The House On Willow Street

by Cathy Kelly

  “Okay, there’s a great film on in Arklow, what do you think, will we book it for Friday night? Maybe have something to eat beforehand—pizza, Chinese? What do you think?” Mara had said, making it all sound so terribly normal.

  Belle had been delighted. “I don’t know how you managed to get Madam here out of the house twice in one month,” she’d said as she sat in the front of the car while Mara drove them into Arklow.

  Mara giggled. She’d told Danae that she thought Belle was a riot, but she wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her. Belle looked tough.

  “Now, tell us, have you taken a vow of chastity since this desperate Jack fellow left you?”

  Mara didn’t seem to mind Belle talking about Jack. Perhaps because Belle would probably knee Jack in the groin if she so much as set eyes on him.

  “No, but there’s a lot to be said for a vow of chastity,” Mara pointed out. “I mean, with chastity you never have anything to do with men, which in my current state of mind sounds like a very sensible plan altogether.”

  “Ah no, men are great as long as you can give them back to their mummies afterward,” said Belle, with a riotous laugh. “I’m only kidding, Mara,” she added. “I don’t care for the ones under forty: they know nothing. They are unformed under forty. Aren’t they, Danae?”

  Sitting in the back of the car, squashed because there was no room for her legs, Danae nodded, as if she knew.

  “Totally, yes, I agree,” she said.

  Then, there’d been the impromptu night out that came about after Mara had gone into the café and met up with mad Vivienne from the clothes shop. Apparently Vivienne had said Tess Power needed a good night out because she was wasting away in the house watching the television in misery and somehow that had resulted in Belle, Mara, Danae, Vivienne and Tess ending up in the town’s Italian restaurant laughing, giggling, talking until one o’clock in the morning.

  Jacinta Morelli and her sister, Concepta, had sat down beside them at closing time and joined in the chat, bringing over coffees and plates of delicious biscotti. Danae couldn’t quite remember how long it was since she’d been out past midnight. It felt odd to meet people like Tess and Vivienne socially. She’d been so stiff at first, she felt like the postmistress behind her plexiglass. Without the safety of that dividing screen there was a sense of being vulnerable, laid bare to their gaze. Not that anyone else appeared to feel that way or even notice. But it had been difficult for Danae.

  From the beginning, Tess and Mara had got on like a house on fire. “So you’re not wasting away or withering away up there on your own watching television,” Mara had said, tipsy on three glasses of wine.

  Tess had laughed so much she nearly cried. “Is that what she said to you? Vivienne, you’ve got to stop telling people that I am wasting my life, just because Kevin has a lovely girlfriend.”

  “Whom he met when you were having a trial separation,” Vivienne said loudly.

  “Say it more loudly,” Tess said, “I don’t think the diners at the far end of the restaurant heard! I’ll get you a megaphone next time.”

  And Danae had put a hand on Tess’s arm and squeezed it, because even if Tess was able to joke about it, she knew it must hurt unbearably still. Tess had looked at her gratefully as if to say, Yes, I can joke about it but there’s a lot of pain in there nonetheless. Danae, who knew a lot about pain, had smiled back warmly in return.

  Danae joined the motorway that would take her to Dublin. There was so much different about her life now that Mara shared it. It was so much fuller, so much more fun. It made her realize what she had been missing and the loneliness that she’d go back to, once Mara was gone. But it was easier not to tell her, easier to tell nobody.

  “It’s strange, Mum,” said Mara on the phone to her mother one evening. Danae was off on her solitary walk with Lady, climbing the hills, something she did come rain or shine, never mind that it was pitch-dark this time of year. “I love her, and I know she loves me, but she’s not that comfortable around people, and I never noticed that before. I suppose in the past I’d never stayed here for longer than a weekend. Now, having been here for a while, I see how reserved she is. If ever I offer to do something nice for her, like doing her hair—you know how good I am with hair—she can’t accept it. It’s as if she doesn’t like people helping her. And then she went off last Saturday and she wouldn’t tell me where she was going. It was very strange.”

  On the other end of the phone there was silence.

