A Week in Winter (14 page)

And then it
was
time to meet her – this mother who had sacrificed so much for her boy, the mother whose Friday evenings could never be disturbed. She had asked Teddy to bring his friend Winnie from Dublin to have Friday dinner in the hotel and to join them for a lunch the following day.

Winnie took great care of what to dress in, what she thought Mrs Hennessy would like.

This old lady rarely moved from Rossmore. She would be suspicious of anything flashy.

Winnie’s silver and black jacket might be too dressy. She wore a sensible navy trouser suit instead.

‘I’m quite nervous of meeting her,’ she confided to Teddy.

‘Nonsense. You’ll get on so well together they’ll have to call the fire brigade,’ he said.

She would take the train to Rossmore with her overnight bag. Peter and his wife Gretta had invited her to stay in their hotel as their guest. Mrs Hennessy would not be told about their sleeping arrangements, so this seemed the sensible option.

‘We’ll give you our best room. You’ll need every creature comfort after meeting the dragon lady,’ Peter had said.

‘But I thought you liked her!’ Winnie was startled.

‘She’s a great dame, certainly, and the best of company, but you never saw a mama animal in the wild as protective of its young as Lillian is. She scares them away, one by one,’ Peter laughed at it all.

Winnie pretended not to hear him. Battle lines were not going to be drawn over Teddy. He was an adult, a man who could and would make his own decisions.

Teddy was at the railway station to meet her. ‘Mam has made up a great guest list for lunch tomorrow as well,’ he said with delight. ‘She says we must make it worth your while coming all this way.’

‘That’s very generous of her,’ Winnie murmured. ‘And I get to see your home, too.’ She was very pleased that she had already packed a small gift for Mrs Hennessy. This was all going to be fine.

At the hotel, Peter and Gretta were in a state of high excitement. ‘Do you want to see your room now, and change for dinner?’ Gretta asked.

‘No, not at all. I’m fine going straight in just as I am,’ Winnie said. She knew what a stickler for punctuality Mrs Hennessy was and how she hated to be kept waiting.

‘Whatever you think,’ Gretta said, doubtfully.

Winnie moved purposefully into the bar and dining room of the Rossmore Hotel. She would reassure the old lady and win her over. It was all a matter of letting her know that Winnie was no threat, no rival. They were all in this together.

She could see no elderly figure sitting in the big armchairs. Perhaps Mrs Hennessy’s legendary timekeeping had been exaggerated. Then she saw Teddy hailing a most glamorous woman sitting at the bar.

‘There you are, Mam! Beaten us to it, as usual! Mam, this is my friend Winnie.’

Winnie stared in disbelief. This was no clinging, frail old woman. This was someone in her early fifties, groomed and made-up and dressed to kill. She wore a gold brocade jacket over a wine-coloured silk dress. She must have come straight from the hairdresser’s. Her handbag and shoes were made of soft expensive leather. She wore very classy-looking jewellery.

There had to be some mistake.

Winnie’s mouth opened and closed. Never at a loss for something to say, she now found herself totally wordless.

Mrs Hennessy, however, was able to cope with her own sense of surprise with much more dignity.

‘Winnie, what a pleasure to meet you! Teddy told me all about you.’ Her eyes took Winnie in from head to toe and up again.

Winnie felt very conscious of her big, comfortable shoes. And
why
had she worn this dreary navy trouser suit? She looked like someone who had come in to move the furniture in the hotel, not to have a dressed-up dinner with this style icon.

Teddy beamed from one to the other, seeing what he had always wanted: a good meeting between his mother and his girl. And he remained delighted all through the meal while his mother patronised Winnie, dismissed her and almost laughed in her face. Teddy Hennessy saw none of this. He only saw the three of them establishing themselves as a family group.

Mrs Hennessy said that
of course
Winnie must call her Lillian, after all, they were friends now. ‘You are so very different to what I expected,’ she said admiringly.

‘Oh, really?’ Poor Winnie wondered had she ever been so gauche and awkward.

‘Yes, indeed. When Teddy told me he had met this little nurse in Dublin I suppose I thought of someone much younger, sillier somehow. It’s marvellous to meet someone so mature and sensible.’

