by Catie Murphy
She snorted back. “Unlike you, who is cheese-cultured?”
“Ooh, a low blow!” Brian had moved from Wisconsin to Ireland long before Megan had even started considering retiring to her grandfather’s native country. “So why is it I’m dog sitting overnight, and why is it that Fionnuala, who is supposed to soon be the adopted mother of one of these little beasties, is not?”
“I have a wake to go to, or at least to drive people to and from, and Fionn’s working tonight.”
“Fionn works every night. Are you sure she’s going to be able to have a dog?”
“Well, her partner doesn’t work nights.”
“But does he want a dog?”
“You know what, I assume that’s a conversation they’ve had and I don’t need to.” Megan bent to rub Dip’s chocolate-colored nose. “But I know you don’t want one, and I promise to either get a regular pet sitter or somehow flatter Orla into letting me take Dip with me when I’m working a long day.”
“My cat doesn’t want one,” Brian corrected. “I don’t mind dog sitting, particularly when there’s free lunch involved.”
“Because you didn’t start with a large fortune,” Megan said with a smile.
“Exactly.”
They finished lunch before Megan, guiltily, looked at the time. “I have to go buy an entire off-licence’s worth of booze, pick up snack platters from Canan’s, and be waiting at the car for Mrs. Walsh when she gets done shopping at half four.”
“In other words, you have to run. Fear not. I’ll fend for the puppies.”
“You’re my hero.” Megan kissed Brian’s scruffy cheek and hurried back to the Luas, feeling a little as though she’d been on the run all day after her comparatively luxurious, slow morning. It seemed barely possible that she’d tripped over Oliver Collins’s body only a few hours, rather than a few days, ago. “No,” she muttered to herself, “a few days ago you found somebody else’s body. Great!”
There were three whiskey stores within a five-minute walk of the St Stephen’s Green Luas stop, and Megan, preferring the Celtic Whiskey Shop’s selection, went to it, even though it was farther away from the car. She had about ninety seconds of lugging bags of bottles down the street and deeply regretting her choice before one of the bicycle rickshaws wobbled up beside her and a plucky young man said, “Would you be looking for a lift?”
“Oh my God, yes.” Megan loaded the bags behind the driver and crawled in after them, her arms already feeling wobbly from having carried the alcohol a scant hundred metres. “Can you cycle me all the way into the BT car park? I’ll pay for your time in there if they try to charge you, leaving.”
“Sure so.”
“Thank God.” Megan flopped dramatically across the seat, an arm flung out, and watched the tops of Georgian buildings go by through the little plastic window in the rickshaw’s canvas. Her driver made an effort not to run people down as he turned up Anne Street South, which couldn’t be said for all rickshaw cabbies, and after a few breezy minutes, pedaled into the Brown Thomas car park. Megan paid and gave him an outrageous tip after he helped her load booze into the Lincoln’s boot, then, checking the time again, Megan ran around the corner behind Brown Thomas to Canan’s in the old St Andrew’s Church.
The statue of Molly Malone, which had been moved from Grafton Street to in front of the church during the extension of the Luas tram line, still stood there, an unfortunate reminder, to Megan, of a food critic’s death. She said, “My life has gotten pretty weird” to the statue, which, unsurprisingly, had nothing to say in return, neither then nor several minutes later when Megan exited the restaurant with Fionnuala, both of them burdened with platters of finger foods.
“This is way more than you should have done,” Megan said for at least the third time. “I just wanted to bring her a little something for the wake, not enough to feed the whole army of them.”
Fionnuala, her heart-shaped face already pink from working in the kitchen, and turning pinker from dodging passers-by, shook her head. “Know what’s worse than a load of drunks at a wake?”
“No?”
“A load of drunks who get smashed in the first hour because there’s no food to pace themselves with.” Fionn puffed a breath of air upward, knocking back an errant lock of reddish hair. It fell into her eye again almost immediately. “I should have left me hat on.”
“Well, you’re a star,” Megan said. “Floppy hair or no. Thank you for this.”
