‘I’d love that,’ she said, and they went across the footbridge, away from the sound of Ryan’s and up to Rachel’s rooms.
Mary Donnelly was glad the row had blown over. In fact it must have ended in some kind of reconciliation. They kept smiling at each other that evening in the bar. At one stage she even saw them holding hands.
It was probably about the business of John going to be reciting poetry in the bar. He had been dead against it at the time, but tonight he had books of old Irish poems out on the table and was busy marking some of them as if he were a boy back at school. And talking about boys back at school, Michael had recovered his good temper and even apologised to her for being short with her earlier. A misunderstanding, he had said humbly.
She saw John take his wife’s hand and bring it to his lips when he thought nobody was looking. The way they smiled at each other gave her a lump in her throat. For the first time for a long while she thought of the man who had let her down and wondered what it would have been like to have him take her hand like that. Then she put the thought out of her mind and concentrated on being charming, which frightened the farmers more than anything she had done so far.
18
‘Wasn’t it odd that the Meaghers left so quickly?’ Loretto said.
‘Oh I don’t know, they got a chance of a place in Dublin, a small lock-up shop, and Patrick paid them a good price for the shop in Bridge Street. It was all for the best to go quickly. She’s never been the same since poor Frank died.’
Kate had congratulated herself several times on the amazing foresight she had had in telling Mrs Meagher to hang on for a bit, something was bound to happen. And hadn’t she been right! Imagine Patrick O’Neill wanting a small place in the centre of town. It had solved the Meaghers’ problems at a stroke.
Loretto was still musing. ‘She’ll have the divil of trouble with that strap of Teresa in Dublin. If she was able to run wild in Mountfern, imagine what she’ll get up to in Dublin.’
Kate didn’t agree. ‘She may have done all her running wild, she could be about to settle down for a bit now, have a quiet period for a change.’
Loretto looked at her in wonder. ‘Isn’t that extraordinary, Kate. Her mother said almost the very same thing to me herself.’
‘Would Dara be insulted if I offered her some material to have a dress made?’ Rachel asked Kate.
‘Insulted? She’d grab it out of your hands. But you can’t be giving them things. You’re too generous as it is.’
‘No truly, I have lovely bits of material, really nice pieces of fabric. They’re samples, some of them for drapes or wall hangings – furnishing fabrics. But they’re quite elegant enough for a skirt or a dress.’
‘Well wouldn’t she love it!’
Kate was never without something in her hands these days – if it wasn’t the table napkins it was tray cloths. They were sitting companionably in the green room. The summer was almost with them, and the weather was warm enough for the two glass doors to be left wide open.
Carrie served tea on a trolley, another gift from Rachel; she said she had ordered some for the hotel. Kate hoped she was telling the truth; sometimes she thought that Rachel disguised her generosity by pretending it was some cast-off from the hotel.
‘Am I imagining it or is Carrie thickening around the waist?’ Kate whispered.
‘You are imagining it.’ Rachel pealed with laughter. ‘My goodness, what a suspicious mind you have. Perhaps Carrie and Jimbo just sit and talk when they’re out together.’
‘Not very likely,’ Kate said dismissively. ‘But you’re right, I mustn’t start fancying things.’
‘Is anything worrying you? Anything apart from Carrie?’
‘No.’ It was not very convincing.
‘I don’t mean to pry,’ said Rachel.
‘I’d tell you if it was sensible.’ Kate sounded as if she were ashamed of herself.
‘Worries are rarely sensible.’ Rachel smiled.
‘I’ll tell you. I worry a bit about Dara and Kerry. I get this feeling that Kerry is a bit . . . well, a bit dangerous.’
‘I worry about Kerry too,’ Rachel said unexpectedly. ‘And I think Kerry is very dangerous.’
The two women sat, heads close together, sewing forgotten, and sighed over the impossible situation. The more that Dara was warned against him, the more attractive he would be to her. And if Kate were to put difficulties in his way about meeting her daughter, he would enjoy the challenge and come home more often still from his Donegal posting to move heaven and earth in pursuit of Dara.
