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

by Tyler, Anne

  “Isn’t this your home?”

  “I thought it was, but it’s not.”

  “We’ll miss you. I wish you were not going away.”

  Eddie Ryan avoided Jack Coyne very deliberately. But Eddie couldn’t avoid trouble. He had been so used to playing around Coyne’s Motor Works that vehicles of every sort fascinated him now.

  Mr. Williams had an old battered station wagon. He left it outside the graveyard where he was busy tending the graves. Eddie couldn’t see anyone around. The grass in the graveyard was high. Mr. Williams was bent low.

  Eddie looked left and right and slipped into the driving seat. He would drive the car to the end of the road where there was a farmhouse with two gates. He could drive in one and out the other, and back to where the car was now.

  He had reckoned without the herd of cows which were coming out one entrance on their way back to the fields after milking. They seemed to be coming in the windows, and his grasp of driving was not as sound as he would like to have thought.

  The cows were delighted with a break in the normal milking routine and were prepared to stand chewing the cud and dribbling until the last day dawned. At that moment a tractor came around the corner. Eddie knew the explanations of what he was doing in the vicar’s station wagon would be difficult, not to say impossible. He left the car rapidly and slipped past the staring cows. He heard the tractor hit the car, and kept running until he got to Bridge Street.

  His face was innocent when the story got to Ryan’s pub, the tale of poor Mr. Williams’s car, and poor Brigid Kenny’s cows, and Brigid Kenny’s poor son on the tractor, who was somehow held to blame for it all.

  To his shock and outrage he heard Mrs. Whelan from the post office coming in and telling his father and mother that Brigid Kenny had seen young Eddie running away from the farm. Mrs. Whelan, of all people. She had always been so nice.

  Eddie’s father was furious.

  Eddie was asked to come out to the backyard.

  That could only mean one thing.

  Kate was furious too. The danger, the stupidity, the downright disregard for human life.

  “You’d think that in this house of all houses there would be some attention paid to what can happen when people get hit by vehicles,” she stormed at him as Eddie had slunk back into the house with his hands, legs and bottom aching from the hiding he had been given in the backyard. He looked miserable and wretched, and a tiny grain of sympathy stirred in her.

  “Why are you so awful?” she asked him, interested genuinely. And he could detect the change in her tone.

  “I don’t feel awful inside,” he said, his tears not far away. Tears that had not come during the beating.

  “What do you feel inside?”

  “I feel it’s all very boring,” he said truthfully. “I’d love to be somewhere else, somewhere that I’d be important, and that people would talk about me.”

  “They’re talking about you tonight.”

  She tried not to let her voice sound as if he had been forgiven in any way. Terrible things lay ahead, like the apology to Mr. Williams, like asking Jack Coyne to give an estimate on how much it would cost to repair the damage to the station wagon, like trying to explain to Brigid Kenny (a sour woman at the best of times) and to her son (who was slow by any standards, even among the Kenny family), what exactly Eddie Ryan had been doing on their property running amok.

  “I suppose I’d like to be important to someone,” Eddie said simply.

  Kate looked at him, and to his amazement she had tears in her eyes. “You’re very important to me.”

  “Only to be giving out to and telling people you’re sorry about me.” He wasn’t complaining, that’s just the way he saw things.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Well, when I asked was I getting anything to wear at the opening, they all laughed. Nobody even thought I’d be at that opening. That’s not being very important.”

  He was totally unprepared for her to lean forward from her wheelchair and take him in her arms.

  “I know what you mean, Eddie. It’s hard not being important enough to go to Dublin to get an outfit. I’d like to go too. I’d love to go in and out of the shops, in Grafton Street, and down Wicklow Street. Not to buy there, it would be too dear. Then I’d go to George’s Street, and I’d buy something there, and a bit of other shopping—oh, stuff that would bore you, household things. And maybe into a bookshop, get a present for your dad, and then give myself plenty of time and walk down the quays with all my parcels and get the train home. And your father would meet us in the town and drive us home, and I’d try on whatever I’d gotten, and turn around on my own two good legs and show it off, and you’d all say what you thought, and people would take notice of me, and I’d be important again.”

