The House On Willow Street

by Cathy Kelly

  Cashel Reilly, who’d grown up feeling exactly the same way, admired that sort of spirit.

  While he found Judy a joy, he couldn’t cope with being present for too many of the architectural meetings. The architect, a slender, respectable young man named Lorcan Reed, had been highly recommended, having been involved in the restoration of many such period houses. But after hearing him expound at length on the need to ensure that all renovations and improvements remained absolutely in keeping with the various periods of the building, Cashel had decided that Lorcan Reed was an almighty bore. The architect was also intent on getting his own way, which immediately put Cashel’s back up as he was accustomed to people deferring to his preferences, especially when it was his money they were spending.

  Whether it was a question of choosing a particular flooring, a certain type of wood or stone, Cashel’s choice would invariably be rubbished by Lorcan as historically inaccurate:

  “With all due respect, in this part of the house it simply has to be parquet flooring,” he would splutter, becoming even more earnest when he was trying to make a point. “I mean, there can be no other choice.”

  Mara looked at Cashel, one eyebrow raised and the slightest hint of a smile playing around her lips, which were some wild, red color today. He wondered where she got those mad lipsticks. They never seemed to fade. It was as if Mara decided Today I shall be wearing bright red and it shall be bright red from morning till night.”

  “Will you bail me out when I kill that bloody Lorcan?” Cashel asked her when the architect was gone. “He is so determined to have his own way.”

  “I know somebody else like that, but I can’t think who . . .” said Mara.

  Cashel swatted at her with his giant pile of papers “Make me a coffee, madam, and stop teasing. After a couple of hours listening to him drone, I think I need a kickboxing session.”

  “Kickboxing?” she’d asked. “I’d no idea you were interested in that. I saw you as more of a weights man. Or a marathon man. Yes, I can see you doing marathons, never giving up. Oooh, the iron man—have you ever done one of those?”

  He grinned at her properly this time. “You really are a minx,” he said.

  “Have I overstepped the mark?” Mara inquired. She did sometimes wonder whether she overstepped professional boundaries in her dealings with Cashel, but they got on so well that this wasn’t an issue. Leaving Kearney Property Partners after what had happened with Jack had changed her. The part of Mara that was always irreverent and determined to be her own person had come fully to the surface. No matter what job she was in, she was going to be herself, her ordinary self. She was not going to reinvent herself in order to conform to other people’s notions of what she should be, what she should wear, how she should behave, not worry over whether her boyfriend approved of her mad clothes, for example. She shook her head as if to dislodge the thoughts. No, let’s not go there.

  “Are you going to join the land of the living any time soon?” Cashel inquired. “My espresso is ready.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “My mind was elsewhere. I was picturing you doing the marathon after a very long bike ride.” Her eyes twinkled at him. “Worn out, begging for mercy.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I really believe that.”

  Restored after his espresso, Cashel set off to find Freddie, the master builder.

  Striding around the house in his Wellies and hard hat, eyeing things up and pulling a pencil from behind his ear to adjust his calculations on a scrap of paper, Freddie was a delight to deal with. He had lived in Avalon his entire life. Though younger than Cashel, he knew Riach and pronounced him “sound,” which appeared to be the highest praise there was in Freddie’s estimation.

  He was less enthusiastic when it came to Lorcan.

  “He’d drive a sober man to drink,” Freddie had been heard to say on a few occasions, according to Mara. He never said it in Cashel’s hearing though. No, Freddie wasn’t that stupid. It would be an awful mistake to insult the client by letting on you thought the architect should be locked up somewhere. Preferably with padded walls and something to draw on.

  “It’s a fine house,” Freddie would say wistfully when they were standing outside looking at the sweep of Avalon House in front of them. Then they’d turn and look at the avenue of trees, where the tree surgeons were busy at work, and over to the gleaming sweep of Avalon Bay. Because it was winter, the hard landscaping Judy was overseeing had to end early, but Cashel and Freddie would often linger after the workforce had gone home just to appreciate a spectacular sunset or the beauty of the view from Avalon House.

