Feeding Strawberries to Pigs Read online

  He did not bother to reply and later when she told her mother what happened she seemed unable to give Lorraine the reply she wanted to hear. The next day her mother got her up early and they caught the bus to town.

  The event was never spoken about again whilst they were under that roof.

  That night Lorraine listened in to her uncle and grandmother discussing the cow and talking about the cost of feed and balance of yield. However, the words that really stuck were the ones about herself and her mother, how she was ‘a bold, spoilt little English bitch’ and how her mother with her ‘notions’ was herself a sort of cash cow, now that she had been made to return to work.

  She thought about Daisy and how she had been abused. She remembered how much they had looked forward to this trip. She thought about her mother sitting on the plane with her fine clothes and she wondered why her mother wanted to come home at all. Although she was unaware of it at the time, she had learned the meaning of ‘disillusioned.’

  And now they were all gone and times were very different. She’d ‘turned out alright in the end’; words written on a mass card Lorraine had received from her uncle when her mother died. For a man of few words they spoke volumes.

  But she had been right about the naming of cows.

  YOUR MOTHER KNOWS BEST?

  The young couple were coming to visit Bridie again, not really to see her of course, but to measure-up for curtains and carpets. The girl, Anna, sounded so happy on the ‘phone.

  ‘We think it’s a sign.’ She had said, ‘A sort of omen, to move in on Valentine’s Day.’

  It was a sign of her great age thought Bridie, forgetting it was Valentine’s Day.

  She let her thoughts wander, it happened a lot lately. She found it strangely comforting that in her thoughts she could revisit places and see again friends that were now no more. She saw a young woman tip toeing down the stairs to be first to get the post, but always disappointed when nothing arrived.

  It was probably just as well, her mother would have disapproved of Valentines cards; they would have had to be hidden. Mother had been very strict. She had disliked the modern trend for young couples to meet without being formally introduced. Bridie however had been a rebel and this had made her popular with the boys. Her carefree ways and enthusiasm had always managed to get her lots of partners at the local dance hall and if they did not ask her, she asked them.

  Later she joined the civil service and met lots of young men but unlike her more demure friends, her romances just never seemed to last. Her mother said it served her right, that men preferred the old fashioned girls. Then her brother was killed in the accident and it seemed to set up a series of shock waves, her father died a year later and her mother became ill, there was no more time for dancing and romance. She had done her duty and cared for her mother at home and with the dignity and devotion that her mother expected. The legacy of all this was that now she getting older there was no one to look after her and she was moving into a residential home.

  The young couple had great plans for the house. They were going to turn the attic into an office so that Liam could work from home. Anna loved all the ‘original features’ she was going to change the colour scheme but little else apart from of course the carpets and curtains. Bridie loved to hear their plans for the house. Like her it could do with new life breathed into its old bones. She had become quite fond of the couple; but her mother would have disapproved of them. They weren’t married of course and their baby was due in June.

  Bridie wasn’t bothered, lots of people who were married got divorced these days. She was glad that her mother’s morals were no longer held up as the only way to behave. She wished she’d had the freedom that young people had today. Her mother was always lecturing her about morals. Liam was a nice boy, he reminded her of so many of the young men of her youth, with his clean cut features and mischievous sense of humour. The last time they visited he’d kissed her on the cheek and said he wished he were sixty years older because he’d hobble off with her.

  At least no one had wanted to ‘hobble off’ with her mother. Her mother’s final years had been very hard. The doctor had told her, that her mother was nasty to her because she was agitated. He felt she had some unresolved issues. She didn’t like to tell him, that her mother had always been difficult. Why should she break the habit of a lifetime by evolving into a pleasant old dear?

  Valentine’s Day dawned and the removal company arrived to take the few pieces of furniture that she was allowed to take with her into the nursing home. Liam and Anna were delighted with the table and chairs, sideboard and other things she had said they could have. Apart from a few small mementoes, papers, clothes and photographs the rest was either being disposed of or had been given to charity.

