by Tyler, Anne
“I mean, is the whole of Ireland all divided up and parceled up? You own your house, we own this place, Mr. O’Neill owns Fernscourt now. Are there bits nobody owns?”
“That’s a bit difficult to answer in general terms. There are bits, I suppose, that nobody really owns, like say the Curragh. You know, in Kildare. If you have land near it you can graze your sheep there, and it’s the same with some bogs. A lot of people can cut turf there without actually owning it. Is that what you mean?”
“Not quite. You know, would all fields and ditches and boreens be owned by some one person? You couldn’t say suddenly, I own this ditch because I found it.”
Fergus scratched his head.
“But you couldn’t really find a ditch, could you? It would be there all the time. You couldn’t look at it one day and claim it?”
“But suppose you couldn’t see it?” Dara persisted.
Michael didn’t want her to say any more.
“God, Dara, you have me foxed,” Fergus said. “But as your mother will tell you, I’m no good at all as a solicitor. I ask stupid questions like how in the name of the Lord could you try to own something you can’t see? I only irritate clients. I’ll be struck off the rolls any day and be left wandering around with straws in my hair.”
Dara looked alarmed. “No, please, it’s our fault. You see, it’s that we have to ask these questions so that you won’t actually know what we’re talking about … No, shut up, Michael. It’s all right. Mr. Slattery’s not going to tell anyone, he’s like Canon Moran.”
“The image of him,” Fergus said ruefully.
“No, you can’t tell people’s business, like he can’t tell their sins,” Dara insisted.
“That’s a fact. They’d strike me off the rolls.”
“Would they hit you?” Michael asked interested.
“I think it might mean rolls, like the rolls at school. You know, for roll call,” Dara said helpfully. “But anyway, it won’t happen, because you won’t tell anybody what we’ve been discussing.”
“I most certainly will not,” he said solemnly, not that he had any idea of what they had been discussing.
“Wouldn’t you think Patrick would have been here to see his day of triumph?” John Ryan said as a great cheer went up when the last bit of wall fell down.
Kate neatly scooped the froth off the top of five pints of stout with a wooden spatula.
“He knows all about it, you can be sure. He’ll be on the phone to Brian Doyle in ten minutes’ time.”
“I was sure he’d have been here. He hates that house and all it stood for. He doesn’t want me to say a good word about the Ferns, he hates the bit about them being fairly decent in the Famine. He would be delighted to see the stones going down.”
“No, Patrick O’Neill is more interested in what’s going up there instead,” Kate said, putting the pints on a tray and coming around the counter to take them outside. “He’s forward-looking like all the Americans.”
“Would we have been better if we had gone to America, do you think?” John asked, half seriously.
“I don’t know, maybe now isn’t the time to debate it.” Kate laughed good-naturedly as she swept out with the tray of pints to the people outside.
Rita Walsh wondered if the arrival of the hotel might mean that there would be a proper living out of hairdressing after all. It would make a nice change. She had heard a great deal about the plans for Fernscourt from Marian Johnson who now had her hair done regularly and had even sought advice about skin creams and manicures. Rita thought it unlikely that a man like Patrick O’Neill would think seriously about Marian Johnson, whose dry scalp and flyaway hair were getting so much attention these days. Yet it was hard to know. A man like that might be keen to ally himself with old money, and the quality. The Johnsons knew everyone in the hunting set.
Rita surveyed her little salon without much pleasure. American women or rich Dublin women might not find it to their liking, but it would be madness to spend good money on new equipment. Rita had a fair bit saved for the days when she would no longer be able to stand on her feet and give perms. And indeed earn money from a position that didn’t at all involve standing on her feet. Both of these sources would end eventually. She kept all her savings in Sheila Whelan’s discreet post office. There was no bank in Mountfern and Sheila often acted as an unofficial adviser on people’s finances.
