Legacy of Secrets (45 page)

“Will you just look at yourself,” Dan said, eyeing his brother up and down. “It’s a proper little city gentleman y’are.” They hugged enthusiastically and then they checked each other out at arm’s length.

“You’re a success all right,” Dan said proudly. “I can tell from the suit.”

“This is rubbish,” Finn retorted. “Sure and haven’t I just been to the finest tailors in all New York and ordered two new ones.
Made to measure”
he added proudly. “But I was worried about you, Dan.” Dan just laughed.

Patting his bulging pockets, he said, “Didn’t I tell you I’d be home with my profits in my pocket. Well, here they are, Finn.” Glancing warily over his shoulder, he cupped his hand over his mouth and whispered, “Seven hundred and twenty-three dollars and sixty-five cents, brother. That’s how much I’ve got in me pockets. Take away the fifty I owe Keany, and apart from boot leather and food and lodgings, there was no other overhead.

“Oh, I’ll admit selling pocket watches to country rubes was hard work at first, but then I had a stroke of luck. I was in South Carolina when I hit on a county fair and I set myself up and took out one of the watches. I started talking about my pocket watch, how good it was, how precise a movement and what a great timekeeper. A small crowd gathered and there was one young fella I could tell was more interested than the others. He was jingling his money in his pockets and I could see from his eyes he coveted that watch. So it was him I was sellin’ to because I figured at least I’d have the one sale.

“I said that nothing would ever go wrong with this fine watch because it was made in Switzerland.” He glanced mystified at Finn. “I don’t know, maybe it was the ‘made in Switzerland’ that did it—that and the fact that I opened it up to show them the works. The crowd had grown bigger and they passed it from hand to hand, marveling at all the little cogs and wheels doing exactly what cogs and wheels are supposed to do. ‘There’s jewels in there,’ I told ’em, sounding very important. ‘Rubies and diamonds.’ I pointed
out the little red and white bits you can hardly see. ‘You can’t afford not to have one,’ I told them, ‘and at three dollars and fifty cents, I’m giving ’em away.’”

Dan’s red curls bristled with excitement as he grabbed Finn’s shoulder and said, “The young fella said he’d take one and handed over his three-fifty. And then another fella, and another, and before you knew it, they were clamoring for them. I sold seventy watches in less time than it took the hands to move from twelve o’clock to fifteen after. And Finn, I knew I had found the secret: aim your sales pitch at the one fella who looks likely and it’s ninety-nine percent sure he’ll buy. And soon as he buys, the others figure he’s gotten the only bargain. Then you tell ’em you just happen to have a few more but you were keeping them for the fair in the next county. Soon as they think they can’t have one, they want it real bad.

“I went from country fair to country fair, and I sold all my watches. I had made three hundred fifty dollars, but it wasn’t enough, so I knew I’d have to sell something else. I was sleeping in a haystack, the way I usually did, when I heard a rustling noise. It was dark and clouds were scudding across the moon. Brother, I can tell you, I was scared. I thought someone must have followed me, someone who knew I had money in my pocket and now they were coming to steal it from me.”

He shook his head, shamefacedly. “I have to confess, Finn, that a terrible fit of rage took over me. A red mist swam in front of my eyes when I thought of what it had cost me, trailing through winter snow and spring rains, sleeping rough and eating as little as I could to save every cent, and I thought, ‘Jayzus, I’m damned if I’m letting them take my money.’

“ ‘Come out you dirty bastards,’ I yelled, grabbing me stick. ‘Show yer faces and Dan O’Keeffe will take on the god-blasted lot of yer.’”

His face lit up with a sudden impish grin. “And what d’yer think came worming its way out of the straw? Just the
littlest fella you ever saw, that’s all. Dressed all in black, with a gray beard and a bright-red nose and a bottle of hooch clutched in his one hand and a peddler’s old satchel clutched in the other.

“He was hiccupin’ with the fright and the drink, and he put his hands in the air, spilling half his bottle, and said, ‘Don’t shoot me, Mr. O’Keeffe. I’m just a peddler, seeking a night’s rest in the haystack, like yerself.’

