Finishing Touches

by Patricia Scanlan

  It was in such a state one evening that she was flicking through one of the evening papers when she saw an advertisement for a new course in interior design. She cut it out and kept it. After she had finished her banking exams, she might like to try something different and she had always been interested in design.

  She worked hard at her studies during those first few months in London, achieving honours in her banking exams, much to her satisfaction. But once her studying was completed and her exams were over, she felt very much at a loose end. Cassie knew she could start a management course in September if she wanted and that would really give her career a boost, but the thought did not greatly appeal to her. She felt restless and she wanted to do something not connected with work. Remembering the little cutting about the interior design evening course that she had kept, she sent away for the prospectus. Cassie liked what she saw and decided that her next goal would be a diploma in interior design. It was something she had always wanted to do, ever since she was a schoolgirl, and she looked forward to it immensely.

  In the meantime she was kept busy with visitors from home. Her mother and Irene arrived for a long weekend and thoroughly enjoyed themselves, despite the fact that Cassie and Irene had got separated from Nora in Harrods. Their mother had been in an awful state when they found her because, for the life of her, she couldn’t remember Cassie’s address.

  John arrived with his new girlfriend, Karen, and Cassie liked her enormously. John was really working hard setting up his fruit and vegetable farm and Cassie thought a little sadly how proud Jack would have been of his elder son. They spent the weekend seeing the sights and John and Karen had a ball. Cassie was delighted. Her brother deserved a break. He had always been a hard worker and once the business got going he would have precious little free time.

  Martin and a friend of his arrived later in the year and the pair of them spent their few days visiting every pub in London. Martin, who was an apprentice electrician, told Cassie that he was about to move into a flat and that Nora was going mad about it.

  ‘I’m twenty, Cassie. I want to lead my own life. I know she’ll be on her own with Irene but I’ll call and see her and John calls in every day and cuts the grass and things for her.’

  ‘Get your flat, Martin,’ Cassie advised her younger brother. It was hard on her mother, she acknowledged, that all her chicks were leaving the nest but that was life, unfortunately, and Nora was lucky to have had her children living with her for so long.

  Barbara phoned one week angling for an invitation for herself and Ian, and Cassie’s heart sank. Whatever about putting up with Barbara for a few days, she was not looking forward to having Ian Murray under her feet. She couldn’t really refuse, though. After all, she had had John and Karen and Martin and his mate so she couldn’t plead shortage of space. Reluctantly, and lying through her teeth, she told Barbara that she and Ian were welcome. They stayed a week and by the end of it Cassie was fit for an asylum. Ian was the laziest, untidiest man she had ever met.

  ‘Maybe I’m being totally unreasonable but he’s driving me nuts!’ she wailed to Aileen, who was on a day off and whom she met for lunch in a little wine-bar off Kensington High Street. Aileen laughed as she took an appreciative sip of the Sauvignon Blanc recommended by the waiter. Cassie, who had to go back to work, was sticking to Perrier, although she felt like drowning her sorrows.

  ‘You’ve to put up with them only for another four days. Cheer up!’ Aileen encouraged as she tucked into a slice of garlic bread.

  ‘If that’s the best you can do, it’s no help,’ Cassie muttered glumly ‘Barbara wants to go to the Ritz tonight and the Savoy for afternoon tea on Saturday so she can spoof about them in her column when she gets home. She wants to see some famous faces so she can name-drop and pretend she’s on intimate terms with them. For a grown woman did you ever hear anything so childish? And people believe every word she writes and read her pieces avidly.’

  ‘I can’t see Ian enjoying the Ritz. It’s not really his scene, is it?’ Aileen said doubtfully.

  ‘Oh, he wants to stay at home tonight to watch a match. He’ll have beer cans all over the place. That’s why Barbara decided it would be a good opportunity to see the Ritz. Research, she calls it. I hope she’s on expenses!’ Cassie said tartly.

