‘It’s very tempting to say that we’ll take it,’ Kate said. ‘It’s so tempting that I have to think it’s the wrong decision.’
John had his hand on hers as he spoke. ‘It would be such an easy way to finish it off. To say we’ll take it and put it in the bank for the children to go to university maybe, or for rainy days which may well come this way.’ He nodded his head across in the direction of Fernscourt, and Kevin Kennedy remembered the danger to their small business from the new hotel.
‘So you’d like to refuse it . . . ?’
‘I think we shouldn’t accept it too readily,’ John said. ‘I know that sounds like sitting on the fence . . . I’m not a gambling man and I’m not in the world of doing deals or bargaining, but I have this feeling you shouldn’t accept the first offer. Am I right?’
Kevin was about to say there was no need to accept anything now as there would undoubtedly be time to do so tomorrow, but Kate spoke first.
‘I’m sure you know how much more than just a mere solicitor Fergus has been to us. It’s as if his own spine were broken.’ She spoke clearly and without any sense of drama. She just wanted to be sure he understood how important the tall gangling country lawyer was in their lives.
‘Yes of course, of course,’ he murmured.
‘So I suppose you will bring him in on this, won’t you, and ask him what he thinks we should do. I don’t think John and I should really make any decision without Fergus being here.’
‘Of course. I just wanted to get a gut reaction. Sometimes a surplus of laywers can confuse people rather than help.’
‘Did you get a gut reaction?’ Kate asked.
‘Yes. You’d take anything, Mrs Ryan, anything not to have to face a court. It’s your back, it’s your legs, we should listen to you. Your husband is aware of all this but he’s thinking about what you’ll both feel years from now, and trying to take that into account. I’m with Mr Ryan, but then it didn’t happen to me.’
Fergus said, as they knew he would say, that it was not enough.
Kevin Kennedy said that it was about what they could hope for from the jury.
Dr White said that was a lot of money, he had many patients with broken bodies after car accidents and they hadn’t got a third of that.
Fergus said that they were dealing with multi-millionaires here, big foreign international companies with coffers of money which they guarded like misers and wouldn’t give out to the people that were struck down and obviously deserving it.
John said that he knew he was a cautious man but wouldn’t £6,000 go a very long way, and buy them everything they ever needed? And since no money would buy Kate the chance of walking again then maybe they should take this now and be done with it. But, then . . .
Kate sat very still as they talked.
They leaned over to make a point, they interrupted each other. Four men all wanting the best for her, and coming at it in their different ways. She felt curiously detached from it. As if up in the air looking down at them, the doctor, the solicitor, the barrister and the publican.
They talked themselves out at around the same time and they all looked at her.
‘It’s up to you in the end, Kate. Whatever you say, that’s what we’ll do.’
She looked slowly around the little group.
‘Fight,’ she said. ‘I think we owe it to the children to do this for them. Let’s fight to the finish.’
Kevin Kennedy said that he was going to spend the night in Mountfern. He had heard there was a delightful old-world place called the Grange. Everyone exchanged glances.
What was wrong with it? he wanted to know. Nothing, it was just that Patrick O’Neill stayed there.
‘He’s moved,’ Kate said. ‘He went into the hotel.’
This surprised the others, but then Kate always knew everything ahead of most people.
‘That’s fine then.’ Kevin Kennedy was businesslike. ‘I’ll give them a call. If our friend Mr O’Neill has moved out, that’s all right, then.’
It was a sunny morning.
‘I don’t know whether that makes it better or worse,’ Kate said.
John had slept on the divan bed in her room. Not that either of them slept very much. He had got up to make tea twice. He pulled back the curtains over the glass doors to reveal Leopold sitting mournfully outside.
‘If that animal lets as much as the smallest yowl out of him, I’ll kill him with my own bare hands,’ Kate said.
Leopold seemed to sense the danger. He raised his front paw hopefully as if someone might shake hands with him through the closed door.
She looked sleepy and anxious.
John stood beside her bed. ‘Could you get another hour if I closed off the light again, and left you in peace?’
‘No, no. I’m too jumpy.’
‘So am I. I can neither stand, sit nor lie.’
‘What are you going to do?’ She saw him pulling on a jumper over the shirt he had worn the previous day. He obviously wasn’t going to get washed and ready for the court at this early hour.
‘I don’t know. I feel trapped in here, somehow.’
Something in her face made him realise how trapped Kate must feel all the time.
‘Not that I’m going to go out or anything,’ he said hastily.
‘Take me out too.’
‘It’s only half six in the morning.’
‘Come on, we’ll go for a walk.’
He dressed her and she slid into her chair. Quietly they let themselves out the front door of the pub – they didn’t go through the back yard for fear of waking Mary Donnelly.
The river was glorious in the September early morning. Leopold trotted with them, delighted with the chance of an early morning outing but staying at a respectful distance.
Up past the Rosemarie hair salon, its pink curtains drawn firmly.
‘Do you think she’s still at it?’ John asked.
Kate laughed. ‘Not at all, she’s far too busy getting ready for American hairstyles, she even has books on how to do it so that they’d like it.’
