The Hat Shop on the Corner Read online

  ‘Claire, you looked amazing and coming second is brilliant!’

  ‘Let’s face it, no one stood a chance against cutesy mother and daughter,’ argued Fiona.

  ‘They shouldn’t have been allowed in the competition!’ insisted Bridget loyally.

  ‘And think of all that champagne you’ve won! Maybe you could trade some of it in or sell it. And then you’ve got those lovely Brown Thomas vouchers to spend and a gold bracelet and the weekend away in Killarney.’

  Claire took another sip of her wine. The girls were right: when she heard them list off all she’d won it sounded fabulous. She began to recount her day again, blow by blow, including meeting the dishy Andrew Ryan and how charming he’d been. Perhaps it had been a bit of a triumph after all.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Ellie had raced home from work on Saturday to tidy the apartment, organize dinner and have a shower and wash her hair before Rory arrived. She felt all domesticated and romantic. As she tossed the marinated chicken and set the candles on the table the phone rang. She grabbed her mobile. It was Rory.

  ‘Ellie. Sorry but I’m not going to be able to make dinner at your place.’

  ‘Where are you?’ she blurted out, all concerned.

  ‘I’m in Manchester,’ he said apologetically.

  ‘Manchester!’

  ‘Well, Manchester airport, actually. I’ve just arrived. The guys have been asked to play in a big open-air gig, Rock in the Park, next Thursday. One of the other bands dropped out so they’re standing in for them. I said I’d come over and suss out the scene.’

  She could hear laughing and joking already in the background.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier? You could have let me know,’ she argued, annoyed with him.

  ‘It just happened so fast and I . . .’

  She knew what he was going to say. He hadn’t thought about her. He’d forgotten! She swallowed hard. There was no point losing her cool with him. He wasn’t even in the country.

  ‘No problem,’ she lied. ‘It was only supper and a DVD.’

  ‘No harm done then,’ he joked. ‘Listen, I’ll see you when I get back, OK?’

  ‘When are you back?’ It had slipped out before she knew it and she inwardly cursed herself for sounding so needy.

  ‘A few days. Maybe a week. Hey, Ellie, have a good weekend.’

  She stared at the phone for fifteen minutes, not moving, waiting to see if he would call her back.

  The table was set, candles, white linen, flowers, the lot. What a waste, and she had gone to so much trouble with the food. She was wearing the Deborah Veale dress she’d recently bought and had already opened a bottle of wine. What a crap Saturday night. Maybe she should just eat and go to bed, curl up under her duvet and never come back out. She was tempted – and then she thought about who might share her feast, her fingers already calling up Fergus’s number.

  It took her only a few moments to discern that he had not eaten yet and his dinner intentions involved a microwaveable ready meal of lamb hotpot, which had been sitting in his fridge for far too long.

  ‘I’ve got free food,’ she bribed, ‘and wine.’

  It took all of fifteen minutes for Fergus to arrive and sit with linen napkin on his lap as she served him prawns tossed in Pernod, a spicy chicken and rice pilaf, and a white chocolate tiramisu.

  ‘That Rory guy must be gone mad,’ he declared stoutly as he complimented every element of the meal. ‘Missing this on a Saturday night.’

  Ellie flung the cushion at him.

  ‘I mean missing being with you.’

  Ellie pulled her feet up under her on the couch near Fergus and sipped the red wine.

  ‘It’s just he’s away so much and I’m never sure when I’ll get to see him . . .’ She began to talk about the pros and cons of her relationship with Rory.

  ‘Are we going to sit here all night and mope about this guy?’ asked Fergus.

  Ellie could have strangled him. ‘No! You go out and enjoy yourself,’ she shouted. ‘There’s no one stopping you. I’m sorry I spoiled your plans.’

  ‘Ellie,’ he remonstrated, catching hold of her, ‘you’re crazy. I had no big plans for tonight, though there’s late night opera on in the square. I was going to wander down later to see it. Why don’t you come too?’

  Ellie had intended wallowing in self-pity but now the thought of sitting alone in the apartment didn’t seem so appealing.

