Finishing Touches

by Patricia Scanlan

  Adding a touch of lipstick and another spray of Youth Dew to her wrists and ears, Barbara glided out of the ladies’ and went back upstairs, to find David and Cassie kissing on the dance-floor.

  Martin guided his new mother-in-law around to the music and wished to God she would stop whinging. Now she was moaning about the band being too loud. Earlier on she’d been giving out about the saucy telegrams. If there were one thing that had nearly put him off getting married, it was this whiner in his arms.

  He wished Nora had been there. She used really to enjoy a good wedding. All day long he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Despite the fact that the rest of the family was there, he had felt very alone in the church. He had called in to see her that morning, all dressed up in his wedding gear, but she hadn’t recognized him and thought he was a waiter and ordered a pot of tea. He had actually felt like crying. And it took a lot to make Martin Jordan feel like that. It didn’t help either to have Irene bursting into tears every five minutes.

  Of course, seeing Mam like that was an awful shock to her. She had been away from home nearly two years. The rest of them had seen Nora deteriorate gradually and had got used to it – well, not got used to it exactly, but it wasn’t as shocking to them as it was to Irene. Martin was surprised his younger sister came home for the wedding. He thought Cassie had something to do with it. Cassie was a pretty determined lady when she got going. According to Barbara, she was spending Mam’s money hand over fist. Central heating, tumble-dryers, aluminium doors and windows. He’d been a bit dismayed about the last lot; they’d cost a fortune. But Cassie said she needed doors and windows that were more secure in order to stop Nora from wandering. Seemingly she hated to be trapped inside and much preferred to be out of doors.

  ‘Be careful, Martin! That’s the second time we crashed into another couple!’ His mother-in-law poked him in the ribs.

  Ah shut up, you old bat! he thought savagely. Much more of this and he would seriously consider getting well and truly drunk. Of course, Jean would never forgive him and no-one could put a man in the doghouse like Jean!

  Martin was feeling most unhappy even though he was at his own wedding and he was mightily relieved when the dance ended. He headed up to the bar and ordered a double Scotch!

  Irene looked with disgust at the members of her family on the dance-floor. John and Karen were giggling away at some private joke; Martin was dancing with his bride; Barbara was flirting with a friend of Martin’s, and Cassie – Irene was so shocked – Cassie was actually smooching with her new boyfriend, David Williams. They all looked to be having such a wonderful time. How could they, with Mam at home in the state she was in? Irene almost started crying again at the thought of it. Her mother didn’t know her from Adam and sometimes she just sat staring into space as if Irene weren’t there. It was unnerving. And she hardly slept at all. Cassie was up at all hours with her. Poor Cassie, she had gone to skin and bone. Still, she was very angry with her eldest sister. If it weren’t for her, she would not have come home. Cassie had insisted that she do so, saying that Martin would need all the family support he could get on his wedding day, in the absence of their mother.

  ‘The least you can do is come home for Christmas and the wedding. Stop being so selfish!’ Cassie said crossly. Even Dean thought she should come home and bought her ticket for her.

  It had been a mistake to come home, a big mistake. All her old terrors had come rushing back, especially when she saw Nora. Irene knew it was God’s way of punishing her for living with a man out of wedlock, and a married man at that. And for that unmentionable thing she had done!

  She wished Dean were there to soothe away her fears. She wished she were sitting in her spacious bedroom looking out over Washington while Dean worked on his papers until he were ready to make love to her.

  He was very kind. He had bought her the most gorgeous condo and given her credit cards and a car and to all intents and purposes they might as well be man and wife. She accompanied him to all his social functions. At first she had been a bit uncomfortable going out in public with him, especially with his wife lying in a coma in a Texas hospital, but nobody else batted an eyelid and Dorothy told her that everybody in Washington was having affairs and not to worry her head about it. To Irene’s amazement, Dorothy confided that she herself was conducting an affair with a handsome young congressman. Dorothy had been thrilled when Dean bought her the condo. Whenever Irene and the Senator were away on a trip, she was able to take her congressman there without fear of being discovered.

