The Hat Shop on the Corner Read online

  ‘I like them,’ he teased, pulling her into his arms. ‘I really do.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  The sturdy figure of Dublin’s Lady Mayor walked up and down South Anne Street, noting the construction site on one side and the shops, some of which were boarded up, on the other. She could see why so many of the street’s traders were tempted to sell, fearing their shops would go bankrupt once the large-scale development opened.

  The empty fruit and vegetable shop brought back memories of her father’s greengrocer’s store in Phibsboro with its trays of polished Granny Smiths and fresh oranges from Israel. Her father had been forced to close down when a huge supermarket opened only five hundred yards away. They’d moved to Crumlin, to a new estate filled with young families. Danny Sullivan had never said much, but in hindsight Mo supposed that losing the shop must have broken his heart.

  For the rest of his working life he had been an employee, a wages clerk, and at fifty-eight he had found himself at home, no longer the wage earner but dependent on social welfare. His pride and hope had dwindled away. Mo could still remember his fierce loyalty to the ordinary working man and his lack of resentment about all that had happened to him. A wonderful father, he’d encouraged all of them to go out and embrace the world. In his own gentle way he had given each of them more than any millionaire could have given his children.

  Mo took a breath. There was a big sale in the expensive boutique with its knitted twinsets and tweed skirts. Were they closing down too? She would go and talk to them.

  ‘I’ve a huge rent review, costs are soaring and God knows what will happen when those big shops open,’ Ria Roberts said angrily, shaking her immaculately coiffed grey hair.

  Looking around at the shelves of expensive cashmere and lambswool and the rails of exquisite skirts and jackets, Mo disagreed.

  ‘But you have such an elegant shop here,’ she remonstrated, ‘with a loyal clientele, I’m sure. Don’t give up your hard-earned custom so easy.’

  It was the same story everywhere – the jeweller’s, the small Italian restaurant, the print and art shop. Every single small trader was worried about their livelihood and their ability to withstand the tidal wave of the forthcoming galleria, with its massive retail outlets, restaurants and hotel.

  Mo stood outside the windows of the toy shop. Its freshly painted red and yellow shopfront was attractive and welcoming, as was the display of wooden toys and kites in the window.

  ‘I was about to throw in the towel and give up,’ Scottie O’Loughlin admitted, ‘but young Ellie down the street told me kids still want proper toys, not just cheap plastic rubbish but good stuff. No matter how many videos and computer games they have, kids still want to play.’

  ‘I reckon she was right,’ laughed Mo.

  ‘She did a great job on her own shop so I suppose that gave me a bit of encouragement to get rid of all the junk and old stock and smarten my place up. Make it nicer for the kids.’

  ‘It’s just what a toy shop should be,’ said Mo admiringly, looking up at the hand-painted mobiles over her head and the wooden aeroplanes that bobbed from the ceiling.

  ‘The property company weren’t too happy about me not going ahead with the sale but I told them I wanted to stay put and I wasn’t budging for anything. Kids and toys are my life!’

  Mo looked around the shop with its well-displayed toys on low shelves and found herself buying a wooden kite with a jaunty red and blue tail for Lisa and a big green crocodile to put on her desk.

  Shops like this certainly mustn’t be allowed to disappear. Surely the city manager could see the sense in providing all kinds of shops for customers to enjoy?

  The small black cat greeted Mo as she opened the door of the hat shop and rubbed itself against her legs. The young milliner had done a marvellous job in making her shop such an enticing treat for customers and passers-by.

  Ellie Matthews put aside the feathered trim she was working on.

  ‘Lovely hat!’

  ‘It’s for a christening,’ confided Ellie. ‘It makes me feel good, making a hat for a mother with a new baby.’

  ‘Your hats make everyone feel good,’ laughed Mo. ‘I love mine.’

  ‘That’s such a kind thing to say, Mo, thank you. And your hat was a great success.’

  ‘The media aren’t used to seeing me dressed up and looking smart!’

  Mo was tempted to try on the fuchsia-pink hat on the stand but steeled herself to resist. She couldn’t have all her mayoral salary going on clothes and style.

  ‘The reason I’m here today is to talk to you about the shop and the street.’

