The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (142 page)

“Me?”

“You. They’re a rough crowd. I don’t mean their accents or the way they dress. I mean what they do.”

“What do they do?”

“A good question. A very good question. Nothing you could describe too well, or put down in the space on your passport where it wants to know your occupation.”

“I think they’re in business.”

“Yes, that’s what I think too. Mainly criminal business.”

“Oh Mr. Hill …”

“Some of it’s just on the right side of things, but only some of it and only just.”

“So?”

“So. I’m warning you about them. You need take no notice, you might appreciate having your card marked. You might just wish that I’d clear off and shut up.”

“No, Mr. Hill, I appreciate your advice.”

“Which means to hell with your advice. All right Kerry, I’ve done my duty. Now about your holidays. Would you like to take off now before we get really busy in July and August?”

Kerry got the feeling that the old man was sending him away from his new friends. He was about to make an excuse and then he thought of Mountfern in the sunshine, and the sparkling river and the beautiful little Dara waiting like a fruit to be plucked.

“That’s very nice of you, Mr. Hill, and I’ll think about what you said.”

“I’m sure you will Kerry,” Dennis Hill sighed.

Kerry went out with Tony McCann and Charlie Burns that night to play cards. He was luckier than he had been before. Or was the advice of Francis Doyle, Brian’s pisspot brother, really working? Anyway he would be going back to Mountfern with a billfold full of pound notes and fivers.

   Patrick told John and Kate that young people’s lives were like a holiday camp nowadays. There was his Kerry being offered three weeks’ holiday from Hill’s hotel. Kerry was buying a car no less, imagine it. Not nineteen years of age, and he had everything he wanted.

“Isn’t that why you killed yourself working, so that your children
could
have everything they wanted?” Kate asked him.

“I suppose so.” Patrick was doubtful.

“Well it certainly was,” John said. “What else would any of us do anything for, if we didn’t have the next lot coming after us to provide for?”

“What would you do if you hadn’t a family and children?” Patrick asked with interest.

“I think I’d put a pack on my back and wander off around the world talking to people about this and that, as it took my fancy.”

“Like Papers Flynn,” Kate scoffed.

“I’d go further afield than Papers, but that’s what I’d do.” John was adamant.

“You would not!” Kate flashed. “Even if he had none of us trailing out of him, he’d still stand here looking at his river.”

She wanted to find out Kerry’s plans for his holiday at home. She didn’t like the sound of the car, she felt it might be used to spirit Dara to places well beyond the jurisdiction.

“Won’t Kerry find it very quiet for him here? Playing with youngsters?” Her eyes were innocent. But she swore that Patrick saw what she was getting at.

“I’ll keep an eye on him as much as I can,” he promised.

“Perhaps he’ll go off to other parts of the country. Specially if he gets a car?” Kate was hopeful.

“No, I’ve a feeling that he sees a lot of attraction here. Still, as I said, we’ll make sure that he doesn’t get too carried away.”

He had said nothing, and he had said everything.

Kate gave a little shiver of fear.

   “I wish there could be another party,” Maggie said.

“Why don’t you ask your family if you could have one? There’s plenty of room in your house,” Dara said.

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Us have a party! It’s on our knees saying the thirty days prayer tacked on to the rosary and ending up with a trip to devotions. That’s my mother’s idea of a good evening.”

The others giggled. Maggie seemed to have much more confidence these days. She apologized less, she was even joining in the swimming from the bridge. Maggie used to be shy to be seen down in the middle of town in her bathing suit; nowadays she would sit and laugh with the others, not self-conscious anymore.

The old raft they had made way back, which had floated down to the bridge, became their center of activities. They used it to dive from. Sometimes they piled boxes up on it to make a higher diving platform. Tommy Leonard could dive from the bridge itself. He was like a swallow, Dara said admiringly, he just seemed to swoop down. The rest of them bent their legs or belly flopped.

Only Tommy, John Joe Conway and Jacinta were any good diving from the bridge, they were the undoubted champions.

Gradually Jacinta had come back into things. She couldn’t stay away anymore, the fun had moved to the bridge at the end of the street where she lived. This was the summer they were old enough for the bridge, there was no way Jacinta would stay out of things.

