The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (121 page)

His voice was deliberately casual—he had seen the boy find a prosaic explanation for the magic tunnel.

Michael’s face was red and white alternately.

“Nothing. I mean it’s not anything.”

“Oh, that’s one of those ways they had of getting deliveries up to the grand houses without offending the eyes of the quality. You know, like a tradesman’s entrance.” John was light but not dismissive.

“Oh, is that all they are?” The disappointment was huge.

“Well, that’s one use for them of course, those kind of tunnels, but like anything they could have a million other uses.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like whatever was needed, I mean a tunnel’s a tunnel isn’t it? It could be used for anything—smuggling, for lovers’ meeting, for secret societies, kidnappings, escapes … Come on, Michael, it doesn’t matter what it was built for, it’s what happens to it that’s important.”

The boy was greatly cheered. “Do you think there might be one across there?” He nodded toward the river.

“There might well be.” John was mild. “Kind of thing that could be left unearthed for years and years. Even with all the big hotel coming.”

“I don’t mind helping you whenever you need a bit of a hand,” Michael offered. “I have a bit of time on my hands these days, Mary doesn’t think I can do anything.”

“Ah, be tolerant of her, will you, she has a mad figario in her head about men, that’s all.”

“But it’s very unfair. I’d do as much as anyone to make things a bit better, or keep things going …” His lip trembled.

“Listen to me, Michael, I’ll tell you a secret. Not for anyone else—is that all right?”

“Dara?”

“Yes, if you tell it properly, but not to be talked about outside of you two. Poor Mary was all ready to get married, she had saved all her money and given up her job, she was making her wedding dress, even sewing things on it so as to look lovely on the day—”

“Mary Donnelly married? Looking lovely on her wedding day, you must be joking.” Michael interrupted.

“No, shush or I won’t finish it.”

“All right …”

“So anyway this fellow was a rat, he didn’t love Mary Donnelly at all, he only loved her money, and she had given him everything she saved for to put a deposit on a house …”

“And he ran off with it?” Michael’s eyes were bright and he was rushing ahead in the story.

“It’s easy known you’re so young you can see anything in it except black treachery. Think of it, every week—or every month I suppose, teachers get paid by the month—she put so much away for the great day, and this boyo took the lot …” John Ryan’s kind face was misty at the thought of it.

“Yeah, well it wasn’t fair.”

“It was worse than just taking her money, you see, he took everything else, he took away any pride she had, and made a fool of her in front of everyone in her place … Like she’d always be remembering how she had talked of her plans, saying we’re doing this and we’re doing that, and all the time he had no plans for anything except to separate her from her bit of money.”

“Maybe he didn’t always intend to steal her money, he could have loved her and then went off her,” Michael said as if it were only too possible to go off Mary Donnelly.

“I don’t know whether that would be better for her to believe or worse.” John spoke thoughtfully.

“Anyway she’s sure taking it out on the rest of us,” Michael grumbled.

“But big strong men like yourself and myself can cope with it surely?”

“We’ve a lot to cope with these days.”

“Indeed we have, son.” The sigh was very deep.

“Dad? I don’t ask you this in front of people, but …”

“Ask away.”

“Will Mam ever be able to walk again? Nobody ever says.”

“That’s the problem, they don’t ever say. Not to me either.”

“But what do you
think
, Dad?”

“I think there’s a possibility that she may not. And that it’s going to be very hard for her, Michael. The hardest thing in the world.”

   Fergus invited Mary Donnelly to the pictures.

“Why?” she asked him.

The real reason was because Fergus, hearing how good she was in the Ryan household, feared that Mary Donnelly might leave unless some little diversion was planned for her.

He could hardly say that.

“Because I like you and would like to get to know you more,” he said.

“How would you get to know me at the pictures?” she asked.

Fergus felt sorry he had started on this course.

“Well it’s a way to go out, isn’t it? Perhaps you would prefer just to go for a drive if you don’t like the cinema.”

“I never said I didn’t like the cinema. I just wondered what way two people would get to know each other if they sat in silence watching a film.”

“I suppose it would be a matter of talking about it afterward,” Fergus said desperately.

Mary thought about this.

“Usually it’s a matter of taking liberties during the film, that’s what I’ve noticed,” she said.

Fergus had never gotten such a shock in his life.

“I assure you nothing would be further from my mind,” he began, horrified. “I am a solicitor, a grown man.”

“What a pompous thing to say, Mr. Slattery, as if desire were confined only to the lower orders. It is there in men of every class and breeding.”

“Yes, well,” Fergus said, totally at a loss. “If there’s ever anything.”

“I doubt if there will be, but thank you for raising the matter,” Mary said.

   “How in the name of God do you get on with that one?” Fergus asked John when they had some privacy.

“She’s a godsend, that’s what she is. It’s the one thing that keeps Kate anyway calm in there, the thought that we’ve got a cousin of Mrs. Whelan looking after us. It’s the next best thing to having Sheila.”

“But Sheila’s normal, John, she’s not a nutcase like this one.”

“Ah, she has her ways like everyone has their ways. She’s a bit off men, that’s all.”

“That’s a bit steep, to be off half the human race, and isn’t she living in a family of four men and a girl, for God’s sake?”

“I think she prays for us.” John was tolerant.

“I’m surprised she hasn’t taken a pike to you, and the day might well come when she does.” Fergus was still smarting.

“She’s certainly taking no chances, she got Jimbo to fit a lock to her door. I suppose she was afraid I’d lose the run of myself and come in and savage her.”

“Do you tell that to Kate?” Fergus asked wistfully.

“I do, she doesn’t believe me.”

“I’d love to go and see her,” Fergus said.