  She was still holding him to her as she spoke. When she released him and held him away from her, she saw that the boy was biting his lip.

  “I never knew, Mam … I never knew,” he said.

  “It’s all right, Eddie,” she said. “We’ll survive.”

  “If I had the money, Mam, I’d take you to Dublin for the day,” he said.

  “I know you would.”

  She was silent now, so Eddie crept away.

  Things were very odd at the moment; there were no two ways about it. Mrs. Whelan shopping him, Dad belting the life out of him, and Mam throwing her arms around him and saying she’d love to have two proper legs again.

  And there were more peculiar things happening at every turn. Mr. Coyne, who was a hundred if he was a day, had brought a bunch of flowers to Mrs. Quinn, who was nearly a hundred, and the two of them were carrying on like something out of a musical. And Kerry O’Neill had told him to fuck off when he had asked him what was he doing with a boat going up and down between the bridge and the dock. Marty Leonard, who was Tommy’s younger brother, said that Tommy had four pictures of Dara stuck up in his room and he kissed each one good night before he went to bed. And Father Hogan had asked him what were the opening hours going to be in the Shamrock Café and was there any chance that he could buy some of the potato cakes to eat walking along the road.

  Eddie thought that everyone in Mountfern was going mad.

  Dara found that her mother seemed withdrawn and somehow wistful these days. She sat and looked out into her garden where the summer flowers were coming to an end.

  “Will I bring you the trowel and fork?” Dara asked.

  “No. Let’s leave it for a while. Who sees it?”

  “You do, we do.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “Well, we were always the ones who saw it, it hasn’t been on Telefis Eireann or anything,” Dara replied with some spirit.

  “Are you happy with your linen dress for the opening?” Kate asked suddenly.

  “Happy isn’t the right word, it looks what it is, a boring linen dress that gets a huge balloony bottom in it if you sit down. It’s a nice blue color, and Mrs. Fine gave me that necklace. I suppose it’s all right, and for all that will be looking at me over there, it’s fine. Why?”

  “You can have a new dress if you like,” Kate said.

  “What kind of dress, Mam?”

  “Whatever you like.”

  This had never been said in the history of their lives together. Dara’s mouth was open. There had been a long lecture on thinking that they were millionaires because of the compensation. They had been warned against false expectations and a change of lifestyle. Now out of the blue she was being offered any kind of dress she liked.

  “Do you mean something from a shop in Dublin?” she said in disbelief.

  “Certainly.”

  “But why, Mam? We’re meant to be saving the money for the day we might need to expand the Shamrock Café. And the fees for university.”

  “It’s my money, it’s mine, I got it by breaking my back. If I say you can have a new dress you can have one. Do you hear me?”

  Kate’s eyes were full of tears. Dara rushed to h
er and threw her arms around the woman in the chair.

  “Mam, I’m sorry, of course I want a dress, I just didn’t want you to be spending all your money on me. That’s all.”

  She could feel Kate’s body heaving.

  “I’d love a dress. I’ll go to Dublin on the excursion train on Saturday. I’d love it.”

  “And Michael, he can go and get a jacket. Will you go with him and see he doesn’t buy an old rag or anything?”

  “I will, Mam.”

  “You’re going to be dressed like the finest in the land. I’ll get you both off school mid-week one day. If Princess Grace can go to Dublin for her clothes, so can the Ryans take time off from their studies to do the same thing.”

  Sergeant Sheehan was tired. It had been a day when nothing that could have been straightforward was straightforward, everything had more turns in it than a corkscrew. Even the relatively simple business of organizing extra guards for the hotel opening had turned out to be a minefield of petty politics. Was there nobody who would talk straight left in the town? His face creased into a smile when he saw Sheila coming out of the church.

