She didn’t bother going home at weekends as there was no point. Instead she went to party after party, sometimes with her flatmates, but mostly with people she didn’t know or care about, telling her sisters to ‘Piss off!’ and ‘Mind your own business!’ when they told her to cop on to herself and grow up. She had absolutely no intention of listening to them. They had their own busy lives and jobs to attend to and could keep out of her hair! She was happy to be a ‘wild child’, as they called her, finding others like herself who did not ask too much of each other and demanded only simple companionship as they drank and smoked dope and tried to ease the loneliness.
She ignored requests to come home for the weekends, complaining of having to study and essays to deliver, her bewildered parents accepting this newfound studiousness. Her father came to Dublin on business and insisted on treating her to lunches and dinners which, though the food was excellent, neither of them enjoyed much. They ate at the Burlington, the Westbury, Roly’s and Beaufield Mews. She knew he was checking up on her and she regaled him with stories from lectures as they ate, Frank Dillon, bursting out of his heavy navy suit with an immaculately laundered shirt and regulation striped tie, trying to make sense of a world he did not understand. Romy, always ashamed at herself for belittling him, would try to make amends, hugging him when they parted saying, ‘I love you, Daddy, you know I do.’
‘Your mother’s coming up next week,’ he’d announced over the roast beef lunch in the Montrose. ‘She’ll be staying with Moya for a few days. There’s a lot to be done with organizing this wedding so I want you to be a good girl and give her a hand.’
Romy groaned. She hated the thought of bridesmaids’ dresses. Herself and Kate like two eejits in the same dress. If she ever got married she was going to elope and tell no-one. She wouldn’t want the big circus that was being planned for Moya and Patrick’s wedding. She would slip away with the man she loved: that would be more than enough for her. Tears filled her eyes as she thought of Brian and she pulled a tissue from her sleeve and blew her nose loudly.
‘You OK?’ asked her dad.
‘I might be getting a cold,’ she sniffed, for a second tempted to confide in him.
‘Bed early then and plenty of vitamin C,’ he said matter-of-factly, reaching for the restaurant bill. ‘You don’t want to go disappointing your mother.’
Chapter Fourteen
KATE WAS DOING her utmost to be happy for Moya. But it isn’t every day your sister announces she is madly in love and is going to get married to the man you had high hopes for. Inside she admitted to deep feelings of hurt and a weird jealousy that it was Moya that Patrick was marrying, not her. She tried to logic it out, convince herself that she would never have been able to sustain a relationship with someone like him, and that marriage to Patrick had never remotely been on the cards but her stupid heart kept letting her down. Perhaps if she had someone else in her life it might have been different but hearing her sister go on all the time about how wonderful her future husband was was enough to drive Kate crazy.
‘Kate, you’re so bloody picky!’ complained Minnie, who was forever trying to matchmake and introduce her to someone.
She worked with lots of men and – except for one disastrous night’s outing at the company’s annual 4th July barbecue when she’d made a fool of herself snogging a randy young legal intern from Australia – had managed to avoid the overtures of her male colleagues. Complications like that she most certainly could do without as she firmly believed in not mixing business and pleasure.
‘God, Kate, you’re so stupid, surrounded by all those great guys and you won’t date them! What’s wrong with you, woman?’
Lying alone in bed at night she often asked herself the very same question.
Her mother was coming to stay with Moya for two days in order to do the whole wedding thing properly. Huge lists had been drawn up of all the essentials to do and shop for and Romy had skipped lectures and Kate had taken the Friday off work to accompany them.
Moya looked radiant in a simple white linen shirt and beige trousers and it seemed as if every shop they went into, the staff welcomed them warmly, carried away by the enthusiasm of the bride-to-be and her mother and two sisters.
