Scarlet Feather

by Maeve Binchy

  He smiled at her. It was nice when someone thought you were great.

  Cathy was going to ring the twins. She actually got as far as the phone, but then she thought of having to talk to Kenneth Mitchell, and she changed her mind. She tried to think back to the first days of her engagement to Neil. Had she really tried to please awful people like that, had she tried to get Kenneth and Kay on her side in the battle against Hannah? She hoped that she had not. That whole battle seemed so long ago, and in many ways so unimportant. What did points scored over her mother-in-law mean, anyway? Neil had been right in that, and how silly Cathy must have been to hug those little hard-won victories over her mother-in-law as if they were trophies. She'd ring the twins when this wedding was over, when she had some time to give to them.

  Simon and Maud sat at the kitchen table. They had eaten sardines and cold tinned beans, which went well together. They had tied up the rubbish and left it outside the gates of The Beeches; the binmen came tomorrow. They rescued a newspaper, in case they should clean their shoes for school. It was full of a race meeting coming up shortly.Muttie had said he was going to take them to that, so they would get the feel of a real country race meet. He had told them how great it would be, but now there was no mention of it. They supposed he had gone off them, as people so often did.

  'I can't understand those children not getting in touch with us. They were all over us at the wedding,'Muttie said.

  'Maybe they have no money,' said Lizzie, who didn't know about the fiver he had sent to them.

  'They don't need any money to pick up the phone,' said Muttie, who had sent them the very fiver he could well have put on a horse that he had liked the look of but not the sound of. It had won at thirty to one.

  Stella O'Brien's daughter came to visit Scarlet Feather. Tall, pale, mid-twenties, discontented, they didn't like her on sight at the premises. Like almost every woman who came into the place, she looked at Tom Feather with admiration and a sly little smile. It did her no good.

  'Cathy is mainly dealing with this wedding, perhaps you should talk to her.' Tom got them coffee in the front room, and with some relief left them to it.

  This girl Melanie looked full of grievance, and she hadn't begun yet.' I hope you know my mother isn't made of money.'

  'Nor are any of us, Miss O'Brien, but we did go over the costs very carefully, and she and her fiance seemed very satisfied.'

  'It's not the cost of what you're providing that's wrong.' Melanie said.

  'So what is upsetting you then?'

  'The numbers. My poor mother thinks that there are fifty people coming to see her marry that little fortune-hunter she met at a poker party… She's off her head and throwing good money after bad.'

  'Well, she did say that there was a certain fluidity about the numbers; we've taken that into account.'

  'Fluidity my foot, there's twenty-eight invited from our side, and I can tell you that a good twenty of them won't be there, only eight at the very most… I don't know how many he's fielding, but from what I hear his lot don't want it either.'

  Cathy felt a great urge to stand up, lean over the table and slap Melanie O'Brien so hard across the face and so often that she would fall to the floor. But she held it back.

  'Dear me! Mr Clery's family object, too?'

  'That's what I heard.'

  'Why don't you go and see them?' Cathy suggested.

  ' I don't want to go near them, have anything to do with them.'

  'No, I was thinking of your mother's money. Well, if his family isn't going to come and yours isn't, then you're quite right not to let her put up that much outlay.' It was a heavy risk, but Cathy decided it was worth it.

  ' I don't even know where they live,' Melanie grumbled.

  ' I could give you Mr Clery's address and phone number from the files. I think one of his daughters lives with him, so you could find them that way.'

  'That's very helpful of you, Miss…'

  'Scarlet… Cathy Scarlet.' She had about another forty seconds of good temper left.

  'It's just, I don't see why you want to do this.'

  ' I liked your mother, I wouldn't want her to pay out a lot of money for people who were not going to turn up, this way you'll be able to get me the exact numbers and we can run it past Mrs O'Brien again.' She had written down Sean Clery's address as she was talking, and then she ushered Melanie out of the door. Cathy came back into the kitchen.