  “Mum, are you there?”

  “Yes, I’m here,” said Elsie. “Mara, you know things have been difficult for your Aunt Danae.”

  “You see, that’s it,” explained Mara. “I know there was some terrible thing in the past with her husband when he died and everything, but I never really knew what it was because you didn’t tell us. Whatever happened to her then, it’s like she’s closed off. I mean, what did happen, Mum?”

  There was another silence, which was in itself very unusual because Elsie was not a woman given to great silences, as the rest of her family would testify.

  “Mara, that’s not my story to tell,” said Elsie. “It’s up to Danae to tell you that, and she’s a very private woman. She’d be terribly upset if you brought it up, to be honest.”

  “But what if his anniversary happens while I’m here and I don’t say anything and she’ll think I’m being horrible and ignoring it? I mean, if I had been married and my husband had died, I’d want people to remember it. Go on, you’ve got to tell me what this is all about.”

  Elsie clammed up. “Pet, I can’t go into it, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “And how am I supposed to ask her about it then?” Mara demanded. “‘What would you like for your dinner, Danae? We could have spaghetti Bolognese or perhaps some of that lovely vegetarian quiche I made yesterday, and oh, by the way, will you tell me all about your husband?’”

  “For heaven’s sake, Mara, you’re a terrible child,” Elsie groaned. “Look, I’m no good with this sort of thing. Ask your father. And tell me, what’s the story about Christmas? Are you coming to us?” There was a faint hint of pleading in her mother’s voice.

  “Well, I’m sure I am,” said Mara. “And I’ll try to get Danae to come this time.”

  Danae had never come before, despite the offer always being there.

  “But it would help if I knew . . .”

  “Leave Danae be. If she doesn’t want to come, she won’t come,” said Elsie quickly. “As long as she knows the invitation is always there.”

  “I’ll definitely try and get her to come this year,” said Mara. “Leave it with me.”

  There was no more to be got out of her mother on the subject. By the time she put the phone down, Mara had heard all the latest happenings on Furlong Hill, how the O’Briens opposite had got bay trees exactly like Elsie’s and how violently annoyed she was with them.

  “They copied us on the stone cladding and now the bay trees too! Well, that’s taking it too far,” said Elsie, ominously.

  Mara grinned. Her mother’s lifelong battle with Mrs. O’Brien across the road always made her smile. But when the call was over, Mara went back to thinking about Danae.

  A few days later, Rafe Berlin sat in the window of the café on the corner of Avalon’s main square and watched the girl with the green felt hat get out of her car. She was wearing weird clothes, he reckoned: a crazy red skirt with embroidery, alpine boots, a green coat cinched in tight around her waist and that hat. It was like a pancake stuck on her head. But the face made up for the mad outfit. Like a naughty angel with her dark red fringe in her eyes, amazing big eyes with lots of dark eye stuff smudged around them, making them shine out like jewels in that freckled face.

  And now she was stomping over to the café.

  Clearly plugged into her own personal music, she shimmied over, hips and shoulders moving to a beat he couldn’t hear. She didn’t care if she was half dancing as she walked. Rafe grinned. Cool chick, oblivious to what
anyone else thought: exactly the sort of girl he liked.

  She marched in and went up to the counter.

  Deciding he needed a refill, Rafe downed his coffee and followed her.

  She even smelled good, he decided as he stood behind her: something cinnamon? Did they make perfume with cinnamon in it? She was a small girl, and he liked that too, not being overly tall himself. He liked everything about her.

  “Hi,” he said.

  She whirled around, stared up, and he got a blast of those eyes. Viridian green, he decided, and flashing with anger.

  The angry eyes said: Don’t talk to me, stranger.

  She turned away with a flick of the dark red curls and gave the cakes on the counter further consideration.

  Rafe was wildly entertained. He loved this. He hadn’t met a girl this sassy since he’d left New Zealand.

  “I said hi,” he said.

  The curls jiggled and she stared at him again. The green eyes raked him and she ignored him again.

  “Nice day,” he went on.

  This time, she turned around slowly.

