Firefly Summer (17 page)

It was just as well for Grace O’Neill that she went to a school where the nuns did not believe in praising the girls and that she had an aunt who regarded all good looks as a personal calling from the devil leading to sin and possibly damnation.

Grace was a cheerful child, not nearly as spoiled as she could have been, the idolised baby in that big house. She had realised early in life that you got your way much more easily by smiling and thanking rather than sulking and crying. Nobody told her this; she had always known, or else she had seen it work with her brother and picked it up from him. It was unusually nice to be the centre of attention, with people admiring and patting her on the head.

Kerry O’Neill was tall and blond; he looked like a Swede, not as if he came from Irish stock. His hair curled softly around his neck; on another boy it could have
looked sissy, but not on Kerry. His skin was always lightly tanned, summer or winter. His eyes were a bright and unsettling blue: They were rarely still, but moved here and there almost as if they were looking for something. It didn’t matter, though, because they looked back at whoever he was talking to often enough to show he hadn’t lost interest. You got the notion that Kerry’s restless eyes moved even when he was asleep.

His smile was wide and all-embracing. Nobody could smile like Kerry; all those white teeth seemed to crack his face in half. The smile never got to his eyes but that’s because his eyes moved very fast. They hadn’t time to smile. Grace had once seen a picture of the Blue Grotto in Capri, and said that it reminded her of nothing as much as Kerry’s eyes.

Kerry never said much, but people didn’t realise this. They usually thought he was very interesting because he agreed with them or listened or seemed to be taking part in conversations all the time. It was only with Mother that Kerry had talked a lot. When he came back from school or college he would sit and talk for ages in Mother’s room. Mother had been in bed for so long it was hard to remember when she had been up and around.

They drove across the countryside in the early morning sunshine, pointing things out to each other. Patrick told them that this was a city. Limerick, and that Nenagh was a big town. City? Big town? They couldn’t believe it. It was like seeing one of those model villages he had taken them to once, where ordinary mortals seemed like giants.

‘We don’t go on too much about how much bigger things are back in the States,’ he began carefully.

‘Of course not,’ Kerry said. ‘They’d think we were boasting about home.’

‘And it would be bad-mannered,’ Grace agreed.

They couldn’t believe when they saw signs for Killarney. Please could they go there. It was in the wrong direction, their father said. People in Mountfern thought Killarney was the other end of the country nearly, but one day he’d take them there. And there were signs to Galway. Yes, he had seen Galway Bay on his last visit. Then the roads became narrower, they left the main routes and headed into the midlands. Soon the signs for the town came up. ‘Not far now,’ Patrick said. His heart was beating faster at the thought of taking these golden children to the spot they had come from. Back to their home.

They wanted to know why were there no signs for Mountfern.

‘It’s too small for a road sign. It’s only when you’re on the road going past it that there are directions. It’s only a little place.’ He hoped he had explained this sufficiently to them.

‘It’s only little now,’ Kerry said. ‘One day everyone will know it.’

Patrick flashed him a grateful look and then said no more. They came to the first of the two signs saying Mountfern half a mile.

‘Hey, have you passed it?’ Kerry called out.

Patrick explained that this was one way which brought you along River Road, he wanted to come in by Bridge Street so that they could get an impression of the place.

‘Will they have a band on Main Street?’ Grace giggled.

‘Nothing would surprise me,’ Patrick said as they came
to the turn and approached the place that had always been a name on his father’s birth certificate.

Everyone knew they were coming. From their garden the vicar and Mrs Williams waved at the car.

Judy Byrne was parking her small car outside her house; she peered out of the window to get a good look at the handsome American and his family.

Mrs Sheehan was looking out of the top window of the barracks. There were two or three people standing outside Conway’s, who held their hands to their eyes to shield them from the light and get a good view. It was too early even by Conway’s peculiar opening hours to have gathered drinkers; these must be people talking on their way back from mass.

Patrick explained that some people in the parish went to mass every day.

‘Do we have to?’ Grace asked anxiously.

‘No way.’ Her father patted her reassuringly.

Daly’s was opening for business, so was Leonard’s. Sheila Whelan’s blinds were up long ago, but normally it was a sleepy, slow-moving place.