‘Oh, she always knew how to do it so that they’d like it,’ John said. ‘They tell me of course, I wouldn’t know from any personal experience.’
And as they came back again to the footbridge and the day was about to begin for everyone else, they stopped and looked over at Fernscourt.
They could see Patrick O’Neill in his shirt sleeves at one of the windows on the first floor.
‘It’s a hard day for him too,’ Kate said.
They looked across the river to the landing stage, up the path with its rockeries and shrubs leading to the great sweep where the drive came in. They looked at the steps up to the big house, the bedroom wings fanning back on either side, the workmen beginning to arrive in twos and threes.
And they saw Patrick standing still at his window.
He must have seen them too.
But because it was the day that it was, nobody waved at anyone else.
Rachel was coming to get Kate dressed.
They had been such friends for so long that nobody saw anything remotely odd about this merging of both sides of the case.
They had several differences of opinion about what she should wear with the simple grey and white dress which had been ironed by Carrie, and then done again by Dara and finally given a going over by Mary.
Rachel said no lady could be seen without gloves. Kate said only the gentry wore gloves round here.
Rachel said a little eyeshadow made Kate look much more attractive. Kate said that a country jury would think eyeshadow meant she was the whore of Babylon.
‘Stop making people into yokels, Kate, this is the sixties, they all move with the times here like everywhere else.’
Kate said she wasn’t going to risk it. She had promised Fergus she would look demure.
They were ready far too early.
Rachel tried to distract her with tales that didn’t have any bearing on what was about to happen.
That was harder to do than she had imagined. Almost all her conversation was related to Patrick or to his hotel.
‘Grace is going to Dublin for the day,’ she said, thinking this might be a fairly neutral road to go down.
‘Don’t I know!’ Kate exclaimed. ‘My poor Michael is distraught over it all. I told him that it was very vain of Grace to go miles and miles to buy another new dress when she has trunks of them, but that was the wrong thing to say. No criticism of the lady.’
‘Princess Grace,’ Rachel said.
‘She is a bit of a madam, isn’t she? But I’m prejudiced. Anyone who could lead Michael Ryan any kind of a dance should be in the darkest hob of hell in my view.’
‘Perhaps she’ll not get anywhere with the young hotel manager.’ Rachel smiled at the wonderful partisan nature of Kate’s reactions.
‘I’d prefer if she tired of Michael really, and did it soon, so that both the twins could get over these glittering young O’Neills sooner rather than later.’
‘Yes we’d all be better if we had got over the O’Neills early in life,’ Rachel said bitterly.
Rachel looked very sad, and for the first time since Kate had known her she thought that her friend looked old. The life had gone out from her face. And when that vivacity wasn’t there for all to see there were lines instead, lines that looked quite deep.
She took Rachel’s hand in hers and stroked it silently for a moment. She hardly trusted herself to speak in case she said the wrong thing or that she started to cry.
‘Stop it, quite enough self-pity,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s your day of woe today, not mine. Do you feel all right?’
‘Yes, Dr White gave me something to calm me down. I feel fine.’
‘Have you been to the lavatory?’
‘Yes, and I’ve hardly had food or drink pass my lips so I should be all right.’
They talked to each other through the mirror, each seeing the reflection of the other. It wasn’t quite the same as talking face to face. You could be more indiscreet.
‘Kate?’
‘Yes?’
‘He wants you to get a lot, you know that. He was delighted you refused the offer. He says . . .’
‘No . . . please no.’
‘You’re my friend, you’ll always be my friend, even when I’m an old lady in a home in Flatbush.’
‘Of course I will.’
‘When he’s married to somebody with ten saints’ names who had the good fortune to come from this one-horse town . . .’
‘Rachel . . .’
‘What loyalty do I owe him? He says you shouldn’t take any less . . .’
The chair spun around. Kate’s eyes were blazing.
‘No, do you hear me, no. You must stop. If there’s going to be any dignity, anything saved from this circus and farce that I’m heading off to, then the only way is to do it honestly . . .’
‘I wasn’t going to . . .’
‘Yes you were, you were going to tell me what his side are prepared to go to. I can’t know that, don’t you see that? I must never know what they’re willing to give.’
‘It’s just because you’re my friend. I wanted the best for you,’ Rachel cried, still bewildered by the intensity of it all.
Kate’s voice lowered. ‘I know you mean well, but can’t you see, if I have any hope at all of living what passes as a normal life with this man as my neighbour across the river, with my son head over heels with his daughter . . . with us depending on him for our custom from his hotel . . . then how would I feel if I had seen his hand?’
‘He’s on your side, that’s all I was saying.’
‘I know, I know. Now please can I beg you to say no more than that. Now, Rachel Fine, can you kiss me goodbye and good luck?’
Rachel bent to kiss her in the chair. She put her arms around Kate and laid her cheek against Kate’s thin cheek.
‘May you always have the best of all possible things and even things that are impossible,’ she said in a shaky voice.
‘Haven’t I you as a great friend? That’s worth a lot to me,’ Kate said as she manoeuvred her chair to the door.
John and Dr White were waiting for her in the pub, Fergus and Kevin Kennedy would be already at the courthouse.
