‘Interesting to see everybody’s reactions, wasn’t it? Rebellion is in the blood, sinew and bone of the Irish. I judged discretion to be the better part of valour. The only thing more terrifying than a psychopathic killer with a gun is a witless idiot with one.’ Kit picked up his wine glass, fished out a scrap of plaster and drank. He made a face.
I wondered if he felt ashamed because he had not been a conspicuous hero like Maud and Father Deglan. ‘I was in too much of a funk to be able to command a single thought,’ I said with absolute truth. ‘Have a clean glass.’
‘Better not. I’ve got a long drive ahead.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ll have to find a hotel in Dublin. I’ll ring the Shelbourne before we leave.’
‘It’s goodbye then,’ I said. ‘Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for Curraghcourt.’
‘I did it for you. But that’s all over now, isn’t it? You’ve finally made up your mind and decided against me. Of course I know why.’
‘It’s very good of you to take Jasmine back to England.’
He smiled. ‘She’s my reward for being a good boy and not making a fuss.’
‘Oh, Kit! Don’t!’ I saw to my dismay that I had finished off the pudding.
‘That’s what you planned, isn’t it?’ He watched me blush. ‘I know you so well, Bobbie.’ He made a little bow. ‘Thanks very much for the consolation prize.’
I was angry with Kit and even more with myself. He made me feel that I had been less than a friend to Jazzy. ‘I’ve a good mind to take her to the ferry myself,’ I said.
‘Only you haven’t a car. Sam’s got the Morris and I imagine Finn will be spiriting Danny away in the Peugeot as soon as the coast’s clear. I wouldn’t advise going all the way to Dublin in the Land-Rover. The brakes are practically useless.’
‘All right, then, I’ll take her on Monday.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. For one thing nothing you could say would persuade Jazzy to stay another three nights. And for another, I like Jazzy and I’m not going to vent my spleen on her. I’ll look after her, don’t worry.’
We looked at each other, he smiling, me frowning.
‘Are you going to say anything about what happened tonight?’ I asked.
‘I expect I’ll dine out on it for the next few weeks.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant. Are you going to report to whoever you report to? British Intelligence? Is that the same thing as MI5?’
Kit stopped laughing. I saw various expressions flitting across his face – puzzlement, duplicity, annoyance – before finally it settled into rueful lines.
‘It’s a fair cop, guv. I suppose I owe this to Finn?’
‘Yes.’
‘I gave myself away, didn’t I, talking about that border business? I realized as soon as I’d said it that I’d blundered. But he didn’t bat an eyelid. I hoped I’d got away with it. So he did some research and let you into my little secret. He must have been delighted.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Bit of a body-blow to the competition, wasn’t it? Particularly as you’ve gone native. Patriotism wouldn’t make any difference in your case.’
‘Oh, Kit, that’s all rubbish. I don’t give a damn which side you’re on. What matters to me …’ I paused and poured myself a glass of wine. I still felt unsteady. ‘You were on that boat to check up on me, weren’t you? You’d been given orders to make sure that Burgo’s inconvenient little peccadillo would have no further consequences for the Tory Party. It was all a lie, your professed friendship.’
‘That’s not true and you know it. All right, I was supposed to find out if I could whether Latimer was planning to do a runner with you. But that was all I was supposed to do. It was just a casual assignment.’ He laughed. ‘I nearly didn’t make the ferry. If I hadn’t you’d have sailed away to a new life, the government would have shrugged its shoulders and hoped for the best and we’d never have met. I came back here because I wanted to make sure you were all right. No one in England knows I’ve been at Curraghcourt with you. They’ve never even heard of the place. They think the Fitzgeorge Arms at Kilmuree is a useful outpost for picking up tips about IRA activities. I came back because I’d already fallen for you. From the moment dawn broke on deck I was on your side. I fell in love with you then, Bobbie. You believe me, don’t you?’
I looked at him without saying anything. I had been very fond of Kit. I felt pretty sure the espionage stuff was nothing more than boyish posturing, just the sort of thing my brother Oliver would have exulted in doing, had anyone thought of asking him. But I did mind being made a fool of. I could do that so effectively for myself.
