‘I’ll take a look at her rooms while I’m here,’ Patrick said grumpily.
Loretto looked embarrassed. ‘I don’t think . . . I mean . . .’
‘Oh, Mrs Fine wouldn’t mind, Rachel would like me to see that she had a nice place to stay.’
‘It’s just that . . . you see. If I let rooms to one person I can’t be responsible to let other people in. You do see that, Mr O’Neill, I can’t be letting people traipse through.’
‘I’m not other people, I’m not traipsing through . . .’ Patrick was very annoyed now.
‘But you do see. Perhaps when Mrs Fine gets back, if she would like to show you her rooms, it would be different.’
Patrick banged out of the shop.
The woman was right, of course, but for God’s sake the last time he had been here she was like a bag lady shovelling potatoes out of dirty old bags. Now she was all dressed up, the potatoes were in big clean containers, Loretto was taking attitudes and striking poses about showing the rooms upstairs. It was too much.
Patrick didn’t risk going into Ryan’s Licensed Premises. He had managed to fight with everyone he met since getting back, so he decided to put off the possibility of taking John by the lapels or entering into a screaming match with Kate in her wheelchair. He parked his car out of sight of them, and walked across the footbridge. The mansion gave him scant pleasure this morning. All he could see were the faults – the ugly angle of the drive for one thing. How much better it would have been to have come straight down in one long tree-lined sweep to the river. But how could he have suggested that when, the very day he was going to propose buying their property, Kate was crippled for life on his own building site? Then he didn’t like the huge forecourt, either. It was too bare, too like a parking lot. Which was what it was. Rachel had urged him to leave three trees there but he had thought they would hide the house too much and they would be just further objects to negotiate for buses and cars. He had been wrong and Rachel had been right.
Where was she for God’s sake?
Brian Doyle was glad to see him anyway. That made a nice change, Patrick thought grimly. He took off his jacket and sat down in Brian’s site office.
‘Tell me why you’re glad to see me, Brian, is it because I am such a good kind employer responsible for the livelihood of at least two hundred people give or take, responsible for your own inflated lifestyle and yet another new car which I see parked outside? Is that why my presence makes you glad? Or is it because I’m the first peasant within five hundred miles who bought the Big House and made it live the way we want it to live? Or is it because of my curly brown hair and twinkling blue eyes?’
Brian looked at Patrick in alarm. He supposed the man must have been drinking, it could be the only explanation.
‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ he began.
‘This may come as a shock to you, Brian, but I would not like a cup of coffee. I have never, since all this began, liked any cup of coffee I have had here. It has become an interesting guessing game to know whether it is coffee, or tea or Bovril or the water that all these things have been washed up in.’
‘Oh well then, forget it.’ Brian wasn’t at all offended at the insult to the coffee made on site, he took it that Mr O’Neill was beyond coffee, and wanted a drink fast.
‘Will we go down to Ryan’s and talk then?’ he said agreeably.
‘We will not go down to Ryan’s, we will talk here. It may have escaped your notice that it is ten-fifty in the morning, not a time for adjourning to a pub even by your standards.’
‘Jesus Christ, nothing would please you today.’
‘You may be right. Why were you glad to see me?’
‘There’s been a lot of messages for one thing, people wanting to get in touch with you. The phone’s not stopped all morning.’
‘Right,’ Patrick grunted. ‘Where’s Rachel?’
‘Who?’
‘Rachel Fine. Has it escaped your notice that she has been working with me since 1963 in the design and interior decoration of this hotel which has made you a millionaire ten times over?’
You couldn’t insult Brian Doyle, which was one of his great strengths.
‘Oh, Mrs Fine? I’ve no idea where she is, she’s been in and out, but you know what she’s like, a very helpful lady – never gets in the way, does her work, leaves a note about it and is gone.’
‘Yes, well what note did she leave?’
‘It was measurements, someone here gave her the wrong figures for the dining room, they’d got it all wrong, the shop was going to send twice too much material, Mrs Fine headed them off. She’s saving you a packet that lady, I tell you. A packet.’
