by Cathy Kelly
Lorraine thought that marriage was a deluded venture, even though she made her living out of it because wedding cakes formed a large part of their business. ‘It’s the twenty-first century, why marry at all?’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ Vonnie would reply, deadpan. ‘Let’s close the shop instantly. Why are we making cakes that contribute to this insanity?’
‘Smartypants,’ Lorraine would laugh good-humouredly. ‘I meant for people my age. People in their twenties. Marriage is like women not having the vote or something.’
‘Or being a sheep,’ Vonnie would interject helpfully.
‘Exactly.’ Lorraine would smile and go back to making sugar roses.
Lorraine was as gifted as Vonnie herself when it came to making flowers, and nobody could make orchids the way they did. Sometimes the blooms looked so real that people thought they were actual flowers placed skilfully on the cake, until Vonnie gave them a mini sugarcraft orchid to handle.
She watched Denise O’Brien scanning the room with gimlet eyes. Yes, Momzilla. The poor bride herself was at least Vonnie’s age, forty, and clearly in her mother’s shadow. At least she wasn’t going to be a Bridezilla, marching around with a clipboard as if producing a multimillion-dollar action movie.
Vonnie knew that the brides who already had children and demanding jobs were less likely to go down this route. Working-mother brides appeared to have little time to worry about soft coral versus pale peach sugar paste ribbons, and were good at the high-speed decisions.
‘Oh blast, go for coral. I can’t remember the exact shade of the bridesmaids’ dresses, I don’t have time to drop a bit of fabric in, and to be honest, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. If I don’t have this report in by Friday, I’m fired, wedding or no wedding,’ had been the phone message left on the shop’s answer machine at seven that morning by a forty-three-year-old bride with three children, a high-flying career in an accountancy firm and no time for hand-wringing.
Clearly that wasn’t going to be the case with the O’Brien/Sylvester wedding. With Mrs Denise O’Brien playing queen bee, there was bound to be hand-wringing over every last detail.
Mrs O’Brien’s mouth had been set in a hard line since she stepped into the shop, and she seemed to have brought enough bad energy into the space to make even the sugarcraft flowers wilt a little.
Not for the first time, Vonnie wished she had a special wand for dealing with those few bad-tempered mothers of the bride who had no idea of the misery they spread. But none of this showed on her face as she handed out books of photos from which Eve and her mother could make their selections. As a professional in this field, Vonnie had more than once thought that an ability to act in front of customers was a great boon.
The coffee arrived, and with it a tray of samples of the various types of cake available for both ordinary and gluten-intolerant guests.
‘Thanks, Inge,’ said Vonnie to the girl who brought it all in.
Inge nodded. ‘I’ll just get the profiteroles,’ she said, and left them to it.
‘They’re so sweet,’ cried Eve happily, picking up a tiny morsel with a simple buttercream swirl on top.
The swirls were every colour imaginable, the fillings ranging from chocolate to fruit with biscuit cake thrown in, all served on the shop’s pretty antique cream platters. The whole thing could have been photographed for a magazine just as it was. Vonnie was very keen on perfect presentation.
‘That stuff’s what they serve at children’s parties,’ said Denise rudely, pointing a ruby-red-tipped finger at the biscuit cake samples.
Six years ago, Vonnie would have been thrown by such a comment, but the past had changed her. Rudeness no longer unnerved her. People were rude for such strange reasons: insecurity, anxiety, or an inability to express themselves any other way. It rarely had anything to do with the person they were being rude to. Once you’d cracked that, Vonnie thought, you understood the whole thing.
‘You’d be amazed at what people like to eat nowadays,’ she said in the placid tone that had earned her legendary status among her staff. ‘The beloved fruit cake has had its day in the sun and many people want a simple sponge or chocolate cake, or our angel food cake. Or our very special biscuit cake. Have a taste. We use the best chocolate. Children don’t get this at parties, I guarantee that.’
With her great grey eyes clear and bright, she looked at the older woman in a way that made Denise O’Brien falter.