Moya’s designer wedding dress was costing a fortune and was being made by one of Ireland’s top designers Clodagh Connolly who was known for her simple, classic Irish lace and linen designs. The small Dublin studio was now graced by international actresses and models and wealthy young women who could afford her high prices. Kate and Romy had stood transfixed as Moya slipped into her wedding dress for the second fitting.
‘Do you like it?’ she’d asked hesitantly as Maeve Dillon’s eyes welled with tears. The bodice was tightly fitted and clung to Moya’s perfect shape and slim waist, the skirt soft and loose falling to the floor in a swirl of hand-stitched lace.
‘God, Moya, you look gorgeous,’ gasped Romy.
‘That’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen,’ admitted Kate, awed by the designer’s intuitive instinct in terms of her sister’s personality and sense of simple classic style.
‘Look at the detail,’ encouraged their mother, fingering the material carefully. ‘Such workmanship. God, Moya, it’s just beautiful, it’s so you!’
‘You look absolutely stunning,’ declared Kate honestly.
Jilly who worked with Clodagh, the designer, helped attach the simple veil that fell from a comb carved from what looked like mother-of-pearl, shining out against her sister’s jet black shoulder-length hair.
‘You will be the most beautiful bride she has designed for this year,’ she murmured, adjusting the headpiece so that the light ripple of lace fell down Moya’s back.
‘What do you think?’ Moya asked, eyes gleaming as she slowly twirled around and studied herself in the multi-angled mirrors.
‘I think both your father and Patrick will be very proud when they see you on the big day,’ her mother said, fiddling in her leather handbag for a tissue.
‘Is she making our dresses too?’ Romy asked hopefully.
‘Are you mad! It would cost a fortune. Besides, I saw two lovely dresses in Brown Thomas and they’ve some really unusual ones in the Powerscourt Centre too.’
Romy and Kate had tried on five different dresses in the upstairs Brides part of the Design Centre, both of them unimpressed by colours and styles that might suit one of them but not the other. There was a plum shoestring top and ankle-length skirt, which Kate had liked and Romy hated, an off the shoulder bluebell blue, a figure-hugging aqua satin that Kate felt might make her burst if she had to sit or kneel down and two pinks, one in silk and one in satin.
‘They’re lovely but they’re too much,’ sighed Moya.
In Grafton Street they went into Brown Thomas’s exclusive bridal department where they studied the rail of bridesmaids’ dresses and those hanging behind the sliding glass doors. Some were absolutely disgusting, all frills and flounces, and Kate prayed that Moya hadn’t her heart set on anything like that.
‘What do you think of these?’
Moya was holding up two very simple round-necked dresses in a shade of pale gold which had a bodice fitting almost similar to her own style.
‘I think these might look really good on you both,’ she suggested, ‘and they’re sort of like my dress.’
‘They’re a bit plain,’ ventured Romy, unable to mask her disappointment.
‘That’s what I like about them,’ retorted Moya, pushing her sisters towards the dressing room.
Kate let the cool material and satin lining slide over her skin. The dress seemed a perfect fit and with the colour of her hair made her look bright and summery.
‘Wow, it’s nicer than I imagined,’ she gasped, gazing at herself in the mirror. Romy, who was taller than her, looked even longer and leaner in the dress, its golden colour picking up the glints of gold in her reddish fair hair, which tumbled around her face.
‘I didn’t think I’d fecking like it,’ she
admitted, ‘but there’s something about it, it’s like a glass of champagne!’
Maeve and Moya Dillon were unanimous in agreement that ‘these were the perfect dresses’ as they made them twirl and turn as if they were models.
‘Are you sure we shouldn’t try on some more?’ Kate, as usual, was indecisive when purchasing clothes. She often tried on things a few times before making up her mind.
‘For God’s sake, Kate, you’ve put on the most perfect dress that suits the two of you equally well and will look amazing with my dress. What the hell more are you expecting?’
Kate shrugged. Moya was right. If something was right what was the point going off chasing after something else?
