The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (103 page)

Sister Laura sang to Our Lady, Queen of the Angels and Star of the Sea, and wondered why she felt Grace O’Neill was unsuitably dressed for school. The child wore her navy school uniform; she had no hint of make-up. She did not have pierced ears and great loops of earrings. She had no bosom apparent beneath her navy jumper. She was singing the hymn as assiduously as the others. What was it about her that made her seem not a twelve-year-old, but something much more precocious? Sister Laura liked to consider herself a fair woman. She hoped that she was not taking an unreasonable dislike to the child just because she had a beautiful face, tanned skin and golden hair.

Jacinta White nudged Maggie Daly to ask her why she wasn’t singing.

“Sorry,” whispered Maggie, and joined in the hymn.

Jacinta was relieved. She thought Maggie’s face looked very worried, as if she had something that was upsetting her. But of course Maggie often looked like that.

   Fergus Slattery called to the Grange to see old Mr. Johnson about a sale. It appeared that Patrick O’Neill had made an offer, a most generous offer for a small paddock owned by the Johnsons, and the right of way to bring horses to and fro from this field from the main road across the Johnsons’ land.

“I can’t see a thing wrong with it myself, but the American said to be sure, and do it through a solicitor, so here we are, Fergus. I’m sorry for bringing you all the way up here, I thought maybe your father might come, and we’d have a bit of a chat.”

“He has a cold on his chest, and Miss Purcell won’t let him out of the house. He says he’s going to look for a writ of habeas corpus if she keeps him there much longer.” Fergus spoke absent-mindedly. He was looking at the papers. “What does this fellow want the land for up here?”

“I can’t tell you, that’s for certain. Marian says he’s doing it out of the generosity of his heart, because he knows we’re a bit strapped for cash. We wanted to get a bit of a paint job done but it costs the earth these days.”

“Is that field useful to you?”

“Not at all, it’s only a nuisance to us. The hedges and walls are all broken, anyway, but it says somewhere there, doesn’t it, that he’s going to build them up?”

Fergus had been reading this. “Yes, he can build walls and low constructions for the maintenance of cattle, livestock or horses. I suppose that’s what he wants, to set up a rival stables, take the one bit of business you have left.”

“I don’t think so.” Mr. Johnson was mild. “He’s signed an agreement with us about using our horses, paying a retainer even, in case he doesn’t have sufficient guests for them. He’s going to be the making of us, Fergus. Paying a great big rent for that falling-down Gate Lodge, too, and a year in advance because we had to do a bit of smartening it up.”

“Smartening it up! From what I hear, you practically built a new house,” Fergus snapped.

“What have you against him, boy?”

“It’s a good question, Mr. Johnson, and a timely one. I’ll look at this document now, and stop all this sounding off.”

Fergus read the totally straightforward deed of sale drafted by a perfectly honest solicitor. Reluctantly he agreed that if Mr. Johnson wanted to sell, then there was nothing here that was out of the way, and that the price offered was well higher than the normal rate per acre hereabouts.

As a last, and almost petty gesture, Fergus asked whether Mr. Johnson could see
any
reason, apart from the goodness of Patrick O’Neill’s heart and his wish to give them decorating money, why a businessman should suddenly make an offer for that particular field.

Mr. Johnson’s mild old eyes looked surprised.

“Well of course there’s a reason, Fergus. He needs a place where he can keep horses himself. And suppose he and Marian fall out, suppose Marian sets her cap at him too obviously and he isn’t willing, well he’d need to have a fall-back position if he’s offering his guests riding lessons, pony trekking, hunting and all. It’s to cover himself.”

Fergus was astonished at such clarity of vision.

“And does Marian see it like this?” he gasped.

“Now, now, now Fergus, do women ever see things the way they are? Have you known a woman who could see further than romance and yards of veil and wedding days? Let them go on like that, it doesn’t do anyone any harm.”

Fergus felt a chill. It was like playing God with people’s future, he thought, as he arranged the signature of the deed of sale.

