The Ballroom Café

by Ann O'Loughlin

  I trust you realise the seriousness of the situation: even through your sherry-soaked ether, you must know this is a crisis. The only way out I can see is to attempt to bring some money into the house, something you stopped doing a long time ago. Even if you could forego one of your numerous bottles of sherry a week, it would help.

  The Ballroom Café stays open and long may it remain that way, because without it, we would both be out on the streets. Debbie Kading is a very important part of the popularity of the café and I will not have you insult her.

  You might as well know, she is moving in today. I am warning you, I will not have rudeness or bad manners towards our guest and my friend.

  As for the other matter mentioned in your communication, can I remind you of your own role in all of this? I hope the flush of shame and guilt is coursing through you, as it should be.

  Your sister,

  Ella.

  Roberta folded the note in four and slowly pinched it to shreds, until there was a heap of paper beside her mug of tea. Ignoring the paper mound, she moved to her cupboard and took down a small crystal glass.

  She poured a sherry from the hip flask in her handbag, before taking a long and extravagant sip. Smiling at the loud sighing of her sister, Roberta topped up her glass. Exasperated, Ella bustled out of the kitchen to answer a knock on the front door.

  Debbie had only one pull-along case.

  ‘Debbie, welcome. Do you mind if I show you the room later? Muriel Hearty rang and said there was going to be a huge crowd this morning. The Women’s Guild has decided to meet at the café.’

  ‘Did you bake extra?’

  ‘I did, and I also found time to tell my sister to behave herself, so you need not worry on that score. When we close up shop tonight, we must have a Baileys to celebrate your moving in. Come on upstairs; there is work to be done.’

  ‘I’d like that, but I think we’d better set some extra tables; otherwise Muriel will create a fuss.’

  ‘She will create a fuss anyway, but let’s hope it is not about that,’ Ella said, as she spooned the coffee into the machine. ‘Any developments on the other thing?’ Ella said, her voice slow and vague, as if she had more important things to think about.

  Debbie knew what she was doing: tiptoeing for fear of causing upset. ‘A guy from a government department rang me and said the Minister has asked the nuns to account for themselves. A judge is to look into it.’

  Ella stopped, the coffee scoop in mid-air. ‘And it took you until now to tell me.’

  Debbie began to stutter. ‘I suppose it’s a step forward.’

  Ella grabbed her hand and squeezed it. ‘Have patience.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve wasted this precious time.’

  Ella squeezed Debbie’s hand tighter, loosening her grip when she saw her wince with pain. ‘That is mad talk. How do you think they put damask curtains and swags on the wide windows of the convent? Only with the blood money they took from desperate women and couples.’

  ‘Whoa, what a load of fighting talk,’ Iris said, striding in to the café, her face expectant. ‘Tell me what I have missed, every detail.’

  Ella snorted loudly. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be digging out the old rills?’

  ‘Now you’re beginning to sound like your sister.’

  Debbie smiled as Ella pulled a sour face, her eyes narrowing and her chin disappearing into her long, once graceful neck.

  ‘Come on, less talk and more work,’ she said, as she carried a tray full of sugar bowls to the far end of the room.

  Iris began to fiddle with the cappuccino maker.

  ‘Iris, let Debbie do it; we don’t want the Women’s Guild to be swimming in steam,’ Ella snapped.

  ‘All right, hang on to your hair’, she said and sneaked a chocolate-chip cookie into her pocket when she thought nobody was looking.

  Iris was making her way down the stairs when Ella called after her, ‘You should try the shortbread as well: very tasty and all butter.’

  The ladies of the Women’s Guild pulled up in two mini buses. Ella went downstairs to greet them, as Muriel and her band hurried up the avenue. They alighted in a gaggle of chat, but one woman pushed herself forward.

  ‘Ella, Ella O’Callaghan; you have not changed a bit.’

  The woman, with a large bosom, hair dyed mahogany brown, dangling earrings to her shoulders and lipstick that leaked from her lips, grabbed Ella in a tight bear hug.

  ‘You have no idea who I am, have you?’

  ‘I am awfully sorry, I am afraid I don’t.’

