by Tyler, Anne
It’s hard to change the habits of a lifetime, and when Deirdre Dunne came across the two young Ryan boys as part of a gang that wrote silly things on the walls of Fernscourt, she said nothing. She just walked past with her eyes ahead of her as if she were slightly wandering in her mind.
The kids, who had hidden when they saw her, breathed with relief and told each other that Deirdre Dunne was as mad as Papers Flynn and Miss Barry and would be no threat to them. Happily they carved out “Yank Go Home” and “This is Ireland not America” with big nails, scratching away.
Deirdre Dunne had grown up on a small farm where the great philosophy had been to say nothing. She had been warned not to say anything since she was a child, and even when the neighboring farmer was known to come back drunk from a market and beat his wife senseless, the same rules had held.
It would sort itself out, she was told, and indeed it had. One day the farmer fell into a ditch on the way home. It was a cold night and he had a weak chest anyway. Deirdre had seen his wife pass the ditch where he lay, and throw more brambles and briars over it in order to make sure that there was even greater delay in finding the body.
Or had she pieced together afterward that this is what the woman had been doing But like a true Dunne, and the daughter of her taciturn father, she said nothing.
She was almost designed to work in the office of a law firm which dealt in the human everyday business of the community. Sometimes she wondered whether she stood too far back. People like Mr. Slattery and Mrs. Whelan did get involved when they saw things as a matter of right or wrong. Perhaps it was more honorable.
Fergus Slattery was very pleased with Deirdre. A pale girl with sandy hair, she was quiet as a mouse and efficient as one of those huge new computers people were always talking about. She was as discreet as he could have hoped and when a rich farmer left a totally untoward sum to Mrs. Rita Walsh of the Rosemarie hair salon you would never have known from Deirdre’s impassive face that it was anything except the norm.
She had high praise for Kate’s filing system and was just as adamant that he kept in touch with how it worked. It had fallen into great chaos in the months after Kate’s accident and it was a measure of Deirdre’s intelligence that she had brought a notebook to the hospital to Kate to ask for confirmation of new decisions she had made.
One of the files that Deirdre had to open was called Katherine Mary Ryan versus O’Neill Enterprises and the International Insurance Society.
PART FOUR
Chapter XVI
The twins were to have a fifteenth birthday party in September. The excitement was intense, there weren’t many parties in Mountfern. To be honest none of them had been to a party since they were children. But Kate Ryan had insisted. By letter she and Rachel had decided that something which would concentrate and channel all Dara’s energies would be a good idea. Kate didn’t suggest the party herself, of course, that way Dara would reject it as some plot. The wish had to come from the twins themselves.
So Kate spoke of the party to everyone else in a sort of sighing voice, saying she supposed now that Dara and Michael were so grown up they would want a party when they were fifteen.
It didn’t take long. Carrie wanted to know what they would do at the party, would there be dancing? Loretto Quinn said she’d love to be fifteen again and she thought it was the best age of all.
Grace was asked by Miss Hayes what she was going to wear to the twins’ fifteenth birthday party. And Tommy Leonard’s father told him that he would have thought that poor John and Kate Ryan would have had more sense than to lash out money entertaining hulking young folk who wouldn’t give them a word of thanks for it.
And so Michael and Dara realized that a party was a possibility.
“Where could we be?” Dara wailed. “We can’t be in the pub, or in Mam’s room, and the kitchen is a mess and the breakfast room is tiny.”
“There’s no point in asking for a party unless there was somewhere to have it,” Michael agreed.
But Kate had that planned too. The big outhouse attached to the pub looked fine from the outside. It was whitewashed and as its only entrance was from the side garden nobody knew what a mess it was inside.
If it were to be cleaned out …
They could always use it for something …
And it would be ideal for the party.
So John suggested that as a way of earning more pocket money they should all work on it. Even involve their friends if they wanted to. It involved a few days of dragging rubbish off to the dump. There were broken beds, old bits of wood with nails sticking out of them. There was a box of jam jars with spiders in them, and a load of things that had been taken from the other outhouse in the other yard to make room for Mary Donnelly.
On the afternoon that the boys had whitewashed the big room, Jacinta looked around it in admiration.
“It’s fabulous looking, it’s good enough to have a party in.”
And that was it.
They wheedled and begged and cajoled. And pretending an unwillingness, Kate and John gave in. The music was not to be too loud. Everyone was to be well gone home by midnight, the children had to organize the food themselves. There was to be no trick-acting, overexcitement nor people jumping into the river. They agreed to everything and began the preparations.
Kate wrote to Rachel saying that she felt as guilty as anything pulling all these strings but it did seem to be working like a dream. Dara had even hugged her in excitement one day.
She wrote that the invitation list had been assembled and discarded and readjusted more often than anyone could believe; there had never been such a magnificent way of keeping them all totally content.
Grace had all the Beatles records, and Gerry and the Pacemakers and Freddie and the Dreamers, so she would bring those.
Tommy Leonard wondered about the lighting, they would need some kind of power brought out into the place.
