They laughed like boys.
“Where is he now? Didn’t he join the priesthood?”
“Oh, I think Arse is a bishop or something out in Africa. Maybe he wears a long white frock. You wouldn’t know the reason for the nickname.”
“Well, however Fingers got the name, it seems that everything he touches turns to gold. Our Clio seems very friendly with his son. We haven’t met him yet, but apparently he’s coming down here for all the Versailles Ball activity up in Dan O’Brien’s.”
Martin McMahon smiled. “Isn’t it great that they all come home and seem so wrapped up in it. Our house is draped high and low in recipes and table decorations…”
“You’re lucky, we have branches of trees in ours,” said Peter Kelly.
“God, what’s that for?”
“Search me. ‘Decor’ is the word Clio uses. Still, I’m happy she’s not gone gallivanting with young O’Connor. Maura always gives me the impression that the father was a bit wild and his sons could be the same.”
“Ah, Clio’s well able to look after herself,” said Martin McMahon.
“I hope so. God, it’s one thing I couldn’t bear, some fellow taking advantage of one of my girls. I’d kill them you know, not that I’m a violent man.”
“When am I going to see you, Kit?”
“Well, Stevie, aren’t you looking at me now?”
“I am for two minutes, then you’ll be off down to your committee meeting in Dan O’Brien’s mausoleum.”
“Never to be called that again…‘all is changed, changed utterly.’”
“That’s not fair, I haven’t read Yeats.”
“At least you knew it was Yeats.”
“So where’ll we go and when?”
“You could take me out to dinner in the Castle Hotel.”
“You’re joking!”
“I’ll pay for myself.”
“It’s not the money. What would we want to go to the Castle Hotel for?”
“To see what competition we have.”
“But that’s ludicrous. It’s an ordinary Saturday night, it’s not a New Year’s Eve ball, you’ll not be comparing like with like.”
“I’d consider it research, Stevie…”
“Oh yeah?”
“And great fun…” She smiled up at him. “I’ll never forget how well you looked that night in Dublin.”
“You don’t want me to put on a monkey suit?”
“No, but you’re super when you’re dressed up.”
“Will you dress up too? I haven’t forgotten that nice backless number.”
“No, I haven’t got any backless things down here, and anyway we don’t want…” She paused.
“You’re right, we don’t want…but let’s go there anyway. It’s research, remember.”
“If we’re caught…” Kit said.
“Yes, and we don’t need to be.” They both recognized the need for their outings to be secret.
The committee meeting on Sunday went well.
Everyone had brought news of some sort. Kevin Wall and Michael Sullivan had technical details to blind everyone, but the estimates about the cost of labor were depressing.
“We can’t afford that,” Philip said firmly.
“It’s a pity, though, the front would look very well if we had all these shrubs in containers and a new sign painted.” Clio was keen that the place should not look like a hick town when the guests approached.
“We could plant things ourselves, I suppose,” Michael Sullivan suggested.
“In what?” they asked. They were not dismissive, they wanted to know.
“Barrels,” Michael Sullivan said.
And that was agreed. Everyone would get at least two barrels. They divided up the public houses between them so that the same people would not be asked over and over. This was regarded as men’s work. They would dig shrubs and greenery from the lakeside.
“Are we allowed to?” Anna Kelly asked.
“We’ll ask later,” Emmet said.
Clio had a friend who went to the College of Art, she could do a new sign. She would have to be paid for the materials. Kevin Wall said they could get the paint from the hardware shop. No one asked in too great detail how this would be negotiated with his father, they agreed that Kevin would deliver the paint to Clio’s house and the friend would come down and paint it before Christmas.
Anna Kelly had drawings of the curtains. They would be looped back from the window and tied with red and white ribbons. Huge bunches of holly would be pinned to the ribbons. Anna said that the frames needed to be painted white. She would organize a painting team if there were volunteers. She had ideas for the lighting too, wine bottles with candles in them. They must be high on the mantelpieces in places where they couldn’t be knocked over. Each bottle would have a spray of holly attached to it. The main center lights should not be on at all, in fact Philip should see the bulbs taken out of them in case they be switched on accidentally.
