‘Aggie, Aggie; what are you doing?’ Rob Kading rushed out on to the veranda in his underpants.
Agnes spiked her heel into the earth, pulling at the grass.
‘Agnes.’
Rob stood for a moment, suspended between the normality of watching the garden from his veranda and the knowledge that Agnes would more than likely react badly when he tried to persuade her inside. Tentatively, he stepped off the veranda.
‘What is it, Agnes? Have you lost something?’
She did not answer, but her attempt at digging became more frenzied.
‘Can I help at all?’
He got down on his haunches, but she did not register his presence, until he placed his hand on her arm.
‘I want to dig it up; I have to.’
‘Dig what up? There’s nothing there.’
She did not answer, stabbing her sandal into the earth beside his hand.
‘Steady on, Agnes. Why don’t we go inside?’
‘I have to dig it up.’
Placing his two arms around her, he made to haul her to her feet, but she pushed him away.
‘Agnes, you’re spoiling your lovely dress.’
She looked down at the dress, touching the sequins. ‘I sewed it nicely.’
‘You did. Let me see it in the proper light of the sitting room.’
She dithered, before a smile came over her face, lighting up her eyes. She stood up, offering her hand to Rob, as if he had asked her out on the dance floor. Sweeping up her sandals, now worn and dirty, he slowly led Agnes to the veranda.
When they walked inside to the sitting room, Debbie uncurled herself from the rocking chair and peeped through the window, as Rob held his wife in his arms and slowly rocked her to sleep, until he was able to put a blanket over her and a cushion under her head.
It was then that he came back out on the porch.
‘You shouldn’t be spying on your mother. Go to bed at once.’
Debbie stepped out of the shadows.
‘Bed now,’ he said, turning to the kitchen.
She followed him, slipping quickly past the sitting-room door, lest her mother wake up.
13
Ella was sipping her tea from a china cup when she saw Fergus Brown walk up the avenue. His step was slow and deliberate, his walking stick more of an accessory than essential equipment. She could tell his distinctive lumber anywhere, leaning too much to the right. She felt a flutter of excitement that he should have returned to Roscarbury Hall.
She watched him as he doffed his cap to two young girls, causing them to giggle. Draining her cup quickly, she fixed her hair with two hands and applied a slick of lipstick.
Slightly out of breath, Fergus Brown stepped into the hall. Sitting in the old oak captain’s chair, he took off his hat. It had taken him fifteen minutes to walk from his house; he had to allow for the same back, which would give him a leisurely half-hour break here.
For one hour a day, Fergus Brown could be himself. The rest of the time, he had to look after Margaret, when he was a babysitter, cleaner, servant and a major annoyance to his wife of thirty-five years. He knew that, because she never stopped telling him so. For one hour a day, and a Saturday afternoon, he left his home, seeking out conversation and company, sometimes just peace and quiet, among a happy gathering where he could feel part of a world less demanding of his attention.
When he heard that Roscarbury Hall had opened up its doors, something stirred inside him, an interest reignited. Ten years previously, he had met Ella O’Callaghan at a choral society recital in the hall in Gorey. Margaret was busy behind the counter, helping with the teas, and he was at a loose end.
At first, he noticed the way she dressed: folds of fabric flowing around her thin hips as she walked on moderately high heels, so that from behind she would pass as younger. He made sure to sit beside her.
‘Fergus, how are you?’
‘Very well.’
‘You don’t know me?’
‘I am not sure.’
‘Ella O’Callaghan.’
‘How silly of me. So nice to see you again.’
He remembered he was taken aback when she said her name and tried not to show it. The last he had heard of her was when he was working abroad and his mother said she had gone slightly mad. Both the sisters had, after tragedy on tragedy had been heaped on them. Too much of a gentleman to allude to the past, he enjoyed her company and the whiff of her perfume every time she leaned towards him, her big eyes wide, her warm smile giving her face a much younger aura. In dark moments in the decade that followed, as his wife slipped deeper into a greyness of the mind, he often fell back on the badly lit room and the serene woman beside him, wearing royal blue and green and smelling of exotic perfume.
