Scarlet Feather (58 page)

‘And then in a few days I knew what I had to do, I had to get out, you didn’t want me… I thought, so I couldn’t go back to you, I had to make my own way and maybe I could do it through school. So I began the life that I still lead, the life of a workaholic. My sisters were dossers, they did nothing except tell me I was full of airs and graces and I didn’t like the milk carton on the table. “She wants a milk jug,” they used to mock me. But I had great teachers. I told one, a Mrs Ryan, that things were bad at home, she was so nice. She said that things are always bad at home, that is the way the world runs, so I thought she had a lousy time too. It was only years later I learned that she had a great life. She taught me to type in lunch hours, and used to let me use the school machine to practise on. And there were others, too; it was a tough city school, so they loved someone who was making an effort to do something rather than shoplift or get pregnant at sixteen.’

‘And when you left?’

‘Ah, but before that I had to fight to stay and finish. They wanted me to work in the factory. I refused. I was sixteen. I wanted to get my Leaving Cert, and a life. My mother was using again, I didn’t care any more. All I needed was somewhere to work, and I had my own room because the others left. I used to take a small amount of the welfare money every week, and tried to make an evening meal every night, potatoes, lentils, and you could get cheap, squashy tomatoes. Sometimes she was able to take a mug of soup, but mainly she didn’t bother. And I’d love to have gone to university. I had enough points and everything, but the only way that I could get out of there was to get a job, so I went to work the day I finished my exams.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I moved out of home and worked in a travel agency as a junior. I learned everything I could in six months. I got a proper job in another travel agency. I got two holidays, one in Italy, one in Spain. The only holidays I ever had in my whole life. I’ve been to London on work a few times, but I never had another holiday. I remember the excitement of getting a passport. Then I worked in a dress shop, then a hotel and by the time the job came up at Haywards I was ready for it.’

‘And your… mother?’

‘I went to see her every week… You see, you did teach me manners after all. And how to behave. Sometimes she was so stoned she hardly knew who I was; other times she was depressed. I used to take her soup, some weeks she drank it, others I used to find it with mould on it. I wasn’t the only martyr, my sisters went in too. We didn’t fight, ever. They just sneered at me. Lady Muck, they called me in those early days. I said nothing; as time passed they got indifferent to me, as I to them. Now it’s like meeting strangers. At the funeral I looked at them and I realised I knew nothing about them at all, or they about me.’

James took out a paper tissue and wiped his eyes.

‘You finally realised you don’t have to wash hankies. Mum and I used to say that you were the last of the folded-linen variety…’

She stopped suddenly. She realised that she had called his dead wife Mum after all these years. She held out her hand at the same time as he did.

‘What a waste,’ he said.

‘Of so many lives,’ she agreed.

‘We must make very sure it doesn’t happen any more, Shona.’

I’m more grateful than I can say that you got in touch,’ she said.

‘Well. I learned how to cook three dinners; you’ve only had one, there are still two to go,’ he said, wondering had he gone too far.

‘Saturday?’ Shona suggested. ‘I don’t know when I last had something to look forward to on a Saturday night.’

‘I’m going back to work tomorrow’ Cathy said. She sat in her dressing gown at the kitchen table in Waterview.

‘No, it’s too soon.’

‘But they said when I felt well, and I feel well now.’

‘No, it’s too dangerous… You’re not fully better.’

‘I’ve lost all I can lose. There are no bits of the baby left in there to lose any more.’

He winced at the phrase, the image. But she didn’t mind. She wasn’t going to pretend that this child had not existed.

‘I still think you’re not fully better,’ he protested.

‘I’m not fully better in my mind because I’m upset, but my body is fine and it needs to get back to working rather than sitting here all day on my own.’

‘I’ll be home early,’ he promised.

‘No, it’s not that.’

‘I know it’s possibly not the right thing to say but there many ways—’

‘Then don’t say it.’

‘You don’t know what I’m going to say.’

‘I do, and please don’t say it,’ she begged.

He laughed at her. ‘You wouldn’t get away with that kind of argument in court,’ he said.

‘We’re not
in
court.’