Jacinta White told Dara that Mrs Fine was the mistress of Mr O’Neill. They had been lovers for years in America. Jacinta knew this on the highest authority. She said that Liam didn’t believe it because he didn’t really understand mistresses and lovers. But it was true.
Dara, who thought it was indeed true from the days when Grace had told her of their fears that Mrs Fine might become their stepmother, denied it utterly.
‘You’re full of drama, Jacinta,’ she said, defending her own friend Grace from having a wicked father and defending her mother from having a wicked friend.
‘And you’re full of airs, Dara, and you haven’t a hope with Kerry O’Neill.’
Jacinta flounced off in a bad humour.
‘What’s wrong with Jacinta, why won’t she come with us any more?’ Grace’s eyes were big and innocent.
‘Oh, Jacinta’s an eejit, she’s always taking notions over one thing or another.’ Dara gave no explanations.
‘She’s very jealous of you, of course,’ Grace said.
‘Of me?’ Dara sounded like Maggie now.
‘Yes, she fancied Tommy and Tommy has time for nobody but you.’
‘Oh that’s not true. Is it?’ Dara was pleased.
‘Michael tells me that Tommy writes your name all the time on his jotters at school. Michael says he writes mine, but he says Dara is inter-leaved with all those Celtic letters – you know, on the front of copy books.’
‘Heavens.’ Dara wasn’t quite sure what to say. It was nice to be someone fêted on the cover of exercise books, as Grace herself was. But it was not Tommy Leonard that she wanted writing her name.
‘I wish I was really, really beautiful like you are, Grace,’ Dara said suddenly.
Grace stared at her in amazement. ‘But you are much more beautiful than I am.’ She seemed to be burningly sincere. ‘I’ve only got a round chocolate-box face, I look like that silly boy blowing bubbles in the picture up in the Grange. I have no looks, you are the one with the gorgeous face . . . Dara you must know that. Kerry was saying . . .’
‘What was he saying?’ Dara was eager.
‘He was saying that,’ Grace said.
‘How did he say it, I mean what was it exactly . . .?’
‘Just that.’ Grace couldn’t see any need to dawdle on what Kerry, who was only her brother, said. ‘And you look terrific when you have a suntan, Dara, you look great. I look as if I have a skin disease if I stay out in the sun.’
There was going to be no more about what Kerry had said and when he had said it. Dara hadn’t much pride, but she had too much pride to ask again.
He was home the next weekend.
‘Straight up. Permission and everything.’ He grinned at his father, and to Grace’s pleasure Father smiled back.
Things were definitely better these days.
‘How do we spend Saturday?’ Kerry asked his sister when Father had gone off to the hotel. Patrick O’Neill didn’t work office hours, he worked a great deal too many hours for Brian Doyle’s taste.
‘Oh good, are you going to be around?’
‘Well yes. I think so.’
‘Michael and I are going fishing. I’ve got rather good at it lately.’ Grace giggled a bit. ‘We cycle off for miles and find really quiet places.’ She looked down and up again and caught Kerry’s eye.
He wasn’t smiling.
‘You are sensible, aren’t you, Grace?’
She pretended not to understand.
‘Oh very. Anyway the places we go, the river isn’t dangerous. It’s narrow and shallow, usually.’
‘That’s not what I mean.’
‘Oh.’
‘Father’s not going to look after you, as long as he has his folly . . .’
‘Why do you call it that? You used to love Fernscourt.’
‘Someone has to. You’re very young, Grace, it would be terrible if you made any silly mistake.’
‘No, Kerry, I wouldn’t.’
‘But it’s different for boys. Does Michael respect you, or does he take advantage of you?’
‘We just kiss a bit. That’s all.’ Grace looked down again.
‘That had better be all, and don’t go to far-away places to kiss. Listen to me, Grace, I know what I’m talking about. Michael’s only a kid but he could make you do something . . . something foolish.’