Ella met him at the door.
‘Fergus, I am sorry for ignoring you yesterday; I am afraid we were run off our feet.’
‘Ella, it is so good to be here. The café is wonderful.’
‘I am just closing; it is a half-day on Wednesdays.’
He threw his hands in the air. ‘Silly of me not to check.’
‘I suppose I could rustle up a cuppa and a piece of sweet cake.’
She liked the way he beamed at her and the way he let her up the stairs in front of him. ‘Are you back in these parts on holiday?’
‘I live not far from here now, moved here in the last few weeks to a small place by the sea.’
‘Sounds nice.’
There was a short moment when neither of them knew what to say.
‘Where in Rathsorney are you?’
‘At the harbour. Do you remember the night of the choral society?’
She arranged some china cups on saucers and made a fuss of cutting two slices of fruit cake. ‘Everybody thinks I put too many cherries in, but I think a fruit cake mean on cherries is not worth serving.’
When she placed the plate in front of him, her hand lightly brushed against his and he thought it was as light as the touch of a bird’s wing.
‘The cherries are pouches of velvet,’ he said.
She smiled because he was trying to please her.
‘It is a fine place you have here. Do you have family who can look after it?’
‘There is just my sister.’
‘Well then, it makes it all the more remarkable.’
She liked, particularly, that he pretended not to know of the O’Callaghan history.
‘You are doing a wonderful job turning the place around. The café has quite a name for itself already.’
‘We are new, so people are coming to check us out. Let’s see, after the first few months.’
‘If you don’t mind, I will be one of your regulars.’
‘That is kind of you. What made you move here?’
‘My wife and I moved here last month. I thought it might help her, being back. You remember her: Margaret O’Brien?’
There was a sharp intake of breath from Ella as she reached out to a small window box of tulips and pretended to check them. ‘Yes, I know Margaret. She does not come out with you?’
‘My wife is very ill.’
Fergus Brown faltered and Ella put her arm on his shoulder. He reached into his pocket, for his handkerchief. ‘I don’t mean to keep you.’
‘I am sorry, Fergus.’
‘She won’t know you. Some days she looks at me and I know I am a stranger to her.’
Distracted, Ella plucked a stray hair from his jacket.
‘I am a misguided old fool who thought if I brought her back to her birthplace it would be easier, but that is not the case.’
‘We can only do our best,’ Ella said gently.
Fergus checked his watch. ‘I have only a certain time. I must get back. Would you come up and see Margaret? It might stir something in her.’
Ella’s head was hurting. The thought of Margaret O’Brien back in Rathsorney made her feel sick. If she did not go to see her, she knew she would worry, and worry brought worse headaches. ‘I could wal
k with you now. Let me get my coat.’
Surprised, Fergus Brown agreed and made to get up.
Ella gently put her hands on his shoulders. ‘I will be back in a few minutes.’
Quickly, she touched up her make-up in front of the hall mirror, before pulling her best cashmere coat from the cupboard under the stairs. If she had to meet Margaret O’Brien, she was going to look her best. She called lightly to Iris in the back yard that she would only be an hour. Fergus Brown was standing, watching the water flow in the fountain, when she went out the front.
‘I am afraid I won’t be able to walk you back to Roscarbury Hall. I can’t leave Margaret on her own. If you like, I can arrange a neighbour to run you home afterwards?’
‘That would be lovely. Anyway, it is a good day for a walk.’
‘I will warn you, she is not the woman she was.’
‘None of us are.’
Fergus Brown stopped and leaned on his stick. ‘I was very sorry to hear of your great loss.’
Ella fiddled with the buttons on her coat.
Fergus Brown stretched his hand to her. ‘I know Margaret did you a wrong. If she could say sorry, she would. I know in later years she cursed she was such a busybody.’
