The Ballroom Café (8 page)

It was the first year there was not the usual trouble around her birthday.

Every other year an agitation infused Agnes, who became crotchety and cross with her daughter. Debbie only picked up on the tension as she approached her fifth birthday.

For weeks she pestered Agnes about a party. She thought of cake and balloons and her mother happy and beautiful. Mary Power’s mother had baked and iced a cake to look exactly like their house, with Mary waving from the top window.

‘If we try to do that it will look a mess, because your father never bothers about the upkeep of the house.’

Agnes surely griped a lot more, her mouth contorted, her eyes narrow, but Debbie did not listen. She tuned in for the last bit, which came loud and clear.

‘You can forget about a party this year. I am just not up to it.’

She went upstairs to lie down and was still there when her husband came home from work. The house was quiet; his daughter was sitting, her arms folded, at the kitchen table.

‘What’s wrong, baby face?’

Debbie threw herself at him and began to sob.

‘Hey, hey, what could be so bad?’ He took out his handkerchief and dabbed her eyes gently.

‘Mommy says I can’t have a birthday party and I’ve told everybody at school I’m going to have the best party ever.’

‘I’m sure Mommy didn’t mean that exactly. Let me go and talk to her.’ He tucked her up in a blanket with a plate of cookies in front of the TV.

She waited until she heard him go into the bedroom before tiptoeing up the stairs.

‘Aggie, you can’t do this to her. She is only four, for Christ’s sake.’

‘“I want, I want, I want.” I’m not running myself ragged over this.’

‘Aggie, she’s excited. Remember when she was born? We were so happy.’

There was a loud crash. When she looked through the keyhole, Debbie saw her father ducking down by the dressing table; the mirror was smashed and a lamp was lying on the floor broken.

‘Aggie, have you taken leave of your senses?’

‘Don’t talk to me about when she was born. Where were you?’

‘You know I couldn’t be there. We’ve been happy, haven’t we, all these years?’

‘Happy. Is this what you call happiness?’

‘Aggie, don’t say things you’ll regret later.’

‘It’s what I feel.’

‘Aggie.’

Rob made to go to his wife, but she shouted at him. ‘You always take her side. I will not change my mind. That is the end of the party talk.’

‘All right, all right. I’ll talk to Nancy.’

‘Aren’t we so lucky to have Nancy?’

‘I’ll leave you to it.’

‘You’re good at that, Rob Kading,’ she shouted at his back.

Debbie raced down the stairs, but her father saw her slip across the hall to the sitting room. He stopped to give her time to settle herself in front of the TV before entering the room.

‘Baby face, why don’t we do something totally different? Five is a big birthday, big enough for a party away from the house.’

‘Where will we go?’

‘Let me chat to the folks in Ed’s Diner.’

She smiled at him. His face was a grey colour and the frown on his forehead made him look old. He cooked fried eggs for their tea and made a big thing of explaining that Mommy was tired and needed to rest.

‘Don’t worry about your birthday. We’ll have a great party,’ he said with a jolly smile she wanted to believe.

‘Will Mommy come to my birthday?’

‘Of course, darling, Mommy would love to go to your birthday.’

Agnes stayed in her room all evening; even when Debbie was going to bed and lingered at the doorway she did not turn from her position, curled up in a tight ball and facing the wall.

‘She might be asleep. Let’s leave her,’ Rob said, gently guiding his daughter to her bedroom. He stayed with her until she fell asleep.

When he checked on his wife, she threw a hairbrush at him. Out on the porch, he sat on his rocking chair and unscrewed the bottle of Jack Daniel’s he had been saving for an occasion. He did not bother with a glass, but swigged from the neck.

When Debbie woke in the early hours, she did not know at first why her legs and sheet were wet. She called her mother; she did not come. Afraid to disturb Agnes, she went looking for her father and found him asleep on the rocking chair on the veranda; a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s still in his hands. He did not wake when she softly called his name. Yanking the bottle from his grip, she grabbed his shoulder and shook him hard. He rose up from the chair with such ferocity that it rocked violently. The bottle fell from her hands; Debbie shrank back into the shadows, afraid.

As he wiped the sleep slobber from around his mouth, Rob Kading saw his daughter cowering by the sitting-room windowsill.

