The Ballroom Café (7 page)

‘Are you refusing me?’ Consuelo marched across to the desk and stood leaning over Assumpta.

‘Until this thing about the American blows over, the safest and best place for you is Moyasta.’

‘You are afraid I will shoot off my mouth, aren’t you?’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about and I do not want to know. What I am saying is, having a high profile in the community here would not be helpful at the moment.’

Consuelo looked deflated, like a child told she could not go swimming after all. ‘You are not seriously going to send me back, are you?’

‘I am asking you to go back, Consuelo. We can manage to put you up for tonight, but that is all.’

Assumpta could hear the tick of the hall clock as Consuelo sat down massaging her fingers.

‘I did the best I could for every child; nobody can say different. Just because some people won’t accept the answers in black and white, the official records of this convent, does not mean I should be penalised.’

‘You are not being penalised. We simply do not want the whole thing blowing up in our faces.’

‘What is new in these parts?’

Assumpta smiled to herself. Consuelo would never admit she was beaten, but merely changed the subject.

‘Jimmy Doohan, the farmer who owns the fields across the way, has died,’ Assumpta said, trying to make her voice sound conversational and friendly.

‘We will need to show our faces at the funeral. If the family sell off the land around the convent, our privacy will be gone.’

‘We will cross that bridge when we come to it.’

Mother Assumpta stood up as the lunch bell sounded, catching Consuelo gently but firmly by the elbow.

‘Ella O’Callaghan has set up a café in the house.’

‘At Roscarbury Hall?’

‘Upstairs. Fr Devine says it is wonderful. He has coffee there every morning after late Mass.’

Sister Consuelo turned sharply to Assumpta. ‘What sort of madness has come over her, letting people into the house?’

‘The front door has been opened up. The place is looking good.’

Consuelo pulled in a whistling breath. ‘There must have been a sea change in Ella O’Callaghan. Sure, she would not let you past the kitchen. A gardener once told me he had to piss outside, because there was no point asking about going upstairs to the loo. Rusted up a right good plant in the process, he did.’

‘Sister Consuelo, please watch your language.’

There was a loud whoop of welcome for Consuelo when she walked into the basement kitchen and took up her usual position to the right of Mother Assumpta at the long, rectangular table.

One woman stood by the Aga, ladling food from different saucepans onto plates, which were then passed from sister to sister along the table. The same was done at the end of the table, where another nun, wearing a charcoal-grey jumper and jeans, handed out glasses of juice. Consuelo chatted loudly to the woman on her right.

‘The way this country is being run, there will be no young people left. McInerney in the High Street, his three sons have left; he does not think any one of them will want to come back and make a life here.’

‘Consuelo, you always were the heartthrob of the town. A few minutes back and you have us all up to date; I don’t know how you do it,’ Sister Marion said, in an attempt to join the conversation.

Consuelo, buoyed up by the praise, straightened in her seat, throwing her shoulders back. ‘Years of practice, Marion, mean I am very much in tune with the common man or woman,’ she replied, her voice at a high pitch. Her habit of looking over her glasses made her look pompous, as well as sounding it.

Assumpta quietly picked at her stew, wondering if Consuelo would leave tomorrow morning or if she would hatch up another plan to stay.

There was such a flurry of activity around Roscarbury Hall over one weekend that those who lived in the town could not but notice something big was afoot. But it was Muriel Hearty who decided to make the trip down the road to find out. After the post office closed for a half day, she had her husband drop her at the big gates.

Ella and Debbie had gone on a special shopping expedition to Gorey, ordering fifteen round wooden tables for inside and wrought-iron round for outside, red and white check tablecloths, and plenty of strong chairs. Little red candles in glass holders were purchased for the centre of each table along with boxes of cutlery. Red napkins were bought in bulk, and new cake tins and bun trays by the dozen. Debbie’s advice was taken on a sophisticated coffee machine and a hot-water geyser.