Rita decided to be swayed by the advice of the postmistress. Sheila was not one to inquire why the earnings were large sometimes, and irregular. She would answer only the questions that were asked, never raising any others.
Sheila Whelan said that her advice would be to hold on a while until the building of the hotel got under way, then when it really did look as if Fernscourt were rising from the ground and about to bring new life into the town, that was the time to buy new hairdressing equipment. And chairs and anything else that would make the Rosemarie hair salon attractive to visitors. There was no sense of irony in any of this, no hint of what might be the present attractions of the establishment. Just wait until the hotel got under way, then everyone could make their plans.
In Rachel Fine’s New York apartment the small travel clock on the table beside her bed said that it was six-thirty in the morning. In Mountfern it would be lunchtime and the ruins might well be down by now. Rachel had not slept well. All night she had dreamed that there had been some terrible incident at this demolition ceremony.
That a body had risen from the ruins calling out, “I am the spirit who will not be mocked … you shall not build here in peace.”
She had gotten up twice in the night and sat beside the window, looking out on the moonlit city to reassure herself that everything was normal. She wished this part was all over. Perhaps when this part was finished, then things might go well. He might send for her and she would come to Ireland and make herself part of the place, so that he would never send her away.
Patrick found the afternoon went very slowly. He didn’t want to call until he was absolutely certain that it had actually happened. Later that evening he would talk to the States, tell Gerry Power that it had been done, and tell Rachel. Already it was a picture in his mind …
He could imagine it. Even before he called Brian Doyle, he could see knots of children coming onto the bank to watch. He hadn’t realized that the rest of the town would come too and that they would drink pints in John and Kate Ryan’s during the day, and cheer when the walls fell. He made Brian tell him every detail. At first Doyle thought he wanted proof that the job had been done properly, and had been full of huffing and shrugging, but when he realized that the man only wanted a description of the day, he became most lyrical.
Patrick couldn’t believe it when he heard that the people had cheered the walls coming down.
“What did they say … did they call for three cheers or what?”
“Well, it was just a big cheer went up,” Brian said.
“Like what? Did they say ‘Hurrah,’ or ‘More, more,’ or what?”
Brian was beginning to wish he had never mentioned the cheer. “You know, a big shout. No words, just a shout.”
“There have to be words in a shout.”
“No there don’t, Mr. O’Neill. It was like, let me say a great Waaah! Now do you know what I mean?”
Patrick said he did. He was very pleased.
“Do you know they gave a great cheer when the last walls of Fernscourt went down?” he said when he called Gerry Power.
“Is that a fact?” Gerry was a man who was quite happy to go back to Ireland sometime in the future for St. Patrick’s Day and maybe ten days there. He thought Patrick was insane to plow all his fortune into this venture.
“I wonder why they cheered,” Patrick said.
“So shocked to see a proper day’s work done for once, they couldn’t help cheering, I guess,” said Gerry.
He told Rachel that evening. “A big cheer, Brian Doyle said. Like a great Waaahh! sound. Oh God, I wish I had been there I w
ould have given anything to be there, to have heard it.”
“I think you were quite right not to go,” Rachel said. “Your instinct is always right for that sort of thing. Don’t associate yourself with the knocking down, only with the building up. You’ve always done it here.”
Rachel knew why they had let out a cheer. It was something to do, something to see on a dull morning in a one-horse town. It all meant a bit of work here and there and the promise of more work for the people who stood around, apparently, if the story was to be believed, with great double glasses of beer in their hands in the middle of the morning. No wonder they cheered.
“They cheered because the dream is coming true,” she said. “Because the old house is gone and the new life is about to start.”
The site had been excavated, the foundations were ready to start. Brian Doyle had already had four major rows with the architects. The Irish architects had refused to work with the American architects unless guarantees were received that there would be no more last minute interference. The Irish Tourist Board had revised its grant, the situation on charter groups was still not clear from Aer Lingus. Two farmers whose land had not been bought up by Patrick O’Neill tried to get Fergus Slattery to claim they had been victimized. Two small tenant farmers, who had willingly sold him half an acre each a year ago, now felt they hadn’t gotten enough for it, and wanted Fergus to represent them. Fergus refused to have anything to do with any of them.