  The taxi arrived to collect her at eleven and her cleaner came at the same time to make sure the place would be spick and span for the young couple. She’d asked Rose to give the attic a good clean as it had not been used for years. She never went up there; it reminded her of her mother too much. Her mother had been a chronic insomniac she used to do her correspondence up there at night. She could still hear the tap, tap of her mothers fingers on her typewriter devising her own particularly acerbic letters of complaint to tardy businesses. As she gave the house a last look over before saying goodbye to it, she realised that there was very little in the house that reminded her of her father.

  The residential home was the best she could find; everyone seemed quite lively despite their frailties. There was a bar, which greatly impressed her. The home was owned and run by two Englishmen called Bill and Ben, ‘and we’re not Flower Pot Men either darling, but we are partial to a little weed.’ She had not understood what they meant, but she loved the way their eyes twinkled. Her mother would have been horrified of course, gay was not a word she used often, but she would have written a letter to someone to complain about its new usage. A nice man called Mr O’Leary had been assigned to be her ‘befriender’ he had a touch of Arthritis he told her and was a widower, he had got fed up of struggling to cook and clean for himself. He asked her if she liked dancing, said there was a Valentine’s tea dance that day, except they had no intention of drinking tea. He had winked at her conspiratorially and for a moment she felt she was twenty again. She realised that her home had imprisoned her heart as well as her body for too long. When she got to her room she found her furniture and mementoes waiting for her, Bill and Ben had placed a single red rose in an exquisite crystal vase on her bedside cabinet and had tied big red shiny heart balloons to the end of her brass bed.

  The events of the day began to impact on her and she suddenly felt tired, she lay on her bed and dozed. Strangely she dreamed of her father, she saw him returning from work and calling for her. They would walk to the park returning late and incurring her mother’s wrath. She realised that her father had spent very little time in the house he had been out at work, or out with her.

  She was surprised to see the young couple when she woke up. They had brought her some flowers, a thank-you for leaving the house in such a wonderful condition. Liam winked as he gave her a big red envelope. A deep blush began to creep from the base of her neck up to her hairline.

  She’d been even more surprised when they gave her the bundle of papers; they said Rose had found them hidden in a cupboard in the attic. She recognised the ribbon that the letters were tied up with; she had had those ribbons as a child. When Liam and Anna had left she opened the bundle. A pile of Valentine’s cards fell out; she was puzzled, who would have sent her mother Valentine’s cards? She was sure her father never had. In fact it struck her that she had never seen a Valentine’s card displayed at the house. She opened them looking for names, but in true Valentines’ tradition they were not signed, they just contained crosses or question marks. Was she finding out about a side of her mother, she knew nothing about after all these years? Then she found the envelopes the cards had come in. The ink was faded but her name and address was still distinct. Then it da
wned on her what Rose had found. Bridie’s hands were trembling less from Parkinson’s disease, more from anger as she rifled through the pile. There were letters from boys who’d gone to England and America with names she no longer recognised, pouring their hearts out to the happy carefree girl that they’d stolen a kiss from on a Dublin doorstep.

  Then she found the carbons of the standard reply letter that mother had sent to them all pretending to be her. The words ‘I’m engaged to be married, so regret I am unable to correspond with you further’ struck her like a blow to the stomach. How like mother to be so formal and impersonal, tap, tapping the replies in her Victorian tones.

  She placed the Valentine’s cards on her chest of drawers and thought how at home they looked after all these years. It was too late to get cross with her mother now.

  When Mr O’Leary called to escort her to the tea dance, he spotted her cards and flowers and was suitably impressed. ‘I can see I’ve got competition.’ He said. Bridie laughed as she took his arm and wondered if she was still up to dancing the tango.

