The Kilternan Legacy (18 page)

Nothing will make me rise to battle stations faster than the need to cheer up Snow. I hurriedly distracted her by asking how we should redecorate the kitchen. This worked like a charm, although I wasn’t certain that Aunt Irene would have liked purple trim.

“Fer Pete’s sake, Mother, are we always going to be dominated by what Great-great would have wanted, done, said?”

“Well, no, of course not. I was just making—”

“Definitely.” She ignored me and pivoted slowly about the room. “Purple in the kitchen, and we’ll find a purple design—they
must
have contact paper in Ireland.”

Simon strolled in, saying that he was hungry and were we going out to dinner or did we have to wait to stock up at the tea.

“What color do you want in your room?” Snow asked.

By the time we’d figuratively redecorated the entire house—it was almost four o’clock, and we scattered to get suitably attired for the relative tea.

Robert Maginnis drove a sober black Ford Zodiac. “Not that he drove it well,” Simon said later. For my own peace of mind, Robert Maginnis was a most pleasant-spoken, amiable man, with a ruddy complexion, a shock of rumpled white hair, and a very sweet manner.

“By golly,” he said, “you do sound like Irene.” He placed a hand under my elbow to guide me to the car. “You put quite a fright up Melly, I can tell you.” I had to quell the twins with a stern eye, because his accent, not to mention his calling Imelda “Melly,” made the phrases rhyme. “Hope we won’t be too much for you all at one blow, like. We’re a long-tailed family, we are.”

Uncle Bob, as he asked to be called by the time we were halfway up the Kilternan Road, was a beef merchant, buying from farmers, fattening steers, and selling to local independent butchers. He had a chain of meat shops, but said he preferred the buying end.

“Gets me up early, like, to attend the auctions. Keeps me feeling young, y’know.”

He was so affable, so jolly, so completely different from what I’d expected Aunt Imelda’s husband to be that I was glad he was so talkative. I was too surprised to do more than make the proper responses.

I couldn’t have found my way to the Maginnis house, and whether I’d want to find my way back there again would remain a moot point. The house was distinctive, set in its own grounds, surrounded by fields and a high stone wall. We drove into the stableyard, past nearly empty hay barns and cattle sheds, onto a flagged drive that led to the two-storied house of such varied design that I guessed amateur architects had enlarged it to suit their particular tastes.

We entered through the kitchen, which had been extended to incorporate a back room; the separating beams were a constant danger to six-footers, of whom there soon appeared to be many. There were seven people seated at the round table chatting with Aunt Imelda, who rose to greet us most effusively. Just as she was introducing me and explaining the degree of cousinship to the people at the table, Alice came barging in, two steps ahead of an anxious-faced Winnie. Winnie hovered for a moment, seemed to be reassured, and made off with the twins, whom she wanted to introduce to the younger set in the parlor. Uncle Bob was asking me what I’d like to drink. I thought tea or coffee, and there was a large guffaw from one of the men. I was then apprised that tea in Ireland does not necessarily mean the beverage tea; it can very easily—as this evening proved—be an excuse to have a party.

One of the men at the table had risen when Alice and Winnie arrived—I couldn’t remember his name just then—and he took me by the shoulders and guided me to the seat next to him, rather beyond Alice’s conversational arc.,

“I’m your second cousin at a couple of removes, Gerry Hegarty, and you stay by me and I’ll protect you,” he said, with an engaging grin and the most incredible blue eyes.

“Watch out now for Gerry,” said the black-moustachioed man across from me, offering me a cigarette. “I’ll protect you from him.”

“And who’s to protect her from you?” asked Gerry as he lit my cigarette, waving aside the other man’s lighter.

“My wife!”

“I’ll see that my dad doesn’t slip you any poteen,” said Gerry with mischievous solemnity.

“What’s poteen?”

“What’s that she says?” Gerry repeated as if amazed. “Sure and you don’t know what poteen is?”

“Mountain dew!” said the other man, rolling his eyes wildly to indicate potency.

Well, I knew what that was, so I eyed the drink set before me with suspicion. Gerry sniffed it and handed it back to me with a reassuring shake of his head.

“Safe! Weak Irish!”

Encouraged, I took a sip. “Safe?” I cried when I could speak again, wondering what form of distilled lightning I’d got.

“Stir it” was Gerry’s suggestion.

