The Ballroom Café (19 page)

I have arranged for the sale of the Roscarbury Hall painting. A man will come to collect it today. Maybe then you will stop this nonsense and close down the tearoom. R.

Ella felt like laughing, but she knew if she did she would also start to cry and there would be no stopping her. Roberta was at the door when Ella caught up with her and stuffed a hastily scribbled reply in her hand.

Don’t you think I have thought of all these things? The painting is only worth a few hundred, if that. Tell the valuer not to waste his time and petrol; the café brings in more in a day than that painting will ever be worth. E.

Roberta did not bother to answer but walked out front, where Gerry O’Hare was waiting to drive her to Molloy’s.

Ella was rather glad the painting was not worth a great deal. She was probably the only person in the world who liked the heavy oil on canvas, but that was because she did not see the sad darkness of Roscarbury Hall and the sheets of grey rain but the story behind it.

The artist had struck a deal with Great Aunt Becky where he would have food and lodging for as long as it took him to complete the painting. Rebecca O’Callaghan had reckoned on a week, or possibly two, but when it ran to two months, she stood over the artist, forcing him to finish the canvas before she threw him out. That was why some of the finer architectural details were missing on one side of the house and several of the shrubbery did not appear on the canvas at all.

Rebecca despaired that the house in the painting would never be as grand as the one she lived in. She was also very angry, because in a fit of pique the artist had coloured in sheets of grey rain, which gave the scene a cold, foreboding look.

Ella’s mother threatened to throw the painting on the fire countless times, but John O’Callaghan was having none of it. He consented to its removal from the drawing room but kept it safe in sight of his reading chair in the library. It was a dull Roscarbury scene with the charcoal-grey house, which looked sad and neglected. Ella liked to have it in the Ballroom Café, though nobody seemed much taken by it.

Ella saw a gaggle of young girls come up the driveway and she made her way to the café.

‘There is a right lot coming in now. I don’t want them crowding up the tables at the windows; it will put off the older set.’

‘Aren’t you happy that the Ballroom Café is regarded as rather cool?’ Debbie laughed.

Ella grimaced. ‘I just never imagined that lot coming here. I hope they don’t break the china. Loud, and no life experience. I would have thought Molloy’s was more their thing.’ She stopped, because she heard them screeching and laughing, thundering up the stairs. ‘I suppose they help towards keeping the bank manager happy,’ she said.

A girl swung in the café door but stopped short when she saw Ella.

‘Come in, dears; we have only just opened up,’ Ella said, smiling sweetly. The girls trooped in, taking over three tables, dumping their bags around them, their mobile phones taking up most of the spare space on the tables.

‘You’ve changed your attitude,’ Debbie said, digging Ella in the ribs.

‘Money is money. Now, don’t keep the customers waiting,’ Ella muttered, pulling a severe face. She watched as Debbie took their orders, the girls giggling and pointing to various ornaments and bits and pieces, texting as they conversed, happy in their worlds, where nothing threw them. She felt a well of envy that she had never felt that way.

Muriel Hearty spilled into the room, her face red with excitement. ‘It is about Fergus Brown.’

‘What is wrong?’ Ella shook her head and shoulders to compose herself and began to cut some lemon cake.

‘Fergus Brown’s wife has died. Fell down the stairs. Something about thinking she was on a cruise ship and dancing along the deck.’

Ella stopped, the knife suspended over the plate. ‘This is terrible for poor Fergus.’

‘Of course, but at least now he can begin to enjoy life. This is the best bit. He is a millionaire several times over. Now, won’t he be a good catch?’ she said, pulling a face at Debbie.

‘May God forgive you, Muriel Hearty! That is no way to be talking. The man loved his wife and is no doubt heartbroken. Do you know the funeral arrangements?’

‘Burial after eleven o’clock Mass on Wednesday,’ Muriel answered, without looking at Ella.

Ella felt a weakness come over her. Fergus Brown had loved his wife; she could not bear to think of him so sad, so alone. She waited until the women from Mass had been catered for before asking Debbie to keep an eye on things.

Ella sat down at the kitchen table. When Fergus had held her hand, she felt a warmth course through her, the sound of his voice reassuring. For a while, something had been possible. The sunlight squinted into her eyes and she got up and fussed about tidying the worktop.

