“Kitty, how lovely to see you,” she said warmly. She knew what Kitty had endured as a young girl and was glad to see her looking so beautiful. Kitty Conway was going to create quite a stir when she made her entrance into the hall, and Kate had a tiny suspicion that Kitty had come late with just that in mind. She was delighted that Kitty was here, but her delight was short-lived when a dark form came in the door behind her and she turned around to be confronted by Rory Conway.
“Hello, Rory,” she said quietly.
“Huh,” he grunted at her, and she could smell drink from him.
“Well, go ahead and enjoy yourselves,” she told them, and she noticed that it was Kitty who paid for the two tickets. When they had gone in, she returned to her seat by Fr Tim.
“I think that I’ll stay put,” she told him grimly. “Why do I always smell trouble when I see Rory Conway?”
“I don’t think that he can cause any trouble here,” Fr Tim assured her.
As Kate had expected, all eyes in the hall turned towards Kitty Conway. She stood alone and composed just inside the door. Rory disappeared into the crowd of men at the other side of the hall. Kate had thought that when the music started up there would be a rush in Kitty’s direction, but it did not happen. She realised that many of the young fellows were too self-conscious to break ranks, and Kate was just beginning to worry about her when Peter strode forward, and after a short chat they danced into the crowd. Good for you, Peter, she thought. But her satisfaction was short-lived when, after succeeding dances, they stood side by side, then danced again, and it looked as if they were going to spend the entire night together. If word of this got home to Martha, there would be hell to pay. She had been so intent on Kitty and Peter that she had forgotten the other dancers, and suddenly her eye was caught by Rosie, who was looking daggers at the pair in the middle of the floor. Poor Rosie, who had decided that Peter was going to be the love of her life. Kate turned to Fr Tim and surprised him by singing, in Maurice Chevalier tones, “I’m glad I’m not young any more.”
“You’ve changed your tune pretty fast,” he told her.
“You know, when you look at the young enjoying themselves you forget about the accompanying pain, but looking down there I can see Rosie suffering,” she said.
“Nora and Danny seem to be having a great time,” he remarked.
“Nora loves dancing,” Kate told him, “and I’d say that she is delighted with Danny’s skill on the floor. At least I hope that’s all it is, because one complication is enough not to mind having two to cope with.”
“You’re probably right about Nora, though I’d not be so sure about Danny,” Fr Tim said.
“Oh, thank goodness, Davey Shine is after asking Kitty to dance,” Kate said, watching the action down on the dance floor. “It might break that up for a bit anyway.”
“Shiner is always on the lookout for Peter,” Fr Tim smiled. “Maybe he thought that Peter needed breathing space.”
“Peter is gone over now to dance with Rosie,” Kate reported.
“Kate, you’re like a match commentator,” Fr Tim, who was busy counting the money, told her.
“This is the most entertaining night that I’ve had with a long time, and to think that I nearly passed up on it,” Kate smiled. “Danny is now dancing with that blonde girl from the bank in Ross. This is the first time that we ever got a crowd in here from Ross. The Vikings must have pulling power. I can’t see Nora at all at the moment. Oh, there she is, coming out of the ladies. Oh my God, Rory Conway is watching her come out. I bet that he saw her going in and he lay in wait.”
“Kate, you make him sound like a fox watching a rabbit,” Fr Tim protested.
“That’s what it feels like,” she told him grimly. “I’m not sure that Nora is going to be able to handle dancing with Rory Conway if he asks her. And that’s just what’s going to happen because he is coming up behind her, and he is going to take her by surprise so she’ll have no excuse.”
Kate watched with a feeling of apprehension as Rory Conway asked Nora to dance, and even from a distance Kate could sense her reluctance. The vibrant laughing Nora who had earlier danced around with Danny and Shiner was gone, and a wooden figure moved across the floor. The band were playing what Rosie termed a slow smoochy number, and as Kate watched she could see Rory Conway draw Nora closer. She tried to push him away and Kate saw him stagger. He was quite unsteady on his feet and he tried to hang on to Nora. Then he wrapped his arms around her and what Kate had dreaded happened: Nora thumped her fists off his chest and started to scream. Then she slapped his face and bolted, ashen-faced, for the door.
