Chapter Four

APRIL

Molly Hayes said at lunchtime the next day that she had never enjoyed anything so much, and all her friends had rung to congratulate her. It had been an evening that could so easily have ended differently.

They had worked hard this morning, and it was good to have a little breathing space. They decided to visit Haywards mid-season sale. They found some white blinds with a discreet scarlet trim, and extra lighting strips. The preparations were all done for the two delivery jobs… a fancy bridge tea for twelve people, tiny sandwiches and little cakes to go to a private house. They had been ages working out how you put recognisable hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades on each as a motif, but between radishes and black olives as fiddly little decorations they had come up with something acceptable. They also had to sneak a supper to a woman who was pretending to her in-laws that she had cooked this meal herself. She had given them her own dishes, paid in advance - the only rule was that they just leave simple easy-to-follow instructions and never tell anyone that they had been. They would leave her a big jug of spinach soup, a slow-cooked casserole and a lemon tart. It was extremely puzzling to them, but then there was no point whatsoever in criticising her. She was part of the way they earned their living. They felt like children stealing time out of school as they sat down to have a coffee after their buying spree. Cathy saw Shona Burke, sitting alone and reading a book; she was eating a small salad and drinking something from the health juice bar.

'She's an odd mixture, isn't she… friendly one minute, shutting you out the next.'

'Yeah, maybe she has a sugar daddy tucked away,' Tom said.

'Why do you say that?'

'How else could she afford a flat in Glenstar?'

'It's only a studio flat, Tom, and they're all like little boxrooms, anyway she could be old money.' Cathy didn't want living in Glenstar being associated with sugar daddies or having gentlemen giving you gifIs.

Shona looked lonely. And rather prim. She finished her lunch, closed the book, looked at her watch and was about to go back to her work when she spotted them. She looked a totally different person when she smiled.

'Aha, Scarlet Feather undercover in our cafe,' she said.

'Your breads are rubbish compared to mine,' Tom teased her.

To his surprise she nodded. 'You're absolutely right, that's what I was saying last Friday at a meeting, lovely soups and salads here but just the plainest and dullest of bread. You know, that's how I'm going to get you in here. They can put up a notice saying that the breadbasket is by Scarlet Feather. Listen, there's a meeting tomorrow at ten-thirty. Can you let me have a selection of your best, and I'll suggest it.'

They talked about prices and presentation and quantities and delivery. The enthusiasm was enormous. Shona became anxious about it.

'Don't be too disappointed if it doesn't work, I'll give it my very best shot for you both, I think it would be really good for the restaurant too.'

'You're a star, Shona,' Tom said, gathering up his bags of light fittings.

'Are you back to the kitchens to start baking now?' she laughed.

'No, now I'm going to see my father. I'll go into the premises tomorrow, early. You're not going to get one-day-old bread for your demonstration… It's going to be the real thing, fresh-baked, about five different kinds…'

'How is your father?' Shona always asked.

'Oh, he's fine thanks, Shona, you were very kind to me that night at the hospital. He's taking it a little easier, which is no harm. My mother thinks it's all to do with some prayer she said… A bit wearing, but if it works for her… why not?' Tom shrugged.

Cathy agreed. 'It's not doing anyone any harm, and she prayed like mad that our business would survive, so won't you be sure to tell her how well we're doing?'

'I will, of course. Listen, I'm going to run up to the salon and see Marcella for a quick word before we go.'

'Don't say anything yet about the bread business,' Shona warned.

'No, of course not. Cathy, will you pay for the coffee out of office funds, and I'll see you in the van in ten minutes.' He was gone. The two women watched him, and saw the admiring glances as he moved like an athlete through the tables, smiling his apologies if he had to push past people.

'He has absolutely no idea the effect he creates,' Cathy said. 'They're all mad about him wherever we go; the young ones are delighted to know that he's not attached to me, and of course all these old dears, they love him to bits and he just hasn't a clue.'

'When he and Marcella go anywhere together they're just like film stars, the pair of them,' Shona said,getting up to leave. 'Listen, let me look after your coffee for you.'

'No, no,' Cathy protested.

'Cathy, please. This time tomorrow you may well be official suppliers - you're certainly entitled to a cup of coffee.'

Cathy accepted, and as she picked up her parcels said, 'Tom said you had family in the hospital when he went to see his father?'

'Yes, that's right.'

'And is it all right… for them too?'

Shona looked at her. 'No, no, it wasn't all right, in this case she died.'

'Oh, I'm very sorry to hear that.'

'Thank you, Cathy.' Very flat, very unemotional.

'And was it anyone close?'

There was a pause. 'No, not close, not close at all.'

Marcella was sitting at her little table doing nail extensions for a very elegant woman who was busy holding out her hands and admiring them. She was delighted to see Tom, and jumped up to greet him. She looked so gorgeous in her short white uniform with the blue Haywards logo, her long slim legs in dark navy tights and her cloud of dark hair like a halo around her tiny face. Sometimes he could hardly believe how beautiful she was, and that she might love only him. He saw everyone in the salon admiring her.

'Will I get a video, or would you like to go out?' he whispered.

'There's a book launch,' she said.

'Let's hit that, then,' he said with a good-natured shrug. He knew not to ask Marcella whose book and on what topic. A book launch was a photo opportunity. Someone might take a very glamorous picture of Marcella, which could appear in the Among Those Attending column. It would be clipped from the newspaper and added to the growing file in the portfolio. He took the name of the bookshop and the time and said he'd see her there. No point in suggesting dinner afterwards. Marcella hardly ate dinner, and anyway, she'd be going to the gym.

'Could I drop you off at Fatima and then take the van tonight?' Cathy asked him when they had fitted the two blinds, and realised that the light installation needed an electrician. Tom said it was fine, he was meeting Marcella later in the city centre, he'd take a bus back in from his parenIs' house.

'Are you sure? I could go home and get the Volvo,' Cathy said.

'Where are you off to?'

'To see some of the further adventures of Hooves the wonder dog, and to try and reassure those two kids that their life isn't totally over if they do have to go back to their barking-mad parenIs.'

'But wouldn't you be a little bit relieved, in a way? Go on, be honest with me, I'm not family.' He smiled at her.