   Olive Hayes wrote a long letter to her sister in New Zealand every month. She kept a carbon copy of it, and knew her sister probably did the same. They could refer back easily to small incidents that each had described over the years and they never forgot anything, no matter how trivial. Miss Hayes knew of the health of the elderly Reverend Mother who was always expected to die and then rallied, just when a successor had been more or less agreed for the community. Over on the other side of the earth in a convent on a cliff in South Island, Sister Bernadette knew about the O’Neill family, and how little Grace continued sunnily her life in Mountfern. Grace had even asked Miss Hayes if she would like to come to the sale of work up at the convent which was usually for the children’s parents.

“You helped me make all the jam and cakes. You’re more entitled than anyone,” Grace had said.

Miss Hayes had been very pleased, but she wondered was she stepping out of place.

“Perhaps Miss Johnson?” she had said tentatively.

“Ugh, ugh, no thank you very much,” Grace had giggled. “We don’t want to be giving her ideas, Miss Hayes.”

Olive had found that very endearing. She told her sister that Patrick O’Neill had gone to the States again. He traveled the whole way there as easily as some people took a train from the big town to Dublin. Miss Hayes felt that he had waited until Kerry was safely installed at his boarding school before he went. It was no trouble to look after Grace, but Kerry might have been a handful.

Miss Hayes looked back at the carbons of her previous letters and noticed with satisfaction that she had made this very same pronouncement in July when the O’Neills had arrived. Now, five letters later, she was interested to know that she had been right.

   Kate Ryan decorated the Slatterys’ office with holly at Christmas time. She thought how strangely unfestive it all was compared to everywhere else in Mountfern. The church had its huge crib and in the window of the presbytery there was a Christmas candle and another smaller crib, lovingly tended by Miss Barry who hadn’t touched a drop since the summer.

Leonard’s stationery and paper shop was all done up with the paper chains and streamers it sold. Mrs. Meagher was still in mourning for her husband, but she had sprigs of tinsel and glitter around the Christmas-wrapped brooches and earrings in the window of the shop. The cinema had two large Christmas trees with lights that flashed on and off. Declan Morrissey said it gave him a headache to look at them, and every single year he managed to fuse the lights in the cinema when he was putting up these ridiculous Christmas decorations. Daly’s Dairy had very smart plaited rings of ivy and holly twisted around each other and tied with a red ribbon. They had been made by Kitty apparently, who was a changed girl according to all accounts, and had seen how to do this home-made decoration in one of those American magazines she was always reading.

In the post office there were some colored paper chains, a big silver banner saying Peace on Earth, and a collection box discreetly placed in case anyone might interpret the season of good will as a time to give a few pennies toward gifts for a children’s orphanage. Dunne’s pub had a big plastic Santa Claus in the window. There was hardly any point in their putting up any further decoration since they were yet again on the verge of packing up and going to Liverpool. Jimbo Doyle had put a Christmas tree for his mother in the window of their small house, and had agreed after much nagging to get proper fairy lights that worked. His mother had said that she was sick of hearing all the work Jimbo was doing in other people’s houses while their own looked like a very good imitation of a rubbish heap.

In the Garda barracks, Seamus Sheehan looked in some doubt at the decorations Mary had bought on her last visit to Dublin. He wondered whether they were appropriate to the walls of a Garda Siochana station. Arty-looking cut-out robins and reindeer with little holes where you inserted mistletoe or holly. But Mrs. Sheehan had been adamant. She had read about them in a magazine which said that all the best people in Dublin had these in their homes now, and she wanted to drag a bit of style into Mountfern no matter how much they all resisted it.

Judy Byrne had planted two neat window boxes of her small house with holly bushes and miniature Christmas trees. They looked very festive and elegant at the same time, people told her. Patrick O’Neill had made a point of coming in to congratulate her on them. He had stayed for a drink at Judy’s insistence because of the season. She ran next door to Foley’s with a tray and came back with a large whiskey for Patrick and a small sherry for herself.

She told Patrick that she didn’t keep drink in the house. She thought it was a pity for single ladies to start opening the bottle at a regular hour each evening. Single women had to be so careful. Not that she was saying a word against Marian Johnson of course, and in a hotel poor Marian had to be sociable. Still it
was
a danger, and it could run away with you all too easily.

