‘What would make them come down a path, cross a bridge to go somewhere else?’
‘Somewhere much duller.’
‘What would make them?’
‘If I knew that would my heart be pounding inside me?’
‘Think, Kate, think what do visitors want, what do you want when you go somewhere?’
‘I don’t ever go anywhere. I go to mass, and what do I want then, I want it to be Father Hogan because he’s quicker, I want there not to be two collections, I want not to be parked in a draught.’
‘Kate. I’m trying to help you.’
‘I know you are, but why ask me what do I want when I go somewhere? I swear I don’t go anywhere, I’ve only been on three holidays in my life, the first one down here when I met John, the second our honeymoon in Killarney and the third when we went to Dublin to see President Kennedy. How do I know what I’d want or what anyone would want?’
Rachel gave up trying to draw things out of her. She leaned over. She counted on the well-manicured fingers of her hands.
‘Listen, one, they might want fishing gear, you could specialise in bait and hooks.’
‘Bait!’ screamed Kate. ‘Bait in a public house where people are supposed to be drinking, a nice smelly jar of worms and a glass of Guinness!’
‘No, I meant around the side. Two, they might want stationery to write home, postcards. You could sell those.’
‘How could I tell Jack Leonard I was going to sell writing pads and envelopes? Have sense, Rachel, you’ve been here long enough to know that we wouldn’t do that sort of thing to each other.’
‘What else do people need?’ Rachel went on remorselessly. ‘Three, they’ll need their hair fixed, and I can tell you that Rita Walsh is getting ready for that in the Rosemarie hair salon. She has offered me a free permanent in return for a little advice about how to have the place right.’
‘And did you help her?’
‘Sure I did, I got her a bit of this and that, suggested she rent a few new dryers – hers would frighten you just to look at them. Then I told her the truth, that Patrick had been planning a beauty salon in the hotel itself and I had said give the Rosemarie a year to see if it can cater for the guests. Rita has no time for her other activities these nights, she’s too busy getting the place to rights before the grand opening.’
Kate was impressed. ‘That’s Rita and Loretto fixed up, and I suppose Jack Coyne might get a bit of business now. Is the feud over?’
‘Not really, but Patrick must see that it is handier to have someone across the road in case the guests want to rent a car. He’ll have to watch him like a hawk, and all accounts direct to the hotel, not to the client.’
‘So that only leaves the poor Ryans, and we won’t sell bait or stationery. What had you planned for us?’
Rachel took Kate’s hand. ‘Please, Kate, don’t be like that with me.’
‘It’s unforgivable, you’re quite right. Here, lean over and give me a kiss, I’m afraid to lean over at you in case I upset the wheelchair and roll down into the river.’
They held on to each other for a long minute.
‘Right. Seriously, I’ve got over it now, that rotten spiteful temper of mine. Please help me, Rachel.’
‘I was wondering would you consider doing traditional Irish teas, and selling souvenirs. Potato cakes maybe, toasted brack, Irish soda bread.’
‘We couldn’t. Not in a pub. Rachel, you don’t understand pubs and drinking people. They would go stark staring mad if there was a hint of a leprechaun for sale or a cup of tea being served.’
‘Not in the pub. Beside it.’
‘Where we had the twins’ party?’ Kate asked in disbelief.
‘It wouldn’t be a big job,’ Rachel was saying thoughtfully.
‘It would be way beyond us even if we’d consider it, which we would not in a million years.’
‘No, it wouldn’t be expensive, a couple of men could come from here, they’re paid by the week anyway and sometimes there just isn’t any work for them, and Patrick is never anxious to pay people to stand about, he prefers to have something for them to do . . .’
‘And I know,’ Kate broke in, ‘there’s going to be a few offcuts of lino, and oncuts of carpet and end rolls of tablecloths and starts of rolls for curtains, and you’ll furnish the whole place for us and we’ll think we did it ourselves. And one day when Dara is dressed as an Irish colleen and the boys are all doing step dancing between tables of soda bread, we’ll say to each other, “Whatever was it like in the old days?”’
