‘You know, Aileen, I think you might have something there. I’ll hop over next weekend and see if we can sort something out. O’Shaughnessy, you’re a genius,’ Cassie smiled happily at her friend.
‘I know!’ smirked Aileen modestly.
Cassie felt quite buoyant during the following week. The more she thought of Aileen’s solution, the more perfect it seemed. Maybe she wouldn’t have to give up her job to go home; she’d be able to do the office commission and her lovely life could continue as it was.
Thirty-Nine
‘Ah . . . yeah . . . sounds reasonable to me,’ Martin nodded reflectively, ‘as long as everyone continues to contribute to Mrs Bishop’s salary. Barbara’s a wagon for not paying up on time.’
‘I’ll speak to her,’ Cassie said grimly. ‘Of course, we’ll continue to pay the salary; take that as agreed. Martin, I’d be so grateful. I’d come home for all my holidays to give you a break and you and Jean could have the use of the house in Liverpool any time you’d like a break.’ Cassie felt almost lighthearted as she sat in the kitchen sipping tea with her brother. Martin was laid-back about things, and had always been good to their mother. Nora was watching Terry Wogan on TV and having a spirited conversation with him. She thought he was speaking to her personally. Through the open door Cassie could hear her.
‘And another thing,’ she was saying, ‘you should tell that one beside you to put something else on other than her nightdress. It’s very immodest for a young girl to be showing her bosom and wearing a nightdress in public. You tell her now, like a good man. Do you hear me?’
‘God, it’s awful, isn’t it?’ Cassie’s mouth quirked in a smile in spite of herself.
‘Do you know what she did yesterday?’ Martin chuckled. ‘You know that writer David Williams, who lives up the road?’
Cassie shook her head. She knew the man only vaguely. He had come to live in Port Mahon several years back, and was a well-known biographer.
‘Well, seemingly, Mrs Bishop was on the phone to Karen and Mam slipped out and went up and knocked on his door and told him she knew he was digging a tunnel from his house to right under her bed, but she’d be waiting with a poker for him so he’d better watch out!’
‘You’re not serious!’ exclaimed Cassie, half-amused, half-horrified. ‘What did he say?’
‘Well, he was very nice about it. He promised her he’d stop tunnelling immediately and then he brought her home. He obviously knows Mam’s not well; everybody does at this stage. The butcher brought her home the other day. She was trying to buy a half-pound of sirloin with three pebbles. He gave her the steak, too, and wouldn’t let Mrs Bishop pay for it!’
‘Ah, wasn’t that nice of him!’
‘Look, I’ll head off to Jean’s and see what she has to say. I’ll probably stay the night in Dublin, seeing as you’re home. Would you mind?’
‘Of course I wouldn’t mind. I think I might take Mam for a walk. She finds the sea soothing and it might tire her out so she’ll sleep better tonight,’ Cassie said.
‘No way!’ expostulated Jean, when Martin put Cassie’s proposal to her.
‘But Jean, it would mean we wouldn’t have to buy a house for the time being, so I could expand the business a bit more. And Mrs Bishop would be there to take care of Mam during the day and she looks after the house as well, so you wouldn’t even have to do much housekeeping. I think it’s not a bad idea at all. I’ll look after Mam at night; you won’t have to get up. I’ll see to that.’
‘Martin, I want a house of my own, I’ve seen the perfect house in Skerries. You’ve plenty of money for the business that you earned abroad. I don’t want to live in Port Mahon.’
‘But Jean, someone’s got to look after Mam, and if Cassie has to do it, she’s going to have to give up her job and come home from Liverpool. After all, I’m here, I am her son and Karen and John are perfectly willing to help out. Won’t you even consider it for a year or two?’ Martin pleaded. He hated the idea of disappointing Cassie. He had really thought that Jean wouldn’t mind. She always seemed so sympathetic about Nora and she was very good to her own mother, who was a widow. Jean always had him cutting the grass or clearing the gutters, despite the fact that Mrs Allen had two married sons of her own.
‘Look, Martin, Cassie isn’t married; she isn’t even going out with anybody. She can always buy another house some time. Even Barbara was saying the other day that Cassie’s got no commitments like the rest of us and that she should come home.’
