by Cathy Kelly
‘Eleanor can come with us,’ said Rae decisively at the taxi rank, before whisking Eleanor and Will into a cab and making the driver speed away.
‘Oh,’ said Connie.
‘Guess it’s just you and me then,’ said Steve.
They sat beside each other in the taxi, but now they were alone he didn’t touch her, and Connie felt the weight of so many years of unfulfilled dates upon her. She had no idea what to do.
She’d screw it up, she was sure of it.
When the taxi pulled up in Golden Square, they got out and Steve insisted on paying.
‘Right,’ said Connie, as he straightened up. She felt a terrible panic. This was it. He’d go into his house and she’d go into hers and the moment would be gone.
‘I don’t suppose I can come up for a coffee?’ Steve asked.
‘Oh yes,’ said Connie joyfully.
In her apartment, she fluttered around turning on table lamps to make the lighting more flattering, while Steve stood and watched. She plumped up a couple of cushions too and then said: ‘I’ll put on the kettle?’
Steve shook his head. He moved closer to her. She could smell his cologne, something with musk and a woody smell that she’d tried to identify in a perfume hall recently. She’d sniffed lots of bottles trying to work out what it was, or perhaps it was just Steve.
‘I don’t want coffee. Do you?’
‘No,’ squeaked Connie.
His hands went up to caress her glossy hair, then paused. ‘If you want, I can go,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t go.’
‘You’re sure?’
It was Connie’s turn to put her hands up to his shoulders, feeling the strength of him. She was tall and he was taller, just like the romantic heroes she read about, except the romantic heroes were fantasy and Steve was better than fantasy. He was real.
‘Nicky didn’t have to twist your arm to get you to my party?’ she said.
‘I’ve been chasing you for months,’ Steve said, stroking her face. ‘I did wonder if you were totally obsessed with Keith, but then Nicky came along to ask me to your party. And she explained a few things.’
‘Did she?’ Connie and Steve were so close that their bodies were almost touching. Connie’s breasts in her silk dress were centimetres away from his chest. If she leaned forward, they’d be touching him and perhaps she’d slide her hands up around his neck to pull him close, and his hand would move on to her lower back to haul her in to him.
Steve moved closer. Connie breathed heavily and put her hands around his neck. He pulled her tightly to him and his mouth lowered on hers, kissing her hard.
She could hear someone moaning in ecstasy and realised it was her.
‘You sure?’ he murmured, his mouth on hers.
‘I’m sure,’ she gasped, as he began to kiss her neck. ‘I’m warning you, I have twinkly fairy lights in my bedroom.’
‘Ella told me,’ he said, holding her face and smiling. ‘I’ve been looking forward to seeing them for a very long time.’ And then he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, and for once, Connie didn’t worry about pushing all the cushions off the bed. The last thing she was thinking about was cushions.
Epilogue
Megan booked herself into business class for the flight to New York. Once, she’d have hoped for an upgrade for an economy flight. Airlines liked famous people sitting up the front of the plane. It made the people who’d actually paid full whack for their big seat feel like they were getting something extra. A movie star beside them was better than a double helping of vintage champagne at take-off.
Those days were gone, Megan had decided.
A code of ethics started with the simple things. She didn’t want free flights, free handbags or free bottles of Krug in posh clubs. Everything had a price at the end of the day, and people who wanted free stuff all the time slipped very easily into saying things like: Don’t you know who I am?
Megan had finally found out who she really was. She was a woman with standards and values, both for herself and for other people.
She took orange juice from the steward and took out the small book on mindfulness that Rae had given her.
‘I like this, I thought you might enjoy it too,’ she’d said when they’d hugged goodbye.
They had been in Titania’s the previous Saturday morning where Connie, Rae and Nicky had arranged to meet Megan to wish her farewell. The others hadn’t arrived yet, which gave Megan some time with Rae, who looked as if she might burst with happiness. Her face glowed with an inner light that had nothing to do with beauty creams. It was pure joy.
‘Tricia only has two more weeks to go,’ Rae said. ‘She says she’s enormous, although I can’t imagine it. I saw her last month and her bump was very neat. She’s tall, though, and you can carry it better when you’re tall.’
For a moment, Rae’s eyes brimmed and Megan, who knew most of the story but not all of it, figured she was thinking back to being a pregnant teenager.
‘Tricia’s so lucky to have you,’ Megan said warmly. ‘When Eleanor and I did the trip to Connemara, I said that you were such a naturally maternal person. That’s a great gift,’ she added, seeing that Rae’s tears were beginning to fall, ‘even though circumstances at the time meant you couldn’t raise Tricia. You have each other now, and you will be such an amazing grandmother.’
‘I hope so,’ said Rae, hugging Megan. ‘Thank you for that.’
Connie had rushed in at that point, with Nicky and Ella in tow.
