Upside Down Inside Out

by Monica McInerney

  He sounded very pleased with himself. “I’ll look forward to it, Niamh. And all my friends are looking forward to meeting you, too.”

  “Are they?” she said, surprised. “Why?”

  “Well, many of them are well-known artists and designers themselves, of course, so they’re always interested in meeting someone as internationally successful as you. I’ve told them all about your sculpting and your singing. U2 and Enya are very popular here in Australia too, you know.”

  “Are they?” Uh oh.

  “Well then, I’ll come and collect you at about seven thirty, would that suit?”

  “Perfect,” she said, her mind working at a million miles. Quick, tell him now, tell him now, one part of her said as the other part of her kept talking. “And is it a formal restaurant? Dress-wise, I mean?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Greg said proudly. “Dress to impress. See you tonight.”

  Eva hung up. Dress to impress? And tell him the truth about Niamh? All on one date? What had she got herself into? She checked the time. It would be fine, she told herself firmly. She had hours to get ready. Hours to worry about what to wear. And in the meantime she had coffee to make and important work to do.

  Out on the balcony she opened her notebook and wrote in firm letters across the top of a fresh page: “The shop and what I would do with it.” It was like a child’s essay. “By Eva Kennedy, age thirty-one,” she added to amuse herself.

  Ambrose had told her it would be her place, that she could do whatever she wanted with it. Since Lainey had gone to Brisbane, Eva had been out visiting every delicatessen and food store she could find in inner-city Melbourne to gather ideas. She’d visited small Italian delis, fragrant with the smell of rich cheese and spicy sausages. Brightly lit Asian grocery shops, their shelves crammed with pungent goods that she couldn’t begin to name. Sleek, modern food stores boasting the latest in modern Australian cuisine, everything from wattle-seed pasta to bush tomato salsa. Tiny shops selling only coffee or only fruit and vegetable juices or only spices. Warm, crowded bakeries filled with every kind of bread, from white loaves to olive-studded focaccia, ciabatta to heavy rye-grain rolls. Continental butchers. Vegetarian shops.

  She’d picked up a few good ideas for her window displays and for new product lines. But then another, different idea for the shop had started playing in the back of her mind. Something Meg had said a week or two back had sparked it. Something about serving soup on cold winter days. About opening a little cafe in the back of the delicatessen.

  It would take some renovations, of course. More than some, they’d need to install a small kitchen, probably get some sort of building approval. Redecorate. And they couldn’t serve just soup, people would expect other food too. She’d need a chef, but maybe Meg would know someone. Maybe Meg would even be interested in doing it herself. She’d had the training, after all. Ardmahon House was one of the top cooking schools in Ireland.

  But would a cafe work? Could it work? Eva felt like her mind was slowly stirring after a long nap. God forbid, perhaps Dermot had been right. Maybe she had been drifting along a bit, going in to work, serving the customers, stuck in a routine…But what if all that changed? If she started doing things her way, putting her own ideas into action? She pictured the sign above the door. Camden Street Foods and Cafe. Manager: Eva Kennedy. Chef: Margaret Delaney. Or…

  Maybe she wouldn’t call it Camden Street Foods and Cafe. Ambrose had said she could do whatever she liked with it. What would he think about a name change? Eva started to smile. Now wouldn’t that be a great name for a shop serving delicious cheeses, spices, breads, coffee and lunches…She could see the sign already: “Ambrosia.” Nectar of the gods, indeed.

  There was just one minor problem to sort out. How in God’s name did she run a cafe? Running a delicatessen was one thing, but how would she decide on menus? Sort out an ordering system? Find staff? What she really needed was a crash course. A couple of weeks in other cafes, watching and taking notes, working out what to do and what not to do.

  Looking over the balcony, she smiled at the thought of sitting in cafe after cafe for days, drinking so much coffee her hair stood on end and her eyes started spinning in her head…

  Then her attention was distracted—something about the way the breeze was twisting and turning the leaves of the trees in front of her caught her eye. One moment they were silver colored, as the breeze flicked up the underside of the leaves. The next moment they were all a deep, vibrant green. Through the branches she could see a glint of water as the river flowed past.

