The Rose Garden Read online

  ‘What is to become of her? I’m retired on a small widow’s pension, so I’m not much help to poor Norah. Who is to look after her? If only she had married or had a family of her own …’

  Gina had absolutely no idea what was going to happen, but as week after week went by it was clear that Norah was showing very little sign of recovery.

  Gina had a few small catering jobs which, even though she was basically running the café single-handed, was something she had no intention of giving up. If the café were to close down and she were made redundant, it might be the only thing that she would have to fall back on.

  She had normally worked only lunchtime on a Wednesday and three full days on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but now she also opened up on a Tuesday and all day Wednesday. Monday was such a quiet day it wasn’t worth opening. If she had had her way she would have opened on a Sunday, to catch people coming from mass, serve a family-friendly lunch, be open for afternoon tea and coffee and cakes when friends were off work and wanted to meet up – but Norah had resolutely refused to open on the Lord’s Day, and it was Norah’s café.

  The staff nurse in the hospital had mentioned to her the last time she visited Norah that there was talk of transferring her to Beech Hill, Kilfinn’s nursing home for the elderly. Gina supplied them with cupcakes, and the few times she had been in the place she had liked it. It was bright and airy and had been purpose-built, and it was all on one level and only a few minutes out of the town.

  Norah had always been independent, but for now it seemed her independence was gone; she would be reliant on nurses and carers for the time being and the hospital’s social worker had tried to explain to her the necessity of moving to a step-down facility. Norah had shaken her head, vehemently protesting about moving to an old people’s home. Norah Cassidy, of Cassidy’s Café, had never once in all her seventy-seven years of life considered herself old or even aging, so why she should be consigned to the place where all the old folks of the locality ended up was beyond her.

  ‘But they’ll take good care of you there. You’ll get the speech and physiotherapy you need,’ Gina assured her. ‘From what I’ve seen when I do my delivery, it’s lovely there. You’ll have your own room and bathroom and television.’

  ‘Just till I get better,’ mumbled Norah loudly.

  Aware that it was unlikely Norah would return to work in the café, Gina wondered how much longer the situation could continue.

  At night she worked on her laptop, planning out various scenarios that involved her either taking over running the café, or otherwise renting it or buying it from Norah and creating a café of her own.

  ‘What are you up to?’ teased Paul as she sat on the couch beside him.

  ‘You watch the news – I’m working out a new menu plan and also I have done a few mood boards of ideas for doing up the café if I took it over.’

  ‘Gina, don’t get ahead of yourself,’ he warned. ‘You don’t know what’s going to happen with Norah and that family of hers.’

  ‘If Cassidy’s closes down somebody else will take it over!’ she remonstrated. ‘I’m the one who’s been working there for over two years and I know I could make a go of it – increase business, attract new customers – if I got the chance. Maybe we should go to the bank and find out about taking out a loan, Paul.’

  ‘I’m not sure we should do that,’ he worried. ‘We are only getting back on our feet.’

  ‘I know, but this is different. It’s a business loan; we’d be paying a business rate. We own this house lock, stock and barrel, so no one can touch this place and it will not be part of the loan,’ she insisted. ‘Paul, do you realize, Norah having to retire might be my chance to have a business of our own?’

  ‘I know that, love,’ he said, hugging her.

  ‘I was thinking we could do up the place,’ she coaxed. ‘You could do some of the work, maybe we could buy new chairs or paint the old ones and give it all a fresh look. It’s got so dated. And we could get rid of that oilcloth on the tables, and have fresh flowers and colour and a different look and feel.’

  ‘I think you should wait and see,’ he said gently.

  ‘I know, but maybe I should talk quietly to Billy Wright from the bank about getting a loan, sound it out with him.’

  ‘We are hardly the bank’s best customers!’ he laughed.

  ‘I know that,’ she said, hugging him. ‘It’s just that I can see it – me running the place, getting it the way I want. This might be the right opportunity for us actually to have a business of our own.’

