The Honey Queen (18 page)

‘Nobody can help,’ Freya said flatly, and had been rewarded with the warmth of Opal’s worn hand creeping into hers.

‘We’ll help her,’ Opal had whispered. ‘But we won’t upset your uncle Ned by telling him, OK?’

That night, Freya had sat in her cosy eyrie at 21 St Brigid’s Terrace and stared out at the glowing amber lights of the houses around them, wishing that she didn’t have a mother who needed to be helped.

Now, with a whole weekend to be spent with her mother and no light at the end of the tunnel until Sunday night when she’d return to Opal and Ned’s, Freya had the same thought. If only her mother was different. Sometimes she wished Opal were her mother, but then she felt guilty for that. It wasn’t her mother’s fault. Some people weren’t as strong as others. The real world was just too hard for them and they preferred the world of their own creation where they could believe anything they wanted.

‘Are you going to keep painting for much longer this evening, Mum?’ Freya asked in the calm voice she used with her mother. The faintest hint of disapproval could send Gemma over the edge at speed.

‘What time is it?’ Gemma looked down at the wrist bearing her husband’s old watch, with the brown leather strap that was too big for her, no matter that she fastened it on the tightest hole.

‘Half five,’ Freya said.

School ended at three on Fridays but she hadn’t been able to face her mother that early and had gone instead to the café near her mother’s house, where she’d made a hot chocolate and a bun last as long as she could. Only the darkening of the March evening had sent her out into the cold.

‘Time to stop painting,’ said Gemma cheerfully. ‘I haven’t anything in for dinner, Freya. I forgot you were coming. We could get a pizza?’

‘And a DVD, perhaps,’ suggested Freya. If they had something to watch as they ate their takeaway pizza, then they wouldn’t need to talk and Freya wouldn’t have to listen to her mother discussing how life would have been different if Daniel was still alive. It wasn’t as if Freya didn’t wish her father hadn’t died – of course she did, but she knew he was gone and that she had to cope with it. Only her mother seemed incapable of grasping that.

In the car on the way to the pizza place, they stopped to get a DVD.

‘You look and see if there’s anything good,’ said Gemma, handing Freya her store membership card but no money. She headed towards a nearby off-licence. ‘I’ll just grab a couple of bottles of wine. Coke or Seven-Up for you?’

‘Seven-Up,’ said Freya numbly.

In the DVD shop, she took the money Opal had given her that morning from her pocket.

‘Just in case you need it,’ Opal had said.

Freya felt her eyes sting with tears and wished she were with Opal and Ned now. Her mother was going to nibble pizza and drink glass after glass of wine all evening.

If Gemma was the adult, how come it always felt the other way round?

That Friday evening, in her pretty kitchen, Opal busied herself cooking dinner, feeling miserable. The house seemed empty without Freya. Freya always had stories from school. Yesterday she’d told Opal and Ned how Miss Lawrence, who taught French, had clearly been in a foul humour and had given them a test.

‘There should be a law against teachers setting tests just because they’re in a bad mood,’ Freya said. ‘You know, a conflict of interest law or something. If I ever run for government, I think I’ll put it in my election manifesto. It would be the same for people in charge of companies, like David. But I can’t see David making people suffer just because he’s in a bad mood.’

‘He is in a bit of a bad mood right now,’ Ned had said, surprising them both.

Ned was not normally the sort of person who noticed moods. He was a great man for cheering people up but not because he sensed that people needed cheering up. Ned just liked to see people laughing.

‘Is he?’ said Opal, astonished. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘I reckon it’s girlfriend trouble,’ Ned went on, clearly pleased that he’d spotted something his wife hadn’t.

‘What girlfriend? I didn’t know he was going out with anyone,’ Freya said, feeling put out because she liked to have her finger on the pulse.

‘I don’t know who she is or was, but it’s off now,’ said Ned. ‘I heard him saying something to Brian on Sunday. Brian was trying to set him up on a date with Liz’s bridesmaid, Chloe, but David didn’t want to know. He said he didn’t want to date anyone ever again – those were his exact words. Then Brian said there was no pleasing some people, and they left the kitchen.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us before, love?’ asked Opal, worried now. ‘Poor David. And he didn’t say a thing.’