Quick thinking Fr Tim was there to put his arms around her, calling to Kate, “I’ll take her down home to David. You stay here in case there’s trouble.” And they were gone out the door.
When Kate’s horrified gaze swung back to the dance floor, Peter was running across the hall towards Rory. Kate knew that Nora’s scream had brought back that terrible night in the wood and that Peter was out for vengeance. He came at Rory like an avalanche and Rory crashed to the floor. But Rory Conway was big and strong and used to fighting his way through the pubs and dance halls of Camden, and despite being drunk he was up like a shot and going for Peter with deadly intent. Shiner rushed over to help Peter take him on, but Rory had come prepared for a fight. Kate froze when she saw the glint of a knife in his hand. Jesus, she prayed, don’t let anyone get hurt. She was too far away to move, but someone else was not. Kitty, quick as lightning, stood in front of her brother and confronted Peter and Davey.
“Get your dirty hands off my brother,” she yelled, and Kate from her vantage point saw her reach behind her back and cover the knife with her hand. “Come on, Rory, let’s get out of this one-horse dive of a place.” She walked a surprised and unprotesting Rory out the door. As she passed the ticket office, she threw the knife on the table in front of Kate, and looking up Kate saw tears in her eyes. When she looked down there was blood on the blade of the knife. Kitty must have nicked her hand when she grasped the knife!
There was mayhem in the hall, and Kate was angry that the band had stopped playing and were letting the chaos continue. The faster that they all got back dancing now the better. Rosie had the same idea, and suddenly she was up on the stage and had taken the microphone from a surprised Viking.
“No extra charge for the sideshow,” she announced smilingly, and after a few nervous laughs she got a round of applause.
“Now we are going to try a new dance. Some of you may have tried it before and you’ll know what fun it is. So come on now and we’ll do Simple Simon. Put your hands in the air.” She beckoned to the bemused band to start up, and soon the entire crowd were back in action and the disruption forgotten. Now that Rosie had got the crowd going, she was loath to give up on them. She led them on from one action-packed dance to another and they loved it. She was totally at ease on the stage and with the microphone. The Vikings, with their white suits and red shirts, were the perfect backdrop to Rosie’s red dress, and she had whipped off her bolero top and caught her hair up in a pony tail. There is no doubt, Kate thought, but she has got stage presence. Until then Kate had never been quite sure what that was, but she recognised it when she saw it. The crowd loved Rosie and did not want to let her go, so she stayed singing with the Vikings until the last dance. After the national anthem, the crowd thinned out slowly as everybody stood around discussing the band, but most of all Rosie.
During the last few dances, Kate had noticed a suave-looking man watching Rosie from the side of the hall, and when the last dance was being played he came back to Kate and inquired, “Who’s that girl?”
Kate told him and asked why he wanted to know.
“I manage the Vikings,” he told her, “and I’m looking for a lead singer. She is just the chick to fit the bill.”
Kate was not too sure that she liked his way of putting things. Rosie would be delighted, but the last thing that Betty and Con Nolan would want for their only daughter
was to go off singing with a showband before she had even done her leaving cert. Then Rosie rushed in and Kate did the introductions. When he told Rosie about his plans, she took Kate by surprise by cooly telling him, “We’ll settle the charge for tonight first.”
“But that was agreed in advance,” he told her.
“That was before I sang for half the night with them,” Rosie asserted, and she argued and bargained with him until she got a good knock-down price. Kate was impressed.
When the band had finally got all their gear packed into the van and departed, Kate helped Rosie, Peter, Shiner and Danny to tidy up the hall. Then she told them all, “Let’s go down to my place for tea.”
She saw Danny look at her uncertainly and she smiled reassuringly at him.
“You, too, Danny,” she told him.
Back at the house Nora, David and Fr Tim were having tea, and before anyone could ask Nora said, “I’m fine, and maybe Rory meant no harm, only he was drunk and I was scared.”
