John was never so relieved. He had been shattered by the events of the day: Kate wrestling with her pain and shouting at him that he couldn’t take the initiative, ever; Fergus and Patrick almost coming to blows and then both walking out of the pub; Carrie having retired to bed in hysterics and the kitchen looking as if a bomb had hit it. Opening time in another half an hour. He was never so relieved as to hear of this efficient Mary Donnelly who could come on the bus in two days if called for. Where would she sleep?
Mrs Whelan had thought of that too. There was an outhouse at the back and it didn’t need a great deal of work. They could get a couple of men off the site to fix it up, run an electric wire through it, a coat of paint.
There would be plenty of beds up in the Grange and Marian Johnson had offered any kind of help, a small second-hand bed would be great.
John didn’t know if he could accept all this. Sheila was adamant that he should.
‘When something awful happens people feel helpless, the one thing they want to do is to be of assistance. Let them help, John, it will make them feel much better if nothing else.’
John held her hand gratefully. Only this morning he had been thinking, when young Paudie Doyle had said that people wanted to help, that he didn’t know what to ask them. And now Mrs Whelan was making it possible.
Once she got the green light from John, Sheila went to Brian Doyle.
‘You said you wondered what you could do,’ she began.
And it was done in a trice. Men and materials were arranged. The old outhouse was stripped of its rubble, broken wood and boxes were carted away. Other things which most certainly were rubbish but should not be thrown out without reference to Kate were transferred into an even older outhouse which was round at one side of the pub. They were stacked neatly there waiting the verdict of the mistress on her return.
The whitewash on the walls was done three times to make sure it looked presentable.
The new house became the focal point for all the children.
Jacinta and Liam White were back from their Irish College, even more at loggerheads with each other than usual and according to themselves still unable to speak a word of Irish.
Liam said that Jacinta had been tiresome and in love with the boy who taught dancing. Jacinta said that Liam had been embarrassing and was caught smoking first and then caught being sick later as a result of the earlier smoking. They told the twins that their father had said Mrs Ryan was most definitely not going to die, but he said that nobody knew when she’d be home. They had asked him would it be days or months or years and he still couldn’t say.
‘I suppose it must be months anyway; this is why we’re doing the place up,’ Dara said gloomily.
Maggie Daly wanted a more cheerful view. ‘Listen, it could be tomorrow for all we know, but she’ll still need someone to help her. Didn’t you say yourself it’s non-stop?’
Dara brightened. ‘That’s what it is, non-stop. As soon as one meal’s finished and washed up it’s time for the next. People eat far too much, you know.’
Maggie burst out laughing.
Brian Doyle, who had come to supervise, gave them a shout. ‘If you two girls have come to be entertained by all this and to giggle would you think of putting on a kettle and getting some tea for these men here? All right?’
This reduced Maggie and Dara to further hysterics.
‘Non-stop, a woman’s work, non-bloody-stop,’ Dara said as they headed for the kitchen.
‘Dara, you’d better mind your language, your mother’d make a swipe at you if she heard you saying bloody,’ said Carrie, shocked.
Dara paused a moment thinking how great it would be to have Mam running around the place like she used to and able to make a swipe at anyone instead of lying on her back in the hospital.
Grace told Marian Johnson about the new room and she sent down a bed from the Grange. Fergus Slattery brought a wardrobe he said he didn’t need. He drove it up in his car and carried it in himself. Maggie’s mother sent Charlie with a small table, a blue cloth and a statue of Our Lady with a little blue glass that held a night light which you could put in front of the statue. The Leonards sent a rug for the floor and a brand-new unopened pad of writing paper and envelopes, in case the new lady wanted to write home. Loretto Quinn gave a chair. The Williamses said they had a roll of lino which they had bought by mistake and the shop wouldn’t take it back; they had been hoping to hear of a place that might need it.
John looked in from time to time and said that as far as he could see it was better by far than any other room in Ryan’s Licensed Premises and private house.
When Mary Donnelly got off the bus on Tuesday her new home was ready for her.
She was given a short briefing by Mrs Whelan in the post office and then she walked purposefully down River Road carrying her small grip bag. She had left her big case with Sheila Whelan so that the family would not realise how long she was coming to stay.
She knew the most important place to head for, and went straight to the kitchen.
‘I’m Mary,’ she said to Carrie. ‘It must have been an awful shock for you and nobody telling you what’s expected and what’s not.’
Carrie looked at her gratefully. ‘That’s just it, miss,’ she said. ‘If only I knew what they all want . . .’
‘We’ll have to sort it out,’ Mary Donnelly said, hanging up her coat on the back of the door.
‘Why didn’t you come to me, Sheila? I’d have got a better job done, anything you wanted,’ Patrick said.
‘I thought it was better not to deal with you directly.’ Her voice was bland.
‘Why ever not?’ But he knew. He knew exactly why.
‘Better let others do it, I thought.’
‘I feel responsible, yes, that Kate hurt herself on my property, but I don’t feel guilty about it, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Of course not.’
‘And everyone else must feel the same. They do, don’t they?’
‘Not really. People take sides easily in a thing like this. For one reason or another.’