Rachel looked at her and saw the tears were pouring down Kate’s face. ‘I’m so sorry, Kate. Oh God, I’m sorry.’
Kate sat alone in her room for a long time. She told herself that she hadn’t learned much since her accident, she was still impatient and quick to judge what was right and what was wrong. But at least she had learned something about thinking before you speak. She wouldn’t burden John with all she had discovered today, no more blurting out everything. She would definitely think before she spoke. In the old days she used to say it was the hallmark of a knave and a con man, someone who would have weighed up the pros and cons before venturing an opinion. But that was the old days.
She tried out some of her notions.
You need to testmarket ideas, she had read somewhere. ‘Dara, do you think we should run a guest house? You know, have people to stay and charge them. For staying like?’
‘I know what a guest house is, Mammy,’ Dara said.
‘Well, should we?’
‘Here? There’s hardly room enough for us in this house let alone other people. Where would they sleep?’
‘I suppose we could build rooms for them?’
‘But why? Why on earth would we do that?’
‘I don’t know. I just thought we might. Everyone else seems to be – Loretto, and I believe Rita Walsh is thinking of it too.’
‘What would we want to get in to it for with all that competition?’
‘We have a licence, they don’t. We could have a bar trade. Maybe keep commercial travellers.’
‘Are you feeling all right, Mammy?’
‘Perfectly. Why do you ask?’
‘Only a very unwell person would think up such an idea. And now of all times, where’s all this business going to come from suddenly? Nobs across the river by the busload, ordinary people on this side, and now you want a guest house full of drunks.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Yes you did, you said there’d be a whole lot of commercial travellers who’d want to get blind drunk at night and stay in rooms that we’d have to build on for them.’
‘I never heard of anything so mad,’ Kate said, exasperated.
‘That’s what I thought, Mam, that’s why I asked you were you feeling all right. If there were all these drunken commercial travellers roaming the land looking for places to stay we’d have heard of them surely?’
‘Loretto, where do you buy your eggs?’
‘From about four farmers’ wives, I spread it round a bit to give them all a turn, and then I have four families who come and deal with me as a result.’
‘Are they very dear?’
Loretto was puzzled. ‘No of course they’re not, they’re whatever the cost, you know.’
Kate felt that Loretto should really be able to explain things a bit more clearly. ‘I meant it must be hard on you having to depend on farmers’ wives.’
‘It’s not a bit hard, aren’t they dying to sell the eggs and make a few shillings? What made you think of that?’
‘I was thinking of how much handier it would be if you had someone near you with a lot of hens, someone you could rely on.’
‘Oh, I’d hate that,’ Loretto said airily. ‘I’d have to pay them whatever they said, it wouldn’t be the same at all. I like the women coming in and chatting. Everyone likes that, that’s the way they buy eggs above in Bridge Street too.’
‘I see.’ So there was no point in thinking of a
small poultry farm.
Loretto’s face suddenly took on a new expression.
‘Oh, Kate, I’m very thoughtless, I forgot you had a few hens. Did you want to sell me the odd half-dozen or anything?’
‘No, we’ve only five hens and we eat all they produce and more. No, I was just thinking about the economy, that’s all. I do sometimes but it’s always a mistake.’
‘Sheila, did you ever wonder why nobody ever started a launderette in this place?’
Mrs Whelan said the thought had never crossed her mind.
‘It has to be something that nobody thought of, that’s all. You can rent the machines, you know, you don’t have to have any great outlay. Then all you do is watch the people coming and filling them up with coins.’
‘It wouldn’t ever take off here, of course,’ Mrs Whelan said simply.
‘I don’t know, the place is getting bigger, what with the hotel and everything, it’s going to be a much bigger place than we thought.’
‘It is and it isn’t, Kate. But the hotel will have its own laundry, you won’t see the guests taking a pillow case of dirty washing down to Bridge Street . . .’
‘Or . . .’