And being so athletic was an advantage. It was no use when you were at the pictures or being watched parading up and down Bridge Street, but it was marvelous when you were the only girl who could dive from the wall of the bridge and when Tommy Leonard admired you.

   “Do you mind if I buy a car from Jack Coyne? I know you and he don’t get on,” Kerry said.

“How have you enough money to buy a car?”

“We said there would be no discussion about money, ever again.”

“No, we said there would be no discussion about stealing unless it happened again.”

“Well it hasn’t.”

There was a silence.

“I won it up north.”

Patrick nodded. “Very well. Now about Coyne, he’s a mean, dishonest little shit, but Rachel warned me against alienating locals, however unlikable. Go ahead. Watch out that it’s a real car, mind. Make sure he doesn’t sell you a lemon.”

“No, he’ll be so anxious to get into your good books he’ll give me a fantastic bargain.” Kerry grinned.

Patrick smiled too. This was good thinking. That is exactly what Jack Coyne would do. How sensible his son was to capitalize on it.

“You might find that the pattern has changed a bit this summer,” he said.

“Changed in what way?”

“Not so much wandering off on your own, it looks like, everyone swimming by the bridge.”

“Well, I’ll have a car, that should change the pattern a bit more.”

“You might find a bit of resistance along the way. Dara Ryan’s mother for one.” Patrick spoke lightly.

Kerry was sunny. “That’s no problem, there are plenty of other girls to take for drives. And anyway I like swimming too.”

He smiled at his father as if there weren’t a problem in the world.

   Loretto Quinn told Rachel that Jack Coyne was like the cat that got the cream. The young O’Neill boy had said he would like to buy a second-hand car from him. Jack Coyne had sped off to the town in high excitement. He said he was going to find a little honey of a little car for the boy. Loretto hadn’t known him as pleased for years.

“He calls in here a lot. Is he an admirer do you think?” Rachel asked.

Loretto pealed with laughter. “Jack Coyne an admirer? Lord, all that man ever admired was a roll of fivers. But it’s very flattering of you to think I might have a caller, Mrs. Fine.”

“You’re a fine woman, Loretto. Why wouldn’t you have callers and admirers?”

“Ah, Mrs. Fine, you’ve improved me but not that much. Not in a place like this. Anyway I wouldn’t want them, I’m happy as I am. Much happier since you came.”

Rachel was pleased. Even if she had to resign herself that her coming to Mountfern had not achieved its aim, at least she could console herself that she had done a lot to help the women and girls of the place. Rachel was reading about the women’s liberation that seemed to be sweeping the States at the moment. Not much of it had found its way to Mountfern. But she was definitely helping to improve the quality of life for a few of the female citizens of the place anyway.

   Maggie Daly hung up her new dress all by itself on the back of her door. She didn’t want to put it in the wardrobe in case it got crushed. And anyway she couldn’t see it in the wardrobe.

She wondered what Kitty would say about it. Kitty was coming home for a weekend.

   Kerry’s car was red and had an open roof. It wasn’t quite a sports car but it was almost.

He took Grace for a lap of honor up and down Bridge Street, turning neatly in front of the Classic Cinema, which nearly gave Declan Morrissey a heart attack as he thought the boy was through the cinema doors. Grace’s hair, blown by the wind, stood like a halo around her head. Michael fixed a smile on his face and wished with such intensity that it hurt him physically that he was old enough to drive, that he had the money to buy a
white
sports car and that he and Grace could drive around Mountfern like that.

Dara fixed a smile on her face as she sat beside Maggie on the wall of the bridge.

She wished with an intensity that hurt her that she could be sitting where Grace was and that Kerry and she would do one more tour of the town and then drive off for miles in the beautiful car. She wished that her hair curled under and that she had her ears pierced. Then she would be truly happy.

   Father Hogan and Canon Moran were taking a walk when they saw the red car. They were about to cluck at each other and say that Mr. O’Neill really spoiled his children and gave a bad example when the car stopped.

“Do you want to test it out? I only have it an hour.” Kerry sounded excited.

“Test it out?”

“I’ll take you for a test ride.”

