Finishing Touches (10 page)

‘There, you see! You’re doing it again!’ Cassie spoke crossly to herself as she hung up her jeans. ‘Making things easy for Irene! Why should Irene have things made easy
for her? Why shouldn’t I make things easy for myself? I am a person too!’ She glanced over at her Desiderata poster. ‘
You are a child of the universe
,’ she hummed.
‘
No less than the trees and the stars you have the right to he here
. . .’ Laura had given her the poster for her sixteenth birthday last year and Cassie really treasured it.
Yes, indeed, she decided, she had as much right to her own bedroom as Irene had, and once Aunt Elsie was gone she was going to ask about it. In her mind’s eye she began to decorate it. Pink
and grey, her favourite colours, but she would make sure that it didn’t look too like her present bedroom. Fashions in interior design were changing all the time. She would put a border on
the wallpaper and have a pink candlewick bedspread with small grey scatter cushions on the bed. She’d paint the door, skirting-boards and windowsill grey as well, to contrast with the pink
walls. She had seen a beautiful room done like that in a magazine in the doctor’s waiting-room. She had liked it so much that she had surreptitiously torn out the page and brought it home
with her to put in her folder.

Cassie always kept a folder into which she put articles and ideas that appealed to her in magazines. When she was working, she was going to buy a house of her own and decorate it exactly the way
she wanted to. Without being big-headed about it, she knew she had a talent for design. Her art teacher had advised her to go to art college, but Nora was not in favour of it. Cassie’s next
choice was to study architecture and she intended putting her name down for a place in the College of Technology, Bolton Street in Dublin. Of course she’d have to get the grades in her exams.
She had done very well in her Intermediate Certificate, and so far she wasn’t doing too badly with her studies. Fortunately, she enjoyed her subjects, apart from science, so it wasn’t
an awful chore to do a bit of swotting now and again.

Honestly, you’d think Nora would even appreciate that, she reflected, as she started picking up Barbara’s clothes, which lay strewn at the foot of her bed. Barbara and Martin always
had to be reprimanded for not studying hard enough. The more Cassie reflected on her current situation, the more aggrieved she felt and the more put-upon she became in her own eyes. In a thoroughly
bad humour, she lifted all Barbara’s clothes off the floor and flung them onto her divan. What a mess Barbara’s clothes got into! A key fell out of a jeans pocket. Cassie’s eyes
widened. That looked like her padlock key. She flew over to her wardrobe and fitted the key in her lock. It fitted! But how odd. Just five minutes ago hadn’t she opened the lock with the key
she kept on an elastic band around her wrist? The little bitch! She’d got a copy made somehow. Just wait! Cassie fumed. Just wait until that one got home.

Barbara didn’t get home until after seven. Her class had been in the city on a cultural visit to museums and art galleries. Cassie had had to set the table and do the
washing-up, although John had dried for her. Cassie had asked her father to try and change her mother’s mind about the party and Jack had promised he would speak to her. Her parents were
going out for an hour to attend the wake of an elderly neighbour. In the meantime, Cassie, hard at work doing the brasses, planned what she would say and do to Barbara.

Barbara breezed in full of the joys of spring, ravenous for her dinner, about half an hour after Jack and Nora had left. ‘I want a word with you,’ Cassie declared, holding open her
palm, on which reposed the duplicate key.

Barbara paled slightly but immediately recovered her composure. ‘What’s that? The key to your chastity belt?’ she drawled sarcastically.

Cassie felt her temper flare. ‘You know very well what it is, you smart little sneak,’ she said furiously, all her resentment erupting. ‘I’m just sick of you and your
sneaky little ways. And it’s all thanks to you and your untidiness that I can’t go to Kate Rooney’s birthday party tonight. I got blamed for the mess of the bedroom and it’s
all your fault. I’m sick, sick,
sick
of you!’

‘And I’m sick of you, Cassie Jordan!’ Barbara echoed, rather taken aback by her sister’s vehemence.

‘How low can you get? Stealing the key to my wardrobe!’ Cassie was shaking with temper. She had to restrain herself from shaking her sister until the younger girl’s teeth
shook.

‘Well, if you weren’t so mean with your clothes! If you were any sort of a sister you’d share! Aileen O’Shaughnessy always shares her clothes with Judy. She’s a
proper sister, not like you. All you care about is yourself.’

‘I beg your pardon!’ snapped Cassie, outraged.

