Taking her time, she approached him.
‘Hello, Patrick,’ she interrupted, smiling, noticing his reaction.
‘Oh Mrs Dillon. Maeve! What are you doing here?’
‘The girls and I are just finishing having dinner inside. I decided we all needed a treat after a long day’s shopping.’
He made a perfunctory introduction, Maeve barely catching the girl’s name and noting he didn’t say a word about Moya, or the fact that she herself would soon be his mother-in-law. She was in two minds about mentioning the purchase of the wedding finery, but decided against it.
‘I’d better get back inside, Patrick, or they’ll be sending out a search party for me.’
Back at the table she ordered a coffee, and was just about to forewarn Moya when Patrick sauntered into the large dining room, making a beeline for their table. ‘The beautiful Dillon girls,’ he said slowly, fussing over them all and giving them each a kiss on the cheek.
Highly embarrassed, Kate almost pushed him away.
Moya was thrilled to see him, her eyes lighting up as she stood up and hugged him.
‘I met Maeve outside.’ He smiled, gazing around the room and refusing the chair the waiter offered. ‘I was just having a drink with an old college pal, when I heard my beloved was here so I decided I’d better come in and say a quick hello.’
‘Funny the way we bumped into each other,’ said Maeve. ‘You’d think we were back in Rossmore!’
‘Ladies, did you all have a good day’s shopping?’
‘The best!’ said Moya with a smile. ‘The dress, the bridesmaid dresses are all organized and we bought loads.’
‘The very best!’ agreed the others.
Kate said very little and was relieved when Patrick Redmond at last politely excused himself and returned to the bar. As their mother settled the bill, she ordered a taxi.
‘What a lovely day we’ve had,’ said Maeve. ‘I’m exhausted and my feet are killing me but I had a great time. Thanks, girls.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ added Moya, Kate and Romy. ‘For everything.’
Chapter Fifteen
THE STONE HOUSE was in a state of near frenzy as the day of Moya’s wedding dawned. Uncle Eamonn, their mother’s brother, had arrived from Chicago. He was a parish priest in a place called Oakland and was delighted to have been asked to officiate at the ceremony and celebrate the wedding mass.
‘Sure, why wouldn’t I come home to marry Maeve and Frank’s eldest daughter, my beautiful niece Moya Teresa and her young man Patrick, and to enjoy the party and celebration afterwards?’
‘And how’s my darling girl?’ roared her uncle, wrapping Kate in a bear hug the minute he saw her. ‘I thought you were going to come out to the Windy City to see me last fall?’
‘I’m sorry, Uncle Eamonn, but I’d just started working and I couldn’t get the time off.’
‘Well, next year maybe you’ll come visit.’
Eamonn Ryan enjoyed visits from his family more than anything. Running a busy parish kept him occupied most of the day but at night when he sat down by the fire and cooked a TV dinner for one or ordered in he realized just how solitary his vocation had made him. He had no regrets about working in the priesthood, spreading the Word of God, but sometimes did admit to a loneliness that prayer and books and the good people of his parish could not overcome. Coming home for a big family occasion like this was exactly what he needed to restore his spirits and renew old friendships in the town where he grew up. Kate had vacated her bedroom, which had once been his, and stepping across the threshold had provoked a whole load of memories of his childhood and youth. His initials E.R. were still carved in the wardrobe door, and the old apple tree was still bearing apples outside his window.
‘This place is a tip,’ Kate protested as she moved her clothes down the corridor and into Romy’s room. ‘How can you live with it like this?’
‘No problem,’ jeered Romy, who had actually done a massive tidy before Kate moved her things. ‘I like it like this.’
The house was full of people as their father’s brother Peadar and his wife Nuala from Galway were also staying. Their mother put them in the guest bedroom while their two kids Hannah and Jack were to sleep in Sean’s old room.
The house had been cleaned top to bottom, Christy the painter coming in at short notice to repaint the hall stairs and landing.
Maeve Dillon had a notepad with a list of all the things she had to do. The fridge had been stuffed with eggs and rashers and sausages, and black and white pudding and pounds of butter, and Hannah and Jack were dispatched to get fresh bread for the breakfast in the morning.
