The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (165 page)

They headed toward the back door.

But they didn’t get there. Down the steps at a fast pace came two men, the Dublin solicitor and a local man; more men followed—one was in robes, a barrister—and behind him Kevin Kennedy, also in robes.

Fergus felt his heart turn over and realized there had been a last-minute offer.

“Wait for a moment,” he called in a strangled voice to the little procession with the wheelchair.

“Is anything wrong?” Kate asked, turning around.

John narrowed his eyes. “It’s Mr. Kennedy, he seems to want to talk to us.”

“Oh, Jesus, let them not have an adjournment,” said Dr. White, who had often made it known that he had little respect for lawyers.

Far far away, it seemed, Patrick O’Neill stood by himself at the other side of the wide steps.

Kate thought it was strange for him to be alone, she had so many people with her. Then who would have come? Grace was at school, Rachel was back in Ryan’s pub, and Kerry? Who knew where he would be?

Patrick looked nervous and very much alone. She longed to call out to him. She wished she could send him a message saying his own words back to him, telling him that they would always be friends. It was as he had told her, a formality that was necessary to maintain their friendship.

But she couldn’t speak. And anyway they were coming toward her, her side. Kevin Kennedy, and Fergus. Their faces were impassive. Neither of them spoke; they each looked at the other.

“You say it, Fergus,” Kevin Kennedy said, standing back a little to give the stage to Fergus Slattery.

“They have made a suggestion.” Fergus felt his voice was very thin.

“Yes, Fergus, and what do you think?” John asked.

“What do they say?” Kate was calm.

“They say eight thousand pounds,” Fergus said in a voice that came from a million miles away.

“Eight thousand pounds.” John said the words.

“Two thousand pounds more than they said yesterday,” Kevin Kennedy said, as a further explanation.

“My goodness,” said Kate.

There was a silence.

Behind Fergus and Kevin, the other side stood in a little group. Patrick was still at a distance from them. He was not joining in.

Kevin Kennedy spoke then. “As your counsel, I can only give you my opinion, you do not have to take it. You do understand that, Kate?”

He hadn’t called her Mrs. Ryan. Nobody noticed.

“Yes indeed, and what do you say?”

“I say that you should have a quiet moment with your husband, and ask each other do you believe that you can live with this as fair and reasonable compensation, and if you can, then I will accept it for you.”

There was a pause. Nobody moved.

“And if you think that you will always wonder and worry about what you would have gotten if you fought on, then we will fight on.”

Almost imperceptibly Fergus, Kevin, and Martin moved away, and John and Kate were left looking at each other.

John bent down and looked into her eyes. They didn’t say anything; neither of them said a word, nor did they nod a head. Then after the long look John stood up.

“We’d like to take it,” he said simply, his hand in his wife’s cold hand.

Fergus let out his breath like a whistle. “You’re doing the right thing, I’m sure of it. I’m sure of it,” he said happily.

Kevin Kennedy was smiling too. And Martin White.

The little circle was almost unwilling to break up, but Fergus was the one to do it.

“Come on, Kevin, let’s go and tell them,” he said like a schoolboy.

Kate held John’s hand to her cheek. She didn’t need to say anything and neither did he. Dr. White was the only one to speak.

“Look, they’re coming over,” he said, and there, moving first with halting steps, came Patrick O’Neill. But as he got near them he broke into a run.

   In the small dark public house behind the courthouse they went to drink a toast. They drank to insurance companies and to justice being done. Kevin had to go back into court as he was in other cases, cases that had not been settled so amicably on the steps.

He shook their hands and said he hoped to meet them again socially, as he was going to spend the rest of the week in the Grange. In fact, it was so infinitely better than the Grand, the Commerical, or the Central. It was fortunate for him that through this case he had discovered the ideal place to come when he was on circuit. He was delighted that everybody was satisfied. That’s what barristers actually wanted, despite their reputation as loving the sound of their own voices.

And Fergus told himself that £8,000 was almost what he had wanted for them, so near that it made no difference. It was worth so much not to have poor Kate go through all that ordeal she had been dreading.

