Scarlet Feather (30 page)

‘Don’t go, Cathy, you wanted a drink and to be cheered up.’

‘Well I
am
cheered up, very.’ Her eyes were very bright, over-bright. ‘We’ve got a load of great publicity ahead of us and all you have to do is smile.’

‘I’m sorry. I thought it was the two of us.’

I’m not… I’m totally relieved,’ and she was out of the bookshop.

‘Do you think Mother will let us come back here to St Jarlath’s?’ Maud asked Simon hopefully.

‘I don’t think so, do you?’ Simon had no idea.

‘Not really. Her nerves might not be able to take it,’ Maud said.

There was a silence. Eventually Simon spoke. ‘I suppose it will be all right being back at home again. In a way.’

‘Yes.’ Maud was glum.

‘At least we don’t have to change schools again. Neil got that sorted for us,’ Simon said.

‘I suppose we’ll just get ourselves home… I mean,Muttie and Hooves can’t come and collect us any more.’

‘No.’ Simon was very sure on this.

‘It’s a pity Mother’s nerves got better so soon in a way, isn’t it?’ Maud said.

‘And that Father was found,’ said Simon.

They looked at each other guiltily. But it had been said now, and it couldn’t be taken back.

Cathy was around at the premises at dawn the next day.

I’m not here to interfere… just to make coffee and tidy up after you… This is your show,’ she explained.

Tom was overjoyed to see her. ‘God, I’m glad to see you. I’m having awful second thoughts about the fruit and nutty bread.’

‘But everyone loves that,’ Cathy protested.

‘They love it when they’ve paid for it in advance, when it’s in their house and they can’t give it back,’ Tom wailed, ‘but will they love it if they have to pay so much a slice and wonder why if it’s sweet they aren’t buying a slice of gooey gateau instead. I think it was a stupid idea.’

‘It’s in the oven, isn’t it?’ Cathy checked.

‘Yes, but—’

‘I think it’s a great idea… Come on, strong, strong coffee and lots of backbone… Which was Geraldine’s great advice to me when I was a teenager. How’s Marcella?’ He had stopped worrying about the bread now.

‘I proposed again last night. I said to Marcella that if we have to do this idiotic photo shoot let’s make it an engagement celebration, but she won’t hear of it.’

‘Proper order. What an unromantic proposal!’ Cathy said firmly.

‘No, it’s not that at all; she says she won’t marry me until she’s successful, until she believes that I’m getting as good a bargain as she is.’

‘She’s amazingly direct and straightforward, isn’t she,’ Cathy said with admiration.

‘She is the only person I know in the whole world who has never told a lie,’ Tom said.

‘Hey, come on, what about me?’

‘You lie from morning to night, as do I. We
have
to, we tell people their houses are terrific when they’re terrible, we tell them this Chardonnay is better than that depending what price we get it for, we thank the butcher and tell him he’s terrific to chop the meat for us even though he doesn’t do it properly but at least he waves his cleaver at it. We’re telling lies all day.’

There was a ping on the oven timer and the bread came out. It all looked perfect as it went onto the wire trays. Cathy shook Tom’s hand formally. ‘It’s bloody great, Tom, I can’t believe they won’t take it. I
know
we’re into Haywards today, I just know it.’

They delivered the baskets to Shona just before the big meeting. Shona looked so elegant in her dark suit and pale pink blouse, slightly severe but very much in control. You didn’t stay in a senior job at Haywards just by looking pretty.

It smells utterly magical, but you know it’s not down to me. I can only hope for you,’ she said, and she was gone.

They would meet in the cafe at noon to hear the result. They had the time planned down to the last second: they would go to the market to buy the ingredients for James Byrne’s cookery lesson that evening. They would price little breadbaskets in the market too. Just in case they got the Haywards job… They would check on a new laundry, what it would cost to do their tablecloths; they would walk around the new Eastern Delights delicatessen with notebooks at the ready, looking for more ideas. That would certainly fill up all their time until Shona was able to tell them the news.

Shona came running into the cafe, thumbs up in the air. Not only had they bought it as an idea, they had eaten it all at their coffee break. There had been little dishes of butter on the tray as well, to encourage them. They could start next week on a six-week trial period.

‘Can we use our name?’ Tom asked.