Everyone was pleased with Anna’s industry. Kit watched her accept the praise. She was strikingly pretty, much more glamorous than Clio. Kit must remember the way she looked at people, it was minxlike. She half looked and then looked away. It made her seem shy and vulnerable when in fact she was nothing of the sort. Kit noted every glance and filed it for further use.
Patsy Hanley had none of those skills but she read eagerly from her notebook that in a gathering where there might be sixty or more ladies they would need at least five lavatories. This caused some gloom.
“You see, they’ll all want to go at the same time,” Patsy explained. “That’s what I found out.”
“Why can’t they go like everyone else, when it’s time?” complained Kevin Wall.
“Because you can’t have them hopping about holding on, it would spoil the atmosphere,” Patsy said.
“We’re going to have to get new facilities sometime,” Philip said. “Leave that with me.”
“You’ll never get your father to agree to five toilets in the next few weeks.” Kit was concerned.
“No, but that’s my problem. Patsy’s done the research, we’re grateful for it.”
Emmet gave the good news that men were much less fussy. Two cabinets and a urinal would be fine. He also had learned that men loved a place where there could be pints as well, so maybe the bar would broaden itself out a bit for the night, and have a couple of extra barmen on there to serve…the money would be taken in pints…otherwise Emmet had learned they might all be slipping out to Paddles’ or across to O’Shea’s.
“They don’t do that up in the Club,” Clio said.
“No, that’s because the Club is as deserted as the Bog of Allen,” Emmet said.
Anna Kelly looked at him admiringly. Emmet noticed and reddened with pleasure.
Clio spoke about the hotel’s image. She was glad that the new sign had been agreed, and thought that some money might be diverted to have a light which would illuminate it.
“But doesn’t everyone know where it is? It’s not as if anyone would be looking for the Central,” Kevin said.
Philip agreed with Clio. “It’s a statement, isn’t that what you mean?” he said.
“That’s exactly what I mean.” Clio was mollified. She thought that a lot of the somber dark brown pictures in the halls should be replaced with garlands of ivy. There were literally miles of it by the lake, nothing would make a better decoration. And that the guests should be greeted in the vestibule with a glass of warmed wine with cinnamon in it. Something to make them feel welcome.
“I hope I’m not venturing into Kit’s territory here,” she said tentatively. “I know you’re in charge of food and drink…but it is part of the image. The statement.”
“Perfect,” said Kit with gritted teeth.
And it was a good idea. In one stroke Clio had managed to conquer the very worst bits of the hotel, the ugly entranceway, the hideous sepia pictures in their ugly frames, and also give an illusion of warmth by offering a warm drink.
r /> “And now the food.” Philip pointed at Kit.
She drew a deep breath. Her idea was to have a buffet. She knew it would meet with huge resistance from the diners and wanted to try it out on the audience here. It would be self-service where you could come back to the table again and have seconds or even third helpings. She showed them her costings. It would be less than for a traditional sit-down supper. For one thing you would save on waitresses. You wouldn’t need as many experienced people to attend tables, and serve, anyone could clear. “Kids from the convent could clear,” she explained.
“Or from the Brothers,” Kevin Wall said.
“Yes, possibly.” Kit had her doubts.
She said that at a formal meal there would be soup or melon, and then always chicken and ham. There would have to be potatoes, gravy, and two other vegetables, it would be a lot more work than preparing a buffet.
“But will they think they’ve had a dinner?” Emmet wanted to know.
“They’ll have had three helpings, some of them,” Kit assured him.
“But suppose everything gets finished, suppose they all eat the chicken in wine sauce and no one eats the cold tongue, what then?” Patsy Hanley spoke with the intensity of someone who would never have eaten cold tongue but feared with her luck it might be all that was left on when her turn came.