And Dr. White was quite forthcoming for him, and told stories of cases way back where he had been called as an expert witness.

John noted that this pub would not survive if it hadn’t been lucky enough to be so well positioned right behind the courts, the library, the county council offices, and the barracks. It had shabby scored tables, and torn dirty linoleum, but it was in the right place. He found his mind straying and hoping that Ryan’s Licensed Premises was really in the right place, that it would really get all this extra business that had been promised. He didn’t want to worry Kate with it, not now, not for a long time until she had gotten over the trauma of all this.

He looked at her sitting there with them all. Nobody who came in would know she was in a wheelchair; she looked a handsome lively woman, her head thrown back; laughing at some silly tale the doctor was telling. They were all half hysterical with relief that it was over.

Patrick was in high good form too. He resisted the urge to keep buying drinks for everyone and waited instead while the doctor went to the counter or Slattery threw a ten-pound note on the tray of the boy in the dirty apron who was serving them. They were all so happy, so relieved that it was over. He knew he had to go along with the good will and the delight. Because it could do nothing but harm and destruction if he were to let them know that Kate Ryan hadn’t gotten half enough for her compensation. The insurance companies were prepared to go to £12,000 outside the court, and even to £14,000 as soon as the case began.

At £8,000 they thought they had gotten away very lightly indeed. But Patrick knew that if this were ever known it would destroy everything he had tried so hard to build.

   And of course it wasn’t known. It wasn’t the kind of thing that the insurance companies would ever reveal. Instead it was reported with excitement in Mountfern. It was quite possibly the exact sum of money that pleased everyone. It was large enough to seem like a sum you look at in the bank and consider yourself a family of substance, which the Ryans would never have been able to do under any other circumstances. But it was not so large it sounded like a punishment. As the news filtered through Mountfern, heads nodded with satisfaction. Even the Dalys, who had always said that anyone could be hit at any time by a bulldozer and that it was a scandal to go suing that good man who was such a benefactor, could find no reason to condemn the settlement. Even Jack Coyne, who said O’Neill should be hounded to the ends of the earth to prove he couldn’t go around throwing his weight and machinery into the citizens of this place, had to stop his tirade.

By anyone’s standards, including Jack Coyne’s, £8,000 was a lot of money.

   Sheila Whelan was one of the first to visit Kate.

“You must be so glad it’s all over,” she said. As always, she had said exactly the right thing and struck the note that Kate wanted to hear. There were no congratulations offered, nor curious questions on how the huge sum of money was going to be spent. Kate was grateful to sit and talk to her.

“There’ll be a procession through shortly, I’ll leave you alone,” Sheila said. “You’ll want to talk to everyone else.”

“No, I will not. I feel like issuing a bulletin and sticking it up outside over the fuchsias there, saying Mrs. Ryan would like to thank all the inquirers …”

“Sit out in the pub, I’d advise, then you won’t have to have heart-to-hearts with people, and if anyone you really want to talk to comes, you can come back in here.” There was a look of strain around the postmistress’s eyes.

“Did anything happen?” Kate asked.

“Not now, I’ll tell you all about it again.”

“Is it bad?”

“No, it’s all over now.”

“Oh Sheila.” They sat in silence. The sympathy was so great, there were no words for it. A man who walked out and who only wanted to come back when he was on his deathbed. Such things couldn’t be mourned in formal ways. They had to remain unsaid.

   Sheila had been right; the procession did go on all day. Rita Walsh was in, delighted at the news, overjoyed that it was all over, wondering should they invest it in something that a gentleman friend of hers had told her about. It was like a syndicate and you all put in so much and there was hardly any risk, and people had been known to double their investment in a year. Rita could get the details. Kate told her that she herself would like nothing better but unfortunately John was an old stick-in-the-mud. Rita sympathized over the dullness of husbands in general and said that the offer of advice was always there if Kate needed it. A woman has to look to herself, Rita advised sagely. Kate couldn’t meet John’s eye as he pretended not to be listening; she was terrified they would break out laughing.