“Greed. That’s what this man has brought to Mountfern, inordinate greed. Those men never thought of profits on their miserable bits of land before, they were bloody glad to have it.”
“I don’t think you can go around preaching to them like that, Fergus,” Kate Ryan said disapprovingly. “You should shrug and say that it’s a pity but there isn’t really a case. Pretend to be on their side, be clever.”
“Like Hereford bullock O’Neill,” Fergus growled.
Kate laughed. “He has got curls but that’s no nickname for him. Yes, like him. He’s great at being tactful. That’s what’s got him so far, I suppose.”
“Or telling downright lies,” Fergus said.
“He hasn’t really, has he? I know you don’t trust him, and neither do I. I don’t trust him because I think he knows he’ll ruin us if his business ever gets off the ground. I don’t know why you care about him.”
“Because he’s hurting you … all of you,” Fergus said.
Kate looked up, startled, and Fergus remembered his sister’s drunken slurred accusation … he was good for nothing except making sheep’s eyes at the local publican’s wife. Was that so?
No, in truth, hand on heart, it wasn’t just Kate, it was the whole household. That stupid dog with the terrified eyes trying to shake hands with you by raising its twisted back paw. That John Ryan scribbling his poetry in a child’s exercise book and thinking that Patrick O’Neill was a great fellow. Those two small lads with a face on each of them that spelled out devilment. Those dark handsome twins, entirely self-contained, speaking half a sentence each, suntanned and energetic as wild monkeys; he used to see them scrambling in those brambled hills on the other side of the Fern … There was something about the whole family that touched him in a way it was hard to understand. Truthfully, it was not the handsome mother with her quick wit. No, eunuch or no eunuch, he was making no sheep’s eyes at her.
Fergus made a series of promises to himself there and then. He resolved that he would go off for a long weekend to a seaside town and have a sexual adventure of great passion with a young attractive woman. That he would close the office when President Kennedy arrived and drive as many of the Ryans as wanted to come with him to Dublin to see the parade. He would speak in less eccentric tones to local farmers who were, after all, only anxious to get a bit of whatever was going. And lastly, he would watch Patrick O’Neill like a hawk. Never in his life had he known a feeling so strong and convincing as this one. That O’Neill and his family were going to destroy the Ryans.
The O’Neills were back. Everyone knew it half an hour after they had driven down Bridge Street. Judy Byrne knew because she was polishing her brass. She hated being caught doing anything so domestic. She preferred Patrick to think of her as a woman in an important medical role.
Sheila knew because she heard someone in the post office calling out that their car was parking. Sheila gathered her telegrams and messages quietly, and put them in a big anonymous-looking envelope to have them ready.
Maggie Daly knew and was delighted.
Grace and Kerry came into the shop. They were buying cream cakes and bacon and eggs for their tea. Miss Hayes hadn’t expected them, so they were getting supplies. Maggie’s smile nearly split her face in half when Grace raced over to hug her. Kitty, who was filling the shelves in a very bad humor, was equally delighted when Kerry came over to her without any prompting at all.
“Hi,” he said, “did you miss me?”
“Were you away?” Kitty asked with spirit.
Kerry liked it. He had his elbow leaning on the shelf.
“Yes, we were, and I bet you knew it,” he said.
“Sorry.” Kitty was triumphant now “I don’t really keep up with all the comings and goings of people I hardly know. I’m much too busy.”
“Then I’ll have to get to know you better, so that you will notice when I’m not around,” Kerry said, with a smile that would melt all the ice in the deep freeze.