  Tentatively at first, she started to sketch what she could see in front of her. The darkness and lightness of the tree trunks. The lattice effect of the leaves. The moving shadows. Almost thirty minutes passed before she stopped drawing, coming to as if out of a dream. She hadn’t felt like that in years, completely absorbed in what she was drawing, forgetting everything around her. She had exactly captured the view in front of her. Her trained eye told her that. The perspective was perfect, the shading was assured, the leaves on the paper almost seemed real. But…

  She pulled the page out of the book, screwed it up into a ball and threw it behind her into the apartment. “Who are you fooling?” she said under her breath. Enough thinking about that. Enough thinking about the shop too. She stood up. She had a date to get ready for.

  By six thirty Eva was in a complete state. She’d pulled all of her clothes out of the cupboard. Her bright T-shirts and cardigans. Her skirts. Her favorite faded jeans. Several shift-style dresses. They were now all spread over the floor of her room. But there was nothing there that would impress an eight-year-old chimney sweep, let alone Greg’s scary-sounding friends. She glanced at the clock. He’d be here in an hour. There was only one thing to do. Ring Lainey for help.

  She caught her on her mobile just as Lainey was on the way out to dinner with the new staff of her company’s Brisbane office. Eva quickly filled her in on the sudden date.

  “Good old Greg, I told you he was smitten. But don’t panic about the clothes, help yourself to anything of mine.”

  “Thanks a million,” Eva said, hoping something would fit. She’d hold her breath, stand on tiptoes or stay sitting down all night if she had to. “Unfortunately, the clothes aren’t my only problem.”

  “What else is?”

  “He’s still calling me Niamh.”

  Lainey roared laughing. “Of course, of course! I hadn’t thought of that. Fantastic. You’ll keep it going, won’t you? Even without me there?”

  “Lainey, I can’t!”

  “Of course you can. Why ever not? Who’s it hurting? You haven’t said you’re an Irish businesswoman looking for investments, have you? You’re not about to con him out of all his money?”

  “No.”

  “Well, where’s the harm then? It’s just a joke. And Greg will find it really funny when I eventually tell him the truth, I promise you.”

  “It’s not just Greg, it’s Greg and his friends. He’s taking me to a party. He’s told them all about me. About the sculpting. About Galway. Enya. Even Bono.”

  “This just gets better and better. Eva, stop taking it all so seriously. Sorry, I mean, Niamh, stop taking it all so seriously. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy all the attention. It’s good for you, it’s funny.”

  “Oh, sure. It’s all right for you, safely up in Brisbane.”

  Lainey laughed again. “Got to go. Ring me tomorrow, first thing. I’ll want a full match report.”

  Eva finally managed to find something in Lainey’s wardrobe to wear. Thank God for little black dresses, she thought. This one was made from a beautiful fabric, clingier than she normally wore, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. And it was a gorgeous dress.

  Hair tied back or loose? She’d worn it down the past few days, badgered into it by Lainey, who insisted it really suited her like that. “If you want to jazz it up, use some products too,” she’d said. “I’ve got loads of them in the bathroom cupboard, just help yourself. And don�
��t forget the silk flowers too—that one looked great the night of the dinner party.”

  Eva tied it back, then left it loose again. Tied back, loose again. She actually felt different when it was untied. She associated her businesslike work personality with the plait, so if she was going to be pretending to be the creative Irish sculptor living in the wild west of Ireland, she may as well look the part. Tipping her head down, she shook it vigorously, her hair flying around. She laughed at her reflection—her hair was a mass of black waves around her face. Wild west, indeed.

