Miss Hayes didn’t want to take initiatives. She held the fabric in place where she was going to put the little dart that would shape it.
The others looked at Maggie Daly’s small thin shoulders and her little pointed breasts seen to their best advantage.
‘You look great, Maggie,’ Dara said spontaneously. ‘You look totally different to usual.’
Maggie saw only the compliment, she didn’t want to believe it. ‘You’re only saying that,’ she said.
‘Why would I say it? Doesn’t she?’
Grace was looking at her wordlessly. ‘Honestly, Maggie, it’s extraordinary, you look like a painting.’
Maggie clasped her hands together and pulled them apart in delighted embarrassment. It was as if she were clapping.
‘I’ll never be able to thank you enough, Mrs Fine, imagine there being this bit of curtain just the right colour.’
‘I know, isn’t it extraordinary!’ Rachel marvelled, thinking of the hours she had spent in the material department of Brown Thomas and Switzer’s looking for the exact shade.
‘You’re terrific, Mrs Fine,’ Grace said, delighted that Maggie was getting the Cinderella treatment.
Rachel looked at the beautiful daughter of the man she loved and knew she must not say anything that would threaten this new friendship.
‘It makes a very nice change for me to see three good-looking girls getting dressed up than to see yards and yards of wall coverings, and to work out why half the bedroom carpets are one shade and half are different when they were all meant to have come from the same batch. This is the fun bit here, I assure you.’
She mustn’t give them any hint about how it was the only bit. This and her conversations with Kate Ryan.
Why else was she in this town? She felt that she and Patrick were miles apart. Further than they had ever been, even when they were on different sides of the ocean.
Jacinta White didn’t want a dress.
‘I don’t have to follow everyone else, be a copycat,’ she said.
‘I think you’re right. Anyway you look good in those pants.’
Jacinta looked down at her jeans and boots in surprise. ‘What?’ she said suspiciously.
‘I was never able to wear anything like that – slacks, trousers, pants, whatever you call it. My bottom was too big. I always wanted to, though.’
Jacinta would not be won so easily.
‘Oh, I haven’t much time for clothes,’ she said loftily.
‘Sensible of you. Anyway, it’s always there if you want it.’
‘Thank you, but I haven’t time for fittings and choosing and all that sort of stuff.’
Rachel saw the aching loneliness of a fifteen-year-old who had fallen out of the pack. She knew that any more persuasion would result in further refusals.
‘Maggie and Grace were saying that they wanted you to have a dress too. But don’t be dragged in if you don’t want to.’ Rachel prepared to leave.
‘I bet Dara didn’t want me to have a dress. Dara’s a pain in the neck, she thinks Tommy Leonard is her little slave. It would sicken you.’
‘I think Dara did want you to share in all these remnants, actually, and I definitely heard that she fancied Kerry O’Neill rather than Tommy Leonard.’
‘Well, she’s out of her mind fancying Kerry O’Neill, he’s far too old for her and he has girlfriends all over the place. You don’t have any material that would make jeans, do you?’
It was very ungracious.
‘No, but what I do have that might be nice is a bit of leather fringe. We could put some on your shirt and some on your boots.’
‘On the boots?’
‘Yes, isn’t there a man up in Foley’s who does shoe repairs? If we asked him nicely he could stitch some of this fringe on to the top of the boots.’
‘And you would give it to me, would you?’
‘With pleasure.’ Rachel smiled.
Fringes on her shirts and her boots, that would make Tommy Leonard sit up and wipe the smile out of Dara’s eye, Jacinta thought.
‘I’ll come along with you now and get it,’ she said in case Mrs Fine might change her mind.
Patrick was in Meagher’s with Brian Doyle organising the changes.
The place was going to be a small office and travel agency.
He would employ just one person, who would arrange tours for the guests and do any other business that Mountfern might need.
He saw Rachel coming down Bridge Street with that sulky child Jacinta, the daughter of the gloomy doctor fellow.
Patrick was about to go over to them but he stopped himself.
