Echoes (17 page)

Mrs. Nolan was sitting back in her chair, eyes closed with pleasure. “What a
wonderful
welcome,” she said. “What a beautiful place. James, we are lucky that you have marvelous friends like these to make it all possible.” Molly Power reddened with pleasure.

“Heavens, it's very small and simple after Dublin,” she said in a tinkly voice that David didn't often hear.

“It's heavenly,” said Mrs. Nolan. “And the flies are going to be quite manageable, I do believe.”

“The flies?” Molly was startled.

“Yes, but one has to expect them. I've been watching. You get about one bluebottle to eight flies. That's not too bad, is it?”

“No, I suppose not.” Molly was puzzled.

“We brought quite a lot of muslin with us of course, but in the end we have to realize this is holidays, this is the great outdoors and . . . well they can't kill us?”

“Er . . . no?”

“The flies. They can't
kill
us. And I think this place is heavenly.”

And that put the seal on the summer. Dr. Power had told her that it was one of the healthiest places in the world because of the sea and the ozone and the gulf stream, and goodness knows what else he had added for good measure; so now Nolan's mother need have no fear of fleas or damp or anyone catching anything. Mrs. Conway's sister had come down to inspect the professional people from Dublin and had been slightly overawed to see eight people on the lawn of Crest View being served tea by two maids. But her curiosity got the better of her so she came in. She was given a chair, a cup of tea and fulsome thanks from Mrs. Nolan as having provided the best house in Castlebay. Mrs. Conway's sister took everything in, asked about eight searching questions and left to go to the post office and fill them in on the new arrivals. Dr. Power had given his lecture about drowning. Every year he said for the past fourteen years there had been a death in the summer. All except one of them had been people who had just arrived; the accident had happened in the first few days, before they got used to the terrible undercurrent that pulled you out and sideways after a big wave. There were notices all round the beach but people didn't believe them. There was a lifeguard—but there was only so much he could do and if a bather was swept out by huge waves, the call often didn't go up until it was too late. Dr. Power was very grave. Caroline was enraged by the warning; she pointed out that she had had swimming lessons in the baths in Dunlaoghaire. Dr. Power said that some of the people whose purple bodies he had seen had been swimming in other places for thirty years. Castlebay had a very very strong undertow and he would be a poor man to welcome them to the place if he didn't tell them that. He was solemn and they all fell quiet for a moment. It was enough to make it sink in. Dr. Power turned his attention to the golf club then, and the chance of a game with Mr. Nolan and whether they should make the boys junior members for the summer and get them lessons from Jimmy the Pro. Mrs. Nolan wondered was there a nice hairdresser in the place, since Mrs. Power looked so elegant there must be. Nellie and Breeda were in the kitchen having a chat about the dance, the amusements and the pictures.

Caroline stretched and said she felt filthy after the journey, would anyone mind if she changed? She and Hilary dragged cases upstairs and settled into their room. They came down not long after; Caroline had her hair loose now, not tied back behind her neck. It was curly a bit like Fiona Doyle's, but not as luxuriant. She wore a yellow shirt and white shorts. She looked really smashing.

“Will you show me the town of Castlebay?” she asked David.

It would be very nice to be seen with this lovely thing in white shorts and yellow shoes to match her shirt. He would love people to look as he took her for a tour. But it would have been bad manners.

“Sure, I will,” he said, deliberately misunderstanding her. “Let's all get our swimming things and meet here in ten minutes and I'll take the conducted tour to the beach.”

David thought that Caroline was a little put out. Great, he thought, she fancies me.

It
must
have rained some days. There had to be clouds and a wind would definitely have come up at high tide. But none of them remembered it. Hilary said it was the best holiday she ever had in her life and since she and Caroline had a fight the following term and were not best friends anymore, it was her first and last time in Castlebay. Mrs. Nolan grew stronger and got browner every day; she and Molly Power became firm friends and even took tennis lessons at the hotel in the early mornings when there weren't many people about. It was something they both wished they had done in their youth, but it didn't matter, they were catching up now. Nolan's father stayed for two weeks, then had to go back to work, but he came down every weekend.

They had their lunch outside almost every day and David usually ate with them. On Sundays they came to lunch at the Powers', a proper lunch with roast beef or two chickens, and soup first and pudding afterward. And when the trippers had to eat oranges or try to boil cups of tea for themselves on the beach, the Powers and the Nolans could just walk up the cliff either to the doctor's house or to Crest View, and Nellie or Breeda would serve a real tea with sandwiches and biscuits and apple tart. It was heaven.

They went for picnics too, and because the Nolans had a primus stove they often cooked sausages which tasted much better in the open air. Mrs. Nolan couldn't be told that they fried sausages on their own—she was afraid of conflagrations—but they kept the primus in the Powers' garage so that there was never any fuss.

It was the first summer for a long time that nobody drowned in Castlebay. One child did get into difficulties but Dr. Power made him vomit up all the seawater and in an hour the incident was almost forgotten. A woman fell and broke her hip on the path going down to the beach and Dr. Power went out in his shirtsleeves and hammered in a board nailed to a stick saying
Very very dangerous path.
The Committee didn't like it at all, and wanted it removed. Dr. Power said he was the one who had to pick up the pieces when people got injured and that if anyone removed his sign he would call the Guards. Eventually the Committee arranged a neater sign, properly painted and agreed to spend some money next year in making the path and steps less perilous.

