A Posy of Promises_a heartwarming story about life and love

by Sharon Dempsey

  That was all right with me. I didn’t want to see Scarlett leave again, thought she might have wised-up and settled down, now she had a baby, but when I realised she wasn’t to be persuaded to stay I was more than happy to have you to look after.

  Your granddad was a different matter. Oh, we had strong words over it I must say. He thought if we said no, Scarlett would catch herself on and stay put. But I knew Scarlett, and I was too frightened she would just take flight with you and we’d never see her or you again, and that wouldn’t be fair on any of us. He said then we would give her an ultimatum, that we would bring you up, keep you here with us and that she could come and go as she pleased but by all intents and purposes you were to be ours. He wanted no rows over how you were to be brought up.

  So, we agreed to put it to her and she agreed, not at first but she came around to the idea. Trouble was your granddad was calling her bluff, he thought she would have said no and stayed in Belfast instead. He said all this chasing the spotlight was over, she had a baby now to look after, and it was time she realised she couldn’t have both.

  The next morning, we woke up to find Scarlett gone and you mewling like a wee cat in the bottom drawer. She left a note; it’s in the box for you to read. Just said she had to go back on the road and that she would send money whenever she could.

  Ava rummaged through the photographs and newspaper cuttings to find the note again. There it was written in precise, sharp, angular letters on lemony yellow notepaper with a floral border.

  Sorry I had to run out like this but I can’t stand saying goodbye. Look after Ruby for me. I will send money for her keep as soon as I can.

  Your daughter Scarlett x

  She sent money home, a brave sum every month, but your granddad wouldn’t cash the cheques, said we didn’t need her handouts if she couldn’t settle herself at home and make do with a terrace house and a good Northern Irish husband she could go to hell or LA, whichever came first. He was a stubborn man your grandfather. Course problem was he’d lost his baby girl. She had grown up and taken flight and he wasn’t a bit pleased about it. So, I says nothing, keeps my counsel to myself thinking she’ll come home when she’s ready.

  But then we didn’t bargain for what happened next.

  She only went and got herself a record deal. Some swanky Yank took her under his wing and said he would take her all the way to the top. And he did, in more than one way. Her head was right turned by him and poor Johnny was long left behind.

  Came to see me a few years later as it happens. Nice lad really. Would have been a good husband in spite of all his posturing. Once he grew up and got rid of the long hair and the too-tight blue jeans, he looked like a nice respectable fella. Ended up teaching at some posh grammar school in Bangor. I saw him on the telly one night being interviewed by that fella who does the news on UTV going on about the eleven-plus. I would’ve recognised his face anywhere. Scarlett might have done all right if she had hung onto Johnny.

  Anyway, the Yank, Jackson was his name, got her the record deal and organised a tour. She was to be the new Stevie Nicks, whoever he was. I would have preferred her to stay in Ireland and done the Eurovision like Dana but sure she never listened to me.

  The album did well; I have a copy put aside for you, not my type of thing but then I was old before my time, as they say. They did their tour supporting some group named Styx and she did well enough across the Atlantic. Still, I don’t think it was all a bed of roses. We didn’t hear much from her and the press cuttings soon dried up — you’ll find them in a scrapbook I put together over the years for you.

  I think after a while she felt she couldn’t come back. You were doing well at school and were right settled with me. She could hardly come swanning in and steal you away now, could she? Especially not if the big dream hadn’t lasted and I don’t think it did, to tell the truth.

  Your granddad was a proud and stubborn man. Didn’t understand how his wee girl had gone from wearing her hair in ringlets for the Irish dancing to some stuck up little madam who had stars in her eyes when she should have been looking after you. It near enough killed him and just before your fourth birthday, he dropped down dead in the middle of watching of Political Eye.

  I contacted Scarlett, she had left a couple of American telephone numbers for emergencies and after a bit of explaining and being passed from one person to another, I eventually got hold of her, and she flew home for the funeral a day later.

  She didn’t stay long, said she had recording commitments which she was ‘contractually obliged to fulfil’, was how she put it, and I wasn’t going to beg. I had too much to do, what with the funeral only just over, and you to look after. So off she went again and left me to care for you and sort out all the stuff that comes with the death of someone you love.

  I was cleaning in the big posh houses up the Malone Road to make ends meet.

  A few months later, she came back, wanted to spend some time with you, she said. Your wee face lit up when you saw the stuff she bought you: dresses, wee cowboy boots and a good wool coat, red it was with a velvet collar, toys and such like. Lovely stuff like you wouldn’t have seen over here. Next thing I knew, she had gone and bought a house and not just any old house. Dr McCooley’s house, the one I used to clean, had come on the market and Scarlett had gone and bought it, just like that. I couldn’t believe it. Said she wanted us to live in it and she would come and go when she got the chance.

  Not on your life, says I, you have this youngster confused enough as it is, settle yourself and if you want to we can all get along great in that big house. But no, she wouldn’t hear of it, said she needed to work for her soul. Did you ever hear the likes of it? I told her the only thing her soul needed was an hour in the confessional and a couple of decades of the rosary.

