Barefoot Over Stones (11 page)

‘Control your jealousy, Abernethy, just because I have a line of hot babes waiting to succumb to my charms in pubs the length of Leeson Street and you, saddo, are taking yourself off to the cinema to munch your popcorn on your own. Why don’t you come with me and watch the master at work? Pointers, my friend, that’s what you need and I’m the very man to help you.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of cramping your style, Anthony. Talent like yours needs oxygen to breathe.’

‘Well, enjoy the subtitles, and I will take care of the ladies,’ Anthony replied before he swaggered out in search of his unsuspecting prey.

At the bar there was a row of Guinness-sipping heads, lined up like soldiers on their high stools silently admiring themselves in the gilt whiskey-label mirrors that lined the back of the bar. It seemed that real men in Conlon’s sat at the bar because all the tables and chairs were vacant except for one in the corner, temporary home to a group of handbag-clutching, vodka-quaffing women who looked as if they were expecting the bingo numbers to roll any minute now.

‘Did you say Leachlara?’ Alison asked, knocked sideways by the coincidence that she had willed not to be the case ever since Ciara had disclosed to her the details of Leda’s involvement with the dodgy politician in their home town.

‘Yeah, I’m from Leachlara. Why, have you heard of it?’ Dan was a bit taken aback. Anybody he had mentioned it to in Dublin had never heard of Leachlara, which didn’t surprise him really. It was, after all, only a crooked miserable street with more pubs than it needed and precious little else. Columbo’s battle cry was that Con Abernethy had put Leachlara on the map and it had struck Dan that it was a curiously pointless achievement – even if it were the case. Truly there was no point in going there unless you had the misfortune to call it home. Now it seemed to have followed him here and he didn’t know how to react.

‘My best friend is from Leachlara. She’s my flatmate too.’ Alison knew that he might be uncomfortable with the mention of her name but she thought it best to get it out of the way. Hopefully it would not scupper this thing with Dan before it even got started. She had to be honest. He was going to meet Ciara sooner rather than later and this whole thing would be better aired beforehand. ‘I think you might know her. At least, she has spoken of a family of Abernethys
from Leachlara. Ciara Clancy is her name.’

Dan was stunned. It couldn’t get much worse than this. He had run from the mess that his father had created at home with Leda Clancy. He had sought refuge in his independent life in Dublin but it had followed him here like a bad smell and it could ruin the nicest thing that had happened to him in ages. Ciara Clancy was not likely to be impressed with her flatmate’s choice of company.

Dan felt his throat tighten and his mouth dry but he forced himself to form some sort of an answer. ‘I’ve heard of her. I mean, I know the Clancys and where they live. I don’t think I have ever spoken to Ciara. She was at the same school but she was only starting when I was doing the Leaving.’ Dan was rambling because he didn’t know how much, if anything, Ciara might have told Alison about his father. There was no point in him blurting it all out to her if she was blissfully unaware. She would just think his dad was a creep, a point he might well have to concede, but he wasn’t ready for her to think badly of himself too, not when they had only just met.

Anticipating how awfully this could turn out, Alison thought she had better rescue Dan from his obvious mortification. ‘Look, Ciara has told me about your dad and her sister Leda and what’s meant to be going on. But I am ready to hear your side if you want to tell me. Just because Ciara is my friend doesn’t mean I don’t want to get to know you. I’ll understand though if you don’t want to talk about it because we have only just met. It’s none of my business, after all. I just figured that Abernethy is such an unusual name that there couldn’t be too many families called that in a place the size of Leachlara.’

‘No, there is only one lot of Abernethys. We punch above our weight though when it comes to shitty family stuff,’ Dan said with as much humour as he could manage under the circumstances. The sensible thing to do would be to bolt for the door, but the longer he looked at Alison the more he wanted to stay. She had taken his breath away when she walked in. He’d known she was beautiful from watching her at the Daisy May but he was taken aback by just how gorgeous she looked. Her hair tumbled around her slightly made-up face and her petite frame was dressed in a slim-fitting red shirt and dark denims. He wanted to snog her there and then so there was no way he was going to let his father’s foul-ups ruin his chances. ‘If it’s all right with you, Alison, maybe we could start off like this is a totally normal run-of-the-mill first date and I will get to the heavy stuff later. That’s of course if you are still interested and you haven’t decided to run for the hills.’