Patiently Kit pleaded her case. As she had suspected they all objected. “But that’s what all the places in Dublin are beginning to do,” she said.
“It might be too Dublinish for people round here,” Anna said.
The others nodded, they were much more conservative around here than up in the capital city.
“They have it in the Castle Hotel,” Kit said.
“Are you sure?” Philip would be convinced by anything they did in the Castle Hotel.
“Yes, I was there last night,” she said. If she claimed to have visited the planet Mars they wouldn’t have been more surprised.
“You never were.” Clio was green with envy.
“Yes, and they find it works very well. I was watching, it actually looked much more lavish than it is, if you know what I mean…” She was anxious to define how the buffet would work for them but they were looking at her openmouthed.
“You went to dinner out in the Castle Hotel!” Philip said.
“Yes, to look.” Kit feigned surprise. “We said we’d do research, didn’t we.”
“Yes, but the cost of it.”
“It wasn’t too bad, I didn’t have anything to drink, that’s where they make the profit. Oh, and coffee’s extra. I didn’t have any of that. They serve it in their drawing room, you see, to get you out of the place so that they can clear up.”
“You never went in by yourself and sat down to have dinner in the Castle Hotel.” Anna Kelly’s eyes were narrow with suspicion.
Kit smiled at her. “But look at all you’ve done, Anna. All those spot prizes you’ve been promised and all the bottles with the holly and candles.” Kit looked admiringly at the Chianti bottle decorated as an example of how things could be done.
“How did you get out there?” Philip asked.
Kit caught Emmet’s eye. He was even quicker than she had hoped. “Hey, the point is were they the kind of people who’d be coming here or were they lords and ladies and things?”
“They weren’t lords and ladies. I talked to the waitresses. They were kind of middle-class people like the ones who’d be coming to our do.”
Philip was so pleased with her calling it “our do” that he forgot to worry about who had driven her the fifteen miles to the Castle Hotel.
“Let’s make a list of their possible objections. Come on, everyone say what they think’s wrong with a buffet and we’ll see does it sound reasonable.”
As they began their list Kit glanced over at Emmet again. He was looking at her with awe. Things must be really moving if Kit and Stevie Sullivan had gone to the Castle Hotel. Soon Anna wasn’t going to have a look in. Anna would come back to him and everything would be the way it was.
“How are you, Martin?”
“Oh, come in, Stevie.”
“No, I won’t I’m rushing. Listen, has Kit gone back yet?”
“No, she’s going down on the six o’clock bus. Why, did you want to see her?”
“It’s just that I have to take a car to Dublin, I wondered did she want a lift.”
“Well, I’m sure she’d love it, you’ll have a full car. Clio and Philip are going back too.”
“It’s only a sports car, a two-seater. I thought I’d ask Kit since she was a neighbor’s child.” His smile was winning. Maura was at the top of the stairs.
“I think they all travel as a team, Stevie. They’re all so involved in this dinner dance they’re organizing.”
His eyes met Maura’s. She knew exactly what he was offering. And on Kit’s behalf she was refusing it. He was going to have to get Maura McMahon on his side.
It was a long journey back to Dublin. The bus to the town, the train to Kingsbridge Station, and then a bus back to O’Connell Bridge.
“Will we go and have chips?” Philip said hopefully.
“I’m too tired, Philip.” Kit looked tired and pale.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we had a car?” he said.
“You will, one day. Wait till we make your hotel into the ‘in’ place in all of Ireland.”
He hated her calling it his hotel, it had been their place and their do earlier on. But he knew better than to give any hint of it. “Kevin O’Connor’s father’s bought another place.”
“That’s because his daughter’s getting married. He’s bought a hotel for her husband. It’s like a game for him…they’re not people we want to be like.”
Philip waved her good-bye as he got his bus one way and Kit ran lightly down O’Connell Street in the other direction.
