Finishing Touches Read online

  ‘Don’t be too late,’ Nora warned.

  ‘I won’t, Mam. See you later.’

  ‘Enjoy yourself,’ her father smiled.

  ‘I will, Pops,’ Cassie promised. He was the best in the world, she thought fondly as she headed for the front door.

  ‘Cassie!’ A faint voice came from the direction of Irene’s bedroom. Drat! thought Cassie. Please God, don’t let her be awake. Let her sleep for another five minutes.

  ‘Cassie!’ The autocratic voice definitely sounded stronger. Cassie was rooted to the spot. Why do you do things like this to me? she argued silently with the Almighty. She couldn’t waste any more time. If she didn’t go now, she’d be late. Donie might think she had stood him up!

  She was just about to slip out the front door when Aunt Elsie appeared at the bedroom door. With her long silver hair braided and her high-necked red flannelette night-gown falling in folds to her bony feet, she looked like someone from another century

  ‘Did you not hear me calling you?’ she demanded. ‘I’m feeling much better. I’d like some tea and toast and a soft-boiled egg before you go off out gallivanting. It’s a fine thing to think that you make the effort to come and see your relations and they couldn’t be bothered to stay in and spend an hour or two with you.’

  Cassie almost burst with frustration. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself by saying to Nora that she was in a hurry. Nora would only say, ‘The girls will wait for you; you’re often much later going out.’ Cassie didn’t want her mother becoming suspicious. She couldn’t say she was meeting a fellow as Nora would want to know where she had met him, and she’d be getting into deep waters and big fibs after her unlawful attendance at the party. Maybe now that she and Barbara were sort of reconciled, her younger sister might oblige in preparing Aunt Elsie’s tea. ‘I’ll ask Barbara to do it,’ Cassie said placatingly. ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry.’

  ‘That’s lovely,’ Elsie snapped. ‘In too much of a hurry to get a bite to eat for a poor sick woman! Barbara will burn the toast; she always does. It will take only five minutes of your precious time and after that I won’t impose on you again.’ The tone was mega-martyr, as Elsie shuffled back into her room.

  By the time Cassie had prepared her aunt’s tea, she was frantic. She was dead late. She had planned to make a calm, cool, collected entrance into the restaurant, having taken her time getting there. Now there was nothing for it but to borrow John’s bike. The chain on her own was broken and it was being repaired. So much for dignity – she’d have to go on her first date on a bike! Not a bit sophisticated, but what could she do? But then she discovered that John was out on his bike! All that lay in the shed was Jack’s old crock and Nora’s High Nellie.

  Taking her life in her hands, Cassie mounted her mother’s antique and wobbled precariously down the drive with Spock barking encouragement. The saddle was so high that her feet barely reached the pedals and she knew one false move could do her a lot of damage. Grimly concentrating on avoiding the potholes, she headed in the direction of Port Mahon. Less than three-quarters of a mile along the road, High Nellie got a puncture and with a malevolent hiss the tyre went flat, the bike wobbled and Cassie landed in the ditch.

  Almost in tears she picked herself up, dusted herself down as best she could and started to walk the rest of the way.

  Donie was waiting patiently, despite the fact that she was over an hour late. ‘I knew you weren’t the kind of girl to stand a fellow up,’ he said calmly, as she, hot and flustered, tried to explain. They were too late to go to the pictures so they had coffee and cream cakes. Donie mended the puncture and they went walking along the beach in the moonlight before he took her home.

  After that they started to date regularly and once Aunt Elsie had left and equilibrium was restored in the Jordan household, she took Donie home and introduced him to her parents. They liked him immensely. For her seventeenth birthday he took her to dinner in The Windmill in Skerries, a gorgeous, intimate restaurant, where he presented her with a gold chain, the first real piece of jewellery she had ever owned. Cassie was sure that she could never in her life be so happy again.

  Seven

  ‘Look, Barbara, make things easy for yourself. Pops taught me this trick once and I never forgot the names of the Great Lakes,’ Cassie instructed her younger sister, who was frantically swotting for a geography exam the next day and could not for the life of her memorize the difficult and unfamiliar names.

