‘What do you call what?’ the girl asked.
‘This . . . this room . . . do you have a special name for it or anything?’
‘No. No special name,’ she said.
‘It used to be the morning room,’ the boy said. The first offer.
‘Not by us. We didn’t call it the morning room. Or any name.’ The dark girl was giving nothing away.
‘I guess it was the morning room because it got the morning sun. It faces east, south-east. That’s right, would you say?’
But the boy felt he had been too friendly, and his sister was suggesting they leave.
‘We’ve really got to go now.’
‘Come back again, any time; you’re welcome here always,’ he said. Somehow he knew it was the wrong thing to have said.
‘Well, like you always were. When a place is special you don’t need anyone to welcome you to it. That’s right, isn’t it?’
They nodded at him, shoulders slightly less tense, their stance not so hostile.
‘So we have to be off,’ the boy said, picking up one side of the box that contained their life in this room.
‘So goodbye,’ said the girl, picking up the other side. They walked away from him, two little figures probably the same age as his Grace. Reasonably well cared for, grubby knees and dirty hands from playing . . . or indeed packing all their house things – they must have been covered in clay and dust. He watched them through the open walls of the house. They headed not for the town and the big bridge across into Bridge Street itself, but they went the other way towards River Road. Going to cross that little footbridge . . . maybe they belonged to that crook Jack Coyne?
Patrick was glad he hadn’t asked them if they were twins. It was obvious they were and yet people always had a habit of asking the obvious. He found it very irritating even when it was well meant, like when people said to him, ‘You’re an American!’ with an air of discovery. They were fine kids, a little prickly, especially the girl. He’d catch up with them again, give them some job maybe, make them a few pounds. Or maybe they might resent that. He’d see. And when Grace came over, she’d charm them to bits anyway.
Now to see the Ryans in the poky little pub and then back to the dark room with the heavy mahogany furniture which had been in the Johnson family for generations, and the picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour which had helped them through some of the bad times. And a long, long sleep.
Kate had come back early. Fergus was right. She couldn’t really concentrate and John would have to be told before anyone else came with the news.
The angelus was ringing as she walked down River Road. She looked across the banks and tried to imagine what it would be like with a huge hotel, a car park, with signs for a pub, with music maybe . . . Americans did things in style. She called into Loretto Quinn’s little shop for a bag of sugar and a dozen candles. She always tried to give Loretto the turn; the small white face behind the counter moved Kate to pity. Loretto and Barney Quinn had saved and saved for a business, any business. They had done any work to get the deposit on the tumbledown place. They could be seen night and day working to make it right. They knew they were no competition to the shops on Bridge Street, so Barney Quinn had bought a van in which to do deliveries.
A week after the van was delivered, Barney threw it into reverse and went into the river. It happened so quickly that Loretto never even knew. She was still out in the back filling bags of potatoes when the alarm was raised and she realised half the town was outside her front door with ropes and pulleys trying to get her husband, dead now in his van, out of the River Fern. There had never been any colour or much life in her face after that. The child she had been expecting was stillborn, and she kept the shabby little shop as a memory of her young husband and in honour of the way things might have been.
Jack Coyne had been helpful about the unpaid-for van and the insurance and everything. People had been kind at the time. Not everyone continued to be helpful like Mrs Ryan. Loretto knew it would be very easy for her to get things cheaper in Bridge Street where she went to work, or to get them delivered, but nearly every day she called in for something. Today she was early.
‘You’re not taken sick coming home early?’ she asked, concerned.
‘Ah, not at all, Loretto, nothing would make me feel badly, thank God. No, it’s light there this morning and I thought I’d come on back to John to give him a hand. Not that there’s likely to be any custom much for another hour.’
‘Will the place across make any difference to you? Jack Coyne was in earlier. He wondered would it take any of your custom. I said it would be a different class of person entirely . . .’
‘Thanks, Loretto.’ Kate should have left earlier. John Ryan must know by now that his livelihood was threatened and that the days of Ryan’s, Whiskey Bonder were numbered.
John was sitting on a high stool reading the paper. He put down the newspaper automatically as the door opened.
‘That’s never the time!’ he said, amazed, looking up at the old clock and back at his watch trying to work it out.
‘No, I came home a bit early.’ Kate put down her parcels and sat up as if she were a customer.
‘Couldn’t wait for a ball of malt?’ he teased her.
‘John.’
‘What is it?’ His face showed that he knew something was wrong. ‘Are you all right, do you feel all right?’
‘I’m fine.’ Suddenly she was weary; she knew it would be an uphill struggle trying to make him realise how serious things were going to be.
‘What is it then?’
‘Did you hear what’s happening to Fernscourt? They’re going to make it into a hotel, have a bar. Americans are going to stay there, and there’ll be a bar the size of a football pitch. He’s put in for planning permission.’
‘I heard that it was going to be a hotel all right. Tommy was round with the mineral water deliveries. Oh, he left the invoice there on the shelf by the way, it’s behind the . . .’
‘Will you stop bleating on about invoices? It’s mighty few of those we’ll be seeing in the future. Did you hear what I said?’