  “What were you praying for? Let me guess. You were praying not to have to walk into one more person asking you eejity questions like I do.”

  She looked at him affectionately. She had known Seamus and Mary Sheehan for years, she had been with Mary sometimes to see their unfortunate son in the home over on the hill. Seamus was usually too upset to go with his wife, and it was a long lonely journey for the woman to go on her own.

  “No, Seamus, I wasn’t praying at all.”

  “Well, God, you’ve enough to do. I hope that mad Miss Purcell hasn’t roped you in to clean the church and take the damp out of the Sacred Heart Altar.”

  Sheila laughed. “Oh, I get roped in like everyone, but I was in there for a different purpose entirely, and you were the very man I was hoping to meet as a result of it. In fact, I was going to come over to the barracks.”

  “Anything wrong?”

  “I’m not sure. I think something may be very wrong. Will you come in and I’ll tell you about it?”

  “What’ll you be doing in Dublin?”

  “Shut up, Eddie,” said Dara. “You know it’s meant to be a secret, we don’t want half the place to know we’re going. Mam’s saying it’s a special favor and not saying that we’re going on the train. Sister Laura and Brother Keane only think we’re going into the town with Daddy.”

  “But what’ll you be doing, will you be going to George’s Street?”

  “God, he’s heard of George’s Street, is there any end to his sophistication?” mocked Dara.

  “I just want to know.”

  “You’re not coming with us, you’re not.” Michael was vehement. “You’d ruin every single minute of the day, not just for us but for everyone on the train, and everyone in Dublin as well.”

  “I couldn’t ruin the day for them all,” Eddie protested.

  “You could, they’d be the worse off for your being there. Go away, Eddie.” Dara was impatient.

  “I just thought maybe you’d take Mam,” he said.

  “What?” They looked at him in amazement. Eddie had never suggested anything remotely unselfish in his life.

  “Yeah, she might like an outing, and get something to wear herself.”

  “She doesn’t need anything to wear. Mrs. Fine gets her things,” Dara said.

  “She might like to get her own.”

  “She’d hate all the fuss and the noise and how could she manage in the chair?”

  “You could push it down the quays. Down to O’Connell Bridge,” Eddie said.

  “Is this some trick?” Dara asked.

  “What’s behind it?” Michael wanted to know.

  “I was just being nice,” Eddie said.

  They didn’t believe him, but they did tell their father.

  John Ryan thought it was well worth putting to Kate. He came into her room to suggest it.

  “How about if the children were to take you with them tomorrow?”

  She was flustered and pleased. But no, she couldn’t think of it; it would be too much of a drag. It would slow the twins down too much, it would spoil their day.

  “Nonsense, I’ve talked to them, they think it’s a terrific idea; they’d love you to go. And if they want to wander off and leave you for a bit, they can, and come back to you, can’t they? It’d be just like here or going into town, or the time we went to the abbey on the lake, people came and went from you and you had a grand time.”

  “I did.” She smiled happily. “Thank you for thinking of it, John.” Her voice was small and full of emotion.

  “Oh, I didn’t think of it,” he said airily. “Credit where it’s due. It was Eddie, apparently, gangster Eddie who thought you’d like the trip.”

  He grinned at her, expecting her to think it as unlikely and funny as he had. He was surprised to see some of the pleasure go out of her face. Kate had thought that this was all John’s idea to give her a treat. But it hadn’t been his idea at all.

  Fergus had known that he had to face the Ryans fairly soon. He would never tell them about his conversation with Rachel, and he knew that no matter how bitter and resentful on their behalf she might feel, she too would keep her counsel to herself.

  But he had to go soon, otherwise, it would grow to become a huge secret and it would get out of all proportion.

  He had hated having to go there knowing what he did, but after the first time it was easy. Nobody else knew that O’Neill’s side had gotten away so lightly. Fergus believed that O’Neill must accept a great deal of the blame in this regard. It was not, he thought, just his natural and long-standing dislike of the man; it was just the way things had to be.