‘I promise to stay until the end.’ Alison was relieved. She would tell Ciara eventually but there was no need to tell her straight away.

They talked until after midnight when the barman at Conlon’s downed tools and started to flick the lights in an effort to chase the handful of drinkers on to the street. They swapped stories about growing up, their respective schools and their university courses and agreed that it was nice to live in Dublin where people didn’t know every ounce of your business.

‘Well, at least I used to think that about Dublin until I asked out this beautiful, mysterious girl from the Daisy May and realized that she knew loads about me and all I knew about her was her name and that she was from Cork. Oh, and that she nearly always burns whatever is in the frying pan when I am drinking coffee at the counter. I’d say you owe poor Rose a brace of frying pans by now!’

Alison grinned. Talking to him was so easy; she felt she could say anything to him. No point then in ignoring the huge elephant sitting in the corner any longer. Con Abernethy might as well be sitting between them in Conlon’s.

‘Look, Ciara is just looking out for Leda. You can’t blame her for that and she may have exaggerated the story a bit. I mean, I’m sure your dad wouldn’t – didn’t actually do anything. Did he?’

‘To be honest, he says he didn’t and I want to believe him but I can’t be absolutely definite that
this whole thing with Leda is entirely innocent. I’m just back from home now where all hell is breaking loose between my mam and dad. He seems remorseful that he might have led Leda on but he says that she made most of the story up to compensate for a pretty poor home life. I think he’s telling the truth but he is a politician after all and his job is to make people believe him. He’s good at that. As for my mam, she was never his biggest fan so she wants his guts for garters.’

‘Well, I think he has a point about Ciara’s parents. I’ve never met them but from what she says they are not with it at all. Ciara seems very glad to be away from home, says her dad is clueless and her mother has been depressed for a long time. So maybe Leda is just engineering a way out for herself too. She stayed with us for a couple of days in December. Ciara was trying to persuade her to stay longer but she hightailed it home without even telling us and took a week’s kitty money with her. Ciara was livid but it made her realize that she can’t force Leda to do anything. She might be Ciara’s little sister but she has a mind of her own, that’s for sure.’

‘Does this mean that Ciara is going to be on your doorstep tonight ready to give me a whack on the side of the head with the mop and bucket when I walk you home?’

Alison looked at her watch. It was half past midnight. At this time Ciara would be in her bed with the loud hiss from her wonky radio stealing out from under her door. She had taken to leaving it on all night, liking the comfort of the voices. Silence made her think about all sorts of depressing things, she had told Alison, and that was a dodgy prospect if you needed your sleep. ‘No, you’re safe enough at this hour. Besides, if Ciara ever found the mop and bucket in the first place it would be a cause for celebration. She doesn’t do housework. It’s just as well she is great fun because she is a disaster when it comes to cleaning up. I can get a taxi anyway, you don’t have to walk me home.’

‘I am your taxi, Alison. I would love to walk you home if you’ll let me.’

He wrapped his scarf around her neck to keep her warm and they took the route along Charlemont Street and over the Grand Canal still chatting under the orange glow of the street lights, strung like rough amber jewels across the night sky. Alison found out that Dan lived in a house owned by his father off Leeson Street. It was divided into a number of flats and he and Anthony Geoghan, another medical student, shared the roomiest one at the top of the house. Dan thought that his father owned a good few houses around Dublin but Con Abernethy kept specific information about his property portfolio close to his chest. He admitted that his mother hardly knew the ins and outs of his father’s business dealings either, so anxious was he to keep it private. It seemed strange to Alison because she was so used to her mother and father discussing everything and working so closely together every day. Alison related the funny stories about Jean McDermott and her drinking habits and how she seemed to have forgotten that she had let out her upstairs flat to two students.

‘She always seems fairly disoriented when she sees us and calls us both Mary. She never forgets the rent though. We are her passport to the off licences around the village. Well, our rent money and the sick pay that she seems to be getting from the civil service for work-related stress. The stress seems to have centred on actually having to turn up.’