I did, and took a very cautious sip. Evidently no one had stirred the mixer properly: I’d got a mouthful of pure Irish.

“You’ll not be telling me this is the first drink you’ve had in Ireland?” Gerry asked, having watched my performance with intent curiosity.

I was framing a reply when I heard the black-moustachioed man speaking to Aunt Alice, who was leaning toward him with all the attitude of a private conversation.

“Sure and I’ll have a chat with her soon’s Gerry gives me the chance. Isn’t that Maureen coming now?” And he pointed out the window.

With that, Aunt Alice muttered something under her breath and then flounced off—if a woman of that build and age could be said to flounce.

“What’re you and Mammy cooking up there?” Gerry asked the man.

“Aunt Alice is your mother?” I was astounded, dismayed, and mortally glad I’d not had the chance to put my foot in my mouth.

“I’m her bahbee,” he said draping his hands across his chest and giving me the eye, for all the world like a bashful three-year-old.

“I’m Jim Kenny,” said black-moustaches beside me, “for I’m sure you’d not manage to remember all the names flung at you before. And I want to make one thing very plain to you.” He glanced over his shoulder to see where Aunt Alice was. “Nothing would get me to move out of my modern, unpaid-for, centrally heated, four-bedroom house in Blackrock to a cold hillside far from the delights of town.” As I stared at him, shock vying with relief, he went on. “I’m Maeve’s husband, and while she’s a darling girl an’ all, she will get caught up in those rainbow schemes of her mother’s.”

“What we’re trying to say,” put in Gerry on my other side, “is that we know what
she’s
about,” and he nodded his head toward his mother, busy talking (and nodding in my direction) to two new arrivals. “And you’re not to worry. Never a soft word for Irene in her life, plenty of tears at the wake, oh my yes, and a different sort of noise altogether when the will was read.”

The letter! “Oh, you’re the Gerry who’s to have the Mercedes,” I said, suddenly recalling Aunt Irene’s instructions.

“Oh, no way. You’re the Irene that still has the Mercedes.”

“No, I’m Rene.”

“Praise be! It’s got so the very word ‘Irene’ puts any decent one of us running in the opposite direction. Seriously now, Rene, that car is a gem. Kieron did give back the carburetor, did he not?”

“Aunt Irene specifically said …” I can stick to the point too.

He shook his head firmly. “This is not a day, either, for repeating what Irene said … though God bless the woman …” and he tilted his glass in a quick toast, as did Jim Kenny. Were these the “young” people she’d wanted to help? “We’ve all been Irened to the death of us.
This
is the day to meet your cousins over the waters, chat ‘em all up, and get stocious. Now, tell me how you like Ireland. How long do you plan to stay, and are those large young people really your children?”

I jumped at the opportunity to answer innocuous questions. (Hide
behind
the Image!) On top of my relief at discovering that these male cousins of mine were singularly unconcerned about the eccentric will of our mutual relation, I found that they were delightful company. Shortly, however (and I’d noticed the pair keeping a surreptitious eye on Aunt Alice), they maneuvered me out of the kitchen, away from her notice, and into the living room.

When I didn’t see my twins among the assorted younger people—there was an incredible number of children of all sizes and descriptions—I got apprehensive, until one of the women said the twins had gone to inspect young Tom’s new motorbike and wasn’t the racket frightful?

It was all very pleasant but I seemed to be getting too many refills on that drink, so I was very glad when someone asked me if I wanted a bite to eat. Gerry guided me to the dining room, where there was a turkey and a ham, sandwiches, and bread and cake and cookies. A platoon of teacups stood ready on the sideboard. I was very much in need of something to sop up all that liquor.

Snow and Simon descended on the buffet with six young people, chattering a hundred to the dozen. Snow heaped an indecent amount of food on her plate, but others had collected as much if not more. My conception of ladylike teas went through another upheaval.

Snow sidled up to me in her best conspiratorial fashion. “Boy, have I got a lot of gossip for you, Mom.” Then she got snatched away by a grinning black-haired boy before she could elaborate.

No sooner had the multitude been fed and tea-ed than the table was removed and chairs pushed back. A red-haired man started to fiddle a come-all-ye, and another man hauled out an accordion.

Gerry was all for seizing me for a wild reel, but I firmly held him off and asked where the ladies room was.

“I’ll take you, Mrs. Teasey,” said a soft voice beside me. It was the motorcycling receptionist. She’d been waiting for a chance to get me aside, I suspected.

