The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (169 page)

To her shock his face changed completely.

“No,” he said sharply. “No tunnel, that’s out of the question.”

He stood up. It reminded her of that time he had walked away before when she had refused his embraces. The sense of loss was sharp in her memory. She looked at him longingly.

“Will you promise without any whys. Just for me?”

“Yes, I promise,” Dara said, feeling slightly ashamed of herself as she did so.

   Martin White wasn’t surprised to hear that Kate Ryan wanted him to call. She said it was for a check-up before she committed herself to the big journey to Dublin.

“It’s about more than that isn’t it?” the doctor said.

“How did you know?”

“I thought it was possible one day there not long ago.”

“I couldn’t be …” Kate looked horrified.

“Why couldn’t you? You know the way it’s done, and I’m delighted you’re able to do it.” Martin beamed uncharacteristically.

“But not with me like this.”

“Of course it could, and will.”

She leaned forward and clutched his hand. “I’m very strong, you’ll admit that, and a lot of my strength came from you giving me things straight. Be straight now. Will it be dangerous?”

Martin took her thin hand in both of his. “Not only will it not be dangerous, it will be wonderful. I couldn’t be more pleased for you.”

   “Do you think you’ll go to jail?” Declan asked Eddie when they were both in bed.

“No. Not this time.”

“Will you next time?”

“I might. Why?”

“Then I could have your bed.”

“You’d be just as bad as I am if you were brave enough.”

“I am brave.”

“No you’re not, you think there’s a ghost in the press.”

“I don’t really think there is, I think there might be.”

“There is, a big one, but
I’m
not afraid of it. Good night.”

Eddie turned over and went to sleep knowing that Declan would be awake for hours looking at the door of the big cupboard in the corner of the bedroom, fearful over what might come out of it.

   The river had never looked so lovely as that night. There was a flutter of birds in the trees, and they heard the cry of a fox in the still night. For two city people to recognize a fox at a distance wasn’t bad. Rachel was wearing her flat shoes as if she had known they were going to walk, and he helped her over the fallen branch of a tree or through the complicated little gates that the local people called stiles.

They had driven there separately. Rachel insisted. They had parked both cars on the river bank. Behind them Coyne’s wood rose dark and mysterious and further over were the hills around the Grange.

The sound of their footsteps was soft and rustling in the leaves. They came to an old wall, a good vantage point to look up at Fernscourt. Until now they had talked not at all, yet there was no air of expectancy. No tension or waiting for one of them to bring up the subject.

It came up very naturally. Patrick laid his hand over hers.

“I wish it had been different,” he said.

“Oh, so do I,” she sighed. But not with accusation; more like people sighed when it was no longer spring or when the heat went out of the day.

“It isn’t anything to do with the not being Irish bit … believe me.”

“I do believe you. You see, you’ve always had a different feeling about being an American than the other people I’ve met in my life. They all loved being American,
and
being whatever else they were, but to you being American meant losing being Irish, so you had to come back and recapture it.”

She walked apparently contentedly beside him, and they came to the footbridge opposite Ryan’s.

She led the way across into Fernscourt. He had been hesitant in case on this, her last night, she might not want to go into the place that had taken all his money, his time and his heart. They walked to a seat which she had arranged a long time ago when the garden plans were being discussed.

They sat and looked across the Fern at the lights in Ryan’s pub where there were still a dozen or so in the bar. And at Loretto Quinn’s where the rooms were being held in case Rachel might change her mind. In the soft dark night dogs were barking, they could hear an owl hooting far away, and the moths flew around them gently. There was the permanent sound of the river, but they had grown so used to it, they didn’t hear it anymore.

“I’ll be very lonely here.”

“No, no, you’ll have far too much to do,” she said. “Your days will be filled from morning to night. I’ll think of you sometimes at this time, and I’m sure you will be in your office there or with Jim Costello as the host. You won’t be sitting idly here watching the stars over Mountfern.”

“And what will you do in New York?” He was gentle too, and wistful.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll work hard, I can come to anyone with great references now …” She waved her hand at the hotel behind them. “I’ve kept a portfolio of all my work. I must have known I’d need it.”

“Do you think we will be friends, you and I?”

“Sometime, not for a while.”

“Nobody has shared as much of me as you have. I’m not good at giving bits of myself.” He looked at the ground.

She wanted to shout at him and say she was the most betrayed woman in the land. She had worked ceaselessly for his dream and to keep his relationship with his family good. She had bought presents for his children’s birthdays for as long as she could remember; she had advised and cajoled and succeeded in keeping some kind of family love alive between them all. What was her reward? She was assumed to have slept with the son and then to have paid him to keep quiet about it.

“And because we
are
being so civilized, can I say just one thing … and you won’t get up and walk away?” she said.