Clare watched it all from the shop. It was like a different world to her, these carefree people with different clothes every day. Caroline Nolan, who had brown legs and white shorts, must have had seven different-colored blouses. She was like a rainbow, and her friend Hilary was the same, and they were always laughing and the boys all stood round and laughed too when they were there. There were the Dillon boys from the hotel, and Bernie Conway's brother Frank, and David Power and James Nolan, and of course Gerry Doyle. Normally Gerry didn't join anyone's crowd, but he often seemed to be passing by, or perched on his bike leaning against the wall chatting to them.

They seemed to have endless money too, Clare noticed. Hilary bought ice creams three or four times a day, and that Caroline thought nothing of buying a bottle of shampoo one day and Nivea Creme the next and three fancy hair slides the day after. Imagine having so much pocket money that you didn't even have to think before you bought things like that.

David Power was the nicest of them all, but then he always had been nice and he was from here. He didn't change because of his new crowd.

“Can you do me a favor?” he asked one day.

“Sure.”

“Nolan and I want to buy some things, but we . . . um . . . don't . . . want to bring them home with us. Can we pay for them and leave them here?”

“Do you want them delivered?” she said eagerly. Her father had been right—Mrs. Power did not visit the shop anymore. This might be the breakthrough.

“Oh heavens, no,” David said. “You see, we don't want them to know at home or at Nolan's, if you know what I mean.”

Clare made up the order for sausages, and bottles of orange and red lemonade, for bread and butter and biscuits. She even suggested tomato ketchup and when David wondered about a cake with hard icing on it, she said she'd put one of their own knives in the bag as well so that they could cut it.

“Is it a picnic in a cave again?” she whispered, eyes round with excitement.

“No, not a cave. Down the sandhills,” David whispered.

“Oh great. When will you be collecting the food?”

“That's what I was wondering, could you sort of hide it outside somewhere, where nobody could find it except us? We'll be going about two o'clock in the morning.”

They debated putting it in the doorway behind the big potted palm. But suppose a dog got at it? Or if they put it anywhere too near the shop, Clare's father might think it was burglars coming to rob the place and raise an alarm.

“Is Chrissie going to the picnic?” Clare asked.

“Well, yes, yes, she is.”

“Then that's fine, I'll tell her it's in the press under the stairs and she can bring it with her.” Clare was satisfied she had sorted it out so well. She took David's money and gave him the change. Also a list of what he had bought so that he knew how the money had been spent.

“I'm sorry that you . . . I mean, I think it would be a bit . . .”

“I'm too young for picnics,” Clare said simply. “Too young and too boring. In a few years I'll be old enough, I hope.”

David seemed relieved that she was being so philosophical.

“You will, definitely. Definitely,” he said, full of encouragement.

At that moment the floating, flowering prints of Mrs. Nolan appeared at the door of O'Brien's.

“Do let's have an ice cream Molly. In Dublin you couldn't be seen dead licking a fourpenny wafer. So full of
germs,
too. Isn't it marvelous to be here?”

There was no way that Molly could refuse to come in now. Clare acted quickly. “I'm sorry. We don't have any of those Scots Clan left,” she said to David in a clear voice. “We'll be getting deliveries this afternoon.” She turned politely to the two ladies. “Can I get you an ice cream?” she asked.

“Is it all kept nice and
fresh?
” Mrs. Nolan wanted to know.

“Oh yes, indeed. Look inside if you like, but why don't I open a fresh pack just in front of you?”

Mrs. Nolan was pleased. David scurried out, unnoticed. Clare went to the kitchen and got a clean jug of hot water, and a clean sharp knife. She dipped the knife in the water and slit open the carton of ice cream. She made the indentations on it firmly and cut two fourpenny wafers which she handed over gravely.

“This
is
a nice shop, Molly,” said Mrs. Nolan.

“Oh yes, yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Power uneasily.

“I think it's a better place than where you told us to shop.”

“It's very good, all right,” Molly agreed, looking at the ceiling.

Clare prayed her father wouldn't come in and start fawning. She bade them farewell.

“Nice little girl,” she heard Mrs. Nolan say. “Very undernourished looking, but a bright little thing.”

 

Chrissie said that Clare had a horrible gloating smirk on her that was terrible to look at, and that Clare would be unbearable now she knew about the picnic in the sandhills.

Clare sighed. She said that David's bag was in the press behind the coats, and there was one knife of theirs as well.

“Did he say whether Caroline and Hilary were coming or not?”

He hadn't, but Clare presumed they would be. Weren't they old enough?

“Oh they're old enough, but Gerry Doyle seemed to think they weren't.”

Chrissie was
hoping
they weren't. Gerry Doyle had too many eyes for Caroline Nolan altogether. She had seen him laughing too much with her—over nothing. She didn't explain this to Clare but Clare seemed to understand somehow.

“They'll all be gone back at the end of the summer, and you'll still be here,” she said comfortingly.

“I know that, stupid,” Chrissie said, examining her face in the mirror. “That's both good and bad.”

 

Nolan was very disappointed that Fiona Doyle wasn't in the number that giggled their way up the sandhills in the moonlight. He had decided that Caroline and Hilary could come—thereby making it respectable—and he was very annoyed with Gerry for putting it out of bounds to
his
sister.

“It's not as if there was going to be all that messing like we had in the cave,” he said to Gerry.

“I know, but she's just not going to come with us, not at night. Not in the sandhills.”

“You sound as if you're talking about a nun, not about Fiona,” James Nolan grumbled.