Chapter 12
‘Bronagh, I’ve just this minute got off the phone to Mother. She’s terribly upset about this moving business. If she doesn’t see eighty-six, it will be on yours and Leonard’s heads.’
At O’Mara’s guesthouse, Bronagh held the phone away from her ear and pulled a face.
Typical Hilary, not to bother with pleasantries.
There was no, ‘Hello, Bronagh, how’re you?
’ Her sister never had the manners to ask after Lenny either, Bronagh thought.
She wished she hadn't answered the phone now, and had let it switch over to the answerphone instead. She would have, if she'd known who it was. It was all the more frustrating because five minutes later and Hilary would have missed her as she made her way home for the evening. Her sister’s voice whined on like an annoying mosquito and then stopped as she waited for Bronagh’s contrite response.
What she’d like to say was, ‘Hilary, I am at work.’ A concept her sister, who’d never done a day’s work outside the home, had any idea about.
‘This is a conversation that will have to wait.’ Her voice would be suitably superior and snippy, then she’d hang up with a self-satisfied smirk.
That would nip her sister’s blathering in the bud.
Instead, she was stuck listening to how selfish she and Leonard were for expecting a woman of their mother’s age to move at this time of her life.
Bronagh mouthed, ‘Thank goodness,’ as her sister, finally out of steam, almost, finished with, ‘Like I said, Bronagh, she’s terribly upset.’
What Bronagh actually said came out in a lily-livered squeak.
‘Oh dear, is she? But you know Linda will still come and visit her. There’s a bus that will pick her up and take her to the community centre for her weekly get-togethers too.
And it’s not as if she’ll be living on her own.
She’ll be with myself and Lenny.’ Linda was Myrna’s friend from the days when they’d worked together at Arnotts department store back in the early seventies.
Hilary’s huffy sigh implied Bronagh hadn’t grasped what she’d just said and, in case she hadn’t, she added, ‘Mother’s heart won’t take a move, Bronagh.’
How Bronagh longed to tell her where to go.
It was never any different dealing with Hilary.
She didn’t deal with her sister; she endured her.
Hilary was a bully and Bronagh, who could be outspoken when it suited her, was, and always had been, a coward when it came to her sister.
She was not good for her blood pressure because inevitably every conversation they had ended with Bronagh seething and thinking of all the comebacks she should have said.
If Lenny were here right now holding her hand, she might be braver and give her sister short shrift. Somehow, though, she knew she wouldn’t.
Their mam maintained she didn’t have favourites, but it seemed to Bronagh that the very fact she’d stayed at home to look after her when she’d fallen ill, while Hilary had moved away, elevated her elder sister’s status.
Absence making the heart grow fonder and all that.
It seemed grossly unfair. As did their mam getting in Hilary’s ear about the changes Bronagh marrying Leonard was going to bring her way.
She’d expected more from her and certainly hadn’t thought her own mam would be responsible for rubbing the shine off her wedding.
Hilary began twittering on again and Bronagh tuned out, catching the odd word like selfish and unfair.
Pot. Kettle. Black. Any second now she’d run out of steam, surely?
Her eyes drifted towards the brochure stand advertising the delights of Dublin and Ireland for their guests. The brochures needed straightening, something she’d see to before heading out the door.
‘I’m coming to stay on Saturday so you and I can go and look for something suitable for you to wear.
I’ll sort my matron of honour outfit too and we’ll hunt out somewhere suitable for the reception.
Somewhere low-key, obviously, given the short notice.
Honestly, Bronagh, I couldn’t believe my ears when Mother said you’ve done nothing except book the church.
Did you expect someone to wave a wand and have everything sorted? ’
Bronagh wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard Hilary mutter, ‘Typical.’ That wasn’t what saw her fumble and nearly drop the phone, though. Back up, she told herself praying she hadn’t heard correctly. ‘Sorry, Hilary, did you say you were coming to stay this weekend?’
‘Honestly, Bronagh, have you not heard a word I’ve been saying? My train arrives at eight on Saturday morning. Someone has to take you in hand. I’ve been thinking about it and, given your time of life and the season, a well-cut cream wool suit would be suitable.’
Bronagh did not want a smart wool suit. And, she hated cream unless it was in a bun.
Far more importantly, she did not want her sister coming to stay this weekend.
But instead of saying, ‘I’m sorry, Hilary, this weekend doesn’t work for me,’ her mouth took on a life of its own and the word, ‘Grand,’ popped out.
It was not grand. Not grand at all. It was a nightmare.
‘Well,’ sniffed Hilary, ‘like I said, someone’s got to take you in hand. Now I’ve got to dash. I’ve a luncheon to attend. I’ll see you on Saturday.’
Her sister was likely going to a local café for a sambo and a pot of tea, Bronagh thought, all too aware of Hilary’s affectations.
Hanging up, she bit her bottom lip to stop herself from screaming.
The penny had finally dropped as to why she’d been procrastinating over her wedding plans.
