‘Sister, you go for it,’ said Cal clicking the digital camera as he photographed the finished job.
‘Besides I was meant to have number ninety-seven. Scarlett had intended for me and Maggie to live there,’ Ava said, smiling widely for the camera despite the fact that her face looked like someone had slashed it with a serrated knife.
‘So how did it end up with the whole Colm and Carey thing?’ Ava asked.
Niamh made a face. ‘Must we talk about my disastrous love life?’ She slicked on a fresh coat of lip gloss.
‘Your disastrous love life keeps me entertained, so humour me and fill me in. I assume you have seen the error of your ways and ended it before anything happened?’
Ava had heard many tales of Niamh’s relationships, many which involved compromising positions and having sex in inappropriate places with equally inappropriate, unavailable men. It was a shame Colm Ferguson was married because he was the first man Ava could remember in a long time that Niamh had fancied below the age of forty. Still, he was married and thus should have been out of bounds, and Niamh should have known better than to allow herself to become involved with him.
‘He showed up the next day and lit on me like I had ruined his life or something. Told me I wasn’t worth losing his family over. You’d have thought I had drugged him and dragged him back to my apartment all three times I shagged the good-for-nothing bastard,’ Niamh said, throwing back the last of her drink.
‘So how do you feel now?’
‘Same as always: like shit,’ she replied looking despondent. ‘Why do I have to fall for the wrong fellas? It’s as if I have a self-destruct button lodged in my heart. I really liked Colm too. I think we could have worked well together.’
‘Oh, Niamh, there’s someone out there for you who isn’t married and doesn’t have children. You just have to stop letting yourself get hurt like this. You shouldn’t allow yourself to be attracted to the wrong type.’
‘Ha, you’re a fine one to talk. Your love life isn’t exactly going well,’ Niamh said, studying Ava’s make-up wounds.
14
‘Shut the shop,’ ordered Hazel as she rushed in looking like she had just had an encounter with the three witches from Macbeth. Ava could see she had parked her silver Mercedes coupé on the pavement outside, despite the fact that it was on a double yellow line.
‘It’s the middle of the day. We can’t just shut up shop and lose customers,’ said Ava, panicked as to why Hazel was looking so demented. She still broke out in a cold sweat every time Hazel looked at her the wrong way for fear she knew about her and Ben.
Hazel went out to the back kitchen where they had a wider counter space to make up larger flower arrangements and flopped down on the old threadbare armchair in the corner. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said staring straight ahead, wide eyed.
‘Hazel come on, you’re worrying me. What’s going on? It can’t be Robert, sure, didn’t you tell me Ben had brought Mickey back for one last night of passion while you were in Sorrento, so you know where that necklace came from and that your Robert wasn’t playing away.’
‘It isn’t Robert. I’ve just been to the doctors to see if I was really going through the change,’ she said, her voice unnaturally high and quivering.
‘Oh God, Hazel, what is it? You’re scaring the life out of me here. Are you all right?’
Hazel looked straight at ahead, her eyes glazed over. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she answered, suddenly quiet and childlike.
Half an hour later, the shop was locked up with a hastily scrawled sign saying, ‘Closed due to family emergency’ stuck on the door and they were settled into their favourite booth in Madison’s. Usually lunches out in Madison’s were reserved for real treats when they had worked flat out over Valentine’s Day or were celebrating a special birthday, but even then, they left the shop in the capable hands of Erin who did the odd bit of part-time work for them when they needed extra help.
Ava was sipping brandy and lemonade while Hazel had a large glass of sparkling water with ice and a slice of lemon to help herself feel as if it were a G and T. They had ordered food, Ava asking for a Caesar salad with potato wedges while Hazel declared she couldn’t eat a bite but ordered salmon with thick cut chips just to keep Ava from feeling lonely.