‘Please let me finish. I only wanted to say that in many ways all this sad business has shaken us up, made us have a proper look at ourselves and realise where we are going.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I will never assume again that you are willing to drop everything and follow me wherever
my
career takes me. Now that’s all I was going to say. Is it all right?’ He looked at her expectantly, waiting for a response.

‘It’s fine.’

‘So after all you
didn’t
know what I was going to say.’ Again looking for the warm answer.

‘Not precisely, no.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I thought when you began you’d say it’s all for the best, but you didn’t, not in so many words.’

‘I didn’t say anything at all like that, and if you remember I called it a sad business. Where did I say it was all for the best?’

‘But that’s what you think, Neil,’ she said sadly.

‘So first I’m on trial for what I’m going to say and then when I don’t say it, I’m on trial for what you believe I think.’ He looked wounded.

‘I’m sorry, Neil, when you put it like that, it sounds very harsh. I didn’t mean to be that.

‘And neither do I mean to be insensitive. Rest more,’ he said from the door.

Cathy wished things could get back to normal, but there seemed to be no way that she and Neil could talk about what had happened without her wanting to scream and rail. His cool, logical, lawyer’s way of approaching it was driving her mad. She wanted them both to cry over the dead baby, to admit that it was a tragedy. But there was Neil going out purposefully to deal with other people’s misfortunes, not realising that the biggest one was in his own home. If he could only give a tenth of that care and concern to the fact that they had lost a child, then it would be fine.

She mustn’t sit around here indefinitely going over the same thing again and again. The only place things might be normal was back at work. She wouldn’t even wait until tomorrow, she’d go today.

They were delighted to see her back, and made a great fuss. Nobody said anything about it all being for the best, they said how much they missed her and how hard they had worked.

‘So what’s new?’

‘A couple aged about a hundred who want to get married next month and can’t find a venue to suit them,’ June said, taking out a file.

‘How old are they really?’

‘Ancient,’ June said.

‘Well, we can’t all be seventeen-year-old brides,’ Cathy laughed.

‘Probably wiser not to be,’ June sighed.

‘How about the church hall?’ Cathy asked.

‘Too big for them, they don’t know how many people they’re going to invite. Fifty maybe; but they think it might only be about twenty-four.’

‘They’re not very flush with friends, are they?’ Cathy asked.

‘They were the nicest couple I ever met,’ Tom said simply. ‘They’re coming in today, you’ll love them.’

Tom was right. Stella O’Brien and Sean Clery were indeed the nicest people you could meet. Aged in their mid-fifties, they had met a year ago at a beginners’ bridge class. They were both still utterly hopeless at bridge, but devoted to each other. There was a problem.

‘Isn’t there always a problem about a wedding,’ Cathy said sympathetically.

This one centred around Sean’s three children and Stella’s two children. People who did not look forward to the nuptials. Stella’s son and daughter assumed their mother would remain a widow, look after her grandchildren when they came along and leave them her house. Sean’s three daughters had assumed that their father would remain a widower and would eventually move out of his house which could be sold and the money divided between the girls. They would move him from one of their homes to the other, none of them having him for more than four months a year. The couple didn’t
tell
all this to Cathy, of course, it just emerged in the conversation. She nodded and listened and accepted what kind of places wouldn’t do and why.

‘This must seem very odd to you, Miss Scarlet. I mean, all you young people must live a normal, uncomplicated life where everything works like clockwork,’ Stella apologised.

‘Absolutely not, I didn’t know on the morning of my wedding day if anyone except five friends and my aunt would turn up.’ ‘Tell us more than that did,’ Sean begged. ‘Yes, my mother and father came, and the few relations I had who didn’t emigrate. Most of Neil’s didn’t, apart from his mother and father who were like two icebergs, but the friends made up for it. I look back on it and I think it was a fine day. You will too. Tell me where would you really
like
to have it, and we’ll see if we can work out something around that.’

‘Do you know Holly’s hotel in Wicklow?’ Stella began. ‘Yes indeed,’ Cathy said. It was where she had told Neil about the baby. What a long, long time ago that seemed now. ‘They don’t do weddings there, sadly, we did ask, but would you know somewhere a bit like that?’ Cathy looked at Stella O’Brien, who had put a deposit on a dress at Haywards and who was so happy for the world to share her pleasure in meeting Sean Clery over a green-baize table. She looked at Sean Clery, who had bought her a gold ring with a Celtic design, and kept lifting her hand to admire it.