“Well, that’s understandable,” Fr Tim told her, and to lead the conversation away from what was a touchy subject in the present company, he continued, “That was one enjoyable night.”
“A great time was had by all,” Shiner declared.
“Tell them your news, Rosie,” Kate told her.
“Well, now,” Rosie began dramatically, “tonight something happened that might change my life.”
“Did you propose, Phelan?” Shiner asked Peter.
“Davey Shine, you are one thick eejit,” Rosie told him in exasperation, knowing that Shiner always aimed to take the wind out of her sails when she wanted to hold centre stage.
“Don’t mind Shiner,” Peter told her, “he’s only setting you up.”
“You’ve no sense of occasion, Shiner, that’s your problem,” Rosie informed Davey, who was about to retort but he got a kick in the shin from Peter under the table.
“Well,” Rosie began again, looking daggers at Shiner, “now that all the fools have had their say, I am delighted to inform you that the manager of the Vikings wants me to become their lead singer.”
There was a combined gasp of astonishment from around the table which brought a look of intense satisfaction to Rosie’s face, and even Shiner had the grace to be impressed. He slapped her on the back saying, “Well, fair play to you,” but then had to spoil it by adding, “my roundy girl.”
But she decided to ignore the last remark because, as she told Nora later, she had always considered Shiner to lack a certain sense of finesse. Peter’s reaction, however, was all that she could have hoped for as he looked at her with eyes full of admiration. But Nora was staunch in her rejection of the idea.
“Rosie, you must do your leaving cert, otherwise you’ll have five years of study gone down the drain.”
“But if I pass this up now, I may never get the chance again,” Rosie protested.
“It’s a bit late in the night to be making life-changing decisions,” Fr Tim told them, “so maybe tomorrow might be a better time to discuss all of this.”
“You’re right,” Kate agreed as she poured out more tea.
“Kate,” Fr Tim began tentatively, “your car is gone until morning.”
“What do you mean my car is gone until morning?” Kate demanded, putting down the teapot with a bang and looking in amazement at Fr Tim.
“Rory wanted to get to the railway station,” her husband put in quietly, “and it was the only way we had to get him there.”
Now everybody was staring at David and Fr Tim.
“What the hell happened?” Peter demanded.
“Kitty insisted that Rory leave and go back to England tonight,” Fr Tim began.
“But how come he agreed?” Danny asked in amazement.
“She threatened that we would report him to the guards, that he pulled a knife on you, Peter, and that Kate had the knife as evidence and that he would finish up in jail.”
“Good God,” Peter breathed, “how did he fall for that?”
“He was pretty mixed up, so it worked,” David said quietly.
“But why did he take my car?” Kate demanded. “Why didn’t one of you drive him?”
“Because that was the way he wanted it, and we were afraid to push him too far in case things would backfire on us,” Fr Tim told her. “He’s going to leave it at the station in Ross, and David will drive you in early in the morning to collect it.”
“I hope ’twill be there and fit to drive,” Kate said grimly.
“I feel that it will be,” David assured her. “Kitty seemed to have him on the run.”
“And where is Kitty?” Peter asked.
“Gone with him to get the late train back to Dublin. So that’s why I’m so sure that the car will be at the station,” Fr Tim told them.
“Was her hand all right?” Kate asked.
“It wasn’t cut very deep, and I did a bit of first aid on it,” Fr Tim said.
“What a strange finish to the night,” Shiner decided.
“A simply great finish,” Danny declared in a relieved voice, “and now I had better head for home.”
“Will I drive you all home?” Fr Tim offered.
“No, no,” Peter put in quickly. “Norry is staying here, and Rosie, Shiner and myself will be with Danny as far as the bridge. The fresh air will do us all good.”
“Peter is a great believer in fresh air all of a sudden,” Shiner observed to no one in particular.
