The Honey Queen (20 page)

‘I can’t leave,’ Kathleen said, grey eyes huge in her thin face.

Peggy guessed her mother weighed about six and a half stone now, whittled down to skeletal thinness by a life of anxiety and psychological abuse.

‘Why can’t you leave?’ Peggy had said in despair. ‘He doesn’t love you, we both know that. He doesn’t love me, either. He uses you as a mental punchbag. Nobody else I know lives like that.’

Kathleen flinched at this and Peggy hated being so blunt. She could tell from the look in those frightened grey eyes how much these words must hurt, but she had to do it, it was her only hope of saving Kathleen.

‘Do you think Claire Delaney across the road lets Mike talk to her like that?’ Peggy went on. ‘Of course not. He wouldn’t dare. Or Miriam from the café? Does her husband treat her like dirt? No, he doesn’t. Dad’s not normal, he’s full of rage and bitterness. Please come with me.’

‘I can’t. Please don’t ask me,’ her mother had said. ‘And don’t let your father hear you say such things. He’ll go mad, you know. He’ll go mad when he hears you’re leaving. He needs me, you know he does. And what would I do out there? What can I do? I’m too old for anything, too stupid.’

‘That’s
his
voice talking,’ Peggy said furiously. ‘
He
tells you you’re stupid and old, but you’re not! You’ve worked in the Farmer’s Kitchen for the last six years, you spent years sewing and knitting to make the money to feed and clothe us when he wouldn’t give you any housekeeping. You’re so clever, you can do loads of things. That bastard has made you feel as if you’re hopeless, useless.’

‘Don’t call your father that,’ said Kathleen. ‘I can’t go, I can’t.’ She was crying now and shaking.

Peggy had known she was defeated. Years of Tommy telling Kathleen she was useless had made her believe it with her heart and soul. Peggy often wondered what sort of screwed-up family her mother had come from for her to be so cowed into believing that she deserved Tommy Barry as a husband. Her mother’s background was even more of a mystery to her than her father’s. But it had certainly included an abusive male figure – Peggy was sure of that. Which was why she was going to stay single. Women were drawn to the familiar, no matter how damaging. But not Peggy, no way.

‘You should stay and go to college,’ her father raged when he heard she was leaving home. ‘You’ll never amount to anything without exams.’

He didn’t have exams. His education had come to an end at the age of sixteen, which had been his family’s fault, he said. He had plans for Peggy. Plans to show everyone around the town that his family were bright and smart and his girl would make fools out of them all because she was clever, good at studying. And she’d still live at home, under his thumb.

Instead, here she was, up and leaving. No sign of college or university, just heading off into the bright blue yonder without so much as a by your leave.

‘Say something, Kathleen, will you?’ he’d growled at her mother. This was a turn-up for the books. He never normally asked her mother’s advice on anything.

‘Peggy, you know your father is right. It’s harder and harder to get a job, and the more education and letters after your name, the easier …’ Her mother’s voice had trailed off.

Peggy wondered if her mother had finished a sentence for years now.

As if she knew there was no point finishing a sentence because her father didn’t listen to them anyway.

‘You’re absolutely right,’ Peggy told him. ‘I’m sure I’ll be back.’ This was, she’d discovered, one of the best ways to treat her father. Agree with him on all things, and then do exactly what you wanted to do anyway. This particular method infuriated him beyond all other things but somehow he didn’t lash out at her the way he did with her mother. It was as if he knew that Peggy wasn’t that much like her mother and wouldn’t have taken it.

‘Yes, you’ll be back,’ he’d said ominously as she’d stood at the door.

By this time both she and her mother were crying. Peggy’s giant rucksack was standing by the door, packed and fit to burst.

‘Of course, I’ll be back lots of times,’ she had said.

‘And there’s lots of scoundrels out there,’ her father hissed, as if the world was a heaving, seething mass of evil people just waiting to pounce.

‘You’re right, Dad, I’ll be careful,’ said Peggy seriously, thinking that the most dangerous person in the world could so easily be the person who had fathered you.