“Certainly.” He was ultra formal.

“And you won’t put on that formal mask with me.”

“Very well, say it, Rachel.” He smiled at her, that familiar smile with the starry lines going out from the sides of his eyes.

There was a catch in her voice which she hadn’t intended. She had forgotten how much she loved his smile.

“About that night that Kerry came to my rooms.”

“Yes.” He sighed as if he had known it would be this.

“He came for a purpose, a very specific purpose.”

“Yes, so he said,” Patrick agreed.

“Don’t be absurd, Patrick, don’t be utterly ridiculous. There is really something lacking in you if you could believe that he could have wanted to … to be with me in that way.”

Her voice sounded confident and dismissive. This was not the woman who had wrung her hands in Coyne’s wood and explained and contradicted and apologized. Rachel was firm and decisive now, she was dismissive of Kerry and all his tales.

“For what purpose?”

“He came to warn me off, to send me home. And he has achieved that purpose.”

Her eyes were angry but her voice was calm.

“What was he saying …?”

“He was mainly saying that if I had any hopes of replacing his mother, I should forget them, that I was not worthy to mention her name, that our affair was sordid and disgusting and that her memory would never be … sullied, I think, by the insult of your marrying me. It was very bitter. Very violent.”

“I think this is all very exaggerated. Kerry has no feelings for me … Whether I marry or not, it hardly concerns him.”

“You may be right in that he has no feelings for you, but he has very strong feelings about his mother.”

“He doesn’t give any sign of them to me.”

“How would he, to you? To you of all people. He doesn’t tell you that he had Kathleen’s topaz made into a tie tack, that he has her picture in a watch chain, in his billfold, and in a plastic folder just loose in his pocket.”

Patrick started to speak, but Rachel went on. “And I don’t say this just because he told you a pack of lies about me; in itself, that’s not the worst thing.”

“What
is
the worst thing?”

“The worst thing is that you believed him. That he was able to make you believe him. That Kerry—with his record of deceit, gambling, theft, lies, and utter selfishness—was able to make you, an intelligent loving sensitive man, believe him rather than me … the woman who has loved you, worked with you, and for you all these years. That’s the worst thing, how he was able to convince you so easily …”

“And is that the reason you’re going?”

“That and one or two other things. I think you’ve changed. I think the effort of making this place changed you a lot.”

“How has it changed me?”

“You were always so honest. Back in New York when there was a fight you fought fair. If another guy won the contract, you shook his hand, you said it was only money, only work, you wished him well. If a guy lost, you shook his hand too. You were honest.”

“I haven’t cheated anyone here.” Patrick was bewildered.

“You cheated Kate Ryan.”

“I had to, Rachel. What else could I say? ‘You were robbed, madam, but please accept my personal check for the balance’?”

“You celebrated with them that justice was done. Justice was
not
done.”

“Do you really believe I am at fault over this?”

“Yes,” Rachel said simply.

He picked up her hand and stroked it. “We have grown apart, you and I. There was a time when we could have talked it out all night and you would have agreed that I did the only possible thing in giving them their dignity if I couldn’t give them an adequate settlement.”

“Even if we had been able to talk it out all night, if we still had that kind of life, I don’t think I would have agreed.”

“But you would have understood why I did what I did,” he sighed.

“Yes, I’d have understood.”

Together they sat and looked across at Ryan’s, where the lights had gone out finally and stragglers walked or bicycled home along River Road.

“Won’t you stay for the opening? Please, Rachel.”

“No, no, you can call me when it’s all over and tell me how it went.”

“It will be good to talk to you on the telephone, anyway. There are so many day-to-day things I’ll want to tell you about.”

“No, Patrick. No calls. Only on the day of the opening.”

“No calls?”

“If we’re going to live our own lives, it’s childish to keep calling each other.”

“But as friends, even?” He was begging her.

“No, we’re not friends yet. We will be some time.”

There was a long silence.

“I feel very empty. I let you down, didn’t I?”

“Let’s be the only couple in the history of the world who said good-bye without any recriminations,” she said, standing up to go.

She bent down and kissed him on the forehead.

He put his arms around her waist and held her to him.

Gently she released herself and walked away. Down the path to the footbridge and across the Fern.

Patrick sat in the grounds of his hotel and watched Rachel walk without turning back all along the river bank, past the old wall and the funny stiles.

He heard her car start and drive away toward the town.

Chapter XXIII

The weather forecast had said sunny with scattered showers.

“I hope they’ll be scattered over the rest of Ireland and not all concentrated in this direction,” Miss Purcell said sternly.

The canon had a chest cold that would not go away. Dr. White had said that a man the canon’s age was to expect chest colds and not to stay in a draft.

