Firefly Summer (77 page)

And Rachel found herself telling Kerry more than she intended to about some of the problems in getting
deliveries in time and how she always tried to shield Patrick from the more troublesome side of things, partly because he had so much to think about he really could not be expected to give time to wondering why some weavers in Connemara had not been able to come up with the consignment they had promised months back. And partly because any grizzling or even mild criticism always seemed like a condemnation of his decision to come back to this land and build his dream castle.

Together they sighed amicably about the difficulties in dealing with the great Patrick O’Neill. There was none of the usual fencing between them and no hint of the flash of anger and the instructions not to speak his dead mother’s name.

Rachel told of how Maurice, the Ryans’ missing tortoise, had been discovered in the hen house where apparently he had been living for months in total contentment. And Kerry told how he had discovered that Jimbo Doyle really was making it big on the ballad-singing circuit, he was even booked for an appearance in Donegal, which had to be the Vegas of Ireland.

The sun sank behind the big house and the trees. The river took on its black rippling look where it seemed like a dark ribbon instead of a living, flowing thing.

Somewhere, possibly from down near the bridge, they heard the sound of a fiddle playing, an air that sounded sad and plaintive, but all Irish airs seemed sad to Rachel and Kerry. The boy reached across and patted her hand. There were tears in Rachel’s eyes again but this time she wasn’t hiding them, they fell down her face.

‘I could have fitted in here, I could have stayed and been part of it,’ she wept.

‘But now you think you’ll go back?’ His voice was soft, like honey.

‘I decided today I’ll have to go back. He thinks he doesn’t need me, he thinks he can manage on his own . . .’ She let a sob come through her voice.

‘I know, I know.’

‘You can’t know.’

‘Well I do, he doesn’t need me either. He never did.’

Rachel looked at him, tear-stained. He was so different tonight, vulnerable, understanding.

‘I think he finds it hard to express himself to you . . .’ she began, trying as usual to make bridges.

‘I’m only his son, his flesh and blood. It shouldn’t be so very hard to express himself.’

‘He does care for you . . . I know.’

‘And I know how fond of you he is too. I didn’t always want to see it, I can tell you, but . . .’

He looked so straightforward. Rachel felt fuzzy and a little confused, but she could see that Kerry was being genuine towards her and she wanted to reassure him that he was important to his father.

And now Kerry was admitting that she, Rachel, was a part of Patrick too. She was certainly a little heady.

She placed her hand on Kerry’s knee. He lifted it to admire her rings.

‘These are very beautiful,’ he said softly. ‘Did you choose these yourself or were they a gift?’

She saw no guile in the words. It was a question. She held her hand away and admired the topaz and the emerald.

‘Your father bought me the topaz a long, long time ago. The emerald I bought myself. I have a little garnet too, but I don’t wear them all at once.’

‘No, no.’ He was holding her hand and admiring the way the light caught the stones.

‘It means fidelity, a topaz,’ she said dreamily. ‘I remember that very well.’

‘Is it your birthstone?’ Kerry asked interestedly.

He was so relaxed and easy to talk to tonight, Rachel wondered why she had ever thought him prickly and difficult.

‘No, I’m Gemini – that’s the emerald.’ She turned her hand in his to examine the green stone.

‘I got the emerald because of that and also because it means “success in love”. I guess I wasn’t so lucky there.’

Kerry said nothing, he fingered the tiepin he always wore these days. Even when he wasn’t wearing a formal shirt and tie he seemed to have this pin on his lapel somehow.

‘My, that’s a topaz also,’ Rachel realised for the first time.

‘Yes. Topaz, that’s right.’ His voice seemed strained.

‘And was
that
a gift or did you buy it, like I bought my emerald?’ She was being giggly now.

‘It was both, in a way. I paid for it to be made into a tiepin, but it was a gift, from my mother. Father gave her a topaz for fidelity also, you see. He never asked where it was when she died, I don’t know if he realises this is where it ended up.’