‘Oh, is that what I seem?’ She recognised the words for what they were:
mature
and
sensible
meant
big
,
dull
,
ordinary
and
old
. She could hear the sigh of relief that Lillian Hennessy was allowing to hiss out from her perfectly made-up lips. This Winnie was no threat. Her golden son, Teddy, couldn’t possibly fancy a woman as unattractive as this.

‘And it’s so
good
for Teddy to have proper people to meet when he’s in Dublin,’ Lillian went on in a voice that was almost but not quite a gush. ‘Someone who will keep him out of harm’s way and from making unsuitable attachments.’

‘Indeed, I’m great at that,’ Winnie said.

‘You are?’ Lillian’s eyes were hard.

Teddy looked bewildered for a moment.

‘Well, I’m thirty-four and I kept myself out of making any unsuitable attachments so far,’ Winnie said.

Lillian screamed with delight. ‘Aren’t you just wonderful! Well, of course Teddy is only thirty-two, so we have to keep an eye on him,’ she tinkled.

Lillian knew everyone in the dining room and nodded or waved at them all. Sometimes she even introduced Winnie as ‘an old,
old
friend of ours from Dublin’. She chose the wine, complained that the Hennessy cheeses were not properly displayed on the cheese plate and eventually called the evening to an end by talking about her invitation to lunch the following day.

‘I had been in such a tizz wondering who to invite with you, but now that I’ve met you I see you’d be perfectly at ease with anyone. So you’ll meet a lot of the old buffers around here. All very parochial, I’m afraid, compared to Dublin, but I’m sure you’ll find a few likely souls.’ Then she was out in the foyer tapping her elegantly shod toe until Teddy walked Winnie to the lift.

‘I
knew
it would be wonderful,’ he said. And with a quick kiss on the cheek he was gone to drive his mother home.

In the Rossmore Hotel, Winnie cried until she had no more tears. She saw her stained face in the mirror. An old, flat face; the face that could be introduced to old buffers. Somebody no one would get into a tizz over.
Where
did the woman get these phrases?

She wept over Teddy. Was he a man at all to leave her at the lift doors and run after his overdressed, power-crazed mother? Or was he a puppet who had no intention of having a proper relationship with her?

She would
not
go to this awful lunch tomorrow. She would make her excuses and take the train back to Dublin. Let them all work it out as they wanted to. The last few months had been a fool’s paradise. Winnie should have known better at her age.

And talking about age, Lillian had said Teddy was thirty-two, making him sound as if he were still a child. He would be thirty-three in two weeks’ time. He was only fourteen months younger than Winnie. She and Teddy had already laughed at the age difference. To them it had been immaterial. How had Lillian managed to change it all and make her seem like some kind of cougar stalking the young, defenceless Teddy?

Well, never mind. This was the last she would see of either of them.

She fell into a troubled sleep and woke with a headache.

Gretta was standing beside her bed with a breakfast tray.

‘What? I didn’t order . . .’

‘God, Winnie, you’ve had dinner with Lillian. You probably need a blood transfusion or shock treatment but I brought you coffee, croissants and a Bloody Mary to get you on your feet.’

‘She’s not important. I’m going back to Dublin on the next train. I’m not letting her get to me. Believe me, I know when to leave the stage.’

‘Drink the Bloody Mary first. Go
on
, Winnie, drink it. It’s full of good things like lemon juice and celery salt and Tabasco.’

‘And vodka,’ Winnie said.

‘Desperate needs, desperate remedies.’ Gretta held out the glass and Winnie drank it.

‘Why does she hate me?’ Winnie was begging to know.

‘She doesn’t hate you. She’s just so afraid of losing Teddy. She grows claws whenever anyone looks as if they might take him away. This side of her comes out when she’s in a panic. But she’s not getting away with it this time.’

During the coffee, Gretta explained that there was a wedding in the hotel that day and that a hairdresser was on hand. She would come to the room and do a quick job on Winnie and then so would the make-up artist.

‘It’s too late for all this makeover stuff,’ Winnie wailed. ‘She saw me the way I was. I deliberately didn’t bring any smart clothes because I didn’t want to dazzle her.
Me
dazzle
her
? I must have been mad.’

‘I have a gorgeous top I’m going to lend you. She’s never seen it. It’s the real deal – a Missoni. Truly top drawer. I got it from one of those outlet places. You’ll knock her eyes out.’