I've never been more honest… I think it would be so wrong for them to have to go back to that set-up. We've just got some manners on them, some small appearance of normality, they have a dog, they have two happy homes to live in; what makes those selfish clowns think they can wake from their drinky, dysfunctional lives and take them straight back?'

'You won't be relieved then, I take it?'

'No, I'll be heartbroken, as it happens.'

'How'ya, Dad?'

His father sat at the table reading an Irish Heart Foundation publication about avoiding stress.

'Tell me how on earth can anyone avoid stress? If you're in business you can't do it, that's what business is about. How do you avoid stress, Tom?'

'Well Da, there's a lot of people who say I never even achieved any stress, let alone have to avoid it.'

'Well it's true, you have had an easy business life compared to the building trade, but surely you must worry about… will this job do well, or will you get that contract?'

'Sure Da, every day. Today I'm worrying about whether the bread I make tomorrow will be good enough for Haywards to sell… I just try to put it out of my mind when I'm not actually doing it.'

His father grunted. 'Yes, yes, that's what they say here, but of course yours isn't really a business worry in the proper sense of the word.'

'No, Da,' said Tom, who wondered if his father had any idea at all of the years spent having to work night after long night in bars to make the fees for catering college, to borrow huge sums of money for the company, to ask people to be guarantors for the loan, to look at Marcella and know that she was the most beautiful person on earth, and surely someone with style and class would take her away from him. And his father still thought he knew no stress.

'Marcella sent her love,' he lied to his father.

'I know she did, a grand girl no matter what your mother says.'

'What exactly is she saying these days?'

'Ah, you know, the living as man and wife bit… the usual… nothing new.'

'Wouldn't you think she'd have got used to it by now, Dad?' Tom looked at him helplessly.

'People of your mother's frame of mind never get used to it, son, sure you only have to look at Joe to know that.'

'Joe? What do you mean?'

His mother came in just then. 'He's on the mend, isn't he, Tom? What were you saying about Joe just then?'

'I was saying it was nice of him to send Da that basket of fruit, that's all I was saying,' Tom said hastily.

'Huh,' said his mother.

'Marcella was saying it's a great present to send people, far healthier than sending them a bottle of wine or chocolates or something. Oh, and she sent you both her love.'

'Huh,' said his mother again in exactly the same tone.

'You must be delighted that Dad's so fit.'

'Well of course it's all thanks to Our Lady.'

'Sure Ma, and the hospital and everything.'

'The hospital could have done what it liked, it wouldn't have been able to cure your father if Our Lady hadn't intervened.' She nodded her head several times as if she were agreeing with other people who also held this view. Her husband and son looked at her at a loss. There was a silence.

'Was it the Thirty Days' Prayer?' Tom asked eventually.

'Fat lot you know about prayer. There wasn't time for the Thirty Days' Prayer, you eejit. I had to get something much quicker.'

'And she found it in the Evening Herald.' Tom's father knew what to say.

'Oh, laugh away, the pair of you.' She was huffed now.

'Maura! Am I laughing?'

'No, but you would if you had a mind to. It was a Never Known to Fail prayer, and all you have to do when you get your wish is publish it again in the paper so that someone else will see it and know how very powerful the Holy Virgin is in times of crisis, and…'

'That's pretty clever of the newspapers. It means they get columns of prayers in the classifieds,' Tom said admiringly.

Maura went on as if Tom had not spoken. 'And the other thing Our Lady asks is that we just sit down for five minutes with a non-believer and explain how her Son so loved the world that…'

'Yes, well, Mam, but I was only really dropping in to see how Dad was…'

'We could do it now, Tom.'

'But Ma…'

'Please son,' his father asked.

Tom sat obediently and listened while his mother told him of Our Lady's personal distress about a variety of subjecIs. 'Why can't you believe it, Tom? Just tell me,' his mother asked in the tones of one who would be able to sort it out immediately if she knew the exact point of disagreement.

'It's not that I don't believe,' he began.

'But what's the problem then?'

'Mam I've told you, it's not like that. I don't not believe things,' he began, imploring her to understand.

'But what do you believe Tom? What exactly?'

'Well, I believe there's something… something out there to make sense of it all.'

'But you know what's out there, Tom.'

His father's eyes were on him. 'I suppose I do, Mam.' He let his mind drift on to the kind of baskeIs he would use to present this bread tomorrow, and whether they should wrap them in the goodScarlet Feather napkins. He nodded gravely at everything his mother had said, and gave her longer than the five minutes she had sought. She was pleased now that the bargain with Our Lady had been kept. And went out to the kitchen head held high.

'Thanks Tom,' his father said.

'But Dad, you don't have to go along with all this…'

'I do, Tom, it's called give and take… Your mother gives a lot to me, so I give her this bit of listening, that's all there is to it.'

'No, there's much more to it, you have to put on a whole act about things you don't believe.'

'You'd do the same for Marcella now, son, wouldn't you?'

'Well, I suppose I go along with all these nights she spends at the gym when she's already perfect, but I wouldn't pretend to believe something I didn't believe. I wouldn't do that.'

'You might, you know,' his father said. In times to come you might well pretend just for an easy life.'

The twins were doing their homework in the kitchen when Cathy arrived at St Jarlath's. Her mother had begun making their wedding outfits, and had the sewing machine whirring away. Her father was out in the back painting the kennel that one of his pals from the bookies had made for Hooves. Another friend had given him an old horseshoe which he was going to nail over it for luck. The puppy sat on a newspaper quivering with pleasure in the warm kitchen.

'You're welcome, Cathy, but this is a house of hard industry at the moment. Everyone has to be kept at their work until after six-thirty, if you know what I mean.'

Cathy knew exactly what she meant. She meant that it was hard enough to get Muttie to paint and the children to do their school work without having a welcome interruption like a visit to cope with.

'I'm just going to do my accounts at the table,' she said quickly, and sat down opposite Maud and Simon. 'Hallo,' she whispered, as if she too were just a fellow hater of homework.

'Should we make tea?' Maud hissed hopefully behind her hand. Simon looked up eagerly.