Ella thought the gossips were proving to be right: the O’Callaghans were bad luck. It was Muriel Hearty who had blurted it out a long time ago, tried to make light of it. It hung in the air between them, like washing on the line, heavy and cold on a day without a breeze.

‘You girls seem to grow it, don’t you?’

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘Tragedy, loss …’ Muriel Hearty shifted in her seat.

‘We have had our fair share, if that is what you mean.’

‘It is not me, it’s others saying. I don’t take much notice of it.’

‘Good.’

Ella remembered Muriel’s discomfort and she smiled at how she had concentrated on buttoning up her sheepskin coat so that when she walked, she waddled, tight and stiff, like a toy soldier.

By the time she got back to the café, the rush was over and Debbie was sitting by one of the windows.

‘Are you ready to kill me?’

‘No, Ella, I figured you were upset about Fergus Brown.’

‘I am going to call on the house; I feel I should. I can close up the café if you like; we have probably got everything we are going to get today anyway.’

Debbie stretched out her feet in front of her. ‘Chuck and May are due in soon. I don’t mind holding the fort.’

Ella ran her hand lightly over Debbie’s hair. ‘You are a star. I honestly don’t know what I am going to do without you.’

Debbie looked out the window. ‘I think I’m going to miss this place an awful lot.’

*

Ella wore her black wool coat and purple scarf. A young man who looked like Fergus opened the door, his eyes red from crying.

‘I am sorry, we are keeping the house private,’ he said quietly.

Ella felt a flush of embarrassment rise up her neck. ‘I am so sorry; I had no idea. I am only here to pass on my sincere sympathy.’

The man looked uncomfortable. ‘Do you know my father?’

‘Yes, and I knew your mother a long time ago.’

The man, who was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, stepped out onto the street. ‘I don’t mean to be rude. It is just my father is so overcome with grief. He can’t talk to anybody. This has been such a terrible shock. He found her at the bottom of the stairs when he came back from his early-morning walk. She usually slept until after nine, you see.’

Ella put a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘Tell him Ella O’Callaghan called. Will you?’

He nodded, retreating quickly, closing the door gently.

Debbie was early, so she sat where she could watch the door for Assumpta. Outside, a woman called to her young daughter to follow and the little girl tumbled after her mother, her little face anxious lest she lose her in this strange place.

Debbie remembered she had liked to swing on the gate as a young girl. The kitchen clock ticked out Mommy’s name; the fridge gurgled in the kitchen; the oven stayed cold. In the sitting room, Agnes’s sewing machine was covered, as if she were away on holiday. The sunshine streamed through in the same spots, but lacked warmth. Sometimes Debbie wet her pants because she could not hold any longer and she could not face struggling up the stairs, waiting for her heart to tighten as she passed the second landing. Sometimes she piddled at the back of the potting shed, but she was always afraid Helena Long, the nosey next-door neighbour on the right, might spy her.

Sometimes she wished she had been knocked down by a car on the run home from school that day or that Gainsborough’s wicked dog had got over the fence and savaged her. Then she would not know her mother had come back not to be with her family but to die.

Mommy was back two full days. She slept a lot and the doctor came. Debbie did not get to talk to her; every time she lingered at the bedroom door, she was ushered away. But that morning, Agnes got up. It was almost a normal morning. Debbie only wanted to remember that morning, when she had left for school with a warm, fuzzy feeling, that maybe Agnes loved her.

When she got downstairs, Agnes had a stack of blueberry pancakes and maple syrup ready.

‘Eat up, darling; you don’t want to be late,’ she said, and kissed her daughter on the top of her head.

As she stuffed her mouth, she saw her mother watch her and she grinned a happy grin. Agnes sat down opposite with her muffin and tea.

‘We never go to the playground any more,’ Agnes said, pushing her fingers into the muffin on her plate.

In her eagerness to please, Debbie did not think to wonder why Agnes was mashing the muffin with her fingers, flickers of agitation crossing her eyes.

‘Maybe we can go after school?’

Agnes guffawed loudly. ‘Not today,’ she said, getting up to get the lunch bag ready. ‘You make sure you do well in your spelling test, sweetheart. We can’t be the only people on the street who don’t have a 100 per cent score on the refrigerator door.’