  ‘I understand how you are feeling, Gina love, but it’s Norah’s place, you know that … it’s still her café.’

  Gina sighed. Maybe Paul was right – she was getting ahead of herself, letting her ideas run away with her. In time, Norah would realize that she could no longer work and a decision would be made with regard to the café. That was when Gina Sullivan would be ready either to take on running it or to try to persuade Norah to let her rent or purchase the premises.

  Chapter 16

  ON SUNDAY MORNING KIM AND EVIE WERE UP EARLY AS THEY wanted to get a good pitch for displaying Evie’s paintings in the popular weekend open-air art show held on Merrion Square. Town was still quiet as they unloaded the car and hung her paintings from the old park railings of Dublin’s well-known Georgian square, bordered by Holles Street Hospital, the National Gallery and the Dáil.

  All around them other artists came with their work, all jostling and vying for position. Everyone was keen to sell their work, but there was a great sense of artists’ camaraderie as they admired and studied each other’s pieces. A few regulars came over to welcome Evie to the Sunday on the square and wish her well. Space was at a premium so they created a second row of canvases on the lower level, standing them against the bottom of the railings.

  ‘Where will we put this one?’ Kim asked, holding up the massive canvas covered in brown, yellow and red swirls which Evie called The Vikings.

  ‘There in the middle – it should attract attention!’ Evie directed her.

  On a narrow fold-up table they had Evie’s cards and an info sheet about her work, as well as a box crammed with smaller prints and sketches of her work for people to buy and frame themselves.

  ‘Are you selling all these?’

  ‘Yes, they’re all over the flat, so I might as well try and get some money for them. Besides, the flat is bursting and I needed to clear a bit of space. Honestly, the two of us are such hoarders!’

  ‘I’m not a hoarder!’ protested Kim, who objected to being compared to the messiest person she knew.

  ‘Yes, you are! I’ve got all my art gear and drawings and canvases, and you’ve got all your fashion and clothes stuff.’

  Kim reddened, thinking of the boxes and bags of clothes in her sister’s house. Some had been consigned to the attic, but the rest still remained around the place. She’d nearly tripped over one of her bags getting ready this morning.

  ‘What are you going to do with it all when you move out of Liz’s to a new apartment or have to share with someone else?’ teased Evie.

  Kim hadn’t a clue. In the old apartment with Gareth she’d taken up three quarters of the wardrobe space and had also commandeered most of the storage in the spare bedroom, turning it into a kind of personal dressing room.

  ‘Well, if you must know I’m putting some of my stuff up on eBay and selling it. And I’m going to take a few things into Chloe’s – that vintage place – and sell them there.’

  ‘That’s a great idea. Some of your stuff must be worth a fortune!’

  ‘Obviously a lot less than what I paid for them, but still – money is money!’ she admitted, the idea growing on her.

  ‘I love the way they call second-hand stuff “vintage”,’ laughed Evie.

  They were lucky the day was dry and bright, if a little breezy – perfect weather for walking and browsing, looking at the huge array of art on display. Evie’s work was attracting lots of interest from pas
sers-by and Evie was soon deep in conversation with a couple who had just bought a new house and wanted a big piece of art for their living room. They were torn between two canvases and Evie was holding back, as she didn’t want to lose the sale.

  ‘If you take one and you get it home and don’t like it, there is no problem swapping it for the other,’ she assured them, giving them her address. ‘My studio is quite near here.’

  As they paid for the painting, Kim couldn’t believe it! This exhibition was a great opportunity for Evie to sell her work without gallery fees and commission. Kim sold three of Evie’s prints and gave one of her cards to a man who wanted two paintings for his office. They were kept busy all day, with lots of people praising her friend’s work and admiring it as well as buying.

  Walking around the square, Kim couldn’t get over the wide variety of art on display: everything from watercolours of flowers, portraits, Irish landscapes, Gothic etchings and cartoons to the bold canvases of artists like Evie which attracted huge attention. People flocked to see the paintings and have a ramble around this open-air art show, held so near to Ireland’s National Gallery.

