Finishing Touches (52 page)

Barbara digested this. If
she
were Nora’s guardian, then
she’d
control the purse-strings. It wasn’t such a bad idea at all. Yes indeed. It wasn’t that
she’d fiddle anything, but at least she’d be in charge of the cash, and nobody would be able to fiddle
her.

‘Right, I will then!’ Barbara announced.

‘Over
my
dead body,’ declared John. ‘Barbara, you haven’t lifted a finger to help Mam. Why do you want to be her guardian all of a sudden? The mind
boggles.’

‘You shut up!’ Barbara rounded on her brother. ‘You know very well I have my hands full with Ian, the baby and my job. I’m as concerned about Mam as you are, so
don’t take the high moral tone with me, mister!’

‘Keep your voice down, Barbara. We don’t want to be the talk of the town,’ Cassie ordered.

‘Huh!’ hissed Barbara. ‘It’s all right for you. What commitments do
you
have? You’re terrified you’re going to have to come home and leave your
lovely cushy life. No wonder you’re so anxious to sell the land. That would make life
very
simple for you, wouldn’t it? Well, I think you’re being pretty
selfish!’

‘Barbara, cut that out!’ John gritted.

A red mist exploded before Cassie’s eyes as fury surged through her. She itched to give her sister a good hard slap on the jaw and it was only through iron determination that she managed
to control herself. It really infuriated her that people thought she had ‘no commitments,’ just because she wasn’t married. It was
so
unfair. What was she, a second-class
citizen, with no rights at all?

‘Barbara, one more crack like that from you and you’ll be mighty sorry, believe me,’ Cassie warned.

Barbara got to her feet. ‘I can’t stay here jabbering all afternoon. I’ve got to go to the airport to do an interview for the diary with Maureen O’Hara. I strongly oppose
selling the business. If that’s the best idea you can come up with, it’s pretty pathetic.’

‘You come up with one then!’ John growled. ‘Are you willing to increase your payments to cover the salary for a night-nurse?’

‘Dammit, John! You
know
my situation. You
know
I can’t!’

‘Right then!’ John said decisively. ‘Cassie and I are agreed that we should sell the business. You and Martin disagree. I’m going to telephone Irene. If she agrees
– and she’d bloody well better seeing that she hasn’t even bothered her arse to come home once – that will be a majority of three to two. The business will be sold! And if
you don’t like that, Barbara, that’s just tough. Mam’s going to get the best of care. She doesn’t want to go to a home so she shouldn’t have to, and Cassie
shouldn’t have to make any sacrifices that the rest of us aren’t willing to make as well!’

‘By God, we’ll see about that!’ Barbara muttered furiously. ‘Sell the business, indeed, just because Cassie is too mean to come home and look after Mam!
And who does John think he is, speaking to me like that? Why can’t he and Saint Karen take Mam, if he’s
so
bloody concerned?’ She careered around a corner, her tyres
spitting up gravel, as she drove towards the main Dublin–Belfast road. John would probably persuade Irene to agree to have her mother made a ward of court or have Cassie made guardian so they
could sell the land and glasshouses. It was galling, so galling to be over-ruled. Barbara overtook on a single white line and gave the two fingers when an oncoming driver tooted angrily at her.

I should phone Irene myself, she thought, as she sped towards the airport and her interview with the famous film star.

‘I bloody well
will
ring her!’ she exclaimed in triumph. ‘I’ll call into the office when I’ve finished with Maureen O’Hara and make the call from
there.’ No point in running up my bill at home, she decided, extremely pleased with her brainwave. She’d do it as soon as possible too, to get in before her brother. John and Cassie
needn’t think they were getting away with selling off their heritage and probably lining their own pockets at the same time. Barbara didn’t trust anyone when it came to money. She
smiled to herself. ‘I’ll tell Irene
exactly
what’s going on. Ha! Soon they’ll be selling the home from under her if she’s not careful!’

When she reached the airport, she was still planning what she would say to put the wind up her younger sister.

