Scarlet Feather (72 page)

‘Teddy, it’s Geraldine O’Connor,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry?’ His voice was frail, he sounded confused.

‘You know… Geraldine,’ she said, and paused.

‘Have you got the right person?’ he asked.

‘Teddy, it’s Geraldine, for God’s sake, Geraldine.’ She moved nearer to the room. He was not going to forget her or pretend that he had forgotten her. This was not going to happen. She had behaved so well for over half of her life, she only wanted to say goodbye, tell him that she had never stopped loving him.

I’m sorry,’ he apologised. ‘I’m on a lot of medication and I’m afraid I don’t recall everyone’s names.’

‘So why did you come back here, then, Teddy, if you don’t remember anyone?’ She knew her voice sounded hard.

‘Please forgive me,’ he said, and put the phone down.

She saw the nurse moving around his bed. Geraldine didn’t go into the room. She stood without moving in the corridor and watched the pleasant-looking girl go back to the nurses’ station at the corner. Geraldine didn’t know how long she stood there. One or two people asked her if she was all right, and she must have answered satisfactorily. She saw people going into the various rooms, but nobody went into Teddy’s. Eventually she turned away and went to the elevator. She was too shaky still to drive her car, so she had a cup of tea in the restaurant downstairs. It was all for the best, she told herself. What could she have talked about with him, anyway? How he had ruined her life, how his doctor friend had ruined her chances of ever having a child? Would she have told him about all the men who had replaced him in her life, but none of them loved as he had been loved? A man about to die would not want to hear such tragedy. She wiped away the tears that were falling into her cup of tea. It had all been for the best that he hadn’t remembered her.

It had been such a wonderful night at Quentin’s that Tom had not wanted to darken the mood by telling the story of young Frankie Maguire, who had killed himself at the premises. Sometimes he looked around wondering which room it might have happened in. But it wasn’t something Cathy had to know now, nor indeed any of the others. And anyway, there wasn’t a free moment for anyone to tell anything. The television dinner party was on… Tom and Cathy would be in the studio… The leaflets were beginning to yield some results, the five of them worked non-stop, cooking, packing and unpacking the van, delivering, serving and clearing up, taking more bookings. So much was happening that Tom couldn’t sleep. It was no effort to get up and go to bake bread at Haywards at a time when most people were asleep.

Shona wasn’t asleep; she was letting herself in at the same time.

‘I’ll make you breakfast,’ he offered.

‘Done.’ She came and sat in the kitchen and watched as he got the place to life, prepared his doughs and got them both coffee and toast.

‘What on earth has you in so early, Shona, they work you too hard?’

‘No, this is my own life. I’m in because I want an uninterrupted hour on the Internet. I’m the one in charge of booking a holiday and I’m not very used to it.’

‘How many of you are there going?’ Tom asked absently.

‘Two,’ she said.

He looked up with a smile. ‘That’s nice,’ he said.

‘Not what you think, Tom.’

‘Nothing’s what you think,’ he said. ‘The older I get, the more I realise that.’

Cathy went into the hairdressing salon at Haywards. ‘I want a totally new image for a television show tomorrow,’ she said.

‘What kind of an image?’ asked Gerard, the senior stylist.

‘I want to dazzle everybody,’ she said.

Gerard had been given better guidelines in his life. ‘What will you be wearing?’ he asked.

‘A red T-shirt, black trousers and a white pinafore. I have to have my hair sort of hidden in a hat I think, or something to make it look as if it isn’t falling onto the food.’ Gerard asked not unreasonably why, if her hair was going to be hidden by a hat, she needed a new hairstyle or any hairstyle, in fact. Maybe it was a hat she needed, a smart, white hat. ‘I have to have a nice hairstyle because months ago my mother-in-law gave me a token here,’ she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

‘What did you do with it?’

‘I gave it to my friend June who got purple streaks,’ Cathy said.

‘I see,’ said Gerard.

‘And I only have three-quarters of an hour, Gerard, so could you think of something quick.’ Gerard sent down to the store for a white hat so that they could examine the situation more clearly. ‘This will take for ever!’ Cathy wailed.

‘You’re a pro and I’m a pro. You wouldn’t let your food go out looking like swill. I don’t want you going on the television with my hairdo looking like a bird’s nest after a party.’

Cathy’s saw the point; he had to protect his reputation too. Gerard fixed on the white cap at a jaunty angle, and then proceeded to cut her hair to just above her shoulders.