‘Or to wherever someone would put it.’ Mrs Whelan seemed anxious for Kate to divulge no mad little hopes.
‘A laundermat or whatever they’re called would need a place where there’d be young people living on their own, there isn’t even a bank here employing a dozen youngsters. No, nobody would be seen going to a laudermat. Can you see Miss Purcell taking Fergus Slattery’s smalls to a public washing place? The humiliation of it!’
‘You don’t think it would work?’
‘No, Kate, I think it would be foolish.’
‘I see.’
‘Times will get better.’
‘Times are fine now. It’s later I worry about.’
‘You’ll manage, you always have.’
‘I don’t know, I really don’t.’
‘Fergus, it’s Kate Ryan.’
‘Well now.’ The warmth and delight in his voice were obvious.
‘I wanted to talk to you, about a worry. Would you be able to come out here at lunchtime?’
‘I’ll come right away.’ He took a file from the cabinet. Deirdre paused in her work to notice that it was Kate Ryan’s compensation file.
‘Is she going to talk about it?’ she asked.
‘I think so,’ Fergus said.
Mary Donnelly looked at him suspiciously.
‘She’s been a bit flushed and feverish. You won’t upset her?’
‘I never upset any woman, Mary,’ said Fergus. ‘That has been my weakness and sorrow in life.’
‘Don’t make a mock out of something very serious.’ Mary banged into the kitchen but she was back in twenty seconds.
‘I forgot, Mrs Ryan, you said you’d look after the bar for an hour . . .’
‘I forgot too,’ Kate said agreeably. ‘Still, I can do it. No one comes in this early, we’ll have the place to ourselves. You go on about your business, Mary.’
Fergus marvelled at the easy graceful way Kate manoeuvred the wheelchair into the bar. Up the ramp behind the counter.
He went to his accustomed place on a high stool.
‘Would you like a drink since you’re in the right place for it?’ She smiled.
‘No, even mad country solicitors don’t start this early.’ He looked at her. Mary was right, her eyes were very bright, her colour high.
‘What is it?’ He was gentle.
‘I hate saying this to you of all people, because I always shut you up about it, but I’m worried. I think that we’re going to be in big trouble when Fernscourt opens.’
‘You’re in big trouble already.’ He looked at the wheelchair.
‘No, we are not going to go over that again. I can’t fight a man on the grounds that I went in despite all those notices and got hurt. I’m talking about something else, about the trade. I think he and the hotel are going to take all our trade.’
Fergus was silent.
‘So I just wanted your advice. I was thinking of all kinds of things we might do. I mean I could do anything. Anything.’
‘Oh, Kate.’
‘Don’t “Oh, Kate” me . . . I can and will do anything to keep this place in the black, I really will. It’s just that I got a bit frightened. I seem to be the last person in Mountfern to realise how changed everything is going to be.’
‘But I tell you.’
‘No, don’t go on about how terrible he is and how he should have stayed in America, that’s useless. It’s practical advice I want. Look at everyone else: Loretto is all smartened up, and have you seen Rita Walsh’s place, it’s like something in Grafton Street.’
Fergus smiled bitterly. ‘I’ve looked at everyone all right. Oh, they were all able to jump at the smell of money. Simple country town, how are you? This lot have their eye to the main chance, they’d be a fair match for the shysters on Broadway or the Bowery or the Bronx wherever it was your man made his money.’
‘Don’t make people out to be grasping, they’re not, they’re just . . .’
‘No, not all of them are, I give you that. There are a few who have their loyalty. Not a lot, but a few.’
‘But what loyalty?’ Kate was puzzled. ‘Who are they being loyal to if they don’t want to make a bit of money out of all the changes?’
‘To you for one,’ Fergus said simply.
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous.’ She was really annoyed now. ‘What has it to do with me? I don’t want to be the cause of any fighting. I was talking about the changes and how we should all be ready for them. Yes, us too. I’ve been thinking about nothing else. How it’s going to change our lives. How everything’s going to be different.’