  To try to take some of the fire from Rachel’s anger he had pretended to think O’Neill might have been an innocent party. He knew that this is what she had wanted to believe. But in his heart there was nothing that would take away his belief that O’Neill was a villain and would remain one until the end, whatever the end might be.

  Fergus was astounded that he had defined his feelings for Kate Ryan so openly to O’Neill’s woman. He had hardly defined them to himself before this. But the very act of articulating that he half loved Kate, and that it was not the kind of emotion that would destroy him or make him destroy anyone else, was a liberating thing.

  When he sat in Ryan’s and joked about the potato cakes for the café, and planned outrageous stage Irish jokes to be played on the visitors to the hotel when they arrived, Fergus felt a kind of freedom. It was as if some burden had been lifted. As if he knew that he could leave this place if he wanted to, he wasn’t tied by any cords. He knew he would stay here forever. But now it would be because he wanted to, not because of anything unsettling that would never be said.

  Grace was in Fernscourt examining her room without much pleasure. Not long ago it had been great fun here. Mrs. Fine was pointing out where the light was best to put her bureau, Father had taken her in his arms and hugged her on almost every occasion, saying how wonderful it was that the dream was coming true, and Jim Costello had been around smiling and admiring.

  It was all very different now. Father was distant and distracted, there was no sign of Mrs. Fine, and Jim had been so prissy. Yes, that was the only word for it.

  “Grace, I’m going to have to ask you not to throw yourself at me, the situation is quite impractical.”

  Impractical. How dare he come on like this, using words like impractical, and suggesting that she had thrown herself at him. She had merely told him she was a big girl now and ready for anything.

  Jim Costello had told her that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his whole life. That bit, at least, was something. But he had said that it would be playing with dynamite to get involved with her at this stage, under the eyes of her father and brother.

  And then he had gone and more or less said this aloud in front of them. Grace hadn’t known where to put herse
lf.

  She wished she hadn’t been so harsh to Michael about the trip to Dublin. It had turned out that Father had wanted her out of Mountfern on the day of the court case, and Father might have been able to arrange for Michael and Dara to have gone too.

  Grace sat on her bed and felt that it had all been handled very badly. She was even having second thoughts about the very expensive dress she had bought.

  Mrs. Fine would have chosen something better for her.

  Dara and Michael sat on the window seat. It was nearly like old times.

  “What are you reading?” Michael asked.

  “It’s a letter from Madame Vartin. It’s quite hard to read, she’s awfully squiggly writing.”

  Michael grinned. “And an awful squiggly habit of writing in French.”

  “Oh, I can read the French easily enough,” Dara said loftily, if not very truthfully.

  “What’s she writing about then? Here, let’s see.” Michael reached for the letter.

  “No, there might be things in it you shouldn’t read.”

  “From Madame Vartin? You said she was a religious maniac.”

  “Yes, but she might be writing about sex.”

  “Oh, I know all about sex,” Michael said.

  “Do you?” Dara was eager and begging. “Do you really know all about it? Is it great?”

  “Well not all, not … well not everything. But it’s pretty great as far as it goes.”

  “I often wondered did you …”

  “Sort of, not completely …”

  “How nearly …?”

  “Give us the letter.”

  The confidences were over, Dara realized. She read a paragraph from the letter.

  “This is the bit I don’t understand, it’s got something to do with Monsieur leaving his job—or being sacked I think. I hope. Anyway she says he is too young to make a retreat. What in the name of God would he make a retreat for anyway? He’s full of mortal sin all the time and glories in it.”

  “Where does it say about him going on a retreat?” Michael read the paragraph and began to laugh. “Fine use of money it was sending you off to France, even I know that, and we’re all desperate up in the brothers’. It’s retiring, you eejit, “Faire sa retraite means retire.”