The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  Or so it seemed now, particularly as Cassie sat watching Joel drum, with a lock of his thick dark hair falling over his high forehead, his eyes half closed and the tip of his tongue stuck in his cheek, and she realized that if she was not in love with him already she was well and truly on the way.

  The very moment she thought that he opened his eyes and looked at her, as if he could feel what she felt. Throughout the rest of the number, appropriately enough called ‘I’m Beginning To See The Light’, he never once took his eyes off her until the end, until with a sudden great flourish around the three drums in front of him he cascaded the number to a volcanic halt, finishing with a swishing splash on a thin golden cymbal.

  As the nightclubbers clapped, Joel nodded in return and was about to get up from his drum stool to come back across to the bar when a waitress handed him a message which he read with a frown. When he looked up he was still frowning, and as he rose he held up one hand with the fingers splayed to signal to Cassie he’d be gone for five minutes. She smiled and nodded back, ordered herself another whisky sour and thought nothing more of it.

  Until the five minutes had become twenty.

  * * *

  She found the waitress who told her someone had asked to see Mr Benson in private.

  ‘In private being?’ Cassie wondered.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ the waitress replied without much concern. ‘Maybe you should try the manager’s office?’

  Cassie did but only found the manager, deep in conversation with two men with black slicked back hair and expensive silk suits. Surprisingly the two silk-suited men got up after Cassie had knocked and was invited to enter the office but despite their over-polite manner the blank looks on their faces made Cassie fully aware that all they were really interested in was her going.

  ‘Yes,’ the manager agreed, ‘there was someone to see Mr Benson but since this office was about to be occupied he chose to take his visitor up to his apartment. Would you like me to ring up for you? And tell him you wish to see him?’

  ‘That really won’t be necessary,’ Cassie said quickly, not understanding why her suspicions were aroused. ‘Mr Benson had sent word for me to join him and I know my way around, thanks. I’m sorry to have interrupted you.’

  ‘No problem,’ one of the silk-suited men said. ‘Really no problem.’

  Cassie hesitated at the foot of the stairs which led up to Joel’s apartment. She knew perfectly well she had no right to interrupt Joel’s meeting since what he chose to do and whom he chose to see was still very much his own business. Yet something compelled her to do so, some inner voice urged her to climb the stairs up to Joel’s studio and go uninvited straight into the room because the person in there with him had no right to be there either. She started to climb the uncarpeted wooden stairs, slowly and quietly as if to make sure her approach would not be heard.

  Why am I doing this? she asked herself, stopping halfway up. Joel has a perfect right to see whoever he wants to see. Besides, whoever this person is, they asked to see him so it’s obviously business. And if it’s the kind of business I imagine they’re doing down in the manager’s office then he certainly won’t be pleased to see me because let’s not be naive here, Cassie Rosse. Whatever town or city you’re in, clubs like this pay to stay open.

  Convinced at last that she had no right to be where she was, Cassie turned and went back down the stairs. Then as she reached the bottom she heard the door above her open, and the sound of a distinctive female laugh. And voice.

  She drew back into the shadows, not because she was afraid of being seen, but afraid of what she might see. She didn’t want to see the woman on the landing above her. All she wanted was to cross the passage and get back into the club unseen, but she couldn’t do that because by pulling back into the shadows at the foot of the stairwell she had cut off her line of escape. If she made a dash for it now there was no way her flight across the uncarpeted and brightly lit passageway could go unnoticed. So she flattened herself against the wall praying that she was wrong until she heard that unmistakable languid laugh, a laugh she had hated since the first time she had heard it directed at her in the classroom of Miss Truefitt’s Academy. Leonora.

  ‘Thank you,’ Joel was saying, although how he looked when he was saying it or whether or not he was touching or holding Leonora Cassie could not tell since she now had her back to them, hidden as she was under the very staircase itself, the last four steps of which were on a turn, facing in the direction of the fire door opposite. ‘You’re hombre. I mean it.’