It was because, from the moment her mam had assumed Hilary would be matron of honour, she’d known it wouldn’t matter what she wore or where she booked.
Her sister would ride roughshod over every plan she made. So what was the point in making plans?
It had been easier to fib to Lenny, Moira and anyone else who asked how things were coming along.
And that was exactly what she’d done. Her eyes filled with angry tears and she reached for a tissue.
She felt like calling the wedding off and running away with Leonard to a little white chapel in Las Vegas. There was a lot to be said for eloping.
Pippa, their new night receptionist who sat on the front desk until ten o’clock, burst through the door and Bronagh quickly composed herself.
The young woman, a student supplementing her meagre living allowance with shifts at O’Mara’s, had flushed cheeks, bright eyes and a wide smile as she pulled off her woolly hat. ‘Phew. Made it.’ Pippa shrugged out of her coat.
Just for a moment, Bronagh envied her uncomplicated life, with the road stretching long ahead of her. It wasn’t jealousy, an ugly emotion if ever there was one, but rather a longing for that easy belief of youth that things would all work out the way you wanted them to.
‘Are you alright, Bronagh?’ Pippa’s brow furrowed.
Bronagh sniffed. ‘Something in my eye, that’s all, Pippa.
I’ve left the reservations beside the computer for you to input and watch out for Mr and Mrs Cavanagh in Room 3.
They’re the moany sort.’ She managed a watery smile as she knotted the belt on her coat and picked up her bag. ‘Have a good night.’
The fresh air helped clear Bronagh’s head and she found herself looking forward to her evening chat with Leonard after dinner.
She was desperately hoping he’d take a break from packing up his years in Liverpool and come back for the weekend to be her knight in shining armour.
She needed rescuing from her mam and sister.
Why hadn’t she reminded Hilary that she didn’t like Dublin?
She was forever saying it was a dirty city filled with foreigners these days. It was too late now.
Seeing Murphy’s butcher shop up ahead, Bronagh was reminded she hadn’t got anything out for dinner and had best call in.
Some of those pork sausages Mam was fond of would do nicely, she decided.
Although, the way her mam was carrying on, banging on to Hilary, Bronagh was tempted to pick up the scrag end or neck of mutton her mother detested.
She hurried along the familiar pavements, her mood lifting as the bustle of the city she’d always called home enveloped her.
This was her quiet time. A chance between O’Mara’s and home where she could mull over her day.
This afternoon she shoved Hilary’s impending visit and all things wedding aside and thought instead about Patricia Harte.
What a colourful soul she was. But there’d been something about her that was niggling at the edges of Bronagh’s mind.
She was very good at reading people. Years of interacting with guests from all walks of life who’d come to stay at O’Mara’s had seen to that.
Whatever it was about Patricia would come to her eventually.
Right now, though, she had pork sausages to buy.
‘Bronagh, how’s that mam of yours?’ Neville Murphy himself was behind the counter of the butchers with no sign of his young apprentice.
‘She’s doing well, Neville. And how’s yourself?’ He was a big ruddy-faced man who, given his profession, likely ate far too much red meat, Bronagh thought.
‘I can’t complain.’ Then he promptly did just that.
Bronagh listened with a sympathetic ear as Neville griped about how hard it was competing with the supermarkets, how his back was giving him grief, how his eldest daughter was becoming lippy and how his son was an ungrateful so-and-so. Finally, he asked what she was after.
‘Two of those pork sausages please, Neville.’
‘So tell me, Bronagh. Now you’re being made an honest woman of, will you be a lady of leisure too?’
This wasn’t the first time Bronagh had been asked this since she’d begun sporting a glittering engagement ring.
The young girl with the nose piercing who worked behind the counter at Cherry on Top, hers and Lenny’s favourite cake shop in all of Dublin, had asked the very same thing.
She’d even gone so far as to enquire whether golden handshakes, given her long service, were still a thing.
The cheek. Right now, though, Bronagh was feeling fragile, a woman on the edge, and the urge to tell Neville and his florid face where he could stick the sausages he was bagging up was hard to quash.
Quash it she did, however. ‘No, I will not.’
Bronagh Hanrahan was not ready to be put out to pasture.
Her step as she continued on her way had a definite stomp to it.
Sure, she’d only be a bowls widow if she were to call it a day at O’Mara’s because Lenny had grand plans of joining a bowls club.
And why shouldn’t he? Just because they were getting married didn’t mean they were automatically joined at the hip.
Besides, with Lenny having lived across the water in Liverpool for the duration of their courtship, they’d had no choice but to retain a degree of independence.
Getting wed didn’t mean she had to give that up.
Bronagh’s mood took a further nosedive as she opened her front door and heard her mam call out.
‘Is that you, Bronagh?’ Myrna Hanrahan’s voice carried over the television.
‘Who else would it be?’ she muttered. ‘Yes, Mam.’
‘I’ve something exciting to tell you.’
Bronagh hung up her coat, glancing at the framed wedding portrait of Princess Hilary on her wedding day.
She already knew what it was.