‘No, it’s not like that . . .’ She wished the conversation would end.
Just then there was a ring at the door. Miss Hayes didn’t go immediately so Grace seized the opportunity.
It was Rachel Fine.
Kerry looked annoyed.
‘I’m sorry, but Father has gone up to Fernscourt,’ he said, barely politely, when Grace had ushered Mrs Fine into the room.
‘I’m very sure he has.’ Rachel smiled pleasantly. ‘He was always an early worker, and all days of the week. No, I didn’t come to see your father, Kerry. I came to visit with Miss Hayes.’
Kerry smiled at her as if this were the way things should be. Rachel Fine was welcome in the lodge if she had only come to talk to the help.
Olive Hayes had spoken once or twice before to Mrs Fine – a very pleasant woman, she had always thought. A Jewess they said, and a lady friend of Mr O’Neill, but there had never been any impropriety in this house and not in Loretto Quinn’s either. She was surprised to see her come into the kitchen.
‘Patrick has told me how well you run this household for him, Miss Hayes, and perhaps I am speaking out of turn when I ask you if you have enough free time to make a few simple summer dresses.’
‘For you, Mrs Fine? I’d not be able to make anything good enough for you.’
Rachel smiled easily. ‘No, I won’t ask you to take on my complicated figure, Miss Hayes, you would have nightmares trying to get anything to hang straight on me. I meant for some of the girls, for Dara Ryan, Maggie Daly . . .’
‘Make dresses for them . . .’
‘Yes, I’ve been told that you’re the dressmaking genius of Mountfern . . .’
Rachel took out two lengths of silky material – one copper-coloured, one in a clear aquamarine. They were beautiful fabrics.
Miss Hayes ran her hand lovingly under the folds. ‘Oh, these are too good altogether for children, Mrs Fine.’
‘Suppliers send me samples, Miss Hayes. There’s two and a half yards there in each of them, they’re no use to me and I was thinking that if you could make a dress each for the girls . . .’
She broke off. Grace was standing at the kitchen door.
‘Aren’t they gorgeous,’ she said in admiration.
Rachel was pleasant, ‘I have all these pieces, Grace, and I was asking Miss Hayes if I could persuade her to make dresses for Dara and Maggie. Miss Hayes is very gifted. She made a wedding dress last year that was the talk of the town, Loretto told me.’
Olive Hayes looked very pleased.
‘I didn’t know that.’ Grace was interested.
‘Oh, I do a bit now and then in the afternoons.’ Miss Hayes was as pleased as punch.
‘So if you and I could come to an agreement about a fee, do you think . . .?’
‘It would be a pleasure, Mrs Fine.’
Grace fingered the copper silk weave. ‘Who’s this for?’
‘It’s for Maggie, it’s the exact colour of her hair.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes, it will look quite lovely on her. This is for Dara.’
‘Do they know, or is it a surprise?’ Grace had heard nothing about it.
‘They know that I was coming to see Miss Hayes, and they’ve seen the fabric.’
‘Heavens,’ Grace said.
‘I’ve plenty more, Grace, if you . . .’
‘I didn’t mean to ask.’
‘No, and I’m sure Miss Hayes . . .’
‘I’d love to make something for Grace, but she has such expensive clothes already, I didn’t like to . . .’
None of them were finishing their sentences but there was already an easy friendship between the three.
Kerry could see this when he came out to see what was happening. And his handsome face frowned slightly.
Sister Laura didn’t know that there was such an interest in clothes, but she did realise that there wasn’t sufficient interest in work. And she was disappointed that she couldn’t drum up any greater enthusiasm about these exchanges with little French girls. All the families would have to find was the fare, and Lord knew they were well able to find money for other things like drink and television sets.
Sister Laura wished that she’d had such opportunities when she was young. Nobody ever went anywhere then. She had always wanted to see the great cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and go to Chartres. Girls had so many chances today. And an easy life too! No school on Saturdays now. Sister Laura’s lips were pursed about that. It was far better when they had lessons right up to lunch-time, and this new way made the weekend far too long, they got up to all kinds of mischief.
