by Cathy Kelly
As she was parking the car, she spotted the man from the next-door apartment out of the corner of her eye. Eleanor had mentioned him, so Connie tried to look closer without it being obvious.
He was hefting groceries out of his truck and the little girl was helping by picking things she liked the look of out of the bags and just carrying those in. Her russet hair was in a long, neat plait down her back and Connie had a moment of wondering if the little girl’s father had plaited it. He must have. Her mum was never around, he was clearly a single father. There was something both touching and sad about the idea of him patiently plaiting his daughter’s hair.
Something made him look over at Connie, who went red because he might guess she’d been staring, and then gave a little wave hello. He smiled politely and turned away. Feeling unaccountably disappointed, she dragged her own shopping from the car and lugged it up the steps.
‘I’ve something to tell you,’ Connie said, when she and Nicky sat down at the table that evening. She’d lit candles, had taken the good glasses out for their wine and water, and the takeaway had all been decanted into Connie’s best dark-red tableware. The curtains were closed, Michael Bublé was crooning quietly on the stereo, and everything was cosy.
‘You do? Me too,’ said Nicky, her mouth full of naan bread.
‘Oh, you first!’ said Connie cheerfully. Nothing could dim her enthusiasm.
Talking to Eleanor had been like a tonic: she felt so energised, so ready to take on the world.
‘Well, I wasn’t sure how to tell you. We’ve talked about it…’ Nicky hesitated. There was no point in beating around the bush, she had to just do it. ‘Freddie and I are getting married. In April, hopefully. We want to do it quickly. I mean, why hang around when you’ve made up your mind? I want you to be bridesmaid, of course.’ The words came out in a rush.
She looked at Connie’s kind, round face with its warm eyes and gentle, usually smiling mouth. Connie blinked quickly, as if she had an eyelash in her eye.
Magnificently, she rose to the occasion. ‘Nicky! I’m so thrilled for you!’
And she was utterly thrilled that her darling, precious little sister had found absolute happiness. Connie shoved her plate aside, pushed her chair back, and was beside Nicky, hugging her.
‘I was so worried!’ Nicky was saying. ‘I know how hard it must be for you because of Keith. He’s a waster, a total louser. He wasted years of your life, and Freddie wanted me to tell you straight away –’
‘You should have, but I’m happy you’re telling me now,’ Connie exclaimed. ‘It’s wonderful. When did he ask, have you made any plans?’
‘None yet. We wanted you to know first. Oh, Con, I love you. I wanted to tell you straight off because it’s so exciting.’ Nicky drew a gold chain out from under her sweater. On the end of it dangled a delicate engagement ring, which Connie grasped and pronounced ‘beautiful!’.
At Connie’s urging Nicky slipped the ring on her finger and they both admired it, then Connie had to turn on the main light so they could see the jewels more clearly.
‘But Freddie should be here if I’m the first person you’re telling,’ Connie said. Inspiration struck. ‘He’s not really at a football match, is he?’
No,’ admitted Nicky. ‘Freddie isn’t out at all. I just wanted some peace so I could tell you in private.’
‘Get him round!’ said Connie. ‘Phone him! I’ll order some more takeaway from Khans; I can rush round to pick it up and get some champagne. We must celebrate.’
With one last hug for her sister, she left the table to get her coat and her purse.
‘What was your news?’ asked Nicky, reaching for her mobile phone to ring Freddie.
‘Oh nothing, compared to yours, just that I met our new neighbour today. You’ll like her, she’s great.’
Connie got another helping of tandoori chicken, more naan bread and another order of dhal. She picked up a bottle of champagne in the off-licence, and then took a trip into The Nook to buy chocolate for later, when she was in bed. Chocolate nearly always helped. She lingered near the circular book rack where paperbacks were squashed into the top and Mills & Boon novels were lined in the bottom. Tonight, the chocolate might not be enough. The Bride’s Ransom shone up at her, with the kind of picture that had been her fantasy for as long as she could remember: a bronzed man with a hawkish, proud face, holding a fragile but beautiful woman tightly to him. In the middle of the day, Connie could walk past the rack without blinking. But come nighttime, when she was lonely and sad, she wanted to be the one of the women in the Mills and Boon pictures, being held and protected.
