She needed to wipe the two mean little eyes of Anna Kelly and make her flee sobbing back to poor innocent Emmet, who would of course take her. Kit had made a promise that she was going to deliver. But now it was much more than that, it was something she wanted so much and so badly that it nearly hurt.
There was a sizable crowd by the time that Kit made her entrance but Stevie and his clients had not arrived. Her eyes raked the room for them, but she couldn’t see them. She went to where her father and Maura were standing with the Kellys. Maura was still wearing the little cape.
Lilian had admired it. “Very smart indeed,” she had said, slightly enviously Maura thought.
“Yes, I think I’ll leave it on for a bit, I can’t imagine the O’Briens having the place warm enough,” Maura whispered.
“I haven’t seen you wearing it before.”
“Not much cause really,” Maura said. She had decided not to tell her sister that it had once belonged to Helen. And it was obvious that Lilian had never seen it before. What a strange woman Helen McMahon must have been to have had a lovely thing like this and never worn it.
“I wouldn’t have believed the place, Kit.” Her father looked around him in amazement. “I’ll have to let you into the pharmacy next.”
“Fine, as long as you don’t object to holes in the walls every two minutes like Mildred O’Brien did,” Kit whispered. “Her bloody walls were falling down and great wedges of damp like lumps of penicillin and she says Not too many nails in the wall.”
Mildred was standing like royalty near the fireplace, accepting compliments from everyone. “Well, the old place does have its charm,” she was saying modestly, as if it had looked like this all the time.
Then Kit joined Clio and the O’Connors. Clio wore a cream dress with a neckline of rosebud. It was attractive but it wasn’t startling. You wouldn’t pick Clio out in the crowd like you would Kit in her scarlet dress. Or Anna in her bright lime color. Clio seemed to sense it and the corners of her mouth turned down.
“Welcome to Lough Glass,” Kit said to the group.
“You look terrific,” Frankie Barry said.
“Thanks, it’s very startling anyway. If I were in London you’d think I was a pillar box.”
“Or a bus,” Clio said. Everyone looked at her, surprised. “They’re red too,” Clio said lamely.
“Yes, of course,” Kit said. “Tell me, how was your trip to London?” she asked the O’Connor twins.
“Fabulous…” Michael said.
“No one there to hold a candle to you, Kit,” Kevin said.
Clio looked crosser than ever.
But Kit appeared not to notice. “Tell me about your sister’s fiancé. Did he turn out to be okay?”
Clio wished she had thought to ask. Kit was winning everybody there. She didn’t even remotely like Kevin O’Connor, and yet he was hanging on her every word.
“He was okay,” Kevin said. “Like old and everything, but an all-right fellow. You could see why she likes him. He drove us all round London in his car…down the docks, to Covent Garden…he was like a guide…in a way.”
“Did he not have to go to work?” Kit asked.
“Well, it was Christmas.”
“But isn’t that the terrible thing about hotel work, we have to work at Christmas?”
Kevin looked at Michael. “That’s true. I suppose he had time off.”
“I think he’s left his hotel, you know, already. And they’re getting married very soon. Real soon, wink, wink,” Michael said, nudging Clio.
Clio looked annoyed, but Kit was interested. “And will you all be going over for the wedding again?”
“No, they’re coming over here. It’ll be in Dublin.”
Kit wanted to ask had they met his family, what had he been doing up to now. She wanted to get the two stupid boneheaded O’Connor boys up against a wall and beat the answers out of them. Then she wanted to tell them that Mary Paula had got herself hooked to a liar and deceiver in the international league. She wanted to say that she could tell them a story about their future brother-in-law and his deceptions that would make their pale, greasy hair stand on end.
“Clio, is that a new watch?” she asked.
Clio had been displaying her wrist in a way that simply called out for attention. “Yes, Michael gave it to me.” There was a little simper.
“It’s lovely,” Kit said, and they all admired it.