The sales assistant couldn’t believe her good fortune to have sold two dresses so quickly and without all the hassle and fighting and bitching that usually went with pre-wedding outings.
Maeve, taking out her chequebook, insisted they go for a bite of lunch before they turned their attention to her outfit and the lingerie department.
‘We could grab a pizza or a sandwich,’ Romy suggested, her stomach grumbling.
‘Something quick and easy and light,’ insisted Moya, steering them in the direction of the shop’s chic salad and soup eatery where crowds of well-dressed women were queuing for a snack to tide them over as they shopped.
They roamed the racks afterwards for something for Maeve.
‘I don’t want to look too “mother of the brideish,”’ she joked, ‘but I don’t want to let you down either.’
‘Mum, you’d never let us down!’ they chorused, shoving her into a dressing room with about ten different outfits.
Maeve Dillon fiddled and pulled and tried on one after another, not totally satisfied. She wished she were younger, slimmer, more beautiful, that her stomach didn’t bulge, that her legs didn’t wobble with cellulite and that her face wasn’t starting to fill with lines and wrinkles. ‘Laughter lines’, that’s what Vonnie called them, but she suspected it wasn’t laughing that had been responsible for them in her case. She sighed, looking at herself in a motherly suit.
‘Mammy, get that off, it’s ghastly,’ ordered Romy, pushing in to look at her. ‘Moya said that you’re to try this on.’
Maeve put on the light lavender dress. Its square neckline and waist-skimming skirt flowed smoothly over her figure, the matching jacket falling from her shoulders and arms. It felt wonderful and moreover she felt good in it.
‘Mammy, you’ve got to buy it!’ insisted Romy. ‘It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever seen on you.’
‘You’re sure I don’t look like mutton dressed as lamb?’
‘Not at all,’ said Moya, examining it from every angle. ‘You’ll knock all the relations and friends for six when they see you in it.’
Kate could see Maeve’s eyes light up, her face glow with the compliments and attention. ‘You look so beautiful,’ she declared, hugging her mother tight.
‘I suppose I’d better buy it then,’ joked Maeve. ‘Your father’ll be relieved that he won’t have to come looking with me, you know what he’s like in shops!’
In the lingerie department Maeve went mad treating them all to new sets of lacy bras and knickers, expensive fripperies for under their dresses.
‘Mammy, this must be costing a fortune,’ protested Kate as the spending went on and Moya added a hand-stitched embroidered white lingerie set to the bill.
‘We’re not going to wear those exquisite dresses we’ve just bought with any old pair of panties and bra. It’s my treat!’
By teatime they were exhausted. Shoes for Moya and Romy had been found, a hat for their mother and an array of perfumes, lipsticks and nail polishes purchased.
‘I’m going to collapse,’ admitted Moya.
‘Me first. My feet are killing me.’
‘Can we stop off and get chips or something on the way home?’
‘Romy,’ admonished their mother. ‘Today is special, all of us together here in town shopping for Moya’s big day. Do you remember when you were kids we’d all go for a slap-up meal when we came up to town to shop or to go to the pantomime or the theatre? What about a meal in the Shelbourne? A drink before, and then dinner.’
The Shelbourne Hotel overlooking St Stephen’s Green was buzzing as ever, as businessmen and well-heeled tourists checked in, the Horseshoe Bar crowded with groups of work colleagues and those looking for a soothing drink after a rough day, the large cosy lounge overlooking the park filled with chat and laughter. Maeve and the girls managed to find a seat and ordered drinks as they studied the dinner menu, while a distracted Romy tried to spot the celebrity guests.
Over dinner they laughed and chatted, giggling about things they did when they were little girls.
‘Do you remember the time we decided to paint the shed with a tin of red paint we found belonging to Daddy?’
‘He almost went crazy,’ laughed Moya, ‘when he saw the state of it and the state of us.’
‘Or what about the time we dug up all the flowers and were selling them at the gate?’
