The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (133 page)

Kate noticed the broken urns that she had heard about, the expensive ornaments that had been dashed to the ground one night. There had been talk about it in the pub, children some said.

There had been much more than the usual run of vandalism and hooliganism around the place. Sergeant Sheehan had confided that it looked as if it were orchestrated, which seemed hard to believe. After all, who would have a grudge against Patrick O’Neill setting up a business that would bring prosperity to everyone, the Sergeant had asked.

Kate looked up at the house in wonder. It was so like those old pictures that John had unearthed in journals and lithographs of the time. It was like the sepia pictures that he had also shown her. A big house with its two bedroom wings folded away neatly behind, not spoiling the impression of the main house. She could hardly wait to see inside.

There was a ramp into the hotel at one side, where Rachel pushed the wheelchair easily.

“What made you think of this?” Kate asked in self-mockery. “Was it so as I could come to call?”

Inside there were men working still, putting in light fitments. Others were working on the huge staircase going up from the hall. Some of the men knew Kate to see and came over to welcome her. Others remembered her from the day of the accident. Everyone knew Mrs. Fine and everyone could have given their view on her relationship with the big man Mr. O’Neill, if pressed.

“The elevators are installed but they haven’t been passed as safe yet, so all things considered I don’t think we will …”

“Too right,” Kate agreed enthusiastically. “To be carried unconscious from here a second time would be overdoing it.”

Brian Doyle, who was surprised to see her there in the first place, scratched his head in wonder.

   Kate decided she had been very stupid. Rachel had taken her on a tour of the Thatch Bar, a huge place with seating for two hundred and a stage for the entertainment. Four thatchers had been working on it for months and the roof looked like velvet. Not at all like the real thatch around here, often neglected and full of weeds, but perfect and what was more the perfect American idea of a dream Irish cottage.

They had been around the back and seen the terrace where little stone tables had been installed. The plan was to serve drinks out here in the summer.

Then inside the house one of the paneled rooms was called the Study Bar. Here, from a bar surrounded by old books in glass cases, further drinks would be served. Of course there would be a cocktail lounge too, just before going into the dining room.

Slowly it sank in.

“I see why you took me on the mystery tour, Rachel, dear Rachel,” Kate said.

“Can you wheel me to one of those nice stone seats we passed, somewhere where no machinery can fall on us? And we can have our little talk.”

In silence Rachel found them a quiet place. Looking downhill and over the footbridge they could see Ryan’s Licensed Premises nestling where it always had nestled.

“I didn’t realize. I really didn’t realize,” Kate said simply. “Nothing was hidden from me, no lies were told, but I just couldn’t see.”

“That’s why I wanted you to come here,” Rachel said.

“We might as well close down now, rather than wait until the opening.”

“No, that’s not what I was trying to tell you,” said Rachel.

“Well what then?”

“I’m not sure yet, something different.”

“What’s different than closing down when you’ve no business?”

“No, I mean could you do something different, could you change things a bit?”

“Dancing girls maybe?” Kate was bitter-sounding now. “That’s about the only thing he hasn’t thought of … a big neon sign, Ryan’s Raunchy Roadhouse … see the ladies in corsets flinging their legs around. Maybe Canon Moran could come and take the money at the door.”

“What would make them come down a path, cross a bridge to go somewhere else?”

“Somewhere much duller.”

“What would make them?”

“If I knew that, would my heart be pounding inside me?”

“Think, Kate, think what visitors want, what do you want when you go somewhere?”

“I don’t ever go anywhere. I go to Mass, and what do I want then, I want it to be Father Hogan because he’s quicker, I want there not to be two collections, I want not to be parked in a draft.”

“Kate. I’m trying to help you.”

“I
know
you are, but why ask me what do I want when I go somewhere? I swear I don’t go anywhere. I’ve only been on three holidays in my life, the first one down here when I met John, the second our honeymoon in Killarney and the third when we went to Dublin to see President Kennedy. How do I know what I’d want or what anyone would want?”

Rachel gave up trying to draw things out of her. She leaned over. She counted on the well-manicured fingers of her hands.