  ‘Nonsense, you darling man. You know I’d do anything for you. Anything at all.’ Leonora replied, giving a small throaty laugh after the innuendo.

  ‘Even so—’ Cassie heard Joel stop at the foot of the stairs. ‘It might have been a little more tactful if you’d called first.’

  ‘She won’t have seen me, lover boy,’ Leonora replied teasingly. ‘I made sure to come in through the back way.’

  ‘Even so—’ Joel sighed. ‘Forewarned et cetera et cetera.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Leonora laughed again. ‘All adds to the fun, I’d say.’

  ‘That depends on your sense of humour, I’d say,’ Joel replied. ‘Come on.’

  They passed within inches of where Cassie stood hidden, close enough for Cassie to catch a waft of the particularly cloying scent Leonora loved to wear. Then she heard the pass door into the club close and when she looked out from her hiding place the passageway was once again empty.

  Nevertheless she waited, still hidden in the half shadows while she wondered quite what she should do as distantly the music began again, muffled by the doors and the length of the intervening corridor. She felt more alone than she had ever felt before, deserted it seemed by everyone, and betrayed by those closest to her. There was nothing to do, she thought, except leave. She had to get out of the club as fast as possible, back first to her hotel and then to somewhere where no-one could reach her. There was no point in confronting Joel. He would only spin her another web of lies. Why he would she couldn’t now begin to understand because she couldn’t begin to understand what it was he had wanted from her. It must be that he was just someone else bent on wrecking her life.

  Worst of all, it now seemed certain that Joel must be part of the complicity that surrounded her, Cassie thought, as she stumbled blindly down the darkened side alley into which she had escaped, a garbage-strewn passageway which took her back into the street where at once she began to look for a taxi, running away from the club entrance, further and further away from Joel and whatever mischief he and Leonora were now making. She found a cab finally at the bottom of Garrick Street which at the last moment she ordered to take her to a hotel on Sloane Street and not to the Dorchester where she knew Joel would find her.

  That is if he can be bothered to look, she thought, sitting back in the cab and watching the Christmas lights of London pass by. Maybe he won’t bother. Maybe he and Leonora will just sit down when they find I’ve gone, crack open a bottle of champagne and laugh themselves sick, about how oh-so-easy it was to dupe and make fun of poor little Cassie Rosse.

  ‘Damn them,’ she said under her breath. Damn them all anyway. Damn them all to hell and back. I’ll show them. Just as I did before, I’ll show them. I’ll show them all, every single ungrateful, deceitful damned one of them.

  The hotel was full of noisy revellers, which suited Cassie fine. No-one would come looking for her here. This was the last place they’d expect to find her, in a small room high above the street outside, drinking brandy from the minibar and watching a soundless television from her bed until at last in spite of the endless noise she fell into a deep and weary sleep.

  The next day she rang her contact at Aer Lingus and asked him to book her on the first flight back to Dublin. Then she sent a taxi to collect her things from the Dorchester, having first rung the hotel to ask room service to pack up her belongings. When the taxi driver arrived at the hotel reception desk to ask for Mrs Cassie Rosse’s luggage
he missed Joel by no more than a matter of minutes, all that it took for Cassie’s set of Louis Vuitton luggage to be despatched by a porter out of the hotel and into the waiting cab.

  Twenty-One

  On her return Cassie found a string of messages on her private answerphone, mostly from various owners who wanted to talk to her rather than Liam or Rosemary about their horses’ prospects over the Christmas holidays, some from friends inviting her to various dinners and drinks parties, a couple from Mattie trying to find out exactly when she would be back and a brief but angry one from Joel, wanting to know what in hell she thought she was doing walking out on him without any explanation and all but ordering her to call him the moment she got back. Once she had listened to all the messages and jotted down the important ones Cassie then erased the tape and sat down to answer what she considered to be the vital calls. At the moment this did not include making one to Joel.

