The Hat Shop on the Corner (30 page)

‘Yes!’

‘It’s about history – like you are always telling us.’

He was intrigued.

‘I want to do a kind of project.’

Tommy Butler in his classroom volunteering to take on a project was something he had never reckoned on.

‘It’s like this – it’s about someone very old . . .’

‘Oh I see, a figure in history has caught your imagination, like Pearse or Parnell or Michael Collins or Churchill.’

The boy looked totally puzzled, the names not even registering.

‘No way!’ he said. ‘No, I’m talking about someone real, a real person.’

‘A hero of yours!’

‘She’s an old woman.’

Dermot looked suspiciously at the boy. What was he doing? Casing some old lady’s house, trying to find out how valuable her antiques and furniture were? The mind boggled when it came to the likes of these thirteen-year-olds!

‘What woman are we talking about, Butler?’

‘A very old woman, sir.’

‘I can’t help you unless you tell me about this old lady.’

‘It’s my nan. She’s going to be a hundred years old, sir.’

Dermot nodded, relieved to discover he was referring to a Butler family member.

‘Well, it’s just like we got to mark it, do something special for her. There’s going to be a big party and presents and the like.’

‘Your grandmother must be a wonderful woman, celebrating one hundred years on this earth.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s it. I want to do something real special for her, something that will make her remember those hundred years.’

Dermot was totally baffled. This was a very unexpected side to the young Butler fellow.

‘Do you mean make a scrapbook, or a family tree?’

‘Nah. She’s got them already. My idea’s way better than photos – it’s a hat.’

‘A hat!’

‘My nan loves hats. Always did, christenings, parties, weddings, but this one’s got to be different because it’s a Memory Hat. One that will make her think about all the things that happened in her life, remind her, remind us.’

‘What an unusual idea!’

‘Yeah. The thing is I got to try and organize it. A hundred years is a long time and though I know a lot of things about my gran and my dad and the family growing up, I was wondering, sir, if you could help me?’

‘Help you?’

‘With the historical bit, sir, not the hat bit. That’s already sorted.’

Dermot McHugh considered. He could pack up his bag, send the boy packing and be home in time for his favourite game show, or he could turn on the class computer and begin to search for relevant dates. Tommy looked nervous, hands in his pockets, chin tilted, slightly defiant eyes narrowed, waiting for rejection.

‘Where’s your grandmother from?’

‘Janey, Dublin, sir, where else!’

Dermot smiled. That should have been obvious.

‘Sounds like an interesting project. You could learn a lot from it.’

They looked at each other for a moment.

‘A timeline might be a good thing – a starting point. World and local history of the last century.’

Tommy looked fazed.

‘And of course what was going on in Dublin then, in your grandmother’s backyard so to speak, in the “rare old times” as some people call it.’

Tommy Butler looked pleased, interested as the Google search engine kicked in and filled up the screen.

             

His teacher had totally surprised him by sitting down at the desk beside him and demonstrating how to use the search engine on the Internet to research the past.

Mr McHugh helped him find out exactly what he needed to know. It was deadly. The teacher even set up a special file for him to store all the information needed for ‘project granny’ as he called it. Tommy was incredulous as they studied old newspaper articles and photographs, and even a piece of black and white film of a very different Dublin to anything he had ever seen.

‘Magic!’ It was exactly what he was looking for.

Tommy began to print out all kinds of things about those years, realizing how much his granny had lived through. Although he was a tough nut he couldn’t imagine himself living through a civil war and two world wars and having to make do when everything was rationed during the Emergency. He watched as image after image downloaded: King George V’s visit to Dublin, Padraig Pearse, James Connolly and their men taking over the GPO, the first Dáil meeting, the Treaty, the British forces finally leaving Ireland, the Free State, the Civil War that followed as Irish men fought each other, de Valera and Michael Collins, the two leaders, now on opposite sides. The Emergency war years, the last tram running from Nelson’s pillar, RTE’s first transmission and Gay Byrne on
The Late, Late Show
, long hair, The Beatles, Thin Lizzy, JFK, the first man walking on the moon, Bob Geldof, Bono and U2. Tommy was filled with admiration, for his granny had borne witness to a century passing.

‘Some of this background historical information should be very useful,’ murmured his teacher. ‘Give you a sense of what previous generations went through. You lot have it easy.’

Tommy would normally have made some smart retort to aggravate McHugh but for once he was actually in agreement with him.

From his dad and his aunts and his ma and even his nan herself, he’d found out that Lillian Butler had been one of a family of twelve born in a tall tenement building in Mountjoy Square. At ten years old, on Easter Sunday she had watched wide-eyed as a group of Irish rebels took over the big General Post Office building, guns blazing across the street as they challenged the might of the British Army. Terrified, Lily had run home with her two big brothers to tell her mammy that ‘the Rising’ had begun. Six hard and bitter years later Ireland had finally won its independence and ‘Dev’ was sworn in as their new leader.