Across the road Mr. and Mrs. Williams had their house neatly draped in holly and ivy. The Protestant church had been decorated by their few parishioners. Dr. White and his wife had threatened to have no decorations this year if this ridiculous row about mistletoe wasn’t solved. Jacinta wanted a big bunch of it on the door just as you came in; Liam wanted none of it in or near the house. Never had a battle been fought so long and bitterly. Tommy Leonard said it was better than being at the pictures listening to the two of them. Dr. White decided eventually that a small discreet sprig of mistletoe be placed over the kitchen door, that it should not be publicly referred to, and that if this row began again, both Jacinta and Liam would remember Christmas 1962 as the year they not only had no decorations but no presents and no turkey either.

   Miss Purcell wasn’t best pleased when she saw Kate Ryan on a chair with a sprig of holly and a pack of thumb tacks.

“It was never the way here; Mr. Slattery never requested it,” said Miss Purcell, lips in a hard line and the two red spots coming up magnificently on her cheeks.

“I know, Miss Purcell.” Kate was falsely apologetic. “It’s quite ridiculous really, but the children went up to Coyne’s wood and they picked lovely bits full of berries, so I thought the least I could do … you know Mr. Slattery wouldn’t want to offend … and in the spirit of Christmas …”

She finished no sentence and did not explain that she had asked Michael and Dara to collect a big box and deliver it to the office for her. A Christmas card from Fergus’s sister Rosemary in England and then old Mr. Slattery, Fergus and Miss Purcell in paper hats sitting around a small turkey dinner. It didn’t seem nearly celebratory enough for someone as warm and funny as Fergus.

He was pleased and surprised. He had been at the district court in the town, his father had gone to talk to an old crony on the grounds of a will that might be changed, but really in the knowledge that a bottle would be opened. Fergus looked at the holly with pleasure.

“We never had that; it’s lovely,” he said simply.

“Not even when your mother was alive?”

“Not really. She was never strong, you know. She didn’t have all that energy like you have.”

To herself Kate thought that it didn’t really take much energy to stick a few bits of holly on a wall behind pictures, or around a doorway for a man and a boy. But she said nothing. She didn’t mention that Grace O’Neill had said the very same thing; her mother had been unwell always. They didn’t have Christmas decorations, it would have been tiring for her.

“I got you a present, Kate,” Fergus said. “You’re a hard person to buy for; you have everything.”

“I felt the same about you.” She produced a big wrapped parcel.

“Isn’t that great, to be the two people who have everything,” Fergus said, and waited for her to open hers first. It was a day excursion ticket to Dublin, two gift vouchers—one for Switzer’s and one for Brown Thomas—and a note saying: “On presentation of this paper to her employer, Mrs. Kate Ryan will be granted one day’s leave from her lawful employment during the working week.”

Kate stared at it in delight.

“I thought you could go to the January sales, and those vouchers are to make sure you go to Grafton Street and see nice things. You’re not to be buying up household goods in Clery’s, mind.” He spoke gruffly to hide his pleasure in her delight.

“I’ll enjoy every minute of the day.” She hugged him. “Fergus, you are a darling. Thank you very much.”

“Well now, let’s see what you gave me.” He opened the box. It was a beautiful edition of
Moore’s Melodies
with huge over-flowery illustrations by Daniel Maclise.

“I remembered you said you like Thomas Moore—that day at the concert, when Michael’s class was murdering some of the melodies. I thought you’d like this.” She beamed at him and saw to her consternation that his eyes were far too bright. She spoke quickly until he had recovered a calm voice himself. “I got it inside in the town. You know, Gorman’s bookshop, I asked them to look out for an old edition and they came up with this. John and I have been looking at it ourselves. I hope you like it.”

Fergus had recovered his voice.

“I love it. Miss Purcell and my father won’t know what’s ahead of them this Christmas day. They’re going to get a blast of the lot here … I might come over to your place and sing them through for you as well.”

Kate said that was a promise and she was holding him to it. At some stage over Christmas Fergus Slattery was to walk up River Road with his Moore book in a plastic bag in case it rained on it, and he would sing the entire repertoire for whoever was in Ryan’s Licensed Premises.

“That should empty the place for you and lose you your trade before O’Neill takes it away,” Fergus said.