Finishing Touches (31 page)

Unwilling to let her mother know that anything was wrong, Cassie didn’t go home for two weeks and when she finally did go home and her mother asked where her ring was, she fibbed that she
was getting it tightened.

She was so shattered that she found herself making silly mistakes at the bank, and in desperation she took a couple of days off work. Laura’s words kept coming back to her, chasing around
her brain until she felt as if she were going to go crazy. ‘The pattern of your life from now on.’ Was her best friend right? Would it always be like this? She’d have to tell them
at home. That would be Christmas ruined for Nora, who was delighted that at last her eldest daughter was going to marry and settle down. Imagine breaking off your engagement after only a couple of
weeks! What would they say at work? She couldn’t hide it forever. People were expecting her and Robbie to go to all the functions organized by the social club for Christmas.

Cassie got home from work one evening to see Robbie’s car parked outside the flat. He was sitting waiting for her.

‘Let me alone, Robbie, I don’t want to talk to you. It’s over between us. I just want to get on with my life,’ Cassie said wearily as Robbie walked up the path beside
her.

‘I joined AA,’ Robbie said quietly.

Cassie stopped in her tracks. ‘You did what!’

‘I joined Alcoholics Anonymous. I love you, Cassie. I can’t bear to lose you and if this is what it takes I’m willing to give it a try. Please, Cassie, just give me one more
chance and I promise I’ll try to stay off the booze.’

Cassie flung herself into his arms. ‘Oh Robbie, Robbie, I’m so glad. I love you. I’ll help you beat this thing. Oh this is the happiest day of my life. I’ve been so
lonely without you.’

‘Me too,’ whispered Robbie, hugging her close, blinking away the tears from his eyes.

Incredibly relieved that he had at last taken this big step, Cassie felt her old sense of optimism resurface. This time it was going to work out, she just knew it.

Eight months later, with Robbie still on the wagon, she was asked whether she would be interested in transferring to London. She would be working in a most up-to-date
computerized services department that had just been established, a job for which her superiors thought she was well suited. Cassie was flattered and excited by the offer but she was reluctant to
accept the transfer. If she weren’t there with Robbie to encourage him to attend his meetings, would he fall off the wagon? If she weren’t there to go out with him would he fall back on
his old drinking buddies for companionship?

‘You can’t use that as a reason not to take the job,’ an Al-Anon counsellor told her. ‘Robbie has to stay on the programme because he wants to. Because he acknowledges
that he’s an alcoholic. Whether you are here or not should make no difference. You cannot allow yourself to be used as a crutch, Cassie. You will do your relationship with Robbie a great deal
of harm if you do not let him take responsibility for his own drinking. By refusing the job in London you would be denying him that responsibility.’

Cassie knew her counsellor spoke the truth but she spent a few troubled days wondering whether to go or stay. In the end it was Robbie who persuaded her to accept the transfer, telling her that
it was a great opportunity and that he could always look for a transfer himself in the future. ‘The money’s good, Cassie, and you’ll get a lump sum for disturbance money that we
could put towards the wedding. Besides, it’s an opportunity of a lifetime. They don’t offer jobs like this to everyone. Believe me, Cassie, they’re grooming you for a managership.
You know Allied Isles’ position on equality, it’s second to none. You’ll be able to continue studying for your banking exams over in London. You’ll have a year done here by
then.’ Cassie was at that time taking night classes run by the bank for employees who wanted to take exams. What her fiancé said made good sense, and Cassie told her employers
she’d be very happy to transfer to London in January of the following year.

‘You’re being transferred to London!’ Nora repeated, shocked by the news her daughter had just imparted. Cassie nodded, smiling.

‘It’s a great opportunity, Mam. It’s very good experience and they must think I’m capable of it. London’s a much sought-after transfer.’

‘When will you be going?’

‘I’ll be starting in January. It’s a nice time to start. Not only is it the beginning of a new year, it’s the beginning of a new decade. Roll on the Eighties.’

‘Oh dear!’ Nora sat down wearily in the armchair that Jack used to sit in to read his paper.

‘Aren’t you a little bit glad for me?’ Cassie asked lightly, although she had been dreading telling her mother the news.

Nora sighed. ‘I’ll miss you, Cassie. It was bad enough when you went to stay in the flat in Dublin. But going over there! When will I ever get to see you?’