On the bridge a group of children had gathered; they bent forward to glimpse the passengers in the car, then they hung back again, lacking in confidence. It annoyed Patrick to see the Irish children so uncertain when his own two were so sure, so easy.

Quickly he turned the wheel and manoeuvred them into River Road. Loretto Quinn waved enthusiastically from the shop, young Father Hogan striding along in his soutane waved his breviary cheerfully. Then they were passing Ryan’s Licensed Premises.

‘Is that a real place where they sell liquor?’ Grace asked.

‘Yes, why?’ Her father was interested.

‘It looks like a kind of toy shop, you know, in a board game. It just needs a thatched roof and it’s a typical Irish cottage.’

‘Ah, we’ll be having the thatched cottage bit ourselves,’ Patrick said.

‘Why are we stopping?’ Kerry asked.

‘Let’s get out for a moment.’ Patrick held the door of the car open for them.

They scampered out, stretching their legs after the drive. With an arm around each shoulder he walked them to the footbridge and pointed out the ruins of Fernscourt.

‘That will be our home,’ he said. He was glad that they were looking at the old house which stood magical in the morning mists and sunshine, its ivy walls and odd shapes looking more picturesque than anything Hollywood could have dreamed up as a beautiful ruined castle. He was glad that they couldn’t see the tears in his eyes. The effect couldn’t have been more satisfying. His son and daughter looked in amazement at the sight in front of them.

Across the river from the little wooden bridge where they stood was a great path of laurel bushes. On either side cattle grazed among old rocks and boulders, some covered with moss. The ruins of a great house stood open to the skies. Ivy tumbled from the highest walls, and old portals stood open: doorways leading nowhere except into further open-roofed space. There were gorse bushes and heather dotted around the place, splashes of bright yellow and deep purple.

‘You’re going to build all this up, make it like it was?’ Kerry was unbelieving.

He had seen the artist’s impressions certainly, but nothing had prepared him for seeing the place as it was . . . a magnificent ruin.

‘That’s what we’re going to do,’ Patrick said proudly.

‘It’s going to look like a castle,’ Grace breathed.

‘That’s the idea,’ Patrick said.

‘And how much land, Father?’ Kerry was shielding his eyes with his hand and looking around the landscape of a dozen different shades of green.

‘Not as much as I’d have liked. You see a lot of people were granted their land back, you know they were tenants but they were able to buy it outright, so naturally that’s theirs now and they don’t want to sell. It was only the house and the immediate surrounds we got from the Land Commission. I got a couple of acres from fellows who were anxious to sell . . . but you see the problem . . .’ He was about to explain, but Kerry saw it too.

‘You don’t want to be seen to be buying up the land, taking it away from the peasants again, in case you are seen to be the bad guy wearing the black shirt, instead of the good cowboy.’

‘Right, son, got it in one.’ Patrick was pleased mainly that Kerry was so interested.

‘And will this all be gardens . . . ?’ Grace gave a sweep of her hand.

‘Yes, coming down to the river . . . there’s going to be a landing stage for boats there, and footpaths.’

‘And where will the entrance be?’ Kerry looked left and right.

‘Funny, that’s one thing still in dispute. The original one went off that way. There’s a big overgrown path, that’s the way vehicles will be coming on site. I’ll take you round
and show you. The Dublin architects want to keep it that way. They say it follows the original plan, even though nothing else will be like the original. The American architects say it would be better to open up that overgrown path over there and have the entrance coming from the town, from the big bridge.’

Kerry said nothing for a while, just looked at each side and then straight ahead.

‘Why couldn’t it be here?’ he asked.

‘Here?’

‘Yes. Just here, where we are. This is the best view you’ll get of the place with the river in front, and you say it’s going to be facing the river, so why not here?’

‘But there isn’t room. People would have to get out of their cars and coaches and haul all their bags way up there. It’s only a footbridge, Kerry.’

‘No, make it into a proper bridge and have that part of the drive. Hey, why
don’t
you do that? It would be very impressive.’

His handsome face lit up thinking of it.

‘It’s a great idea but there isn’t room. Look how sharp the turning would be. The buses would back into the unfortunate pub, go through the front window.’

