The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (170 page)

She felt sorry for Michael having to share a room with that terrible Eddie. Declan was harmless enough, but Eddie was too much.

Michael had explained that there was a partition. He had begged for one, and Jimbo had been instructed to build a plywood wall dividing the room.

She compared it to Jim Costello’s room. Well, it was more a suite really. He had a study, a bathroom and kitchenette, with a big bedroom that faced the river. She had seen it when he was taking her on a grand tour.

Jim had explained that the big sofa turned into a bed at night. By day the room looked expensive and impersonal. As if it were a genuine hotel bedroom, and Jim was just passing through. There were no photographs or personal things around his room.

Grace liked to think of the frank admiring looks he gave her, and the promise that when the day was over and there was time to think, he would be able to sit down and talk to her properly.

   Loretto Quinn woke and examined her hair to see how much of the set remained. Rita was going to brush it up for her and lacquer it like a board later in the morning.

There were several things she wanted to do before she opened the shop. She wanted to finish her letter to Mrs. Fine, telling her that there had been a dozen requests to rent the rooms, and that Loretto was going to give them to a young chef who said that he never lived on the premises, it always led to a hassle, and he had wanted something nearby. He had been very impressed with the little kitchen and said that the cooker was a very good make and one of the most expensive on the market.

Loretto wanted to thank Rachel for that as well; she had never appreciated it at the time. She wanted Rachel’s advice on what she should wear for her wedding next spring. Would a lemon-colored suit be nice, or would it take the color from her?

Loretto also wanted to leave a note in to Fergus Slattery. Jack Coyne had said to her that the country had never been the same since the Married Women’s Property Act. It was a joke, but she was going to ask Fergus just to make it clear to her in words she would understand that if she and Jack had a bust-up in the years to come, that Jack couldn’t take her little shop from her. And Loretto had to iron her dress, and once she had sorted through the potatoes and shaken the earth off them, she would paint her nails pink, as people would be admiring the ring.

And she had to decide about the picture of Barney that hung over the mantelpiece in her kitchen.

She took it down and looked at his face. It wasn’t a very big picture, nor a very good one. His hair was sticking out in a spiky way that wasn’t really like the way Barney was. The years in between made it hard to remember exactly the way he was.

As she looked at the picture, Loretto noticed that the big old frame was coming apart; it was old and cracked. It would be dangerous to leave it hanging in that position in case it fell on anyone. Loretto’s decision was made for her. She couldn’t put the picture up again the way it was.

She took out the photograph of Barney Quinn and put it in a smaller frame, a stand-up type which you could put on a shelf. In front of the potted plant. But in time it could be moved over beside the plant or toward the back of the shelf.

   Eddie Ryan woke and looked out the window.

He had promised his mother that he would do nothing today that would bring any disgrace on the family.

“It’s an important day, and I’m in a bit of a fuss and bother about it already, so it would be the living end, Eddie, if you were to be a worry to me, if I had to be looking around asking people where is that boy and what’s he up to now.”

“Maybe I’d better stay in bed all day,” Eddie had said quite seriously. It seemed to be the only way he could guarantee being no trouble at all.

“No, I’d be afraid you’d fall out of the window or hang yourself or something. I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off the house while we’re over there,” Kate had grumbled.

Mam had bought him a great jacket that day in Dublin; it was full of pockets and zippers and wasn’t at all the kind of thing he thought Mam would buy. He’d been sure it would be something like a blazer or a suit jacket when he was unwrapping it.

“How did you know this is what I’d want?” His eyes were shining.

“I guessed,” Mam had said.

She told him it was in the nature of a bribe, a promise of peace on the day of the opening.

Declan stirred and rubbed his eyes. “Is it morning?” he asked. Declan sometimes behaved as if he were retarded.

“No,” said Eddie. “It’s the middle of the night, and all those ghosts you’re so afraid of have been at it again. They’ve bitten the head off Jaffa. Oh, God, it’s lying on the ground all covered with dried blood.”