‘I’ll find you something like that hotel,’ she promised.

‘You are a very kind girl,’ they assured her.

Cathy, who had shaken her head twice at the suggestion that she might talk to Maud and Simon on the phone, knew this wasn’t true. A kind person would have spoken to those two children, but she really couldn’t face them. Yet. She still felt a bit jittery, and wondered had she in fact come back to work too early.

‘Anyone need the van for a couple of hours?’ she asked.

She knew Tom’s face so well, she could read on it that he was worried if she was fit to drive… But if he thought it, he didn’t show it.

‘Sure…’ he said, and threw her the keys.

Cathy drove south to Wicklow. A beautiful autumn day, it was wonderful to get out of the city. She looked at the tape selection to see what was on offer. Pop groups she had never heard of, some Irish traditional music, a country and western tape and favourite arias. She put on the last one, and turned up the volume to lose herself and sang along to Pavarotti’s swelling voice. The music made her sad. She thought again of the child who hadn’t made it to getting born and the tears poured down her cheeks. Would she ever stop weeping? She sang louder to try and stop crying. At traffic lights, a man in the next car smiled at her.

‘What are you singing?’ he asked, looking at her admiringly.

‘
Nessun dorma
... None shall sleep,’ she said. ‘Possibly too true in terms of my singing.’

‘You’re lovely,’ he said. ‘Fancy a drink in Ashford?’

‘No thanks, but you are sweet to ask,’ she said.

She felt fifteen years younger, like a kid out of school. She drove on to Holly’s hotel.

‘I can’t do it, Ms .Scarlet, we don’t have the resources,’ Miss Holly said.

‘They’re the nicest people you ever met. You and I have to deal with such awful people in our work.’

‘I know, Ms Scarlet, but I have three waitresses who are as old as myself, we can’t take on weddings.’

‘Let me do it, Miss Holly. We’ll rent the place from you, we’ll be in and out, you won’t know we were ever here.’

‘Are they family, or are they blackmailing you?’

‘I never met them until this morning, but to tell you the truth I’ve not been well. I had a miscarriage, and in fact today’s my first day back at work and I’m feeling a bit vulnerable. They were so bloody nice, and they said they wanted a place as like this as possible… And you know I love it here, so I know what they mean.’ She was afraid her voice sounded a bit choked.

‘And you do like it here, you and your husband?’

‘We love it, it’s our great treat, it’s a place that works magic for us.’

‘It didn’t last time,’ Miss Holly said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Last time you and your husband were talking about the baby at dinner. Betty, one of the waitresses told me.’

‘Yes, that’s true, but we haven’t actually told anyone else…’

‘And neither have we. I’ll let you have the place for the meal, Ms Scarlet.’

‘You’ll never regret it, Miss Holly.’

‘Now all we have to do is think of the food for Stella and Sean,’ Cathy said when she was back at the premises.

‘What do you mean? We have to get a venue first, and it’s so hard, given all the limitations.’

‘Oh, that’s all organised,’ Cathy said, her eyes dancing.

‘No, come on, I know you’re superwoman, but we’ve been three days trying places… Nowhere suits.’

‘Miss Holly said yes.’

‘You drove down there today?’

‘Yup,’ said Cathy.

‘I thought we could manage without her, Tom, but it turns out I was wrong,’ said June.

‘Are you going on a honeymoon?’ Cathy asked Stella O’Brien.

‘We hadn’t thought of it. The wedding itself is such a big thing. Once we have that sorted…’

‘I’ve sorted it all out, Stella. Miss Holly will let us do it in her place, so why don’t you book in there for a honeymoon of three or four nights?’

‘It’s so peaceful, such a happy place to stay.’ Stella O’Brien had tears in her eyes. ‘It was a lucky day that we phoned your company,’ she said.

‘How
did
you hear of us, actually?’ Cathy always liked to know.

‘Last Easter I won a raffle at the school where I work, and the prize was to have a manicure at Haywards, and this very pretty girl said that her fiance ran a catering company and gave me your card… So when Sean and I decided to get married… there you were in our address book. I’d really like to thank her.’