They did not say much more to each other, until it was time for Debbie to leave.

‘Bring home a gold star, darling. Make me proud,’ Agnes said, kneeling down beside her daughter to fix her cardigan and straighten her skirt. When Debbie gave her a hug, Agnes laughed.

Debbie could still feel the warmth that rippled through her, when she heard her mother laugh and Agnes told her she loved her.

‘I promise I will get a gold star and run all the way home with it to you.’

Agnes hugged her tight. ‘Do that, darling. Have a good day.’

Her mother did not step out on to the veranda to wave, but Debbie did not mind and walked down the street, practising her ten spellings over and over in her head, to make sure she would bring a gold star home to Mommy.

She recited the ten spellings now, one after another, swinging the gate in rhythm with the rhyme so that the old hinges squeaked loudly.

*

Debbie, fiddling with the fronds of her silk scarf, saw Mother Assumpta glide towards her, and she stood up, not sure if she should extend her hand in greeting.

‘Miss Kading, I hope you are well today. I am sorry about the secrecy. I wanted this to be a private meeting between the two of us. Off the record, so to speak.’

‘Is there something further you can tell me?’

Mother Assumpta eased herself in to a velvet armchair and arranged her skirt carefully around her knees. ‘I hope you do not think any the less of us, as a result of your experiences in trying to track down your birth mother.’

Debbie did not answer.

‘I may have been a bit harsh previously, but you have to understand I was going on what I saw in the record book. I had no idea of and do not condone the practices of the past.’

She paused, hoping the other woman would talk, but was forced to continue as Debbie stayed silent.

‘I have spoken to Consuelo and she has given me your file.’

Debbie edged out on her seat. ‘Can I see it?’

‘I can’t of course show it to you, but if I were to read parts of it aloud, it would not be my fault if you were to hear the information you are looking for.’

Solemnly, she opened the file and read out the names and addresses and income of Rob and Agnes Kading. When she came to the details for the birth mother, she read the name slowly and deliberately: ‘Mary Murtagh, with an address at Bridge Street, Rathsorney, Co. Wicklow. Aged nineteen.’

Debbie’s head began to whirl; she could only see a wave of colour swirling in front of her. The back of her neck hurt like hell and her brain felt like it was swelling.

‘That is her name?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Why was it not in the book when I inspected it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘When can I meet her?’

‘What I am about to tell you may be difficult to hear, but your mother has not made contact and I understand the Murtaghs moved from the area soon after the birth.’

Debbie pushed her head into her hands and attempted to breathe deeply. Pain shot through her and she felt suddenly weary. ‘Why couldn’t you have told me this before?’

‘I did not know any of it.’ Assumpta reached to take Debbie’s hand, but was forced to retract when Debbie shrank back, the tears spilling down her face.

‘How do you know all this now?’

‘I have spoken to Sister Consuelo.’

‘Could I talk to her?

‘She is not well. It is not possible.’

Debbie swiped her hand across her cheeks.

They sat, neither knowing what to say next, until Assumpta pulled herself out of the armchair. ‘My car has arrived. Can I offer you a lift anywhere?’

Debbie shook her head.

‘Goodbye, Miss Kading. We will pray for you.’

Debbie nodded, not bothering to stand up.

She wanted to throw up. Her mouth watered and she cupped her hands in case she had to vomit. She saw Assumpta chatting lightly to a woman on the front steps, laughing heartily, before she made her way to the taxi.

Mary Murtagh: it was a simple name.

Her head was heavy with pain, so she closed her eyes. She should be rushing off, trying to trace the Murtaghs, but she felt exhausted. There was only one certainty: she would never know Mary Murtagh as a young woman or Agnes as an older woman.

Agnes floated by. It was Friday: the day to test drive her latest outfit. At the start of each week, Agnes set herself a challenge. Chairs were pushed back in the sitting room, a Butterick tissue pattern pinned down on fabric and a shape cut out with thick, heavy shears. Agnes would hide herself away, pumping the foot pedal of the machine and stitching into the night. By Friday she was usually finished, so she paraded around the garden and sat on the porch, to break the dress in, she said, before she wrapped it in plastic and placed it in the wardrobe with all the other dresses, stitched in a desperate attempt to keep busy.