  “Honey,” she said, the glare ongoing, the eyes staring up at him, “I am Not. In. The. Mood. Okay? Capisce?” Her gaze swept over him again, taking in the worn work jumper and the stockman’s overalls. “Whatever ‘no’ is in your language, cowboy.”

  “Vulcan,” he murmured.

  “What?”

  “Vulcan, that’s my language.”

  The eyes narrowed. “Like Dr. Spock?”

  “No, Mr. Spock. ‘Live long and prosper’ sort of thing,” he said. “Dr. Spock gave baby advice.”

  “If it’s advice you’re after, I’ve got some for you: leave me alone,” she said with a smile that could strip paint from a door.

  “Yes, miss, can I help you?” said the guy behind the counter, carefully ignoring the atmosphere.

  “Large take-out cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso, please,” she said politely.

  Rafe approved even more. None of this “skinny cappuccino” rubbish.

  “Are you a tourist?” he asked. He had never seen her before, he was sure of that.

  “No,” she said, “I’m an outreach worker with a care in the community center and we’re rounding up all the local weirdos with a particular emphasis on ones who chat up women in cafés.”

  “Would you need handcuffs for that?” Rafe said conversationally.

  The freckled girl didn’t bat an eyelid. “I’m packing heat,” she said, patting her hip as if a gun nestled under her coat. “And if that doesn’t work, I’ve got a staple gun in my handbag. Few men are immune to the staple gun.”

  “Ouch.”

  “You bet.”

  She whirled back again and paid for her coffee, purposefully ignoring Rafe.

  “Isn’t she something else, Brian,” sighed Rafe, watching her shimmy over to the door, coffee in one hand. “I could eat her all up.”

  “It would be like eating a piranha,” said Brian, who’d never had any luck with women.

  “Ah, Brian, she said no. Inside, she was interested, I can tell.”

  “Don’t know how you can tell,” said Brian. “I’ve never had a clue what women are saying. It’s all in code.”

  Mara stomped out with her coffee in her hand, irritated by the man in the café. She was fed up with the male of the species: always on the hunt, even if it was only for fun. Pity Cici wasn’t here though, he was precisely her type: all scratchy designer stubble, messy hair and, if that cow-minding outfit was anything to go by, not the sort of man who’d worry about his clothes too much. Jack had been a regular fashion hound, keen to have the hottest jeans, the now watch. The guy in the café probably chose his clothes of a morning by sniffing things from the laundry basket to see what would do. Still . . .

  She angled her head as she got into the car to see if he was watching her. He was. He was something, there was no doubt about it. Probably had the local girls eating out of his hand with his flirty remarks. Not her. She’d had it up to her teeth with men.

  She gave him one last filthy look.

  I am not interested, she said telepathically. The next man who gets close to me will end up with terminal injuries. Okay?

  She turned on the ignition, let the talking book she’d got from the library switch on, and headed for Dublin.

  Mara’s home was a two up two down in a quiet Dublin city street. The end of Furlong Hill where the Wilsons lived was home to families who’d lived there for donkey’s years, while the other end was lined with shops, bars, and the chip shop Mara had adored when she was a youngster. Even now, she judged fish and chips by the standards of Rizzoli’s and the velvety taste of Mrs. Rizzoli’s battered onions. Nobody else could compete. And curry sauce for the chips. It was funny how many of her early dates had taken place in Rizzoli’s. The lads in her secondary school hadn’t been too adventurous when it came to dating. It was either the pub—difficult to get into when they were underage—or Rizzoli’s, where you could sit at a table nursing a Fanta and sharing a single plate of chips and sausages for hours on end and Mrs. Rizzoli wouldn’t throw you out. She’d understood young love.

  Mara felt the pangs of hunger as she drove past Rizzoli’s. Listening to Becky Sharpe’s adventures in Vanity Fair had taken her mind off both Jack and the fact that she’d only had a coffee and that bun for breakfast. For a second she thought of the man she’d met in the coffee shop. He had been cute, she had to admit, but she was off men.