For years, Denise had delighted in being able to say what she wanted to people who ran shops and businesses. She was accustomed to going into the butcher’s and loftily telling him not to give her fatty beef like last week, thank you very much. But this serene, calm woman, who looked as if she’d remain unflappable if a volcano erupted on Bridgeport’s Main Street, was holding out a plate of cakes in a manner that indicated there would be no ordering around here.
‘I’ll try it,’ said Denise, recovering. She bit into the cake, and the chocolate and shortbread exploded into a symphony of taste in her mouth. She felt about three years old, experiencing her first Easter egg all over again. ‘Goodness, it is nice,’ she said, unwilling to praise too much.
‘It’s gluten-free too, so your future mother-in-law can eat it,’ Vonnie told Eve.
‘This?’ Eve spoke for the first time in ages. ‘But it’s lovely. I thought it would be dry and crumbly.’
Vonnie smiled. ‘Not the way we make it,’ she said. It had taken months to get the recipe just right. The lack of gluten in the careful combination of flours meant the biscuits could be dry, but Vonnie had worked through the recipe endlessly until she’d ended up with biscuits everyone adored, either in or out of the cake.
‘I’ve always loved biscuit cake,’ Eve went on, almost dreamily. ‘Could we have the whole cake, three tiers, of this?’
‘One tier, Eve,’ interrupted Denise, shocked. ‘One tier. People expect proper fruit cake. It’s traditional.’
‘But Vonnie says traditions are changing,’ said Eve, clearly emboldened by the variety of cake in front of her and the way Vonnie was standing up to her mother. Nobody stood up to her mother – it was dizzying to watch.
‘They don’t change that fast,’ Denise snapped. ‘This is a fad. Vonnie, I’m sure there was no such thing as chocolate biscuit cake for weddings in your day. You’re married.’ She gestured at Vonnie’s sole piece of jewellery, the wedding ring in beaten gold. ‘I bet you didn’t have children’s cake for your wedding?’
‘I try not to remember my wedding,’ said Vonnie, her face closing.
‘Divorced?’ asked Denise, a pencilled-in eyebrow arching.
Some demon got hold of Vonnie’s head. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s easier now that he doesn’t have the restraining order against me, obviously. The neighbours hated the armed police turning up. Right, Eve, which cake would you like – since it’s your wedding?’
‘What did they go for in the end?’ asked Lorraine, when Vonnie had shown the O’Brien women out of the shop and returned to the kitchen.
‘They went for general disagreement,’ said Vonnie shortly, still wondering what had come over her. It was an inviolable rule of business not to annoy the hell out of the clients at the first meeting, but she didn’t care. Denise and her fake snobbery had got under her skin. And how dare she ask about Vonnie’s own wedding?
Lorraine, who had been deep in concentration, decorating a cake with a spray of winter red roses, heard the tension in her boss’s voice and looked up.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
But Vonnie had gone, exiting the kitchen via the rear hallway off which the toilets and storerooms were situated.
In the small loo, she splashed cold water on her face because she needed something to shock her back to the present and she’d already had too much caffeine. Any more and her heart would jump out of her chest.
The icy water splashed on to her collarbones and down her front. It took ten minutes for the water heater to wor
k in winter, but there were certain circumstances when that came in useful, Vonnie told herself grimly. There was nothing like cold water on a cold day for bringing you back to yourself.
She must have been mad to think of falling in love again. After loving Joe so much, after living through his death, she didn’t think she’d ever be totally human again. You only got one chance in life. It would never work, never.
Besides, Jennifer was working very hard to see to that. There could be no second chances for Vonnie.
‘Vonnie, you in there? Those people you just saw – Eve O’Brien’s been on the phone to say she loves the chocolate biscuit cake and wants that for all three tiers of her cake,’ yelled Lorraine.
Vonnie blinked at herself in the mirror. There had been a coup in the O’Brien car on the way home, clearly. Maybe she should try being mad more often in front of tricky clients.
‘Take a message and I’ll call her back,’ she said.