‘It will be different all right.’ Fergus was grim. ‘You were up there yourself, Jimbo told me that Rachel brought you up for a gander at the place. How many bars did you see? Not counting the ones they’ll have in the function rooms whenever there’s a do on. I counted them. I counted four, didn’t you? That’s a fair amount of drinks for a guy to get through before dinner, if he wants a hightail or a screwball.’
‘Highball, screwdriver,’ she corrected him automatically, as she would Michael.
‘I know, I wondered if you did.’
Her eyes flashed at him angrily. ‘All right, Mr Know-all, if you know so much can you tell me what to do?’
‘Yes, certainly I can.’ He took the file from its big brown envelope and laid it on the bar.
She flinched away from it. ‘No, that is not what I want. I don’t want his charity, I don’t want it all to be in court. That’s not what I want at all, a future based on money I got from him by a trick of law. I want to earn a living, be his equal that way.’ She was both troubled and annoyed.
So was Fergus. ‘Stop being a Christian martyr, Kate, it’s too late for all that.’
‘I will not have this place divided over my accident, I will not have them taking sides, I don’t want the whole of Mountfern getting upset about this and fighting over it . . .’
‘If I have to tell you this once more I will lose what marbles I have left, and I assure you they are not many. It is not his charity it is his insurance, and the whole of Mountfern is not fighting about you. Can you get that into your thick skull?’
‘Fergus!’
‘I mean it. I really have lost patience with you. You pay insurance here, if a man falls off this stool and breaks his head, it’s your insurance that pays for it, Einstein, not you and John. That’s why you pay the bloody thing.’
She laughed and relented. ‘I suppose you’re right. I’ll talk to John about it tonight. We must stop behaving like ostriches.’
He looked a little mollified.
‘She reached across and took both his hands in hers. ‘You are a good true friend to us, I mean that.’
As they sat holding hands the pub door opened silently and in the way nuns have of moving without appearing to take step
s Sister Laura rolled silently into the bar.
Kate cursed the greater freedoms that allowed nuns to enter public houses instead of denouncing them.
Fergus wondered was there a law of timing like a law of gravity. Something that always made people arrive in places at the wrong time.
‘I hope I haven’t come at a wrong time, Mrs Ryan.’
Sister Laura had a great devotion to St Francis of Assisi which was unfortunate because Leopold sensed an animal lover and opened his great jaws, closed his sad eyes and gave a treble wail drowning any possible explanation that Mrs Ryan and Mr Slattery might have been about to make about their untoward conduct.
‘There’s no doubt about it, Sister, but your lot are everywhere now,’ Fergus said admiringly. ‘I’ll be off.’
‘Well, if you’re sure you’ve finished.’ Sister Laura’s eyes were innocent.
‘It’s very hard to ever be finished in a pub, Sister, but of course your lifestyle hasn’t as yet led you to explore that side of the human condition.’
He waved from the door. ‘Kate, I’ll come up with some ideas and when you’ve talked to John I’ll come and discuss them.’
‘Thanks.’ Kate waved back.
‘Very nice young man,’ Sister Laura said, sitting down as if she had been used to going into pubs all her life. ‘Does the most marvellous work for the community for minimal cost. Of course it’s really time he got married and settled down. Bachelors don’t seem to fit into today’s world like they did in previous generations. Steady him down, don’t you think?’
‘Well yes . . .’ Kate was at a great disadvantage now. Anything she said would be bound to be taken the wrong way.
‘I won’t stay long, Mrs Ryan, it would turn away trade seeing a nun in here. What I wanted to say was that we’ve had a letter from a convent in France and there are a lot of families there who are very anxious to make contact with Irish Catholic families and have Irish Catholic girls come out there.’
Kate sighed. ‘You know, that was something I had really hoped for Dara, to do an exchange with a French girl, but we didn’t have the money this year when I was working it out. The cost of having a girl here would not be great, I know, but we’d have to entertain her, take her places. That would cost money.’