  Oh yes indeed, Irene was being well and truly punished for her decadent life, but if her mother hadn’t gone all funny, she wouldn’t have had to adopt this kind of lifestyle. She wanted to shake Nora and yell and shout at her, ‘It’s me! It’s Irene. Stop doing this. Stop pretending you don’t know me. You must know me! I’m Irene!’

  Tears welled up in her eyes. She couldn’t possibly stay alone with Mam tonight, no matter how badly Cassie needed a night’s sleep. John could stay with her; Karen wouldn’t mind.

  She brushed away her tears and searched in her handbag for her tranquillizers. The doctor had given them to her when she pleaded with him before she left the States. They really were great things. They took the edge off your fear, and although you knew it was there, it couldn’t really touch you. She put two of the miracle tablets on her tongue, took a sip of champagne to swallow them and waited for them to work their magic.

  ‘Mrs Jordan! Mrs Jordan, you have to come in. It’s raining.’ Laura shivered. It was bitterly cold and the rain was beginning to fall steadily. Laura had gone to the loo for five minutes and Doug had been on the phone reassuring Cassie that everything was fine, when Nora disappeared. They had found her at the end of the garden hanging rashers and sausages on the clothes-line.

  ‘Come on in, Mrs Jordan,’ Laura coaxed. ‘You’ll get your death of cold.’ Doug was retrieving the rashers and sausages but when he gently took Nora by the arm she gave a yelp of terror and ran away. It took them an hour to get her into the house and by the time they managed to bathe her and get her dry and dressed in fresh clothes, Laura was exhausted.

  Her baby kicked and she rubbed her bump soothingly. Only a few weeks to go. To think that she was bringing a baby into the world and it could end up like Mrs Jordan. To think that she could end up like Cassie’s mother. Laura suddenly felt terribly depressed. She was almost sorry she had offered to stay with Nora, but Cassie had been so grateful. She enjoyed getting dolled up and she looked lovely in a cream Regine dress that she had bought in Roches for a fraction of the price Barbara had spent on her ‘Basler.’ Her purple suit had cost a fortune, or so they’d all been told. ‘It’s a Basler. Do you like it?’

  Laura, who had felt queasy for her entire pregnancy, had whispered to Cassie, ‘Pass me the sick bucket. I’m going to puke!’ Cassie had burst out laughing. She had actually looked happy going off with David. I’d look happy going off with David! Laura grinned to herself. David was a very nice, very sexy man. If she weren’t a happily married woman she might have lustful dreams about him. And she was not the only woman to find him attractive: Barbara was obviously smitten as well.

  Two hours later Cassie phoned again. ‘Is everything OK, Laura? How’s Mam?’

  ‘Your mam’s fine!’ Laura assured her. ‘Are you having a good time?’

  Laura could sense that Cassie was smiling at the other end of the phone. ‘Oh Laura, I’m having a ball!’

  ‘Well, carry on, Cinders, and don’t worry about a thing! Just make the most of Prince Charming!’ Laura instructed, thanking God that Cassie couldn’t see her mother sitting on the kitchen table, refusing to budge!

  Cassie awoke with a start, ears straining for her mother.

  ‘Go back to sleep,’ David murmured softly against her ear. Cassie snuggled in closer to him, remembering where she was. It had been wonderful making love with David, like a dream she wanted to go on for ever. He was such a caring lover and it had been so long since she was in a
man’s arms. She had never thought she would fall in love again after Robbie and here she was, head over heels in love with David.

  What had started out as an easy friendship and turned into a great companionship had, last night, ended up as a wild, passionate, sexy love affair. Cassie ran her fingers through the hair curling on David’s chest, smiling as she remembered how Aileen had always loved older men and hairy chests. David would suit her down to the ground! She followed her fingers with her lips.

  ‘Guess what?’ she breathed, reaching his mouth and giving him a deep kiss. ‘I don’t want to go to sleep.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ David murmured huskily, his hands curving around her, sending tingles of hot wet desire flooding through her as he caressed her eager body.