Martin sat in Kennys pub. John had taken Cassie home but he had decided to go for a pint. He was annoyed at the way the family meeting had gone. Trust Barbara to fly off the
handle and cause friction; she had managed the whole affair very badly, although he had to agree with her, selling Jack’s market-garden was a very drastic step. It was prime land with
well-maintained glasshouses. The neighbouring farmer who leased it from Nora was making a very good living out of it. He had been trying for years to persuade Nora to sell him the farm but Nora had
always refused. It was Jack’s farm and as long as she were alive it would remain Jack’s farm. If only Jean had agreed to come and live with his mother, all this would have been avoided.
Nora would have been looked after, the business would have been there for them when she was gone and that would have been the end of it. He supposed he was being a bit selfish, but Nora had always
said they were to get equal shares in her estate when the time came. If the market-garden were sold in such a bad recession, Martin knew the full value would never be realized and he could see the
money dwindling if his mother lived for a long time, as was quite common with Alzheimer’s victims.

He’d always thought of his share of the estate as his bulwark against hard times. That was why he was able to take the risk of setting up his own business as an electrical contractor. And
Jean had her heart set on this big house in Skerries. Mind, it was a fabulous four-bedroomed detached house with sea views. He’d liked it very much himself and it would be a great place to
bring up children. It was handy enough for work too, because he’d based himself in Port Mahon and he worked all over north County Dublin.

If Irene agreed with the sale of the property, there wasn’t much he could do about it, but if she didn’t, it looked as though Cassie might have to come home. He knew it was tough on
her. The only thing was that if she
did
come home, at least she’d be secure in the knowledge that eventually she’d get her share of the estate. No matter what she said now
about spending it on her mother, she wouldn’t hand her share back when she got it! It was easy for her, with her permanent and pensionable job and her low-interest mortgage, to talk about
selling the business. The same went for John: in a few years’ time he would be established as a market-gardener. He had no mortgage; he had built the house in stages according as he had the
money. They weren’t all as well set-up.

There was no point in asking Jean again about coming to live at home. She told him that if he mentioned it once more he could have his ring back, and she was very sparing with her affection at
the moment. She always used sex to reward or punish and he was getting rightly punished. For such a delicate little thing, Jean could be very stubborn, he reflected, as he ordered another pint. She
didn’t like the smell of beer off his breath, either. Well, tonight she could moan about it; it wasn’t as though he were always drinking. A man was entitled to a pint now and again,
especially after the family hassle this afternoon.

‘Oh my God, Barbara! Selling up the farm and maybe the house!’ Irene couldn’t believe her ears. ‘And it’s up to me? Oh dear! Oh Barbara, what
should I do?’ Irene wailed. Things must be really bad with her mam if all this was going on.

Irene started to cry. She was so lonely for Nora she’d give anything to be able to go home to her mother and feel her arms around her and have her take care of her the way she used to.

‘Come home and look after Mam! Me?’ Irene echoed her sister’s words down the phone. ‘Oh Barbara, I’d be dead scared. Just say she had a heart attack like before. It
was terrible! You don’t know what it was like.’ She listened to Barbara going on and on about how important it was that she say no to John about selling the land, and when her sister
finally got off the phone she felt utterly drained.

It was not a good time for Irene to be thinking about troubles at home; she had enough problems of her own. Her period was ten days late and she was petrified she was pregnant. When she started
her affair with the Senator, he had used condoms, but as time went on he suggested she go on the pill or get the cap. The pill made her fat and sick so she had come off it and had gone to be fitted
for a cap. She didn’t really like using it but Dean much preferred making love without a condom and she wanted to please him in every way. In his arms she felt very safe and protected and he
was kind and generous to her, giving her beautiful gifts of jewels and clothes.

Dean liked to see her looking glamorous. A few weeks before he had bought her a Bob Mackie outfit that cost a fortune, with lots of tassels and sequins and cut-away bits at her boobs and
midriff. Irene thought it made her a bit tarty but Dorothy had said she looked swell and Dean had liked it so much he got very randy and couldn’t keep his hands off her. They had been
attending a party at another senator’s house and Dean took her out to a part of the garden hidden from view of the house and made love to her standing up against a big oak tree. He was so
passionate and excited it was very sexy, and then on the way home in the car he pulled off the freeway and told her she looked so damned sexy in that dress he was so aroused he was going to
explode! He had made frantic love to her in the car! The only thing was . . . they hadn’t taken any precautions, and now, all because of Bob Mackie and his provocative dress, her period was
ten days overdue.

