The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (174 page)

Dara watched as Kerry’s arm guided Kitty toward the huge lunch tent. He had never even looked for her.

She stood high on the steps of Fernscourt and watched them. Why had he not looked for her? Why had he said he loved her only short days ago; why did he hold her and say she was precious and beautiful beyond all imagining, if he was going to be with Kitty Daly? Did he know all the time that Kitty was coming, that she had turned out to be so beautiful?

Dara didn’t believe that he could have held her in his arms and thought of Kitty. It was impossible. Kerry was so good, so true, and he wanted the best for her. For everyone.

Suddenly it made sense to her. He did want the best. And up to now she had been the best in Mountfern. She had been young and not bad-looking, and she had loved him. But now there was a better best. There was Kitty, and he had to have her. The way he had to have that jacket which had cost a fortune. And he had to have the car. And money for gambling.

With a shock she realized that he might have had to get Rachel Fine out of Mountfern. He hadn’t liked her and she might have married his father and become a person of importance. She shook her head. All this and seeing Maggie’s dress. It made her feel dizzy, as if she were going to fall.

She sat down on the steps, and to her astonishment Leopold came and laid his head on her lap.

“What in the name of God are you doing here, Leopold?” she asked him, and he looked up at her from an awkward angle, trying to explain that he thought there might have been a bit of fun and he had come because everyone else was there.

Eddie appeared at that moment, looking anxiously around from behind an urn.

“Can I take it that you’ll be responsible for him now, could we say that I handed him over to you?” Eddie said.

“Wouldn’t you know that you’d have to let us down by bringing Leopold?” Dara said.

“I didn’t, he came across all by himself.”

“Yeah, carrying his invitation in his teeth.”

“What’ll we do, Dara?”

“We’ll take him home. Come on,” she said.

“But it’s not over. There’s lots more to go.” He was disappointed.

“Wouldn’t it be safer to go, Eddie, before you do anything dreadful that’ll be remembered for years, like the confession box?”

Eddie was philosophical. “I suppose it would be best,” he said.

They made a funny little threesome, Eddie with his spiky hair, Dara in her magnificent red silk dress, and Leopold, happy now that he had seen all there was to see.

Kerry O’Neill was coming out to look for Dara, and he saw them reach the footbridge. She had probably been sent to take that awful brother and awful dog home. She would be back later. He would see her then.

   Michael found Grace with Tommy and Jacinta and Liam.

“She didn’t know,” he said. “That it was a special dress for Maggie.”

They agreed. Grudgingly. Kitty couldn’t have known.

“It looks quite different on her, anyway,” Grace said. Grace was very disappointed with her own outfit. She wished that Mrs. Fine was still here; she was great at advising people. Mrs. Fine had been so nice to them that time, that short time at the beginning of the summer.

Marian Johnson could look wonderful, Mrs. Fine had said, if she wore tailored clothes. She needed well-cut almost mannish garments, not the soft fly-away things she usually wore.

Today Marian looked very smart in a dark blue and white suit and a blouse with a cameo brooch like Mrs. Whelan wore. She was with a very shabby big untidy man that people said was a barrister. Grace heard them say that he was Marian’s escort. Imagine having escorts at that age.

She went over to her father who was standing momentarily alone.

“Do you miss Mrs. Fine, Father?” she asked unexpectedly.

Patrick put his arm around his daughter. “It’s funny you should say that. I was thinking of her this very moment. She’s going to call tonight. Or I’m to call her. Anyway, when it’s over, we’ll talk.”

“So you’re still good friends with her?” Grace looked pleased.

“No, sadly not. But tonight is special; she and I will talk tonight and then not again for a long while.”

   Jim Costello toured ceaselessly. He found smears on some glasses. They were dealt with effortlessly, not by any shouts and roars but by a quick quiet word with someone and the use of the phrase “this minute, please” on almost every occasion.

He ensured that the rooms where valuable antiques were kept had people watching them, and he checked that the revelers had not got into the conservatory. He frowned slightly at the boxes which had been stored there. He looked at the top one. Whiskey.

It was probably some fail-safe idea of O’Neill’s. He was determined that nobody in the county would go dry. He must have ordered a few more crates put in this morning.

At least they were out of the way; nobody would think they were meant to come and carouse in here.

   “Where’s Dara?” Grace asked Michael.

“I don’t know. I’ve been looking for her.”

Michael was afraid that Dara might be crying somewhere.

“Do you think she’s upset about Kitty being with Kerry?” Grace asked.

“I don’t know. Do you think he really likes Kitty, or what?”

“I expect he just wants to have fun with everybody,” Grace said.

“Isn’t that what everyone wants?”

Michael saw Grace look around as Jim Costello passed by. A feeling of sadness came over him. Having fun with everybody. Yes, that probably was what everybody wanted. It was what the O’Neills wanted anyway.

   Everyone was in the marquee now listening to the speeches. The band was silent and respectful as the dignitaries spoke. All of them praised the courage and foresight of Patrick O’Neill, to come back to this spot and build his monument. They said that faith like his was needed more and more. They looked forward to the day when Americans who came to stay in his hotel would themselves come to build in Ireland and put stone on stone in friendship as their ancestors had done. There was hardly anyone in the main house to see the curtains move in the breeze that came in the open window. And there was nobody there to see when the curtains flapped against the ashtray and knocked it over. The cigarette smoldered on the carpet for a long time before the breeze fanned it into a flame and the flame caught the curtains. The long blue drapes that Rachel Fine had worked on so long to get the right texture, the right shade, and the right look for Fernscourt.