‘I feel like I’m running a guest-house,’ she joked, trying to remember where she’d put the last two cakes of brown bread she’d made.
Frank was in his element talking to everyone, overseeing the erection of the huge marquee in the garden by Tony Taylor and his crew from Taylor Tents.
‘Mind my roses,’ begged Maeve, abandoning the kitchen and grabbing a spade and wheelbarrow to move three precious rose bushes to the safety of the back bed. The caterers had been booked, the barmen organized, and her father was out shouting at the delivery driver from McHugh’s pub as he unloaded beer kegs and crates of Guinness and Smithwicks and a whole range of wines and spirits and boxes of sparkling glasses.
‘God, this must be costing a fortune,’ murmured their Aunt Nuala, watching her brother-in-law take out a wad of notes from his trouser pocket.
‘It’s what Moya wanted. We looked at the Harbour and the Rossmore Inn and the Grand in Waterford, but she felt a smaller wedding at home was what she’d prefer.’
‘It’s a lot of work.’
‘Aye, but I suppose Frank and I felt it would be nice to have it here. We got married in that old hotel in town, and well I’d always sort of regretted that we didn’t have a nicer wedding. Here in the garden with some nice music should be lovely.’
After the church rehearsal the Dillon and the Redmond families joined together for dinner in the Rossmore Inn. Patrick’s parents were staying in the hotel. Annabel Redmond, enquiring about the guest list, had finally come around to accepting that her son’s wedding was not going to be the big Dublin social event she’d hoped for but a relaxed gathering of friends and family at home. She was keen to be introduced to the rest of the family. Romy and Kate were as polite as could be, but decided to sit down one end of the table with Patrick’s brother and sister.
Moya looked a bit pale and picked at her food.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Kate.
‘I’m fine, just a bit nervous.’
Patrick was equally quiet while Frank Dillon and his father got involved discussing property prices in the area. Uncle Eamonn regaled them with disastrous funeral stories from the people in his parish, which included a local Mafia chief asking him to say a special funeral mass for one of his dogs.
‘That’s outrageous, asking a man of the cloth to do that!’ murmured their Aunt Nuala. ‘I couldn’t say no,’ joked their uncle. ‘The Lord would understand I didn’t dare refuse a man like that!’
‘Would he have shot you?’ piped up Hannah.
‘Well, I don’t know but I’m here to tell the tale.’
Back at home, Maeve Dillon slipped into Moya’s room before she fell asleep, noting how pale her daughter looked against the pillows.
‘Are you feeling all right, pet?’
‘Just a little nervous.’
‘You’re sure about Patrick, Moya? Sure he is the right one.’
‘Mammy! What are you saying? I love Patrick, it’s our wedding day tomorrow.’
Maeve Dillon sighed.
‘It’s just that if you changed your mind, your daddy and I would stand by you, you know that. No-one is going to push you into something you are not sure about.’
‘Mammy, for God’s sake. Are you cracked? No-one is pushing me into doing anything. No-one!’
For a second Maeve Dillon experienced that strange sense of déjà vu, re
membering her own mother standing in front of her in her dressing gown saying almost the exact same thing. She smiled, for she hadn’t listened either.
‘Don’t mind me, pet, I’m just a sentimental old mother hen who hates losing one of her chicks,’ she apologized, kissing her eldest daughter goodnight.
The wedding morning was frantic as everyone fought over showers and the bathroom. Moya, the only one who seemed calm and unruffled, lay in the bed relaxing as Romy and Kate and their mother screamed at each other.
The marquee was all set up, and there were fresh roses and sprigs of lavender from the garden on every table. A long narrow table was set up as a bar on one end of the patio, the other one inside the marquee.
‘Well thank God for the beautiful weather,’ smiled their uncle, tucking into a plate of rashers and sausages.
