The Ballroom on Magnolia Street (31 page)

Louise Lowry was acting strangely, too. She had actually come up to Kate in the street a few days earlier, and told her they could be friends. No mention of all that business about the glass eye and the mint imperials. Bygones will be bygones, she’d said. Alex and herself were getting on like a house on fire, she’d said. Alex was a hot lover. Red hot. With the stamina and the physique of a young bull. So, no harm done on that score. Congratulations on the wedding, too. Kevin McGovern was a great fella, even if he did make his money selling drugs in Carryduff. Drugs? Drugs! What was she talking about? Kevin hadn’t said anything about drugs. He didn’t even smoke cigarettes. (Kate had a thing for bad boys, but not this bad. This was really bad.)

‘You’ve got it all wrong, Louise,’ Kate had cried. ‘You must be thinking of someone else with a similar name. Gosh, haven’t you got big hands, by the way!’

‘Well, why would he mention it to you?’ Louise had fired right back at her, shoving her hands into her pockets. ‘It’s not the kind of thing he’d want to brag about. Sure, you’ve only been going out with him two minutes. How does he know he can trust you? Oh, he’s known as the
Bungalow Baron
out that direction, don’t you know? All his clients are homeowners, you see. Very discreet operation, he runs.’

‘You’re a liar, Louise Lowry. Why wasn’t he ever arrested, then? Answer me that! If this is common knowledge, why wasn’t he lifted?’

‘Sure, the half of the cops over there are smoking joints for breakfast. They’ve nothing else to do. It’s all owner-occupied in Carryduff. No housing estates full of thieving little beggars on the
Saintfield
Road!’

Kate didn’t believe her, of course. Stupid big bitch was just trying to upset her. But the doubts were still there. How had Kevin made so much money from the garage anyway? And it
was
a little annoying that Alex was very passionate in bed with Louise Lowry, when he had proved such a terrible disappointment to Kate herself. It was quite damaging to the ego. Maybe Alex only got turned on by a common sort of girl? Some men were like that. Nice girls made them feel inadequate. Maybe Louise knew some bedroom tricks that Kate didn’t know? Maybe Kate was just tired out from three months of intensive shopping. She lay down on her white lace quilt and fell into a deep sleep.

All sorts of things were rampaging through Kate’s tortured mind as the hands of the clock crawled round to nine o’clock. Standing Stone and Louise Lowry, making love frantically on a broken bed full of Jelly Wellies and Fizzy Lizzies; a young red-faced priest staring down Kate’s thrusting cleavage and completely forgetting the words to the ceremony; the Bungalow Baron of Carryduff in his gold jacket, slipping joints and pills to the locals at the golf club; Shirley’s unborn baby who was the one person responsible for this whole ridiculous circus; and worst of all, the future children that Kevin wanted so much. Kate could picture them quite vividly. Screaming and fighting, and destroying the pristine white furniture with their sticky little hands. Would Kate get a nanny, so she could still run the garage? Or would that be even worse than minding the children herself? Would the nanny be rough with the children behind Kate’s back? Would Kevin fancy the nanny, when Kate’s lovely body was ruined with red and purple stretch marks? Would Kate even care if he did? If Kevin started an affair with the nanny, it would give Kate a bit of time to herself. Some blessed time away from poor old Kevin who was absolutely sex mad. Kate’s breathing began to speed up. She woke up and opened her eyes wide. Her lovely chandelier was hanging just five feet above her face. She’d miss seeing it every morning. She was clutching her pillow and her back was soaked with sweat.

She had turned into Shirley, for pity’s sake, wondering and questioning and philosophizing about everything. Bloody hell! In a rare moment of clarity, Kate realized that she had not taken after her pushy mother, as she’d always thought. She was exactly the same as her cowardly father! Hiding away in her bedroom, instead of the garden shed. She
liked
to hide behind Martha’s apron strings. She didn’t want to be all grown-up and adult, and make adult decisions. She wanted to keep going on holiday with the girls every summer. She didn’t want to learn how to cook Irish stew, or have to pay boring utility bills, or breastfeed hungry children. Breasts were for showing off in tight tops, and nothing else, in Kate’s book. And housework? Kate couldn’t imagine herself wielding a vacuum cleaner and a feather duster. Alone all day in Kevin’s house? The very idea of it made her feel ill.