'No, not until half past six,' Cathy whispered, and they all went back to work. She didn't even see the figures, they were just a blur. She had phoned Neil just before coming here. Simon and Maud's mother and father were very grateful to these people who had done so much when they were unavoidably absent, but everything was now fine again. They were looking forward to seeing their children again, and were expecting them to come home at the weekend. And tonight he was meeting someone who would let them know about the timescale.

'Timescale?' Cathy had asked.

About the job; apparently this guy knew how long it could be held open for Neil.

At half past six they all went on a tour of inspection of the snow-white kennel.

'It's beautiful,' Simon said with awe.

'A palace for Hooves,' said Maud.

'But of course he can't get into it until the paint is dried,'Muttie explained.

'Or he'll come out looking like a Dalmatian, all white spots,' said Cathy.

'Dalmatians are actually white with black spots,' Simon corrected her. Then he remembered that you didn't correct people. 'At least, what I meant to say was… that some of them are white with black spoIs. Of course, they could be the other way round, too.'

'Good boy, Simon,' Cathy said with sudden tears in her eyes. They had taught these children so much, they were almost human beings now, and for what? So that they could be sent back to these dysfunctional parenIs?

'Are you crying?' Maud asked with interest.

'Sort of. People of my age do cry sometimes, quite unexpectedly. It's a nuisance,' she said matter-of-factly and blew her nose.

'Our mother used to cry like that in the hospital, and she didn't know why either,' Maud said kindly, as a sort of reassurance.

'But in her case it was really due to her bad nerves.' Simon was anxious always to be fair.

She hadn't realised just how very much she was going to miss them. It was nonsense to say that they belonged with this ridiculous couple, Jock's brother Kenneth and his wife.

'Come on kids, let's take Hooves for a walk. I know he's not mine but I feel very close to him, even though I don't live here.'

It won't be much of a walk, it's more a waddle,' Maud said, and ran for the lead. Up and down St Jarlath's Crescent they went, telling the people that they met about the puppy. They divided the time meticulously between them.

'I never thought we'd have a real puppy of our own, I thought we'd be able to play with someone else's, but not one of our very own, living in the house,' said Simon when it was Maud's turn to hold the lead.

'Sure, and he'll always be yours. The actual house where Hooves sleeps isn't all that important, not as important as the fact that he belongs to you.'

Simon looked up at her, troubled. 'Why do you say that?'

'Well, you know,' she shrugged vaguely.

'I know now,' he said. The old solemn look was back.

'What do you know?' she asked fearfully.

Maud had joined them, and was looking from one to the other.

Simon spoke very slowly and deliberately. 'Father has come back from his travels, Mother is coming out of the nervous hospital and we'll be leaving Muttie and his wife and we're going back to live with them and leave Hooves behind us.'

Maud looked up, stricken, waiting to hear it wasn't true. 'We're to call Muttie's wife Lizzie,' she corrected. 'Remember.'

'Yes,' Simon said flatly. 'Sorry, I forgot. Yeah, it's Lizzie all right.'

There was a silence. 'It's your turn with Hooves,' Maud said to Simon.

'I don't want him, Maud. Thank you all the same,' Simon said, and walked ahead of them back home. His shoulders were hunched and his head was down. Cathy let him go. She knew that he was trying very hard not to show how upset he was.

'Are we really going to be leaving St Jarlath's Crescent and you and Neil, Cathy?' Maud's face was paler than ever.

'It's not really leaving, you know friends don't leave each other, you'll be coming back to us and to Dad and Mam and who knows, maybe things are much better now and you can take Hooves with you.'

'You didn't know Mother, did you?'

'No, not really know, so to speak.'

'Her nerves would never let her make a home for Hooves,' Maud said sadly.

Marcella was talking earnestly to Ricky, but her face lit up when Tom came into the bookshop.

'You'll never guess what Ricky's going to try and get,' she said excitedly.

'No, tell me.' Tom was tired. His mother had worn him out, the passivity of his father had depressed him, he feared they hadn't costed the breads right for tomorrow's demonstration. Cathy had rung him on the mobile to say that St Jarlath's Crescent was plunged into gloom and the only person giving her the time of day was the black puppy, who had peed several times into her shoe.

'I just wondered if you felt like a cheering drink,' she had asked.

'I'm on my way to have one, come and join us. We might make a pitch for the bookshop trade as well,' he offered.

'Will I get in? I wasn't invited,' Cathy wondered.

I'd say they'll be out in the highways and byways dragging people in off the street,' he said.

'Tom, don't look now,' Marcella warned, 'but that woman over there in the hat… She's the editor of the new magazine I was telling you about, well, Ricky thinks he could sell her a picture story. Big, hunky photos of you… wearing a much classier sweater than that… Huge publicity for Scarlet Feather, too… you know, at home and at work or wherever.'

'Yeah, I mentioned it to her, she seems to be interested, but you know they never tell you yes or no. Still, I think she'll bite.'

'You do, Ricky?' Tom's eyes lit up. This would be truly wonderful. Everyone who was ever going to hire a caterer read this publication. He could see Cathy and himself taking the tray of bread into Haywards, the van with its jaunty little logo. Maybe they could give a recipe, and get a perfect picture taken of the completed dish. Like the scallops and ginger Cathy did so well, that would really show up well. They would never in a million years be able to get this kind of coverage. Wasn't Marcella great to talk Ricky into this. Ricky would persuade the woman in the silly hat.

'He's going to ask her to come over and meet you in a minute -give her your biggest smile,' Marcella begged. She looked so beautiful, but extra lively and happy tonight in a very smart short, dark grey and white dress he had never seen before.

'New?' he asked admiringly.

'Tom darling, you are so wonderful but you know nothing about clothes. This would cost seven hundred pounds if you were to buy it.'

'So how did you…'

'Joys of working in Haywards. Someone returned it to the designer room, a flaw in one of the seams or something. All I pay for is the dry-cleaning.'

She was like a toddler at a birthday party she was so thrilled with it all. Just then he saw Cathy. She looked bedraggled in her raincoat, and instead of a bright ribbon holding her hair back she had an elastic band. She wore no make-up, and she had lines under her eyes. He would not have noticed except that the room was filled with overdressed women and he had just turned away from the immaculately groomed Marcella in her designer outfit.

