Scarlet Feather

by Maeve Binchy

  They all seemed to love the food: it had been worthwhile showing off their wares. Cathy noticed her father deep in conversation with a sports journalist, and her mother sitting happily with Mrs Keane, a neighbour of theirs from Waterview on two chairs a little away from the general throng. To Cathy's surprise, Hannah Mitchell approached them.

  'Ah, good to see you, Lizzie; give me that chair, will you, like a dear, and get me a plate of mixed bites, nibbles, whatever they call them…' She spoke imperiously, as someone who knew she would make it happen. And it would have happened, had Cathy not been near at hand. Poor Lizzie Scarlet stumbled to her feet and apologised. She was still Mrs Mitchell's cleaner, and she had been caught sitting down and talking in an overfamiliar way with the quality.

  'Yes, Mrs Mitchell, sorry Mrs Mitchell, what exactly would you like, a little of everything?' Cathy's resolutions were out of the window. She had never been so angry. This woman had now crossed over every boundary of behaviour and good manners. In an icy voice, she ordered her mother to sit down and not to abandon Mrs Keane in mid-conversation. Out of sheer shock Lizzie did just that, and with a combination of shoulder and arm Cathy moved and manipulated Hannah Mitchell to the other side of the room. Out of the corner of her mouth she hissed at June that she needed a stool, and at Kate that she wanted a plate with a small selection. Then she seated her mother-in-law in an area where she could see everyone.

  'There was no need to push me across the room, Cathy, really.'

  'I know, isn't it just terrible when places become so crowded? But you wanted a chair and I wanted to make sure you got one.' She smiled until the sides of her face hurt.

  Hannah Mitchell was not fooled. 'I had a perfectly good chair where I was.'

  'Sadly no, that was my mother's chair, but can I leave you for a moment? I do hope you like the premises.' And she was gone trembling and shaking.

  Neil, who had noticed nothing amiss, was talking to his cousin Walter, jumpy and restless as ever. Cathy saw Joe Feather come in; he had brought them a kitchen clock with pictures of old-fashioned cooking utensils on it.

  'Figured you didn't need any more food and drink in this place. What a great, great job—you've done it, I smell success everywhere.' Tom and Cathy beamed at him, he had such a knack for saying the right thing, and was a strange magnet immediately for people. He didn't even have to move towards them, they came to him.

  They turned the background music level down slightly. It was time for the speeches. Tom and Cathy gave each other the thumbs-up sign. They had rehearsed these for ever. No long Oscar-style lists of thank-yous. No boasting of how successful they would be. Even before they had got the premises they had been trying them out on each other. It would be an absolute maximum of two minutes each, and then fade up the music. People could continue their conversations without feeling seriously interrupted, and it worked just as they'd planned. It was much too good a party to interrupt for more than four minutes, plus applause. When it was over, they looked at each other. Had they really said what they meant to? Neither could remember. They were congratulated on all sides, and could hardly take it in. Some early leavers were beginning to get their coats, but the hard core would be there for much, much longer.

  'What a pity we didn't think of having a tape recorder!' Cathy said.

  'I did.' Geraldine was beside her. 'And you were both brilliant.'

  'Is Ma all right?'

  'She is. Stop fussing.'

  'You're lucky you can speak to Cathy like that, Geraldine. I try to, but she bites my head off,' said Tom.

  'Ah, family gives you great privileges,' Geraldine said, and was gone.

  Cathy saw JT and Maura Feather leaving. 'I don't think they've even seen Joe, he's been over on the other side of the room,' she began.

  'Leave it, Cathy. Joe will find them if he wants to.'

  'But wouldn't it be a shame…'

  'It's always been a shame, but that's the way he is, he doesn't do anything that bores him and going to Fatima bores him, so he never goes.'

  'He's going to meet them tonight,' Cathy insisted, and raised her voice loudly. 'Joe, I think your parents are leaving…' He had to meet them then. Cathy saw how their faces lit up with pleasure at the sight of their elder son. Joe put up a good show of being delighted and surprised to see them: he admired his mother's dress, and praised his father for the work that had been done and swiftly he got them to the door. At no stage had Cathy ever seen such joy and enthusiasm on their faces when they were talking to their son Tom. Tom, who went to see them regularly and looked after their every need. But then, when had life been fair?