  ‘Wendy, Wendy Marsham.’

  ‘Wendy?’

  ‘Remember when you and Michael were on your honeymoon, you met Barry and me at the seafront in Bray. We got married the same day.’

  Indifferent to the confusion in Ella, Wendy turned to the crowd.

  ‘She pledged to keep up contact, but of course we only did if for a year; then it drifted. You never did write to me in Australia, Ella O’Callaghan. No matter, we have so much to catch up on. I had to move back when my Barry died. You want to be near family, don’t you? I had nobody over there,’ she said, grabbing Ella by the arm.

  Ella allowed herself to be walked across the small lawn.

  ‘It is so nice to see you, Wendy, and you look so well.’

  ‘You always were kind, Ella; I look like a cow with too-bright hair and loud make-up, but I don’t care. Who is going to be interested in me now anyway? Barry died last year.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear it.’

  ‘We had a good life and a happy one, which is more than can be said for a lot of couples still hanging in there together. How about you? Where is your handsome soldier?’

  Ella stopped in the hall and looked at Wendy. The woman, wrinkly fat curling under her chin, was sweeping her eyes up to the stairs. ‘This is a great place, Ella.’

  ‘Michael died a long time ago, Wendy.’

  ‘Oh my dear, I did not know. I am so sorry.’

  Ella gripped her elbow and steered her to the stairs. ‘We are two widows: who would have thought?’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of widow: too lonely. Can’t we be two old birds who have seen a bit of life instead?’

  ‘Too much of life, you mean,’ Ella snorted.

  Debbie swung around as the group began to fill the room, the chatter loud and friendly. Muriel, out of breath by the time she got to the top of the stairs, had to bash a china cup with a spoon to be heard.

  ‘Ladies, you are now in the famous Ballroom Café, mentioned on radio this very week. Take a seat and I will get around to each table in the course of the next hour. Proprietor Ella O’Callaghan will answer any questions you may have about the café.’

  Wendy leaned over to Ella. ‘Some day, somebody will oust Muriel and there will be a lot less earache.’

  ‘And probably less fun too. What would we have to complain about then? She keeps us on our toes, if nothing else,’ Ella said, as she moved away between the tables, taking the orders down in an old notebook.

  ‘If you are into spiteful gossip and faux concern,’ Wendy called after her, before settling in with a group from Gorey.

  Ella had not a moment to think; she stood at the coffee machine, dispatching cup after cup and sending out pots of tea. Debbie, her face red with the rush, walked among the tables with large platters of cake, doling out slices with big tongs. When they ran out, Ella raced downstairs and cut some more, slicing thin so there was more to go around. Iris shouted up the stairs that some more guests had taken over the outside tables and could somebody come down to take their orders. Ella heard her, but in the rush promptly forgot until a well-dressed gentleman stuck his head in the café door.

  ‘I can see you are swamped. We were hoping for coffee and any cake you have.’

  Ella recognised him, but did not let on. ‘I am sorry. Give me two minutes,’ she said, instructing Debbie to take the order.

  When Debbie came back up the stairs, she was smiling. ‘The man down there said
to pass on his regards.’

  ‘Fergus Brown?’

  ‘He didn’t give his name; I guess he figured you would know,’ Debbie said, her smile growing broader. She detected a certain flustering in Ella and thought it made her look vulnerable and pretty.

  ‘The tables near the windows need to be cleared,’ Ella said, her voice stiff.

  They worked solidly for two hours, Ella staying behind the partition, washing up, Debbie waiting on the tables. At one stage Wendy Marsham swept behind, but Ella ushered her back to the counter.

  ‘I don’t want you getting your nice outfit dirty,’ she said.

  ‘This thing? Picked it up in a charity store. My Barry invested all our money and this is the way it has left me: skulking around charity shops, looking for something decent to wear.’

  ‘We are all finding it hard, Wendy; that is why I am running the café, to keep a roof over our heads.’

  ‘Ah, but you have family around you; we were never blessed with children.’

  Ella looked alarmed. ‘You mean my sister, Roberta.’

