Free The Stone House by Marita Conlon-Mckenna Page B

Dublin.
    â€˜Are you sure?’
    â€˜A hundred per cent,’ she replied.
    Nuala Hayes smiled. Kate Dillon was a wonderful student who would do the school proud. It was good to see a young girl with her career decided, compared to half the students who were a bag of nerves and hadn’t a clue what to do and had parents who were planning on them being brain surgeons and teachers when they would be lucky to scrape through the Leaving Cert exams. She smiled as she stood up to see them out. Frank Dillon was a self-made man who was determined his daughters would have the opportunities he hadn’t, and was keen on sending them all to third level. Kate and her family were proof positive of the benefits of good parenting.
    Her mother had cried in September when Kate packed up her things and got ready to go to college. She’d worked in the hotel on the harbour as a waitress for eight weeks of the summer holidays, going to Salthill in Galway with her friends for a week to celebrate the Leaving Certificate results.
    â€˜Mammy I’m only going to Dublin, for heaven’s sake,’ she’d joked. ‘Moya’s already there and I’ll be home as often as I can, promise.’
    â€˜I know, it’s just that you are growing up so quickly,’ admitted her mother ruefully, hugging her.
    She’d landed herself on her big sister Moya and her flatmate Louise, for the first term. Moya had just finished her arts degree in UCD and was busy job-hunting.
    â€˜What kind of work do you want to do?’ Kate teased out. Moya had studied History of Art and French and had her sights set on a job that would use her skills and talents.
    â€˜I’m not doing any more studying,’ she admitted. ‘I scraped through my finals and that’s enough for me.’
    â€˜What about working in a bank or an insurance company?’
    Moya had shaken her head.
    â€˜No, I want to use my degree and work with beautiful things. There was a job advertised in a small gallery in Duke Street last week and I’ve applied for it. I’ve an interview next Tuesday so keep your fingers crossed that I get it.’
    Kate’s heart lifted every time she walked along College Green and through the entrance of Trinity College, anoasis of student life and academic pursuit right in the heart of Dublin city. The noise of the buses and the traffic disappeared as she crossed the cobbled college yard or sat out on the square, taking in Trinity’s ancient buildings and the centuries of tradition to which she now belonged.
    In Freshers’ Week she was tempted to sign up to join every society and club on offer as they all sounded so interesting and exciting. Another girl with a long frizz of dark hair and huge brown eyes was in the exact same quandary as they listened to the virtues of the societies proclaimed by their forthright members.
    â€˜Drama Soc!’ shouted a thespian dressed in an Elvis outfit. Kate knew she would never have the courage to dress up and act on stage.
    â€˜Chess Club!’
    â€˜I’ve heard they’re all swots and brainboxes and bad losers,’ confided the girl with the frizz as they passed by.
    â€˜Tennis, Cricket, Blackjack, Rugby, Art, Phil. Soc. and History Soc., Film, Jazz, Inventors’ Club, Athletics, Swimming, Poker – the list was endless. Minnie, the other girl, introduced herself and the two of them got into a heated discussion about the merits and demerits of each society, both bursting out laughing when they agreed to sign up for the famous Phil. Soc. Minnie and Kate struck up an immediate friendship and by the second term had decided to share a flat in an old converted house in Ranelagh.
    Kate liked the anonymity of university, the fact that no-one really knew her and she’d had to start fromscratch again. Vying with the leading brains in the country she soon discovered she was no longer top of the class and she had to work harder than she had ever