  Geraldine had arranged a taxi, which would collect Muttie and Lizzie and take them to the hotel to pick up Simon and Maud. But by the time it came, neither of the Scarlets wanted to leave. Muttie was going to meet the sports journalist at the next big race meeting and was to be invited into the press box. Lizzie was going to visit Mrs Keane in Waterview to look at this new mop she had. Apparently you didn't need to kneel down on the floor nearly so much these days, and Lizzie's knees were a bit achy. It had begun as a conversation about cleaning equipment, but it was now almost a social visit. Cathy looked at her mother with a wave of love. The day would come, she swore it would, when Lizzie Scarlet would never again have to clean a floor for anyone other than herself. Just as the Scarlets had got to the front room, Hannah moved in on them again.

  'There you are, Lizzie, get my coat for me, will you, dear?'

  'Certainly Mrs Mitchell, is it your fur?'

  'Of course not, Lizzie, to a place like this. No, it's my black cloth coat… Oh, but maybe you weren't with me when I got it. You might have left by then.'

  'Do you have a ticket, Mrs Mitchell?'

  'I don't have an idea what I did with the ticket, find it for me quickly like a dear, will you, I don't want to hang around here longer than I have to.'

  Cathy moved in quickly. She nailed a smile to her face. 'Mam, your taxi is getting restless, I'll get Hannah's coat for her.' Together with Geraldine she got her parents into the taxi. Which was far from easy.

  'And listen, thank you both for coming and for talking to everyone. You're marvellous, both of you, and thank you so much for looking after the little Mitchell children. I really don't know what they would all have done without you.' The last bit very loudly.

  'Gently, Cath,' whispered Geraldine. 'You might need Hannah and Jock some day.'

  'For what, exactly?'

  'All right, but still gently.'

  'Right, thanks Geraldine.' Cathy walked over to the gorgeous red-headed cloakroom girl and pointed out her mother-in-law's coat. 'That dame is pretending to have lost her ticket. Can I have that black one, please?' She held it open, but Hannah made no attempt to put it on. So Cathy laid it on a chair. They were alone in the foyer at this stage.

  'You've gone too far, Cathy Scarlet. You'll regret your behaviour tonight, mark my words.'

  'And I very much hope that you will regret yours, Mrs Mitchell, trying to humiliate my mother as a way to annoy me. Yes, it worked for you in that it did annoy me, but you couldn't humiliate her, it's impossible. She has a decent, generous soul, and because she took your money for years for hard, menial work she thinks she still owes you.'

  Hannah was white at the insolence. 'Your mother, limited as she is, is worth ten of you.'

  'I agree with you. And she's worth a hundred of you, Mrs Mitchell. I said it to her the other day. She wouldn't listen, of course, but it's still true.' Hannah Mitchell gasped and Cathy went on. 'Beleive me, I'm actually glad that we are having this convesation, and I want you to know that my days of being polite to you are over.'

  'You were never polite to me, you common little… little…' Words failed Hannah at this point.

  'When I was young and came to play in the garden, if Mam was working at Oaklands, I wasn't polite, that's true, but when I married Neil I was, I tried very hard. I didn't want to make things difficult for him and actually I was sorry for you. Yes, I was, bec
ause you were so very disappointed in the wife he brought home.'

  'You were sorry for me!' Hannah snorted.

  'And I still am in ways, but there will be no pretence any more. There's something you have not understood: I was never in my whole life afraid of you. You just don't have any power over me. Your day is gone, Hannah Mitchell. It's a new Ireland, a country where the maids' children marry who they bloody well like, and where the nobs like your brother-in-law, if he's aware of anything at all, are very glad to have Muttie and Lizzie Scarlet going down in a taxi to the best hotel in Dublin to pick up his children and take them back to St Jarlath's Crescent where it looks as if they might spend the next ten years—'

  Hannah interrupted her. 'When you apologise, Cathy, as you will, I assure you, I am not going to forgive you or put it down to overexcitement because of all this…' Hannah looked around her and sniffed.