Declan let out a screech that could be heard on the Dublin road, and leaped out to see if this was true.

Carrie, who had been getting sick in the bathroom for the fourth morning running and was beginning to work out that there might be a very unsettling reason for this, got such a fright at Declan’s screams that she knocked over the entire contents of a tray that was perched dangerously on a white chest of drawers. The tray held—or had held—talcum powder, Dettol, dried-up calamine lotion, milk of magnesia, a glass eyedropper, and a bottle shaped like a crinoline lady full of blue bath salts.

The recriminations were lengthy. The court of inquiry into why all those particular things were on a tray was endless. Kate said that it was a great thing for a woman in a wheelchair to be told that the bathroom she could never go up the stairs to see had now turned into some kind of boxroom or rubbish dump, filled with old chests of drawers and trays and the Lord knew what else.

Dara was accused of having weighted it down too much with the crinoline lady. Dara, woken from sleep with what she considered monstrously unfair charges, said that the crinoline lady was, if anyone would care to remember, a gift from Marian Johnson to say thank you when Dara had gone to help in the Grange at a function. Dara had thought she was being paid, which was the only reason she had gone, and had been outraged by the blue crinoline.

Mam had said then to put it up in the bathroom somewhere out of people’s sight, and now she, Dara, was being blamed for it.

Eddie said he would stick a compass in Declan’s heart if he told anyone why he had cried out, and that this was no joking matter.

Poor Declan tried to say that he had been having a nightmare; he had dreamed that a ghost had bitten off the head of the cat, and that the side yard was awash with blood.

John said that it was too much for a human to bear. One of his sons was a hardened criminal, the other a certifiable lunatic.

   Jack Coyne woke with a feeling of wellbeing that surprised him. What was he feeling so good about?

He remembered that despite all the trials and tribulations, a few of them aided and abetted by Jack himself, Fernscourt was going to open today.

Well, he was going to the festivities of course, no point in making any lone point over something that was happening, anyway, and passing up a free dinner.

Anyway, there would be lots of fellows there from the Tourist Board and from Aer Lingus and the American airlines. And there would be journalists and local councillors, two bishops no less, a rake of priests, four TDs at the last count, not to mention the high and the mighty for miles around. If he couldn’t get a bit of business out of today he’d be in a poor way.

Then he remembered Loretto and how she had agreed to everything. It had been well worth getting her those flowers back a bit, and saying that he would be happy to go dancing of a weekend. Women really and truly liked those kinds of things. It was the way they were. And Loretto had been very practical, too, and agreeable to some of his suggestions. She had been adamant about maintaining her own little shop rather than considering its possible sale as a site for some other business once the hotel got going. She had been equally firm about not learning anything whatsoever about maintenance work. She didn’t want to spend her life in greasy overalls lying under some lorry. She had agreed to learn how to drive, however, which would be very useful for car delivery or collection or going for spare parts.

She had a nice smile, Loretto had. He had never noticed her at all until recently, thought she was a streelish little one in a shabby boxeen of a shop.

It was extraordinary how she had livened up when O’Neill’s foreign woman came to live there. And would anyone be able to explain what had happened to send
her
packing so suddenly?

   Fergus Slattery heard the telephone ring at seven-fifteen. That had to be some crisis.

He dragged himself unwillingly from a dream where he was advising the Rolling Stones about their grammar, and telling them that the song “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” actually and literally meant that they
could
get satisfaction, which was fine if this is what they wanted to say.

The Rolling Stones had been delighted with Fergus and had asked him to get on the payroll. He wouldn’t have to leave Mountfern but could advise by phone or letter on anything that needed revision. They promised to come and see him when next they were passing that way, and Fergus had told them they’d get a great bed and breakfast in Ryan’s. Dara had been so grateful to him and had apologized for ever thinking he should be put down like an old horse.