Cathy smiled. 'Lead me to the cheapest red wine and let me loose on it,' she said.

'Not if you're driving the company van, no way,' he said.

'No, I parked it up at the premises. It's all tucked up there waiting for the dawn baker to arrive.' She was as tired as he was. Where did all these other people get the energy to yap so much to each other?

'My God, look at Marcella! She's utterly dazzling in that dress. Bet it cost a few quid.'

'Don't ask,' he said.

'Oh dear, domestic rows on this matter?'

'No, I meant don't ask because it's off Haywards rail tonight and back tomorrow, I understand.'

'No harm done then.' Cathy was cheerful. 'Lord, but this is truly dreadful wine, I'll be glad when I've had enough!'

The woman in the silly hat approached and was introduced by Ricky. 'This is the celebrated Tom Feather I told you about,' Ricky said.

'Mmm,' she said, looking Tom up and down.

'I hear the magazine's doing really well,' he said.

'And your business too.' Again she seemed to let her eyes run all over Tom's body slowly and appreciatively.

'Yes, well, let me introduce you to the other half of the business, half of Scarlet Feather, Cathy Scarlet.'

'Great to meet you,' Cathy said pleasantly.

The woman looked somewhat puzzled. 'How nice,' she said.

'We'd be very happy to cooperate in anything… everything,' he said with his huge smile.

'Well that sounds like the best offer I've had all night,' she said. She had a strange manner, this woman with the hat. Full of innuendo, as if a very obvious pass was being made to her and she was being coy and flirtatious about it. Cathy thought she was grotesque. But she had gone now, so it was immaterial.

'Marcella… you look stunning.' She was genuine in her admiration.

'You're sweet, Cathy, it's just fine feathers, borrowed feathers actually.'

'Wait till you know what's going to happen, thanks to Ricky.' Tom couldn't wait a moment longer.

'What?' Cathy had rarely seen him so excited.

'That woman who looked as if she was wearing two building blocks stuck to a coat hanger on her head. She's the head of the new magazine we couldn't afford to advertise in, and wait for it, there's going to be a photo feature about Scarlet Feather in it.'

'Well, Tom…' Ricky began.

Wo! You're not serious.' Cathy was utterly delighted but apprehensive. She was going to have to do so much, finally change her hairstyle, borrow some clothes, get a professional make-up… But it would all be worth it.

'When do they want to do it?' she asked, as excited as Tom was.

'Well you see, actually…' Ricky began looking ill at ease.

Marcella explained. 'Ricky was telling me she's a very difficult woman, she blows hot and cold, we won't really know when or what form it will take for quite some time.' She seemed to be looking very directly at Ricky as she spoke.

'Sure,' he said eventually. 'Marcella tells it as it is. Stay in this part of the room, honey. I'll get one of the guys from the Sundays to come over to snap you.'

'Photographers always use that word "snap" as a joke. It's like people calling the radio a wireless…' Marcella said.

'Why did Ricky change his tack so suddenly? A few minutes ago he was saying it was in the bag. I can't understand it.' Tom was puzzled and annoyed.

The woman with the hat was leaving. She waved at him. 'Night, Tom, be good now. We'll be in touch soon. Ricky knows everything,' she said and was gone.

'Now,' Tom was triumphant. 'I'm going to find Ricky and tell him.'

'Please Tom, don't.' Marcella spoke seriously. Cathy looked up at her tone. 'There's been a misunderstanding.' Marcella looked awkwardly from Tom to Cathy as if unsure where to start or which of them to tell.

'Go on Marcella,' Cathy was gentle.

'Ricky was selling her a feature for a kind of Glamorous Couples thing… you know, you the big, gorgeous gourmet cook, me the model, our home, pics of us coming out of Stoneyfield together, you serving a meal to me, me at the gym, you piping cream on a dessert… Me doing the charity modelling show for that children's home… That kind of thing… So you see…'

'It's not about Scarlet Feather at all.' He was bitterly disappointed.

'Well, of course it is in part… after all, it's going to say what you do for a living, people will get to know your name.'

'But it's all a fake. I don't cook you meals, Marcella… you don't eat any meals.' Tom's face was red with indignation.

'Oh, come on, Tom, I thought you'd be delighted. She said you were gorgeous-looking. She told Ricky that when he showed her a picture he had taken of both of us. This is the chance I need. Why are you being so difficult? They can't have a feature on the business alone, that would be just advertising and the other catering companies would all go mad.'

'And what about all the other models or future models, won't they go mad also if it's about you?'

'About us, Tom, not just me, it's you too, how else are you going to get Scarlet Feather mentioned? I thought you'd be so pleased.'

Cathy saw this argument going nowhere except sharply downhill. 'I think it's great, Tom, this is the very best way that we could get publicity you know, it's exactly what we want.'

Marcella looked at her, a quick, very grateful glance.

But Tom had yet to be persuaded. 'I think it's silly. I'm not a male model, strutting about for knitting patterns, dressing up in a posh sweater or serving something in a cream sauce that you wouldn't eat in a million years…'

'Tom, stop the dramatics. How else are we going to get Scarlet Feather that kind of publicity? Tell me.'

'You're not being asked to behave like an arsehole.'

'And neither are you… I'd do it for the company. I would in a flash if I looked the part, and if Neil's bloody job would let him take part. But you know the way those barristers go on…' She had defused it.

'So do you really think… ?'

'Well of course I think… But listen, in the end it's all up to you and Marcella to fight about it. I'll leave you now to get on with it. Just know that I put on the table the view that it would be great for business.' She turned to go away, and saw herself reflected in a glass door. Of course it had been ridiculous to think that a glossy magazine would have wanted her in it. She had been even more idiotic than Tom.

'Don't go, Cathy, you wanted a drink and to be cheered up.'

'Well I am cheered up, very.' Her eyes were very bright, over-bright. 'We've got a load of great publicity ahead of us and all you have to do is smile.'

'I'm sorry. I thought it was the two of us.'

I'm not… I'm totally relieved,' and she was out of the bookshop.

'Do you think Mother will let us come back here to St Jarlath's?' Maud asked Simon hopefully.

'I don't think so, do you?' Simon had no idea.

'Not really. Her nerves might not be able to take it,' Maud said.