‘Little darling, I’m sorry if I frightened you. Daddy didn’t mean to.’ He held out his hands to her and she ran to him. ‘It’s not the whole party thing, is it?

She could only whisper in his ear.

‘Oh, don’t worry. That’s easily sorted.’

He led her by the hand and she helped him take off the wet sheet and turn over the mattress. After they had tucked in a new sheet, he sat Debbie on the bed and helped her change into a fresh nightdress.

‘We don’t need to tell Mommy about this.’

She nodded with relief and closed her eyes, the smell of whiskey from her father in her nostrils.

When Agnes got up the next morning, it was as if her outburst of the evening before had not taken place. She cooked pancakes for breakfast, stacking them high, humming a jaunty tune. Rob winked at Debbie, and it made her happy.

*

At the gates of Roscarbury Hall, Debbie stopped to check her make-up and dot concealer under her eyes. The dark patches were only a little muted, but she figured Ella would be too jittery to notice. Ella was standing nervously at the front door when she rounded the bend in the driveway.

‘I did not sleep a wink. My stupid ideas. I should never have gone this big. I am sure I have baked too much. It will be a terrible waste.’ She stopped to look at Debbie. ‘Are you all right? You look a bit peaky.’

‘Hard time sleeping, too.’

Ella gave her an odd look, but Iris, screaming from upstairs, made them take the stairs two at a time. The café looked like a sauna, white steam puffing across the room.

‘I am nearly scalded with this coffee machine,’ Iris shouted.

Ella shouted to open some windows as she ran to switch off the machine. ‘Iris, stick to the garden or the washing-up. All you had to do was turn the dial.’

‘I only wanted to sneak a cappuccino.’ Iris stopped Ella’s hand moving for a china cup. ‘I need a mug; I am so nervous.’

The steam dissipated, clearing to the corners. Debbie, checking out the windows, saw as many as twenty coming in the gate. When they had got past the bank of rhododendron, she took Ella by the hand and pointed to the group flowing towards the house.

‘My good lord in heaven, I am not going to have enough to feed them. I don’t even know some of them.’ Her voice was shaking, a tear rolling down her face. ‘Do I look all right?’

Debbie nodded. Reaching over, she opened two buttons at the top of Ella’s cream blouse and loosened her golden hair from behind her ears. ‘Now you look great,’ she said.

Ella, pink on the cheeks, was embarrassed but felt ridiculously happy.

‘I don’t want to meet any of that crowd. Time for me to exit,’ Iris said, rushing down the stairs and outside to the kitchen garden.

Muriel Hearty led the charge. She had not just spread the word about the café; she had promised more.

‘They have opened up the old house. Sure, we have to have a look. No stranger was ever allowed past the downstairs before,’ she babbled on to anyone who would listen.

Many went to gawp. Those who thought they might find some clues as to the tragic history were disappointed but seduced, instead, by the flowing fountain and garden rills, the view from the café windows, and both Ella and a quiet American behind the counter.

Ella patrolled the garden tables and the aisles of the Ballroom Café, personally checking with each customer if they were happy. At one stage, Roberta swept by to hand her sister a red note.

Are you happy now the whole of Rathsorney has come to gawk? Don’t take this as a measure of your success but as a level of the notoriety of the O’Callaghan sisters still. You have had your fun. For pity’s sake, stop now. R.

Ella took the pencil from its place balanced at her ear and wrote a reply, holding it out at eye level so her sister could scan it.

The Ballroom Café stays open. Like I said, put up or ship out. E.

By lunchtime, all the scones were gone and people sat inside and outside with tea and coffee and slices of cake. To make everything go further, Ella had to halve the slices of cake, but nobody seemed to notice, so enchanted were they by the delicate china and the faded elegance of the old house. When the last person left, at four o’clock, Ella shut the hall door and asked Iris to put a closed sign on the main gate. Debbie had already started the washing-up.

‘Leave that, dear; your feet must be killing you.’

‘I want to get along.’

‘Sounds like you have plans.’

She saw her shoulders hunch up, a shiver of tears making Debbie stoop further over the sink.

‘Debbie, what is wrong? Has someone said something to you? Those women can be awful cruel: they don’t mean it, but they are vicious gossips.’