In front of this child they would have to behave as near-strangers. They would have to play a role.
Was it worth it? There were so many of these non conversations all day. What was the point of another? He stopped just on the doorway of the shop and turned back in again. Rachel saw him, and her heart felt cold. He had actually got to the stage of avoiding her now.
‘Kerry?’
‘Yes, Mr Hill?’
‘A word if I may?’
‘Of course.’
‘My own sons don’t listen to my advice, you probably don’t listen to your father. That’s the way things are, always have been possibly.’
Kerry held his head politely on one side, waiting for the old man to come to the point. He was working in the bar this week, and liking it. The summer business was beginning to build up and Kerry was an easy conversationalist, people got on well with him.
Dennis Hill looked at him without speaking for a few seconds.
‘That crowd who were in last night, McCann, Burns, those . . .’
‘Yes, Mr Hill?’
‘They’re not the class for this hotel. Too rough. They don’t fit.’
‘Are they barred?’
‘Of course they’re not barred. They were never here before, they came to see you. They’re from Derry.’
Kerry’s eyes narrowed slightly. The old man noticed more than he thought.
‘Yes, I did meet them outside the hotel, I thought it was good to ask them to come in and swell the numbers. But if you think they’re not the right kind of guests, I won’t encourage them here. Is that what you’d like me to do?’ The insolence was well hidden, you’d have to dig deep to find it. But it was there.
‘No, I don’t mind if they come in or not, we’re well able to move people on if they’re difficult, don’t worry about that. It’s you I’m thinking about.’
‘Me?’
‘You. They’re a rough crowd. I don’t mean their accents or the way they dress. I mean what they do.’
‘What do they do?’
‘A good question. A very good question. Nothing you could describe too well, or put down in the space on your passport where it wants to know your occupation.’
‘I think they’re in business.’
‘Yes, that’s what I think too. Mainly criminal business.’
‘Oh, Mr Hill . . .’
‘Some of it’s just on the right side of things, but only some of it and only just.’
‘So?’
‘So. I’m warning you about them. You need take no notice, you might appreciate having your card marked. You might just wish that I’d clear off and shut up.’
‘No, Mr Hill, I appreciate your advice.’
‘Which means to hell with your advice. All right, Kerry, I’ve done my duty. Now about your holidays. Would you like to take off now before we get really busy in July and August?’
Kerry got the feeling that the old man was sending him away from his new friends. He was about to make an excuse and then he thought of Mountfern in the sunshine, and the sparkling river and the beautiful little Dara waiting like a fruit to be plucked.
‘That’s very nice of you, Mr Hill, and I’ll think about what you said.’
‘I’m sure you will, Kerry,’ Dennis Hill sighed.
Kerry went out with Tony McCann and Charlie Burns that night to play cards. He was luckier
than he had been before. Or was the advice of Francis Doyle, Brian’s pisspot brother, really working? Anyway he would be going back to Mountfern with a billfold full of pound notes and fivers.
Patrick told John and Kate that young people’s lives were like a holiday camp nowadays. There was his Kerry being offered three weeks’ holiday from Hill’s hotel. Kerry was buying a car no less, imagine it. Not nineteen years of age, and he had everything he wanted.
‘Isn’t that why you killed yourself working, so that your children could have everything they wanted?’ Kate asked him.
‘I suppose so.’ Patrick was doubtful.
‘Well it certainly was,’ John said. ‘What else would any of us do anything for, if we didn’t have the next lot coming after us to provide for?’
‘What would you do if you hadn’t a family of children?’ Patrick asked with interest.
‘I think I’d put a pack on my back and wander off round the world talking to people about this and that, as it took my fancy.’
‘Like Papers Flynn,’ Kate scoffed.
‘I’d go further afield than Papers, but that’s what I’d do.’ John was adamant.
‘You would not!’ Kate flashed. ‘Even if he had none of us trailing out of him, he’d still stand here looking at his river.’