  How to keep it looking like that, though? Ah, Lainey’s hair products. The new name for hairspray, apparently. She went into the bathroom and gathered up an armful of them from the cupboard. She read the labels. Mousse. Gel. Styling cream. Fix lacquer. Finishing spray. Imagine that, Eva thought. All these years she’d just been tying her hair back in a long plait, when she could have been applying thousands of hair products in dozens of different ways—massaging, rubbing, distributing evenly, applying to damp or dry hair, spraying lightly…

  She took a gloopy handful of mousse from the can and scrunched it as directed into her hair. She read the words on the side of the can: “Adds shine and texture, extra confidence and body.” All that in a handful of white foam, she thought.

  Next she found the box of silk flowers Lainey had mentioned. She tried a large yellow one. No, she looked like she was on her way to a Hawaiian luau. A little blue one, perhaps. No, it looked like an insect had landed on her head. Then a medium-sized pink and white one. She pinned it just above her right ear. It looked quite nice, she thought. Jaunty.

  So, to jewelry. She didn’t own much but she had chosen very carefully, from young designers in Dublin. She chose her favorite heavy silver pendant, more a piece of art than a piece of jewelry, and hung it around her neck. That looked good against the black dress, she thought. Elegant. Striking even. Maybe she’d buy a little black dress for herself when she got back to Dublin.

  Now, just the stockings and she was done. She heard a rustle behind her.

  It was Rex, claws out, kneading holes into her new pair of stockings.

  Fifteen minutes later, Eva smoothed her dress over her thighs as she settled into Greg’s car. She hoped the high color in her cheeks had disappeared.

  How embarrassing. Greg must have heard her roaring at Rex. He’d been outside knocking at the door, it seemed, while she had been shouting and chasing the kitten around the flat, threatening to strangle him with the stockings he had just destroyed. Rex had thoroughly enjoyed the chase, even daring to take another nip at the stockings. Eva had eventually heard the knocking and had answered it, bare-legged, her head poking around the door. Greg had been standing there dressed in a formal suit, his hair sleek with some gel or cream.

  “Greg, hello. How on earth did you get in?” She’d been expecting him to ring on the entry phone.

  Greg seemed taken aback at her question. “Hello, Niamh. Your neighbor downstairs let me in. He knows me.”

  “Oh, good. Um, are you early or am I late?”

  “Actually, I’m right on time.”

  “Right,” Eva said, smiling slightly hysterically.

  Greg moved forward as if to come in and wait for her in the apartment. She nearly slammed the door in his face. There was no way he could come in, the place was a mess. “I’ll meet you down in the car, shall I? Won’t be a moment, I promise.”

  Upending her suitcase again and then doing the same thing to Lainey’s drawers, she eventually found another pair of stockings and hurriedly pulled them on. Shoes, bag, lipstick, perfume. She was out of the door five minutes later.

  “Bye, Rex,” she’d called. “Be good. And don’t wait up.”

  CHAPTER 15

  I managed to get a booking at The Loft,” Greg said to her as he pulled out from the curb.

  “Is that a nice place?”

  “It’s the in place in Melbourne at the moment. Some people wait weeks to get a booking.” He seemed disappointed that he needed to spell it out.

  It was certainly impressive, Eva thought a little later as they were shown to their table. The height of luxury. Gliding waiters. Handwritten menus. Very well-groomed customers. She didn’t think she’d be getting many ideas for Ambrosia here.

  Greg was a considerate host, very courteous, though he did seem to be throwing back the glasses of wine faster than might have been wise, Eva thought. Perhaps the drink-driving laws weren’t as strict in Australia as they were in Ireland.

  Midway into the second bottle of wine, he started to get a bit misty-eyed. “Niamh Kennedy,” he said, gazing at her. “Such a beautiful name. It suits you too. You and your dark Celtic hair, your creamy Celtic skin…”

  Uh oh, she thought. What next? Her white Celtic teeth?

  “So Greg, tell me about your cafes,” she said hurriedly. “All about them.” And stop staring at my Celtic bosom, she thought.

  Greg was perfectly happy to stop talking about Eva’s body parts if he could talk about himself instead. For the next fifteen minutes she heard in great detail about every stage of the establishment of Four Quarters. She had just started to drift off a little when she realized something. Perhaps this was an ideal opportunity to learn how cafes were run. Was she being sneaky? she wondered guiltily as he explained how he and his chefs had decided on the menus. No, Dublin was hardly the competition, surely.

