The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (96 page)

And there would be ordinary prices in it too, not fancy ones. Patrick O’Neill wanted his own to come to his bar, not just the gentry. The pint would cost the same in the Thatch Bar as it would anywhere else. It would attract the local people in and the visitors would really and genuinely get to know them.

Kate looked at the boyish face in astonishment. What kind of a mind did you need to get on in America if this was the proof of it sitting opposite her? What did he
mean
, he didn’t want just the gentry? What gentry would go to a flash place like this anyway? Could he see the Walters, or the Harrises, or the Johnsons from the Grange even, spending an evening in the Thatch Bar? The man must be mad. But what was he thinking about, telling them these plans? He must know that he would ruin their trade if this all came to pass. He must know they would try to oppose his license on the ground that the area was well covered with licensed premises already. What was he talking about, telling them that he wanted to share a dream with them?

Kate looked at John for some support, and found that she couldn’t read his face. It was just as it had been when he was talking to Marian Johnson earlier on, smiling and thoughtful. Was he really taken in by all this patter, or had his heart missed a beat when he heard of the Thatch Bar and all the dangers it looked like bringing on top of them? She could find no words to speak; everything she wanted to say would sound harsh and hysterical. She wanted to take this O’Neill man by the lapels and look straight into his smiling blue eyes. Burrow into them until she could see the truth. She would like to beg him not to ruin their business. She wanted to tell him that, as he had so much money, and so many chances, could he not just have Fernscourt as a home, to entertain his American friends. Surely he didn’t
need
a bar business there. Then that mood vanished, and she wanted to tell him there would be no further pretense at amicable conversation. She and her husband would oppose his getting a license, and they would raise everyone in the neighborhood to support them in their case.

But Kate Ryan knew with heavy heart that she could do nothing of the sort. Had she not seen the gratified delight already on everyone’s face? There would be a very slender army to raise against Patrick O’Neill.

John was asking all kinds of questions, idiotic questions, Kate thought, as if he were delighted to see such opposition arriving on his doorstep.

Would the guests go around in buses? What part of America would they come from mainly?

Kate could have killed him for his eager interest in the unimportant side of things. What did it matter if these visitors traveled by bus or by wheelbarrow? Who could care less if they came from one part of America or another? They didn’t know
any
parts of America, for God’s sake. And yet little by little John was learning more about the whole undertaking across the river than anyone else would have learned from this clever American. There could be a purpose to his questions. She looked hard at John, fighting the lump in her throat which made her want to burst into tears. He looked so good and patient; he had worked for so many years at a job that he would never have chosen. It would be cruel to see it swept away by this successful man who could have had power and riches anywhere else on the earth.

Kate knew she should join in the conversation. She had been conspicuously silent. In fact she saw John glance at her, his face still cheerful and his smile all-embracing.

“Well I can’t tell you, Patrick, what an excitement all this will be.” He looked at his wife as if he were leaving the way open for her to add her words of delight and welcome. Kate was still too full to trust herself to conversation.

“The excitement is mainly mine,” Patrick said. “If you knew how many times I dreamed of this, and often I had to say it aloud to myself, you know like a chant or a prayer. It will happen; it will happen.” He looked at them both with an engaging smile.

“Now I almost have to tell myself it
has
happened, it
has
happened.” He looked so boyish and delighted it was hard not to like him.

Kate decided to speak. “And how would we come into all this? How can we … um … help you in it all?” she asked. Her voice was definitely faltering and she wasn’t far from tears.

“But that’s what good neighbors will always do,” he cried triumphantly. “I’ll get my guests to come to you, send them over to you before lunch or in the early afternoon … when maybe you could do with an injection.” He looked around the empty bar and left a short significant pause. “I guess this would be a good time to send a group over for an Irish coffee or something. And you can tell your regulars when there’s entertainment on in the Thatch that they might like to come and see. Or better, any of them who are talented, if they want to come and perform. Play for people. It’s their place now.” He smiled from one to another.