“So of course I laughed, and we shook hands, and he shared his bottle with me, and we swapped stories. He told me he came from Russia, he was seventy years old, and had been a peddler all his life and he was tired of it.

“‘I’ve made a decent living,’ he said, ‘and I owe neither to man nor woman. I have decided this very night to quit and go back to my family in Chicago. But first I have to sell three hundred pairs of red suspenders that, to my eternal regret, I bought cheap, twenty-five cents a set, from a Jewish fella in New York City. And it may take me the rest of my life because they ain’t movin’, boy. They just ain’t movin’.’

“We had another swig of the bottle,” Dan said, “and it was just like it was with the pocket watches. I saw in front of my eyes all those guys at the country fairs, standing watching me, and every man jack of ’em with his thumbs hooked in his suspenders.

“We had another drink and the peddler showed me the red suspenders. They were wider than usual with clips that shone like gold in the moonlight, and in my mind’s eye I saw all those rubes standing there, their thumbs hooked through ’em, and those good old dollar signs jingled in my head again like before. ‘I’ll take ’em off yer hands for the price you paid,’ I said, quick as a shot. ‘Then you can go back to yer family tomorrow. I can’t see an old fella like yourself sleeping rough when you’ve a bed and a wife to go home to.’

“ ‘Done,’ he says, even quicker than me. And we shook hands and I paid him seventy-five dollars cash for the lot.
He and I finished the bottle and the next morning we wished each other well and went our separate ways.”

He beamed at Finn, hooking his thumbs through his own scarlet suspenders. “And are there not now two hundred and ninety-nine rubes in Amerikey sporting a pair of the finest gold-buckled scarlet suspenders, extra wide, extra quality? And don’t I have their ninety-nine cents each pair in my pocket right this very minute?” His laugh boomed through the house and the boarders drifting downstairs to supper stopped to stare at the big redheaded ruffian in a pair of scarlet suspenders talking with Finn O’Keeffe.

“Mr. O’Keeffe,” Eileen Malone exclaimed, hurrying to get rid of the unkempt stranger cluttering up her hallway.

“That’ll be meself, ma’am,” Dan said, swinging around with a courtly bow. She stepped back a pace, nervously clutching a hand to her heart and he said politely, “I’m sorry for my unkempt appearance, ma’am, but I’ve been on the road for seven months now. I’m here from Boston to visit my brother, Finn.”

Eileen glanced uncertainly at Finn and with his newly acquired manners, he said, “May I introduce my brother, Mrs. Malone. Daniel O’Keeffe. He’ll be needing a room for the night and a bath, too, if you think you could manage it.”

Eileen melted under Finn’s smile. She noticed the haircut and the newly trimmed mustache, and thought again how very good-looking he was, and that maybe under all that red hair his brother wasn’t a bad fellow after all.

“Will it be just the one night?” she inquired.

“Indeed it will, ma’am, Mrs. Malone,” Dan replied. “I’m heading back to Boston tomorrow to buy meself a shop.” He patted his pockets confidently, glancing at the boarders standing around in the dining room doorway, listening. “And I’ll buy every one of you a drink after supper to celebrate,” he said loudly, as a cheer went up.

Eileen sent him to wash his hands before supper and, like a blushing schoolboy, he did as he was told. At the
table she gave him second pride of place on her left with Finn on her right, and afterward she even allowed herself to accompany them to O’Hagen’s Saloon. To celebrate the O’Keeffes’ good fortune.

I
T WAS A FINE BRISK MORNING
with the wind blowing, and since I had to go into Galway to the shops anyway, I thought I’d ask Shannon and Eddie to come with me. There’s a wonderful old bookstore there, filled with all sorts of ancient treasures as well as all the latest, and I thought they might care to browse while I took care of my errands.

They had been out for a walk and they came drifting slowly back over the lawn toward me. It’s almost waist-high now and scattered with wild irises and cornflowers and it looks as verdant as a meadow. Blue flowers grow wonderfully well in our soil, you know—you should see the hydrangeas in turquoise and purple and every shade in between. And the hedges lining our roads and boreens add a mass of pinks and reds as exotic as any jungle flowers. Add the rhododendrons in season, and my lilacs, and of course my beloved roses, and you have a gardener’s paradise. Which is one of the reasons Mammie loved it so.