Kate looked around at these young people and felt immensely proud of them. They had done a great job tonight, and with the exception of Nora’s upset, it had all gone without a hitch. But even Nora’s little episode had a bright side to it in that it had sent Rory back to England, at least for the time being. Kate knew that when he had sobered up he would figure out that Kitty had pulled a fast one on him and that it would not be that easy to get rid of him the next time. But at least it gave Danny breathing space for another while. She was delighted that Peter had included Danny in his group walking home together, even though she realised that Peter’s real reason for the walk was to have time alone with Rosie at the end of it. But at least Danny was part of the little circle, and she knew that this was very important for him as the Conways had always been outsiders in Kilmeen, or rather Matt Conway had made sure that they were kept apart.
When everybody was gone home and Nora gone to bed, herself and David sat discussing the night. But after a while she realised that David’s mind had wandered to what had been worrying him since they had got Rodney Jackon’s letter.
“The future of the school is taking the good out of everything for you, isn’t it?” she asked, taking his hand and laying it against her face.
“It’s like a shadow hanging over me,” he sighed.
“Well, he’ll be here soon, and then we’ll know exactly what is going to happen. Everything might be fine,” Kate assured him.
She felt confident that Rodney would act honourably, but the thought of Martha controlling things in the background worried her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NORA WAS STRUGGLING to get to sleep. Every time she dozed off, Matt Conway’s face leered up in front of her, and then he was Rory Conway. When she finally drifted off, she was back in the wood, and a naked Matt Conway, who kept turning into Rory, was laughing and dancing beneath the trees, and she was climbing up a thorny tree trying to get away. The thorns were digging into her hands, and he stood below laughing up at her. Then he started to climb. She woke up sobbing, with her legs drawn up as close as she could get them to her chin. Her heart pounded and she was stiff with fright.
The house was so quiet that she thought that Aunty Kate and Uncle David must hear her heart pounding. Her body was rigid. She made herself breathe deeply and stretch out her cramped legs. Slowly the terror eased and she could breathe easily again. It was a long time since she’d had this nightmare, but every so often something would happen to trigger it off. Tonight, of course, it was Rory Conway at the dance. He was so like Matt Con
way. She had seen him early in the night and had kept him at a safe distance. It was easy to do this because he had sat in a corner and not moved, but she had felt his eyes following her around the hall. She had decided that he was probably too drunk to dance, but when she came out of the cloakroom and he had taken her by surprise, she knew that he had been lying in wait for her.
She was glad that the whole thing had ended in him leaving Kilmeen. It was good to be rid of him, and it would give Danny a chance. She had enjoyed dancing with Danny. It had been a surprise that he was such a lovely dancer, and he had told her that Mary and Kitty had spent hours teaching him when he was younger. Dancing with him had been exciting. It was hard to think that he and Rory were brothers, but it was hard to forget it too. She knew that Mom would be very annoyed if she heard that they had danced together so often, and would have been even more annoyed if she had seen Kitty and Peter. ’Twas luck Kitty had had to go. She had never liked Kitty since their days together in the Glen school, but it was very good of Kitty to have managed things the way she had and surprising that Rory had done as she had told him. Danny had said that she was the one who could best handle Rory.
If Kitty had stayed on at the dance, Nora wondered how things would have worked out between Peter and herself. The chances were that Rosie would have come up with some strategy to torpedo what had looked like a promising situation. It was probably Rosie who had got Shiner to intervene by asking Kitty to dance. Rosie was a firm believer in giving fate a push in the right direction. A romance between Rosie and Peter would certainly be a lot less complicated than between Kitty and Peter. It might also stop Rosie from going off singing with the Vikings. That would be just great! As she drifted off to sleep, she wondered how Danny had enjoyed the dance.
When she woke, the late morning sun was streaming in the window. She stretched out in the luxury of Aunty Kate’s comfortable bed. Sleeping late was something that Mom did not allow. No matter how tired you felt, she insisted that you get out of bed early in the morning. Now it was just great to lie here in comfort and not have anybody calling from the foot of the stairs. The white dress was thrown across a chair beside the bed. She had had such doubts about that dress for the dance, but Kate was reassuring, and it must have looked good because she had such a great night in it. That was, until the episode with Rory. Thank God he was gone!
House of Memories Page 9