  Forty-Five

  Twelve months after Martin’s wedding, Cassie knew she would never have remained sane had it not been for David and the stalwart support she had come to rely on. Not only had she her mother to take care of, she also had Barbara, Ian and Britt living with her. It was supposed to have been for a week at the most, while they were waiting for the builder to finish their mansion in Malahide, but the week had turned into a month and then two and she was at the end of her tether.

  Christmas had absolutely finished her, and if Ian Murray weren’t careful, he was going to end up as a murder victim.

  He was driving her crazy. Never in all her life had she met a man so absolutely lazy as her brother-in-law. And slovenly was his middle name. Ian would go out to the kitchen to make himself a snack, throw the buttery knife in the basin, leave crumbs all over the counter-top and, when he was finished, leave his cup and plate under his chair. He never cleaned the bathroom after him. Cassie invariably found herself wiping dribbles of toothpaste off the washbasin and taking hairs out of the bath. He was incapable of replacing the cap on the toothpaste and as for putting the lid of the toilet-seat down . . . forget it!

  He spent his morning flicking channels on the TV, and in the afternoon, he would put Britt in her pushchair and head off to the pub for a couple of pints. He and Barbara and the child lived on pizzas and take-aways.

  ‘Maybe I’m a nitpicker, maybe I’m prissy and turning house-proud in my old age. I try to ignore it but I can’t! Aileen, if they don’t go soon I swear I’ll end up in an asylum!’ Cassie wailed. Aileen was home for a week and they were sitting in Tum Tums eating cherry log with their mugs of steaming coffee.

  ‘In the name of God, what possessed you to allow them to stay in the first place?’ Aileen asked. She thought Cassie looked dreadful, haggard and very tired.

  Cassie sighed. ‘It was supposed to be only for a week and Barbara is pregnant and I sort of hoped that maybe she might see what I have to put up with with Mam. I thought it might make her a bit more understanding of the situation,’ she finished mournfully.

  Barbara had phoned out of the blue, to say that they had to be out of the apartment by the agreed closing date at the end of the following week, and as their house was not quite ready to move into, she wondered if they could stay with Cassie for a while.

  ‘It will be only for a week, Cassie,’ Barbara promised. Cassie agreed, even though David told her she was making a big mistake. After that he’d had to go to London to research the Thatcher biography.

  ‘I’ve a brilliant idea!’ declared Aileen, eyes sparkling. ‘Why don’t you and I take off somewhere for a few days, anywhere you like, and leave Babs and Ian to look after your mother? They’ll be gone the minute you come back, I guarantee it!’

  ‘Oh I’d love that!’ Cassie exclaimed, her eyes lighting up at the idea. Then her face fell. ‘I couldn’t, really. I couldn’t leave Mam to Barbara’s tender mercies. She has no patience at all with her.’

  ‘Christ, Cassie, what about you? You definitely need a break. Look at the state of you!’ Aileen argued.

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ demanded Cassie.

  ‘You’re about a stone too thin! You’re as pale as a ghost! Your hair is lacklustre and you’ve circles as big as hula hoops around your eyes!’ Aileen retorted.

  ‘Did you ever think of writing a novel? “Circles as big as hula hoops”!’ snorted Cassie.

  ‘The truth always hurts!’ Aileen said primly.

  They glowered at each other and then started to laugh.

  ‘Look, tomorrow night is Saturday. Just take one night off and we’ll go over to Laura’s for the night and goo and gaa over the baby. I’ll drive, you sit back and relax and we’ll come home early the next morning so you won’t be worrying about your mother. How about that?’ Aileen urged.

  ‘If Barbara agrees, nothing will stop me!’ Cassie promised.

  Barbara was not a bit happy about the idea but she couldn’t very well say no. There was no sign of that damned house being finished and staying with Cassie was saving them a fortune. Otherwise they’d have to rent a house at enormous expense.