But there would be no point in saying that, not when her mother was still there, living with him. She’d be the one who’d suffer. For her mother’s sake, Peggy had gone through the motions, hugging her father, telling him she’d miss him. She’d even steeled herself, found something deep inside and said, ‘If I need advice, of course, I’ll phone you, Dad.’ He’d liked that; it appealed to his vanity. She’d only done it for her mother’s sake, but it had still hurt her to do it because it was so fake. Peggy was determined never to be fake again. She would find a life for herself and it would never involve any man.

Marriage and children were a total mistake for someone like her. A recipe for disaster. She knew that. It was in the genes. Everything was genetic. Parenting skills certainly were, as was picking the right man. Peggy would be no good at all at that, so she would avoid it. It was the best way, she told herself.

After the confrontation in the shop and that one phone message, David stopped phoning. But Peggy couldn’t stop dreaming about him every night.

On the day of the opening, she got up early, showered, dressed and left without breakfast. She’d go straight to the shop, open up and make a coffee there. It was impossible to think sad thoughts in her lovely shop.

As always, she felt pure joy when the first customers of the day arrived. They would wander around her shop with the lavender baskets she’d bought, flinging things in with wild abandon. She’d knitted so many items over the years and kept them, and with the shop she was finally able to put them to good use. Hanging up beside the wools were scarves and shawls, intricate cardigans in Fair Isle, beautiful Aran sweaters. For every type of wool she had knit up a little piece so people could see how the wool knitted up. There was a section of the shop dedicated to ‘just beginning’, and people who wanted to get involved with knitting but knew absolutely nothing about it, loved that part. Peggy’s shop didn’t make them feel like idiots in a world of nimble-fingered knitters.

Years ago, when the shop had been no more than a longed-for dream, she’d read about someone with a similar business who’d offered knitting and sewing evening classes to grow her customer base. Peggy had decided that she would do the same and now she was eager to get the classes off the ground as soon as possible.

If only she could tear her mind away from …

‘This stuff,’ said a woman, holding up a skein of beautiful Peruvian hand-dyed wool. ‘What size needles do I need with it?’

The woman’s question dragged Peggy back to the here and now. This was what she had to do. Build up this shop, make a good living for herself, make herself successful and strong and get enough money behind her. Then she wouldn’t have to live like a caged animal under anyone’s power ever again.

O
n Saturday afternoon, from the mezzanine balcony, Meredith Byrne watched the woman walking into the Alexander Byrne Gallery. Age: who knew? Good cosmetic surgery, that was for sure, if she was older than forty-five. Flat ballet pumps: genuine Chanel, not knock-offs. Grey coat that could only be cashmere even though it looked like something a person who’d never actually seen a coat might construct. That was cutting-edge fashion for you. Faded skinny jeans and the expensive sort of blonde hair that looked just-got-out-of-bed after an hour with a hairdresser tweaking the ends with wax. A look that screamed money.

Meredith hadn’t grown up with money but she could certainly recognize it, even if the people she’d grown up with wouldn’t recognize
her
these days. Gone was the mousey hair and the shy smile. In their place was a sleek curtain of blonde hair, perfect teeth thanks to a fortune spent getting titanium screws drilled into her jaw, the right clothes and an accent that a gifted linguist would have been pushed to place.

Meredith might not have grown up with money, but these days, nobody would ever guess.

She gave an almost invisible nod to Charlie, the gallery’s urbane young male staff member.

Pippa was given an equally almost invisible look that said ‘hide’. Meredith was well used to running the gallery and if the staff she hired didn’t do as she said, she fired them.

Pippa, clad in the sleek grey skirt-suit that allowed rich male buyers to admire her long legs, slipped obediently upstairs, while Charlie, wearing a sleek grey suit with an open-necked shirt that allowed rich female buyers to admire his strong physique and the tanned column of his neck, went over and murmured words which Meredith couldn’t hear but which she had taught him to say.

‘I’m sure you’re perfectly happy to peruse on your own but if you need any help, I’m here.’

Charlie really had been a find. Like Pippa, he had a fine art degree and also like Pippa, he’d gone to one of the
right
schools, so his social background was impeccable. But his special talent was looking at a woman and making her feel as if she was the only woman in the world.

He’d thought of acting, he’d told Meredith when she hired him. ‘But the money’s crap for nearly everyone except about five per cent of them.’

The commission on selling a painting was miles better.

Or it had been.