“I guess you know that it’s a principle of business that one successful establishment leads to another. Business grows out of custom to an area. Mark my words, there’s going to be new places starting up out on River Road before we know it. By the end of the sixties they’ll be asking where Bridge Street is … they’ll all think that River Road is the center of the universe, and the Ryans and O’Neills will have been here from the outset.”

John was smiling back at him. Was John Ryan under the net? Had the web of companionship and complicity caught him? Kate realized that there were going to be very few people who would not be caught in that net. Even her own Dara and Michael, who had vowed never to speak to the new owner of Fernscourt, were flashing him grateful smiles and friendly glances when he said that they could continue playing there.

So far only Fergus Slattery had managed to remain aloof, and he hadn’t met the American yet; perhaps he would be bowled over like the others had been. Kate smiled on, though she felt there was a distant ache in her face. If John could smile so could she. Anyway there was nothing to be gained by showing her hand now. She must remember that if she came straight out with all her worries and hostilities, it would do nothing but harm. Living all these years with the solid John Ryan had taught her that much anyway.

So she accepted with a dimpling smile when the laughing American begged to be allowed to buy them one more drink so that they could toast the success of River Road and especially those who were in at the very start.

   Fergus Slattery heard that the American was doing the rounds. He didn’t want to be in. His father had gone fishing; he put a closed sign on the door and headed out.

“Where will I say you’ve gone?” Miss Purcell asked, not because she thought anyone would call, but because she wanted to know what was taking him away from his business in the middle of the afternoon.

“Go out on the doorstep every hour and say to the crowds that Sergeant Sheehan and I have raised a posse of men and we’ve gone out to see if we can bring in any poachers. Dead or alive. That should satisfy them,” he said.

“You have a very strange way of going on, Master Fergus. It’s not every woman that could stay in this house and put up with it.”

“Haven’t we always said you are a woman in a million, a woman different to all others?” Fergus said, and he was gone before she could put another question to him.

He took the car not because he had any idea where he was going, but at least in the car he wouldn’t have to answer half a dozen questions about where he was going in the middle of the afternoon. He waved and nodded as he drove up Bridge Street to the main road. He saw the signpost to Dublin and parked for a while. Suppose he was in Dublin, he wouldn’t be even slightly affected by a licensing application. He would do it; there was no chance that he would know the people it would hurt, there was no way in Dublin that he might already feel slighted by this applicant. Without meeting Patrick O’Neill, Fergus was somehow prejudiced against him. He had heard about the way he had bought the fishing rights and it was perfectly legal, the way he had organized the searches on the land, and dealt with the Land Commission, was all above board. If in the future he was seen to have had drinks with this politician and with that local councillor, nobody was going to cast an aspersion. This was how things were done. The planning permissions and the license would go through and he would build his monstrosity. After a few years it might be a white elephant and it could be written off as a tax loss. Patrick O’Neill was of the breed who would start again. Somewhere else, different scheme.

Fergus was old-fashioned, he wanted things to remain the same. The same kind of quiet practice, the same kind of food. He didn’t like moving on, cutting losses. He didn’t at all like the notion of a stage-Irish bar across the Fern, and taking all the trade from Kate Ryan. It took a lot to upset that woman, and today she had left early, saying truthfully that she couldn’t concentrate. Perhaps he would call in and see had they any news. A half of Guinness would go down very well on a warm summer afternoon.

He decided to leave the car parked where it was near the main road to the big town in one direction and Dublin in the other. He could walk down that lane which came out through Jack Coyne’s wood, right onto River Road, not far from Ryan’s. He whistled as he walked. Partly from the sheer freedom of being out among the trees, and partly because he wanted to cheer himself up over this Yank business. The rhododendrons were out in a great purple show, and darker red ones too. In other countries, Fergus thought, this place would be a public park with manicured grass and seats and litter bins. As he was debating to himself whether this would be good or bad he came across four frightened dark eyes.

