It was just like their tunnel even though it was a picture of some other county entirely. Michael studied it intensely, turning it round and drinking in every detail. He raked through the text to see if there was any mention of it.
John Ryan broke in on his thoughts. ‘Oh, I see you’re getting interested in it now! That’s the whole problem I find, anyway. You start reading little bits and they make you interested and you read more little bits and you travel far from what you were meant to be writing in the first place. What’s that you’re looking at?’
His voice was deliberately casual – he had seen the boy find a prosaic explanation for the magic tunnel.
Michael’s face was red and white alternately.
‘Nothing. I mean it’s not anything.’
‘Oh, that’s one of those ways they had of getting deliveries up to the grand houses without offending the eyes of the quality. You know, like a tradesman’s entrance.’ John was light but not dismissive.
‘Oh, is that all they are?’ The disappointment was huge.
‘Well, that’s one use for them of course, those kind of tunnels, but like anything they could have a million other uses.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, like whatever was needed, I mean a tunnel’s a tunnel, isn’t it? It could be used for anything – smuggling, for lovers meeting, for secret societies, kidnappings, escapes . . . Come on, Michael, it doesn’t matter what it was built for, it’s what happens to it that’s important.’
The boy was greatly cheered. ‘Do you think there might be one across there?’ He nodded towards the river.
‘There might well be.’ John was mild. ‘Kind of thing that could be left unearthed for years and years. Even with all the big hotel coming.’
‘I don’t mind helping you whenever you need a bit of a hand,’ Michael offered. ‘I have a bit of time on my hands these days, Mary doesn’t think I can do anything.’
‘Ah, be tolerant of her, will you, she has a mad figario in her head about men, that’s all.’
‘But it’s very unfair. I’d do as much as anyone to make things a bit better, or keep things going . . .’ His lip trembled.
‘Listen to me, Michael, I’ll tell you a secret. Not for anyone else – is that all right?’
‘Dara?’
‘Yes, if you tell it properly, but not to be talked about outside of you two. Poor Mary was all ready to get married, she had saved all her money and given up her job, she was making her wedding dress, even sewing things on it so as to look lovely on the day . . .’
‘Mary Donnelly married? Looking lovely on her wedding day, you must be joking,’ Michael interrupted.
‘No, shush or I won’t finish it.’
‘All right . . .’
‘So anyway this fellow was a rat, he didn’t love Mary Donnelly at all, he only loved her money, and she had given him everything she saved for to put a deposit on a house . . .’
‘And he ran off with it?’ Michael’s eyes were bright and he was rushing ahead in the story.
‘It’s easy known you’re so young you can see anything in it except black treachery. Think of it, every week – or every month I suppose, teachers get paid by the month – she put so much away for the great day, and this boyo took the lot . . .’ John Ryan’s kind face was misty at the thought of it.
‘Yeah, well it wasn’t fair.’
‘It was worse than just taking her money, you see, he took everything else, he took away any pride she had, and made a fool of her in front of everyone in her place . . . Like she’d always be remembering how she had talked of her plans, saying we’re doing this and we’re doing that, and all the time he had no plans for anything except to separate her from her bit of money.’
‘Maybe he didn’t always intend to steal her money, he could have loved her and then went off her,’ Michael said as if it were only too possible to go off Mary Donnelly.
‘I don’t know whether that would be better for her to believe or worse.’ John spoke thoughtfully.
‘Anyway she’s sure taking it out on the rest of us,’ Michael grumbled.
‘But big strong men like yourself and myself can cope with it surely?’
‘We’ve a lot to cope with these days.’
‘Indeed we have, son.’ The sigh was very deep.
‘Dad? I don’t ask you this in front of people, but . . .’
‘Ask away.’
‘Will Mam ever be able to walk again? Nobody ever says.’
‘That’s the problem, they don’t ever say. Not to me either.’
‘But what do you think, Dad?’
‘I think there’s a possibility that she may not. And that it’s going to be very hard for her, Michael. The hardest thing in the world.’