‘Knock it down,’ Kerry said simply.

‘I can’t knock it down.’

‘You’re going to knock Fernscourt down,’ Kerry said, indicating the ruins.

‘Yes, but it’s falling down and anyway it’s mine.’

‘That pub’s practically falling down, and you could buy it, then it would be yours to do what you wanted with it.’

It was so simple when you were fifteen.

‘Where would they go? Kerry, suppose we were to do it, where would the family who live there go?’

‘If they’re publicans then they could work for us, just moving across the river from their home,
and
they’d have a nice lump sum.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Patrick said. ‘But as I was going to suggest we have a drink there now, maybe we should sit on this possibility for a while, don’t you think? No point in alarming people or telling them too much.’

‘You’re so right,’ Kerry said. ‘Then they’d know we’re interested and they’d raise the price to the roof and stick, knowing they had us over a barrel.’

Patrick looked at his son with a mixture of dismay and pride. It wasn’t hard to know where he had got his business sense. But did it always have to be as cold as that? Transplanting a family who had hopes and dreams of their own. He looked back at his site. The boy was quite right, the only possible place to have an entrance was here at this little footbridge. A big wide entrance with lanterns maybe, and should there be old gates or not? It was something he would discuss with Rachel when she arrived. Later on.

Kate and John had seen them coming and she had run in to change her blouse. She put on her best one, the one with the high neck, and fixed on the cameo brooch. This way she felt she looked more like the lady of the house than someone helping behind the bar. She dusted on a little face powder and added a dab of lipstick.

Carrie saw them as she was slipping out to give the hens a cake of bread that she had burned. The poor hens weren’t at all particular, but Mrs Ryan was. Very recently
she had been rather sharp with Carrie about the late hours spent with Jimbo Doyle and had reminded her tartly that she was responsible for Carrie’s welfare while she lived in the house. When she heard the voices and recognised Mr O’Neill’s, her heart skipped a beat. Jimbo had taken a four-day job helping a roofer in the big town. Mr O’Neill thought he was working for him. Oh God, there would be trouble in store.

Eddie and Declan saw them coming and sighed. It meant they would have to wash their faces; they went glumly to the kitchen and took up the facecloth like robots. They had the worst grime removed by the time their mother arrived to do the very same thing for them.

The twins saw them coming and stopped dead in what they were doing, which was playing chess on the landing window seat. Never in their lives had they seen anyone like Mr O’Neill’s family as they stood in the sun on the footbridge pointing and waving and making a sort of diagram with their hands.

Dara looked at the face of the young man in the grey sweater and white flannels. His head was thrown back and he was laughing. He was the most magnificent boy she had ever seen in her life. And this wasn’t in a magazine, or at the cinema. This was here on their own bridge in Mount-fern. She was about to say to Michael that he was gorgeous, but she saw her brother staring at the blonde girl. She wore a short tartan pleated skirt and a lemon-coloured sweater. Her curls had a tartan ribbon in them, holding them up in what wasn’t really a pony tail because it wasn’t all tied in but could have been one if she had managed to squeeze in the curls. Michael was looking at
her as if he had been blind from birth and had suddenly been given his sight.

Judy Byrne was furious when she realised that she had not been quick enough. Mr O’Neill had asked her about what he called her fine cottage. Had she thought of letting it and moving to some smaller place even temporarily? Judy had not seen the drift of his conversation. She had been anxious to make it clear to this handsome and charming American, the first serious bachelor to come their way for a long time, that her roots were firmly planted in Mountfern, that she was a woman of this place who would not be moved.

In fact the little house would have been ideal for the O’Neills. Every time Judy thought of it she raged again at her own blindness. It would have been central; it was just the right size. He would have paid most generously anything she had asked. But the real benefit would have been that Patrick O’Neill and his children would have been living there in her house. There were a million places Judy could have gone for the months that were involved. Sheila Whelan had a spare room. Poor Mrs Meagher of the jewellery shop was thinking of letting a room. Oh why had she been so foolish as not to see that of course the man would want a place to live while he was building his hotel? She would have had every right to call, to be a family friend. What more natural than that she should return to her own house from time to time?