The Honey Queen

Not everyone was as lucky with their neighbours, Opal knew.

St Brigid’s Terrace had changed a lot over the years. During the boom, property prices had gone up wildly on the terrace and in Redstone in general. Several new housing estates had been built on the fields beside the old lightbulb factory, which had been turned into an apartment complex with electric gates. And the crossroads in the centre of Redstone no longer boasted four pubs, two chippers and a bookie’s. Instead, there was her friend Bobbi’s beauty salon, a delicatessen, the bakery, a mini-market that sold expensive ready-meals, two cafés, a bank, a boutique that sold outrageously priced clothes, and the wool and craft supplies shop that was due to open soon. Opal was thrilled about that because she loved knitting.

Opal’s mother wouldn’t have recognized the place. She wouldn’t have recognized Opal either, now that she had highlights in her hair every few months.

Freya had made her do that.

‘Aunt Opal, I can see bits of grey. It’s not a good look,’ Freya had said kindly the year before.

It was funny, Opal thought, that after raising three sons and one daughter, it was the niece she’d taken into her home who was lighting her life up now that she was within striking distance of sixty.

Freya brought her home the first daffodils of February; it wouldn’t have occurred to the boys to do such a thing. Freya was the one who noticed when Opal’s ankles were swollen on Sundays and made whoever was over for Sunday lunch pitch in and help out so their mother could sit down.

Meredith would have noticed too, Opal thought loyally, but she was always too busy to drop in to see them at weekends. The boys were different. They liked a good feed on a Sunday. She invited Meredith to these lunches but Meredith rarely came. When she did, she barely ate. She was so slim that Opal worried her daughter wasn’t eating properly.

Opal was quite sure that cooking wasn’t Meredith’s strong point. She’d refused to do Home Economics in school. Even back then, her mind had been set on loftier things. Whenever she thought about Meredith, Opal felt a sense of failure. They didn’t have mother-and-daughter days out the way some of her friends did. Meredith had never suggested they go away for a weekend to one of those spa places, though she knew Meredith liked those stone treatments and suchlike. Opal had never been herself and, to be honest, she wouldn’t have cared for it. But she’d have gone if Meredith asked her. Except Meredith didn’t ask.

Opal grinned as she thought of her niece. Freya was a different kettle of fish altogether. She probably knew how to do all sorts of mud baths at home herself. There was nothing Freya didn’t know. Opal thought of herself at fifteen and what a naive, bewildered young thing she’d been. And look at Freya, clever as anything and kind with it. Lord, she’d better not show the wedding invitations to Freya. Freya would instantly understand the insulting code behind Miranda’s addressing of the envelopes. She’d probably phone Miranda and say something. Above all else, Opal hated people saying things.

By now, she was nearing the crossroads. She walked past the bus stop with a nod and a brief ‘hello’ to the two old fellas sitting there, Seanie and Ronnie. They were always sitting there. Freya joked that they never actually got a bus anywhere. They just liked to watch the workings of the village carry on around them, smoking Woodbines and commenting on life, the universe and everything.

‘Grand day, isn’t it, Opal?’ said Ronnie. ‘Aren’t we blessed with the fine weather?’

‘We are indeed,’ agreed Opal.

‘And isn’t it a lovely day to be sitting here taking it all in?’ said Seanie happily, with an expansive wave of his hand as though sitting on a seat at a bus stop at the side of the road in a small suburb outside Cork was on a par with sitting on a private jet and flying off somewhere fabulous for the day. The height of excitement and all a person could ask for. Freya thought the two of them were wonderful and quite often she squashed in between them for a chat.

Opal suspected she took the odd Woodbine too and smoked it, although she’d yet to catch her at it. That was the thing with Freya: you never caught her doing anything bad. Perhaps she’d trained the men to grab the cigarette out of her hand as soon as any of her family came into view. Opal had tried sniffing Freya’s clothes for the telltale smell, but Ned smoked five cigarettes a day, and even though he did it outside the back door, that confused matters. Besides, once Freya set her mind to do something, she just did it.

Opal passed the bakery and waved to Sue in the window, whom she could see arranging a big batch of bread on the shelves. Opal loved the bread in the shop, especially all of the different fancy ones with olives and rosemary in them. There hadn’t been anything like that when she was a kid. But it was expensive. She walked on by and went into the dry cleaner’s. Moyra was sitting there as usual, head in a book. She looked up with a smile when Opal came to the counter to hand over her things – a bag that included a pair of good navy trousers belonging to Brian. She’d had to smuggle them out of the house without Freya seeing, because there’d have been war if Freya spotted the contents of the bag.

‘Aunt Opal, what are you doing, taking Brian’s things to the dry cleaner’s?’ Freya would have demanded. ‘He’s well able to do it himself. And if he can’t for some mad reason, there’s always Liz. Doesn’t she have hands, legs and a car? What’s wrong with her?’ Freya liked Liz, though she didn’t think it was right the way she let Miranda get away with being rude to Brian’s family. Since the organization of the wedding had begun to gather pace, it was getting harder for Freya to hide her dislike of Brian’s future mother-in-law.

Opal had also brought a couple of ties belonging to Ned and a jacket that Steve had somehow managed to get curry sauce on. Lord knows, that was never going to come out, but Moyra said she’d do her best.

