Kerry was the last to arrive. Dara was the first to see him; she tried to stop herself running to the door, but she got there very speedily all the same.
Kerry looked wonderful. He wore a pale blue shirt with dark blue stitching all over it, it was like the kind of thing a cowboy might wear. He carried two packages, one he left by the record player, one he gave straight to Dara.
‘Happy birthday, princess,’ he said.
‘Why do you call me that?’ It was what Mary Donnelly called Grace when she was speaking disparagingly.
‘All beautiful girls are princesses on their birthdays, and you more than most.’ He smiled at her warmly.
Dara got that breathless feeling as if she had been running.
‘Will I open it?’
‘If you like.’
She was almost afraid to lose him by struggling with the wrapping paper too long, and yet it would be terrible to rip it off.
She managed to open it, and he was still standing there. It was a beautiful hair clip with a big red rose attached. If you wore it, it would look as if there was a rose in your hair. Dara looked at it in delight.
‘I must put it on, I’ll go to a mirror and see what I’m doing.’
‘Don’t run away. Here, I’ll put it on for you.’ He lifted the thick dark hair and slid the grip with its big silk rose into place. He had drawn the hair right back from her face on that one side, it gave her a faintly gypsyish look.
‘Is it nice?’ Dara asked eagerly.
‘It’s quite lovely,’ Kerry said.
At that moment the record player began to play a slower number, ‘Michelle’. Without asking her or breaking the mood, Kerry’s arms went straight around Dara and they were dancing.
Dara looked around her and sighed with pure pleasure. The lights from the lanterns were twinkling on the white walls, the paper garlands hung artistically around, the tables looked festive with all the bottles of fizz and plates of snacks. Outside the night air was warm and the flowers in Mammy’s side garden looked romantic and like something in a calendar picture. She and Michael were fifteen, almost grown up, all their friends were here. But mainly Kerry O’Neill, who was eighteen and the most handsome man in Ireland, had come in the door, given her a magnificent rose for her hair, told her she looked beautiful, and was holding her in his arms as they danced to Paul McCartney. Dara hadn’t known it was possible to be so happy.
Maggie Daly said to Michael that she thought this party was like something you’d dream about.
Michael didn’t really listen, he was wondering if as host he could reasonably change the music. He wanted to put on something more lively, like the Rolling Stones. And it was particularly silly to have Grace dancing with that good-looking but basically thick fellow John Joe Conway. Grace was so nice to everyone, she shouldn’t be so polite to stupid John Joe Conway, letting him hold her close like that.
The sausages were passed round, the trifle was eaten, every bit of it. The parents and a few people from the pub, plus Declan and Eddie in his dark glasses clutching Leopold for dear life, gathered for the birthday cake. Mary Donnelly, Carrie, Jimbo, and by chance Papers Flynn who was passing by, all gathered at the door for the blowing out of the candles. There were no speeches but a lot of clapping and cheering which made Leopold over-excited and Eddie had to clench his mouth closed for fear of rousing the neighbourhood.
Then the grown-ups, relieved that the party was going so well, retired, and someone had taken out the bulb of the only real light so now the place was lit entirely by the lanterns on the walls.
It smelled of the end of the summer, of Nivea Cream and Blue Grass perfume, of cheese and onion potato crisps, of sausages and of the September flowers in the garden.
The music was almost all slow now. It was as if the energy for jumping around to the noisier tunes before supper was no longer there.
Michael didn’t mind if there were girls he hadn’t danced with yet, they probably didn’t want to dance with him, they all seemed happy. He stood and talked to Grace or they moved out to dance. All the time she laughed and listened to him and told him things, and many times she said, ‘Michael, you are wonderful,’ and he knew she meant it.
Liam White danced a lot with Maggie.
Tommy Leonard looked wistfully for an opportunity to dance with Dara again, but he never got one because Dara had never left Kerry O’Neill’s arms from the moment he had come into the room and given her the beautiful rose for her hair.
