A mix-up with the hatboxes! Ellie couldn’t believe it. How had it happened? Tommy Butler was talking nineteen to the dozen on the phone and near to tears by the sound of it.
‘I’ve got the wrong hat.’
What had she done for the fates to conspire against her like this, she thought, as she listened to his anxious voice.
‘Where’s my nan’s hat?’
Her heart sank as he explained, and she began frantically to rummage through every box in the shop. It must be here somewhere.
‘Where are you?’ she asked.
‘I’m at Nan’s party,’ he shouted back, sounding totally defeated.
She could sense his utter disappointment and knew that the promise of another hat would be no good. She had to find his hat and try to swap them round.
‘Tell me about the hat you have in the box?’
‘It’s a stupid black one,’ he insisted.
‘So it’s pure black?’
‘No, there’s a bit of white on it.’
She recognized the description immediately. He had Rosemary Harrington’s hat, which meant that she had his. She racked her brain. Neil’s mother had said she lived beside Merrion Square. She pulled out the phone book, searching through the H’s. Not there, obviously ex-directory. Shit, shit, shit!
‘Listen, Tommy. I think I know where your hat is and I’m going to try and get it. It’s only a long shot.’
‘Please, Ellie, please try and get it,’ he pleaded. ‘The party’s on. Everybody’s eating before they do the presents.’
She grabbed her jacket and purse and the invitation from the noticeboard, locking the shop as quickly as she could. Almost throwing herself in front of a cab on Dawson Street, she begged the driver to take her to Merrion Square.
Once there, Ellie walked up and down the row of Georgian houses trying to find the right one. Offices, solicitors, an art gallery . . . Almost frantic, she grabbed hold of a tall young mother with blue eyes who was about to cross over to the park with her little boy. She recognized her from somewhere.
‘Sorry, do you live here? Do you know where the Harringtons live?’
The three-year-old looked at her as if she was crazy as his mother burst out laughing.
‘That’s us, I’m Rachel Harrington – well, I was. We met before at the opera.’
‘Oh! Oh, I see . . . I’m looking for your mother actually.’
‘Good timing then! We’ve just driven up from Kerry. That’s why we’re going to the park, to stretch our legs after that awful long journey. Mum’s inside.’
Ellie felt like she was going to collapse with relief as she climbed the front steps and rang the bell.
She tried to brush her hair off her face and appear more composed and calm as she heard footsteps approaching.
‘Ellie, this is an unexpected pleasure!’ Neil Harrington was standing in front of her. ‘Would you like to come in?’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Neil, but it’s about your mother’s hat.’ She sounded so stupid and lame. ‘There’s been a mix-up with the hatboxes and the thing is, I think you’ve got somebody else’s hat and they have yours – well, I mean your mother’s.’
She was doing her best to sound rational but could tell from the expression on his face that he thought she was some kind of raving lunatic, turning up at the weekend on his doorstep.
‘The wrong hat?’
‘Yes, exactly. Has your mother worn the hat yet?’
‘No, it’s still upstairs in the box. I haven’t had the opportunity to give it to her yet.’
‘Oh, that’s good.’ She gasped with relief. ‘That’s great.’
‘So do you want me to do a swap?’ he teased.
‘Yes, but I haven’t got the other hat yet. Please, Neil, could you get the box and the hat quickly!’ she begged, resisting the urge to run up the stairs herself and find it.
‘This all sounds very urgent!’
‘Well, it is,’ she confessed, thinking of poor Tommy Butler waiting. ‘It is actually a matter of life and death. I have to get this hat – your hat – to the right person. It’s actually a very elderly person, who could as we speak be nearing her end.’
‘Dead serious!’ Neil quipped.
‘I promise to return the one you ordered immediately.’
She watched as he loped off up the stairs and reappeared a few minutes later with a familiar box in his grasp.
‘Thanks,’ Ellie said, retrieving the Memory Hat, which was resting snug in a bed of tissue. ‘I’d better get going.’
‘Where do you have to go?’
‘I’ve got to get this to a little boy I know.’
‘I thought you said it was for an elderly person?’
‘It is,’ she admitted. ‘I have to get this hat to him to give to his grandmother. It’s her hundredth birthday today and there is this big party for her.’
‘And the boy wanted to give her the hat. Let me drive you!’ he offered.
‘I was going to—’
‘Don’t tell me you are going to walk!’
‘No, get a taxi.’
‘Well, I’ll be your taxi,’ he offered, grabbing a set of keys from the hall table and pulling on a cord jacket. ‘I insist.’
Ellie gave a huge sigh of relief, somehow knowing that she could rely on Neil Harrington to get her to where she was meant to be. She placed the hatbox carefully on the back seat and sat in beside him, rooting in her bag for the invitation.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
She gave him the address.
‘I’ll drive like the clappers,’ he promised, reversing his Mercedes across the road as Ellie took out her phone and began to dial the number Tommy had called from.