A Welcome Cocktail

Published in The Columbia University Thesis Anthology 2017

Numerous trips to Cork had been made in search of the right new dress. High-heeled shoes with platforms were purchased, sturdy legs to be lengthening to their fullest potential. Some of the women, the ones who were married and working at the big house, weren’t concerned with dresses, but they did have a look for a nice, brass-buttoned, navy blazer to wear for passing drinks or instructing other staff at the big house.

The younger women, the ones in transition year and fifth and sixth form, or the few who would come down from University College, were patiently waiting to emerge in technicolor from the cocoons they’d built over the past few weeks. Starvation diets had been maintained in attempt to burn off pub pints and late-night fish and chips, facial masks applied to flush pallid skin, tans sprayed, and new hairstyles, a fringe or a “lob” to update layers. Dresses were bought one to two sizes small. Once a mother or a friend had wrestled the zipper up, bottoms were pulled in and bosoms popped right up to the clavicles. All of this in hope of meeting a handsome foreigner who would release them from the monotony of town. 

The big white tent was already pitched outside the town hall. The next day the whole of town would be dressed and ready for the welcome cocktail. Hollywood types were expected. At the very least, the bride, an American actress, was sure to have a good-looking brother or two. A cousin. Some friends. 

The hedges lining the town center were still in the process of being tidied, but no bows were to be tied to telephone poles. The big house had made it clear that Phillip Wittenberg and his fiancé were understated. “Class” was the word that had been used when James Casey, the caretaker up at the big house, described the plans for the wedding. The word that had been echoed many times since.

    Phillip Wittenberg was the great-grandson of John Barry Walsh. It was the Walsh family who owned the big, stone house up the hill. Most of the year the house was empty, aside from staff, but in the summertime, Phillip’s mother, the redheaded, thrice-divorced Fiona Walsh, stayed there, often entertaining her London friends. Phillip and his younger sister Anastasia, who had an unfortunate chin, had been raised in London. 

Fiona Walsh was a lovely looking woman, pale-skinned, but not too-badly freckled. She was thin, but had a nice shape, a bit of a rump. She knew it too, wearing her tight riding breeches and tall rubber boots when she stopped into town. 

Phillip was like his mother: tall, fit and elegant. Charming. He laughed easily, tossing his shaggy darkened hair – he’d been a redhead as a child – from his olive eyes, a hand thrust deep into the pocket of his trousers. 

Anastasia took after her father, Friedrich Wittenberg, a German, who everyone knew hadn’t a lick of money to his name, but had, instead, a way with the ladies. His mother had been a von Somebody-or-Other, and he’d been sent to the right schools, and had a long list of cousins with dingy castles in Bavaria. Unfortunately, a few years prior, Friedrich been thrown from a horse during a hunt. In truth, Friedrich hadn’t been thrown as much as struck in the forehead by the low-hanging arm of an oak, then, lying unconscious on the wet ground, been crushed to death by the confused hoof of his favorite horse. Friedrich, all assumed, had been deep into the whiskey at the time and spared the gruesome pain everyone vividly imagined. 

The Walsh clan was the chief source of entertainment for the whole of Ballyroe. Through James Casey and the other big house staff, the entire village knew which Walsh relative was sleeping with which spouse of which other relative, or the cousin who preferred male company to female, and how, exactly, the females were able to maintain their willowy forms. It was also known, though acknowledged only in whispers, that the sallow, pug-nosed child of Orla Malloy wasn’t poor David Dempsey’s at all, but had been born three-quarters of a year after the twenty-first birthday party of Anastasia Wittenberg, after she and her rowdy friends had nearly torn the town apart. Orla Malloy was pretty enough to have attracted attention and even if she hadn’t been, her brazen tongue would have. 

Phillip Wittenberg and the American had arrived the night before when a few of the young people were still out, their backs leaning up against the bricks of the shuttered pub, cigarettes pinched between thumbs and pointers. A few wives of big house staff had been alerted of the imminent arrival and stood blearily-eyed at their opened windows, lace sheers pushed to the side, a cup of tea cradled in their palms. Each had been vying to be the first to see the flaxen-haired, tanned-skinned American, her tinted window rolled down, the damp air plumping her jet-lagged skin, or that the two of them would stop at Freddy’s, who had stayed open, for a pack of smokes before they drove up the cobbled way to the big house. But the Suburban cut like a shadow through town, no interior details conferred. 

Not hours after that, the town assembled for the cocktail. Starched white cloths covered the collapsible plywood tables from the town hall. The golden bamboo chairs were unloaded from a lorry. Jaime O’Conner, the old blacksmith with arthritic hands, had managed to chisel a heart out of a large block of ice and carved little rivulets down the two sides which swooped out onto a base; a pretty pedestal for the heart. A bottle of vodka would be placed at the heart’s widow’s peak. The idea was that guests would hold a glass at either end of the pedestal and somebody else would pour a bit of vodka into the top. By the time the vodka hit the glasses at the bottom, it would be chilled to the perfect degree. Everyone agreed it was absolutely genius. 

Plenty of news rang down from the big house throughout the day. The American was more beautiful in person that she was on screen. She was all smiles and laughter, her teeth so white they were transparent. Other faces arriving in taxis were also recognizable, but there wasn’t enough time to Google all the names heard in passing. 

At seven o’clock sharp the brass band under the white tent struck up an Irish anthem. The townspeople respectfully weathered it, but when the musicians began to honk out a no-name jazz tune, the young crowd began throwing obscenities. 

“Oh, would ye feck off with this bull? Give us something we can dance to for Christ’s sake!” Sean Kelley, who had spent the day covering tables, unloading chairs, and the first to test the ice block, was already plastered and, according to the staff up the hill, the guests from the big house weren’t due to arrive for at least another hour. They were having cocktails of their own. 

Up on stage, mischievous looks were exchanged between band members and the saxophone player, an attractive, skinny fellow with a dark brow, handed his instrument to the drummer and sauntered to center stage. His tie was no fatter than the width of two fingers and his slim jeans, tight around the ankles, managed to hang loose on his hips. Girls were whispering. A microphone was being located. The crowd hollered with anticipation. When the mic was handed to the skinny fellow, he drew his head back and, without the help of music, sang out, “Oh yeah, yeah… Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!” The band struck a few chords and the girls began screaming, “Bruno Mars! It’s Bruno Mars!”

It wasn’t Bruno Mars at all. The excitement of the night, the first effects of alcohol, had them all in a dizzy euphoria. The boys caught glimpses of girls’ bouncing breasts and bounding behinds and moved closer. The girls crowded the stage and in that moment nobody remembered what they were celebrating. Icy vodka was consumed with a quick flick of the wrist. Chardonnay swished inside plastic cups. Prosecco corks went flying. Young fathers spun their daughters while their wives took the hands of their sons and dragged their unwilling bodies onto the temporary dance floor. Grandmothers tick-ticked their hips and told themselves that these were new times and that if a girl wore a dress that was nothing more than a swimming costume, it didn’t mean they were hussies. These were new times and what a shame it was…

Cont.