‘It’s a quarter to twelve, I suppose we should start making some noises,’ Kate said.
‘You don’t know the whole principle of drinking-up time,’ John said.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you have the heart across me, tell me they have no drink in there.’
‘No, I was speaking figuratively,’ John said.
‘Don’t,’ said Kate.
‘I meant we told them twelve, so just after twelve we go in making noises, that’s the way things are done.’
‘How right you are,’ Kate said. She felt a yearning to hold John close to her tonight. And she knew he felt the same.
She had always thought that people in wheelchairs didn’t feel like that any more, that the feeling just sort of disappeared when so much else had gone. There were so many things she hadn’t known.
‘I hope this isn’t all very babyish for you,’ Dara said to Kerry.
‘How do you mean? It’s lovely!’ He looked at her fondly.
‘No, this party, lemonade, no real drink, no band, it must be a bit . . .’
‘I don’t want real drink, we’d never get a band as good as the Beatles to come to Mountfern so we have their records instead . . . What are you worried about?’
‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘That’s good,’ said Kerry, ‘because you’re very beautiful when you are not worried. I don’t want to see you frown again. Is that a deal?’
‘It’s a deal.’
Tommy Leonard asked Jacinta White to dance.
Jacinta was pleased.
‘It’s been very successful, I suppose,’ Tommy said.
‘Yes, it’s terrific’ Jacinta liked Tommy a lot.
‘But the O’Neills took over a bit, didn’t they?’
‘Did they?’ Jacinta was genuinely surprised.
‘Maybe they didn’t.’ Tommy struggled to be fair. ‘I just thought they did, for a bit. Like as if they were the only ones that mattered.’
John Ryan came in and collected the empty bottles rather noisily.
‘It can’t be time yet, Daddy,’ Michael hissed at him.
‘No, not at all, only about ten past twelve. I was just clearing a few of these away.’ John was pleasant.
He noted that the light bulb was laid neatly beside the record player. He put it back in its socket and the place became suddenly very bright. John continued collecting the bottles as if he were unaware how the appearance of the place had changed.
In ten minutes, without his having to call out any messages or threats, the party ended.
The youngsters of Mountfern walked home by River Road or up towards the main road or in some cases with their bicycles they headed off to the smallholdings around Mountfern.
The river rippled and rustled in the dark, the moorhens and ducks clucked gently in their resting places as children’s feet swished by. The moonlight shone on the nearly completed buildings in Fernscourt, where a new Georgian mansion had risen from the ruins, and where the two great bedroom blocks swept away behind it looking like half-folded wings. For most of them it had been the first night like that they had ever known, and they were filled with thoughts of a future where there would be many more.
The twins sat on the window seat and talked for ages about the party. They talked about how funny Liam was and rude without meaning to be, and how pretty Maggie had looked, and what a clown that big John Joe Conway was, and wasn’t Eddie a scream with the dark glasses, and how nice Carrie had been and wasn’t it great that Declan had been shy and hung bac
k, and how Mam hadn’t come near them and how funny Dad was at the end.
Dara didn’t tell Michael about the end of the party.
Michael didn’t tell Dara about how much he loved Grace. Yes, love. That wasn’t too strong a word for it.
Dara ran her tongue across her lips again and tried to remember Kerry’s kiss. It had been so soft.
His mouth had pressed on hers gently at first, and then a little more firmly. That was the first time, that was when they were in the darkest corner of the room, where nobody would see.
She had closed her eyes. She didn’t know why but it seemed to come naturally, and he had said again that she was beautiful, so it must have been a normal thing to do.
Then when the party was over and they were all going through the side yard and filing out, he had pulled her back suddenly and behind that archway with the climbing rose, he had held her face between both his hands and kissed her again for a long, long time.
‘Happy birthday, lovely Dara,’ he had said.
During all the goodbyes, he had said he would see her soon. She stopped herself from asking when.