  For all that Cashel was a very wealthy man and the new owner of Avalon House, because he was Avalon born and bred, Freddie looked upon him as an equal.

  “Sure they were different times then,” Freddie might say, “times when the landed gentry had land and money and the rest of us, ah sure, we had nothing. My father used to get fierce angry over the injustice of it all,” Freddie went on, “the haves and the have-nots made him a bitter man. A bitter man,” he repeated. “He was always thinking of what we down there in the town had and what the rich people up on the hill had. And sure, for all I hear, near the end, they didn’t have two pennies to rub together.”

  “True,” said Cashel, “true.”

  “And it doesn’t matter whether you live in a castle or a hovel. What matters is that you have a bite to eat, a fire to warm yourself at and a bit of love. What was that old saying from the Bible . . . ?” Freddie could talk for hours in this manner, and Cashel found he liked to listen to him. “ ‘Better a dinner of herbs and love than a stalled ox and hatred within.’ I think that was it, anyway,” said Freddie. “For all the teachers who tried to get it into my thick skull, I can’t remember much of the aul catechism, but it was something like that.”

  Cashel grinned. “I know what you’re saying,” he said. “My own family didn’t have much, either.”

  He was waiting to see what Freddie knew about his humble upbringing—but then, Freddie must have known, given that he knew Riach. Whatever he knew, however, Freddie was too wise to mention it.

  “Ah, we were all the same back then,” was all Freddie said. “No arse in our trousers.” He laughed. “Look at us now, two fine men with jobs—aren’t we doing great?”

  Yes, we are, thought Cashel to himself. And on the surface, it all looked great. So why didn’t he feel great?

  16

  Her addiction to hot chocolate with Danish pastries for elevenses would have to go, Mara decided as she drove down Willow Street in the direction of Lorena’s, the best café in Avalon. She could feel her waistband getting tight and, now that Christmas was coming, she didn’t want to have to watch what she ate. Mara loved Christmas. The only problem was working out where she’d be for it.

  Danae was clearly much more comfortable with her around and Mara had begun to wonder if she’d stay in Avalon for Christmas Day itself and then drive to Dublin the next day.

  At the back of her mind was Danae’s secret: Mara was consumed with a desire to know about her aunt’s past. Would Danae ever tell her?

  All these thoughts flooded Mara’s mind as she wound her way down the town to look for a parking place in the central square, which was already full of vehicles double-parked in the rush up to Christmas. Only two more shopping weeks to go! said signs stuck outside the butcher’s shop, where tinsel and illustrations of happy turkeys on platters were painted in primary colors above real slabs of meat.

  “I miss you,” Cici had said mournfully on the phone the night before. “We had such good times together.”

  “I miss you too,” Mara said. “But I couldn’t stay. It was all too painful, everything reminded me of Jack. Anyway,” she added, determined to haul the conversation away from dangerous territory, “bet you’re having great fun with all the Christmas parties in full swing.”

  “It isn’t the same without you,” Cici said gloomily. “Everyone says so.”

  Mara was briefly gratif
ied by this information. At least the friends she and Cici hung around with missed her.

  “Nobody wants to go dancing because they say going out’s too expensive. Despite that, they all go around to each other’s flats and drink cheap beer or the latest Lidl wine offer by the crate. Next day, it’s alcohol-induced depression and even less money all around. At least dancing doesn’t give you a hangover.”

  “That’s because we danced without having to have six cocktails each,” Mara said virtuously. She hadn’t had so much as a drop of wine since she’d been staying with Danae, who never drank anything but water and green tea.

  “I saw Jack and Her last week in Eyre Square: Tawhnee,” Cici said the name in a rush, as if she had to say it fast or she wouldn’t be able to say it at all. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but they were arguing. I thought you’d like that.”

