Authors: Marita Conlon-McKenna
They moved to the sitting room, the fire blazing in the grate, as Alice’s neighbours, the Cassidys, appeared. Molly Cassidy had been a great friend to Alice over the years, and even though she and her husband Jack were a good bit older than Alice they were wonderful company. Jack, retired from
his career in the Garda, still seemed to know everything that was going on in the country.
The last to arrive were Alice’s brother Tim, his wife Patsy, and their daughter Erin – who was six months younger than Jenny. An only child, Erin had spent a vast amount of her childhood in the Kinsellas’ house, and she and Jenny were great friends as well as being cousins.
Jenny went to get more champagne glasses as everyone relaxed and chatted easily.
‘This is such a treat,’ declared Molly. ‘Jack is always delighted when Alice invites us over, as she’s the best cook we know.’
‘Good to have a decent meal compared to that awful stuff we ate on holiday,’ Jack said.
‘Where were you?’ asked Joy.
‘We got back from Egypt on Tuesday,’ explained Molly. ‘We went on a cruise on the Nile, visited Cairo and the museum, and of course the Pyramids. We stayed in some wonderful places.’
‘Cost us an arm and a leg, but it still didn’t stop us getting tummy trouble.’ Jack groaned. ‘Followed all the precautions, but it made no difference …’
‘Well, at least you’re back on your home turf now,’ consoled Joy.
Alice slipped back into the kitchen. Everything was going perfectly. She checked the lamb: it tasted rich and warm, perfect for a chilly night. She would serve it with couscous and a creamy mash that she knew Jack and her brother Tim were very partial to. The green beans were perfect, and there was the obligatory salad as she knew Erin and Jenny were big
into greens. She popped her starter of goats’ cheese into the top oven to warm. Once everyone was seated she would cover it with some crumbs and herbs and give it a quick toasting before serving it on a bed of rocket, accompanied by the cooked beetroot that went so perfectly with it. Lighting a few candles, she called everyone to the table.
Sitting around chatting as everyone ate and laughed and told stories, Alice relaxed.
David and Tim were on second helpings of the lamb, and Jack had gotten through a mound of creamy mash. The wine was flowing, and Hugh was great at making sure that new bottles were opened as needed. They were all such good friends, and she didn’t know how she would have survived the past eighteen months without them. They had bent over backwards to support her and encourage her to stand on her own two feet again; each person at the table in their own way had listened and advised and encouraged her.
‘Alice, how do you do it: cook such delicious food and still manage to lose weight?’ Sally sighed. With her curvy figure she was constantly trying diets and gyms and weight-loss clubs.
‘Heartbreak, Sally, but you well know I wouldn’t recommend it.’
‘I put on almost two stone after Malcolm and I split,’ admitted Joy. ‘I was so sad, and I guess I was comfort eating. It was only when I realized that poor Beth was worried about me that I managed to pull myself together, and decided that there had to be a life after Malcolm. It was what both Beth and I deserved. I realized that the only person who could make me happy with my life was me!’
‘And you’ve been enjoying yourself ever since,’ teased Jenny.
‘Of course!’ said Joy, raising her glass. ‘That’s what it’s all about!’
Alice smiled. Joy had refused to let her sit home and mope after the break-up, and had dragged her to dinners and lunches, walks, theatre and gallery openings, weekends in Barcelona and Prague – as well as a few trips to Joy’s holiday cottage down in Wexford. Alice would be lost without her best friend, and they always seemed to have fun together.
The talk at the table turned to politics, and Jack and Tim nearly came to blows about the state of the economy and what should be done to solve it, while Hugh the accountant tried to calm things.
At her end of the table Molly told them she and Jack were planning to visit China the next year, to see Beijing and Hong Kong and walk the Great Wall.
‘You two are such intrepid travellers, you put us all to shame!’ remarked Nina Brennan enviously.
‘Well, as Jack says, it beats sitting around waiting for the two of us to get old!’
Jenny helped Alice serve the warm apple and almond tart with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream, and made coffee for everyone. Alice was relieved that everything had gone so well.
‘Alice, that lamb had such a flavour! How do you do it?’ asked Sally.
‘The secret is in marinating it in lots of spices overnight, and then slow cooking it,’ Alice explained.