  'Give me something to punch quickly,' she shouted.

  June found the clean laundry bag that had just come back. Cathy sank her fists over and over in the tea towels, tablecloths and napkins. 'That's much better,' she said at last.

  'What was that about?' Tom asked.

  ' I was just rearranging Melanie O'Brien's face without having to go to jail for it.'Cathy said, pleased.

  'And dare we ask what you actually said to her out there?' Tom asked.

  ' I took a risk, Tom, and if it doesn't work I promise that I'll take all the blame.'

  'Could you give us a vague clue… just what area the risk was taken in?' He was laughing at her; he wasn't seriously worried.

  But then he didn't know what she had done. 'You're better off not knowing,' Cathy said.

  Joe Feather took out the backgammon set. 'Come on, Dad, I'm one up, so get your revenge.'

  'It's a silly game, that one,' Maura Feather said. ' I don't know why you play it. It's just like ludo for children.'

  'No, it's not, you have to be able to guess and second-guess and gamble. You'd be good at it, Mam.'

  ' I would not.'

  'Come on here, and you play against Dad. I'll sit beside you and see how you fare.'

  Grumbling, she sat down and got into the game. Joe's mind drifted away. It wasn't nearly as bad as he had thought it would be, helping out with the old folk at home. He had begun this regular visiting to help Tom, take some of the burden off him, and had continued it out of guilt over Marcella. But oddly, he didn't mind it at all these days. The time there didn't hang so heavy on his hands, and he wasn't being interrogated about his lifestyle. Which actually was fairly monastic these days, until he got all that money back from the guy who had conned him. He would do it one of these days. Joe Feather knew that he was not going to let that smart guy get away with it. Just as he knew there was no great news on the modelling scene from across the water. Someone had met Marcella, who was very anxious to come home.

  Melanie arranged to meet Sheila, who was Sean Clery's youngest daughter. They were about the same age. They agreed that the marriage was ridiculous and gross, and had come about out of sheer loneliness.

  'Why else would she have gone to that poker club?' Melanie asked.

  'I thought it was a whist drive, but it's all the same,' said Sheila.

  'Suppose we told them that we'd be around more, make them less lonely. Do you think that would work?' Melanie asked.

  'Do you know, I think it's too late for that,' said Sheila.

  'So will you go or will you not?' Melanie was looking to get the numbers.

  ' I don't know, honestly. I'm not sure. I'm not saying a word against your mother; I'm sure she's a perfectly nice person, it's just that my father is great, and I don't want to see him doing anything foolish.'

  'So you might go, is that what you're telling me?'

  'Well, if he's going ahead, and it would make him happy to see us there, then we might well go—not with a good grace, but we'd go. What about you?'

  I'm not going, and again, nothing against your father personally, but my mother doesn't need to marry again.'

  'And your brother?' Sheila asked.

  'A real mammy's boy, he'd do anything to get a pat on the head.'

  'So he is going, you think?'

  'Probably,' Melanie said unwillingly.

  'Well, if her side are going, then to be honest we wouldn't really want Dad to be standing there by himself,' Sheila said.

  'So you will come to this wedding, then?'

  ' I think rather tha
n hurt him I would.'

  Melanie looked glum. 'And of course if you go, then others will, like your aunts and uncles and everything.'

  'Sorry, Melanie, but you did ask, and I don't think we're going to stop themgetting married,' Sheila said.

  Cathy went to The Beeches.

  'There was nothing about this constant visiting in the agreement,' Kenneth Mitchell said.

  ' I came to visit my cousins, is that a crime?'

  'They're not your cousins.'

  'No, but they are my husband's cousins, which is more or less the same thing.'

  'Entirely different,' Kenneth Mitchell barked.

  'Suit yourself,' Cathy said. 'But I would like to see them.'

  'You've missed them, I'm afraid.'

  'Oh, really, where are they?'

  'I have no idea,' he said.

  Cathy's eyes narrowed. 'Now we really are talking about the agreement. You're meant to know where they are at all times.'