Ella felt a stab of pain through her head. ‘We were both young and foolish. It hardly matters now anyway.’
‘She learned a lesson. She said you had a mean right hook.’
They had been such pals. Margaret stayed weekends at Roscarbury Hall. They got dolled up and went to dances together. But after Ella met Michael Hannigan, she forgot Margaret and all the fun they had, chatting and putting on the glam. They drifted apart so much that by the time of the wedding Ella did not think to invite her former friend. When they met a month later, a bitter and rejected Margaret O’Brien ignored Ella.
Peeved, Ella ran after her and asked why Margaret had not answered her salute. She could feel the sting of the words still.
‘High and mighty Ella married to a soldier. Ask him how he spends those long evenings. He is not always confined to barracks, you know.’
Ella hit Margaret O’Brien square in the face. As she doubled over, roaring in pain, Muriel Hearty ran out saying she had seen it all and somebody should call the Gardaí. Tom Mason helped Margaret into his shop, where he put a side of cold round steak on her face. Ella walked home, her hands stuffed in her pockets because she could not stop them shaking. It was a whole week before she could face going in to Rathsorney again for the messages.
‘The house is second on the right,’ Fergus Brown said as they turned down to the harbour. ‘She has forgotten most things. Don’t worry if she does not recognise you.’
When he walked in the door, his voice changed, became louder. A woman in a nurse’s trouser suit put on her coat and said goodbye.
Fergus took Ella to the garden, where his wife was sitting, smiling at the birds as they pecked at the feeder.
‘Margaret, this is an old friend. Ella. Ella O’Callaghan.’
The woman beside him had aged well, with only laughter lines visible around her eyes. She wore navy trousers and a soft blue cardigan. When she extended her hand to Ella with a smile, it was strong and confident.
‘It has been a long time,’ Ella said.
‘It has?’
‘Since we met last.’
Margaret let go of Ella’s hand. ‘Do you live here?’
Ella looked confused. ‘At Roscarbury Hall.’
‘Roscarbury?’
‘The big house.’
‘I like a big house. Miles does not come and visit. Do you think he will come today?’
Ella looked to Fergus for help.
‘Darling, you know Miles can’t come. He is dead.’
Margaret swung around, anxiety across her face. ‘Poor Miles is dead?’
‘Yes, a year ago.’
‘Oh.’
She sat down and picked up the cat and began to stroke it. Ella mumbled she must go.
‘Stay for tea,’ Fergus said.
‘Maybe another time.’
Rattled, Ella insisted on walking home. She barely noticed the cars as they hurtled by. All the times she had wished ill on Margaret O’Brien; now she could not even register a well-turned-out cashmere coat. Nothing mattered any more. The cashmere coat did not matter, and neither did it really matter that Margaret O’Brien had been correct in her assessment of Ella’s young husband.
The house was quiet when she returned, so she brought a bowl of cereal to her room as supper.
She sat at the dressing table to catch the last of the natural light and reached for the velvet pouch. The brooch was a small but perfect heart, with twelve tiny rectangular, almost smoky stones and bigger circular stones offering a simple raised gold rose. It was a pure and clear statement of love. She remembered the day Bernie had unwrapped it, fondly chiding her husband that he was a mad fool with his money.
‘You will have to bring me somewhere fine to wear such a brooch. It needs a dress of silk, taffeta or maybe chiffon. Something beautiful that floats,’ she said.
John O’Callaghan answered he would find a place, much grander than anywhere she could imagine, where they could dance cheek to cheek.
Ella ran her fingers along the heart outline. She could see her mother wearing the brooch, pinned on the wide white satin collar of her ivory chiffon dress with the satin cuffs and small-button detail. It had taken her two weeks to stitch the dress and four long nights under the fluorescent light of the kitchen to secure the buttons and sew neat buttonholes by hand. Sometimes she called on Ella to try on the dress, so she may best judge the alignment of the darts, but was prone to get cross very quickly if her daughter dared to attempt a twirl.