The next day and the day after she stopped herself asking Grace had he gone away to Donegal. She knew he wouldn’t go without saying goodbye. Not after that kissing.
Dara hugged herself and wanted to cry out to the night skies about it all. But she didn’t, she told nobody. Not Michael. Not Grace. Not Maggie.
And certainly not Tommy Leonard, who had said he loved the party himself personally of course, but he would have thought that Dara might have found it a bit dull, what with only dancing with the same person all night.
‘No,’ Dara had said airily. ‘Funny that. I didn’t find it dull at all.’
Rachel was responsible for the entire design and decor of Fernscourt. She knew she would come to Ireland again, since this could not be done at long distance. For a while she had hoped she could cut Patrick and his hotel from her life totally. Then she would hand over her meticulous files to her successor, or to whatever firm of interior decorators Patrick could employ.
But this was not to be.
Too much of her life had been spent too deeply enmeshed. She was not going to leave before she saw his dream castle built and built right.
Patrick would not allow himself to be convinced by the unscrupulous in any other field, but when it came to the design of this hotel he had several very blank spots. He had been going to build a phony castle with turrets and Disneyland looks because someone had suggested that this would be suitable for a conquering O’Neill. Rachel had been the one to insist that the original house be built again and the bedroom wings tucked away at an angle.
He would have had it filled with shamrocks, shillelaghs and leprechauns if her watchful eye had not been through every stage with him. Now that the building was complete, and the decorating about to start, it was time for Rachel to return.
She was stronger now, and harder. She was a more lonely woman than the Rachel who had left here eighteen months ago hoping every moment that he would beg her to stay. Now when she came back it would be with fewer illusions.
And with fewer millstones around her neck.
Like she knew she would not set foot in the Slieve Sunset.
She asked Kate to put her mind to thinking about this, and within hours of getting the letter Kate was on the phone.
‘I’ve found you the perfect place,’ she said, overjoyed that her great friend was coming back to Mountfern and coming to be beside her. It had taken a little persuasion. But she had found exactly the right place for Rachel to stay.
Loretto Quinn was appalled.
‘A smart American woman with all those grand clothes like Mrs Fine. No, Kate, honestly, I couldn’t cope with that. I only agreed to do all this because you said there’d be a few shillings in it once the hotel was built. No, I don’t want the fright and the worry of trying to please people that are way beyond me like that.’
‘Shush, Loretto, listen. This is the best thing you could have. Rachel will be coming back and forward all the time, she will want her own place, she might even take them permanently.’
‘Won’t she be staying in the hotel yonder when it’s finished?’
‘It won’t be finished for ages and the Grange is too far away. Your place would be just ideal. I only thought of it this morning when she was on the phone. I am a sort of genius so I am.’
‘You might be and all, Kate, but you have the heart across me. There’s only beds and chairs in those rooms, there’s no proper furniture, only the plainest of white curtains on them that you’d see in a lunatic asylum . . .’
‘Leave it just as it is, I beg you. That’s Rachel’s job, that’s what she gets paid a fortune for, knowing what to put on this and what not to put. You and I couldn’t see it in a million years. She’ll give you great advice altogether. I mean it. Look at what she did for me. She’ll have your bedrooms the talk of the town. Marian Johnson will be green with envy, she’ll be climbing the drainpipes to get a peep at them.’
The thought of Marian Johnson being envious of poor little Loretto Quinn was such a happy one that the women laughed imagining it.
‘What’ll she put her clothes on till it’s all done up, though?’ Loretto was practical.
‘I know, we’ll get one of those coat rails they have in shops, a big long one. Jimbo could get you one from one of the bigger shops away in the town. I’ll ring a few places for you.’
‘It wouldn’t be too bare?’
‘Nothing can be too bare, apparently. That’s what having style is all about.’