She wanted to find out Kerry’s plans for his holiday at home. She didn’t like the sound of the car, she felt it might be used to spirit Dara to places well beyond the jurisdiction.
‘Won’t Kerry find it very quiet for him here? Playing with youngsters?’ Her eyes were innocent. But she swore that Patrick saw what she was getting at.
‘I’ll keep an eye on him as much as I can,’ he promised.
‘Perhaps he’ll go off to other parts of the country. Specially if he gets a car?’ Kate was hopeful.
‘No, I’ve a feeling that he sees a lot of attraction here. Still, as I said, we’ll make sure that he doesn’t get too carried away.’
He had said nothing, and he had said everything.
Kate gave a little shiver of fear.
‘I wish there could be another party,’ Maggie said.
‘Why don’t you ask your family if you could have one? There’s plenty of room in your house,’ Dara said.
Maggie rolled her eyes. ‘Us have a party! It’s on our knees saying the thirty days prayer tacked on to the rosary and ending up with a trip to devotions. That’s my mother’s idea of a good evening.’
The others giggled. Maggie seemed to have much more confidence these days. She apologised less, she was even joining in the swimming from the bridge. Maggie used to be shy to be seen down in the middle of town in her bathing costume; nowadays she would sit and laugh with the others, not self-conscious any more.
The old raft they had made way back, which had floated down to the bridge, became their centre of activities. They used it to dive from. Sometimes they piled boxes up on it to make a higher diving platform. Tommy Leonard could dive from the bridge itself. He was like a swallow, Dara said admiringly, he just seemed to swoop down. The rest of them bent their legs or belly flopped.
Only Tommy, John Joe Conway and Jacinta were any good diving from the bridge, they were the undoubted champions.
Gradually Jacinta had come back into things. She couldn’t stay away any more, the fun had moved to the bridge at the end of the street where she lived. This was the summer they were old enough for the bridge, there was no way Jacinta would stay out of things.
And being so athletic was an advantage. It was no use when you were at the pictures or being watched parading up and down Bridge Street, but it was marvellous when you were the only girl who could dive from the wall of the bridge and when Tommy Leonard admired you.
‘Do you mind if I buy a car from Jack Coyne? I know you and he don’t get on,’ Kerry said.
‘How have you enough money to buy a car?’
‘We said there would be no discussion about money, ever again.’
‘No, we said there would be no discussion about stealing unless it happened again.’
‘Well it hasn’t.’
There was a silence.
‘I won it in the north.’
Patrick nodded. ‘Very well. Now about Coyne, he’s a mean, dishonest little shit, but Rachel warned me against alienating locals, however unlikable. Go ahead. Watch out that it’s a real car, mind. Make sure he doesn’t sell you a dummy.’
‘No, he’ll be so anxious to get into your good books he’ll give me a fantastic bargain.’ Kerry grinned.
Patrick smiled too. This was good thinking. That is exactly what Jack Coyne would do. How sensible his son was to capitalise on it.
‘You might find that the pattern has changed a bit this summer,’ he said.
‘What way changed?’
‘Not so much wandering off on your own, it looks like, everyone swimming by the bridge.’
‘Well, I’ll have a car, that should change the pattern a bit more.’
‘You might find a bit of resistance along the way. Dara Ryan’s mother for one.’ Patrick spoke lightly.
Kerry was sunny. ‘That’s no problem, there are plenty of other girls to take for drives. And anyway I like swimming too.’
He smiled at his father as if there weren’t a problem in the world.
Loretto Quinn told Rachel that Jack Coyne was like the cat that got the cream. The young O’Neill boy had said he would like to buy a second-hand car from him. Jack Coyne had sped off to the town in high excitement. He said he was going to find a little honey of a little car for the boy. Loretto hadn’t known him as pleased for years.
‘He calls in here a lot. Is he an admirer, do you think?’ Rachel asked.
Loretto pealed with laughter. ‘Jack Coyne an admirer? Lord, all that man ever admired was a roll of fivers. But it’s very flattering of you to think I might have a caller, Mrs Fine.’