There was a silence. Eventually Simon spoke. 'I suppose it will be all right being back at home again. In a way.'

'Yes.' Maud was glum.

'At least we don't have to change schools again. Neil got that sorted for us,' Simon said.

'I suppose we'll just get ourselves home… I mean,Muttie and Hooves can't come and collect us any more.'

'No.' Simon was very sure on this.

'It's a pity Mother's nerves got better so soon in a way, isn't it?' Maud said.

'And that Father was found,' said Simon.

They looked at each other guiltily. But it had been said now, and it couldn't be taken back.

Cathy was around at the premises at dawn the next day.

I'm not here to interfere… just to make coffee and tidy up after you… This is your show,' she explained.

Tom was overjoyed to see her. 'God, I'm glad to see you. I'm having awful second thoughts about the fruit and nutty bread.'

'But everyone loves that,' Cathy protested.

'They love it when they've paid for it in advance, when it's in their house and they can't give it back,' Tom wailed, 'but will they love it if they have to pay so much a slice and wonder why if it's sweet they aren't buying a slice of gooey gateau instead. I think it was a stupid idea.'

'It's in the oven, isn't it?' Cathy checked.

'Yes, but—'

'I think it's a great idea… Come on, strong, strong coffee and lots of backbone… Which was Geraldine's great advice to me when I was a teenager. How's Marcella?' He had stopped worrying about the bread now.

'I proposed again last night. I said to Marcella that if we have to do this idiotic photo shoot let's make it an engagement celebration, but she won't hear of it.'

'Proper order. What an unromantic proposal!' Cathy said firmly.

'No, it's not that at all; she says she won't marry me until she's successful, until she believes that I'm getting as good a bargain as she is.'

'She's amazingly direct and straightforward, isn't she,' Cathy said with admiration.

'She is the only person I know in the whole world who has never told a lie,' Tom said.

'Hey, come on, what about me?'

'You lie from morning to night, as do I. We have to, we tell people their houses are terrific when they're terrible, we tell them this Chardonnay is better than that depending what price we get it for, we thank the butcher and tell him he's terrific to chop the meat for us even though he doesn't do it properly but at least he waves his cleaver at it. We're telling lies all day.'

There was a ping on the oven timer and the bread came out. It all looked perfect as it went onto the wire trays. Cathy shook Tom's hand formally. 'It's bloody great, Tom, I can't believe they won't take it. I know we're into Haywards today, I just know it.'

They delivered the baskets to Shona just before the big meeting. Shona looked so elegant in her dark suit and pale pink blouse, slightly severe but very much in control. You didn't stay in a senior job at Haywards just by looking pretty.

It smells utterly magical, but you know it's not down to me. I can only hope for you,' she said, and she was gone.

They would meet in the cafe at noon to hear the result. They had the time planned down to the last second: they would go to the market to buy the ingredients for James Byrne's cookery lesson that evening. They would price little breadbaskets in the market too. Just in case they got the Haywards job… They would check on a new laundry, what it would cost to do their tablecloths; they would walk around the new Eastern Delights delicatessen with notebooks at the ready, looking for more ideas. That would certainly fill up all their time until Shona was able to tell them the news.

Shona came running into the cafe, thumbs up in the air. Not only had they bought it as an idea, they had eaten it all at their coffee break. There had been little dishes of butter on the tray as well, to encourage them. They could start next week on a six-week trial period.

'Can we use our name?' Tom asked.

'Yes, but a bit smaller than you wanted… They'd like "baked fresh every day especially for Haywards", and then your name… But we can put your logo on, of course, and make it whatever size we like.' Shona was as eager as they were.

Cathy flung her arms around the girl. 'We'll never be able to thank you,' she said, her voice choked.

Then Tom folded Shona in a bear-hug. 'I swear I'll make it a success, for your sake as well as ours.' He was gruff with gratitude.

'You'll be responsible for putting two inches onto the hip measuremenIs of Ireland,' Shona said. 'You should have seen the way they went at it, and they want double the order of the fruit and nut one.'

'And they accept the price?' Tom was beaming all over his face.

'Yes, they think it's fair, but don't be appalled when you see what they charge, they didn't get to be rich by having a small mark-up,' she apologised.

'We'd take you out to dinner tonight to thank you properly, but we have a job,' Cathy said.

'No need, believe me, I'm the flavour of the month after that feeding frenzy upstairs!'

Tom and Cathy looked at each other in disbelief.

'Back to the market,' she said.

'To buy the breadbaskeIs,' Tom said with a great whoop of joy that turned every head in his direction.

James Byrne had explained to them that he wanted three cookery lessons. And that he would need to master a starter, a main course and a dessert at each lesson. Then he could mix and match, and when the time came he could serve whatever he liked best or possibly whatever was easiest. They didn't ask him what was the time that was going to come. You didn't ask James Byrne anything personal like that.

It was a big house, back from the road, with a well-kept gravelled space for cars. The house was probably in four large apartments. James Byrne had said to ring the Garden Flat bell. It was a basement with iron bars on the window. Fairly typical of his cautious behaviour. Assume the worst. Be prepared for burglars, clients with laundered money, random tax inspections, people clamping your car, stolen credit cards. James Byrne was someone who did not automatically believe the best of people.

He opened the door to them and smiled his usual grave smile. Dressed formally - no sweater and sloppy corduroys for James Byrne at home. They carried in their bags of ingredients though a dark narrow hall. On the right was a sitting room, on the left a kitchen and straight ahead what must have been a bedroom and bathroom. It was mainly a dark muddy-brown colour, and even with the April sunset peeping through the dark curtains there was nowhere that the light seemed to land on a cheerful corner. The kitchen had various storage cupboards, all of different heights, and an awkward table, an old-fashioned oven, a sink that was impossible to reach and a fridge that took up a great amount of room, and which held a bottle of water, a carton of orange juice, half a litre of milk and a packet of butter. Cathy ached to get it all torn out. A phone call could have had two of JT Feather's men round in half an hour, then they could order fittings. She and Tom knew places who would deliver and install in a day. But this was not going to happen. This man would live with these hopeless, outdated appliances for ever. How old was he now? About sixty-something. He had never said if he was single, married, divorced or widowed. His flat gave absolutely no sign of any lifestyle. You would not know what chair he sat in in the evening to watch television. Or if he ever did watch it. A small set stood at an inconvenient angle. A low table had a pile of neatly stacked newspapers and magazines on it. Were they waiting to be read, waiting to have things clipped from them, or just pausing before going to a waste-paper bank? Pictures on the walls were of mountains and lakes. Dull prints, no life in any of them. Old, inexpensive frames. Just two shelves of old books. They looked pretty undisturbed. A desk with some papers on it and an old-fashioned blotter, although nobody had written with ink for years. A plastic mug held all James Byrne's ballpoint pens. Cathy saw that Tom was looking around him, probably making similar judgements. She shook herself.