‘I thought it was that crackpot attorney that was the only one, and that he was upset because he’s got the hots for her.’
‘Really!’
‘No, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, but you know . . .’
‘I don’t know, and you should not have said it, and it is not true.’
‘Sheila, don’t turn against me, you were the first person who welcomed me to this place, don’t turn on me.’
She patted his hand. ‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ she said. ‘I’m just marking your card a little like I did at the start, and you were glad then. Maybe I’ve stepped over the limit.’
‘Do they really think it’s my fault?’
‘Some of them do.’
‘But it’s so unfair,’ he cried out.
‘Who said life was fair?’
He remembered her own personal circumstances and nodded in silence.
‘You see . . .’ she began.
‘Yes?’
‘You see, logical or illogical, this is what they think. If you had never come here, there would have been no machines and no earthmover on that site. None of this would ever have happened.’
‘If I hadn’t come here, everything would have been all right?’ he asked quietly.
‘Well, for the Ryans it would,’ Sheila said simply.
Dr White didn’t like the American. It had nothing to do with his importing a Yank specialist. That rather pleased White because it got up the noses of the hospital consultants, always an arrogant bunch.
But the American felt that money or business was the universal answer.
Once he had commented that Dr White’s practice would expand considerably when the hotel was built.
‘I hope that your guests will have scant need of my professional services. It would spoil their holidays,’ Dr White had said politely.
‘Yes, but when they do get the belly ache they’ll be people of subst
ance, you can charge them properly.’
‘I’ll charge them what I charge everyone, I won’t fleece sick people just because they happen to be rich and American,’ Dr White had said haughtily.
He knew Patrick called him a stuffed shirt.
The doctor was surprised to see him calling at the surgery.
‘Can you give me something to make me sleep, knock me out for eight hours at a time?’ Patrick asked.
‘No. Not just like that I can’t.’
‘What do you want, my life story?’
‘Why didn’t you ask that Yank doctor who treated the entire Kennedy family? He could have given you something.’
‘Goddammit, man, he’s an orthopaedic surgeon.’ Patrick’s annoyance was so great that Dr White smiled, and the American smiled too.
‘Sorry, I’m very edgy, a proof of lack of sleep.’
‘Tension, I suppose. Strain. Do you have a prescription already?’
‘Never needed them in my life, thought they were the tool of a weak man. But if you’re lame you use a walking stick. I guess I’m lame as regards sleep.’
‘Fine, whatever you say.’
‘You’ll give them to me?’
‘Mr O’Neill, you are a grown-up man, you could buy and sell everyone in this town and probably will. Who am I to deny you a prescription for two weeks of nonaddictive sleeping pills?’
‘What do you mean, buy and sell?’
‘It’s an expression, Mr O’Neill. If you meet a bright child, you say, “That boy would buy and sell you.” It’s a term of high praise.’
‘Why are you mocking me, Doctor?’
‘I beg you not to think that. Will two weeks be sufficient? One a night, warm milk. Keep warm, don’t try to go to sleep. It will come, I assure you, with these.’
He signed his name with a flourish and handed Patrick the small piece of paper.
‘Do you think I’m responsible for Kate Ryan’s accident?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No, how could you be? Weren’t you miles away, they say, at the time?’
‘But morally responsible?’
‘I suppose we could argue that since no man is an island we are all involved in everyone’s life and death and success or injury. No more than that.’
‘I’m so sorry it happened, if you knew.’
‘I know. Most people do know. Aren’t you moving heaven and earth to get her better?’ The doctor’s voice sounded kind.
‘But she’s not going to get better, that’s what they say.’
‘They say it will be long.’
‘They say she’ll never walk again. Your doctors say that, my doctor says that.’
‘They say long useful life.’
‘In a fucking wheelchair.’
‘Alive not dead.’
‘It’s like talking to the priests talking to you, Dr White.’
‘I hope you use better language talking to the priests.’
‘I hope so, I’m sure I forget sometimes.’
‘Listen, it was great that your man from Cape Cod or wherever said they were doing things right in the hospital. Now everyone’s happy.’
‘Up to a point,’ Patrick said.
‘Sure, I know, but if you see as much difficult birth, hard life and rotten death as I do you’d realise that a wheelchair isn’t the end of the world.’
‘No,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s not. Thank you, Doctor. Your bill?’
‘Forget it.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘I don’t see why not. I only wrote my name.’
‘It has a price, your years of training, remember?’
‘No, it has no price if I wish it to have none. Believe me, there are things without a price on them.’
‘And you believe me too, Dr White.’ Patrick’s eyes blazed with anger. ‘I know there are things that have no price. If I was out for a return on my money do you think I would be building this folly here? That’s what my manager back in the States calls it, O’Neill’s Folly. There’s no price on this that anyone could recognise. It’s an act of love. Of faith. It’s not the act of a businessman who wants to make a quick buck, or indeed any bucks for a very long time.’
Dr White shook his head sadly and said nothing.
‘Well, go on, say it whatever it is.’