‘And you must give me the recipe for this,’ begged her
sister-in-law Patsy as she finished the last crumb of the light almond tart.
‘I’ll email it to you,’ Alice offered.
‘I’m always trying out Alice’s recipes, but somehow when I make them at home they never seem quite as good,’ Patsy joked.
‘That’s because she’s a natural cook.’ Jack beamed. ‘Molly has got green fingers; she can get anything to grow. And Alice is the equivalent with food.’
‘Cooking makes me happy,’ admitted Alice. ‘I guess that’s why I like having you lovely people over and doing it for you.’
‘And we love coming here and enjoying your fine food,’ replied Hugh, toasting her.
By midnight Jack and Molly had said their goodbyes and Jenny and Erin had disappeared to the comfort of the leather couches in the family room.
Alice produced Liam’s vintage port and a bottle of Baileys, and they all relaxed.
‘Sorry, Alice, but we have to head off, too,’ apologized Hugh, sipping his glass of creamy liquor. ‘We’re driving down to Waterford in the morning to see Sally’s parents. Her dad is celebrating his eightieth birthday and there is a big family lunch. We’ll have to be on the road by ten o’clock tomorrow.’
‘Next time it’s our turn,’ promised Sally as their taxi arrived and they said their goodbyes in the hall.
‘The Ryans are a lovely couple,’ said Tim.
‘I’d be lost without them,’ admitted Alice. ‘Hugh has been so kind, giving me all types of advice on tax and finance, and even getting me some work in his office.’
‘How’s it going there?’ enquired Joy. ‘What’s it like working for Hugh?’
‘Great. Hugh’s lovely, and everyone has been very kind. But to be honest, it’s not exactly my type of work. It’s all big spreadsheets and debits and credits. Half the time I’m not sure what I’m doing! But at least it’s a job for the time being.’
‘A job is a job!’ declared Nina. ‘They are like gold dust at the moment. Poor Lucy has been trying to find work for ages with no success.’
‘It’s tough out there,’ Tim added.
‘Will you stay at Hugh’s firm?’ pressed Joy.
‘I’m not sure.’ Alice hesitated. She had joined the accountancy firm on a six-month temporary contract, filling in for someone on maternity leave, and she really wasn’t sure if her contract was going to be renewed, or even if she wanted to stay. ‘I’ll have to see.’
As she got up to make a fresh pot of coffee she realized that there was no point worrying needlessly about what the future would bring. If there was one thing she had noticed lately, it was that one had very little control over fate.
An hour later everyone except Joy had gone home, Joy accepting Alice’s offer to stay overnight in the spare room rather than spend a fortune on a taxi.
‘Where’s that bottle of wine Hugh opened before he left?’ asked Joy, topping up their glasses as she told Alice about the man she had been out to dinner with three times.
‘Three dates! Why didn’t you bring him along tonight?’ Alice said, cuddling her terrier, Lexy.
‘Are you gone mad? I barely know Fergus, and I’m not
going to inflict him on anyone until I’m sure that he’s not another of those lunatics I tend to attract.’
Alice tried not to laugh as she thought of some of Joy’s previous male friends, who had certainly been a bit different.
‘The next dinner, bring him along!’ she urged.
‘That’s if he survives till then,’ said Joy.
Alice had to give it to her best friend: when Joy’s husband, Malcolm, had cheated on her and left her, and moved to London with his new lady love – who was expecting his baby – Joy had managed to raise their twelve-year-old daughter with very little support from Malcolm and eventually pick herself up and get on. She had made a new life for herself centred round her daughter Beth, her friends and family, and her work as a teacher.
Alice knew that it was a lesson that she needed to learn, too.
Lucy Brennan stared at the standard polite rejection letter. She had sent twenty-two copies of her CV out to a number of shops and businesses over the past ten days, and only two had bothered to reply. This was the third, saying there were no current vacancies, but that they would keep her details on file. It was so depressing! Lucy rammed the letter into a bundle in the drawer of her desk. She had been unemployed officially now for twelve months, and judging by this letter it certainly didn’t look like anything was going to change.