  ‘I’ll tell you what: I’ll come with you to the Ritz tonight, and I’ll tell her about all the famous people, the film stars, the TV personalities to whom I’ve given beauty treatments. Would that keep her happy?’

  Cassie smiled at Aileen. ‘Spoken like a true friend, O’Shaughnessy. Always there when the chips are down.’

  The redhead laughed and ordered another half-carafe of wine. ‘I’d better fortify myself, so!’

  It actually turned out to be a very enjoyable evening. The girls left Ian lounging in front of Cassie’s TV with a six-pack of beer and peanuts and crisps and took a taxi to Mayfair. ‘We don’t want Babs to have to slum it on the tube,’ Aileen whispered. Barbara was in her element and trying hard not to be impressed. She had bought herself a cream linen suit in Aquascutum in Regent Street and a bag, scarf and jewellery accessories in Jaeger and thought she was gorgeous. She couldn’t wait to write next week’s column. Dressed to the nines in her new outfit, which, she confided, she also intended to wear to the next Brown Thomas fashion show, Barbara loved sipping kirs in the Ritz. She was fascinated by Aileen’s descriptions of the rich and famous who came to the plush Mayfair salon where she worked.

  ‘I could stick you in if I get a cancellation while you’re here. You could get your eyebrows done or a manicure or whatever,’ Aileen offered generously. Cassie could have kissed her. Aileen was a gem. Heaven knows Barbara didn’t deserve such kindness. She had been quite rude to Aileen during their spats when they lived together. But then, Aileen was not one to hold a grudge over anything. Actually she found Barbara and her notions highly entertaining and roared laughing at her gossip column, which Nora sent to Cassie with the papers every week.

  Barbara was in the seventh heaven at the offer, and when they took her to Langan’s Brasserie for a meal – Cassie had just got back-money – and she saw Michael Caine and his wife Shakira dining with Roger Moore and his wife, she was ecstatic. The fact that they got a table at the famous restaurant because Aileen knew someone there made her rise notches in Barbara’s estimation and she fawned over her for the rest of the evening, much to Aileen’s amusement.

  ‘Cassie, I had a wonderful time,’ Barbara enthused, as she bade her sister farewell at Heathrow a few days later. ‘I’ll have to do it again soon. It’s so handy having a base here. I could do all sorts of features on London; I must speak to my editor,’ she bubbled excitedly. ‘Didn’t you enjoy it, Ian? Maybe we could come and do our Christmas shopping.’

  ‘Er . . . yeah . . . great,’ muttered the stocky detective. ‘See ya at Christmas!’

  ‘No way!’ muttered Cassie two hours later as she flung open the windows of her sitting-room and sprayed air freshener around to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke. There were peanuts down between the cushions of the couch and she got out the hoover and began vacuuming with a vengeance. She had done her duty by Barbara. Once was enough to be landed with Ian Murray. She’d make some excuse!

  A week later Nora forwarded The Irish Mail with Barbara’s column on London. Cassie and Aileen nearly split their sides laughing as they read how Barbara, after champagne cocktails in the Ritz, had bumped into old friends, Michael and Shakira Caine, while dining in Langan’s Brasserie, one of her favourite London haunts. The Caines were with their VBFs (very best friends), the Roger Moores. The following day while having a head-to-toe body treatment in a plush Mayfair salon – Aileen shrieked at this – Barbara had bumped into ‘old gal pal,’ Lady Diana Spencer, who was currently the subject of intense media speculation concerning her relationship with the Prince of Wales. ‘Watch this spot!’ wrote Barbara dramatically.

  ‘Isn’t she just incredible?’ Cassie laughed. ‘And the thing is, peop
le actually believe her! Since she’s started writing “Barbara’s Brief,” the circulation of the paper has taken off and is increasing all the time. They’re very impressed with her, or so she says.’

  ‘She should win an award for her fiction-writing, that’s for sure!’ Aileen grinned.

