A small laptop replaced the huge, bulky computer; the hand-carved desk held attractive raffia trays, brightly coloured files and a photograph of the late Mr Williams. The new bookshelves were filled but with spaces for ornaments and little flower pots. Mrs Williams even kept a tiny watering can at hand to make sure the plants got attention.
The hard chairs had been replaced by less daunting furniture. She had established a routine that seemed more normal and less driven than her predecessor’s. She seemed to be delighted with Irene, and constantly thanked her for her efficiency and support. This was a personal first for Irene, who had been used to the grim silence of Miss Howe as the best that could be hoped for.
They were going through the day’s agenda when Mrs Williams looked up and said, ‘By the way, why didn’t you tell me you were getting married?’
‘I didn’t want to bore you with all my doings. I’m inclined to go on a bit!’ Irene said, and smiled apologetically.
‘Well, if we can’t go on a bit about our wedding day, what
can
we go on about?’ Mrs Williams seemed genuinely interested. ‘Tell me all about it.’
Irene told her about Nasey, and how he had served his time in a butcher’s shop and was going to sell his flat and come and live with her and her mother. They were going to put an extra bathroom in the house . . . she bubbled on full of enthusiasm, hoping that the day itself would be a great one, and not silly or anything.
Mrs Williams looked at the photograph on her desk and said she remembered her wedding day as if it were yesterday. Everything had gone right.
‘Was the sun shining?’ Irene wondered.
Mrs Williams couldn’t remember the weather it was so unimportant. Everyone had been so happy, that was the main thing.
At that point, the direct telephone line rang. Irene was a bit nonplussed. She had never known calls to come in on that line. It was for the Principal’s convenience, in case she wanted to make a quick call out rather than going through the whole system. At a nod from Mrs Williams, Irene took the call.
A man asked to speak to Nell Howe.
‘Miss Howe has retired as Principal and no longer works here. Do you want to talk to Mrs Williams, the current Principal, and if so, perhaps you can tell me in what connection?’
‘Tell me where she lives,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid we never disclose staff addresses.’
‘You just said that she was ex-staff.’
‘I’m sorry, but I’m not able to help you. We are not in touch with Miss Howe, so I am not in a position to pass on any message,’ Irene said, and the man hung up.
Irene and Mrs Williams looked at each other, bewildered.
A week before the wedding, Irene saw Nell Howe across a street. Irene couldn’t help herself. She ran across to her.
‘Miss Howe, how good to see you.’
Nell Howe looked at her distantly and then, as if after a great effort, she said flatly, ‘Irene.’
‘Yes, Miss Howe. How have you been? I have been meaning to contact you.’
‘Have you? Then why didn’t you?’
‘Could we have a cup of coffee somewhere, do you think?’ Irene suggested.
‘Why?’ Miss Howe was surprised at the overfamiliarity of the request.
‘I need to tell you something.’
‘Well, there is hardly anywhere suitable around here.’ Miss Howe sniffed at the area.
‘This little café does nice coffee. Please, Miss Howe . . .’
As if giving in to the inevitable, Miss Howe agreed. Over cups of frothy Italian coffee, Irene told her about the wedding plans and the honeymoon they had decided on. She asked Miss Howe if she was looking forward to going away in the winter.
‘Why would anyone want to go to such a remote place at any time?’ was the only response.
Irene changed the subject. There was the man on the phone and his odd behaviour.
‘Have you any idea of who it could be?’ she asked. ‘He didn’t leave any message, and wouldn’t give a number.’
‘It must have been my brother,’ Miss Howe said.
‘Your brother?’
‘Yes, my brother Martin. I haven’t seen him for a long time.’
‘But why?’ Irene felt her heart racing. It was the casual way Miss Howe spoke that was so disturbing.
‘Why? Oh, it all goes back many, many years ago.’ Miss Howe’s face was non-committal and unmoved. ‘And none of your business, anyway. Is that it? Is that all?’ And with a chilly nod of her head, Miss Howe left the café.
It was a wonderful day for the wedding. Kenny gave the bride away, and Peggy looked as though she might burst with pride. Dingo, all dressed up in a new suit, was the best man and in his speech said that he was very proud of being the match-maker who had brought the happy couple together.