‘Swimming,’ gasped Connie. ‘Ella’s like a dolphin now.’
‘I’m too good for the Little Fishes class at half nine on Saturdays,’ said Ella proudly. ‘I’m a Starfish now.’
‘I bet you’re brilliant at being a starfish,’ said Megan. She was better talking to children now, since she’d gone with Pippa, Kim and Toby to a French campsite in the summer.
‘I am almost the best,’ Ella agreed.
‘She is,’ said Connie adoringly, and everyone laughed.
In her 1930s three-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side, Eleanor watched as her grand-daughter Gillian finished making the bed in the yellow guest room. Megan would be arriving the following day for a week-long stay. Gillian was home from college for the holidays and volunteered to help her gran get the apartment sorted out.
Gillian had arranged the white Christmas roses Eleanor bought from Lansky’s, and she’d just put fresh linen on the bed. It was such a pretty room with yellow toile de jouy wallpaper, oak floors like the rest of the apartment, and elegant cream furniture of the kind Gillian described as Disney fairytale meets Louis XIV.
‘I’ll buy some magazines for her night stand,’ Gillian said as she smoothed the cream brocade coverlet. ‘InStyle and the New Yorker, that sort of thing?’
Gillian repositioned a throw pillow embroidered with yellow-tipped ranunculus. Then she straightened up, swept her auburn hair out of her eyes and nodded. The year and a half in college had made her seem more grown-up in so many ways, Eleanor thought.
Gillian was still the gorgeous girl she’d always been, but she had a quiet confidence now. There was nothing like moving away from home for making a person mature.
Perhaps one day she’d pass on the diary she’d written for Gillian when she was living in Golden Square. She’d never finished it. It had been so painful to write lessons she’d wanted to pass on when the reason she had to write them was her possible suicide. It hadn’t felt right doing that, which was why it had been so hard. Now she could pass on her wisdom to Gillian face-to-face, which was the right way to do it. In time, when Eleanor was gone, she could keep the diary and her great grandmother’s recipe book, and hopefully they’d comfort her as they’d comforted Eleanor.
‘You don’t mind having someone who isn’t part of the family here for the holidays?’ Eleanor asked.
It had been her idea to invite Megan because it would make this a very different sort of Christmas. Last Christmas, Eleanor had b
een in Ireland, cooped up in luxury in a cool hotel room, lost and alone. This would be the first family Christmas that she’d spend with her family since Ralf had died.
‘It’ll be great,’ said Gillian enthusiastically.
‘Did your mum ever tell you about your great-grandmother’s recipe book?’ Eleanor asked as Gillian cast a critical eye over her efforts.
‘Yes, she did. She said you’d let me read it sometime. I’d love to, can I?’
Eleanor smiled. ‘Of course. I’ve added a little and I want to give it to you. It’s about life and love and cooking.’
‘I’d love that! Can I see it now?’
Eleanor nodded. It was time to pass the book on. She’d got everything she needed out of it. People survived somehow. She’d see Ralf again one day, just not yet. She hadn’t finished.
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
Copyright © Cathy Kelly 2010
Cathy Kelly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Prologue
Danae Rahill had long since learned that a postmistress’s job in a small town had a lot more to it than the ability to speedily process pensions or organize money transfers.
She’d run Avalon Post Office for eighteen years and she saw everything. It was impossible not to. Without wishing to, the extremely private Danae found herself the holder of many of the town’s secrets.
She saw money sent to the Misses McGinty’s brother in London, who’d gone there fifty years ago to make his fortune and was now living in a hostel.
‘The building work has dried up, you know,’ said one of the little Miss McGintys, her tiny papery hands finishing writing the address she knew by heart.
Danae was aware the hostel was one where Irish men went when the drinking got out of control and they needed a bed to sleep in.
‘It must be terrible for such a good man not to have a job any more,’ she said kindly.
Danae saw widower Mr Dineen post endless parcels and letters to his children around the world, but never heard of him getting on a plane to visit any of them.
She saw registered letters to solicitors, tear-stained funeral cards, wedding invitations and, on two occasions, sad, hastily written notes informing guests that the wedding was cancelled. She saw savings accounts fall to nothing with job losses and saw lonely people for whom collecting their pension was a rare chance to speak to another human being.
People felt safe confiding in Danae because it was well known that she would never discuss their personal details with anyone else. And she wasn’t married. There was no Mr Rahill to tell stories to at night in the cottage at the top of Willow Street. Danae was never seen in coffee shops gossiping with a gaggle of friends. She was, everyone in Avalon agreed, discreet.
She might gently enquire as to whether some plan or ambition had worked out or not, but equally she could tell without asking when the person wanted that last conversation forgotten entirely.
Danae was kindness personified.
