by Melissa Hill
But if Ken wouldn’t talk to her, if he wouldn’t let her explain, then what was she going to do?
Chapter 36
DAYS LATER AND after a highly enjoyable meeting with Amanda Verveen, Laura was still walking on air.
Amanda had loved her designs and once Laura had seen samples of her collection, she knew instantly that she could rise to the occasion and produce jewellery that would be simply outstanding.
“It’s won’t be exactly ready-to-wear,” Amanda had said, indicating a missing breast panel that would have the models spilling out all over the place, “but when has that ever mattered? The main thing is that we use your jewellery to completely transform the look.”
From what Laura could gather from Jan, Amanda’s assistant, and Amanda herself, most of the catwalk fashion terminology meant little, and she wasn’t going to start describing her work as Jan had, namely “raw, wild and totally apocalyptic!”. She’d like to see how many pairs of earrings she’d sell if she put that on her business cards, but nevertheless she had a definite feel for the look they wanted to convey. Even after that one meeting, Laura felt that she and Amanda were very much on the same wavelength. She didn’t know if Amanda wanted to work with her on a regular basis, and at that stage she didn’t care. By early spring of next year her work would be appearing on catwalks in London, Milan and Paris, something that she could never in a million years have anticipated.
Not long after the initial phone call from Amanda, Laura had called in on Brid at the boutique. She knew instantly from the bridal designer’s pleased expression that she had known about the call.
“I hope you didn’t mind my giving her your number,” Brid began, slightly apologetic. “I wasn’t sure how busy you were, but since that day she was going on and on at me –”
“Are you mad?” Laura cried, enveloping her in a huge hug. “I couldn’t be more grateful to you. I had no idea who she was!”
“Amanda keeps a low profile on purpose,” Brid said. “She thinks it makes her that much more mysterious – like her clothes.” She laughed. “It’s her image, and to be honest, I find it all a little bit pretentious – but that’s why I chose to design wedding dresses instead of haute couture.”
Neil had been over the moon. “I knew it would happen for you,” he had said, the evening of Amanda’s call, when he had arrived home with a massive bunch of roses and a bottle of champagne. “OK, I didn’t quite imagine it this way but – wow!” He lifted her up and swung her around. “My wife a catwalk designer!”
“Ah not quite,” Laura corrected him. “I’m just providing the decoration.”
“Still, you wouldn’t know what this might lead to. Mention Amanda Verveen – whoever she is,” he added, not being overly familiar with the fashion world, “in the same sentence as Laura Connolly Design, and the business could take off altogether!”
“I hope so,” Laura said, almost afraid to believe it.
The girls had been completely taken aback, Helen in particular.
“I have to hand it to you, Laura. Even when the rest of us – well, me in particular,” she added slightly shamefaced, “thought you should pack it in, you kept on going. And of course, some of us didn’t make it easy for you.”
Nicola too had been delighted by her news but, for some reason, Laura sensed over the phone that her friend’s mind wasn’t quite focused.
“Ken’s gone,” Nicola had said worriedly.
“Gone?”
Nicola filled her in on the situation, and the details of her last conversation with Ken. “I tried going over to his house, but when I got there he was out. Then I found out from Sally that he’s taken a few days’ holidays from the Centre. I was mortified – I mean, it was pretty obvious to her that we were rowing – especially since he had dropped his key for my house into the Centre!”
“Look, he probably just needs a little time to cool down, that’s all.”
“I really hope so,” Nicola said, sounding worried.
Laura wasn’t unduly concerned. Things might be a little up in the air now, but Ken and Nicola would sort it out. She was sure of it. Still, trust good old Dan Hunt to be right in the middle of things – again.
“I’m so thrilled for you, though,” Nicola said, brightening a little. “I still can’t believe my best friend is going to be a famous jewellery designer!”
“Ah, let’s not go mad with ourselves just yet,” Laura had said, although secretly she was enjoying the attention and excitement.
She hadn’t yet said a word to her parents. She wasn’t ready to, not until she had met with Amanda and finally convinced herself that yes, this was real – this was actually going to happen. Laura would never live it down if she told her family, and then the entire thing fell through. But after the meeting with Amanda, she knew that this was definitely going to happen, and that Amanda was just as excited about working with her.
She and Neil were travelling down to Glengarrah that afternoon to tell them in person. Laura couldn’t wait for her mother’s reaction, partly because she wanted to prove her wrong, to let her know that her eldest daughter did have talent, that people did want her designs, but mostly because she wanted her mother, and indeed Joe, to share her happiness. How much better did it get than this? One of her daughters being asked to design jewellery for an international designer! Maureen would undoubtedly get great mileage out of that. They wouldn’t be able to shut her up down at the flower club. Now it was safe, her mother didn’t have to worry about failure any more – Laura’s dreams had come true.
* * *
Later that evening, Neil parked the car outside the cottage and he and Laura made their way round towards the back door.
“What are you doing here?” Maureen looked as though she had just caught an intruder in her kitchen.
“Hi, Mam,” Laura ignored her mother’s typically unfriendly greeting, having long since got used to it.
“Just in time for dinner, I hope?” Neil looked longingly at the pots simmering on the stove.