She was in no doubt that Eve’s mother, the difficult Denise, would eventually be on the phone herself to change the order, probably on the grounds that her daughter had taken leave of her senses. But still. Vonnie didn’t care either way. Life was too short.
Staring at herself in the bathroom mirror, she did some deep breathing. It was unlike her to be so anxious, but Ryan had said he would talk to Jennifer before the weekend. He was going to tell her about the house in Poppy Lane. It was a game-changer, for sure.
Vonnie thought of how she might have explained her personal circumstances to Mrs Momzilla O’Brien:
I’m a widow, my husband died in a car crash seven years ago and I thought my life was over. But I kept going for my son – you keep going for your children, don’t you? I came to Ireland because Joe and I had always dreamed of living here. He had relatives here and we’d visited twice. Being here helped. The memories of Joe were strong but didn’t overpower me. I baked my way out of misery and from somewhere, I don’t know where, I got the idea for this shop because I needed a job.
Then, even though I wasn’t looking – because why would I look: I’d met and lost the love of my life – I met Ryan. He’s amazing. I didn’t think I could fall in love again, but I did. He’s separated with two daughters and …
The mental story stopped.
There was such a big difference between separated and divorced. Ireland’s divorce laws made people who’d split up jump through so many hoops to finally divorce. It was all so different and slow compared to back home. But Ryan was special; she loved him, even though she’d honestly never thought she’d love again.
If Momzilla O Brien was normal, she might have patted Vonnie’s arm and said tearfully, Isn’t that lovely for you, pet. You’ve been through so much, you deserve your bit of happiness. But this mother of the bride looked far too bitter for that.
And Vonnie’s second chance at happiness still threatened to elude her, because even though Ryan was a wonderful man and she was stunned every day at finding love again, his not-yet-divorced former wife was determined to stand in their way.
Six
I will remember always that marriage, like life, is a journey, not a destination – and that its treasures are found not just at the end but along the way. ANON
Jennifer Morrison knew she was going to be late for the make-up-demonstration-cum-coffee-morning at her neighbour’s house, but she couldn’t drag herself away from the television. This was the best bit, the DNA test where the love rat was revealed on television and everyone got to hiss at him for pretending he hadn’t fathered a child with another woman.
She’d loved all those confessional TV shows from Jerry Springer onwards, and today’s cable show had two women glaring at each other as the TV host waved a piece of paper in his hand.
Face sad, he addressed the man’s wife: ‘This DNA test proves he cheated on you and lied when he said he’d never had sex with this woman; that he certainly wasn’t the father of this woman’s child. He’s your husband. What do you want to do with him now?’
The audience growl grew, like wild cats fighting over meat.
Ryan used to hate those shows.
‘It’s vigilante justice,’ he’d say. ‘The audience probably want to hit those guys over the head with their handbags before they can reach the car park.’
‘He shouldn’t have lied,’ Jennifer would say.
To her, it was simple: love was defined in very strict terms. Once you stepped over any of those lines, you deserved what you got, even if it was an outraged audience shrieking at you and threatening abuse.
Which made it worse that her break-up with Ryan lacked the simple right/wrong split.
Ryan hadn’t cheated.
He hadn’t got anyone pregnant, hadn’t found another girlfriend, hadn’t played any of the roles Jennifer would have been comfortable with.
‘I can’t live with you any more, Jen,’ he’d said. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. We’re too different. We fight all the time. I seem to make you angry by just breathing. I can’t live my life like this.’
Jennifer had stared at him.
Yes, they fought, but didn’t everybody? What was wrong with that?
‘Ryan, babe, don’t talk rubbish …’ she’d begun.
But he was steadfast. Their life was one long argument. He didn’t think that was love.
‘I can’t stand arguing. Did you know that? I hate it when you just want a fight, and no matter what I do, I can’t make it work. We’d be better apart. We could share custody …’
Here, finally, was something, Jennifer could grasp on to.
‘You are not taking away my girls!’ she’d shrieked.