  'Oh, no, I will never apologise, believe me, I meant everything I said,' Cathy spoke icily. 'If you, on the other hand, apologise about the way you insulted my mother twice tonight, I will consider it and ask Neil what he thinks. Otherwise we will behave courteously to each other in public and communicate not at all in private. Now, you can either come in and join your husband or leave. Suit yourself.' And Cathy turned and went, head high, back to the party. Inside, she saw Geraldine looking at her anxiously.

  'She still has a pulse, Geraldine, don't worry.' Cathy Scarlet had her first drink of the night. A very large glass of red wine. She realised now that Hannah had two ways to go. She wished for a moment her father were here to tell her the odds. But as Muttie often said, there are times when there are no odds, when you have to go by instinct. And her instinct was that Hannah would say nothing. Reporting the insolence of her daughter-in-law would mean putting the spotlight on her own behaviour. Hannah wouldn't risk it. So there would be no need for Cathy to explain anything at all. She smiled at the thought that she had won, she had really and truly won. It was somehow nearly as good as this launch.

  'I don't like you sitting alone drinking wine and laughing to yourself,' Geraldine said disapprovingly. The music was louder. Tom moved to hold the beautiful face of Marcella in his two hands and began to dance with her. Cathy's two friends June and Kate were both quite reached by drink and dancing already. Dreamily, Cathy put out her hand towards Neil and they held each other tight. Over his shoulder she saw Jock Mitchell look around for his wife and eventually go out of the door to find her. She saw Joe Feather leave quietly and watched Walter put a bottle of wine under his arm before leaving. And Cathy Scarlet closed her eyes and danced with the man she loved.

  'What are you thinking about?' he asked her, but there were too many things even to begin to tell.

  Chapter Two

  FEBRUARY

  'Tell me that we cleared the place up,' Tom asked Marcella sleepily next morning. 'Tell me that we didn't just walk out and leave everything as it was.'

  Marcella laughed. 'Surely you remember the way you said to everyone that you were calling two taxis in half an hour, and the place had to be perfect.'

  'You know what? I thought I remembered that, but I was afraid I just dreamed it.' Tom said.

  'You had us all running in and out like a fast-forward film, and by the time the taxis came everything was covered with cling film and put into the right places and the dishwasher was turned on.'

  'I'm a genius,' Tom said happily.

  'Of course you are. You did say, however, that there would be about a hundred more glasses to do, but you were very proud that all the litter bags were tied up and the floor was clean.'

  'I really laid into the wine, I'm afraid.' He was contrite.

  'Not until the end. You and Cathy must have drunk a bottle each in ten minutes and you deserved it, but you'd had nothing to eat or drink all day.' She stroked his forehead and began to get out of bed.

  'You're never leaving me alone in the morning of my triumph and my slight hangover, are you?' He was very disappointed.

  'Tom, it's my dance class,' she said.

  'Of course.' He had forgotten. Marcella didn't need this two-hour class in movement every Saturday morning; she didn't need the other classes she took either. She was a lithe, gorgeous girl who turned heads. But she convinced that these were all part of her apprenticeship, and worked hard for the extra money. She spent hours after work and early in the morning self-stacking in the Food Hall at Haywards. Only the staff saw Marcella Malone doing a menial job like that. And they didn't matter, as Marcella alwas said, because they were not the ones who were going to discover her and give her this break in modelling. The rest of the public saw her either as a beauty therapist in Haywards' salon, or as a beautiful party animal much photographed at press receptions and at the clubs. .

  Tom understood entirely why Marcella could never work as a waitress for them in Scarlet Feather. It would mean the end of the dream for her, admitting that there would be no starry future ahead. He wasn't totally sure that Cathy understood; sometimes he thought he saw a flash of impatience pass over his business partner's face when he said that his life partner would not be helping them out. Cathy's own husband Neil never minded carrying heavy trays or loading the van, if he was around. But then he seldom was, and anyway, he could do that because he was already somebody, a successful and known young barrister, his name and photograph often in the newspapers. He had already made his way. Marcella had yet to make hers.