‘God, the last time I was pregnant they were still giving women Guinness to drink on the wards to help keep their iron levels up. There was a smoking room next to the nursery and they took the babies away at eight every evening and you didn’t see them again until eight the next morning,’ Hazel said sipping her faux G and T.
‘You’re in shock. You just need a bit of time to get used to the idea. It will be like riding a bike. You’ll be fine.’
Hazel shot her a dirty look. ‘That’s easy for you to say. You’ve never had to push a nine-pound baby out your front jacksy.
‘You have to admit it is funny,’ said Ava unable to resist giggling into her brandy glass.
‘Funny, funny! You’re not the one up the duff and nearly old enough to be a granny! There’s nothing funny about it.’
‘Come on now, you’re only just turned forty-eight. Isn’t it great that the pair of you still have it in you,’ Ava said, trying to cajole Hazel into seeing the pregnancy in a more positive light.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my Robert, that’s for sure, and there’s me thinking I was menopausal. The doctor had a wee feel of my tummy, asked when I last had a period and sent me away to do a pee in a wee bottle. Jesus, I didn’t think he would be calling me back to say I was with child.’ She was smiling, her cheeks flushed with a mixture of pride and surprise.
‘There you go. Sure, won’t it be great having another wee Dale running around. It’ll keep you young, so it will,’ Ava said encouragingly.
‘God, the thought of sleepless nights, dirty nappies, teething, and all that carry on, and here’s me and Robert only starting to get used to having our independence and going away for holidays on our own.’
‘But you’ll have the boys to babysit and you’re older and wiser. It’ll be a breeze. To new beginnings.’ Ava raised her glass and clinked it with Hazel’s.
‘New beginnings,’ Hazel said, her eyes moist with happiness in spite of herself. ‘I just hope Robert takes the news better than I did.’
15
Scarlett threw her oversized tapestry holdall into the back of the taxi and told the driver to take her to ninety-seven Mount Pleasant Square, Malone Road, Belfast.
‘You’re not from round here with an accent like that, are you, love?’ he asked as Scarlett reached across to fasten her seatbelt.
‘No but I was born here. I’ve been away for quite a while. Over thirty years since I left and I haven’t been back for nearly twenty-five.’ She was self-conscious of her American accent, the upward inflection at the end of her sentences as if asking a question when making a simple statement. It was like a nervous tic. Maggie would have laughed at that and said it was all put on, in spite of the fact that Scarlett had spent more of her life in the US than in Ireland.
‘You’ll see some changes then. The bad days are long gone, thank God. The buck eejits that were busy blowing each other up twenty years ago spend their days sitting on committees up in Stormont now pushing bits of paper around, hob-nobbing with all the big wigs from across the water. Get invited to the White House every St Patrick’s Day, so they do. No one thinks as to why they can’t stay here and celebrate it in Ireland like with the rest of us.’ He was on a roll, clearly glad to have a captive audience to listen to his take on Northern Irish politics.
‘I bet the city has seen some changes. I hear there has been a lot of economic development — the peace dividend they were calling it in the US press,’ Scarlett said, knowing taxi drivers the world over were the same, they all loved to talk about the state of the nation and how to put it right.
‘Aye yer right there, that there has been. We’ve had a property boom like you won’t believe but it’s all going tits up now. Peopl
e got greedy and are sitting with negative equity on properties they can’t sell or rent out for love nor money. Still, that’s economics for you; highs and lows. Never had enough money myself to get burned in the gold rush, thank God. Something to be said for living hand to mouth. What you don’t have, you can’t lose,’ he philosophised.
Scarlett put her head back on the headrest and shut her eyes, willing the driver to stop chatting. She was exhausted. The flight had been noisy with several young children taking it in turns to squawk or cry, their stressed-out parents doing all they could to settle them. She had tried to sleep on the flight, but every time she drifted off she had weird dreams about sinister black crows trying to peck at her hands. It left her feeling wary and anxious, and she couldn’t shake off the feeling.