Loath to leave such entertainment, he went in his bare feet to the phone.

“It’s Rosemary.”

“
Who?
”

“I know we haven’t seen each other a great deal over the past while, Fergus, but I
am
your only sister.”

“My God, Rosemary, is anything wrong? It’s the middle of the night. Did something happen?”

“Of course something happened. I’m hardly ringing you for a chat out of the blue.”

“What is it? The boys … was there an accident …?”

“The boys are fine wherever they are. They don’t bother to let me know.”

He waited.

“It’s James. He had me out of the house, changed the locks. He can’t do this to me. He can’t throw me out of my own home.” She was near to tears.

“When did this happen?”

“The locks were changed last night, I stayed in a guest house. I was waiting until I could ring you to know what to do.”

A wave of pity came over him for this tall shruggy woman, with no warmth and no charm. He remembered her visit at the time of their father’s funeral, her lack of any kindness, her cruel taunting remarks.

And now, at this ungodly hour of the morning, she had finally been locked out of the family home in Manchester.

“Wait until nine-thirty, Rosemary,” he said.

“What will you do then?”

“I will do nothing, but you’ll go to a solicitor—a solicitor in Manchester, mind, not in Mountfern. And you’ll tell him what happened, and the circumstances leading up to it, and he will tell you what to do.”

“I don’t know any solicitors in Manchester, for heaven’s sake. If I did have any legal contacts, do you think I’d be ringing you?”

“No, I know that. I know that very clearly.”

“So what’s the point in saying find a solicitor, find a solicitor? I could have looked one up in a phone book myself.”

“I think that’s probably the best thing to do.” He kept his tone even.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, Rosemary. It sounds distant and may even sound harsh, but I can’t give you any advice whatsoever. You must see that.”

There was a silence.

“I’m sorry about it all. Do you think it can be sorted out, the difficulties with James?”

“Difficulties.” She gave a snort of laughter and said the word again, mimicking his accent. “Difficulties! No, I don’t think they can be sorted out, as you say.” Her tone was scornful.

“Well, then, the best I can wish you is that you are able to work out adequate provisions and a settlement, and that it is done with as little hurt and animosity as possible.”

“Jesus, but you’re a pompous bore, Fergus.”

He had been going to say that if she wanted a holiday she could come to the house where she had grown up in Mountfern. He would not say this now.

He thought of the night that he had been going to give her the old Victorian sewing table belonging to his mother, and had changed his mind over some insult that she had slung at him. Perhaps her whole life was a series of such non-happenings.

“I hope I’m not as bad as you make me out, but I’m sure, like all of us, I must have my faults.” He put on a mad simper as he said this. He tried to look at himself in the hall mirror, but the light was bad and he could only see his tousled hair and his crumpled pajamas.

He did a little dance while holding the phone and leering at his reflection. It pleased him to know that Rosemary could have no idea of his manner.

There was no more to say now, so Rosemary had rung off. Fergus was well into his capering dance now so he continued it, round and round the hall, pretending to hold up a ball gown and curtsying at himself every time he came to the mirror.

As he passed the hall door in a spectacular twirl, he saw two eyes looking at him through the letter box.

Fergus stopped in his tracks. “Who’s that?” he asked fearfully.

“I’m sorry, Fergus.” A thin voice came apologetically through the slit in the door.

He threw open the hall door, and there was Loretto Quinn, a letter in her hand.

“I was just about to put this through the door, but I heard these swishing sounds so I looked in, in case something was wrong.”

Loretto had never looked so alarmed in all the years he had known her.

“But you were pleased to see that everything was as normal.” Fergus beamed at Loretto as he took the letter. “I always have a little dance like this to start the day. They advised us years ago in the Four Courts, they said there was nothing like it for settling the mind into a good legal way of thinking.”

Loretto’s mouth was still open as Fergus bowed to her theatrically and closed the door.