Read Online The Ballroom Café by Ann O'Loughlin - Free Book Online Page B

dressing table; the mirror was smashed and a lamp was lying on the floor broken.
    ‘Aggie, have you taken leave of your senses?’
    ‘Don’t talk to me about when she was born. Where were you?’
    ‘You know I couldn’t be there. We’ve been happy, haven’t we, all these years?’
    ‘Happy. Is this what you call happiness?’
    ‘Aggie, don’t say things you’ll regret later.’
    ‘It’s what I feel.’
    ‘Aggie.’
    Rob made to go to his wife, but she shouted at him. ‘You always take her side. I will not change my mind. That is the end of the party talk.’
    ‘All right, all right. I’ll talk to Nancy.’
    ‘Aren’t we so lucky to have Nancy?’
    ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
    ‘You’re good at that, Rob Kading,’ she shouted at his back.
    Debbie raced down the stairs, but her father saw her slip across the hall to the sitting room. He stopped to give her time to settle herself in front of the TV before entering the room.
    ‘Baby face, why don’t we do something totally different? Five is a big birthday, big enough for a party away from the house.’
    ‘Where will we go?’
    ‘Let me chat to the folks in Ed’s Diner.’
    She smiled at him. His face was a grey colour and the frown on his forehead made him look old. He cooked fried eggs for their tea and made a big thing of explaining that Mommy was tired and needed to rest.
    ‘Don’t worry about your birthday. We’ll have a great party,’ he said with a jolly smile she wanted to believe.
    ‘Will Mommy come to my birthday?’
    ‘Of course, darling, Mommy would love to go to your birthday.’
    Agnes stayed in her room all evening; even when Debbie was going to bed and lingered at the doorway she did not turn from her position, curled up in a tight ball and facing the wall.
    ‘She might be asleep. Let’s leave her,’ Rob said, gently guiding his daughter to her bedroom. He stayed with her until she fell asleep.
    When he checked on his wife, she threw a hairbrush at him. Out on the porch, he sat on his rocking chair and unscrewed the bottle of Jack Daniel’s he had been saving for an occasion. He did not bother with a glass, but swigged from the neck.
    When Debbie woke in the early hours, she did not know at first why her legs and sheet were wet. She called her mother; she did not come. Afraid to disturb Agnes, she went looking for her father and found him asleep on the rocking chair on the veranda; a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s still in his hands. He did not wake when she softly called his name. Yanking the bottle from his grip, she grabbed his shoulder and shook him hard. He rose up from the chair with such ferocity that it rocked violently. The bottle fell from her hands; Debbie shrank back into the shadows, afraid.
    As he wiped the sleep slobber from around his mouth, Rob Kading saw his daughter cowering by the sitting-room windowsill.
    ‘Little darling, I’m sorry if I frightened you. Daddy didn’t mean to.’ He held out his hands to her and she ran to him. ‘It’s not the whole party thing, is it?
    She could only whisper in his ear.
    ‘Oh, don’t worry. That’s easily sorted.’
    He led her by the hand and she helped him take off the wet sheet and turn over the mattress. After they had tucked in a new sheet, he sat Debbie on the bed and helped her change into a fresh nightdress.
    ‘We don’t need to tell Mommy about this.’
    She nodded with relief and closed her eyes, the smell of whiskey from her father in her nostrils.
    When Agnes got up the next morning, it was as if her outburst of the evening before had not taken place. She cooked pancakes for breakfast, stacking them high, humming a jaunty tune. Rob winked at Debbie, and it made her happy.

     
    *
     

     
    At the gates of Roscarbury Hall, Debbie stopped to check her make-up and dot concealer under her eyes. The dark patches were only a little muted, but she figured Ella would be too jittery to notice. Ella was standing nervously at the front door when she