imagined it from Mabel’s description. Deep red velvet curtains frame a small stage, which hosts a baby grand piano and a small drum kit. The stage overlooks a host of little black polished round tables, framed with high-backed dark red leather chairs, and a long shiny bar runs up the side of the room, which is decorated with cocktail menus and advertisements in plastic stands for forthcoming shows. I just wish Aidan were here to experience all this with us.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says in a text message, but I can’t bring myself to reply.
Penny, a tall, voluptuous lady with a beaming smile, couldn’t be more welcoming as she gives us a history of the club and how much they’ve tried to hold on to its authentic style down the years, which means it’s more or less still the same as it would have been when Mabel was part of the crew here.
‘She could light up a room without saying a word,’ says Penny, enjoying the memories of Mabel as much as we are. ‘I was only a very young child, but I’d sit right here at this very table and watch her rehearse onstage, lost in a world of her own while she practised her lines and sang her songs. Her husband Peter would slip in to the back just over there, smoke a cigarette and look on with pride. He’d come here in a yellow cab and he’d tell anyone who’d listen just how much he hated them!’
I laugh, remembering how Mabel once told me about Peter and his awkwardness around public transport, especially New York’s yellow cabs. Hearing about Peter reminds me also of the lady in Sullivan’s back in Breena and I wonder if she’ll ever get in touch? I doubt it, but I do intend to follow it up with Aidan once he finds his way back home to Ireland, if he ever does. I’m in New York, the city he lives in, but so far he could be anywhere. We’ve barely spent time with him at all.
Ben is skirting the bar and I’ve one eye on him to make sure he doesn’t touch anything he shouldn’t, but Penny seems relaxed and encourages him to take pictures with his new camera.
She turns to face me again.
‘You know, you look a little like Mabel did back in her heyday,’ says Penny, really focusing my way now. ‘She was blonde of course, whereas you are darker in colouring, but she was petite like you, Roisin. Bird-like, almost, but so delicate and pretty. She told me you reminded her of herself in many ways.’
I do a double-take.
‘You already knew about me? Were you expecting us here today?’ I ask her, wondering whether there’s some sort of higher force spurring us on, or some extra planning on Mabel’s behalf that may have anticipated this visit.
Penny glances at Ben and then back to me.
‘Of course I did,’ she tells us, letting us know that it’s no surprise. ‘Mabel and I kept in touch as often as we could.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh yes,’ she continues. ‘I used to love receiving her letters. She’d tell me of her handsome nephew Aidan and his life in New York and young Roisin and Ben next door to her in Ballybray. She said you’d come here together this weekend. I was very much expecting you, though I’d hoped to meet Aidan too. He couldn’t make it, huh?’
Mabel, as always, is ten steps ahead and I can’t find any more words to keep up.
‘He has a lot of work commitments, unfortunately,’ I tell Penny, sorry now that Mabel’s plans haven’t gone exactly as she may have liked them to.
After we’ve reminisced as much as our energy and hunger levels allow us, Penny walks the two of us out and we follow her down a tiny corridor which is framed with black and white prints of many of the club’s stars in action. Ben trails his eyes along them, keeping them peeled in case he spots the lady herself.
‘To think she walked these corridors on a daily basis all those years ago,’ I say, sensing that deep connection to Mabel once more, one that I’ve only ever felt by being in her house back in Ballybray.
I can just imagine her teetering along in high heels, a feathered gown draped around her shoulders trailing on the floor behind her like a 70s version of Lady Gaga, and a sparkled bodice, which left just enough to the imagination, to whet the appetite