She was broke, single and back living with her parents! Her life was a Tragedy with a capital T! This time last year she’d had a great job, a great boyfriend, and been sharing a house in Ranelagh with Anna and Megan, two old school friends. They’d called it ‘the party house’ as it was always full of friends. So many great nights had started and ended back in the small red-bricked terraced house on Warwick Road. Then, fast as you could say global recession, economic downturn, banks, builders and bloody NAMA, everything had collapsed around them. Everyone was suddenly broke and looking for work, or trying to hang on to their jobs. Each time she turned
on the news or read a newspaper things were getting worse. It was so depressing. She was twenty-five, and this was meant to be her heyday – not the nightmare it had become.
First, she had lost her job. Phoenix Records, the small record store off Clarendon Street where she worked, had closed down. She had pitied Jeremy and Charlie, the owners, as they’d watched sales dwindle week after week, everyone downloading their music to their iPods and iPhones, so that trying to sell CDs had become almost impossible.
She’d felt bad for the guys in the young bands that Jeremy had promoted, putting their posters up in the window and giving their tracks a push by playing their music in the shop and advertising their gigs. Jeremy had had to give them back stacks of unsold CDs and tell them not to give up hope … things had to change … great music would always have a place in a civilized society. First Jeremy had cut her wages, then her hours, until eventually, heartbroken, he had explained that he could no longer afford the rent and he and Charlie were just going to close up and hand back the key to their landlord. Phoenix Records, for the moment, would have to shut.
‘But I promise you, Lucy, if, like our name, we rise from the ashes of this economic mess, you will be the first person we hire back.’
‘Thanks,’ she had said, hugging him, knowing how much money he and Charlie had lost over the past two years in the failing business. Music was their life, and she knew the two of them were almost broke. She couldn’t imagine her life without the small store with the big heart that could sell out a concert or a gig, and had even broken two or three of the big Irish bands and singers over the years. What would she do
without the shop and the music and their customers? It had hardly seemed like work, coming in to a place she loved so much. She had immediately tried to get another job, Jeremy giving her an amazing reference, but no one had wanted a girl with no proper qualifications who only knew about bands and the music scene and how it all worked.
At least, as she had told herself at the time, she had still had Josh Casey, her boyfriend of fourteen months. They were mad about each other and joked about having more time to spend together now that she was footloose and fancy-free. At first it had seemed great, but month after month it had eaten away at them. Josh, fully qualified, had become focused on his own job in the big firm of solicitors on the Quays. He had had to work later in the evenings, and had seemed to have less and less time to see her and be with her. He had become bored by the new bands and their gigs in Whelans and Tripod and Slatterys. Bored by her friends, bored with staying in watching DVDs, bored by her lack of funds to go anywhere different, do anything different!
‘Josh, I can’t afford to go to Paris to watch Ireland play a stupid rugby match! And I’ve no intention of going to a restaurant that is going to charge me half my week’s dole for a meal and a few glasses of wine!’
‘I’ll pay for you,’ he had offered. ‘I’m earning.’
‘Josh, I don’t want your money! I can pay my own way,’ she had insisted stubbornly.
Being broke and trying to live on a tiny budget was no fun, and it hadn’t really been a surprise when he’d told her a few months later, ‘Lucy, maybe we need to take a break from each other … not be so intense, and just cool it for a while?’
‘Sure … maybe you’re right, Josh!’ she had said, trying not to cry or let him see how much he was hurting her. They’d gone from having fun and being crazy about each other to making each other unhappy. This way she hoped that they could still at least be friends.
‘You and Josh will get back together, just wait and see,’ Megan had reassured her. ‘Anyone can see you two are made for each other.’
‘Yeah, Josh will be back in your life again,’ Anna had insisted. ‘He’s far too great a guy to be an ex.’
The girls had consoled her with fun girly nights and lots of wine, pasta and talk, until, after about three weeks, she had realized that Josh had stopped texting and phoning her and was no longer part of her life. Two months later she’d heard he was going out with a girl from his office.
Then Megan had lost her job in one of the big banks. Two unemployed girls unable to pay the rent in their Ranelagh home was not going to work out, and they had all talked about downsizing to a small two-bedroom apartment. Then, out of the blue one day, Megan had announced she was taking off for Canada. She had cousins in Vancouver, and they were hoping to help her get a job there as a credit analyst.