  ‘Come on,’ he coaxed her. ‘If we hurry we can get there before the fat lady sings!’

  She grabbed her turquoise wrap and, after making sure every last candle was out, the two of them ran for the bus to get them downtown.

  Temple Bar was busy and they managed to chase up to Meeting House Square just as the huge stage lights went on in the open-air concert arena. The place was absolutely packed and they squeezed into two seats near the back. Ellie held her breath as the soprano in her bejewelled figure-hugging dress stepped forward on to the stage, her voice filling the night air with the opening aria from La Bohème. The rapt audience followed her every nuance as she sang. Fergus, a huge opera fan, sat forward in his seat, his red hair standing on end as he concentrated.

  ‘Thanks,’ whispered Ellie, squeezing his fingers as she let the music and the voice carry her.

  It was an exquisite performance, emotional and soaring, the audience bursting into huge applause as Paola O’Reilly bowed. Then came Richard Patterson. The Irish tenor’s massive stage presence and voice filled the square, broken only by the sound of an overhead plane, as he sang of love and loss and the madness that ensued. They later duetted, and Paola finished by singing from the last act of Carmen. The crowd rose to their feet in appreciation as the performance ended. Ellie pulled her wrap around her. The night was slightly chilly and she snuggled up to Fergus as they left their seats and joined the throng of people leaving the square.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Matthews,’ said Neil Harrington as he moved past them. He was with a tall, striking dark-haired girl, his arm round her shoulders.

  ‘Wasn’t it magnificent!’ enthused the girl. ‘We could have been in Verona or Milan.’

  ‘Yes,’ laughed Ellie, glad to be out in the open air under a starry sky with people who had shared the same experience and had been touched by the performance.

  Fergus, in a post-opera daze and his tie-dyed T-shirt and tatty jeans, nodded in agreement as she introduced him.

  ‘Come on, Rachel,’ urged Neil, ‘we don’t want to be late meeting the others.’

  The girl seemed nice and it was clear Neil was mad about her, for Ellie couldn’t help but notice the protective way he looked at her.

  ‘I hope that you and your boyfriend enjoyed the night,’ he said politely, head bent whispering to the girl as they moved away.

  Ellie smiled. She didn’t bother enlightening him. Anyway Fergus was better than a hundred boyfriends to her mind.

  ‘You OK?’ she asked, grabbing his hand.

  ‘Yeah.’ He grinned. Opera always overwhelmed him. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Not a bother,’ she lied. ‘What about a glass of wine and the rest of that tiramisu back at my place?’ she offered, as they walked towards Dame Street.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Claire settled back into Murphy and Byrne’s, presenting a delighted Sheila with a bottle of champagne from the crate in her living room.

  ‘You and Kevin enjoy it.’

  Sheila Sweeney thought what a nice girl that young one really was, even if she didn’t eat a pick and needed serious feeding up to put a bit of weight on her.

  Someone had put her daisy hat photo up on the staff noticeboard, and everyone who passed her desk congratulated her. Even grumpy old Arthur Roberts, one of the senior executives, had stopped to express his good wishes and to mourn the fact that she hadn’t mentioned the company name when she gave them her details. Claire had said nothing. Honestly, as if she was going to tell anyone where she worked!

  ‘Thanks,’ she sa
id, putting her head down to concentrate on the reams of figures she was meant to be inputting into the computer.

  ‘Claire, your modelling agency is on the phone for you,’ Sheila announced about an hour later, so loud that half the office heard and were glued to their desks with curiosity.

  ‘Just phoning to say I loved the photo,’ purred Elaine. ‘Front page of the Irish Times, well done. It couldn’t be better. Fought off a lot of hot competition from the other agencies and a few big names too, so I heard.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Anyway, there’s a chance of a new spring water ad coming up. You’ll have to meet the casting director but he’s keen.’

  ‘That’s great,’ gushed Claire, not believing that all this was happening.

  ‘I’ll be back in touch with the details.’

  She sat at her computer feeling stunned. For the first time the agency had actually phoned her. She still couldn’t believe it. She felt like kissing Derek, who was sitting behind her totting up a list of figures.

