The Hat Shop on the Corner (7 page)

‘Miss Matthews, he’ll see you now.’ His middle-aged secretary led her into a beautiful room with magnificently decorated plasterwork on the ceiling, and tall sash windows overlooking the long narrow stretch of garden at the rear of the building.

Neil was wearing a white shirt, tie loose, collar open. Freshly showered and shaved, he looked good.

‘So you’ve come with the contracts.’ He smiled, indicating the chair in front of his cherrywood desk.

She glanced nervously at the bookshelves beside him – law books, Irish law, international law, reams of them. Photos in polished silver frames on his desk, and on the wall more art, Markey Robinson, O’Connor and a Yeats etching.

‘Yes, I’m returning them.’

‘Your signature needs to be witnessed on each copy,’ he said affably, lifting the brown envelope off the desk. ‘I can ask Jean to do it if you wish.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Ellie cheerfully.

‘Good, then they are signed and witnessed already.’ Neil had spread the papers on his desk and was looking at the blank part at the end of the contract. ‘But it’s not signed?’

‘No. I’m not signing it,’ she said softly, almost afraid to look at him, ‘because I’m not going ahead.’

‘But I thought we had agreed, that you understood everything,’ he said slowly, ‘that it had all been explained to you?’

‘I do understand,’ she retorted. ‘It’s just that I’m not selling.’

‘Not selling?’ His voice rose, annoyed. ‘I thought you were going to honour what was discussed and agreed with your mother? Jerome Casey and I were both under the impression that you were prepared to accept our offer.’

‘I changed my mind. I’m sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I didn’t mean to mess you around and waste your time. It’s just that I don’t want to sell the shop.’

‘Please, Ellie, reconsider,’ he remonstrated, standing up and coming to sit on the corner of the desk in front of her. ‘Get some good business advice. My client is making a very generous offer. Think what you could do with the money.’

‘I just want to make hats,’ she said softly.

‘If you are determined to continue with your hat-making, perhaps you could relocate? Find another shop or studio here in the city. I have a number of auctioneering contacts who I’m sure could help.’

Ellie Matthews pulled herself up to her full height of five foot three and stood straight in front of him, dark eyes serious.

‘I’m sorry, Neil, but the business is not for sale.’

‘I am . . . I mean my clients will be very disappointed,’ he said coldly.

‘Thank you for all your work and the advice but I’ve made my decision,’ she said, sensing his annoyance at her for wasting his and his clients’ time.

‘So you are turning down their offer, rejecting it,’ he said dispassionately, facing her squarely. ‘Was it the money?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. Avoiding his eyes and the fact that his legs were almost touching her, she concentrated on the framed photo of his father on the desk. ‘It’s a family business, Neil. My family. I thought you of all people would understand that. I just can’t walk away from it.’

‘What will you do?’

She smiled for a second, thinking about it.

‘I will make hats!’ she said defiantly. ‘Hundreds of them.’

Trying to control herself and not give in to the absurd shakiness that was threatening to overwhelm her, Ellie reached for her handbag on the floor, flustered and nervous, as Neil tried to step out of her way. Shit . . . her beautiful blue willow-pattern handbag burst open on his carpet, spilling everything she possessed on to the floor under his desk. She scrabbled to pick things up – her mirror, keys, wallet, phone, diary, a notepad, her perfume, two pens and a pink highlighter, a mini toothbrush, dental floss, a hairbrush, hairgrip, cotton buds. Neil Harrington looked appalled as her bright pink lipstick lay exposed on the carpet. He bent down to help her, the two of them almost colliding as they both reached to retrieve it. Grabbing the lipstick, Ellie bumped against him and the bright pink tip smeared his pristine laundered shirt. Ellie searched uselessly for a tissue to wipe it. His hand caught hers.

‘It’s OK. I’ll get it cleaned,’ he said politely, surveying the vivid stain.

For one mad minute she pictured herself helping him to unbutton it, discovering if he was really as stuffy and old-fashioned as he seemed.

