Another Heartbeat in the House (5 page)

‘What's it called?'

‘
Frisky Felicity's Frolics in the Fifth Form
.'

‘It sounds like a work of genius. Ah, here come our starters.' Ian stubbed his cigarette out.

‘It really is awfully sweet of you to buy me dinner,' Edie said as the waiter set her plate in front of her. ‘I could have cooked for us.'

‘I can make my own toasted cheese, thanks. Anyway, this may be the last decent meal you'll eat in a while. How are you going to manage in Paddyland? Is there a town nearby where you can stock up on provisions?'

‘There's one about five miles away,' said Edie. ‘And I have a bicycle.'

Ian guffawed. ‘A boycoycle! Shure and begorrah, you could pick your own praties,' he went on, in an execrable Irish accent. ‘Isn't that all they do over there? Laze about, eating potatoes and getting stocious on poitín?'

As the waiter unfurled his napkin and draped it over Ian's lap, Edie noticed that two red patches had appeared on his cheeks, and that a muscle by his mouth was twitching.

‘You ought to learn some Irish while you're there, Edie,' Ian continued. ‘
Pogue mó thóin!
That's a good one! Why are you making those frightful faces at me, darling? Know what it means, do you?'

‘I know what it means,' the waiter said, silkily, ‘being Irish myself, sir. It means “Kiss my arse.”' Then, inclining his head in a courteous bow, he withdrew.

There was a strained silence. Then, ‘Why didn't you
tell
me he was Irish?' hissed Ian.

‘I tried to get you to shut up, you stupid oaf, but you were having such a lark with your codswalloppy Irish accent that there was no stopping you.'

‘I thought he was Scottish.' Ian sprinkled Tabasco on an oyster and slurped it down, then reached for another. ‘But begob, don't the Irish have a great sense of humour? I bet you anything you like they're all chuckling away about it in the kitchen now.'

Edie hoped so. But she rather thought that in the kitchen the waiter was reciting ‘Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Pepper' over Ian's beef olives.

AS THE FINAL
passengers boarded the train for Holyhead, Edie saw a man loping along the platform, raincoat all aflap. He was checking the windows of each carriage he passed with some urgency and carrying a bundle in his arms: a baby, by the look of it. As the man drew nearer, Edie realized that it was Ian, and that the bundle he was carrying was not a baby, but a dog.

Excusing herself to her neighbour, she got up from her seat and made her way to the door. Ian was gesturing at her with such animation that the dog's head bobbed up and down like a puppet's.

‘Thank goodness!' he said, when she yanked down the window. ‘I've caught you just in time!'

‘What are you doing here?'

‘I've come to give you a goodbye present. Here.' Before she could protest, Ian thrust the dog at her, then slung a Harrod's carrier bag through the window after it. ‘His name is Gawain Perkin de Poer. I tried to get a Jack Russell, but they were all gone; there was a run on them, apparently.'

‘What are you on about?'

‘Gawain Perkin de Poer is a bit of a mouthful, but that's what it says on his pedigree. He's a thoroughbred Maltese – he's part of that litter I told you about back in January.'

‘I told you –'

‘You might shorten it to Perky. I've been calling him a furry-faced little bastard since I picked him up this morning.'

The guard waved his flag, the whistle blew, and the dog looked up at Edie, its eyes wide, its mouth an ‘O' of astonishment.

‘All his whatsits are in the bag,' added Ian.

‘You can't do this, Ian! I'm not taking a dog with me to Ireland.'

‘It's a shame you don't have much choice. Enjoy your trip, darling. I hope you don't get sick on the mailboat – there's a weather warning.' Ian took a step backwards, sent her a breezy smile then strode off down the platform, blowing a kiss over his shoulder.

‘Ian!' Edie called, but her voice was drowned by another shrill of the whistle and the grinding of wheels on the track as the train pulled out of the station.

She stood helplessly by the window, watching as Ian's figure receded and the steel girders of Euston station rolled by, then the puppy squirmed in her arms and squeaked at her.