“Listen, one, they might want fishing gear, you could specialize in bait and hooks.”

“
Bait?
” screamed Kate. “
Bait
in a public house where people are supposed to be drinking, a nice smelly jar of worms and a glass of Guinness!”

“No, I meant around the side. Two, they might want stationery to write home, postcards. You could sell those.”

“How could I tell Jack Leonard I was going to sell writing pads and envelopes? Have sense, Rachel, you’ve been here long enough to know that we wouldn’t
do
that sort of thing to each other.”

“What else do people need?” Rachel went on remorselessly. “Three, they’ll need their hair fixed, and I can tell you that Rita Walsh is getting ready for that in the Rosemarie hair salon. She has offered me a free permanent in return for a little advice about how to make the place right.”

“And did you help her?”

“Sure I did, I got her a bit of this and that, suggested she rent a few new dryers—hers would frighten you just to look at them. Then I told her the truth, that Patrick had been planning a beauty salon in the hotel itself and I had said give the Rosemarie a year to see if it can cater for the guests. Rita has no time for her other activities these nights, she’s too busy getting the place right before the grand opening.”

Kate was impressed. “That’s Rita and Loretto fixed up, and I suppose Jack Coyne might get a bit of business now. Is the feud over?”

“Not really, but Patrick must see that it is handier to have someone across the road in case the guests want to rent a car. He’ll have to watch him like a hawk, and all accounts direct to the hotel, not to the client.”

“So that only leaves the poor Ryans, and we won’t sell bait or stationery. What had you planned for us?”

Rachel took Kate’s hand. “Please, Kate, don’t be like that with me.”

“It’s unforgivable, you’re quite right. Here, lean over and give me a kiss, I’m afraid to lean over at you in case I upset the wheelchair and roll down into the river.”

They held on to each other for a long minute.

“Right. Seriously, I’ve gotten over it now, that rotten spiteful temper of mine. Please help me, Rachel.”

“I was wondering would you consider doing traditional Irish teas, and selling souvenirs. Potato cakes maybe, toasted brack, Irish soda bread.”

“We couldn’t. Not in a pub. Rachel, you don’t understand pubs and drinking people. They would go stark staring mad if there was a hint of a leprechaun for sale or a cup of tea being served.”

“Not in the pub. Beside it.”

“Where we had the twins’ party?” Kate asked in disbelief.

“It wouldn’t be a big job,” Rachel was saying thoughtfully.

“It would be way beyond us even if we’d consider it, which we would not in a million years.”

“No, it wouldn’t be expensive, a couple of the men could come from here, they’re paid by the week anyway and sometimes there just isn’t any work
for
them, and Patrick is never anxious to pay people to stand about, he prefers to have something for them to do—”

“And I know,” Kate broke in, “there’s going to be a few extra pieces of linoleum and carpet and end rolls of tablecloths and starts of rolls for curtains, and you’ll furnish the whole place for us and we’ll think we did it ourselves. And one day when Dara is dressed as an Irish colleen and the boys are all doing step dancing between tables of soda bread, we’ll say to each other, ‘
Whatever
was it like in the old days?’ ”

Rachel looked at her and saw the tears were pouring down Kate’s face. “I’m so sorry, Kate. Oh God, I’m sorry.”

   Kate sat alone in her room for a long time. She told herself that she hadn’t learned much since her accident, she was still impatient and quick to judge what was right and what was wrong. But at least she had learned something about thinking before you speak. She wouldn’t burden John with all she had discovered today, no more blurting out everything. She would definitely think before she spoke. In the old days she used to say it was the hallmark of a knave and a con man, someone who would have weighed up the pros and cons before venturing an opinion. But that was the old days.

   She tried out some of her notions.

You need to test market ideas, she had read somewhere.

“Dara do you think we should run a guest house? You know, have people to stay and charge them. For staying like?”

“I know what a guest house is, Mammy,” Dara said.

“Well, should we?”

“Here? There’s hardly room enough for us in this house, let alone other people. Where would they sleep?”

“I suppose we could build rooms for them?”

“But why? Why on earth would we do that?”