Miss Purcell would have liked more concern and a preciser prescription. The canon would have to be in a considerable draft during the blessing ceremony. She had been very insistent about woolen underwear, and the wearing of a scarf while not actually involved in the religious offices.

Father Hogan was reassuring. Most of the time Canon Moran would stay well away from drafts. The huge marquee built by the dock was meant to be utterly windproof. And then there would be plenty of activities inside the house proper. Miss Purcell was to have no further worries.

Father Hogan also described at great length what he heard was going to be served to eat. There was an amount of salmon being delivered to the hotel that would frighten you, and there would be plates of it all afternoon if people wanted it; they could come back for helping after helping. There would be potato salad, and all other kinds of salads, and buttered brown scones.

Father Hogan said that there had been considerable discussion about whether or not to have a hot lunch, but the salmon faction had prevailed. There would be soup first, of course, served in cups so that it would be easy for people to manage it. There were two huge tureens of soup on their own little heaters, and you could come back for second cups or even a third cup here too.

By the time Father Hogan had begun to weigh up the merits of the fresh fruit salad and lashing of cream as opposed to the hot apple tart with ice cream, Miss Purcell began to wonder if the young priest could possibly be becoming
too
interested in food. She had let out his soutane once already, and it needed a further easing at the seams.

But she dismissed the thought as unworthy. And almost blasphemous. What was better than to see a healthy young priest enjoy his food? She thought back on the days that Fergus Slattery wouldn’t notice what she served, so long as there was a bottle of tomato ketchup on the table.

   Papers Flynn stirred in the outhouse where he had slept well all night. There was something happening today. What was it? He remembered that it was the hotel opening.

A barge had been brought from a Dublin canal, and painted in bright colors. There were going to be tours up and down the river to the old abbey near the lake. It would be great sport to watch it. Papers would find himself a good vantage point on the bank to see the comings and goings.

He was pleased to think of a day filled with such activity. He had all the details from Carrie. Papers had called there about his usual business and Mrs. Ryan had invited him into the kitchen for a plate of dinner.

Mrs. Ryan was a lady he liked a lot. She never asked him to clean himself up. She wouldn’t give him any old guff about finding himself a roof over his head. Mrs. Ryan knew that Papers didn’t want to be tied down. She gave him useful things like a pair of big burlap bags with strong handles on them: she thought they might come in handy for transporting his belongings, and they were the very thing.

Mrs. Ryan had taken Papers aside and said that he may have heard that recently they had been given a very substantial sum of money as compensation for her accident. Papers had heard it, certainly. Up in Matt Foley’s at the top of the town they had said that the Ryans were going to spend it all on a carpeted lounge bar with music playing in the background. In Conway’s pub they had said that the lot had gone into a building society and there wasn’t going to be a penny of it spent ever. It was to be their nest egg, their insurance policy for years to come. He had traveled on further to Paddy Dunne’s pub, where the story was that the money had been set aside to send Mrs. Ryan to a hospital outside Boston where they were able to do miracles with what other places had said were incurables. It cost five thousand pounds before they would look at you, and there would be the fare and everything, but she’d be walking again by the springtime. Paddy Dunne had read an article about the place in a Sunday paper.

Papers would never dream of asking Mrs. Ryan which, if any, of these stories were true. He was surprised when she suddenly volunteered the information.

“We’ve been very lucky, Papers, and I was wondering if you’d join us in celebrating our good fortune.”

“Well, now, ma’am.” Papers was cautious.

“I mean, I wouldn’t normally dream of
offering
anyone money, but seeing as how we got so much ourselves. It’s mainly in a savings account and it’s going to be used for the children’s education, in case any of them are bright enough to be able to use it. But we kept a few pounds aside for ourselves, and for people we know.”

She handed him three pound notes folded over.

“It’s not a great deal but I don’t know whether you’d like a cap, I was going to get you a cap, but John said that a man should choose his own cap for himself.”

“He’s right there,” Papers agreed sagely.

“Or it might not be a cap at all that you’d like, so will you get yourself something, and regard it as sharing part of our good fortune?”

Papers had been very pleased indeed to have had his wishes considered and discussed so carefully without anyone making mention of the county home, which usually came up when people had his welfare at heart.

In an uncharacteristic burst of speech he had told Mrs. Ryan that he might buy himself a little spirit stove that he had seen in a shop. He had been debating if it was worth the investment, but it would give him more freedom, he’d be able to go farther afield if he had his own way of being able to make a cup of tea.

He had thanked Mrs. Ryan very formally and assured her that he would report progress on the spirit stove. If he bought it, he promised that he would be very careful with it. And ended his speech by saying that she was a great woman to be celebrating good fortune when there were many in the land who would say that it was no good fortune to have the two legs struck from under you, but was glad that Mrs. Ryan was able to rise above that.