The priests looked at each other in amazement. Nobody had ever offered them anything so racy.

“Us?” Canon Moran croaked in disbelief.

“Yes Canon, one at a time, it only seats two.”

“It’s very nice of you, Kerry … but my old bones.”

There was naked longing on Father Hogan’s face.

“What about you, Father, you’ll risk it won’t you?”

“Aren’t you very good to be bothering with the clergy …” Grace had gotten out and was holding the door open, Father Hogan had gathered up the skirts of his soutane and settled himself in.

“But of course I bother with the clergy, Father Hogan, aren’t they the most important people in town?” Kerry smiled and slipped through the gears to roar off with Father Hogan in the passenger seat.

   It was a warm evening, warm enough to come back to the bridge and swim again after tea.

At seven o’clock they gathered there again.

Jacinta did some spectacular dives. This was the first time Kerry had seen them, he was full of praise. Jacinta was gruff and red with delight. She looked at Tommy Leonard to see whether he had noticed. But Tommy’s eyes were wide. Maggie was approaching in her new dress. She looked quite different to the Maggie they all knew.

“I didn’t know we were going to wear them now, I thought we’d wait till there was something special,” Dara grumbled.

“What will there be special?” Maggie asked.

“You look like a picture,” Michael said.

“That’s exactly what I told her,” Grace said eagerly.

“Hey, you’re even more dazzling than your big sister,” Kerry said.

Dara felt plain and foolish.

Mam had been watching her like a hawk—where are you going, what are you doing, will you be with Michael? It was maddening Just as she was coming out Mam had told her not to be dressing up like as if she was going to a ball, so she wore her striped tee shirt and the plain blue skirt.

She felt like a deck chair in the outfit, canvas and stripes. Who would look at her? And here was Maggie with her hair all brushed and shimmering and reminding Kerry of Kitty up in Dublin.

The light went out of the evening for Dara. Hands in the pockets of her dull plain skirt, she turned away. The others were so busy admiring Maggie they hardly noticed.

Dara began to walk toward River Road. There was nothing here for her, every moment she stayed just pointed out how dull she was. She couldn’t do dives like Jacinta, she wasn’t lovely like Grace was or Maggie was turning out to be. She was boring old wooden Dara.

She had turned into River Road and was nearly at Jack Coyne’s when she realized Maggie was running after her.

“Why won’t you stay?”

“What do you care?”

“We were having fun, weren’t we?” Maggie asked anxiously.

“Oh Maggie, can’t you ever make up your mind about anything?” Dara snapped.

Maggie looked at her, dismayed.

“You’re so weak. You don’t even know whether we were having fun or not. You ask me were we? I don’t know about you. I wasn’t, so I came home. But at least I know. You never know.”

“What don’t I know?”

“See!” Dara was triumphant. “You don’t know if you’d like an ice cream, you don’t know if you’d like a trip in Kerry’s car, you don’t know if you want to swim or to wear a bathing cap. You don’t know
anything
.”

“What did I do, Dara?” wailed poor Maggie after Dara’s back.

Dara didn’t even turn around, she just shouted over her shoulder. “You did nothing. You never do anything. That’s just the point.”

Maggie stood stricken on the river bank, Dara stormed home and threw herself on her bed to cry.

Mary came up and knocked on the door. “Your mother would like you to go to her room and talk to her.”

“Tell her I’m in bed.”

“Dara. Please. Your mother sent me up specially.”

“I’m in bed, I’m not going down.”

“She can’t come up.”

There was a silence.

“So please, Dara, will you come down?”

The door opened and Dara’s tear-stained face appeared. “That’s the most cruel blackmail I ever heard. Reminding me that Mam can’t ever get up the stairs. How mean and unfair.” She stormed past Mary and nearly took the hinges off the door of her mother’s green room.

Mary sighed. It went against her principles to say that boys were easier around the house than girls at this age. But maybe it was because women were so much more sensitive.

   “Yes?” Dara stood inside the door she had just banged.

“I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Do what?”

“To think of a name for our café. We will have to get it painted for one thing and then if we call it something we can start painting that on trays and perhaps even embroidering it on aprons.”