  ‘My shop!’

  ‘Yes, you have done a remarkable job – but it would be such a shame to see any more of the other shops and businesses round here closing down.’

  ‘They’re scared,’ confided Ellie. ‘Frightened they’ll lose their trade. Some of them reckon it’s better to get out now while the going is good and there is an offer on the table.’

  ‘You didn’t think that!’

  ‘Oh, I most certainly did, but when it came to it I couldn’t bear the thought of closing up my mother’s business. She had worked too hard all her life running it, and it wasn’t up to me to just go and sell it off to the highest bidder. I have to see if I can make a success of it myself.’

  ‘But you have already turned it round, it’s such a lovely shop.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ellie said, accepting the compliment.

  ‘Mr O’Loughlin told me you encouraged him to continue trading.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that. But I have loved that shop ever since I was a little girl and I’d hate to see it close. Scottie thought he couldn’t compete with all the latest toys. He didn’t realize there is a big market for classic old-style things that kids love, boats and trains and arks and doll’s houses. They never go out of fashion.’

  ‘And kites,’ joked Mo, lifting up the one she had bought.

  ‘Yeah, see what I mean? Good toys are irresistible.’

  ‘What about the other traders?’ urged Mo. ‘What do they want?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Lady Mayor, but I suppose we all just want to save our street.’

  ‘Save our street, SOS. That’s a thought!’ grinned Mo. ‘Perhaps if you all got together . . .’

  ‘We have talked,’ admitted Ellie. ‘We are not opposed to this new galleria, it’s just we want to stay and trade here too.’

  ‘Then set up a proper meeting,’ she advised. ‘And I’ll try and get as many councillors along to support you as possible. No one can stop the development, but we can ensure that it doesn’t get any bigger and that the street manages to retain a sense of identity and individuality.’

  Walking back to the Mansion House, Mo smiled to herself. She was certainly doing her best to look after all the citizens of this great city.

  Mo sucked in her tummy and pulled on her new linen skirt. Perfect. She’d had her hair blow-dried and her nails done. Funny, she was more nervous about tonight than about any other function she’d attended.

  ‘You look a million dollars,’ assured Jessie, ‘and don’t worry, the party’s going to be great!’

  Her daughter looked beautiful in a figure-hugging denim skirt and pink string top, her long dark hair hanging straight round her shoulders. Mo blinked, wondering when had her little girl grown up.

  ‘And you look amazing, Jessie. I’m so proud of you.’

  Joe was whistling as he fixed his tie, a sign he was happy. Wearing the new grey suit he’d bought and with the touch of silver in his hair, he looked very distinguished, Mo thought, as he went downstairs to the hall.

  The party in the Mansion House on Dawson Street was a great night! Lisa and Jessie gave everyone tours of the house, the Blue Room and the Oak Room while Joe stood at the front door to welcome each new arrival.

  ‘It’s only gorgeous,’ said Mary Clarke enviously. ‘Must be wonderful living in a palace like this.’

  ‘You lucky woman, and you don�
��t even have to clean it yourself,’ joked her friend Lorraine Ryan.

  ‘I’m only here because you lot got me elected,’ she admitted, looking round at their faces, seeing years of hard work and struggle reflected in their eyes. ‘I’ll never forget it for all of you.’

  ‘Well, we elected the best woman for the job,’ responded Paddy Hayes, ‘and gave Dublin one of its finest mayors.’

  There was wine and beer and Guinness and the barman kept the drink flowing all night. Carmel and Seamus, the two cooks, had done her proud with tasty chicken and beef dishes and a huge range of desserts. Afterwards they sat around talking and chatting till all hours, Paul and the rest of the kids disappearing upstairs. Spotting the piano, Paddy Hayes rolled up his sleeves and began to play, like he always did. It was almost two o’clock when Joe and herself finally said goodbye to the last of the partygoers and made their way to bed.

  As she watched her husband undress, carefully putting his clothes away, Mo knew that without his support and belief she would never have got to where she was. Fortune had smiled on her the day she had met him at Byrne’s Cash and Carry when he’d offered to help take the groceries out to the family car. She’d loved him ever since.

  ‘Thanks, Joe.’