“And Neil too – what’s going on, Laura?”
Laura grinned from ear to ear as did Neil.
“Well, I have some good news,” she began, looking from her mother to Joe, who was sitting quietly at the kitchen table, waiting for his dinner.
Maureen dropped her tea towel. “You’re pregnant!” she wailed happily. “Oh thank God, thank God!”
Laura’s face fell. Thank God? Was Maureen doing decades of the rosary, hoping that her eldest daughter would fall pregnant?
“Oh, this is the best thing that could have happened!”
Laura couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother so excited about anything.
“You’ll definitely have to give up those business notions of yours, now that you’ll have another mouth to feed!”
Instantly, the mood changed.
“I’m not pregnant, Mam,” she said shortly, her earlier enthusiasm totally deflated.
How selfish could the woman get? She knew Laura and Neil weren’t planning to have children until the business got off the ground. What was wrong with her mother? Why was it always what she thought was good for Laura? Why didn’t she care about what Laura actually wanted?
Laura felt sick. She didn’t want to tell her mother her news now; all the good had been taken out of it.
“Laura’s not pregnant,” Neil said, when Laura didn’t speak, “but she has some great news about the business.”
Laura saw Maureen actually roll her eyes to heaven. Her mother didn’t even bother trying to hide it.
That was it. Laura had had enough.
“I was going to tell you my good news, Mam,” she began, her tone cold. “I was going to tell you that a famous fashion designer has asked me to provide jewellery for her new collection – a collection that will be shown all over the world, in all the magazines, on television and in the newspapers. I was going to tell you that I – little old useless me with all my notions and talk – have finally begun living my dream, have final
ly succeeded in doing everything I’ve always wanted to do. I was going to tell you that somebody – somebody important – had enough faith in me, and my work, to take a chance on me. But judging by the look on your face, I don’t think I’ll bother.”
Laura had never spoken to her mother like that before. In fact, she didn’t think that Maureen had ever let her speak for that length of time without some interruption or smart comment.
Maureen looked stunned and Joe looked nervous, as if caught in the eye of a storm.
The silence in the small kitchen was almost potent.
Neil spoke quickly to fill the void. “Maureen, I can understand how you got the wrong end of the stick there and no, Laura isn’t pregnant, but didn’t you hear her news? The fashion designer is called Amanda Verveen.” He shrugged, as if in exasperation. “I know, I haven’t heard of her either, but apparently she’s very popular. She’s Irish too – I think she won something on The Late Late Show a few years ago – anyway, she wants Laura to work with her – isn’t it brilliant?”
Maureen slumped down on one of the kitchen chairs.
“What is wrong with you, Laura?” she said, flabbergasted. “What are you trying to prove?”
“To prove?”
“With all this jewellery business?”
“Maureen, did you not hear –”
“Leave it, Neil!” Maureen interjected. “To be perfectly honest, you’re the cause of all her problems. Laura was perfectly happy in her office job before you came along and starting putting ideas in her head!”
“But I wasn’t happy, Mam. You know I wasn’t happy!” Laura’s eyes flashed wildly. “Why do you think I spent all those years in Art College – for fun? Why do you think I spent every bit of spare time I had designing and making things – doing what I really love?”
“But you had a good job . . . ”her mother said sorrowfully.
“But I wasn’t fucking happy!” Laura roared. “Didn’t you hear me? Don’t you ever hear me?”
Neil looked at his wife. For as long as he’d known her, he had ever heard Laura utter a single swearword. She wouldn’t even say ‘feck’.
“My being happy doesn’t matter to you though, does it? It’s what makes you happy that’s important, isn’t it? As long as you can say that Laura is doing well and has a great job in Dublin – never mind that she hates it so much she feels as though a piece of her is dying with every passing day – as long as you can say that Laura is doing what she’s supposed to be doing, then you’re happy! Well, do you know something?” Laura put a hand on her hip. “I couldn’t give a shit what makes you happy any more. I’ve spent most of my life trying to make you happy, struggling to make you proud of me, and all I’ve being doing is making myself miserable because it’ll never fucking work! Nothing will please you. I’m not Cathy! I’m not happy to marry a local, have twenty kids and sit around doing nothing but gossip about everyone else while life passes me by. I want a life – my kind of life. And from now on, I’m going to get it! To hell with what you think, Mam, because I just don’t give a shit any more!”
Without another glance at either her mother or her father, Laura raced out of the room, the door slamming deafeningly behind her.
Stone-faced and unmoved, Maureen lifted her chin into the air. “A piece of her dying every day,” she repeated sarcastically. “Did you ever hear such rubbish in all your life?” Then she sniffed. “Well, Joe, after all we’ve done for her, at least now we know what she thinks of us.”
Neil shook his head sadly from the doorway.
“You’re a very silly woman, Maureen Fanning,” he said, “because you really have no idea what you’ve lost.”
* * *
Later that evening, sitting at her own kitchen table, Laura was inconsolable. “I can’t believe it, Neil,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks as he held both of her hands in his. “I can’t believe she reacted like that. Doesn’t she care? Does she take some kind of sick pleasure in making me feel like shit, screwing up my confidence, making me feel unworthy?”
