Winnie
Of course Winnie would like to have married. Or to have had a long-term partner. Who wouldn’t?
To have someone there out for your good. Someone you could share with and eventually have children with. It was obvious that was what she wanted. But not at any price.
She would never have married the drunk that one friend had – a man who got so abusive at the wedding party that the ripples were still felt years later.
She would not have married the control freak, or the miser. But a lot of the men her friends had married were good, warm, happy people who had made their lives very complete.
If only there was someone like that out there.
And if there was, how could Winnie find him? She had tried internet dating, speed dating and going to clubs. None of it had worked.
When she was in her early thirties, Winnie had more or less given up on it all. She had a busy life: a nurse doing agency work, one day here, one night there, in the Dublin hospitals. She went to the theatre, met friends, went to cookery classes and read a lot.
She couldn’t say life was sad and lonely. It was far from that, but she would love to have been able to meet someone and know that this was the right one. Just know.
Winnie was an optimist. On the wards they always said she was a great nurse to work with because she always saw something to be pleased about. The patients liked her a lot – she always made time to reassure them and tell them how well they were doing and how much modern medicine had improved. She wasted no time moaning in hospital canteens that the men of Ireland were a sorry lot. She just got on with it.
She was still vaguely hopeful that there was love out there somewhere – just a little less sure that she might actually find it.
It was on her thirty-fourth birthday that she met Teddy.
She had gone with three girlfriends – all of them married, all of them nurses – to have dinner at Ennio’s restaurant down on the quays by the Liffey. Winnie wore her new silver and black jacket. She had been persuaded by the hairdresser to get a very expensive conditioning treatment for her hair. The girls said she looked great, but then they always told her that. It just hadn’t seemed to work in terms of attracting a life partner.
It was a lovely evening, with the staff all coming to the table and singing ‘Happy Birthday’, a drink of some Italian liqueur, on the house. At the next table two men watched them admiringly. They sang ‘Happy Birthday’ so lustily that the restaurant included them in the complimentary drink. They were polite and anxious not to impose.
Peter said he was a hotelier from Rossmore and that his friend was Teddy Hennessy who made cheese down in that part of the world. They came to Dublin every week because Peter’s wife and Teddy’s mother liked to go to a show. The men preferred to try out a new restaurant each time. This was their first visit to Ennio’s.
‘And does your wife not come to Dublin too?’ Fiona asked Teddy, quite pointedly.
Winnie felt herself flush. Fiona was testing the ground, seeing was Teddy available. Teddy didn’t seem to notice.
‘No, I don’t have a wife. Too busy making cheese, everyone says. No, I’m fancy-free.’ He was boyish and eager; he had soft fair hair falling into his eyes.
Winnie thought she felt him looking at her.
But she must not become foolish and over-optimistic. Maybe he could see that, of the four women, she was the only one without a wedding ring. Maybe it was pure imagination.
The conversation was easy. Peter told them about his hotel. Fiona had tales of the heart clinic where she worked. Barbara described some of the disasters her husband David had faced setting up his pottery works. Ania, the Polish girl, who had trained late as a nurse, showed them pictures of her toddler.
Teddy and Winnie said little, but they looked at each other appreciatively, learning little about each other except that they were comfortable to be there. Then it was time for the men to go and pick up the ladies from the theatre. The drive to Rossmore would take two hours.
‘I hope we meet again,’ Teddy said to Winnie.
The three other women busied themselves saying heavy goodbyes to Peter.
‘I hope so,’ Winnie said. Neither of them made any move to give a phone number or address.
Peter did it for them in the end.
‘Can I give you ladies my business card, and if you know of any other good restaurants like this you could pass them on to us?’ he said.
‘That’s great, Peter. Oh, Winnie, do you have a card there?’ Fiona said meaningfully.
Winnie wrote her email address and phone number on the back of a card advertising Ennio’s Good Value Wine. And then the men were gone.
‘Really, Fiona, you might as well have put a neon sign over my head saying Desperate Spinster,’ Winnie protested.