  ‘Your daughter. You are so lucky.’

  ‘Debbie is just working here for a few months. My daughter died when she was very young.’

  Wendy stretched over and took Ella’s hand. ‘I am raising ghosts, like kicking a bunch of dead leaves. I am so awfully sorry.’

  ‘You weren’t to know, Wendy, you weren’t to know,’ Ella said, pulling her hand away too quickly. ‘Will you have another coffee?’ She knew it was a pathetic effort to cover her discomfort.

  ‘No, I think Muriel has arranged a tour. We must follow the boss.’

  Ella stepped out from behind the counter to say her goodbyes to the Guild women, who had begun to push back their chairs and ready themselves for the off.

  ‘We made in a few hours what we normally make in two days. Muriel Hearty wrecks my head, but she is good for the pocket,’ Ella told Debbie, as she tidied up the last tables. ‘We might as well close up for the day, because there is nobody left in Rathsorney to have a cuppa after this morning. C’mon, I will show you your room.’

  Ella led the way to the next landing. ‘Sandwiched between the warring sides you are going to be, but at least we will be quiet. Don’t mind my sister; just stay out of her way, and if you are using anything in the kitchen, make sure it is from one of my cupboards.’ She stopped, her hand halfway to the brass doorknob. ‘It makes us sound really odd, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What family isn’t a little bit odd?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  She waved Debbie into a small, light-filled room with rich mahogany furniture and a bed covered with a bright-pink duvet. There was a chair at the small dressing table by the window and a television on the chest of drawers.

  ‘It’s like Mom and Dad’s room back home: furnished with such taste.’

  ‘I can’t take any of the credit. My mother picked out all the furniture in the house, spent my father’s wages on furnishings. She said they would last, that was her excuse; I suppose she has been proved right. I usually have dinner at six; I will put your name in the pot, unless otherwise told.’

  Ella was already halfway down the stairs when Debbie stepped out onto the landing to collect her case. The other doors had large ‘private’ signs, old and crooked, secured with nails. On the wall, a framed black and white photograph showed a happy group on the front steps of Roscarbury Hall.

  Placing her hand on the brass knob of one of the doors marked ‘private’, it clicked loudly, so that she sprung back. Gingerly pushing the door, she formed an excuse in her head. The dark landing left behind, she stepped into a big room with floor-length windows. Heavy net curtains blotted out the landscape and formed a barrier, the light filtering through in spots.

  Shivering from the chill lingering in the room, Debbie ran her hand across the purple eiderdown covering a heavy brass bed. A block mahogany wardrobe took up one corner. Her heart thumping, she tiptoed across the room, taking in the faded blue wallpaper, the clothes neatly folded on a chair, the big silver boxes on the dressing table. She wanted to sit, take time to sift through. She might have chanced it, but a shriek of laughter from outside made her panic and rush back to the landing, like a mouse scuttling away at the glimpse of a cat. Nipping into the bathroom to take her breath, she splashed cold water on her face.

  Tantalised by the other door, she hesitated again on the landing. Stretching to turn the knob, she peeped in. A similar room with long windows, it was furnished in muted, warm tones of orange and peach and was full of bric-a-brac, piles of old newspapers and one shelf of very large handbags. The bed was covered in differently coloured cushions and a glass decanter on the bedside table was full. When her phone rang, Debbie jumped, twirling around and sprinting to her own room.

  ‘Deborah, it is Dr Lohan.’

  She closed her eyes and listened.

  ‘Debbie, you’re running out of time. You need to come home. Soon you won’t feel as well as you do now; you need to come back,’ he said.

  ‘I want to stay here a few more weeks.’

  ‘Two weeks, Debbie, no more than two. The hospice bed is ready. I can’t hold it any longer than that. You need to be with people who can look after you.’

  ‘OK.’

  She sensed the exasperation in his voice. ‘Are you taking your medication?’

  ‘There’s so much of it.’

  ‘Debbie, you need to. It may keep you stable while you’re over there.’

  ‘OK, but I feel sick all the time.

  ‘That’s to be expected at this stage. It’s time to come home.’

  ‘All right.’