  Things only got better when on Wednesday the switch put through a call from a Mr Andrew Ryan.

  Claire was genuinely surprised as she had given up hope of ever seeing him again.

  ‘Andrew!’ she exclaimed, wondering how he’d found her. She had long ago stopped giving guys her phone number unless they really asked for it. She’d heard far too many ‘I’ll phone you’s and then spent days waiting for calls that never came.

  ‘Actually I called every insurance company in Dublin,’ he admitted, ‘trying to find where you worked.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ she said, accidentally deleting a week’s revenue figures from the spreadsheet as she imagined him tracking her down.

  ‘I should have got your number when we met. I went out after you to get it but you’d gone. I couldn’t remember exactly where you lived and thought it best to try work.’

  She loved even the sound of his voice.

  ‘I tried lots of offices – I think the girls on the switch thought I was some kind of lunatic stalker.’

  ‘It’s good to hear from you.’ She tried to sound calm.

  ‘Anyway, one of the reasons I’m phoning is that I’m going down to Carlow on Friday night and I thought I might check and see if you had any plans or if you were going home this weekend,’ he said. ‘Of course you might have plans already, be doing something else . . .’

  ‘No. I’m not,’ she said, smiling, forgetting to play it cool. ‘I’m not doing anything this weekend.’

  She hoped she didn’t sound too eager, too desperate.

  ‘I could collect you at your flat if you like. Also there’s a bit of a do – a barbecue in the local rugby club on Saturday night – and I was wondering if you might be interested in going with me.’

  She didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Claire?’

  A barbecue with Andrew and she hadn’t been home for an age. She could go up to Brown Thomas after work and get one or two things for her parents and brother and sister with her vouchers and surprise them.

  ‘A weekend down home would be wonderful, Andrew.’

  ‘And the club?’

  It had been so long since she had been on a proper date she had almost forgotten.

  ‘That would be wonderful too.’ She smiled, giving him her address and mobile number. ‘What time will you pick me up?’

  Claire stared at the computer screen, hitting letters without thinking.

  ‘Is that him?’ whispered Sheila, her double chin wobbling. ‘The boyfriend?’

  ‘Yes,’ grinned Claire. ‘I rather think it might be.’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The apartment in Hatch Street was spick and span. Fresh white bedlinen, clean towels, and bright summer flowers in vases and jugs in each room, and every piece of glass she possessed handwashed before Yvette’s eagle eye could spot a speck of dust. While Ellie looked forward to the visit of her mother’s sister, she was also a little nervous about her aunt’s reaction to the changes she had made to her home and the shop since her mother’s death.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Kim assured her. ‘She’s coming to see how you are, and how you are doing, not to check on the business.’

  Ellie wanted to believe that, but she knew that a perceptive woman like her aunt would be keen to see the shop and discover how her niece was surviving in the world of millinery.

  Yvette Renchard was pleased to see her young niece, kissing her twice, French fashion, as they greeted each other. Ellie noticed that despite the journey her aunt looked as elegant as ever in an immaculate Chanel suit with a pale blue cotton shirt underneath, her short grey hair accentuating her eyes and bone structure. She helped her aunt to carry her bag and the simple brown leather valise upstairs, Yvette praising the sun-filled apartment with its welcoming display of tall blue delphiniums and baby’s breath on the sideboard.

  ‘How are you, Elise chérie, vraiment?’ she asked, patting the cushions on the couch beside her as she settled down for a cup of coffee. ‘You must miss Madeleine terribly.’

  Ellie realized how good it was to have someone to talk to about her mother, someone who was not afraid to mention Madeleine’s name.

  ‘I do get sad and lonely without her,’ she admitted, holding her aunt’s hand, ‘but I have the shop and my friends and so many people I care about here in Dublin.’

  ‘Then that is a good thing,’ her aunt reassured her. ‘Your maman would not want you to be maudlin or too sad to enjoy your life. You are a beautiful young woman with the world as your lobster.’

  Ellie smiled to herself. Although her aunt spoke almost perfect English, she did tend to get sayings mixed up.