‘Or the time we had a jumble sale and by accident Kate sold his good gold cufflinks?’
Maeve Dillon ordered more wine as they reminisced, the talk getting louder, the four of them rocking with laughter at the antics they’d got up to.
‘We must have been very bold sometimes. How did you cope with us?’
‘I remember I laughed a lot. Moya was always putting on make-up – one time she painted herself with nail polish instead of eyeshadow. We had to make a run for the hospital! Another time she was trying to make something for herself and ended up sewing the skirt she was stitching to the clothes she was wearing! I’d to cut them apart. Kate, you were different, you were always the curious one, always into everything, drinking medicines, eating soap, trying to climb trees and rocks. You were such a little devil and were always getting lost in the shops and I’d be mortified when they’d call out on the intercom looking for the lost little girl’s mother.’
‘And what about me?’ asked Romy.
‘Romy pet, I’m still not out of the woods with you yet. Who forgot to unplug the hair-drier last month and nearly set fire to the house?’
‘That was an accident I was rushing out to . . .’
‘You’ve always been my wild child. Do you remember when you were small and every time you went to the beach you stripped off naked and refused to wear your swimming togs?’
‘I liked the sun on my skin.’
‘You’ve always had a mind of your own. Every time there was a row or an upset you’d pack up your bags and want to run away. You always seemed to be running away for some funny reason or other.’
‘I liked packing my bag and stealing biscuits and cake and bread and making a flask of orange squash and pretending I was going off somewhere exciting.’
‘One time yourself and that O’Grady boy disappeared for twelve hours. Sheila O’Grady and I were terrified you’d fallen in off the harbour. We’d all the neighbours and the guards out looking for you. Eventually we found you about a mile out the road by Ferguson’s old mill asleep on the long grass.’
‘Don’t remind me. Daddy took my blue bicycle off me as a punishment.’
‘You had our hearts scalded sometimes.’
‘Yeah, remember the time I got the kitchen scissors and gave poor old Lucky a cut?’
Moya almost dropped the spoon of crème brûlée she was eating, with shock. Kate automatically lashed out with a well-placed kick on Romy’s shin, incredulous that her sister could be so stupid upsetting their mother and reminding them all of that fateful day.
‘God, I’m so sorry, Mum,’ mumbled Romy, appalled at herself. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘I have to go to the bathroom.’ Maeve excused herself, standing up instantly from the table and scrabbling around for her handbag. Kate and Moya attacked Romy the minute she’d left the dining room.
‘Of all the stupid things to say!’
‘Why did you have
to go and ruin a perfectly good day, Romy? Do you enjoy doing it, is that it?’
‘I swear to God. I just wasn’t thinking.’
‘You know Mammy’s gone to the bathroom to have a cry, don’t you?’
‘I forgot!’
‘How could you ever fucking forget?’
‘Listen, I’ll go after her.’
‘No, don’t you think you’ve done enough for one night?’ said Moya sarcastically. ‘She’s better left on her own.’
Romy sat at the table feeling miserable as her sisters glared at her, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut.
Maeve Dillon stared at herself in the wall-sized mirror of the marble and glass bathroom. She cursed the grief that still at times assailed and overwhelmed her. She threw water on her face and dabbed on a touch of foundation to cover the blotchiness of her cheeks and redness around her eyes. Trying to compose herself she took a deep breath before heading back to the dining room, stopping in her tracks at the sight of her future son-in-law standing at the doorway of the hotel’s bar deep in conversation with a tall blonde in a black suit. For a few seconds she stood just watching, noticing how attentive he was to the young woman and how she was glancing up at him, her hand resting on his arm. Smooth and charming, totally self-confident and aware of his attraction to the opposite sex, Patrick in some strange way reminded her of Frank. Physically they were very different, and a generation apart, but her future son-in-law’s ways were something she was accustomed to. He might be more savvy and polished and educated but underneath the veneer he too was a womanizer.
The Stone House Page 11