  ‘Thanks?’

  ‘Thanks for making tonight such a good night.’

  ‘Wasn’t it grand, having all the old crowd here to our place,’ he joked, sitting on the edge of their bed as he took his socks off.

  ‘I couldn’t do it without you,’ she said, serious, reaching for him. ‘Tonight and all the nights, and all the dinners, the whole bloody lot.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t do it, any of it, without you,’ responded Joe Brady, taking the Lady Mayor in his strong arms.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Claire Connolly stood at the lower end of Andrews Street and waited for her cash to appear. There must be something wrong with this ATM, she thought as she waited, ignoring the irate-looking businessman behind her who was standing much too close for comfort. She peered at the yellow message on the screen. Insufficient Funds.

  She blushed, then grabbed the stupid card and rammed it back into her purse. She tried to look nonchalant and pretend she had simply been checking the balance on her account as the man pushed in front of her. From yards away she could see the wads of notes he extracted from the machine. She stood for a second considering what to do. She had planned to while away the lunch hour in Zara and Marks and Spencer’s and treat herself to a lovely O’Brien’s Cajun chicken and salad wrap and a bottle of fresh orange juice, but now a small cheese roll and a bottle of water seemed a more likely option. How had she spent so much money in a month? She stood in the centre of the busy street feeling totally dejected. She’d grab her roll and head back to the office; there was no point moping around looking at things she couldn’t afford. Besides, she could make herself a cup of tea in the kitchenette and skip the Ballygowan.

  Back at her desk she worked out that she had a grand total of eighty-two euros to do her for the next week. Pay her bus fare, lunches and going out. Well, obviously that was out of the question. She grabbed a calculator off Derek McCoy’s desk so that she could tot up outstanding debts and forthcoming bills, trying not to give in to the growing sense of panic now churning in her stomach as she realized that she was stony broke. She had no savings, no little stack of money squirrelled away anywhere for a rainy day. The money sitting forlornly in her purse was all she had. She felt like throwing herself across the mock-beech desktop and bawling her eyes out but she was aware of the trickle of other staff back to the office after the lunchbreak.

  Working in Murphy and Byrne’s, the insurance brokers, was meant to have been a stopgap job until she got her modelling career started.

  ‘I’m just filling in,’ she had cheerfully told the middle-aged women and serious-looking men she worked with. She had absolutely no intention of ending up like Sheila Sweeney or Derek McCoy or any of the other staff in the busy claims department.

  Things were serious on the financial front, but at least she was in great shape after nearly six weeks on the Atkins diet. Her hair was glossy and trimmed, the colour perfect, her skin flawless from drinking gallons of water, and six months ago she had managed to get herself on the books of Elaine’s, one of the best model agencies in Dublin. She had got work on an advertisement for one of the big supermarkets, playing a girl about town flirting with the young cashier, and she had modelled at a big charity fashion show in the Four Seasons Hotel – but otherwise the phone had stayed quiet.

  She’d phone the office discreetly to enquire about something else, for she didn’t want them to forget about her. Taking out a yellow Post-it, she made herself a list of things to do. Money was needed urgently for her next payday was miles away.

  ‘Nice lunch?’ asked Sheila, returning to the adjoining desk.

  ‘Mmm,’ Claire lied.

  ‘Anything big to look forward to this weekend?’

  Sheila was married with two kids, teenage tearaways by all accounts, and had worked in Murphy and Byrne’s since she was sixteen. She’d moved up the ranks from lowly filing assistant to the lofty heights of Serious Claims Assessor. She had a soft spot for toffees and caramels and kept a packet in the top drawer of her desk, chewing them as she crunched numbers and scribbled in pencil on the big files on her desk.

  ‘No plans yet!’ shrugged Claire, unable to mask her disappointment at the thought of being confined to the airless dump that had described itself as a three-bedroomed modern apartment along the canal. ‘Bit of a walk, see a friend or two, maybe go out for a bite.’

  ‘Oh, how I envy you young ones,’ smiled Sheila. ‘Kevin and I have to take ten youngsters bowling and for a pizza afterwards. It’s Tara’s birthday. Then we promised we’d have a try at fixing up this decking Kevin bought for the back garden. It’ll take us hours, and you know we’ll end up sitting on the patio with it half done having a beer.’