Kate Ryan’s twins Dara and Michael who were quite obviously meant to be at school, and had no business, any more than himself, wandering the woods on a working afternoon.

“You see, Mr. Slattery …”

“We didn’t exactly say at home …”

“Just we weren’t going back to school …”

“If you see what I mean …”

Fergus pretended neither to hear nor see them. He began to talk to himself.

“Ho hum, what a lovely thing it is to walk in a wood, and see nobody at all. That’s what I like best: a walk where you don’t see another human being. That’s the kind of thing that does me good when I’m on my way to Ryan’s Bar to have a drink. A walk where I don’t meet another sinner.”

He began whistling.

Dara and Michael looked at each other in amazement.

“Grown-ups are extraordinary,” said Michael.

“They seem to be improving all the time.”

That was twice in one day they had been rescued. Dara wondered if it would be possible to leave school entirely. There seemed to be a great conspiracy working for them at the moment.

   Patrick O’Neill declined the invitation of Marian Johnson to dine with her that night. He pleaded great fatigue, and said he would be no company. A glass of milk and a sandwich and bed in the elegant room were what he wanted. He noticed the disappointment on Marian’s face and the fact that she had had her hair fixed since they had been out riding; maybe she had gone to a beauty parlor specially.

“You look very nice,” he said tiredly.

Marian’s face lit up. That was compliment enough.

He said that if she were free he would love another ride on that nice mild-mannered horse tomorrow. That brought on further smiles. He could go to bed now without being thought boorish.

He wished there were phones in the bedrooms. He wanted to call Grace back home. It would be great to dial direct and hear the reassurance of Bella and Andy that Grace was at home. It was eight-thirty here in Mountfern: it would be three-thirty in New Jersey, just the time that Andy was driving Grace up the avenue. Patrick’s sister, a fussy woman called Philomena, was in residence as chaperon. Kerry was away at school. Rachel was in her apartment. He really should call her. But not from the hall of the Grange. Not with Marian Johnson listening to every word. There were obviously some calls which were going to be made through that pleasant woman who ran the post office, who had made tea for him this morning. Was it only
this
morning? Lord, why had he stayed up all night in Fernscourt? His bones ached with tiredness.

He took a hot bath and felt much better. Better still after the milk and sandwiches. He lay on his bed and looked out at the green fields leading off to clumps of trees. Behind those trees was the winding River Fern, and his own place. It had been some day. Still he had done almost everything he set out to do. The lawyer chap hadn’t been in, which was rather lackadaisical. Even in a sleepy hollow like this, someone should have been looking after the shop. And Kate Ryan hadn’t been convinced. She was the only real opposition—not that she had said it, of course. That made her smart. A handsome woman too, probably the brains of that business. The dreamy pleasant husband was not a man with much drive. Bright smart children too. Lucky he had been able to get them on his side by shielding them. Little rascals, skipping school.

Canon Moran had been so helpful about looking up records, and the young curate had promised to inquire about burial grounds and possible tombstones. Strangely, that old wino bag lady he had picked up in the car was their housekeeper. She looked extremely ropy today, as if she had just had another night on the tiles.

And the Dalys had been magnificent, and the Leonards, and Jack Coyne—knowing now too late that he had blown it by overcharging Patrick for the car—said that he hoped they would be able to talk man to man about business one day. Patrick had smiled and said of course, but he and Jack Coyne knew that not one cent’s worth of business was ever going to cross the River Fern from Fernscourt to Coyne’s Garage. He talked to Sergeant Sheehan casually, to Dr. White who happened to be in Daly’s, to assorted others whose names would come back to him when he was less tired. He had an excellent memory and never had to write down the names of the people he met through work. To some people today might seem like a leisure day, wandering around talking to folk. But to Patrick O’Neill it was work. His life’s work. And really and truly it had gone very well today. It wouldn’t take long to convince that fine tall Kate Ryan that he didn’t mean her and hers any harm. It was true he did not. And it was always a bit easier convincing people if the thing was actually true.