The Miracle Man (25 page)

John Healy tried to stare the woman out and think fast. This was serious. McAllister hadn’t mentioned anything about people wanting their money back.

“Well, this here’s a religious site,” he ventured. “We’re not allowed to give refunds.”

The Belfast woman advanced a large fist across the table and shoved her face closer to his.

“Well, ye’d better start right now, Mister, otherwise you’ll be in need of a feckin’ miracle. Twelve pound.”

She opened her hand to receive the money.

“Twelve? You mean six.” He began to rummage in his bag.

“Twelve! Four threes is twelve! Me an’ m’man and the two wee lads.”

“But – the kids got in for free.”

The woman said in a quiet yet menacing tone,

“Twelve pound, Mister – or I’ll wrap that feckin’ table round your neck!”

The glance from the husband that met John Healy’s eyes assured him that the woman was quite capable of adapting furniture in this manner. With bad grace, he dug the money out of his bag and slapped it into the hand of the woman who turned abruptly, dragging her children after her and saying to her husband as they headed for the gate,

“Didn’t I tell ye we should’ve gone to the Giant’s Causeway
– but, oh no, you had to go and see a feckin’ miracle site.”

John Healy leant back in his chair and gave a sigh. This miracle business wasn’t quite as easy as it had first appeared. Then after a moment’s thought he took five pounds out of his official collecting bag and put it into his unofficial pocket. It was a well-known commercial principle that the owner had to stand the cost of dissatisfied customers.

At the Glens Hotel, things were going no better. Following Dermot’s public display of a chimera at rut, Agnes had swiftly departed with Patrick and without a further word to Dermot, who was now sulking in his tiny office, only to be disturbed at frequent intervals by telephone callers enquiring about accommodation, the arrival of new guests and the complaints of those already in residence. Mrs Megarrity had just left him, having announced the arrival of three more guests – one from the Irish Press, one from the Cork Examiner and a small man from London who, she said, “looks like a bookie’s runner – a weasly-faced little bugger, and a crook to the back bone, if I’ve ever seen one. Not that I’m prejudiced against any man.” Now she was fending off two English newspapermen who had stayed overnight and were complaining about the state of the bedrooms, the lack of service and the poor meals.

“I wouldn’t even have the nerve to throw food like that in the bin,” the smaller of the two men said, “except after dark when the neighbours couldn’t see it.” The other one sniggered. Mrs Megarrity’s eyes narrowed and her face took on the snarling features that had turned the legs of braver men to jelly.

“That’s bloody typical, that is. Yous English coming over here to Ireland to bite the hand that feeds yez. I cook good, plain food here, and it would suit yez better to be eating grub like that than pollutin’ yourselves with that novel cuisine that wouldn’t feed a sparra.” On seeing her antagonists raised eyebrows she tossed her head and said, “Ah yes, that surprised
ye, didn’t it? I know a thing or two about hot cuisine, so I do, so ye needn’t try and put one over on me. My grandmother, I’ll have yez know, cooked for some of the crowned heads of Europe – and recipes were handed down. I’ll say no more.”

“Perhaps,” the small one ventured to his friend, barely able to keep his face straight, “that’s why royalty’s a bit thin on the ground on the Continent.”

As she turned away, the Winter Cook said,

“We’re not here, mister, to cater for people with weird tastes in food.”

“No,” one of them said whilst she was still within earshot, “I think the best you could manage here would be cooking for people with no taste at all.”

Margaret Garrison, now financially secure for the foreseeable future due to the sale by Cissy of some of the shares through a reputable broker, was eager to make the acquaintance of these two English sophisticates, whose views and tastes would undoubtedly be so very much in keeping with her own. In the sitting room she tried telling them about her year in London with the Hennessys, describing it in terms more suitable to a grand tour of Europe and talking as if she would even now be welcome at all the great houses and was intimate with every doorman and head waiter in the best clubs and restaurants of London. But the two young men were not at all interested in the ramblings of this old woman, the highlight of whose life seemed to have been a few months spent in London many years before either of them had been born. Nevertheless, Margaret was glad of the diversion from the terrible business of Mr Rowan who, she had reluctantly had to admit to Cissy, must have been cheating them during all those years. For her part, Cissy was growing into her self-appointed role as financial manager and had taken to reading the Financial Times, for which she had placed a daily order in the Inisbreen Stores. A world of which she had previously not had
the slightest inkling was slowly opening up to her, and she read with increasing interest, if yet little understanding, of profits and losses, rights issues, yields and earnings per share. She had also spoken to a notable lawyer in Belfast, with a view to taking legal action against Mr Rowan.