‘But of course there’s a price. The price is your wish to be home, and to be a person of importance in these parts where your grandfather came from, not just one of a few million Irish in America. That’s what you want – isn’t it? – much more than money. I was just saying there are some people who want nothing or very little.’
‘Like the Ryans,’ Patrick said sadly. ‘They wanted very little indeed, and look at what they have now.’
‘It will be better for you now that you’ve got someone to look after things,’ Grace said.
‘She looks a bit fierce,’ Dara complained.
‘It doesn’t matter, she’s going to run things, that’s what it’s about.’
Grace was always so sunny. Dara wondered did she ever have great times of doubt and worry. Was it only Dara? Maybe if you were as beautiful as Grace was, there was no need to worry about things. Everyone loved you.
‘Are things okay at your home now? You remember you asked me not to talk about that row ages ago between your father and Kerry, so I didn’t, I didn’t even think about it until now . . .’
Grace was full of understanding. ‘I know you didn’t tell anyone. You’re a great friend.’
They were sitting in Dara’s bedroom. Grace got up to walk about; she seemed restless.
‘No, things are not great at home. But I don’t know whether that’s because of Kerry and Father, or because of Father being so worried about everything, your mother and all that.’
She looked terribly young somehow. Those curls could make her look like a toddler sometimes, otherwise they made her like a film star.
‘Do they fight?’
‘No, that’s just it, they hardly talk at all. They sort of talk through me, if I weren’t there I think not a word would be said.’
‘It’s hard to believe that with Kerry, he’s so nice and such fun.’
Dara was wistful for those carefree days which seemed so long ago now. Kerry was one of the few people within miles who had not come to the pub to say how sorry he was, but perhaps he had not been able to think of anything to say.
‘He’s as sure as anything no fun with Father,’ Grace said. Then she deliberately forced herself into a good humour again. ‘But I think it will all blow over, you know, this Mrs Fine. I think Kerry was very uptight that she came to Ireland. You know, in case she and Father . . . Well, I told you.’
‘Yes, but it’s not true, is it?’
‘No, not true at all.’ Grace was her sunny self again. ‘No, she’s staying miles away and she doesn’t see Father at all, it was all a false alarm. Kerry must realise that now, and things will be back to normal again.’
Maggie Daly wished that her mother wouldn’t see things in such black and white ways. Her mother had this fear now that if everyone made too much of Mrs Ryan’s accident it would look as if they were criticising all the progress Mr O’Neill brought to Mountfern. This was the biggest and best thing that had ever happened to their town and they must be sure that no foolish sentimentality was allowed to intrude.
Whenever Maggie said she was going up to Ryan’s, her mother said that she should watch her step and not make herself into a camp follower on one side or the other. Yet when Grace asked Maggie to come to the lodge Mrs Daly was delighted. She spent ages hunting for a nice white collar to sew on Maggie’s dress and gave her a cream cake free to present to Miss Hayes with her compliments.
Mrs Daly had not said anything about it being camp following to go to tea at the lodge.
Judy Byrne was delighted to see Patrick O’Neill at her door.
‘This is a professional call, and I must ask you to keep it very m
uch to yourself,’ he said.
‘Certainly.’ Judy’s eyes sparkled with interest and anticipation.
‘We don’t have the same medical schemes in the States as here. Can you tell me how you work? Are you attached to the hospital?’
‘Only in a locum capacity. Sometimes I do a day here and there when some of their staff are away. And I cover for people’s holidays.’
‘But mainly you are in private practice, is that it?’
‘Yes.’ Judy wondered where this was leading.
‘But you don’t have a clinic, a surgery here. Is your work mainly domiciliary?’
‘I do go to people’s homes, or I can go to Dr White’s surgery if I am needed. If it’s a matter of teaching people exercises or movements they can come here.’ She looked defensively round her small sitting room with its desk and her shelf of text books. She didn’t like him dismissing it so casually.
‘And who pays you?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Judy’s eyes were round in disbelief.
‘I am sorry. I did say it was a business call. I must learn to speak less crassly.’ The famous O’Neill smile was there now. Lines radiating out from his eyes, head on one side, half contrite, half mischievous. It was the little-boy look that Patrick O’Neill had been wearing for so many years he did not even realise when it was on his face. Not until he saw Judy smiling back. Then he pressed on.
‘You see, I’m just a poor hick from the States, I don’t understand the way things work here. The hospital is free . . . for one thing. I didn’t know that.’
‘Well, the county hospital is free if you go through the dispensary doctor, certainly,’ Judy said. ‘If you are a person of means then of course you would go to the nuns in the nursing home, or perhaps to one of the private rooms that the consultants have for their patients in the hospital.’ She thought she was explaining what he wanted to know clearly but she couldn’t see the drift of his conversation.
‘Yes, I see that now.’ Patrick had endless patience.
He knew the system now. Kate was in intensive care, when she left it she would go to a ward. Unless he got her a private room. This he had arranged to do. But she would also need physiotherapy both in the hospital and when she returned home. This was the knotty problem he had come to discuss with Judy and had wrongly thought that it could be done crisply and quickly if he designated it a business call. He must learn, he would learn eventually that in Mountfern the dividing line between business and socialising was a minefield.