  Their first builder had gone bankrupt, the second had put their roof on so badly that it leaked and the one they were currently employing to rectify the mistakes was costing them an arm and a leg and taking his time at it! And Ian was not being one bit helpful; he was leaving all the dirty work to her. All the stress was showing on her face.

  Kristi Killeen had made a crack in print the other day about several of her so-called rivals who were supposed to be younger than she was but who had to trowel on the foundation to hide the wrinkles, while her creamy skin was flawless and untouched by the surgeon’s knife. She was, said Kristi about herself, a woman in her prime! Well, just that morning, Barbara had penned her response. The next edition of ‘Barbara’s Brief’ would include an item on a well-known dirt-disher who was recently seen purchasing a corset, something that was mandatory for all women of a certain age – and weight! Let Kristi Killeen put that in her pipe and smoke it!

  As well as all these problems, Barbara was three months pregnant. This time, it had been planned. Pregnancy was the ‘in’ thing at the moment; everybody who was anybody was having a baby. And Kristi, who was husbandless and long past her childbearing years, was definitely out in the cold, much to Barbara’s satisfaction. Of course, Kristi pretended she preferred to be as free as a bird. Ha! Barbara knew better than to be taken in by that. No woman, despite her protestations, wanted to be free and single for ever, especially a woman of Kristi’s advancing years! Barbara was reserving a few razor-sharp barbs for when the muck-throwing got really nasty. Once, she had called Kristi a ‘spinster of the parish’ in print and she heard afterwards that her arch-rival was so furious she had got a picture of Barbara and stuck it on a dartboard and spent hours flinging darts of fury at it. Barbara was chuffed; she loved getting under people’s skin.

  This was definitely the last child, though! After this one, she was getting her tubes tied! Ian refused to have the snip, afraid of his life to get a needle. How he ever became a detective mystified his wife! Fortunately, she had to admit, she was feeling fine, but the drive into Dublin and back daily left her very tired and she was making just brief appearances at the functions she had to attend, so she could see who was there and who wasn’t. Spending a precious Saturday night looking after her mother was not what she had planned.

  Cassie was much better able to take care of Nora. Barbara found herself getting irritated. It was so hard to believe that that strange old woman who could do nothing for herself was their mother. Barbara just left Cassie to get on with it. She was rarely at home anyway and she was just as glad. If only they had their own house finished. The way things were going, all Ian’s compensation would end up in builders’ pockets and they’d be left on their uppers!

  Aileen was collecting Cassie. She looked stunning these days, with her permanent tan and mane of tumbling red hair. That was the life, travelling all over the world, hopping from one exotic location to another. Who the hell did she think she was, Isadora Duncan, Barbara thought sourly, as Aileen roared up the drive in her mother’s pristine Starlet and strode to the front door, hair blowing wildly in the wind.


  After the two months had passed, Cassie had given up hope that she would ever see the back of her unwelcome guests. The plumber who was installing the central heating in the Malahide house had made a complete hash of positioning the boiler, and Barbara and he were in dispute over payment. Cassie was terribly tired and her nerves were frayed. David insisted she go to the doctor, who was very kind to her and put her on iron tablets and a tonic. He also suggested a mild tranquillizer to help her for a short period. Cassie was very loath to take the tranquillizer; she was afraid of getting hooked, although the doctor promised her he would not let that happen. She had a sneaking fear that by taking the tranquillizers for even a short period, she was losing control and admitting she was not able to cope. Nora had become very withdrawn and was dependent on Cassie for everything. She had even forgotten how to feed herself.

  One Sunday afternoon, Jean arrived to visit Barbara. It was a habit she had got into. Martin was left at home to wash up after the dinner he had cooked and he usually spent the afternoon enjoying the peace and watching sport. Cassie found herself very resentful of these visits. It was as if her house were invaded. Barbara and Jean would natter away in the sitting-room, ignoring the fact that Cassie might have wanted to look at a film on TV or just lie down on the sofa to try and snatch forty winks.