‘I’ll come home for my holidays,’ Cassie assured her.

‘I’ve heard that before, and then you go off gadding about with that other pair,’ Nora sniffed.

Cassie felt her good humour evaporate. Honest to God, Nora was never satisfied. She came home at least once a week to stay overnight and for the past couple of years since she had got her own
car she often came back to Port Mahon twice during the week. She always spent part of her holidays at home, helping to decorate or whatever else her mother wanted, and still Nora begrudged her the
foreign holidays she had taken with the girls. She sighed deeply. She was twenty-four years old, a senior bank official now, she’d been living away from home and fending for herself for the
past six years, and
still
her mother could make her feel like a sixteen-year-old and guilty as hell.

‘We won’t be going on holidays this year, and anyway, now that Laura is getting married, she won’t be coming with us any more.’ It was hard to believe that Laura of all
people was getting married. She was the first of the trio to go and in the process she had amazed everybody, not least herself.

‘Very sudden, this marriage,’ Nora remarked tartly. ‘There’s no urgent reason for it, is there?’

‘Mam!’ Cassie exclaimed in annoyance. No doubt half the parish were thinking the same thing.

‘Well, you have to admit it was very sudden,’ Nora retorted. ‘And besides, look at that sister of hers who’s an unmarried mother! Sure, Laura was hardly engaged at all! I
mean, after all, you’ve been going with Robbie for years, you’re engaged this past ten months and you still haven’t set a date for your wedding.’

Cassie smiled to herself. So that was it! Of course, she should have known that Nora was very miffed at the thought of Laura getting married before Cassie. To Nora, as to many of her generation,
marriage was the be-all and end-all of a girl’s life. To be an unwed woman was a disaster of gigantic proportions. Wanting to be a career woman was totally incomprehensible.

‘Mam, Robbie and I won’t be getting married for at least another year,’ Cassie retorted firmly. ‘I told you that before.’

‘Well, what does he think about this London thing?’

Cassie grimaced. ‘Well, naturally, we’re going to miss each other and he’s not too pleased about that, but from a career point of view he thinks it’s terrific. He might
look for a transfer, too.’

‘You’re not going to live there
permanently
?’ Nora exclaimed in horror.

‘Mother, I don’t know what we’re going to do yet. If Robbie gets a transfer, we might get married sooner than we thought. It all depends. He’s not going to apply until
the project he’s working on is finished.’ Cassie tried to keep the edge of irritation out of her voice.

‘Don’t do a rushed job on me, Cassie, I’ll want plenty of time to prepare for your wedding. The cake will have to be made and I’ll have to paper the sitting-room and do a
job on the bathroom, and I still have to put the finishing touches to the front porch.’

Cassie shook her head ruefully. First her mother was moaning because Laura was getting married before her; now she was telling her to give her plenty of notice. You just couldn’t win! What
she still had to do in the front porch, Cassie could not fathom; it looked perfectly fine to her. But she wouldn’t be Nora if she weren’t putting the finishing touches to something or
other.

‘Why didn’t Barbara come home with you?’ her mother enquired, poking the fire and sending a shower of sparks up the chimney as she threw on another log.

‘Because she was working on a story,’ Cassie fibbed. She didn’t want to hurt her mother’s feelings by saying that Barbara preferred to stay in the flat in Dublin rather
than visit her mother in Port Mahon. There were times when Cassie could murder Barbara for her thoughtlessness. Now that they were living together again there were times that she could just murder
Barbara anyway.

‘Switch on the TV, Cassie, it’s time for the news. Thank God the
Late Late
will be back soon. Saturday night isn’t the same without it.’

Cassie did as she was bid. The news was full of the Pope’s forthcoming visit to Ireland and Nora watched it eagerly. Cassie had promised to accompany her to the big Mass in the Phoenix
Park and her mother was greatly looking forward to the event. Both Irene and Barbara had made excuses not to bring Nora to the Mass. Irene had told Cassie that there was no way she could cope with
a crowd of a million people, she just wasn’t good in crowds. Barbara, who was now working as a journalist, was ‘on duty,’ as she called it, writing a report for the
North
County Dublin Chronicle
, the newspaper where she had made her debut as a junior reporter after leaving school. Although she no longer worked on the paper, having graduated to a third-rate
daily called
The Irish Mail
, the
Chronicle
often published her articles when they were stuck. She wouldn’t possibly be able to go with her mother, Barbara assured Cassie.
She would be with the press corps doing in-depth reporting.