Tommy Leonard knew they were back because he saw their car, and his father said he hoped there would be no racing out on the road and abandoning his post. Tommy fumed behind the counter, but the O’Neills came in to buy papers and postcards. They were going to send a card to all the hotels where they had stayed, to say thank you. To show them what Mountfern looked like. In a few years they would all know only too well where it was and what it looked like.
Kerry asked Tommy about the fishing, and wondered had they been swimming in the river. He said that, after all the beaches they had seen around the country, he was dying to go for a swim.
“Not until after the shop closes,” Tommy’s father said firmly.
Tommy wished his father wouldn’t. Not in front of Kerry O’Neill, who was a grown person, and who seemed to be treating Tommy as equally grown.
“Workers of the world,” Kerry said sympathetically.
“We close at six,” Tommy said rapidly. “It would be lovely then.”
“Tea at six,” said Mr. Leonard.
“Seven then?” Kerry suggested.
“Right oh.” Tommy was thrilled.
“At the bridge?”
“It’s a bit crowded and noisy there.” What Tommy meant was that he and his friends were considered too young for the gang on the bridge.
“The footbridge, then?”
“That’s it.” Tommy started patting the papers and magazines, proudly happy.
“See you then, Tommy.”
Grace looked gorgeous. Very suntanned, in a blue and white striped dress.
“See you, Grace,” Tommy beamed.
“My God, when I think of the time you children have today,” said Tommy’s father, a sour displeasure coming over his face.
The twins didn’t know they were home because the twins were in the tunnel. Kate Ryan said they were out. She didn’t know where. Hadn’t they been down on the bridge? No? Well, they’d be back for their tea at six. Had Kerry and Grace enjoyed the tour? Were they impressed with Ireland? What did they think of the land over the river there without the ruins? It took a bit of getting used to. Wasn’t it a pity they had missed it all? Kate chattered on cheerfully to the two blond children who stood in the crowded bar as easily and confidently as they stood in any other place in Mountfern. Their father was getting a drink for a group that was busy describing in detail the moment when the old ivy-covered masonry toppled down.
The twins would be very sorry to miss Grace. No, she had no idea where they were; they always came back at teatime covered in dust and dirt. Like they did every day.
Going swimming at seven o’clock, yes that was a great idea. Not right in front of the pub, if they didn’t mind. People liked the idea of a quiet stroll down River Road in the evenings, not to get into the middle of a screaming mob of children splashing. A bit further along. No, not exactly opposite the Rosemarie hair salon either, that mightn’t be such a great idea; just on the bend. Sure, she would send any stragglers up that way, and tell Dara and Michael.
“Aren’t you marvelous the way you can talk and work, Mrs. Ryan,” Grace said admiringly. Kate was pleased.
“Ah, it’s a knack, like riding a bicycle. You find yourself pulling pints and washing glasses almost automatically. I don’t even notice myself doing it, like those people who can knit and look at television. You’ll find it yourself if you work in the bar over beyond. Or will you work in the hotel, do you think?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Ryan. Isn’t that funny? We never seem to talk about what it’s going to be like when it’s a working hotel. Just getting it built seems to be as far as we go.”
She smiled almost apologetically, and Kate realized, with a sudden stab, the power of such beauty. A man would do anything for a face like Grace O’Neill’s, anything to keep those blue eyes laughing and happy.
Patrick asked the children to telephone Miss Hayes and let her know they were on their way. Brian Doyle had a litany of complaints that had to be heard. Jimbo Doyle had backed a lorry-load of tree branches into the presbytery and broken the front windows, and had to spend two days replacing them with new glass.
Father Hogan had been very droll about it, and said that the canon and himself had been very relieved that it was only Jimbo and a lorry-load of timber. They had been afraid it was something serious like Eddie Ryan about to dismantle the place on them.
Teresa Meagher had hitch-hiked to Dublin and sent a message through the post office that she was never going to come back to Mountfern as long as she lived Mrs. Meagher was going to sell the jeweler’s. Brian Doyle wondered did Mr. O’Neill want to buy it.