Anyhow. There they were, the two young things, not walking hand in hand but with their heads close together as they talked. I saw that her face was alight with interest and … and what? Was it admiration? Adoration? Hard to define, but it was certainly interest and I hoped for the rest. I’m an old biddy of a matchmaker, but I do like them
both so much, and they are so “suited,” as Mammie would have said.

My dogs were trailing at their heels with that soppy devoted-doggy look on their faces. If those two had stayed here much longer I swear the damned creatures would have defected from my bed to Shannon’s. And only for her would I allow such a traitorous display of adoration on their part.

I called out to them that I was going into town and did they want to come along. Sure they did, they agreed.

“I’ll drive,” Eddie added, but I would have none of it.

“I’m doing the driving,” I said firmly. “Come with me.” And I took them around to the garages where in the old days a dozen smart motors had been housed and polished by the car-mad lad who had acted as assistant and who did all the dirty work.

When I was just a child we drove around in great style in Pa’s special bright yellow Lagonda—long, low-slung and sporty, exactly like the one in Michael Arlen’s novel
The Green Hat,
It was a fashionable book then and I suspect dear old Pa must have been inspired by it because he copied its dashing young hero, driving it all over Europe, feeling snazzy as a race-car driver.

Then there was Mammie’s own motor—red, of course; with our hair we always went for red. A Bugatti it was, and so long in the front that when I sat in the backseat I could scarcely see the ornament on the hood. It was a speedy thing and Mammie drove it like it was a horse, shouting words of encouragement as she took a corner too fast. It’s a wonder she never set it to jump a five-barred gate.

There were a couple of other, less favored, duller cars in ordinary plain black, and then there was the piece de resistance, the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, a dream of a car that we all went jaunting off to the continent in, drawing admiring crowds wherever we went. Quite the little star that motor was, and Pa would never let the chauffeur near it except to give it a polish. It was his baby, his pride and joy, and he refused to let Mammie drive it. It seems to me that
we never went off to France with any less than three cars: the Silver Rolls, of course, for when we all traveled together, which Pa drove; the Lagonda driven by the chauffeur, and the red Bugatti for Mammie to drive.

And then later we got the Daimler, sort of as an “extra” because the others were getting on in years, but we just couldn’t bear to let them go. And that’s the car I showed to Shannon and Eddie. It was about 1937, I think, with a canvas top that folded back like on a baby carriage, a long hood, wide running boards, a squared-off brass-rimmed windshield, and big brass headlights sticking out the front like two huge wide eyes. It was as shiny-black as the ace of spades, with red-leather upholstery, and I always considered it my own.

E
DDIE AND
S
HANNON WERE THRILLED
with it. They inspected it and were astonished to find it still in perfect running order. I told them about the mechanic in Oughterard whose hobby it was to keep it in trim. He just loved that old car so much.

We tootled off down the drive, along the boreen and past the entrance to the Big House, up the winding rutted lane that leads to the road. Eddie winced as the car bounced springily over the ruts, and I laughed. “ ’Tis no problem,” I yelled to them in the back. “The car’s been taking this lane for more years than you have been alive, and none the worse for it either.”

We had the top down and the day was bright and cloudy by turns, the way it happens around here. They seemed to enjoy our leisurely pace, gazing around, admiring the wild scenery; and to keep them entertained, because it’s a fair way into Galway especially in the old car, I began to tell them more of my story. Oh, and before I forget, I wasn’t wearing my old jodhpurs and jacket. Dear me, no, Mammie would never have allowed that. One always dressed to go into town shopping, so I was in country green; a longish skirt and a matching jumper because it could get chilly in the car, and as I said the wind was blowing. With it I wore
flat-heeled brogues and a jaunty little turban in a deeper green with my red curls just sort of peeking out of the front. Very 1940s. In fact I think I remember Betty Grable wearing something like that in the wartime movies. Oh, and weren’t they fun, I remember … but there I go again. Anyhow, to the best of my memory, these garments had no designer name other than a shop label, B&T in Dublin, and they were newish. 1985, I think. All except the hat. That was Paris. Madame Simonetta, 1939.