The Honey Queen (22 page)

‘Hey, you probably aren’t interested,’ Pippa said, ‘but a few of my friends are going out tonight. You’re probably doing something …’

Meredith thought of what she normally did on nights when she wasn’t attending work events or at dinners with people Sally-Anne was courting: telly and a stir-fry. She thought of Laura telling her to get a life.

‘I’d love to,’ she said.

The official opening was at five and Peggy and Fifi worked hard clearing the space in the shop and putting out canapés and wine. Sue at the bakery had promised Peggy that she’d drop in when she got a chance. Sure enough, she was there at five.

‘Just me I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘Millie, who works with us, isn’t well today, possibly a hangover. That girl has to go – breathing alcopop fumes over the customers is not good business practice. So, what with the little difficulty of having hungover staff, poor Zeke can’t come. But I’m here.’

‘Thank you,’ said Peggy, hugging Sue. It was both strange and yet felt madly right that there was this camaraderie between the two shop owners on the crossroads.

Sue had explained it to her one of the first times they’d met.

‘We’re all trying make a living, none of us are in competition and, to be totally honest, even if we were, we’d have to find a way of working together. That’s how it is, running a business in a small community. We each believe that there’s enough pie for us all, so to speak. So Bobbi in the beauty salon has a special menu with coffees from the Java Bean and scones and buns from us. And if a customer wants one of our spelt muffins, Bobbi sends one of the girls over. We have her signs up in the shop and recommend her to our customers. I wish I could make more use of her services – my roots are dreadful,’ Sue said ruefully.

Peggy laughed. ‘Your roots are fine,’ she said.

‘That’s only because you don’t know what you’re talking about, Peggy,’ Sue said with a smile. ‘You have lovely long hair that has never seen dye in its life. You want to be a bottle-blonde like me; keeping the roots up is tough. My sister’s pregnant –’

Peggy wondered, was she imagining the sudden catch in Sue’s voice?

‘– and she isn’t getting her hair dyed at all. Says she doesn’t want to risk anything going wrong because she’s had a miscarriage already.’

Peggy realized she wasn’t imagining it: Sue’s eyes were suspiciously wet. Peggy put a hand on hers.

‘No,’ said Sue fiercely, ‘don’t be kind. Don’t ask me about it now. I’d cry, I’m sorry. Another time, I’ll tell you …’

Peggy nodded and went off, feeling terribly inadequate. She needed to know how to fit into this community properly. It was all very well being friends on the surface, which was what she and her mother had done all their lives, but this – living with decent people who opened up to you – this was both important and difficult. Promising herself that she’d ask Sue out for a cup of tea one day to see if she’d open up about what was bothering her, Peggy mingled with her guests.

Paul and Mark from the delicatessen turned up too, bearing plates of prosciutto wrapped around tiny figs, as well as crackers covered with a delicate cream cheese with snipped chives on top.

‘Oh, you’re so sweet,’ said Peggy. ‘I didn’t want you to bring anything but yourselves, but that is so lovely.’

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said Paul, swatting the notion away. ‘You’ll pay it back in kind, trust me. My sister-in-law’s expecting twins, I shall be expecting advice on exquisite hand-knitted things in – what’s that word?’ He looked to Mark to supply the word he was missing. Peggy had noticed that they finished each other’s sentences, something that made her feel unexpectedly emotional.

Again, the community that was Redstone was pulling at her heart. These people had somehow become her friends: she, who had never really known what it was to have friends before.

‘Cashmere, that’s the word. But I don’t know if you can buy cashmere wool,’ said Mark. ‘Can you?’

‘You can,’ Peggy said. ‘We do stock a teeny-weeny bit, but it’s expensive – too expensive for the majority of people – and not easy to wash. However, tell me what you want and I will knit you the most adorable things, little cardigans and the softest hats, because babies’ heads get cold. I’ve knitted loads of baby clothes in my time.’

‘Really?’ said Paul with an engaging smile, ‘tell me more. You see, Mark and I have been discussing you, and we’ve decided you don’t look like a knitter.’

Peggy laughed. ‘What does a knitter look like? Someone in an Aran sweater with big, jam-jar glasses, strange hair and flat Mary-Jane shoes?’

