by Tyler, Anne
MARIE: Mmm, but sometimes it’s hard being the ones in the home circle. It’s easier for you to put niggle bits and annoyances onto the other person because you’re in a bad mood and they happen to be around. Or you’re constantly not meeting their expectations rather than just failing every Christmas. That’s not in any way to diminish how fraught it can be coming home—been there, done that, observed it, sympathize et cetera. I agree very much, too, about the Dad time. I think it gave us new respect for one another (watching what each of you gave to him—shaves, bed baths, conversations, pain management, humor). I also learned more about and from each of you than I ever imagined. I remember a particular conversation one night with Lea that really changed my world view about Dad. I realized the rest of the family (or most of you) had moved on from our past way of dealing with/being with him, and I had to step over a bridge and grow up in a way. That’s a great thing to have someone actually give you, rather than having to work it out slowly for yourself. I think that happens a lot with my sisters—sudden insights borrowed and stolen!
LEA: I agree totally with Marie regarding sudden insights—and the other side of that is that when you unknowingly/unwittingly “give them” you tend to get them at the same time. It was in talking with you about Dad that I made big leaps too. I think I was about a half a step ahead of you—or maybe we were pairs in a three-legged race!
MAURA: Marie? What niggly bits? Did I miss something? I know you hate everyone else in the family but I thought what we had was beautiful!
MONICA: I think there are flashpoints or triggers that come up in surprising ways. Something like wanting Mum’s undivided attention or feeling picked on or left out or misunderstood comes from childhood and still hangs around. I can be rational about situations, usually, but sometimes I have an immediate deep emotional response inside me that surprises me. Alarms me, even.
LEA: It’s primal, sweetie, and as such it involves, sometimes, a simple desire to kill.
MARIE: Guys, sorry, hell hour has descended … baby crying, Ruby screaming, Ulli trying to show me eight different ways of bouncing a ball against a wall … Can I get back to you on stuff or rejoin you later if you’re still going? My fave story for today, by the way—not sisters but siblings. We were outside, Rafael [new baby] lying on the lawn, Ruby [three years old] riding her three-wheeler bike. “Can you put his feet there, Mum?” she asked. “I want to use his feet as a road.”
MONICA: [Later] If we had all had a big fight, in the way the three Quinlans did in The Alphabet Sisters, do you think it would have taken us three years to reunite?
LEA: I think that question is answered by the comments about Dad’s dying and where that has taken us all. I think we all need space from time to time. Including you who are all physically nearby.
MAURA: I can’t think of anything that any of you could do that would upset me so badly that I’d give up the laughs and the other good things about knowing you.
MARIE: I can actually imagine us falling out for three years or more if we fought over the same thing the Quinlans did—one of us “taking” another’s man. I can imagine that would bust things up incredibly. But I can’t imagine any of my sisters doing that. I know that’s easy to say and that one shouldn’t deny true love and all the stuff that Carrie and Matthew went through, but I think it would be a taboo for us. I can, however, picture other smaller betrayals—indeed I know we’ve all inflicted them along the way—but I think we’d be far more likely to disguise how hurt we were (and bitch madly behind backs) rather than blow things up publicly. We’d much rather be seen as stoic than sensitive, I think.
MONICA: I can’t stand not talking to one of you for a week, let alone three years. I can see exactly why it happened to the Quinlans, because they needed that space from one another, but I think we’ve found that space in different ways.
Final question: Have you had people saying: “Is The Alphabet Sisters about you and your sisters?” What did you say and did you mind being asked?
LEA: Yes, people have asked if it is about us. I just say (again and again) “Monica knows we would kill her if she modeled any of them on us.” I also point out that you cleverly (sensibly?) made none of them look like us. I think you were very clever the way you wrote it. There are some great stories that you have, of course, stolen from our shared childhood, however the ones you picked, you write about so beautifully and funnily that I can but say you have done us proud. And you have stayed right away from any character traits or any more important or serious stories that might implicate us, so to speak.
MAURA: Crikey. where to begin? Here’s what happens:
PERSON: I’ve just finished/am in the middle of Monica’s new book.
ME: Oh, yes, and what do you think of it?
PERSON: I’m really enjoying it. So which sister are you?
ME: Maura.
PERSON: No, I mean, in the book?
ME: None of them, obviously.
PERSON: Oh, come on, you must be one of them.
(At this stage, conversation deteriorates into “am not/are so” debacle.)
MARIE: Someone told me today they had just read the book and tried to work out which sister was me. I don’t mind at all being asked. I love it that my sister has written a book and that people like reading it enough to get caught up in the characters. I love stumbling upon little stories in the book that are based on stuff we did as kids. And I couldn’t get over that I sobbed and sobbed at the end, even while thinking, “For God’s sake, your sister made this up!”
