The Kilternan Legacy (16 page)

Shay Kerrigan had arrived on our lane only fifteen minutes late, charming and rather overpoweringly attractive in an Arran sweater, matching cap, old corduroys, and heavy boots. His slightly built nephew, a dark curly-haired lad with traces of his uncle’s charm in his smile, was also regulation-Arran-sweatered, wearing bell bottom pants of which Snow and Simon instantly approved. Jimmy’s fascination with Snow was patent, but his readiness to align himself with Simon against her became apparent in the first exchanges. Jimmy had been as apprehensive about meeting Snow and Simon as they had been about him, but all shyness dissolved with an adroit comment or two by Shay. The three hadn’t stopped talking since we’d left Dublin proper and headed southwest toward Naas and Kildare.

I had entertained the hope that Kieron Thornton and Ann Purdee might not be abroad when Shay Kerrigan picked us up. I did not want to disrupt the fragile friendships developing by appearing to associate with a man who’d been in my aunt’s black book. George Boardman had indicated that Shay had once enjoyed her favor, and I was consumed with curiosity to discover why he had fallen from grace.

However, Rene’s Law came crashingly into operation: In short, anything that could go wrong did. No sooner was Shay Kerrigan’s Jag driving up the lane than Kieron Thornton emerged from his cottage.

To confound me further, Kieron waved cheerfully at Shay, who hollered a greeting back. Both were smiling in the friendliest fashion. I had no chance to comment, what with the bustle of introductions and settling us in the Jag. Shay was deftly turning the Jag when Ann Purdee, astride her bicycle, came whizzing down from the cottages. I had a glimpse of her startled, even fearful expression, and then we were away. The fat, fer sure, was in the fire.

Fortunately, the children were babbling away at such a rate that my silence wasn’t—I hoped—noticeable. I managed to smile amiably and made any responses in monosyllables. Kerrigan must have seen Ann Purdee—he’d swerved to give her clearance, but his expression had been “driver concentration” rather than concern. Oh well, I’d have to explain later. Right now I was determined to enjoy the day. The twins were in such good spirits. And as a passenger I’d get to see some sights, instead of just road signs.

Shay Kerrigan was a considerate driver. To my relief, he was not the sort of driver who keeps up a running commentary on, or swears under his breath at the erratic movements of other drivers. He just drove, handling the big Jag easily. He did, it’s true, jam down the gas pedal on the big double highway beyond Clondalkin, but that was a road engineered for speed, and it was fun to sail along. I could relax with such driving.

The twins had embarked on one of their duet stories, and Jimmy was utterly entranced, looking from one to the other (he sat between them on the bump) as the twins switched the story-ball. Before Simon’s voice changed, you couldn’t tell which one was speaking, a circumstance which had disconcerted their father to the point of fury. But then, Teddie hated anyone interrupting him and, I supposed, thought everyone had the same dislike. I don’t think the twins even noticed who said what in their favorite stories.

“Do you two always carry on like this?” asked Jimmy when he’d stopped laughing over the punch line.

“Like what?” asked Simon, all innocence.

“Like that. One saying half a sentence and the other the other.”

The two shrugged together. “We’re twins, you know.”

“Yes, but that’s not going on forever, is it?” said Jimmy.

“Look at Lady Maud and Lady Mary,” said Shay, glancing in the rear-view mirror at his passengers.

“Do you know
them
!” asked the twins in concert.

“Of course,” replied Jimmy with a “doesn’t everyone?” look. “Uncle Shay’s their chauffeur for all state occasions.”

I don’t know which of us three was the most startled.

“Have you met them?” asked Jimmy.

“Yes,” said Simon with, I thought, admirable sang-froid. “Took tea with them yesterday.”

“They’re a gas, aren’t they? Do you know
why
they live in a teeny cottage like that? They used to live in a castle.”

“No, why?” Snow was dying to find out.

“Well, Lady Maud got betrothed”—Jimmy stumbled a bit on the archaic term—“to a chap she didn’t like. Her father did it. Fathers could when
they
were young…” Jimmy made the good Ladies centuries old. “And she refused to marry away from her sister. So he disowned her. And Lady Mary walked out too. They bought that little cottage, and they’ve lived there ever since. They used to have more money, and a huge old touring car, and a gardener and a maid, but Mum says that was before the war. And they used to be invited to all the big balls and official functions, because they were related to Queen Victoria somehow or other. That was before the war too.” Then Jimmy stopped, as if he’d been about to say something he wasn’t certain he could discuss.