Dr White had urged Sister Laura to take more exercise and get more fresh air. Dutifully she took a Saturday constitutional through Coyne’s wood, down to River Road, along up Bridge Street and back to the convent by the Protestant church and graveyard.
In Coyne’s wood she found Dara Ryan sitting on a stile watching eagerly to see who came through the trees. The child seemed disappointed – even dismayed – to see her teacher.
Down by the river bank she saw Grace O’Neill – holding hands, no less – with Dara’s twin brother. They were much too young to be at that class of thing. Sister Laura barked a greeting at them that made them drop hands hastily.
When she called into Daly’s for a cream cake – which Dr White had told her should form no further part of her diet – Sister Laura was met by a saga of complaints about little Maggie who, according to her mother, had taken up with the foreign woman and was spending all her waking hours admiring herself in the mirror. Across the road from Daly’s was Dr White’s. Sister Laura quickened her step and lowered her eyes in case she might catch the doctor’s observant eye and he would read the cream cake written in her guilty face. Instead she saw Jacinta swinging on the gate and for once anxious for a chat.
Jacinta said that it was great to see nuns being normal now, and eating cream buns. Everything had got much better since the Vatican Council.
Sister Laura realised she had a moustache of cream on her face and pounded up Bridge Street in a very bad temper, thinking that fifteen-year-old girls in 1966 were a severe cross to have to bear.
She was glad she had not been called to the Married State. It was quite enough to have to deal with them in the classroom.
Kerry came through the wood and smiled easily.
‘Well this is a lovely thing to discover in the woods on a summer day.’
‘Hallo, Kerry.’
‘Is that all you have to say to me?’ He slid his arms around her but she wriggled out of them.
‘What is it? Don’t you like me?’
‘I like you well enough.’
‘So what’s with all the hard-to-get nonsense then?’
‘I’m not being hard to get, it’s just that I haven’t seen you for a while, I thought it would be nice to talk, you know, rather than . . . straight away.’
‘Sure, let’s talk.’ He sat down on the ground and stroked her foot. ‘Could we talk about your ankles, for one thing? They’re very beautiful . . .’
‘Oh please.’
Dara was at a total loss.
‘Why don’t you like me to admire you?’ He looked genuinely bewildered.
‘Because . . . because it’s like as if you’re not admiring me as a person, it’s only an ankle or a mouth or whatever.’ She looked troubled.
‘Oh, Dara, that’s not so, if you must know I like you as a person. You are totally special. I’ve told you that so many times.’
‘No you haven’t, we haven’t talked much at all, you and I.’
‘You’re right!’ he said, grinning broadly. ‘We haven’t talked nearly enough. I think about you so much, that’s what makes me think we did talk much more than we have. Will you come and walk with me? We’ll walk through here and down to the river, and honestly’ – he held both his hands up in the air – ‘no touching, promise.’
Dara felt very silly but it did look like a sort of victory.
‘That would be nice,’ she said and leaped from the stile.
Kerry got up lithely from his sitting position without putting his hands on the ground.
‘That was clever,’ Dara admired.
‘Oh come on, anyone can do that,’ Kerry challenged.
‘Maybe, but you had your legs crossed.’
‘Go on, try it.’
Dara sat down on the mossy ground and crossed her legs. ‘Let me see, what did you do?’ She automatically kept trying to put her hands on the ground.
Kerry stood looking at her, laughing.
‘It’s not nearly as easy as you make it look.’ Dara was cross.
‘Here I’ll sit down beside you and show you.’
But when Kerry sat down beside her they were very close.
He looked at her flushed face.
He bent a bit closer to her.
Dara bit her lip with indecision.
‘It’s very easy,’ Kerry said. He put his head slightly to one side and smiled at her.
‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it . . .’ Dara said.