Back at Roscarbury, they set to work with a renewed vigour, dragging the cobwebs from the high ceiling and hoovering up runaway spiders. Ella and Debbie donned thick rubber gloves and washed and swabbed until they ached. The dust was beaten out of thick old carpets, and window nets were dipped in bleach before being rinsed and put back on the tracks immediately, to avoid creasing. Rolled-up balls of newspaper were used to make the old window glass sparkle, and the silver and brass were polished until the cloth went black. Leather chairs were massaged with sweet-scented furniture polish, and years of grime scraped away. Velvet drapes were sent for dry-cleaning, and the upholstered couches sponged and left near the window to dry. Pots of cut flowers were placed about. The hall table was sprayed and polished, the walls washed and the floors scrubbed until they gleamed.

One morning, Debbie took down the big key from its nail beside the front door and left it to soak in oil, pouring an ocean more into the old lock.

‘This grand house needs the front door,’ she said.

Ella did not tell her that the door had remained shut since the day of Michael’s funeral; she did not let on she had wanted it that way. They sat and had tea with thick slabs of chocolate cake as the oil softened years of rigid dirt.

An hour later, giggling like a nervous schoolgirl, Ella walked up to the heavy wooden door, last opened when the coffin of Michael Hannigan was carried out after he had been waked for a day and a night. Ella attempted to turn the key. Stiff at first, reluctant to let go of its rusty lethargy, the lock slowly clanked to life, coaxed by the big key, and the bolt slid back with a dull thud. It took Debbie, heaving and pushing from the other side, lending her weight to the door, to make it give way with a rasping creak, and it groaned after decades of sitting tight with neglect and let the light spill into the hallway.

Debbie worked like a woman possessed, brushing down the door and the lintel, the dust falling into her hair, the indignant spiders and beetles racing around her feet in frantic chaos. The water went brown several times over as the door was washed down and layer upon layer of dust picked out of the corners. John Sheehy was tidying the rhododendron when he saw Debbie wiping down the door. She scrubbed with a heavy brush before spraying the wood with disinfectant. So intent was she on the work she did not seem to notice a run of water was drenching her shoes and the ends of her jeans.

She was exhilarated, but an awful fatigue was taking her over and she hoped she could last the day until she could go back to her place and lie down.

‘I see Ella has roped you in as well.’

Debbie did not turn from her work. ‘I am glad to help her.’

The gardener plucked a half-decent bloom from the rhododendron and held it out to Debbie. ‘Tell Ella I will start digging out the rills tomorrow morning. I am knocking off early today.’

She did not know what he meant by either the flower or the message. Before she could formulate anything in her head, he was heading to the jeep. He waved as he drove past, and she smiled.

Concentrating on the doorknob and handle, she scrubbed and polished; the lock she tried several times, until it was free running. Weeds were picked out of the cracks on the front steps, which were brushed and sluiced with warm water. The postman stopped to admire the work and left the letters on the hall table.

Ella stuck her head out the drawing-room French doors and called her. ‘Don’t overdo it, Debbie. Have you an admirer?’

Debbie felt a blush rising in her.

Ella got some fresh cloths and scouring pads from the press and they set off to the ballroom. Debbie got down on her knees and scrubbed the ballroom floor with a soapy steel pad, her trousers sodden with dirty water, her fingers red from the combination of the hot water and the frenetic scrubbing. When she finished polishing the oak floorboards, they looked as they had done when Ella’s great-grandaunt had had fine gatherings in the big room with a view. An invitation to such an evening was like gold dust; revellers were prepared to travel from as far away as Dublin to spend time at Roscarbury Hall.

‘We will have to ask Mulligan to put putty in the windows and give them a lick of paint,’ Ella said. As she finished polishing the ballroom’s bevelled glass, she spotted Muriel Hearty beetling up the avenue. ‘Well, I knew it would not take her long.’

Roberta also saw Muriel come up the driveway and up the steps to the front door. She pushed her hip flask deep in her handbag and stayed out of sight in the side library. But Muriel Hearty knew her way around Roscarbury Hall and rapped on the window. She waved, forcing Roberta to fix a smile on her face and go to the front door.

‘Roberta, how are you?’ Muriel Hearty shot into the hall before she was even invited. ‘Well now, what has been happening here? I even thought the garden looked all spruced up. Are ye expecting important visitors or what?’

‘Haven’t you arrived, Muriel?’ Roberta said, making her visitor beam with pleasure. ‘How are things at the post office?’ she added.