‘But, Jennifer, we share everything to do with them. I take them to school every morning—’
Rage and pain fought to have their say in Jennifer’s brain.
‘I don’t care, they stay with me.’
Ryan had wanted mediation to organise the split amicably; Jennifer had thought it was a load of claptrap and wasted no time telling the mediator so.
‘Don’t tell me we need to think about our girls’ futures and not our own battle,’ she’d hissed at the woman they’d waited a month to see, who had been calmly discussing how they could dissolve their marriage with the least aggravation possible. ‘He left us, isn’t that enough? I have to cope with that and he can see them when I’m in the mood.’ Which would be never.
‘Oh, honey, did you have to say that?’ her mother had asked afterwards. Mom was a great one for never letting the sun set on her anger, although she could shout just as well as Jennifer when she wanted to.
‘Yes, I did,’ Jennifer said. ‘So?’
‘Ryan is great with Ruby and Shelby. He adores them, you know that.’
Her mother sounded weary, which was how she sounded in all phone conversations these days.
‘Aren’t you on my side?’ demanded Jennifer.
‘We’re talking about your daughters. When it comes to them, we don’t need sides.’
‘You’re not the one who’s been dumped,’ Jennifer said fiercely. ‘Ryan has taken enough from me. He’s not taking them too. He should pay.’
Three years on, she would say the same thing if she had the chance.
Sure, he paid maintenance, paid for the big house in The Close, did everything by the book and was never more than a moment late dropping the girls back from his legally agreed weekends with them. But he wasn’t paying the way she wanted him to pay. Instead, he was dating a WASPy blonde American cow who ran a cake shop – although on her website she didn’t look like she’d ever so much as licked a wooden spoon once.
Worse, said blonde cow got to spend every second weekend near Ruby and Shelby, even though Jennifer had done her level best to scupper that. Legally, she hadn’t a hope, her lawyer said.
The lawyer’s bills were expensive, and apparently Jennifer couldn’t get Ryan to pay them, so she backed off.
Her mother, who tried to get her out of the house and living again, wisely said nothing when Jennif
er imparted this information to her.
Nobody else wanted to know how angry Jennifer was feeling. She knew her anger had driven friends away. People expected her to get on with her life and find a job, find someone else, be happy. But she couldn’t.
She finally switched off the TV when vengeance had been done on the show and hurried upstairs to run a brush through her hair. She didn’t look in the mirror: she hated what she saw these days. She lived in clothes bought from catalogues or online: shapeless black garments with elasticated waists, accessorised with large costume jewellery and eyeliner. Her own purdah. No amount of make-up was going to change that.
The demonstrator was well into her spiel when Jennifer made it across the green to another of the big houses in The Close. The woman was extolling the benefits of a new moisturiser made from what sounded like raw superfoods and angel’s milk.
Jennifer grabbed a coffee and two pieces of chocolate Swiss roll from the buffet table and sat down.
‘Our hostess, Nuala, has been trying this product for weeks now,’ the demonstrator said, letting Jennifer’s neighbour take the floor.
Nuala had utterly disarmed Jennifer a week before by inviting her to the party.
‘It’ll be fun. Coffee, cake and no need to buy. Plus you get fabulous samples. I promise you, it’s an amazing range. Really works on those laughter lines.’
Laughter lines, Jennifer thought afterwards, wishing she’d just said no. What bloody laughter lines? She had great rivets of misery in her face, not laughter lines. Still, it was a morning out, and she didn’t get many invitations these days because she’d fallen out with so many of her old friends. People thought they had the right to tell you where you were going wrong and give you advice at the drop of a hat – and Jennifer hated advice, hated being pitied. So although she’d once been the life and soul of all parties, invitations were now thin on the ground, and here she was listening to Nuala and the make-up company rep singing slightly different songs from the same hymn sheet.
At least the models in the brochure were women of her own age and not the usual dewy-faced children companies hired to sell wrinkle cream to forty- and fifty-year-olds. Given the way make-up advertising was going, Ruby was probably the right age to advertise moisturiser to her mother’s generation.