‘CLEVER KATE’, THAT’S what her mother had always called her, branding her the brainy one of the family. Kate however wished that she was beautiful, like Moya who drove the boys crazy with her dark hair and wide eyes and perfectly proportioned body with her long legs and natural grace. Instead she had been gifted with a round face and pale blue eyes and wavy light brown hair that was the very devil to control and came from the Dillon side of the family where the women were noted for their strong wholesome looks and big feet and hands. She was considered fair and sensible and totally reliable and at least not given to the crazy mood swings and behaviour of her younger sister Romy, who didn’t believe in rules and timetables or doing the right thing!
From the minute she could read, Kate had stuck her face in books, driving Mrs O’Donnell the local librarian mad with her constant filling in of request forms for new books. At St Dominic’s Sister Goretti and the rest of the nuns had encouraged her academic abilities as she found study and learning so easy. She often ended up helping her friends Sarah and Aisling with their maths and science homework. For fun she played hockey and sang in the school choir, which meant forty girls got to jaunt around different parts of the country in a rickety school bus singing their hearts out before ending up in Dublin competing in the final round of the annual Feis Ceoil. On prize day, at the end of the school year, Maeve and Frank Dillon would sit bursting with pride in the packed school hall with the rest of the parents, clapping loudly as she went up to receive two or three prizes, Maeve’s eyes sparkling as the nuns complimented her on Kate.
‘Aye, she’s a bright girl!’ her father would say.
‘And a wonderful daughter and friend,’ beamed her mother.
Kate, embarrassed, felt a strange mixture of guilt and relief as she saw them standing together, still a pair.
Nuala Hayes, the school career guidance teacher, had called Kate in with her parents to discuss her options for when she left school. She had already made up her mind as to what she wanted to study and where. She had toyed briefly with the notion of medicine as she enjoyed biology and chemistry, but knew she lacked the constant dedication to the well-being of others to be a good doctor. Law would be her first choice. Her grandfather James Ryan had been the head of a busy solicitors’ practice in Waterford. He had a keen legal brain and the love of a good court story and she could still remember him even in his old age sitting discussing legal challenges and precedents with his elderly friends in the front drawing room. Kate was curious as to what could keep her grandfather so entertained and interested for most of his life. He used to tease her about her sense of fairness and justice when she insisted that even a bag of sweets be divided up equally or that the washing up be shared.
‘Kate will follow in my footsteps,’ he’d joke, producing a mint humbug from the tin in his desk for her, ‘mark my words.’
She had done aptitude tests, and read every information leaflet and booklet in the careers part of the library, researching what she wanted to study.
‘She’s always worked hard and done her homework,’ her mother said proudly, patting her knee.
‘Law in Trinity College is what I want to do,’ said Kate, relishing the challenge and exciting prospect of studying in Dublin.
‘Are you sure?’
‘A hundred per cent,’ she replied.
Nuala Hayes smiled. Kate Dillon was a wonderful student who would do the school proud. It was good to see a young girl with her career decided, compared to half the students who were a bag of nerves and hadn’t a clue what to do and had parents who were planning on them being brain surgeons and teachers when they would be lucky to scrape through the Leaving Cert exams. She smiled as she stood up to see them out. Frank Dillon was a self-made man who was determined his daughters would have the opportunities he hadn’t, and was keen on sending them all to third level. Kate and her family were proof positive of the benefits of good parenting.
Her mother had cried in September when Kate packed up her things and got ready to go to college. She’d worked in the hotel on the harbour as a waitress for eight weeks of the summer holidays, going to Salthill in Galway with her friends for a week to celebrate the Leaving Certificate results.
‘Mammy I’m only going to Dublin, for heaven’s sake,’ she’d joked. ‘Moya’s already there and I’ll be home as often as I can, promise.’
‘I know, it’s just that you are growing up so quickly,’ admitted her mother ruefully, hugging her.
She’d landed herself on her big sister Moya and her flatmate Louise, for the first term. Moya had just finished her arts degree in UCD and was busy job-hunting.
‘What kind of work do you want to do?’ Kate teased out. Moya had studied History of Art and French and had her sights set on a job that would use her skills and talents.
‘I’m not doing any more studying,’ she admitted. ‘I scraped through my finals and that’s enough for me.’
‘What about working in a bank or an insurance company?’
Moya had shaken her head.
‘No, I want to use my degree and work with beautiful things. There was a job advertised in a small gallery in Duke Street last week and I’ve applied for it. I’ve an interview next Tuesday so keep your fingers crossed that I get it.’
Kate’s heart lifted every time she walked along College Green and through the entrance of Trinity College, an oasis of student life and academic pursuit right in the heart of Dublin city. The noise of the buses and the traffic disappeared as she crossed the cobbled college yard or sat out on the square, taking in Trinity’s ancient buildings and the centuries of tradition to which she now belonged.