'Right. The lesson starts here, James: put on your pinny.'

'I don't think I have one…' he began.

'I didn't think so either, so I brought you one of ours!'

Triumphantly she produced a Scarlet Feather apron with its big red logo around the edge. He seemed bashful as he tied its strings around his waist.

'That was very nice of her, wasn't it, Tom?' he said. 'Trust a woman to have a nice little touch.'

'Not a bit of it, James; don't ever let the females think they have a monopoly on little touches. Look what I brought you, a great big oven glove so that you won't burn your arm to a crisp like some people I know.'

He was very pleased with this and tried it on, flexing his arm up and down. 'Looks as if it's all going to be much more intensive, not to say more dangerous, than I thought,' he said.

The conversation sounded so normal. Why did they feel they couldn't ask him why he was paying them all this money to learn how to make a meal? Who was he going to serve it to and why? But they knew that this was not a question that could be asked, nor would be answered.

They did a smoked mackerel starter in little ramekins. Cathy flaked the fish expertly and added the thinly sliced mushrooms and cream.

'The cheese for the top is nicer if freshly grated,' she said, 'but you could use a shake from the packet of Parmesan.'

James Byrne looked doubtful.

'I always use the packet myself for small things like this,' Tom lied.

'Oh, you do?' Cathy said, laughing.

'Indeed I do. Saves you that little bit of time just when you need it, I always say.'

'It seems a very easy thing to make.' James Byrne was suspicious.

'It tastes as if it were very difficult to make, I assure you.' Cathy patted him down.

'I've had it in restaurants, and you know I thought there was an awful lot of cooking in it, and now it's only tearing up a cold smoked fish and pouring cream on it.' He shook his head in wonder.

'Wait till we deconstruct chicken tarragon for you, James,' Tom laughed. 'You'll never trust a cook again.'

They sat and ate together, the three of them. Cathy had written out everything step by step. James said it was all quite delicious, and what's more, he thought he could do it on his own. They talked easily about the theatre, how Cathy and Tom had once seen every play that was on every stage in Dublin, and now they never made time to go at all.

'Do you go to the theatre much?' Cathy asked.

It turned out that James did, almost every week. Why did neither of them feel able to ask if he went with a group of friends or on his own or with a companion? They touched on a lot of subjecIs: politics, prisons, drugs and eventually opera. James said he used to go a lot to the opera when he was a student, but somehow since then… His voice trailed away. Neither of them asked why he couldn't go now. Or indeed, in the years in between.

'Do you listen to it here at home?' Cathy indicated the rather old-fashioned music centre.

'No, not for a long while. You have to be in the mood to set it all up.'

'No, James, of course you don't, you just put it on… it creates its own mood. I put it on doing the washing-up if I'm alone. Let's put on something when we're doing the washing-up here tonight.'

'No, please, I don't have anything suitable,' he said a little anxiously.

She drew back. 'Sure,' she said easily.

She had seen tapes of operas piled high in his sitting room, but he obviously didn't want to play them.

'Come on then, let's do the washing-up without an aria.'

'No, no, you must not feel…' he began.

'Rule one. Never refuse an offer of washing-up. Right, Tom?'

'Absolutely, and be quite sure to let your guest help do the washing-up if she offers,' Tom added.

'Why do you think it's a she?' James asked.

'Because a mere man wouldn't care what he was being offered if he came round to dinner, and probably wouldn't notice. Believe me, I've cooked for them, I know,' said Tom, cursing himself for being so tactless.

Cathy looked at him admiringly. 'Too true,' she said. 'No, James, the first thing is to have a dish of hot soapy water to stick the cutlery into after each course, and a place to scrape away the leavings. Then it will take two minutes.'

'I don't have a dishwasher, you know,' he said anxiously, in case there had been any misunderstanding.

Cathy looked around the kitchen that had no electric beater, liquidiser or proper chopping board. Of course the man wouldn't have a dishwasher. 'No need for one, hands are just as good. Take us five minutes at the outside, what do you say, Tom?'

'Six if we do it thoroughly,' Tom said, starting on the frying pan.

Joe rang at the door of Fatima. He carried a bottle of sweet sherry and a tin of fancy biscuits. He could hear his mother grumbling as she came to the door. 'It's all right, JT, I'm going to get it, whoever it is at this time of night.' It was seven o'clock on an April evening, hardly the middle of the night. He must not allow himself to become annoyed.

'How are you, Ma?' he said with false good humour.

His mother looked him up and down. She looked old and tired now, not like she had in January when he had seen her briefly at Tom and Cathy's launch party. Then she had worn a green tweed suit and a white blouse with a green cameo brooch at the neck. Tonight she wore a faded pinafore and shabby slippers. Her hair was flat, grey and limp. When he saw what women her age could do with themselves, Joe's heart felt heavy. Maura Feather must be fifty-eight at the very most. She looked as if she were well over seventy.

'And what brings you here?' his mother asked.

'I came to see you both, and to know how Da isgetting along.' He kept the smile on his face.

'You know how he'sgetting along. We sent you a note to thank you for that basket of fruit.' His mother's face was hard.

'Yes, yes, indeed. It was a very nice letter.' Joe knew that Tom had written it, typed it, made it up for them. Anything to keep a lifeline open between them all.

'Anyway, now that I'm here, Ma…' He began to take a step over the doorstep.

'Who asked you to come in, Joe?'

'Well you're never going to send me away?' He held his head on one side, the way of pleading that rarely failed. But he was at Fatima now.