  ‘I just hate geography,’ moaned Barbara, sucking the end of her pen furiously.

  ‘Yes, well, if you learn this you’ll never have any trouble with the Great Lakes at least. Just think of the word “homes.”’

  ‘Homes?’ Barbara echoed in confusion.

  ‘Yes,’ explained Cassie patiently. ‘“Homes” gives you the initials of each of the lakes. Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior. Simple!’

  ‘Gosh, that’s good. If we get that question tomorrow, I’m away on a hack!’ exclaimed Barbara. ‘Thanks, Cassie.’

  ‘No problem,’ her elder sister assured her. She smiled to herself. For all Barbara’s sophisticated airs and graces, she could be quite the child sometimes, when she was being herself and not projecting an image.

  Cassie was making a huge effort to get on better with her sister. And so far, touch wood, it was paying off. After the dreadful row they had had six months before, things had changed between them, and for the better. It had really cleared the air, that row. Cassie had never realized just how much Barbara had felt ignored by her. It wasn’t a deliberate thing. Cassie, busy with her own concerns, had her own set of friends. They went places and did things together and, quite honestly, she never gave her younger sister a thought. As far as she was concerned, Barbara was a nuisance who was always wanting to wear her clothes and make-up, and who never kept her half of the room tidy.

  The night of the row had marked something of a turning-point in their relationship, Cassie mused, as she watched her sister studying her geography. She had made the effort to get on with Barbara, lending her her clothes, asking her and Judy, Aileen’s sister, to go out with the gang occasionally, much to the delight of the two younger girls. It was great to be part of the ‘in’ crowd and nobody was more ‘in’ in Port Mahon than Cassie, Laura, Aileen and their gang, Barbara and Judy happily agreed. It made them feel so grown-up to be part of the scene, and Barbara, in particular, revelled in it.

  It was now almost the end of May. Very soon Cassie would be sitting the leaving Certificate, her final exams before leaving school to embark on a whole new adventurous life. Although they hadn’t broached the subject at home, Cassie, Laura and Aileen had agreed that as soon as they possibly could they were going to get a flat together in Dublin. Once they were working, there’d be no stopping them! Of course, a lot depended on how they did in their exams. If the results were good, the world was their oyster. Cassie had her heart set on studying architecture. Laura wanted to study law, and Aileen, who was a leading light in the Port Mahon Dramatic Society, was going to be an actress! It was all so exciting, they just couldn’t wait. In the meantime, the intrepid trio were engrossed in their studies, much to the relief of Mother Perpetua and the teaching staff of Saint Imelda’s.

  Nearly finished, Cassie told herself as she completed the question on Yeats.

  Think where man’s glory most begins and ends,

  And say my glory was I had such friends. Discuss.

  It had been the easiest question in the world to answer. All she had to do was think of Laura and Aileen and Donie and she knew exactly what Yeats was talking about. She was so lucky to have friends like them. She smiled as she thought of Donie. They were still going out together and she was crazy about him. Thank God tomorrow was Friday and he’d be home from college for the weekend. Their reunions were lovely, something to look forward to when he was coming home and something to look back on when he was gone.

  Packing away her school books, Cassie felt incredibly lighthearted. Soon her exam
s would be over and she’d be up in Dublin and she’d be able to see Donie several times a week instead of just at weekends. It would be just wonderful. She couldn’t wait!

  She’d miss school a lot though, she reflected, as she slipped out of her uniform. She had thoroughly enjoyed her years there, especially her last year as a sixth year. It was nice having the juniors regard you with respect and awe. It was nice having a kitchen to yourselves where you could cook lunch and sit gossiping with the others after years of dining in the noisy hurly-burly of the refectory. Sixth years were allowed to go down the town at lunchtime and often the girls from 6S treated themselves to a take-away from Macari’s, which made the best chips in the country and which had a special offer that suited 6S down to the ground: buy twelve singles and get one free! They would return to the sixth years’ kitchen, laden down with fish and chips, and make tons of hot buttered toast and pots of milky coffee and gossip and giggle to their hearts’ content for the duration of their lunch-hour.