Now, she could hardly believe she was here. After all these years, she had done it. But what kind of reception would she get? Scarlett couldn’t imagine being welcomed with open arms. That was way too much to expect. She was sure it would be slow and difficult at first but maybe, just maybe, she would be able to get to know the daughter she had left behind all those years earlier.
She would try to make Ava understand what it was like back then. How Belfast could choke the very life out of you, if you let it. Scarlett hadn’t wanted to end up like Maggie, putting her days in with little more than a routine of cooking and washing up to do with only a TV set to distract her during her sessions with the mountain of ironing. A husband who was waited on hand and foot and never thought to say thanks. That was what she would have ended up with if she had stayed. She knew Johnny would have tried to be different, to give them a better life, but really after a while they would have ended up just like everyone else, small minded and trapped.
Scarlett had needed more. Did that make her a bad person? She thought she would implode in that little house. The humdrum existence threatened to smother her. Big ideas in a wee head were dangerous, her mother used to sagely say, much to Scarlett’s annoyance. The express implication was that Scarlett wasn’t to think beyond the four walls of Moonstone Street. She wasn’t to dream of something different or better.
When she received the letter from her solicitor to say that ninety-seven Mount Pleasant Square had been signed over to Ava, she had felt something shift inside her. An awareness that time was finite. She couldn’t hope that Ava would wait on her forever.
The taxi came to a stop. ‘Here you are, love. That’ll be twenty-two quid.’
Scarlett blinked awake. She must have dozed off. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard, nine thirty-five. Not too late to call unexpected. She fumbled in her big patchwork purse to find the cash to pay him. The taxi man opened the boot of his car and dragged out her holdall.
‘Cheerio now, all the best. Have a good holiday!’ he shouted as if they were old friends after a thirty-five-minute car ride.
She watched him drive away, still bleary eyed and tired, and then turned to look at the house and was shocked to see how run down it seemed. The hedging was so overgrown she had almost walked past the gate. Huge swaths of greenery spilled over onto the footpath. She picked up her holdall and opened the rusty clasp on the iron gate and began the walk up the driveway. It was so overgrown and broken up in places that it felt like she was undertaking a trek in the wilderness.
God, it was a dump. How could the house-proud Maggie have allowed the place to fall into such bad repair? Surely Ava would have been earning enough money to look after it and keep it in some sort of decent state?
By the time Scarlett reached the front door, she realised with a sinking heart that the house was empty. Abandoned.
The crumbling plaster on the bay windows, the peeling paint on the front door, and the cracked and broken terracotta pots on the front steps filled with nothing more than weeds, told her that she would find no one at home. Still, she couldn’t help herself knocking, just in case. She lifted the heavy brass knocker, green and corroded with age, and banged it twice. It echoed in an obviously empty hallway. Throwing her bag over her shoulder she made her way round to the back of the house.
A large yellow skip, partially filled with old bits of wood, broken-up kitchen units and roof tiles sat squat on the driveway to the side of the house.
She came to a tall wooden locked gate but it was rotting away so she had no trouble pushing it open. Behind the gate she found that the garden was a thicket of overgrown shrubs and three-foot-tall weeds. The lawn had long since disappeared under the growth. In the dusky summer night, it looked wild and romantic, like a long forgotten secret garden waiting to be discovered.
Filled with curiosity, she peered into the window of the tall French doors and saw a ladder placed up against the far wall with some tools lying on the floor, a bucket and a trowel along with a half-used bag of plaster. Someone had started to fix up the place.
Scarlett had imagined many scenarios in her head on the flight over. She had visualised seeing Ava, a tall woman, her height a legacy from her father, with long flowing dark hair who would throw her arms open to embrace her long-lost mother. In other daydreams, she had pictured a resentful, surly girl not wanting to be won over by Scarlett’s love for her. She would push her away, admonish her for her neglect. Full of fire and fight, not unlike a young Scarlett, and unwilling to hear her out.
