The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (112 page)

She looked up at him in alarm. His words were innocent, casual. She felt suddenly that he was saying something else.

It was like a lot of little electric shocks prickling all over her.

Chapter X

Kerry came home for a long half term.

Without the others knowing exactly why, this seemed to change things for everybody. Having him join in made things different, more grown up somehow.

Sometimes Kerry came along when they went swimming up at the bend of the river. And sometimes he didn’t. They never knew if he was going to be there or not. Grace never knew either.

Sometimes he would cycle along with her, other days he would head off in a different direction. Or he would lie in his room and read.

Kerry got on much better with Father these days, Grace thought. There had never been anything like those awful days at Easter when she had to go to her room and work all day on those Irish exercises, while her father and brother had this war that involved Kerry refusing to explain something, and Father alternately wheedling or shouting threats.

Grace didn’t believe that Kerry had left his first boarding school because the walls were damp. But Father had said he would greatly appreciate it if Grace did not interfere and ask questions. Kerry had only shrugged when she asked him. They had both said she should put it out of her mind, and that was what Grace had tried to do.

Sometimes it was easier than others. When the three of them were running along the beach up in Donegal and laughing. Then it was easy. Sometimes when they were there in the lodge, all three of them, Father’s eyes would leave his papers and look at Kerry long and thoughtfully. Then Grace knew that whatever it was had not been forgotten.

She loved it when Kerry joined them. She was so proud of him, and he was such fun to be with. It was Kerry who said that it had to be simple to make a raft. After all, people had been doing it to explore the world or escape from desert islands for years now. It had to be only a matter of binding bits of wood all the same length together, didn’t it? Suddenly they were all looking for wood—Tommy Leonard in the back of his shop, Maggie trying to break up the packing cases behind the dairy, or beg bits of wood off Charlie, who worked there. Michael found old poles in a shed in the back yard. Liam White sent a postcard from the Irish College which he said was diabolical, with awful girls giggling and terrible dances that four-year-olds would be ashamed to do at night, and nobody being able to speak any longer in any language. He had been driven mad with jealousy by Grace’s letter telling him about the raft.

“You wrote to Liam?” Michael asked.

“Sure,” Grace said. “Didn’t you?”

Michael felt mean, somehow, that he hadn’t. Grace was so nice to everyone. First she had made certain that it wouldn’t cause dreadful punishments for Liam to get a letter in a language like English, and then she sat down and wrote. Michael wished he was away somewhere so that Grace would write to him. He could imagine her going in to Mrs. Whelan to get a stamp and licking it carefully to put on the envelope. He could imagine her sitting at the desk in the sitting room of the lodge, looking out the window and thinking of more things to say.

The raft looked great and Kerry had been quite right, of course it floated. They wondered why they had never made one before.

“I hope it’s not dangerous,” Kate said when she heard about it. “Kerry’s much older than you lot. Make sure you don’t do anything foolish.”

The twins were annoyed. It was like a criticism of Kerry. And some days when they expected him, he never turned up.

On Wednesdays it was early-closing day, and so Tommy and Maggie could escape from their shops. Kitty came along too, unexpectedly. She was much more pleasant than usual, and admired the raft greatly.

“Can it go on long journeys?” she asked.

“Yes, to the sea, if you like,” Kerry offered.

Dara didn’t like Kitty coming along, with her waist and her chest. She looked around for support but didn’t get any. Maggie was Kitty’s sister after all; she had to be nice to her, and Grace was literally nice to everyone. Nobody seemed to be shooing Kitty away.

“I expect you could take the raft all the way down to the old abbey, if you wanted to,” Kitty said.

Kerry was interested in the abbey; it didn’t sound too bad, but there’d be a lot of paddling the raft, coming back upstream from that far. Wouldn’t it be easier by bicycle?

“Much,” Kitty said, and they exchanged a long look.

That had been a lovely day. Kitty had drifted off and Dara was glad she hadn’t sulked over her having joined them. In a way it was a compliment, older people wanting to be with them.

They climbed on and off the raft all day. Tommy had said it was a great pity that they couldn’t get empty barrels, or oil drums, then it would float magnificently. But who would give them anything like that?

“They’d have them in Coyne’s Motor Works,” Kerry said.

“Mr. Coyne wouldn’t give you the time of day,” Michael said.

“I’ll ask him nicely.” And Kerry had raced down to Jack Coyne’s yard.

Jack Coyne thought there might be a belated chance to get back in O’Neill’s good graces if he were nice to the lad. He carried up two empty oil drums and even gave them a couple of lengths of rope.

It bobbed up and down like a dream then, and they all jumped on and off it. Dara’s long hair got into her eyes, she envied Grace’s springy curls which seemed to dry in seconds. Even Maggie’s frizz looked great when it was wet. Only drippy, dopey Dara looked awful. She sniffed and pulled at the damp, straight locks in disappointment.

“Here, I know, we’ll gather it up with a rubber band,” Kerry said.

“It would look worse than ever then.” Dara hated him looking at her, suddenly. She felt cold and ugly in her navy swim suit and all this lank wet hair. But Kerry was full of practical ideas. Just as he had insisted it was easy to make the raft, he knew what to do with Dara’s hair. Unselfconsciously he got his own comb and combed the long wet strands. It felt lovely sitting there on a tree trunk while he combed. She never wanted him to stop. The others were maneuvering a complicated way of climbing on to the raft straight from the bank; nobody noticed Kerry combing Dara’s hair.