  Slumping down, she rolled into the soft hollow of her bed and, tired, she fell into a sort of half doze.

  *

  When she woke up, Debbie set off walking across the parkland, not sure where she was going. Where Iris had dug out the rills near the house, the water was flowing, but already the cherry blossom was surfing, waiting to dive and clog up the channels once again. McInerney’s brown cat slipped quickly past, darting fast glances as it made for the far wood. Two weeks: enough for the grass to grow and need cutting, for the fuchsia to start its buds, for the tulips to go bald. Two weeks: that was when her insurance on the apartment was up for renewal, when the solicitor said the probate would be through on her father’s estate. Two weeks: the right amount of time for a small holiday.

  Iris called out and waved from where she was digging out the rill that flitted across the land to the far lake. ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘I just needed some fresh air.’

  She saw a group of children scurry past the gates, late and deep in chat. Old man MacCreevy was leaning on his walking stick by the bridge, like he did most fine days, before limping up the avenue for a cup of tea: two sugars, no milk.

  ‘Ye are not closed, I hope,’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Ella has just opened up. The kettle is boiled.’

  ‘Enjoy the fresh air. It will do you good. Ninety years and I put it all down to the clean air. Nothing like it.’ The old man paused, his face pinking with embarrassment. ‘I’m a bit of a straight talker. I was sorry to hear about yourself.’

  ‘Thank you. You’re lucky.’

  He stopped shuffling. ‘I would say lonely. There is nobody around these days I would want to knock around with. All gone. Anyway, I will have my tea and the Madeira cake, like my mother used to bake it.’

  Tremors fluttered through him as he set off shuffling, only slowing his sliding pace to round a pothole, every step deliberate and careful, lest he trip.

  Debbie crossed to the bridge. The water, swelled by the rains and the mountain, flowed noisily between the rocks on the way to Rathsorney and beyond. Two weeks was no time, she knew, to find her mother.

  *

  Bowling Green, October 1968

  Debbie imagined Mommy had taken her beautiful ballgown with her when she left. She had only seen it on her once, the week before she disappeared. It was the night Debbie sto
le to the porch to sit on the rocking chair.

  Wrapped up in a dark-grey blanket, quietly rocking, she saw Mommy in the garden. Dressed in a stunning gown, Agnes drifted around the small front patch, like a woman greeting her guests at a ball. Transfixed at her loveliness and the strangeness of her behaviour, there was an awful worry in Debbie that Mommy would spy her. She hunkered under the blanket, keeping a slit open, so she could see what was going on.

  Agnes, her three-strand pearl and silver necklace and matching earrings glinting in the half moonlight, was humming to herself, moving between the raspberry canes and the pavement, as if she were waiting for somebody.

  Fear flushed through Debbie. She should call her father, but she was more afraid of his reaction, if she exposed her hiding place.

  Debbie had never seen the dress before: navy blue with silver beads on the bodice and around the hem, twinkling as she swished across the flowerbeds. Agnes paced the perimeter of the front garden, once stepping on to the footpath and scuttling back onto the grass. She seemed to fixate on the space where the sunflowers were planted, kicking the ground.

  Her frustration rising, she fell to her knees to draw her hands across the packed earth, before taking her silver sandals and digging the heels into the ground in an attempt to pierce it. Debbie could hear her sobbing and muttering, but even when she stiffened her whole body and strained her ears, she could not make out what her mother was saying.

  She imagined she could run to her and hug her, and Mommy would be so relieved to see her daughter, she would ignore the fact she should be in bed and forget to get cross.

  But Debbie could not move. She saw the despairing strength as her mother hit against the ground, intent on digging up the garden in the middle of the night. A dog began to bark in the distance. Agnes stopped briefly and pretended to be fixing her hair when a car swept by. Debbie saw her face was streaked where her tears had made rivers through her thick make-up; mud was caked on her forehead. She looked straight at Debbie, or so the little girl thought. Agnes’s eyes were blank; there was no flicker of recognition. Debbie, trying to massage away pins and needles, was making the chair shake, but Agnes, though staring straight at the porch, did not seem to notice.