A dozen times she had walked into the drugstore to buy a pregnancy-testing kit and hadn’t had the nerve. She’d bought conditioning creams and shampoos and make-up remover pads,
things she didn’t need at all. But she’d just have to take her courage in her hands.

She wondered what Dean would think. The Senator had one son from his marriage and he was very proud of him. But Irene went into cold sweats thinking about all the pain and discomfort of
pregnancy and childbirth. It seemed like the most awful experience and there was nothing you could do about it. It took control of you, whether you liked it or not. And then, imagine telling them
all at home that she was going to be an unmarried mother. Even Dorothy might not take too kindly to the idea, although she wasn’t a bit put out that Irene and Dean were having an affair. She
was rather pleased, in fact.

She wished Barbara hadn’t phoned. It was all too much to cope with. It had always been a comfort to her to know that some day she would inherit money from her mother’s estate and now
it looked as if there might be nothing to inherit – if Cassie and John had their way.

It was a bit selfish of Cassie, in a way. After all, she
was
the eldest and Nora had always depended on her. And anyway, Cassie was good at nursing and housekeeping, much better than
Irene. She always used to look after Aunt Elsie when she got poorly on her visits to their house. If Irene saw anybody getting sick she nearly got sick herself and once she knew someone was ill she
felt very apprehensive in case they had an attack of some sort.

She
was
doing her bit for Mam. As well as taking care of Dorothy’s baby, she was working a couple of hours a week doing secretarial work for Dean and he paid her a very generous
salary. She sent her money towards Mrs Bishop’s salary home every month religiously. If they wanted to increase the contributions, she could manage that, but she didn’t want them to
sell the farm. There must be some other solution. Selling the business was taking the easy way out, just because none of the others would put themselves out. After all,
she
was thousands
of miles away so she couldn’t do much. But John and Barbara and Martin were all living at home, and Cassie was only a hop, skip and jump away in Liverpool. Surely they could work something
out between them without having to resort to selling off the inheritance.

The more she thought about it the more determined she became to tell John that her answer would be no. Maybe it was just as well that Barbara had phoned to forewarn her; otherwise she might have
been in such a tizzy when John telephoned that she would have allowed him to sway her into agreeing to the sale. Well, her answer would be no and that was that. With a very heavy heart, Irene began
yet another trip to the drugstore to purchase the dreaded test-kit.

‘I don’t know, Cassie. It’s hard to believe that they’re kicking up about selling the farm. Irene wouldn’t agree, either, so it looks like
we’re outnumbered.’

‘It would probably take too long the way things are going,’ Cassie said glumly as she drank the mug of tea her brother handed her. ‘To hell with them all, anyway –
I’ll come home and look after Mam. At least I’ll be able to look myself in the face when she dies!’ She was angry, very angry at the attitude of her siblings. Their selfishness
astounded her. She couldn’t care less if she never got a penny from the estate. It was Nora’s, as far as she was concerned, and should be used to get the best care for their mother.
Obviously the attitude of her two sisters was that Cassie had no real commitments and that she should come home. She was tempted to get on the phone to Irene and give her a piece of her mind. The
nerve of her to oppose selling when she hadn’t even had the decency to come home once. Oh no, far better to act the ostrich in America! Well, that was one thing, but the least she could have
done was agree to the sale of the business. Really, in her own way Irene was as selfish as Barbara.

John stayed for a while and told her he would drop her to the airport at the crack of dawn the next morning for her flight. It would be her last flight east across the Irish Sea. Her next trip
would be her journey home. Nora was wandering around looking for Jack, and Cassie’s heart went out to her. ‘Let’s go for a walk, Mam,’ she suggested and Nora smiled
happily.