The Royal Victoria Hotel in Carrick had a bar where you could sit and get a proper sandwich at lunchtime. None of your guacamole and alfalfa sprouts. Just a decent slice of ham or chicken in white bread spread with real butter, and Colman’s mustard served in a pot. Neither Pat nor Mary could be doing with mustard in a sachet. Or mayonnaise, for that matter. You couldn’t open it, to begin with, and then it got all over the cuff of your blouse.
The Royal Vic was an institution. It had a ladies’ lounge with writing tables, embossed notepaper and brass inkstands; loos with real towels; a grill room much frequented by bank managers; and the bar, where Pat and Mary had a favourite table in the corner. And PJ, the head barman, who had worked there for donkey’s years, always wore a spotless white jacket and a tartan bow tie.
Pat ordered a sandwich and tea, which came in an EPNS pot with a bit of weight to it, not a flimsy bit of tin that would flood the saucer when you tried to pour a cup. Mary, who’d arrived before her, had already told PJ that she’d have her usual chicken without any lettuce. And a latte with a chocolate stirrer. Because, as she said to Pat, why wouldn’t she? At their age, they deserved a bit of a treat.
It was the first time they’d met since Pat had come home from Canada. Mary tucked her shopping bags under the leather banquette and inspected her. ‘You’re looking well, I’ll give you that. Were the lads good to you? God knows they owed you some attention, so I hope they shaped up.’
Pat was about to say that it wasn’t the lads’ fault that they’d left home in the first place. But that would be handing out ammunition. She knew well that Tom’s devotion to Hanna had often had Mary spitting with jealousy, but it always appeared in conversation as proof of his superior virtue. So any talk about why Sonny and Jim had gone to Canada would only produce a sniff about Ger’s failings as a father.
Besides, PJ was arriving with the sandwiches, which looked lovely, and it was grand to be sitting chatting with Mary again. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages and I hear you’ve had great work done in the bungalow.’
‘We have and I’m delighted with it. You’ll have to come round and see.’ Mary nodded at Pat’s handbag. ‘Come on, then. Show me your photos.’
Pat produced her phone and swiped through shots of the house in Toronto, the big family party on the first weekend, and the mall and the park where Cassie had taken her shopping and walking.
Mary peered at the screen and demanded to know who she was looking at. ‘Is that Sonny’s wife? My God, there isn’t a pick on her. Doesn’t she have great taste in clothes, though? I’d say that suit is Chanel.’ She reached over to the phone and enlarged a photo. ‘Is it Norah has the twins? Isn’t she fierce like Ger’s mother? And tell me this, is the husband foreign?’
Pat explained that Norah’s husband was French Canadian.
‘Would he have English?’
‘He would, of course.’
‘Well, fair dos now, Pat, they laid out a great spread for you. Who’s the girl behind the table?’
‘That’s Vanya. She helps in the house.’ Vanya was a dote, she said, and so obliging. ‘I told her we liked liquorice and she’d always bring us a packet when we ran out.’
Mary looked at her sharply. ‘Wouldn’t you think your own flesh and blood would do that, and not leave it to the maid?’ She swiped through a few more shots and sat back, stirring her latte. ‘I thought Canada was a great place for mountains and lovely scenery.’
‘Well, it is. But Toronto’s a city.’
‘And did they never take you out into the countryside on a drive?’
‘Well, they would have, but you know, Mary, they’re awfully busy. The lads took Ger out golfing a few times.’
‘Ah, Holy God, girl, weren’t you gone for weeks?’
‘I know. And we did get out lots of times. Cathleen took me to lunch, and Cassie was always driving me off to the mall.’
‘You must have been eating a quare lot of liquorice in that case, if you couldn’t buy it yourself and you out at the shops.’
Pat bit into her sandwich. There was no point in rising to that remark, so she reclaimed her phone and found a photo of their bedroom. ‘They have a guest suite that they put us in, with a big window overlooking the garden. And a balcony outside.’