“I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. Teasey,” she said as she threw the bolt in the bathroom door behind her, “but I’ve been trying all the evening to get to talk to you. I wanted to explain and to thank you.”

“There’s nothing to explain, really,” I told her, wanting very very much to use the toilet.

She turned to the mirror and began to fiddle with her hair, giving me a chance.

“You see, my grandmother …”

“Oh Lord,
which
one is
your
grandmother? I’m hopelessly lost with all these relations.”

“My grandmother’s Alice Hegarty. I’m Maureen, Tom’s daughter. Brian Kelley’s my father’s boss. I had orders to let him know when you got here. I had to do that, you see. I didn’t want to, but my dad said I had to, and there’d be no harm done. You do understand?” She was so pathetically conscience-stricken. “And you should’ve heard them when she died! Parceling out
her
things, her money—
if there was any.
” Her tone mimicked the original speaker. “And they were so positively
glad
to turf Ann and Mary out, you wouldn’t believe!” Her eyes were sparkling with remembered outrage. She gave a sharply expelled breath, her expression both sad and cynical. “I know how people can behave, because I’ve been in a solicitor’s office long enough, but when they’re your own kin, and it was Auntie Irene …” Tears sparkled in her eyes, but she controlled them. “You’d better go out first, Mrs. Teasey.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Maureen, we
are
related, please call me Rene?”

She gave me a soggy smile and nodded.

“And come see us soon at the queendom. Please? I need your help, for Aunt Irene’s sake.”

She agreed and I left the bathroom, much relieved on several counts. Such a sweet child. She must have been one of those my aunt had wanted to help and didn’t dare: The vultures would have descended instantly.

Gerry was leaning against the hall arch, a drink in each hand. Beyond there was singing; the tune was familiar, but the words escaped me.

“C’mon, you’ve to do your party piece,” he said, taking me by the arm and wheeling me toward the dining room. Protests availed me nothing.

My Uncle Bob was in the middle of the floor, vigorously directing the singing, his face flushed and sweaty with effort. His tenor was strong, if not precisely true; he sang with enough vivacity and enthusiasm to overcome any faults. He beckoned Gerry to lead me forth. The last thing I wanted to do was sing in front of this audience.

“No, no, I couldn’t sing,” I said urgently to Gerry, and held my glass up. “I’m too tight.”

“Sure and what are the rest of us? What’ll you sing? My dad can play anything on that squeezebox of his.”

Uncle Bob seconded Gerry’s insistence, and the man with the accordion obligingly came over, said he was my Uncle Tom, and told me to sing anything I wanted in any key and he’d do his best.

Snow came running up to me. “Oh, do sing, Mommie,” she said sweetly (the traitor), but the message in her eyes amounted to a royal command.

I don’t like to sing cold, without a chance to warm the voice up properly. And I hadn’t done any real singing, except the other night with George Boardman, in such a long time that I knew I’d sound stiff. Then I saw the faces of Imelda and Alice, politely composed to endure listening to the visiting Yankee relative whom they cordially wished to the devil. Well, I’d show them.

“Would you object to a Yank singing an Irish song?” I asked.

“Not at all,” the men assured me, and the accordionist ran a few encouraging chords as a guarantee.

I told him the key, and when he looked slightly blank, I asked for a chord in B-flat, which he understood. And began to sing “Kathleen Mavourneen,” which, believe me, was the only Irish song I could think of at that particular moment.

The babble courteously died. Then, as the quality of my voice became audible, I had an accurate count of which relatives had heard my aunt sing. A small gust of gasps occurred behind me, and, turning, I saw Gerry staring at me as if I’d erupted from the grave. His father gave a startled squeeze on his instrument.

Bob’s jaw dropped a foot. Neither sister turned a hair, their faces still polite, exhibiting merely surprise that I could sing creditably, but Winnie Teasey began to cry.

“By golly,” said Uncle Bob, his eyes moist, as he pumped my hand during the applause, “you sounded exactly like Irene.”

Then everyone was clamoring for more, for me to sing this song or that ballad. I had—to myself—sung well, but I wouldn’t be able to sing long before lack of practice showed up in faulty breathing and projection. But I wasn’t allowed to leave the floor until they had coaxed, then threatened, half a dozen songs from me. Then I got away because I simply walked out of the dining room and out of the house.