‘I heard you, Kate. There’s no need to shout like a fishwife.’
‘Like a what?’
‘A fishwife, look at you; you have your hands on your hips even. Stop being so impatient, and let’s discuss this thing properly.’
‘I’m the one who ran the whole way back from Fergus as soon as I heard about it. Don’t you think I want to discuss it properly?’
‘Yes, Kate. But not in public. Not in the middle of the bar.’
Kate looked around at the empty room.
‘God Almighty, have you lost your mind? Who’s here except Leopold, are you afraid the dog’s going to start gossiping about us and our business round the town?’
‘Don’t let’s start something that we’ll have to cut off as soon as someone comes in that door.’
‘All right, all right.’ She made a gesture with her hands as if calming things down. ‘Very well, but in the meantime do you mind if we talk about what’s going to become of us, or would you rather read me Curly Wee out of the paper, or have a discussion about the weather?’
‘We can’t know what to think, until we know what’s going to happen. How many times do I tell you not to go off at half cock about every single thing? We’ll hear in good time what he’s going to do. It might be the making of us for all we know. A whole lot of new people coming to the place, a lot of business we never had before. How many times have we wished that we were a tourist area where the people came on holidays? Now we will be, if what Tommy said is true.’
‘The making of us; the making of us. How could it be anything except the end of us? For as many times as we said we’d like tourists, haven’t we been thanking the stars that they’re all so dozy in there in Foley’s and Conway’s and half packed to leave in Dunne’s? We never had any competition, and even then we barely make a living. How can you be so blind?’
A flash
of annoyance crossed John’s big, good-natured face.
‘Listen to me, I know you work hard, I know you put in all the hours that God gives you making a life for us, but answer me this, why am I being blind? What should I have done? Should I have bought the place myself? Or killed the fellow who did? Come on now, tell me. I’m standing here minding what I agree is at the moment a very slow business, some would say non-existent . . . and hoping that there’s going to be some kind of good spin-off instead of doom and disaster for us, and you come rushing in the door shouting at me like a tinker’s woman and saying I’m blind. That’s a lot of help, Kate, thank you very much.’
Before she could reply the door opened and in came Marian Johnson, face flushed and wispy hair blowing all directions. Rita Walsh of the Rosemarie hair salon said that she had often known people with two crowns in their head of hair, but Marian Johnson had three. The woman couldn’t be blamed for looking like a refined haystack. Marian was anxious to know if John Ryan could oblige her with a bottle of Jack Daniels.
John Ryan couldn’t. He had Scotch all right, but nothing else except Irish whiskey. They might have it in the town, he supposed.
‘Very fancy tastes you’re getting above at the Grange,’ he said companionably. He couldn’t have said anything more welcome. Marian was dying to release the news. It was for the American, the man who was going to buy Fernscourt, or who had bought it in fact, but was going to open a hotel there. She went on and on, words falling over each other in excitement. There were going to be fishermen, not people like from here, not just the visitors from England who stayed in guest houses, but rich Americans with their own rods going to come and fish the Fern for pike and rudd, for bream and perch. And there were going to be Americans who would want to ride horses, they would even come in winter so they could hunt. They’d be here the whole year round. She was unaware of the silence that she spoke to. But eventually even Marian ran out of wind.
‘Isn’t it great?’ she said, looking from one to the other.
‘I’d have thought you’d be very put out. Isn’t that all your kind of business that he’s going to be taking?’ Kate said, avoiding the look of caution that her husband was trying to beam at her.
Marian tossed her head. ‘Heavens no, isn’t it all to the good, isn’t it going to build the whole thing up for all of us? They’re going to want horses. Apparently I’ll be expanding all that side of our business. It’s going to change the whole place.’ Marian hugged herself almost girlishly at the thought of it.
‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Kate said. ‘That it’s going to change the whole place.’
‘Oh, Kate Ryan, you’re as young as I am,’ tinkled Marian, who was most definitely the older of the two. ‘Don’t be an old stick in the mud. It’s going to transform your lives. Think of all the people that’ll come tripping across that footbridge there to have a drink in your place. It will be just what you need.’
John seized her words as if they were a lifeline. ‘That’s just what I was saying to Kate when you came in the door. It could be the making of us. It could be the bit of luck we were always hoping for.’ His face was bright with enthusiasm.
Kate watched, wordless, as her husband and Marian Johnson made plans for the future. They never talked about all the people who would like to go and have a drink in the big hotel, who would trip across the footbridge in the other direction. She looked at John and tried to work out whether he really believed this optimistic line of chat, or if he was only trying to buoy up the Ryan family. She decided that he really believed it; he wanted so much for things to turn out well that he refused to look at any other possibility. She felt a mixture of annoyance that he should be so naïve, and a protective, almost maternal anxiety because she had this cold fear that things were indeed going to change, and that something very bad was about to happen.
The twins crept in through the back door. They were filthy and carrying a big battered box between them. They looked like small dark criminals. They both put their fingers on their lips, warning Carrie not to cry out.
‘Oh God, you’ll get killed,’ Carrie said, half pleased and half worried on their behalf. They’d been up to no good whatever they’d been doing.