‘You’re a fine woman, Loretto. Why wouldn’t you have callers and admirers?’
‘Ah, Mrs Fine, you’ve improved me but not that much. Not in a place like this. Anyway I wouldn’t want them, I’m happy as I am. Much happier since you came.’
Rachel was pleased. Even if she had to resign herself that her coming to Mountfern had not achieved its aim, at least she could console herself that she had done a lot to help the women and girls of the place. Rachel was reading about the women’s liberation that seemed to be sweeping the States at the moment. Not much of it had found its way to Mountfern. But she was definitely helping to improve the quality of life for a few of the female citizens of the place anyway.
Maggie Daly hung up her new dress all by itself on the back of her door. She didn’t want to put it in the wardrobe in case it got crushed. And anyway she couldn’t see it in the wardrobe.
She wondered what Kitty would say about it. Kitty was coming home for a weekend.
Kerry’s car was red and had an open roof. It wasn’t quite a sports car but it was almost.
He took Grace for a lap of honour up and down Bridge Street, turning neatly in front of the Classic Cinema, which nearly gave Declan Morrissey a heart attack as he thought the boy was through the cinema doors. Grace’s hair, blown by the wind, stood like a halo around her head. Michael fixed a smile on his face and wished with such intensity that it hurt him physically that he was old enough to drive, that he had the money to buy a white sports car and that he and Grace could drive around Mountfern like that.
Dara fixed a smile on her face as she sat beside Maggie on the wall of the bridge.
She wished with an intensity that hurt her that she could be sitting where Grace was and that Kerry and she would do one more tour of the town and then drive off for miles in the beautiful car. She wished that her hair curled under and that she had her ears pierced. Then she would be truly happy.
Father Hogan and Canon Moran were taking a walk when they saw the red car. They were about to cluck at each other and say that Mr O’Neill really spoiled his children and gave a bad example when the car stopped.
>
‘Do you want to test it out? I only have it an hour.’ Kerry sounded excited.
‘Test it out?’
‘I’ll take you for a test ride.’
The priests looked at each other in amazement. Nobody had ever offered them anything so racy.
‘Us?’ Canon Moran croaked in disbelief.
‘Yes, Canon, one at a time, it only seats two.’
‘It’s very nice of you, Kerry . . . but my old bones.’
There was naked longing on Father Hogan’s face.
‘What about you, Father, you’ll risk it, won’t you?’
‘Aren’t you very good to be bothering with the clergy . . .?’
Grace had got out and was holding the door open, Father Hogan had gathered up the skirts of his soutane and settled himself in.
‘But of course I bother with the clergy, Father Hogan, aren’t they the most important people in town?’ Kerry smiled and slipped through the gears to roar off with Father Hogan in the passenger seat.
It was a warm evening, warm enough to come back to the bridge and swim again after tea.
At seven o’clock they gathered there again.
Jacinta did some spectacular dives. This was the first time Kerry had seen them, he was full of praise. Jacinta was gruff and red with delight. She looked at Tommy Leonard to see whether he had noticed. But Tommy’s eyes were wide. Maggie was approaching in her new dress. She looked quite different to the Maggie they all knew.
‘I didn’t know we were going to wear them now, I thought we’d wait till there was something special,’ Dara grumbled.
‘What will there be special?’ Maggie asked.
‘You look like a picture,’ Michael said.
‘That’s exactly what I told her,’ Grace said eagerly.
‘Hey, you’re even more dazzling than your big sister,’ Kerry said.
Dara felt plain and foolish.
Mam had been watching her like a hawk – where are you going, what are you doing, will you be with Michael? It was maddening. Just as she was coming out Mam had told her not to be dressing up like as if she was going to a ball, so she wore her striped tee shirt and the plain blue skirt.
She felt like a deck chair in the outfit, canvas and stripes. Who would look at her? And here was Maggie with her hair all brushed and shimmering and reminding Kerry of Kitty up in Dublin.