Freddie was at the apartment when she got back.
‘Brother-in-law-to-be!’ she greeted him with a hug.
‘I knew you’d be happy when you heard,’ he said innocently. ‘Your sister’s an awful worrier.’
‘I know,’ Connie said cheerfully.
She reheated the original meal and served it all up, whereupon they ate happily and toasted Freddie and Nicky’s engagement, and talked about the plans.
The engaged couple had drawn up a shortlist of guests already, and had discussed venues. Connie and Nicky’s parents’ house in Wexford was small and they had a tiny garden, so there was no room for the party there. Freddie’s parents had lost a lot of money in bank stocks, and had downsized to an elegant but modest two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Cork.
‘That’s another reason we want to keep the wedding small,’ Nicky said.
‘I know, but even though they’ll understand, they’ll still be upset that all the mad aunties and uncles can’t come,’ Connie warned. ‘People can get very emotional about weddings,’ she added, privately thinking that this sentence must surely qualify for understatement of the year.
‘You’ll help us explain it to them, won’t you, Connie?’ begged Nicky, and Connie managed to keep the smile on her face.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Now, when are you planning the big day?’
‘April,’ said Nicky. ‘Rochelle in work is taking half of May off, and we can’t really go on holidays at the same time as she handles my authors when I’m away. So we can get married in April and have our honeymoon with a clear conscience.’
‘Great,’ said Connie calmly. ‘And, er, where are you planning to live?’
It was a hard question to ask – she loved having Nicky living with her, and could quite happily put up with Freddie moving in too, if it meant she could keep Nicky with her.
‘That’s one of the really exciting bits!’ Nicky said, beaming at Freddie. ‘The top-floor apartment in Freddie’s house is going to be free at the start of April. It needs a bit of work, but we’ve talked to the landlord and he’d love us to have it. Steady tenants, he called us.’
Freddie grinned at this.
‘It’s got two bedrooms and an amazing view of the harbour. Much better than Freddie’s.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ Connie said, the smile still fixed on her face. ‘Wonderful.’
At eleven, pleading tiredness, she went to bed.
From the living room. Connie could hear laughter and happiness. She was so pleased for Nicky and Freddie, but they must never know how achingly lonely she felt in her pink boudoir. Connie pulled the frilled covers up around her, broke off a couple of squares of chocolate, and began to read The Bride’s Ransom.
9
Roasts
You’re too young to remember the big storms in the 1920s, Eleanor. There were bad winters with fierce winds that felt as if they’d take the thatch off the house. One March, when you were just three years old, we had the worst storm of all. Several trees went down in the garden. The biggest, an ash, hit the side of the house and knocked in part of the gable wall. My mother and Agnes shared that bedroom, and what a night we had. We got the bedding out of the room, but my mother’s pretty cabinet with her little bits of glass and china was badly smashed.
Your father said he’d fix it up as good as new, and he did.
; He also mended the wall. It took him a month, but when Joe said he’d do something, he did it right.
The night he finished, we had roast dinner to celebrate. There was no butcher in Kilmoney, so we had to go to Clifden, the nearest big town, if we wanted to buy meat. Kilmoney was tiny then, you see. Like everyone else, we kept a pig and always butchered our own bacon and salted it in a big oak barrel for winter. We’d kill a chicken, if we had one, on a Saturday for Sunday’s dinner. For anything special, like a piece of beef to roast, we’d go to Clifden. Even today, I still get a warm feeling inside me when I smell a roast. The trick is to have the oven as hot as you can bear it and then sear the sides of the meat, and that makes it tender on the inside.