Mary looked at the photo. ‘Not much of a balcony.’
‘Well, it was only a little railed place, you wouldn’t go walking round on it. Ger used to step out, though, for a breath of air.’ Feeling she was letting the family down, Pat closed her phone and put it away in her handbag. There was a pause in which she could see Mary’s eyes slanting sideways. It was a look she recognised. Having pushed things just a bit too far, Mary was feeling bad. Now she’d either come up with some gesture to try to make things better, or she’d get in a huff and go into a massive sulk.
As if responding to a cue, PJ the barman shimmered up beside them and, inclining his head at an angle, asked if he could bring them anything else. Pat could see the liver spots on his head between the strands of his heavily oiled comb-over. It occurred to her that the three of them were much the same age. When she and Mary had been sitting in Sister Benignus’s class at the convent in Lissbeg, the chances were that PJ had been keeping his head down at the Brothers’ place here in Carrick. You had to keep your head down in those days if you didn’t want a belt.
She’d never really asked Ger about how bad it was at the Brothers’, but she’d always had a feeling that it was worse for him than for the rest. Well, worse than for Tom Casey, anyway. The big, tall lads who were great on a football field had the best of it. And if you had a bit of a way with you, you probably did better than most.
Ger was always small and kind of gawky-looking, and he’d never had Tom’s charm. If you cornered him he’d go for you, but he’d sooner avoid trouble. That was probably the rock he perished on. By the sound of the Brothers that used to be in Lissbeg, you’d have been targeted like a shot if you looked like a coward.
Mary told PJ they might have a pudding. ‘What would you say, Pat, would we chance a bit of flan?’
It came with flaked almonds on the frangipane topping, and squiggles of chocolate sauce. PJ put the two plates down with a flourish and made a pass over each with a silver sugar sifter. As the white icing sugar settled like snow, Pat told Mary that Norah’s twins had been sweet. ‘Imagine me with great-grandchildren! I only wish I’d had a chance to get to know them better.’
‘Sure, you might go back another time.’
‘I suppose we might. I don’t think so, though. We’re not getting any younger. That’s why it’s great to have Cassie here now. Sure, you know yourself. You must be made up to have Jazz settled down in Lissbeg.’
‘If she does settle! You’re right, though, it’s great to have her.’ Mary took a sip of latte. ‘So Cassie’s not staying with you and Ger?’
‘No. Well, she’s young. They want their own place these days, don’t they? Take your Hanna. Not that she’s just out of her teens but . . . Well, no one likes to feel they’re being looked at judgementally.’
There was another pause in which Pat watched Mary absorb the hit.
They sat in silence for a while, eating the flan. The Royal Vic gave you pastry forks where most places gave you soup spoons – but most places gave you cake in a soup bowl now, so you wouldn’t be that surprised.
Pat described the lunch in Toronto. ‘In fairness now, it’s a lovely place. Your man who owns it has a big show over there on the television, and Ger says, by the look of his steaks, that he’d use only the best. But, glory be to God, I’m telling you, girl, the meal I had was a fright. Calamari in a cone! That’s what Cathleen had. I was expecting it to turn up with a chocolate flake in it. And the money they charged – ah, Mary!’
‘Terrible?’
‘Woeful.’
‘Sure, that’s the way the young ones are these days. More money than sense.’
‘Mind you, Cathleen’s doing well. I’d say they all are.’
‘Did you ever think they’d be eating calamari in a cone?’
Pat snorted with her fork to her lips, and the powdered sugar went up her nose. That set Mary off giggling and the two of them were there like eejits, groping in their bags for tissues and dabbing the tears off their cheeks.
Then, as soon as they’d calmed down, Mary set them off again. ‘Ah, Holy God, Pat – Jasmine and Cassandra! ’Tis far from that my Hanna and your poor Sonny were reared!’