  Thought I’d call her bluff like granddad did and told her she could stay home or take herself off for good. I wasn’t best pleased with the way she thought she could just arrive as if she was the answer to all our prayers and up sticks and leave when it suited. Besides, it wasn’t good for you. Your wee heart broke every time she left, and I had had enough of drying your tears.

  So, she did, just went. Left paperwork stating the house had been signed over to me. Of course, I couldn’t bring myself to live in it without Scarlett. What would you and I have done in yon big house? We’d have rattled around like two spools of thread in an empty Quality Street tin. So anyways, the house lay empty. I didn’t even set foot in it. Didn’t need to see it since I had cleaned it often enough for the McCooleys when they lived there. I wasn’t going to start pretending I was lady of the manor or any such thing.

  When I had that wee turn last June, I realised I needed to sort out everything so that if the worst should have happened, you would be able to find the paperwork and make sense of it all. I never ever want to be a burden on you so the Sisters of Mercy have been good enough to give me a place. They will offer up the burden of looking after me to the divine grace, so at least for them, I will be a useful burden.

  When the time comes, you can decide what to do with the big house. It’s rightfully yours. Scarlett wanted you to grow-up in it but I didn’t think it was right for a wee girl to have such a big place. We would have only been lonely there and sure we wouldn’t have had anything in common with the neighbours. I am sure you’ll agree we were both as well off in Moonstone Street as anywhere. That wee house has served its purpose.

  8

  Scarlett examined her face in the glittery, junk-shop bought mirror hanging over her bathroom sink. The lines around her eyes were deepening into grooves and the texture of her skin was becoming a little more, well, leathery. God, she hated this ageing process.

  She didn’t expect to stay twenty-one forever, but neither had she expected to feel the ravages of time quite so painfully. She would have thought that having gone through all she had over the last few years, a couple of wrinkles wouldn’t have worried her but vanity was a strange bed partner. Just when you hoped it was asle
ep or better still dead, it would rear its ugly head and make you feel insecure and vulnerable, dragging you down into the depths of self-loathing.

  Scarlett continued massaging the gloopy bee sting serum into her skin. God knows she needed all the help she could get. Part of the problem lay in this place. It was full of glamorous, well-kept and surgically enhanced women. Grooming in LA, unlike her native Belfast, was not the reserve of horses or dogs. To appear without make-up was perfectly acceptable providing your nails were polished, your bikini line waxed within an inch of indecency and your hair was as silky and shiny as a dressage horse’s.

  Scarlett worked out every day. Runs along the beachfront ensured she was toned and supple. She did yoga twice a week and even taught the odd class to help her friend Stella out when she was out of town.

  No one could say Scarlett didn’t work at it, but since she had hit forty-eight, she seemed to be losing the battle. She continued to dye her hair but, on her stylist’s advice, had moved from inky black to deepest conker in the hope of softening her colouring to help her face look less haggard. She shopped in all the trendy vintage shops and maintained a “with it” attitude. She knew the scene. But really, if she was totally honest, she knew it was time to call it a day.

  The entertainment industry required everyone to either be eighteen, look like they could be, or were at least trying hard to stay young. Thank God, she had an alternative outlet for her creativity. These days she was happier creating beautiful pieces of jewellery bespoke for the individual wearer. Her days of gigging had long passed.

  The previous week, she had relished the attentions of a thirty-something ride, thinking he was hitting on her, only for him to tell her his mother used to listen to her music in the car going to soccer practice. Oh life, why so cruel?

  Scarlett picked up the little toolbox, stocked with wire, cutters, pliers and beads, which she used for making jewellery when she wanted to sit outside. For days now, her mind was whirling over thoughts of the past. Things she assumed she had long forgotten, caught her unawares, making her stop whatever it was she was doing, and to think about home. Funny how after all this time she still called it home.

  Just a couple of days earlier, she had had an urgent wake up call. Her lawyers had written to her instructing her that the house she had bought for her mother in Belfast had been signed over to Ava. Maggie must have finally died. The realisation that life had moved on at such an accelerated pace during her absence was like an electric jolt of awakening. Somehow, in her screwed-up head, she had thought that life in Belfast would be frozen, waiting for her to return and pick up where she left off. Of course, she wasn’t so flaky as to actually believe it be so, but part of her couldn’t imagine them moving on without her. God, for all she knew, Ava could have children by now. Scarlett could actually be a grandmother. She shuddered at the thought of it.

  When Scarlett received the letter full of legalese, she had cried. Not real sobbing crying, but she had shed a little tear. Maggie had never understood Scarlett. All her life she had battled against her mother and the sense that Maggie was trying to dampen down her enthusiasm for life. But there was no holding Scarlett back. She had fought against her parents’ small-minded outlook on life and taken off before either of them could crush the spirit out of her.

  God, the nights she’d lain in that shoebox of a house in Moonstone Street, dreaming of a better life. She couldn’t bear the feeling of the four walls closing in on her. Even now, thinking of that little house made her feel claustrophobic and breathless.