Fiona shrugged. ‘He was nice. What was I to do, let him escape?’
‘Cheesemaking!’ Barbara reflected. ‘Very restful, I’d say.’
‘Mrs Hennessy . . . That has a nice sound to it,’ said Ania with a smile.
Winnie sighed. He was nice, certainly, but she was way beyond having her hopes raised by chance encounters.
Teddy rang Winnie the next day. He was going to be in Dublin again at the weekend. Would Winnie like to meet him for a coffee or something?
They talked all afternoon in a big sunny café. There was so much to say and to hear. She told him about her family – three sisters and two brothers, scattered all over the world. She said it was a series of goodbyes at the airport and tears and promising to come out to visit, but Winnie had never wanted to go to Australia or America. She was a real home bird.
Teddy nodded in agreement. He was exactly the same. He never wanted to go too far from Rossmore.
When Winnie was twelve her mother had died and the light had gone out of the house. Five years later her father had married again; a pleasant, distant woman called Olive who made jewellery and sold it at markets and fairs around the country. It was hard to say whether she liked Olive or not. Olive was remote and seemed to live in another world.
Teddy was an only child and his mother was a widow. His father had been killed in an accident on the farm many years ago. His mother had gone out to work in the local creamery to earn the money to send him to a really good school. He had enjoyed it there but his mother was very disappointed that he had not become a doctor or a lawyer. That would have been a reward for the long, hard hours she had worked.
He loved making cheese. He had won several prizes and it was a good, steady little business. He met a lot of good people and was even able to give employment in Rossmore to workers who might have had to go away and find jobs abroad. His mother, who had turned out to be a superb businesswoman after her years in the creamery, did the accounts for him and was very involved in the business.
Winnie told of her life as a nurse, and explained what it meant to be registered with an agency. You literally didn’t know where you were going to work tomorrow. It might be one of the big shiny new private hospitals; it could be a busy inner-city hospital, a maternity wing or a home for the elderly. In many ways it was great because there was huge variety, but in other ways it meant that you didn’t get to know your patients very well – there wasn’t as much continuity or involvement in their care.
They had both been to Turkey on holiday, they liked reading thrillers and they had both been the victims of well-meaning friends trying to fix them up on dates and marry them off. Either it would happen or it wouldn’t, they told each other companionably. But they knew they would meet again very soon.
‘I have enjoyed today,’ he said.
‘Maybe I could cook you a meal next time?’
His face lit up.
And after that he was part of her life. Not a huge part, but there maybe twice a week.
For several visits to her flat he left before midnight and drove the long road back to Rossmore. Then one evening he asked if she might agree that, perhaps, he could stay the night. Winnie said that would be very agreeable indeed.
Once or twice, they even went away for a weekend together but it had to be a short weekend. She soon learned that nothing could or would change his mother’s plans. Teddy could never be free on a Friday because that was the evening that he took his mother to dinner in Peter’s hotel.
Yes, every single Friday, he said regretfully. It was such a small thing, and Mam did love it so much. And when you thought about all she had given up for him over the years . . .
Winnie pondered about this to herself. He didn’t seem like a mummy’s boy, but she felt that he was nervous of introducing her to his mother. As if she might not pass some test. But this was fanciful. He was a grown man. She wouldn’t rush it.
Instead, she concentrated on the idea of their taking a little holiday together.
Winnie had heard about this place that was opening in the West called Stone House. The picture on the brochure had looked very attractive. It showed a big table where all the guests would get together in the evening, a cute little black and white cat sitting beside a roaring fire; it promised excellent, home-cooked food, and comfort, with walks and birdwatching and the chance to explore the spectacular coastline.
Wouldn’t that be a great place for her to go with Teddy? If only she could prise him away and break the hold of those precious Friday nights with his mother.
His mother!