‘Yes, but a bit smaller than you wanted… They’d like “baked fresh every day especially for Haywards”, and then your name… But we can put your logo on, of course, and make it whatever size we like.’ Shona was as eager as they were.

Cathy flung her arms around the girl. ‘We’ll never be able to thank you,’ she said, her voice choked.

Then Tom folded Shona in a bear-hug. ‘I swear I’ll make it a success, for your sake as well as ours.’ He was gruff with gratitude.

‘You’ll be responsible for putting two inches onto the hip measurements of Ireland,’ Shona said. ‘You should have seen the way they went at it, and they want double the order of the fruit and nut one.’

‘And they accept the price?’ Tom was beaming all over his face.

‘Yes, they think it’s fair, but don’t be appalled when you see what
they
charge, they didn’t get to be rich by having a small mark-up,’ she apologised.

‘We’d take you out to dinner tonight to thank you properly, but we have a job,’ Cathy said.

‘No need, believe me, I’m the flavour of the month after that feeding frenzy upstairs!’

Tom and Cathy looked at each other in disbelief.

‘Back to the market,’ she said.

‘To buy the breadbaskets,’ Tom said with a great whoop of joy that turned every head in his direction.

James Byrne had explained to them that he wanted three cookery lessons. And that he would need to master a starter, a main course and a dessert at each lesson. Then he could mix and match, and when the time came he could serve whatever he liked best or possibly whatever was easiest. They didn’t ask him what was the time that was going to come. You didn’t ask James Byrne anything personal like that.

It was a big house, back from the road, with a well-kept gravelled space for cars. The house was probably in four large apartments. James Byrne had said to ring the Garden Flat bell. It was a basement with iron bars on the window. Fairly typical of his cautious behaviour. Assume the worst. Be prepared for burglars, clients with laundered money, random tax inspections, people clamping your car, stolen credit cards. James Byrne was someone who did not automatically believe the best of people.

He opened the door to them and smiled his usual grave smile. Dressed formally – no sweater and sloppy corduroys for James Byrne at home. They carried in their bags of ingredients though a dark narrow hall. On the right was a sitting room, on the left a kitchen and straight ahead what must have been a bedroom and bathroom. It was mainly a dark muddy-brown colour, and even with the April sunset peeping through the dark curtains there was nowhere that the light seemed to land on a cheerful corner. The kitchen had various storage cupboards, all of different heights, and an awkward table, an old-fashioned oven, a sink that was impossible to reach and a fridge that took up a great amount of room, and which held a bottle of water, a carton of orange juice, half a litre of milk and a packet of butter. Cathy ached to get it all torn out. A phone call could have had two of JT Feather’s men round in half an hour, then they could order fittings. She and Tom knew places who would deliver and install in a day. But this was not going to happen. This man would live with these hopeless, outdated appliances for ever. How old was he now? About sixty-something. He had never said if he was single, married, divorced or widowed. His flat gave absolutely no sign of any lifestyle. You would not know what chair he sat in in the evening to watch television. Or if he ever did watch it. A small set stood at an inconvenient angle. A low table had a pile of neatly stacked newspapers and magazines on it. Were they waiting to be read, waiting to have things clipped from them, or just pausing before going to a waste-paper bank? Pictures on the walls were of mountains and lakes. Dull prints, no life in any of them. Old, inexpensive frames. Just two shelves of old books. They looked pretty undisturbed. A desk with some papers on it and an old-fashioned blotter, although nobody had written with ink for years. A plastic mug held all James Byrne’s ballpoint pens. Cathy saw that Tom was looking around him, probably making similar judgements. She shook herself.

‘Right. The lesson starts here, James: put on your pinny.’

‘I don’t think I have one…’ he began.

‘I didn’t think so either, so I brought you one of ours!’

Triumphantly she produced a Scarlet Feather apron with its big red logo around the edge. He seemed bashful as he tied its strings around his waist.

‘That was very nice of her, wasn’t it, Tom?’ he said. ‘Trust a woman to have a nice little touch.’

‘Not a bit of it, James; don’t ever let the females think they have a monopoly on little touches. Look what I brought you, a great big oven glove so that you won’t burn your arm to a crisp like some people I know.’

He was very pleased with this and tried it on, flexing his arm up and down. ‘Looks as if it’s all going to be much more intensive, not to say more dangerous, than I thought,’ he said.