“Ah, Mr Rowan,” the lawyer had said. “His name is known to me,” but did not elaborate. A meeting with the lawyer had been arranged to take place in two weeks, but when Cissy had asked Margaret if she wanted to accompany her, Margaret had said,

“I’m sure you’ll be perfectly capable, Cissy.”

Her confidence growing by the day, Cissy had replied,

“Oh I didn’t expect you to take part, Margaret. I just thought you might have liked to do some shopping in town while I was at the lawyer’s office.”

The hotel’s other permanent resident, Mr Pointerly, who was usually in a torpor of half-remembered incidents of long ago, set in a landscape peopled with characters whose features and qualities were as much a product of his imagination as they were of his memory, was yet again engrossed in thoughts of what had happened at McPhee’s house that fateful night. Of course, there would always be setbacks in any venture and finding that young reporter there had been quite a shock, but at least it did prove the point. He gave a shiver of anticipation and allowed himself to slip into his little daydream in which, instead of a gilded youth, McPhee would be waiting for him in some sun-dappled bower by the river bank, or as he walked on the strand he would hear a call from the pine trees. Like Jack Armitage at boarding-school. He had been a true friend, and there had never since been anyone quite the same. Those winter days when they had sat naked before the fire, toasting their muffins, heads together and dreaming aloud of their golden futures. And now, when he thought he had the McPhee
chap all to himself, he found this young man intruding on the relationship. Well, he wasn’t just going to give up. “Faint heart never won . . . whatever.” Anything worth having was worth fighting for, so the first thing he had to do was get rid of this interloper so that he himself could command McPhee’s full attention.

For a long time Mr Pointerly sat in his armchair by the window, his chin cradled in one hand, his long fingers playing a little tattoo on his cheek. Every now and then he would pull a face and then shake his head. At times he looked as if he were dropping off to sleep and a long sigh would escape his lips. Then at last he got up from the armchair, stretched himself and was about to walk out of the lounge when he saw a copy of the Northern Reporter lying on a coffee table in the middle of the room. He stopped and looked at it and then after a moment returned with it to his chair. Twice he read the article on the Miracle Man by Fergus Keane, a smile slowly forming on his lips, so that by the time he had finished the piece for the second time, he had a wide grin on his face. Then taking the loose change from his pocket, he counted it, put it back into his pocket and left the room, still holding the Northern Reporter.

At the telephone box outside the Inisbreen Stores, Mr Pointerly paused and looked around him, as though someone might be watching his every movement, but the village street was empty. He had some difficulty opening the door with its heavy return spring, but once inside he quickly turned to the bottom of the newspaper’s back page, where the address and telephone number were given. Slowly and with deliberation he pressed the numbers given in the newspaper and then waited with fingers tapping until the telephone was answered by a woman’s sing-song voice saying,

“Northern Reporter, can I help you?”

“Eh, yes,” Mr Pointerly said, in a tone of voice that was not
his normal one. “I’d like to speak to your editor on a matter of some importance.”

“What is it in connection with, Sir?”

“It’s in connection with these so-called miracles at Inisbreen.”

“Well, if you have an opinion on that, Sir, and you care to put it in a letter, Mr Martyn would be happy to consider it for publication.”

“My dear young lady, I may well put my opinions in a letter in due course, but at this moment in time I wish to speak to Mr Martyn on the subject as a matter of urgency. This is the Bishop of Down and Connor.”