Carmel and Rigger had managed to get time off for the occasion; Rigger’s mother, Nasey’s sister Nuala, was there. The sun shone from morning until late evening. Mrs Williams joined them in the pub and mingled with the teachers, the butchers from Malone’s shop and all the friends and neighbours. In a million years poor Miss Howe would never have been able to mix like this.
There was a honeymoon in Spain and then back to work at Wood Park, where life promised to be much easier and more pleasant than in the previous regime.
Rigger and Carmel kept in touch all the time about Stone House. The voucher they had designed for Miss Howe had given them more ideas, and a week at Stone House was now going to be one of the prizes for a competition in a magazine. The list was filling up nicely; it looked as if Chicky Starr would have a full house for her opening week. There was great excitement all around the place. Rigger said his mother was going to come and visit soon. It would be her first time in Stoneybridge since she was a girl.
She didn’t want to stay in the big house but Rigger and Chicky were insisting. It would be such a great return for her.
Irene did try to warn them that Miss Howe might be difficult to please.
‘We can handle it,’ said Rigger cheerfully. ‘It will be great practice for us. We saw off Howard and Barbara; your Miss Howe will be no problem for us, you’ll see.’
Miss Howe travelled by a late train, and so Rigger went to meet her. He saw a tall, stern-looking woman with one small case looking around the station impatiently. This must be the one.
He introduced himself and took her suitcase.
‘I was told that Mrs Starr would meet me,’ the woman said.
‘She’s at the house, welcoming the other guests. I’m Rigger, her manager. I live in the grounds,’ he said.
‘Yes, you told me your name already.’ From the tone of her voice she seemed highly disapproving of it.
‘I hope you will have a wonderful week here, Miss Howe. The house is very comfortable.’
‘I would have expected no less,’ she said.
Rigger hoped he would have a moment to warn Chicky that it was time to fasten the seatbelts.
Chicky didn’t need the warning. The body language alone was enough to alert her that Miss Howe was not going to be a happy camper. She stood stiff and unyielding in the group that had gathered in the big cheerful kitchen. She refused a sherry or glass of wine, asking instead for a glass of plain tonic water with ice and lemon. She nodded wordlessly when introduced to fellow guests.
She said she didn’t need to see her room and freshen up; since she was one of the last to arrive, she wouldn’t delay the meal by absenting herself. She had a knack of bringing conversations to an end with her pronouncements.
She showed no interest in the itineraries and options that Chicky laid out for them. One by one the guests gave up on her.
The American man asked her what kind of business she was in, and she said that, unlike in the United States, people here didn’t judge others on what occupation they had or used to have.
A Swedish boy told her that it was his second visit to Ireland, and he barely managed to reach the end of his first sentence before she made her boredom clear.
A nurse called Winnie wondered if Miss Howe had toured in the West before, and she shrugged, saying not that she could remember. Two polite English doctors told her that they were astounded by the spectacular scenery. Miss Howe said that she had arrived in the dark and hadn’t seen anything remarkable so far.
When Orla, who served at the table, asked her if the meal was satisfactory, Miss Howe replied that if it hadn’t been she would certainly have mentioned it. It would be doing the establishment no favours not to speak her mind.
As Chicky Starr showed Miss Howe to her room after dinner, she waited for some small expression of pleasure at the beautiful furniture, the fresh new linen on the bed, the tray with the best china tea things . . . everybody else had admired them.
Miss Howe had just nodded briefly.
‘I’m sure you’re tired after the journey,’ Chicky Starr said, biting back her disappointment and trying to forgive the lack of response.
‘Hardly. I just sat in a train the whole way from Dublin.’ Miss Howe was taking no prisoners.
And for the days that followed, alone among the guests Miss Howe found nothing to praise, no delight in the wild scenery, no appreciation for the food that Orla and Chicky served every night.
Chicky sat beside the strange, uncommunicative woman in order to spare the guests from the ordeal of trying to talk to her. Even for Chicky, with a background of years working in a New York boarding house with a room full of men dulled by work in the construction industry, this was hard going.
Miss Howe never asked a question or made an observation. Whatever had gone wrong in her life had gone very wrong indeed.
On the fourth morning when Miss Howe had yet again shown no interest in exploring the coastline, Chicky begged Rigger to drive her to the market town with him.
