The Hat Shop on the Corner (10 page)

She had a great laugh listening to stories of four skinny teenagers who drove their parents and neighbours crazy in the leafy suburbs of Rathfarnham playing loud music in the garage, and released their first single when they were still at school.

‘It was bloody awful,’ admitted Ed.

‘Your aunt Mary bought forty copies and gave them to all the cousins and friends that Christmas,’ Peggy Dockrell reminded him.

‘Tell Rory we’ll have to get Aunt Mary out on the road again!’ joked Bren.

Afterwards they went on to the River Club and listened to a little jazz and soul till three o’clock, when she and Rory said their goodbyes and took a taxi to her apartment in Hatch Street. She fumbled in her bag for the key and hoped that Rory wouldn’t expect her to invite him in. It wasn’t that she didn’t fancy him, it was just that she didn’t want to rush things.

‘It’s OK, El. I understand. I’m just the stranger from the park!’ he joked, kissing the tip of her nose.

‘I don’t want you to be a stranger,’ she whispered. ‘I really don’t.’

‘Then let’s solve that one,’ he said.

Unperturbed, he pulled her towards him. His kissing was slow and deep and Ellie began to feel her resolve melt.

‘Well, we’re not strangers any more,’ he teased, reaching to kiss her again.

Ellie wound her hands around his neck, up through the back of his hair. It would be so easy just to turn the key, invite him in, but she knew she wasn’t ready yet to be that close to him.

She pulled away, staring at his face, the stubble on his chin, his blue eyes.

‘You know you’re beautiful, Ellie, different from the other girls I meet.’ He traced her mouth slowly with his finger. ‘There’s no rush.’

She held her breath, waiting.

‘I hope you will let me take you out again. Maybe next time on our own!’

‘Yes, please,’ she whispered, touching his face.

‘I’ll phone you tomorrow,’ he promised, finally leaving.

A second later, standing inside the heavy front door, Ellie was tempted to run back out and grab him.

Mo Brady was not a hat person, or a bag person, or a suit person or even a shoe person, but she was determined to do her level best to make the people of Dublin proud of their newly elected Lady Mayor. Looking at her own round face, square body and short, stumpy legs, she had to admit that she was built like an army tank rather than the city’s glamorous first citizen, the Lady Mayor of Dublin. But one thing she did have was a big heart and the chain of office round her neck was worn with a constant pride in the honour of being chosen to serve the citizens of the town she loved so well. At times it hung heavy, for not only did the chain bestow the responsibility of her office and the duty to represent every man, woman and child in the huge catchment area of one of Europe’s oldest cities but it also demanded that she dress and look the part, and attend more functions than she had ever dreamed humanly possible.

She stood in front of the long gilt mirror of the Lord Mayor’s bedroom, accepting that her normal uniform of tracksuits, jeans, baggy T-shirts and fluffy woollen cardigans was a thing of the past. Her old wardrobe was banished to the back of her cupboard, for now she would have to stuff her wide feet and fallen arches into high heels, buy some designer suits and dresses and a good heavy coat that would withstand all weathers, and a hat or two.

Mo still remembered standing outside the council’s huge chambers, knowing that the vote of every single council member was important if she had any hope of being elected. She was the only female candidate and knew that to win the support of some of the council’s old male stalwarts would be nigh impossible: they still held the view that women were meant to make huge pots of tea and hand round sandwiches instead of getting themselves involved in the rough and tumble of the city’s politics. She had looked round the table at the circle of impassive faces, trying to guess which way some of them would jump. The party faithful would support Tom Leary. She could tell they considered him the front runner for the post of Dublin’s new Lord Mayor, but she had the support of the smaller parties. Whether that was enough she couldn’t tell.

She had held her breath, ready to go back inside to the fray as the votes were counted. Bill Byrne and Nuala Lawless, two other independent councillors, had whispered ‘Good Luck!’ as she took her seat and waited.

Mo cursed under her breath as, turning, she almost tumbled over the mountain of boxes on the floor. She would have blamed somebody else, only she knew that she had single-handedly packed them all herself. She guessed moving house and office all at the same time was enough to drive anyone a little crazy.

Joe and the kids had gone off to Morelli’s for a bit of sustenance while she tried to sort everything out.

She sat down for a minute to take a breather, glad of the peace and quiet as she looked around the beautifully decorated Lord Mayor’s quarters. With three bedrooms and private sitting room and kitchen, it was a world apart from the small terraced council house where she had spent her whole married life. From the moment she had stepped under the Mansion House’s impressive glass-canopied entrance that bore the city coat of arms, through the blue door and into the hall with its portrait of Daniel O’Connell, Ireland’s famous liberator, and the oak bar with its portraits of all her predecessors, Mo had realized how privileged she was to have been chosen to serve for the next year as Lady Mayor of Dublin. She still hadn’t got used to the idea, that the city’s councillors had actually put her forward for the post and elected her. She had won, and it was an honour she had never even dreamed of.

Joe and herself had been stunned by the news. After sitting up for hours night after night talking it over, they had made the momentous decision to move their family into the Mansion House on Dawson Street, right in the heart of the city.

‘I want this job to be more than just an office, Joe. I want to be a mayor for the whole of Dublin and to have you and the kids be part of it.’

‘Are you sure, Mo?’ asked her husband of twenty years, who ran a small electrical contracting business.

‘Of course I’m sure.’

‘Mammy, are we really moving into the big Lord Mayor’s house?’ Lisa had screamed, so excited her face got red as she twisted her long brown hair.

‘Do we have to change schools?’ demanded sixteen-year-old Jessie.