Next year it would be the engagement ring. That’s the way the mating dance worked. The watch was a preliminary. Kit looked at Clio with new eyes as if she had never seen her before. Clio was going to marry Michael O’Connor. She would soon be a sister-in-law of Louis Gray’s.
Mrs. Hanley was loud in her praise of how well the young people had done. “My Patsy was involved in it all,” she told Mrs. Dillon from the news agency. “I’m surprised your Orla wasn’t in on it from the start.”
“Well, of course Orla has her own life to lead, what with being married and living so far out in the country.”
“She won’t be here tonight, will she?” Mrs. Hanley asked.
“One never knows,” said Mrs. Dillon distantly, and moved away.
She had told her daughter Orla that there was no question of her turning up alone at the Golf Club Dance. She either came with her husband and a family party or she didn’t come at all. “That crowd wouldn’t know what a dance was,” Orla had said. “And I’ll go on my own if I like, there’ll be plenty who’ll dance with me.” Mrs. Dillon, who feared greatly that Stevie Sullivan might dance only too much with her, had her mouth set in a grim line.
The buzz of conversation had become almost a roar when Philip and Kit decided that Bobby Boylan and his band should begin to play. They hadn’t wanted them to start until the noise level was already high.
“Something gentle without too many rat-tat-tats to start,” Philip had suggested.
“What does he mean rat-tat-tats?” Bobby Boylan asked indignantly.
“I think he means reverberating drum sounds,” Kit said apologetically.
“He’s got an odd way of putting things, your fellow.”
“He’s not my fellow.” Kit didn’t want even someone like Bobby Boylan, whom she might mercifully never see again, to go away with the wrong impression.
It was a five-piece band. They wore pale pink jackets, all of which must have been bought when the players were slimmer men, or else they had been borrowed from a skinnier band.
“‘Red Sails in the Sunset’ gentle enough, do you think?” Billy Boylan asked. He hated hotel dinners. He would like to have been in a big dance hall on New Year’s Eve, but times weren’t what they used to be. These days it was listening to children in dinner jackets giving orders.
He sighed and waved his baton at the band that bore his name.
“How soon should we bring them in for the meal?” Philip asked Kit.
“They’re all enjoying this bit, there’s no one looking at their watches,” Kit said.
“Did Clio show you her watch?”
“She did. I thought she might want Bobby Boylan to call for a roll of drums and have it carried round the room.”
Philip laughed. “It’s good to know you can be bitchy like everyone else.”
“What, me? I’m hardly ever any other way. Let’s wait another ten minutes anyway.” She had noticed that Stevie Sullivan and his party hadn’t turned up yet. She didn’t want to begin until the main star was there.
Anna broke off in the middle of a conversation. “Excuse me, there’s something I must do,” she said.
Kit’s eyes followed her. Surely the decorations hadn’t fallen to bits yet. But no, Anna Kelly had seen Stevie Sullivan arrive. She wanted to be there to greet him.
Kit looked at Anna’s perfect skin, her blond hair in curls down her back, little ribbons of precisely the same lime green as the dress threaded through her hair. She was like a vision.
Maybe Kit looked hard and tough by comparison. Perhaps scarlet had not been
a good color. Too fast. Too showy for Lough Glass.
Stevie Sullivan and his friends had been in Paddles’. They were all in very good form.
“By God, I wouldn’t know this place,” said one of the car dealers. “Used to be a place you’d be afraid to talk to anyone in case they keeled over and died at your feet.”
“And would you listen to the band, Stevie. You’ve got great class getting us into a place like this.”
They were red-faced men, bachelors maybe, people who had given big orders for tractors and vans and lorries over the years. They even bought a lot of their other farm machinery through young Stevie Sullivan, who acted as a broker but always got them a good deal and stood over whatever was delivered.
They were flattered that they should be invited to something with a name as fancy as the Lough Glass Golf Club Dinner Dance. It would not have been a place where they might normally have been invited.
Kit made a mental note to put extra warmed dinner rolls on their table. These were fellows who might eat the decorations if the food wasn’t served quickly enough.
