Scarlet Feather Part VI

Cathy feels very guilty that she allowed her being so busy to distract her from keeping an eye on the children. When she talks to them, she finds out that they innocently gave Walter the signing in codes for getting into their kitchen.. and when the police investigate they find that he was the one who burgled the place and stole her few valuable bits of silver. The insurance company now has no excuse for not paying out, as this was not an inside job. Muttie puts on an accumulator bet on the horses at a race meeting, which means that if the horses he picked all win, he will win a very substantial amount of money. The family watch the races and nearly have heart attacks, and in the end, Muttie's horses all come in first and he wins a handsome pay off. They will have a comfortable sum for their old age, and Simon and Maud will have an income from their parents' house. Tom has grown tired of his relationship with Marcella. She tells him she went to London to pursue her dream, of being a model, and ended up being expected to do glamour modelling. He realises that she and he are too different to work out and they split up. He can see how fed up Cathy is with the selfish Neil and she and her husband separate. Clearly, Tom and Cathy will end up together. Walter flees to England. His family are now disgusted with him. But Simon and Maud are happy to be living with Muttie and Lizzie. Tom and Cathy collect the insurance and start afresh with the business.

Scarlet Feather V

When the children disappear, there is a hue and cry. Then Muttie remembers how he had promised them to take them to the races and they find the 2 children and Hooves. It's very clear that their parents are simply not ever going to look after them properly. Walter has also disappeared and there is evidence that he has stolen some things. Cathy is getting fed up with Neil. He tells her he loves her but he doesn't want her to have the baby. She is very upset, and then, working very hard, she has a miscarriage. Neil veers back and forth, wanting her to get over the miscarriage but also not sure if perhaps he should agree to them having a baby. Cathy realises how selfish he is, and partly blames him also for pushing for Simon and Maud to go back to their parents, which has caused them to run away. It's decided that for the time being, Simon and Maud will live with Muttie and Lizzie, and they are delighted. But the family realise that the Mitchell parents are completely useless and it wasnt right to send the twins back to them. It's decided that the house should be sold, and the money used to provide a living for the children, firstly. Kay looks likely to be in hospital most of the time. Kenneth looks like he's going to flee to England...

Scarlet Feather IV

Cathy and Tom work very hard, to try and earn enough money to replace their kitchen. Cathy has discovered that she's pregnant but when she tells Neil, he says he doesn't think their lifestyle is suitable for children. They are both working so hard, he may decide to go and work abroad. He hints that she should have an abortion. Tom finds that his girlfriend, Marcella, is concentrating more and more on trying to start a modelling career. Some of his friends tell him that there is no way that Marcella can become a model. It is a career for the young and she's already 25. She goes to England to see if she can find work and Tom is miserable but he feels their relationship is over. The business' accountant, James, tries to get the insurance company to pay up. Muttie and Lizzie both miss the twins and Muttie goes to see them, but their parents are so snobbish and unpleasant he is hurt and feels it might be best not to try and go to their house. But Cathy is aware that they are not being looked after. Muttie sends a £5 note to the children, so that they can come and visit him, but Walter sees the letter first, and destroys it, taking the money for himself. Neil's father, who employs Walter in his legal firm, is fed up with his nephew's laziness and he suspects him of dishonesty. His brother is clearly not taking much care of Simon and Maud and Kay, his wife, is in and out of hospital again. Simon and Maud had hoped that Muttie would take them to a horse racing fixture, as he had promised to do. When they dont hear from him, they feel afraid that he doesn't like them any more. But they decide to take Hooves, the dog that Muttie bought for them, and go to the races on their own.

Scarlet Feather III

Simon and Maud are nervy and odd children, having been brought up so badly by their parents. Cathy feels that Neil is wrong to believe that they would be better off with their own family, as they were clearly improving under the guidance of Muttie and Lizzie. She is starting to get a bit fed up with Neil's concentration on his left wing social causes and feels that he does not really understand people very well and cares more for "the underdog" than for his own family. He also throwns 2 bits of news at her, which upset her very much. One is that he doesn't want children. He thinks they are too busy to look after a family, and that he prefers to devote his time to his work. Cathy is very worried as she has a suspicion that she might be pregnant. He also tells her that he has been considered for a job with an international organisation to help refugees and might be working in Brussels or Africa. The twins ask Cathy if they can do some work for her, to earn a bit more pocket money. She is not sure they will be much good but lets them work at polishing up her silverware. They are thrilled, and are keen to tell their brother Walter all about it. He is rather sneery about them doing anything.. or getting a job from Cathy, whom he regards as little more than a waitress. But he then realises that the naive children might do him a good turn. He needles them and they tell him that Cathy has a lot of valuable stuff in her kitchen and she has a security system for keeping it safe. He prods them into letting him know how to get past the security... Meanwhile, Muttie goes to see the kids at their home, and their father is snobby and does not want him calling. Walter decides to go to Cathy's business kitchen and steal anything valuable as he has gambling and other debts. When he gets in, using the passwords, he finds that Tom and Cathy don't really have much that is valuable but he needs money badly so he decides to take whatever he can sell. In his anger that the kitchen silverware is not worth very much, he breaks many of the other things like plates and glassware and leaves a horrible mess. Then he makes off with the silver stuff. Cathy is distraught when she sees that her kitchen has been virtually destroyed, and she and Tom find that it will take a lot of money to replace everything that was stolen or broken. However, when she looks into claiming on the insurance, she finds that the police think it might be an inside job and therefore the insurance company may not pay up. She and Tom start to work incredibly hard, working in a small kitchen and taking any job they can find. She can't understand how the police think its an inside job but they point out that there was no sign of forced entry.