  “Arguing?” Mara said faintly. Unless there was a gun, blood and a body lying in the gutter, it would take more than “arguing” to make her happy. In fact, the only way she’d be happy was if Jack had been seen dragging himself to the train station, bleating “Mara, I must see her, she’s the love of my life, I made a huge mistake, if only she’ll forgive me and have me back . . . ” while Tawhnee screeched “No!” while clinging on to him and somehow looking much less beautiful in the process. In fact, Mara decided, Tawhnee had become Scrawnee. Her boob job had flopped and she was no longer skinny with a huge bust but skinny with a droopy bust . . .

  “Yeah, he was smoking and she was shouting at him, saying he was supposed to have stopped.”

  “And you could hear all this?” For a moment, Mara wondered if Cici had gone insane with a type of single-white-female stalker thing.

  “They were shouting.”

  Mara was surprised. She and Jack had never shouted at each other, he wasn’t that sort of man. Raised voices weren’t in Jack’s repertoire. When he wanted his own way, he played the trump card of flashing his charming smile and Mara fell in with what he wanted. His other trick was to shrug and go missing for a day, which sent Mara into spirals of despair, thinking he’d left her because of her demands—not that she’d ever demanded much. When he’d eventually saunter back in, she’d apologize for anything—the sinking of the Titanic, the Icelandic volcanic eruption, anything—because she was so relieved to have him back.

  “It looked to me as though not everything’s rosy in Jack’s world,” Cici said smugly.

  “Oh, it doesn’t mean anything, Cici. I’m not surprised he’s back on the fags. She’ll get used to it. Women will get used to anything for Jack.”

  She had.

  “But, you know, it proves they’re not happy . . .” began Cici.

  “It proves they argue,” Mara said quietly. “Couples do.”

  “You should come back,” Cici said. “The city’s boring without you and I miss you.”

  “Miss you too, but I need some time away,” Mara said.

  She couldn’t tell Cici that she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to live in Galway again, to revel in an atmosphere that was at once both medieval and very, very modern. Galway was where she’d finally found love, only to discover that it hadn’t been love after all, not for him at least.

  It wasn’t exactly female warrior behavior, to run away from the scene of the pain, but she felt a peace living in Avalon that she knew she wouldn’t feel in Galway.

  And she was healing in Avalon. Healing took time. So did her job, which she loved.

  A delivery truck began to back out of a parking space ahead of her and Mara grinned. It was a sign. Parking spaces that became vacant as you drove by were always a sign.

  She hopped out of the car, paid the meter fee and marched off to Lorena’s with a spring in her step.

  Avalon had embraced the festive season with what Danae described as its usual exuberance. There wasn’t an eave that hadn’t been adorned with Austrian-ski-village-style fairy lights, and a Hollywood producer doing a remake of A Christmas Carol would not have been let down by the amount of red and white adorning every shopfront.

  Mara smiled as she passed Reagan’s bar, which stuck out like a sore thumb with its single limp gold star stuck to the door, looking as if it needed a dose of decorative Viagra to perk it up.

  “Dessie hates Christmas,” Danae had explained to Mara. “Christmas Day is one of two days in the year when he has to shut. If he could get a couple of beds into the back snug and pretend the place was a hotel, so he could have a hotel license and serve drink, he’d be in heaven. The only reason he’s hung that gold star is as a concession to Belle—our lady mayoress sent all the local businesses a memo on the importance of Christmas decorations.”

  There was no queue at Lorena’s this morning, but the café was jammed and Mara pulled off her ugly but warm frontier-style hat with the two floppy earflaps. A girl could only take being a slave to fashion so far when it was a degree above freezing. Shaking her mane of flaming hair, she looked around for a seat. There was one left at a table for four, where two women sat opposite each other and chatted, while on the third chair sat a man, head bent, engrossed in his magazine. Perfect.

  Brian behind the counter mumbled “hello,” which was the equivalent of an effusive greeting from him. He was so painfully shy that Mara felt sorry for him, therefore she always did all the talking for the two of them.

  “Morning, Brian. Isn’t it a lovely day? I love the low December sun when it comes. Lifts your spirits, doesn’t it?”