“The Brandel trust stops only with their deaths, Jimmy. I told you that,” said Shay Kerrigan. “Apart from that, Jimmy-lad, I believe that this Irene Teasey isn’t the sort of person who would disobey her great-aunt’s last wishes.” He took his eyes from the road long enough to give me a very cryptic look. “Would you?”

“No one can revoke it. It continues.”

“You just bet it does,” Simon said emphatically.

“If
we
had to eat cat food, they’d eat meat,” finished Snow. “Aren’t they terrific? I mean, fairy godmothers should look like them, so dainty and so valiant. They’re unique.”

We were entering the Curragh now, and fell silent with wonder. Sheep grazed by the unfenced road, nibbling so disastrously close to the flow of traffic that I gasped a couple of times. Jimmy regaled us with the near misses they’d had. True, Shay slowed the car and wore a very alert expression. Then he turned off the road and we went beyond the rolling ground into very rough country. We came around a bend, and there were twenty or thirty cars, some with trailer frames, pulled up in a rough line.

“Here we are,” Shay said, and a heavy motorbike varoomed an echo.

I was glad of my heavy sweater and slacks as Shay and I followed the young people toward the spot where the riders were readying their bikes. There was a chilliness in the air that seemed to ignore clothing: It felt more like autumn than nearly summer. When I recalled the stifling heat we’d had in New Jersey in early June, I resolved to enjoy all this cool. Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds. Faces turned toward the brightness, and Shamus muttered something about it not lasting. Which it didn’t. I had no desire to complain, since we’d had good weather all week, when I’d been told to expect nothing but rain in Ireland.

I wouldn’t have thought that my darling daughter knew anything about motorbikes, but she was chattering with her brother and Jimmy as if she’d osmosed pertinent knowledge from her twin’s brain.

“That pair of yours is incredible, Mrs. Teasey.”

“Would you make it Rene, please?”

“Rene?” Shay Kerrigan stopped being distant for a moment and actually saw me.

“Yes, that’s what my family calls me. Irenes are supposed to be tall and stately.”

“They are?” and the twinkle in his eyes reminded me that my Aunt Irene had not been tall.

“Well, in the States they are.”

“Rene, then. Jimmy’s rather odd man out in his family. Hates sports, loves to read, and he doesn’t usually talk much.”

We grinned at each other at the way he’d babbled on the trip.

“Simon’s more introverted than Snow, but when they’re both on the same wave length …” I raised my hands in surrender, and Shay Kerrigan chuckled.

He put a hand under my elbow to steer me across some stony footing, and I was suddenly struck by a curious observation: His gesture was protective, helpful without any of the “you’re too stupid or clumsy to do it properly on your own” attitude that had marked such gestures of Teddie’s.

“I brought along a picnic basket, because there’s no place about that serves a quick meal. Oh, the Jockey, if you’d want several hours to enjoy the food, but the Red House doesn’t do lunches any more. I hope you don’t mind.”

Of course I didn’t, but again Shay Kerrigan’s attitude was the reverse of what I’d expected; if I protested, I was sure, he would take me along to the Jockey for my lunch—no, the Irish eat dinner midday.

The picnic, as far as I was concerned, was a real feast: cold chicken and ham and sliced roast beef, three types of cake, Cokes for the kids, hot coffee from a huge thermos flask for us.

By then a huge number of spectators, mainly males of assorted ages, had gathered and a few more bikes had arrived to be tuned up. Jimmy and Shay explained the course to me, and it looked frightening. I mean, straight up rocky slopes and down steep, curving tracks that goats would have had trouble with.

And “scramble” was the operative word. My goodness, how those riders stayed aboard their bikes, I don’t know. Glue, I privately suspected, but where? because half of them rode in a standing position. Maybe they had suction cups on their knees, but I’ll bet they had blisters and bruises, particularly when they bounced and banged up slopes. The going down was obviously easier, and unnervingly faster. I had to close my eyes several times.

Simon and Snow cheered and scrambled from one vantage point to another. I think the spectators were more active than the riders. I noticed one group which had walkie-talkie units, with members at strategic points so that what one person missed seeing he at least heard about.

I gave up counting to see if all the contestants made each checkpoint, but, all in all, it was a stimulating way to spend an afternoon. I certainly ended the experience with a great deal more respect for motorbike riders than I’d’ve thought possible. Hell’s Angels these people were not.