‘God, I am risking life and limb going to your front door tonight. First I have a gin-swilling landlady who thinks you are a trespasser and then a flatmate who would swing for me if she knew that I was an Abernethy from Leachlara.’

‘Just as well I am worth the risk then, isn’t it?’ Alison chipped as they reached the picture-book gate and pathway of 9 Sycamore Street. It was a lesson in how deceiving appearances could be because the inside of Jean McDermott’s house had little beautiful to recommend it.

Dan towered over her as he pulled her into a warm embrace. He kissed her softly on the lips, lingering and soaking in her taste. She thought she could happily melt into him. After the longest time he pulled away gently from her. ‘I had better let you go inside. It’s cold.’

Alison agreed though she felt no cold at all, just his arms around her and his face above her beaming down his gorgeous smile.

‘Will you mind my scarf for me until I see you again?’

‘Yes. I will take good care of it.’ They kissed again and Dan waited until Alison turned the key in the Chubb lock and disappeared inside, first turning back to offer the favour of her smile and a wave.

He walked the length of Sycamore Street, turning left on to Ranelagh Road and heading for Leeson Street Bridge. His pace was energetic and his head buzzed with the excitement that Alison was truly nicer than he had dared to imagine. It was a good twenty-minute walk home. He hoped that it was a journey he would repeat until he knew all the strides of it by heart.

‘Two weeks, Alison, and I still haven’t laid eyes on him. I’m beginning to think you’re making up this whole Dr Dan business and that you’re really sneaking out to see crap films in the Stella, ones you know I’d bawl you out for wanting to see.’

‘Of course I’m not making him up! You will meet him soon, I promise.’ Alison thought maybe now would be a good time to drop the bombshell that she knew more about the Abernethys of Leachlara than Ciara could possibly imagine.

‘I’m not sure I think much of him if he lets you walk home from all these places that you meet him in. It’s not very chivalrous, is it? Not exactly the bumper package of gentlemanly charisma that you had him down as, I am afraid.’

Ciara was enjoying having a tease at Alison’s expense. She had been away with the birds for the last couple of weeks, out nearly every second night and she had been so tight-lipped about the romance. It seemed to Ciara that she was afraid to mention Dan in case he disappeared in a puff of smoke. Ciara firmly believed that men were not so scarce that they had to be handled so delicately but she also knew that she and Alison were about as different as it was possible to be and still get along, so they were not likely to agree on the cleverest way to pursue a romance. Still, she did think it was about time she met Dan, to see the altar that Alison insisted on worshipping at.

‘Shows how observant you have been, Ciara. Dan has walked me home every single night that we have been out. He just hasn’t ventured up to meet you yet, that’s all.’

‘What have you said, Alison Shepherd? That I would eat him without salt if he came up, or is it the bold Jean McDermott that would skull him with one of her empties for defiling one of her precious lodgers?’

Alison steeled herself for the nuclear fallout. She had a skimpy ten minutes before Dan was due to call for her with the intention of meeting Ciara. She hoped to deliver her in relatively peaceful form but amiable was not a word that could ever capture the spirit of Ciara Clancy.

‘Do you remember you said that the man that’s carrying on with Leda, your old landlord, had a son our age or a bit older?’

‘Yeah. He was well ahead of me in school. Why?’

‘Well, Dan, my boyfriend, is Dan Abernethy from Leachlara, Con’s son. A bit of a coincidence really, isn’t it?’ Alison trailed off, her confidence faltering in the face of Ciara’s incredulous look.

‘Hold on. The Daniel Abernethy I know went off to study law. His mother sickened everyone in Leachlara that would stop to listen to her that one day he would be Attorney General or Chief
Justice, whichever paid the most. Whatever else he is he’s not your doctor.’

‘He started law in UCD but he didn’t like it so he reapplied and got medicine, which is what he wanted to do in the first place.’

Ciara had fallen silent. She had even started to absent-mindedly sort the tray of cutlery that sat on the worktop, which was a sure sign she was not her usual relaxed self. Alison was afraid that she wouldn’t speak before Dan arrived so she did her best to make light of the situation.