Fergus invited Mary Donnelly to the pictures.
‘Why?’ she asked him.
The real reason was because Fergus, hearing how good she was in the Ryan household, feared that Mary Donnelly might leave unless some little diversion was planned for her.
He could hardly say that.
‘Because I like you and would like to get to know you more,’ he said.
‘How would you get to know me at the pictures?’ she asked.
Fergus felt sorry he had started on this course.
‘Well it’s a way to go out, isn’t it? Perhaps you would prefer just to go for a drive if you don’t like the cinema.’
‘I never said I didn’t like the cinema. I just wondered what way two people would get to know each other if they sat in silence watching a film.’
‘I suppose it would be a matter of talking about it afterwards,’ Fergus said desperately.
Mary thought about this.
‘Usually it’s a matter of taking liberties during the film, that’s what I’ve noticed,’ she said.
Fergus had never got such a shock in his life.
‘I assure you nothing would be further from my mind,’ he began, horrified. ‘I am a solicitor, a grown man.’
‘What a pompous thing to say, Mr Slattery, as if desire were confined only to the lower orders. It is there in men of every class and breeding.’
‘Yes, well,’ Fergus said, totally at a loss. ‘If there’s ever anything.’
‘I doubt if there will be, but thank you for raising the matter,’ Mary said.
‘How in the name of God do you get on with that one?’ Fergus asked John when they had some privacy.
‘She’s a godsend, that’s what she is. It’s the one thing that keeps Kate any way calm in there, the thought that we’ve got a cousin of Mrs Whelan looking after us. It’s the next best thing to having Sheila.’
‘But Sheila’s normal, John, she’s not a nutcase like this one.’
‘Ah, she has her ways like everyone has their ways. She’s a bit off men, that’s all.’
‘That’s a bit steep, to be off half the human race, and isn’t she living in a family of four men and a girl, for God’s sake?’
‘I think she prays for us.’ John was tolerant.
‘I’m surprised she hasn’t taken a pike to you, and the day might well come when she does.’ Fergus was still smarting.
‘She’s certainly taking no chances, she got Jimbo to fit a lock to her door. I suppose she was afraid I’d lose the run of myself and come in and savage her.’
‘Do you tell that to Kate?’ Fergus asked wistfully.
‘I do, she doesn’t believe me.’
‘I’d love to go and see her,’ Fergus said.
‘She’ll tell you when. You know Kate, she’s very proud. She hates people seeing her the way she is, with all the tubes and the bags.’
‘As if I’d mind.’
‘She minds.’
‘Tell her . . . well, just tell her.’
‘Sure, Fergus, I’ll tell her.’
Dara and Michael had finished their work. Mary had made them sandwiches and a flask of soup. They weren’t normally given a flask. This was an honour.
‘I understand that you
can go off on your own.’
It had been cleared with their father. The twins nodded. They were nervous. This was their first day going back to the tunnel since the day of the accident. They were almost afraid it would be bad luck to go back there again. They might come out and find the whole of Mountfern waiting to tell them more bad news.
Without saying it they both remembered that it hadn’t even been much fun in the tunnel that day, even before they learned of Mam’s accident.
They had almost forgotten how much earth and rubble there was around the place and how dirty it made everything. Still, in the new system that Mary Donnelly had set up they all had to steep their own clothes in a big zinc bath of detergent. Twice a week all the shorts and shirts and underwear and pyjamas went in. That way extra grime wasn’t really noticed.
They pushed forward and there it was, with the tables and chairs they had been arranging at the very time that Mam was having her accident overhead. It was strange and almost frightening to think about.
They went round the tunnel as they had often done before, stroking its sides and marvelling at how well made it was and how long it had lasted.
‘They must have been desperate in those days to keep their groceries hidden from the public if they went to all this trouble to hide them, building a whole tunnel just so the neighbours wouldn’t see,’ Dara said in wonder.
‘They didn’t have neighbours,’ Michael was more authoritative. ‘It was so that they wouldn’t have to look at them themselves.’
‘What was so bad about groceries?’