‘Well, Barbara would say that. She’s not prepared to lift a finger to help out!’ Martin scowled.
‘Martin!’ exclaimed his fiancée. ‘Barbara’s got an invalid for a husband. Poor Ian’s back will never be right after that terrible incident. She’s the breadwinner, so how can you expect her to take care of your mother? It’s bad enough that she has to pay towards Mrs Bishop’s salary; she told me that it leaves them quite short,’ Jean said sympathetically. Barbara and she got on very well.
‘Invalid, my foot!’ Martin said scornfully. ‘He’s well able to elbow his way through a crush at the bar to get his pint. And that fellow’s rolling in money. He has a house let in flats and he’s going to get a whopping sum in compensation. So don’t give me any more of that crap.’
‘Martin Jordan!’ Jean sniffed primly. ‘Kindly don’t use that sort of language in front of a lady! The answer for once and for all is no! I am not going to live in your mother’s house and if Cassie doesn’t like that, there’s nothing I can do about it!’
‘I’m sorry, Cassie, Jean wasn’t happy about it. She has her eye on a house out in Skerries,’ Martin confessed.
Cassie felt her bubble of hope burst. She was so disappointed she actually had a lump in her throat. She swallowed hard.
‘Maybe we could think of something else,’ Martin suggested. ‘Why don’t we all get together tomorrow afternoon before you go home. I’ll ring Barbara now and we can tell John this afternoon when he comes over.’
‘OK,’ agreed Cassie as lightly as she could, knowing her brother felt bad about Jean’s response. She supposed she couldn’t blame the girl. Not many would want to take on the responsibility of a senile mother-in-law. Cassie had been clutching at straws. There was nothing else to be said; she’d just have to pack up and come home.
‘We could sell the farm and get twenty-four-hour nursing care for Mam!’ John suggested as they sat in the lounge of the Port Mahon Arms Hotel the next afternoon. Karen had offered to look after Nora, and Cassie, Barbara, John and Martin were sitting in a secluded corner of the lounge trying to thrash out a solution.
‘What!’ Barbara choked on her G&T.
‘That’s a bit drastic, John. What happens if Mam lives to be ninety and runs out of money?’ Martin murmured.
‘Precisely . . . precisely!’ Barbara twittered. God, if they sold the farm to pay for round-the-clock nursing, there’d be nothing left!
‘And the market is very depressed at the moment. Land is going for nothing,’ Martin added. He didn’t like the idea of selling the business. He was ashamed to admit he had had the same mercenary thought as Barbara, but the market was depressed, no doubt about it, he comforted himself. Even if they waited until prices rose . . .
‘What do you think, Cassie?’ John asked.
‘I think it’s an excellent idea,’ Cassie said evenly. ‘It would mean Mam would have the best of care, she would still be in her own home, which is what she always wanted. It’s her business. I don’t see why she shouldn’t sell it and reap the material benefit. After all, that’s what Poppa would have wanted for her. Let her use her money to make her life as easy as possible and to hell with what’s left!’
‘She’d never be able to sell it in the state she’s in. I’m sure a senile woman can’t legally sign contracts,’ Barbara objected.
‘That obstacle could be easily overcome,’ Cassie retorted.
‘How?’ challenged Barbara.
‘Get Mam made a ward of court or have one of us
made guardian. I’ll do it.’
‘Over my dead body,’ snapped Barbara.
‘You be her guardian then,’ Cassie snapped back. ‘I don’t care who it is as long as Mam’s looked after.’
Barbara digested this. If she were Nora’s guardian, then she’d control the purse-strings. It wasn’t such a bad idea at all. Yes indeed. It wasn’t that she’d fiddle anything, but at least she’d be in charge of the cash, and nobody would be able to fiddle her.
‘Right, I will then!’ Barbara announced.
‘Over my dead body,’ declared John. ‘Barbara, you haven’t lifted a finger to help Mam. Why do you want to be her guardian all of a sudden? The mind boggles.’
‘You shut up!’ Barbara rounded on her brother. ‘You know very well I have my hands full with Ian, the baby and my job. I’m as concerned about Mam as you are, so don’t take the high moral tone with me, mister!’