‘I’m glad somebody’s saving me a packet, with the way that other people lash it all out.’
‘Maybe when you feel more yourself,’ said Brian in the tone that you’d use to talk to a drunk about to fall off a bar stool.
‘I am myself, you idiot,’ said Patrick. ‘I just want you to ring these guys as you call it. Ring them on that phone, as you call it, and tell them I’m not here.’
‘Everyone calls it ring, it’s not a word I made up,’ cried Brian, stung at last to some kind of response. ‘And you told me yourself that you always grasped the nettle, Mr O’Neill, you always took the bull by the horns, you said that was the one sure road to success. I’ve been following your example, I’ve been doing it myself, and it does seem to work. I’ve been doing much better.’
‘You’ve been doing much better because I handed you the job of a lifetime on a plate and you are taking a lifetime to complete it!’ Patrick was aware that his bad temper was doing him no good but he wasn’t ready to stop yet.
‘Now, Brian, listen to me. You do what I say, and do it now. I’m getting the hell out of here before I have a heart attack and the litigation about the hotel becomes legal history and with any luck you’d never get paid the last bit.’
‘And when do I say you’re going to be here?’
‘You don’t know. You haven’t a goddamn clue.’
Patrick grabbed his jacket and got up to head for the footbridge.
‘But, Mr O’Neill, can’t I show you what we’ve done . . .?’
‘I see what you’ve done, the front is like tarmac in an airport.’
‘Shit, Mr O’Neill, everything was in the plans . . .’
‘Don’t you say shit to me . . .’
‘But don’t you want a tour of the site as usual?’
‘How can I if I’m not here?’
Patrick was halfway down to the footbridge when he saw Dara Ryan running towards him excitedly.
‘Hallo, Mr O’Neill,’ she called, pleased to see him.
‘Well, Dara, good to see you.’ He noticed that she was becoming a striking-looking girl, tall, dark, in a white tee shirt, jeans and a red flower tucked behind her ear – or maybe it was a bit of jewellery.
‘When did you get back?’ she asked.
‘A little while ago. Everyone I’ve met has fought with me so far. You’re not going to have a punch-up, are you?’
‘Lord, no.’ She seemed eager to talk. ‘Did you have a good time?’
‘In Dublin. No, not really, not at all in fact. Nothing but meetings and more meetings and nothing much at the end of it. Despite what you may think I actually don’t enjoy fighting.’
‘I never thought you enjoyed fighting,’ Dara said. She was anxious to ask him something. He wondered what it was.
‘Well, you’re right.’ He smiled warmly at her. It was true, he didn’t enjoy a fight. He had not enjoyed the scenes some weeks back after a demarcation dispute between two sets of workers. In front of fifty men he had told Brian Doyle that they had three hours in which to decide which men did what work. If it were not agreed then every single man would be paid off that afternoon. There had been something in his face that sorted out the dispute in far less than the three hours he had given them.
It was a victory but he hadn’t enjoyed it.
‘And what are you doing h
ere on the footbridge? Were you lying in wait for me?’ he asked.
‘Not really, I was wondering when you’d be back, there’s a folk concert up in the grounds of the ruined abbey, lots of quite well-known singers, and I was wondering . . .’
‘I think I’m a bit old for it, Dara,’ he teased.
‘No, I meant if Kerry was interested in going. I wasn’t sure when you were both coming back so I kept an eye out.’
He looked at her and sighed. ‘Kerry won’t be back for the concert,’ he said.
‘He’s not with you?’
‘No, he wasn’t in Dublin, he went straight to Donegal, did he not tell you?’
‘I must have got it wrong,’ said Dara Ryan. The light had gone out of her big dark eyes.
‘Can we go out for a walk?’ Rachel said. It was a very sunny afternoon but with a nice breeze.
‘Sure, hold on a moment until I get some gum and stick my spine together, then I’ll leap up and come with you,’ Kate said without rancour.