“She’ll tell you when. You know Kate, she’s very proud. She hates people seeing her the way she is, with all the tubes and the bags.”

“As if I’d mind.”

“She minds.”

“Tell her … well, just tell her.”

“Sure, Fergus, I’ll tell her.”

Dara and Michael had finished their work. Mary had made them sandwiches and a flask of soup. They weren’t normally given a flask. This was an honor.

“I understand that you can go off on your own.”

It had been cleared with their father. The twins nodded. They were nervous. This was their first day going back to the tunnel since the day of the accident. They were almost afraid it would be bad luck to go back there again. They might come out and find the whole of Mountfern waiting to tell them more bad news.

Without saying it they both remembered that it hadn’t even been much fun in the tunnel that day, even before they learned of Mam’s accident.

They had almost forgotten how much earth and rubble there was around the place and how dirty it made everything. Still, in the new system that Mary Donnelly had set up they all had to steep their own clothes in a big zinc bath of detergent. Twice a week all the shorts and shirts and underwear and pajamas went in. That way extra grime wasn’t really noticed.

They pushed forward and there it was, with the tables and chairs they had been arranging at the very time that Mam was having her accident overhead. It was strange and almost frightening to think about.

They went around the tunnel as they had often done before, stroking its sides and marveling at how well made it was and how long it had lasted.

“They must have been desperate in those days to keep their groceries hidden from the public if they went to all this trouble to hide them, building a whole tunnel just so the neighbors wouldn’t see,” Dara said in wonder.

“They didn’t
have
neighbors.” Michael was more authoritative. “It was so that they wouldn’t have to look at them themselves.”

“What was so bad about groceries?”

“I don’t think it was just a few brown-paper bags like we’d get in Loretto Quinn’s, it was barrels and boxes.”

“Well that’s even more posh, they must have been half cracked, the Ferns,” Dara said.

“Apparently it’s all over the country, I read it in all that research Daddy’s doing. Mr. O’Neill says that the book will be on display at the hotel with Dad’s name on it.”

“Do you think the hotel will ever get built?” Dara asked suddenly.

“I don’t know, I suppose it will. Why?”

“It doesn’t seem real anymore.”

“Nothing does.”

The twins sat there for a long moment. Neither wanted to say anything falsely cheering.

As usual they spoke at the same time when they did speak.

“Do you think Lourdes would work …” Dara began.

“I wonder if there really are miracles …” Michael began.

They burst out laughing.

“Maybe our minds got divided,” Dara said. “We didn’t get a full one each but between us we have a fantastic Super mind.”

“Which is why we can only work out things when there are the two of us,” Michael agreed.

“So what do we think about Lourdes?” Dara said.

“There must have been some miracles there, some of them have to be real.” Michael’s face was full of hope.

“Yes, Sister Laura said that if it was all a fraud the enemies of the Church would have found it out.” Dara was eager also.

“So maybe if we could get her there. It could work, couldn’t it?”

“And it would be better than just sitting around waiting.”

Dara and Michael were much revived. It was like old times, having some kind of project. Something important to do.

   The twins didn’t know that the village of Mountfern was already planning to send Kate to Lourdes. Money had been collected, people had been in touch with the travel agencies in Dublin and had received details from the Joe Walsh Travel Agency and the Michael Walsh Travel Agency.

The collection had begun Sheila Whelan was approached to put the money in the post office. She thought it should be a proper fund administered through a solicitor’s office.

At first Fergus didn’t want anything to do with it. It was grotesque to build up people’s hopes, Kate’s hopes too Why let simple people believe that there was a way that a place would mend a broken spine? Perhaps John Ryan would feel patronized, he might not like the idea that the people of Mountfern should pay for his wife to go to Lourdes instead of waiting for him to send her himself.

“If you don’t start it for us then as sure as anything Patrick O’Neill will organize it,” Sheila said.

“I’ll open a bank deposit account tomorrow,” said Fergus.

“Father, did you know that there’s a collection being organized to take Dara and Michael’s mother to Lourdes?” Grace asked.

“Yes, people are very generous, they’re digging very deep in their pockets.”

“Who’s organizing it?” Kerry asked.

“I don’t know, I don’t think anyone is. You can give your money at the church to either of the priests, or at the post office or to Mr. Slattery, you know—the lawyer.”

“Slattery. That figures,” Kerry said.

“Why?” Grace asked.

Kerry smiled knowingly. His hair was longer than he usually wore it, it clustered around his neck. His father thought it made him look like a girl. Kerry said that there wasn’t a barber within miles and that he might be misjudged if he went to the Rosemarie hair salon. He was tanned and relaxed looking, like a boy who had been on a holiday in a resort, Patrick thought with some annoyance. He had seen the young Ryan boy and Tommy Leonard today; both of them looked peaked and as if they had not seen a ray of sun all year.

“Well, your sister asked you a question. Why does it figure that Slattery is taking up the money? Sure he is. He’s a lawyer, as Grace said.”

“And he’s the leader of the other side.”

“Yes, but when the time comes for litigation the Ryans will have other lawyers.”

“I mean the other side here in Mountfern. He’s the head of the pack that wants to run us out of town. So naturally he collects money to send the injured Mrs. Ryan to Lourdes.”

“He doesn’t want to run us out of town. Does he?” Grace looked alarmed.

“Of course not, your brother is playing games.”

“Not so, Father. He hardly welcomed us here with open arms, did he? And now we are blacker still, one of the great and good has been injured on our property. Of course he wants us out, like a lot of them do.”

“Where do you get these kinds of ideas?” Patrick’s tone sounded a lot milder than he felt.

“Because I’m not stupid.” It was very arrogant the way Kerry said it. The direct implication was that Patrick was stupid. Very.