The girls all disappeared to the hairdresser’s with their mother and aunts. Gemma O’Leary and one of her juniors busily got them all washed and dried and arranged their hair. Romy and Kate each wore a simple spray of baby’s breath creamy flowers wound through a piece of finely plaited hair at the back of their heads. Cream roses were attached to the comb on Moya’s dark hair, which looked so straight it was like satin.
The minute they finished they all chased back to the house to change, to find Frank and Uncle Peadar already in their morning suits.
‘You two look very handsome,’ admired Maeve Dillon as she ran up to change into her own outfit.
Kate and Romy sat in their dressing gowns doing their make-up, for once putting their differences to one side and agreeing that they should wear the same ivory and beige eyeshadow and brown eyeliner, plus a coral-coloured lipstick with a layer of gloss on top.
‘Phew! I suppose we look kind of OK.’
They ran into Moya who was putting another layer of mascara onto her eyelashes, which she had curled to open her eyes and make them look even bigger. The three of them did their nails before finally putting on their dresses.
‘Mammy, come up for the dresses!’ screamed Romy.
Maeve Dillon almost fell going up the stairs, nursing a bruise on her leg as she watched Kate and Romy help their sister into her dress and fasten up the bodice. It was even more exquisite than she had remembered and Moya looked radiant. Maeve, unwrapping the tissue, helped attach the gossamer-light veil to the comb at the back of her head.
‘Do I look all right, Mammy?’
Moya was trembling as she lightly touched her hair and neck.
‘You look truly beautiful, darling. From the second I first saw you, you’ve been my darling and you always will be. No matter how long you are married, you’ll still be my little girl.’
Kate blinked away the tears welling in her own eyes.
‘I’m so happy, I don’t know why I’m crying,’ sniffed Moya.
‘You’ll ruin your make-up,’ cautioned Romy, flopping onto the bed.
‘It’s your wedding day, all brides cry,’ said their mother, trying to control her emotions.
‘And all mothers.’
‘And all sisters too!’
‘What the hell’s going on in here?’ interrupted Frank Dillon coming on the scene. ‘Is everything all right? Moya are you OK? The wedding is going ahead?’
‘Frank, the wedding is most definitely going ahead. It’s just it’s such a big step.’
‘You look wonderful, pet,’ he said, kissing Moya on the cheek. ‘Patrick’s a lucky man.’ He raised a tumbler of whiskey to his lips.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve been drinking already, Frank. Don’t tell me that!’
‘Leave me alone, woman. It’s just to steady me, settle my nerves for the church.’
‘I can’t believe that you’ll be drunk leading your daughter up the aisle.’
‘I’ve had just a few sips,’ he argued, ‘that’s all.’
‘Please, Dad, don’t fight!’ pleaded Moya, looking at the two of them. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you and Mammy were to fight today.’
Kate could see her mother’s reluctance to climb down and grabbed her father by the arm instead.
‘Come on downstairs, Dad,’ she coaxed, ‘and I’ll make you a quick cup of coffee and listen to you practising your speech again before we have to leave for the church.’
The local parish church was packed with the hundred and twenty guests invited to the wedding and a collection of local neighbours and friends curious to see Moya Dillon’s wedding. A few of the nuns from their old school were sitting at the back of the church smiling as the family entered.
Romy and Kate had walked up the aisle of the church in their simple champagne-coloured dresses, carrying small posies of white roses and sprays of baby’s breath tied in a ribbon. Kate hoped no-one could sense the shaking of her knees and legs. They walked slowly, taking steps in time with the music, coming to stand at the side of the altar where their Uncle Eamonn was waiting. Patrick looked so handsome in a morning suit with his gold-coloured cravat, standing anxiously beside his brother Andrew waiting for his bride.
Moya appeared, breathtakingly beautiful, holding her father’s arm as she came up the aisle. Frank Dillon was desperately trying to hold his own emotions in check. Father Eamonn welcomed them warmly as Patrick stepped forward and took her hand.
It was a simple ceremony and as Kate listened to them swear their love for each other she bowed her head in prayer and asked for the grace to be able to accept Patrick as her brother-in-law. She held Moya’s bouquet of roses and lilies as her sister signed the register and finally became Mrs Moya Redmond.