  She had always felt that there was more to life than small-minded bigotry, mass on a Sunday, and settling down to marry some boy you had known for half your life. Scarlett never settled for anyone. Not even Johnny, and with hindsight, she recognised he had been the love of her life. Johnny Kavanagh with his long wavy hair and kind blue eyes which seemed to bore into her very heart. He had treated Scarlett well, even when she had hurt him deeply. He would have been there for her if she had asked.

  It was a time of revolution for women everywhere in the world, bar Belfast. She wanted to feel the freedom and the sense of self that she read about. An intense power struggle raged on within her — the need to break out and find something worth living for, taking risks and pulling against the demands of being the dutiful daughter. In the end, there wasn’t much of a tug of war, the dutiful daughter had been let go with ease, and they waved off the eager to see the world Scarlett, expecting her to return with her tail between her legs.

  Her voice was her ticket out of the backwater she had had the misfortune of being born in. She planned on singing her way to a better life and to a certain extent she did. There had been high points, hearing her song on the radio, doing gigs, touring. She had loved it all. But it had come at a price. A high price.

  She knew she had missed out on Ava. She could still close her eyes and conjure up the smell and the feel of that soft, downy head. That crushing ache would never ease, but she felt back then that she had no choice but to leave her behind. The road wasn’t practical or safe for a baby. She was working nights, sleeping days, and moving from one town and one relationship to another. Her career was about to soar and looking after a baby wouldn’t have worked out at all.

  She wanted the best for Ava too. Leaving her with Maggie wouldn’t have been the worst scenario. She had made sure they were financially looked after. The McCooley house had cost a fortune but she had been proud to give it to her mother. At least Ava didn’t have to grow up in the suffocating house on Moonstone Street.

  Scarlett had often longed to go back, just to check in and see the little girl but she knew better than to cross Maggie. They had agreed. If Maggie was going to bring her up she didn’t want Scarlett’s interference. Besides, it was too painful to flit in and out. She had been choked up with emotion leaving after her dad’s funeral. The flight back to the States had been agony. She had sobbed uncontrollably as if she had lost them all, not just her father.

  But now, Maggie had gone. Scarlett thought that Ava would have contacted her. Surely, she deserved to go to the funeral and say her goodbyes?

  But she didn’t blame Ava. Of course, she was probably resentful. She most likely felt rejected but Scarlett could explain, tell her how it had been back then, how she had so much to do with her life and that she wasn’t ready to be a mother. Maybe Ava would find it in her heart to understand and let her try again.

  Scarlett appreciated the peace and quiet she had found in making jewellery. Ruby Red Heart was the name of her little company. Funny, really, to even think of it as a business but her friend Adam had helped her set up a website, and she was surprised at the orders coming in from as far away as Rome.

  Her USP, or unique selling point — she had laughed at the business speak — was that the jewellery was made with a specific need in mind. If someone had trouble dealing with emotional imbalance, problems of self-esteem, or lacking in confidence, then Scarlett would select moss agate crystals and make a piece of jewellery with the stones entwined. She had several emails and letters thanking her not just for the beauty of her pieces but for her help in addressing issues troubling the wearer.

  Scarlett sat with her back to the old white-washed fence and looked out to the sea, while she braided the gold wire, and threaded on tiny topaz and crystal stones. She was working on a specially requested bracelet for a lonely woman who had allowed her alcohol dependency to push away all her friends. The woman was seeking companionship. She needed support and warmth. Topaz, the November birthstone, brought friendship and trust, while the amethyst crystals were considered to be a strong antidote to alcohol.

  Scarlett thought of the origins of the stones she was working with, how the Greek word amethystos means “not drunken”, and that amethysts were inlaid in wine goblets used by clergy in ancient times. It was also believed that the amethysts could increase intelligence and dispel evil or negative thoughts. Perfect for a woman trying to recover from alcoholism. As a healing crystal, amethyst could b
e uplifting and help strengthen both the endocrine and immune systems while aiding the pituitary gland and being a powerful blood cleaner and energiser. Scarlett would take time to explain all of this to the wearer when she came to collect her piece of jewellery.

  The stones shimmered and twinkled in the sunlight, throwing prisms of light onto her bare golden-tanned arms. Scarlett breathed in deeply, holding on for a second longer than necessary as if to savour the very air surrounding her. Everything she did these days seemed imbued with longing. She missed this place before she was even gone from it. The truth was that she knew to go back was to give all this up. She could no longer flit. It would be time to stay and face the music, even if she didn’t pick the soundtrack herself. She would have to dance to someone else’s rhythm. But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe she would find comfort in watching her daughter dance through life instead.

  9

  Ava tapped the cost of the wreath into the till. Fifty-two pounds for a guitar made out of flowers, to be laid on a music loving, teenager’s grave.

  His mother had seemed embarrassed when she had come in the day before requesting the arrangement. He loved his guitar, she said, her eyes moist and bloodshot with tears already spent. She agreed to collect it the following day. It would have been his sixteenth birthday. She wanted to buy him a present and this was all she could think of.

  Ava had chosen the textured foliage with purple larkspur and irises with deep pink chrysanthemums to create it. She had listened to the mother recount how her son had loved playing his guitar and never paid much attention to her no matter how often she nagged him to put it down and go and do some studying. Now she wished she had listened to his strumming more intently for the house was so quiet without him.