The names of the guests were in big writing on the tables. They didn’t have to peer and fumble. Not a full seating plan, but just McMahon or Wall…the groups arranged their distribution with a maximum of fuss and confusion. Emmet stood about watchfully; he was in charge of chairs. He would run for extra ones if they were needed or ease people into corners.
The baskets of warmed rolls were on the tables, served by the solemn girls from the convent, each one looking earnest with eyes cast down. Kit had forgotten that if she ordered no giggling she also seemed to have bought no smiling. She would know another time.
They had rehearsed so many times how the line would begin. Kit would urge those sitting at tables farthest from the buffet to come up first. It worked like a dream. Soon the entire company had got the picture on how it would work out.
And also the huge reassurance that there was going to be enough food. “Please return as often as you like,” the sepulchral-looking girls in their white blouses urged.
Con Daly, the cook who was normally never seen anywhere in polite society, stood beaming at the door of the kitchen in his white outfit and chef’s hat, as if he had been responsible for everything rather than taking the most simple and basic directions from Kit and Philip.
Out of the corner of her eye Kit saw Orla Dillon—or whatever her married name was—arrive at the door. She looked small and shabby, as if she had been in the rain for a while deciding whether or not to go in. Her dress looked limp, her hair lank. Years back they had all thought Orla a wild success, and had huge experience with men. Tonight she looked pathetic.
She was not at Mrs. Dillon’s table, that was obvious. There were six people there who didn’t look at all as if they might be welcoming the wild girl who had left her family home in the mountains for a night of fun.
Kit moved over to her.
“Hello, Kit.” Her eyes looked dull.
“There you are, Orla. Are you with any particular group?”
“That’s a gorgeous dress, did you get it in Dublin?”
“Yes.” Kit looked anxious.
“I’d love to go to Dublin. To work even.” She smelled of drink.
This was going to be awkward, Kit realized. She couldn’t throw Orla out. But where was she going to seat her? She knew only too well of Orla’s fling with Stevie Sullivan. That’s probably why she was here. That was why she had come in from the back of beyond, to have a little New Year’s Eve magic.
“Well now, Orla, where did you plan to sit for dinner?”
“I heard it was a table where you went and helped yourself.”
“Well, yes of course it is.”
“So what does it matter where I sit?”
“I wouldn’t want you to be without a place to sit down.”
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist over it. I’ll find somewhere.”
This was all they needed, Kit thought. A drunk ex-girlfriend of Stevie’s turning up. And for all they knew pursued by all her low-bred in-laws with hatchets.
Philip was at her side as Orla flounced off toward the food table. “What’s the problem?”
“Plastered,” Kit said succinctly.
“Jesus, what’ll we do with her?”
“We could feed her more drink and she’d pass out and we could put her in a cupboard or something.”
He looked at her in gratitude, she wasn’t making a drama out of it. “Or we could give her to her mother, you know, that old saying ‘to every cow its calf’…”
“It’s not a saying Mrs. Dillon might feel any way enthusiastic about. No, I think the thing is to see where she weaves and sort of settle her there. Emmet will get her a chair.”
They saw her weaving with a plate of food piled perilously high toward Stevie Sullivan’s table. Emmet approached with an extra chair and hovered until he was waved forward.
“Well, at least she’s sitting down,” Kit said.
She was so cross that this bit of Stevie’s past had come back to haunt him. Yet she was nothing to be jealous of, poor Orla with the pinched face and the slurred speech. Except of course Orla had known Stevie in a much different way. Orla hadn’t been Miss Prissy like Kit was being, she had been all the way.
“It’s not fair on poor Stevie to let her land in on top of all his party,” Philip said. “He’s so decent, look at the crowd he brought.”
Kit felt a wave of guilt flood over her. If things went according to plan when the dancing began, she would be in Stevie’s arms all night. Philip would not be referring to him as “poor Stevie.”