While the scramble had been going on we’d had to move about a good deal, but once the events were over I began to feel the chill.

“I say, that won’t do,” Shay said with real solicitude, and he immediately rounded up the young people, ignoring their pleas to speak to this racer or find out if that bike had been badly damaged.

The heater in the Jag was very effective, and I was beginning to thaw out and enjoy the countryside when we pulled into a pub parking lot.

The place was called The Hideaway, in the town of Kilcullen. The pride of the establishment was someone’s desiccated, mummified arm. The man had been a renowned boxer with an extraordinary reach. (I’d rather been told than shown, but Simon and Snow were not so squeamish.) We had a few drinks and then supper, and didn’t get back to our house until the sun was out of the sky—which was, I discovered to my amazement, half past ten.

“I didn’t mean to impose on you for the whole day,” I told Shay, rather appalled.

He had my hand in his, and his very strong fingers managed to caress as well as hold.

“Impose? Sure and you didn’t,” he said, sounding excessively Irish for a moment instead of well-bred English. “For all of that, it’s a pleasure to see young Jim getting on so well. You’ll probably have him round in the morning again. He doesn’t live that far away.”

“Jimmy’s welcome any time,” I assured his uncle. “And the morning’s fine, but we’ve got to go to tea with those relatives.”

“What?” Shay’s expression was amusement and concern. “The haughty sisters?”

“They all came to invite me the other morning.”

“Came here?” He was surprised.

“Yes, and I gather that was a first.”

“Not for Winnie. She was here now and then.”

“You know them all?”

He nodded.

“You’re not distantly related to me too, are you?”

Shay threw back his head with laughter and stroked my hand reassuringly. “God love you, no.”

“Then how do you know so much about them? And how come Aunt Irene wouldn’t give you right of way up the lane?” I just blurted it out.

The amusement drained out of his face. “I don’t know, Rene. We were good friends until just before her stroke. I don’t know what happened to turn her so against me. At first I thought it was the aftereffects of the stroke. Jasus, I bought the land up there only because I thought we could work out a deal about the access. And then…” He made a disappearing gesture with his fingers.

“So what are you going to do now?”

“That’s for me to know and you to guess, pet.” He raised my hand to his lips, and the salute was rather disconcerting. “Come along, James. I’ll be on to you again during the week, Rene.”

My children ranged beside me to say their farewells and give their thanks. We truly had had a marvelous day.

SUNDAY STARTED OUT so peacefully that perhaps I hadn’t caught up with myself by the time we got to the tea. Which was just as well, I suppose.

I awoke around eleven to hear voices below and outside: Snow’s excited soprano rang clear above the others—children’s voices and something male.
That
had better be Kieron Thornton. Whose children? Ann Purdee’s surely weren’t old enough.

“Hey, Mom, did you sleep well?” asked Simon as I appeared in the kitchen door. Jimmy Kerrigan shot to his feet.

“I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. Teasey, my coming back so soon …”

“Good heavens, no!”

Simon was plugging in the electric kettle, and it must have been warm, because I had a steaming cup of coffee in front of me in moments.

“What is Snow up to?”

The boys grinned. “Her first riding lesson,” said Simon, and I heard that he had something else, momentous, that he wasn’t saying.

“Well?”

He gave Jimmy a jab in the ribs. “What did I tell you? Mom hears what I don’t say.” He grinned bigger. “It’ll be more fun if you find out yourself.”

“Simon Stanford, Sunday morning is no time for unexpected surprises. We’ve had quite enough for one week.”

“Oh, Snow’ll tell all. Soon as she claps eyes on you. First have some coffee.”

Except for the Slaneys and Faheys, the resident population of my queendom was assembled at the small pasture gate. I already knew Kieron Thornton and Ann Purdee. There were two other women, one holding a small baby, the other with her hands on the shoulders of a girl about eight or nine. Snow was astride Horseface, who was bridled but not saddled, and she had one child in front, clinging to the mane, and another behind her with a death grip on Snow’s already tight jeans. The old horse was walking most sedately around the pasture, his neck gracefully bowed and his tail switching in a manner that I thought indicated satisfaction. His lovely small ears were twitching back and forth to the sound of the laughing children. But he was taking his task seriously. I had the additional impression that he was placing his feet very precisely so as not to dislodge his giggling riders.