  'All right. They've gone to see their mother in hospital.'

  'What! She's back in hospital?'

  'Only momentarily. She's coming home tomorrow. They were just bringing her some clean clothes.' Cathy got out her mobile phone.

  'What are you doing?'

  'What you should have done, notifying Sara.'

  'You're totally overreacting.'

  'Where's the hospital?'

  'It's none of your business,' Kenneth blustered.

  '

  ' I wasn't going to go over there and torture the woman. I wanted to pick up the children, that's all.'

  'You needn't do that, I hear them coming in,' he said sulkily.

  Cathy thought their greeting was a little cool. 'I'm sorry your mother isn't well,' she said.

  'We didn't tell her,' Simon said, looking guiltily at his father.

  'Not a word,' Maud confirmed.

  'But you were meant to tell Sara or me when things change here, you're meant to be grown-up enough to understand the agreement.'

  They hung their heads.

  ' If the children made no complaint, then they were perfectly happy with the way things were,' Kenneth said smugly.

  'I still have to let Sara know. That was the deal, Kenneth,' she said.

  'Interfering, meddling...'

  The twins couldn't bear to hear this, so they went out to the garden. Cathy followed them. They sat on a little bench beside the garden shed.

  'You see, it gets worse if we tell,' Simon said.

  'And better if we don't really,' Maud added.

  'Why haven't you been to see Muttie and his wife Lizzie?' Cathy smiled to herself as she used the same form of words as the twins always did. They looked at her guiltily. Eventually she got it out of them; they just didn't have the fare.

  'Dad told me that he sent you a fiver. Why didn't you use that?'

  'A fiver?' said Maud.

  'We didn't get it,' Simon said.

  They looked at each other. It was so much money for anyone to send them. Cathy knew without a shadow of a doubt that they spoke the truth. They had never got that fiver. She reached into her handbag. 'He wanted you to have it, it must have got lost.' They looked at her innocently. They were still at the age when they believed things got lost in the post.

  'Aren't they such total clowns?' Neil said that night.

  'Who this time?'

  It could have been anybody. The government, the insurance company, the law library, the judiciary, the newspapers.

  'The eejits up at The Beeches. Dad told me that Walter's nicked the computer from his office and hidden it there, and Sara tells me the twins have beengetting nothing to eat and no pocket money, and that Kay's back in the funny farm.'

  'Not quite as bad as that, it was a check-up. They think she's coming home tomorrow.'

  'Still.' He was annoyed.

  She badly wanted to remind him that it was he who had fought for these hopeless people to get their children back. It was Neil Mitchell who had said that they must be restored to their flesh and blood instead of living happily between St Jarlath's Crescent and Waterview, where everyone could keep an eye on them. But it wasn't something to go to war over. So she left it. However, she did tell him about Muttie's missing fiver.

  ' I suppose that fool Walter can actually feel money through envelopes. I imagine he took it,' Neil said casually.

  She felt a sense of rage against Walter rise in her.Muttie's money taken by that young brat. Admittedly it wasn't money that Muttie had in any sense gone out and worked for, but Lizzie had earned that money house-cleaning. And then it should go to line a Mitchell's pocket. She actually felt herself give a gasp of indignation.

  'Do you feel all right?' Neil asked.

  'Sorry, it's nothing.'

  'You went back to work too early.'

  ' I didn't. I like it there, it's very busy, it takes my mind off things.'

  'And talking about things…' he began.

  She must not let him annoy her now. He meant so well, but everything was driving her mad. He might ask diffidently if she felt ready to think about love-making again, and she most certainly did not. He might go on about her work and it being too tiring and that would drive her wild—only at work could she keep her emotions under control. Neil could say any of a dozen things which would upset her, none of them intentionally.

  It never used to be like this in the old days.