‘I look like a simpleton in a pantomime,’ Cathy said, staring at herself.

‘Thanks a bundle, and I bet your food tastes like shit too,’ said Gerard, insulted.

They caught each other’s eye in the mirror, and both began to laugh. The sedate clientele of Haywards was startled to see the near hysteria as Cathy and Gerard laughed until they thought they would never stop.

‘Tom, you know we wouldn’t annoy you in a million years,’ Maud said on the telephone.

‘I
know
that, like you know I wouldn’t offend you in a million years, but it’s just that we’re so busy now, you wouldn’t believe it.’

‘I would believe it. I heard Muttie tell his wife Lizzie that the two of you will be in your coffins before St Patrick’s Day with the amount of hours you’re working…’

‘He said that?’ Tom reached over and grabbed a saucepan just before it began to burn.

‘He did, he said if ever he got a lot of money that he’d go out and he’d invest it in your company.’

‘Well, that was very kind of him, Maud, and it
is
nice to have a chat from time to time, but—’

‘We have a day off school on Friday, we wondered could we come and polish your treasures, we want to earn money to buy Muttie a coat.’

‘I don’t think you’d earn enough in an afternoon, to be honest.’ Poor Tom was desperate.

‘There’s a coat in the thrift shop for three pounds,’ said Maud.

‘Oh, well then, we’ll see you Friday,’ Tom said, and hung up.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Cathy said.

‘I had to,’ Tom said. ‘You would have had to if you’d been here. Well, come on, take off your hat. Let’s see the new you…’

‘I look like a plough boy with a straw in his mouth,’ Cathy said.

‘I know, you’ve always looked like that, but let’s see the hair.’

‘Come on,’ June said. ‘Why else do you think I hung about?’

‘Did Jimmy go to the acupuncturist?’ Cathy fought to buy time.

‘We’ve had this discussion, he did and he feels a bit better, now let’s see your hair.’ June was giving no quarter.

She took off her hat. Unlike other women who cared about their appearance, she didn’t go to a mirror to fluff it up, and explain that it was probably a bit flat by now.

Tom, June, Lucy and Con looked at her in silence.

‘Oh, Jesus, is it as bad as that?’

‘You look beautiful,’ June said simply.

‘Beautiful,’ Tom agreed.

Con and Lucy clapped and beat saucepan lids on the work surfaces.

‘That’s enough, I will not be mocked,’ she threatened them. But they could see she was pleased, and when she got a chance she went into the cloakroom and looked at it herself. It wasn’t at all bad; it looked as if it were meant to be that way. It was shiny and sort of glamorous, not scraped back out of the way as if it were an embarrassment. She must send a postcard to Gerard to thank him. Now all she had to do was cook a dinner in front of half a million people.

The day in the studio passed in a horrible blur. Hot lights melted things, the food had to be pinned together eventually, sprayed with a terrible kind of starchy substance so that it would keep a shine. Over and over they were told that it didn’t
matter
what it tasted like, the audience was not going to eat it, only to see what Tom and Cathy could prepare for the winner. They had to unpack things from refrigerated boxes so that the viewers could imagine them turning up in simple kitchens anywhere in Ireland and producing this gourmet meal. Douglas, the director looked not at all hassled in the studio. Tom and Cathy watched him admiringly; they had never been so alarmed and so self-conscious, yet this man was as cool as anything. Oddly, he seemed equally admiring of them that they could cook under such circumstances.

‘You’re naturals,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you are invited back. Nice little earner that, the new celebrity cooking couple. Have you been long together?’

‘We’ve been working together as Scarlet Feather for a while, but we’ve only had the premises for under a year.’ Cathy said.

She knew he thought they were a real couple, as so many people did.

‘I bet your guests get well fed in your home,’ he said.

They hadn’t the energy to disabuse him. They nodded glumly as the make-up girl came to powder their faces again.

‘She’s a lovely girl, your friend Marcella, isn’t she?’ Douglas said.

Tom and Cathy’s eyes met.

‘Lovely,’ Tom said. ‘Very special.’

‘She’s been a friend of ours always,’ said Cathy.

And then they were back into countdowns, and settle down studio and good luck everyone for the final rehearsal before they went out live.

The phone hardly stopped ringing the next day. In the front room Lucy sat coping with the requests, taking details and sending out brochures all morning. It had done exactly what they had hoped -brought them right out there into the public eye.