Rachel stood in the green room after Kate had gone. She didn’t know if this was praying or not, but she went to the mournful picture of the Madonna, one she had chosen herself because there were a lot of green and blue hues in it and it went with the room.
She stood in front of it and looked into the big sad eyes of the picture.
‘Please don’t let them cheat her, don’t let them talk her into a cheap deal. Go on, please. It’s not much to ask. There are thousands of good things and bad things happening all over the place today. Let this be a good one for Kate Ryan. Please.’
The morning was hot and heavy. Dara’s mind would not stay on parsing.
‘Come on, Dara, wake up. Subordinate adverbial clause modifying what?’
‘What, Sister?’
‘What is it modifying?’
‘I’m not sure, Sister Laura.’
‘You might be a lot surer if you looked at the book instead of outside the window, it isn’t written in letters of fire on the Dublin road. The clause, for your information, reads . . . Come on, Dara, this is very simple if you just concentrate.’
‘I know, Sister.’ The girl’s face looked wretched.
Sister Laura knew all about the case that was coming to court today.
‘There’s no better way of taming the language than this. You’ll know for ever how sentences are constructed.’ The nun’s round face was eager to help the white-faced child.
‘Who else knows . . . ?’ Sister Laura decided to take the attention away from Dara Ryan.
‘Sister! Sister!’ A few of them waved their hands.
Sister Laura looked around the classroom to choose, and her eye fell on the empty seat where Grace O’Neill normally sat. The child had gone to Dublin for the day. Her father had asked permission.
‘Grace will say she has to see the doctor. That’s not true, she’s going to buy a dress. But it’s not as frivolous as it seems, Sister Laura. I want her to be out of Mountfern on the day of the compensation case, so I asked the young manager to invent an excuse to take her. It would be more diplomatic. More sensitive.’
He had been right, of course. He was a very good man. Not just because he had given them the money for the school hall or all that extra material for curtains that the Jewish lady had delivered. But he really was kind and out for people’s good. Sister Laura couldn’t bear it when she heard people speaking badly of him. It was only envy, envy of a man who had done so well and come home to spend his money where his father had been nobody. She knew that if the compensation had been up to him, he’d have given the Ryans all they ever needed. But of course it would have been very hard to live with for them, knowing that it was his charity.
Sister Laura’s eyes turned to the holy picture which hung in the classroom, Our Lady of the Wayside. She looked into the sad eyes of Our Lady and made a quick prayer that she would ask her Son to give proper compensation to the Ryans. Then she said that she would parse the sentence herself and would like the entire class to give their undivided attention.
Brother Keane had warned them not to trifle with him today, he had a toothache. Nothing that was bad enough to mean he had to leave his charges and go into the town to the dentist, but certainly something that was bad enough to remind him of its existence every waking moment. He felt it was only fair to the boys to apprise them of this fact.
Michael wondered again and again where Grace and Jim Costello would be now. There had been no difficulty in her getting off school and she had said they were going to set out early.
Michael had cycled across the Grange early to wish her a good trip, she had come down the stairs all dressed up in a yellow flowery dress he had never seen before. She looked as fresh as a daisy . . .
‘You look terr
ific,’ he had said. ‘You don’t need a new frock at all, wouldn’t that be lovely for the hotel opening?’
It had been the wrong thing to say. Still, she had been pleased he had cycled all that way to see her. She kissed him without his suggesting it. Just put both her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and at that moment Jim Costello’s car had pulled up.
‘I know we swore we wouldn’t talk about the case,’ she whispered to Michael.
‘I know.’ He swallowed.
‘But whatever happens we’ll still be as we are. And I hope your mom gets a lot, I really do.’
Something in the way she said it made him feel put out. But perhaps it was the fact of that awful Jim Costello with his sickening smile sitting waiting for her. That must have been what it was.
The classroom was airless. A dying wasp beat uselessly against the window. Even if it got out it wouldn’t last another hour. Michael wondered if he should finish it off now with his ruler.
Brother Keane was looking at him. Did he imagine it or was there some sympathy in the teacher’s swollen face?
Today they were doing an exercise which the class hated more than anything. Brother Keane would ask them to speak on any topic for one minute. There were to be no ems or ahs. There was to be no trick-acting or imitating the speaker. The brothers hoped it would make the boys more articulate and able to express themselves. The boys hated it, and though never short of a word in the playground, they were struck dumb when asked to speak in front of the class.
‘Michael Ryan. Give us the benefit of your knowledge and experience of the pike, a fish which abounds in our River Fern.’
There was a snort round the room. Either this was a trick question of Brother Keane’s or else he was going soft. The pike was dead easy to talk about, they’d all been fishing for pike since they were old enough to be allowed near the water.
‘What would you want to know about it, Brother?’ Michael’s face was anxious. ‘Like there’s so many kinds of ways to start.’
‘Well, kindly choose one, and don’t hold up the class any more.’ Brother Keane’s hand was on his face.
‘Well, like any fish the pike needs oxygen, not for its lungs because they don’t have human lungs or animal lungs even, they don’t have any lungs so to speak of. Not lungs as we’d know them.’