Scarlet Feather

by Maeve Binchy

  'Who could have got them to close the streets?' Con asked in amazement.

  'My husband,' Cathy said grimly.

  Most of the women were very much at ease the moment they came in the door. They all signed a book on the hall table so that Mrs Frizzell could show her husband who had turned up… Tom moved among them, easily smiling, reassuring that there were no calories in smoked salmon. He fought down his own panic. There were twelve women, two of the four bottles of champagne he had brought were empty, the plate of smoked salmon was nearly finished. It would take an hour to set up the table and serve the lunch, and there was no sign whatsoever of the van.

  The television cameras covered the march, which was all the more impressive for being done in heavy rain. The banners were held high and the people were of all ages.

  'I can't believe it, Neil,' Sara said. He squeezed her hand; it was better than any of them had ever believed possible. He wished Cathy could have come, but he'd tell her about it tonight, and some of the speeches might even be on the nine o'clock news.

  Tom ripped open three tins of sardines, drained them and squeezed lemon juice and ground fresh black pepper into the mixture, and then like lighIning he spread it over the contents of a packet of biscuits he had also unearthed.

  'Very nice,' one woman said. 'What are they called?'

  'Sardines au citron,' he said.

  'They're good.' She smiled into Tom's eyes.

  He smiled nervously and moved away.

  He kept topping up the champagne with further drops of brandy, but never Mrs Frizzell's own glass, as he didn't want her to know why her guests seemed so animated. Tom tried to keep a mental note of all he had taken from Mrs Frizzell's stores; if this day ever ended he would have to restore as well as half a bottle of brandy many more items. He had opened jars of gherkins, chopped a cucumber and made a little bowl of dip out of various yoghurts he found in the fridge. Oh, please God, remember that Mrs Maura Feather of Fatima prayed night and day to Him, and surely there must be some credit in the prayer bank now which God could use to make the van turn up.

  I'm afraid to go in,' Cathy said at the gate. 'They're here; and the place is full of cars. God, there are even chauffeurs.'

  'Drive in, Cathy,' said June.

  'Will I ring first?'

  'Drive in,' Con begged.

  Cathy drove right up to the front door, then remembered and reversed to go to the back door. Tom saw them coming, and thanked God and his mother for having answered the prayer.

  'I've seen her somewhere before. I know her, and that dress,' Cathy said.

  'Of course you haven't, you're hallucinating…' Tom hurried them on.

  'Cold canapes of any kind—no time to heat anything, I have the ovens on, just fling the main course in,' he hissed to Cathy.

  'And open more champagne, Con, they've drunk my lot. Quick, June, start the tables.'

  There were twelve in total: she was going to have two tables of six, do her best. Cathy went into the dining room, stunned that Tom had been able to make these people stay so long without anything to eat. She urged them to have the little asparagus tips with Parma ham, and insisted that Mrs Frizzell have just one of the tiny caviar and sour-cream blinis… All the other guests seemed to be enjoying them. To her amazement, Mrs Frizzell said she was very sorry about those dreadful protesters who had delayed her; a lot of the guests had been upset by the traffic diversions too. Mr Feather had explained all about the march and had been marvellous. Cathy said she was delighted to hear it, and scooped up some really revolting-looking things on plates which were on the tables and the piano.

  'God, what on earth are these?' she said scraping them into a bin.

  'Those were my best efforts, and they loved them until you arrived with the cavalry,' he said. 'I'll go home now, and leave you to cope.'

  'You can't go.'

  'But there's three of you here!'

  'Tom, our nerves have gone, you must stay and help.'

  'Of course I won't, I'm off now to lie down for a month.'

  'You don't understand, they love you, they can't stand the rest of us, you have to stay and help us get on with it.'

  She saw he had only been joking. 'Of course I'll stay, you clown, anyway, I don't have the strength to walk down that avenue. I have to get a lift home in the van.'