‘Keep your voice down, Barbara. We don’t want to be the talk of the town,’ Cassie ordered.
‘Huh!’ hissed Barbara. ‘It’s all right for you. What commitments do you have? You’re terrified you’re going to have to come home and leave your lovely cushy life. No wonder you’re so anxious to sell the land. That would make life very simple for you, wouldn’t it? Well, I think you’re being pretty selfish!’
‘Barbara, cut that out!’ John gritted.
A red mist exploded before Cassie’s eyes as fury surged through her. She itched to give her sister a good hard slap on the jaw and it was only through iron determination that she managed to control herself. It really infuriated her that people thought she had ‘no commitments,’ just because she wasn’t married. It was so unfair. What was she, a second-class citizen, with no rights at all?
‘Barbara, one more crack like that from you and you’ll be mighty sorry, believe me,’ Cassie warned.
Barbara got to her feet. ‘I can’t stay here jabbering all afternoon. I’ve got to go to the airport to do an interview for the diary with Maureen O’Hara. I strongly oppose selling the business. If that’s the best idea you can come up with, it’s pretty pathetic.’
‘You come up with one then!’ John growled. ‘Are you willing to increase your payments to cover the salary for a night-nurse?’
‘Dammit, John! You know my situation. You know I can’t!’
‘Right then!’ John said decisively. ‘Cassie and I are agreed that we should sell the business. You and Martin disagree. I’m going to telephone Irene. If she agrees – and she’d bloody well better seeing that she hasn’t even bothered her arse to come home once – that will be a majority of three to two. The business will be sold! And if you don’t like that, Barbara, that’s just tough. Mam’s going to get the best of care. She doesn’t want to go to a home so she shouldn’t have to, and Cassie shouldn’t have to make any sacrifices that the rest of us aren’t willing to make as well!’
‘By God, we’ll see about that!’ Barbara muttered furiously. ‘Sell the business, indeed, just because Cassie is too mean to come home and look after Mam! And who does John think he is, speaking to me like that? Why can’t he and Saint Karen take Mam, if he’s so bloody concerned?’ She careered around a corner, her tyres spitting up gravel, as she drove towards the main Dublin–Belfast road. John would probably persuade Irene to agree to have her mother made a ward of court or have Cassie made guardian so they could sell the land and glasshouses. It was galling, so galling to be over-ruled. Barbara overtook on a single white line and gave the two fingers when an oncoming driver tooted angrily at her.
I should phone Irene myself, she thought, as she sped towards the airport and her interview with the famous film star.
‘I bloody well will ring her!’ she exclaimed in triumph. ‘I’ll call into the office when I’ve finished with Maureen O’Hara and make the call from there.’ No point in running up my bill at home, she decided, extremely pleased with her brainwave. She’d do it as soon as possible too, to get in before her brother. John and Cassie needn’t think they were getting away with selling off their heritage and probably lining their own pockets at the same time. Barbara didn’t trust anyone when it came to money. She smiled to herself. ‘I’ll tell Irene exactly what’s going on. Ha! Soon they’ll be selling the home from under her if she’s not careful!’
When she reached the airport, she was still planning what she would say to put the wind up her younger sister.
Martin sat in Kennys pub. John had taken Cassie home but he had decided to go for a pint. He was annoyed at the way the family meeting had gone. Trust Barbara to fly off the handle and cause friction; she had managed the whole affair very badly, although he had to agree with her, selling Jack’s market-garden was a very drastic step. It was prime land with well-maintained glasshouses. The neighbouring farmer who leased it from Nora was making a very good living out of it. He had been trying for years to persuade Nora to sell him the farm but Nora had always refused. It was Jack’s farm and as long as she were alive it would remain Jack’s farm. If only Jean had agreed to come and live with his mother, all this would have been avoided. Nora would have been looked after, the business would have been there for them when she was gone and that would have been the end of it. He supposed he was being a bit selfish, but Nora had always said they were to get equal shares in her estate when the time came. If the market-garden were sold in such a bad recession, Martin knew the full value would never be realized and he could see the money dwindling if his mother lived for a long time, as was quite common with Alzheimer’s victims.