After finishing school she had worked in Carroll’s Guest House on Parnell Street, doing whatever job Mrs Carroll needed, from making beds to cooking a fry-up. At seventeen opportunity had called and she had started working as a waitress in Bewley’s Oriental Café in George’s Street, serving on tables for crowds of Dubliners in need of a sticky bun and a warm pot of tea. One day a young man called Tom Butler, enticed by the smell of coffee beans coming from the café, had come in and ordered a scone and a mug of Bewley’s famous rich roast coffee from Lily. After a week of coming to the café every day and ordering from her, he eventually got up the courage to ask Lily out.

The following year Thomas Butler and Lillian Foley were wed. Married at only nineteen, she had given birth to nine children, his da and all his uncles and aunties. Moving from a flat to a corporation house in Meath Street, she had stopped work to concentrate on raising her family, supplementing her income by scrubbing and polishing and cleaning the floors, windows and carpets of offices and hospitals and houses all over the city.

‘Just give me a bucket and a bit of bleach or tin of polish,’ she’d joke, ‘and watch me go!’

In her free time she sang in the St Laurence’s Church choir and knitted jumpers and socks and scarves and throws for everyone in the family, the click-clacking of her needles going constantly no matter where she was.

When his grandfather, Tom, had died suddenly of pneumonia, Lil Butler had put on her best coat and hat and gone to Mr Victor Bewley to ask for her old job back. She was assigned to the fancy Bewley’s Café in Grafton Street, where she worked till she was sixty.

Two of her five sons had gone off to fight in the Second World War, Uncle Bernard and Uncle Kevin. Uncle Bernard had died on a Merchant Navy boat somewhere in the North Sea, blown to smithereens by a German U-boat, while Uncle Kevin had driven jeeps and ambulances and lorries and learned how to strip an engine in thirty minutes before he was caught in a land mine with a lorry full of soldiers.

She had seen Nelson’s pillar blown up and cheered for president J. F. Kennedy when he visited the home of his Irish ancestors.

‘If I’d been a few years younger I’d have fallen for him myself. He was a gorgeous man!’ she declared loudly. ‘Then, God help us, he was assassinated in Dallas.’

She’d hidden her tears as over the years her children took the mailboat for England in search of work and opportunity, and she’d welcomed her expanding family of grandchildren with open arms. As the family grew up she was content in her own snug home in Meath Street, surrounded by her neighbours and friends and her little dog Belle and a mad budgie called Joey, who used to sit on her shoulder and eat birdseed from her hand. She’d moved in to live with them when she was ninety, Joey coming too, perched in his cage in the kitchen.

‘He’s the cleverest budgie in the whole of Dublin,’ she’d declared proudly, though Tommy remembered the budgie landing on his head and pecking at him like crazy when he was little. He’d hated that mad budgie. But his nan had been heartbroken when the budgie died and had kept his feathers in a box somewhere. Maybe it was still at home, up in the wardrobe or under the bed. Then there was the old case full of photos. He’d get them out, see if he really looked like Grandfather Tom, as everyone said, and if there were any more clues about his granny.

Yeah, it was all coming together.

Why, he had only just started researching his grandmother, listing everything about her, and already there were loads of things to help make up her Memory Hat.

Men were far too complicated! Ellie decided. Getting involved with them always ended in disaster as far as she was concerned. All her romances seemed doomed and the consequences of following her heart always caused pain and upset.

Why was she always attracted to the wrong kind of men? Guys who were destined to break her heart like Owen, or let her down like Rory, or simply ignore her like Neil. No! She was better off staying single. She should concentrate on work and make a success of the little hat shop.

She sighed . . .

She’d hoped that Neil would phone her, waited and waited for his call. But since that nightmare of a night when she’d disgraced herself he hadn’t even bothered to contact her. Who could blame him? She’d seen him once standing in the street talking to Gary at the print shop. She’d stood inside the window, heart racing, wondering if he would drop in on her afterwards, strangely disappointed when he had turned and headed in the other direction.

Her love life was a great big mess. She could advise other women, help give them confidence, make them feel elegant and stylish, add a bit of fun and frivolity to their lives, and yet her own romantic life was non-existent. No. It was far better she forget about affairs of the heart and concentrate on building up her millinery business instead.

‘When the leaves fall I’ll go to Paris,’ Ellie promised herself, ‘and visit my aunt.’

She was stitching a piece of rich red felt when Minouche tiptoed over and jumped into her lap. Warm and soft and black, the little cat’s fur gave her comfort. She buried her face in it.

             

The jade and cinnamon-coloured silk sidesweep was a perfect fit for Constance O’Kelly. It softened her jawline and emphasized her best feature, her eyes. As Ellie had predicted, it toned perfectly with her jacket and dress. The material was of a high quality and expensive, the colour rich and textured, a jade turquoise with hints of peacock almost shimmering through it. This hue suited Constance’s skin, while the cinnamon twirls of covered spirals of wire gave the outfit a kick and made it stand out.