He went to where his trousers were folded on the bank and found a rubber band; he tied the wet hair neatly into a pony tail, having pulled out the dark fringe first.

“Now,” he said triumphantly, “now that’s better. It won’t get in your eyes. And it looks great too. Truly grown up.”

Dara saw the admiration in his eyes and she yearned for a mirror, but of course there wasn’t one.

“Look in the river,” he said, reading her thoughts.

She looked and she could see the reflection of the clouds racing across the sky and she could see herself. A bit stern, she thought, and severe. But she saw the reflection of Kerry behind her and he was smiling.

“Thanks,” said Dara in a shaky voice. “I think it’s much better like that. Tidier, you know.”

“And prettier, you know.” He smiled.

Dara felt an ugly red flush like a rash starting on her neck and going down her chest. She was terrified he would notice.

“Race you into the river,” she said suddenly.

He had dropped the comb and was there before her. A clean dive far out into the center of the river. Dara flopped in at the edge and swam out toward the raft.

“Your hair is smashing like that,” Maggie said admiringly.

“Kerry always says that Dara looks like Pharaoh’s daughter,” Grace said.

“Is that good or bad?” Dara had seen a picture of Pharaoh’s daughter in a book of stories from the Bible; she looked terrific.

“Oh good, of course,” Grace said.

“But old, definitely ancient,” Tommy added.

“Not in
her
time, she wasn’t, Tommy.” Michael was defensive.

Kerry was sitting on the raft.

“Don’t forget what she found down by the river, Dara, a baby in a basket. I don’t think they’d believe you here in Mountfern if you came home with that story.”

“I don’t know. Canon Moran might, he’d believe anything.”

“He’s about the only one who would,” Maggie said seriously. “I think we’d better look away from the weeds and the rushes in case we find anything like that. It would only lead to endless trouble.”

They all laughed at Maggie; Grace put her arm around her, and Kerry said that she was magnificent. Maggie was never so pleased in her life, and quite glad that Kitty had gone away. She would have felt foolish being the center of all this praise and laughter in front of Kitty.

   Her mother thought her hair looked better like that, which gave Dara grave doubts about it.

“It would look great if I had pierced ears,” she said without very much hope.

“Out of the question,” Kate said.

“I
knew
you’d say that, no debate, no discussion, just out of the question. It’s always the same.”

“No, it’s not. I’m a magnificent mother,” Kate said.

“Huh.”

“I was just telling Fergus the other day how good I was. How I didn’t murder you and Grace when you wrote Maurice’s name on his shell with nail polish.”

“We took it off with polish remover,” Dara protested.

“But it might have hurt him.”

“It’s a
shell
, Mammy. Next you’ll be saying it hurts the potatoes to dig them up, or the cabbages, and we’ll all die off like flies because you’ll be afraid of hurting things.”

“I am endlessly patient. Fergus agreed.”

“He must be bored to death, listening to you telling this litany of how great you are.” Dara was full of scorn.

“No, he was fascinated. And so was Grace when I was telling her about what it was like when I was young. She thought it was very interesting. Not like you, my Dara, who would run a mile rather than hear my views on anything.”

Kate spoke lightly, but Dara felt that her mother was being serious.

And it was true, Grace
did
love to hear tales of the old days. She wasn’t just pretending in order to be polite, she would sit and ask all kinds of questions. She told Dara and Michael that their parents were far nicer than anyone else’s, which was true, but it was nice to be told. Dara wondered what Grace would do if she wanted to have pierced ears. She would ask nicely and she would get what she wanted. That’s what happened every time.

“Do you know, Mammy I was just sitting here thinking.”

“And what were you thinking, Dara?” Kate looked at her and smiled. “You know, pet, you really do look very nice with your hair pulled away from your face like that. I think you’ve inherited my excellent bone structure, instead of the puddingy, sandy looks of the Ryans.”

“I was just thinking that a fine-looking woman like yourself would want to be proud of her only daughter. Glad that her one girl would be a credit to her, with a smart appearance … and possibly to complete the look, pierced ears.”

“No, Dara.”

“Why?”

“Because you’d look like a gypsy, like a tramp.
No
.”

Dara looked crestfallen. She could read the tones, and this was a very definite no.

“Listen, I know it’s not the same thing, but I’ll get you a nice ribbon for your pony tail, you know the way Grace wears those ribbons.”

“Oh Mam, Grace could wear anything in her hair and it would look great. I’d look like a jack-in-the-box with ribbon.”

“You’ve no idea how lovely you are,” said her mother. “And we will discuss your ears when you’re sixteen. Not a day before then, not an hour.”

“That’s over three years. I can’t believe it’s going to be as long as that,” wailed Dara. “I’ll be so old then, nobody will want to look at my ears, or any part of me.”

“Yes, well that’s possible, but just to get value out of these days when everyone
is
looking at you, I’ll get a ribbon. Would you like a striped ribbon or spots?”

   Dara spent a long time curling her pony tail with pipe cleaners. It looked great next morning, tied up with an old blue ribbon she had found in Carrie’s room.

Dara was first at the raft, but Kerry O’Neill didn’t turn up. Dara thought the day was very long. No Maggie, no Tommy, no Whites, and mainly no Kerry. Three times Dara asked Grace where he might be. Three times Grace shrugged, you knew what Kerry was like. He turned up or he didn’t.

Grace and Michael lay on the raft for ages, just talking. Dara felt very discontented, and dangled her feet in the water from the bank as she looked back up at Coyne’s wood in case she would see Kerry O’Neill approaching on his bicycle.