Firefly Summer (75 page)

‘Shush now.’

‘I won’t shush. And anyway nobody would rely on me, it’s Kevin they should rely on.’

‘Oh him?’ Mary sniffed. ‘From Dublin, and a man.’

‘Yes, I suppose those are points against him. I wonder has it crossed your mind that I too am a man, Mary. Perhaps you should take that into consideration when you and I are having these little social drinks.’

‘I know you’re a man, Fergus,’ Mary said.

‘I’m glad someone does, I’ve almost forgotten myself.’

‘But you’re not a real man, not like ordinary men.’ Mary was full of beaming approval. ‘Here, will you take this tray in that you came out for or they’ll think you fell into bad company.’

‘You’re not the worst, Mary,’ Fergus said, picking up the tray and carrying it back into the room.

They seemed to have exhausted sexual dysfunction or the possibility of suing for removal of conjugal rights. They were on to the topic of what they could expect to be awarded.

The tray was left beside Kate on the big round table which Rachel had found and covered with a floor-length green cloth. Nowhere else in Ryan’s pub had the elegance of this room.

They looked like four ordinary people having a drink, Fergus thought as Kate poured generous measures and added a splash of water from their only cut-glass crystal jug. No sign of their business together.

Sheila Whelan came back quietly by bus.

It should only be two hours and three-quarters, but the bus visited every townland on the way. It took mountainy routes and it went almost full circles into the countryside to pick up and drop farmers from crossroads that were off the beaten track. There was plenty of time to sit and think.

Think about Joe with his gaunt face and his sad tales clutching her from the hospital bed.

It hadn’t turned out as he had hoped, he told her. He wanted to come home to Mountfern. To die.

‘There’s no question of dying, Joe,’ she had soothed
him, her words automatic, her expression effortlessly kind. Even to the man who had left her all those years ago, hurling abuse to justify himself as he went.

His life had not indeed turned out as he hoped. There were children, four – two sons and two daughters – children that Sheila was not able to bear, and he had scorned the idea of adopting and raising another man’s sons.

The woman he had left everything for was a restless woman. The children had been reared wild, left to run wild. None of them would settle to anything, school or work. The eldest boy had gone to England a few hours ahead of the Guards, it turned out.

Joe had got to thinking about Mountfern in recent weeks. He thought of all the people he knew there, Jack Leonard and Tom Daly. He hadn’t heard that Tom Daly’s little girl had met with such a terrible accident. Sheila told him about Maggie, but his mind wandered away in the middle of the story. She stopped after a while when she saw he wasn’t concentrating. It was too sad a tale anyway.

He remembered Jack Coyne and that nice dour Dr White. Was old man Slattery around? No, well the son was a grand young fellow, And of course the canon. It would be good to wander down River Road to Ryan’s like in the old days. He had heard of the new hotel across the river, there was a lot of talk about it in the papers. He hadn’t known of Kate Ryan’s accident but he was sure that they’d got great compensation.

And since there was no real ties in Dublin, no – for all that he had a home – it was a house really – and she would understand that he wanted to go home at the end. She’d
probably be pleased for him. When all was said and done. So could he come back to Mountfern? Could he come home?

Sheila had talked to the nurse who recognised instantly that Sheila Whelan was someone to whom the truth was told. She heard that Joe had weeks and possibly only days to live. She had confirmed what she suspected – that he would never leave his hospital bed.

She told him he could come home.

She begged him not to worry what people would say and what people would think. Nowadays, she said, people were much too busy with their own business to worry about the middle-aged postmistress and her husband. She said that Dr White would be able to continue any treatment.

Joe’s eyes had filled with tears at her goodness. He had never meant to hurt her in the past, he had never wanted to be cruel.

She said she understood. She sat and held his hand until he fell asleep. Three days she was there helping him make his plans, telling him where they would put his bed.

He said it would be good in a way for her to have a man around the house again, and that was the only time she had cried. The tears had come down her face and she wept at the useless lives most people led and how little anyone understood about anyone else.

She asked the nurse to make sure that nobody was kept away because of her visits but the nurse shook her head and said that poor Mr Whelan’s wife wasn’t in the best of health and wasn’t able to come and see him. Sheila read this to mean that the woman who had borne Joe Whelan’s
four children suffered from her nerves or drink or both. She discovered that there were neighbours who would supervise the funeral, kind people in the small Dublin street who had known nothing of any previous existence in Mountfern.

When he fell into his coma and she was assured that he would not know anyone around him again, she left as quietly as she had come and took the bus back to Mountfern. She did not feel saintly or unselfish, she felt a weary tiredness. And for the first time in her life she felt something like anger. Anger about people who stood by and let things happen. At herself for wasting all those years thinking that Joe knew what he was doing and that there was some sort of plan. She might have been better not to have been so dignified and discreet. She could have gone after him and fought for him. And got him back.

Or she could have got a court order and got maintenance from him if she hadn’t valued her good name so highly and been too proud to ask for it. That way she would have strong shoes to wear instead of making do with patched soles and avoiding puddles. She would have had the money to go to Rome when the diocese was making the pilgrimage. She could have given Mary Donnelly something better than she had, some holiday or some outfit to get her over the worst days of the pain, the days when you need some distractions.

Instead she was coming back on the bus to Mountfern where nobody except Kate Ryan would know whether Joe Whelan was alive or dead. She would ask Canon Moran to say a mass for his soul, but she would just say that it was for a friend. It wasn’t that the canon would ever tell
anyone but she had been so silent and secretive about this, she would keep it that way to the end.

But for the rest of her life she was not going to sit and take a back seat. She was going to take part in things, not just observe them.