Stevie Sullivan was parked outside her door in a small red sports car.
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“I got an urge for a Chinese meal. Come on, get in.” She got into the car and they drove to a restaurant.
“Aren’t you very fussy about your food. Imagine a good ham sandwich in Lough Glass wouldn’t do you.”
“Not a bit, I fancied sweet-and-sour chicken, and if you’ve been out with the lovely Kit McMahon in the Castle Hotel one night, you somehow want more of the same the next night.”
The Chinese restaurant was fairly basic and simple. Kit looked around her. “Better not let them know in the Castle Hotel that you think this is more of the same,” she said.
“I want you, Kit,” he said.
“You can’t have me, it’s as simple as that.”
“That’s very harsh.”
“The way you put it is harsh and demanding also.” She realized she was speaking to him as a real person, there was no simpering and playacting involved.
“What way should it have been put?” He was being serious also. Not falsely flirtatious. Not the Stevie Sullivan she had watched for years around her hometown.
“Well, it’s a question of people wanting each other, isn’t it? One doesn’t say I want you, implying I mean to have you, as if you were a cowboy taking your head of cattle, or your ranch, or your woman from the saloon…that’s not the way things should be done.”
“Okay, but I don’t believe in a lot of fancy phrases either. I drove all the way up here to tell you that I want you, I want to be with you. I want to be with you properly, not just kissing and stroking each other in a car like last night.”
“Was it only last night, it seems ages ago.” She looked at him with surprise.
“Yes, it seems a lot longer to me too,” he said.
She lifted her eyes and looked at him. His face was absolutely sincere. She could see that. But then, this was the whole secret of Stevie Sullivan’s charm. Everyone thought he was utterly sincere. Anna Kelly, Deirdre Hanley, Orla Dillon, dozens and dozens more that she could name, hundreds that she had never heard of.
He probably was sincere at the time. He just wasn’t exclusive. That was his winning streak. He meant it, he meant it with everybody.
“I didn’t mean to feel this way,” he said to her.
“No,” she agreed.
“It isn’t at all what I thought would happen.”
“No, indeed.”
“Kit, stop yessing and noing and three-bags-fulling. Do you feel the same or don’t you?” He was angry.
“I’m very fond of you…” she began.
“Fond!” He snorted.
“I was going to say unless I was very fond of you I wouldn’t have been so warm and loving to you last night…”
“I don’t believe this,” he said.
“What don’t you believe?”
“I don’t believe you’re sitting here cool as a cucumber explaining your behavior, explaining it as if I were someone who had demanded an explanation. We held on to each other last night because we wanted to, and wanted to do a lot more. Why can’t you be honest enough to admit it?” His eyes were hurt and his face very upset.
But then, this must be new for him. Everyone else including that little baby-face Anna still in her gym slip had probably gone along with his line of persuasion so easily. It must be strange if you were the great Stevie Sullivan. It must be strange and unpleasant to find yourself refused. Especially if you have just driven up from Lough Glass to Dublin, overtaking the bus and the train and then to be refused. But refuse she would.
“Why are we fighting?” she asked him.
“Because you are being so prissy and dishonest.”
“Prissy maybe, it’s just the way the words come out, but dishonest no.”
“You sit there and say I mean nothing to you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’ve told you what I feel. I need you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Don’t bloody tell me what I need and what I don’t need.”
“I’m trying to say, without being cheap and vulgar, that anyone, just anyone would do.”
“And I’m trying not to sound cheap and vulgar either but you are a right prick-tease.”
Her coat was on the back of her chair, Kit began to put her arms back into it. “I’ll go now, and let you finish your meal.” Her face was white. She was shaking with anger. At the words he had used, at the fact that she had let Emmet down, he would be back to Anna Kelly within twenty-four hours. And also the fact that she wanted him so much. She did need him. She would like nothing more than for him to go back with her to her little bed-sitter tonight.