   Canon Moran and Father Hogan came in together. They said they were out taking a little constitutional and good news of the happy outcome had reached them. They wanted to say how very pleased they were that God’s justice had been done, and it was a wonderful example of how patience and resignation to the will of the Lord was often rewarded, even on this earth.

At least, Canon Moran did all the speaking. Father Hogan looked in disbelief at the trays of currant bread and scones that he saw on the counter. The rehearsals for the Shamrock Café were well under way. There were tables and chairs already in position, and any day now it would be ready to go. John had decided on no big opening ceremony, just let it creep on people.

Father Hogan’s pink round face was alight with excitement. “We’ll be able to come by here regularly on our constitutional, Canon,” he said, as Kate was murmuring that out of their very generous compensation she and John were most anxious to make a small contribution to the needs of the parish. It had been a highly satisfactory visit for the clergy.

   Dara heard on the way out of the convent. Jacinta White told her.

“Eight
thousand
pounds. You’ll be the quality now.” Jacinta sniffed.

“Don’t make jokes like that.” Dara could hardly take in the amount.

“It’s not really a joke, you’ll be as good as anyone already.”

“We were always as good as anyone.”

   Jimbo Doyle rang Carrie to tell her.

“I know already, they’re all here celebrating,” she said.

“Will I come and bring my guitar?” asked Jimbo.

“I don’t think they’re celebrating
that
much,” Carrie said firmly.

   Miss Purcell, who was now happily installed in the presbytery looking after the canon and Father Hogan, dropped a note into her old employer, Fergus Slattery. She said that she was delighted that he had been able to get so much money for Mrs. Ryan and her family, and that his late father would have been proud of him. Miss Purcell added primly that money wasn’t everything, but she was sure that the Ryans would use what they got wisely, and perhaps Fergus could tell them about the damp that was seeping through at the Sacred Heart Altar since good people to whom much had been given were often anxious to give some of it back to God at the earliest opportunity.

   Michael and Tommy were walking out of the schoolyard when they heard. Tommy was still complaining about the unfairness of teachers. Brother Keane had now in fact succumbed and been taken to the town to visit the dentist by a delivery man who thought he had been bringing boxes of notebooks, pens and other stationery supplies to the brothers, not taking one of the brothers with a swollen face off to a dentist.

One of the younger lads came running up.

“Your Ma got a fortune,” he shouted.

Michael felt his stomach constrict.

“Eight thousand pounds,” shouted the young fellow, delighted to be the one who brought the news.

“That’s all right,” Tommy said. “That’s about what they said would be fair—in our house.”

   Patrick had told the Ryans that he would come in later for a drink, he had a few things to attend to in the hotel first. He had clasped their hands warmly, and any reserve that might have been between them was now gone.

Back in his office, he sat with a curiously empty feeling at his desk. For once there were no interruptions; most times he had never been able to have a full five minutes without some crisis. But today nobody came near him. Brian Doyle had said that he heard it was a fair settlement and Patrick had agreed.

The sour taste in his mouth just wouldn’t go. Last night he had wanted to offer £12,000 and had been told very sharply that it wasn’t up to him to offer anything.

“Let me add to it, secretly,” he had asked.

They wouldn’t hear of it. A claim had to be settled and be seen to be settled. It was not fair on other insurers if Patrick was going to play Father Christmas with awards.

If the Ryans were known to have received something way above what they would expect and were about to accept, then would not all other claimants have similar expectations?

There was nothing to stop Patrick O’Neill making any ex gratia payments himself, out of his own funds. But it must not come with the name of the insurance company.

But Patrick knew that if it came from him, it would be charity.

He sat at his desk and wished that his daughter was back from Dublin and that she would walk in the grounds with him talking to him as she once had, before she had become coquettish and head-turning.

He wished that Kerry was different. That was it, just different. Like another person. He could see hardly any way now that he and his son would have any warmth and understanding between them. A gambler, a liar, a callous boy caring nothing for anyone. And quite possibly Kerry had been with Rachel. The thought of his son in an intimate embrace with Rachel was a thought he had tried to keep far from his mind.