  You can go whistle for the moment, Mr Benson, she said to herself as she was dialling Mattie’s number. You have no right to be mad at me. I’m the one who should be and is mad at you, so you can go whistle.

  She got Mattie’s answering machine and Cassie could tell from the sound of his voice as he instructed any callers to leave their messages that he was thoroughly fed up, but then such is the nature of tough love, she concluded. Nothing good comes easy, she reminded herself, and as far as her son was concerned, too much had been coming his way of late far too easily.

  Even so she left a message saying she was back and that she hoped he would still join her for Christmas at Claremore, even though no doubt it would mean she would have to entertain Phoebe McMahon as well. Such, however, was the joy of Christmas at Claremore that Cassie reckoned entertaining the McMahon daughter would only be the smallest of sacrifices if it meant seeing her handsome son’s face across the festive table, just as she would have shut up and put up with her supercilious son-in-law if only she could have somehow got back on the right side of her daughter and persuaded her to come over at some point during the Christmas holiday.

  As it was when her call to Mattie was returned it was by Phoebe McMahon who explained that Mattie was unavailable because he was out holding a horse for the visiting Niall Brogan. Furthermore and with sinking heart Cassie learned that Mattie and Phoebe had accepted an offer from Phoebe’s parents to spend Christmas week with them in Antigua as guests of one of their owners, to which destination they were due to fly out from Shannon that same afternoon. When Mattie called Cassie back half an hour later to explain, Cassie found she had not the heart to try to talk him out of such a glamorous invitation, instead she urged him to go off and enjoy himself in the Caribbean.

  ‘You’ll be all right, won’t you? I mean you’re not going to be alone or anything? Erin said you’ve a pile of invitations and I take it Joel will be coming over, won’t he?’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Mattie, don’t you worry,’ Cassie replied. ‘And sure, I have a whole pile of invites.’

  The only problem was all Cassie’s summonses were for the week up till Christmas and for the week after it. She had no actual invitation to spend Christmas Day with anyone, since everyone assumed that like themselves Cassie would be spending Christmas with her family.

  Instead, as a result of quarrels, misunderstandings and in one case betrayal, for the first time in her adult life Cassie faced the prospect of spending Christmas Day alone.

  However, rather than face the time which had always been so important to her in solitary splendour, Cassie repacked a couple of suitcases with everything she would need for the week which as it happened she had initially intended spending abroad in the sun, and then went to tell Erin of her plans.

  ‘You don’t have to stay here, Erin. I know you were planning sometime on taking Padraig down to see your brother in Macroom so why not go and spend Christmas together? He’s forever asking you down, so this is the perfect opportunity. I’ve already told Dick he won’t be needed at all for the six days I’m away, so we’ll just shut up shop and all of us take a well-earned holiday. A bit of time away from here will do us all the good in the world.’

  ‘Should I have a number for you in case of an emergency?’ Erin wondered. ‘I have no idea even of where you’re going.’

  ‘Nor will you,’ Cassie told her. ‘I don’t want to be disturbed unless it’s a matter of life or death. I’ll leave a sealed envelope with my contact number on the board in the tack room and I’m going to tell Liam the same thing. No-one’s to call me unless it’s absolutely imperative.’

  Liam fully understood the instructions but said the same applied vice-versa. ‘You’re not to call here to make sure everything’s all right, for if you do it’ll be no sort of break. We’re all organized. The Christmas Day rota is arranged as usual, with everyone working in shifts, so there’s absolutely nothing to concern yourself about at all, guv’nor. We know which horses are running where and when, and all the arrangements are taken care of. So God bless you and away with you now to have a wonderful Christmas with your friends. For if anyone ever deserved it, ’Guv, you did.’

  Cassie had let them all think she was going off to the Caribbean as she had previously indicated she might, but as she drove westwards she ignored the signs for Shannon airport and headed the car on towards Kerry, out along the wild and beautiful Dingle peninsula until at last she turned off the road and pulled up the steep rise outside her little house in Coomenhoule.