Her sons might be grown men, but to her they would always be her children. When they hurt, she hurt.

‘I forgot about it till now,’ Ned said, looking sheepish. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he added hastily. ‘You’ve enough on your plate, what with the wedding.’

‘The wedding! Dear Lord,’ said Opal. ‘I keep forgetting to phone Miranda to thank her for the blessed invitations. I sent off replies, but I should have rung to say how lovely they were. She’s bound to be mad, you know.’

‘Why?’ asked Freya, who’d opened hers and was already plotting to bring Kaz. Kaz loved weddings and one of her sisters had a leather dress that would look fabulous, apparently, and shock Miranda nicely. ‘Just because she’s devoting her life to this wedding, you don’t have to phone and congratulate her on every little thing, Opal.’

‘I know I shouldn’t, Freya, but she’ll be expecting me to tell her how wonderful they are, I know she will,’ Opal said, sighing.

Almost two weeks had passed since the blasted gold envelopes had landed on her mat. She’d forwarded Meredith’s and heard nothing back. Opal guessed that Miranda would expect messages of praise as well as the reply card, and had been meaning to phone but she’d put it off. She just didn’t have the heart for being talked down to. Any contact with Miranda was guaranteed to leave her feeling miserable. The whole wedding hung over her in a way she knew it shouldn’t.

It was like this weekend, Opal thought now as she cut up some carrots for her and Ned: all a bit empty without Freya.

Only that morning, she’d talked to Molly next door about her wedding nerves and Molly, who had only boys but who’d heard all sorts of horror stories about ‘mother-of’ competitiveness at weddings, kept telling Opal not to give in without a fight.

‘Just because they’ve the money to have a big wedding at a posh venue doesn’t make them better people, does it?’ Molly had said, poking round in Opal’s cupboards to find more sugar because the bowl was empty.

She knew where everything was in the kitchen as well as Opal did.

‘I can’t believe you haven’t got your dress yet, Opal. You’re cutting it fine, you know. It’s less than four weeks to Easter. What if you can’t find anything in the shops and have to get it made? Then you’ll be in trouble. If you’d take my advice, you should go all out and go to some of the expensive shops, Opal, love. Let Madam Miranda see that we know how to do things in style.’

Opal began to fret. She knew she’d left it terribly late to get her dress for the wedding but she felt so overwhelmed by Miranda. Opal was beginning to think that she might as well wear something old, because either way, Miranda would be rude about it. Brian, bless him, wouldn’t notice what anyone but Liz wore, so he wouldn’t mind.

‘I’m wearing my blue suit,’ added Molly, who was, of course, going to the wedding as part of the Byrne family contingent, along with Bobbi and her daughter, Shari.

‘The one you wore to Gilda’s fiftieth?’ asked Opal. ‘That really suits you.’

‘I was thinking of getting a fake-tan spray,’ said Molly, who had never tried it before but was determined that Brian’s side of the wedding party would not be outshone. ‘You should too. That would be one in the eye for Miranda.’

Opal wished Freya was here now so they could talk about the prospect of Molly getting fake tanned and whether Opal was being old-fashioned saying she didn’t want to try it. Some women came away looking gently bronzed, but she’d seen others who looked as if they’d been rolled in peanut butter.

Freya would have made her feel she wasn’t an old fuddy-duddy for wanting to stick to her own skin colour.

The house was so lonely without her.

But at least, Opal consoled herself, she and Bobbi had a nice treat lined up. The new knitting shop was having a grand opening tomorrow at half five. She’d thought it was a bit late in the day for an opening, but Bobbi had pointed out it was the perfect time because there’d be plenty of people around and the other shop owners would be able to drop in to support the venture before closing up themselves. Opal planned to treat herself to some wool because she hadn’t knitted anything in ages.

‘Peggy’s a sweetheart,’ Bobbi told her when she phoned to say she’d accepted on both of their behalves. ‘There’s a bit of a mystery there—’

‘And you’re determined to get to the bottom of it,’ said Opal, laughing. ‘You and Freya are like peas in a pod: both mad to know what’s going on all the time.’

‘It’s good to stay informed and on top of things,’ Bobbi said.