‘Oh, you know, up and down. Gerry O’Hare keeps getting letters from the Revenue. Don’t know what all that is about.’

‘Aren’t we lucky we don’t get much post or you would be able to tell us what is happening in our lives as well.’

Muriel giggled uncomfortably. ‘Ah sure, I mean no harm. Actually, I am here because there is a huge parcel delivery, several boxes, coming out of Gorey for Ella.’

‘Of course, I would know nothing about that.’

The two women listened as they heard Ella clumping down the stairs.

‘I will leave you to it,’ Roberta said as her sister arrived in the hallway.

‘Ella there is a delivery coming in from Gorey for you. You are going to have to get Gerry O’Hare to collect it,’ Muriel said, already peering up the staircase.

‘Muriel, you could have phoned. There was no need to come out of your way like this.’

‘Ah sure, the fresh air is good for me. Now tell me, some in town say you are setting up a bed and breakfast and others say an even bigger restaurant. Which is it?’

‘A café, Muriel, in the old ballroom on the first floor, and in the garden in the summer. Come on up and I will show you.’

Muriel made a straight line for the stairs, eager to see at first hand the goings-on at Roscarbury Hall.

‘Have you heard that Tom Mason’s wife has left him?’ She did not wait for an answer. ‘Just packed her bags last night and said she had found a new man, who could love her, and off she went. I believe he opened the butcher shop as normal, though when I went to get a bit of steak I saw he was putting a lot of oomph into the cleaver chopping.’

Ella did not say anything, but led the way down the long corridor to the ballroom door. ‘It is still a bit of a mess, but we are getting there.’

She opened the door. The floor dazzled and the windows sparkled, throwing light onto the two tables, set up in red and white.

‘Now let’s sit and have some tea,’ Ella said, directing Muriel to a seat by the window.

‘Well, haven’t ye done a fine job? I can see myself having a lot of cuppas here. What a great place for a chat.’

‘And a gossip,’ Ella added, though she tried to dilute the barbed tone of her voice.

Debbie appeared with a pot of tea for two and ginger cake cut into neat squares, a dab of cream on the side.

‘I could get used to this,’ Muriel laughed.

‘Tell me more about Tom Mason. I always thought he and Tricia were happy.’

‘So did all of us, and I think so did the fool Tom Mason. She won’t get better than a butcher. Sure, people eat meat in good times and bad.’

‘She hardly married him for the meat,’ Ella said.

‘Well, the lad she has gone off with is younger than her. They say he is a mature student, whatever that is. I wonder what he saw in her. For God’s sake, Ella, she is in her sixties if she is a day. She must be mad, throwing up a good man like Tom Mason. So good he never asked her once to help out in the shop. He said a lady of her gentility should not have to look at dead animals. What I wouldn’t give for a man like that.’

Ella did not answer, but Muriel continued regardless.

‘You know what will happen. That young man will throw her over next month or maybe next year and that saint of a butcher, the fool, will take her back. Well, I for one will never talk to her again. She can buy her stamps somewhere else.’

‘They might be in love,’ Ella said.

They sat quietly for a moment, each in their own way envious of the butcher’s wife.

‘It will come to no good end. I know that for sure,’ Muriel snorted.

‘Maybe,’ Ella said.

A van trundled up the driveway.

‘You are getting another delivery, Ella.’

‘A few pots of flowers to brighten up the front.’

Behind the screen, Debbie slumped against the sink, her head down, pain gripping her insides, a sick feeling rising inside her. She pulled over a small stool and sat, her head resting on the cool stainless-steel rim of the sink, her body stiff with pain. Pulling deep breaths, she waited, hoping this episode would pass. She had only a few weeks left in this place; why she was wasting it helping set up the Ballroom Café, she simply did not know.

Bowling Green, October 1968

Agnes had been missing exactly a month when Debbie’s birthday came along. They had a small cake with eight candles and she blew them out quickly, the pain in her heart too much that Mommy was not there. That morning she had got up and sat by the window until Rob called her, taking her into such a tight bear hug she could feel the well of grief inside him. When he produced the cake, she loved him because he remembered and because he was so strong for her.