The Hat Shop on the Corner (13 page)

‘Casey Coleman already have permission for a very large proportion of one side of the street,’ she pointed out. ‘Perhaps they should be satisfied with that. There is no guarantee the council will grant planning on their more recent acquisitions, is there?’

She could see one or two of her fellow councillors shifting uneasily.

‘What about compulsories?’ murmured Councillor King.

‘The shopkeepers cannot be forced to sell,’ Mo insisted. ‘These are their premises. We have no right to interfere.’

‘The development must go ahead.’

‘Hold on a minute. The main development and rebuilding on the vacant site, yes, but I’m not so sure about the rest,’ she insisted. ‘It’s a lovely old street, the type we should be trying to preserve.’

‘It has no architectural merit,’ Des lashed out.

‘And I suppose the replacement will have?’ responded Richard sarcastically.

‘Richard is right. Why should the city lose another street to huge global retailers and the kind of bland copy-cat stores that are dotted all over the cities and towns of Ireland? That’s all I’m saying.’

Richard gave her the thumbs-up when she sat down, and a load of her fellow councillors applauded. The chairman called for a motion to delay the vote until they received further information. Mo was delighted when the motion was carried.

             

Ellie smiled to herself as Kim and Fergus began the inquisition about the new guy in her life. The three of them had gone for something to eat after work at Café Bar Deli. The tables were still spread out under the Harry Clarke stained glass windows in the famous old Bewley’s building.

‘Listen, we’ve just gone out a few times,’ she giggled as she ate her chicken Caesar salad. ‘Give us a chance.’

‘Then how come none of us have even laid eyes on this mystery man?’ added Fergus. ‘You are positively hiding him away from us.’

‘No I’m not.’ She laughed. ‘It’s just that Rory’s out of town and back and forward to London a good bit at the moment. It’s part of his job.’

‘So what’s he got?’ joked Fergus, eating all the bread rolls on the table.

‘Everything. He’s interesting and charming, funny and great to be around. He makes me feel happy.’

‘Can’t compete with that,’ shuddered Fergus.

‘I promise when you meet him you’ll like him. He’s great.’

‘You know that we’re delighted you’ve met someone,’ said Kim slowly. ‘It’s just that we don’t want you to rush in – to get hurt.’

Ellie stared at the plate. There had been a fling last year with Mike McDonnell, one of the guys who worked with Kim. It had broken up by mutual agreement when he’d transferred to be a trader in New York. Neither of them had felt committed enough for a long-distance relationship, though they were still friends and emailed each other.

But she knew who they both meant. It had been a lifetime ago . . .

‘He’s nothing like Owen,’ she insisted. Nothing. Owen Cross had been one of her lecturers in college. In her final year, after a class trip to the Burren, they had started to see each other. Ellie considered him not just a guy she was in love with but also a mentor. She was working on her end-of-year projects and her thesis when his wife had returned from a six-month sabbatical in Stockholm. She’d had no idea he was married and felt humiliated and used.

She never wanted to see him again. She wanted to quit college, walk away from it, forget her projects and everything. It was only her mother and Kim who had made her finally see sense, telling her that she had done nothing wrong. Somehow she had got through those awful final weeks and banished Owen from her life, escaping to Paris once she got her degree.

‘Rory’s different.’ She smiled. ‘He makes me feel good.’

‘Then bring him along to Ryan’s on Friday night for a pint after work,’ suggested Fergus, ‘and we’ll all get a chance to meet him.’

‘I’ll see if he’s free but he goes to a lot of gigs to check out new acts or be with his bands,’ she explained.

‘Do you get to go with him?’

‘Sometimes.’ She laughed. ‘Or we’ll meet up afterwards.’

Ellie was nervous about whether Rory would be accepted by her small group of very close friends and also about whether he would think they were all too ordinary and not interesting enough. She loved Fergus and Kim but compared to Rory’s crazy friends they were a pretty tame crowd.

They had arranged to meet up after work on Friday when Rory cancelled out, citing a meeting at RTE. Secretly Ellie was almost relieved.

She was sitting in Ryan’s on Friday night drinking a glass of red wine in an old jumper and jeans, her hair tied in pigtails, when Rory walked in. She couldn’t believe it and jumped up and called him over.

‘My meeting at RTE finished early.’ He grinned. ‘So I thought I’d surprise you.’

‘Well, you did,’ she said, kissing him and introducing him to everyone. She watched open-mouthed as he single-handedly schmoozed them all. He had Fergus confessing about the band he was in when he was thirteen and their performances of Duran Duran classics, and Kim discussing her ancient record collection, and even Mary-Claire was batting her eyelashes at him. All she prayed for was that no one would sing.

However, snug in the corner of Ryan’s just before closing time Fergus broke into an awful rendition of ‘Purple Rain’, which attracted the whole bar’s attention. Everyone was laughing and clapping and jeering him.

Rory handled it manfully and bought Fergus another pint of lager to console him on the obvious disintegration of his singing potential.

‘You know, with the right training when I was young enough I could have made it!’ claimed Fergus. ‘It was just the old man wanted me to be an accountant or a doctor.’

‘Thanks,’ she said to Rory afterwards as they made their way back to her place.

‘I like them,’ he teased, pulling her into his arms. ‘I really do.’

The sturdy figure of Dublin’s Lady Mayor walked up and down South Anne Street, noting the construction site on one side and the shops, some of which were boarded up, on the other. She could see why so many of the street’s traders were tempted to sell, fearing their shops would go bankrupt once the large-scale development opened.