  ‘They like to see the Old Masters in the gallery over there,’ explained Evie, ‘and then come across to the square and buy a piece of art they like and can afford from one of us, and hope that the artist will become famous some day and that they have been lucky enough to have an early work!’

  By four thirty things had begun to slow down, except for a few tourists who enjoyed talking to the artists. Kim delighted in giving them the address for Evie’s new website.

  They packed up the paintings and headed back to the flat, where, both exhausted, they ordered a Chinese takeaway and flopped on the couch. Evie was absolutely thrilled with the money she had made from the sale of her work.

  ‘It was well worth paying the money to get a licence to exhibit there,’ she laughed as they read their fortune cookies.

  Kim was pleased with Evie’s website, which had been updated with photos from Sunday’s art exhibition. It looked so cool and really had accomplished all she had hoped for, with lively Facebook and Twitter connections and Evie’s art blog.

  ‘I don’t think I can improve it any more,’ she admitted as she submitted it for one part of her final design project.

  ‘It is really good – different and eye-catching with lots of content,’ praised Piotr, one of her classmates, who was a computer genius but was always ready to give her a hand if she got stuck on something.

  Kim was really going to miss her course and felt she had learned a huge amount over the past few months. The thing was, how to put her knowledge to good use. The class had been small, the students all different and from various walks of life, but they had gelled and got on well, encouraging each other and hanging out together … but what she was going to do after this she had no idea.

  At home she spent her time on eBay watching to see if her items had sold, checking offers, sometimes relieved that there were none for her high black boots, or her Stella McCartney jacket, other times torn because someone was actually going to buy her Hermès handbag or her Simone Rocha white blouse.

  Liz had also helped her to go through all her things and pick out a whole load of barely worn clothes and accessories and bring them in to sell in Chloe’s Vintage Room, the vintage shop on the upstairs floor in the Powerscourt Centre. Chloe Garnier had raved about some of the items that she was willing to sell.

  ‘You need money in the bank,’ Liz reminded her sternly, ‘not clothes sitting in your wardrobe that you never wear!’

  Kim was sad to say goodbye to some of the beautiful things that she had collected, but money in her account was far more important.

  But now, with her course finishing, she was worried about what she should do. She envied her friends who had regular jobs and regular incomes. She knew that somehow her life had to change and little by little she was trying to do that …

  Chapter 17

  MOLLY WAS BUSY CLEARING A SECTION OF THE HERB GARDEN; THE rosemary had gone woody and the lemon balm was running amok everywhere. Serious cutting back was needed and as she cut and trimmed she listened for a car pulling into the driveway.

  Bill had phoned to say he’d gone through all the paperwork and suggested meeting up. Perhaps he sensed her reluctance about going to Dublin again so soon. ‘If you want I could drive down to Mossbawn?’ he offered. ‘I haven’t seen the place properly for years.’

  ‘Bill, that would be perfect – and I’ll make us both a lovely lunch,’ she added, feeling guilty, as Bill had barely been in the house since his marriage to Carole. David had suggested a few times inviting the two of them to visit, but Molly just couldn’t find it in her heart to entertain the woman who had replaced her sister. She knew it was stupid and pathetic, as Ruth herself had said to her often enough that she hoped that Bill would in time remarry, her sister being more open-hearted than she was.

  Cutting some rosemary, she headed back across the lawn as Bill’s car pulled up.

  ‘Bill, it’s so lovely to have you back here in Mossbawn,’ she said, running to welcome him.

  ‘And it’s good to be back,’ he said, looking around him.

  ‘Will you have a coffee or something?’ she offered. ‘I’ve lunch in the oven, but it won’t be ready for a while.’

  ‘Sounds good, but Molly, I’d love to stretch my legs, have a walk around the place first. I haven’t seen it for so long.’