‘Oh, come on, Bobbie!’ Kit came round the table and took hold of my free hand. ‘Say you’ll forgive me. I’m sorry to have made you angry. It doesn’t mean anything really, compared with how I feel about you.’ He took my glass from me and put it on the table and seized my other hand. ‘Friends?’
He looked so contrite that I found I could no longer be angry. Suddenly I felt almost sorry that he was going. I remembered the times I had been so delighted to see him, how grateful I had been for his help. And still was. It was better to part amicably. ‘Friends.’ I smiled.
‘Give me a goodbye kiss.’
I offered my cheek. He turned my face to kiss me on the lips. I felt his tongue pushing against my teeth. I thought of Violet and stopped feeling sad. There was an undignified struggle before I pulled away.
‘Honestly, Kit, you seem to think of women as nothing more than sexual provender, to be binged on at every opportunity. Why don’t you just pick one and concentrate on her instead of grazing at every kerbside patch of grass?’
He looked wounded. ‘Considering that you and I have never been lovers I consider the accusation unfounded.’
‘Here I am.’ Jazzy came in wearing her fur coat, her hair fastened back with jewelled butterfly clips. She looked very pretty.
I detected a gleam in Kit’s eye.
‘What do you think of him?’ I whispered to Jazzy as I picked up two of the four pieces of luggage stacked in the hall to carry them out to the car.
‘Kit, you mean?’
‘Shh!’ I pointed to the sedan chair. He was inside, telephoning for a hotel reservation. ‘Yes.’
‘Gorgeous, darling! Just like Bing Crosby, only more hair. You’re quite sure he’s divorced?’
‘As sure as I can be without having seen the judge’s signature.’
‘That’s all right, then. Nothing, absolutely nothing’ – Jazzy’s voice rose higher with the force of her conviction – ‘could persuade me to have anything to do with a married man ever again. Bobbie, I’ve done with them! I hope Teddy’s having a horrible time with Lydia. He used to grumble that she refused to make love in anything but the missionary position. Well, now he’ll need physiotherapy on his elbows. I just hope they’ve got a padded headboard.’
The week at Curraghcourt seemed to have been a crash cure, I reflected as I waved away the little red sports car, at least for Jazz.
FIFTY
‘I hope Danny caught the ferry,’ Constance said for at least the tenth time.
It was six o’clock the following evening. She and I were tidying up the tea-room after the busiest day yet. Jazz and Kit had been much missed though Flavia had worked hard and charmed the visitors with the obvious pleasure she took in her role as waitress.
I scraped cream from the tablecloth before folding it to be washed. ‘If Danny missed today’s ferry, will there be another tomorrow?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never been to France. I’ve only been to England twice.’ Constance was replenishing the sugar bowls, rejecting the grains that had become stuck together and were brown with tea. ‘Once, when I was a little girl, we went to visit Finn at school. It was a dreadful place, stuck in the middle of a moor where the wind blew at ninety miles an hour. The monks – it was a Catholic school naturally – were so solemn and severe by comparison with Irish ones. I think that school’s
one of the reasons Finn doesn’t like the English. He pretends it’s a political prejudice but I know he was unhappy there. But he did say the other day when we spoke on the telephone that it was a pity the Irish didn’t have the energy and perseverance of the English. I think, though he didn’t mention your name, that might have been a compliment to you.’ When I didn’t say anything she went on, ‘Fancy people using spoons they’ve stirred with to help themselves to more sugar. I thought I was slovenly but I draw the line at that.’
‘Would it be a good idea to have cube sugar instead of loose? More expensive to buy but less wasteful. But then I suppose everyone would help themselves with fingers. So unhygienic.’ I sighed. ‘I’m shattered. I absolutely must have a drink.’
‘I’m afraid we’ve turned you into an alcoholic by overworking you. Personally I could scream with tiredness.’
‘You’ll have to advertise for help. When I go.’