  “You’ll have to come down and have another look at Four Quarters.” Greg was practically purring under all the attention. “I could show you around.”

  “Actually, Greg, that would be fantastic,” she said honestly.

  Then he surprised her. “Don’t tell me. You’re looking for some ideas for your work, aren’t you?”

  She went pale and red, in quick succession. “For my work?” Had he guessed? Had Lainey told him about the delicatessen?

  “Yes, for your sculpting. You’re looking for inspiration of some kind, aren’t you? Lainey said you were hoping to do some work here.”

  She smiled in relief. “Um, yes, that’s exactly it. I’m thinking about producing a new series of urban work,” she improvised quickly. “Moving on from the inspiration of the outdoors and the Irish landscape into a different sort of city sensibility. And what better place to get close to the heartbeat of a city than in an inner-city cafe?” She could hardly believe she’d just said all of that. Her years at art school hadn’t been wasted after all.

  Greg lapped it up. “Especially one of the most popular cafes in town. Niamh, you can spend as much time there as you like. I’ll let my manager know you’re coming down, she’ll look after you. We can set you up in one of the quarters and you can just watch and listen and get all the inspiration you need. Who knows, maybe I might even commission you to do a sculpture specially for me?”

  “Oh. That would be good,” she said, her smile getting a little forced. Perhaps he’d settle for a quick sketch of the building?

  “I’ll be down there myself a fair bit next week. Sorting out a few staffing problems. People just don’t want to work hard these days, if you ask me. They walk out after a few days, can’t stick it.”

  “Really? Isn’t that terrible.”

  “It is. We always seem to be looking for staff.”

  “Really?” she said again. Her mind was racing suddenly. How would she find staff for her cafe, she wondered? Advertise? Ask around among her friends? Perhaps she could talk to his manager and some of his staff too. Just see how they managed the day-to-day running, the staffing, the ordering, everything. Maybe when she got back to Dublin she could enroll in a business course somewhere, to really top up her knowledge. She almost wanted to ring Ambrose then and there and blurt out all her ideas.

  Across the table, Greg was looking at his watch. “We’d better go, if you don’t mind skipping dessert. It’s a bit of a drive to the party yet. And I said we’d be there around nine thirty.”

  She noticed a slur in his voice. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”

 
; “Fine, fine. Now, this is on me, okay? Don’t even think about taking out your purse.” After calling for the bill, he pulled out a slimline calculator from his wallet and checked the sums. Twice. He seemed satisfied. “I’ll leave the tip too,” he said magnanimously. Eva glanced at what he had left for the waiter. It was less than five dollars.

  He noticed her expression. “I think it’s important to be careful with your money, Niamh. You might not realize that, being of an artistic nature, but I learned the lesson very early on in life and it’s got me where I am today.”

  Eva smiled wanly. She’d just realized she was out for the night with Mr. Scrooge.

  Joseph was lying on his hotel bed reading when the phone rang. The taxi for Warner Street, Brighton, was downstairs.

  “I’ll be right there, thanks.” He grabbed his coat and threw it on over his black jeans and the latest of George’s T-shirts, this one advertising some new London club. Aaron had said caj, so caj it was. He should bring something to drink, he thought. Some beer or wine. Maybe the taxi could stop at an off-license on the way. Then he remembered he’d bought a couple of bottles of Australian wine in Sydney to take back as a present for Rosemary. One of those would do for now, he’d replace it later. What would he put it in? The zip-off daypack from his backpack—perfect.

  It was only when they were in Brighton and the driver asked him which number Warner Street that Joseph realized he’d left the address back at the hotel. He asked the driver to go up and down the long street while they both tried to spot a party house. He’d expected lots of lights, loud music, people spilling out into the warm night air. But there wasn’t a sound.

  “You sure this is the right street, mate?” the driver asked.

  “I think so. Can we just do another circuit, please?”

  “Your money, mate. I’ll drive up and down all night if you want.”