‘I wish I was back in the dole office,’ she said, out loud. ‘Even with that she-devil, Bingham, crawling around. Life was so much simpler, then. And Shirley was with me and I wasn’t ever alone.’

And that was the trigger.

She leapt up off the bed, pulling on as many handbags as she could. Some on her shoulders, some on her elbows, and even one or two round her neck. She managed to get twenty-five handbags safely attached to her person before the panic overwhelmed her. She half fell down the stairs in a pair of very high heels, shouting,
‘Tell Kevin we’re finished, I’m leaving the country!’
to her bewildered parents. She knocked over the hall stand and two potted plants in her panic; and even the little holy-water font ended up crashing onto the tiled doorstep, and the ceramic praying hands fell off it. Then she pelted out into the street, and ran down the road, waving for a taxi.

She, Kate Winters, was going to run away to Paris, and set up her own exclusive salon, selling designer handbags. She would design them herself. How hard could it be? Art college, and a degree in design? Who needed those silly things? Her passion for bags would see her through. It was so obvious, that this was what she had been born to do. Why had it never occurred to her before? She dropped a couple of bags on the Lisburn Road when she was leaping into a black cab. (One red bag with a picture of tulips on it, and one black velvet opera bag covered with plastic emeralds.) She banged the door of the cab shut behind her.

‘For God’s sake, get me to the airport,’ she gasped. ‘I’ve got a flight to Paris to catch!’

‘Which airport, love?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ cried Kate, and she bit down on her credit card, leaving faint teeth-marks on it. ‘Whichever one has the most flights. And hurry!’ She sat hunched forward on the seat and her face went numb, and she was only barely aware of the houses and shops and the people walking along the street. She was trembling all over; she felt sick and dizzy. She tried to control her breathing, but she lost track of the seconds, and concentrated instead on her Parisian boutique. She would have a counter covered with silver mosaic tiles, and a big mirror like the ones in royal palaces, and she would learn French and eat baguettes and posh cheese, and maybe have a little lapdog to keep her company while she became a millionaire. She would tie a bow in the dog’s hair.

‘Hurry up,’ she gasped. ‘I’m going to miss the plane.’

‘You’re the boss,’ muttered the taxi-driver, as he pressed the accelerator.

28. High Drama at Aldergrove

When Kate arrived at the airport in tears, the panic attack had subsided and she was left feeling worn out and very sleepy. The driver pulled up at the terminal, opened the cab door for her, and waited patiently while she rummaged for payment in several handbags. She had barely enough cash with her to pay him. And then she remembered she had no passport. She couldn’t get to Paris tonight. Maybe she could fly to London and stay in a hotel and have Shirley post it over? When she went into the cafe for a cup of tea to think things over, everybody stared at her and some people thought she was a pedlar selling handbags and reported her to Security. Two grimfaced young men promptly turned up and asked her to come with them. They took Kate to a private room and she had to explain that she was getting married soon, and that she was just a bit nervous about it, and that it was all a simple misunderstanding. The young men were very sympathetic. They knew that all women could be very emotional at times. They gave her a few shopping bags to keep her handbags in, a cup of tea, and said she could make one phone call from the office.

Kate reluctantly rang her mother at home to tell her she had changed her mind about leaving the country. She didn’t have the energy to open up her own salon in Paris, after all. She wanted to go home and sleep for a hundred years instead. She knew her mother would be in fine rant-mode, and she was right. Mrs Winters would have crawled down the wire and bitten Kate’s head off, if she could. She had an amazing ability to talk and breathe at the same time so that there were no gaps whatsoever in her tirade. Kate held the receiver at arm’s length and held her breath for the onslaught.

‘Kate? Is that you? Where are you? We’re all worried sick, here.’

‘I’m at Aldergrove.’