By the way, I just asked my daughters if they think my sisters and me get on. Ulli responded, “Yeah, derr!”
READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. The Alphabet Sisters begins and ends with chapters from Bett’s perspective. Why do you think that author Monica McInerney chose to frame the novel in this way? Do you think that Bett is the guiding narrative voice in the story? Why or why not?
2. Which sister do you feel most sympathetic toward when the book begins? Did your allegiance shift as the story unfolded?
3. The girls’ grandmother, Lola, is a larger-than-life personality. What lessons have her son and grandchildren learned from her? What would you say are the guiding principles of Lola’s life?
4. Lola christens her grandchildren “The Alphabet Sisters.” What does this group identity mean to Anna, Bett, and Carrie? How does each of them react to being on stage and in the spotlight?
5. How does Lola’s invitation to her eightieth birthday spur each sister to make a change in her life? What do you think their parents felt about the daughters’ feud? Why didn’t the sisters’ parents get more involved?
6. How does each sister resent and admire the other? How did their time apart strengthen their individual personalities and their bonds with one another? What detrimental effects does the feud have on the sisters?
7. “Still avoiding the truth after all these years?” Anna asks Bett. Do you think Bett is guilty of Anna’s accusation? Why or why not? What unpleasant revelations do her sisters muffle about their lives?
8. “Lola used to talk to them as if they were her co-conspirators, her equals,” remembers Bett. How is Lola’s attitude toward her grandchildren unconventional? In which ways is she traditional? How does her mindset differ from that of her daughter-in-law, Geraldine?
9. What inspires Lola to force her granddaughters to produce her musical? Why do they agree to do it? How is music the glue that binds them together?
10. After Ellen is attacked by a dog, how does her personality change? In which ways is outward appearance an important element in Anna’s life, both before and after Ellen’s attack? How do her sisters also grapple with the ramifications of their looks?
11. How does the love triangle between Bett, Carrie, and Matthew affect each of its participants? What does Carrie love about Matthew? How does this compare to the way that Bett feels about him?
12. Discuss Anna’s husband, Glenn. How does she characterize her relati
onship with him at the beginning of their time together? What about their marriage now?
13. By the end of the book, each sister has discovered—or rediscovered—her perfect match. How are Richard and Anna, Matthew and Carrie, and Daniel and Bett complementary to one another? How does each couple approach love and romance differently? How does this compare and contrast to the relationship of the women’s parents, Jim and Geraldine?
14. What does small-town life mean to the family? How does their position as proprietors of a motel give them a unique vantage point on the goings-on of the town itself? How does their lifestyle give them a sense of stability? Of adventure?
15. Were you surprised when Anna’s illness was revealed to be terminal cancer? How does her diagnosis change the family? How do they rally around her?
16. Bett is shocked to learn that the stories spun about her grandfather are untrue. How does this revelation give you, as a reader, a different perspective on Lola? How does Bett react to her grandmother’s deception? Why do you think that Lola “especially hates” to lie to Bett?
17. Have you been in a similar position with a family feud that seemed irresolvable? How did your family solve the problem? Did it help or hurt when others—like Lola—intervened?
18. What do you envision next for Bett, Carrie, and Lola? Would you like to see a sequel of this book that follows one or more of the characters in The Alphabet Sisters? Which ones?
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
This work was first published in Great Britain in 1987 by Century Hutchinson Ltd.
Copyright © 1988 by Maeve Binchy
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
For information address: Delacorte Press, New York, New York.
The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-440-33759-1
v3.0
Contents
Master - Table of Contents
Firefly Summer
Title Page
Copyright
PART ONE
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
PART TWO
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
PART THREE
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
PART FOUR
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Dedication
Preview of Maeve Binchy’s Silver Wedding
Other Books by This Author
About the Author
PART ONE
Chapter I
The sun came in at a slant and hit all the rings and marks on the bar counter. Kate Ryan managed to take a cloth to them at the same time as she was kicking off her house shoes and pulling on her wellington boots. She tucked her handbag under the counter and in almost the same movement opened the kitchen door to make sure that Eddie and Declan weren’t torturing the new girl. The new girl had red eyes and a sad face and was missing her farm home. She might run back to it if Eddie and Declan were at their worst. But mercifully the appeal of the tortoise was still very strong even after three weeks. They lay on their stomachs and fed it stalks of cabbage, screaming with delight when it accepted them.
“John,” she shouted, “will you come down to the bar, I have to go across the river and see what’s keeping the twins. They have to be polished and smartened up for the concert and there isn’t a sign of them.”
John Ryan groaned. His train of thought was gone again. He had thought he would manage an hour or two on his own, struggling with his poetry. “Give me a minute,” he called, hoping to catch the idea before it was gone.