He’d always thought of his share of the estate as his bulwark against hard times. That was why he was able to take the risk of setting up his own business as an electrical contractor. And Jean had her heart set on this big house in Skerries. Mind, it was a fabulous four-bedroomed detached house with sea views. He’d liked it very much himself and it would be a great place to bring up children. It was handy enough for work too, because he’d based himself in Port Mahon and he worked all over north County Dublin.
If Irene agreed with the sale of the property, there wasn’t much he could do about it, but if she didn’t, it looked as though Cassie might have to come home. He knew it was tough on her. The only thing was that if she did come home, at least she’d be secure in the knowledge that eventually she’d get her share of the estate. No matter what she said now about spending it on her mother, she wouldn’t hand her share back when she got it! It was easy for her, with her permanent and pensionable job and her low-interest mortgage, to talk about selling the business. The same went for John: in a few years’ time he would be established as a market-gardener. He had no mortgage; he had built the house in stages according as he had the money. They weren’t all as well set-up.
There was no point in asking Jean again about coming to live at home. She told him that if he mentioned it once more he could have his ring back, and she was very sparing with her affection at the moment. She always used sex to reward or punish and he was getting rightly punished. For such a delicate little thing, Jean could be very stubborn, he reflected, as he ordered another pint. She didn’t like the smell of beer off his breath, either. Well, tonight she could moan about it; it wasn’t as though he were always drinking. A man was entitled to a pint now and again, especially after the family hassle this afternoon.
‘Oh my God, Barbara! Selling up the farm and maybe the house!’ Irene couldn’t believe her ears. ‘And it’s up to me? Oh dear! Oh Barbara, what should I do?’ Irene wailed. Things must be really bad with her mam if all this was going on.
Irene started to cry. She was so lonely for Nora she’d give anything to be able to go home to her mother and feel her arms around her and have her take care of her the way she used to.
‘Come home and look after Mam! Me?’ Irene echoed her sister’s words down the phone. ‘Oh Barbara, I’d be dead scared. Just say she had a heart attack like before. It was terrible! You don’t know what it was like.’ She listened to Barbara going on and on about how important it was that she say no
to John about selling the land, and when her sister finally got off the phone she felt utterly drained.
It was not a good time for Irene to be thinking about troubles at home; she had enough problems of her own. Her period was ten days late and she was petrified she was pregnant. When she started her affair with the Senator, he had used condoms, but as time went on he suggested she go on the pill or get the cap. The pill made her fat and sick so she had come off it and had gone to be fitted for a cap. She didn’t really like using it but Dean much preferred making love without a condom and she wanted to please him in every way. In his arms she felt very safe and protected and he was kind and generous to her, giving her beautiful gifts of jewels and clothes.
Dean liked to see her looking glamorous. A few weeks before he had bought her a Bob Mackie outfit that cost a fortune, with lots of tassels and sequins and cut-away bits at her boobs and midriff. Irene thought it made her a bit tarty but Dorothy had said she looked swell and Dean had liked it so much he got very randy and couldn’t keep his hands off her. They had been attending a party at another senator’s house and Dean took her out to a part of the garden hidden from view of the house and made love to her standing up against a big oak tree. He was so passionate and excited it was very sexy, and then on the way home in the car he pulled off the freeway and told her she looked so damned sexy in that dress he was so aroused he was going to explode! He had made frantic love to her in the car! The only thing was . . . they hadn’t taken any precautions, and now, all because of Bob Mackie and his provocative dress, her period was ten days overdue.
A dozen times she had walked into the drugstore to buy a pregnancy-testing kit and hadn’t had the nerve. She’d bought conditioning creams and shampoos and make-up remover pads, things she didn’t need at all. But she’d just have to take her courage in her hands.
She wondered what Dean would think. The Senator had one son from his marriage and he was very proud of him. But Irene went into cold sweats thinking about all the pain and discomfort of pregnancy and childbirth. It seemed like the most awful experience and there was nothing you could do about it. It took control of you, whether you liked it or not. And then, imagine telling them all at home that she was going to be an unmarried mother. Even Dorothy might not take too kindly to the idea, although she wasn’t a bit put out that Irene and Dean were having an affair. She was rather pleased, in fact.
Finishing Touches Page 40