Patrick finished the steak and kidney pie. ‘That was quite excellent, Miss Hayes.’

‘It’s a pleasure to serve you, Mr O’Neill.’

He sat by himself at the table. Grace was having supper at the Ryans’. It was a night of a cookery lesson, she had explained. He knew it was just another chance to see young Michael but he pretended to take the cookery classes very seriously. Kerry was miles away in Donegal. When Olive Hayes had gone back to her kitchen he sat quite alone. As he sat many an evening.

It would be different when the hotel opened, he told himself. There would not be this stark realisation that he found himself reading through his meals, and sitting idly after them, fiddling with the television, if he didn’t get out more work. He had discouraged Marian from suggesting outings, and now she had ceased trying to interest him in little trumped-up schemes. He wished he could ask Rachel here.

He stood and stretched . . . the evening seemed to stretch as well.

He had put off so long and so firmly any thought about what would happen to Rachel when the hotel opened that
he found himself doing it again automatically. But tonight somehow he felt able to think about it.

She
could
take instruction. And if she did, then there would be no problem about her previous marriage, since it wasn’t a Catholic marriage. Hell, it wasn’t even a Christian marriage.

And she
could
fit in here, there were ways where she seemed to have adapted better than he had.

Rachel got on so well with Kate Ryan, with Sheila Whelan, with Loretto Quinn. Brian Doyle said that she was the only person connected with the entire enterprise who might be considered sane. Mary Donnelly, that madwoman running a one-woman band for the annihilation of men, said that Rachel was one in a million.

Why did he hesitate to ask her even to something simple like supper in his own house?

He knew why, it was out of guilt.

He still felt that this woman was part of his past. He had gone willingly and excitedly to her arms while the children had stayed in a big white house in New Jersey with their always-ailing mother.

And Rachel wasn’t Irish, or part of the great scheme. That’s why he kept her at such a long arm’s length.

Dara’s postcard arrived at Hill’s Hotel for Kerry. It sounded very casual with an attempt to be sardonic:

I heard there was a bank strike at home, I didn’t know there was a postal strike as well!!! But then how does everyone else manage to write to me, I wonder? It’s a puzzlement, as they say in
The King and I
.

France is magnifique.

I’ll be back in Mountfern on the last Thursday in August.

Love Dara.

Kerry read it and smiled. He would have taken a hotel postcard and written straight back, but he had a lot on his mind. He had lost a great deal on three consecutive nights.

It was time to call Father.

But if he won tonight, it would all be sorted out. No need to tell Father about anything.

Tony McCann was apologetic. If it were up to him there wouldn’t be a problem in the world, Kerry knew that, didn’t he? If it were only McCann himself or Charlie it would have been a no-problem area. But
these
fellows . . . McCann’s voice trailed away a little. For the first time Kerry began to feel a little afraid.

‘Do you not have any idea where he is, Miss Hayes?’

‘No, Kerry, he doesn’t tell me where he goes. He just said that he would be back late.’

‘Whatever time he comes in, do you hear me, whatever time, can you get him to call me?’

‘I’ll leave a note, certainly. I don’t want to intrude but is there anything wrong?’

‘No, no, heavens no.’ His voice was falsely bright.

‘It’s just that you sound so urgent somehow. I wouldn’t want Mr O’Neill to be alarmed.’

‘No, no, it’s nothing.’ He sounded impatient.

‘I’ll leave him a note then in case I’m gone to bed. I’ll say you’d like him to ring back but it’s not urgent.’

Kerry spoke very slowly and deliberately. ‘Tell him it
is
urgent but there has been no accident or anything. It’s very urgent.’

‘Very well, Kerry, whatever you say.’

Patrick came in at eleven-thirty.

He had spent a very pleasant evening with Rachel. He called at Loretto’s and asked whether she would like a drive. He wanted to look at the ruined abbey in case it would be a place they could take the guests on the barge that he was going to operate from the new landing stage.

‘You’re going to have night boat trips?’ Rachel was surprised.

‘No, but maybe it’s not a bad idea. They could go through the trees and along the river, the only light . . . the fireflies in the darkness.’

‘They don’t have them here,’ Rachel said.

‘Fireflies? Of course they do.’

‘No. Didn’t you notice?’

‘Anyway, will you come with me in the car and let’s see if this abbey is worth our time?’

‘It’s been around since the fourteenth century, I think it might be worth a glance all right. Let me get sensible shoes.’

They had walked easily and companionably like the old days. Three times he was about to tell her that he wanted them to be more open and seen to be close friends. Three times he stopped himself.

After all he wasn’t yet ready to offer her anything much, and he would clear it with his children before changing things even slightly. He left things as they were.

Next morning up at the hotel Jim Costello came to Patrick, there was an urgent call from his son in Donegal.

‘Would you like a bit of peace and quiet to take it?’

‘No thanks, Jim, it won’t be long.’

Jim had sensed the tetchiness in Kerry O’Neill’s voice. He moved away.

‘Did she not leave you my message?’

‘That’s some greeting, Kerry. Yes, Miss Hayes did leave a message but it was late when I got in.’

‘What time?’

‘Eleven-thirty.’ Patrick took a deep breath. ‘I went for a walk with Rachel Fine up around the old ruined abbey . . . she thinks that we could . . .’

‘I’ll hear Mrs Fine’s thoughts another time, Father. I’m in a bit of trouble. Financially.’

Patrick’s voice was ice cold. ‘Yes, Kerry?’

‘And I would be grateful if you would bail me out.’

A silence.

‘Are you still there, Father?’

‘Yes. I’m still here.’

‘What did you say?’