‘I don’t want to knock her eyes out. I don’t care about her or her son.’

‘None of us cares about her, but we all love Teddy. You’re the only one who can save him. Go on, Winnie, one lunch. You can do it. Believe it or not, underneath she’s a very decent person.’

And somehow Winnie found herself in the shower and then with a hairdresser and having her eyebrows plucked and a blusher applied to her cheekbones. Eyeshadow to match the beautiful lilac and aquamarine colours of the Italian designer blouse.

‘Even if you are leaving the stage, then leave it fighting,’ Gretta warned as she admired the results.

‘Get back and deal with the wedding, Gretta. This is your bread and butter. Your livelihood.’

‘I don’t care about the wedding. I care about getting Teddy out from under that woman’s thumb. Look, Winnie, she
is
our friend, but Teddy
must
be allowed to live his own life, and you are the one who will do it. I don’t know how but it will come to you.’

‘I’m not going to issue any ultimatums. Either Teddy wants to be with me or he doesn’t.’

‘Oh, Winnie, if only life was as easy. You don’t do weddings every week like we do all year long; you don’t know the rocky roads to the altar.’

‘I’d prefer a road with no rocks, a pleasant, easy road and to walk it alone,’ Winnie said.

‘You can do this. Go for it, Winnie,’ Gretta begged.

Lillian had gathered over a dozen people for lunch. Fresh salmon was served with new potatoes and minted peas. There were very elegant salads with asparagus and avocado, walnuts and blue cheese.

Winnie looked around her. This was a very comfortable, charming house: there were wooden floors with rugs; big chintz-covered sofas and chairs were dotted around, framed family photographs covered the little side table.

A conservatory, where a table of summer drinks was laid out, opened into a well-kept garden. This was Lillian’s domain.

Winnie was impressed but she would not fawn and admire and praise. Instead, she concentrated on the other guests. Despite herself, she found she liked Lillian’s friends.

She was seated next to the local lawyer, who talked about how Ireland had become very litigious with people looking everywhere for compensation, and told her marvellously funny stories about cases he had heard about. On her other side were Hannah and Chester Kovac who had founded and ran a local health centre, and they talked about the problems in the health service. Opposite, there was a gentleman called Neddy, who ran an old people’s home and his wife Clare, who was the headmistress of the local school; their friends, Judy and Sebastian, told her they had started with a small newsagent’s shop in the town centre but now had a large store in the main street of Rossmore. There had been a big fuss about the bypass when people thought that it would take trade away from the town, but it turned out there had been great business in selling Dubliners second homes in the Whitethorn Woods area.

These were normal, warm-hearted people, and they seemed perfectly at ease with Lillian Hennessy. The woman must have a lot more going for her than she was showing to Winnie.

She noticed Lillian glancing at her from time to time with an air of some speculation. It was as if she realised that Winnie had changed in more than her appearance since last night. What Winnie did not notice, however, was the way the lawyer kept refilling her glass with what he said was an excellent Chablis. By the time the strawberries were served, Winnie was not thinking as clearly as she would have liked.

She found herself looking over at Teddy’s face and thinking how genuinely good-natured and warm he was. She admired his courtesy with his mother’s friends, and his eagerness that everyone should have a good time. He looked across at her a lot and always smiled, as if the dream of his life had been realised and that she had come home.

Lillian was a good hostess. Winnie had to give her that much.

She managed to make her guests move around so that they talked to other people. Winnie had watched the little dance, and was determined to get up and go to the bathroom to avoid being closeted with Lillian.

But she hadn’t moved in time.

‘What a lovely Missoni top,’ Lillian said to her admiringly.

‘Thank you,’ Winnie said.

‘Could I ask where you got it?’

‘It was a gift.’ Winnie closed down the line of enquiry.

‘I hope you haven’t been bored here. I’m sure you think it’s a real country-bumpkin outing.’ Lillian in her cream linen dress and jacket looked as if she were dressed for a smart society wedding.

‘I’ve loved it, Lillian. What wonderful friends you have.’

‘I’m sure you have a lot of good friends in Dublin, too.’

‘Well, yes, I do. Like you, I enjoy people, so I suppose I do have a lot of friends.’ Winnie felt her voice sounded tinny and faraway. She might indeed be a little drunk. She must be very careful.