“You saved my restaurant, Megan. There’s no favor too big to ask me.” Even with stacks of food, the walk back to the car park only took a few minutes, and Fionnuala stood patiently holding platters while Megan tried to arrange them in the boot so nothing would be crushed or fall over. Heather Walsh appeared while she was still working on it, said, “Oh, man,” and put down her shopping bags to help.
After a minute they had it sorted, and Megan turned a grateful smile on her friend. “My hero.”
“Mmm-hmm.” To Megan’s astonishment, Fionnuala’s hands were clutched in front of her stomach, wringing around each other as she looked, wide-eyed, at Heather. “Mrs. Walsh, hi, I’m a friend of Megan’s, I’m Fionnuala Canan, a restaurateur, and I know it’s ridiculous, and you’re not—you’re not working, but I love watching you play, and I wondered—I wondered if—well, I wondered if you might come to Canan’s, I’d love to have you, but also—I wondered—a picture—?”
Heather’s cautious smile grew broader as Fionn fumbled her way through the request. “Yes, of course. I’d be delighted. And where’s your restaurant?”
“It’s—tourist church—St Andrew’s—Megan knows—”
Megan, grinning hugely, said, “I’d be delighted to bring you there tomorrow or Saturday night, Mrs. Walsh. It’s just around the corner.”
“Of course. I know where the tourist church is. Megan, would you mind taking our picture?” Heather handed Megan her own phone, causing Fionnuala to squeak in thrilled dismay.
“Mine! Mine! I wouldn’t—bold!” Fionn thrust her own phone at Megan, who took them both and snapped several shots on each, silently despairing about the unattractive car park backdrop. Fionnuala, however, looked chuffed as Megan handed back her phone, and Heather, still smiling, shook the chef’s hand, said, “It’s lovely to meet you, Fionnuala,” and got in the car herself, without Megan opening the door for her.
“Fionn!” Megan hissed gleefully. “What was that? Starstruck? You know Niamh O’Sullivan, for heaven’s sake!”
Fionnuala, pink-cheeked, flustered, and clearly overwhelmed with excitement, whispered, “But Nee is just Nee!” back at her. “That was Heather Walsh!”
Megan, still beaming, hugged her friend. “I absolutely adore you and I’ll bring her to dinner Saturday night. Make something special.”
“I will!”
Fionn capered off and Megan, trying not to giggle out loud, got into the car to meet Heather’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “That was really nice of you. I didn’t even know Fionn liked golf.”
“People usually get excited over Martin,” Heather replied with a smile. “It’s nice to not be overshadowed, sometimes. Is her restaurant good?”
“So good,” Megan said with a happy groan. “New Irish cuisine. It’s all local, with some seafood specials, and Fionn’s always in there pouring her whole heart into every dish. I think you’ll love it.”
“I can’t wait,” Heather said sincerely, and Megan got her all the way back to the hotel to change clothes and collect her husband before remembering she hadn’t warned Saoirse that the Walshes would be at the wake that night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
She rang Saoirse while Heather went in to the hotel to get changed. Saoirse answered with, “It didn’t work,” and for a few seconds Megan had no idea what she was talking about.
“What didn—oh! Oh no, the appeal to put the hearing off until Monday? Oh no, Saoirse, I’m so sorry.” Megan crushed a hand against her face. “I’ve got news that will probably make your day worse, too.
I mentioned the wake in front of the Walshes, and they’re planning to come.”
“Of course they are.” Saoirse didn’t sound surprised. “I wasn’t in any hurry to invite them along, but someone would have mentioned it. Don’t stress.”
“Still, I’m sorry. Look, I’ve got booze and snacks for the wake. Is there anything else you’d like me to pick up on the way?”
The way Saoirse said “No” meant there were a whole host of things she wished for, none of which were practical or, in all likelihood, possible. “Can you stay for the wake? I know you didn’t really know Da, but . . .”
“But I know you now,” Megan said gently. “I’ll stay as long as I can. Sometimes it helps to have someone who’s mostly on the outside of things there to keep a level head. Okay, so I know I need to get there kind of early to help set up the drinks and the food, but I’m also going to have the Walshes with me. Maybe I can drop them off at a nearby pub for a little bit before it’s supposed to start?”
