Once in a Lifetime. Cathy Kelly

to think about anything except what the human race was for and other philosophical questions.

      ‘I loved your father,’ Eliza said.

      ‘But he left?’

      ‘I planted the tree when we were in love,’ Eliza answered.

      ‘Then he left.’ Star got it. ‘What about the other trees?’ she asked, wondering how they’d never discussed this before. But then, her mother was a gentle and slow teacher: the lesson came when the lesson came, it would never be forced.

      ‘Two more I planted, both before you were born, before I met your father.’

      Three loves.

      ‘And all these other trees?’ Star gestured.

      ‘My mother’s, her mother’s, all the Bluestone women have planted trees for as long as we’ve lived here.’

      Star laughed then and ran around the garden, touching her hands to the bark of each of the precious trees. She loved this link with her female ancestors. It was like holding hands with all of them, listening to them laugh and talk, strong women who’d seen so much.

      The trees, plants and flowers of her wild garden that gave such comfort to Star eventually provided the raw material for her livelihood. She designed and made tapestries embroidered and appliquéd with wools and silks hand-dyed from natural dyes. Star’s eye for nature meant her pictures were landscapes of hills and woodland glades, sometimes with a brightly plumaged bird peering out from the undergrowth, or a blossoming creamy magnolia positioned against a backdrop of verdant green, even the misty shape of a unicorn in the distance. For many years, she had sold her work in a tiny craft shop on the outskirts of Wicklow town and just about made a living out of it. Then someone had brought one of her tapestries to the attention of a buyer in Kenny’s department store in Ardagh.

      Kenny’s were always on the lookout for new talent, the woman said, and Star’s exquisite artisan works would complement their homes department perfectly. The store didn’t deal in paintings: too complicated and time-consuming, but the Bluestone Tapestries were exactly what they were looking for. Within six months, Star’s tiny business had become a thriving cottage industry. That was five years ago. She had three employees now and they’d been working flat-out to complete their latest order for Kenny’s, which was where Star was bound that morning.

      There were twenty hangings of all sizes ready in their moss-green tissue paper. She was dying to see what Lena, the buyer and one of the store’s directors, would think of her new departure, a large mermaid tapestry. Star hadn’t worked on many sea pictures before: the pigments were hard to make. It was easy to mix up rich loden greens and dusty ochres, but the pure blues and aquas for sea pictures had been more difficult. When she’d got into sea tapestries, she’d finally begun using hand-made dyes bought from artisans, although she still used the heads of pure blue hydrangeas to make rich blues, and her blackberries summoned up an inky purple that spoke of the ocean depths. Star had been in two minds about selling the mermaid tapestry at all. It would have looked so perfect on the wall in the kitchen, under the rail where the copper pots hung. But she’d hardened her heart and packed it up. The Bluestone Mermaid, with her foamy sea-green eyes and skeins of pale hair, needed to be out spinning her magic on someone else’s wall.

      Star fed the cats, then made herself breakfast of fruit and yogurt, and stewed a cup of mint tea which she drank in the tiny conservatory. Breakfast over, she dressed. Her toilette never took long: she would shower, brush hair that was still as blonde as it ever had been, albeit with many strands of white, and apply a little kohl on her dark eyes. It was an unusual combination: pale hair, olive skin and dark eyes. Her old friend Trish, whom she sometimes bumped into in the supermarket, had grown round, and always wanted to know how Star remained as slim as ever.

      ‘It’s nothing I’m doing,’ Star would say. ‘My mother was the same, you remember.’

      Trish nodded, remembering. And Star could almost read Trish’s next thought, which was that three children made a person put on weight, and Star, after all, had no children, and no grandchildren, and what was the point of being slim and sixty if you hadn’t the pleasure of a family?

      Star would have loved to have children: the feel of a small, trusting hand in hers, a little girl of her own to sit with in the walnut love-seat and teach to plant trees. But that hadn’t been her path. She’d been given the gift of creating works of beauty, and the gift of making plants grow. Once, it might not have been enough. Now it was.

      Besides, the women she’d helped in her life were almost like children to her. Star’s talent for collecting lost souls had given her mothering instinct a powerful outlet.

      She dressed with speed, her clothes the colours of the garden she loved: pastels in spring, warm rosy hues in summer, golds when the leaves were turning in autumn, and the cool shades of a snowy landscape in winter. Today, it being February, she dressed in a cream woollen dress with a grey fitted coat and black high boots. She swept her hair up off her face and fastened it in a low knot at the base of her neck. Her everyday uniform was very different, loose skirts or jeans and T-shirts, but today, she needed to appear the smart businesswoman.

      Kenny’s department store was an institution. The word had become a cliché, but Kenny’s truly was one. Established in 1924, when Europe was recovering from the Great War and Ireland was emerging on to the world stage, after the ravages of the Civil War, Kenny’s became the local byword for style. It was the place where all were welcomed, the moneyed classes and those who hoped one day to belong to the moneyed classes. Old Mr Kenny’s dictum was that every customer was to be treated with courtesy, working man and titled lady alike. Its combination of elegance and egalitarianism contributed to its success.

      Over the years, so much of Ardagh had changed: entire streets had been transformed as old family businesses made way for high street chains and big conglomerates. The Classic Cinema, where Star and her friends had eaten popcorn and screamed their way through Jaws, was now a car park, and the Soda Pop where they’d drunk cheap coffee and occasionally had enough money to indulge in the house speciality–a banana split–had been demolished and a supermarket built in its place.

      But Kenny’s never changed. It had been updated, with plenty of money spent, but the place looked and felt essentially the same: a graceful old-style Edwardian shop front that took up an entire block, with glossy small-paned windows and swing doors ornamented with shining brass fittings. A curlicued sign hung over every door: Kenny’s–Established 1924.

      Star left her car in the car park behind Kenny’s, walked around to the delivery door at the back and pressed the bell. It was over an hour to opening, and most of the staff wouldn’t have arrived yet, but Lena had promised to be at the delivery door at eight. The door buzzed and Star pushed it open, pulling the small wheelie trolley, with its precious cargo of tapestries, behind her. The place was dark and there was nobody visible, so Star wasn’t sure who’d buzzed her in, but she began to walk in the direction of the back stairs to the offices, looking around for signs of life. The doors to the stairs were locked when she tried them. The only bit of light was coming from the double doors that led on to the shop floor. Perhaps that’s where Lena was.

      Star pushed open the doors and breathed in the magical scent of Kenny’s.

      After the gloom of the delivery area, it was like entering a beautifully lit jewel box. In the distance, she could hear the faint drone of a vacuum cleaner. The lights were on in the shop and the scents of perfume mingled with the smell of furniture polish and a faint hint of warm pastries wafting down from the café upstairs. She left her trolley against a wall and began to walk through this paradise, enjoying the sensation of being there all on her own.

      Lena often chatted about the various departments. How David Kenny, the current owner, had said he wanted a very distinctive jewellery area, with unusual pieces from local craftsmen and women as well as the big brands. It was the same in the fashion department: there was a small section where young, just-out-of-college designers could display their clothes. The perfume and cosmetics halls, the most valuable space per square metre in any department store, were filled with all the usual brands, but pride