Neil looked worried. Laura had been saying things like this all the way back in the car. This could be far, far worse than it looked and could degenerate into an all-out break with her family, something he didn’t think Laura could handle. For all her problems with her mother, Laura loved the woman deeply – for reasons Neil couldn’t quite understand. His own mother had been thrilled for Laura – in fact, the news had given her a real boost this week. Pamela adored Laura and knew all about Maureen’s reservations, but couldn’t understand them. Then again, Neil’s mother came from a long line of business people, her father a self-employed cabinetmaker and her husband and sons in the travel business. To Pamela, enterprise was something to be celebrated and not ridiculed in the way that Maureen did.
At this stage, Neil too had had enough of the Fannings. They had upset and taken advantage of his wife for long enough, and their wedding day, which was supposed to have been a quiet reserved affair, had been almost ruined by the carry-on of Maureen’s family who had made absolute fools of themselves falling around on the dance-floor, and annoying other guests with their over-the-top drunkenness. Neil had been raging over that and was fully intending to take Maureen to task, but for Laura’s sake and indeed Pamela’s, he hadn’t wanted to make a fuss and so eventually said nothing.
No, Neil was sick to the teeth of Laura’s family, which is why – when he went to answer the ringing doorbell – he wasn’t at all happy to see Joe Fanning standing apologetically in his doorway.
“I wonder if I might have a word with Laura?” Joe said, in his usual nervous manner. “I’m on my own,” he added, seeing Neil glance behind him toward the car.
Neil stood back and let him pass. “She’s very upset, Joe – what happened back there wasn’t fair to her.”
“I know that, lad, and believe me I’ve tried to talk to Maureen, but she’s a very stubborn woman.”
Slight understatement, Neil thought to himself.
“Dad!” Laura looked up in surprise, but then her expression hardened. “If she’s here I don’t want to speak to her.”
“She’s not here, love. I came on my own.”
“Oh.” Her dad never usually got involved in this kind of thing. Arguments made him very uncomfortable. Laura wondered if he had taken it upon himself to ask her to ‘go back and apologise’. Well, he could forget that, for a start.
Joe cleared his throat and looked at Neil. “I wonder if we could have a little chat, Laura, just the two of us?”
Neil’s expression was wary. “Laura?”
She waved him away. “It’s fine, Neil – I’ve never had an argument with Dad in my entire life, and I’m not going to start now.” She gave her father a gentle smile as Neil went into the living-room and closed the door behind him.
“How is she?” Laura asked, wiping her tear-stained face with the sleeve of her jumper.
Joe gave out a low laugh. “Do you know something, Laura. Only yourself would ask a question like that Anyone else wouldn’t give a damn.”
“I never wanted to upset her.” Now that her father was here in front of her, Laura felt guilty for behaving the way she did. All the way back in the car, she was feeling glad she had said the things she said, but now she wasn’t so sure.
“Well, I don’t agree with the language, but maybe your mother needed to hear some of the things you said – she mightn’t have wanted to hear them, but hear them she should.”
“I don’t understand . . .” Her father always backed her mother, even at her most unreasonable, especially at her most unreasonable.
Joe pulled out a chair and sat down. “Laura, I’ve been working in the factory now for what, nearly thirty years?”
Laura looked at him. “Well, yes, since I was born . . .”
“And remember I told you I used to work at that local newspaper, The Herald?” He gave a wave of his hand. “Ah, it’s long gone now. It went not long before you were born.”
Laura wo
ndered where this was going. She knew her dad had worked at the paper, supposedly fixing the machinery and things like that.
“Well, there’s something about me back then that myself and your mother never told yourself and Cathy. I was a writer at that paper, Laura. I used to do a weekly article.”
A writer? Her father? Was he having her on?
“You wrote for The Herald?”
“Not just for the paper.” Joe took a deep breath and looked away, as if embarrassed by what he was about to say next. “I wrote other things too, Laura – novels, short stories – that kind of thing.”
“Novels?” Laura wondered when exactly she had turned into a parrot. But she was hearing all of this for the very first time. Her father wasn’t a novelist; he was just an ordinary Joe Soap – a factory worker. She didn’t think he had even finished school!
“When I met your mother she was all for it – she’d read some of my stuff and was very supportive. Back then, we were sure that eventually someone important would read them and maybe publish one or two of them. We used to get a right kick out of talking about it.” He smiled at the memory. “We’d be famous, your mother would say, like Brendan Behan, John B Keane and all them fellas.” He looked away. “Ah, but they were only pipe-dreams, Laura – I was never all that good.”
“Have you still got them?” she asked, intrigued as to what her father, her father might have written in his younger days.
“Ah, I think your mother might have tidied them away somewhere but it doesn’t matter now.”
“So what happened?” Laura probed when Joe didn’t continue. “You didn’t just give up, did you?”
“Well, times were hard back then, as you know. There were factories closing down, a lot of unemployment and the country was going through a very black period. I married your mother, and for a long time we lived on our dreams, well that and the fact that I did a bit of writing part-time at the paper. Because I had a typewriter some of the local businesses would get me to do a bit of work for them too.”
