The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (147 page)

“Kerry, why do you like me? Seriously. I’m not joking.” Dara’s big dark eyes were troubled.

“Because I like to be with you. You are beautiful and loving, you are bright and intelligent, and funny. And that’s enough for a start, isn’t it?”

“I’m not old enough for you,” Dara said.

“What’s age got to do with it?”

“I don’t know enough, I’m only a schoolgirl when all’s said and done. You should have someone much brighter, who knows things.”

“You know enough things for me.”

“It’s very mysterious.” Dara shook her head. “If I were rich I’d say you were after my money, and you
know
I’m not going to sleep with you … So I can’t see why.” She spoke in a very matter of fact tone.

“You might sleep with me someday,” Kerry said.

“I don’t think so.”

“We can but hope,” he said lightly. “But in the meantime we have to try to take you out of this melancholy. Maggie wouldn’t have wanted you to be like this.”

“I’m sick of people telling me what she would or wouldn’t have wanted,” Dara snapped. “Her mother was telling me that Maggie’s in heaven looking down on us all and very heartsore about the kind of films that Declan Morrissey is getting in the Classic Cinema.”

“Gently, Dara,” he said, reaching for her hand.

“I’m not mad or depressed, I just feel very confused,” she said.

He held her close and the confusion seemed to go further away. After that, he held her close all the time.

They didn’t laugh and race away from each other as they once had. They didn’t swim and splash and shout in the river. They lay together on the mossy ground of Coyne’s wood and clung to each other.

The sunlight came flickering through the trees above and Kerry O’Neill peeled off the little blue shirt that Dara wore. He opened her simple cotton brassiere and took it gently away from her. He lay his head on her breasts and heard her heart beating.

At no stage did she stop him.

They lay like that and he stroked her so that it felt both exciting and peaceful at the same time.

At no time did she feel it was wrong.

Only when he made a move to take off his own clothes did Dara stir.

“I don’t want to,” she said.

He sat up coldly. “As you say.”

“Don’t be cross. Don’t change.”

“Don’t be a tease then, don’t promise and then go back on it.”

“I didn’t mean to,” she said piteously.

“But you liked it. You like my holding you.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, tell me when you do.” He had leaped to his feet and was walking angrily through the trees.

   “I think Dara spends all her days with Kerry in Coyne’s wood,” Kate said to John.

“Don’t they all go out together? I thought they were never out of each other’s sight,” John said.

“No. The Whites have this cousin, poor Tommy’s stuck in the shop, Grace and Michael are off fishing.”

“How do you know all this?”

“When Rachel took me up to Bridge Street today I was in Leonard’s. I was talking to Tommy. He looks very badly still.”

“Why do you think she’s with Kerry?”

“She looks flushed and nervy but she doesn’t have the look of a child who sat alone all day in a wood.”

“What will we do?” He was anxious.

“I don’t know. What
can
we do? I mean even if she is with him, we can’t upset her anymore by hounding her,” Kate said resignedly.

“I don’t suppose he …” John didn’t finish the sentence.

“And I don’t think if he wanted to that she would really …” Kate didn’t finish the sentence either.

   Olive Hayes was sitting at the kitchen table writing to Bernadette. The young Ryan girl knocked at the door.

“I’m afraid Grace has gone off out. I thought she was meeting you and your brother,” Miss Hayes said.

“Oh yes, they’re all down at the river,” Dara said, covering up for Grace and Michael. “I was just passing and I thought I’d call in just in case Kerry was here.”

“No, child, he went off in that car of his. Off to a place way out on the Galway road.”

“Oh I see.” Dara looked disappointed.

“Do you want a drink of milk or tea or anything before you go back down to the others?” Miss Hayes thought the child looked disturbed. It must have been harrowing for them all to have watched a violent death.

“The others?” Dara said vaguely.

“Down on the river. You said they were all on the bank …”

“Oh yes, I forgot. The others.” Her voice sounded dull.

“Are you all right, Dara?”

“Fine, Miss Hayes. I’ll be off now.”

Olive looked out of the window. The child didn’t take the road down toward the river. She headed out to the main road.