  Tom knew he should go into the premises and get the glasses done, check that the food really had been properly put away, but it was early still and they had been rushing so much in the run-up to last night, he deserved another cup of coffee. He looked out on the wintry scene, the leafless trees and wet courtyard surrounding Stoneyfield. Tom's father always said that it was a disgrace leaving that ground to go to waste when they could easily have fitted three more units into the space. It wasn't even as if it were a proper garden with lawns or anything. In vain would Tom try to tell him that the kind of people who came to live here had no time to mow lawns. But they did need places to turn and park cars, and for the athletic like Marcella, chain their bicycles in elegantly disguised sheds. JT Feather, builder, from an earlier time when more was good, would never understand it in a million years. Any more than he would take in the amount of their earnings that he and Marcella put into the mortgage. Better not to weigh his father down with details like that. As was increasingly becoming the case, Tom sighed to himself.

  This thought led him to think of his brother. Joe had said he would call before he left for the airport, but then Joe was spectacularly vague about family. Tom dialled his hotel.

  'You thought I'd forget to phone you,' Joe said.

  'You? Forget to phone your family? Never.' Tom laughed at him good-naturedly.

  'I would have, mainly to say that you've a great set-up there, it's very professional, really it is. Geraldine and I think our investment is one of the best we've ever made, we told each other several times.'

  'She's a real looker that woman, isn't she? Loads of style. She's not there with you, by any chance?' Nothing was unlikely with his brother Joe.

  'No indeed, she's not. Let's say she's not.'

  'I don't know how you do, it Joe.' Tom shook his head. Imagine, Joe had picked up someone at their party last night and persuaded her to go back to his hotel!

  'Only because I'm a sad old man without a lovely wife of my own like you have.'

  'She's not my wife yet.'

  'I know, but she might as well be for all the looks she gives towards anyone else.'

  That pleased Tom, as Joe knew it would. 'Anyone I know from the party?'

  'Aha,' said Joe.

  'Is she there with you? Now?'

  'In the bathroom at the moment. Any time for a drink before I get the plane?'

  'I have to go round to the premises… I really do not want Cathy coming by and doing it.'

  'Right, I'll see you round there in half an hour,' Joe said.

  Tom was ready to leave in minut
es. The van wasn't outside the door, it was in Waterview at Cathy's place. He'd get a taxi on the street. There was something he wanted to talk to Joe about too. Like was there any hope that he might actually do something in terms of their mother and father, come and see them even for very short visits. It would mean so much to them, and take so little out of Joe's lifestyle. And it would lift a great deal of the burden from Tom's back.

  The van was there when he arrived. Tom was annoyed; not only had he not beaten Cathy to it but now he wouldn't be able to talk to Joe. Perhaps he could take him out for a coffee. He would make it up to Cathy later. Tom hoped that Neil would not be there, it would point up how much more involved the two of them were, Marcella at her dance class and Tom about to slip out with his brother. But no; Cathy was not with Neil. She was with those bizarre children that she seemed to have taken under her wing. Solemn-eyed, self-centred, intense and appallingly bad mannered, although there had been a bit of an improvement in their behaviour recently.

  'You're late,' said Simon.

  'Where's your girlfriend?' asked Maud.

  Cathy came out and gave him a hug. 'Wasn't that a night to remember,' she said. Then, looking at the children, she said in an entirely different voice, 'Tom is not late, we are only here for two minutes, and his girlfriend Marcella is at her dance class, and what did I say about greeting people?'

  They lowered their eyes.

  'No, stop looking down at the floor. How do we greet people in a civilised society? Tell me this minute.'

  'We say hallo and pretend to be glad to see them,' said Simon.

  'We use their name if we know it,' added Maud.

  'Okay. Sorry Tom, could you go out and come in again, it wasn't a civilised society for a moment but it will be when you come back.'

  Tom went back outside, irritated. There was little enough time as it was, and now he was playing ridiculous games in a vain attempt to teach these monstrous children manners.