  Bill grabbed a sweater from the car. ‘This place brings back so many happy memories of the four of us and all our kids,’ he said as they walked. ‘Do you remember the picnics?’

  ‘The girls were obsessed with them!’ she laughed. ‘One year we even had a midnight summer picnic with candles and lanterns.’

  ‘Any fish left in here?’ he asked, peering into the murky water in the pond.

  ‘I doubt it. I’m afraid the heron got what was left last year. I keep meaning to clean it up and re-stock it, but just haven’t got round to it.’

  Turning right, they headed towards the back field, the grass almost knee height, and back across the old paddock.

  ‘What about the South Field?’

  ‘The McHughs use it for their cows – at least it keeps the grass and weeds down – and I’m letting Pamela Reynolds use the Blackberry Field for her horses.’ They stopped and looked at three mares, heads bowed, cropping the grass around them.

  ‘You have so much space here, Molly,’ Bill said admiringly.

  ‘Too much space,’ she admitted as they turned towards the oakwood that divided her property from the Reynolds’. ‘Now come and I’ll show you the garden.’

  Bill was the perfect guest, admiring the large borders and flowerbeds as they passed.

  ‘You must miss your garden?’ she said without thinking.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he admitted, ‘but I don’t miss cutting that lawn. When I think of all the weekends I spent up and down with that bloody mower. The patio garden we’ve got now is easy to manage and I’ve got pots with strawberries and a few herbs growing.’

  ‘Sounds tempting!’ she laughed as she led him around by the side of the house.

  ‘Hey! I see you still have the maze! It’s got huge!’

  ‘I know. When I think of all the kids that have played hide and seek over the years since it was first planted by the Moores … It’s part of the history of the house,’ she said proudly.

  ‘Molly, how are you managing all this?’ he quizzed as they walked on.

  ‘To be honest … not very well,’ she admitted. ‘I get Paddy, the gardener, and his nephew Tommy in to help with the heavy work – I’d be lost without them.’ Molly and David had inherited Paddy Flynn from the previous owner. He was a Trojan worker and as honest as they come. In his early seventies, he and his nephew were a great pair. ‘But even still, there’s so much to do …’

  They turned into the rectangular walled kitchen garden, where the sun streamed down on them.

  ‘There’s me talking
about my little patio garden, and look at all the things you have growing here: grapes, strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries!’

  ‘We’ve lots of veggies too – onions, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, potatoes, lettuce, peas, runner beans, and tomatoes in the greenhouse and some peppers! Bill, take some lettuce and some beans and spring onions for you and Carole,’ she insisted, pulling them and putting them in a basket.

  As they walked back towards the house, Molly turned through the gate, stopping to show him where she was restoring the rose garden.

  ‘You can still see some of those lovely old roses,’ he said admiringly.

  ‘I know. Even though they’ve been so badly treated they’re trying to come back,’ she smiled as they walked along the path to the house.

  Molly set the kitchen table quickly and served rack of lamb with rosemary and baby potatoes.

  ‘Wow, this was worth the journey,’ laughed Bill appreciatively as he began to eat. ‘Honestly, Molly, how are you finding things?’ he probed.

  ‘Hard – bloody hard. I hate being on my own.’ Tears welled in her eyes.

  ‘It must be tough in a big house like this.’

  ‘When David was alive, to be honest we mostly lived here in the kitchen and the sitting room and he had the study. The rest of the house we only used for entertaining or the weekends when the girls were around or we’d people staying.’

  Bill said nothing, but she could tell what he was thinking as she made a pot of coffee.

  ‘I’ve got some toffee squares. I made them this morning.’

  ‘You remembered my sweet tooth,’ he joked, helping himself to one. ‘You and Ruth were always great bakers!’

  As she poured the coffee he produced his briefcase and spread the paperwork on the table. Molly sighed. Normally David had taken care of all their finances. Now she would have to try to understand things.

  ‘I’ve had a good chance to go through everything.’