“No, they’ll be late as it is. Listen, bring your paper and pencil down, there’s likely to be no one in, but there has to be someone behind the counter.”
The door banged behind her and John Ryan saw, through the bedroom window, his wife run across the small footbridge opposite the pub. She climbed over the gate like a girl instead of a woman in her thirties. She looked altogether like a girl in her summer dress and her boots as she ran lightly across to the ruined house, Fernscourt, to find the twins.
He sighed and went down to the pub. He knew there were poet publicans, he knew there were men who wrote the poetry of angels in the middle of the stinking trenches of war. But he wasn’t like that.
John Ryan moved slowly, a big man with a beer belly that had grown on him sneakily during the years standing behind a bar, jowls that had become flabby at the same trade. His wedding picture showed a different person, a thinner more eager-looking figure, yet the boyish looks hadn’t completely gone. He had a head of sandy brown hair only flecked with grey and big eyebrows that never managed to look ferocious even when he willed them to, like at closing time or when he was trying to deal with some outrage that the children were reported to have committed.
Kate had hardly changed at all since their wedding day, he often said, which pleased her, but she said it was just a bit of old soft-soaping to get out of having to stand at the bar. It was true, though; he looked at the girl with the long, curly dark hair tied back in a cream ribbon that matched her cream dress and coat. She looked very smart on that wet day in Dublin, he could hardly believe she was going to come and live with him in Mountfern. Kate hadn’t developed a pot belly from serving drinks to others, as she often told him sharply. She said that there was no law saying you must have a drink with everyone who offered you one or pull a half pint for yourself to correspond with every half-dozen pints you pulled for others.
But then it was different for women.
John was the youngest of the seven Ryan children and the indulged pet of a mother who had been amazed and delighted at his arrival when she had been sure that her family was complete. He had been overfed and given fizzy drinks with sweet cake as long as he could remember. As a lad the running and leaping and cycling miles to a dance had kept him trimmer. Now, between sessions of writing his poetry and serving in his bar, it was a sedentary life.
He didn’t know if he wanted it for his sons; he had such hopes for them—that they might see the world a bit, study maybe and go on for the university. That had been beyond the dreams of his parents’ generation. Their main concern had been to see their children well settled into emigration; the church had helped of course, educating two nuns and two priests out of the Ryan family. John didn’t see any vocation among his own offspring. Michael was dreamy and thoughtful: maybe a hermit? Or Dara a resourceful Reverend Mother somewhere? Eddie was a practical child, possibly a missionary brother teaching pagan tribes to build huts and dig canals. Declan the baby. Maybe they could make a curate out of him near home where they could keep an eye on him.
This was all nonsense, of course. None of them would end up within an ass’s roar of a religious life. Still, John Ryan never saw the future standing surrounded by three sons and possibly his daughter all in the trade.
There would never be enough business, for one thing. Like many Irish towns Mountfern had the appearance of having far too many pubs already. If you went down the main street, Bridge Street, there were no less than three public houses. Foley’s at the top of the town
, but that was hardly a pub at all these days, just a counter really and a few friends of old Matt Foley drinking at night, they’d hardly know how to serve a real customer. Then there was Conway’s which was more a grocery but it had the bar at the back. Conway’s had a clientele of secret drinkers, people who didn’t admit to any kind of drinking, who were always going out for a packet of cornflakes or a pound of flour and would toss back a brandy for their health. Often too, it had a funeral business since old Barry Conway was the undertaker as well. It seemed only right to come back to his place to drink when someone had been buried up on the hill. And Dunne’s was always on the verge of closing. Paddy Dunne never knew whether to reorder supplies; he always said that it would hardly be worth it since any day now he’d be going to join his brother who ran a pub in Liverpool. But then either there would be a downturn in the fortunes of the Liverpool pub or an upswing in the drinking patterns of Mountfern. There was an unsettled air about his place and constant speculation about how much he would get if he were to sell his license.
John Ryan’s pub had its rivals then, three of them in a small place like Mountfern. Yet he had all the business that came from the River Road side of the place. He had the farmers on this side of the town. It was a bigger and better bar than any of the other three, it had not only more space but it had more stock. And there were many who liked the walk out along the river bank.
John Ryan knew that he was a man who had been given a great deal by fate. Nobody had gathered him up to swoop him off to a religious order when he was a young impressionable boy. Neither had he been sponsored out to a life of hard graft in America like two of his elder brothers. By all their standards he had a life of ease and peace where he should well have been able to run his business and write his poetry.
But he was a man who did one thing at a time, almost overmethodically, too predictable sometimes for his wife who felt that people should be able to fire on several cylinders at the same time.