  OUR FAVOURITE HAUNT

  Miss Dunn hated to be the bearer of bad news. The O’Gradys had been caretakers at ‘Darjeeling Finishing School for Ladies’ for the last hundred years. The O’Gradys had mended beds for royalty, mowed lawns in preparation for visiting maharajas and once had to find additional accommodation on the beach for Sheikh Ali Kazam of Arabia’s wives.

  It was Sheikh Ali who had been so delighted by the huts, that the first Mrs O’Grady had provided for his harem that he decreed that the exclusive use of a luxury beach hut should be the legacy for all future O’Grady family caretakers. As the hands of the clock approached eleven a.m. Miss Dunn prepared herself for the most difficult meeting of her life.

  Marie O’Grady was in good spirits. It was the first day of June and the sun was shining. This was traditionally the time that the O’Gradys opened the beach hut. There would undoubtedly be some work to do, but she loved having her family to stay for the summer.

  Miss Dunn took a deep breath when she heard the knock on the door.

  ‘Come in,’

  Marie entered dressed in a grey silk blouse and skirt and last season’s darling, a vibrant cerise pashmina. She was unlike any other school caretaker, but then this was Darjeeling School.

  ‘Good morning Miss Dunn, I trust you are well.’

  Generations of being surrounded by the world’s richest daughters had left its mark on the O’Gradys, Marie spoke with a cut-glass upper bracket English accent; she could blend unobtrusively into any royal court, embassy or country home.

  ‘Ah Miss O’Grady do sit down, tea?’

  ‘Thank you Miss Dunn, but please allow me.’

  Marie navigated the silver teapot, cream jug, strainer, sugar tongs and pastry dainties like an ambassador’s wife.

  But later Marie’s spirits were very low as she unlocked the beach hut. It would be the end of a tremendous era; some of her happiest times had been spent in this hut. It was cool and gloomy inside and everything was covered in cobwebs. She donned her royal blue overall and got to work. It was only when everything was ‘clean as a whistle’ that her family would make an appearance.

  ‘Sure that’s better now! It’s been a long winter how’s my favourite grand daughter?’

  Maisie O’Grady, known to all as the Duchess, seemed to materialise out of the steam of the boiling kettle wearing an evening dress and tiara.

  ‘Ah sure now, I’ve bad news.’

  In the safety of the beach hut amongst family Marie dropped her English tones and sounded more like an Irish washer woman.

  ‘What in this world is wrong with you, you’re not, you know? I warned you not to get too close to that dance master.’

  ‘No way darling Duchess and where are the others then?’

  Marie was referring to her mother Teresa and Aunt Mary.

  ‘They’re still away doing the Winter Season. Getting around to stay with the old pupils is taking longer and longer. One minute it’s Gstaad then woof we’re off to Mustique or the Sheikh’s Winter Palace I can’t keep up with it all. Nowhere like home you know. There’s no place like my summer haunt.’

  ‘Well dear Duchess, I suppose you thought your days of receiving bad news were over. I’m sorry but I only heard myself today, the school has been sold. By the end of the summer term, I will be without a job and a home and you will be without one of your favourite haunts. Heaven knows who will buy this place and what they will do with it, it could be turned into anything, even an open prison.’

  A ghostly wail rose into the air of the hut and zoomed around, causing an unseasonable frost to alight on all the surfaces including Marie.

  ‘And you can stop that.’ Marie said with a shiver. ‘Don’t go giving up the ghost on me; we’re going to fight this.’

  ‘But we don’t stand a ghost of a chance.’ Said the Duchess.

  ‘That’s hardly the right spirit. Come on think, we could do with some inspiration.’

  ‘What I need is ice cream, you can’t get a good whippy ice in Arabia and I can’t think on a see-through stomach.’ Said the Duchess as she put on a straw hat and floated out through the walls of the hut. Marie looked at the local newspaper she had bought; Wednesday was ‘situations vacant’ day.

  She suddenly let out a loud ear-piercing scream, the sort you could reasonably expect from someone who has seen a ghost.