‘Well …’

Peggy smiled at them both. ‘I got rid of the bad hair and the Mary-Jane shoes before I moved here. This is a new look I’m trying out. I’ve knitted since I was very young …’

She was about to explain, but suddenly she thought the story would be too revealing. Most twelve-year-old girls didn’t sit in the corner quietly knitting in order to stay safe.

‘It’s a boring story, honestly. Teenage girls!’ she said vaguely, shrugging. ‘Always doing mad things like getting into knitting instead of spending hours on the phone with their boyfriends. Anyway, I have to circulate, boys.’

There were about thirty people there, a good number, according to Sue, who had seen quite a few places open with much fanfare and no customers.

‘Craft people are very interested in new places,’ Peggy had pointed out. ‘Where I lived before …’ her voice trailed off. She didn’t want to go into her peripatetic lifestyle now. ‘There was no wool shop in some of the places I lived as a child and we had to travel miles to buy wool, so you notice when there’s somewhere new.’

Bobbi popped along for five minutes.

The week before when Peggy had gone, as per Sue’s instructions, and introduced herself to all the other shop owners, she’d been slightly in awe of Bobbi. Small and yet very stately, Bobbi looked as if she took no prisoners in the game of life. Peggy half expected to be sent out of the elegant beautician’s with a flea in her ear after being told that their establishment had no interest in attending the grand opening of a wool shop. But to the contrary: Bobbi had been charm itself.

‘Great,’ she said. ‘A bit of new blood is always good. Where are you from, Peggy? That’s an unusual accent: a mix of lots of places, it sounds to me? Tell me all about yourself. Will you come in for a cup of tea in the back?’

‘No,’ said Peggy, startled.

She didn’t like cups of tea and telling people like Bobbi things. She’d a feeling that Bobbi could extract information with great skill.

‘Thank you, but I’m in a bit of a rush. Please do come along to the opening,’ she’d said, thrusting a load of fliers into Bobbi’s hands. ‘Do you knit yourself?’

Bobbi grinned. ‘No, child, after a day in here my hands are bone weary. I sit in front of the box and watch other people’s lives on the soaps. Great fun.’

‘OK,’ said Peggy, ‘but you never know, I might get you knitting or crocheting yet.’

‘You never know,’ said Bobbi, in such a way as to imply that hell would freeze over before she’d take a pair of knitting needles in her hands.

‘You’ve done an amazing job, pet,’ she said to Peggy now, looking around the shop admiringly. ‘I love the colours you’ve used for the paintwork, very clever. It almost makes me want to start knitting or something.’

The small fair-haired woman who’d accompanied her laughed: ‘Bobbi,
you
, knitting? Get out of here!’

‘Oh, all right,’ Bobbi said good-naturedly. ‘Peggy, this is Opal Byrne, my dear friend. Now
she’
s a knitter.’

‘Are you?’ said Peggy eagerly, keen to meet a potential customer.

Opal nodded. ‘I love to knit,’ she said.

‘She’s fabulous, has knitted things for my two granddaughters. She’s just waiting for a load of her own to really get into it,’ Bobbi added and laughed.

‘My son’s getting married soon,’ Opal went on. ‘Brian. I have two lovely unmarried sons, though. David and Steve. You must meet them.’

‘You’re turning into a matchmaker, Opal!’ said Bobbi cheerfully.

Peggy felt herself go weak at the knees. Opal was David’s mother. It would be too much of a coincidence for it to be otherwise. As usual, the very thought of him made her feel shaky.

‘And yourself?’ Bobbi asked.

‘I’m a spinster of this parish,’ said Peggy lightly, hoping she was hiding her nerves. ‘I have to get this shop up and running. I’ve no time for men, I’m afraid.’

Bobbi nodded. ‘You’re probably right, love,’ she said sagely. ‘Men tend to complicate things.’

Peggy agreed wholeheartedly. Let Bobbi and Opal leave, please. She couldn’t bear to talk to this lovely woman who was the mother of the only man who’d ever touched her heart. It was too much to take.

Elysium Garden had a mall beneath with a gym, a convenience store and several restaurants, but the walls of the luxury apartments were sliver-thin. Meredith awoke with a groan the following morning and pulled a pillow over her aching head to block out the noise of the vacuum cleaner next door as it whacked into the walls with abandon. Yes, size matters in apartments, she wanted to roar retrospectively at the sleek and eager estate agent who’d sold her the place, but insulation matters most of all!