We couldn’t always afford a roast for Sunday dinner, so if the funds were low and the tallyman was at the door, you couldn’t beat some boiled bacon and cabbage. The loin is the best cut, with a decent bit of fat on it. Boil the bacon for an hour, changing the water a few times and skimming the froth off the top, then twenty-minutes from the end, add the cabbage into the pot. By the time it’s all cooked, the bacon will melt off the fork. I like a little mustard with it. I had a flowery egg cup I used to make the mustard powder up in. It broke when we moved from Kilmoney and even now I think no mustard ever tasted as good as it used to in that egg cup. It wasn’t the mustard, it was the place, you see. The egg cup reminded me of home. Nothing’s sweeter than home, Eleanor.
Rae liked walking into the tearooms and seeing it the way the customers saw it. The scent hit people first: there was always cinnamon because of the apple-and-cinnamon muffins; a hint of vanilla from the lemon-and-vanilla poppyseed cake; and then there was the subtle spice of coffee. Rae liked to offer interesting coffees and this month her special was Rwandan.
This particular morning, Rae had had two cups of coffee already and it was only half nine. Timothy, who owned the tearooms, had been in and they’d gone over the books. Business was flourishing.
‘People like their small treats,’ said Timothy with relief. He owned a building company as well and that was in dire straits.
Rae felt sorry for Timothy. A gentle, balding, middle-aged man who lived in one of the biggest houses in Golden Square, he’d had a hard life despite the material things he owned, like a top-of-the-range Mercedes and a holiday home in Florida. The source of the difficulties were definitely his wife, Sheree, who never appeared to be happy with anything. She didn’t approve of Titania’s, although Timothy had bought it with a view to her running it.
Thankfully, Sheree’s desire not to sully her hands with work had turned out to be to Rae’s benefit.
‘You do a great job, Rae,’ Timothy went on. ‘With you here, this place just runs itself.’
Rae nodded, although it wasn’t quite that easy. She ran the place with a team of loyal women workers, nearly all of whom had children and looked out for each other.
When Anton had been small, Rae had organised rotas to ensure that everyone was accommodated.
If Livvy’s little girl was running a temperature, Rae got someone else in early to do the baking, and when Sonja had needed extra time off because her newborn baby had been diagnosed with reflux, Rae had kept the job open and given part-time work to her next-door neighbour Claire’s eldest daughter, who was going to college and wanted a few hours’ work every week.
Today, there was a rota of ten local women working in Titania’s, with one man, Pavel, a patisserie chef who’d once worked in the finest restaurant in Warsaw and who now made magical cakes for the inhabitants of Golden Square. Rae could quite happily go away for a week knowing that Titania’s was in the best of hands.
Friendliness, cleanliness, beautiful food and a great welcome were the watchwords of Titania’s.
This morning, Patsy from the hairdressing salon was in deep conference with a thin woman who was crying and kept taking paper napkins from the table dispenser and wiping her face with them.
Rae knew better than to interrupt her.
‘Mary,’ she whispered to the youngest waitress in the house, ‘go over and fill up the coffee cups at that table. Don’t listen and do your best to look as if your mind is somewhere else, OK?’
‘Sure,’ said Mary, whose aunt Livvy had worked in Titania’s for donkey’s years and who knew better than to question any of the mad requests made of her. Rae knew her stuff and if Rae felt that looking mindless was required for this table, then that’s what they’d get.
‘Vivienne, put on something lively on the CD player,’ Rae added to the small woman at the till. Ella Fitzgerald was singing mournfully about lost love.
‘Gotcha,’ said Vivienne, spotting Patsy and her guest. She rifled through the CDs. ‘Aretha Franklin demanding respect?’
‘Perfect.’
Rae went into the kitchen and talked to Pavel, who was just leaving for his shift in a big hotel on the other side of the city. He was a fabulous worker but Rae worried Titania’s would lose him. He was working too hard, surely something had to give?
There was no time to ask him, he was rushing.
Denise, who took over when Pavel was off, admired the mille-feuilles he’d made earlier.
‘He’s an artist,’ she said.
‘An artist with pastry,’ agreed Rae.
She talked to the staff, did a stock check, and then came out front to work the till.
The elderly American lady who was living on the other side of the square was waiting for a latte, her smiling face gentle in repose.
‘Hello, pet,’ said Rae.