  ‘Hey, no wonder Miss Dunn told me this morning she knew it was all over the local paper!’

  The Duchess shot back through the wall and peered over Marie’s shoulder dripping invisible ice cream down her back. Marie read the headline.

  ‘ Finishing School is Finished Off. Toffs, Told Time’s Up For Flower Arranging and Deportment.’

  She read on ‘ Miss Dunn headmistress admits profits have fallen due to yob culture amongst new upper crust. Reliable sources have informed us that Mystical Molly intends buying the Gothic folly. The T.V. Mystic was seen at Brightrock’s most famous School. ‘Darjeeling Finishing School for Ladies’. The headmistress refused to confirm or deny this news yesterday. But she did tell our reporter.

  ‘Fewer gals wish to attend finishing school these days. Rude, spoilt IT girls are all the vogue. They are not interested in how to greet an Ambassador or the correct way to eat Beluga. Our numbers have dropped steadily and we simply cannot carry on. It is all terribly, frightfully sad.’ Mystical Molly says she plans to turn Darjeeling’s into a horror theme park. She says she has been looking for somewhere like Darjeeling and somewhere really scary to visit is long overdue. ‘We have become a nation of wimps. Bring back the ducking stool and the thumb screws.’ Mystical Molly has ‘foreseen’ who will run this amazing theme park so don’t bother to apply. But you can see her at the East Pier theatre on Saturday night.’

  ‘So what does somewhere really scary mean? The Duchess asked.‘Oh I wish the others were here.’

  ‘She’s bluffing just hyping it all up what they call, putting a spin on it.’ Marie added in an attempt to reassure.

  ‘Well I have to say, that in all my dead years I’ve never met a genuine mystic.’

  ‘Well there’s always a first time. I think you are finally going to be useful for me. I want that job and if you want to continue visiting this beach hut you are going to help me. But first, let’s get the sun cream on and the deck-chairs out. You’re looking a bit too ghostly, pale, sweet Duchess. Open the doors and let the summer begin.’

  Everything flew into place and the Duchess and Marie settled down to enjoy the sunshine.

  ‘You’re right; she won’t get me out of this beach hut. Not over my dead body!’

  The East Pier Theatre had known better days the great Houdally had performed his famous ‘man in a lobster pot escape’ in 1920, but it had been downhill since then. Mystical Molly had as part of her plan to curry favour with the Brightrock Town Council agreed to do a free fundraising clairvoyant show for the East Pier restoration fund. As she sat sipping a large vodka and t
onic (which she claimed was simply sparkling water) in the dressing room she looked around and regretted her decision. The theatre was distinctly seedy and she found it hard to imagine that it had ever had a heyday. She picked up the local paper and read the article about her latest venture. This performance in this tacky venue would be worth it, if she could avenge her great grandmother’s spirit.

  What Mystic Molly did not appear to notice was that the Duchess was sitting on her lap and that her dentures were having a really good soak in the vodka and tonic. The bubbles seemed to be removing the tea stains nicely. The Duchess replaced her teeth and blew Molly a big kiss and returned to the beach hut.

  ‘Well now I know who Mystical Molly is.’

  The Duchess appeared so suddenly that she almost caused Marie to upset her jug of Pimms.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, oh I wish you wouldn’t do that. You know it takes me time to get used to you after the peace of the winter months.’

  ‘Well what a charlatan, she’s the great grand daughter of Dolores O’Dowell and there’s nothing mystical about her or her grand daughter! Sure she was helping herself to the School’s silver. Funny, you know I’ve never bumped into her in the spirit world? Perhaps hell does exist. There’s nothing we can do till tonight, pass me the Pimms Marie I really need to chill out.’

  Marie laughed. She could hardly wait to see what would happen next.

  The audience was buzzing with excitement; it was not often that a famous star visited their theatre. There was a hush as the lights dimmed and the Compere announced in a dark velvet voice.