He had been surprised to see tears in her eyes. And she had said that oddly she didn’t worry about her legs being useless, she had gotten over that part of it, she just felt that she herself had lost her personality and was useless as a person. Papers hadn’t understood that and he told her it was a bit deep for him. She cheered up then and agreed and told him to have a good plate of stew before he left, and to come and watch any of the activities on the day of the opening from Ryan’s bar.

“You know you’re invited like everyone else in the place to the Thatch Bar in the evening, he wants the whole of Mountfern to come.”

“Well …” Papers was doubtful.

“He’s not issuing personal invitations, just wants everyone to turn up for a drink and to wish the place luck. Of course, there are some who would prefer to inspect it at their own time rather than being herded together. Some people of the more independent kind, private people will take up his invitation at a later date.”

Papers had been relieved to hear that, he thought at first that he might be expected to go, but Mrs. Ryan had set his mind at rest on that point. Papers could join the private sort of people, the people of independent mind who didn’t want to go as part of the herd.

   Rita Walsh woke with a start. Why had she set her alarm clock for seven o’clock? Then she remembered.

It was the day of the opening. She had two young girls from the convent coming at eight o’clock to start shampooing. The schools had the day off and Rita had picked two of the more reliable Sixth Years to help her. She had trained them in the art of washing hair without drowning the client.

All the towels and capes were clean and ready in little heaps in the salon.

She would get milk and biscuits from Loretto; she had tea and coffee there already, and in honor of the occasion she had bought a dozen nice blue-and-white teacups.

There would be a steady procession all morning. And since everyone would want to be finished and out by twelve-thirty, she had decided to open very early and accommodate everyone.

It was only regulars today. Mrs. Daly, Miss Johnson, Miss Bryne the physiotherapist, Dr. White’s wife. Loretto Quinn was coming in to have her hair combed out, she had the set yesterday. She also had the ring. She told Rita Walsh that in your life you found one Barney. It would be too good to be true to imagine you’d find another. But Jack Coyne was a man often very much misunderstood, and he had told Loretto that it was lonely to be in business in a big way and have no company in the evening when he came in after a long day’s work. Loretto had understood this too.

Rita had been very pleased for Loretto and agreed that it was often easy to get the wrong end of the stick with Jack until you knew him. She had done Loretto’s hair free as a celebration and said she must come in for a lot of back-combing and lacquer since this was a special day, the day that people would hear about their engagement. Loretto must look her best.

Jack Coyne was going to the opening under sufferance. One of the terms of their very unromantic and highly practical contract had been that Jack would end his vendetta with Mr. O’Neill and that Loretto would smarten herself up and learn to drive. The new Mrs. Jack Coyne must be not only a successful shopkeeper in her right but a well-turned-out woman driver.

   John Ryan woke at seven. He had slept badly. Twice during the night he had gotten up to get a drink of water, his throat felt dry and he couldn’t seem to get comfortable in the bed.

If Kate had been lying beside him in the old days, she would have woken too, and gone to make them a cup of tea. They might have sat during the dark night and talked about the hotel that was finally going to open, and all the fears that they shared, as well as the totally different fears that one had and the other had not. It would have looked less shadowy, that big house across the river, and less full of terror.

But Kate had not been in the room for over three years. Sometimes John slept on the divan in her green room below. He was always aware of how much she hated it when she needed to use the lavatory, whether she dragged herself into the chair and wheeled herself to the bathroom, or used the bedpan. Either way it distressed her so much that he often felt he was more of a hindrance to her than a companion. It was more sensible for him to sleep upstairs, though it was lonely.

And sometimes he felt it was selfish, particularly after they had made love. But then, making love itself was a selfish activity these days. There was no trace of the pleasure and excitement for Kate that had delighted him before.

John looked across at Fernscourt as the morning light fell on the great marquee. Normally he never let his mind go down this particular train of thought, but today he didn’t pull himself up. He stood holding the bedroom curtain in his hand and looked at the dock, the brightly painted barge, and the first signs of activity in the big cultivated grounds, and wondered what things would have been like if Patrick O’Neill’s grandfather had been thrown out of a cottage in Cork or Galway or Clare, instead of in this small bend on the road in the midlands.

How different everything would have been then.

   Grace O’Neill woke with a jump because there was a noise in her bedroom. But it was only her new dress and its heavy coat hanger falling from the door of her closet where she had hung it last night. She wanted to see it first thing so that she could make an instant judgment. Now it was in a crumbled ball on the floor.

She leaped out of bed to rescue it and held it up against the light. It
was
beautiful. She had been silly to think it was baby-dollish; it would look classy and striking.

Grace hoped that Michael would be cheerful today. She hated to see that hangdog look about him, as if someone had taken away his favorite toy.

She went to the window and leaned out. The huge marquee blocked the view across the river. She could not see Ryan’s pub properly.