She had better get the meeting over and done with before she suggested whisking the dotey boy off to the West of Ireland! But on the other hand, this place looked as if it might be really popular. Teddy would just love the idea when it was presented to him, and if it didn’t suit him she could always cancel the reservation . . .
And then it was time to meet her – this mother who had sacrificed so much for her boy, the mother whose Friday evenings could never be disturbed. She had asked Teddy to bring his friend Winnie from Dublin to have Friday dinner in the hotel and to join them for a lunch the following day.
Winnie took great care of what to dress in, what she thought Mrs Hennessy would like.
This old lady rarely moved from Rossmore. She would be suspicious of anything flashy.
Winnie’s silver and black jacket might be too dressy. She wore a sensible navy trouser suit instead.
‘I’m quite nervous of meeting her,’ she confided to Teddy.
‘Nonsense. You’ll get on so well together they’ll have to call the fire brigade,’ he said.
She would take the train to Rossmore with her overnight bag. Peter and his wife Gretta had invited her to stay in their hotel as their guest. Mrs Hennessy would not be told about their sleeping arrangements, so this seemed the sensible option.
‘We’ll give you our best room. You’ll need every creature comfort after meeting the dragon lady,’ Peter had said.
‘But I thought you liked her!’ Winnie was startled.
‘She’s a great dame, certainly, and the best of company, but you never saw a mama animal in the wild as protective of its young as Lillian is. She scares them away, one by one,’ Peter laughed at it all.
Winnie pretended not to hear him. Battle lines were not going to be drawn over Teddy. He was an adult, a man who could and would make his own decisions.
Teddy was at the railway station to meet her. ‘Mam has made up a great guest list for lunch tomorrow as well,’ he said with delight. ‘She says we must make it worth your while coming all this way.’
‘That’s very generous of her,’ Winnie murmured. ‘And I get to see your home, too.’ She was very pleased that she had already packed a small gift for Mrs Hennessy. This was all going to be fine.
At the hotel, Peter and Gretta were in a state of high excitement. ‘Do you want to see your room now, and change for dinner?’ Gretta asked.
‘No, not at all. I’m fine going straight in just as I am,’ Winnie said. She knew what a stickler for punctuality Mrs Hennessy was and how she hated to be kept waiting.
‘Whatever you think,’ Gretta said, doubtfully.
Winnie moved purposefully into the bar and dining room of the Rossmore Hotel. She would reassure the old lady and win her over. It was all a matter of letting her know that Winnie was no threat, no rival. They were all in this together.
She could see no elderly figure sitting in the big armchairs. Perhaps Mrs Hennessy’s legendary timekeeping had been exaggerated. Then she saw Teddy hailing a most glamorous woman sitting at the bar.
‘There you are, Mam! Beaten us to it, as usual! Mam, this is my friend Winnie.’
Winnie stared in disbelief. This was no clinging, frail old woman. This was someone in her early fifties, groomed and made-up and dressed to kill. She wore a gold brocade jacket over a wine-coloured silk dress. She must have come straight from the hairdresser’s. Her handbag and shoes were made of soft expensive leather. She wore very classy-looking jewellery.
There had to be some mistake.
Winnie’s mouth opened and closed. Never at a loss for something to say, she now found herself totally wordless.
Mrs Hennessy, however, was able to cope with her own sense of surprise with much more dignity.
‘Winnie, what a pleasure to meet you! Teddy told me all about you.’ Her eyes took Winnie in from head to toe and up again.
Winnie felt very conscious of her big, comfortable shoes. And why had she worn this dreary navy trouser suit? She looked like someone who had come in to move the furniture in the hotel, not to have a dressed-up dinner with this style icon.
Teddy beamed from one to the other, seeing what he had always wanted: a good meeting between his mother and his girl. And he remained delighted all through the meal while his mother patronised Winnie, dismissed her and almost laughed in her face. Teddy Hennessy saw none of this. He only saw the three of them establishing themselves as a family group.
Mrs Hennessy said that of course Winnie must call her Lillian, after all, they were friends now. ‘You are so very different to what I expected,’ she said admiringly.