Debbie turned, her face patched red from crying. ‘It’s not the women. Everybody was perfectly nice to me.’

‘Darling, what is it?’ Ella put her arm around her shoulders, steering her to a small table for two.

‘It’s my birthday today. I lost my dad recently. Silly, really, at my age to be so caught up on a birthday.’

‘You poor thing! I would not have had you working if I had known.’

Debbie snorted her tears loudly, so Ella patted her gently on the shoulder as she reached into the cupboard under the sink for a bottle of Baileys.

‘I was going to put some in the whipped cream, but I thought why bother wasting it on the gossips of Rathsorney.’

She took down two small china cups, delicate blue flowers mossed in and topped with gold rims, pouring a generous measure into each. Whipping a chocolate muffin from the cake stand, she stuck a lighted match in it.

‘Blow it out, quick, before we blow up the place. Happy birthday.’

Debbie blew hard and the match toppled onto the table. ‘Thank you for being so kind.’

‘Drink up; it will warm you up and leave a sweet taste. Tell me about your dad.’

Debbie took a gulp from her teacup. ‘He was always there for me. My mom … she hasn’t been in my life for a long time. Dad passed away a short while ago; there’s nothing much to tell.’

‘Not easy. In time, the memories themselves will bring you comfort.’

‘Maybe.’

Ella got the bottle and topped up the teacups.

‘Do you have children, Ella?’

‘Yes … My girl died a long time ago.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘She drowned at the harbour; she was only a baby. We have to take what life throws at us.’

Debbie did not know what to say. She could hear herself breathing. They sat as the light began to dull, sipping from the china cups; there was no need to talk.

‘Do you mind if I ask a personal question?’ Ella asked after a short while.

‘I suppose not.’

‘Why have you come here to Rathsorney? It was hardly for employment in the Ballroom Café.’

Debbie gulped some more from her teacup, before sitting back. ‘No reason for Rathsorney in particular. I’m trying to trace my roots, so I needed a base.’

‘Right.’

Debbie got up and walked to the window. The trees were beginning to blend into the late-afternoon sky. She spotted a fox creep up the parkland to Neary’s farm, and in the distance a boat was heading out to sea for a night’s fishing. She kept her eyes on the rills, following them to the pond, looking at the lake in the distance as she spoke.

‘It’s not as simple as that. I was adopted from the convent orphanage in Ballygally.’

Ella followed her to the window. ‘That’s why you are here?’

Debbie swallowed back the tears. ‘They have no record of me. I’ve tried everything.’

‘Oh, you poor darling.’ Ella stroked her hair lightly.

Neither of them heard Iris come up the stairs.

‘Drinking in the early evening, ladies? This café has not got a licence,’ she cackled.

Ella whipped around. ‘You won’t want a Baileys then?’

‘Ella O’Callaghan, you are bold. Remember, make it a mug,’ Iris said, plonking into a chair and patting the one beside her to call Debbie over. ‘You are the talk of the town, madam: you and the café. I will put my money on an even bigger crowd tomorrow.’ If Iris noticed the tear stains across Debbie’s face, she did not let on.

‘Ella here should run a great American day: hot dogs and mustard, blueberry muffins, doughnuts. Pecan pie maybe?’ Iris laughed.

Ella plonked the mug in front of her. ‘You are losing the run of yourself, Iris O’Callaghan. No offence, Debbie, but we are not running a diner.’

‘None taken. I really must get along.’

Ella jumped up. ‘Please, can you wait a few minutes? I have something for you.’

Before Debbie could answer, Ella scurried off to the next landing and her room. She knew exactly what she wanted to give her: the Weiss butterfly brooch, delicate, to match the look in her eyes. She had no daughter who would ever wear it now. Taking it out of the box, she held it up to her shoulder. Delicate pinks, blues and lilacs; the stones glittered and glowed in the light. She had had such grand plans when Carrie was born of ordering a Weiss brooch for her birthday each year. She wrote to Weiss of her daughter and how even the butterflies fluttered down to kiss her face.

Holding the brooch close, Ella skipped down the stairs to the café.

‘I want you to have this,’ she said to Debbie. She reached out and pinned it to her shirt. ‘It is time for it to fly to the outside world.’