At that moment, as he sat in O’Neill’s snug sipping a pint of stout and a glass of Bushmills whiskey, the Miracle Man’s attention was otherwise engaged in matters of a most pleasurable kind. In his inside jacket pocket, nestling happily over his heart, he had noted, was the letter he had received that morning. It was an unusual event for him to receive anything in the mail except buff-coloured envelopes whose contents almost certainly demanded urgent payment, envelopes which he promptly stuffed unopened beneath the pile on the mantelpiece. But this morning he had sat staring at the light-blue envelope with its neat writing and Inisbreen postmark, as if by doing so he might discover who had sent it to him. Now, with a smile of deep satisfaction, he took the single-page letter from his pocket, unfolded it carefully, almost reverently, and held it at arms length to read it yet again. “My Dearest John,” it said, “I was surprised and overwhelmed by your letter and your generosity. Over all these years we have had to remain apart. Feelings which I thought might have gone long ago began to return the day we talked on the strand. When I read your letter and saw what you had done, those feelings came back to me even more strongly. We should never have bothered
about my parents disapproval, and anyway it doesn’t matter now. There’s only Margaret and I think maybe I can handle her. If you are interested in meeting again, nothing would make me happier. Although we did have some bad luck financially, things are all right now and I need to return your money. Please contact me as soon as possible. Yours ever, C.”

With a jaunty step Limpy walked across the bridge at Inisbreen, looking around him at the green and brown hills, the various shades of colour on the trees and the brown river that rushed to the sea, sights that had passed unremarked a thousand times, and yet today he was looking at them afresh. It was a wonderful feeling. He smiled and nodded at a stranger who stood in a doorway and then held the smile for three or four white gulls that came squawking and swooping low over the bridge. Since the miracle, everything had just got better and better. First the curing of the leg itself, then the money, and now this. After forty years. Who would’ve believed it? It was nearly a miracle in itself. Turning left from the bridge, he went down the road that ran alongside the river and led to the Glens Hotel and the salmon fishing net that ran out from the rocks beyond. For the third time since leaving O’Neill’s pub and the sixth since leaving home, he slipped his hand into his inside pocket and felt the other letter he carried, his reply to Cissy. This time he had gone to the trouble of getting a new envelope, although Frank Kilbride at the Inisbreen Stores had taken some persuading to sell him one from a packet of twenty-five, and had charged him extra for what he had called “a handling charge and the commercial inconvenience”. No doubt the store owner would sell the packet of envelopes at the normal price and hope that the buyer didn’t notice that one was missing. Limpy paused at the entrance to the Glens Hotel and looked up and down the road. Neither on the road nor on the bridge was there anyone else in sight. Quickly he went inside, his hand in his jacket clutching the letter. He glanced sideways
towards the residents’ sitting room and saw that the door was closed. The letter rack was at one side of the stairs and as he went towards it, he took the letter from his pocket. At the bottom of the stairs he stopped and looked up and then along the corridor that ran towards the kitchen at the back of the building. There was no point in letting everybody know your business, and especially not Lizzie. But he had no sooner slipped the envelope between the trellis of straps and the faded green baize of the board than a hand clumped down on his shoulder and he gave a little jump of fright before turning round.

“Mr McPhee, very nice to see you. I really must apologise about that little – intrusion the other night. No harm done, I hope?”

“Ah, Mr Pointerly, it’s yerself. No, no harm done.” Limpy began moving towards the front door. “I’m sorry, now, I can’t be staying to talk, but I’ve got one or two urgent bits of business that need attending to.”

“Oh, that’s a pity, that really is a pity. I was thinking that we might have a drink and, you know,” he winked at Limpy, “a little chat.”

“Oh we will, Mr Pointerly, we will certainly. Never let it be said I turned down a drink with any man,” he winked, “or a little chat. I’ll see you soon, Mr Pointerly. God bless ye.” Limpy had recently taken to bestowing blessings on all and sundry as he took leave of them, considering it an appropriate action for a man of his spiritual significance. No-one had objected and Mr Pointerly certainly gave a broad smile.

“Yes indeed, Mr McPhee.”

As the door closed in front of a happy Mr Pointerly, a voice from behind said in a sharp tone,

“Good-day to you, Mr Pointerly. And how are we today?”

“Ah – Mrs Megarrity. Yes, fine, very well indeed. I was just this minute talking to your brother.” He pointed at the door.