Sitting at her kitchen table Mary Casey poured a little martini for Pat Fitz and a can of Guinness for Ger. She and Pat had met on the bus on the way to do their weekly shopping in Carrick and sent Ger a text telling him to collect Pat at the bungalow around six. He’d be coming home that way from a meeting anyhow, so it’d be no trouble to him. They’d bought a plain Madeira because of Ger’s teeth; though the chances were that he wouldn’t eat it. Ger turned his nose up at half of what Pat slogged around the supermarket buying for him, and, if you asked Mary’s opinion, half his crankiness was down to Pat’s failure to manage him.
Cutting a large slice of cake she slapped it in front of him, telling him to eat it up. When he picked it up and took a big bite out of it, Mary shot a triumphant look at Pat. If you didn’t put manners on him from the outset, it said, you’d get no good out of a man. But then, moments later, knocking back a swallow of Guinness, tight-fisted Ger Fitz announced he and Pat were off on a trip to Canada. He’d been working like a dog too long, he said. But now all his work was about to pay off handsomely so he was going to squire his wife across the Atlantic to visit the kids and the grandkids.
Mary was outraged. For weeks she’d been tossing her head at Pat’s dream of going to Canada, and, in the end, Pat had quietly stopped showing her the gifts she was accumulating for the kids in Toronto. And as more weeks passed and Ger said nothing more about the promised trip, Mary’s scorn had become more vocal. Hadn’t Pat only been deluding herself, she’d demanded, and wouldn’t you think a woman of her age would have had more sense? Yet here was Pat, drinking Mary’s martini, utterly and entirely vindicated.
Ger finished his cake with the air of a mega tycoon. He hadn’t got the tickets bought yet, he said, because the holiday depended on a business deal he was doing in Ballyfin. Mary pounced like a tiger. So the whole thing might be canceled if his Ballyfin business collapsed? But Ger shook his head. Not at all, he said, they’d be off now in a while, no doubt about it. The deal in Ballyfin was a sure thing.
When Hanna came in from work, Pat and Ger had gone, dinner was in the oven, and Mary Casey was sitting in the kitchen indulging in a massive sulk. Hanna looked at her and sighed. Immediately, Mary rounded on her, eager for a row. Wasn’t it a fine thing, she said, to be greeted like that? Not so much as a smile or a bit of a chat, only a sour face and an old groan like you’d get from a pregnant cow. Knowing she had no choice, Hanna repressed a second sigh and sat down and asked what the matter was. Over the next ten minutes the facts were established, in a tedious sequence of alternate coaxing and flouncing. Eventually, and as usual, Hanna’s patience snapped.
“Honestly, Mam, would you not feel pleased for Pat? Sure, she hasn’t seen her kids for ages.”
Mary bridled. Pat was her dearest friend. Of course she was pleased for her. She was delighted.
“Well, if you’re pleased for her, what’s the problem? And while she’s in Canada you could get out and about a bit more yourself. The fact of the matter is, Mam, that you’re far too dependent on Pat’s company.”
With massive dignity, Mary rose from the armchair. “I have no need to get out and about. Or to listen to lectures from you. God be with your poor father who would have protected me from this class of insult and outrage.” She surged toward the door, turning majestically on the threshold to deliver her coup de grâce. “And I’m dependent on no one, I’ll have you know. I’m perfectly happy by myself!”
As the kitchen door slammed violently, Hanna went to pour herself a drink. The trouble was that, having been accustomed to being treated like a princess by her husband, Mary had a horror of being one of a group. Her sense of her own dignity was far too developed for the seniors’ cheerful gatherings in Knockmore; and even the thought of being labeled a senior repelled her. Hanna sighed again. Many of the regulars at the Knockmore Day Care Centre had sent cuttings to Sister Michael, and, as the work in the nuns’ garden had continued, they’d recently come up with the idea of having an outing to Lissbeg. Maurice, the retired baker, who remembered Tom Casey from his school days, had suggested his wife should call Mary up and see if she’d come and join them. Someone could be found to give her a lift from Crossarra to Lissbeg, which was only down the road. And she might enjoy the day out. But Hanna had come home that day to find Mary in a paroxysm of annoyance.
“Two separate calls I’ve had, saying there’s great craic in the nuns’ garden and why wouldn’t I come along.”
“Well, why wouldn’t you?”
“Because I’m not in my dotage yet, girl, to be going on a pensioners’ jaunt! And, anyway, I’d be bored stiff by the lot of them.”
Yet the group from Knockmore had a whale of a time in Lissbeg. They’d organized lifts from their neighbors and arrived with more cuttings for the garden, rugs over their arms, garden tools, and a picnic. It was a lovely sunny day, and while some of them joined the volunteers who were digging and planting, others had sat chatting and drinking coffee from HabberDashery. Hanna had been at her desk in the library when Jean, Maurice the baker’s wife, had looked in to ask if Mary was coming.
“She’d be very welcome, you know, Miss Casey. That’s why I gave her a ring.”
Hanna had produced the polite fiction that Mary was busy. But it was evident that Jean was feeling far too cheerful to be more than fleetingly concerned. Glancing over her shoulder to check that they were alone, she sidled over to the desk confidentially and beamed at Hanna. Bríd, she said, had asked Maurice if he’d provide HabberDashery with cakes. Special occasion ones, for birthdays and maybe weddings. Someone had wanted to order one and it wasn’t Bríd’s thing.
“He’d only be giving it a try to begin with. To see if they’d suit. But, God, Miss Casey isn’t it a great idea? Wouldn’t it take poor Maurice out of himself?”
And Maurice wasn’t the only one who’d been networking. Gunther and Susan had offered to supply goat cheeses to HabberDashery at half the price of the imported ones they’d been selling. Bríd reckoned they were just as good and, in fact, better because they were locally made. The cheeses came wrapped in waxed paper with a picture of The Old Forge on the front and Susan was going to supply leaflets about The Old Forge Guesthouse for Bríd to put on display. As she watched Jean scuttle back to the garden, Hanna shook her head in amazement. Every day more people were beginning to set up new contacts. Everything was going perfectly according to Sister Michael’s plan.
The seniors’ picnic, supplemented by more tea and coffee from HabberDashery, had continued well into the afternoon, by which time they were talking about doing it again. Maybe they could organize a computer course in the library and make it a regular thing? Now, as she drank wine crossly in Mary Casey’s kitchen, it occurred to Hanna that a relaxed computer course for beginners was exactly what her mother needed. Yet it was precisely the sort of activity that Mary was determined to despise. Groaning inwardly, Hanna kicked the table. It hadn’t escaped her that, despite the difference in their motivations, Mary’s attitude toward engagement with the community was remarkably similar to her own.
Having flounced out of the kitchen, Mary didn’t come back. When Hanna knocked on her door later, she had gone to bed. Hanna opened the door a crack but the room was in darkness. Mary’s voice sounded suspiciously as if she might have been crying, so after a minute Hanna decided it was best to let things lie. It had been a long day and neither she nor Mary was up to another row.