  The teachers, too, now treated them as adults. Class discussions were lively and challenging, particularly those in the religion class with Sister Eileen, where they discussed social justice and social inequalities and Vatican Two. And, of course, love and sex and contraception and divorce, as they prepared to step out into the world to make their own choices and decisions.

  Of course, some things never changed. Iron-willed Mother Perpetua had never forgiven them for their vulgar ditty and treated 6S as her sworn enemies in life. They were the devils’ daughters as far as she was concerned. And what of the incorrigible Aileen O’Shaughnessy, possibly, in Mother Perpetua’s view, the devil himself? Not even the mantle of dignified sixth year could quench her irrepressible spirit. Aileen was as wild as ever!

  Her salvo at the beginning of sixth year had been a masterpiece. She discovered that Miss Marshall, who taught English to the first years, was out sick and that the group of timid newcomers were patiently awaiting a replacement. She appropriated a black gown, pulled her auburn tresses back in a severe bun and streaked her hair with chalk-dust, borrowed Una Hickey’s thick-lensed glasses and strode into the classroom of the unfortunate first years. There she terrorized them for ten minutes before ordering them to present an essay to Mother Perpetua, their form nun and religious tutor, the following morning. The essay was entitled ‘The apostles’ wives were the first deserted wives. Discuss.’

  Perpetua was spitting with fury as she tried in vain to discover the identity of the mysterious, white-haired bespectacled teacher. Of course, she had her suspicions but she could prove nothing. Much of her wrath fell on the hapless first years, who practically to a girl had agreed with the premise concerning the deserted wives and who were soundly berated as heathens by Mother Perpetua for doing so!

  No, indeed, Aileen had not changed and Cassie hoped she never would. She slipped a sweater on and walked down to the kitchen to tell her mother she was going over to Five-acre-field to see her dad. She had been so busy lately, stuck in her books morning, noon and night. Well, tonight she felt like a break. She wanted some fresh air to clear the cobwebs from her brain. A good brisk walk was just what she needed. She hadn’t gone walking with Jack for a while and she was looking forward to a nice long chat with him.

  It was a lovely early summer’s evening. The birds were singing uproariously. The sun, now beginning to sink low in the sky, was reflected in the hundreds of panes of glass in Jack’s glasshouses. He wasn’t in the glasshouses tonight, though. His farm manager, Pat, and several of the seasonal workers were looking after the ripening tomatoes while Jack was spreading seaweed on his early potatoes. He had gone down to the beach on his tractor after the last storm and got a load of rich pungent seaweed to nurture his crop. It was, in his opinion, the best of fertilizer. Cassie had heard him tell Nora at lunch that that’s what he’d be doing tonight. Her father was such a hard worker, Cassie reflected. But he loved what he did. He was a real son of the outdoors.

  She had a nice cool bottle of beer for him and a couple of thick corned-beef-and-mustard sandwiches. He’d be delighted with them; they were his favourite. Whistling gaily, Cassie climbed the gate to the field that ran parallel to the road she was walking on. Behind it lay the big field every one called Five-acre-field. Strange that she couldn’t hear the tractor. He’d said he’d be here! She breathed deeply, inhaling the tangy sea air, enjoying her walk. Port Mahon was a great place to live. A nice seaside town, and not too far from the bright lights of the capital.

  The grass was a really luscious green, she thought in admiration as she strode briskly on her way. Her father hadn’t planted this field; he was leaving it fallow this year so it would produce a better crop next year. The big dark-green hedgerow ahead of her was obstructing her view of the adjoining field but she could see the gate was open, so Jack must be in there. Maybe he was having a problem with the tractor, as it definitely wasn’t running. All she could hear was the birds singing and the raucous scream of the seagulls as they circled overhead.

  Entering Five-acre-field her heart almost leapt out of her body and a soundless scream rose to her lips at the sight that met her eyes.

  ‘Pops! Oh Poppa, I’m coming!’ Cassie cried, as she dropped the basket with Jack’s supper in it and ran faster than she had ever run in her life.

  Eight

  ‘I’m coming, Poppa. Oh God! God! Please let him be all right,’ she beseeched the Almighty with terror in her heart. Nothing could happen to her big strong father, the one they all looked up to, the one they all ran to when they were in trouble. Fathers were supposed to be invincible, weren’t they?