  Mara parked outside her family home, switched off Vanity Fair and smiled, as she always did, at the stone cladding her parents had scrimped and saved for months to install on the front of the house. It was pale gray and “classy,” as Mara’s mother like to say. Not like the O’Briens’ cladding, which was a yellow color and entirely unsuited to Furlong Hill in Elsie Wilson’s opinion.

  “They’re copying us,” Elsie had been saying for years.

  Mara’s dad simply patted her arm and said, “Ah, now, Elsie, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. You have great taste, that’s all. God love the O’Briens. What would they do if they didn’t have you to look up to?”

  Mara’s mother had never been entirely convinced by this line of thought. The latest addition to the Wilson frontispiece were a couple of bay trees in pots. Elsie had got her husband to nail down the pots, just to be on the safe side. Then she had watched through narrowed eyes as the O’Briens suddenly decided that bay trees were the fashion.

  Grabbing her handbag, Mara wriggled out of the car.

  Number 71 was as gloriously unchanged and comforting as ever. The moment you were inside the door, there was the aroma of something cooking. In the hall was a pretty arrangement of crimson winter roses on the small hall table that Elsie had carefully covered with decoupage many years before. Mara knew her mother would have got the roses cheap from a flower seller in town at the end of the day, but she’d arranged them beautifully with bits of greenery from her own garden. Not having any money had never stood in the way of Elsie making their home beautiful. For a second, Mara wanted to cry. Standing here in her childhood home, the pain of Jack’s defection and wedding hit her anew.

  Home was where you came to cry.

  Mara had never told her parents that she and Jack were going to be married. But she’d been so sure that they would end up together, and that sureness had seeped into every conversation she’d had with her parents over the past year or so.

  Jack had been to 71 Furlong Hill to meet her parents and little brother. They’d even slept together in Mara’s old bedroom—an unprecedented event in the Wilson household. It was immaterial that Mara was thirty-three and her boyfriend was thirty-eight. No, it was the principle of having a single daughter sleep with her boyfriend under the Wilson family roof.

  Elsie went to daily Mass and liked to say the rosary once a week. She never pushed religion upon her family, but they all understood Elsie’s devotion to the Virgin Mary. Letting Jack stay over had been a huge concession on her part.


  And now Mara was back home, boyfriendless, having slept with said man and with her heart broken to boot. Great result, thought Mara. She was glad she’d decided to go to Avalon for a while before coming home: she’d have burst into floods of tears if she’d come here first. Here, Jack’s defection felt worse than ever.

  She could hear the hum of the television from the sitting room. When Jack had been there, she’d seen the disapproval in his eyes at the amount of time her family spent in front of the box. Meals were often eaten on trays on their laps while watching the soaps. The Wilsons didn’t go to the theater or frequent art galleries. They didn’t do any of the things that Jack’s family did.

  He’d said nothing, except that her father was “salt of the earth.”

  Mara had once been to his family home in Galway—modern, detached, with a lawn cut by a smiling man from Slovakia—where there was always someone around for dinner, where the walls were lined with books and where someone would play on the piano after dinner or else a conversation would start up about a show they’d all seen, a book tipped to win the Booker, a new play.

  “Nobody can ever better the genius of Synge’s Playboy of the Western World,” Jack’s mother might say when she’d had her single martini with an olive in it.

  A martini. Mara had stared openmouthed the first time she saw the martini jug and the way everyone had just the one. Her father liked a glass of Guinness of an evening, but he’d never have it at home. He’d have it in Fagan’s down the road, where he went with his pals to talk about the racing or the state of the country and how it had all been different in their day.

  Her mother didn’t drink, having taken the pledge when she was twelve. She was proud of her Pioneer pin: a sign of abstinence.

  Mara was sorry she hadn’t taken a pledge and got herself a Man Abstinence pin.

  “I saw enough of what drink does to people,” was all Elsie would say. But she didn’t mind Mara opening a bottle of wine for Jack when he was there, and never said a word about the new wineglasses coming into the Wilson home. They were bigger and more delicate than the ones Elsie kept in the good china cupboard, which were exactly like the ones they had for events in the bingo hall, where Elsie might have an orange juice.