John Ryan said he wasn’t made of money, installing electrical lighting into a place that would be used once. But he would be able to get them one extension lead which meant they could plug in one lamp, and the record player as well if they had an adapter.
Maggie said you could make marvelous lights with old turnips and pumpkins like people did at Halloween.
There was endless scooping and hollowing, and Loretto Quinn provided a box of night lights that would be put inside.
Kitty Daly said it all sounded terrific, which alarmed Maggie greatly. She had hoped that Kitty would think it was childish and beneath her and not want to come. Maggie knew that Dara had set her heart on Kerry O’Neill being on his own and maybe taking an interest in Dara herself. It would be very complicated if Kitty was there too. But before Maggie had to discuss it with anyone a letter arrived in Daly’s with the good news that Kitty had been accepted for nursing in Dublin. It was a good hospital and the Dalys were pleased; their elder girls had gone to Wales where there was a shortage of any kind of nurses, so Dublin seemed like a step up to the Dalys.
Dara asked Rita Walsh was there anything in the world that made hair look shiny like all these advertisements, or was it all a cod? Mrs. Walsh told her that it was all a cod really, but gave her some sample bottles of conditioner and said to comb it through and leave it on for as long as possible.
Carrie said that if Dara was really badly stuck she could use the new hair lacquer she had bought, but to go sparingly on it.
Eddie said that Dara was trying on lipstick in the bathroom and rubbing it off on bits of toilet paper. They all said that Eddie was a boring sneak to have announced this for no reason except getting Dara into trouble because Mam said she looked like a tart with that white-colored lipstick on. Eddie said he didn’t care what people thought of him because he’d be grown up soon and out of this place and he would never write to anyone not even at Christmas. And when he got rich he’d send a telegram saying “Yah Boo” and Mrs. Whelan would have to take it down and have it delivered.
Eddie’s mother said that
he was going to end on the gallows, and that if she had her legs she would get up and catch him and paste him into the wall.
Eddie’s father took him aside and said that life was all about rubbing elbows with other people and not making fights out of nothing.
“But if I do anything, I’m murdered,” Eddie complained. “Dara can do anything she likes and people think it’s grand.”
“To be fair,” said John, “you do things like daubing the walls of Fernscourt with white paint. Dara only puts white paint on her own mouth in the privacy of the bathroom.”
That startled Eddie, who didn’t know that his father was up to date on the last little activity.
“Yes, well. Yes,” he said, at a loss.
“And another thing, Eddie. You don’t really want the O’Neills to clear out, do you?”
“Well, you know. It’s not right him coming in here and changing everything.” He was a small parrot of Jack Coyne’s whining tone.
“So no more of it. If you’re going to write on walls and get caught for it, then for God’s sake get yourself caught for writing something you mean, not something a fellow with a grudge told you to write.”
“A fellow. What fellow?” Eddie was too innocent.
“Do you know why Jack Coyne does all this? He doesn’t give a damn about Mountfern and whether it’s changing or not. He doesn’t give a damn about your mother having the accident there, for all that he claims he does.”
“He says it was all that man’s fault.”
“That’s balls, Eddie, and if you think about it you’ll realize it is. Patrick O’Neill doesn’t send any business to Jack Coyne because he was cheated by Jack years back, and he knows what a gangster he is. Jack can’t bear that, and it makes him look a fool.”
Eddie’s eyes were round.
“I’m telling you this not so that you’ll tell all those other beauties you hang around with, but just so that you’ll know. When you’re sent to a reformatory or whatever you should know why you’re going.”
“I wouldn’t be sent to a reformatory?”
This was much more frightening than his mother’s belief he would end on the gallows. What made him sure that he was in real danger of a reformatory was this plain speaking. His father was treating him as a grown-up and telling him that Mr. Coyne was a cheat. And he had said “balls.” As far as Eddie was concerned that clinched it. Things must be in a bad state if his own father would use words like that to him instead of belting the ear of anyone else who might be heard to say it.
Eddie was allowed to help at the party, he was told, but under no circumstances was he to join in. And when asked to leave he must leave at once with no arguments. It seemed a poor sort of deal. But it was the only way he would be let near the place at all.
“Will I empty ashtrays?” Eddie asked helpfully.
Dara and Michael looked at each other in despair. Wouldn’t you know that Eddie would manage to bring up the subject of smoking somehow.
“There will be no need for that, thank you,” Dara said in a glacial voice.
“Just be generally helpful,” Michael said.
“Doing what?” Eddie asked.
It was unanswerable.
He couldn’t take their coats; they wouldn’t have any. He couldn’t pass around the bottles of orange and lemon because they would all be on a table. He wouldn’t be allowed near the record player and it was probably better to keep him well away from the food too. The thought of Eddie presenting a plate of sausages or serving a trifle was not one that gave any pleasure.
“Maybe you needn’t help at all,” Dara said after some thought. “Maybe you would like an early night.”
Michael was more sensitive; he knew that an early night was something Eddie Ryan would never like, now or anytime in the future.
Eddie’s face was bitterly disappointed. “I can’t go to bed on the night of the party,” he said, hurt disbelief all over his round freckled face.