Meredith couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a hangover. She didn’t drink much usually. Though the champagne inevitably flowed whenever the gallery opened a new exhibition, there was never enough time to drink more than half a glass as she whirled around with Sally-Anne, smiling, placating, chatting, talking up, all the things gallery owners did at shows.

Her father’s sixtieth: that was probably the last time Meredith could recall having had even vaguely too much to drink. Her mother loved a toast, though it would have been sparkling wine if Meredith hadn’t stepped in at the last moment, feeling it was wrong to celebrate this important birthday for her dad without, well, the proper stuff.

The Byrnes didn’t spend money on extravagances like champagne and her mother had been scandalized when Meredith had got one of her brothers to bring in the crate of Premier Cru, far more than was needed for the party.

‘Oh goodness, Meredith, that must have cost a fortune,’ Opal had said.

‘Don’t be silly, Mum,’ Meredith had said lightly. ‘We can’t have Dad’s special day without making a fuss, can we?’

Watching the pennies had long been a fact of life for Opal Byrne and to spend money on such a frivolity as alcohol was a terrible crime. In St Brigid’s Terrace, the only drink on the premises was a bottle of sweet sherry kept in a cupboard for special occasions.

Meredith, however, felt it important that they turn up at the hotel that had been booked for the occasion with something decent to drink so nobody would look down their nose at the Byrnes. No one had looked down on Meredith for a very long time and she didn’t want it ever to happen again. Meredith could always feel it on her skin, a slow burn that started somewhere on her cheeks and spread all over her. The burning embarrassment of not fitting in, of not being good enough.

She didn’t want her mother to know she’d felt this way. That would have hurt Opal desperately, which was the last thing Meredith wanted. No, it was easier to smile and pretend that every daughter bought 600 euros worth of champagne for their father on his birthday, that this was entirely normal.

‘If you’re sure, Meredith,’ said Opal doubtfully, ‘but love, I like to think of you putting your money aside for yourself you know …’

For when you’re married and have children, if that ever happens
, Meredith mentally supplied the words that were left unsaid.

‘… for when you’re older,’ her mother went on. ‘You need a nest egg. Rainy-day money.’

‘I like spending it on you and Dad,’ was all Meredith had said. But it had upset her all the same, and she’d had too many glasses of the champagne at the party to make up for it.

Not enough, though, to escape the looks the waiters gave her father when he had a sip of the champagne and said, ‘It’s lovely stuff honestly, Meredith, but it isn’t as sweet as that nice Asti whatchamacallit stuff we used to get at Christmas. Do they have any of that? Just a little bit?’

Meredith had felt the burn then.

Lying in bed in her tenth-floor apartment, she fought the headache from hell. Why couldn’t that stupid cow next door do her housekeeping at normal hours, she thought, shoving the duvet off and making it into the bathroom. She thought she might be sick. It was the combination of that nagging feeling that something was wrong at the gallery – plus the awareness that she was at least ten years older than everyone else in the club – that had made her drink too much last night. She’d hated the music and while the others went off to dance she had remained at their table watching them having a good time and feeling lonely and old.

She perched on the edge of the corner bath with its Jacuzzi jets, which had been a major selling point in the apartments at the time, although in truth, Meredith was usually too busy to have a bath. Instead she opted for a power shower early in the morning and sometimes late at night to combat the exhaustion of the day. She didn’t bother with that today. It was going to take more than a shower to fix her.

It was still six thirty in the morning but it felt as if she’d been awake for hours. She rummaged through the bathroom cabinet for headache tablets and an antacid for her stomach, then made it into the kitchen where she thought some nice sweet tea might help. Tea and toast in bed with the papers, that ought to make her feel human again. She made the tea and toast, had a few sips of the tea and a bite of toast to sustain her for the trip downstairs, then threw on the sweatshirt and sweatpants she usually wore to the gym, grabbed her purse and took the lift down to the ground floor. There was nothing open yet, but a man was hefting bundles of newspapers under the half-opened security shutter of the newsagent’s.

‘Five more minutes,’ the guy said.

‘Oh, please, please.’

‘Go on then.’ He allowed her into the shop and she picked up two newspapers. Rooting around in her purse, she found the exact change.

‘Thank you,’ she said as she left the shop. She didn’t read in the lift going back up to the apartment, afraid she’d be sick all over the sheeny marble floor.