  Cassie had so many visitors that the summer was over before she knew it. She and Aileen spent a ten-day holiday driving around the South of France and then she took a week’s leave and went home to Nora, who was delighted to see her. Cassie spent a few days at home in Port Mahon helping her mother to re-tile the bathroom and from there she went to Dublin to spend the weekend with Laura and Doug.

  She had never seen Laura so contented and happy. Marriage really suited her, although she was finding her job pretty hard going. She told Cassie it was difficult to be taken seriously because she was one of only a few women in a large law firm that had the reputation of being sexist, but she was beavering away. She and Doug hadn’t two pennies to rub together, with all his money going into the business and her salary just a pittance. But the business was slowly but surely taking off; they were happy together striving to reach their goals and Cassie couldn’t help but envy them.

  How she would have loved to be married to Robbie and making plans for the future. On her last night with Laura, her friend told her that she had seen Robbie in a pub one night. Cassie felt a sharp stab of loneliness tinged with guilt.

  ‘Was he drinking?’

  Laura nodded. ‘He’d had a few all right! He tried to get me to give him your London address and phone number but I wouldn’t give it to him. He wanted to pay me for the wedding cake. I told him to give it to charity. Cassie, you’re well out of it, honestly, no matter what you feel now,’ her friend said bluntly.

  Cassie bit her lip.

  ‘Oh Cassie, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you cry,’ Laura exclaimed in dismay as a big tear plopped on to Cassie’s lap.

  ‘It’s OK, Laura, it’s just . . . Oh it hurts . . . it still hurts like hell!’

  ‘Isn’t it getting any better?’

  Cassie wiped her eyes. ‘It helps being in London, everything is so new and the job is so demanding, but there are times when I get so lonely for him, I’m sorely tempted to pick up the phone.’

  ‘Don’t!’ warned Laura. ‘Haven’t you gone out with anyone at all since you went over? It’s what, almost eight months now?’

  Cassie shook her head. ‘I’m in the social club at work and I play basketball and go bowling and swimming and I’ve been asked out a few times but my heart’s not in it and I say no. I’m going to study interior design in the autumn – that will keep me occupied for a while.’

  ‘Hey, that’s great news. You’ve always wanted to do something like that. You can decorate our place, whenever we get a place of our own,’ Laura exclaimed delightedly.

  ‘And when will that be?’

  Laura threw her eyes up to heaven. ‘God knows!’

  That autumn, Cassie often thought of Laura’s future home, as she sat at her newly purchased drawing-board, which had parallel motion and a stand, practising her technical drawings. She had started her evening classes and was doing seven subjects: materials, history of interior design, draughtsmanship, design, colour, furniture and fittings, and construction of interiors. She loved it. It was no hardship after a busy day’s work to go to college and have classes from seven until ten and then go home and do her assignments. Unleashing her creativity was very satisfying. She could immerse herself in a project and spend hours on it and not feel the time passing. She spent hours at the weekend browsing in antique shops and home-design stores. She practically lived in Habitat and Laura Ashley and had enough swatches of material and samples of wallpaper to fill a sack. Her favourite place of all, the General Trading Company Ltd in Sloane Street, was practically a home from home to her with its household furnishings, china, glass, linen and antiques and oriental items. She scoured the markets, nipping up to the one in Shepherd’s Bush on her bike, usually arriving home with some find, an antique vase or an old wooden carved letter-holder that she would clean and French-polish and restore to its former glory. For the first time since her break-up with Robbie, she was happy.

  With the blessing of Aileen’s aunt, she redecorated Aileen’s sitting-room and bedroom, using inexpensive materials and the sponging and stencilling techniques that she was learning. Aileen was delighted with the result, especially with the kelim, the flat-woven tapestry rug with its brilliant colours and bold pattern that Cassie had used as the focal point in the sitting-room. A couple of Japanese fans that she had picked up for a few pounds in a flea-market had very much the same colouring and these provided a decorative toning feature on the walls. It was the first example of her work to go in her portfolio and she was very proud of it.