Constance clapped her hands over her ears. ‘I refuse to even think about it. Not now when I’m so happy. I won’t let anything interfere with that for at least twenty-four hours.’
Constance smiled down at the lumpy sugar. She had been like a creature under enchantment all day, absorbed by the realization of the wonderful thing that had happened to her: the euphoria of love returned. Whenever she and Eugene came across each other, bearing trays of bread and butter or rolls of paper and pots of ink, they seemed to bound towards each other on springs, transported by joy.
‘I can still hardly believe it. Eugene said he never loved Larkie as he loves me. He realized quite quickly after she ran off that it had all been a mistake, that he’d desired her because she was young and pretty, that was all. But he felt he’d made such a fool of himself it seemed better to go on pretending that it was a great romantic tragedy. He couldn’t think how to leave off gracefully. Once he saw Larkie again he knew no one would go on believing he was in mourning for his lost love. He was forced to give up the pretence.’
‘That shows a surprising self-knowledge,’ I said, rather thoughtlessly. ‘Surprising for a man, I mean,’ I added quickly.
‘Oh, yes. Anyway, he thought I’d never care for him. He felt he wasn’t good enough for me.’ Constance sighed tenderly. ‘He’s such a dear, modest man. He was convinced he was fated to love unrequited. He comforted himself with the idea that torment was more productive for writing poetry. He says he may never be able to compose another line but it’ll be worth it to know I love him. Wasn’t that adorable of him?’
‘Adorable. You know, Con, I think Eugene’s more likely to be successful with drawing than with poetry. I expect he’ll say he writes only to please himself but generally artists want to communicate, don’t they? And in my experience they all want praise. When I go, the membership of his fan club will be halved immediately. And Gaelic’s a bit of an acquired taste outside Ireland. Perhaps even inside it. I think he draws exceptionally well.’
‘Do you? Really?’ Constance looked astonished, then thoughtful. ‘Well, you may have something there. Perhaps I ought to push him – gently – in that direction. As a matter of fact’ – Constance reddened – ‘he did say he’d like to draw me with no clothes on. He wants to worship my body.’ She looked amazed. ‘Can you believe it! I’ve never taken my clothes off in front of a man. Even when we were little Granny wouldn’t let Finn and me share the bath in case it gave him what she called “thoughts”. I’m afraid he had them anyway, though not about me, of course.’
‘But, Con, surely you’ve had lovers?’
‘Never.’ She looked across the room at me as I emptied dying primroses and fetid water into a bucket. ‘You have to remember, we didn’t swing in Connemara as you did in England in the sixties. I had romantic fantasies about some of the boys I used to meet at parties but they weren’t interested in me. I suppose they thought I wouldn’t let them.’ She sighed. ‘And they were probably right. Bobbie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Eugene wants me to … go to bed with him.’ Constance gazed into the middle distance while pouring sugar from a blue bag into a bowl. ‘Granny said sex was so awful only a woman with a diseased mind could find it pleasurable. And that men always despised women who did. But in books and films the suggestion is that women enjoy it like mad.’
‘With the right person it can be madly enjoyable. But don’t rush into it before you feel ready.’
‘I do want to, like anything. Only as soon as I try to imagine what it might be like I see Father Deglan’s shocked face and hear the voice of Sister Veronica John talking about sex outside marriage being a terrible sin. Damn! Now I’ve made a mess with the sugar.’
I threw her a cloth. ‘Speaking for myself I don’t think it’s a sin, married or not.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Well, then, neither will I. I want to give myself to Eugene completely, to prove how much I love him. And if it does turn out to be a sin after all, I shall still feel it was worth it.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to mention contraception but I thought better of it for fear of putting her off. By the law of the land she and Eugene were prohibited from acquiring condoms legally and it was unlikely that they would be prepared to undergo the embarrassment of bargaining for them on the black market. I made a mental note to send her a box of something for the bedside cupboard as soon as I was back in England.
‘Poor Liddy!’ Constance abandoned her attempts to clean up the sugar and threw the cloth into the basket with the others to be washed. ‘She’ll be so sad when she gets home. How I sympathize with lovers who can’t be together! I do hope Danny caught the ferry.’