Rachel brought them all gifts. For Dara a red dress with white tassels, bright and showy and ready to transform her into the colourful girl that Kate always knew she could be. For Michael a huge book about fish and fishing all over the world, for Eddie a bicycle lamp that looked like something from outer space, for Declan a box of horrible joke items including a cushion that made a sound like a fart when you sat on it.
Rachel had remembered that John had lost weight – there was clearly nothing she had forgotten from Kate’s letters – so she had brought him two smart linen jackets: one in navy, one in a daring gold-tan colour. He looked bashful trying it on but delighted with the inspection in the mirror.
Kate was right, John Ryan had slimmed down and looked somehow taller. He was so pleased with the tan jacket he planned an entire outfit based on the colour and said Rachel would have to come to the big town with him one day to advise him.
For Kate there were magnificent green, blue and gold silk scarves, each one more elegant than the next. Rachel had magic in her fingers when it came to draping them and arranging them. Everyone gasped as Kate spun her wheel-chair around for admiration in the blue and silver scarf. Leopold, who had been watching through the glass door, set up a howl of approval and chased his tail happily.
It was lovely to be back in this place, and better to be back on her own terms. Rachel didn’t have to worry about Patrick, about what mood he would be in, or what time he got back from Dublin. She didn’t have to feel alarmed when Marian Johnson put her ludicrous oar in trying to drag up remembered incidents and share jokes. No indeed, she didn’t miss Patrick here, and as Kate had said, it did make her feel more independent. More her own woman.
She was touched at how welcome they made her and specially by the nervousness of Loretto Quinn, who was up at Ryan’s apologising for the bedrooms before Rachel had even seen them. She hastened to inspect them and put the nervous woman at her ease.
‘This is magnificent, Loretto,’ Rachel said. ‘And if you wouldn’t take it amiss I’ll have plenty of spare samples of fabrics and little extras and if you like we could do these rooms up for next to nothing while I’m here.’
Loretto thought that she was in heaven. In days beautiful lilac-coloured curtains had arrived – and by an extraordinary coincidence they were just the right size – together with the heather carpet and the cream fabric with lilac flowers for bedspread and cushions. In fr
ont of her eyes and with no fuss Loretto saw her rooms transformed. She would walk upstairs and look at her tasteful guest rooms and clasp her hands with pleasure.
There had also been an offcut in some big heavy red for a bedspread for Loretto’s own room, and red and white curtains. Rachel for all her glamour was as nice as anything, she had even found a very bright colourful lino offcut that was just the right size for Loretto’s shop, and since it looked so smart in that nice green and red, why not paint the counter red and the shelves green? Those young lads of Kate Ryan’s would only be delighted to help out. People began to praise Loretto in terms that they never had before. Wasn’t she the smart little thing now to brighten up her huckster’s shop in readiness for all the visitors? Who would ever have thought that she had so much sense?
When Patrick called on Loretto Quinn he couldn’t believe the transformation. Her pathetic little place looked smart and cheerful. Even the woman herself looked as if she had been made over by some women’s magazine for a before and after feature.
‘Mrs Fine about, is she?’ he said casually.
Loretto had been given her instructions very clearly.
‘She’s away on business, Mr O’Neill.’
‘What business?’
‘Mrs Fine didn’t tell me, sir.’
‘When’s she coming back?’
‘She didn’t say that either, Mr O’Neill.’
‘She’s being mighty secretive about her movements, I must say.’
‘Oh no, nothing like that, she’s full of chat, Mrs Fine, such a nice person. I was nervous of her coming here in the first place, but now I can’t think why. She couldn’t have been more help to me.’
Patrick had suspected he saw Rachel’s hand in the transformed shop.
‘Yes, I’m sure that’s true, Mrs Quinn, it’s just that I expected her here to give me a report on everything.’
‘Did she know you were coming here, Mr O’Neill? She couldn’t have surely?’
‘No, well it was a last-minute thing.’
‘There you are.’ Loretto was triumphant that her new friend Mrs Fine hadn’t been at fault.