The woman’s mouth curled up slightly into what might or might not have been a wry smile and Rae instantly regretted using the term of affection. She must have offended this lady.
‘Forgive me,’ said Rae, ‘I don’t know your name and I don’t mean to offend you.’
‘It’s Eleanor,’ said the woman.
‘I’m Rae. Welcome, Eleanor,’ said Rae, instantly liking the lack of formality. If Will’s mother was there instead of Eleanor, she’d have insisted on Mrs Kerrigan, because ‘manners matter, Rae!’ While this elegant white-haired woman who walked stiffly, though with grace, was simply Eleanor.
She was older than Will’s mother, but she didn’t wear her age like armour, distancing herself from other people. Instead, she wore it lightly, a veil of wisdom and warmth.
‘Being called “pet” is very comforting, actually. That’s why I smile,’ Eleanor went on. ‘Not in disapproving amusement, I can tell you.’
Rae relaxed. ‘Thank you. I don’t always know everyone’s name and I like to, so when I don’t, I say “pet” and “love”. Some people don’t like it.’
‘Only the churlish, surely?’
Rae grinned. ‘Yes, but I can’t say that when I’m behind the till.’
‘Rae is a pretty name. Is it short for something?’ Eleanor asked.
‘I was called Rachel as a child,’ Rae admitted. She didn’t want to say that, one day, she’d been called Rae in school and it had stuck, more because she liked it than for any other reason. Rachel was her parents’ name for her, which was why she’d been happy to leave it behind, like so much of her past.
‘Somebody told me Rachel is Hebrew. Will I take the tray for you?’
‘Thank you.’ Eleanor stepped back politely and waited for Rae to go first. She thought of mentioning that her husband had been Jewish and their daughter was called Naomi, another beautiful Hebrew name.
A table by the window was free and Rae carried the tray to it.
‘Thank you,’ said Eleanor graciously, and sat down gingerly.
She was in pain, Rae could see, but for all Eleanor’s friendliness, Rae sensed that she was a person who liked to keep her life private.
At the table nearby, Patsy had succeeded in comforting her friend. The woman’s face was no longer tear-stained and she was finishing off one of the apple-and-cinnamon muffins.
As Rae passed, Patsy shot her a grin that said thank you.
At three, Dulcie arrived to pick Rae up f
or a couple of Community Cares visits. They went to Delaney again, then across Kilmartin Avenue where a young couple with a small baby had both lost their jobs and needed to move out of their flat into a cheaper one. Unfortunately, the landlord was refusing to give them their deposit back, and due to the enormous grey areas in the housing law, they didn’t know what to do.
Dulcie recommended them asking a housing charity for advice. Sometimes, a phone call from somewhere officialsounding brought unscrupulous landlords to their senses. But only sometimes.
‘Poor things,’ she said as they left. ‘I’d love to tell them to talk to the community housing officer, but he’d make it worse.’
The local housing officer was a man who felt that anyone asking for his help needed to be humiliated first for the crime of being poor and disadvantaged. He only wanted to help people who crawled in on their hands and knees, and his favourite trick was to reduce clients, particularly the female ones, to tears.
The two women were silent as they headed for their last visit. Rae tried to calm herself. She was no use to anyone when impotent rage was fuelling her. But it was hard to be calm when you witnessed decent people being treated badly because they were poor and without power.
The last house on the list was round the corner from Golden Square but on the other side to Delaney. The more expensive side.
Wellington Gardens was a cul-de-sac where six huge new houses sat in a spacious semi-circle. When they had been built five years ago, the property pages had been full of superlatives about this new, American-style road.
‘Wisteria Lane comes to Dublin,’ the papers had said.
Rae and Dulcie had been to a coffee morning in one of the houses once, where a charitable-minded woman had invited her wealthy friends in to raise funds for CC. They’d admired the tiled hallway, shiny woodwork and a kitchen that came straight from an interiors magazine – and Rae had thought ruefully of her own kitchen, with its admittedly big but very unglossy old gas cooker, and cupboards which hadn’t changed a lot since the previous owner had been in situ in the 1980s.