“Oh, Martin would love that,” Saoirse said in a tone that meant he wouldn’t, at all. “Just bring them in. I’ll be busy enough that I wouldn’t have to talk to them if I don’t want to, and a few of our friends from the West have already come over, so I’m not all alone in the house. It’ll be fine.”
“Fine” could mean “completely terrible”; the general Irish verb for things being genuinely okay, in American terms, was “grand,” and things were definitely not grand. Megan sighed, said, “Okay, see you in a bit,” and hung up before the Walshes came out.
When they did, Heather looked shaken to her bones, and Martin, baffled and angry. They got in the car carefully and quietly, moving skirts and long black coats out of the door’s way, and after Megan got in again herself, Heather said, “Martin’s just heard that Oliver Collins is dead.”
“It’s impossible,” Martin said. “I only saw him yesterday. They say it’s foul play.”
Megan, feeling as though it wouldn’t go over well if she casually mentioned that yes, she knew that, she’d found the body, said, “Oh, no,” in a voice that sounded affected and stagy to her. “How terrible. Were you close?”
“I knew him going years back, long before he started managing at the Royal Dublin. He golfed himself, back in the day. He was good, very good, but not good enough. He was after quitting playing when he realized he’d never be a pro, but the love of the game stayed with him, I’d say. We’d play a round or two together sometimes, and I’d introduce him around. It’s how he met the right people to get that job. He got to be friends with all the businessmen, the bankers and the developers and the like, and the club thought he’d bring them in as members. They were right, too. I can’t believe he’s dead. Thank God it’s today and not yesterday, or the club might have shut down the tournament.”
“The PGA may yet,” Heather said. “This is two tragedies in a row, and it’s going to gain a lot of negative coverage. There’ll be people who’ll call it a curse.”
Martin chuckled suddenly. “And that it’s the result of having a combination tournament. See, love, I told you it was a bad idea. We lads should do our thing and you lasses your own.”
Heather turned her face toward the window, voice quiet but venomous. “I didn’t hear you complaining about the idea of taking home a double purse on your way to the Cup.”
“But it’s a stunt, and you know it. Women can’t play on par with me.” Martin laughed, catching Megan’s eye in the mirror. “On par!”
She gave him a flat, polite smile in return, and he settled back in his seat, pleased with himself, though he returned to the topic of Collins’s death, mostly in a monologue, for the drive to Lou’s house. Heather caught her breath as they turned up the drive, and Megan saw her bite her lip in the mirror as she tried to compose herself. “We’ll help you get the food and drinks, Megan,” she said as they got out of the car. “It’s the least we can do.”
“Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Walsh.” Megan concealed a surge of irritation as Heather, unsurprisingly, went ahead and helped while Martin walked ahead to knock perfunctorily on the MacDonald front door before letting himself in.
The house—down in Dalkey, a posh section of town—had the samey-samey look as its neighbors, which had turned Megan off when she’d first come to Dublin. Now she could recognize the quality of the pale bricks and the care put into maintaining the old house. It sported bay windows on both sides of the front door, and from the matching sizes of those windows, Megan suspected the MacDonald home had never been as simple as the standard Irish “two up, two down” house, with two living space rooms downstairs and two bedrooms up. At the least it had begun its life, 150 years before, as a detached home with at least four rooms on each floor and, like nearly all old Irish houses, had no doubt been expanded since. Whatever expansion had taken place, though, had gone back, not out or forward. The house still had a generous front garden and, given its location, Megan guessed that the back garden expanded far beyond what most Dublin homes offered. She hoped to see it; peeking around at old houses and seeing how they’d been changed—and stayed the same—through the generations was one of her favorite things about living in a country where a hundred miles was a long way, but a hundred years was no time at all.
Martin left the door open behind him. Megan followed Heather inside, feeling like they were the load-bearing cars of a train with an engine that thought it was too good for the job at hand. An image of the Little Engine That Could popped into her mind, and she bit the inside of her cheek, suspecting that bursting into giggles when just through the door to a wake would not be appreciated.