‘Oh, really?’ Poor Winnie wondered had she ever been so gauche and awkward.
‘Yes, indeed. When Teddy told me he had met this little nurse in Dublin I suppose I thought of someone much younger, sillier somehow. It’s marvellous to meet someone so mature and sensible.’
‘Oh, is that what I seem?’ She recognised the words for what they were: mature and sensible meant big, dull, ordinary and old. She could hear the sigh of relief that Lillian Hennessy was allowing to hiss out from her perfectly made-up lips. This Winnie was no threat. Her golden son, Teddy, couldn’t possibly fancy a woman as unattractive as this.
‘And it’s so good for Teddy to have proper people to meet when he’s in Dublin,’ Lillian went on in a voice that was almost but not quite a gush. ‘Someone who will keep him out of harm’s way and from making unsuitable attachments.’
‘Indeed, I’m great at that,’ Winnie said.
‘You are?’ Lillian’s eyes were hard.
Teddy looked bewildered for a moment.
‘Well, I’m thirty-four and I kept myself out of making any unsuitable attachments so far,’ Winnie said.
Lillian screamed with delight. ‘Aren’t you just wonderful! Well, of course Teddy is only thirty-two, so we have to keep an eye on him,’ she tinkled.
Lillian knew everyone in the dining room and nodded or waved at them all. Sometimes she even introduced Winnie as ‘an old, old friend of ours from Dublin’. She chose the wine, complained that the Hennessy cheeses were not properly displayed on the cheese plate and eventually called the evening to an end by talking about her invitation to lunch the following day.
‘I had been in such a tizz wondering who to invite with you, but now that I’ve met you I see you’d be perfectly at ease with anyone. So you’ll meet a lot of the old buffers around here. All very parochial, I’m afraid, compared to Dublin, but I’m sure you’ll find a few likely souls.’ Then she was out in the foyer tapping her elegantly shod toe until Teddy walked Winnie to the lift.
‘I knew it would be wonderful,’ he said. And with a quick kiss on the cheek he was gone to drive his mother home.
In the Rossmore Hotel, Winnie cried until she had no more tears. She saw her stained face in the mirror. An old, flat face; the face that could be introduced to old buffers. Somebody no one would get into a tizz over. Where did the woman get these phrases?
She wept over Teddy. Was he a man at all to leave her at the lift doors and run after his overdressed, power-crazed mother? Or was he a puppet who had no intention of having a proper relationship with her?
She would not go to this awful lunch tomorrow. She would make her excuses and take the train back to Dublin. Let them all work it out as they wanted to. The last few months had been a fool’s paradise. Winnie should have known better at her age.
And talking about age, Lillian had said Teddy was thirty-two, making him sound as if he were still a child. He would be thirty-three in two weeks’ time. He was only fourteen months younger than Winnie. She and Teddy had already laughed at the age difference. To them it had been immaterial. How had Lillian managed to change it all and make her seem like some kind of cougar stalking the young, defenceless Teddy?
Well, never mind. This was the last she would see of either of them.
She fell into a troubled sleep and woke with a headache.
Gretta was standing beside her bed with a breakfast tray.
‘What? I didn’t order . . .’
‘God, Winnie, you’ve had dinner with Lillian. You probably need a blood transfusion or shock treatment but I brought you coffee, croissants and a Bloody Mary to get you on your feet.’
‘She’s not important. I’m going back to Dublin on the next train. I’m not letting her get to me. Believe me, I know when to leave the stage.’
‘Drink the Bloody Mary first. Go on, Winnie, drink it. It’s full of good things like lemon juice and celery salt and Tabasco.’
‘And vodka,’ Winnie said.
‘Desperate needs, desperate remedies.’ Gretta held out the glass and Winnie drank it.
‘Why does she hate me?’ Winnie was begging to know.
‘She doesn’t hate you. She’s just so afraid of losing Teddy. She grows claws whenever anyone looks as if they might take him away. This side of her comes out when she’s in a panic. But she’s not getting away with it this time.’