‘It’s true,’ retorted Barbara bitterly. ‘You never let me have your clothes. You never let me go places with you. Aileen is much nicer to Judy than you are to me.
You’re just mean and selfish and I’m glad you’re not allowed to go to your stupid old party.’

Cassie was flummoxed! Barbara thought Aileen was a better sister than she was! Well, really! And she wasn’t the slightest bit abashed about being caught with a duplicate of the padlock
key. If that wasn’t just typical of Barbara, she thought in utter frustration. Someone must have told her that attack was the best form of defence. And typical of herself even to feel a
twinge of guilt! For heaven’s sake, she was the one who was sinned-against. Now don’t get soft, she warned herself. Stick to your guns. Taking a deep breath, Cassie turned to her sister
and said coldly:

‘Barbara, the issue here is not whether Aileen is a better sister than I am. The point is that you did the sneakiest thing by stealing my key and getting a copy, which shows you
haven’t the slightest bit of respect for me. If you had any respect for my clothes and took care of them, I certainly would have lent them to you, but putting my clothes back dirty in the
wardrobe is just not on, Barbara! So that’s your own fault. And I don’t think it’s one bit fair that I get the blame for the mess of the bedroom when at least I make the effort to
keep my half of the room tidy and you have the place looking like a slum. And I think it’s really mean of you, if you want to know,’ she added more heatedly. ‘And I badly wanted
to go to that party.’

‘Oh, just go and get lost, Cassie Jordan. You’re always picking on me!’ Barbara retorted furiously, raging at being caught and slightly shocked at the fury of her usually
agreeable elder sister.

‘I’m not always picking on you, Bar—’

‘You are so!’ Barbara’s voice took on a high-pitched note. ‘Always. You treat me like dirt!’

‘
I
treat
you
like dirt!’ Cassie exploded, getting really mad. ‘Would you cop on to yourself!’

‘Oh, leave me alone,’ sniffed Barbara, deciding that she wasn’t going to be the victor in this row. It was unusual for Cassie to lose her cool and there was no point in
tempting fate.

‘With pleasure,’ snarled Cassie. ‘Just keep your maulers off my clothes or I’ll make you sorry.’ She was so angry that her voice shook.

‘Huh! You and whose army?’ Barbara scoffed derisively, her bad nature triumphing over caution as she sashayed through the bedroom door. She didn’t get far! Cassie was pushed
beyond the limit. Catching her sister by her ponytail, she yanked hard and followed up with a swift, hard slap to the younger girl’s cheek.

‘Oooww! Ouch! You fucking bitch, Cassie Jordan!’ Barbara shrieked, as Martin, John and Irene came rushing out of the sitting-room to see what all the fuss was about.

‘Hey! Hey! break it up!’ John exclaimed, doing his big-brother act. He was as tall as fifteen-year-old Barbara.

‘Sock her one back,’ yelled Martin weaving in and out waving his fists like Muhammad Ali. Irene burst into tears. None of them heard the front door opening.

‘
What’s going on here!
’ Nora demanded, marching down the hall to stand between her two daughters.

‘It was hhh . . . her.
She
started it,’ sobbed Barbara pitifully.

‘Cassie Jordan! I’m ashamed of you! I can’t leave the house for five minutes and the place is in uproar. And you the eldest. A fine help to me you are, with your Aunt Elsie
coming. Your father persuaded me to let you out to that party, but after this carry-on you can just forget it. Barbara, you’re not dead yet. Is that room of yours tidy? John and Martin, get
out and clean the yard,’ Nora commanded in such a tone that no-one dared argue further. ‘Irene, honey, stop crying. I brought you home a barley-sugar stick. Come on into the kitchen. I
have it wrapped up for you.’

In utter frustration at the whole affair, Cassie burst into tears and fled to the bathroom, leaving her siblings open-mouthed in shock. Cassie never cried. It was a glum family that went to bed
that night in a spick-and-span bungalow.

Nora lay in bed, going over in her mind every place that had been cleaned, every job that had been done. The place was like a new pin. Not even Elsie could find fault with it.
It was funny – with any of her other sisters, she didn’t mind a bit. She’d tidy the house, of course, and have things nice, but she’d never go as overboard as when Elsie was
coming. It was a bit ridiculous at her age to be intimidated by her eldest sister. But that had always been the way between her and Elsie, ever since they were children.