And yet a few of the more perceptive residents of Avalon felt that there was some mystery surrounding their postmistress because, while she knew so much of the details of their lives, they knew almost nothing about her, even though she’d lived in their town for some eighteen years.
‘She’s always so interested and yet …’ Mrs Ryan, in charge of the church cleaning schedule and an avid reader of Scandinavian crime novels, tried to find the right words for it, ‘… she’s still a bit … distant.’
‘That’s it exactly,’ agreed Mrs Moloney, who loved a good gossip but could never glean so much as a scrap of information from Danae. The postmistress was so tight-lipped that the KGB couldn’t have got any secrets out of her.
For a start, there was her name: Danae. Completely strange. Not a proper saint’s name or anything.
Dan-ay, she said it.
‘Greek or some such,’ sniffed Mrs Ryan, who was an Agnes and proud of it.
‘I don’t even know when her husband died,’ said Mrs Moloney.
‘If there ever was a husband,’ said Mrs Lombardy.
Mrs Lombardy was widowed and not a day passed without her talking about her beloved Roberto, who grew nicer and kinder the longer he was dead. In her opinion, it was a widow’s job to keep the memory of her husband alive. Once, she’d idly enquired after Danae’s husband, because she was a Mrs after all, even if she did live alone in that small cottage at the far end of Willow Street with nothing but a dog and a few mad chickens for company.
‘He is no longer with us,’ Danae had said, and Mrs Lombardy had seen the shutters coming down on Danae’s face.
‘Ah sure, he might have run off with someone else,’ Mrs Ryan said. ‘The poor pet.’
Of course, she looked different too.
The three women felt that the long, tortoiseshell hair ought to be neatly tied up, or that the postmistress should maintain a more dignified exterior, instead of wearing long, trailing clothes that looked second-hand. And as for the jewellery, well.
‘I always say that you can’t go wrong with a nice string of pearls,’ said Mrs Byrne, in charge of the church lowers. Many years of repeating this mantra had ensured that her husband, known all over town as Poor Bernard, had given her pearls as an anniversary gift.
‘As for those mad big necklaces, giant lumps of things on bits of leather, amber and whatnot …’ said Mrs Lombardy. ‘What’s wrong with a nice crucifix, that’s what I want to know?’
Danae was being discussed over Friday-morning coffee in the Avalon Hotel and Spa, and the hotel owner, one Belle Kennedy, who was very light on her feet for such a large and imposing lady, was listening intently to the conversation.
Belle had ears like a bat.
‘Comes in handy when you have a lot of staff,’ she told Danae later that day, having dashed into the post office to pick up a couple of books of stamps because the hotel franking machine had gone on the blink yet again and someone hadn’t got it fixed as they’d promised.
‘I swear on my life, I’m going to kill that girl in the back office,’ Belle said grimly. ‘She hasn’t done a tap of work since she got engaged. Not getting the franking machine sorted is the tip of the iceberg. She reads bridal magazines under her desk when she thinks no one’s around. As if it really matters what colour the blinking roses on the tables at the reception are.’
Like Danae, Belle was in her late fifties. She had been married twice and was long beyond girlish delight over bridal arrangements. It was a wonder the hotel did such good business in wedding receptions, because Belle viewed all matrimony
as a risky venture destined for failure. The only issue, Belle said, was when it would fail.
‘The Witches of Eastwick were talking about you in the hotel coffee shop this morning,’ she told her friend. ‘They reckon you’re hiding more than pre-paid envelopes behind that glass barrier.’
‘Nobody’s interested in me,’ said Danae cheerily. ‘You’ve a great imagination, Belle. It’s probably you they were talking about, Madam Entrepreneur.’
Danae’s day was busy, it being a normal September morning in Avalon’s post office.
Raphael, who ran the Avalon Deli, told Danae he was worried about his wife, Marie-France, because she had an awful cough and refused to go to the doctor.
‘“I do not need a doctor, I am not sick,”’ she keeps saying,’ he reported tiredly.
Danae carefully weighed the package going to the Pontis’ only son, who was living in Paris.
If she was the sort of person who gave advice, she might suggest that Raphael mention his mother’s cough to their son. Marie-France would abseil down the side of the house on a spider’s thread if her son asked her to. A few words in that direction would do more good than constantly telling Marie-France to go to the doctor – something that might be construed as nagging instead of love and worry.
But Danae didn’t give advice, didn’t push her nose in where it didn’t belong.
Father Liam came in and told her the parish was going broke because people weren’t attending Mass and putting their few coins in the basket any more.
‘They’re deserting the church when they need us now more than ever,’ he said, wild-eyed.
Danae sensed that Father Liam was tired of work, tired of everyone expecting him to understand their woes when he had woes of his own. In a normal job, Father Liam would be long retired so he could take his blood pressure daily and keep away from stress.