The Rose Garden (7 page)

‘I know,’ Evie consoled her. ‘It’s shit seeing your boyfriend with someone else.’

‘It’s so crap that he’s not my boyfriend any more,’ she said, feeling sadness overwhelm her. ‘I just don’t know how I’ll ever get used to it.’

‘You will,’ said Evie loyally, getting up and bustling about the tiny kitchen area on one side of the large room. ‘I’m making us toast and hot chocolate.’

‘Sure.’ Ever since she was about nine years old, Evie had always believed that hot chocolate was the best drink there was in a time of crisis and this was most definitely a crisis.

‘I hate my life! I hate the way things are,’ Kim confessed as she sat in front of the gas fire with her mug of hot chocolate. ‘Everything is a disaster.’

‘You have to start believing in yourself,’ Evie insisted. ‘Forget Gareth! Forget those stupid wanker bankers you used to work for! You’ve got to find something that you really want to do for yourself – something that makes you happy, like my painting, or Lisa and her running, and Mel and her mania for interior decorating. You’ve got brains to burn, Kim, but you just need to
find the right thing to do in life – no more second bests! You have to change things.’

Drunk as they both were, Kim knew what Evie was saying was true. She was the only one who could change her life – the only one.

She had tossed and turned on the futon before finally giving in to sleep. When she woke it was lunchtime and Evie was in her pyjamas painting.

‘Hey, I’ve got bacon and scrambled egg for brunch,’ she said, standing over Kim.

‘I’m not really hungry.’

‘You hop in the shower and I’ll get it ready,’ Evie said, ignoring her protests. Fifteen minutes later Kim was beginning to feel human again as she sat on the couch in her jeans and sweatshirt eating.

‘It was a great night,’ murmured Evie, ‘except for us seeing you know who!’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you want to do something today?’

‘Not really … well, unless you count sleeping …’

‘Okay, I am going to paint, but you are welcome to hang out here.’

‘What you said last night – it made me think.’

‘I was probably far too wasted and said more than I should have,’ said Evie apologetically.

‘No, you were right. The only one who can change my life is me. Not a job, not a guy – the elephant in the room is me. I need to sort that out, find out what I want …’

‘Oh Kim!’ said Evie, throwing her arms around her. ‘I just want you to be happy!’

‘I know.’

Later, as she drove back to Liz’s house, she wondered how the hell she was going to even begin to change things.

GINA SULLIVAN STOOD AT THE COUNTER LOOKING OUT ON THE
street. Rain again. God, did it ever stop raining? Heavy rain and showers kept customers away, and heaven knows Cassidy’s Café could sure do with more of them.

Norah Cassidy had put up the day’s lunch menu: vegetable soup, roast pork with apple sauce and potatoes, and ham salad up on the board; hardly the fare to tempt hungry diners. There were also fresh scones and Norah’s famous apple tart, and Gina’s own home-made brownies and cupcakes for those coming to have a coffee or tea and while away the time.

There were already two customers sitting at a table in the window, one eating a lemon drizzle cupcake. Gina had made it herself, getting up at six this morning to bake, and Paul, her husband, had dropped her off at work with her just-baked delivery for the café. Then he had gone off to deliver her order to Beech Hill, the old folks’ home on the outskirts of Kilfinn, and another dozen of both cupcakes and brownies to Ramona’s Coffee Shop in the nearby town of Castlecomer.

Twice a week Gina rose early to bake, amazed that something she loved to do was also proving a fairly regular source of income for the family. In fact it was her brownies and cupcakes that had first helped her to get to know Norah. She had come into the café with some free samples of her baking and Norah had tasted them and given her an order straight away. Three months later, when
Sonya the girl who helped out in the café decided to head off to Australia with a few of her friends, Norah had asked Gina if she would be interested in coming in and helping. Gina couldn’t believe her luck, and though her salary was nothing to write home about, it was a job, when she hadn’t expected to find one and when she and Paul needed work.