  Maybe he had walked away from it. Maybe he had gone to get help. Please let that be what had happened.

  She found her father lying beside the tractor. He was unconscious, a trickle of blood flowing down the side of his face where he had hit a sharp-edged stone on impact with the ground. At least he was breathing, she thought frantically, trying to rouse him.

  ‘Wake up, Pops, it’s OK. I’m here, Cassie’s here. Someone will be here in a minute. Come on now, Poppa, wake up!’ God! What should she do? She couldn’t bear to leave him there all by himself but she’d have to go and get help. Sobbing with fright, she kissed him softly on the cheek. ‘I’m going to get help, Pops, I’ll be back in a minute. Please wake up and tell me you’re all right,’ she pleaded as she loosened the shirt buttons at his neck and turned his head sideways. ‘I love you, you’re the best father in the world. Please wake up. Please!’ Jack remained unconscious. After saying an act of contrition in his ear, Cassie kissed him again and ran as fast as she could towards the road. Five-acre-field had never seemed so huge and her legs felt as though they were full of lead. Although it seemed like an age, Cassie was very fit and it took her only a couple of minutes. She was running back the way she had come, towards the glasshouses, when Brendan Doyle, the postmaster, drove past. Cassie waved wildly and Brendan stopped.

  ‘Quick! Quick, get help! Poppa’s fallen off the tractor and he’s unconscious.’

  Brendan blanched. ‘I’m on my way to the telephone. You go back to him,’ he instructed.

  Again she had to make the run across two fields and again it seemed to take for ever. Jack looked ashen, and Cassie had never felt more scared as she knelt beside him, afraid to take him in her arms in case he had spinal injuries. ‘I love you. I love you. I love you,’ she told him over and over, rubbing his hands between hers to keep them warm. It seemed like an eternity but in reality it was only about twenty minutes before Brendan came to help with Pat and the lads from the glasshouses. In the distance, the urgent wail of an ambulance siren broke the stillness of the balmy evening.

  Nora arrived in the station-wagon, white-faced with shock, just as the ambulance men were lifting Jack into the ambulance. John was with her, trying to be brave, his lower lip trembling as he struggled to compose himself and act the way he thought a man should. After all, he was thirteen and the eldest son.

  ‘You go in the ambulance with Jack
. I’ll follow with Cassie and John,’ Brendan offered kindly. And Nora, dazed, did as he suggested. A neighbour was taking care of Irene and Martin, and Barbara was over at Judy’s. Cassie asked Brendan to pick her up; Barbara would be wondering where everybody was if she came home to an empty house. Her younger sister nearly died when Cassie, in a trembling voice, told her what had happened.

  They arrived at the hospital to find Nora standing anxiously in the casualty waiting-room. She was shaking and Cassie immediately went and put her arms around her. ‘Come on, Mam, sit down. We’ll get you a cup of tea. It will be all right now. Don’t worry, the doctors and nurses will take care of Poppa.’ Her mother’s eyes brimmed with tears, her shoulders slumped. Cassie was dismayed at the effect the last few hours were having on Nora. The only time her mother was ever fazed was when Aunt Elsie was coming. Apart from that, Cassie had never seen her other than in total control of any situation, even an emergency.

  Looking at her now, quite distraught with worry, Cassie faced for the first time the fact that her mother was not the omnipotent being her daughter had always imagined her. Nora was experiencing exactly the same fears and anxieties as her children. It grieved Cassie to know that she could never again look on her mother the way a child does. From that moment, it was Cassie who would do the protecting and Nora who would be the protected one. It was the moment Cassie left childhood and carefree days behind her and assumed the mantle of responsibility of the eldest child.

  Eventually they were allowed into the intensive care department, where Jack lay in a small room which could be monitored from the nurses’ station. It seemed to Cassie that her great bear of a father had shrunk, as he lay motionless and grey under the starched hospital sheets. He was in a coma, the doctor informed Nora gently, after a brain haemorrhage. He said the medical term was aneurysm. Jack’s condition was critical.