‘I meant me going for a walk, you going for a push.’
‘It’s boring,’ Kate said. ‘You have to shout over my shoulder, I have to crane my neck. I wish I had a pram, people can talk to babies, not over their heads.’
‘We can talk when we get there,’ Rachel said.
‘Get where?’
‘Mystery tour.’
‘Why not? Let me drape one of your scarves elegantly around me so that I’ll knock the eyes out of anyone we meet.’
They went first to Loretto Quinn’s. Kate couldn’t believe the changes that had been made. Normally Loretto was so indecisive she couldn’t decide whether to wrap your potatoes in newspaper, put them into a paper bag or feed them straight into your shopping bag. Now it appeared that in under two weeks her entire shop had been refurbished. There was even a man re-doing the sign over the door.
Two men in the shop lifted Kate’s wheelchair inside so that she could see. She propelled herself around touching this and stroking that. There was so much room here now. The place looked an entirely different class of shop. Much more upper class or something. Yet her prices were the same. Kate was full of praise.
‘But it’s all Mrs Fine, Kate, she’s a walking saint – a bit like yourself. I don’t know why she did all this for me, I really don’t. I’d never in a month of Sundays have been able to think of it all myself, or if I thought of it, I’d never have been able to do it.’
Loretto looked taller, Kate thought, suddenly, which was nonsense. But maybe she was standing up more straight now, and she had tidied herself up. It wouldn’t do to be the old wishy-washy Loretto with pale hair falling into her eyes and a grubby pink overall. She wore a smart brown shopcoat, with a white blouse underneath. Her hair was clipped back with a smart red slide, undoubtedly a gift from Rachel.
Kate sighed. ‘You’re a sort of magician, you know, you’ve changed Loretto’s life,’ she said to Rachel as they went back along River Road.
‘It’s easy to change other people’s lives, it’s your own that’s the problem,’ Rachel laughed.
‘Hey, is the tour over? That was very short as a mystery tour – up to Loretto’s and back.’
‘No, no, it hasn’t begun. I thought we’d go across the footbridge and look at the hotel.’
It was said lightly, but they both knew it wasn’t light. Kate hadn’t been across the Fern for more than two years. Not since the day she had walked across the footbridge herself and been carried out of the site unconscious in an ambulance.
‘Oh I don’t think so, Rachel.’
They were at the footbridge. Rachel came round to the front of the wheelchair and squatted down in front of Kate. Her perfectly arranged hair in its short natural-looking curls that took her thirty minutes to arrange every morning hadn’t been disturbed. Her make-up made her look like a young girl. Her big dark eyes were troubled and fixed on Kate.
She spoke very seriously.
‘I’m not some kind of pyschologist trying to get you over the shock of where you had your accident. Lord, Kate, why would I want to do that? You could live for the rest of your life without going back to the spot where your back was broken. What good on earth would it do you to see the place? Not that you will be able to see the place now anyway.’
‘So why do you want me to go over there?’
‘I want to talk to you.’
‘Can’t we talk here or go back to my green room and talk?’
Kate sounded upset but Rachel pretended not to notice.
‘Please, Kate, I want to talk to you about the hotel. We might as well talk about it in Brooklyn if you don’t come with me and see what I mean.’
‘I know what it’s like, I’ve heard.’
‘Please.’
‘You’re the one with the legs, I might as well give in graciously.’
‘This is giving in graciously?’ Rachel laughed.
The little path that Rachel hadn’t been able to walk on that summer day because of her high heels and flimsy shoes was now a tarmacadamed all-weather pathway. With little seats placed here and there, often set into rocks or under trees. It wasn’t neat and orderly like a public park, it was more as if someone had decided here would be a good place to sit and talk. The ground had been turned and dug and planted, with evergreen bushes here and lawns there. The steep slopes were planted in terraces.
‘I had no idea there was so much work done here,’ Kate breathed as they paused to look at shrubs and rock gardens.