I looked at my watch. ‘Shouldn’t Finn and Liddy be back by now?’
‘They are late.’ Constance looked worried. ‘Of course they can’t ring to let us know what’s happened because the telephone hasn’t been mended yet. Finn will be exhausted, poor boy. It was so good of him to take Danny. I’m prejudiced, I expect, because he’s my brother, but I do think, despite his faults, Finn’s an exception among men. I hope he and Violet will be happy. Of course, they’re not very well suited: he’s so cerebral and she’s so physical. He thinks about everything and she about nothing – except flirting and being admired.’ I wondered then if she knew about Violet and Kit and, if so, how. ‘Poor girl, I mustn’t be unkind. She’s suffered so much. One thing I do know, she adores Finn and always has done. If he can only manage to play up to her a little. And not get sarcastic when she says silly things. You appreciate Finn better now, don’t you, Bobbie? I know he can be grumpy but there are so many things to worry him. I wish I could feel that you really liked him.’
Again I found myself on the point of telling Constance everything. I hesitated, wondering if confiding in a third person would be a relief or an added complication and then Flavia came into the tea-room and the moment was lost.
‘Bobbie, I’ve just been up to see the cats and there’s one inside the chimney, miaowing like anything. I think she’s stuck.’
‘Oh dear! It’s Dervla. She was up there last night, sitting on a ledge. I think Scornach Mór frightened her. I was sure she’d come down on her own.’
‘I tried standing on a chair to reach her but I’m not tall enough.’
‘I’ll cook some fish and you can take it up to her. She won’t refuse to come down then, I’m sure.’
We delayed dinner for half an hour and then went ahead without Finn and Liddy. Flurry was unusually talkative, excited because he had taken delivery of the first bundle of rails from Thady O’Kelly. He wanted to go out after dinner and start laying them but this Constance would not allow.
‘Have a good night’s sleep then you can get up early tomorrow and start as soon as it’s light.’
‘All right.’ Flurry got up.
‘Finish your pudding, darling.’
Flurry ate it at express speed standing up. ‘Can I leave the table now?’
‘What’s the hurry?’
‘You said to ge
t a good night’s sleep. I’m going to do that.’
Constance sighed. There were no half-measures with Flurry. ‘Don’t forget to do your teeth.’
Flurry felt in his pocket. ‘I forgot. Thady gave me this note for you.’
Constance looked pleased when she had read the scrap of paper. ‘It’s from Thady’s wife. She wants to know if there’s a job for her here. What a stroke of luck! She’s giving up working at the school because the children are so cheeky. Now, you two.’ She looked at Flavia and Flurry. ‘Mind you’re polite to Mrs O’Kelly. We don’t want her saying you’re as bad as the Kilmuree children.’
‘Is she a teacher?’ I asked.
‘No, much better than that. She’s the school cook. We could put her in charge of the tea-room, couldn’t we?’
For a moment I felt relieved that Constance would have reliable help when I had gone. Then came a pang of misery, imagining them managing perfectly well without me.
‘I wish F-finn would come – back,’ said Violet. ‘The house is so d-dull without him.’
After everything had been washed up and put away we all went to bed early, anticipating a long night of sleep and a leisurely rising. The house was closed to the public the next day in accordance with the third commandment which instructed us to refrain from servile works on the Sabbath. I took several tins of cats’ meat and a jug of milk up to my room and found Flavia there. Having had no success before dinner, despite the fish, she was trying again to coax Dervla down from the chimney with whistles and kissing noises. I stood on the chair and reached up as far as I could. Tantalizingly I felt fur against my fingertips but could not get hold of it.
‘Perhaps if I put some books on the chair?’ I looked around the bedroom. Only the copy of Yeats’s poems lay on my bedside table, too precious to be stood on.
‘I’ll get some.’
Flavia ran downstairs. I climbed back on the chair to woo Dervla with soft words. Just as I was beginning to wonder where Flavia had got to, a voice I recognized immediately said, ‘That cat only understands Gaelic, you know.’
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