‘Oh God, Chicky, do I have to? She’ll turn the milk sour.’
‘Please, Rigger, otherwise she’ll just sit staring at me all day and I’ve a lot of cooking to do.’
Rigger was good-natured about it. Apart from Miss Howe, the week was going so very well. All these people were going to praise the place to the skies. Stone House would take off as they had always believed it would. One day with Miss Howe wouldn’t kill him.
Any questions about how she was enjoying the holiday met with a brick wall, so he chatted away cheerfully about his own life. He told Miss Howe about his two children: the twins, Rosie and Macken, and nodded proudly at their photographs stuck up on the dashboard of his van.
‘They get their looks from their mother,’ he said proudly. ‘I hope they get their brains from her too! Not too many brains on their dad’s side.’
‘And were your parents stupid?’ she asked. Her voice was cold, but it was the only time she seemed interested in a conversation.
‘My mother wasn’t. I never knew my father,’ he said.
Most people would have said they were sorry, or that was a pity, but Miss Howe said nothing.
‘Were your parents bright, Miss Howe?’ Rigger asked.
She paused. It was as if she was deciding whether to answer or not. Eventually she said, ‘No, not at all. My mother was a very unfit person to be anywhere near children. She left home when I was eleven and my father couldn’t cope. He lost his job and died of drink.’
‘Aw God, that was a poor start, Miss Howe. And did you have brothers and sisters to see you through?’
‘One younger brother, but he didn’t do well, I’m afraid. He made nothing of his life.’
‘And there was no one to look out for him?’
Again a pause.
‘No, there wasn’t, as it happened.’
‘Wasn’t that very sad. And you were too young to do anything for the lad. I was lucky. I hit a bit of a rough spot but I had my mam always looking out for me, writing to me every week even when I got sent to the reform school. She tried her best for me, even if it took coming here to sort me out properly. I’d fallen behind on the old reading and writing, you see. It took me a while to catch up. I didn’t get any exams or anything, but I got my head together and everything.’
‘Why didn’t she make you do exams?’
‘Ah, she knew I was never going to be a professor, Miss Howe. She worked all the time to put food on the table but still, it wasn’t easy to see everyone else with money when I didn’t have any.’
‘Did you get into trouble again?’ Miss Howe’s lips were pursed as if she had expected him to go to the bad.
‘I met all the fellows I used to know. They were all doing well but not legit, if you know what I mean. They said it was dead easy and you couldn’t get caught. But my uncle Nasey put the fear of God into me. He thought I should get a fresh start in the country. I didn’t want that at all. I was afraid of cows and sheep, and it was very dull compared to Dublin. But my mam had lived here when she was young, and she said she had loved it.’
‘Why did she leave then?’ Miss Howe hated grey areas.
‘She got into trouble, and the man wouldn’t marry her.’
‘And did she bring you back here?’
‘No, she has never been back herself but she is coming. Soon, as it happens.’
The market was busy. Miss Howe watched as Rigger sold eggs and cheese made from goats’ milk. He heaved bags of vegetables out of the back of his van and carried large amounts of meat back into it, ready for the freezer. He bought two little ducks, which he said would be pets for the children rather than food for Chicky’s table.
He seemed to know everyone he met. People asked about Chicky Starr, about Rigger’s children, about Orla. Then Rigger had to call on his wife’s family and drop in some eggs and cheese. Miss Howe said she’d stay in the van.
‘They’ll offer me tea and apple tart,’ he said.
‘Well then, eat it and drink it, Rigger. Leave me to my thoughts.’ She watched people looking out the window of the farmhouse, but she had no intention of going into a small, stuffy kitchen and making small talk with strangers.
As an outing it was hardly a success, but Chicky was grateful to Rigger.
‘Did you learn anything about her?’ she asked.
‘A bit, but it was like the confessional of the van. She probably regrets having told me.’
‘Let it rest, so,’ said Chicky.
The following day, Miss Howe called on Carmel in Rigger’s house at the end of the garden. Carmel, knowing of the situation, welcomed her more warmly than she might have if left to her own devices. She introduced Miss Howe to the babies, who smiled and burbled good-naturedly; together they went to see the rabbits, the tortoise and the new ducks, who were called Princess and Spud.