  Brian mumbled something in reply and Mara’s eyes spotted the Swedish cinnamon buns that Lorena, Brian’s mother, had recently begun selling. Giving up Danish pastries didn’t mean she couldn’t try Swedish buns, did it?

  “I think I’d like one of those buns, too, Brian,” Mara went on. “Very bad for me, I’m sure. Or is that the low-calorie version?”

  Mara’s eyes twinkled as she looked up at Brian, and he smiled nervously back, then hurriedly turned away to busy himself with the coffee machine.

  “I’ll grab that empty seat before anyone else gets it,” Mara added, and wriggled through the crowded café to the single vacant spot.

  “Is there anybody sitting here?” she asked.

  “No—sit away,” said one of the two women, before turning back to her friend to resume their conversation.

  The person opposite lowered the motorbike magazine he was reading as Mara plonked her bag on the seat and began removing her winter parka, a giant duvet-like garment that looked ugly but felt snug. From out of nowhere, a big masculine hand reached across to help her wriggle out of the coat.

  She blinked as she saw who it was. The flirtatious Kiwi cowboy. He wasn’t wearing his ridiculous hat today, which was why she hadn’t spotted him first.

  The idea of having her elevenses snack as a takeaway suddenly appealed, but Mara decided she wouldn’t be run out of the café on account of a man. She’d had enough of fleeing because of the vagaries of men, thank you very much.

  “I can manage to get my coat off,” she snapped, and did some more struggling with the parka.

  The café was so full with tables jammed next to each other that the long duvet coat thwacked at least three people at nearby tables before Mara had it under control.

  Crossly, she stuffed it onto the seat and marched off to get her coffee, looking all the while for another place to free up.

  At the counter, she paid Brian, smiled thanks and took her small tray grudgingly back to the table.

  She sorted herself out and was about to take a bite of cinnamon bun, when the two women decided they were leaving. Mara and the Kiwi cowboy were alone at the table.

  He put his magazine down and smiled at her.

  “Hi, Red,” he said, in that velvety Southern hemisphere accent.

  Honestly, she thought, was he ever going to take the hint? She was Off Men.

  “Don’t bother,” she snapped.

  “Do you hate all men or is it just me?” he asked engagingly.

  Mara was about to snap, It’s just
you, but held her tongue. Ignoring him, she concentrated instead on checking the sugariness of her chocolate.

  Cici would definitely like him, Mara decided. He was much more her style. Mara liked the lean, elegant types like Jack, men who wore nice suits and had an aura of elegance about them even when they wore casual clothes. Cici had always gone for the macho guys with big muscles; the type of men who exuded animal magnetism and probably played sports morning, noon and night. That was this guy to a T.

  He had that sort of face, marked by smile lines and fresh air. He’d probably never used moisturiser in his life.

  “I’m only making polite conversation,” he remarked.

  “Well, don’t,” she snapped, inwardly shocked at herself. That had been harsh. Okay, Jack was a bastard; that didn’t mean all other men were. She had now veered from mildly brusque to downright rude. “Sorry,” she said. “That came out all wrong.”

  Mr. Cowboy said nothing, but he continued to smile at her. She struggled to think of something to say—a rare phenomenon where Mara was concerned.

  “You’re clearly not local,” she decided upon. “Do you live here or are you passing through?”

  “I live here,” he said.

  “What do you do?” Mara asked.

  “I run a business with my brother—custom-made motorcycles,” Rafe explained.

  “Oh,” said Mara. She knew precisely nothing about custom-made motorcycles. She had a vague recollection of Jack watching some American TV program about it once. But he wasn’t a bike sort of man. No, Jack was a Porsche sort of man. That’s what he really wanted: a Porsche. He was determined to own a 911. A red one, with a black leather interior.

  Mara wasn’t sure about red for a car, particularly a sports car. It seemed a bit flashy. Loud. But then, who was she to comment on vehicle colors when she was the proud possessor of a bright green Fiat Uno? Bright green was more of a happy statement than a shiny, red sports car. That was a bit of a macho cliché, surely.