After the dry cleaner’s, Opal got the paper and some milk in the corner store. Then she crossed the road to the gleaming peony pink and chocolate façade of Bobbi’s Beauty Salon. She hadn’t planned to drop in, but she wanted to share her upset over the gold envelopes with someone who’d put it all in perspective. If anyone could do that, it was Bobbi.

She and Bobbi had been friends since they were four-year-olds in pigtails, shocked by the harsh world of junior infants – or ‘low babies’ as they used to call it in those days. Fifty-five years had flown by since then. Bobbi had built up her empire to the beautiful salon she now ran with her daughter, Shari.

‘It’s not an empire, Opal,’ Bobbi would say fondly and yet proudly whenever Opal used the term.

‘’Course it’s an empire,’ Opal would respond on the rare occasions when she went in to have something done. ‘Look at it, it’s beautiful.’

And it was. Lovingly decorated by Shari’s husband, the salon was a haven of loveliness.

Bobbi’s husband Richard hadn’t turned out to be as solid as Opal’s Ned. He’d run off with one of the junior stylists many years ago. But Bobbi hadn’t flinched, she’d held her head high. A small woman, like Opal, there was steel behind the platinum curls that framed her face.

‘He’s not getting a ha’penny out of this business,’ Bobbi had insisted – and he hadn’t.

Richard still turned up from time to time, normally to borrow money, and occasionally, Bobbi lent him some.

‘He is Shari’s father, after all,’ was all she’d say.

Today, Bobbi was at the front desk with her glasses on, scanning the appointment book when Opal walked in.

‘Hello!’ said Bobbi, looking up delightedly. Then, with a canny look at her friend’s face, she added: ‘What’s up?’

Bobbi could read Opal’s face like a map.

‘Well …’ began Opal.

‘Come through.’ Bobbi abandoned the appointment book. ‘Let’s have tea. You can tell me what’s happening in private. Caroline,’ she called to a stylist, ‘take over the desk.’

The back room was decorated in the same pretty pink brocade wallpaper as the rest of the salon. Bobbi had seen the inside of too many places where the staffroom looked as if the owner didn’t care about where the workers had to sit for their breaks.

‘Let’s make it pretty,’ she’d said. ‘I want the staff to see how important they are to the business.’

Three years previously, when the salon had last been redecorated, the staffroom had undergone a complete transformation too. There was a big couch in one corner. One of the young beauty therapists was sitting there now, muttering on the phone in a language Opal didn’t understand.

‘Right, pet, how are you?’ Bobbi went straight to the kettle while Opal put down her handbag and sank into one of the chairs at the table. ‘Didn’t think I’d see you today. What’s happened?’

Opal found the gold envelopes in her handbag and handed them over.

‘This is what’s wrong,’ she said. ‘I don’t know, I just have a bad feeling about the wedding. Not about Liz – she’s a lovely girl, no question of that – but the wedding itself …’ Opal sighed. ‘I’m not sure I’m able for it. Miranda’s making it into such a production that you’d swear nobody ever got married before. We had “hold-the-date” cards in December, then there was weeks of discussion about bridesmaids. According to Brian, Miranda flew herself and Liz to London for their dresses – I haven’t even looked for one, and the wedding’s just round the corner. Now this. Gold envelopes that cost a fortune.’

Bobbi placed a cup of steaming tea in front of her friend and passed her the milk and sugar. ‘We’re down to custard creams,’ she said, handing over the packet of biscuits. ‘The chocolate ones have all run out. There was a bit of a crisis early on this morning.’

She looked in the direction of the distressed girl on the phone.

‘Boyfriend trouble.’

Bobbi always knew what was going on in her staff’s lives. She lowered her voice so the girl on the phone in the corner couldn’t hear. ‘Poor Magda, she’s been going out with this dreadful, dreadful lout who treats her like muck. She gave him the boot yesterday and this morning she’s in floods of tears because he turned up outside the flat last night roaring drunk and yelling, “Take me back, I promise I’ll change.”’

‘Oh no,’ said Opal, feeling the girl’s pain as if it were her own.

All her life, people had told Opal to stop being so sensitive to everyone else’s problems. Freya was the only one who said: ‘Opal, stay exactly as you are – it’s what makes you so special.’

‘Here I am complaining about a silly wedding and that poor thing’s miles away from home—’

‘Now, Opal, there’s nothing you can do for Magda. I had a pot of tea with her. I opened the chocolate biscuits and I told her what her mother would tell her if she was here instead of in the Czech Republic: that man will bring her nothing but trouble. But despite all of that, she’s on the phone to him now. Going back to him. You can only tell a girl so much. I don’t know why the loveliest girls always find the worst men, but they do. Anyway, between the jigs and the reels, the chocolate biscuits went. The custard creams aren’t bad, though.’

Bobbi sat down with her own tea, took a bite of biscuit then set it aside to examine the gold envelopes. ‘Oh hello,’ she said, examining the copperplate writing on the front. ‘These must have cost a bob or two. Clearly they’re not skimping on anything.’

‘They have the money,’ Opal said.

‘Just because you have the money doesn’t mean you have to let everyone know you have the money.’ Bobbi’s tone was scathing.

She looked at the third envelope and got it in an instant. ‘Even Meredith’s one is addressed to your house,’ she said. She kept flicking. ‘And David’s and Steve’s. That was a low blow.’