Opal didn’t feel particularly informed or on top of things this evening. Freya was gone to her mother’s and who knew what she’d be fed when she was there. Gemma’s notion of cooking was either a basin of couscous and bean sprouts if she was in a save-the-earth mood or McDonald’s if she was in a lazy frame of mind.

David was miserable over a girl and he hadn’t told her, which made it all the worse. What sort of girl could turn down someone as kind and thoughtful as David? Opal thought indignantly. She must be a complete fool if she’d thrown over David. And the matter of phoning Miranda still hung over her. Had Meredith replied to her invitation? Come to think of it, she hadn’t heard from Meredith for some time, another source of sorrow. Opal had become very good at pretending she was fine with Meredith’s glamorous new life in Dublin but real friends, like Bobbi and Molly, knew how much Meredith’s absence and rare contact hurt her mother.

The gravy done, Opal put two plates in the oven to heat and sank onto a kitchen chair to wait for Ned’s return. Everything felt so skewed lately. She wished she could wave a wand and make things right.

O
n Saturday, the morning of the grand opening, Peggy woke suddenly and sat up in bed, feeling the heat of a bad dream suffusing her whole body. She’d been having the strangest dreams for the past week. Not ones about having finally opened her shop, the culmination of years of hopes and dreams. Nor about the strange and yet sadly familiar conversation with her mother on the phone two days before.

‘I wish you would come and see it, Mum. You’d like the shop. It would be your sort of dream: shelves piled with wool, these amazing bamboo needles, all sorts of clever accessories for marking your stitches and storing your bits and pieces … gorgeous stuff.’

‘I can’t,’ Kathleen Barry had whispered. ‘I just can’t. You know what he’ll be like about it.’

He
was Tommy Barry, Peggy’s father. She hadn’t wanted him to come to the opening, wouldn’t have dreamed of asking him, and she knew it was expecting too much of her mother to come to Cork by herself. Even assuming he’d let her.

‘Sorry, Peggy. I’ll call you later. You know how it is …’

The phone had gone dead abruptly. Which was nothing new. But familiarity didn’t lessen the pain for Peggy as she stood there, tears rolling down her face. She’d so wanted her mother to share in her moment in the sun, but that type of thing was for other families, normal families.

As she cried, Peggy realized that time, distance and even months of counselling hadn’t helped as much as she’d hoped.

Replacing the receiver, she sank into the brown tweedy armchair which was the piece of furniture she hated most in the house, and for the next half an hour she just let the tears flow.

Climbing out of the abyss of the past was one, glorious thing: but the realization that not everybody might want to make the climb with you, was another.

Kathleen Barry was going to maintain the façade that her life was going well. This piece of artifice had enabled her to cope with her life. Peggy should have been used to it by now.

But it wasn’t the pain of that realization that had made its way into Peggy’s dreams, disturbing her equilibrium.

Last night, she’d dreamt the same dream she’d had every night since she crept out of David’s bed. In the dream, they were living in a small cottage – her own cottage, but prettier, all done up. She could see David standing in the doorway, waiting to welcome her home, but she couldn’t get past the gate. Each time she opened the gate, the ground would open up, tipping her into a gaping chasm. Her arms weren’t strong enough to climb out. David was on the other side of the crack and couldn’t help but
he kept calling her name all the time.

When she woke, she felt exhausted. Even awake, the dream haunted her. It had to mean something, but she was too afraid to think what. Had she made a huge mistake in leaving him? The thought was almost more than she could bear.

It had been two weeks since she’d crept out of his bed in the middle of the night and run away, leaving him that note. It made her sick to the stomach when she recalled how he’d turned up at the shop the next morning, holding the note in his hand.

He looked angry, which was terrible in itself because she’d thought he wasn’t the sort of person who could look angry. Yet he was: his eyes were dark with emotion and his face was flushed. Instinctively, Peggy had taken a step backwards. Anger frightened her so much. It made her click into her chameleon state of mind when she would do anything to blend into her surroundings in an effort to avoid being the subject of the anger.

That was why she’d learned to knit and sew in the first place. She could be in the house and yet out of the line of fire. Nobody looked at the silent child knitting in the corner.

Gunther and Paolo had finished their carpentry and gone, but Peggy had hired a sparky shop assistant called Fiona – Fifi for short. When David arrived on that terrible Saturday morning, Fifi was in the kitchen making tea.