On the night the O’Callaghans went to the Gresham Hotel, Dublin, they left Rathsorney on an early train, a simple tweed coat cloaking the dress and brooch until they reached their destination. Mrs O’Callaghan wore her black hair up and on her feet were high strappy sandals that had cost a small fortune in the expensive shoe shop in Wexford.
When they returned the next day, Bernie O’Callaghan said it had been the best time of her life. She carefully placed her brooch in its velvet pouch and declared that the only place she would wear it, or the dress, again was the Gresham Hotel.
‘There is nowhere like it, girls. Someday we will go back,’ she said, carefully wrapping a sheet around the chiffon dress in the wardrobe.
There was not another outing to the Gresham and a moth ate a large hole in the front panel of the chiffon dress.
14
May Dorkin walked in to the café and slapped her small rectangular cake heavily on the counter. She was dressed up, wearing a cloche hat with a feather on her head and the coloured summer raincoat. But it was the determined look in her eye that made Debbie enquire whether she should get Ella.
‘Please; I have a business proposition to discuss,’ May said, reaching out to tidy a stack of plates on the counter.
Ella threw her eyes to heaven. ‘No doubt there is some hare-brained idea for the café. I might as well listen to her; it will move her along faster,’ she grumbled to herself as she moved to the counter. ‘You are looking well today, May. Is it an occasion?’
‘Taste my cake and then we can do business,’ she said, her voice a little shaky.
When Ella did not immediately respond, May pulled the cling film from the cake and reached for a knife. ‘Best carrot cake there is,’ she said gruffly.
‘May, I don’t know what you are at, but I am very busy.’
May Dorkin took a step back, her nose tipped. Her voice was slightly hoarse. ‘Ella O’Callaghan, I am trying to help you out here. I will bring three cakes each morning, eight good slices in each: that is twenty-four euros, but twenty-two to you, and you can sell them on at whatever you like.’
‘I am not buying your cake, May.’
‘But you will happily take in a whole cake without any qualms every day. You must think I am a right old fool. Sure, don’t I know you are
selling it the minute I am out the door?’
‘I only sell my own cake, May Dorkin, and very popular it is too. I have no need for yours. I told you, May, I can make my own cake.’
‘Nonsense, Ella, just taste it.’
Ella could not hold it in any longer. ‘I am not in need of these cakes.’
‘People are getting tired of the same old thing. Molloy’s will be happy to take them, but I will give you first refusal.’
Exasperated, Ella slapped down a teacloth heavily. ‘Tell Molloy’s they are welcome to them.’
May Dorkin was furious: two red spots ringed on her cheeks and her little hat slipped an inch to the side of her head, making her look like a crazy exotic bird, as she began to shout at Ella.
‘There is no fear you have changed a bit, Ella O’Callaghan, thinking you are better than everyone else. Everyone says when the milk of human kindness was flowing down the road the O’Callaghans were behind the wall. You were willing to take my cakes every morning when they were free.’
Chuck Winters, who had stepped in behind May, made an attempt to say something, but both women glared at him.
Ella got out from behind the counter. ‘Let me help you to the front door, May. You are not well.’
May wrenched her arm from Ella’s grip. ‘I want the money you owe me for all those cakes you sold.’
‘I have not sold any cakes of yours.’
‘You have and you know it. Do I have to bring in the law?’
Ella grabbed hold of May’s arm again. ‘Do you want to know what I did to those rotten cakes, with the fruit in them so old it was furry? Do you? I gave them to the hens, and even they got mightily fed up of them.’
May Dorkin, her cheeks pink, stared at Ella. ‘Thank you for your time. You won’t be seeing me again,’ she said, pulling herself free of Ella’s grip and making for the stairs. Chuck Winters ran after May, calling out to her as she whipped down the avenue.
The Ballroom Café Page 10