“I don’t know. I just thought we might. Everyone else seems to be—Loretto, and I believe Rita Walsh is thinking of it too.”

“What would we want to get into it for with all that competition?”

“We have a license, they don’t. We could have a bar trade. Maybe keep commercial travelers.”

“Are you feeling all right, Mammy?”

“Perfectly. Why do you ask?”

“Only a very unwell person would think up such an idea. And
now
of all times, where’s all this business going to come from suddenly? Nobs across the river by the busload, ordinary people on this side, and now you want a guest house full of drunks.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes you did, you said there’d be a whole lot of commercial travelers who’d want to get blind drunk at night and stay in rooms that we’d have to build on for them.”

“I never heard of anything so mad,” Kate said, exasperated.

“That’s what I thought, Mam, that’s why I asked you were you feeling all right. If there were all these drunken commercial travelers roaming the land looking for places to stay we’d have heard of them surely?”

   “Loretto, where do you buy your eggs?”

“From about four farmers’ wives, I spread it around a bit to give them all a turn, and then I have four families who come and deal with me as a result.”

“Are they very dear?”

Loretto was puzzled. “No of course they’re not, they’re whatever the cost, you know.”

Kate felt that Loretto should really be able to explain things a bit more clearly. “I meant it must be hard on you having to depend on farmers’ wives.”

“It’s not a bit hard, aren’t they dying to sell the eggs and make a few shillings? What made you think of that?”

“I was thinking of how much handier it would be if you had someone near you with a lot of hens, someone you could rely on.”

“Oh, I’d hate that,” Loretto said airily. “I’d have to pay them whatever they said, it wouldn’t be the same at all. I like the women coming in and chatting. Everyone likes that, that’s the way they buy eggs above in Bridge Street too.”

“I see.” So there was no point in thinking of a small poultry farm.

Loretto’s face suddenly took on a new expression.

“Oh, Kate, I’m very thoughtless, I forgot you had a few hens. Did
you
want to sell me the odd half-dozen or anything?”

“No, we’ve only five hens and we eat all they produce and more. No, I was just thinking about the economy, that’s all. I do sometimes, but it’s always a mistake.”

   “Sheila, did you ever wonder why nobody ever started a launderette in this place?”

Mrs. Whelan said the thought had never crossed her mind.

“It has to be something that nobody thought of, that’s all. You can rent the machines, you know, you don’t have to have any great outlay. Then all you do is watch the people coming and filling them up with coins.”

“It wouldn’t ever take off here, of course,” Mrs. Whelan said simply.

“I don’t know, the place is getting bigger, what with the hotel and everything, it’s going to be a much bigger place than we thought.”

“It is and it isn’t, Kate. But the hotel will have its own laundry, you won’t see the guests taking a pillow case of dirty washing down to Bridge Street …”

“Or …”

“Or to wherever someone would put it.” Mrs. Whelan seemed anxious for Kate to divulge no mad little hopes.

“A laundermat or whatever they’re called would need a place where there’d be young people living on their own, there isn’t even a bank here employing a dozen youngsters. No, nobody would be seen going to a laundermat. Can you see Miss Purcell taking Fergus Slattery’s smalls to a public washing place? The humiliation of it!”

“You don’t think it would work?”

“No, Kate, I think it would be foolish.”

“I see.”

“Times will get better.”

“Times are fine now. It’s later I worry about.”

“You’ll manage, you always have.”

“I don’t know, I really don’t.”

   “Fergus, it’s Kate Ryan.”

“Well now.” The warmth and delight in his voice were obvious.

“I wanted to talk to you about a worry. Would you be able to come out here at lunchtime?”

“I’ll come right away.” He took a file from the cabinet. Deirdre paused in her work to notice that it was Kate Ryan’s compensation file.

“Is she going to talk about it?” she asked.

“I think so,” Fergus said.

Mary Donnelly looked at him suspiciously.

“She’s been a bit flushed and feverish. You won’t upset her?”

“I never upset any woman, Mary,” said Fergus. “That has been my weakness and sorrow in life.”

“Don’t make a mock out of something very serious.” Mary banged into the kitchen but she was back in twenty seconds.