‘She’s at the airport! Everybody! She’s all right. She’s at the airport. What the
hell
are you trying to do to me, you big stupid article? I thought you’d done your friggin’
nut
! Your da’s in the shed and he won’t come out. He says he can’t take any more stress and this weddin’s gonna finish him off, for sure. Kate Winters, I want you to come straight home and stop this nonsense. Declan is here and he thinks you’ve had an
anxiety attack
and that the cure is to have counselling and relaxation classes.
Relaxation
classes, if you don’t mind. You that wrote the book on how to be a lazy lump! And Shirley says she has been
trying
to tell you to calm down for years but you wouldn’t listen. You go to the doctor, if you think it will help. In my opinion, you’d be better off saying some prayers to Our Lady. And by the way, you broke the font. But off with you, to the doctor! He might put you on tablets. Although I think you may do without the tablets, my girl. Your great-aunt Betty went on the tablets when her husband, George, died in a head-on crash with a lorry full of lemonade in 1952, and she never got off them till the day she died in 1979. And if an advert came on the telly for lemonade of any kind, she had to be sedated. So I don’t want you going down that road. Do you hear me? You’ll have me in the grave with all this carry-on. I’m sixty-one, you know. You may go to the
relaxation
classes, and buck up your ideas while you’re at it. I can-not
believe
you bolted off out of this house, without so much as a by-your-leave, and telling me you’re leaving the country. When you know for a
fact
that your passport is in a biscuit tin in the hall cabinet. What’s Kevin McGovern going to say about this? Will he still take you on, with a slate off your roof? That’s what
I
want to know! And the dress that cost a fortune. It’s a sin, what that dress cost –’

‘Where is Kevin?’ Kate sighed. There was no point in looking for any sympathy from her mother. If Kate were hanging off a cliff by one fingernail, being bitten on the nose by a deadly scorpion, and suffering from a brain-melting fever all at the same time, Mrs Winters would have told her to stop complaining. No, the sympathy would be in short supply tonight. Better to get the practicalities over with.

‘He was in his garage all day, the poor sucker. Putting in some overtime so he can support you in the manner to which you have become accustomed. A fancy house with all the latest mod cons! Gold taps, if you don’t mind! And a pull-down ironing board in the kitchen. Oh, things have changed since my day. Forty-eight hours after I got married, I was back in my apron, scrubbing floors in the Royal. You’ve been spoilt rotten from the word go. I blame myself for this. You’ve always got away with
murder
. Stealing money from the church envelopes! Well, we should have seen the writing on the wall, that day. Your father wouldn’t spank you, and he wouldn’t let me do it either. You need help, so you do. There’s poor Shirley, letting you swan about like Lady Muck, taking over her lovely wedding, and you’re not even grateful. She didn’t have to, you know. Mrs Greenwood didn’t have to, either. And the money they’ve spent on the grub and the fiddle-players would turn your hair snow-white.’ She paused to blow her nose, and Kate saw her chance.

‘Mum, can you send someone to collect me at the airport? I’ve no money left.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. We’ve been going through your room, looking for some clues, and I had no idea you had so much stuff. Knee-deep, that room is, with stuff. Honestly, I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this.’ She turned to Shirley and Declan and said, ‘She wants a lift home from the airport, Shirley. No, Declan will not go. Declan, sit down!
Sit down!
’ A sigh. ‘Kate Winters, do you see the trouble you’re causing? Declan and Shirley are going to Hogan’s for an hour or so. And they are not going to the airport at this time of the night. I’ll ring Kevin and ask him to go. Although I should make you walk home, you eejit!’

‘
No!
Don’t tell Kevin what I did. Don’t tell him where I am. It was just cold feet. I’m okay now. Honestly.’ No point in telling her mother that she was having a breakdown. In her mother’s book, only spoilt celebrities had breakdowns and that was because they were full of drugs and champagne and had no responsibilities.

‘There’s no one else available, Kate. You know we haven’t a car. You should have thought of this before you scared us all half to death. I’m going to the chapel to say a prayer for you, right this minute, and you can think about what you’re going to say to that poor creature of a man of yours, when you see him in person. Goodbye.’ And she slammed down the phone.

Kate gently replaced the receiver in its cradle. Actually, that hadn’t gone too badly, she thought. Her mother seemed to have got a grip on the situation. Normally she needed things to be explained to her several times before she realized what was going on. Kate sat down on a chair and rubbed her arms. She felt very cold.

‘Have you someone to come and collect you, dear?’ asked the kindly lady in the office. ‘No need to be embarrassed. A flying phobia, is it?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘That’s all it was. I’m going home now. My boyfriend is coming to take me home.’