‘I don’t think it was just a few brown-paper bags like we’d get in Loretto Quinn’s, it was barrels and boxes.’
‘Well that’s even more posh, they must have been half cracked, the Ferns,’ Dara said.
‘Apparently it’s all over the country, I read it in all that research Daddy’s doing. Mr O’Neill says that the book will be on display at the hotel with Dad’s name on it.’
‘Do you think the hotel will ever get built?’ Dara asked suddenly.
‘I don’t know, I suppose it will. Why?’
‘It doesn’t seem real any more.’
‘Nothing does.’
The twins sat there for a long moment. Neither wanted to say anything falsely cheering.
As usual they spoke at the same time when they did speak.
‘Do you think Lourdes would work . . .?’ Dara began.
‘I wonder if there really are miracles . . .’ Michael began.
They burst out laughing.
‘Maybe our minds got divided,’ Dara said. ‘We didn’t get a full one each but between us we have a fantastic Super mind.’
‘Which is why we can only work out things when there are the two of us,’ Michael agreed.
‘So what do we think about Lourdes?’ Dara said.
‘There must have been some miracles there, some of them have to be real.’ Michael’s face was full of hope.
‘Yes, Sister Laura said that if it was all a fraud the enemies of the Church would have found it out.’ Dara was eager also.
‘So maybe if we could get her there. It could work, couldn’t it?’
‘And it would be better than just sitting round waiting.’
Dara and Michael were much revived. It was like old times, having some kind of project. Something important to do.
The twins didn’t know that the village of Mountfern was already planning to send Kate to Lourdes. Money had been collected, people had been in touch with the travel agencies in Dublin and had received details from the Joe Walsh Travel Agency and the Michael Walsh Travel Agency.
The collection had begun. Sheila Whelan was approached to put the money in the post office. She thought it should be a proper fund administered through a solicitor’s office.
At first Fergus didn’t want anything to do with it. It was grotesque to build up people’s hopes, Kate’s hopes too. Why let simple people believe that there was a way that a place would mend a broken spine? Perhaps John Ryan would feel patronised, he might not like the idea that the people of Mountfern should pay for his wife to go to Lourdes instead of waiting for him to send her himself.
‘If you don’t start it for us then as sure as anything Patrick O’Neill will organise it,’ Sheila said.
‘I’ll open a bank deposit account tomorrow,’ said Fergus.
‘Father, did you know that there’s a collection being organised to take Dara and Michael’s mother to Lourdes?’ Grace asked.
‘Yes, people are very generous, they’re digging very deep in their pockets.’
‘Who’s organising it?’ Kerry asked.
‘I don’t know, I don’t think anyone is. You can give your money at the church to either of the priests, or at the post office or to Mr Slattery, you know – the lawyer.’
‘Slattery. That figures,’ Kerry said.
‘Why?’ Grace asked.
Kerry smiled knowingly. His hair was longer than he usually wore it, it clustered around his neck. His father thought it made him look like a girl. Kerry said that there wasn’t a barber within miles and that he might be misjudged if he went to the Rosemarie hair salon. He was tanned and relaxed-looking, like a boy who had been on a holiday in a resort, Patrick thought with some annoyance. He had seen the young Ryan boy and Tommy Leonard today; both of them looked peaked and as if they had not seen a ray of sun all year.
‘Well, your sister asked you a question. Why does it figure that Slattery is taking up the money? Sure he is. He’s a lawyer, as Grace said.’
‘And he’s the leader of the other side.’
‘Yes, but when the time comes for litigation the Ryans will have other lawyers.’
‘I mean the other side here in Mountfern. He’s the head of the pack that wants to run us out of town. So naturally he collects money to send the injured Mrs Ryan to Lourdes.’
‘He doesn’t want to run us out of town. Does he?’ Grace looked alarmed.
‘Of course not, your brother is playing games.’
‘Not so, Father. He hardly welcomed us here with open arms, did he? And now we are blacker still, one of the great and good has been injured on our property. Of course he wants us out, like a lot of them do.’