She saw Stevie go over to the table where all their own gang sat. She saw him speak to his brother Michael and hand him some car keys. Michael was nodding earnestly and bursting with importance. Then Stevie was back at his own table. The band played numbers that wouldn’t disturb the digestive juices, the heavier dance beat would come later. Bobby Boylan and his band would have a recess first and be fed in another room.
“Philip, it’s all fine,” Kit said. “It’s even better than we had hoped.”
“The first of many.”
“Isn’t that what I said from the word go?”
They stood there proudly and watched. The unsmiling waitresses were beginning to clear the tables. As instructed, they did not scrape the plates there and then but piled them neatly and brought them to the kitchen. The desserts were being arranged on the long table. There would be no panic, everyone could see that bowl after bowl of trifle was lined up in readiness. Soon it would be time for the ladies to go and powder their noses, and the dancing to begin.
Kit told herself not to worry about Orla Dillon. Stevie Sullivan would cope with the sudden and unwelcome appearance of his past. He would know how to avoid a scene. Stevie Sullivan could cope with anything.
Michael Sullivan came up to Kit. “I know I’m meant to be helping clear the dance floor space, but something’s come up.”
“What exactly?”
“Stevie wants me to drive someone somewhere. Apparently she feels a bit sick.”
“And will he not be driving her himself?”
“No, I’m to say he will but he won’t, if you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Kit said, pleased.
It was done very cleverly. Stevie guided a weaving Orla to the door and whispered something in her ear. She went like a lamb out to his car, where his brother Michael followed.
“Where’sh Stevie?” Orla slurred.
“I’m to drive you there, it’s more discreet apparently, and he’ll meet you there.”
“Where’sh there?”
“We’ll be off now, Orla,” said Michael Sullivan, and drove through the moonlit night over the roads with their great view of the lake.
He drove eleven miles until he came to the Reillys’ land and the house where Orla lived. There were sounds of a singsong in her kitchen.
“Hey, this isn’t where I want to go,” Orla sa
id.
“This is what Stevie says is best. You’re to say you went into town and bought a bottle of whiskey for the night that’s in it.”
“But I didn’t. I haven’t got one.” Orla was frightened now.
“You did. Stevie’s got one for you. I’m to wait, in case they think you were with Stevie or anything.”
“But they’ll know you’re his brother.”
“No they won’t. I’m only a child in their eyes. I’m only a schoolboy, you wouldn’t be with a schoolboy.”
“I don’t know.” Orla looked at him. She got out of the car and walked unsteadily to the door. He prayed she wouldn’t drop the bottle of whiskey.
One of the men opened the door. Michael could hear rough voices. “Who have you out in the car?” the man said pushing past her.
“A child,” Orla said unsteadily.
The man came out to investigate.
“Good evening, Mr. Reilly,” Michael said nervously. “The missus was getting you all a bottle of whiskey as a present and she had no lift back so Paddles asked me to drop her out this way.”
“Why you?” the man said.
“I’m known to Mrs. Dillon, the lady’s mother,” said Michael.
“All right so, thanks.” The man was gruff.
“Happy New Year,” Michael called as he turned the car to get back on the road.
“And to you, young fellow,” he said.
Michael drove back to the party. Things were great. He had told Stevie he would do him the favor if and only if Stevie got him a car of his own, even the cheapest of things. Stevie had been desperate.
By the time Michael got back the dancing was in full swing. “Did I miss anything?” he asked Emmet.
“Only lots of dragging tables and chairs out of the way. And the windows were opened to let out the smell of the people for a bit.”
“Did it?” Michael asked with interest.
“I hope so because it blew out all the candles, which had to be lit again.”
Bobby Boylan asked everyone to come in to the floor for “Carolina Moon.”
“Will you dance, Kit?” Philip asked.
It was the least she could do. They had worked together so happily over the weeks, and now it was a triumph. Already she had heard people saying that it would never leave the Central. She had been told by Kevin Wall’s father that there was going to be a big dinner in which he was involved; they had written to the Castle Hotel for quotations but he could say categorically now that it would be held in the Central.