A sea of smiling faces and flashing cameras greeted the happy couple as they paraded down the church and out into the August sunshine where the photographer was waiting to take group photos of them.
‘Wasn’t that the loveliest mass ever!’ remarked Maeve Dillon to Patrick’s mother who was wearing an elegant black two-piece and a wide-brimmed cream hat with a swirling band of black and white around the crown.
‘Having your brother say the mass made it so personal and so special. You must be very pleased, Maeve.’
‘Eamonn wouldn’t have missed Moya and Patrick’s wedding for the world. He always tries to be here for these family occasions.’
‘Moya’s such a stunning bride,’ gushed Annabel. ‘I can see how Patrick fell in love with her at first sight.’
‘They make a very handsome couple,’ Maeve agreed, watching the two of them smile and pose for photographs, as well-wishers crowded around. ‘I’m sure they will be very happy together.’
Forty minutes later the wedding party arrived back at the house to awaiting glasses of champagne and kir royale. It was very warm as they stood on the lawn sipping their drinks and chatting to everyone, renewing old friendships with cousins and family. Moya’s work and college friends looked like a group of models or actors in their designer clothes and high heels and floaty frocks. Moya in the middle of them, giggling and laughing with Patrick at her side, introduced them to the family. Her father as usual asked the age-old question:
‘What do you do?’
‘Are all dads the same?’ giggled her best friend Anne-Marie, throwing her arms around him and giving him a big flirty kiss.
The Stone House looked wonderful, basking in the August sunshine, the door and windows re-painted, frothy pink and cream roses tumbling around the doorway and windowsills, every pot and garden urn overflowing with splashes of colour, the large floral borders at their best, bursting with tall blue delphiniums and pink and blue lupins, a riot of colour and scented nicotiania. Everyone had worked so hard at getting the place to look right. There wasn’t a blade of grass out of place or a weed growing in the flowerbeds, Maeve had made sure of that.
‘You have a beautiful home, Mrs Dillon,’ complimented Jenny Leyden, the girl who worked with Moya in the art gallery.
Minnie and her mother were stomping around the grass in tiny stiletto heels, Minnie wearing a fuchsia-red dress which made her look cute and sexy and had attracted much attention from a few of
the single males invited.
‘God, do you think we’re related now that Moya and Patrick have married? We’re probably some kind of far-off cousins.’
Kate shrugged, though being related to Minnie was bound to be fun.
‘Moya looks amazing but you and Romy look fantastic too.’
After a while the guests and family began to move inside as the caterers were more than ready to serve the meal.
Kate was seated up at the top table beside the best man while Romy was at another table with the groom’s man and Patrick’s sister Louise and some of their cousins. Father Eamonn said grace before they began to eat.
Wild salmon was served, and carrot soup, roast lamb and potatoes with minted peas and a roast vegetable bake and a melt-in-the-mouth raspberry Pavlova for pudding. Kate could see the tension ease from her mother’s face as one course after another was a success, Uncle Eamonn, sitting near her, clearing his plate and enjoying the red wine now that his priestly duties were done.
Her father sat proudly, head high, accepting compliments from Patrick’s mother. Glancing over, Kate saw that Moya was about to burst with happiness, her dark eyes sparkling, her mouth wide and smiling, relaxed now the ceremony was over.
Kate found Andrew Redmond easy to talk to: he was very different from his brother and seemed more easy-going and less driven.
‘Are you nervous about the speeches?’ she asked.
‘A bit, but I was on the debating team in Blackrock College and still do a bit to keep my hand in with the L & H Soc. so hopefully I should be OK.’
‘Snap! I was on my convent’s school team too,’ she laughed, ‘and the team in college too.’
‘So we should be able to get a bit of a debate going this end of the table,’ he joked.
She told him about her career and work, listening as he talked about the trials of being a final-year medical student. He planned to work in America or Canada for a year or two after he qualified. ‘Gain a bit of experience then go out and work in Africa or Asia. It’s where medicine is really needed.’
‘Will you eventually come back to Ireland?’
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