  ' I must tell you about this wedding we're doing,' she interrupted. She didn't want any more Meaning of Life. Whatever he said would be wrong. Neil shrugged. Cathy went into the tale about Stella and Sean, but he wasn't listening at all. There was a polite, attentive expression on his face. But he had opted out of the story.

  'So what do you think I should do?' she asked him suddenly. It was mean. But she had to know that he really wasn't listening.

  'About what, exactly?' he asked.

  'About the music,' she smiled. She hadn't mentioned music yet in the story.

  'You'll know it when you hear it,' he said. No wonder he was such a good lawyer, so quick on his feet.

  'You're right, and I think you're right too about my being tired, Neil, I'm going to bed now.' She lay there, eyes open, for a long time. No one had told her that it would be like this. So empty.

  'Cathy's late this morning,' June noted.

  'She's gone to look for music for the wedding,' Tom said.

  'Isn't she incredible? I wouldn't know where to start.'

  'I don't think she does either, she just says that she'll know it when she hears it.'

  'It'll be great doing a job all the way down the country. I wish we could stay longer,' June sighed.

  'June, you'd die. You're such a Dub you would perish like a rare bird out of its environment if you were to stay in the country.'

  'No I wouldn't. Jimmy and I once thought of living right out in the country. Honestly we did.'

  For about three minutes, you did. How is he, anyway?' June's husband was housebound since his fall.

  'Like a weasel,' June said easily. 'The sooner I find myself a new one, the better. He doesn't know if I'm there or I'm not, Tom. I said to him the other day that I could go off for a month and he'd just ask me if I'd brought back the sausages when I got home.'

  'I'm sure that's not true,' Tom said.

  'What would you know, Tom, you didn't marry when you were a schoolkid like we did. We've had no life, either of us, and now Jimmy has a busted back. At least I have a great career.'

  Cathy walked down Grafton Street without seeing anyone or anything. She had woken this morning with a heavy feeling of guilt. And yet what had she to be guilty about? The miscarriage wasn't her fault. Of course it wasn't. So why did she feel that she was somehow letting everyone in her life down quite badly? She could put it all right if only she had more time. Like she would insist on Tom taking a couple of days off; he looked very weary sometimes. She would take her mother off in the van for a day's shopping in the markets. She would invite Geraldine to a four-hour lunch at Quentin's. She
would take the twins and Hooves for a weekend to Holly's; they had never stayed in a hotel, and Holly's had a guest-dog policy. And Neil? What would she do for Neil to make things better? It wasn't as easy as it was for everyone else. Then she heard the music, it was violins and accordions. Six men, a cafe orchestra playing on the street. They were refugees, they were collecting money. They would look perfect in the conservatory corner of Holly's hotel; they would be great for the party. She talked to Josef, the one with the best English, she explained everything, she wanted waltzes and old love songs.

  'We do not have expensive clothes to play at a wedding in a hotel,' he said.

  'That's not important. Do you know "A Kiss Is Just A Kiss"?' He said something to the group and they played it. And 'Smoke gets In Your Eyes', and a Strauss medley.

  'Would you have transport to Wicklow?' she asked, hardly daring to hope. It turned out that somebody had a van. 'You'll be perfect,' Cathy said. 'Where can I find you?' They gave her the name of a hostel, she gave them fifty pounds as a deposit.

  'How do you know we may not take your money, pack our violins into their cases and go away before the wedding party?' Josef asked. 'Keep your fifty pounds.'

  'No, how do you know that I'm not a madwoman and there's no wedding and no engagement at all? You must keep your fifty pounds.' She hugged herself and softly sang some of the songs they had played as she went down the street.

  Shona called out to her, 'Hey, you're talking to yourself That's a good sign.'

  'Worse, I'm singing to myself. Better lock me up.'

  Two days before the wedding, Melanie rang Cathy.

  'My mother tells me you've booked a band, an entire band… Is she paying for this?'

  'She and Sean agreed that the group sounded exactly what they wanted.'

  'She went to a refugee hostel to listen to some deadbeats playing… And you're charging her to let those people into—'