   Dara had never hitch-hiked before. She would have to be very careful not to stop anyone she knew.

A big and unfamiliar van came into view. It wasn’t anyone from Mountfern so she held out her hand.

It was a traveler looking for a bit of chat, even from a schoolgirl. He had a van of chips and peanuts.

“Do you know this place … it’s a kind of roadhouse?” Dara told him about the pub where Kerry said he had been playing cards.

The man knew it well, he’d be stopping there himself. A few other places on the way before they got there. Funny sort of a place for a girl to be going on her own.

Dara told him a story about looking for her brother. The commercial traveler thought this was perfectly reasonable. He chattered on, hardly noticing that the grave dark-eyed girl spoke little in return.

He talked about Mountfern.

“That place is going to get a rare shake-up, used to be the sleepiest town in the midlands,” he said.

He seemed to expect a reply. “Is that right?” Dara asked.

“Well, seeing as how it’s where you came from you’d know better than I would. I bet you’re looking forward to the new hotel?”

“Yes, in a way.” She was looking out the window.

“It’ll bring a fortune to the town, you might get a job in it yourself when you grow a bit older.” He was a good-natured man, he would like to think that this attractive girl could stay in her own place rather than be forced to emigrate.

“Of course there’s always going to be some who’ll lose by it. You’re not connected with the Grange there where I picked you up?”

“No, no, I was just visiting someone in the lodge.”

“Well the Grange will feel the pinch, I tell you. Who’d stay there when there’s the new place? And who’d have a drink in Ryan’s, come to think of it?”

“Why not?” She turned to look at him.

“Your man, the American’s going to have a real bar, not a fancy lounge with uppity prices, but a normal bar across the bridge there from them, it will take all their trade. Very hard on them. Poor man’s wife in a wheelchair already after an accident and now this on top of it all.”

Dara turned away and looked out the window.

“Tell me, did you know that unfortunate child who was killed there last week, wasn’t it the saddest thing …?”

His voice trailed away as he saw the glint of tears on the girl’s face. “Of course you must have known the girl I’m sorry,” he said, mad with himself.

Dara just kept looking out at the road taking them toward Galway.

   “Will I wait and see that you meet your brother all right?”

“No thanks, I’m fine now. Really I am.”

“You must take no notice of me, Mikey the big mouth, that’s what they call me.”

“No, you were very kind to give me a lift.”

“The little girl who died is in heaven of course.”

“Of course,” Dara said in an odd flat voice.

   There didn’t seem to be a back room when she went in first. Just a shabby-looking bar with a loud jukebox. There were cigarette butts on the floor and bits of litter everywhere.

It must be through the door that said toilets on a hand-scrawled sign.

She pushed through the door and saw ahead of her another one, she touched it and it opened a little. Kerry sat at a table with a drunk. Kerry was shuffling cards in a way that they seemed to make an are. His face was clenched in concentration.

She stood looking at him for what felt like a long time before he looked up and saw her.

His face didn’t change, he looked neither annoyed nor surprised.

“Hi,” he said and continued with the shuffle.

“Not that way, Kerry, get your thumb in there properly.” Francis Doyle’s voice was slurred.

Dara sat down and watched. The drunken man helped himself to more whiskey from time to time. Neither of them even acknowledged her being there.

“I felt lonely so I thought I’d come out here,” she said eventually.

“Sure.” Kerry was pleasant but abstracted.

“To find you,” she said.

“And you did,” he said.

Francis Doyle took no more notice of her than if she had been a fly that had buzzed into this close, overpowering room. She felt slightly light-headed as if she might faint.

“Are you going to talk to me?” she asked Kerry.

“Not now, no.”

“When?”

“When I’ve learned the waterfall,” he said.

   Dara’s mind went blank as she sat in the airless room. She was unaware of her surroundings or how long she sat there. Then she felt Kerry touching her shoulder.

“I’ll drive you home now,” he said in a light casual way as if it were the most normal thing in the world to find her in this strange place miles and miles from home.