  And so it all went into its well-tried routine. They all moved around the kitchen, helping each other, passing things,getting rid of rubbish, totting up the number of wine bottles on the calculator, covering little delicacies in some of Mrs Frizzell's dishes for her to discover later in her fridge. Con gave them the word, the ladies were leaving, the van was loaded. Three of the eleven guests had been interested enough in the food to ask for cards. They were ready to roll. Tom had listed the sardines, brandy and other items he had taken, so there would be no misunderstandings. Mrs Frizzell thanked them grudgingly. It had, of course, been very distressing that everyone was so late, and extra precautions really should have been taken on a day when everyone knew that the city traffic would be difficult.

  'Ah, but did they know' Tom said. In about eight minutes they would be out of here. Cathy had promised to buy them all a pint to apologise for having got the address wrong.

  'Well, apparently they did, or should have; some of the ladies were telling me that that good-looking lawyer son of Jock and Hannah Mitchell you always see spouting on about causes was on breakfast television this morning warning everyone, so really you should have known. Still, in the end it had turned out all right, and you needn't pay for the items you used, just regard that as a tip.'

  'You know the Mitchells then, Mrs Frizzell?' Tom said innocently.

  'My husband plays golf with Jock. We were at their house once. Oaklands—big place, very nice.'

  Cathy remembered her then, and the dress, from New Year's Eve. But mercifully Mrs Frizzell had no similar memory. They smiled until their faces hurt, until they got in their van. Then when they had driven out through the gate they played the scene out over and over for Con and June.

  '… that good-looking lawyer…' Tom said.

  '… spouting about causes…' Cathy giggled.

  They told Tom that the guard had thought they were conjurers. And Tom said if that guard had seen him scraping Mrs Frizzell's bits and pieces onto biscuits he would know that conjurors was exactly what they were. He told Cathy she was to call Nick Ryan sometime about a surprise fortieth birthday for Geraldine.

  'That's a non-starter, she'd flay us alive,' Cathy said. 'Anything else happen when I was driving the wrong way round Dublin?' she asked.

  'Yes, the handsome spouting lawyer rang and said he'd booked you both into Holly's the weekend after next.'

  'Well, that's another non-starter for a variety of reasons,' said Cathy, looking straight ahead and not catching Tom's eye as he drove to the pub.

  Neil came home just in time for the news.

  It was a huge success, I gather,' Cathy said.

  'Yes, people can't pretend any more that they don't know about the problem, and that's good.'

  'Let's turn on the television and see what they say.'

  She handed him a glass of wine and put a plate of warm Stilton tartlets on the table between them.

  'These are nice,' he said. 'Leftovers?'

  She was annoyed. She had saved them specially for him in waxed paper. 'Well, I suppose they are in a way, but I didn't see them like that.'

  'Stop being prickly, hon.' She shrugged. The news hadn't yet begun. 'How did it go anyway, your do?'

  'Fine. She knew your parents, as it happens…'

  The signature time for the news came on. 'Shush. Here we go,' he said. The march got very full coverage, and there were aerial pictures too of the way Dublin transport had been brought to a halt. Somewhere in that television footage was the Scarlet Feather van, turning and twisting like a wounded animal. She half hoped they would see it. It would be hard to miss with its distinctive logo. Instead they saw Neil. About twenty seconds wor
th of him, young and eager, his hair blowing in the wind, his face wet from the rain, but there as always with the one short, telling phrase.

  'Thank you for coming out on the streets today to say that in a country of plenty we are ashamed that people will sleep without a home tonight.' He looked straight at the camera. 'Let nobody's conscience feel easy by saying that the homeless have sought out their lifestyle. Which one of us here would choose to spend this November night in a doorway or under a bridge in the cold and rain?'

  As he got down from the platform, supporters grasped him and hugged him in solidarity. One of the people reaching out to him was Sara. Cathy watched wordlessly.

  And then the report went on to a politician saying what was being done, and a member of the opposition saying that not nearly enough was being done. Neil had stood out above them all. These were just grey people in a studio, without the passion of the young man standing in the rain.

