, but he stopped himself just in time. That would give his occupation away.

  ‘Would they let you take time off work? I mean, what do you do for a living?’ asked Trudy. Really, she shouldn't put him on the spot like this, but she couldn't help it. She was suddenly fascinated with Gerry Madden.

  ‘I own a car showroom,’ he said at once. ‘The BMW garage in Finaghy.’ It was the answer he gave to all his potential girlfriends. For some reason, they felt uncomfortable being chatted up by a psychiatrist. They thought he might be able to see through their fake femme-fatale personas, or even manipulate them into bed using some secret parlour-trick. Besides, high-performance cars were the only things he knew about, outside medicine.