During the coffee, Gretta explained that there was a wedding in the hotel that day and that a hairdresser was on hand. She would come to the room and do a quick job on Winnie and then so would the make-up artist.
‘It’s too late for all this makeover stuff,’ Winnie wailed. ‘She saw me the way I was. I deliberately didn’t bring any smart clothes because I didn’t want to dazzle her. Me dazzle her? I must have been mad.’
‘I have a gorgeous top I’m going to lend you. She’s never seen it. It’s the real deal – a Missoni. Truly top drawer. I got it from one of those outlet places. You’ll knock her eyes out.’
‘I don’t want to knock her eyes out. I don’t care about her or her son.’
‘None of us cares about her, but we all love Teddy. You’re the only one who can save him. Go on, Winnie, one lunch. You can do it. Believe it or not, underneath she’s a very decent person.’
And somehow Winnie found herself in the shower and then with a hairdresser and having her eyebrows plucked and a blusher applied to her cheekbones. Eyeshadow to match the beautiful lilac and aquamarine colours of the Italian designer blouse.
‘Even if you are leaving the stage, then leave it fighting,’ Gretta warned as she admired the results.
‘Get back and deal with the wedding, Gretta. This is your bread and butter. Your livelihood.’
‘I don’t care about the wedding. I care about getting Teddy out from under that woman’s thumb. Look, Winnie, she is our friend, but Teddy must be allowed to live his own life, and you are the one who will do it. I don’t know how but it will come to you.’
‘I’m not going to issue any ultimatums. Either Teddy wants to be with me or he doesn’t.’
‘Oh, Winnie, if only life was as easy. You don’t do weddings every week like we do all year long; you don’t know the rocky roads to the altar.’
‘I’d prefer a road with no rocks, a pleasant, easy road and to walk it alone,’ Winnie said.
‘You can do this. Go for it, Winnie,’ Gretta begged.
Lillian had gathered over a dozen people for lunch. Fresh salmon was served with new potatoes and minted peas. There were very elegant salads with asparagus and avocado, walnuts and blue cheese.
Winnie looked around her. This was a very comfortable, charming house: there were wooden floors with rugs; big chintz-covered sofas and chairs were dotted around, framed family photographs covered the little side table.
A conservatory, where a table of summer drinks was laid out, opened into a well-kept garden. This was Lillian’s domain.
Winnie was impressed but she would not fawn and admire and praise. Instead, she concentrated on the other guests. Despite herself, she found she liked Lillian’s friends.
She was seated next to the local lawyer, who talked about how Ireland had become very litigious with people looking everywhere for compensation, and told her marvellously funny stories about cases he had heard about. On her other side were Hannah and Chester Kovac who had founded and ran a local health centre, and they talked about the problems in the health service. Opposite, there was a gentleman called Neddy, who ran an old people’s home and his wife Clare, who was the headmistress of the local school; their friends, Judy and Sebastian, told her they had started with a small newsagent’s shop in the town centre but now had a large store in the main street of Rossmore. There had been a big fuss about the bypass when people thought that it would take trade away from the town, but it turned out there had been great business in selling Dubliners second homes in the Whitethorn Woods area.
These were normal, warm-hearted people, and they seemed perfectly at ease with Lillian Hennessy. The woman must have a lot more going for her than she was showing to Winnie.
She noticed Lillian glancing at her from time to time with an air of some speculation. It was as if she realised that Winnie had changed in more than her appearance since last night. What Winnie did not notice, however, was the way the lawyer kept refilling her glass with what he said was an excellent Chablis. By the time the strawberries were served, Winnie was not thinking as clearly as she would have liked.
She found herself looking over at Teddy’s face and thinking how genuinely good-natured and warm he was. She admired his courtesy with his mother’s friends, and his eagerness that everyone should have a good time. He looked across at her a lot and always smiled, as if the dream of his life had been realised and that she had come home.