   The kitchen staff were far away from it, Jim Costello was hearing himself praised in the marquee, the staff who would serve in the Thatch Bar were busy setting up the place for the onslaught they would have descending on them as soon as the speeches were finished. There wasn’t a man in Mountfern who wouldn’t prefer a pint to the glasses of champagne which were on offer in the big tent.

There was nobody to see the way the singeing became a flame and the way a breeze carried the flame to the top of the curtains. The residents’ lounge burned discreetly and thoroughly behind the closed doors.

By the time the door burned down, the blaze was out of control.

   “Did you see Dara?” Kerry asked Tommy Leonard. “I’ve been looking for her all day.”

“Yeah, I can see you have.” Tommy’s eyes were fixed pointedly on Kitty Daly’s arm, which Kerry still held.

“Well, if you see her tell her I’ve been trying to find her.”

“Certainly,” Tommy said. “I’ll tell her your sight was taken from your eyes and you’re going around with a white stick bumping into things, desperate to find her.”

Sergeant Sheehan saw the fire first.

In years to come he would always remember that. The disappointments of the morning, the shame and the laughter were as nothing when compared to being the hero who discovered the fire and arranged the fire-fighting force.

He wasted no time, when he saw the smoke. He yanked Jim Costello from the marquee and together they ran toward it.

Then to the kitchen with shouts about telephoning for further help. By this stage the carefully placed fire extinguishers would be useless. A hose was in place within minutes, and the sergeant got Jimbo Doyle, who had the loudest voice in the county, to give the alarm through the main house in case there was anyone in any of the bathrooms or in any other part of the building.

The Thatch Bar was emptied of its staff, who were marshaled into a line of water carriers.

Chauffeurs of cars, three bus drivers, and five taxi men from the big town were roped in.

A serious fire-fighting effort had begun before they saw any need to alert the people in the marquee. There was no danger to life, and even if the fire could not be contained, there was very easy emergency escape for everyone across the footbridge and over the River Fern.

   Sergeant Sheehan had been the first to see the fire. The first in Fernscourt, that is.

Papers Flynn had seen the smoke much earlier.

A lifetime of never getting involved leaves its mark. Papers never brought up any subject first; he was a person who responded rather than initiated. You only got into trouble by paying attention to anyone else’s business.

He sat in the sun outside Ryan’s and saw the smoke coming out of a side window. Papers looked at it silently for a long time.

Mary Donnelly had gone into the house with Mrs. Ryan’s daughter. That boy who was always in trouble had come back, too, and the nice dog. Papers had always admired Leopold and thought him a fine animal.

He wondered should he say anything about the smoke, but the habits of a lifetime held him back.

Eddie came out and joined him on the seat.

“I could go back if I wanted to,” Eddie said.

“Oh, you could, right enough.”

“I wasn’t sent away or anything.”

“No, no, you wouldn’t be.”

“Well, I usually would be, but not this time.”

Papers nodded in agreement.

“I’ll have to make that clear to Mam. I came back of my own free will. I wouldn’t want Mam sitting in the chair there thinking maybe I’d been ordered to leave.”

The mention of Mrs. Ryan in her wheelchair galvanized Papers. Suppose there was a fire and Mrs. Ryan wasn’t able to get out?

“Would you think that’s smoke over there?” he said to Eddie.

Eddie squinted at it. “It is, it is all right.”

He ran back into the pub. Mary and Dara were just coming out.

“I’m going back, Eddie, it’s up to you, but maybe you’d prefer to stay here,” Dara said. She looked very serious but not as if she were fighting or giving out to him.

“There’s smoke,” Eddie shouted.

Dara took no notice of him.

“Mary has pointed out rightly that Mam and Dad paid a fortune for this dress, and I must go back and get value out of it for them. Even if I don’t feel like it.”

It was as if she were talking to herself.

“I think the hotel’s on fire,” Eddie said.

This time he managed to get their attention.

And by now the figures of Sergeant Sheehan and Jim Costello could be seen, running as fast as they could. Eddie was right; the hotel was very definitely on fire.

   Patrick’s speech was almost over. He had thanked everybody who should have been thanked, but it wasn’t tedious. The officials who had helped him all felt included in his generous tribute to the authorities, and the people of Mountfern felt individually acknowledged as he looked around the crowd and his eyes seemed to rest on them. Each and every person knew how much they meant to him, he said. He explained that a homecoming would be nothing if it weren’t for the people. Buildings were symbols but the people were the heart of it all.

He said his family meant a great deal to him, but in a sense he had found a greater and wider family of friends.

He was about to end by wishing that this new family of friends should join him in the Thatch Bar when the cry went up. It was a terrible sound, the cry that told them that Fernscourt was on fire and it was going to burn to the ground unless something was done quickly.

   They started to move the people from the marquee.

“Over the bridge” was the cry but nobody wanted to go. They stood in groups watching with horrified fascination as the flames leaped from the windows of the residents’ lounge and appeared, too, in the narrow windows of the piano bar. The line of people passing the buckets was slow. The hose seemed a trickle.

Men ran up, throwing off their coats, to join the firefighting. Orders were given and countermanded. The guards arranged for buckets to come from the river; everyone told everyone else that the fire brigade was coming.

“Ring them again, someone, and tell them to send everything they’ve got,” Martin White said.

Then he moved over to Kate Ryan’s side. “Back home with you now. That’s an order.”

“The children,” she said.

“They’ll follow. Come on, Kate. I’m taking you home.” John had moved the chair on and wheeled it rapidly toward the bridge.

Mrs. Daly blocked their way. “We should get people to pray,” she said. “That’s what we have to do now. It’s about time we realized it.”

“You’ve realized it for years, Mrs. Daly,” John said. “Now, could I get past you there? I’m a bit anxious to move Kate across so that I can go back and fight the fire.”