  It led to other commissions. A friend of Aileen’s was so impressed that she asked Cassie to do a job on the hall of an old house that she and her husband had bought. It was in a right state and Cassie felt a surge of enthusiasm when she first saw it. She couldn’t wait to get her teeth into it. The four of them spent a weekend scraping off the old flock wallpaper and chipped paint before she could get to work on the transformation. The following weekend Cassie bonded and treated the walls before applying several coats of a warm buttermilk shade of paint. She used eggshell paint on the dado rail and skirting-board and then papered the dado in a William Morris design wallpaper which she first sealed and then glazed with transparent oil glaze, tinted with artist’s oil paint. Finally she stained the floorboards and stairway and covered them with an Eastern runner carpet. The result was elegant simplicity and warmth and light, a complete contrast to the dingy hole it had been. Aileen’s friends were thrilled with it, as was Cassie. Nothing that she had ever done in her life before had given her such satisfaction.

  When a class tutor told them that their classes in second year would include some courses on setting up their own consultancy and design business, she actually found herself daydreaming about leaving the bank and setting up a business herself. Now that would be a dream come true! In the meantime she kept studying and practising different decorating techniques and spent a fortune on glossy home-design and decorating magazines.

  Thirty

  ‘Cassie, you’re looking much better in yourself. I was terribly worried about you there for a while. This time last year you were like a ghost,’ her mother remarked on Christmas Eve, as they prepared the stuffing for the turkey.

  Cassie paused in the chopping of her onions. The thought of Robbie still hurt, there was no doubt about it, but she did feel much more optimistic, especially since she had started her course. Compared to last year, when all she wanted to do was run away and hide from everyone, this year she was actually looking forward to seeing old friends and celebrating Christmas with her family.

  ‘It’s probably my hair. I got it styled before I came home.’ She smiled at Nora, who was chopping parsley to add to the breadcrumbs.

  ‘It’s more than that, pet. You know, I think you made a very wise decision not to marry Robbie. I never worry about you the way I worry about Irene. You have a core of strength, Cassie, that will always see you through. Irene will always need to lean on someone. I’m worried about her. She hates her job. Maybe she should give it up and try and find something nearer home,’ Nora said worriedly.

  ‘Mother!’ Cassie said firmly, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. ‘Irene will have to learn to stand on her own two feet! You’re not always going to be here for her to lean on. She can’t give up a good job, at least not until she has another one to go to, and I don’t think she’s going to get anything in Port Mahon that will have the advantages of the one she has in the County Council. And if she’s not careful, she’s going to get the sack with all the sick leave she’s taking.’ Irene had been out of work for the previous week with a chest infection.

  ‘The child is not well!’ objected Nora, rising to the defence of her youngest as she always did. ‘She
’s always been frail, Cassie, not like you and the rest of them.’ Cassie said no more. Where Irene was concerned, her mother never allowed any criticism.

  John and Karen arrived home shortly afterwards and Cassie, observing them smiling at each other, knew that they were a match. She was glad for John; he deserved something good in his life and Karen was a lovely girl. Nora was very fond of her and, watching the way she took off her coat, rolled up her sleeves and started washing the dishes, Cassie could understand why. John had just made a pot of tea and buttered a plate of scones for the lot of them when Barbara and Ian arrived. Typical, thought Cassie in amusement. The work was all done and the supper was just ready. Barbara had always been the same; her timing was impeccable. She was looking particularly well tonight, Cassie reflected, as her sister divested herself of her well-cut herringbone coat.

  ‘Welcome home, Cassie,’ Barbara smiled. She waved her left hand at Cassie. ‘Well, what do you think?’

  It took Cassie a minute or two to figure out what her sister was on about and then she noticed the engagement ring. Cassie’s eyes widened. Barbara and Ian were engaged!

  ‘Congratulations,’ Cassie managed to say, giving her sister a hug. Nora gave a gasp of surprise. Barbara smirked.

  ‘We waited until you came home so you could be here as well to share the good news. I’m just so happy, I’m over the moon!’