The Hat Shop on the Corner (17 page)

He shook his head.

‘It is just such a sweet shop and she has some great ideas.’

She could see them all writing and fell silent.

‘Miss Connolly, we would like to see you back here at four o’clock if possible.’

If possible? Of course it was possible!

Claire felt like hugging them. Being called back meant she was being shortlisted for the final ten in the Best-Dressed Ladies competition. Claire wanted to jump up and down with excitement.

She stood around, not knowing what to do. If she walked round the busy exhibition area she risked having a kid bump into her with a big ice cream cone or a drink in its hand. Anyway she felt tired, wound up. If she went back to watch the showjumping, she reckoned she might begin to feel like a rider in a jump-off, all anxious and excited. Instead she opted for the gardening hall, with its huge floral displays and plants.

Many of the flowers had been cut from gardens this morning. Some stood in solid well-watered pots, the air heavy with the scent of old roses and blowzy hydrangeas and sweet peas. She wandered around, admiring them and the cheerful gardeners who spent so much time and energy growing them. She explored the kitchen garden section, with its herbs and tomatoes and home-grown lettuces and cabbages and celery and courgettes, which reminded her of her mother’s endeavours back in Kilkenny.

She found a bench alongside an elderly couple who were arguing over the merits of peas and beans. Claire closed her eyes in the warm summer sunshine.

She almost jumped when a photographer asked if he could take her photograph.

‘Noel Foley,’ he introduced himself. ‘I’m with the
Times
.’

She agreed, smiling as he positioned her against a tumbling display of blooms, scribbling down her name on his jotter and wishing her luck in the competition. Claire grinned to herself, suddenly feeling more relaxed and confident. Winning was the reason she had come here; now it was time to do her best.

Back at the Ladies’ Day Stand the queue had dissolved and been replaced by a huge number of curious onlookers and two camera crews. When she arrived and gave her name she was immediately served with a glass of chilled champagne.

She walked around, taking in the shiny first prize of a ten-thousand-euro diamond, crates of champagne, vouchers for Brown Thomas, and a load of other delicious freebies. But it was the diamond she was after. She just had to remain composed for the next twenty minutes, she reminded herself. Be professional. Stand straight. Be elegant. The tall girl in the white suit appeared. Then she spotted the small Italian woman whom she had met earlier. And of course one of the debs had the photographers in a tizzy with her floaty turquoise blue dress with its shoestring straps and a wraparound skirt that caught on the breeze. There was a woman old enough to be her grandmother in a magnificent lace top and skirt in soft mauve, wearing a muted purple hat over her grey hair. The mother and daughter in pretty pink had made it through, as had one of Ireland’s well-known models in a sailor-suit-inspired outfit in navy and white. Claire noticed the judges over in a corner talking in a huddle as she grabbed hold of another glass of champagne. The sun beat down on them and she felt hot and nervous as the time went on. Everyone suddenly came to attention when the chat show host stepped forward to make the announcement. Claire felt her mouth go dry and her legs shake as he said her name.

             

Claire found herself pushing through the crowds, accepting their congratulations and pats on the back as the cameras and photographers surged forward towards the winner. She didn’t know what to do or where to go as a strange mixture of disappointment and delight overwhelmed her. The onlookers were beginning to disperse as the event ended.

Claire stood near the bandstand trying to collect herself, surveying Caviston’s busy al fresco seafood dining area and all the people thronging the Ring Bar and Bistro as she then made her way down past the Pembroke Boxes and Saddlery.

Glancing upwards at the old Clock Tower, she headed towards the main grandstand and pavilion, where the horses waited or were warmed up in the nearby rings. The crowds were silent in the main enclosure as the jumping continued. She hadn’t the heart for another competition and quickening her pace she fled towards the stables. The smell of horse dung and straw and sweat and leather greeted her like an old friend as she walked across the cobbled yards. Some of the stalls were already empty, the young riders with their horses in horseboxes on their way home to the far-flung counties of Ireland. Others displayed fancy rosettes and ribbons tied to their gates, where the horses whinnied and neighed.

She was drawn to this place and found herself stroking a beautiful bay mare, who stared at her quizzically and sniffed at her hat.

She felt like a little kid again, ready to cry. It was so bloody stupid. Fiona and Bridget had both texted her for news and she was deliberately ignoring them. She should have known that the cute five-year-old in the pink dress with her blond mother would win it. They were a PR person’s dream, especially when the mother had announced she was about to open a children’s clothes shop out of town stocking her own designs.

Claire felt like screaming. She had got second place. The runner-up, winning a voucher for five hundred euros and a crate of champagne. She should be delighted. Happy. She shouldn’t have drunk so much of that bloody free champagne. It just made her maudlin and stupid and weepy. She couldn’t go around disgracing herself. She sniffed and pulled a tissue from her bag.

‘Hey! You’d better watch your fancy shoes in the muck,’ warned a voice.

She looked up. ‘Don’t worry. I’m used to horse-shit. I’ve been around horses and dung all my life,’ she muttered, wishing this do-gooder would go away and leave her alone in her misery.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

She said nothing for a moment, trying to compose herself.

‘I used to enter the pony classes here when I was younger,’ she sniffed.

‘Did you then!’ He sounded surprised.

Claire looked up at him from under her brim of white daisies.

‘Ever win?’

‘No!’ She burst out laughing, giggling like a fool. ‘I only ever came second, runner-up. Same as today.’