‘We’ll be clean by the time Mammy gets back,’ Michael said to reassure her.
‘She’s back already,’ Carrie cried triumphantly. ‘She’ll take you apart so she will.’
Carrie, who greatly feared Mrs Ryan’s hurricane-like visits to the kitchen, and her great ability to see things that were not done right, was always guiltily pleased when the wrath fell elsewhere. Carrie had long straight hair that fell into her frightened eyes – except when she saw Mrs Ryan looking, then she took a hair slide from her apron pocket. She was a mousy little thing who could look very nice when she tidied herself up. Mrs Ryan was always finding a blouse or a brooch or some little thing for her. Carrie only wore this finery on her day off when she walked four miles back to the farm from which she had been glad to escape.
She was fine unless she was fussed, and this was fussing her, the twins having skipped school and dragging this big box guiltily upstairs. Nobody ever came to Carrie’s kitchen during the mornings except young Declan. And now here were Dara and Michael home way in advance. And the mistress was home early too. Really it was very troublesome. Carrie always arranged to have the kitchen looking well when Mrs Ryan came back at one o’clock; the pots were washed and put away. Now it looked a mess, and she was bound to be criticised. She sighed heavily and started to clear up the things that were most likely to offend.
Gently Michael and Dara eased themselves into the bathroom to shake out their crumpled school clothes and wipe off most of the grime. What was Mammy doing home so early, on this of all days? They had banked on at least an hour to get themselves to rights. This was the very first time they had ever mitched from school. Dara had told Sister Laura that she had a pain in her tummy, and Michael had told Brother Kevin that he had eaten too many potato crisps. Sister Laura had been understanding in case it might be Dara’s first period, Brother Kevin had been dismissive and said what could you expect of a boy brought up in a pub but to eat like a pig all the rubbish in packets that was put in front of him? But it was too dangerous for them to go to school that day. If the man had been wandering around Fernscourt in the middle of the night they had to go and take their things away. Somehow they both knew that at the same time and realised it had to be done. They never dreamed they’d meet the man himself.
The Ryans never ate lunch together as a family since John was always in the bar. And the first rule of the house was that the children never appeared in the bar at all. John said that most of his customers came there to escape from households of screaming children racing round the place, and they mustn’t be allowed to see a hint of the same thing in Ryan’s. So Dara and Michael would have had no idea who was in the bar as they sat down to lunch.
Eddie and Declan had come in at the normal time.
‘You were quick,’ Eddie said to Michael. Normally they all raced together from the brothers, beyond the bridge down River Road. Dara’s convent was up the other way, past the Rosemarie hair salon and Jack Coyne’s. Nobody could tell whether or not she had come home. It was only Michael who might have been missed.
‘Yes, we got out a bit early.’ Michael looked from under his lashes to see if Mammy had made anything of this exchange, but her mind seemed to be miles away. She hadn’t even noticed how crushed their clothes were from being bundled in a bag.
The twins hadn’t decided what to do for the afternoon. They would have to walk towards school of course, and then they could meet somewhere else. Eddie and Declan had no afternoon school so there would be no need for Michael to go all the way to the brothers. There were a host of possibilities. But before any were settled, the door of the pub opened and Daddy came through.
‘Kate, Kate, come out and meet Mr O’Neill who’s bought Fernscourt. He’s called to pay his respects. And bring the children too, he says he
’d like to meet them.’
Leopold, who was the most antisocial dog in the world, decided for once that he was included in the invitation too. Looking exactly like an advertisement from a Cruelty to Animals brochure, he walked ahead of them, sidling and cringing as if expecting a blow at every turn.
Kate smoothed her skirt and shepherded the children in front of her. There was time only to wipe the excess of food from Declan’s mouth; to pause and titivate them would have been a weakness with the door open and the great O’Neill waiting for them. Declan and Eddie hung back and had to be pushed forward. Dara and Michael were equally unwilling. In fact they both looked as if they had been caught out in some crime. Kate supposed they felt awkward meeting the man whose arrival they had hated so much. She didn’t realise how deadly accurate her first thought was. They had been caught out. He was going to say he had met them this very morning. They would be discovered.
Kate was surprised at his looks. Like a handsome Irishman on a fair day with a drove of young bullocks to sell. Not like an American tycoon. He had a tweed jacket in a pepper and salt colour. It was very well cut. It would suit John, she thought, hide some of his stomach. This man was big, with bright blue eyes and a million laugh lines. His big hand was stretched to her.
‘Mrs Kathleen Ryan. My own wife, the Lord have mercy on her, was Kathleen too. I’m glad to know you.’
He seemed glad to know her.
She had never got such a shock in her life.
All morning she had been thinking of him as the enemy, and here he was standing in their own pub, all smiles. No man could do that if he was going to take all your business. Even in America, where you had to be shrewd and tough to get on, they wouldn’t do that. There were half a dozen customers all eager and interested to see the introductions. They, too, would be introduced, they knew. But first the children.
‘These are the twins, Dara and Michael, and here’s Eddie. Take your arm from over your face, Eddie and Declan. Declan, come out from behind me.’