‘It cost a fine penny, I can tell you, fleets of gardeners still working on it, but it’s destined not to need too much maintenance once it’s finished.’
On and up they went towards the house.
Although she had seen it many times from her own home across the river, Kate was unprepared for the sheer size of it. This was a huge place. She looked at the big sweep up to the front door. A dozen tour buses could come in and turn here, and perhaps fifty cars park as well, but this wasn’t the real car park, that was round the side. The three-storey house faced across the river. It was a reproduction of a classic Georgian house, with its high windows, its fanlight over the door. Plain and clean-lined and already, Kate noticed, at least twenty well-watered plants of Virginia creeper. In five years the place would look as if it had always stood there. Patrick had been given very good advice.
Kate noticed the broken urns that she had heard about, the expensive ornaments that had been dashed to the ground one night. There had been talk about it in the pub, children some said.
There had been much more than the usual run of vandalism and hooliganism around the place. Sergeant Sheehan had confided that it looked as if it were orchestrated, which seemed hard to believe. After all, who would have a grudge against Patrick O’Neill setting up a business that would bring prosperity to everyone? the Sergeant had asked.
Kate looked up at the house in wonder. It was so like those old pictures that John had unearthed in journals and lithographs of the time. It was like the sepia pictures that he had also shown her. A big house with its two bedroom wings folded away neatly behind, not spoiling the impression of the main house. She could hardly wait to see inside.
There was a ramp into the hotel at one side, where Rachel pushed the wheelchair easily.
‘What made you think of this?’ Kate asked in self-mockery. ‘Was it so as I could come to call?’
Inside there were men working still, putting in light fitments. Others were working on the huge staircase going up from the hall. Some of the men knew Kate to see and came over to welcome her. Others remembered her from the day of the accident. Everyone knew Mrs Fine and everyone could have given their view on her relationship with the big man Mr O’Neill, if pressed.
‘The elevators are installed but they haven’t been passed as safe yet, so all things considered I don’t think we will . . .’
‘Too right,’ Kate agreed enthusiastically. ‘To be carried unconscious from here a second time would be overdoing it.’
Brian Doyle, wh
o was surprised to see her there in the first place, scratched his head in wonder.
Kate decided she had been very stupid. Rachel had taken her on a tour of the Thatch Bar, a huge place with seating for two hundred and a stage for the entertainment. Four thatchers had been working on it for months and the roof looked like velvet. Not at all like the real thatch around here, often neglected and full of weeds, but perfect and what was more the perfect American idea of a dream Irish cottage.
They had been round the back and seen the terrace where little stone tables had been installed. The plan was to serve drinks out here in the summer.
Then inside the house one of the panelled rooms was called the Study Bar. Here, from a bar surrounded by old books in glass cases, further drinks would be served. Of course there would be a cocktail lounge too, just before going into the dining room.
Slowly it sank in.
‘I see why you took me on the mystery tour, Rachel, dear Rachel,’ Kate said.
‘Can you wheel me to one of those nice stone seats we passed, somewhere where no machinery can fall on us? And we can have our little talk.’
In silence Rachel found them a quiet place. Looking downhill and over the footbridge they could see Ryan’s Licensed Premises nestling where it always had nestled.
‘I didn’t realise. I really didn’t realise,’ Kate said simply. ‘Nothing was hidden from me, no lies were told, but I just couldn’t see.’
‘That’s why I wanted you to come here,’ Rachel said.
‘We might as well close down now, rather than wait until the opening.’
‘No, that’s not what I was trying to tell you,’ said Rachel.
‘Well what then?’
‘I’m not sure yet, something different.’
‘What’s different than closing down when you’ve no business?’
‘No, I mean could you do something different, could you change things a bit?’
‘Dancing girls maybe?’ Kate was bitter-sounding now. ‘That’s about the only thing he hasn’t thought of . . . a big neon sign, Ryan’s Raunchy Roadhouse . . . see the ladies in corsets flinging their legs around. Maybe Canon Moran could come and take the money at the door.’