He looked at her as if she was cracked.

‘That’s what I got too,’ he said kindly.

‘You?’

‘Second in the jump-off.’

‘Then we’re a pair,’ sighed Claire.

‘I’m Andrew Ryan,’ he said, introducing himself.

From under the daisy hat Claire could see he wasn’t at all like the usual wimps she met around town. He was at least four inches taller than her even in her heels. Standing there in a load of horse straw and muck in his jodhpurs and open-neck blue check shirt, with his sandy hair and blue eyes, he actually was drop dead gorgeous.

‘I see you already met Chloë,’ he said, patting the horse. ‘She’s a great lady. Tomorrow I’m riding her brother Dandy. He’s there across the yard if you want to see him.’

‘Yes, please,’ she agreed, curious.

‘Here, let me give you a hand,’ offered Andrew, reaching to lift her up with a whoosh over a steaming pile of horse-shit.

The Jimmy Choos were definitely not made for slippery cobbles and she would have tripped except that he managed to steady her.

Dandy was a gorgeous big horse with luminous dark brown eyes and he nudged against her, snuffling her bare skin in a way that made her laugh.

‘Back off, boy,’ warned Andrew, teasing her.

He made her laugh too and even helped her clean her Jimmy’s before they left the stables.

‘Don’t want you destroying those fancy shoes of yours with all this dung.’

Claire, in her daisy hat, couldn’t help getting a fit of the giggles at the absurdity of it all.

‘You’re not from the city, are you?’ he asked later as he escorted her to the bar.

She was about to joke and deny her culchie roots, but seeing the serious look in his eye and guessing he was a nice guy she told him the truth.

‘No, actually I’m from Kilkenny. My folks have a farm there.’

‘Same neck of the woods as myself then,’ he said, passing her a glass of chilled white wine. ‘I live in Carlow.’

She had another two drinks, Andrew confessing that daisies had always been his favourite flower while she told him about her temporary job in an insurance office and confided her hopes of being a model as they shared plates of tasty fish and chips. After three hours of talking he excused himself, saying he had to get back to the horses, Claire marking it down as one of the most unusual brush-offs she’d ever had. She’d really fancied him but he obviously wasn’t interested. Clutching her daisy bag and hat she made her way on to the Merrion Road. There was no sign of a bus and throwing caution to the winds Claire hailed a passing cab.

‘Congratulations. You did brilliant, Claire,’ yelled her flatmates when she got home. Fiona opened a bottle of wine as she collapsed on the couch, kicked off her shoes and replayed all that had happened.

‘Claire, you looked amazing and coming second is brilliant!’

‘Let’s face it, no one stood a chance against cutesy mother and daughter,’ argued Fiona.

‘They shouldn’t have been allowed in the competition!’ insisted Bridget loyally.

‘And think of all that champagne you’ve won! Maybe you could trade some of it in or sell it. And then you’ve got those lovely Brown Thomas vouchers to spend and a gold bracelet and the weekend away in Killarney.’

Claire took another sip of her wine. The girls were right: when she heard them list off all she’d won it sounded fabulous. She began to recount her day again, blow by blow, including meeting the dishy Andrew Ryan and how charming he’d been. Perhaps it had been a bit of a triumph after all.

Ellie had raced home from work on Saturday to tidy the apartment, organize dinner and have a shower and wash her hair before Rory arrived. She felt all domesticated and romantic. As she tossed the marinated chicken and set the candles on the table the phone rang. She grabbed her mobile. It was Rory.

‘Ellie. Sorry but I’m not going to be able to make dinner at your place.’

‘Where are you?’ she blurted out, all concerned.

‘I’m in Manchester,’ he said apologetically.

‘Manchester!’

‘Well, Manchester airport, actually. I’ve just arrived. The guys have been asked to play in a big open-air gig, Rock in the Park, next Thursday. One of the other bands dropped out so they’re standing in for them. I said I’d come over and suss out the scene.’

She could hear laughing and joking already in the background.

‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier? You could have let me know,’ she argued, annoyed with him.

‘It just happened so fast and I . . .’

She knew what he was going to say. He hadn’t thought about her. He’d forgotten! She swallowed hard. There was no point losing her cool with him. He wasn’t even in the country.

‘No problem,’ she lied. ‘It was only supper and a DVD.’

‘No harm done then,’ he joked. ‘Listen, I’ll see you when I get back, OK?’

‘When are you back?’ It had slipped out before she knew it and she inwardly cursed herself for sounding so needy.

‘A few days. Maybe a week. Hey, Ellie, have a good weekend.’

She stared at the phone for fifteen minutes, not moving, waiting to see if he would call her back.

The table was set, candles, white linen, flowers, the lot. What a waste, and she had gone to so much trouble with the food. She was wearing the Deborah Veale dress she’d recently bought and had already opened a bottle of wine. What a crap Saturday night. Maybe she should just eat and go to bed, curl up under her duvet and never come back out. She was tempted – and then she thought about who might share her feast, her fingers already calling up Fergus’s number.

It took her only a few moments to discern that he had not eaten yet and his dinner intentions involved a microwaveable ready meal of lamb hotpot, which had been sitting in his fridge for far too long.

‘I’ve got free food,’ she bribed, ‘and wine.’

It took all of fifteen minutes for Fergus to arrive and sit with linen napkin on his lap as she served him prawns tossed in Pernod, a spicy chicken and rice pilaf, and a white chocolate tiramisu.