Sometimes she could see a little of herself and Elsie in Barbara and Cassie. Barbara, for all her impudence, was impressed and often in awe of Cassie, something that Cassie was just not aware
of. Barbara covered it up well with her sharp tongue. But behind it, the younger girl longed to be accepted by Cassie and Laura and Aileen and the gang. Being Barbara, she just couldn’t be
happy with her own group of friends. She had always had that streak of ‘I see and I want,’ no matter how hard Nora had tried to erase it.

It was so hard raising children! Nora sighed. Tomorrow she’d ask Cassie to make a bit more of an effort with Barbara. After all they were sisters and they’d need each other some day.
But knowing her two daughters, Nora had to admit that it was Cassie who would end up making the effort.

She
had
been a bit hard on Cassie today. A twinge of guilt niggled and would not go away. She had really wanted to go to that party. There was probably some fellow she fancied at it.
And then, of course, the rest of the gang would be there. In spite of herself, Nora smiled in the dark. That Aileen O’Shaughnessy! She was terribly fond of her, and indeed of Laura Quinn.
They were good friends to Cassie and Nora knew you’d always need good friends more than anything in this life. Aileen had been at the wake. Dressed in a trenchcoat, with a beret perched
sideways on her titian curls, she had looked like a member of the French Resistance. Nora was surprised to see her there. But her widowed mother was with her so she had obviously gone to keep her
company. It was so strange to see Aileen murmuring the Rosary and looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. No doubt she would go on to the party later.

Nora tossed restlessly. She should have let Cassie go, she supposed. Her eldest daughter was rarely troublesome; in fact, Nora depended on her a great deal. Maybe too much. That was always the
way with the eldest, though, wasn’t it? Maybe she was a bit too strict with her. Jack maintained that she was. But of course Jack was as soft as marshmallow. Children needed a firm hand. They
had to learn that they couldn’t have everything they wanted. Not that Cassie was in the habit of asking for much. She had her job in the shop and contributed towards her own clothes and was
very generous to her brothers and sisters. She had even bought herself a new outfit for the party. These things were so important to teenagers. John was wanting to go to discos now, and was
beginning to take a welcome interest in his appearance. His latest thing was to beg her to let him get a leather jacket. Nora had put her foot down very firmly. Both he and Martin were saving hard
for a pair of Doc Martens, whatever they might be.

Tomorrow, she’d make it up to Cassie. She’d give her a couple of quid and tell her to take the girls to Kentucky Fried Chicken on Main Street for a treat. Nora’s last conscious
thought was to remind herself to refill the holy water font at the front door. Elsie had caught her out once before with an empty font.

Jack Jordan lay beside his wife, willing sleep to come. He was dead tired. He had been working like a slave painting the outside of the bungalow, cutting lawns and weeding
flower-beds because of
the visit
. Of course it was always the same when his sister-in-law was coming. Nora got herself into such a tizzy. And the strange thing was, usually she was such a
capable woman and things did not get to her. But then Elsie was such a domineering woman. Every time she came she’d have something to criticize. Once, at the christening of one of the
children, they had served a little buffet and Elsie had announced to all and sundry, at the top of her voice, ‘Your crisps are stale.’ Poor Nora had been mortified and he had felt like
planting his boot up his sister-in-law’s backside. As far as Jack was concerned, Elsie was downright rude. But of course he couldn’t say such a thing to his wife. Oh deary me, no! It
was all right for Nora to criticize Elsie or the rest of her siblings, but it did not go down well if he or anyone else criticized
them
. They were a tight clan, the Freyns. That was the
way it was with families, he supposed. Poor old Cassie had been mighty upset this evening. And to think he had managed to get Nora to change her mind about letting her go to the party. No easy feat
in the mood she was in. And then they had to walk in and find Cassie and Barbara swinging out of each other. That had been the end of that! Cassie was like him in that respect, rarely losing the
cool, but when she did lose her temper, watch out!

Jack yawned. Maybe Elsie could do with a bit of temper heading her way. If she said one thing out of place, one thing mind, then he’d really let her have it this time. For years he had
been restraining himself out of consideration for Nora. But he’d had enough. His whole family was out of sorts because of Elsie’s visit. Nora was like a devil; Cassie had missed her
party; Martin and John hadn’t even been allowed to go to the scouts tonight. Poor Barbara had had to clean out her wardrobe. A terrible torture, given Barbara’s wardrobe. Jack put his
arm around Nora, who had finally fallen asleep. One word out of you tomorrow, Elsie, and you’re for it, he promised himself, his humour brightening up immensely at the thought of giving the
dreaded Elsie what for!