  'You were great,' Cathy said admiringly. And she meant it.

  'It just might help to change things.' He was talking about the whole demonstration, not about his own little excerpt. 'It was great out there, Cathy; I wish you had been able to come, be a part of it.'

  Cathy thought how she and June and Con had sat for what seemed like hours in their van, and cursed him to the pit of hell. In a way I was a part of it,' she said.

  And then the phone began to ring. People congratulating him, further tactics to be agreed, newspapers and radio programmes wanting him to do more interviews. He was adept at passing the requests on to other people. He was only one person of a very big committee, and perhaps they should talk to this person or that; he could give them a phone number, an e-mail address. Neil knew too well the pitfalls in being seen as the only voice; he made sure that there was no danger of his taking the whole thing over. When people called him on his mobile, Cathy answered the ordinary phone. She was indeed kept fully busy for the evening as the assistant and helpmate he wanted her to be.

  'Cathy, it's Sara.'

  'Oh, Sara, good to hear from you. Did it all go well?'

  'Well, sure it did, didn't you see, don't you know?'

  'I haven't had time to ring my mam yet, but I hear that they're making an Irish stew to mark the day.'

  'Who are? I don't understand.' Sara sounded totally confused.

  'The twins, you know, all their belongings have gone into a lockup shed, my dad told me all about it. The Beeches is being boarded up today.'

  'Oh, the twins,' Sara said. Cathy was silent. 'Sorry, Cathy, of course you meant the twins. Sorry.'

  'And you meant the march?'

  'Yes, I was walking a bit of the way with Neil. Wasn't he wonderful on television!' Sara said.

  'He was indeed, will I put you on to him?' and she passed the phone to Neil. Cathy felt very tired, and out of things. In fact, she wanted to go to bed. These calls could go on all night. Yet it looked dismissive and cold to Neil on his big day to show so little interest. In something that meant so much. She would have been very happy to curl up on a sofa and hear all about it. But these weren't sofas you could curl up on; slim, clean lines, and there wasn't any chance of hearing anything except one end of a telephone conversation. A few months ago she would have told him all about Mrs Frizzell and they would have laughed at his being called a spouting lawyer. Tonight it would have been out of place. Things had changed a lot. They really did need to spend some time away from everything. Which reminded her that she must tell him that she wouldn't go to Holly's with him, but tonight was not a night for a row so she would leave that until tomorrow. So Cathy sat there, listening enthusiastically to Neil's side of phone calls. He waved away any offers of food, the adrenalin was enough. 'It will be real food, not leftovers,' she said. And immediately wished she hadn't.

  'Oh, Cathy, you are getting very petty about a silly remark. Sorry if it offended you, anyway, I don't want any more, thanks all the same.'

  The phone rang again and he seemed to take the call with some relief. Well why not? Cathy asked herself. The rest of Ireland thought he was a hero. His wife just made petty remarks about leftovers. Which would anyone prefer?

  Next morning Neil was rushing, he had to get into the radio studio to do an interview on Morning Ireland before anything else. Cathy didn't tell him about Holly's then. It seemed inappropriate.

  'See you at eleven,' she called as he was leaving. 'You'll knock them dead on the radio.'

  'Eleven?' he said. „

  'Remember, the meeting.'

  'Meeting?' He looked blank.

  'Oh, Neil, at our premises, the bad guys are coming, and James...'

  'God yes, of course, I'll be there,' he said.

  James Byrne had asked for another meeting with the insurance company. He had been told that the position was still very unsatisfactory; apparently a cousin of one of the partners had let himself into the premises and destroyed everything for no apparent reason. This said cousin had now disappeared, and the insurance company was expected to pay up as if this in fact had been a de facto breaking and entering by criminals who were strangers. Neil hadn't turned up at eleven when they were meant to begin. Coffee was served in the front room, the phones put on the answering machine and James began. He would like the representatives of the company to look around the place, which had shown all the signs of two people trying to get their business back to where it had been. And until Neil Mitchell, barrister-at-law who was advising them arrived… perhaps James could step in and bring them up to date with the way things were progressing. He showed them the meticulous books he kept, the receipts for the equipment they rented, the ongoing calendar for work planned and booked. He explained that they were now not in any position to take on a job that meant large financial outlay, they didn't dare to accept anything which would not be paid for within the traditional ninety days that big companies insisted on. He painted a picture of a decent, hard-working, struggling pair who were anxious only for what was theirs by right and law.