The empty fruit and vegetable shop brought back memories of her father’s greengrocer’s store in Phibsboro with its trays of polished Granny Smiths and fresh oranges from Israel. Her father had been forced to close down when a huge supermarket opened only five hundred yards away. They’d moved to Crumlin, to a new estate filled with young families. Danny Sullivan had never said much, but in hindsight Mo supposed that losing the shop must have broken his heart.

For the rest of his working life he had been an employee, a wages clerk, and at fifty-eight he had found himself at home, no longer the wage earner but dependent on social welfare. His pride and hope had dwindled away. Mo could still remember his fierce loyalty to the ordinary working man and his lack of resentment about all that had happened to him. A wonderful father, he’d encouraged all of them to go out and embrace the world. In his own gentle way he had given each of them more than any millionaire could have given his children.

Mo took a breath. There was a big sale in the expensive boutique with its knitted twinsets and tweed skirts. Were they closing down too? She would go and talk to them.

‘I’ve a huge rent review, costs are soaring and God knows what will happen when those big shops open,’ Ria Roberts said angrily, shaking her immaculately coiffed grey hair.

Looking around at the shelves of expensive cashmere and lambswool and the rails of exquisite skirts and jackets, Mo disagreed.

‘But you have such an elegant shop here,’ she remonstrated, ‘with a loyal clientele, I’m sure. Don’t give up your hard-earned custom so easy.’

It was the same story everywhere – the jeweller’s, the small Italian restaurant, the print and art shop. Every single small trader was worried about their livelihood and their ability to withstand the tidal wave of the forthcoming galleria, with its massive retail outlets, restaurants and hotel.

Mo stood outside the windows of the toy shop. Its freshly painted red and yellow shopfront was attractive and welcoming, as was the display of wooden toys and kites in the window.

‘I was about to throw in the towel and give up,’ Scottie O’Loughlin admitted, ‘but young Ellie down the street told me kids still want proper toys, not just cheap plastic rubbish but good stuff. No matter how many videos and computer games they have, kids still want to play.’

‘I reckon she was right,’ laughed Mo.

‘She did a great job on her own shop so I suppose that gave me a bit of encouragement to get rid of all the junk and old stock and smarten my place up. Make it nicer for the kids.’

‘It’s just what a toy shop should be,’ said Mo admiringly, looking up at the hand-painted mobiles over her head and the wooden aeroplanes that bobbed from the ceiling.

‘The property company weren’t too happy about me not going ahead with the sale but I told them I wanted to stay put and I wasn’t budging for anything. Kids and toys are my life!’

Mo looked around the shop with its well-displayed toys on low shelves and found herself buying a wooden kite with a jaunty red and blue tail for Lisa and a big green crocodile to put on her desk.

Shops like this certainly mustn’t be allowed to disappear. Surely the city manager could see the sense in providing all kinds of shops for customers to enjoy?

The small black cat greeted Mo as she opened the door of the hat shop and rubbed itself against her legs. The young milliner had done a marvellous job in making her shop such an enticing treat for customers and passers-by.

Ellie Matthews put aside the feathered trim she was working on.

‘Lovely hat!’

‘It’s for a christening,’ confided Ellie. ‘It makes me feel good, making a hat for a mother with a new baby.’

‘Your hats make everyone feel good,’ laughed Mo. ‘I love mine.’

‘That’s such a kind thing to say, Mo, thank you. And your hat was a great success.’

‘The media aren’t used to seeing me dressed up and looking smart!’

Mo was tempted to try on the fuchsia-pink hat on the stand but steeled herself to resist. She couldn’t have all her mayoral salary going on clothes and style.

‘The reason I’m here today is to talk to you about the shop and the street.’

‘My shop!’

‘Yes, you have done a remarkable job – but it would be such a shame to see any more of the other shops and businesses round here closing down.’

‘They’re scared,’ confided Ellie. ‘Frightened they’ll lose their trade. Some of them reckon it’s better to get out now while the going is good and there is an offer on the table.’

‘You didn’t think that!’

‘Oh, I most certainly did, but when it came to it I couldn’t bear the thought of closing up my mother’s business. She had worked too hard all her life running it, and it wasn’t up to me to just go and sell it off to the highest bidder. I have to see if I can make a success of it myself.’

‘But you have already turned it round, it’s such a lovely shop.’

‘Thank you,’ Ellie said, accepting the compliment.

‘Mr O’Loughlin told me you encouraged him to continue trading.’

‘I’m not sure about that. But I have loved that shop ever since I was a little girl and I’d hate to see it close. Scottie thought he couldn’t compete with all the latest toys. He didn’t realize there is a big market for classic old-style things that kids love, boats and trains and arks and doll’s houses. They never go out of fashion.’

‘And kites,’ joked Mo, lifting up the one she had bought.

‘Yeah, see what I mean? Good toys are irresistible.’

‘What about the other traders?’ urged Mo. ‘What do they want?’

‘I’m not sure, Lady Mayor, but I suppose we all just want to save our street.’

‘Save our street, SOS. That’s a thought!’ grinned Mo. ‘Perhaps if you all got together . . .’

‘We have talked,’ admitted Ellie. ‘We are not opposed to this new galleria, it’s just we want to stay and trade here too.’

‘Then set up a proper meeting,’ she advised. ‘And I’ll try and get as many councillors along to support you as possible. No one can stop the development, but we can ensure that it doesn’t get any bigger and that the street manages to retain a sense of identity and individuality.’