The conversation sounded so normal. Why did they feel they couldn’t ask him why he was paying them all this money to learn how to make a meal? Who was he going to serve it to and why? But they knew that this was not a question that could be asked, nor would be answered.

They did a smoked mackerel starter in little ramekins. Cathy flaked the fish expertly and added the thinly sliced mushrooms and cream.

‘The cheese for the top is nicer if freshly grated,’ she said, ‘but you could use a shake from the packet of Parmesan.’

James Byrne looked doubtful.

‘I always use the packet myself for small things like this,’ Tom lied.

‘Oh, you do?’ Cathy said, laughing.

‘Indeed I do. Saves you that little bit of time just when you need it, I always say.’

‘It seems a very easy thing to make.’ James Byrne was suspicious.

‘It tastes as if it were very difficult to make, I assure you.’ Cathy patted him down.

‘I’ve had it in restaurants, and you know I thought there was an awful lot of cooking in it, and now it’s only tearing up a cold smoked fish and pouring cream on it.’ He shook his head in wonder.

‘Wait till we deconstruct chicken tarragon for you, James,’ Tom laughed. ‘You’ll never trust a cook again.’

They sat and ate together, the three of them. Cathy had written out everything step by step. James said it was all quite delicious, and what’s more, he thought he could do it on his own. They talked easily about the theatre, how Cathy and Tom had once seen every play that was on every stage in Dublin, and now they never made time to go at all.

‘Do you go to the theatre much?’ Cathy asked.

It turned out that James did, almost every week. Why did neither of them feel able to ask if he went with a group of friends or on his own or with a companion? They touched on a lot of subjects: politics, prisons, drugs and eventually opera. James said he used to go a lot to the opera when he was a student, but somehow since then… His voice trailed away. Neither of them asked why he couldn’t go now. Or indeed, in the years in between.

‘Do you listen to it here at home?’ Cathy indicated the rather old-fashioned music centre.

‘No, not for a long while. You have to be in the mood to set it all up.’

‘No, James, of course you don’t, you just put it on… it creates its own mood. I put it on doing the washing-up if I’m alone. Let’s put on something when we’re doing the washing-up here tonight.’

‘No, please, I don’t have anything suitable,’ he said a little anxiously.

She drew back. ‘Sure,’ she said easily.

She had seen tapes of operas piled high in his sitting room, but he obviously didn’t want to play them.

‘Come on then, let’s do the washing-up without an aria.’

‘No, no, you must not feel…’ he began.

‘Rule one.
Never
refuse an offer of washing-up. Right, Tom?’

‘Absolutely, and be quite sure to let your guest help do the washing-up if she offers,’ Tom added.

‘Why do you think it’s a she?’ James asked.

‘Because a mere man wouldn’t care what he was being offered if he came round to dinner, and probably wouldn’t notice. Believe me, I’ve cooked for them, I know,’ said Tom, cursing himself for being so tactless.

Cathy looked at him admiringly. ‘Too true,’ she said. ‘No, James, the first thing is to have a dish of hot soapy water to stick the cutlery into after each course, and a place to scrape away the leavings. Then it will take two minutes.’

‘I don’t have a dishwasher, you know,’ he said anxiously, in case there had been any misunderstanding.

Cathy looked around the kitchen that had no electric beater, liquidiser or proper chopping board. Of course the man wouldn’t have a dishwasher. ‘No need for one, hands are just as good. Take us five minutes at the outside, what do you say, Tom?’

‘Six if we do it thoroughly,’ Tom said, starting on the frying pan.

Joe rang at the door of Fatima. He carried a bottle of sweet sherry and a tin of fancy biscuits. He could hear his mother grumbling as she came to the door. ‘It’s all right, JT, I’m going to get it, whoever it is at this time of night.’ It was seven o’clock on an April evening, hardly the middle of the night. He must not allow himself to become annoyed.

‘How are you, Ma?’ he said with false good humour.

His mother looked him up and down. She looked old and tired now, not like she had in January when he had seen her briefly at Tom and Cathy’s launch party. Then she had worn a green tweed suit and a white blouse with a green cameo brooch at the neck. Tonight she wore a faded pinafore and shabby slippers. Her hair was flat, grey and limp. When he saw what women her age could do with themselves, Joe’s heart felt heavy. Maura Feather must be fifty-eight at the very most. She looked as if she were well over seventy.