Even in her wish to have him one hundred miles away from the scene Dara saw that this would be too harsh.
“Perhaps you could control the animals,” she said.
“What animals?”
“Our animals—curb them, sort of.”
“Do you mean Leopold and Jaffa?” Eddie was totally bewildered.
“Well yes, and Maurice.”
“God, Dara, what could a cat and a tortoise do at the party?” Eddie asked.
“Aha, you put your finger on it. Not much, but Leopold might break the place up. Perhaps you could be in charge of Leopold.”
“Like how? Not take him on a walk now, that wouldn’t be fair.” Eddie was cunning.
“No, but … um … put him on a lead and sort of patrol with him. They do that at parties in America, I saw it at the pictures, somebody patrols the grounds with a dog. You know, you must have seen them, they wear sunglasses and uniforms.”
Dara was thinking of a security guard she had seen in a film.
It worked like a dream.
“All right, I’ll borrow some sunglasses and get Leopold’s lead and patrol a bit.” Eddie sounded pleased with this role.
“Not inside, of course,” Michael said hastily.
“Of course not.” Eddie was superior. “Leopold mightn’t know it was all posh now, he might think it was the old shed still and squat down.”
“Yes, that’s what we don’t need,” Dara said, feeling faint.
They spent ages on the invitations. Nothing in the Leonards’ shop was right for them. Either they were teddy bears holding balloons asking people to come to a jolly party or they were heavy silver lettering saying “You are invited.” One was too babyish, one was too formal.
In the end they bought plain white cards and wrote them out individually. They knew that these invitations would be kept for a long time in the different homes of Mountfern. Written invitations didn’t often arrive in the mail.
There had been long debates about the food. Dara had wanted food on a plate, like a real supper. Michael said that sausages and rolls would be better, food on a plate would be messy, people might let bits of gravy fall off.
Carrie was looking out big dishes that could cook lots of sausages at the same time. Mary got one of the beer companies to give them brightly colored trays which they could use for serving the rolls. There would be sandwiches too on the ground that everyone loved tomato sandwiches at moments of high excitement, and there would be tons of chips and nuts.
The pudding was a trifle which Kate would make herself. She loved putting on the hundreds and thousands, she said, and she explained to Grace that it was because she never had jelly and cream or trifle herself when she was young that she got so excited over party food. Her parents had not been festive people, birthdays were low priority.
Grace told Mrs. Ryan that her own mother had often been too ill for any real birthday, but she did remember years back when Kerry was twelve and Grace was nine, Mother had put on paper hats and they had all had a birthday tea in the garden. The three of them.
Father had been out at work. Like he always was.
Kate patted the golden curls and wished that Dara would be eager and confiding like this.
Still, it had to be said that since the party was planned Dara was a much easier soul to live with. Kate was forgiving, it was hard being fifteen whether you had a family that loved you or not. Dara did, Kate hadn’t, but at fifteen nobody was too clear about that sort of thing.
The cake was to have thirty candles, and it was a surprise. Kate had asked Marian Johnson, who knew all kinds of people, to recommend a firm that would deliver a cake already iced.
Marian had been very cooperative and even got something off the price because she knew the people who owned the firm.
Kate thought it was sad to see Marian boasting of all the connections she had and the people she knew socially. It was not at all the way to make Patrick O’Neill think more warmly of her. Patrick needed someone like Rachel. How blind and stupid he was not to realize it. How
insensitive he was to write her a note every three months or so just at the exact moment when she was making a resolve to forget him and get on with her own life.
Rachel had sent the twins magnificent shirts for their birthday. Michael’s was black and red, Dara’s was silver and white.
Kate had encouraged Dara to buy a white pleated skirt. But not directly. She had just left a magazine about, and let enough hints fall without saying she thought it was nice. Grace as usual did the persuading. She said she thought the skirt looked fabulous and when Dara got her birthday money in advance of the day she went into the big town and bought it.
They were dressed and nervous, ages before people came. Michael was handsome in the unusual colors, Dara dazzling, Kate thought, in the shimmering silver and white. Her eyes were huge and dark, her hair shone like satin. Kate looked at them proudly.
“I hope it will be a night you’ll always remember,” she said, trying to keep the choking emotion out of her voice.
“I wish you were able …” Michael began.
“To be able to run in and out a bit,” Dara finished.
Kate brushed the tear away quickly and decided to be very unsentimental. “Not at all, that’s the last thing you’d wish. If I had to come in and upset the proceedings you’d hear this old chair a mile away. It will be great altogether, the place outside looks like a palace. Your father will go in from time to time to make sure you have enough of everything.”
The twins nodded. That was understood. Their father would be calling in to make sure there wasn’t too much of everything, that’s what was really meant.
It was awkward in the beginning, because these were people they saw every day. The girls were at school together in the convent, the boys in the brothers, they knew each other from Fernscourt in the old days, some of them from the bridge, and some from the raft, Coyne’s wood or just around the town. They saw each other a dozen times a week, in the cinema, on their bicycles. They were suddenly ill at ease in their finery in a room hung with hollowed-out shells holding lights.