Cassie knew full well that she would be quaffing champagne at the latest ‘in’ spot with Noreen Varling, her ex-editor from the
Chronicle.
Noreen liked to think that she was
a force to be reckoned with in journalism. She liked to see and be seen and champagne was all she drank. Barbara had always been mightily impressed by her, from the first moment she had gone to
work as her secretary after leaving school. On one occasion, when a reporter who was supposed to be covering a big ploughing championship had called in sick, Noreen was so stuck that she had to
send Barbara instead. Her efforts had pleased the editor and thus began Barbara’s journalistic career. Now, Barbara was also drinking champagne, thrilled to be part of the very exciting and
glamorous Dublin scene that Noreen was introducing her to.

Cassie thought how typical it was that once again it was left to her to make the arrangements and look after their mother. It wasn’t that she minded that much, but she just thought the
other pair could make more of an effort. After all, Nora was now getting on in years and she deserved a little bit of consideration.

Cassie got up and went out to the kitchen to make a cup of tea for her mother before the film started. She didn’t normally come home on Saturday nights. They were usually spent with
Robbie, but he had been in Belfast for the last two weeks on an assignment in one of their Northern branches and so she had come home, much to Nora’s delight. She filled the kettle and took
some of her mother’s home-made scones out of the pantry, and liberally spread them with butter and jam. She was just as glad to be away from the flat anyway, she mused, licking the knife. No
doubt Barbara and Ian, her sister’s latest boyfriend, would be getting ready to go out on the town. Cassie could feel her blood-pressure rising. Ian got on her nerves. You would think he
owned the flat the way he carried on in it. There had been more rows about that. In a way, her transfer to London couldn’t have come at a more opportune time because she couldn’t live
with Barbara for much longer. It certainly wasn’t like the old days of living with the girls.

Cassie sighed. It had been such fun living with Laura and Aileen but it couldn’t last for ever. Laura had been awarded a first-class honours degree, got the apprenticeship she longed for
and met her future husband, all within the space of one year. After six months, Laura had gone to live with Doug Donnelly, her hunky boyfriend, and Aileen’s sister, Judy, had come up to
Dublin to work as a car hire rep in Dublin airport. Laura’s sister, Jill, who used to work there before she had the baby, had put in a good word for her. Judy had moved into the flat and it
was an arrangement that worked out fine. Cassie liked Judy. She was as bubbly as Aileen but much less self-confident, due no doubt to having spent so much time under the influence of a mother as
domineering as Angela O’Shaughnessy.

Then Aileen, utterly fed up with the Corporation and depressed because of the hopelessness of her love affair with Liam, decided that she was going to be a beautician and chucked in her good,
permanent and pensionable job to do a beauty therapy course, much to her mother’s fury. It had taken her a year to qualify and when she received her diplomas, she went to London because there
were more openings there than in Dublin. Aileen was now doing very well. She had secured a post as beautician in a plush Mayfair salon and she was delighted to hear of Cassie’s transfer to
London. ‘We’ll have a ball when you come over. London’s great!’ she told Cassie. It was nice to hear the old enthusiasm in her voice again. Aileen had gone through a very
rough patch as a result of her affair with Liam. She planned to come home for Laura’s wedding the following month and the three of them were going to get together and have a fine old time
catching up on the news.

It was great for Cassie to see her two best friends doing as well in their careers as she was doing herself, but she missed their company in the flat.

Telling Nora that she was going to work in London was the difficult part. Cassie knew her mother wouldn’t like the idea but between now and the New Year she’d have time to get used
to it. Watching her, engrossed in the Saturday movie, she could see that her mother was ageing. Her thick, wavy chestnut hair was liberally sprinkled with grey and the lines around her eyes and
mouth had deepened considerably. However, her skin, with its faint rosy hue, was still as soft as a baby’s. Nora still went to her ladies’ club, was still active in the community and
looked after Martin and Irene, the only two of her offspring still living at home. These interests would always sustain her, Cassie comforted herself, as she stretched lazily in front of the fire.
It was nice being at home all the same. It was true what they said – there was no place like it. She decided she’d have a nice walk along the beach the next day.