‘I’m sorry, Neil,’ she apologized. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘It’s all right, Ellie, I always keep a spare in the office.’

Embarrassed, she tried to smile, and wished he was ancient like Mr Muldoon instead of actually rather handsome and attractive. She suspected a few items had rolled right under the desk but to get them she would have had to kneel right down on the floor in front of him. No way. They could stay where they were. Hopefully his secretary, Jean, would retrieve them.

‘That’s it.’ She smiled.

The two of them somehow managed to say a polite goodbye, Ellie knowing that despite his good manners he was furious at her change of mind.

Outside on the street she checked her bag. Her raspberry Juicy Tube, her mascara, her lucky old Irish twopenny piece and a Tampax were missing, probably lying somewhere under his desk, at Neil Harrington’s feet.

             

A ragged-looking crew of her friends turned up on Saturday morning in old clothes and grungy boots and trainers, ready to work. Fergus, unshaven, with his red hair standing on end and looking particularly rough, was brandishing a paint-stripper. He began to attack the shop walls with it.

‘Keep out of the way!’ he warned as he swung round and began to strip away the layers of blue paint. Over the next few hours they all worked like crazy stripping the old paper and paint until there wasn’t a hint of blue anywhere.

‘What we need to do now,’ suggested Polo aka Peter O’Leary, a friend she had got to know in art college, ‘is put up lining paper, so the walls will be good and even before we paint them. That’s what my da always does.’

Mary-Claire, the sweetest girl with a sexy husky voice and cropped hair, who’d hung around with herself and Kim and done daily battle with the nuns over a tattooed shoulder and a pierced nose, ending up as one of the brightest copywriters in a top Dublin advertising agency, was dispatched immediately to the nearest DIY shop down in Capel Street, with Polo going along to make sure she got the right thing and enough paste.

In their absence Fergus, Kim and Ellie got to grips with the ancient carpet.

It was thick with dust despite all the hoovering, and was almost stuck to the floor. ‘Dump it,’ ordered Kim as they hacked strips and chunks of it away. To Ellie’s joy, underneath were almost perfect floorboards.

‘They’re just beautiful!’ said Kim admiringly as they bundled the carpet into the skip they’d hired.

‘A brush and a good hoover first,’ declared Ellie, trying not to cough as she set to straight away, clearing everything up as an exhausted Kim and Fergus declared an immediate lunch break.

They were studying the floorboards and demolishing thick turkey and stuffing sandwiches when the others returned.

‘A good sanding and a few coats of varnish and that floor will be like new,’ said Polo knowledgeably. ‘The old man did ours at home and made a grand job of them.’

Ellie couldn’t imagine Mr O’Leary, a usually fastidious insurance manager, suddenly becoming such a do-it-yourself expert.

‘When did he start all this?’ quizzed Fergus.

‘Well, the old dear has been on at him for years, but since he’s retired and people were going on at him about having a hobby he decided to have a go. Did an apartment in Sutton last week. I could ask him to have a look at your boards, El, if you wanted. I’m sure he’d do the job for you.’

Ellie felt like hugging Polo for even considering asking his father.

She wasn’t sure about bleaching the floorboards or whitening them. With the dirt and dust from the street, they’d probably look filthy in no time. But the natural wood colour could make the shop warm and more spacious-looking. Yes, sanding and varnishing them to show off the quality and character of the wood was best. Fingers crossed that Mr O’Leary would agree.

They worked until it was dark, peeling away what was left of her mother’s imprint on the shop until they had a blank canvas and were ready to start over again.

‘What about the colour? Have you decided yet?’ prodded Mary-Claire, gazing at the spread of pastel shades along the wall behind the counter.

Ellie nodded. ‘Yeah! It’s going to be a pale primrose yellow – soft but warm. What do you think?’

They all gathered round the sample.

‘I like it,’ Kim declared loyally.

‘Bit girlie if you ask me!’ joked Fergus, before she took a swipe at him with a paintbrush.