‘You’ll never be able to thank Marcella enough,’ June said.

‘I’m going to send her a bunch of flowers from all of us,’ said Cathy. ‘Here’s the card, let’s all sign it now and we’ll get it delivered round to Ricky’s.’

They let Tom be the last to sign before it went into the envelope. He wrote, ‘Marcella, you have been a very generous and good friend, love from Tom.’

Cathy noticed that Lucy was stretching her muscles. ‘Here, I’ll take over the phone for a while, go and move around the kitchen for a bit,’ she said. It was peaceful there in the front room. Her punchbowl back on the table, a little Christmas tree in the window, their coloured box files filling up with more and more addresses, contacts, customers. And it was quiet. It gave her a chance to think between calls. Think about Neil. Last night when she got home, Neil had been working as usual. He had smiled, glad to see her. And then suddenly a look of guilt came over his face.

‘Oh, my God, it was tonight, the television thing.’

‘You didn’t see it?’

‘I’m so sorry…’

‘Or record it… ?’

‘I can’t tell you…’

She had gone straight to bed. And she had left this morning before he had got up. Things had never been so bad. He would call sometime today to say he was sorry; she needed time to think what she would say. It wasn’t a matter of sulking or refusing to forgive him. Because in many ways it didn’t really matter all that very much. Not in itself; more what it seemed to say about them both.

‘Geraldine, Neil Mitchell here. Did you by any chance make a video recording of Cathy’s thing yesterday?’

‘Yes, I did, wasn’t she great? They were marvellous, the pair of them.’

‘Could I see it?’

‘You don’t have one yourselves, there’s casual,’ she laughed.

‘Can I have a loan of it please, Geraldine?’

‘No, sorry, I gave it into a place to adapt it for America, you see, I thought Cathy’s sister Marian would like—’

‘Muttie, did you see Cathy last night on the television?’ ‘Wasn’t half St Jarlath’s Crescent in here watching.’ ‘Do you have a video of it?’ Neil sounded urgent. ‘Neil lad, the children took it to school today.’ ‘What in the name of God for?’ He sounded almost angry now. ‘For a project, they have a project every Thursday where the children have to stand up and present something. So Simon and Maud are going to show seven minutes of Cathy and Tom, then they’re going to talk about the food industry. Aren’t they gas little tickets,’Muttie said proudly.

‘Gas tickets, yeah,’ said Neil, and hung up.

‘Mother, did you record Cathy last night on television?’

‘No dear, why should I?’ ‘I just thought you might. Did you see it?’ ‘Yes, they were surprisingly good, don’t you think?’ ‘Yes, yes, very,’ Neil said.

‘I’m delighted she finally did something about her hair, used that token I gave her, makes a lot of difference, don’t you think?’ ‘Great difference, goodbye, Mother,’ Neil said.

Sara rang him to arrange about a meeting later in the day. ‘Hey, wasn’t that a great plug for Scarlet Feather?’ she said.

‘You saw it?’

‘Well, of course I did.’

‘But how could you have seen it, you were in the cafe with us all when it was on.’

‘I know, but I videoed it.’

‘You did? That’s great. Can I have the video?’

‘No, I’ve recorded over it, a horror film later last night.’

‘Sara, was Cathy’s hair different?’

‘Yeah, I hardly recognised her,’ said Sara with her usual tact.

‘What?’

‘Well, I don’t mean that, but it’s pretty good, you have to admit.’

‘I didn’t notice it,’ he said.

‘Really?’ Sara said, her spirits lifting.

Some of the calls that came in were of congratulation, clients who were proud of them, the Riordans, Molly Hayes, Stella and Sean, Mrs Ryan who had the apple strudels way back, even Mrs Fusspot. June’s husband Jimmy rang to say they had been stars, and that he was also dead grateful about the acupuncture, some mad heathen kind of superstition but you wouldn’t believe it, it seemed to be working. And then Neil rang.

‘There’s nothing I can say except I am so ashamed.’

‘It’s all right, Neil,’ she said wearily, and she actually meant it. It
was
all right. Compared to the much bigger picture, the fact that the programme had slipped his mind was no big deal. ‘Look, I know lunch wouldn’t make it all right.’ Cathy wasn’t going to keep up the dark mood. It was no life living in a perpetual sulk. She knew he was devastated.