  'Law has to be interpreted, defined,' one of the insurance men said.

  Cathy wished with a passion that Neil was here to answer him. Why did he have to be late on this of all days? Then her mobile rang.

  'Neil?'

  'Sorry, hon, you've no idea the impact all this has made, I'm literally besieged…'

  'They're here for the consultation, and we need you...'

  'I'm really sorry, and please give my sincerest regrets to—'

  'No Neil.' Tears had sprung to her eyes. He did this too often. Everyone had been looking at the door for the last half an hour waiting for him, and now it turned out that he wasn't anywhere near them.

  'If I could…'

  'They've just said law has to be interpreted and defined, you should be here to do that for us.'

  Tom and James started to talk loudly, at exactly the same moment, to gloss over what was obviously a husband-and-wife quarrel and the slightly humiliating non-appearance of their legal adviser. But Cathy had turned her phone off.

  'Neil wasn't able to make it, he said to apologise to you all, so even though I'm furious with him for not being here, I'm passing on his regrets.'

  Tom let his breath out. Slowly. She was in control again. They pointed out that Walter was not Cathy's cousin, merely a cousin of her husband, that they were most certainly not in touch with him, the guards believed that he was in London, and they had no idea where. The fact that Cathy's parents were hoping to foster Walter Mitchell's brother and sister did not mean a close and continuing relationship. Walter had nothing to do with anything at all. The meeting ended indecisively, the insurance men left saying that they would not come to another meeting or consultation until there was something new to put on the table. Meanwhile, investigations and negotiations would go on at their usual pace.

  Tom, James and Cathy sat in silence after they had left. 'I could kill him,' Cathy said. 'Don't,' said Tom. 'We're in enough trouble already.'

  'We are in trouble,' James said. 'Unless the insurance pays before Ch
ristmas, you won't be able to carry on.'

  Sandy Keane wouldn't let those two children near his betting office again, so Simon and Maud had to wait outside when Muttie went to his office to meet his associates there.

  'I'm calling the guards if they come in the door,' he said.

  'You're a very extreme person, Sandy,'Muttie said.

  'You're not the one who got grilled by the entire Garda station… They said a man who could take a bet off children under ten years of age was capable of doing anything, even abducting them.' Sandy shivered at the memory.

  'Well why did you take their bet then?'Muttie wondered. I'd never sent them in before with money to you.'

  'But you weren't there, you hadn't been seen for two days. Where were you, anyway?'

  'I was about my business,'Muttie said. He wanted no mention or indeed memory of the hospital examination.

  'Muttie, you don't have any business except coming in here tormenting me,' cried Sandy in despair.

  There was a loud knocking on the door. The twins stood outside.

  'No,' cried Sandy.

  'We're not coming in, thank you, Mr Keane, it's just to tell Muttie that Cathy came by in her van and is going to take us for a drive, and as we were getting a bit wet out here…'

  'Good, good, go on the drive, goodbye,' he shouted.

  'We didn't want Muttie to think we'd gone missing again.'

  'No, we'd all hate that,' Sandy Keane said drily.

  'Thank you, Mr Keane,' Maud said.

  Muttie came out to them. 'Man has a head like a block of wood. What harm on earth would two well-behaved children and a pedigree Labrador do to his betting shop? They'd raise its tone. He has no judgement whatsoever.'

  Cathy brought the van up beside them. 'I needed a bit of nice company, so I thought of Hooves, and of course that means taking Simon and Maud too.'

  'That's a joke,' Maud said to Muttie.