‘I think it will work well,’ mused Mary-Claire, ‘and reflect more light.’

Polo nodded as if he was an expert. ‘What about all your fittings?’

‘New ones cost an absolute fortune. I can’t afford to change them, I told you.’

‘Well, you can’t leave them the way they are,’ insisted Mary-Claire. ‘It will take away from everything, dominate the space.’

‘You’ve got to do something with the counter and display shelves.’

‘With the shelves you could remove the middle one and just have a top and bottom, which might be more dramatic,’ suggested Polo. ‘It’s lovely wood so it would be a shame to just dump it.’

‘What if we painted it?’ suggested Mary-Claire. ‘I know it’s sinful to paint such beautiful wood, but if we don’t it will only end up getting thrown into a skip. What do you think, Ellie?’

Ellie tried to imagine the counter in a soft white or pale wood colour and knew immediately that it would work better with what she planned.

‘Yes. I agree.’

Before she could change her mind, Mary-Claire and Polo had decided that they would tackle the job, promising that in a few weeks she wouldn’t know the place.

Six weeks later Ellie twirled round her premises. She felt like pinching herself as number 61 looked totally different from what it had been. She had taken Colm’s advice and gone with the German lighting. It had transformed the place. She had also reluctantly followed his suggestion of moving a partition wall to make the front of the shop slightly bigger, although she had lost space in the workroom. A wall-to-wall workbench had been built against the back of the new wall. The sad, tired look of an old hat shop had disappeared and been replaced with a pale yellow shopfront that brightened up the whole street. A friend of Polo’s who specialized in signage had written
Ellie Matthews – Milliner
in a looping black scroll above the doorway. The floorboards looked almost like new and were perfect against the colour of the walls and the hand-painted, slightly distressed-looking counter and display shelves. The tiles in the doorway were shining and through the sparkling glass she imagined her hats enticingly placed in the shop window to attract the customers’ attention. The pretty striped canopy added a final touch.

Mary-Claire, using all her advertising contacts in magazines and newspapers, had insisted on doing all the publicity to help launch the chic little hat shop.

‘Ellie, I promise, everyone is dying with curiosity. Of course they’ll come!’

Tomorrow there was the official opening with fashion journalists and magazine editors invited plus some of the social diary journalists. Many of her mother’s regular customers were coming, and a few of her own: Francesca Flaherty and her sisters and nice Mrs Cassidy and her two daughters. There’d be champagne and canapés and she was thrilled that Dominic Dunne, one of the country’s leading designers and a friend of her mother’s, had agreed to do the opening.

Kim had begged her to ban the black cat, Minouche, from the shop.

‘The thing is half wild,’ she warned, ‘and God knows what dirt or diseases it’s carrying.’

Ellie looked at the green eyes and little black nose and saw that Minouche was determined to come in and explore its new surroundings. She ignored her friends and the cat curled itself up in its usual spot under the window. As she looked around her she realized that the shop was perfect, just as she had pictured it a hundred times over in her mind. Now all she had to do was make and sell enough hats to keep the business going.

‘Pasta for everyone!’ she offered, leading the way to the Italian restaurant up the street after the grand preview for her friends. She was delighted that Colm and Mr and Mrs O’Leary had joined them.

‘It’s my treat!’ she insisted as they ordered huge bowls of creamy tortellini carbonara and spicy chicken and tagliatelle. Fergus opened two bottles of Chianti to go with them.

‘I just don’t know how to thank you enough for all the work you did.’

‘Go on, try,’ urged Fergus. ‘Try.’

Sometimes she could kill him for the way he wound her up, but thinking of all his effort and hard work over the past few weekends she chose to kiss him instead.

‘You are the best friends in the world and I don’t know what I would have done without you all over these past few months,’ she said, overwhelmed. ‘You’ve been so good to me.’

She could see that Kim was trying to contain her emotions too.

‘But helping me to fix up the shop so that I can reopen it – well, that’s the best ever. So thank you, and Polo, thank you to you and your dad for doing the floor.’