Yours
Leonard Walsh.
Bronagh sighed feeling as if she’d taken a mini-break to Uruguay’s capital. She imagined what it would be like to dance such an intimate dance like the tango. What would it be like to dance it with Leonard? Aisling and Quinn had taken salsa dance classes and look where they’d led. Sure, they’d even performed the Latin American dance at their wedding. Her eyes flicked to the postcard leaning against the computer. There they were now, honeymooning in some unpronounceable place in an igloo! A very posh igloo by all accounts too and they were having a wonderful time gadding about in their padded snow suits. Her mind turned to cake. It never took much turning when it came to cake and she had to agree with Leonard in respect of the lemon drizzle. It was her favourite so far too.
Every Friday on her way home from O’Mara’s she’d taken to calling in at the Cherry on Top, cake shop in order to buy herself and her mam a treat to enjoy after their dinner. The clean, sweet tang of fresh baking would tickle her nostrils as she pushed through the door, pausing to admire the array of taste-bud teasing treats on offer in the cabinet. Her mam was partial to New York cheesecake while she was fond of anything with icing and cream. It was on a Friday afternoon too that a sample cake would be placed on the counter for patrons to try a sliver of. When Bronagh had mentioned this in a letter to Leonard, he’d given her the role of chief cake tester. He’d written to say he himself had a sweet tooth and fancied himself a cake connoisseur. He’d been particularly impressed by the gooey chocolate fudge cake he’d enjoyed last time he was in Dublin and was always eager to try the new, and untasted. As such, when he came to visit in September, he’d take Bronagh to the Cherry on Top where he would treat her to a cup of coffee and a wedge of the cake she deemed to be their best. In the weeks since Aisling’s wedding, once Moira had hung up her personal trainer cap and the diet was a distance memory, Bronagh had been enjoying her Friday afternoon samplings. To date she’d tried a Cherry on Top’s red velvet, angel food, Victoria sponge and of course lemon drizzle cakes. Chief cake tester, was a role Bronagh took seriously.
The door burst open and she forgot all about cakes as Mr and Mrs Blevins from Wales trooped in, carting bags of shopping. Their faces were barely visible inside the hoods of their rain jackets and they stamped their feet on the mat inside the entrance, hastily shutting the door behind them.
‘Lovely day for the ducks out there, Bronagh,’ Mr Blevins muttered.
‘You didn’t get too wet, I hope.’ She smiled over at them as she folded the letter up and put it back in the envelope. She’d write back on Friday when she’d seen what was on offer at the Cherry on Top this week.
‘We’re from Wales, Bronagh, we’ve plenty of happy ducks there too.’ Mrs Blevins chuckled.
Chapter 11
Maureen knocked on the door of the white, stone cottage. There was a prickly creeper enveloping one side of it which would be a mass of flowers come summer time. Now though, it was bare and spindly with knobbly buds giving the only clue as to what was to come. She tilted her head to one side to see if she could hear footsteps coming but the only sound was a blackbird warbling in the apple tree over to her right. She knocked again and took a step back wondering whether she should poke her head around the side of the house where she could see a wheelbarrow with a few freshly dug spuds in it. Her tutor might be in the back garden but before she could make her mind up, a woman appeared pulling off the gardening gloves she was wearing.
Maureen knew instantly this was a relationship that was going to work out because Maria de Valera was the image of a singing teacher. Or, at the very least, how Maureen envisaged a singing teacher to look. Her light brown hair was long and left loose, with a few silver threads around the temples streaking through it. She was wearing a cream Aran jumper and a flowing paisley skirt with her feet in a pair wellington boots. Alright the wellington boots weren’t part of the music teacher scenario but the woman had obviously been working outside.
She dropped the gloves in the wheelbarrow and held out a hand. ‘Hello there. Sorry, I was out the back doing a spot of pruning when I realised what the time was. You must be Maureen, I’m Maria. It’s lovely to meet you.’
Oh, yes, Maureen thought, beaming, even her speaking voice had a melodious timbre as she shook her hand enthusiastically. ‘I’m looking forward to this, Maria, thank you for fitting me in at such short notice.’
‘Not a bother. It was perfect timing in fact, Maureen, given I’d had a cancellation. Right then, come on in.’
Maureen followed behind her wondering whether she should remove her shoes as she watched Maria step out of her wellies, revealing feet clad in woolly brown socks. She’d only walked from the car to the front door not trudged through muddy fields. Maria read her mind. ‘Leave them on, Maureen, you’re grand. I’ve the fire on so you won’t need your coat. You can hang it there.’ She pointed to the hooks on the back of the door as they both stepped into the narrow, dark hallway. Maureen divested herself of her coat and hung it up, breathing in the jostling scents of incense and slow-cooking meat. She was led down the hall to the back of the cottage, spying bedrooms off to the left and the right. The