That was two years ago, and it had been one of the best decisions ever. She loved working in the village café, meeting the regulars, hearing all that was going on in Kilfinn and having the chance to test out a dish of her own every now and then on the customers. Her boss, Norah Cassidy, was a good woman – old-fashioned and somewhat stuck in her ways, but a good cook. Okay, she tended to have the same dishes on the menu week in, week out, but the food was always good and, if possible, sourced locally. Gina tried to expand the menu range every now and then, with Norah sometimes grudgingly admitting that the customers liked something new.

Norah was working away in the kitchen, the smell of her warm tarts filling the café. She might not be the most adventurous of cooks, but she was a dab hand at pastry. People went mad for her apple tart and ice cream. It had been strange for Gina coming to work in a small village café after her job in a busy catering company, but Norah had been kind and generous to her and over time the older woman had come to rely on her.

The past few years had been tough, with Paul’s job in construction just disappearing overnight, and then Grattan’s Gourmet Foods, the busy caterers where she’d worked part-time for years, getting into financial difficulty and eventually shutting down. They had struggled on for months, not knowing what they should do, when fate had intervened and Paul’s mother Sheila had offered them to come and live with her in Kilfinn.

Sheila Sullivan had fallen downstairs at home and broken her collarbone and wrist. However, the hospital discovered that she was suffering from heart failure and suggested that she move into a nursing home. But Sheila, an independent, feisty woman, made
it very clear she was not budging and wanted to stay in her own home. Paul and Gina coming to live with her in Kilfinn was the obvious solution.

They had put their own three-bedroomed house in Dublin on the market, and to their relief had actually managed to sell it, finally able to clear their outstanding mortgage and pay off everything they owed. There had been no money left over – not even a euro – but it was a huge weight off their shoulders.

Saying goodbye to their neighbours in Firhouse had been hard. Also, their two boys had kicked up a huge fuss about leaving their school and their friends and moving to the middle of the country to live with their granny. But in time Conor and Aidan had both settled really well into the local village school and made new friends. Now they both played Gaelic football and were obsessed with their local team and the big gang of kids that they hung around with.

Paul, who had grown up in Kilfinn, was happy to come back to his home village and to have time with his mother in the last year and a half of her life. Gina had been the one who found the move away from Dublin, the city she loved, very difficult. However, as Sheila got weaker and frailer, unable to climb the stairs or even dress herself, Gina was there to help her, relieved that Sheila had enjoyed her final days surrounded by her family.

Last year, when Sheila’s will was read and Paul’s two brothers discovered that she had left him the family home on the outskirts of the village, there had been massive upset and a family row. Fortunately, eventually Jack and Leo had grudgingly accepted Sheila’s wishes, conceding that over the years they had both visited Sheila only sporadically, as one brother lived in Manchester and the other in Dundalk, whereas Paul and Gina had always visited and taken care of her when she needed them.

Gina would be eternally grateful to her mother-in-law for her generosity and for ensuring that, no matter what happened, they need never again worry about having a roof over their heads.

She smiled when Johnny Lynch came into the café, dripping with rain, hung up his navy waterproof jacket and made a beeline for his favourite table in the corner. He’d retired about a year ago and came in almost every day for a pot of tea and a scone and to read the free newspaper that Norah provided for customers. Gina went over with the menu and the pretence that he might order something different.

‘’Tis an awful day,’ he murmured. ‘Sure what could be nicer than a pot of tea and a hot buttery scone?’

‘Perfect,’ Gina smiled and disappeared back to the counter to make the tea. Johnny would sit here for at least an hour, if not two, perusing the paper and talking to some of the customers he knew.

The café was a place for some of the older locals and various groups to congregate during the day, Norah providing a service that nobody else did in the small village. But lately things had begun to change, since Mulligan’s pub at the end of the town had closed down. Larry Mulligan had decided to retire and had closed up the small traditional pub with its open hearth, Súgán chairs, stone floor and daily special of a traditional bowl of Mulligan’s Stew, to the consternation of many of the locals who had sat there day in, day out, nursing pints and enjoying a bit of male camaraderie.