‘Stop squeaking,' said Edie.

‘I can't,' blinked the puppy. ‘I'm only a baby.'

‘Well, stay quiet for a minute while I think what to do with you.'

Edie furrowed her brow. The next station was Crewe; could she put the dog out there? She could approach the stationmaster and ask him to have it sent back to Euston on the next train. But how? It couldn't travel loose in the guard's van, and there was no way of letting Ian know that the dog had been Returned to Sender. She was lumbered with the beast until they reached Holyhead, and she'd be hard pressed to find any kind of animal refuge in that godforsaken port. Holyhead was the kind of hellhole where they'd feed Maltese dogs on toast to their Pit Bulls. Damn Ian's eyes! What a tottering crackbrained idiot he was.

‘Oh! What an adorable puppy!' A little old lady had stopped to admire Gawain Perkin de Poer. ‘What a darling! Hello! Hello there! What's your name, you fluffy little bunnykin?'

‘Pansy,' said the dog, blinking his eyes at the doting crone.

‘Your name is not Pansy,' said Edie, emphatically. ‘It's Milo.'

The old lady looked confused. ‘Did you say Pansy?'

‘No. Milo.'

‘Milo! How sweet. What age are you, Milo?'

Milo looked at Edie, at a loss.

‘He's just a few months.'

‘Little pupkin! Is this your first time on a choo choo train?'

‘Yes.' Edie answered for him.

‘Well, enjoy your trip!' said the lady.

‘Thank you,' said Edie. Once the lady had gone on her way, she rounded upon Milo. ‘What a rotten little fibber you are, to tell her your name was Pansy.'

Milo smiled, pleased with himself.

‘If you're not careful, I shall start calling you by your full name.'

Milo looked aghast.

‘I'm warning you. You'd better behave yourself. What did Ian put in this bag of yours?'

Inside the carrier bag were a collar of smart red leather and a matching lead, a rubber teething ring, several packets of dog biscuits, a tinfoil package containing minced chicken, a dog bowl, and a knitted kitty with a stitched-on smile and squinty eyes that already showed signs of physical abuse. In an envelope was Milo's certificate of pedigree, with citations from the Kennel Club and details of Sire and Dam, both – according to the paperwork – prizewinners at Crufts. When she got to the bit about his great-grandsire, Supreme Champion Launcelot Lambert de Poer, Milo stuck his tongue out at her.

‘There's no need to look so superior just because you've a smart pedigree,' Edie told him, stuffing his accoutrements back into the bag. ‘In fact, all that inbreeding means that you're probably even stupider than you look.'

Milo's jaw dropped in dismay as he saw Kitty disappear, and Edie hesitated. ‘Very well,' she said, retrieving the toy and giving it to him. ‘You may have Kitty to play with on the train. If you're very good, I'll give you a Bonio once we've settled down. But you'll have to wear this.' As Milo tore cotton-wool stuffing from Kitty's forelegs and spat it onto the floor, she fastened the collar around his neck, testing it for snugness, then sat back on her heels to admire the effect. ‘Ian is clever. That colour suits you. Just as well he didn't get the tag engraved. Not that there'd be room for your full moniker on it. Come on, then.'

She tucked him under her arm, scooped up the bag and went to resume her seat, registering the exclamations of admiration that came Milo's way as she navigated the aisle.

Twelve or so hours later, after many adventures involving Kitty, the cord on the window blind, her neighbour's knitting and the buttons on Edie's polo coat, they stood together on the starboard deck of the mailboat, watching the lights flare along the Irish coast and the moon ride the clouds. And as the vessel chugged stolidly into Dun Laoghaire harbour, Milo gazed up at Edie with eloquent eyes and told her just how much he loved her.

The hackney driver Edie hired at the railway station in the little town of Buttevant tried his best to initiate conversation. He was clearly proud of his automobile – a squat black Ford that smelt of new leather courtesy of Simoniz – but Edie was too shattered after her marathon journey to engage with him. After arriving in Dun Laoghaire, she had had to take a train to Dublin, and then another to Cork, and yet another to Buttevant, in the north of the county. So she pretended to be absorbed in the letter that she had read and reread a dozen times since it had arrived last week at her flat in Onslow Gardens.