  Claire looked at the round, relaxed face and for once envied her.

  Cop on to yourself, she warned as she went to the bathroom later, you’ll be getting jealous of Derek McCoy next.

  The next night she sat on the couch watching her flatmates getting ready to go out.

  ‘Come on, Claire! We’re going to Q Bar!’

  Claire admitted she was tempted but considering the very slim bulge in her purse she decided she had better stay home.

  ‘No, thanks! I was on to the agency yesterday and I’m up for a commercial next week so got to stay clear of pubs and bars.’

  ‘Oh, that’s great, Claire.’ Her best friend, Fiona, who always encouraged her in her modelling career, gave her a big hug.

  Claire felt momentarily guilty about the lie as she listened to her friends clunk down the hall and stairs in their high heels and laugh and giggle as they went out on the usual Saturday-night razzle.

  Claire curled up on the couch and ate two bowls of cornflakes and made a honey sandwich, flicking on the remote control and skipping over Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and the usual weekend game shows. Everyone was trying to win something, she thought grimly as she watched two families fight it out in full view of the nation. They all needed money. She sighed. She hadn’t lied to Fiona about phoning Elaine’s. She’d phoned the office on Baggot Street, only to be told that Lainey and four of her girls were off in Barbados on a shoot, the agency owner acting as a chaperone for two schoolgirl models. Claire, at twenty-two, suddenly felt she was ancient. The secretary ran through the listings, telling her there might have been a possibility of a commercial but unfortunately the advertising director was set on girls who had massive mouths and teeth and piercings. Claire thought of her soft, full lips and perfectly formed post-braces teeth and piercing-free face and body as Angie put the phone down on her.

  She had to consider her options. She could take on another job in the hope that it would pay more. Or double jobbing. Maybe she could do restaurant or bar work after office hours or at the weekends, but then when woul
d she have the chance to go out? It was a right conundrum. This was just a temporary hitch – OK, so it had been building for a while – but she knew there must be some way round it. She was young and fit and bright and ready to work. The other options were she could take her money and go out and buy a load of Lotto tickets and get down on her knees and pray, or she could phone her uncle Mick, the gambler of the family, for a tip on the horses and put the whole lot on it. She licked the honey from her fingertips. There must be some other way, she thought, there’s got to be. Then she saw it. The paper flung on the couch, near her slippers, with the advertisement for the Dublin Horse Show.

  She’d visited the show once or twice when she was a kid, sick with excitement driving up from Kilkenny. There was the showjumping, the Aga Khan Trophy, the horses, the ponies, the stalls, the fashion, the crowds of visitors cramming into the Royal Dublin Society’s Annual Horse Show in Ballsbridge. But it was Ladies’ Day, with a huge prize for the winner of the Best-Dressed Lady competition, that caught her attention. She fell on the page, devoured it. They were looking for style, finesse, looks, class. She could do it. For heaven’s sake, she was a model! The first prize was a ten-thousand-euro diamond, with vouchers for the runners-up. She couldn’t believe it, imagine getting your hands on that much money! Claire grinned from ear to ear. This was something she could do – even on a budget. She was going to go to the Horse Show and try to win the Ladies’ Day competition!

  Chapter Twenty

  Putting on her dark glasses and a haughty demeanour, Claire sashayed through the designer department of Brown Thomas. She passed through the busy make-up stands, spraying herself with a little Chanel before she took the elevator upstairs. Designer after designer and their season’s style imprinted themselves on her memory as she made a mental note of what looked right and what did not. The prices were exorbitant but she was determined to do it in her own fashion. Making squiggly marks in the small shopping jotter, she noted details on the styles that looked best, tiny features, trims, etc. The right dress or suit, shoes, bag, hosiery, make-up were all essential for the winner of the Ladies’ Day Prize at the RDS, she decided as she researched back issues of the newspapers in the National Library in Kildare Street. A hat was definitely needed if she wanted to make a favourable impression with the judges. It looked hopeless given that her credit limit was totally maxed out, but Claire was not about to give up on what she now considered a good bet.