Rachel felt a sudden lurch in her stomach. ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she said, staggering to her feet.

Loretto Quinn was serving Jack Coyne next morning when Kerry appeared in the shop. He was in his stocking feet, walking lightly, and his clothes were crushed and rumpled.

‘Hi, Loretto. Well hi, Jack, how are things?’

‘Things are reasonable.’ Jack wasn’t able to reply as quickly as usual, he was so startled to see O’Neill’s son come in casually through the back of the shop, meaning that he must have been upstairs.

Upstairs with O’Neill’s woman.

‘So they are with me, pretty reasonable. Loretto, can I have some oranges, please, perhaps half a dozen . . . Sorry, Jack, am I cutting in on you?’

‘No, please.’ Jack could hardly wait to see what else the young Kerry O’Neill was ordering.

Kerry said he’d take eggs, bread, four slices of that really great bacon – how could anyone in America
think
they had tasted bacon until they came to Ireland? And he’d better take a packet of those aspirin tablets too.

He smiled at them both, punched Jack playfully, and said that the little red sports car was a dream on wheels and he thought he’d either have to buy it so that it would be his own or possibly play Jack a game of poker for it.

Then light and cheerful he ran back up the stairs, leaving Loretto and Jack open-mouthed below.

Rachel woke painfully. Her head was pounding and she had a sense of unreality. What
could
have happened to make her feel so ill? Bits of it came back to her. The whiskey, the long chat with Kerry.

Then with such a shock that she sat bolt upright she remembered vomiting.

Her hand flew to her throat and she looked around her wildly. The bed was rumpled. Kerry’s jacket was thrown on her chair. His shoes were lying on the floor where they had been kicked off. The other side of the bed had a little
table and on the table was Kerry’s watch, his cigarette case and his lighter.

With disbelief Rachel tried to take it in. She felt too frail to contemplate what could have happened. She wanted to lie down and pull the sheets and blankets over her poor hurt head. But she couldn’t lie down. Not yet. Not until she knew.

As if on cue Kerry came into the room. He was wearing his shirt open, he was smiling.

‘Hi there.’

‘What . . . what?’

‘It’s orange juice,’ he said delightedly, misunderstanding her. ‘I squeezed six oranges so you’ll love it. And if you feel strong enough I’m going to do you some eggs.’

‘Not eggs,’ Rachel said.

‘Oh yes eggs, Rachel, they’re known to be good for you. I got some bacon but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know . . .’

‘No bacon.’ She struggled with the words.

‘Sure, sure. Well coffee anyway, after the juice.’

He sat on the bed familiarly, too close to her, she thought in alarm, and pulled back.

She realised she was in her slip and that her brassiere was open. She realised that Kerry O’Neill was looking at her affectionately. The room seemed to swim and tilt a little.

‘Kerry, how did . . . how did . . .?’

‘I got them in Loretto’s,’ he said sunnily. ‘Oh, and I got you some aspirin too. Sip the juice first then I’ll fix you some aspirin with the coffee.’

‘You told Loretto . . . ?’

‘She’s really come on in that little store, hasn’t she? Jack Coyne was in there, he’s an okay guy, I think. Father always says he’s a gangster but these things are relative. To
some people Father is something of a gangster. But enough about him, let’s talk about you and me . . .’

Rachel gave a jump.

‘. . . and what we’re going to have for breakfast if it’s too non-kosher to fry a little bacon.’ He smiled at her warmly and Rachel Fine with her drawn, lined face, her aching head and upset stomach looked up at him piteously. And knew she was somehow in his power.

It was the last Thursday in August and Dara Ryan had returned to Mountfern.

She felt quite different to the Dara who had left two months earlier. Older, wiser, more a woman of the world, she thought. After all she had lived in a household which had things going on under its roof that Dara would not have believed possible. She was going to look with new eyes on the clientele, male and nocturnal of the Rosemarie hair salon. She hoped she had become more sophisticated-looking. A girl she was talking to on the train told her that she could easily be eighteen, she looked
much
older than almost sixteen.