James Joyce

I'm reading about James Joyce, who is Ireland's premier novelist. He was born to a middle class Irish Catholic family, in 1882. He was sent to a good school, but his father was very bad at making a living and their finances were very uncertain. Joyce loved and hated Dublin. He found late Victorian Ireland stifling, and narrow, especially because of the influence of the Catholic Church, which he rejected. He wanted to write modernist fiction, and to live a free life. He was aware of technological developments which changed life for most people. He was also interested in pscychology which was a new discipline at the time. His novel Ulysses is written in a stream of consciousness format, following the internal monologue of the main character, a Dublin Jew called Leopold Bloom. Other novelists also wrote in this format at the time including Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf. Joyce met a girl called Nora Barnacle, in Dublin, on 16th June, 1904. She was a simple country girl working as a maid. He fell in love with her and they became sexually involved. He did not want to marry; he wanted to live a freer life than was possible at the time.. in a conservative provincial city like Dublin. To live with a lover was difficult in England and impossible in Ireland. The couple left Ireland and went to live in Europe, in different countries, where Joyce taught English and did clerical jobs, to make a living and worked at his great novel, Ulysses. Nora understood very little of his writing.

Scarlet Feather II

Just when Cathy and Tom are getting a kitchen to work from and starting off the business, Cathy gets some financial backing from her aunt Geraldine. Geraldine is her mother's sister, who has gotten out of poverty and set up her own business. She is single and has a lot of admirers. Then, Neil's family have a crisis. Jock Mitchell, Neil's father, has a brother (Walter's father) who is a failure at business and always in financial trouble. His wife Kay is very neurotic and she drinks. The couple have two other children who are a lot younger than Walter. Simon and Maud are twins and still school children. Kay is a neglectful mother because of her "nerves" and drinking. Kenneth, the father is not much better. Kay ends up in hospital because of her drinking, and the children are sent to Jock Mitchell's house as there's noone to look after them. They are rather bratty because their parents have never cared much for them. Hannah Mitchell has them to stay for a couple of days and they steal food and leave a bath running so that the ceiling collapses. She is not particularly maternal so she passes the kids on to Cathy. Cathy tries to look after them but she is very busy, and her parents Maurice and Lizzie Scarlet offer to help. Strangely, the children in spite of their bad behaviour, take a liking to the older Scarlets, and begin to improve...Muttie (Maurice) tells them about betting on the horses, which is his passion. But he insists they do their homework and help in the house. Cathy can see that they are improving, and is pleased and begins to like them. She can see that their parents are terrible and have let them grow up wild. But Neil feels as a lawyer with left wing views, that children should be with their blood parents. He tries to work at getting Kenneth and Kay to take on their responsibilities and look after Simon and Maud. After a couple of months, he succeeds in working out a new arrangement with the parents, but Cathy does not believe they will stick to their promises to provide the kids with pocket money, feed them properly, and let them go to see Muttie and Lizzie once a week. Simon and Maud are upset at being moved back home, and have little faith in their parents. They are also afraid that they have done something wrong to upset Muttie and Lizzie, and that the Scarlets no longer like them or want them to visit.

Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy

I just came across a copy of Maeve Binchy's last full scale novel, the other day. The title refers to the surnames of the lead characters, Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather. They are both chefs and have just started to run a catering business in Dublin. Cathy's family are not well off. Her father is a bit of a lazy chap who has rarely worked, due to a "bad back". He likes to gamble. Her mother is a shy woman who has worked as a cleaner all her life, to bring in an income. She feels inferior to the families she works for. Lizzie, the mother, has worked for many years for the parents of Neil, and Hannah, Neil's mother is a bully and a snob and treats her badly. To make matters worse, Neil, who is a young barrister, falls in love with Cathy and they plan to marry. He is passionate about helping the underdog and fighting for human rights. Cathy wants to run her own business. They get married and Hannah is absolutely furious at her son marrying her maid's daughter. She thinks that Cathy is marrying him for his money and puts her down all the time. Cathy pairs up with Tom, another catering student, who is in love with Marcella, a beauty therapist who wants to be a model. They start the business, doing a party for Hannah and Neil's father Jock. Walter, Neil's brother occasionally works for them as a waiter but he is lazy and dubiously honest and Cathy wishes she could get rid of him. End Part I.