'What makes you think you're welcome in this house? You often come to Dublin, and never come to see us. I saw you one day myself out of a bus, laughing on the corner of a street. Why should we welcome you here?'

'I suppose any man who wants to see how well his father has recovered from a heart attack is welcome in his old home,' Joe said.

The legendary Joe Feather charm was not finding its mark with his mother.

'I've had to live with the results of your selfishness year after year, your father having no one to lift a hand to help him at his work.'

'Ma, I was never going to work in Dad's business, you know that.'

'I do not know it, and a fine example you were to your brother, too…'

'Tom was never going to work in it either, Ma

'Not good enough for you, only good enough to pay your school fees and buy you clothes and football boots and a bicycle, but not good enough—'

'Could I see Da, do you think?' Joe cut across her.

'What makes you think you can walk in here after all this time, and that your father will be pleased to see you?'

'I had hoped that you both would,' he said.

There was a tic in his forehead. Why was he doing this? One more refusal and he would leave, but he just had to see the old man before he went. He moved gently but firmly past his mother to the room where his father sat in the chair, straining to hear every word. The man looked white and papery. But there was a welcoming light in his face that Joe hadn't seen in his mother's.

'Joe, good to see you, lad.'

'And you, Da, I know it's been a day or two but I wanted to make sure that you were as good as they say.'

'They?' His mother sniffed from the door.

'Well, Tom for one, Cathy Scarlet for another, Ned in the yard for a third. People who care about you.'

'Huh,' said Maura Feather.

'Look, I'm so glad to see you well, and you looking fine too, Ma. I'm just rushing through Dublin and I haven't been back here since you were in hospital, so I thought it would be good for us to meet just for a few minutes.'

'It is indeed, Joe.' His father reached out for Joe's hand.

Joe pretended not to see the gesture because he could sense his mother's hostility towards any hand-grasping.

'I brought us a quick small drink and a sweet biscuit, and maybe the next time I come Ma would make us a cup of tea and a scone…'

He didn't look at her, instead he opened the sherry and found glasses on the sideboard.

'I hope the next time will be soon. If you knew how tough it is over in London…'

'I can't remember anyone forcing you to go there.' Maura Feather was not won over yet.

'I liked it when I was young and foolish, Ma, everyone likes a big bad place then… But people aren't really happy there, like they're not in any big city.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, you know yourself. You can see it in Dublin too, though of course London's much bigger. People are restless. They're looking for something to explain what it's all about…'

They looked at him blankly.

'You know, when I went to London first the churches were empty… Today there are people going into them at lunchtime, in the evenings looking up, everyone looking for answers.'

'How would you know?' Maura Feather asked.

'I know because I go sometimes, and into a temple or a mosque or a synagogue… There's not just one God, Mam, not like there was when we were young.'

'There's only one true God,' she snapped.

'I know, I know, but honestly nowadays it's much better than it used to be, isn't it, people respecting everyone's beliefs.'

'It's very little belief you respected, Joe Feather, when we last saw you.'

At least she had used his name. It was an advance. He poured the sherry and smiled at them. His professional smile. He didn't care for them himself - they were strangers, a weak man, a bitter woman. True, he had felt a tug of pity when he heard that his father had been fighting for breath in the hospital. Joe's own inclination would have been to continue sending the occasional long-distance gift. But he had promised Tom he would make the effort. And somehow he owed Tom.

Tom had been right, he hadn't helped the business of being a son of Fatima. He had been of little help in sharing what he saw as the burden of elderly and tiresome parents. He would keep smiling and talking about searching for more meaning in life and pouring sherry. He saw that his mother had relaxed and his father was touchingly pleased at his efforts. Joe thought he had put much, much more work than this into selling a line of coordinated tops and shorts to a tough Northern businessman. He would stay another half an hour.

The photo shoot was endless. Tom just could not believe that grown-up people spent such huge amounts of time doing something so trivial. Marcella had taken two days off work and arrived home with a selection of Haywards garments for both of them. The sweater and jacket she had chosen for him were astronomically expensive.

'It's all with Shona's blessing… It's as good as an unpaid advertisement for them. And you are so gorgeous to look at I'm going to have trouble beating them all off you, the make-up artists' the hairstylists, the lighting people… And that's only the men,' she laughed excitedly.

It was beginning to happen for her. The work dream coming true, as it had for him earlier this year. Tom would do his utmost to smile and look rugged, or whatever they wanted that would help Marcella's career.

The man who was meant to know the timescale of everything hadn't known it, according to Neil. It was a new posting, it was all up in the air, it was not fixed to any date. There was plenty of time to talk.

'Good,' Cathy said.

Muttie and Lizzie whispered in the dark bedroom. 'They'll be gone at the end of the week,' she said. 'I know, and I was just getting to like them,'Muttie said.

Neil said that Kenneth and Kay Mitchell were now installed, and everything was in place; they were ready and waiting.

'I told the social worker that it would be a bit hard on the kids to go straight back in, and she agrees entirely. She's very nice, by the way, you'll like her; her name is Sara. Anyway, Sara says that we should bring them to visit their parents once or twice before leaving them there. She'll come with us.'

Cathy felt an unreasonable twinge of jealousy. This was her call, hers and her kind parents, who had put themselves out for the children when nobody wanted them. Now it seemed that everyone wanted them - mad, runaway fathers, mad, drunken mothers, bossy social workers called Sara.

'Okay, I'll fix a time to take them over to the House of Horrors,' she said.

'Don't even whisper that name in front of those two. You know the way they pick up on everything,' he warned.

'You're right. I'll see when I can snatch an hour and take them.'

'Well, we'll have to coordinate when you're free, Sara's free and I'm free.'

'But Neil, that could be next year. This isn't a conference call that we're setting up, it's my taking those kids back to where they're going to be living from now on without frightening them to death. It's about putting some kind of mad appearance of normality on it, not about checking everyone's diaries.'

'Hon, I know what you're saying, but in these kind of things it's best to do it by the book, keep the social worker on board, then if anything goes wrong we're all in the clear.'

'But we know exactly what will go wrong… Eventually Kenneth will hear the sounds of distant excitement in far-off lands and Kay will smell a vodka bottle and we're back to where we were.