‘No, pet, you’ll all still be staying in your old schools. Promise.’

‘Can my friends still come and play in that big house?’ worried thirteen-year-old Paul.

‘Of course they can,’ she reassured him, swooping her son into her arms.

That had been almost a month ago, a whirlwind month of playing politics, of filling in papers and permissions as she arranged for the Mansion House once more to become a family home, not just a place for official ceremonies and functions. The previous Lord Mayor, a retiring councillor, had handed over his chain of office at a ceremony in Dublin Castle and she had been sworn in as the city’s new Lady Mayor. I must be mad, thought Mo as she surveyed the mess all around her. It was crazy to leave my home and neighbourhood.

The neighbourhood was where it had all started. She had never intended getting involved in local politics but had been dragged into it by default when a stolen car had driven into the estate at high speed and ploughed into a group of kids. They had made the simple mistake of playing rounders till after dusk on a summer’s evening instead of sitting at home watching TV. She could still see the children in the road, injured, scattered like pins in a bowling alley, after three young fellahs not much older than themselves and high on alcohol and drugs had lost control of the speeding vehicle. Guards and ambulances and medics and journalists had all appeared and the estate was suddenly filled with strangers issuing statements about the tragic event. Little Robbie Breen, only ten years old, had died that night on the road, and young Tara Kenny had ended up having part of her leg amputated. Sometimes on summer evenings she imagined she could still hear the screams of the kids of Carney Close, her own daughter Lisa so shocked that she refused to walk past the spot on her own for a year and still had nightmares of standing outside the Kennys’ house waiting for the ball to bounce as the sun went down. Her neighbour Mary Breen, overwhelmed with grief at her son’s death, had landed in St Pat’s with a breakdown two months after the trial. The journalists and Guards and do-gooders had by then all disappeared, leaving the people of the estate to fend for themselves once again.

Incensed, Mo had spoken out, determined something should be done for all the kids in the area. She had set about starting up the Carney and Riverhill Kids’ Project, turning the empty old shoe factory into a place filled with activities and fun for the young people of the estates to go to after school, at night, on weekends, and during the long summer holidays. There were discos and a cookery club, guitar lessons, outings, football and rounders, drama and a choir. The kids and parents had flocked to the place, many of the unemployed parents delighted to help out when they could.

It was the threat of its closure due to lack of council funding that had driven her to stand for the local council against the might of heavyweight Fianna Fail and Fine Gael party candidates. The estates backed her and her fight to keep the project open, and for the first time in twenty years Mo, an independent candidate, had managed to top the polls. Her victory had taken everyone by surprise and Mo Brady had suddenly found herself elected on to Dublin’s City Council. Two months later the funding for the Kids’ Project was renewed. It was a victory for the people of the estates.

‘Mam, we’re back!’ interrupted Jessie. ‘We got you a bag of chips.’

Mo grinned. There was nothing like a bag of chips from Morelli’s, their local chipper.

‘You OK, Mo?’ She felt Joe’s arm snake round her waist as they surveyed the huge rooms. ‘We drove as fast as we could. They should still be warm.’

‘Yeah, I’m grand,’ she lied, trying not to give in to the tumultuous emotion she was feeling at leaving Carney Close and finding herself in the Mansion House serving as Lady Mayor.

             

Living in the Mansion House in the centre of the city had its advantages. There was lots of space and, although some areas smelled of dust and damp, for the most part they enjoyed large, gracious rooms with marble fireplaces, chandeliers and magnificent plasterwork ceilings. Mo loved the Lady Mayoress’s room and the Blue Drawing Room with their calming pale blue curtains and antique furniture. Joe loved the fact that there was a bar on the premises with Guinness and Carlsberg on tap, even if it was reserved for functions. The Mansion House gardens, though small and overlooked, were well tended and planted with shrubs and roses to impress visitors and dignitaries, not for the benefit of a boisterous young family with a football-obsessed son. Thankfully the kids had St Stephen’s Green on their doorstep and used the park as their back garden. At night the noise of traffic and the hum of the city kept Mo and her husband awake, but they soon got accustomed to the comfort and decadence of the enormous four-poster bed in the Mayor’s bedroom.

For the first two days, overwhelmed by their surroundings, they had gone around speaking in hushed tones, afraid of the place, but then Paul had put on his CD player real loud when the staff had gone home and given them a blast of Thin Lizzy. They had begun to feel more comfortable as the kids shouted, ‘The Bradys are back in town!’

She thanked God there were no neighbours to complain about them and bang on the wall. There was a huge catering kitchen in the basement to prepare food for functions and a serving station on the ground floor, but they all preferred the smaller galley kitchen where Joe cooked his usual chicken curries and Sunday fry-ups. Things didn’t have to change that much.

‘Good morning, Bernadette.’ Mo tried to fix a pleasant smile on her face as her new secretary took out the engagements diary for the day and began to read through it. God in heaven, every hour of the day from ten o’clock onwards was taken up.

‘You have the opening of the Ringsend Community Games, the cutting of the ribbon for the new flats on the South Circular Road, the welcome lunch for the American Librarians’ Society, followed by a photoshoot for the
Examiner
to go with an interview about how much you enjoy your new position. But the journalist can’t fit it in until tomorrow so I have scheduled him for 10.30 in the morning, before you visit Temple Street Children’s Hospital.’ Bernie drew a breath before running her skinny finger down the rest of the page. ‘At four o’clock there are the Young Violinists’ Awards in the School of Music and then you have that opening for a charity art show down in Temple Bar.’