In Freshers’ Week she was tempted to sign up to join every society and club on offer as they all sounded so interesting and exciting. Another girl with a long frizz of dark hair and huge brown eyes was in the exact same quandary as they listened to the virtues of the societies proclaimed by their forthright members.
‘Drama Soc!’ shouted a thespian dressed in an Elvis outfit. Kate knew she would never have the courage to dress up and act on stage.
‘Chess Club!’
‘I’ve heard they’re all swots and brainboxes and bad losers,’ confided the girl with the frizz as they passed by.
‘Tennis, Cricket, Blackjack, Rugby, Art, Phil. Soc. and History Soc., Film, Jazz, Inventors’ Club, Athletics, Swimming, Poker – the list was endless. Minnie, the other girl, introduced herself and the two of them got into a heated discussion about the merits and demerits of each society, both bursting out laughing when they agreed to sign up for the famous Phil. Soc. Minnie and Kate struck up an immediate friendship and by the second term had decided to share a flat in an old converted house in Ranelagh.
Kate liked the anonymity of university, the fact that no-one really knew her and she’d had to start from scratch again. Vying with the leading brains in the country she soon discovered she was no longer top of the class and she had to work harder than she had ever done before, the days of being the shining star of St Dominic’s gone as she struggled with the Constitution, complicated European law and interpretations of various landmark legal cases. She was no longer clever Kate, just simply Kate Dillon the girl from Rossmore who hung around with Minnie Doyle.
Although she missed home Kate had no intention of slavishly getting the bus or train back there every week, like so many of the students. She loved the city with its pubs and cinemas and theatres and nightclubs and discos and hundreds of things to do. Minnie, a like-minded soul, had the ability to dance and drink till all hours and still appear refreshed the next day.
‘What in God’s name would I be doing back in Longford of a weekend?’ she quipped, shaving her legs with complete concentration. ‘Sitting in with my granny watching the Late Late Show while Mum is up in the golf club drinking gins and getting tipsy! No thank you.’
Minnie had confided in Kate not long after they became friends that her dad, Denis, had run off with a girl about half his age.
‘She’s only twenty-five!’ wailed Minnie. ‘And he says he loves her and wants to marry her!’
‘God!’
‘Mum’s gone like a lunatic ever since! It’s absolutely desperate.’
Kate had told Minnie about her father and catching him with Sheila O’Grady.
‘In France all the French men have affairs, nobody bats an eye at it,’ Minnie told her.
‘Honest?’
‘It’s the French way. Obviously old men must get randy. At least your father hasn’t gone off and dumped your mother and sold your house and bought himself a flipping sports car!’
‘No.’ Kate sighed. Normality and appearances had at least been kept up, their marriage maintained as her parents led a busy social life of dinner dances, socials and business outings. Maeve Dillon was keeping busy and had joined the local Vincent de Paul and the Gardens Group. With herself and Moya gone she still had Romy to look after, even though from what she gathered Romy was being a right handful and her parents were worn out trying to get her to come home on time and not stay out till all hours.
‘Couldn’t you have a word with her the next time you’re home?’ pleaded her mother. ‘She might listen to you.’
‘I doubt it.’
Romy had always done exactly what she wanted. A tomboy, she’d followed their father around the building sites and show houses for years. Moya and Kate had been lucky growing up to be part of a big gang of friends, the O’Malleys, the Costigans, the Dwyers and of course their cousins the Quinns. Romy, who was much younger, was often left just to follow them around, ‘Mind your sister!’ their mother’s constant cry.
The gang of them complained at the unfairness of it, shouting ‘Get lost, kid!’ at her when the adults were not around. Unwanted, Romy would simply stick out her tongue or run at them with a bit of a stick before disappearing off to entertain herself.
Kate felt guilty remembering those silly acts of childhood cruelty and agreed to try and get Romy to see some sense, but suspected her younger sister would still only stick her tongue out at her.
‘Will you be home on Saturday?’
Much and all as she loved going home, the thought of lecturing her surly teenage sister, versus her house-warming! Minnie and herself had planned a night in the flat, with wine and beer and cheese and crackers and chunks of heated garlic bread. Everybody they knew in college was invited, as Minnie felt they had to widen their social circle. Kate had asked a few guys from her class and Minnie had rounded up part of the rugby squad, plus her cousin Patrick and his friend.
‘God, he’s gorgeous!’ admitted Kate, who’d met him briefly in the library one day and already fancied him like mad.
All the girls they hung around with were going crazy, dying for Saturday night. Kate and Minnie suddenly worried how they could possibly fit all the people they’d invited into their two small rooms.
‘Sorry, Mum, but Minnie’s organized something and I can’t let her down. Maybe the following week. I promise I’ll talk to Romy then.’