Few people were buying anything these days. Most were selling in desperation, hoping to get back even a quarter of their initial investment. The Alexander Byrne Gallery was handling the recession rather well, though, partly because of Sally-Anne Alexander’s incredible contacts around the world.

There were always people with money and there always would be, Sally-Anne said, green eyes shining. The trick was hunting them down and befriending them. This month alone, she’d sold four huge paintings to a billionaire from the United Arab Emirates whom she’d met on a buying trip to Switzerland.

The money hadn’t come in yet, according to the bank, and Meredith was watching the gallery’s account online with a hint of unease.

The artist in question was going mad and Meredith had been consoling him all week.

‘Have I ever ripped you off, Mike?’ Meredith had said on the phone, behaving as if she wasn’t in the slightest bit worried.

‘No, you haven’t ripped me off before, but I still want the money,’ Mike said. ‘The work’s sold. I need my share now instead of waiting until Sally-Anne feels like it. What’s going on there, that’s what I’d like to know? I’m broke, Meredith. Haven’t sold a thing for months – you know that. If it wasn’t for the money I make teaching, I’d be on the streets.’

Mike’s paintings weren’t the sort that sold in the current climate: giant canvasses that only worked on the walls of huge office buildings or hotels, neither of which were spending on art.

He hadn’t rung since Thursday and Meredith decided she’d stop staring at the gallery’s account, which was distinctly in the red, and give Sally-Anne the benefit of the doubt. She’d always come through in the past.

Sally-Anne, who was still away, kept saying on the phone, ‘Calm down, Meredith, the guy’s good for the money. Honestly, he has two planes and owns a bank in Abu Dhabi. He’s rolling in cash.’

‘Why hasn’t he rolled some this way?’ Meredith asked. ‘We need an injection of cash, I told you about the two cheques that bounced, Sally-Anne. Get the money out of this guy …’

But Sally-Anne was in a rush as usual. ‘Must fly, sweetie. I’ve a delightful old French aristocrat with some bits and bobs she wants to sell. I’m taking her to tea so we can talk. Apparently, she struck up a friendship with Dalí years ago. Yes, yes, everyone struck up a friendship with Dalí. He had more friends than Facebook, but I think this one might actually be true. Talk when I’m back, byee.’

It was frustrating, but that was the way Sally-Anne operated. Great when it came to chasing deals, but details like overdrawn accounts bored her rigid. Which was a pain for Meredith, trying to handle the everyday running of the company. The previous day she’d had an awkward conversation with the caterers she’d planned to use for a forthcoming exhibition.

Carlos, the owner, had refused point-blank to take the booking: ‘Your cheque for the last opening bounced,’ he told her. ‘I’m giving you two days to pay us with a non-kangarooing cheque, or I’m getting our lawyers on to it.’

‘Be reasonable,’ Meredith had replied, ‘you know us, would we do this to—’

‘I didn’t think so – till now,’ Carlos said. ‘But there’s a five and a half grand hole in my bank account with the Alexander Byrne name on it. You’d better settle that before you even think of phoning me for another booking.’

Something was wrong, she thought instinctively but then buried the thought. Sally-Anne had never let her down yet.

Meredith decided she’d have to talk to Keith, Sally-Anne’s husband, when they got back from their trip. Keith was the money end of the partnership and he might know why several of the accounts were in the red. Meredith had paid the Friday wages out of her own bank account, and was wondering whether transfers on a Saturday came in or not. It would be such a relief if they could start the week with money in the bank.

‘Do you want a coffee, Meredith?’ asked Pippa as she joined Meredith behind the glass wall of the mezzanine.

‘Yeah, why not,’ sighed Meredith, even though she’d had four already. No wonder sleep was harder and harder to come by these days.

She wished Sally-Anne would sort things out. Meredith had an eye for art and was great with the artists themselves. Despite her expensive clothes, however, she still hadn’t entirely cracked dealing with clients. The rich were different. Pippa and Charlie, who’d always been a part of that world, could chat happily about skiing in Meribel, that summer in someone’s house on Long Island, or the polo in Sotogrande, where everyone went down to the tiny port afterwards to hang out in the bars. Though Meredith had been to all those places with Sally-Anne and Keith, she hadn’t been born into it. Try as she might to forget her origins, she could never shake off the memory of St Brigid’s Terrace.