  ‘What would you like to do, Yvette,’ she asked. ‘Would you like to rest after your journey?’

  ‘Rest?’ protested her aunt. ‘I am an old woman. I will have all the time in the world to rest. No! I did not come to Dublin to rest but to spend time with my sweet girl. Perhaps we could go to the church and have a Mass, say prayers for your mother, then take a little stroll around the city.’

  Ellie had forgotten what a devout Catholic her mother’s older sister was, and readily agreed to walk to the nearby church on St Stephen’s Green for Sunday Mass.

  The weather was glorious as they strolled to the church. Afterwards she knew her aunt would suggest they pass by the shop. She had brought her keys along so Yvette could sate her curiosity and see the changes she had implemented.

  ‘C’est très joli!’ her aunt congratulated her, standing enraptured before the brightly painted shopfront, tears filling her eyes when she saw the name change over the door.

  Inside she touched the newly painted shelves and the counter, admiring the colour scheme and the simple layout.

  ‘Ma chère, it is exquisite. I will steal you back to Paris, immédiatement!’

  Ellie was so pleased that she liked the décor and explained what she had tried to do, to maintain her mother’s style but to also put her own imprint on it.

  ‘Well, you have succeeded!’

  Then her aunt turned her attention to her work, studying the hats on display in the window, on the hatstands in the shop and on the blocks in the back.

  ‘You have a lot of work,’ she praised. ‘And I understand why! You have all your mother’s classique training, but you also have the je ne sais quoi. That is the little piece of your soul that goes into every hat you make. Of course you are young and fresh, full of ideas.’

  Ellie laughed despite herself as Yvette, her glasses halfway down her nose, peered closely at every stitch.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s a two-tone sinamay. Simple but with a twist. I’ve run a bit of antique ribbon through the edges, to create this sort of twirl effect between the colours. It’s for a charity event to raise funds for the National Maternity Hospital.’

  ‘A kind heart for a good cause,’ remarked her aunt, patting her hand. ‘And this bonne bouche?’

  The pink and red disc with a feather cut and shaped like a
paintbrush across the centre had been commissioned by an artist with a studio in Baggot Street. Janna Rowan’s summer exhibition was opening in the Hallward Gallery in a few days’ time.

  ‘She wanted something to get her noticed!’

  ‘Well, you tell her she succeeded,’ giggled Yvette. ‘And this?’

  Ellie could see her aunt’s delight as she examined the gold spun-silk topper with its whorls of Irish cream linen.

  ‘It’s to co-ordinate with a beautiful linen dress and jacket that the client got made for her wedding. It’s very intricate but I managed to get some offcuts and shape them, then I sprayed them with a little stiffener.’

  ‘The gold and the cream is delicious and the Celtic influence with the pattern of the Irish linen, merveilleux!’

  ‘Do you really like them?’ Ellie could not believe the reaction of such an accomplished hatmaker to her work.

  ‘Elise, tais-toi! In all my years have I ever lied to you? No, I am always honest, which as you know has caused me problems. These hats of yours are so pretty and stylish and each in its own way contains your joie de vivre, which is as it should be. Madeleine’s business has changed, it is refreshed. You are young with the new ideas and your own designs. A born milliner!’

  Ellie felt an overwhelming sense of pride as her aunt definitely did not give praise lightly.

  ‘Now I have seen the shop I can rest easy,’ Yvette admitted. ‘It is a great success and I am so proud of you, ma petite Elise.’

  Ellie hugged her aunt and was enveloped in a cloud of perfume.

  ‘So let us go for lunch!’ suggested Yvette.

  They got a table in Fitzers café on Dawson Street, her aunt remarking on all the changes in the area as they ate.

  ‘Years ago when we were young, women wore hats, they dressed up, took care of themselves coming into town, going to work, going out, socializing. Good coats to keep them warm and hats to keep their heads warm also and protect their hairstyles and hide those bad hair days. They walked, took the tram, the metro, the bus. Then it all changed. They wore leggings and tracksuits and those awful headbands and jogged or took their cars everywhere. Now it is come full circle again, I think. Style is back. Women want to look good again.’