However, Johnny Armstrong and his wife, Bernadette, who ran the nearby Kilfinn Inn, had seized the opportunity to increase their business. They had always done teas and coffees and sandwiches and snacks, but now began to offer a simple pub lunch too. Norah, when she heard about it, had gone in next door to have lunch with her best friend to check out the competition.

‘I had a nice bit of beef, and Una went for the roast chicken – a bit dry by my mind, and the gravy was one of those instant ones you mix from a tin. We both had the pavlova for dessert. It was good enough but not a patch on our lunch special,’ Norah said firmly. ‘But imagine, the TV was on all the time and there was music blaring. We could hardly hear ourselves think, let alone talk! Why would people go there?’

But people did go there, and Gina tried to persuade Norah to diversify from her traditional roast of the day, suggesting serving lasagnes, quiches, pasta bakes, chicken or seafood pies instead; but Norah didn’t take well to change and insisted Cassidy’s Café would continue the way it always had done from her mother and father’s time to her own.

However, Gina persisted and did her best to broaden the menu once or twice a week at least, noticing that the day she served chicken and leek pie, with its crunchy cornflake topping, the place seemed busier than usual.

As the rain eased up they got a bit busier. Maeve McCarty came in to talk to her.

‘Gina, I’m having a few girlfriends over for supper next week,’ she explained, ‘and I wanted to ask you if you could make me a large lasagne for Saturday night. Your lasagne is the best ever!’

‘Thanks for the compliment,’ laughed Gina, agreeing instantly and writing down the order.

As the weather dried, the place seemed to fill up. Gina tried to make sure everyone managed to get a seat. The mid-morning coffees turned to lunches as a few members of the local bridge club took up the big table at the back after their bridge session in the parish hall and ordered a full lunch each.

Norah was in and out, talking to everyone. Gina had soon realized after starting to work there that the café was more than just a business for Norah: it was her life. She might be in her seventies now and a bit slower than she used to be, but Norah had started working there when she was a young girl helping her parents. She lived above the café and her life revolved around it. Marriage might have passed her by, but Norah was so caught up with the lives of her customers and local goings-on that she was never lonely.

Gina smiled as the Lennon sisters came in for lunch. They were sweethearts, both in their eighties, quite alike and living within a half-mile of each other. Rosemary, the elder, who had been a great friend of Sheila’s, beckoned to her.

‘Gina, dear, I’m having an awful problem with my kitchen tap – it’s leaking all the time. Do you think that nice husband of yours might be able to come over again and fix it for me?’

‘I’ll ask him to call over to you tomorrow,’ she promised.

Another benefit to working in the café was that she often got to hear about someone thinking about a new kitchen or putting in wardrobes, or considering doing a small extension long before anyone else, and Paul could put in a quote for doing the work. Gradually he was gaining a reputation for good work at a reasonable rate and was getting busier.

When Gina had first come to Kilfinn to live she had missed her family and friends back in Dublin so much. She’d been so homesick stuck in a village in the middle of nowhere that she didn’t know how she could bear it. But now, with working in the café she felt so much a part of the community, a part of the village, that she didn’t ever give moving back to Dublin a thought. She loved this place and harboured a secret dream to have a café like this or a little business of her own one day …

‘Gina!’ called Norah. ‘There’s a hot rhubarb tart and an apple tart to go out to the front of the shop. And you’ll whip up some more cream to go with them, please!’

‘Of course,’ she smiled.

The sun was now streaming in the window and she watched as another couple came in searching for a table for two to have afternoon tea. The café might be small, but it was a little goldmine with its steady stream of customers all day.

GINA HAD MADE A CREAMY FISH PIE FOR THE LUNCH MENU AND
there was Norah’s boiled ham with parsley sauce too. A few of the younger teachers from the school had come for lunch to celebrate one of their birthdays and she made a mental note to bring a large cupcake to the table with a candle on it once she had cleared away their plates.

Mary White, the public health nurse whose daughter Suzie was in class with Aidan, came in to have a bowl of soup with another nurse. Gina went over to take their order and have a chat.

Checking the tables, she noticed that an elderly couple in the corner hadn’t got their mains yet and went into the kitchen to get them.