But in all the possible set-ups she had envisaged, finding the house on Mount Pleasant Square derelict and empty had not been one of them.
What was she supposed to do now? It was getting dark, she had some money, but nowhere to go. She didn’t fancy wandering around looking for a taxi and besides it was the eleventh night of July — bonfire night. The city would be full of drunks out celebrating, commemorating the Battle of the Boyne, though most of them didn’t really care about King James and 1690, it was an excuse for tribal politicking and getting roaring drunk and sure if they came across a Catholic to give a kicking to well then it was all part of the cultural proceedings. It wouldn’t be safe even in so called peacetime. Belfast was like any other city, give a thug a few beers and he would happily pick a fight without reason.
Besides, she was so tired. The journey had taken so much out of her. She tired easily these days. Her limitations were not what they used to be… before.
Without worrying about the consequences, she tried the handle of the French door. It was locked. Too bad. She moved on round to the back-kitchen door. It too was locked but she could see that the kitchen window latch was not firmly shut. The frame was practically rotting away. The house had really been left to fall down. It looked like no one had so much as given it a lick of paint in twenty-odd years. She gave the window frame a push but it didn’t budge. She looked around the garden for something to poke the latch with. She found a stick and worked at the narrow gap in the window frame until she managed to lift up the latch, releasing the window and giving herself access. It wasn’t too hard to throw in her bag and climb through, though she couldn’t help feeling wary about going into an old empty house. It looked quite spooky in the gathering dusk. There could be dead bodies or anything lurking inside.
She braced herself and decided to trust her instincts. It was a good house with a sensitive soul which had been neglected for a very long time. It wouldn’t do to make assumptions about bad things happening in it. There could be a million reasons why it was empty and not looked after.
Once inside, Scarlett had a look around. The house had definitely been empty for a long time. It smelt musty and neglected. The kitchen had been ripped out and the old cooker sat in the corner, unconnected, as if waiting to be carried out to the skip. The walls had been stripped of wallpaper so someone had been intending to renovate the place.
There was no fridge or washing machine and most of the walls looked like they needed plastering. There was sink and a cupboard still standing, over by the wall with the window.
She went on through to the living room. She tried the light switch but the electric was off, though she could still see around as it wasn’t quite dark yet. A
n old blanket was spread out on the floor as if the house had been expecting a guest in need of somewhere to rest their head. She could make a bed for the night and then wonder what the hell to do the following day.
Ava had obviously moved on. Perhaps she was like Scarlett after all, a traveller who needed more than Belfast could offer. She could be halfway round the world, experiencing her own adventures.
Scarlett could remember the first day she saw number ninety-seven. She had been so full of herself back then. Thought that she could buy her child a secure happy home which wouldn’t suffocate the life out of her. She had wandered around these rooms with the estate agent, a guy named Pete if she remembered correctly, who kept flirting with her, said he had recognised her immediately and asked if she would give him her autograph and her phone number. She had humoured him in the hope of getting the house off the market. She knew she wanted it and didn’t want to get into a bidding war.
He had given the usual estate agent hard sell. Telling her all about the good schools close by, the parks and the prestigious BT9 postcode. All of it had meant little to Scarlett. She knew of the house. It was on her mother’s cleaning rota. It belonged to a doctor and his family, the McCooleys. Maggie had always gone on about the grandeur of the place and how Mrs McCooley liked things just so. Scarlett had felt there was poetic justice in being able to buy it for her mother, the cleaner now living in the big house, as lady of the manor so to speak.
She could picture Maggie scrubbing the front steps and smugly sweeping up the leaves on the driveway, all the time feeling pride that she owned such a beautiful house. Scarlett knew only too well that Maggie was a humble woman of no pretension. But it would have been satisfying to think that she could have had enjoyed a lifestyle well beyond her normal means.
A Posy of Promises_a heartwarming story about life and love Page 10