The house did, in fact, go back for what seemed like miles. She’d been right: there were four rooms with visibly older framing and picture rails above them, two on each side of a wood-floored hallway lined with rugs she knew didn’t come from IKEA. A switchback stairway with runner carpeting and original features rose beyond the doorway to the second room on the left, and past that lay a doorway to the first extension, which, at a glimpse, looked like a handsome, modern kitchen.
Martin had already gone into the first room on the right, probably once a parlor, now kitted out as a library, and was pouring himself a drink. Saoirse, pale and drawn, appeared from the kitchen and pointed toward the second door on the left, just in front of the stairs. “That’s the dining room, so the food should go there, I guess. Thanks, Megan. Heather.” The second name was spoken more stiffly, but Heather smiled and nodded pleasantly. “Is there anything else?”
“We got all the food,” Megan said, counting the platters as she set hers down on a table a bit too large and considerably too ornate for the room. A lot of the houses she’d been in in Ireland were decorated that way. Lingering ideas of wealth, left over from Georgian and Victorian landlords, still seemed to dictate fashion in houses too small to carry off furniture meant for enormous rooms. A sash window threw late-afternoon light on the table, brightening the space, which was friendly enough, if slightly overcrowded. At least the oversized table held the restaurant platters neatly. Megan arranged a couple more tidily, saying, “There are a lot of bottles in the boot.”
“Not anymore.” A strapping young man entered with an armful of boxes. Another like him, and a young woman, followed behind him, the latter saying, “I couldn’t get the boot closed, sorry.”
“No, it’s grand so,” Megan assured her. “I’ll lock it up. Thanks very much.”
The girl nodded, leaned in to hug Saoirse and exchange a whisper with her, then, steely-eyed, jerked her head at the young men, who exchanged a look of anticipation and followed her out of the room. A tense little smile of satisfaction played over Saoirse’s mouth, and Megan wished Heather wasn’t in the room so she could ask if Lou MacDonald’s daughter had just set a couple of towering youths on Martin Walsh. Instead, she said, “I am, with the Walshes’ permission”—Heather nodded permission—“at your disposal, Saoirse. Tell me what I can do to be useful. Can I go get paper napkins and plastic wineglasses?”
; “I think we’ve got everything.” Saoirse sagged against the back of a chair. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know where I should be. I don’t know how to do this.” She paled as she spoke but didn’t begin to cry, an effort that Megan regarded as Herculean.
“Come to the front room,” Heather said, surprising Megan. Saoirse gave her a bleak, startled look, and Heather smiled tightly. “My dad died when I was nineteen. I remember . . . we didn’t have a wake, but there was a reception after the funeral, and I remember feeling just like you just said. Like I didn’t know how to do it, or where I should be. I didn’t want to be anywhere, but I couldn’t just go hide. But I found out nobody expected me, or my mom for that matter, to really do very much. We were supposed to stay in one place and let people come to us. So come to the front room, and if you’ll let me, I’ll stay with you and send people back here for food and drinks when you need them to move on.”
To Megan’s complete astonishment, Saoirse whispered, “That would be great.”
Heather smiled more openly than she’d ever done when talking about Saoirse and escorted the slightly younger woman out of the dining room. Megan followed them but went all the way out of the house to close the Lincoln’s boot and move the car down to the street, where she wouldn’t get boxed in later. Car safely parked, she went back to the house, glancing into the library, where Martin Walsh was boxed in a corner by Saoirse’s boyfriends. She wondered how much they knew about her relationship with Walsh and guessed, from their swollen postures, that the answer was “quite a lot.” “ ‘Loads’,” she breathed, correcting even her thoughts to local parlance, and hurried past before Martin could catch her eye and inveigle a rescue.
She looked into the living room, too, to find Heather, Saoirse, and the girl whose name Megan hadn’t caught all huddled together on the couch before guests started arriving. “You’re going to be standing up all evening,” Heather was saying. “Sit while you can. And maybe put on flats.”