Dad thought she looked older, which was great. He held her at arm’s length when he came to meet her at the station in the town. Grace and Michael had wanted to come too, he said, but he had to refuse them, he needed the car for supplies.

Dara looked round and indeed the back of their old black car was filled with boxes. Things for the café, Dad said, every day now there was more stuff being brought in. They were ready to open it for business any time now.

‘And what kind of form is Mam in? She doesn’t get depressed too much now, does she?’

Dara kept looking lovingly at her father; she knew that in a changing world he would remain constant. It was hard to imagine Dad in bed with anyone, including Mam before the accident, but Dara knew that he wouldn’t ever cheat on Mam like that appalling Monsieur Vartin.

‘Your mother is a marvel,’ he said simply. ‘I don’t know where and how she gets the ideas and the energy. She’s an example to us who have the legs. She’s so delighted that you’re coming home. For ages now she’s been saying only eight days more, only six days more . . .’

Dara was pleased. ‘Isn’t that nice, I was just the same, I hope we won’t start to fight and ruin it.’

‘Of course you will.’ John was philosophic. ‘But not immediately. We’ll have a few days of a honeymoon period first.’

They drove down Bridge Street. Liam White was waving, and John slowed to a stop.

‘You look different, did you have an illness?’ he asked.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Liam, that’s lovely,’ said Dara.

‘No, you look foreign. Maybe it’s the air, or the food.’

‘I think she looks great altogether.’ Dara’s father was partisan and proud of his dark, handsome daughter.

‘Oh, you look fine,’ Liam said, as if that had never been in doubt. ‘The question is, will it last?’

‘Where’s Jacinta?’

‘Off somewhere with Tommy, she’s the only one able to get him out of the shop. His father is afraid of Jacinta.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ Dara said with some feeling.

Dara looked over at Daly’s shop. It still looked the same. People came in to buy cakes and butter and groceries. Life went on. Dara swallowed hard. Everyone else had had two months to get used to Daly’s Dairy without Maggie. Dara would too one day. Charlie was cleaning the windows, he waved his wet cleaning rag at her. The shop that used to be Meagher’s seemed to have been all done up.

‘What does Mountfern need a travel agency for?’ she asked.

‘Oh, there’s amazing needs created in this place nowadays,’ her father said almost ruefully.

Dara’s eyes raked the town for Kerry.

Perhaps he was back. Could he be running the travel agency? Would she ask Dad was he around? No, she was only minutes from home. And she had sent him a card giving the exact date of her return. There was bound to be some message from him when she got there.

The sign was up for Ryan’s Shamrock Café. Nobody had told her it would look so big. There was a new door now in the front of the building that used to be the outhouse, the place where they had their party almost a year ago.

The old windows had been repainted and new glass fitted. On each window sill brightly coloured boxes of geraniums stood nodding in the sun.

Dara gasped. ‘I never knew it was like this . . . like . . .’

‘Like nothing on earth,’ her father finished cheerfully. ‘Still, it might keep a roof over our heads. Now here’s your mother waiting for you.’

Kate sat in the door of the new café. She was all dressed up, one of Rachel’s scarves draped around her, which was what designated the outfit as for an occasion. She stretched
her arms out in welcome as Dara scampered from the car.

Dara’s heart gave a little jump.

Mam’s smile was wide and warm but she had big circles under her eyes and she was very pale.

Mam didn’t look at all well.

There was huge excitement at Dara’s return.

Grace and Michael came rushing in. Grace hugged her and said that she had become very French.

Michael said she had begun to lisp and speak broken English.

‘What ees zat you say?’ Dara punched him until he admitted it was all jealousy on his part.

Eddie wanted to know why she hadn’t tried snails. He’d told all his friends that Dara was eating snails for her breakfast, dinner and tea and now he’d look like an eejit.