He held open the door of the little red car. They drove back to Mountfern, fast through the twisty roads. Dara didn’t speak. But she felt more at ease. She settled herself low in the car and once or twice she closed her eyes. On a hill a few miles from Mountfern the car stopped. Kerry looked at her.

“What are we going to do with you, Dara?” He said it with a mixture of affection and irritation.

She turned to him. “I don’t know. I felt so empty. The only thing that made any sense was to be with you.”

“But you don’t
want
to be with me. You made that clear in the woods.”

“I don’t want to sleep with you.”

“We were wide awake.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know you keep pushing me away. Why should I think you want to be with me?” He looked puzzled.

Dara took Kerry’s hand and held it to her lips. “I’ve never loved anyone before. You see this is the first time and it’s very confusing. It’s all mixed up with everything else that’s happened, and I feel strange and frightened.”

She looked terribly young. He took her hand and kissed it gently the way she had his. He said nothing.

“You mightn’t even love me at all,” she continued. “So I had nothing to lose by going to find you. I’m not playing any sort of game.”

“I don’t know if I love anyone,” Kerry said. “But if I do the nearest I’d come to it would be you. Come here to me.”

He took her in his arms and she stretched across the little red car to reach him.

   He had ten more days’ holiday.

Dara still looked pale and anxious. But she went to sit in the woods each day Some days he came there, some he did not. She never knew whether he would be there or not.

Each time he held her close to him, he seemed to be more demanding and urgent. Dara felt her resistance changing in degree. What she had fought off a week previously seemed acceptable now.

   “When is Kerry going back to Donegal?” Kate asked Rachel.

“Patrick says he still has a few days.”

“I wish he’d go now.”

“Don’t worry so much, Kate.”

“I can’t help it. She looks totally feverish and her mind is a thousand miles away when she’s here, or to be more precise three miles away up at the lodge.”

“I asked her to come for a drive with me, but she said no.” Rachel had done her best.

“I know you did, you’re very good. I suppose we can just hang on until he goes.”

   “Do you have friends in Donegal?” Dara asked.

“Not really. It’s mainly work, you know … I play cards sometimes, with a couple of guys I met, Tony McCann, Charlie Burns, they live in Derry across the border.”

“Don’t they have red buses and red letter boxes there?”

“You’ve never been to the north?”

“No, how would I go to the north, Kerry?”

“They have red everything, and red, white and blue flags.”

“Well it’s part of England.”

“It’s part of the United Kingdom.”

“Same thing.”

“Don’t you care about it not being part of Ireland?”

“Not very much. It will be eventually, I suppose.”

“McCann cares, and his friends care. They feel very strongly about it.” Kerry’s voice sounded as if he were quoting rather than talking.

“That’s all big talk because you’re an American,” Dara said.

“What do you know about it?”

“Nothing,” she giggled.

“Will you miss me when I go back?” he asked.

“Very much. Do you have to go back?”

“Maybe I could stay … perhaps I could think of an excuse to stay …” he said teasingly.

“Really?”

“If I stay will you be nice to me?” He had reached his arms out for her.

“I’m always nice to you. How would you get off work?”

“I can get anything I want,” Kerry said.

   “When’s Kerry going back?” Kate asked with an innocent air.

“I don’t think he is,” Dara said, eyes dancing.

“That’s right, Grace said he was hoping to get some more time,” said Michael.

“Doesn’t he have to work in Hill’s?” Kate’s voice was crisp.

“Oh, Kerry could talk his way out of anything,” Michael said.

Dara frowned: she didn’t want Kerry presented as too much of a playboy. “He’ll be able to arrange more time, there’s going to be no problem,” she said.

She looked excited and eager.

Kate’s mouth was a hard narrow line.

   “Would you like me to take Dara off on a trip somewhere?” Fergus asked Kate next day.

“Dara?”

“It would keep her out of Kerry O’Neill’s clutches. At least you’d know she was safe with me. Everyone’s safe with me,” Fergus added gloomily.

Kate didn’t give the usual good-humored riposte. She said nothing for a moment.

Then she said, “No, I think it’s time for Dara to go on a trip much further afield.”

“Where do you mean?”