  It was now late on the day before Christmas Eve. So having unpacked her belongings and stored away all the provisions she had managed to smuggle out from the kitchen at Claremore without Erin’s knowledge – just as she had taken Wilkie with her on the pretext of leaving him with her usual dog-sitter, Niall Brogan’s mother, Cassie set about putting hot water bottles in the bed, lit a fire in the sitting room then cooked herself a simple and instant meal of soup and a pasta dish washed down with half a bottle of Rioja, before taking Wilkie out for his last night walk and collapsing into bed.

  On Christmas Eve it rained all day, heavy sheets of water blown in from the Atlantic which washed away the view and kept Cassie and Wilkie indoors by the fire where Cassie read the whole of Rebecca with Wilkie stretched out on the sofa beside her. At midnight she drove into Dingle to attend Midnight Mass and when the time came to drive home the skies had cleared leaving the coast and hills lit by a bright winter moon. Before going back into her house, Cassie stood on a high rock nearby and looked out over Coomenhoule Bay, to where the great Blasket Islands slept, giant whales under a night sky studded with stars, while the sea below lay calmed, and instead of thundering onto the beach the waves now broke with the sound of muffled drums.

  ‘At times like this there is no place I would rather be,’ she said to Wilkie who was standing by her side with his nose pointing out to sea. ‘At times like this, here is the only place to be.’

  Overnight the skies stayed clear so that Christmas dawned blue and bright. The sea was as calm as a mountain lake and the day so mild that rather than sit inside eating a lonely Christmas lunch Cassie decided to eat in the evening and packed herself a picnic lunch instead. And so with Wilkie on the passenger seat beside her and the hood of the BMW pulled back she drove up the western coastline of the peninsula to the Three Sisters where she left the car to walk along the spectacular headland past the ruins of Fort del Oro and a tiny church perched on a hillside just above the sea until they reached the strand of Smerwick Harbour which ran up to Murreagh. Perched on a stone of granite worn smooth by centuries of pounding surf Cassie sat with her thoughts, while Wilkie rollicked along the beach, putting up seagulls and chasing them into the sea or running into the sandhills in search of non-existent quarry.

  She sat there until the tide had rolled far out and then with Wilkie running round her in delirious circles she pulled on her old dark blue hooded mackintosh which she had been using as a groundsheet, fixed the white-lined hood over her hair to stop it curling in the sea air, then walked the length of the strand, through puddles of clea
r cold salt water left by the retreating sea, along wet sands dark and soft beneath her feet. She walked as far as an inn which stood on a loop of road above Murreagh where she found the front door wide open, held back by a heavy stone.

  Looking in she saw a man and a woman she assumed to be the landlord and his wife preparing to sit their family down for their Christmas dinner. One of the children who was helping her parents set the table suddenly noticed Cassie on her way past the door and stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening and her mouth slowly opening. Cassie smiled down at the young girl and the look of wonder on the child’s face grew greater.

  The pretty dark-eyed little girl said something softly to Cassie in Gaelic, bobbing a deep curtsey to her as she did so. Behind her, her mother called to her from the darkness of the room, again in Gaelic to which the child replied, curtseying again to Cassie before running back to fetch her mother.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Cassie called, ‘I saw the door open, and I couldn’t help but look in.’

  Now the father stood in front of her, a tall kind-faced man with a stoop to his back, dressed in his Sunday suit and an immaculate white shirt from which he had already removed the collar. Around him all his children slowly gathered, the smallest with their thumbs in their mouths, the eldest wide-eyed in wonder, their ages ranging Cassie guessed, from three or four to nine or ten. Three were girls dressed in what looked like home-made velveteen dresses and two boys in spotless white shirts, red ties and black jackets, all of them staring at the stranger standing in the doorway silhouetted against the winter sun.

  By now their pinafored mother had come to join them in greeting so Cassie addressed her apology to her.