‘Where do you get these kinds of ideas?’ Patrick’s tone sounded a lot milder than he felt.
‘Because I’m not stupid.’ It was very arrogant the way Kerry said it. The direct implication was that Patrick was stupid. Very.
‘Neither am I, Kerry. I’m not at all stupid no matter what you might believe.’
Kerry shrugged as if it were a matter of indifference to him what his father thought or was.
‘I do know all about the collection, Grace.’ His remarks were now addressed to his daughter. Patrick didn’t trust himself to speak to Kerry.
‘I think it’s a great idea. I don’t believe it will cure her but they do say, and I’ve heard all kinds of people say this, even people who would scorn the whole idea of miracles . . . They say that nobody ever comes back from Lourdes the worse for having been there, they all come back better in some way. Happier, more resigned, feeling that compared to what they saw there then they aren’t too badly off.’
Kerry smiled. ‘That’s well put,’ he said admiringly. ‘Send people off there so they see what terrible things other people have, they come home quietened . . I never heard that line.’
Patrick ignored him. ‘I could have given Kate Ryan a cheque to take her to Lourdes, Gracie, but I didn’t, I felt it had to come from her own people here. Not from us.’
‘Like Mary Donnelly?’
‘Exactly. So of course I’ve contributed to the fund, but nothing excessive.’
‘You know, I misjudged you, Father.’ Kerry seemed genuinely admiring now. But with Kerry it was often hard to know.
There was no time to discuss it. A shadow passed the window.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Patrick said, ‘it’s Marian.’
Marian was full of chat. She had come to invite them all to b
e her guests at an upcoming angling festival.
Patrick would simply love it, she said, it was tailor-made for him, he would get the entire atmosphere of one of these occasions at first hand, he would know how to describe it to those Americans who were keen fishermen. There would be an excellent buffet lunch in a marquee to which they would be invited.
It would be frightfully boring for the young people of course, lots of standing round talking and drinking. But possibly they would love it too. Or it might even be that they would prefer to be with their own friends that day. They must do whichever they pleased, come with her to the lake or stay here in Mountfern and have a great time. Their decision entirely.
Covering the snuffles and giggles of his children, Patrick said graciously and firmly that he would let her know tomorrow. He hadn’t yet been able to work out their plans next week.
Patrick thought that it was no mean achievement that he had managed to conduct the entire conversation extremely courteously but without allowing Marian to sit down. In what was after all her own house.
Brian Doyle telephoned Patrick to say that it was probably unimportant but there was some paint daubed on the wooden hoarding around some of the digging on the site. They’d have it removed but he thought Patrick should know.
‘What does it say?’
‘It says “Yank Go Home”, but I wouldn’t take a blind bit of notice of that,’ said Brian Doyle.
Marian Johnson was extremely put out when her offer to show Patrick the lake and introduce him to the people who ran angling in the country was so suddenly and almost curtly refused.
Patrick had been apologetic but had given no real explanation. Marian had the bad luck to run into Jack Coyne who had said that it was devoutly to be hoped that Patrick O’Neill hadn’t any plans to build a monstrosity like the Slieve Sunset, because that was the place he was seen hurrying in and out of at all hours of the day and night, and that he was there at this moment with that foreign-looking woman, the one with the beautiful hair.
Marian Johnson patted her own sparse hair, newly arranged in the Rosemarie hair salon for an outing which was not now going to take place.
It was impossible to make sense of Patrick O’Neill. He had spent his entire life getting ready to come home, to mix with the best in the land. She had been ready to introduce him to people from Prosperous and Belturbet, from Boyle and Ballinasloe. She knew the families who owned the fishing rights from Lough Ree to Lough Allen, from the Erne to the Lee. She had already made sure he had met the Master socially so that he would not be considered an outsider when it came to foxhunting. And what was the thanks she got, his sneaking away to see that woman in the Slieve Sunset. But there couldn’t be anything in it. Not after all his hopes of coming home and being Irish, properly Irish. He could never get involved with a foreign woman, not at this stage.