It went:

Dear Miss Chadwick
,

Mr Frobisher asked me to write to you with some information. I am the keyholder and sometime caretaker of Prospect House.

You will find everything shipshape, I hope. I will leave bread, milk, ect. for you, and will make up a bed, set fires, ect.

Things you need to know:
The water is heated by a back boiler, so you will have to light the fire in the library if you want a bath. I will make sure that there is a supply of logs, turf, ect, and candles and oil for lamps.

You will find tea chests for packing things away in the old stable, and I have asked the grocer to let me have any cardboard boxes he can spare. I will leave these in the box room above the kitchen. I will also leave newspapers for wrapping ornaments, ect.

The nearest town is an easy distance on bicycle, and you will find a telephone box at the crossroads. I have left a list of addresses and telephone numbers for doctor, solicitor, police station, ect., and the number also of an auctioneer recomended by Mr Frobisher's solicitor.

I am not on the telephone, but if you need me I am the farm with the red door just beyond the turn-off to Aill na Coill.

Wishing you a good stay.

Yours sincerely
,

Catherine Healy (Mrs.)

P.S. I will leave the key under a stone by the boot scraper.

The letter had been written in an immaculate copperplate hand, and aside from the ‘ects' Edie's copy-editor's eye had noticed only one misspelling. When it had arrived at her flat a week ago, the stamp on the envelope had brought home to her the fact that she really was off ‘somewhere foreign', for Ireland was another country with its own language and customs and laws and currency and, presumably, prejudices.

And lambs! Larking in the fields that flanked the lane-ways! She had never seen so many! Milo had never seen a lamb in his life; that was plain. He had his front paws up against the rear window of the Ford, like a child at Harrods at Christmastime.

Edie folded the letter and put it back in her handbag. They had been driving for fifteen minutes now; they must be nearly there.

‘Excuse me?' Edie asked the driver. ‘Where is Aill na Coill?'

‘Where did you say, Miss?'

‘Aill na Coill. I'm sorry, my pronunciation is probably dreadful. I don't speak Irish.'

‘Aill na Coill is across on the other side of the loch, about two miles away by road.' He pronounced it Al na Quill. ‘You just follow this road around. They call this the New Road. Before the automobiles came the only way you could get here was by a track through the forest. You'd hardly know it was there now –'tis barely recognizable as a right of way in places, let alone a thoroughfare.'

The road they had turned onto followed the contours of a lake. The shoreline was of coral-pink shingle that looked as though it had never been disturbed by a human footstep. To the right a steep bank rose into a forest of deciduous trees; to the left, in the distance, she saw a small stone jetty poking into the water, and a tumbledown boathouse.

Edie felt a twist of nostalgia. She remembered sitting on the end of the jetty with Hilly, their legs dangling over the edge as they combed through an illicit copy of
Lady Chatterley's Lover
for the dirty bits, sniggering at the woodruff in Constance Chatterley's maiden-hair and crowing with laughter when they stumbled upon a ‘wilting penis'.

The house sat on a rise overlooking the lake. To her mind it was still the kind of house one might happen upon in a fairy tale – a low, two-storey dwelling that sat gazing out over the lake with shuttered eyes and an air of Giaconda serenity. A turn to the right took them onto a bumpy avenue that wound uphill between trees and rhododendron bushes to a gateway, through which was a courtyard flanked by outhouses.

The rear of the house seemed less remarkable than it had the first time Edie had been there: the windows appeared smaller, the eaves pulled down lower. The paint on the door was peeling, the drainpipe had come away from the wall, the guttering was sagging in places and weeds sprouted from chimneypots. Some of the windows were cracked – one had been boarded up with a sheet of plywood – and a patch that had once been a vegetable garden was overgrown now with giant rhubarb. Nobody had loved this house for a long time.