Tom had never seen Ricky at work before. He had only seen him as the relaxed man who watched everything and knew everyone. He had no idea of the preparation that went into taking what would result in five or six photographs in a magazine. Tom's face was a picture. He felt sure there had been some mistake, and that this was a multimillion-dollar movie that was being made in the small apartment in Stoneyfield. What he could not begin to understand was Marcella's sense of calm throughout all of this. She served endless coffee and ice-cold mineral water. When asked to smile, she did so with a radiance he could hardly believe. It didn't matter how many times she had to do it, the same smile was delivered as fresh as if it had come from the heart. She sat motionless as they applied yet more make-up, touched up the lip gloss and lacquered her already perfect hair. Tom, on the other hand, made jokes, clowned around, felt awkward, knocked things over and apologised again and again. He thought the day would never end. No night working in a noisy pub, no back-aching hauling of food up flights of stairs, no squeezing through tiny narrow corridors without upsetting trays of food had ever been half as exhausting as this. When they were finally alone in jeans and T-shirts, with all today's finery at the dry-cleaner's and tomorrow's hung up in readiness, Tom lay down on the sofa with his head on her lap. She stroked his brow. Still fresh as a daisy, and her eyes dancing with the pleasure of it all.

'Thank you, dear, dear Tom. I know you hated it,' she said softly.

'I didn't hate it, exactly, but it was very stressful. I was hopeless, I'm afraid.'

'You were wonderful. They all said so.'

'Marcella, how have you the patience?'

'I ask you always how have you the patience to do all that fiddly work. Those little perfectly shredded garnishes, and rolling up those tiny bits of sushi… I would go mad rather than do it, I tell you.'

She stroked his brow and he wanted to go to sleep there and then. 'That's because you don't eat,' he said, smiling up at her. 'You've never had a lust for food like other fatter folk.'

'Oh, I might have had a lust for food once upon a time,' she said.

But he knew that she never had. Any of the few pictures of her childhood that he had seen showed a little waif-like girl. Marcella had never been a foodie.

'I have to go, alas,' he said, dragging himself up.

'Surely not? After all the work you put in already today?'

'We have a do. Cathy's been working on it all day while I've been posturing here. I have to go and help her serve it.'

'Sure you have to go. Though your posturing, as you call it, may well get you lots more business.'

'Marcella, be serious!'

'I was never more so. What is it tonight?'

'Our Lady's Ladies.'

'What?'

'I don't know. Some past pupils' group. They're all twenty years left school this year, and apparently two decades ago they swore a mighty oath that if they were alive today they'd have a party.'

'They're not really called that, are they?'

'Something like that. Anyway, off I go. Am I too casual, do you think?'

'I'd say Our Lady's Ladies will just about tear you to pieces,' said Marcella admiringly.

'Jesus, Cathy, what a day I've had: I'm so sorry for leaving all this to you.'

'No problem, Mister Cheesecake… I was glad to be distracted, I have to take those kids to meet some terrifying Nazi called Sara tomorrow, and ease them back to the madhouse… I preferred making salmon en croute.'

How they got through the night, they never knew. Tom, who was nearly dead from smiling at cameras for over seven hours and with the thought of the same thing again the following day, smiled and laughed and told the women that there must be some mistake, none of them could have left school twenty years ago. Cathy, who was nearly dead worrying about how to handle the horrific social worker Sara without putting anyone's back up managed to weave and duck around the room as the women shrieked and remembered funny things from years ago. Almost everyone had turned up, they told Cathy, only three had cried off. Janet who was in New Zealand, Orla who was in some kind of weird cult in the West of Ireland and Amanda who was in Canada running a bookshop with her lover. Was that Amanda Mitchell by any chance, Cathy had wondered, too much of a coincidence. Yes, it was, apparently! They were annoyed about Amanda, she always had plenty of money, her family owned that big house, Oaklands, so she could well have come back. It wasn't as if any of them were going to be worried one way or another about her lover.

'And who is he?' Cathy had asked politely.

'Aha, it's not a he at all, it's a she. Imagine! Amanda Mitchell is the only girl in a class of twenty-eight females who fancied a woman, what does that do to statistics?' asked the woman who had set up the party.

Cathy sat down in the kitchen. Her sister-in-law was a lesbian. What else would the day bring?

'They were a nice lot,' June said as she helped to pack the van.

'And they seemed pleased with it all,' Tom yawned.

'They gave me a good tip, too. And four of them asked me where I got my streaks done.'

'Did they like them?' Cathy was still doubtful about the startling violet sections of June's hair.

'They loved them, they were dead impressed that I could afford Haywards. Thanks again, Cathy, it was a great gift.'

'That bit was nothing, it's my hair we have to worry about with Hannah,' said Cathy.

They left June at a taxi rank. 'You know, I have a great life because of you two,' she said, and trotted off.

They drove in silence towards the premises.

'I didn't know it was all going to be so bloody exhausting,' Cathy said.

'Nor I. The food's no trouble, it's just the people who are a pain,'

Tom agreed.

They spent one hour and forty minutes unpacking the van, loading the dish-washing machines, wrapping and freezing the leftovers and preparing the kitchen and ovens for the morning bake. They worked companionably, and didn't waste one unit of energy by speaking to each other. When they were through, Tom drove the van slowly out into the street.

'I'm like a zombie,' he said. 'Can you watch me in case I fall asleep?'

'Well, the very thought of you doing that might keep me awake, anyway,' Cathy said.

It will be May next month,' Tom said.

'That's true.'

There was a silence.

'Why did you tell me that?' Cathy asked eventually.

'I can't remember,' Tom confessed.

'Are we becoming geriatrics, do you think? We don't actually say things any more.' Cathy sounded worried.

'No, there's not much to say except that my brother has turned into a major pain in the arse,' Tom said.

'And it seems that my sister-in-law is going to give a few people at Oaklands a few major surprises,' said Cathy. She looked at Tom's face. 'You don't need to know now. Anyway, as you say, it will be May soon. I've a feeling that this means something.'

'Something good or bad?' Tom wondered.

'Jesus, Tom, if I knew that… wouldn't I be able to run the world,' said Cathy Scarlet, who then fell asleep until Tom drove her into the courtyard of Waterview.